The commentator cried out in alarm and pain as he was slashed by glass shrapnel and then crushed by a vending machine, which threatened to be the seeker's fate as well if they didn’t get out of the way (The surly walrus captain was fine though thanks to his blubber and chair).

Seeing this incoming, Rika grabbed her brother with a gauntlet, and then fired her maneuvering thrusters, launching him and her towards the side of the room and away from the incoming projectiles. With her aura slowing the shrapnel, the pair managed to evade mostly unharmed other than some scratches, and certainly weren't crushed by any vending machines.

Geralt, meanwhile, flung himself to the opposite side of the bridge, glass shattering against the shield Quen provided, and ducked for cover from the incoming vending machines.

Dave, on the other hand, was caught by surprise as a vending machine flew right past him, and he finally reacted, diving for the side of the bridge that Geralt was hiding by. “Oh jeeze, that thing’s throwing vending machines?! How are we gonna get out of here?”

Geralt grunted, ducking again as another vending machine was launched through the bridge, before poking his head up again and sighing. “Not sure. Might be able to blind it with a good arrow, though.” Dismissing his hydro twinblade, Geralt pulled out Odysseus’s bow and looked across the bridge to Junior and Rika. “Go for the eyes!” He called, waiting for another vending machine to fly by before standing and letting loose a few arrows. Even with its immense size, the hermit crab’s eyes weren’t exactly the easiest targets.

”Should we use the-” Rika began to ask jr, regarding the tapes, but he shook his head ”We definitely don’t wanna go down there” before after a few moments, also adding a ”thanks for the save”

Rika gave him a thumbs up as she jogged past the walrus captain, who was flopping his way across the floor towards the way they’d come in, and stepped up to the partially smashed window. She punched out another one of them to make more room for firing, and then raised a palm to fire her palm mounted rotary riffle, only for it to start clicking almost as soon as she’d started.

She had been making a lot of use of it after all.

She instead opened up with her SP stores, shooting a volley of power sapping disruption globs from her rigging, before unleashing a swarm of electrical fireflies from her hangers, which swooped down to try and blind the crab with strobing flashes.

Jr joined in with the eye skeet shooting contest, forming several blue glowing knives from his metal inscribed arms which. These floated beside him for a few seconds, before launching down at the giant crustation, the shorts flying in a spread that suddenly switched angles, turning sharply and all homed in on one of the eyes.

The hermit crab attempted to hurl another volley of vending machines at them, but with all the eye pain the shot flew wide. In response to this, it instead grabbed the entire container crate it had been pulling the vending machines from, hoisting it up above it, preparing to hurl the hollow rectangle at them. With such a big projectile, there was no way it wasn’t hitting, and taking out most of the bridge in the process.

Seeing this, Rika grabbed JR again, and prepared to jump.

“Dave, MOVE Geralt shouted, grabbing the Diver and hauling him, half-carried and half-dragged, out the window, rolling under him to cushion their landing. Quen shattered as he hit the deck, then Dave landed on him with a few hundred pounds of bodyweight, multiplied by the drop from the bridge. Groaning, he pushed Dave off him, slowly clambering to his feet. His head was swimming a bit from the impact, so he leaned against the side of the wall below the bridge, catching his breath.

Geralt pushed off it slightly, pausing for a few seconds to cast First Aid on himself. Dave stood guard in front of Geralt as he did, a frown on his face. He felt bad that the warrior had to help get him out of there, but he was also immensely grateful for the save. Aiming his harpoon gun at the hermit crab’s leg joint, Dave let loose, hoping to at least damage its shell for the others.

Above them the bridge was annihilated by the container crate, while beside them Rika floated down with her brother in arms, hull soled shoes hitting the deck. She set the prince down, who gave a cough and a thumbs up of thanks, before he looked up at the big mad crab.

”Welp. We’re down here now so, fish-bug-knight strat it is” the prince decided, getting a nod from his sis, before both of them clicked the play button on a set of tape player they were wearing, starting the musicl.

In a flash, the prince and princess were replaced by the armored captain of the royal guard, Undyne, and the centipede monster known only as the Beast. The latter immediately leapt onto the back of the former, and then the pair charged forwards like very strange knight and steed. Undyne raised her spear above her with a self empowering warcry, before thrusting it forwards and causing water spears to shoot up and strike the crab, aiming them for the same spot as Dave was shooting.

In response to having gotten them down here, the hermit crab slammed its claws into the ship’s deck, setting the ship shaking, testing the seeker’s sea legs and busting open container crates, and sending vending machines tumbling out to make quite the mess. Then it grabbed more of the vending machines and whipped them around, its blind scatter shots more dangerous now that it didn't need to judge altitude.

In the form of the Beast, Rika had dozens of sea legs to spare, had little trouble keeping upright, though Jr as Undyne had to grab one of the Beast’s horns to avoid falling off. A good thing too, because the Beast whipped to one side to take cover behind a container in response to the vending machines. Then she periscoped her head behind it, legs braced against the container to hold her up, and spat a spray of poisonous globules at the hermit, hitting its wounded eyes and getting the toxins in the wounds.

Now healed, Geralt summoned his Hydro Twinblade again, though he had to stumble to regain his footing when the Hermit Crab slammed the deck of the ship. Between his strength and his experience with Skelligers, it wasn’t a difficult feat, but it certainly slowed him down a bit. He was on the approach by the time the shotgun spray of vending machines was launched, and Geralt managed to avoid harm by simply dropping to the deck and flattening himself out as much as he could.

Dave, on the other hand, was having a lot more trouble. His sea legs weren’t quite as developed as Geralt’s despite his profession, and he was forced to pitch himself sideways to the side of the ship’s deck to avoid being flattened by vending machines, leaving him out of range to attack. While the Witcher resumed his advance, Dave had to just begin his, though his harpoon gun had much more range than Geralt’s elemental construct weapon, at least.

Once Geralt reached the hermit crab, he swung at the damaged limb, but a swipe from the monster caught him on the backstep, knocking him away again. “Thing’s faster than I expected.” He grumbled, pushing himself back up as the Beast spit a globule of poison into the hermit crab’s eyes, blinding it somewhat and distracting it.

Dave took advantage of the monster’s reeling to line up another shot, his harpoon catching one of the eyes and bloodying it even further, opening up an opportunity for the assembled Seekers to strike while it reeled and tried to protect its most vulnerable part. Geralt launched forward in a burst of speed, twinblade flashing as he cut at the thing’s wounded leg, though the elemental weapon didn’t seem to be dealing terrible damage, owing to the crab’s water affinity.

The Beast pulled itself up onto the top of the container and then launched itself forward with Undyne clinging to a horn. Fortunately she let go of it and found her feet just in time for the beat to slam those smart horns into the wounded leg, cracking the armor with the impact.

Then it started to pull back, giving Undyne just enough time to deliver a quick slice with her spear to the more exposed spot.

The crab, in response, roared, and then did a slow but momentum filled spin attack, threatening to roadkill them with the cab of the truck on its back. Then it started grabbing clawfulls of vending machines and just tossing them over its back, causing them and their contents to rain down, weapons and books joining the big metal machines in the deluge.

Geralt had to back up to avoid being crushed by the spinning hermit crab’s dumpster truck, but as he did he decided that Hydro wasn’t doing much good here, so he transformed into his Ardor Blossom Identity. “Wait, all of you guys can transform? I feel kinda lame now…” Dave sighed, sprinting away from the deluge of vending machines and products to find another opportunity to attack.

Geralt launched a flurry of fireballs at the Hermit crab, being careful to dodge each of the vending machines coming his way. This Identity was, without a doubt, the most fragile of all three, and avoiding hits was most important, especially when those hits were things made out of metal and about his size. One thing he did not was that the fireballs that hit the crab reacted with the Hydro element he’d left with his Twinblade, triggering a Vaporize reaction and dealing a big burst of damage, and causing a small steam explosion.

“Interesting…” Geralt muttered, diving past another flying vending machine and tossing more fireballs, these ones leaving behind the normal burn. “Junior! We can take this thing down quick if we hit it with our magic attacks! I only have twenty more seconds like this, though!” He hurled another set of fireballs, again scorching the massive target, and felt that his Shuriken Shower was ready. Taking careful aim, he unleashed the charge attack, which both did pretty hefty non-elemental damage, but energized the entire party, revitalizing their stamina as well as giving them a boost to their stamina recharge.

”Whaa already? Aw I wanted to start up the truck!” Jr replied from where he, or rather Undyne, was trying to pull one of the doors open. The fact that it had been underwater for who knew how long would probably get in the way of any plan that required the electrics to still work apparently wasn’t a concern to him.

Funnily enough, both of the royal kids had to switch out of their transformed states to use their own magic, but they didn’t switch out of the piggybacking strategy they had. Instead when the tapes were paused, Jr was riding on Rika’s shoulders (because the Beast was all shoulders in a way after all), ready to use their team attack on something more important to hit than a door.

The prince raised his paintbrush staff above both of them, channeling holy magic as Rika jogged around the side of the crab, dodging a claw swipe by leaping over it and then landing in front of their foe. It prepared to try and smash both of them with its other claw, but at that point the ship girl’s weapons were fully filled with glowing power. She unleashed a punch, sending a shockwave of bright white magic intront of the blow, and then followed it up with another punch, then another and another, each one delivering a stunning Holy blow to the mighty crab, till her gauntlets gave out, both sparking and overloaded from the power they’d had to channel.

Dave, meanwhile, had found another safe spot to aim from while Junior, Rika, and Geralt took the heat from the hermit crab, lining up a good shot yet again and spearing the crab’s damaged leg joint with his harpoon gun, breaking through the crustacean’s shell and severely damaging the joint, forcing the oversized critter to spread its weight over fewer limbs, damaging both its defensive and offensive capabilities.

With the crab’s leg broken and Junior and Rika upfront taking all of the hermit crab’s attention, Geralt had time to channel a Holy Lance from afar. Seconds after Rika’s flurry of punches, and mere moments after Dave crippled their foe, a half-dozen lances of holy energy materialized, running through the hermit crab in quick succession before the final lance struck like divine judgment itself.

The colossal crustacean staggered, swayed, and seemed to be mere moments from keeling over as its life blood drained from it.

Which left a certain someone with a few moments to get some extra juicy spoils out of this whole debacle.

Dave hurried up, breathing heavily, and aimed his harpoon gun at the broken leg, firing and catching it on the flesh underneath. He pulled hard, digging his heels into the haul, and the leg popped off in a spray of blood, nearly knocking Dave over as he caught it. “Oh man, Bancho would love to get his hands on this!”

He got it off just in time, as a moment later the big foe turned to ash, and its spirit dropped to the ground. As it did, Jr dropped to it again, hopping off of Rika’s shoulders commenting ”Nice, that worked” before asking Geralt ”How’d you figure that would work?” regarding the effectiveness of magic.

Rika meanwhile just went ahead and started to help Dave with the absolutely massive prize he’d just won, grabbing it with her gauntlets and giving hauling it up a go.

Geralt watched as Dave finished the hermit crab off, scoring himself one hell of a crab leg in the process. Emyhr himself would be jealous of that one. At Junior’s question, he nodded softly. “Noticed it burned fairly easily, and once my fire reacted with the water you and I had hit with it, damn thing nearly cooked alive then and there. Figured it was sturdier against physical hits from there, and that its shell didn’t actually offer any protection from magical harm. Where I come from, monsters are often immune or highly resistant to more mundane methods of attack, but crumple at the touch of magic. Specters and ghosts chief among them.”

”wooow, cool” the prince replied, seemingly genuinely impressed by this, while Rika simply said it was ”Neat” but her slightly tilted nodding helmet seemed to indicate she was taking this information in.

Meanwhile, Dave was giving Rika a big thumbs up as she picked up his haul, laughing happily. “Wow, you guys fight stuff like this all the time? I mean, there’s a lot of freaky stuff in the Blue Hole, but I usually just end up hurting it enough to scare it off. I don’t think I could’ve taken that thing by myself.”

”Yeah! We’re real tough” Jr replied with a flex that didn’t show off much muscle due to him being a kid. Rika however mentioned how ”We’ve fought them together though. It's better that way” as a response specifically to the diver’s last comment.

The other reason they were so strong was sitting down on the ground in the ash, ripe for the picking, but although she glanced at it, Rika had her hands full of crab at the moment.

Geralt eyed the Spirit, looking to the Koopa Troop and Dave. “I’ve already got a seaborne abomination in my Striker crew. If neither of you want it, might get some more ingredients for Bancho Sushi if we crush it once we get back there.” The Witcher shrugged. It was no skin off his back if somebody else grabbed it.

“I think Bancho will have his hands full with just this leg.” Dave admitted, laughing.

”Maybe we’ll get a truck from it?” Jr pondered as he picked it up, and with that, it was high time they headed back to sea. But before that, there was one question, which Rika pointed out as she asked ”So what do we do about all those?” pointing a hull blade at the clock, cannon, and half buried respawn pads. The ship might not be going anywhere without a bridge or its captain, but that just meant the wrestlers' spawn point and the clock they were feeding would be sitting permanently next to Maffia town.

“Could scuttle it.” Geralt casually mentioned, before his face screwed up. “Though that would make coming back to destroy it once we figure out how to difficult, especially with the Blue Hole messing things up.” Pausing for a few moments, he shrugged. “We can ask Sandalphon and the others when they get back here.” He decided, not being willing to make that decision all on his own.

”But it's Unsinkable?” Rika replied, quoting the ship’s name, while Jr just replied with ”Yeah I guess so.” Before thinking that ”Maybe they’ll want a look at a pad as well after Papa got them a clock?”

At any rate, that would have to wait till pick up. Which would hopefully be soon, given the Consuls now knew they were here. At any rate, first things first, getting Bansho sushi its rebuilding funding back to shore.

That and Geralt back too, but a quick trade over of the leg and a summoning of Rika’s white whale would see to that.

As Geralt, Rika, Junior, and Dave helped Nadia and Bancho clean up Bancho Sushi, Geralt became aware of a magical anomaly, very small in scope, but noticeable because it happened to manifest right next to his head. A soft, ethereal chime, like the peal of a small glass bell, went off as a light blue, two-dimensional symbol wrote itself into being just inches from the side of his face. It hummed softly for a moment, long enough for him to connect the dots and put his initial alarm to rest. This wasn't the first time this had happened, after all, and when an elegant woman's voice emanated from this sigil his hypothesis was confirmed correct.

"Good evening, Geralt. Do you read me?" Not wanting to startle anyone else like she did Goldlewis, the operator attempted to greet her next contact a little more gently, without her typical hard, authoritative tone. Since the Witcher didn't share the veteran's military background, she also elected to forego the use of codenames and radio etiquette. Not everyone had a sense of humor like Goldlewis. "This is Sandalphon. Is everything alright? Mona's astrology portended ill omens regarding Mafia Town tonight. We are currently inbound to your location, and intend to pick you up in about an hour. Please gather everyone in an outdoor location at your first convenience and confirm the amount of Fulton devices required. I will check back in prior to my arrival."

Geralt hummed, frowning a bit before replying. “Sandalphon, Mona was right. Mafia Town was attacked by Consul I and a group of murderous pugilists, looking to prove they were the ‘strongest’. Junior, Rika, myself and a local intercepted I’s ship, but they just taunted us before disappearing and leaving us to fight a giant crab. We were victorious, but Consul I’s ship is currently marooned in the harbor. It has the Flame Clock and those pads on it. Not sure what you and the Lost Numbers want to do with that, but we left it all as is. Still waiting on a few people, will let you know later exactly how many Fultons we’ll need. Not sure if we’ve picked up any locals to bring back with us.”

Turning to the others, Geralt called out. “Sadanlphon’s just called. Get moving, we have an hour to get the rest of the Seekers in one spot for pickup.”

It was unfortunate for Therion that his opponent was the bombastic sort, even among the already energetic and wild wrestling invaders. Max shouted out the names of his special moves (which didn't even look that different from what Therion had seen the other wrestlers doing) and various one liners, and his booming voice drew in all kinds of fighters ready to rumble. They bodily threw themselves at both Max and Therion, aiming to take one of them out and claim victory against a tough opponent. They all fought for bragging rights, leaving pure destruction as a byproduct in their wake. The battle quickly got annoyingly chaotic for the thief, though he managed - having summoned his spectral sword after losing the sickles.

"Wahahaha!" In comparison to Therion, who fought begrudgingly but swiftly in order to end things as quickly as possible, the American wrestler gladly accepted any and all challengers. Max put a show as he fought, even though the only audience was his fellow fighters. He thrust his shoulder and elbow in his opponent, drop kicked even the biggest wrestlers that stepped up to take him on, and was an all around menace that flung away everyone that came at him. He spun with his arms stretched out wide, clothes-lining two rumblers with a wide grin on his face. "Feel the BOOM!"

It came to the point where Therion had figured that he could just shove any straggling fighters towards Max, and the man would take care of them for him. It worked out pretty well, as the wrestlers changed targets once they started getting pummeled by a superior wrestler. And when ashes flew and motes of light containing various costumed faces, Therion's wraith blade passed through them to absorb their vitality, undoing the damage he'd taken so far.

By the time it was just Therion and Max again, the former was back in top shape, and the latter was breathing hard. The sunset colored light shown in the blonde man's eyes, but even if he hadn't been gleaming he didn't seem like the type to back down even when at a clear disadvantage like this. He raised his arms and splayed his fingers, ready to charge into a grapple - but his opponent was not going to meet him at his level.

"No hard feelings," Therion said, bringing the wraith blade up and slashing a deep gash into Max's chest as the man barreled toward him. The wrestler lurched, coughed, and finally fell.

Therion rolled the shoulder of his blade arm, dispelling the weapon. He felt pretty good, especially since Max had done most of the work for him once things had really turned into a free-for-all around them. He scooped up the wrestler's spirit and tucked it away before making a beeline to higher ground. He ended up on the rooftop of some random building, surveying what he could see of the city from his perch.

Not surprisingly, the place was wrecked. Not destroyed, but definitely in major need of cleaning up and repairs. From there he couldn't see the other side of the harbor, but he wondered how Nemma and the rest of the regulars around that area had fared. Maybe better, since they were on the opposite side of the island from where the ship had pulled in.

Right, the ship. Therion turned back toward the docks he'd come from, where the Seekers had been dining before all this started. With the attack having quieted down now, it didn't take long for him to pick his way back there to see if the raiding party had seen any success.

Oblivious to the mounting tension and explosive tempers at work in the theatrical throne room of their boss, the handful of grunts assigned to take Mabuchi away carried out their task dutifully. Two of them, hands hooked under his arms, dragged him out through the casino while a third performed the essential act of gloating. “Nothing gets past Mafia in Mafia Town. Only present, and glorious Mafia future. That why Mafia Town has no museums,” he told the would-be usurper. Still conscious but unable to fight with the injuries inflicted on him by Juri and Snake, Mabuchi just glared at his captors, his loathing absolute. “Bad guy chose poorly, picking fight with Boss. In entire life, Boss never lose anything,” the braggart declared as his companions dragged Mabuchi across the red-checkered carpet toward a side room. “Not even virginity.”

His squad’s entrance into the adjoining room brought his boasting to an end. This makeshift jail contained a wall of reinforced metal bars, without a door or locking mechanism of any kind, but a conspicuously large brown button with concentric yellow rings on it protruded from the floor just in front of the wall, indicating that it worked like a portcullis. However, the Mafia grunts stopped just short of the button, confronted with a perplexing conundrum. Unbeknownst to any of them, this cell already contained a captive -the large-nosed local Dr. Tot who’d refused to raise the prices on his medicine to give the Mafia a bigger cut- and it happened to be the only cell the Mafia had. “Hmm…” Crossing his arms, the talkative Mafia thought about the situation. “Mafia honestly not remember what schnoz man do. But suit man attack Boss, and that worst crime of all. Plus, most recent orders also most important. Everybody knows that.” He beckoned to one of his fellows. “Here, stand on button while I throw schnoz man out.”

With a grunt the other goon complied, leaving just one Mafia holding Mabuchi. Ever the opportunist, the man saw his chance and started to move immediately, slow enough to not attract attention. As if reaching down to press a hand on his battered ribs, he slipped his hand into a pocket in his suit and withdrew a small amber bottle with a big red X on its label. As the Mafia weighed down the button to make the gate lift into the ceiling, he popped the cap off and downed the bottle. In an instant, the Staminan X restored his health completely, and after planting a foot he rose with explosive force. Before his surprised captor could react, he grabbed the top-heavy thug by his shoulders and hurled him into the cell, where he knocked over the Mafia holding Dr. Tot like a bowling pin. The Mafia on the button turned toward Mabuchi only to receive a strong kick to the gut, and once he rolled beneath the portcullis, the bars slammed shut the next instant.

“Idiots,” Mabuchi spat as he straightened up, dusting off his suit with a nasty grin. “How a syndicate full of braindead morons like you ever took over this place is beyond me. Once I’m in charge, you’ll be far more useful as fish food.” Loud noises from the throne room down the hall got his attention, and with a grimace he turned to go. “But that’ll have to wait.”

Thanks to all the stooges summoned for use in the boss’s Mafia Ball, fighting was out of the question. Mabuchi threw his dignity to the wind as he fled the scene, fleeing out of the Mafia HQ and out into the night. Once he reached the edge of the great dish, he set his sights on a glass roof above an indoor swimming pool and leaped to what he hoped would be safety.



With a swing of his axe, the heart of the corruption hurled a scatter spray of projectiles towards the seekers and their angelic squads, and for the latter, this was incredibly dangerous. Fighting in tight formations as they did a single shot landing brought explosive devastation to a whole unit.

”Back back! We’ll handle this!” Midna commanded as soon as the threat to her troops became clear, while Edward recommended that they ”Set up a fall back point for the wounded!”

Even as they insisted the rank and file fall back, the Seekers pushed forward. Or, in Edward’s case, his expendable golems pushed forwards while he circled to find a firing position.

Absalom welcomed his challengers with open arms. “Come, come!” he rumbled, brandishing his enormous axe with one hand as his corrupted left arm beckoned. The globules he littered across the arena remained where they fell, bulbous as bubbles from a primordial tar pit and just as prone to popping.

After a somewhat exaggerated show of covering his nose due to the concentrated stench of impurity, the captain of Palutena's royal guard obliged him. "C'mon, let's purge this guy!"

Pit opened up with his trusty bow, firing upon the monstrous champion of corruption. His own unit stationed themselves outside of the arena's doors and beyond, keeping the corruption's reinforcements from interfering.

