Blazermate was pretty neutral to the whole situation, as she was more just stuck healing people than doing much on the offense herself. She knew though that her shield didn't command these undead as they weren't actually zombies which made things a lot harder than it could've been. But her whole thing was to keep people up and overhealed alongside Sandalphon. The latter noticing that things were going south and found a way to progress, which involved going through the vessels of the tree? "Oh come on! I just cleaned myself and you want me to pain myself red? ugh... fine." Blazermate said, hopping into the same vessel as Ace and ending up in the same location.

Said location being fairly... clean and nice with this trees standards. Did she get lucky? Well, it was her and Ace and that was it, and well, a giant version of some of those things downstairs. This was a place she was good at though, and Ace would be healed at all times with this thing so hopefully the two of them could take it. As the creature got ready to attack, Blazermate summoned the engineer and got in defensive position behind Ace.

---

Roland wasn't much for giant horde fights like this, he'd prefer smaller scale fights if possible. At least these creatures went down much, much easier than Sweepers, although considering how grotesque some of these things were he wondered where stuff like the sweepers or other horrors of the city would be? They could be somewhere else, and that was a horrifying thought. At least at the start of this fight, these small fries were easy. But soon their numbers thinned out, only to be replaced by stronger, smarter, bigger horrors.

Seeing how the fight was going downhill, even though Roland made it to Emotion level 4 attacking the small fries, getting Intemperance with a more regal tomboy voice saying "Is it so bad to lust for honey when there are flowers?", making it so that Roland couldn't lose every 4th clash. He also gained In the Name of Love and Hate EGO page.

With the more advanced creatures approaching, an idea came among the group. To get to other parts of the tree, why not use the blood vessels on the wall to get there? This wasn't a surprise to Roland considering where they were, and while he had his own reservations about them, he cut open and jumped into a vessel when some of the others did and was whisked away to another floor.

When he was pushed out of the vessel into another room, he found himself in a room with Edelgard, covered in blood he tried to shake off, and in the room was one other person. A giant zombie that looked like they were from District 9. "I guess we got split up. At least its only one thing... Think we got lucky and got the Guardian?" Roland said to his would be partner in this fight against Killabilly.

---

At first, Sectonia made a nice protective area for her allies as the creatures coming for them were fairly weak and could be taken out with a mixture of electricity, dark lightning, and death pulses. But as the weaklings started to thin out, stronger, more durable, and craftier creatures began to swarm them making it look like there wasn't much of an end to any of this. It got even worse with ranged and air units being added into the mix, and seeing that it was unending and their goal was to just deal with the guardian, the other seekers figured out a plan.

Granted that plan involved going through the blood vessels of the tree to reach a different room and that was something Sectonia was NOT going to do. She had enough of that ugliness in the under, and this was going to be worse? No way. If the idea was to go to a different part of the tree to get away from the hordes rushing them, she'd rather find another way. A different way she found as she looked up and found a hole that lead to another room. She really didn't want to touch anything here if she could help it, and was also worried what else this tree held, but if she was going to cleanse this ugliness from her kingdom, she'd need to get to work.

Sectonia found herself in an adjacent chamber with one of the newer group members in an area that seemed to be for fliers only. And in front of her, what looked like the leader of those flying things she saw earlier. Perhaps if these were defeated, the amount of minions would stop spawning and thats how they got the guardian? A bit strange that it was only 2 of them here, but not much to go about it but wipe out this hideous thing.

This close, the massive tree that was the Qliphoth loomed even larger. And when no apparent entrance could be seen, it was the archangel Sandalphon who made the first move by drawing her weapon and opening fire on the trunk. This gave way to a cacophony of weapons and other blasts being let loose on the tree by the gathered Seekers there. Unfortunately, Roxas and Captain Falcon had little in the way of equipment or attacks that were suitable for this task. Roxas hacked away with his Keyblades, but the weapons’ shapes were obviously not optimized to be used like this. And Falcon had nothing but his fists and never-used sidearms.

Thankfully though, they had Ganondorf around. The warlord brandished his newly-acquired greatsword - Litania - and went to work with his immense strength. And soon enough an entrance into the tree was carved out for the intrepid group to enter through. Inside was the comfort of being out of the time fall - what little the atmosphere of the Qliphoth offered that is - and the almost immediate appearance of infested creatures of all sorts likely as a defense mechanism. Many were grossly misshapen insectoids, but others looked as though they might have previously occupied the city that was once located in this zone as well.

