[center][h3]Watt in Blazes[/h3]
Lvl 14 Ms Fortune (117/140) and Lvl 9 Midna (202/100)
[b]Word Count: 4599[/b] (+5 exp) [/center]

At the sound of a somewhat familiar voice, the ever-impulsive Nadia risked a quick glance back. The multi-armed and armored figure she saw, silhouetted against the hollow’s blazing walls, belonged to someone she’d seen a few times since returning to the Avenger, but not much beyond that. Throughout all their adventures so far, the cat burglar and the Twilight Princess just so happened to have never trodden the same path. One had sailed the Deep Blue Seaside and delved into the depths of the Under, while the other had journeyed across the Sandswept Sky and surveyed the breadth of Midgar’s cityscape. Still, she’d caught a glimpse or two of Midna’s myriad magics and various summons (minus the invisible Beast Legion, of course) and knew that this princess could handle herself. When confronted by her comrade’s question, however, Nadia couldn’t help but wonder how her counterpart managed to mistake her for a cat monster four times her size. “Midna?”

Speaking of the Successor, a moment’s distraction was all she needed. With claws that blazed like boiling lava, the Successor leaped toward the two with bestial ferocity. “Whoa!” Nadia hopped backward, rolling up into a ball just in time to avoid a scathing slash that left a trail of flame in its wake. Given what looked like an opening, Nadia double jumped with a forward somersault, unfolding to deliver a double claw slash. The Successor recovered with deceptive speed, however, and dodged away with a backflip of her own. Nadia landed empty-handed and spotted the Successor wheeling around for a double lash with tails like flaming whips, and this time the catgirl chose aggression. She used Charge to shoot forward and through her opponent’s fiery spin as a bolt of lightning, but when she rematerialized Nadia dropped to one knee. “‘Ohm’ my gosh,” she groaned, her hand on the seared flesh of her midriff. She’d forgotten that Charge didn’t make her intangible, so she’d ended up trading with her foe. The Successor looked no worse for wear, which was annoying, but at least Nadia’s extraction of the Oceanid meant that she didn’t eat an explosive Vaporize reaction too. Now the Successor stood between the two Seekers, and having lost track of Nadia, her attention lay on Midna.

Said princess presently had a hand held protectively over her eyes, or rather over the blindfold which she somehow saw through. Despite this, she also held the fire drinking mace to her chest, electricity arcing across it with increasing intensity, and a rather battered looking tree spear in front of her defensively, but not aimed specifically at anything in particular, its tip roaming in a generally warding fashion. She had been cursing wordlessly as the lightshow went off, and now that there was a brief repose, proceeded to command the thin air to [color=Aquamarine]”Hit the big one!”[/color] 

In response a ripple in the air moved, and then from nowhere a pair of canine claw mark trails appeared, scything through the air, as something unseen leapt forward to deliver a pair of slashes at the Successor. 

While her invisible minion attacked, Midna herself backed off, still in a defensive pose, portals opening around her that started to dump sand out onto the floor for some reason. Her spear was however now pointed in the direction of the foe, following the feeling of an unseen chain tugging at the golden wrist guard she wore on a single one of her forearms.

The Successor’s attempt to bat aside Midna’s defensive spearpoint came to a halt when unseen fangs clamped down on a limb, provoking a reflexive twist away. When the beast failed to find the foe responsible, however, her molten gaze snapped back to the Twilight Princess, especially the bright blue legion core rippling and rattling within the Legatus unit on Midna’s arm. Though she didn’t understand the nature of Midna’s bestial partner at all, the Successor was clearly smart enough to identify her as the source of this invisible force. With a snarl, the Successor reached around with her right hand to seize the handle of a fiery longsword from her back. She swung it in a wide arc to knock the Treespear askew, then heaved forward on three legs for a huge overhead chop.

Fortunately, the blow to the spear was plenty to alert the princess to the fact she was under attack, and her darknut arose before her to block the blow during the time it took the Successor to wheel its blade around and wind up for the second strike.