Though revolted by the abhorrent being before her, twisting her expression into one of indignant hatred, Uriel forced herself to keep a cool head. Sacrifices were inevitable in times of war, but in this climactic showdown, excessive zeal would be the angels’ undoing. They couldn’t afford to throw themselves into the melee when getting their hands dirty meant corruption. This close to the progenitor of pestilence, the air was so dense with rotten fumes that Uriel’s vision was already swimming. In the worst case scenario, a single wound could be the vector that Absalom’s plague needed to corrupt one’s body from the inside out. If that was the case, she would simply need to fight without taking a hit.

Uriel beat her wings and floated upward, using the cathedral locomotive’s interior space to get a height advantage and avoid the spot where the miasma was thickest. Absalom’s glare followed her, and the tentacles extending from his back seemed to move with instinctive hatred toward the Hellguard’s commander. Uriel hurled a handful of light spikes down to detonate around her foe. Their radiant chain explosion worked well against corruption, but the Avatar of Chaos harbored a huge health pool, so it would take a lot more than that. Still, her golden blast also ruptured the plague mines around him, if for whatever reason one of the Seekers felt like squaring off against the brute in close quarters.

Angered, Absalom leaped toward Uriel with terrifying speed. His tentacles wound around Absolution’s shaft to extend his reach, lifting the axe up to bring down on the angel like a massive guillotine. Speed was Uriel’s forte, luckily, and with a swallow’s grace she managed to dart out of the way of certain death, but she would not be so confident about her own safety in the air going forward. When Absalom slammed down the next moment, the impact of his unyielding axeblade against the ground unleashed a vertical cutter of corruption that scythed forward along the ground toward the door. It forced the incoming Seekers to swerve to either side, then left them separated by a wall of corrupt tentacles that cropped up in its wake.

Midna, Edward and their minions went left though the princess and her steed did this far faster, naturally. With the troops falling back, and each and every one of those blows looking incredibly lethal, the princess tossed her lyre into a portal as she spurred her wolfos to charge forward into the fray.

With nimble paws, her steed darted between mines, and then as she closed in, the princess placed a palm to a purple crystalline pyramid mounted upon the beast’s armor, prompting the psystone of dissonance to unleash a staggering psychic blast towards Absalom. Her target raised his arm like a shield to block the mental energy, but its nonphysical component gave him just enough pause for a follow-up. She then struck out with a shadow fist strike, to try and keep him off balance, before darting to the side while her intangible beast legion darted the other way.

As she did, a gunshot rang out from Edward’s pistol as he found a high angle firing position, intending to mostly try and keep stacking his debuffs, while his squad of two bronze golems slowly picked their way through the minefield. Sure enough, his shot hit, but its initial impact didn’t even seem to register. Hopefully his long game would prove more potent.

Sectonia helped with her own debuffs, applying a slow to Absalom making him easier to hit and dodge, using her own Antlers to help advance, but mostly just hovered at the range of her damaging aura and acted like heavy artillery, charging a reality shatter to hit him with as all the minions kept him distracted. Unfortunately, her footsoldiers soon bumbled into corrupt mines, miring down their progress.

Roxas wanted to use the start of the fight to try and apply Tailwind buffs to some of his allies, but only had enough time to use one on Edelgard before Absalom brought the axe down in an attack that forced him to dodge to the right. It also summoned up a wall of tentacles that split the Seekers into two attacking groups. Maybe one of the Nobody’s new Strikers could help them reposition themselves if needed, but it didn’t seem necessary at the moment.

The wall basically kept him from being able to spread around the buffs he wanted to share, which meant his only next step now was to carry out some kind of attack, especially with the debuffs against Absalom coming from the other side of the wall. He summoned his Keyblades and proceeded to hurl one and then the other immediately after for a double strike raid. But that was meant to only distract so he could lock on and use his StepSword to instantly move himself to a position to slash at Absalom from behind with the ignited energy sword. And he figured since he was in close proximity, he might as well try to use Steal to make a grab for Absalom’s axe. He knew the chances of that working was slim, but there was no harm in trying, especially if it meant potentially disarming the boss of his weapon early on. His speedy attacks landed, but did little to phase the giant Nephilim, and to the keyblade wielder’s chagrin his Steal failed outright. With more foes inbound, Absalom retorted with a quick half-turn to jab at Roxas with the butt of his axe, its reach and power remarkable for so unceremonious a strike.

Edelgard went right with Roxas as the Heart of Corruption separated the Seekers’ group, and the Tailwind buff from Roxas meant that she stood a chance of keeping up. She didn’t have the same speed as the Nobody, nor the means of quickly striking at Absalom’s back, but as long as she wasn’t Corrupted, she could fight. Careful to avoid the mines on the ground, Edelgard lunged for Absalom, Amyr lifting high and coming down in a brutal swing to begin what would surely be a pitched battle. Her axeblade came down on her foe’s left arm, leaving only a surface wound among the corrupted crystals–and leaving Edelgard within spitting distance of a titan comparable in size to Beloved.

Despite seeing that Absalom could reach his flying opponents just as easily as his land bound ones, Pit still wished he could take wing alongside Uriel. The Power of Flight wouldn't work as well in this kind of situation, and absorbing fallen Featherwings during the course of the war seemed wrong somehow (though after it was over, he'd see about it). For once he didn't voice his wish, focusing on the battle.

It wasn't like fighting on foot put him at a disadvantage. Land battles were what he'd been accustomed to all his life, including boss battles like this. He kept on the move, making generous use of the larger minions summoned by his allies to hop onto, bounce off of, or skirt behind to avoid globules of corruption, corrosive blasts, and ensure he was making the best shots he could. Thankfully he never needed to be spot on accurate, as the shots themselves could twist in flight. Pit was a formidable fighter on his own, and with a whole crew of fighters around too he knew it was just a matter of time until this corrupted monster was put down and the forces of light were victorious. Pit kept up his own assault on Absalom, his arrows flying swiftly through the air around the arena as streaks of warm yellow light. Normal shots were interspersed with the more powerful versions whenever possible as the energetic captain dashed around the cathedral's interior.

Once the debuffs cast on the source of the corruption began to take effect, he changed up his attacks slightly. He was still getting the hang of how his electro arrows interacted with other elements, but there was one effect he'd learned early on that he would make the most of here. He came to a halt in order to better line up his shot, pulling the ethereal bowstring back as far as it would go and holding the charge. The color of the light arrow changed from golden yellow to electric purple, and small fireballs formed in the air around the arrow's head, circling it. When Pit let it loose the arrow shot straight forward at Absalom, and if it struck would explode on impact thanks to the instant Overloaded reaction of the fire and lightning combo. Noting that Edelgard was headed in to tackle the monster in melee combat, he prepared another explosive arrow to give her an opening.

Taking Absolution in both hands, Absalom whirled around in a wheeling cleave to drive Roxas and Edelgard back, or risk an infectious deathblow then and there. The additional space gained brought the problem posed by the other Seekers into sharp relief, however. As spells and projectiles rained down, debuffs mounted and minions amassed. “Hmph!” Seeing a priority target, the Avatar of Chaos hurled his axe at Sectonia, a flying guillotine almost as big as she was. Then he plunged his coiled tentacles into the ground around him, gathering pestilential power.

Edelgard hopped back as Absalom swung, a curse on her lips. ”Damn! I’ll need a better opening, then.” Stepping further back, she instead lobbed one of her four remaining Fire spells at Absalom, not expecting it to do much damage, but needing to keep up the pressure. She didn’t know what the Source of Corruption was doing, but something told her not to be close to him whenever he did it.

“Weaklings!” Tendrils of corruption slithered around him that extinguished Edelgard’s flames, then fattened as they accelerated. An orb of rippling, lambent impurity swelled in his engorged palm. “There is no strength in numbers. Not against me!” When he thrust his palm into the ground, the whole room shook, and a wave of corrupt earth spread out around him. It covered the whole floor in under two seconds, and while a couple small patches died off and left openings, his corrupt seeding quickly bore fruit. Wriggling tentacles emerged beneath all foes still on or right above the infestation, then attempted to bore into them like screwworms and rapidly corrupt them from the inside out. Even if the Seekers shook them off with only minor damage, the golems, antlers, and other minions weren’t so lucky. In moments the heroes’ helpers were on Absalom’s side. Worse still, corrupt tentacles seized the thrown axe and dragged it back through the mire to its master.

Both Edward and Midna took to the skies to avoid this. The Dreadnought, already at an elevated position near the edge of the combat zone, using his new wings to get extra clearance from the corrupt ground, while the princess by shoving her wolfos down into a portal while leaping off of it, letting it leave and her ascend just in time for the corruption to sweep under them. She also summoned her flygon, but not for her, and instead sent it to grab and hoist Edelgard into the air with a simplistic shout of it being ”A ride!”

Whether she could mount it or not after being hoisted was her issue to solve.

Edward’s constructs were not able to do such a maneuver, and the tendrils wormed their way up into them, prompting their creator to cut off their connection to the 4 mana fuel cells that had been powering them, calling out that he was ”Shutting them down” as he glided towards one of the patches free of corruption.

Midna meanwhile landed, not on the corrupt floor, but on the back of her Beast Legion, the intangible being not touching the physical world enough to be graspable by the corruption. In doing so, and bringing her and it together, she also completed their encirclement of him and binding the astral chain around him to complete the binding ploy she’d been engaging in. This bind took effect just as Absalom stood to capitalize on the chaos he released, restricting him only a moment until the chain snapped, but enough to give the others a little breathing room.

The clearance it granted was only barely enough for her to outpace the grabbing tendrils, and so rather than being able to follow up her strike the princess rapidly retreated, the beast legion just barely letting her outpace the grabbing tendrils as it sprinted full pelt around the arena.

Edelgard let out an undignified gasp as something grabbed her and lifted her into the air, but with Midna’s voice confirming that it was friend, not foe, she held on for dear life. Grabbing the thing, she stowed Aymr in her Inventory, then waited for it to stabilize before swinging herself onto its back and sighing in relief. ”Thank you for that.” She said, addressing both the Flygon and Midna. Pulling out her throwing axes, Edelgard went to work, emulating the Wyvern Lords from her world and harrying Absalom from a distance. Even while bound he extended his tentacles in order to defend himself, but Uriel swooped in to let loose a high-speed assault, forcing Absalom to divide his attention. After enough hits, her Dawnbreaker blade triggered a fiery explosion that blew open his guard and allowed Edelgard’s next axes to strike true.

At the onset of Absalom's massive spreading corruption, Pit had to put his wings to work in order to get clear of the contaminated ground. Two or three flaps could get him far enough that he could land in a relatively clear area, though he would have to fend off the dark tendrils that shot up after him all the while. Pit hunkered down to put strength into his legs before leaping high into the air. The bladed edges of his bow hacked away at the tentacles, spinning wildly as Pit whirled the weapon around himself. He definitely didn't want any part of those touching him if he could help it. He got up even higher with his wings, finally clearing the grasping corruption. With the higher point of view he noted everyone else's escapes, and the champion of corruption about to rearm himself. Rather than try and stop the axe from getting back into Absalom's hands, Pit went to assist one of the Seekers that would have a harder time avoiding the wide reaching attack: their keyblade wielder.

Though flightless, Pit still had some aerial options. He splayed his feathers out, twisting the limbs so that he could swiftly swoop down towards Roxas and to an open patch beyond him. It would be a bit of a rough ride, dangerously close to the reach of the corrupted tentacles, but it would also be a quick getaway. So long as Pit didn't miss, since he wouldn't be able to just fly back around.

"Roxas! Here!" he called, stretching an arm out to his friend as he glided close to him. And he was just in time, considering Roxas had precious few options to avoid the tentacles. The Nobody launched himself up to grab the angel’s hand.

”Thanks for the lift.” Was about all Roxas could get out due to the bumpy nature of their getaway after that. The boys landed roughly in the nearest clear patch of ground, not too worse for wear and ready to jump back into action.

"Don't mention it!" Pit replied.

Sectonia, having been charging a reality shatter. One of her golden antlers, before it would be lost to the corruption wave, used its shield to intercept the axe headed her way in order to protect its queen. However there wasn’t much it could do against the corruption wave and all the antlers and Sectonia took the erupting corruption, but in trade for that damage, fired off her reality shatter, destroying her now converted antlers as well as any other nearby corruption as the area around Absolution shattered like glass and became pure white with some slight black lines to show basic outlines of the area as all the enemies within the area took large amount of damage, with Absalom and any of Sectonia’s allies being the only things in color within the area.

With her big spell thrown out, Sectonia started to use much faster spells and attacks, seeing as Absalom wouldn’t just be sitting there and getting hit anymore, causing the area to rain holy swords over Absalom. This more emphasis on mobility at this point would let her dodge the axe throw if it happened again, since summoning antlers would be out of the question now.

With there only being random patches of safe ground to stand on, Roxas sagged his shoulders and let out a frustrated groan. ”Great, just what a dangerous boss battle needs: A game of ‘The Floor is Lava’ to make it even harder.” He said with a thick, sarcastic tone. Well he couldn’t stand around like a sitting duck, so Roxas scanned around to see how far away some of the safe patches of ground were from each other. After that he came up with his plan. He would have to summon a series of virtual cubes that he could platform across using Flow Motion in order to move between safe spots. Not ideal, when he was going to have to also look for some kind of opportunity to attack as well.

So instead of looking for a chance to rush at Absalom, Roxas instead used charged shots from his RockGun to get off potshots at him. It was about the best option he had for the time being unless he wanted to risk getting thrown around into the corrupted spots and snagged by those tentacles. He could throw Firaga spells, sure, but that seemed like a waste of MP for something he could freely do with the RockGun.

If Sectonia intended to try and destroy Absalom’s weapon by targeting it with her reality break, she would wind up disappointed. Absolution withstood the intense spell, neither truly alive nor dead to begin with, but the wasp queen’s magic worked wonders to swing the situation back in her favor. It annihilated a huge swath of corrupt ground, cleansing it for her allies to use in the fight, and it also wiped away the corrupted antlers and golems that had just begun to move of their own volition. Furthermore, it destroyed the tentacles attempting to return Absolution to its owner, prolonging his disarmament. That allowed several Seekers to press the attack while the Nephilim broke free of the Astral Chain, though as they advanced they might notice the whole battlefield a little shakier than before; it seemed that Sectonia’s magic had dealt a blow to the structural integrity of the Infernal Train’s locomotive, as well.

By now the floor had returned to normal, or at least, a normal level of corruption. The instant Absalom broke free, he roared, tentacles lashing around him. Most of his opponents were still in the air. Enduring summoned swords and light stakes for a moment, he sprouted a foul spike with which he took aim at the largest group of fliers. Uriel, the fasted among them, dodged reflexively. But Absalom adjusted his aim upward and fired the spike into the ceiling above them, where it embedded itself with a heft impact. As soon as it took root, tendrils of corruption sprouted that reached down to ensnare Absalom’s foes by their throats or wings. He then charged across the arena, away from Sectonia’s blade rain, and quickly reached his axe. The former Nephilim took Absolution in hand, then passed it to his left arm for a wildly extended slash at Roxas, Pit, and Edward. Without missing a beat he coated his axeblade in corruption, then swung it to launch a barrage of explosive clusters at the fliers. This battle was far from over.



Not knowing how the gaunt ringmaster of the phantom troupe would take the news, Goldlewis was glad that his mention of a campaign to eliminate Galeem seemed to pique Grimm’s interest. Before he could elaborate, he received another pleasant surprise: that the Witch seemed to be tagging along as well. With his focus on the uneven footpath ahead, or on Grimm when he could spare it, he hadn’t noticed the slight, darkly-dressed magician materialize out of Meridi-at-han’s darkness until she announced herself. All sorts of nebulous phantasms danced in the torchlight after all, even without any nightmarish flame-rituals in progress. He was still somewhat on edge thanks to the chaotic nighttime fights and frights, a situation that Sandalphon’s unforeseen announcement didn’t exactly help, but the fact that both former combatants chose to give the Seekers a chance still amused him as a funny twist of fate.

That said, soon after the group waved goodbye to Kayna and Avmar, the Witch made her personality known along with her presence. After weaseling her way in rather closely, practically joining herself to Goldlewis at the hip, she requested more details in a way that elicited a raised eyebrow. Her voice carried a certain level of zest, which combined with her somewhat hammy word choice suggested to the veteran that this spellcaster wasn’t all there. When his perturbed glance drove them to meet eyes, he couldn’t help but note that strange fervor that glittered within the Witch’s unusually vivid blue eyes. Eyes like those weren’t exactly common on the battlefield, but Goldlewis had seen soldiers with a similar sort of gusto before, and he knew to be wary of them. Those weren’t the men who enlisted for the money, or out of a sense of duty. They were men possessed by some instinctive drive to kill, an impulse passed down through the ages from the brains of primitive man, strained through the sieve of civilization but never wholly filtered out. Such urges had their uses when one’s objective was ultimately to kill something, and the Seekers needed all the help they could get in the fight against Galeem, but Goldlewis resolved then and there to watch his back around this newcomer. The fresh corpses shambling in her wake spoke to a ghoulish disregard for the sanctity of both life and death, and if this Witch’s wicked appetites went unsatisfied for too long, his back would be much easier to stab than Galeem’s. His grip tightened around the chain of the massive coffin carried over his shoulder.

At the very least, if the Witch chose to proceed with the Seekers, she would soon find herself divested of her cadaverous companions. Goldlewis continued his explanation as his team drew nearer to the plateau city’s main gate. “Well, here’s the deal,” he told the two initiates. “Galeem floats high above the hole in the continent’s center. But even if we flew up there we couldn’t do anythin’ about it, ‘cause it’s protected by its chosen Guardians. Thirteen of ‘em, scattered across this here World o’ Light, each doggone one sustainin’ some kind o’ barrier that keeps the big cheese safe an’ sound. Some of ‘em out in the open, others buried deep in hidin’ beneath layers of buildin’s and bureaucracy. Trackin’ ‘em down as sortin’ ‘em out has been our mission so far, and it’s challenged us somethin’ fierce.” He put on a reassuring grin. “Luckily, you folks came at a good time. So far our crew’s taken out six of the sumbitches, leavin’ just seven before Galeam’s ripe for the pickin’. And if Sandy’s roundin’ us up, chances are good we’re just about ready to scratch one more off the list. So y’all ain’t gonna have to wait long for things to heat up.” Hopefully the Witch wouldn’t get too excited, though given her macabre proclivities and what he’d learned about the Dead Zone, she very well might end up being in her element.

Just over a minute later, the team passed beneath Meridi-at-han’s main gate. Outside, the city lights gave way to the dark of night, with only the eerie light of the decrepit moon illuminating the vast expanse of dense rainforest. A veritable mountain of well-worn stairs led down, down, down to the banks of the great river that snaked through the region. Beyond the reach of its jungled tributaries, Goldlewis could see the fiery glow of Death Mountain to the north, smoking and smoldering roughly halfway between the Hannish city-state and the sinister shroud of darkness that hung over the City That Never Was. At his back hung Meridi-at-han’s iconic all-seeing eye, affixed to the main gate as a baleful reminder that all duplicity would in time be laid bare beneath the light. After a momentary pause to catch his breath, Goldlewis lifted his index and forefinger to his ear, resummoning the magic glyph. “We’ve reached the extraction zone, Halo. Gonna need two extra Fultons. Over.”

“Perfect timing, Mustang” the operator answered, her response immediate. “ETA five seconds. Over.”

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Right on time, a beam of light dropped from the starry heavens. The radiant sky-blue pillar lasted only an instant, and when the flash subsided, a woman stood atop a sigil burned into the ground. She was tall, a few inches over six feet, with pale skin and short, silvery-white hair with a couple long curls like little wings in flight. Her gray lipstick matched the bags under her eyes, which possessed black irises and pupils of bright greenish turquoise, not dots but thick rings with a vertical line at the apex. Most remarkable, maybe, was the extravagant halo that hung over her head, lavishly embellished with gold and an additional loop on each side. From the joints dangled long, flexible cords with golden widgets on the ends, one pinched between the woman’s long, slender fingers and held to her lips like a microphone. Her triple halo shone with soft golden light, like sunbeams through gray stormclouds, and it illuminated a rather businesslike outfit. A black tie hung down from the collar of her blue office shirt, itself split at her ample chest into an upper portion with her sleeves and a lower portion resembling a button-up tube top, and several black belts adorned her darkly-colored slacks. Over it all she sported a long white coat with a decidedly western fringe, worn low around her shoulders, and her boots matched its color. In the crook of her arm was tucked a high-tech gunstaff with featherlike protrusions on its head, and she held a satchel in her hand. To some this woman might seem beautiful; to others, an otherworldly entity that did not at all belong.

“Good evening.” From moment one, the newcomer’s eyes were on Zenkichi. Her pupils changed into sparkles, and a smile flitted across her otherwise placid face, but she composed herself a second later. Seeing Grimm and the Witch, she bowed her head respectfully. “I am the archangel Sandalphon, servant of the Illian Church. In the past I have led the Apostles of Grams, the Apostolic Knights of Laterano, and the YoRHa subunit of DespoRHado Enforcement, LLC. It would be my pleasure to welcome you to our organization, and aid you from here on out.” Releasing her microphone, she took her satchel in hand, opened it to reveal a number of drab nylon packs, and then placed it on the ground. “Everyone, please take and affix a Fulton device, then prepare for ascension.”

Sandalphon’s odd eyes, which had yet to blink, settled on the Witch’s zombies. “I’m afraid we don’t have enough Fultons to bring along your…entourage.” With a wave of her hand, the stone step beneath her turned cerulean blue. Then in a single, fluid motion she flipped her staff around, and fired a bolt of ether from the hip. It shot straight through a zombie’s eye, and with a groan it slumped to the ground. “Since we are not scheduled to return here, we should eliminate any potential hazards,” the archangel explained impassively. Another pull of the trigger, and the Witch’s second zombie was dead once more.

Her decisive action elicited a raised eyebrow from Goldlewis, who resumed putting on his Fulton once the bodies hit the floor. “These damn things. Still ain’t used to ‘em.” He shrugged in resignation, then cleared his throat. “Ahem. Just put it on, pull the cord, and keep your eyes shut. If you don’t pass out…well, don’t look down.” Yet again Grimm didn’t know what he was looking at, but if he had any concerns, the troupe master didn’t voice them. Instead he reached a long arm down and selected a Fulton that he lifted by one edge held between his bladelike claws. As he mimicked Goldlewis in order to put it on, the veteran furrowed his brows. “Come to think of it, ain’t you got a circus to run? You’re fine just leavin’ all your buddies behind?”

The question didn’t seem to bother Grimm. “We all have our parts to play. Even if the flames beckon us in different directions, our paths will surely converge. Just as they always have.”

One by one, the Seekers fastened on their Fultons and yanked their cords. From each device, a balloon exploded outward and inflated incredibly quickly, and a second after each reached its full size, it yanked its wearer skyward at terrifying -and somewhat comical- speeds. Goldlewis blacked out once again, and not even Grimm could withstand the absurd g-force. Sandalphon, meanwhile, just watched them go, and after the final one shot up into the night, she simply teleported back from whence she came.