”Looks like they’re not taking too kindly to us.” Falcon commented as he cracked his neck and knuckles, entering his fighting stance.

”What even are these things?” Roxas asked with a disgusted look on his face as he summoned Oblivion and Oathkeeper to his hands.

”Hmph, fodder, as far I’m concerned.” Ganondorf grunted in reply, brandishing his trident - Vapor. The warlord was looking rather pleased that he was finally going to be able to handle an enemy the old-fashioned way rather than having to run and hide like outside. He also summoned the newly-upgraded Phantom Ganon with their flowing crimson cape and sharp sword-like nail they brandished along with their default trident weapon. In addition, he summoned a squad of Moblin Spearmen.

And then the fighting started. A chaotic cacophony of shouts, clashes, blasts, and spells that rang throughout the inside of the Qliphoth. Ganondorf wasted no time in charging right in, pausing only momentarily when an illusory spell of some kind was cast on him courtesy of Blazermate. When the dark cloud of smoke around him cleared, the Gerudo found himself flanked by a pair of doppelgangers of himself that wielded tridents of their own. He could tell they were only half as strong as the original, but even that could still be plenty strong considering who it was they were mimicking.

Between them, the moblins, and Phantom Ganon - Ganondorf was practically commanding a “Legion” of his own much like the minions commanded by Sectonia or Midna. And they were able to cut a large swathe into the attacking Floodfestation before them.

Meanwhile, Roxas also took to the fighting with his usual agility and flare. Enclosed corridors allowed him to launch himself between the walls with Flowmotion to cut down the Flood that were caught within the trajectory of his movements. Occasionally he would even pause to let off a crowd-clearing Thundaga spell whenever he needed to create some space for himself to get moving again. Unlike outside, for once he was almost completely in his element here. These infested creatures may not have been the same thing as Heartless or Nobodies, but they still similarly attacked in swarms which made the battle tactics feel familiar enough to the Keybearer.

Between the three of them, it was unfortunately the Captain who was having the roughest time. Most of his techniques were geared toward taking down enemies in 1v1 fights. So dealing with a swarm like this was less than ideal for the bounty hunter. But he didn’t let that deter him, as Cap sprinted in and opened his fight with a fiery punch on what looked like the remains of an infected citizen from Redgraccoon City. He couldn’t help but feel a little bad for the poor souls whose existence in this world was tied to this dreadful place. But now wasn’t the time for empathizing.

Falcon kicked and punched his way through a handful more small fry. He wasn’t as built for taking on an army like some of his compatriots were, which was why the Captain smirked to himself when he managed to single out a not-so-small fry enemy. Whatever it was, it looked like some kind of giant sentient pelvis that oozed with infection. And… was that a freaky-looking face in the central segment? Or maybe that was just the bone structure and muscle tissue giving a disturbing optical illusion? This thing looked less like an infected victim and more like a pure monstrosity. ”Okay then, this is definitely… a first for me.” Falcon commented, rolling his shoulder muscles and tightening into Robert Garcia’s martial arts stance.

”Let’s see what you’ve got, show me your moves!” The Captain declared before he dead-sprinted toward the monster in question. When he was close he leaped forward and smashed into the Saxum’s midsection with a powerful ”Knee of Justice!” And then after landing he planted his foot on the ground and launched his other leg into a ”Gen’ei Kyaku!” That barraged the monster with a series of rapid straight kicks. Falcon’s strikes appeared to land, but with the way this creature looked, it was surprisingly hard to tell how much damage he was actually doing.

Cap also didn’t initially notice the projectiles shooting out of the thing’s shoulders until he had to jump back and even use his bubble shield to prevent himself from taking the brunt of a counterstrike. And even after avoiding the initial onslaught, the projectiles themselves left dangerous areas that dealt constant lingering damage to whoever stood in them. And that meant that the Captain would have to continuously keep watching his footing otherwise the lingering area damage could catch up to him.