“Forget about me?” In the brief moment that the Successor’s attention had been elsewhere, Nadia had summoned the Oceanid to bring to life a Hydro Mimic, this time a copycat of Nadia herself. “You’re just ass-king for it!” The two ferals attacked their foe’s flank at once, both with a double Cat Scratch claw slash. While the clone finished with a dropkick aimed at the side of the Successor’s knee, Nadia targeted the hip joint with an El Gato axe kick. The Successor replied by stowing her sword and planting that arm for a kick of her own. Her foot caught Nadia in the gut and launched her back, but her head popped off and into the grasp of the copycat. “Dunk me!” she ordered, and without further ado the mimic jumped up, passing the head beneath one leg on order to slam the head down on the Successor’s own.

By then, though, the Successor was already on the move. Nadia’s head bounced off the cat-beast’s back and the copycat took a Vaporize-inducing tail lash as the Successor leaped toward the wall behind Midna. She clung to the burning Qliphoth flesh long enough to hurl a handful of explosive stars down at Midna (which the darknut caught on its barrier) then sprang off the wall for a flying pounce onto Nadia’s headless body. Fiery claws lanced into her chest as the Successor pinned her down, eliciting a pained gasp from her detached head. Her own claws sank into the Successor’s arm, but it did not relent. “What are you, some kinda ninja tabby?” Nadia rolled her head over and began to skitter back to her body, her [url=https://i.imgur.com/6eLB8Ti.png]ears used as legs[/url]. “You’re about ‘tabi’ real sorry!” 

The beast legion beat her to it, the otherworldly entity leaping forwards, a single overhead claw slash swiping through the air towards the Successor. Then, using this assisted aim, the princess thrust the mace forward and sent a stream of lighting arching forwards towards the foe as well. All the while dumping more and more sand into the arena.

While the Beast Legion didn’t deal much damage, it did guide Midna’s hand as she blasted out electricity, a splash of yellow amidst the raging sea of orange. The powerful shock prompted the Successor to recoil, wrenching her claws loose from Nadia’s ribcage as she backed away. She [i]definitely[/i] felt that. With a spray of blood from her neck, Nadia’s head launched itself into her grasp. She placed it back on her shoulders, her other hand pressed against the cauterized wounds until she could pull the Ripening Heart from her pouch. By that time the Successor had already fired off a trio of heat-seeking embers at Midna, so Nadia was forced to backdash twice before she could take a second to heal.

“Yeesh. Talk about a claws for concern.” When the Successor drew her sword and slashed, Nadia dove over it, rolled, and rose with one leg transformed into a white tiger’s to deliver a spinning kick to the Successor’s middle. “Hah, just ribbin’ ya!” She used Charge just in time to blitz through her target and avoid an angry slash, then turned to deal out two quick cuts of her own with Battery. “Watts good!” Having already forgotten that behind the Successor wasn’t the safest place to be, Nadia took a fiery double tail lash the next second. “Gah, dangit!”

[color=Aquamarine]”Keep on it, I’m almost done!”[/color] Midna called out from behind her darknut’s fractured barrier, ensuring her beast legion kept up the pressure with its attempts to claw and slash at the Successor. As for what she was almost done with, with a wave of her mace like a conductor's baton, the sand she had been emptying around her now began to stream into the air. A chorus like a siren’s song filled the air as the black sand began to sweep forth, not towards the foe, but instead towards the outskirts of the arena.

To quench the flames, and smother the light.

“Are you Mid-nuts?” Nadia yelled back, any more attempts at humor cut off by the claw slashes against her block. While the Beast Legion continued to harry her attacker, its damage output without neither cooperation nor input from its partner was little more than an annoyance, so the Successor more or less ignored the invisible dog to focus on her fellow feline. When a handful of explosive stars flew her way Nadia backflipped away, only to see the Successor’s sword cleaving toward her the moment she landed. The cat burglar did the limbo, bending back just far enough to avoid the burning blade, though it was a near enough miss that she could feel its heat on her skin. She carried her momentum in a handstand, then pivoted upside-down with her legs extended to smack the Successor in the face with two hyper-extended kicks. The Successor stowed her sword and whipped around in another fiery tail lash, prompting Nadia to spring off her hands into the air.