Goldlewis regained his senses in a long, spacious room that resembled a hangar, albeit one with a very low roof. Just as he remembered it, it contained plenty of navigation equipment, racks of Fulton devices, four Hellpod launching systems, and the belt of pods that fed into it. This was the Deployment Bay, which along with the steady hum of alien engines and the subtle movement of the metal floor beneath his feet, indicated that he was back aboard the Avenger at last. He and the others had been picked up and deposited in the belly of the beast–how, he wasn’t quite sure, but the veteran figured neither he nor anyone else needed to know. The fact that it worked reliably was good enough. It had been almost a week since he last set foot aboard this titanic airship. Given his past aboard military vessels he’d adjusted pretty well, and figured he would again, but the new initiates (who he guessed came from fantasy worlds) would probably need some help.

“Welcome aboard.” Once Sandalphon teleported in, she assumed the task of newcomer orientation. “This is the Avenger, our mobile base of operations. Think of it like a flying fortress. It comes equipped with various amenities, including living quarters, restrooms, a mess haul, and various workshops with different specialties. Please feel free to explore within reason and speak to the Lost Numbers, should you have any questions or concerns.” She pointed Grimm and the Witch toward an interior map on the wall. “It is likely that your first mission will start tomorrow.”

Intrigued, Goldlewis crossed his arms. “Y’all got the rain issue figured out?”

The archangel nodded. “We believe so. I’ll relate the details during tomorrow’s brief.” With that, she turned to leave. “If you need me, I’ll be in the communications center. We have two more pickups to coordinate tonight.” Realizing how late she’d be up, yet again, Sandalphon let out an uncharacteristic sigh. “I should requisition another serving of coffee.”

As the other Seekers scattered to move about the Avenger and explore their relevant interests, Zenkichi homed in on Sandalphon and fell in step beside her. ”Hey, Sandalphon. If it’s alright with you, I could grab us a couple of coffees while you help prep for everything. Those long nights really are a killer without it. I’ll even make sure to grab some honey packets for ya for dinner.” While his tone made it seem like a joke, Zenkichi was 100% serious. They’d only known each other for a little over a week, but Sandalphon’s obsession with honey was utterly unforgettable.

Under normal circumstances, Sandalphon could be counted on to keep an impassive, imperturbable stiff upper lip in practically any situation, sustaining sleepless nights and grievous injuries with nary an expression on her pale, porcelain-smooth features. Other Seekers hadn’t been wildly off-base to assume, upon their first encounter, her to be a highly-advanced machine like the YoRHa androids she once commanded. After fusion with three humans, however, cracks had begun to form in her facade. She found herself feeling sad, afraid, and above all else, tired. But this newfound vulnerability, in turn, gave others a chance to approach her. When the archangel noticed Zenkichi walk up alongside her, however, she seemed to perk up. While she’d been leaning on her gunstaff as she walked, Sandalphon now mustered the strength to straighten up. Her brows raised slightly, her eyes opened wider, and her pupils changed from power symbols to carets without any sign of reversion.

“Hello, Zenkichi. I would be extremely grateful for your help.” Sandalphon slowed down a little, examining her acquaintance closely. Thanks to her powers of perception and recollection, she possessed such an airtight mental map of the Avenger that she didn’t need to watch where she was going, but right now she wasn’t just showing off. Concern worked its way across her face. “It would seem that you’ve had an eventful night yourself, however. If you’re weary, there’s no need to trouble yourself on my account.” She noted not just his appearance and body temperature, but the somewhat off-kilter way he carried himself. “You’ve been exerting yourself. And…you’re hurt.” Her brows turned upward, a worried frown in evidence. “It’s clear that you’ll be alright, but still, my miracles are yours should you ever need them.”

She paused for a moment as the two turned a corner that brought them to the foot of a somewhat cramped stairwell. With only one rather industrial wall-mounted light fixture per landing, it was dark in her, but the archangel’s halo shined gently on the metal steps to light the way. To reach the communication center, the two would need to climb three stories at a rather steep grade. After a deep inhalation, Sandalphon got started. Even at the best of times, strenuous exercise was never her forte, so in her current state her ascent proved to be a little slow and shaky. Not wanting Zenkichi to worry, she raised her voice. “How has my covenant…been working out for you? …Hopefully it’s been of some use…in your battles this last week.” By the time she reached the first story, Sandalphon was practically panting, and she leaned heavily upon her staff.

Zenkichi was touched by his companions's concern and attention. ”I'll be okay, yeah, mostly just sore right now. Meridi-at-Han was attacked by some giant monsters, but the others and I took care of it with some help from the locals.” Zenkichi waved off the offered healing, and as the pair began to ascend the stairs, he grimaced a little at Sandalphon's own state of being.

”Call me a hypocrite, but you seem like you could use a hand yourself." He offered an arm to help brace herself on, which could actually help now that they were similar in height after all of Sandalphon’s fusions. ”As for the Covenant, it was a big help both against Consul J and those huge monsters. Actually managed to save a guard's life by using Restoration Protocol with one of my buffs after the poor guy took a lethal hit." A combination of guilt for those he couldn't save, and pride for the man he could, showed on his face. ”I'm glad I was able to help him. Thanks to you." Despite the simple gratitude in them, Zenkichi’s words held a deepness that might have been lost on others, but the look he gave Sandalphon in that moment belied just how deeply he felt that gratitude. ”I'm glad we made that Covenant." He admitted, his voice a little quieter, and more serious.

For a moment Sandalphon hesitated, her pupils in the form of inverted triangles as she worked up the courage. Then she slipped her arm around Zenkichi’s for support as she continued to climb, each step in sync with the detectives. Despite her pallid and artificial appearance, she felt quite warm, and a touch of red tinted her features. “You’re most welcome…I’m very pleased to hear…that my abilities were of some use. …I am also glad that we made that accord.” She remembered that afternoon in Everdream Valley before the storm brought by Consul Z. From the delicious pumpkin ramen to the quiet walk through the beautiful pastoral scenery, to her fingers interlaced with his, it had been a lovely time.

The archangel’s composure seemed much more stable as the two reached the second landing, passing within spitting distance of the Spirit Chamber where they could probably find Deadman cleaning up for the night. Sandalphon’s gaze lingered on the doorway for the second. During the last week, that odd coroner had been an unexpected blessing when it came to the team’s current project, and the long conversations between the two of them had fascinated her to no end. After just a beat, though, she moved on, her shoulder pressed against her companion’s. “On the subject of Consul J…I would’ve been happy to…to provide more assistance.” For some reason, her pupils were rapidly changing, as if her mind raced along with her heart rate. Even with Zenkichi’s help, she began to wobble again as the two approached the third landing. “The Phantom Thieves seem capable, though, and…and I’ve been rather busy…”

Zenkichi smiled as Sandalphon confirmed that she was also happy they had made their Covenant, a tinge of blush appearing on his cheeks for a few moments. As they ascended further, he nodded when the archangel admitted that she'd have preferred to have been more involved in the attack on J. ”To be honest, it was really nice to get to see the kids again, and do a Phantom Thief style raid on somebody, but it would've been nice to have you along. Maybe if I link up with them again for another job, we can show them how Seekers do things." He joked.

Just as they crested the last step, it finally happened. Sandalphon seemed to trip over nothing, her knee maybe giving out beneath her, and she toppled toward Zenkichi.

Zenkichi had noticed Sandalphon’s flagging stamina, but he'd hoped that they could at least make it to the comms center before she had to take a break. When she fell, the reflexes of a seasoned detective kicked in, and Zenkichi managed to half-pivot, getting both arms under Sandalphon's own and controlling their descent, the Phantom Thief gently lowering them the last foot or so to the ground. ”Woah!" He exclaimed, leaning her back against his chest to take some more weight off her armpits, before frowning slightly.

”Alright, I got you." He reassured her softly, looking Sandalphon up and down. She was always pale, so that wasn't much of a help to ascertain her current condition, so Zenkichi did the first thing that came to mind and slid to her side, one hand still on her back to help prop her up as the other stopped just a few inches short of her legs. He hesitated a moment, before asking, ”Would it be alright if I picked you up, Sandalphon?" with the gentle, calming tone he'd had to master dealing with both a daughter and victims of crimes.

The sudden fall and quick save left Sandalphon’s eyes wide with initial alarm, pupils shaped like empty rings, but after blinking a few times, she seemed to realize that she’d essentially slumped over onto her new acquaintance. “I beg your pardon,” she apologized. She quickly allowed herself to relax, and Zenkichi to steady her. When he asked to carry her, his voice soft and close enough that she could feel his breath, she managed to keep a straight face–but the archangel couldn’t stop her pupils becoming sparkles. “...If you don’t mind. The comms center is just over there.”

Zenkichi’s heart nearly burst when he saw her eyes change into sparkles, but he managed to keep the calm facade he was projecting long enough to gently slide his hand underneath Sandalphon's legs and carefully lift her, holding the angelic woman bridal-style, his earlier blush returning. ”Just hold on to my shoulder." He added, assuming that she'd never been carried this way before. She obliged without question.

As he straightened to a full standing position, Zenkichi slowly made his way to the comms center, ignoring the looks the pair got as they entered. He found the closest available seat and lowered Sandalphon into it, one hand remaining on her shoulder before he gave her another reassuring smile. ”I'm gonna run and grab that coffee in a sec. When was the last time you managed to get some rest in?" His question was devoid of admonishment, and his voice and smile gave the impression that he'd been in a similar position a few times himself.

Once seated, Sandalphon let out the breath she’d unconsciously been holding and let her eyes slide shut. It was a moment before she withdrew her hand from Zenkichi’s shoulder. “Thank you. I’m somewhat mortified to be seen in such a sorry state, and to require help in such a mundane task as locomotion…but if anyone had to assist me, I’m glad it was you.” Her eyes opened, back to normal, and she gave Zenkichi a grateful look. “I managed to sneak in about six hours yesterday afternoon, after a visit to Brightvale near the Theater of War. My reduced work capacity post-fusion has prompted me to try and condition myself back toward a more efficient schedule. I’ve been conducting a great deal of magical and spiritual research.” She shrugged, then reached up to one of the cords hanging from her halo and brought it down to her lips. “If you like, I can tell you more about my recent exploits during your coffee trip.”

”I think I'd like that very much." Zenkichi replied, standing to full height and flashing a much fuller smile as he took a step back. ”I'll try and make this quick.” He added, before turning and hustling out the door to grab both of them some much-needed caffeine.

Scarcely had the detective stepped out of the room before a holy sigil appeared beside his ear and Sandalphon’s voice began to rattle off what she’d been up to. “A few days ago I launched into a new series of investigations and interviews. Learning about the underpinnings of the World of Light is, of course, paramount, but by nature it is a conglomerate of wildly disparate parts, so my latest endeavor is to learn all I can about the worlds from which we all hail. I soon learned that there are too many to count, but I have been able to study certain patterns. Every ‘home world’ has a certain ‘theme’ that is shared by similar worlds, often defined in terms of technological and societal advancement, the presence of magical and/or ‘supernatural’ beings, apocalyptic status, and overall complexity. For instance, in the greater scheme of things, my world is high-magic, low-tech, medium-complexity, pre-modernity, and pre-apocalyptic. I have developed a theory that we all naturally resonate more with elements from a similar ‘theme’.”

Only at that point did the archangel seem to pause for a breath, but Zenkichi got only a moment’s respite from the barrage of information. “For instance, for most of my time I have been using a gunstaff in combat. It is highly advanced technology serves its purpose as a precision weapon and casting catalyst well enough, but it has no distinguishing features aside from Healing Ring. The Aether Lance I received from the exosuit known as Skywave is also high-tech, useful but difficult to manage, and the rifle from Cecile’s spirit is a powerful work of art, but even it doesn’t quite feel right. However, I managed to make the acquaintance of Dawn’s husband, Lakota, and have received instruction in the art of enchantment. Specifically, the spellcraft of magic ammunition, both arrows and bullets, which can make almost as much difference as the weapon itself. These ‘spell bullets’ offer incredible potential, but neither the Aether Lance nor gunstaff require ammunition, and the rifle does not accept magical ammunition. My own world has manacasters, which are magic firearms, but they do not require ammunition either. I’ve been hoping to get my hands on a munitions-based magical firearm in order to test my theory on resonance, but have yet to obtain one. I would be very interested to hear about your experiences with elements from worlds of disparate themes if you have the chance, but please do not prioritize this over any of your other duties.”

Zenkichi blinked a few times at the deluge of information, but did not halt his advance towards the elixir of life that was caffeine. Somewhat surprisingly, he’d managed to follow until the last quarter of Sandalphon’s explanation, where he had expected to get lost about halfway through. So, he’d take that as a win. Putting his fingers up to his ear to respond, he walked as he talked. ”Yeah, it’s…kind of a mixed bag on my end, I think. I mean, the world I come from is one I’d call maybe medium-high tech, but the kids and I all used a combination of firearms of varying ages, and some kind of melee weapon. I stuck with two-handed swords and a pair of revolvers, Panther used a whip and an SMG, Skull used a shotgun and a freakin’ pipe, while Fox used a katana and an assault rifle. So, all over the place in terms of age of weapons. The Spirits I’ve fused with were some guy that I think gave me more knowledge about monsters, and two guys who, as far as I can tell, used magic that I can channel through my sword. I guess Valjean’s abilities would be counted as magical, not that I’d normally describe my world as one with a lot of magic in it. So…not sure where Earth fits in there.”

As he talked, Zenkichi finally arrived at the blessed, beloved coffee machine, and immediately began filling up three cups. One for him, and two for Sandalphon. ”Remind me exactly how you prefer your coffee. I am, of course, grabbing a whole bunch of honey packets for you. And some muffins for us both. I know they’re not as ‘efficient’ as pure honey, but even if you don’t have one, I can bring it to Akane later. Or save it for the morning. I’ve eaten much worse than day-old muffins, ha.”

“Black is fine. The Lost Numbers’ coffee is…adequate. By no means excellent, but not so poor that I must sacrifice honey to make it palatable.” Sandalphon wanted to avoid thanking Zenkichi too many times in quick succession, so she held off for now. “I’ve already inquired about their supply. As you might expect, requisition crews take whatever they can get on supply runs. In the hopes of improving morale and overall quality of life, I’ve been attempting to draw up a plan that leverages the recent increase in personnel. There’s a lot of data to go through, which…” A sigh filtered through the sigil, though instead of radio static it created a slight resonance, like a finger on the rim of a glass. “Which is an apt summary of my current existence. Oh, speaking of Akane. In your absence I have endeavored to keep her company. She is somewhat overwhelming. Her personality is quite strong, and I cannot answer all of her questions.”

Taking in the information, Zenkichi nodded to himself despite the fact that Sandalphon couldn’t see it. ”Yeah, she can be…a lot. Combine being a teenager with everything that’s going on, and my own part in all that mess, and to be honest, she’s doing pretty well considering. Things have been rough on us since her mom passed.” Coffees, honey packets, and muffins assembled on a plate, balanced so precisely that one would expect Zenkichi to be a waiter and not a detective, he started making his way back, talking all the while. ”A criminal conspiracy, the Phantom Thieves, me being…away for work a lot…she’s a good kid. She didn’t deserve all that. I was just trying to keep her safe, from the aforementioned conspiracy, to boot.” Zenkichi’s own sigh passed through the magic sigil, but his voice picked up.

”We’re working on it, though. It’s gonna be slow going, but we’re working on it. It means a lot to me that you’ve taken to talking with her, and I’m sure she appreciates it, too, even if she has more questions than you have answers.” As they chatted, his path brought him back to the comms center and set the plate down. ”Three black coffees, two for you, some honey, and a couple of muffins. One corn and one chocolate chip.”

Of course, Sandalphon reached for the chocolate chip muffin right away, and with her other hand she practically seized a coffee mug, as urgently as her need to not spill a single drop would allow. She managed to maintain her dignity with a methodical alternation of biting into her pastry, then washing it down with the murky brew. If the heat bothered her, she gave no sign. About halfway through both, though, her enthusiasm seemed to fade, and she let her hands lower to her knees. “Ahem. My apologies. I should be thanking you first and foremost. And taking better care of myself. Though quite stimulating, this diet cannot be healthy.” Her brows knit together somewhat. “Hm. I’m aware of my caffeine addiction, but could it be that I’m suffering from malnutrition? I neglected to consider the possibility that fusion would alter my biology to such an extent.” She downed the last of the first coffee cup, then brought up a screen with her free hand, making notes and calculations. “I should visit Dr. Yu. Run some tests. After the pickup tonight, of course. ETA in Mafia Town, forty minutes…”

Zenkichi was a little surprised at the gusto Sandalphon ate her chosen muffin with, his mouth flattening into a nervous line. That seemed new. In Everdream Valley, eating actual food was a novelty that she joined in for the experience, whereas now she ate like she was starved. Which, now that she mentioned it, she might be. ”I think that's a good idea." He agreed with her plan, taking a seat by her. ”Should probably wait until after you do that to get something more substantial to eat. From what I remember, even the muffin and the honey might mess up some of the tests, but better to keep you going until then. It makes sense that you'd have to eat more like a regular human now, having fused with a few. Taking his first sip of his own coffee, Zenkichi sighed as the refreshing beverage warmed him, revitalizing his energy a little. ”That's no Leblanc coffee, but it's coffee nonetheless. Really hits the spot…"

Thinking about how busy she'd be tonight, Zenkichi gave the archangel a smile as he came up with an idea. ”If it'd be alright with you, I could check in on Akane real quick, then come back to keep you company and make sure somebody's around in case you take another tumble. I'd rather it be me than, say, Bowser's kid be the nearest…peeeeerssooon???...around if that happened again. It'd be one thing if it were, like, Geralt, but the little guy would probably have a bit of trouble helping you around.”

Pretty much the instant Zenkichi mentioned keeping her company, Sandalphon’s eyes became sparkles again. “You should get some rest yourself, but…I would like that,” she admitted.

”Then that's what we'll do. Make sure everybody gets in alright, get you looked at, have something to eat, then head to bed.” Zenkichi stood up, gently patting Sandalphon's shoulder. ”I'll be back soon, once I check on Akane."

Geralt hummed, frowning a bit before replying. “Sandalphon, Mona was right. Mafia Town was attacked by Consul I and a group of murderous pugilists, looking to prove they were the ‘strongest’. Junior, Rika, myself and a local intercepted I’s ship, but they just taunted us before disappearing and leaving us to fight a giant crab. We were victorious, but Consul I’s ship is currently marooned in the harbor. It has the Flame Clock and those pads on it. Not sure what you and the Lost Numbers want to do with that, but we left it all as is. Still waiting on a few people, will let you know later exactly how many Fultons we’ll need. Not sure if we’ve picked up any locals to bring back with us.”

Turning to the others, Geralt called out. “Sadanlphon’s just called. Get moving, we have an hour to get the rest of the Seekers in one spot for pickup.”

Jr, who had been exiting the sushi joint he and his sister and saved/wrecked holding a pile of splintered furniture, gave a sigh of relief, but not for the reason that might be expected, namely that ”phew, I was worried we’d be stuck fixing this place foreeever”

He promptly dumped the pile of wood onto the street and then hurried back to get his sister, who asked Geralt ”where’d they all go anyway?” because she and her brother had both still been inside the restaurant when everyone else ran off to get into fights.

Geralt, uselessly, shrugged. “Not sure. Think I saw Nadia and Juri heading up towards the mafia boss headquarters, and Therion slinked off…ah, looks like he's already making his way back.” Geralt announced, turning to the returning Thief with a nod. “No real luck with Consul I, unfortunately. Disappeared as soon as we reached them, and left us with a big crab monster to fight. Sandalphon is on her way with the Avenger. We have to leave soon.” Turning back to Junior, Geralt continued. “Not sure where that Captain Falcon ended up, either.”

”Also she said she’d tell the other ones we are here, which is sort of annoying” Rika added as if this wasn’t a massive concern. Then again, they were now leaving, so it wasn’t really unless their foes were really on the ball.

”Shame the crab wrecked that announcer guy’s set up that would have helped out getting them here… wonder if there’s anything even close to that in town so we can put out some kinda signal” Jr wondered out loud before snapp

”Maybe we can spot him from one of those hot air balloons that are sometimes flying about?” Rika suggested, referring to a semi common sight around, or rather above, maffia town

”Hmmm. Maybe.” Jr pondered, before snapping his fingers and declaring ”Oh! I know, I know!” and scampering off, pausing only to call back ”Come on sis!” before he and she vanished into the town.

Geralt stood there a moment, sighing, before following after. “I’m not getting paid enough for this…”

A little bit later, and the three of them were up in the air, partially on the lookout for the others, but mainly showing off the paint job Jr had given the balloon’s, well, balloon. Upon it, painted in neon blue electric ink (which probably wasn’t that safe to be on it but was better than the burning stuff) he’d painted the sun-like symbol of the re-spawn pad they'd just found.

He’d had to be convinced to not just put his own face, that painting Galeem itself would be too time consuming and difficult to parse and that creating a logo on the fly for the Seekers wouldn’t help till people learned it.

Geralt stood in the basket of the hot air balloon, occasionally using Igni to make sure the flame stayed consistent, with his arms crossed. “This is…both absurd and interesting. People come up with such strange technologies when given enough time, it seems.” He was not thrilled to be up here, but his grumbling was not nearly as severe as it was whenever he had to deal with Midna’s portals, at least. “And where exactly do we aim to land?”

”Back at Bansho sushi obviously! That way people will know where to head back too!” the prince replied, confident that he could simply use his Fluter Mane to tow them safely down to their destination.

A few minutes later they crashed into the sushi restaurant’s roof, though fortunately hot air balloons were more smothering than smashing when it came to impacting things.

Hacking and slashing his way through the balloon, Geralt stormed out of the deflated canvas with a sigh. “I see Kamek has his work cut out for him…” He mumbled, waving to Nadia and Bancho. “Sorry to make cleaning up a little harder on you guys.” Gathering up as much material as he could get his hands on, Geralt at least tried to get it somewhat out of the way, though given the balloon’s size, that was a mostly hopeless endeavor.

With a full host of minions and strikers the koopa kids managed to do a bit better, and the balloon was at least dragged off of the roof and into the water by the time the hour was passed. That this would then later get in the way of them getting their boat out was the future problem… that the kids ended up paying to cover with all their vigilantism acquired Pons.

---

She had earned it, hadn’t she? Juri had taken a few steps forward after the Boss had reached into his pocket, hand outstretched. Even after refuting her demand for more respect, Juri was going to suck it up and walk away. It would have been a real big moment for her. Instead, he scattered her money all over the floor, and then just looked at her. Like she was a starving peasant, scrounging for scraps. All of them like vultures. The smile on her face was a corpse’s smile, uncanny and false.