Elsewhere, both Ganondorf and Roxas were still more or less thriving. The King of Evil had been taking full advantage of the illusory doubles that had been granted to him for coordinated attacks alongside them. His Moblin Spearmen fought as long as they were capable, but it was all but inevitable that they’d fall eventually. Even Phantom Ganon, with his new powers granted by N Corp’s Nail and Ripping Bear, couldn’t last forever. He was still fighting but it became clear that he could only last so much longer before he was either overwhelmed or his time ran out. After Ganondorf’s doubles wore off, he paused long enough to consecrate some Hallowed Ground for Phantom Ganon to remain near in order to benefit from some of its regenerative effects. This would hopefully let him last long enough for his time to run out so that his defeat wouldn’t cost Ganondorf any extra energy. After that he summoned a fresh squad of Moblin Spearmen and went back on the offensive against the Flood.

As for Roxas, his efforts were similarly bearing fruit. His tactic of launching himself between walls in tight spaces allowed for him to sustain a remarkable amount of momentum in his fighting style. This also meant that he had to spend MP on spells a bit less often, allowing him to conserve his resources a bit while still maintaining his effectiveness. He coupled that by occasionally summoning his striker, Poltergeist. Her Psi attacks were a good way to soften up clusters of enemies so that Roxas could zip by with his Keyblades for the finisher. Her ability to grant him buffs with The Sun Is Not Gentle after a while was also a welcome addition to Roxas’ repertoire.

Meanwhile, Captain Falcon found himself in a tough matchup against the infected Saxum. Its size and ability to cover its surroundings in hazardous damaging zones made it difficult for the Captain to maintain a proper melee engagement with the warframe in question. It was fortunate for Falcon that he had a striker like Bianca to help him in this kind of pinch. Her ability to shift the types of arrows she fired combined with her fairly short cooldowns made for a useful bit of versatility to get off occasional ranged damage or slowness on the monster in a way that also gave Falcon some breathing room to try and study the monster as he fought it.

Through this, Falcon managed to figure out that the two femurs that served as the creature’s shoulders appeared to be taking more damage. So Falcon started concentrating on them. When he was able to get close enough, he could strike at them with punches or kicks. But while away from them, he could have Bianca concentrate her shots on them. Then at one point the Captain shifted gears a bit and summoned his other striker, Tyr. The man appeared and began to hack and slash away at the femurs with telekinetically controlled greatswords. After the damage that was already dealt, Tyr’s attack even managed to destroy one of the femurs before he vanished.

With this, Falcon saw what he thought was an opening and launched forward hoping to take advantage of the creature’s damaged flank. But when he saw corrosive bombs begin to spew out from the spot where the femur had been he zigzagged away and had to rethink his plan. The lingering damage from the projectiles was going to start catching up to him if he didn’t do something now. Then - as if answering his prayers - Captain Falcon found himself being healed. It was Sandalphon, one of her uses of Angelic Wings included the Captain within its twenty foot radius. This got the bounty hunter’s health back up to full and then some.

”My turn!” Falcon declared, flashing blue momentarily as he renewed his frontal charge against the infected Saxum. He attacked from the side containing the other femur to avoid getting a face full of explosions. And the lingering damage zones didn’t concern him quite as much when he was now at above full health thanks to Sandalphon’s timely divine intervention. All the fighting he’d been doing had allowed Cap to build up a full 3 stocks of Power Gauge. And now it was time to capitalize. ”Ryuuko Ranbu!” The bounty hunter shouted as his rush connected. He launched into a high-speed flurry of punches and kicks against the Saxum’s femur before launching straight upward with a Ryuuga as the finishing touch.

The tall warframe staggered back as the second femur exploded and was destroyed. After that more corrosive explosions spewed out. But Falcon noticed the warframe’s movements became increasingly weakened, realizing that the explosives spewing out was the monster’s own way of bleeding out, as it were. So all Cap had to do from here was keep a safe distance and let the monster finish dying off. He grabbed its spirit, unsure what could be done with it but figuring the group could figure it out later. Roxas and Ganondorf, meanwhile, were mopping up the rest of the section of enemies they were fighting against as well.

From here, all three heard the recommendation from Sandalphon about ascending the tree to escape the area. And at this point, neither of them were particularly inclined to argue with her logic. For Roxas, this wouldn’t be hard at all thanks to Flow Motion. Falcon and Ganondorf would have to put a little more oomph into it, but between the former’s athleticism and the latter’s Bullet Jump, they could make the ascension as well. Of course, the transit up the tree eventually landed all three in different hollows with different people acting as their temporary partners.