“Saber the moment!” She yelled, propelled downward by gushing blood in a [url=https://i.imgur.com/hgNvdAS.png]Feral Edge[/url], her own tail wielded as a blade. Her divebomb slammed into the Successor’s back, but her tail wasn’t as sharp as it used to be. It struck a glancing blow, but in the brief moment that she knelt atop the Successor, Nadia grabbed at the monster’s weapon. Fueled by adrenaline, both of her brain cells immediately tried for a pun, but all she could say was “Pommel horse!?” before the Successor seized her by one leg and flung her off. The sword flew from Nadia’s grasp as she hurtled into the wall, which drove the breath from her lungs but at least didn’t impale her on any branches. She winced, teeth gritted, and opened one eye to see fiery embers sailing her way. With the steady loss of light throughout the smoldering hollow, the Successor’s flames blazed all the brighter.

And then, as the last secondary light source was snuffed out, the sand that had been swirling wildly around turned inwards toward the last light in the room. It swept across the flying embers coming Nadia’s way, growing denser and denser, grains grinding against grains, static electricity rumbling like thunder, and then the concentrated sand storm slammed into the Successor from all sides.

[color=Aquamarine]”You’re in my domain now, so choke on it!”[/color] Midna demanded, as the light was smothered, and the room plunged into shadow.

Briefly.

Black lighting flared within the sands as the charge built up from its flight around the room discharged all at once into the target of the princess’ ire.

A pained yowl resounded through the room as the electric flash dispersed, the air thick with coarse static and the smell of ozone. Nadia slid to the ground relatively unscathed, glad that she couldn't be electro-charged anymore. The sand did cause a Grounded reaction that cut into her accuracy, but the feral couldn't see much of anything in this gritty tempest to begin with. Not until a second light flared up, not lightning, but flame. Intense light and smothering heat radiated from the Successor as she hissed with her back arched, crystalizing the sand flurries around her. Phase two had begun.

Right away the Successor exploded in a plume of fire. By the time the dwindling sandstorm coalesced to smother the flames, it wasn't just the blaze that had disappeared–so had the Successor herself. Nadia instinctively kept her back to the wall while she peered through the sandy shadows, but the Successor didn't go for her. Instead the beast burst back into existence right behind Midna, encircled in flames as she launched her vicious sneak attack.

The princess cursed [color=Aquamarine]”You sneaky Poe!”[/color] and didn’t even turn to look at the eruption of flames behind her and her darknut.

It dropped down into a portal, while she yanked on her astral chain to start reeling herself towards her Beast Legion (which was located where the successor had been) making a blind dodge to try and avoid whatever was coming. 

It was something, but it wasn’t enough.

Just before the chain went taut, blazing claws raked across the princess’s back. Her armor mitigated the damage somewhat, but the red-hot blades bled through. Luckily the Beast Legion yanked her out in time to avoid the Successor’s follow-up, but after firing off more heat-seeking embers the kindled beast gave chase.

Of course, now that she could see again Nadia charged in from the opposite direction. To cover for Midna and try to take some control over the battle, she called upon the Harbor Demon. The enormous Abyssal appeared with her ordinance platform behind her, and even on her knees the pale, horned woman loomed over the Successor of the Claw, who stopped short in surprise. “Hah! That finally gives you ‘paws’?” Nadia grinned. When her striker took action with a trio of giant hand slams, her power demonstrated with a direct hit from the first, it was the Successor’s turn to dodge. The feral took the opportunity to jump, swing from the ordinance platform’s crane, and drop onto the Successor with a double stomp from her Mantreads.