The nerve to treat her like gutter trash. To treat her like she would ever kneel to anyone. Juri didn’t feel like she was asking for much. Just a little respect. Her fists clenched, for her real eye shone with violence. Juri wanted to reach out and rip his throat from his neck. She was right there. He wouldn’t see it coming. Smug bastard. Her prosthetic eye, cool and collected, led the other to Blazermate, over her shoulder. That helpful little robot. She’d do whatever Juri wanted, right? She showed up in the fight and just started doting on everyone. You don’t have to kill anyone to walk out of here with your dignity, Juri.

”Blazermate…pick up those pons.” Juri ordered, like she did it all the time. Even though this was the first time speaking to Blazermate at all. She only knew her name through other people saying it on the Avenger.

Juri didn’t really have to ask though, Blazermate was used to this whole ‘collecting things’ thing and made a bit of a game out of it, zooming around grabbing poms and making a ‘wakka wakka’ sound while grabbing them, well, saying that in her voice. She was fast, so it didn’t take her all that long.

Juri watched all this go down, and let out a sharp bark of a laugh, clapping her hands together. Her mood brightened considerably, and she took the opportunity to get her real revenge on the mafia boss.

”Too cheap for a little burlap sack, huh?” Juri asked. ”What a dump. Remember on my first day when I said the pizza was okay? I lied. I never tried any of your tacky, overpriced, greasy pizza. Not that I ever would. It probably tastes as cheap as you. See ya, losers.”

Blazermate gave a polite wave herself saying. ”I like your boys, they’re pretty nice. Keep good care of them boss man!” Blazermate said, as she followed suit but much more friendly than Juri.


The boss scoffed at the martial artist as she turned to depart. "You must not have had real Mafia pizza then. Feel free to go get some...on your way out!" Since Juri was already going, though, his statement lacked any real punch. After giving a quizzical look at Blazermate, who he really did know what to make of, the mafioso called over his underlings in order to get a situation report on the Battle Royal Rumble and issue fresh orders, with no further mind paid to the irate quitter.

Indeed, Juri just opened and closed her hand a few times as she went out the door. Out in the open she wrapped her arms behind her head, acting cool and casual like she wasn’t just nearly driven to murderous rage. ”What a phoney.” She said derisively to Blazermate.

”Guy doesn’t know the first thing about runnin’ a mafia. He was just coastin’ on my competency. Only a matter a’ time before someone actually dangerous comes along and takes his place. You know, throwin’ money on the ground like that starts wars back where I’m from.” She said. Then she opened her palm expectantly for her pons.

”You can keep some of ‘em if you want. You did help out back there. Like, I dunno. 10% or something.” She said with a sniff. Really, Blazermate saved her a whole lot of trouble, blowing her gasket over some insults.

Blazermate shrugged, giving a counter point and for once putting on a more serious tone as she gave up the pons. ”Why would you want them to be a real mafia? Being all serious, not fun, being rude, violent in a bad way… and serious. Why would you want that? This is way easier to deal with and you don’t have to be on edge around everyone.” Blazermate then went to a more casual tone of voice. ”I’m sure you would rather deal with goofs than people who like ripping fingernails off. Or brand you.” Blazermate said with a sagely nod. The Yakuza were still a thing back where she was from, although they only did basic thug things. The Rubberrobos were the ones who did the supervillain ‘take over the world’ stuff, and they were goofs. Although unlike these Mafia goons, they actually had a way to easily deal with medabots.

”Tch.” Juri scoffed defensively. ”That’s just how the real world works. The only reason that guy didn’t get killed by someone more ruthless was because he had my help. But he treated me like trash because he doesn’t live in a ‘serious’ world. It’s only a matter of time until someone else comes along and kills him for real.” Juri said.

”Someone who had spent a little time in darkness would have respected me.” Juri looked at her fingernails, making her way to the edge, and then dropping down to the nearest platform. ”Speakin’ of which. I’m gonna give Fortune a piece of my mind.”

”Pretty sure if someone is too ruthless, they end up without anyone helping them and then a hero comes and takes them out. Power of friendship is a real thing you know.” Blazermate said, shrugging since she knew about half of what she thought juri was talking about..

”Why what happened? Did her puns get on your nerves?” Blazermate asked, not sure what was going on there.

”And yet here I am, walkin’ away from that idiot because he tried to treat me like dirt. This ain’t a hypothetical, robot.” Juri said.

As for Fortune... ”Hah. Yeah, right. Nah. She’s just another moron living in la la land. She was messing with me, swiping and sniping at me while I was trying to help the Boss. She thinks she’s so clever, but if she thought for even half a second she would realize pissing me off is a bad idea. Do you think it’s hard to stab your ally in the back? Because it really isn’t. If I wanted too, I could bide my time and do the same thing to her, only I’d end her permanently.” Juri kicked the ground on the last word.

”What does she think I’m gonna do with the money? We need the freakin’ money, robot. As much as we can get our grubby little paws on.”

”Not really? I mean I guess we do for cool items or something, but Susie is handling all that. Ask Sectonia and Ganondorf, or Jr., those guys seem to have a lot of really strong magic items on them they use a lot. I’ve even got a couple myself. This world is kinda more ike a video game trying to merge to be a real world instead of like, the actual real world. So thinking of it like that kinda helps a lot. Pretty sure you can find some item that just gives infinite money if you put your mind to it. I know a few areas where the money is literally just flying in the air waiting to be grabbed.” Blazermate said, not really sure how to handle this. Were these two fighting over MONEY of all things? Money that often just floated in the air in a lot of places? She’d need to hear Nadias side of the story, who knew she would stumble into this hot mess.

”God, you’re clueless. What do you mean, ‘not really’? Anything you have right now, you can have more of with money. If you’ve ever actually played a video game you’d know how many valuable items you can get with it. That’s why they put the coins in the game, bolts for brains.” Juri said. ”Now shut up about backsassing everything I say. I don’t wanna hear it.”

’Kay. We should head back to the base thing then. Oh, and I’ve gotta go pick up the action heroes autograph. He looks like someone I might know! Maybe? IDK.” Blazermate said, happy to go somewhere else. Juri was going to be a weird one to talk to.

”What? What are you talking about? Base thing? Action hero? Gimme a proper noun to work with here.” Juri said.

”Uh…” blazermate said, thinking. ”Rambo and the Avenger?” Blazermate said, shifting a bit sheepishly.

Juri knew what the Avenger was, but… ”Rambo? You saw Rambo walking around? You’ve seen the movie Rambo?”

”Yeah, that black ops guy that was around here somewhere. He looked like Rambo!” Blazermate said. ”He’d be super useful to have on the team too, if he’ll come.”

Juri stopped, looking around, and then lifted her hands indifferently before letting them slap limply against her thighs. ”Well, good luck finding him. I’m sick of this stupid place, so, I’m going to where Fortune is and then I’m splitting.” Juri continued downwards.

Blazermate shrugged too, and went off to look for Venom Snake. She thought to herself. ”Well shes abrasive. I don’t even think that ‘king of evil’ was that abrasive, and the title would make you assume that! Even if both of them were a giant turtle or a giant knight guy.”

---

Goldlewis may have stood out in a crowd, but what did that matter? To the Witch he was nothing more than another fool, another case of life wasted on a mind that did not deserve it. She could see it in his eyes, in the way they judged her without hesitation and painted her in colors of fear and revulsion. She hadn’t even laid a finger upon this man, but already he had decided she was too strange—too different—to ever be trusted.

It was nothing new to her. She’d faced stares like that ever since she was a child, sickly and friendless and brimming with inappropriate questions. Good little girls weren’t meant to wonder about how living things worked, or what happened to your body after you died. Good little girls should be reading their storybooks and reciting their prayers, so that they grew up to be good little wives. The young Witch had needed to go hunting for the answers all by herself, and in the pulled-apart guts of captured animals she uncovered more fascinating questions still.

With every year that passed after that, the strange girl grew steadily stranger. She ventured places she wasn’t meant to go, opened books she wasn’t meant to read, and learned things that nobody was ever meant to know. She became so strange that the good people of Oriath began to fear her, to lash out against her—first with mockery and condemnation, and then with fire. No doubt this Goldlewis was also a good person, and no doubt he’d just as readily cast her into the flames, if she didn’t do the same to him first.

So, that was to be their relationship. The Witch kept up her blank smile and listened closely to his tale, never showing a hint of surprise or apprehension. It all sounded rather convenient, actually: just kill seven underlings and then she could carry out some well-earned retribution. If anything, the extra steps would make this even more fun.

“Why don’t I come along, then? You won’t be disappointed.”

All together they left the city, partners in deicide, united only by their desire to bring this whole world crashing down. Another soon joined them, and the Witch greeted her with the usual eerie stare. Just how many of these Seekers were there? She could only hope that some of them fell in the battle against Galeem, or else it would be quite annoying to clean them all up afterwards.

Her irritation only increased when the woman promptly shot down her zombies. “Those were my servants, Sandalphon! Mine to raise, and mine to dispose of.” The tips of her hair rose up and floated in the air as she stalked towards the angel, her tone laced with poison. “Interfere with anything that belongs to me again, and I’ll have to teach you the consequences in person.” Now only a foot away from Sandalphon, she locked eyes with her and held her gaze for an uncomfortably long moment before turning away. Just because these people were useful to her for now, it didn’t mean she’d allow any slight against her to go unpunished. The others would do well to take note of that next time they had any qualms about her choice of assistants.

Fortunately for everyone, the sorceress didn’t linger on the matter for long. She was more interested in the Fulton device, which she examined with naked curiosity while she strapped it around herself. This is new. Though it bore vague semblance to a pack or parcel, she’d never seen any quite like it before. At some point in the future she’d have to ferret one away somewhere private, and puzzle it apart until she understood how it worked in its entirety. For the moment, at least, the other Seekers seemed to think it safe enough to rely on, so she’d trust that it functioned as intended.

“Up we go…” She tugged her cord, and then clenched her teeth tight together as the earth shot away beneath her. Her stomach roiled, her vision began to fade away at the edges, but had it not been for the whipping winds and the sheer force of acceleration rendering it impossible she might have cackled with wild delight. To fly, and be free as a bird—to see the world splayed out in miniature underneath, like a toy she could break or rearrange at her pleasure. The Witch treasured the sensation for as long she possibly could before the rush overwhelmed her mind and forced her back into the dreamless dark.

---

She awoke alive, already a lucky thing. So many took life for granted, ignoring the gift that it truly was. The Witch breathed in deep as she came to her senses, and took in her new surroundings by degrees. Her new ‘friends’ were all here, along with that ignorant angel from before. None of them greatly interested her for the moment, though: it was the place that caught her attention, the walls and floors hewn from solid steel. The entire room vibrated softly with a barely contained power, and a glance out the window revealed a sight not too dissimilar from what she’d witnessed before: the earth at a distant remove, and the clouds all above and around her. The Seekers’ base was a castle in the sky, and for the first time the Witch found herself frankly impressed by the crew she’d chosen to join. With such might and resources at their command, they might truly have a shot at bringing down the Lord of Light, even without her generous assistance.

More than anything, she wanted it now for herself. What better throne to rule from than one that perched among the clouds, far beyond the reach of the benighted masses below?

All for a later time, once the present situation was dealt with. In the moment, she kept herself cool and impassive, and directed her attention to the chart of the sky-castle’s innards. Many of the names held tantalizing fragments of meaning, but by and large she couldn’t make much sense of it all. No matter: if they saw fit to let her roam here as she pleased, then she would exploit that privilege for all it was worth. Without another word to Grimm or any of the other unfortunates in the Deployment Bay, she slipped off through the entrance to the engine room, following her intuition towards the thrumming source of the Avenger’s tremendous power.

When the Witch stepped through the aperture, the angular, metallic confines of the airship's halls opened up into a chamber of unanticipated size, like a cavern at the end of an underground tunnel. Its true bottom, carpeted in dark mechanical miscellanea and clearly not meant for human traffic, lay a dozen or so feet below the entrance, but the platform that extended before her served as the room's functional floor. Before anything else, though, the newcomer was obliged to take in the Engine Room's namesake: a colossal, three-floor contraption of smooth, rounded metal and bulbous, reinforced glass, housing a suspension of luminous, bubbling fluids that surrounded various mechanisms within that twisted and turned in inexplicable patterns. With no pistons, turbines, magnets, or crankshafts in sight, this was a marvelous feat of engineering so far beyond the modern man as to be utterly alien, which in a very literal sense, it was.

For a scion of a medieval era, of course, it might as well be magical. The yellow-green glow emanated from its tanks, the strangely sonorous hum, and the subtle but bizarre smell given off by the engine did little to dissuade this impression. From its exterior ran a number of cables and trusses, stretched out with the lethal beauty of a spider's web. Though it did not beat, there could be no doubt that this fantastical construct was the Avenger's heart, the source of the power to defy gravitational law.

Indeed, she’d never seen thaumaturgy quite like this, though the structure wasn’t so unfamiliar to the Witch as one might at first assume. Even in her time, magi and madmen had combined science with nightmare to forge metal creations of horrifying potency… For now this vast engine remained beyond her comprehension, but with sufficient time and study it might not have to remain that way.

After a moment of staring wonderment, she moved on. In the eerie glow of the engine lay two workstations, one at either end of the chamber. Closer to the entrance the Witch found a square formation of sophisticated machines, arranged like the standing stones of some archaic ritual circle. This electronic perimeter almost completely enclosed the actual work zone, where a pair of strange inventors were fiddling with an elaborate prototype device.

One looked like an aged human, albeit with bizarre proportions. Short and squat, with a head almost as big as his torso and a spiky white beard that reached his knees, he tinkered with deliberate confidence, making him look like the one in charge. In sharp contrast, his understudy appeared to be an egg-shaped creature, only a few feet in height and wearing denim overalls over a coat of short, stripy brown fur. While his body featured only stubby, underdeveloped limbs, the four-fingered wings that extended from his back offered the reach and dexterity his actual arms lacked. Ruddy brown eyes with no whites peered out from his neckless, noseless head, absorbing every motion made by the hands of the older engineer.

Perhaps fortunately, they were so fixated on the task at hand that they had yet to notice the Witch. The same could not be said, however, for the third person nearby. Though shaped and dressed like a girl of around fifteen years, with a spiky ponytail of lavender hair and big orange eyes, the bevy of artificial materials clearly visible in her construction -particularly her limbs- outed her as an automaton. She lounged against the railing just outside of the research station, tapping away at a handheld device until movement caught her eyes.

"Oh, hi!" The robot girl lowered her phone as her sensors adjusted. "Poppi not seen you before. You new? Well, welcome to Avenger. Poppi is Poppi. What your name?"

The Witch regarded the animate creature as one might observe a particularly interesting rock. “Nobody ever really cared what my name was,” she said slowly, “so I didn’t see a point in remembering it. And I won’t remember yours, either.” She walked past the chirping automaton like it wasn’t even there, and approached close enough to the bearded engineer that he’d have no choice but to acknowledge her.

“Take a look. You should be able to tell what I am, yes?” She gazed down upon him coldly, with one narrow black eyebrow slightly raised. “That’ll do for introductions. Next, you’re going to tell me all about this place and how it works.”

The Mercenary awaited a response, yet none was given as the blue robot had already begun to collect the scattered coins en masse; soon swooping down to deliver them to her after such blatant disrespect by the Mafia Boss. By then, however, the Mercenary had turned away; pocketing the handful of collected currency as he surveyed the area behind him. The rows of theater seats had been turned, flipped, strewn about in the rows closest to the skirmish on the stage- the Mafia Boss would have to find someone else to clean up that mess. The double doors of the theater were wide open now, no doubt the result of the Mafia goons as they carried their captive away to a prison cell. His ocean blue eye narrowing in focus, the Mercenary leapt off the theater stage and onto the incline of carpet as he began to walk up the incline toward the exit; tossing the polearm from his back into the scattered row of seats to his right. He still wanted answers. That suited man that tried to usurp the Mafia Boss from his control over the city had to have organized the ships' arrival. The devastation and chaos was all to his advantage- slipping off to the tower in order to make his fight against the distracted Boss much easier.

As the Mercenary neared the theater exit, the faint sounds of a scuffle reached his ears. Rustling fabric, quick whips of movement followed by heavy impacts and staccato grunts- then the slam of a gate. Had the Mafia exacted their punishment on the man before he was imprisoned? The Mercenary quickened his pace as he reached his right hand down to draw his .45 back into his grip; forgoing his tactical knife as he swiveled around the doorway and brought his handgun to bear. Miliseconds of movement had the Mercenary see a wisp of a shadow exit out the smashed casino doors, with the door to the left of the casino tables left wide open. The Mercenary gritted his teeth as he broke into a run, sparing a glance toward the side room as he saw the two identical Mafia men unceremoniously locked into the holding cell. The bastard had enough fight in him to make an escape. The Mercenary broke into a run once more, moving past the destroyed casino doors and back to the outer rooftop. That cannon was a one-way trip, and the only way down now was a leap of faith- at least to the guy desperate enough to make a break for it. The Mercenary peered over the edge as he saw the man land on top of a glass roof of an indoor pool just as it shattered underneath his feet; shimmering with luminescent pearl waves that the moonlight cast onto the pool now dazzled by the fractals of crystal pane. It was a fifty foot drop at his estimate- well within survivability provided he stick the landing.

He was certain the man was unaware he was being followed- all too harried in making his escape to consider the possibility. He wasn't going to let him escape again. Backing up a few paces, the Mercenary slunk into a crouch; bracing his knees as he rolled his shoulders and secured his pistol to its holster once more. With a sharp exhale, the horned soldier broke into a dead sprint as he reached the peak of the roof in just a few strides- propelling himself off in his downward arc as he fell. With the shimmering blue hue of water fast upon him, the Mercenary straightened his legs, crossed his arms over his chest and held his breath as he torpedoed into the pool below; shutting his eyes and breathing outward as he kicked his legs and broke through the surface. As he scrambled to gain purchase along the lip of the pool, the blistering sting of chlorine mixing with open wounds invigorated his adrenaline as crimson rivulets ran down his head, cheeks, lips, chin and nose where splintered crystalline shards had licked open his weathered skin. Pulling himself up and over to the side of the pool, the Mercenary quickly stood to his feet as he briefly surveyed the area before turning his attention to the water and moving toward the entrance to the pool. He was determined to stop the man's exit, or give chase if he had already left the area as well.

In almost no time at all, the pier for the harbor area had erupted into chaos. Wrestlers from the Battle Royal Rumble had dropped here in relatively fewer numbers compared to other parts of Mafia Town, allowing the pier to avoid a lot of the mess it created. But now it became the epicenter of a literal sea monster attack. Half great white shark, half giant octopus - Lusca rampaged across the pier. It swung and writhed its massive tentacles, occasionally fired blasts of colorful ink, all in the hopes of catching what it considered to be prey in order to devour them.

And then there was Tianyou Zhao and Captain Falcon. Having bolted out of Mabuchi’s storehouse mere moments after the monster came exploding out from it - the intrepid pair found themselves on a mad dash toward the inland of Mafia Town. If they could get far enough from the water, then Lusca wouldn’t be able to keep chasing them. And chase them, it did. In fact, even as a variety of pirates - who had been milling around loading and unloading their vessels up to now - drew weapons and employed their various seafaring tactics to bring down the beast, the beast in question still largely kept its focus on the fleeing pair that was Zhao and Falcon. A more perceptive sort of observer might even suspect that this was deliberate, as if someone had literally sicced the monster on them like the owner of a pit bull siccing their dog on intruders. Of course, nobody in this situation had the time to really observe such a thing, given the frantic chaos playing out right now.

Unfortunately, the actions of the pirates did little to expedite Falcon’s and Zhao’s retreat. If anything, them now having to dodge and weave through pirates charging back toward the sea monster made it harder for them to keep up their sprint, instead forcing them both to slow their pace slightly so they could keep themselves from barrelling straight into people. And there were also occasions where Lusca managed to get close enough to enclose its tentacles around their front, forcing them to briefly join the fight long enough to get the tentacles out of the way and resume their hectic retreat. There wasn’t much Falcon’s fists could really do in these situations, as simply punching and kicking the tentacles didn’t seem particularly effective. Zhao at least had a curved broadsword called a dao that he had brought with him, and that at least was somewhat effective at slicing at the tentacles obstructing their escape.

But with one more fiery strike, Cap was at least able to land a Falcon Punch on Lusca’s body causing it to stagger backward briefly like it had inside the storehouse. And just like before, he and Zhao wasted no time in using that opportunity to resume their dash toward the pier’s exit. And this time they were in luck, thanks to there being a crowd of pirates also choosing to capitalize on the opportunity to wail on the sea monster with everything they had. But the duo just kept running until they were off the pier and back onto the main streets of Mafia Town, choosing not to stick around to see if the pirates were successful.

”I’m… hah… sure they’ve got it handled. Right?” Captain Falcon managed to comment between deep inhalations for breath. Meanwhile, Zhao was equally out of breath.

“Y-yeah.” he agreed between raspy breaths, “They’ve totally got it covered.” Then he added, “Besides, we’ve got our own fish to- HOLY SHIT!” He suddenly shouted at the end, pointing up toward the disc that he knew served as the Mafia’s HQ.

Zhao’s interrupting shout caught Falcon by surprise and he jerked his gaze toward where the ex-mafia boss was pointing. For just a moment, he caught a glimpse of something plummeting down from the disc above and it made him wonder. ”Was that…?”

“A person?” Zhao finished the thought. “Hard to tell, could’ve been. If there’s fighting going on up there then I guess it’s possible someone might’ve been thrown off.”

”If it is a person, maybe they can give us some answers about Mabuchi?”

“Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Let’s go after ‘em, Falcon-kun” And with this, both took off on another sprint, this time toward where they saw the figure plummeting down from the disc.



It was an indoor swimming pool that the figure had fallen down onto. At least, Zhao was pretty sure of it anyway. He and Captain Falcon came sprinting toward the building, where already a crowd was beginning to gather because of the commotion caused by the figure’s fall. And as the two of them got a bit closer, they spotted a familiar figure in a white suit, subdued by a stranger in military clothes with a gun. Zhao had no idea who this was, and just assumed it was someone working for the Mafia of Cooks. Maybe if he explained who Mabuchi was to him, they’d let him question his old right hand man.

“Wait!” Zhao shouted once they were both in earshot. “Whatever this guy’s trying to pull on you, let me be the one to deal with him.”

Mabuchi’s skin whitened like a ghost when he heard the familiar voice of his former boss and friend. “Z-Zhao?” He sounded like he wasn’t sure if he should be relieved or afraid.