Roxas found himself in a hollow alongside Zenkichi. ”Separated into pairs.” The Nobody quipped before adding, ”Again. It’s like Arahabaki all over again.”

Ganondorf found himself in an entirely different hollow. And when he looked around, the only ally he could find was Primrose. ”Is it only the two of us here?” He asked. ”Seems we’ve all been separated again.”

And then the Captain, who looked around in the hollow he was in and could only find one of his fellow former Smashers. ”Just us?” Falcon asked Pit. ”Does this sort of thing normally happen whenever the Seekers complete their missions?”

The silent tension of the surrounding BTs did not last long. Being led halfway around the dome-like perimeter of the SFE suddenly gave way to a firefight against twisted amalgamations of flesh and metal for the rest of the group. With no time to waste, Snake had emerged out of of the protective blue aura of the SFE and out into the rain as the shield pack quickly enveloped him in a flickering golden-white field. Wasting no time, Snake plodded against the slippery obsidian ground in a half-crouch; thankful his Sneaking Suit considerably muffled his footsteps through the wet grass and sloughing mud. Once he was inside the hull of the wreck and out of the Timefall, the Mercenary took a moment to orient himself around the surprisingly large, industrial-like interior of the desolate spacecraft before proceeding deeper inside. Whatever was in here, he didn't plan on waiting for the fight to die down before the rain did. The main group couldn't afford to stagnate on their behalf, and the sounds of combat most assuredly drew more of those things near.

Snake made his way into the ship with an air of urgency; quickening his pace as the unholy roar of whatever was outside had reverberated through the ship. The craft had been throughly ransacked, with nothing of interest or benefit that would be of use to the three that entered. Aside from offering substantial protection from the Timefall, the ship’s constant creaking against the downpour assured that protection was finite. Venom Snake grunted in frustration, turning to move back to the blown-open hull as he stopped and stared at the visage at the crater. His eye widened as he stared at the amorphous black mass; the creature having formed the body of a lion with a hollow golden mask at the front. Not even the Skulls had compared to this, and for the first time since his arrival, a primal chill forced instinct to the surface. The group that had stayed previously at the crater scattered fully now; most fleeing the Catcher as they went around and headed straight to their objective point, while a brave few stayed behind to serve as a distraction.

There was nothing he could do but run.

---

With startling speed compatible to an Olympic runner starting at the gate, Snake launched himself in a dead sprint toward the looming Qliphoth. The vantablack monstrosity looming behind had been sufficiently distracted by the others as they ran to the objective, and his positioning meant that the only obstacles he faced were cragged terrain and slippery grass on his dash toward the spiky helix-like spire. The next time he looked up, the sky had been replaced with a dark, festering cloud of swirling burgundy particulate. Branches of calloused biologic growth jettisoned outward in sharp points from the sides of its gray, mottled, and rotted construction. Snake could only surmise that it was far worse inside.

Trailing behind the group, he saw the staccato flash of arms fire as the fleshy surface cratered and ripped open from the sustained trauma. Creating a gap big enough for the party to enter, Snake slowed his pace and made the gap. The inside of the structure was only a hint of what the outer spire revealed; a non-euclidian labyrinthine interior of pulsating infection and active decay. As the group quickly opened fire on the various creatures that dwelled within this living hellscape, Snake assessed the multitude of targets that began to operate in a coordinated swarm as they confronted the group. A gaggle of five humanoids had been loitering off to his left; all clad the camouflage BDUs of soldiers who once were. Above the waist, the chests of these infected servicemembers had become engorged with sickly greenish-yellow biomass that seemed to bloat the chest up and outward; displacing the head off to the right. The right arms hung limp at their sides, twitching with the stilted, halting movements of their unsteady gait. However, it was their left arms that were the most concerning. The mutation had seemingly forced the biomass to split the forearm into three clawed appendages; creating an organic weapon with a deadly reach. Snake drew his tactical pistol as one of the lolling heads had careened off to look in his direction. The glassy jaundiced eyes widened in recognition- and at that moment, all of the Combat Forms in that group turned toward him as they erupted in a charge.