Seething from the impacts, the monster struck back, but Nadia was feeling herself. She promptly wasted a bar of Tension with a mistimed attempt at a Blue Monday counter, got bowled over by a counterhit claw swipe, and then just did it again. This time Nadia’s knee struck the Successor in the face, cracking her helmet. Unfortunately she wasn't anywhere near strong enough to throw the Successor, but she could wrap herself around the beast’s throat, her muscle fibers coiled like a boa constrictor. “You’re neck-st’!” She called to Midna.

[color=Aquamarine]”I’m what?”[/color] the princess called back, the finer parts of the pun falling on deaf ears. Regardless of her ability to appreciate Nadia’s wordplay, she played her part well enough, the princess charging back into the fray, various fire resistance items having dulled the searing strike to her spine.

She did so atop an invisible steed, which looked rather silly, but the beast legion was fast. It also made for an excellent launchpad. The princess planted two feet on its back and then used flowmotion to leap off of it towards the foe for added speed, before driving a dragon clawed kick into the Sucessor’s cracked mask. Rather than stop there, she tried to use its face as a springboard to launch herself up and over Nadia’s neck grapple so she could slam a shadow hand slap down onto its back 

From her current position, Nadia got a front row seat for her comrade’s sick-ass dragon kick. “That was [I]clawesome[/I]!” She held tight against the Successor’s attempts to pry her off as Midna vaulted overhead for a hand slam that flattened the Successor against the ground, her limbs splayed out in all directions. Stunned, the beast couldn't stop the feral squeezing tighter, her hisses and snarls soon turned to gasps and chokes. Her tails lashed around, still ablaze, but as the Successor struggled to rise it became clear that she could no longer defend herself against Midna. It was up to the Twilight Princess to bring this fight to an end.

[color=Aquamarine]”Oh no you don’t”[/color] the princess told the tails, making to grab them with her shadow hand, and managing on the third try. Then she flicked the obsidian mace she’d been using for extra fire resistance into the air, and then jabbed it into the Successor's back and started channeling electricity directly through it into the downed foe, demanding that it [color=Aquamarine]”now stay down”[/color] 

The hollow lit up with color once more as lightning poured into the Successor’s body, as well as Nadia, who yowled and quickly released her hold around the beast’s neck. “Meeee-OWCH!” Thanks to Midna’s efforts, though, the job was done. With a shrill wail the Successor went stiff, then limp, leaking flame like blood. Rather than disintegrate into ash, however, her body began to burn, going up in flames in a matter of moments. Nadia watched, puzzled, until amidst the cinders she spied a form taking shape. It was a young Chinese woman, clad in a sleeveless black top and camouflage military fatigues, complete with a green beret atop short brown hair.

“...Huh?” With no sign of the Successor (including its spirit, much to Nadia’s chagrin) the feral approached tentatively. The army girl seemed to be breathing, quite a bit banged up and bruised but not fatally injured. Nadia crouched down next to her, then after a moment produced the Ripened Heart from her pouch. She looked up at Midna, her confusion and curiosity plain to see, as well as the question of whether or not they should heal the woman that has been their foe.

[color=Aquamarine]”Oh so that’s why it had those large-”[/color] Midna began, before biting her own tongue to abort that line of conversation, and instead guessing [color=Aquamarine]”Probably got turned into a beast by something? Happens to some light worlders if they end up in my realm”[/color] and then weighing in on the kill or cure question with [color=Aquamarine]”Guess we’ll see if her mind was also gone or she just wanted to kill us for sport.”[/color] 

[color=Aquamarine]”That thing heal or should I-?”[/color] asked, regarding the Ripened Heart, before she completed her sentence by forming a friend heart.

“Yeah,” Nadia replied, both to Midna’s musing and her question. She reached down, rolled [url=https://i.imgur.com/i65lxZk.png]the soldier[/url] over as gently as possible, then pressed the relic to her chest. Though it didn't provide an instant heal, it boosted her regeneration so much that it took her only a few seconds to recover. When she stirred, but didn’t awaken, Nadia reached down and shook her by the shoulder. “Hey? Hey!” Her tone was not gentle, but urgent. There was no telling what might show up the longer the Seekers stayed here, after all. “You okay? Hey! Up and at ‘em!”