“Yeah, you dipshit.” Zhao spat, “Did you really think you were gonna pull something like this and I wouldn’t find out about it?”

“Grr.” Mabuchi growled, “What would YOU know about it?”

But the stranger looked strikingly familiar to Falcon. Had he really been here in town all this time without him realizing it? He supposed it wouldn’t be too shocking, given the man’s specialty in stealth and staying unseen. ”We know plenty.” Falcon said in response to Mabuchi, holding up the ledger that he and Zhao found in the desk at the storehouse.

“Where did you get that?” Mabuchi demanded.

“From your hideout.” Zhao said. “Yokohama Trading Company? Really? The same exact shit you pulled back in Ijincho? Seriously, Mabuchi, how stupid do you think I am?”

”We can tell you about his little scheme.” Falcon assured Snake, ”He’s been contacting someone called Consul 𝙸 - they’re the ones that sent that cargo ship.”

“Right, and he was just about to explain the details.” Zhao said before shooting a cold and threatening glare at Mabuch, “Weren’t you, Mabuchi-kun?”

Mabuchi scowled, but after some hesitation decided to talk. “It started with the attacks on Limsa Lominscuttle Town.” He said. “I observed them and thought I could take over the cargo ship myself, so I led a boarding party. How hard could it be to take on some wrestlers? Or so we thought. But they had someone calling the shots. Called herself Consul 𝙸 - I never learned her real name. She basically beats us single-handed, but instead of killing me, I got an offer instead. She let me redirect the Battle Royale Rumble’s next destination, and I picked Mafia Town.”

“And let me guess.” Zhao cut in. “You figured you could use the chaos to take out the boss and take over his operations? Well, doesn’t that sound familiar…?”

“At least I’m trying to make a name for myself!” Mabuchi snapped back, “Look at you, Zhao! You used to be one of the most feared men in the underworld, and now you’re what, some lowlife chef?”

“You just don’t get it do you?” Zhao asked. “Do you even know why I exiled you instead of lopping your head off on the spot back then? It’s because I was hoping you’d realize there could be more to life than all this crap. He helped me figure that out, so I thought I could help you figure it out too.”

“What?” Mabuchi asked, “You mean that worthless bum of a Yakuza? You really did let him make you get soft, didn’t you?”

“What can I say?” Zhao answered with a shrug, “He has that effect on people, I guess.”

Falcon had stayed quiet. Instead he stole occasional glances at the Mercenary. The more the bounty hunter looked at him, the more convinced he was that this had to be the same man he knew. The real question was how to get him to agree to leave with the Seekers? Telling him about Galeem wasn’t going to work. If he’d been working for the Mafia here, then maybe Falcon could frame it as a job offer?

”Snake?” Falcon suddenly asked him, knowing that it would look odd that a stranger knew his name without asking for it. ”As you just heard, this guy’s just a pawn of someone much bigger and badder.” said Cap in reference to the Consul. ”She’s part of a larger organization called Moebius. The organization I work with has been trying to put a stop to their schemes and operations, and well… we could certainly use someone with expertise like yours.” Falcon explained, while intentionally keeping quiet about subjects like Galeem.

”Our team here in Mafia Town was laying low and looking for new leads. But it’s pretty obvious we’re going to have to go back on the move again. And yes, I know your name. And if you agree to come with us, I can promise you I’ll make it make sense for you once we’ve been picked up by our ship. What do you say?” Falcon asked, holding out his hand expecting the deal to be sealed with a handshake.

So... they had found 2 new members to their 'party, although Roland wasn't sure how he'd get along with them at the moment. Grimm was far too... detached from the looks of it. Meanwhile the witch was another one of those necromancer types that Roland had only bad experiences with. The witch living up to the name for someone modeling themselves after truly ancient storybooks. Although that being said, considering the abnormalities he had seen at the library, this witch was far... less horrifying if it wasn't for the zombies. Speaking of zombies, as Sandalphon appeared and got everyone ready to take their fultons, she wiped out the witch's zombies without much care or effort, something the other had issues with until they were mesmerized by the technology in front of them.

"First time seeing this thing? Well, if something this low tech has you interested, then I think the space ship will really surprise you." Roland said, making a jest at the Witch as she got onto her fulton and went up, up up. Goldweis and the others did as well, and so did Roland. This time he was going to try to stay conscious, something that would end up not coming to fruition as he also passed out with the insane gain in height coming all at once. He would awake as fast as he could though, still not sure what to make of the newcomers.

"So uh, for those who are new, welcome to the Avenger. Don't let it blow your minds." Roland said, with a bit of a gesture to the inside of the ship. "IF any of you need me, I'll be wandering around the ship. Paying a surprise bar tab..." Roland said, trailing off with annoyance before remembering something. "Oh, and don't cause any trouble. We've still got more people to pick up and some of them wont like it if things get messed up." Roland then made his way to pay off his bar tab before wandering around the Avenger, casually reading through the Book of George. From what he could tell, this was some creature made by a mega corp let loose upon not only the earth, but the galaxy at large? So basically a resident of the Outskirts in essence. A bit weird that this gorilla could travel through space though.

Roland found himself walking around a bit until he found himself looking down at the workshop area, the Witch messing with the engineers. Roland wasn't surprised this would be the first place she went, coming out of what looked like the ancient ages herself. He just casually watched the kerfuffle in front of him, half out of boredom looking for entertainment, half a bit weary of the would be necromancer girl. Between Jae-heon, Elena, the sweepers, and the various abnormalities hes seen, he gained a bit of a paranoia about using the dead.

It didn't take Therion very long to work his way back towards Bancho Sushi. The fighting had pulled him from the coast inland towards the center of Mafia Town, but he was quick and the streets were nearly clear. For good measure he struck down any lingering wrestlers that hadn't already taken each other out, ending up with a small handful of what he assumed were lesser spirits. Along with one emerald, which was a random and pleasant surprise that he didn't immediately connect to the scythes he wielded. He pocketed all of it.

His intuition that hadn't find most of the other Seekers back where they'd started the night paid off as he approached the building. When he appeared in front of them, he looked as though he'd gotten away with avoiding the fight all together.

He nodded back to Geralt, coming to stand just outside of the restaurant with his tail swishing behind him. He got the news from the witcher that the Avenger was coming to pick them up soon. It was about time, Therion thought.

Geralt, Rika, Junior... he assumed if the three of them were helping clean the place up that Ms. Fortune was in there somewhere too. One of his ears swiveled back to the city at large to listen out for the missing members. Blazermate and Juri would probably come back at some point, and if Captain Falcon didn't happen upon them naturally then Blazermate could probably fly around and find him before they left. Or the three in the balloon, as they soon abandoned rebuilding and went to get a bird's eye view. Which left Therion to kind of awkwardly loiter around the restaurant, though not so close that he could be easily roped into helping out. He waited on the island rather than the dock.

He didn't have any loose ends to tie up in town as far as he knew. Technically he'd paid... or bribed, or whatever, Nemma to collect more information, but even if he never returned to Mafia Town he didn't think it was a bad decision. It wasn't like he needed a ton of pons anyway. In fact he still had a surplus from sneaking in and stealing a haul from the local mafia that he'd have to find something to do with. Well, whatever. A task for another time. For now it was getting off this island before Consul 𝙸 came back.



With herself, Roland, Zenkichi, and Goldlewis already in one place, getting picked up by the Avenger was just a matter of getting to a good rendezvous point. And as they walked, Goldlewis dutifully took care of giving their two latest recruits some information about how the world Galeem had made actually worked. That the grim ringmaster and the eerie witch tagged along with them was... a good thing, all things considered. More firepower couldn't hurt, and they still had space on the flying ship. Primrose got the feeling that their magic was darker than most (especially the Witch, whose blatant necromancy would have been a forbidden art in the dancer's home world), but the two of them would be far from the first suspicious, sort of ominous people that had joined the Seekers over the last couple of weeks. Maybe some proper introductions could be made after they got aboard the Avenger. In the mean time Primrose brought up the rear of the group (keeping closer to them than to the zombies), content with listening to the refresher of the Seekers' mission and taking in the city one last time before they left it.

Although Primrose had liked Meridi-at-Han and their stay in it, Sandalphon appearing in a beam of light to collect the Seekers was a welcome sight. It meant they could proceed with making progress on their ultimate goal. She did have to suppress a sigh when she took one of the fultons though. If only there was a way to get up to the Avenger that was easier on the body.

Sandalphon's destruction of the zombies happened while Primrose was preparing to ascend, but the dancer didn't flinch at the sudden shots going off. I suspected as much, she thought. Not many would tolerate the undead walking among them, especially an angel. Primrose looked over at said angel afterward, and the angry witch threatening her. The Witch's response to what she considered her property's disposal was telling - this woman had an ego, or at the very least some sort of complex. Until the Witch backed down Primrose watched them both, her green eyes dark. Just another abrasive personality to be added to the group, she hoped, and not a problem. Though who could say how long it would be before the friction of those personalities rubbing against each other became a spark.

One unpleasant trip into the sky later and the Seekers that had been in Meridi-at-Han, both new and old, were aboard the Lost Numbers' mobile base of operations. Primrose picked herself up and dusted herself off, the small metal coins sewn into her dancing outfit jingling gently as she did. She didn't feel at all uncomfortable in the more exposed clothes, but it would be nice to slip back into her tailor made dress. After she did that she might return here, to the Deployment Bay. It was possible the other Seekers had run into trouble tonight as well and might need a hand before extracting, in which case the dancer would be right there. Otherwise, she'd be one of the first to greet the others as they returned.

Everyone else began to disperse then. Too used to people watching by now not to study them, Primrose noted who'd slunk off and who took their time as she made her own way out. She also watched Zenkichi leave with Sandalphon - she hadn't missed the angel's subtle expression when she'd seen him initially, and on the flip side Zenkichi wasn't subtle at all. They were cute, she thought, even if she was sure that any romance kindled in this world was doomed to fail in more ways than one. She shook her head slightly to dispel the latter thought and tucked the tidbit of information away in her brain. Maybe she'd let it slip on another day of relaxation with the gossip-inclined queen of Floralia, if it didn't become obvious to everyone on board before then. In the mean time Primrose headed towards the room she shared with Midna in the living quarters.

Midna, untargeted by Absalom’s projectiles, charged after him upon the back of her Beast Legion, drawing and charging her long tree spear and her gunlance as she approached. Then, once there, she stayed nimble, letting her invisible steed focus on dodging unpredictably while she focused on hitting their foe. She delivered swift lighting strikes calling jabs with her two handed spear, unintentionally fishing for debuff procs in the process due to the enchantments on her blade, while using her final hand not holding onto her mount to pepper the foe with gunlance shots. Her irritations meant that the moment after Absalom flung globules at the fliers, he turned toward her with a heavy stomp that sent a conical tentacle wave her way, then followed up with a big step forward and overhead punch, forcing her steed to back off to keep her safe.

That wasn’t going to help the others much, given they were all trying to not be cut down or corrupted. Edward had an especially bad time of this, the last dreadnought only managing to make an evasive action via backwards wing flap thanks to his new shield’s stat boosts, and even then he got clipped by the tip of the massive ax. He landed, stumbling from the gash on his leg, and had to use another flap of his new wings to stop himself from falling.

It had been long enough, however, that his single striker was off cooldown, and so the feather-staff appeared next to him a moment later, sealing his wound as well as either healing or overhealing Pit and Roxas in the process depending on their status. For Roxas this was kind of complicated. That big slash got him good, effectively having scored a critical hit on him. And even with the healing he got afterward, he was still winded and dazed from the experience.

Edelgard was forced to abandon her aerial mount as tentacles of Corruption appeared, dropping from it with haste, her landing unmistakable due to the thundering boom that heralded it. ”Midna! Call back your beast before the Corruption swallows it!” Her call to action was simple and to-the-point, Edelgard coming in on a right angle to Midna’s own angle of attack, Aymr replacing her much less impressive short axes. The False Hero’s Relic lashed out, and Edelgard even opted to utilize Flickering Flower against Absalom, though she doubted it would be able to keep such an oppressive foe down long.

”Wait no it doesn’t work like that-” Midna started to call back, but it was too late and Edelgard was already dropping, while the princess’s steed was stuck unable to do so to get into a portal. The flygon thrashed in the bindings, claws swiping at the bindings as Midna raced forwards, leapt off of her Beast Legion, and onto the rising snout of her wolfos that launched her up into the air. Her shadow hand reached up as she rose, grabbed the ceiling, and hauled her the rest of the way up so she could hack and slash at the corrupting tendrils till they broke and her heavily wounded steed finally dropped down into the portal to home.

She could only hope that the corrupting influence of her own home would be able to smother that of the corruption attempting to claim her beast as its own.

Absalom's slash came too suddenly for Pit to even think about trying to swapping to his shields for, and though he boldly raised his bow in an attempt to parry the massive axe the size and speed of it overwhelmed him. Rather than let the momentum of the weapon's swing launch him into the wall of the cathedral car, Pit gave up pushing against it and ducked head first, saving himself from getting his whole head taken off by letting the bracers on his arms take the brunt of the damage. The axe passed over him, and Pit was left with bruised and bleeding arms - which Edward's striker was quick to fix up. After a quick appreciative look sent the man's way, Pit turned his attention back to the champion of corruption.

"If you think a few globs of nastiness are enough to beat us, think again!" he said. With the tainted minions out of the picture, Pit was free to let a bunch of Wild Shots loose. Infusing his arrows with elemental light once more, Pit pulled the bowstring back hard and fired with a flourish. The arrow surged forward and immediately peeled apart, splitting into three separate streaks of light that whizzed towards Absalom. Very quickly the air was filled with projectiles once again, even more than before, and each light that split off struck with the same force as a whole arrow.

Sectonia wasn’t much one to be hit by such nasty globes of energy, but there wasn’t a whole lot she could do to dodge them with their amount, her size, and the confined fighting area. So instead she summoned her pipe shield, giving herself and every ally around her a shield that’d block magically inclined damage, including explosives which shielded her from this barrage of globules.

With a rumble of anger, Absalom turned to offer his response: another corruption stake, grown from his palm and ready to launch. At that moment, though, Pit’s fellow angel came to his aid. Unable to dodge such a broad salvo of plague bombs, Uriel had been forced to spend some of her energy on light darts to prematurely detonate the pustules sent her way. Such an approach created a momentary deluge of foul yellow-black ichor, but after giving it a wide berth, the Commander of the Hellguard zoomed in. She dealt a lunging overhead slash to Absalom’s right shoulder, then a quick horizontal cut aimed at her helmet. Grunting, he whirled around with a deadly close-range cleave, his grip high on Absolution’s shaft. Uriel lofted over it with a beat of her wings, then delivered a radiant cross slash that provoked an upward swing. Like an airborne ballerina she nimbly side-stepped it, then unleashed her swordplay, but the angel’s speed and focus had confined her inside a pattern.

She could not act in time to dodge one of Absalom’s tentacles as it lashed down and slapped her to the ground, allowing the Nephilim to punt her across the room. When he pounded the butt of his axe on the ground, tendrils burst up around Uriel to grab hold of her, even as her blade burned them, prompting Edward (who’d been backing off anyway) to rush over and hack at the tendrils with his own blade. With that pest out of the picture, Absalom then pivoted to shoot off his stake at Pit, and anchor anyone in the area to the ground.

Thanks to Uriel's quick action, Pit had more time to prepare for the attack they'd both seen coming. Once the stake left Absalom's hand and shot toward him, Pit quickly summoned his Guardian Orbitars. The shields manifested in front of Pit to protect him (and anyone behind him) from the impact - but the size of the projectile and the angle of trajectory made it too tough to bounce back. The stake struck the Orbitars and then crashed hard into the ground right nearby anyway, triggering a spread of tendrils once it broke apart. The corrupted protrusions snaked towards Pit, grasping at him just as quickly as he went about cutting them down.

Sectonia took the angel’s distraction to fire her own attacks at the creature, throwing rings of light that began to fill the area with large discuss rings that had slightly random flight patterns, but were aimed at and would also try to recorrect themselves to hit their main foe. The sheer amount of these rings, even if they missed, would cause damage to the corruption as well.

Edelgard took advantage of Absalom’s focus on Uriel to take her fair share of swings at the monster, using her shield to take the brunt of a strike from the butt of Absolution, teeth gritted.

“Hrrgh!” Angered by Edelgard’s impunity, the former Nephilim turned and extended his arm while she still had her guard up. Rather than bring down his crystalline knuckles in a punch, however, he grabbed the slab of metal in his claws. “Grrrrah!” He lifted her off her feet and hurled her across the room in Sectonia’s general direction. The fact that most of his opponents had yet to take a hit had the Avatar of Chaos aglow with aureolin rage. He brought the shaft of his axe down to send a handful of screwworm clusters rippling across the ground, each writhing mass homing in on a grounded opponent like Uriel and Edward. Then he leaped, reaching out with his tentacles to grab onto and swing from the ceiling’s stone arches. With his axe held in both hands, one above and below the horizontally-turned blade, he dropped into the group of Seekers with all his weight behind the massive guillotine.

With Edward’s help to free her and a heavy dose of corruption inbound, Uriel tore loose from her restraints, then grabbed hold of the man’s arm in order to lift him into the air beyond the screwworms’ reach, and not a moment too soon. The fearsome sight of Absalom on his way over convinced her to abandon offense and make a break for it. Pumping her luminous wings, the angel surged toward the other side of the arena to avoid his withering assault, and still the streaks of corruption from the impact of his axeblade nearly clipped her wings.

They did clip the much poorer flier that was Edward however, sending him crashing down in a barely controlled landing, his sword clattering away from him as he tumbled across the ground. After several rolls the bloodied and bruised Dreadnought came to a stop with a groan, before attempting to heave himself back onto his feet. Uriel helped him both rise and stabilize, her firm-but-not-rough grip a steady reassurance.

On the other side of the arena, Pit had gotten himself free of the tendrils threatening him just in time to respond to Absalom's heavy drop, axe first. He'd already learned that he couldn't contend with the weight Absalom was putting behind his weapon directly, so Pit leapt up high once more, getting up and away from the monstrous champion's attack while he could. The angel spread his wings wide, hanging in the air for a moment so that he could pull his bowstring back and fire another instant-Overload arrow at Absalom as he came down.

As Absalom crashed down, Midna followed him, performing her own ceiling descent. The princess summoned her wolfos, sized up, beneath her, and landed on its back to avoid breaking her legs on landing, and then had it rear charge Absalom. The towering beast pounced on the fallen nephilim, claws slashing at his tendrils back, before the princess leapt off of it. As the wolfos retreated to the twilight realm via portal she came down, smashing an overhead shadow fist down onto her foe while cursing his name. Then she blasted electrified sand at it to cover her retreat as she yanked her astral chain and pulled herself back to her Beast Legion. Her onslaught left the juggernaut doubled over, unable to follow up on his guillotine plunge. One of his four tentacles lay wriggling on the ground, severed by the Best Legion’s fury, but a new shoot had already begun to crop up from the lesion on his back.

Meanwhile Roxas finally managed to shake off being dazed and snapped out of it. When he did he saw a whole slew of things happening at once that he frankly didn’t have enough time to fully register. The most immediate threat was diving out of the way of an incoming mass charging at him on the ground and dispelling whatever it was with a couple good Keyblade strokes. After that? He finally noticed that the ground was less corrupt than it was a few moments ago. At least that meant he didn’t keep playing hopscotch across virtual cubes. And this was in time for him to dive out of the way of getting crushed by Absalom’s crashing attack before watching Midna and her wolfos go for an attack.

Roxas used his StepSword to get up close and bypass any attempt to swat him down before he unleashed a flurry of Keyblade strikes on Absalom. He summoned some virtual cubes at his feet and used them as a launching point to push himself aside in the hopes of dodging what he anticipated would be an angry axe swing and also got off some pot shots with his RockGun as he went tumbling back onto the ground. But now was when he realized that Edelgard had been thrown away a fair distance and got a cheeky little idea. Roxas summoned one of his newer Strikers - Kayano, with the intention of using her power to swap his position with that of Edelgard. What he didn’t realize was that doing this while he himself was so close to the enemy, it would instead shift all his allies to the frontlines while shifting him backward. But with the added bonus of buffing all of their attacks in the process.

This was, frankly, exactly where Edward did not want to be dragged too, to the point he’d have assumed it was enemy action where it was not for the added power coursing through his veins. Sadly he was not in a particularly great situation to exploit this, wounded and disarmed as he was, so instead he acted to aid in the other’s seizing of this opportunity by casting Designate Target upon Absalom.

A blood red aura surrounded the foe, briefly making sure that every strike would be as devastating as a flanking one, and aiding the accuracy of his allies for a bit longer than that. Add that to the way their relentless pressure had left Absalom covered in glowing golden cracks on his armor (not to mention on fire) he was more than satisfied with his contribution to the coming clash. He then went a step further and added one more, that one being getting out of the way of his allies by retreating towards the nearby entrance of the chamber as fast as his wounds would let him.

Luckily he had people to help cover his retreat. Suddenly being pushed up close to Absalom came as a surprise to Pit, especially since he'd been sticking to ranged attacks the entire time so far, but after a brief moment of confusion (and his nose rankling at the proximity to the source of corruption) he used the opportunity to get into melee. With the Palutena Bow separated into halves, Pit went right in with dual blades swinging. So far everyone else that had gotten up close hadn't suffered any major corruption, which emboldened the angelic captain to hold nothing back. He targeted Absalom's physical body, seeing as the tentacles and other masses of corruption on him seemed to grow right back, putting himself front and center so that anyone that wanted to back off hopefully could as he cut deep into the corrupted flesh.

Pit’s fellow angel was of similar mind. Though she didn’t expect and couldn’t explain the vacuum effect that pulled her forward, Uriel made the split-second decision to roll with it rather than fight it, and thanks to Shadow Walker plus Designate Target the angels’ efforts were rewarded. They both landed a flurry of slashes, criss-crossing Absalom’s skin with scars that welled up with ichorous putrescence. He soon rounded on them with a heavy swing, but the two were in the zone. Pit went high, zipping above the curve of Absolution and digging his blades in the champion of corruption's shoulder, carving cover the top and swinging himself around to Absalom's other side to avoid the axe before dealing with the nest of tendrils that found him on his back. Uriel flapped backward and threw a handful of holy darts, her mana reserves getting low, and after they blew up across her foe’s torso she charged in for a risky thrust into one of the eyes of Absalom’s chest. Her blade only pierced a foot or so deep, but it was enough to leave the Avatar of Chaos enraged. Uriel dodged backward again to escape his reprisal, only for his unexpected follow up -a slam that caused long tentacles to sprout up from the ground all around him- to clip her and knock her down.

“Augh…” The angel quickly retreated to assess the damage. No open wounds that could be infected, it looked like, so luck was still on her side. Uriel turned her attention to the battle itself, noting that despite a number of hits from everyone, Absalom still had plenty of fight in him. That tracked, as far as she could tell; his strength and corruptive potential demanded that everyone fight him cautiously. At the same time, though, caution wouldn’t win the day. Her allies only need to mess up once or twice apiece, and Absalom could probably endure until they did. Once the dominos began to fall, there would be no stopping them. The team needed another angle.

Uriel also noted the damage to the arena. By now the floor had been roughed up like a tilled field thanks to all the heavy impacts, magical explosions, and burrowing corruption. The ceiling was in a rough shape too, having strained to support Absalom’s weight. It was easy to forget in the heat of the moment, but this battle was still on a train, and its natural gyration as it moved put the damaged stonework under more stress. In some places it looked like a mycelium of corruption was all that held the dark cathedral together, and it was easy to imagine the locomotive shaking itself to pieces. Maybe, Uriel reasoned, the team could expedite that process.

“Keep fighting!” she called out, taking wing. “I have a plan. When next Palutena speaks, get off the train by any means possible!” So saying, she used the last of her mana to bombard a dilapidated window with darts, clearing the corruption long enough that the angel could slip through and into the sky.

”I’ll inform the troops!” Edward called to the others before he exited the arena. They were somewhat lacking in transport options at the moment after all, and so were going to need the feather’s wings to evacuate.

”Is she mad?” Midna asked, predicting her plan. Still, it wasn’t like they were going to have much choice in the matter, so she started sprinting around Absalom one way while her Beast Legion went the other, aiming to once again bind him so he’d have difficulty chasing after them.

In the same vein, Pit was working to cleave through Absalom's tentacle limbs to try and keep them small enough that they couldn't snag people out of the air as easily. Of course with the tentacles themselves snapping back and forth to lash at him and Absalom himself still moving to strike everyone down, he couldn't stay there as long as he liked. Eventually after cutting them down to size as much as he could, one of them slapped him back down to the ground. Ugh! The corruption felt so gross. He hopped back up onto his feet quickly, glancing at the opening Uriel had left through.

Do you have something up your sleeve, Lady Palutena?

You'll see. For now, follow Uriel's lead.

That was enough for him. He trusted Uriel, and even more so the Goddess of Light, so if their vague plan included getting out of the train at the signal then that's what he'd do. Hopefully whatever Lady Palutena did would wipe Absalom out for good.

"Just do what she says!" Pit called out for any that might be confused or incredulous, putting on his best authoritative captain voice. He took that moment to catch his breath, then raised his swords and dove back into the battle in earnest.

In an instant, the Witch’s dismissively aloof reply wiped the welcoming cordiality off of Poppi’s face. Her brows lifted and her lips pursed as if to say ah, that’s how it is, but of course her new acquaintance had already redirected her attention elsewhere. “Good luck with that,” the artificial blade replied, her tone lackadaisical. She turned off her phone with a tap of a button, pocketed it, and pushed off the server she’d been leaning against to follow behind the Witch as she approached the engineers. “Nopon speech mode dictate that Poppi speak in third person, so friend have plenty chances for name to sink in.” She came to a stop with her arms crossed while the Witch got the others’ attention, wondering what this surly stranger was doing here.

James Shirogane looked up from his project the moment the Witch drew close enough to disturb his work. His round green goggles gave him an air of wide-eyed surprise, though behind the lenses his expression was a mix of wariness and incredulity. Even if this work-in-progress Shirogane Drive 2.0 wasn’t far along enough to be dangerous right now, the components were delicate and unshielded, so any amount of blundering could lead to major setbacks. Why in the world would she impose on him like this? Her question caught him off guard, too. Was she some sort of big shot? That couldn’t possibly be the case; not even a shut-in like him could go a week aboard the Avenger and not learn who’s who among the Lost Numbers.

With that possibility scratched off, Shirogane could only speculate. “One o’ them magicians, I reckon?” He spoke with a southern twang like Goldlewis did, though his voice was wheezy and tremulous compared to the veteran’s firm baritone. After skipping past introductions, the Witch requested -or more accurately, demanded- a total explanation about ‘this place’ and how it functioned. For a moment Shirogane looked excited, pleased by the youngster’s eager curiosity and appetite for learning, but his enthusiasm quickly gave way to a puzzled look perfectly accentuated by his question mark-shaped plume of hair. “Now hold up a sec, missy. You mean my workstation here, the Engine Room, or the Avenger itself? ‘Cause if it ain’t the first one, well, I’m afraid you’re plumb outta luck. Everythin’ under the hood in this here airship’s elerium-based nanotech, reverse-engineered from a space-farin’ society at least on par with GEATHJERK, an’ as much as I’d like to pull it apart piece by piece to see what makes it tick, the Lost Numbers don’t want me doin’ anythin’ that’d put the ship outta commission. We stop movin’, and Moebius’ll be on us like hounds on a hamhock!”

“That why we work on coupling to interface with Avenger system without interfere, meh.” Shirogane’s understudy spoke in a boyish chirp, his dialect marked by frequent omissions and verbal tics. Despite his cute, harmless appearance and mannerisms, eye contact from him was oddly intense. “Who are you, anyway?”

“She told Poppi that she forget name,” his companion piped up from behind the Witch.

That took the Nopon by surprise, prompting him to flap his wings. “Mehmeh? Forget name? If friend cannot remember basic thing like name, how expect to remember advanced aerospatial science?”

“Maybe she just bad with names, but good at other stuff. Like Tora with social cues,” Poppi shrugged, an amused smile on her face. Squinting at the witch, she adopted a sagacious look with her thumb and forefinger on her chin. “If Poppi had to guess, witchypon look like a ‘Martha’.”

Excited to rope the newcomer into the team, Tora jumped up and down. “Ooh, Mar-Mar for short!” After a couple bounces he settled down, his hands perched on his hips with his wings rested around his neck. He turned up his nose, eyes closed. “If witchypon garner enough Tora respect to earn doublename, that is! Right, Jim-Jim?” He turned to Shirogane.

“Hm? Oh, uh, you betcha, kid.” The old inventor chuckled, then snapped his fingers as a lightbulb went off over his head. “Oh! Tell ya hwhat, missy. While I reckon I couldn’t tell ya how these alien doodads worked even if I knew myself, I know a fellow inquisitive mind when I see one. How ‘bout I hook ya up with a gizmo that’ll give ya access to the sum total of all human knowledge, right in your pocket?” He looked over at Tora. “Kid, mind givin’ her yer phone?”

Tora looked worried all of a sudden, sweat beading on his brow. “Meh? Tora…phone? Haha, um, Tora not…not have it at moment. Must be back in room, meh…”

Poppi pulled the device she’d been using earlier from her pocket. “Here is.” When she went to fork it over to the Witch, however, her Masterpon broke out in a panic.

“Waitwaitwait!” Tora flapped his wings. He bounced over and addressed her in an urgent whisper, much too loud to keep what he said a secret. ”Delete search history first!"

Groaning, Shirogane rubbed his head. “I knew givin’ him internet access was a mistake.” He shook his head and cleared his throat. “Ahem. While they’re doin’ that, lemme give ya the rundown. That phone’ll letcha use the Inter-knot, an infinite web of interconnected websites where people chat, play games, and store all kinds o’ information. Chances are you’ll be able to find whatever you wanna know, though it’ll probably take some gettin’ used to. Happy huntin’!”

Once Tora and Poppi successfully deleted the Nopon’s search history, the two presented the Witch with the phone, opening up a new horizon to a bottomless abyss of information in which the sorceress could lose herself forever.

---

Elsewhere in the ship, the other new recruit from Meridi-at-han had wandered continuously since his arrival. Grimm walked its halls, gently running his claws along the sheer metal walls, acclimating himself to the muted pitch and yaw of the aerial vessel as much as the unfamiliar material beneath his pointed feet. A silent and often unobserved shadow, he peeked into every room he found, understanding little but observing everything.

Anomalous magical currents, more familiar to him than any of the ship’s advanced technology, drew him to the Mysticenter where he watched the young mage Mona at her divination pool. For a couple minutes he pored over the myriad elemental research tables that surrounded the Mysticenter’s spellcraft station, intrigued by miniature shrines to Frost, Physics, Poison, Order, and of course, Fire. He ducked into the Spirit Chamber to witness the end of Deadman’s final experiment for the night, his scarlet eyes unblinking as he watched a lab rat’s chimeric transformation. He saw the priestly healer Eleison take stock of expired health potions in the Infirmary, and in the isolation Ward he observed the lone prisoner meditate in silence. He recoiled at the acrid chemical smells that wafted from the Laboratory where Dr. Amelia Yu sought better understanding, and when he reached the Training Center, he figured out enough to put the Combat Adjudicator through its paces. By the time he passed by the Comms Center, Zenkichi was passing through laden with pastries and coffee mugs, so he swept to the side to make way. For a moment his gaze lingered on him and Sandalphon together, but by the time either might look his way, the phantom was gone.

Eventually the lone wanderer reached an unlabeled common room. Its lights were dimmed to not disturb any sleepers in the adjoining dormitories, but not everyone had retired for the night just yet. In the open area, three little girls of five or six years appeared to be playing a game of tag, both with one another and a big, white-furred Great Pyrenees. All three children had tan skin, dark green hair with different streaks of yellow, and rabbit ears, though that was where their similarities ended. The quiet one in a blue dress had long hair and ears that hung down, while the ears of the giggly white-dressed one with a ponytail stood straight up, and the mischievous girl in yellow had short hair beneath ears bent at different angles. They took turns chasing and running from one another and the dog, who played with remarkable gentleness despite his large size. Soon after Grimm inserted himself into the shadows, however, the girls’ companion seemed to take notice. He turned toward Grimm’s corner, no longer panting, and lowered his head with hackles raised. The kids seemed to sense his distress and quieted down, staring into the darkness.

In reply, Grimm carefully opened his cloak. Out flew the Grimmchild, which fluttered over toward the children. They gasped and clung together, alarmed, with the girl in yellow going as far as to grab and throw a soda can, but the Grimmchild kept a respectful distance. It fluttered around, doing twists and loops. The dog went after it, chasing it around and even jumping up to try and grab it in his jaws, but the insect would not be caught so easily. It wasn’t long before the delighted girls joined in the pursuit, chasing after the Grimmchild like they might a pretty butterfly. Once tensions eased, the game went on for a few more moments, Grimm watching silently all the while, until someone else stepped into the room. In an instant the Grimmchild darted beneath its father’s cloak, and Grimm’s scarlet eyes narrowed as he studied the newcomer. She appeared to be a woman in her mid-to-late thirties, with a stocky build, spiky black-and-yellow hair in a ponytail. She was dressed for bed in a tank top and shorts, and the moment the kids saw her they ran over. “Mommy, mommy! There was a big bug in here!” the girl in white told her, excited.

“A big bug?” The woman’s ruby-red eyes widened as she hugged her daughters close. She looked around the room, and Grimm shrank from her questing gaze. “Where’d it go? Are you girls okay?”

“Yeah!” The girl in yellow wore a big grin. “I wasn’t scared, so I threw a can at it! But it just wanted to play, so we played tag with it.”

The woman smiled, gathered her daughters, and lifted all three up at once. “Nice job, Soleil! Well, I’m glad you had fun. And if Caesar didn’t bark, it must’ve been alright. Good boy!” She lifted up a foot to scratch the dog’s chest, which he appreciated. “C’mon, let’s get to bed. Daddy’s waiting, and it’s gonna be a big day tomorrow.”

“You gonna get into more fights?” Soleil demanded, her excitement visible on her young face.

Laughing, her mom turned to head back to their room. “Hopefully not! That’s what all our new members are for, after all. But if anything happens, I’ll keep you three safe. Daddy too!”

Their conversation faded away as the woman closed the door behind her. After a quiet moment, Grimm departed, and the shadows were empty one more.

---

After the excitement of the rampage, the duel, and the Fulton-assisted ascent to the Avenger, Goldlewis wanted nothing more than to trudge to his chamber and nod off. But with an all-hands-on-deck operation scheduled for tomorrow morning, Goldlewis had a checklist of tasks to go through before he could retire for the night. At a leisurely pace he made his rounds, visiting various rooms to get his equipment inspected and tuned up to be ready for action. Grenades and consumables he could lay claim to just before deployment, but everything else needed to be one hundred percent operational well in advance. Though he didn’t know the details about the plan yet, he knew enough about the Dead Zone to know that tomorrow’s mission would be no ordinary battle. Being ready for anything was the job of being a Seeker, but this time the consequences of unreadiness would be dire indeed.

“Beached Things,” he muttered. He and the other Seekers had powerful enemies in Moebius and the Guardians, but few things actually scared a veteran soldier like Goldlewis. At least two things, however, did: the Transmission that emanated from the City That Never Was, and whatever it was that roamed the Dead Zone ever since that massive explosion about two weeks ago, visible from as far away from Midgar. Rumors about Project Rainshadow -and the problem it was meant to solve- traveled fast aboard the Avenger, but Goldlewis had been elsewhere for the past week, so he knew very little. He was anxious to find out more, but at this hour he couldn’t just meander around and grill whoever he came across. Instead he opted to mind his own business, and focus on steeling himself for tomorrow.

Once all his gear was in order, Goldlewis got changed in his room, donning a simple wifebeater and sweats. After that he spent a while stretching, incorporating a few of his old military drills into his routine. Some told him that getting his heart rate up before bed would make it hard to fall asleep, but he knew better than anyone that if he spent the last of his anxious energy, he’d be out the second he hit the pillow. Unfortunately, he couldn’t conk out just yet. It was getting close to ten o’clock, the scheduled arrival time for the Avenger over Mafia Town for pickup number two, so he figured he ought to be present. That left about five minutes before he’d need to head down, though, which was enough time to do something he’d been meaning to.

Goldlewis left the living quarters and sequestered himself in the Training Center, where he knew he’d be able to speak without disturbing anyone. Then he raised his fingers to his ear and summoned a magic circle, not the holy sigil characteristic of Sandalphon’s communication network, but something all his own. He seated himself on a fallen punching bag as the magic circle hummed, waiting until a familiar woman’s voice came through. “Hello?”

“Howdy, Gi.”

“Howdy yourself, old timer!” The guarded tone on the other end of the line turned friendly in an instant. “Wow, late call, huh? You’re up past your bedtime, gramps.”

Goldlewis shook his head with an exasperated smile. “Put a sock in it, Gi, I ain’t that old. Not yet, anyhow. You’re what, thirty? I’d have to be twenty years older to be your grandad.”

“Thirty!? Kill yourself.” Though Giovanna often sounded rude, she and Goldlewis had been friends long enough that he knew when she was joking. “So what’s up, why’d you call me? Feeling lonely?”

Leaning back, Goldlewis shrugged. “Nothin’. Just wanted to say hi, is all. Feels weird not seein’ ya round. After all the time we spent workin’ for Vernon, I swear the longest we’ve ever been separated is a weekend.”

“Y’know, you might be right, seeing as Midgar didn’t give us Labor Day or anything. What a rip.” Giovanna chuckled. “Well, it’s been fun on my end. We’ve been roughing it out here near the Satisfactory. Once we found tools that let us insta-build stuff, everyone started setting up their own little houses and factories, banding together, and squabbling over resources. It’s the wild west out here, and that Kanzuki girl thinks I oughta be helping her play sheriff.” She sighed. “We’ve mostly been fine, though. After living with the Ever Crisis for who-knows-how-long, everything we’re dealing with’s like a breath of fresh air. Plus, you can really see the night sky all the way out here. It’s pretty.” Goldlewis stared up into the ceiling, remembering how the stars looked from Meridi-at-han. The lull in the conversation continued until Giovanna filled the dead air. “What about you? Do anything fun lately.”

The veteran chuckled. “You could say that. I wound up in this city called Meridi-at-han, way out west of Midgar. Kinda reminded me of Zepp, but without all the black tech. Took a little gettin’ used to, but I ended up likin’ the place. Put Midgar to shame, that’s for damn sure.”

“Zepp, huh? Never been myself. How was the food?”

Goldlewis grinned, shaking his head. “Hoo, boy. The Hannish like their food spicy. You know I ain’t a big spice guy -just a big guy in general- but once I got the hang of it, it was real good.” He patted his stomach. “...Still, I could really go for a good ol’ fashioned double cheeseburger.”

“We’ll have to find a place and get one sometime, then. You, me, Vernon, Jessie. Just like old times, eh partner?”

With a grunt, Goldlewis stood up. “That’d be mighty fine. Gotta hold off for a little bit, though. Got a big mission tomorrow.”

“Don’t go dying on us then, old-timer.” Giovanna said it jokingly, but Goldlewis knew she meant it. “Uh oh, Karin’s coming. Catch you later.”

“Later.” The magic circle disappeared, and Goldlewis turned to head back down to Deployment.



The situation inside Bancho Sushi in the wake of the Battle Royal Rumble looked bad to begin with, but only after actually getting their hands dirty and digging into the heaps of debris could the Seekers really begin to get a grip on the havoc those wrestlers wreaked. In the face of such devastation, the cleanup crew could only find two things to be thankful for: the health of the staff, and the fact that the restaurant still floated at all. It was because of these dire circumstances, though, that Nadia Fortune felt more determined than ever to stay positive. She darted around the premises with a resolute smile on her face, cracking jokes and lending a hand wherever she could to disentangle, deconstruct, and dislodge the wreckage.

Neither she nor Bancho were paragons of physical strength, but the two made decent inroads at clearing the place out even before Geralt, Rika, Junior, and Dave returned. The portly diver seemed much more dismayed at the state of the place than Bancho did, somehow, but once changed he sallied forth with his precious loot stuffed in a cargo box to sell the giant Truck Hermit Crab Legs at the night market. With their manpower more than doubled, the cleanup crew made good progress, though in the midst of their laborious teamwork a sudden call from the Seekers’ intelligence officer made it clear that the eventful evening wasn’t over just yet.

After hearing from Sandalphon that the Avenger would be arriving in an hour Geralt relayed what he, Dave, and the Koopa Kids found, which filled in Nadia in the process. Even if all the wrestlers had tapped out, the spawn pads and Flame Clocks aboard Ɪ’s ship were a definite cause for concern, since they seemingly indicated that more foes could crop up at any time. The Seekers could theoretically sink it, but that would be difficult and time-consuming, and they still couldn’t do anything about the Flame Clock. The prospect of leaving the matter unresolved didn’t thrill Nadia, but there wasn’t much that she could do. Hopefully, the presence of the cargo ship here would mean that Limsa Lominscuttle Town could recover and launch a counter-offensive, especially if the Seekers tipped the Azure Navy off.

Once the call concluded, Nadia and the others continued their work. After twenty minutes or so Dave returned in good spirits, a heavy sack of pons over his shoulder. Even in the aftermath of the Battle Royal Rumble, it seemed, a treasure like the giant crab claws could fetch a high price. Unfortunately, it looked like the tidy sum Dave received wouldn’t be anywhere near enough to cover the repairs. Once cleared out, Bancho Sushi was little more than an elaborate raft, with only a handful of its assets salvageable or miraculously untouched.

While Dave and Bancho went over accounts, the roar of an outboard motor announced the arrival of Cobra aboard his motorboat. Evidently he’d managed to ride out the night’s proceedings unscathed, and with him came all the diving equipment used by Dave and Nadia to procure the restaurant’s fish. Just as dismayed as the others, he quickly came ashore to discuss what to do next. It wasn’t long before another boat showed up to check on Bancho Sushi as well, this one bearing the Blue Hole archeologist Dr. Bacon in his classic khaki explorer’s attire. He joined Cobra, Bancho, and Dave aboard the restaurant, his expressions of sympathy quickly giving way to excited reports about his recent findings as a way to make all the losses back.

Nadia stood aside as she watched the four argue, a sad smile on her face. During her time in Mafia Town, these four -as well as the operation’s tech expert, the eccentric recluse Duff- had all become her friends, all working to get this business off the ground in their own ways. They didn’t always see eye to eye, and seldom spent time together outside of work, but now that this disaster had brought them together she could see how much they all cared–not just about Bancho Sushi, but about one another. They weren’t the best or the brightest, and they certainly weren’t the most successful, but they were a team. In these men Nadia saw an inkling of the four Dagonians she’d been privileged to call family back in her Innsmouth days. That was why, despite this catastrophe, she knew they’d be alright. Even if the newest member of their little bunch had to say goodbye.

In the midst of their discussion, the feral approached. “Hey, guys,” she greeted them, getting their attention. “Sorry to cut in. I know it’s a bad time, buuuuut…I’ve got more bad news. Depending on how much you like me, of course.” She pursed her lips as she smiled. “I have to go soon.”

“Huh? Why?” Dave looked more aghast than anyone, his hands held up as if to say what gives? “The only way we’re gonna have enough cash to fix the place is if we catch and sell enough fish to get the restaurant running.” He grinned at her helplessly. “What, you’re gonna leave me to do it alone?”

Nadia put a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t need me! Sure, my harebrained schemes pay off once in a while, but you’re the dependable workhorse this place needs! Plus, with me gone, Bancho can save more by not paying me!”

Dave frowned. “He was paying you???

A fresh round of argument broke out among the five, everyone trying to convince someone else and not be convinced in the process. In all the hubbub, the motley crew didn’t notice another group approaching until a pointed female voice cut through the clamor.

“Wow, those rumblers really did a number on your restaurant, huh?” When she looked over, Nadia was taken aback to see one of the most infamous members of Mafia Town’s criminal underground just waltzing out in the open, the tattooed, Thompson-toting, two-tone rascal Rosanna. Seldom seen outside of Mafia HQ, especially with her counterpart Chrom, this woman held the distinction of being one of the few ‘actually dangerous’ people in the Mafia of Cooks, arguably more so than her own boss. But what was she doing here?

“What are you doing here?” Nadia asked. Like the others, she was immediately on guard.

Rosanna gave a disarming smile as she put a gloved hand on her hip, one brow upturned. “Oof, so cold. And here I was, just walking along, trying to figure out which sad sap deserved a little reimbursement from the Mafia for all their dutiful payments…”

With his brows furrowed, Dave looked incredulous. “Wait, you Mafia people are doing disaster relief? That stuff about protection money isn’t just a scam?”

Rolling her eyes, Rosanna smiled innocently. “I mean, of course it is. Duh! But hey, Bancho here’s just about our biggest earner. You guys have any idea how trendy sushi is nowadays? A lot more than Possum Pizza, that’s for sure, ugh!” She snapped her fingers, and two of her goons walked over with sacks of pons on their shoulders. “So, here’s a little something from the boss. Get yourselves up and running again nice and quickly now, ‘kay? Don’t keep us waiting!” She turned with a jaunty wave and sauntered off, her grunts following behind once they dumped the pons at Bancho’s feet.