The soldier’s eyes opened suddenly. She stared at Nadia, who gave an encouraging grin, then Midna, assessing the situation with a surprisingly level head. Even when she looked around and beheld the burnt-out hollow, still unmistakably alien in appearance, her breathing only got a bit heavier. “Where am I? What happened?”

Nadia pursed her lips, considering what to share. “A place called the Qliphoth. It’s this giant, awful tree, full of demons and freaky flesh monsters. Sorry to say.” She offered a sympathetic smile. “I’m Ms Fortune, and this is Midna. What’s your name?”

“Misfortune? How fitting.” Though the woman was clearly trying to keep it together, the news hadn’t exactly reassured her. She sat up slowly, listening for any sign of the danger Nadia alluded to. “Emily. Emily Su. Do you know a way out?”

Nadia grimaced. “Sorta? Trust me when I saw we don’t wanna be here any more than you. But before we can leave, we’ve gotta hunt down the head honcho around here. And I ain’t kitten when I say it might actually be worse outside.” She sighed with a shake of her head. “It’s a crappy place to wind up. But we’re the heroes here, so if you stick with us, we’ll do our best to keep ya safe. Can you fight?”

Emily gave a stiff nod. The news did not thrill her, but what choice did she have? “Yes. My blood code is Scathach–I can fight with fire.”

“You don’t say…” Nadia muttered, while Minda joked that [color=Aquamarine]”Yes I saw that”[/color]

“And I’m good with a sword.” Emily looked down at her belt, then grimaced. “If only I had one.”

[color=Aquamarine]”That we might be able to fix. Maybe. Hang on, maybe we’ll be lucky and someone added one to the armory since I last looked”[/color] Midna said, as she flicked out a gesture and summoned the new Armory access system Edward had set up. She pivoted it so Emily could see, very briefly filled her in, and then filtered the item selection to the desired type. As a result it ended up displaying one garudo greatsword that resulted in a displeased sound from behind her helmet, and then she visibly leaned in a little upon spotting the [url=https://i.ibb.co/gFD9tJ4/302097-01-50501.webp]Nightsky Ripper[/url].

[color=Aquamarine]”Why did no one tell me there was something so perfect?”[/color] she asked rhetorically, her tone ever so enamored with the blade, before pausing, suppressing a sigh, and saying [color=Aquamarine]”I assume that curved one would be best for you? Only other light sword we have is technically a very big knife”[/color]

At that moment Nadia, who’d left while Midna rummaged through Edward’s Armory, returned with something in tow. It was a narrow, single-edged saber with the handguard extended up the back, and while the Twilight Princess might not have technically seen it, Nadia had gotten so close to its business end that she wasn’t about to forget it. “Hey, Emily! What about this?”

The girl blinked at it, her facing lighting up. “That’s [i]my[/i] sword! The Blazing Claw. Did…did I drop it somewhere?”

Nadia forked over the blade. “Uh…I dunno! Just sworda figured it’d suitcha. Y’know?” She looked over her shoulder, her ears perking up. “We’d probably better get a move on before those freaks show up. They’re hardly parasites for sore eyes.”  The feral peered around, searching the smoldering darkness for a way out of the chamber.

As she did, suddenly, for both of them, the world suddenly went dark and they were given a choice.

[hider=Choices for Midna]
[b]Night Bloom[/b]  - grants a hex, charged by casting magic, that automatically raises the last susceptible slain enemy (once charged) to fight as an ally for 12 seconds
[b]Regression Inequality of Annihilation[/b] - damage taken by the you and your active summons is evenly distributed among you and your active summons
[b]Exploding Corpses[/b]  - enemies you kill explode with fire, but this doesn't hurt you. This overwrites enemies own death explosions
[/hider]

[color=Aquamarine]”You know what? I’ll take the break after miss sunshine”[/color] Midna said to the air, her still stinging eyes welcoming the dark. That feeling of relief was enough to stop her freaking out by whatever this was and to take in her options, for which she had words.