After a moment. Nadia shrugged, a huge grin on her face. “Well, that’s kinda ominous, but all’s well that ends well, right? Talk about luck–did somebody wish u-’pon’ a star?”

Cobra stood up from examining the stacks. “Guys. We’ve got enough to rebuild the restaurant! Bancho Sushi’s back in business!”

“Well, it feels a little early to be saying that,” Bancho remarked. As the others celebrated, he glanced around at the Seekers, his gaze settling on Nadia. “If you’ve got to go, then go. But if you get the chance, please come again.”

Nadia shook the chef’s hand with a smile. “I will. You haven’t sush-een the last of me!”

By this time, the missing Seekers had trickled in from around the island. Captain Falcon, Therion, Blazermate, and of course, Juri all showed up, their rendezvous aided by Junior’s balloon trick. Falcon even brought a new face, scarred and grizzled enough to give even Geralt a run for his money. Just seconds after the last straggler showed up, and before any chewing-out could commence, a beam of light dropped from the sky to reveal Sandalphon, right on time. Freshly fed and caffeinated, the formally-dressed archangel looked as radiant as ever, even with bags under those odd eyes of hers. The light of her elaborate halo illuminated the faces of everyone present, as well as the satchel of Fulton devices in her hand. “Good evening, everyone,” she greeted the team, apparently in good spirits. “Please take and affix a Fulton device in preparation for ascendance. With haste, if at all possible. We have one more pickup schedule for tonight, and a long way to go.”

She held one out for Venom Snake in particular, choosing her words tactfully in light of his gleaming status. “Greetings. We are short on time, so forgive my abbreviated introduction, I am Sandalphon, dispatcher for the Seekers of Light. If you’re here to join our mission to save the world, please take this, pull it tight, and yank the cord. We can tell you everything once we’re safe.”

Nadia grabbed her Fulton and put it on eagerly, then cracked her neck and stretched her arms as if limbering up for a fight. “Okay, this time I’m gonna stay awake for sure. Not gonna pass out! Not gonna freak out! Just gonna power through it! G-force? More like-!”

A pink-and-black blur swept in front of her, and before Nadia knew what was happening, the ripcord on her Fulton had been pulled. Her jaw dropped as she stared at Juri in stunned silence, though only for a moment. “You stinky bitch! I wasn’t done hyping mys-AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaa_aaaaaaaaa…”

---

“....AAAAAH!” Nadia jolted awake mid-yell and found herself seated in a large, dark hangar full of sophisticated instrumentation and heavy-duty machinery. This could only be Deployment, deep in the belly of titanic aircraft known as the Avenger. And if she was here, safe and sound aboard the Lost Numbers’ mobile base, that could only mean… “Damn it. I passed out again.”

Worse still, most of the others had stirred from their stupors already. Most of them left of their own accord, but for the sake of the bearded newcomer, Sandalphon had positioned herself next to an elaborate map of the Avenger’s interior on the wall. “Welcome aboard.” For the second time that night, the archangel launched into her well-rehearsed orientation speech. Nadia picked herself up, made doubly sure that she still had all her parts, and jogged over. “This is the Avenger, our mobile base of operations. Think of it like a flying fortress. It comes equipped with various amenities, including living quarters, restrooms, a mess haul, and various workshops with different specialties. Please feel free to explore within reason and speak to the Lost Numbers, should you have any questions or concerns.”

“I have one,” the feral piped up. “Well, two. First off, ‘eye’ think we have, you know, a sl-eye-t issue here…” She tilted her head toward Snake, as if Sandalphon could have failed to notice the new recruit’s gleaming state. Sandalphon nodded slowly, trying not to feel patronized. “Second, could we somehow send a message to Limsa Lominscuttle Town? The ship that’s been attacking them is at Mafia Town, drifting over the Blue Hole. If those shipgirls can sink it, it might disappear the next time the Blue Hole regenerates!”

Sandalphon’s eyes became inverted triangles as she drafted the message. “Good thinking, Fortune. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks, Sandy. Say ‘halo’ to Zenkichi for me!” Nadia grinned at her as she turned to go. As late as it was, there was plenty to do aboard the Avenger before retiring for the night to her and Blazermate’s room. A visit to the Stolen Moments bar sounded pretty good. There was, however, one problem the feral didn’t account for: Juri.



In Skyworld, trains were not a common sight. Despite the futuristic weapons and armor utilized by Celia and Uriel’s Hellguard, technology throughout the autumnal realm remained locked at a Renaissance level. After all, what need had its denizens of light, when the Minor Erdtrees and its luminous leaves filled each night with serene resplendence? And what need had they of transportation, when their wings could carry them anywhere they needed? Any sufficiently stable sky islands within walkable distance from one another had long ago been connected with bridges of carved stone. Other landmasses tended to float around, dooming any inflexible attempts at connection to failure, and even if by some miracle each island in the airborne archipelago hung perfectly still, the cost of connecting new one by rail would be prohibitive.

All this meant that to the angels of Skyworld, the Infernal Train was a terrifying, eldritch entity, its form and function utterly beyond their imaginations. Larger than any living thing, and constantly in motion, yet composed of inanimate materials, and fashioned into a mockery of their own hallowed cathedrals. Then there was the matter of the corruption, making the mechanical monstrosity more horrible still. Few could look upon the infested construct and fathom that it merely contained the corruption’s source, rather than embodying it. Even then, however, Palutena’s forces did not lose heart. With courage and zeal they surged forth, scrubbing the train’s blackened exterior clean of ruinous horrors one incursion at a time. They didn’t need to understand their foe to know that it needed to be destroyed. To their commanders, though, there was one fact about the Infernal Train that became increasingly obvious as the battle wore on: that the path of its incessant charge seemed to be dictated by its tracks, the colossal, night-black rails that bore the carriages’ full weight as they trundled onward in perpetuity. And in that realization, the angels found their path to victory.

Once Uriel joined him in the sky overlooking the final island and confirmed that the Seekers were ready, Nathaniel gave the signal. Fodoquia, Ochlys, Raenys, and Sanatio were already in position, and in their arms they held not weapons, but holy hand grenades, the last of Palutena’s stock. Nathaniel had needed to choose their location quickly, but carefully. It would not do to send the source of the corruption careening down into the ocean far below, after all, where it could very well survive and proliferate across the entire planet. He’d settled on a spot atop the island itself, just after a tunnel from which the Infernal Train would emerge and before a relatively sharp turn among mountains of corruption-stained crystals. At his command, the angels pulled the cross-shaped pins and let their bombs rain down.

”HAAAAAAALLELUJIAH!”

BABABABABABABABOOM!

If anything, the ensuing blast proved to be a little excessive. As fast as the angels flew away, the aerial shockwave alone still sent them tumbling, and the whole island shook beneath the percussion of divinely inspired bombs. When the dust settled, a massive crater had been blown into the crystal fields, destroying untold amounts of corrupted matter along with the tracks and creating an enormous basin in the Infernal Train’s path. The detonation came not a moment too soon. A tremendous roar issued from within the island to herald the emergence of the Infernal Train.

”Now!” Palutena decreed.

Within the locomotive, the Seekers did everything they could to break out. They had only ten seconds to make their exit before the Infernal Train burst from the mouth of the tunnel in a miasma of toxic fumes, then hurtled off the warped, broken tracks and into the open air. As horrific as the sight was, few could find it within themselves to look away. Adrenaline pounded, and time seemed to stand still. Then, with an ungodly cacophony of crumbling stone and rending steel, joined by the hideous howl of the corruption itself, the Infernal Train crashed down into the crater made for it.

After what seemed like an eternity, a brawny arm of twisted flesh and crystal protrusions broke through the rumble. Slowly, groaning in pain, Absalom extricated himself. His enormous body was battered, one giant black and yellow bruise weeping corruption. Yet still he held tight to Absolution, even as he clambered atop the wreckage of his train. Within the rubble, many corrupted monsters stirred, fighting to regain the consciousness wrenched from them by the almighty impact. He witnessed angels flocking around the crash site, and the Seekers healing up for the final round. “Winged rats,” he rumbled, ichor dripping from his fangs. “Tremble in fear! For I still live!”

A smug snicker resounded through the sky. ”Not for long. Make your peace, Absalom. You’re as good as gone.”

“Hah…” The former Nephilim straightened up, hoisting his axe. His tentacles extended, writhing in anger. “Then from hell…I stab at thee!”

At that moment, something massive flew overhead, strong enough to part the clouds and kick up strong winds, even if the forces of light couldn’t see it. From the furrow left behind, however, a single object grew larger and larger, dark and shaped like a can, until it slammed down the ground not far from Absalom’s location. Its speed buried it in the ground, leaving only a lid visible, with a skull emblazoned on its surface. Then the lid popped off, and the pod’s inner mechanisms lifted a man to the surface. He was middle-aged, with white hair and scruffy stumble, and over a dark, half-shirt and pants he wore a long red coat.

“What…is this?” Absalom snarled.

Letting out a sigh of relief after the brief but rough ride, the newcomer ignored the Avatar of Chaos to pull out a set of three-piece nunchucks from beneath his coat. With countless eyes on him he unfolded the nunchucks and tossed them into the air, at which point the weapon transformed in a burst of light, breaking into three shapes. As they fell the motes resolved into three women with long white hair, dog ears, pointy devil tails, and black suit vests over blood-red shirts, identical except for the color of their eyes: fiery orange, cool blue, and shocking violet. The three grabbed onto the man as he opened his eyes, taking in the sunlit sky.

“Huh…the night’s even younger than I thought!” Demons hanging off him, Dante grinned at Absalom. “Guess we get to rock around the clock! Cerberus?” In a flash, the devil hunters transformed his maniacal helpers back into nunchucks that he took in hand, each third alight with a different element. Then he beckoned for the Seekers to join him. “Alright, let’s party!”

Absalom howled, and the final battle began.

”I really do not like this plan!” Midna yelled up at the heavens as her astral chain finished wrapping around Absalom briefly pinning him in place. Then flow motion leapt over a retaliatory strike and landed on the back of the Beast Legion, using it to rapidly retreat. It raced away from the foe with thunderous speed, but the question really was: to where? She dared not bring out the flygon after it had been ensnared by the corruption for so long, and without it, she was lacking in wings, which were somewhat needed to get off of this moving train without turning into paste on contact with the ground.

Fortunately, though the man had not, she was frank, contributed much to the fight itself, Edward did have his uses as a commander, as well as a fine set of lungs on him that let him holler ”This way! Egress and wings for the flightless!” loud enough for even the hearing impaired princess to comprehend, his voice echoing through the corridors of the train.

As the divine warning for them to break out came, Midna paused only to grab/offer lifts to people who needed them, and then went barreling through the corrupt halls of the infernal machine. There were, fortunately, none of the corrupt animated engines in her path, and the reason for this was laid clear by the spirits of both them and various angels who had fallen clearing the way acting as a breadcrumb trail towards an exit by which Edward was calling out a countdown.

”We’re leaving in five! Four! Three!”

On two, the princess burst into the room, and also into rays of sunlight streaming through a smashed open door of the train, blinding her at the worst moment. Yet the feathers, ever reliable and dutiful, were there to aid their sister of shadows. A familiar hand grabbed her shoulder and pulled her off of her intangible steed, and then another took her other arm, just in time for Edward to finish the count down with ”One! GO GO GO!”

Boots stamped and then wings flapped, and the open air rushed across her exposed ears as the surviving feather-sheilds of Midna and Edelgard’s squads leapt from the train, taking the twilight princess, and anyone else who needed lending wings, with them. Less than a breath after the last of them was clear, and the deafening sound of the train leaping from the tracks and crashing down into the pit overwhelmed them.

The angels, having just leapt off of a moving train, were carried by their momentum clear over the crash sight, and had to spend a good deal of time decelerating, following in the wake of the bows, staffs and swords who had already jumped. While doing this they banked around, eventually bringing them back around and down to land on the right hand side of the crater, just in time for Absalom to begin digging himself out of the rubble.

The feather-shields touched down and deposited their passengers even as the lighter angels fanned out behind them, which gave those that had flown with them a prime view of the condition of their enemy as he emerged.

”Even after all that?” Minda complained with a mix of horror and exasperation at the sight of Absalom’s survival, but the avatar of chaos’ moment of defiant resilience was rudely interrupted by a very welcome arrival. Dante’s appearance was especially so for Midna, who was still very thankful for the man bailing them out when Z had come to take them down, particularly because of the paralyzing panic that Consul had caused in her. As such, his appearance here and now to help with this incredibly durable foe was, in her eyes, very much ”Perfect timing from my favorite uninvited guest”

Edward meanwhile moved to execute a loose plan he’d coordinated among the angels while their foe was standing around shouting at the heavens or watching falling objects. His own questions about what in the astral sea had caused that wind, what the thing that had brought the reinforcements was, and who the man and the transforming women where could wait. Instead, he used the breath he’d saved on not asking questions to instead below one single simple command: ”Fire everything!”

In conjunction with this command he cast Designated Target on Absalom, and then as the arrows of the feather bows flew forth towards the blood aura marked foe, cocked his heavy magelock rifle. Supporting its barrel on his inner elbow while still wielding the shield in that arm’s hand, he breathed out, triggered the stabilization spell as he waited for the shower of delaying and photon arrows to slow and weaken the foe, before squeezing the trigger and unleashing a thunderous crack of pyromantic gunpowder which sent the enchanted musket ball hurtling towards the foe’s skull.

With the amount of debuffs (between Edward’s enchantments and the Bow’s own skills they had just stripped something close to 75% of their foes armor, as well as slow and ignite him) thrown out by this volley, Edward predicted it was highly likely that Absalom would retaliate. Thus with a shout of ”Fall back!” the bows started to retreat while their shield wielding comrades (Edward among them) moved to guard their rear.

Minda wasn’t going to stand idle and force them to take the brunt of their foes ire however, and so as soon as the barrage of friendly shots ended she was racing down the side of the crater towards him. Her Beast Legion, however, had not had to wait for the shots to finish falling, as the friendly projectiles had simply sailed right through it. Thus no sooner had Minda started her charge than her Legion finished its own, leaping and digging claws and fangs into the foe, at which point Midna tugged on the astral chain linking the two in conjunction with a flowmotion leapt forwards.

She went sailing directly towards the foe, propelled forward by Roxa’s technique and reeled in by the chain. As she flew she extended her shadow hand and then flicked it to the side to deliver a massive right hook with the magical limb before she herself slammed into the foe. In doing so she deflected her flight path such that she flew past rather than into him, the princess pivoting in the air and using 6 sets of claws digging into the ground to slow her low friction landing while the foe reeled.

”Eat that you rotten Chus jelly!”

Before he could recover, her two wolfos, one unmodified, the other warped by machinery, emerged from portals by her side and rushed in, both scaled up to a size that rivaled the towering nephilim. The unmodified one full body tackled the foe to keep him off balance, while the cybernetic one charged up and unleashed a powerful point blank lightning blast from its mechanical maw.

Then, finally, as they retreated to the twilight realm, Midna brought down the twilight volleybomb she’d been charging while her minions attacked, the orb large enough to engulf the foe detonating on contact with the ground.After that, however, with her veins burning from the amount of mana she’d just thrown out, she was forced to end her assault. Pulling on her astral chain once more, she dragged herself after and onto the back of her now retreating Beast Legion to get herself space to recover, and give others space to engage.

With Sandalphon having gone to greet the arrivals from Mafia Town, faring better with some food and caffeine in her, Zenkichi headed over to his and Akane's bunk in the living quarters and popped in with a quick knock on the bulkhead. "Hey, Akane." He greeted before stepping into their shared living space. He gave her a small wave, sitting down on his own bunk and stretching his legs. "Oooohhhhh man does it feel nice to get off my feet. Fighting giant monsters is tough work." Turning to Akane, he gestured for her to speak. "How've things been up here the last few days?" He asked.

Akane, still not entirely used to speaking casually with her father, shrugged. "They've been okay, I guess. Sandalphon-san has been really patient with me, explaining things about her world and this place. A world of magic and dragons and angels sounds really cool. Though air conditioning is nice, too..." She muttered the last part, getting a laugh from Zenkichi. "I'm...worried about going home, dad." She sighed, shaking her head. "I mean, I wanna go home, but...what happens to everybody if we do? The Lost Numbers, who only exist here, all the friends we make...they don't deserve to disappear." The look on his daughter's face gave Zenkichi the impression that she'd been thinking about it a lot.

"I wish I knew, Akane...but so far it looks like the people who knew the most about this place cracked under the pressure and became mass murderers to keep it running, so...I'm kind of scared to know more than I do already." He let out a sigh and shrugged. "Though, that's not really something I have a choice in if I'm gonna keep helping out here. We gotta learn more eventually if we wanna take out Galeem. I just hope things don't blow up in our faces..." That didn't seem to help Akane's mood, but she did force a small smile.

"Thanks for at least being honest with me, even if it was hard." She sighed herself, slumping a little. "Galeem's a big jerk." She pouted, prompting a chuckle from Zenkichi.

"Yeah, that he is, kiddo. It's kinda why we're trying so hard to undo all this, ya know?" Zenkichi joked back, leaning back to stretch his back out. "I'm gonna kick my feet up for a bit, then after we pick up everybody from Mafia Town, Sandalphon wants to go get checked out by the onboard doctor. Gonna go with to make sure she's alright. She's been feeling a little overwhelmed lately. In the meantime, wanna play a game or something?"

Akane shrugged, hopping off her bunk and nodding. "Sure. How about some Janken Po?" Akane's face turned a little devious, and Zenkichi gulped. Oh no, she's gonna kick my ass.

---

Juri cackled, watching Fortune disappear into the air. She saw an opportunity and she took it, her finger always on the trigger. Only now, after the fact, did she think she could spin that into a lesson for Fortune, for their later conversation. ”...Stinky. She’s the stray cat who just spent the last week up to her elbows in fish guts.” She said flippantly, to herself, leaning down to pick up her weird Fulton pack thing.

Juri wasn’t the sentimental type, so she didn’t bother looking over her shoulder at Mafia Town. And she tried to ignore that Fortune was more friendly with whats-her-face at Mafia Town during the thirty seconds they knew each other, compared to the entire week Juri was working with them. Even that robot, Blazermate, didn’t seem to like her.

What a waste of time. The world was full to bursting with idiots and clowns. Juri didn’t need, or want, any of them. She yanked the cord and watched the world be pulled away underneath her. For a little bit, up in the clouds, her life hanging by a literal thread, Juri had nothing to do but think. She hated this stupid balloon.

—

Juri hadn’t waited for Fortune directly, instead she had gone to her room and changed back into her cyberpunk bodysuit outfit she got when she merged with Sombra. So she ended up having to stalk the halls, looking for her. When she did, she skitted up behind her and swept around her shoulder, getting into her face, before pulling away.
”Enjoy the ride up? Consider it a point well made, Fortune. It’s easy to stab someone in the back.” She said, turning from her and looking at her nails. Juri thought about the throne room incident and scoffed, some anger stinging her insides once more before she shoved it down.

”I have to admit, I didn’t expect it, considering the only reason we have this little back-and-forth is because you think you’re better than me. So to try and get me killed while I’m trying to earn money for your goodie two-shoes world saving cause?” She shrugs and smirks. ”It’s impressive. But it does limit our options.” Her voice was cool and collected. In one hand, she held two bottles of beer from the bar.

”See, Fortune, I don’t think you meant to try and kill me. I just think you’re a soft little pussy cat who lives in la la land, with a desperate lack of foresight. So I’ll fill you in on something: I kill people for money.” She says, casually. ”You only ever saw me on vacation, shakin’ down chumps for their chump change, so I’ll let ya off easy for not knowin’ that.” Juri winked.

”I only bring it up because I can be very patient. I want you to imagine a future where I wait to do what you did. While you’re fightin’ zombies or robots or aliens or wizards or whatever the fuck, I want you to imagine trying to do it with me in the back of your head. Waiting to swoop in give you a little love tap. Ya really think you could stop me so easily? You couldn’t stop me from yankin’ yer little balloon cord. I’m not sayin’ this to brag, or to say I’m better than you. I’m just bein’ honest. I’m fast, Fortune, and patient. Even if you went for my throat right now, I could get away, hijack a pod and be outta this ship.” She wiggled her fingers, and digital particles wafted off of them.

”And then you’d have to think about me. Forever. Unless you holed up somewhere and abandoned this little crusade, which you could do if you wanted.” Juri laid out the facts, thinking them fairly indisputable.

”So those are two options, where we are now. Either you continue being a Seeker until I eventually find the right moment to strike and kill you, or you buzz off to work at a sushi restaurant somewhere.” She shrugged and made a face, like she found both choices undesirable.
Then she locked eyes with Fortune, her artificial eye glinting from underneath her asymmetrical bangs. ”The third option is the one where you grow a brain and realize that like it or not, we’re on the same team now. I do so enjoy our little back and forth, kitty. But there’s a difference fucking with someone and fucking them over. Stick to the first and you’ve got nothing to fear from me except maybe waking up to find a spider in your bed.” Juri grinned and leaned forward, the double entendre intentional. She extended her hand and flexed her fingers so that one bottle was bottom out toward Fortune, offering it to her.

So far, despite her well-deserved reputation for mouthing off, Nadia has ended up uncharacteristically tongue-tied. From the moment Juri showed her face and started dressing her down, the feral’s mind had been racing at a mile a minute, fueled by a mix of fresh emotion and fermented resentment bottled up over the course of their many encounters. But she was getting nowhere, just spinning the hamster wheels in her mind as she attempted to whip up a half-dozen half-formed retorts and annoying puns that never got past the conceptualization phase. Nadia sputtered and scoffed, trying to deflect and downplay while failing to find the perfect comeback.

Part of it was that she still felt conflicted. Her rivalry with Juri combined personal distaste with a sense of duty. At the end of the day Juri was a bully, and it was Nadia’s job to protect people who couldn't protect themselves. Of course, that didn't mean she couldn't have fun doing it, which was her modus operandi in general. This nutjob certainly deserved it. But she also didn't want to stoop to Juri’s level and take sadistic enjoyment in putting others down. It was a tough balance to strike, and everything coming from Juri’s mouth made her mad enough that it was hard to focus. As the martial artist wound down, though, Nadia finally got something to work with. She lifted her eyebrow at the proffered beer, then crossed her arms.

“You can't kill me,” she said flatly. “Look. I know you act like this tough-ass punk chick. But you get your kicks in the little leagues, and now you're in the majors. That shtick isn’t gonna fly.” Her ears lay flattened against her head, and her indelible smile was gone “You think I'm soft? That you know anything about pain?” Wearing an incredulous look, Nadia gave a slow shake of her head. “I've had my neck slashed. My lungs punctured. Last week, I got torn in half.” Nadia ran a finger along the huge scar on her bare midsection. Then she inserted her fingers into the scar tissue of her neck. “I was cut into pieces. By an actual assassin, by the way. I leave every battlefield coated in my blood because I pull myself apart to fight. And nowadays, I barely feel any of it. I. Can't. Die.”

Nadia gave Juri a wry smile. “So, y’know, you don't really scare me. You can drop that act–I bet it gets tiresome, anyway. But you're right about one thing.” Her grandstanding done, the feral sighed. “I went too far. I thought I'd give you a taste of your own medicine, but we’re not the same. We’ve both been fooling around, I guess. I may be stupid, but I’ve learned you’re not just some asshole. You’re an actual psycho. Now that I know that, this isn’t fun anymore.” She shrugged. “So forget it. I’m done playing with you. I’d say sorry if that meant anything to you. If you’re actually gonna stick around here, you’ve got villains and monsters you oughta be kicking instead of beggars and grandmas. So if you can’t help screwing over innocents anyway, I guess I’ll take responsibility. For dragging you into this mess.”

The feral stepped back, an uncommonly dejected look on her face. She couldn’t fathom what happened to Juri to make her such miserable person–then again, maybe she was just like this. Either way, Nadia wanted nothing more to do with her. Whether the two stayed away form one another or came to blows for real, though, was anyone’s guess. After a moment, Nadia reached into one of her pockets and pulled out the Free Lemonade. She extended the magically-filled pitcher as if to clink Juri’s beer glass in a toast. Her grin had resurfaced, her frustrated turmoil buried. “So here’s to new beginnings, hm?”

Juri scoffed, looking a little confused. She was growing frustrated with Fortune’s dour attitude, but when Fortune smiled and offered her lemonade, Juri relaxed. ”Sheesh.” She clinked their glasses together. Guess she’d keep the second beer for herself. ”You saw me as just some asshole and tried to get me killed by the mafia, and I’m the psycho who showed her true colors?” Juri teased. She popped a bottle open with her finger and took a sip.

”And if you wanna talk about how you know more about pain and loss than me or whatever, you probably shouldn’t follow it up by demonstrating how you’ve perfectly recovered from every injury you’ve ever had and can’t feel pain.” Juri giggled. Oh, maybe Fortune had her own little tragic backstory, but who didn’t? She’s acting like being able to come back from being chopped in half was a terrible curse, like she’s not looking at someone with a missing eyeball.

Though, maybe, considering how unobservant Fortune is, she just hadn’t noticed. Juri lifted her bangs and showed Fortune her green eyeball. ”This one’s an advanced prosthetic, in case ya didn’t know. Let’s just say I didn’t lose the original on purpose. So you know, boohoo for you that you can just pop yours back in.” Juri let her hair fall back into place.

Then she let out a breath, feeling like she had to make herself clear. ”One more thing, since you missed it: I wasn’t saying how I could easily kill you with my own bare hands and feet. I was just saying that I could come up behind you and push you five feet to the right and fuck you over while you’re distracted. Like you did to me. I mean, use your imagination, chick. If you’ve never had a situation where you’re one misstep away from death, then this Seeker shit isn’t the ‘major leagues’.” Juri used air quotes.

”I wasn’t trying to scare ya. I was just sayin’ if you wanna escalate things, you’re gonna have to worry about me full time. I assumed you’d know the difference between on and off-duty. You didn’t, so, here I am makin’ myself clear.” Juri leaned back and let herself flop against the wall. If Juri was constantly putting on an ‘act’, it looks like she had slipped out of it without noticing at some point between Fortune speaking, and Juri’s own rebuttal.

Drinking her lemonade while listening, Nadia maintained an expression of bemusement (achieved mostly through her eyebrows). For a little bit now, Juri had been talking like more of an actual person, and less of an insane caricature. To an extent she’d thought that the martial artist’s absurd attitude had to be a charade, especially given her own persona, but all of a sudden her theory seemed a lot more plausible. Of course, that didn’t mean Juri was being reasonable. For one, she was missing the point when Nadia brought up pain, but the feral really didn’t feel like explaining anything. Though, she couldn’t suppress her instinct to banter completely.

She put her pitcher away, then brought up her hands in mock resignation. “Okay, okay, I get it. I thought you could Han-dle things if I spiced up the action a little, but I was wrong, so consider me rebuked. I’ll find someone else to goof around with.” Nadia turned to go, no mirth on her face. Ever since Carnival Town, the two of them had butted heads time and time again, but through all the fights and arguments they’d never grown to respect one another. This not-so-friendly rivalry had run its course. “After all, with friends like mine, why would I need enemies?”

”Aw, don’t be such a sourpuss, goin’ and makin’ me feel lonely.” Juri smiled, still low-key. Relatively speaking, anyway.

”If I see you goofing around with someone else using your little claws, I might get jealous. Don’t be a stranger, kitty!” Juri called out to Fortune, and then pushed herself off the wall to head in a separate direction. She took another sip of her beer. Maybe Fortune would get it in time, maybe she wouldn’t. And maybe Juri would change her mind later. That was the best part about being Juri; she could do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. Hypocrisy was for suckers. Now she had to find something to kill the time on this ship.

Uriel and Lady Palutena's plan was absurd, reckless, and utter genius. To destroy the endless loop that this abominable carriage rode upon eternally and use it to destroy the Corruption at its source! It was, also, however, a plan that relied on her and these Seekers escaping the train intact, a feat made much more difficult by the fact that she could not fly. Still, when the call came from Lady Palutena, moments after a titanic explosion sounded ahead of the train, Edelgard used everything she had to run towards an exit.

It was a shame she was so slow. She followed Midna and Edward, even as their allies barrelled past her, the Emperor's armor wearing her down. Even with her prodigious strength, she could not keep up. She felt her stomach drop as the train entered freefall, and she lost her footing an instant before a hand reached out to her, then another, and she desperately reached out for them as Absalom raged below. The Feathershields pulled Edelgard from the carriage seconds before it crashed, their Lieutenant gasping for breath as fear for her fate gripped her.

"This damned, infernal machine!" She cried, sickening hatred tinging her words. "It is a blessing upon this world that we have destroyed it." As the angels lowered her into the crystal fields where the others had gathered after the Infernal Train's fall. She watched the wreckage with disdainful eyes, her breaths slowing as she calmed and a Featherstaff healed her wounds.

And then Absalom's arm burst free from the wreckage, and the Source of Corrpution showed its horrific face once more. Damnable lout. Still, it was her job to destroy Lady Palutena's enemies, and she took a step forwards as Aymr appeared, halting only as her Lady herself spoke out against Absalom. As something immense, and more unsettling, unseen, flew overhead, she frowned. "And what now?" When the Hellpod crashed into the crystal fields, Edelgard's hackles raised. The new combatant that emerged from the pod wasn't somebody she recognized, though Midna seemed to. That was enough for her, and Edelgard charged.

As Edward's command galvanized the heavenly host into action, Edelgard's own roaring advance heralded Ortho's return to the fray, and the angelic griffon slammed into Absalom like a missile, raking his claws across the demon's face and biting at his chest. Dante capitalized on the distraction, slamming his multi-elemental nunchucks into Absalom's face before kicking off him with a flip. Ortho leapt off, lifting himself into the air with powerful wingbeats as Absalom recovered, and Edelgard finally reached him. A fireball to the back caught Absalom as he reached out for Dante, and Aymr slammed into the back of his leg.

"Palutena's might fall upon you, beast!" The Empress roared as she unleashed Flickering Flower, following up immediately with a shield bash before carving her ax into the Source of Corruption. If she could keep him down, somebody else could go for the head. While her allies' maneuverability was impressive, her own power and bulk was nothing to overlook. Even when Absalom rose and punted Edelgard to send her away, the Empress merely took it on the shield and stared up derisively at him. "Not good enough."

"You pathetic WRETCH!!!" Absalom roared, the Nephilim grabbing Edelgard in one hand and lifting her up into the air as his tentacles reached around him to latch onto her. "I will relish the look on your friends' faces as they are forced to strike you down." Even as Corruption creeped across her armor, threatening to take her, Edelgard stared Absalom in the face.

"Made you...look." She smirked, pained from the crushing force.

The rest of the hour before the Avenger arrived was a big mix of hurry up and wait, as those at the rendezvous point sat around with the mild worry that the others would not show up on time for the deadline they were not aware of. Fortunately things in town were wrapped up, and the whole balloon debacle caused enough urgency that said worries were rather unfounded.

As such, it was up up and away for the seekers for another, much faster, balloon ride, up to the sky to then be grabbed by the Avenger, within who’s deployment bay the Seekers were deposited, be they conscious or unconscious. Be it thanks to youth or inhuman vigor, Rika and Jr were up and at em quick as can be, and they had only one thing in mind to do now they were back.

They scurried over to where Sandalphon was, and once she’d gotten through her into spiel, and Nadia had made her suggestion (to which Rika added ”It’s called unsinkable, so that might be tricky” without a hint of irony) they got their turn to ask the all important question:

”Have you heard anything about Papa yet? Or Peach or Kamek?”

The archangel lowered her head with a mournful look about her, then gingerly knelt down to place herself on Junior's level, the shaft of her gunstaff still supporting much of her weight. "I regret to inform you that we have been unable to locate Bowser, Kamek, or the new Consul P so far. High-altitude surface scans lack the necessary precision, and given the vastness of this continent, there is simply too much ground to cover. No insights from Mona's divination either, I'm afraid." She breathed in through her nose, then pursed her lips with a resigned exhalation. If the Seekers knew more about the Consuls' distribution across the World of Light, they could narrow the search down based on the patterns they'd observed, but they were still in the dark on entire regions. "The Lost Numbers' principal directive is the safekeeping of its people, so the scope of our deployment is limited, but our operatives remain vigilant. I believe that fate will reunite your family again soon."

Across the room there was actually a reunion taking place. Goldlewis and Primrose stood in the deployment bay waiting to greet the returning Seekers. Notably the dancer was a little more vocal in greeting her thief friends. Once people shook off the vertigo of the fulton extraction and began filtering out of the room, Primrose and Therion stuck around for a little catching up.

"Things went will, I trust?" Primrose started with. She stood with one hand on her hip, her eyes curious. She had always asked after Therion's less-than-legal activities since they'd known each other. At first Therion had been annoyed and confused by it, but eventually he figured that it was some weird way for her to express that she didn't have any issues with his profession. And now it was just habit.

It was also habit by now that he showed off, so he lifted the sack of pons up for her to get a better look at. "Do you think the Lost Numbers take donations?"

Therion wasn't the 'give to the poor' type of thief, but if they were going to keep clothing, feeding, and housing them during the campaign it was one way to pay them back. This ship had to stop sometimes to get food and supplies, didn't it? So maybe they could use the extra pons to buy stuff. At the very least it would free Therion of the hassle of exchanging it for leaves or zenny.

Their discussion was quiet and fast paced, shifting to the general areas they'd spent time in ("-quite the fetching city. You would like it-" "-small little island with some pretend gang-") to the new additions joining them ("-sharp eyed mercenary someone'll have to take care of-" "-a bug like those in the Under, and woman with dark arts-") to the attacks both locations had faced at the tail end of their stay ("-a trio of giant monsters-" "-sounds easier than a hundred half naked grapplers-").

It occurred to both of them that the near simultaneous attacks seemed suspicious, but there wasn't anything that could be done about it. By that time, they noted Sandalphon's departure after delivering the lack of news to Rika and Junior, and the disappointment on both of their faces.

"What about those two?"

Therion glanced over at the kids. He parsed Primrose's meaning - how were they holding up since Bowser's disappearance? The news had come as a shock to everyone when it was delivered. And though Therion wasn't great with kids... or people in general really, even he could tell that they had been struggling.

"About as well as you'd think," he said. They'd just lost their father and guardian after all.

"..."

It was hard seeing the Koopa kids' crestfallen faces when they'd asked after their missing loved ones. Primrose intimately knew the pain of losing a parent, so she knew it was even harder on them not to hear anything. If there was any silver lining it was that Bowser and Kamek were just gone for now, and not for good.

"We should check in on them," Primrose said, earning her a sideways look from her friend.

"We?" he asked. Someone probably should (in fact there should probably be some kind of counselor for most of the team), but besides fighting together through the Under and giving them some heist advice in Mafia Town, he didn't really have a ton of rapport with the kids. Primrose even less so, he figured, so he was surprised that she seemed to want to do it. Sure he felt for them, but being a couple of orphans didn't really qualify them to help someone else through (almost) the same thing, in his opinion. "I don't know."

Primrose tipped her head. She understood Therion's hesitation and wasn't going to press him. After another brief exchange of words, the dancer walked over to Rika and Bowser Jr.

"Good evening you two."

Rika blinked, having seemingly not really been paying attention to anything, and replied with an ”Oh. Hello?” and a little wave from down where she was sitting on the floor, using the one hand that her brother had gotten free from her gauntlets to do so. Said brother meanwhile just gave a half hearted grunt of a greeting, focusing more or less entirely on strapping the oversized mechanical hand to his sister's back, before moving on to help her get free from the other one as well.

Rika glanced back at him to see if that would be all he’d be offering, and then, after a moment, asked ”Do you… need something?” her in a curious tone, as if she was unsure why Primorse was talking to them at all.

They hadn’t exactly interacted very much otherwise after all.

"Not exactly. I just wanted to see how you both are faring," the dancer said. She was far from a therapist, but she'd done plenty of listening during her life. If she'd chosen to put on a front, no one would be able to tell she wasn't practiced at this... but spoke to them as herself, her voice a little stilted as she tried to pick the best words. "I know its hard with Bowser and Kamek being away from us right now, and I wasn't sure if you'd... had a chance to air things out."

”We’re fine” Jr insisted, only for Rika to ask ”We are?” seeming genuinely confused by this statement.

”We are. Papa will be fine, and back soon. He always is. It's always fine. Nothing and no one can take him down for good, so there’s nothing to worry about” Jr insisted, as if he could will this to be true purely by stating this was the case enough times ”Even Sandalphon said so and she sounds like she knows things and stuff”

”I mean you say that, but I still feel all... I dunno. Just… bad” Rika replied, seeming to not really be able to articulate her feelings at all.

Primrose agreed that the Koopa King and his advisor would return at some point, but she didn't voice it aloud. Instead she just listened, noting both Junior and Rika's reactions. The former was stubborn, frustrated, while the latter was more open with her newfound feelings. She struggled to give voice to them. Though Primrose still didn't quite understand Rika's circumstances, treating her more or less like a child along with her adoptive brother, she could still emphasize with her.

Unlike Sandalphon, Primrose didn't crouch to address them. She stood tall, crossing her arms over her chest. "That's normal," she said. "It is bad. It's alright to admit that."

She lowered her voice then, so that only the three of them would be able to hear her. "And it hurts, doesn't it? The truth is, while they're away from you it won't stop hurting." She then tried for a small smile. "But there are some ways to feel a little better in the meantime."

”It is?” Rika asked, in a strange mix of relief and dismay at this news, the oddness of it further compounded by her making a sound of frustration and disappointment before saying that ”this didn’t have a downside before”

Jr just grumbled non-commitly in response to all that as he finished up strapping Rika’s other gauntlet to her back, once again freeing her up to do things that weren't violence. She gave him a ”thanks” for this as she stood up and joined Primrose on her level (or at least closer to it than jr was) before asking ”So what can we do?”

"Different things work for different people, so you may have to try a few things, but..." Primrose let out a soft hum, calling up old memories long buried. Her father's words to her in the wake of her mother's passing, and the desperate advice her housekeepers had tried to give her before she left the manse following her father's death. "You'll have to let yourself feel those bad feelings in order to work through them. Don't run away from them, accept them. And let people help you."

Out of the two of them, Primrose felt that Junior would have the roughest time of that. Though she also felt like a bit of a hypocrite reciting these suggestions. She hadn't followed most of them. So she added in a few others; things she'd learned for herself or witnessed others doing.

"Give yourselves some goals. Not big ones, like what we're doing to stop Galeem. Small ones you can focus on..." she shifted one shoulder, coming up with some vague options that might appeal to either one of them. "Like learning something, or building something new."

Having a clear goal in mind definitely helped alleviate some of the suffocating pressure of loss, every little bit of progress a helpful distraction. Primrose herself was still working on her own goal, so close and yet farther away than ever now. She closed her eyes for a moment before giving one final piece of advice.

"And if it feels like your chest is full and tight, like everything's building up too much and you need to release the pressure... well, you could do it literally. Scream everything out."

”We’ve been doing that. We rebuilt Rika’s gauntlets and then have been learning how to fight together better to cover for Papa not being here to carry the team” Jr replied with an eye roll, but Rika did have a point when she said that ”I mean we were training and doing the fish stealing stuff. And before that we were doing all that tinkering in our room for a few days, but what are we gonna do now?”

Jr scratched behind a horn and then said ”Well I think I learned some stuff from that training, so i could give em another look” but again Rika had a counterpoint, which was ”Could we, ah, maybe not? For very long anyway. I didn’t really get to do much while you were working on all that tech stuff. Mafia town was better. Way way better”

”I… Oh…” Jr replied hesitantly, visibly worried for a moment before he snapped ”you should have said it was bad then!” and then looked like he regretted the sharpness of his tone immediately afterwards.

Fortunately Rika simply answered matter-of-factly with ”Well I mean I didn’t know it would be better because we hadn’t done it yet. But now we have and do stuff so…” and a shrug, before adding ”Oh, also we didn’t know about the screaming thing, maybe we can try that”

”Uh, I guess” her brother began, before immediately jumping in and adding ”but not here though” as Rika started to inhale deeply, resulting in her letting the breath out in a little ”Aw”

"Maybe try the training room," Primrose suggested for the screaming, amusement playing on her features. She moved to give Rika and Junior a wider berth in case they were to leave, placing her hands on her hips, as she was just about done with the impromptu wellness check. Honestly, it seemed like the two of them would be fine - so long as they stuck together.

”Huh. Yeah. Guess that’d work?” Jr replied to the suggestion, picking up his duffle bag, seeming ready to head out.

”Neat. Then let’s do that then” his sister replied, having a goal to strive for did indeed seem to have very much helped out the little lady, and soon enough they were on their way… Only for Rika to poke her head back in a moment later to say ”Oh, and thank you”

The dancer nodded at Rika and gave her a little wave with her fingers as the duo left. She waited another moment before exiting the room herself. She went in the direction of the living quarters, though she wasn't too surprised to find Therion waiting nearby. His ears stood upright on his head, clearly having listened in on the whole conversation. He didn't look caught out though, just glanced at Primrose and accompanied her down the hall.

When he heard the signal, Pit moved swiftly. Without any reservation he threw himself from the train, getting clear of the locomotive as it fell over itself once off of the track. Before Pit even had the chance to look around for a hand in the air, he found that he didn't need to - Palutena took hold of his wings, the Power of Flight spreading a soft blue glow from their base to the tips of his feathers.

He didn't suppress the toothy smile that came over his face as he flew down towards what was left of the infernal train. Once there expected Lady Palutena to set him on the ground, but she didn't, leaving him airborne and with an inkling that the battle wasn't won just yet. And yup, there it was - the last stand of a cornered villain: flagging, desperate, but still a force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately for Absalom, none of his foes were intimidated. If anything, the morale was as high as it had ever been, especially with the surprise appearance of a few familiar allies in Dante and Cerberus.

Eager to settle this and destroy the corruption plaguing Skyworld once and for all, Pit dismissed his bow in favor of the prismatic ball representative of his Breaking Palm. "Alright you big, ugly lug! Prepare to meet the light!"

There were a couple reasons that he'd swapped weapons, but the main was speed. As the battle began in earnest, everyone zeroed in on Absalom - with good reason. He was the most dangerous enemy on the battlefield, though not the only one. There were dozens or more corrupted monsters still alive, recovering, and clawing their way out of the wreckage. No one paid much attention to the little guys at times like this, and though Pit would have liked to get some early hits in on the Avatar of Chaos, he instead took it upon himself to clean up the area of dross... especially because Lady Palutena had yet to bring him any closer with the Power of Flight.

He thrust out his right arm, fingers splayed open wide, his left steadying it. The rainbow sigil stained onto his palm glowed bright, producing colorful ribbons of light that wound their way around his limb. He kicked things off with a "Bang!"

Light exploded out from his Palm, sending a mass of rays scattering out and raining down on the crater. It seemed to be all at once, but in actuality it was one streak of light at a time, fired instantly one after another. As they fell, they swerved in towards the rubble, homing in on every corrupted entity still moving. Though relatively weak individually, they were accurate and struck as quick as bullets. It didn't take more then a couple to finish off the weakened monsters that remained, so by the time Edward's squadron and Midna were finished with their opening gambit, the corruption in the area - save for its very champion - was completely decimated.

Now that none of the fighters were in danger from a nasty surprise while facing off against Absalom, it was time for Pit to get in on the real action too. Palutena was on the same wavelength, so she sent her angel soaring forward. Pit circled Absalom overhead, letting the Breaking Palm fade away so that he could re-summon the Palutena Bow. He pulled back the drawstring, holding his shots to charge until the light arrows conjured were large, powerful, and pulsing with violet electricity. When released they surged straight at its target, and thanks to the elemental powers currently at play they reacted violently on contact. Dante was going to town with his nunchucks, brutal and bold strikes that left a coating of frost on Absalom's rotten skin. The electro and cryo meeting released an icy blast and inflicted Superconduct, further extending the period of defense reduction that had been laid on the Avatar of Chaos previously. And when Edelgard's flames scorched Absalom, Pit's electro arrows struck soon after and caused a fiery explosion with Overloaded.

He rained light arrows upon Absalom up until he seized Edelgard in his grip, at which point the angel switched gears entirely.

"The only one we're striking down is you!" Pit retorted as he swooped in close. He closed the last bit of distance by quick-summoning his Uppderdash Arm, zooming right in for the hand holding Edelgard. With a strong uppercut from the hammer-like weapon, Absalom's already damaged crystalline fingers shattered. The corrupted nephilim howled in indignation while Pit brandished the bladed side of his bow, making sure to sever the tendrils that still held the Flame Emperor captive.

Unfortunately when she dropped, Pit couldn't make sure that she landed safely. The tentacles he'd dislodged tried swatting him from the air, though he was doing a valiant job of dodging them. Thoroughly annoyed with the captain of Palutena's Guard, Absalom decided he'd had enough and brought Absolution to bear, finally dealing with the angelic pest by batting him away with the broad side of the axe.

While Pit recovered from the painful tumble, Absalom reversed his swing - and flung the oozing masses of corruption he still had at the host of heroes. With the state Absalom was in, the pustules were even more unstable than usual. Some ruptured in mid-flight, spraying the immediate area around them while others landed around the crater ready to explode at any moment.