For the third it was, quite simply [color=Aquamarine]”I’ve had enough of being blinded, thanks. Not taking a chance on you”[/color] 

For the second it was [color=Aquamarine]”Tch they’re supposed to get hurt for me”[/color] Minda said, despite having often prioritized her minions' continued existence over keeping herself unharmed, and ironically seeing the way this boon worked in exactly the opposite way round others might which itself was telling. She also completely glossed over the potential of using the normally untouchable Beast Legion as a damage sink.

Thus leaving the first which was fitting statistically because [color=Aquamarine]”I could always do with more meat shields”[/color] and then also, as it turned out, because of where it came from.

As her hand touched the boon, the darkness became filled with light, but rather than blindingly hot it was soothingly cool, and it took but a breath for Midna’s eyes to adapt and see the source, and it was one that took that very breath away again.

“Good evening to you, sunset” spoke the [url=https://i.imgur.com/2Cyc66z.png]goddess[/url] who’s blessing she had chosen “I am Selene, eye of night, and I am glad my gaze soothes your weary eyes. Though daylight, storms and horrors stand between you and my moon, I have come to you regardless, to grant you this boon such that you might reach your twilight once again, little princess, and then raise your own gaze to meet mine in the coolness of night”

And then just like that, she was gone, along with the darkness, and time resumed.

She blinked once, and then tapped the menu option her finger had been hovering over, summoning the Nightsky Ripper to her hand.

[color=Aquamarine]”Fitting”[/color] she called it, before pressing it to her chest in a salute as she said [color=Aquamarine]”thank you Selene”[/color] with more than just a hint of reverence in those words, before sheathing the new blade into the twilight realm.

At the same time, Nadia received a choice of her own.

[hider=For Ms Fortune][b]Lightning Reflexes[/b] - dodging at the last second causes a lightning bolt to strike your attacker
[b]12 Monkeys and Angry Men[/b] - when dealing follow-up damage to an enemy, increase follow-up attack damage by 4% for a maximum of 24 stacks until the combo ends
[b]Bloody Bandage[/b] - when using a defensive ability, your next attack applies Bleed for 10 seconds, increasing the attacker’s damage taken[/hider]

When darkness closed in around her, however, the rather tense feral acted on her first impulse: to attack the first thing she saw. “Nyahh!” The instant the cards manifested before her, she hyperextended her arm in a spearfinger jab straight through the one in the middle, causing it to dissolve into motes of light that flowed into her while the other two disappeared. Once her arm snapped back she shook the glowing particles away like gnats, looking this way and that as she tried to parse what happened. “The hell was that? I got jumped by…posters or somethin’, I dunno.” A little worried by the lack of apparent effect, Nadia patted herself down, then blinked at Midna, a baffled smile on her face. “You clock whatever that was?”

Midna tilted her head to the side slightly and made a small sound of confusion, which wasn’t exactly reassuring, only for her to ask [color=Aquamarine]”Did a goddess not talk to you after you picked a blessing from the … posters?”[/color] confirming that yes, she had seen that, but also that there seemed to be more to it.

After a moment, Nadia shook her head. “I thought…I heard [url=https://youtu.be/EMs331K_2-g?si=1ea0eZKaUpVoyqys&t=11]people laughing[/url]? Maybe?” When she saw Emily looking at her like she was crazy, the feral changed gears, laughing it off. “Psh, whatever. C’mon, let’s get a move on before any creepy crawlies show up.”

[color=Aquamarine]”Oh. Urgh. Yes those”[/color] Minda groaned, having apparently somehow managed to put the horrors no doubt actively seeking them right this moment out of her head, before agreeing [color=Aquamarine]”Let’s keep on moving”[/color]