However, that wasn't the only thing that happened. Throughout the entire arena, a chorus of rumbling baritone voices accompanied a bone-chilling roar. Each Floodform present, save for the scuttling Infection Forms, uttered in a chorus of rattling baritone voices to anyone still at the base of the Qliphoth:

"Your future is integration. You shall sing with us everlasting! S̶̗̈́̂Ŭ̶̗ͅB̵̟̅͛M̸̘͛̏Ȋ̵̤T̶̤̍!̸̰̋̍"

Bracing himself into a ready stance and quelling his dread hearing the horrific voices, Snake grit his teeth and took aim at the center mass of the Combat Form to his right. The telltale red-tipped frond array of the Infection Forms scuttling around on the ground in his peripheral matched exactly with the ones protruding from the chests of the Combat Forms. Taking aim, Snake's adrenaline peaked as his perception of time slowed. Snake swept the muzzle of his gun from right to left; needing only to fire a single time into the central mass of the Combat Form to strike the nestled Pod Form within. Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Within the span of a second, the five reanimated horrors that had closed in a blind charge seized and tumbled to the floor as the Infectors buried within their chests burst and erupted into a greenish-yellow plume of Flood ichor. Snake had looked up, seeing some of the members entering torn open blood vessels that propelled them further up the hellish spire. Breaking into a sprint to the right and toward a rubbery looking vessel about as tall and wide as he was, Snake drew his knife into his left hand and shot the vessel twice to puncture the exterior; quickly swinging his blade down into the bullet holes and pulling downward to cut the vein open like a plastic curtain.

The flow was stronger than he anticipated, and Snake had barely managed a breath as the current of blood had pulled him inside and upward as he watched the ground rise beneath him. There was no time to feel revulsion at his circumstance, and as the light gradually began to fade the further he ascended, seconds had passed until he had hit his head on something hard and calloused. Feeling the air beginning to leave his lungs, Snake swept and swung furiously at the vein wall, and was met with the sound of wet tearing paper as he was suddenly pulled forward and onto solid ground, a torrent of crimson flowing around him. Snake coughed and sputtered as he took in lungfuls of wet metallic air, shaking hands still clinging to his weapons as he quickly pushed himself upright to look back at the vein. What could only be assumed as a literal blockage of some sort was what had forced his stop to this level. He'd have to look for another vein to enter if he wanted to reach the top.

Blinking blood out of his eyes that did not belong to him, Snake could only see a few feet ahead of his position as he looked down and toggled the taclight affixed to the underside of his handgun. The revealed area looked akin to a catacomb, or perhaps more accurately, an ant colony's chambers. Sweeping his weapon up and over the walls, a pitched chitter caused him to dart his weapon to the left as a pair of glowing eyes met his own. Standing roughly at equal height to him, the ant-like creature's facial mandible opened and snapped once before it released a shriek and leapt toward him. Snake threw himself in a rightward roll; quickly regaining his footing as he holstered his pistol and switched hands with his knife. The creature crashed down where he once was, quickly turning for another charge as Snake was forced to evade the demonic being again with another combat roll. From the agitated clicking of its maw, he knew the thing was getting more and more irritated that he was proving a difficult catch. With another failed lunge the being roared; rearing up on its hind legs as Snake darted forward and planted a heavy frontal kick into its midsection. A loud ‘CRACK!’ reverberated throughout the area as the two chitinous plates caved around the edges of the impact; sending their jagged splinters into the soft body segment beneath as the creature howled in pain and rage. Like a tree falling forward, the being doubled in on itself as Snake stepped forward and jammed his knife up to the handle in its cranium.

With a strangulated croak, the demonic insectoid died almost instantly. Yanking the knife free from the head of the monstrosity, Snake was only allowed a second’s reprieve before he was knocked aside with a bodyslam; losing grip on his knife and sent tumbling into the calloused, bony wall to his left. Another had arrived, announcing itself with a rattling cry as it charged over to the slumped Snake and raised its right front claw to slam downward into Snake’s head. The Mercenary jerked his torso to the right as the claw slammed into the bony surface, as Snake pushed himself quickly upright and jammed his knife into the joint of the Empusa. With a guttural screech from the creature, Snake wrenched the knife upward and severed the joint as he wrenched the arm in the opposite direction to dismember the creature. The thing staggered and fell to its side as it attempted to scrabble for purchase, with Snake wasting no time in pulling the severed appendage from the wall as he hefted it in his hands like a spear. With an adrenaline fueled yell, Snake charged the struggling insectoid and thrust the claw up and into the midsection of the being with all his might. The claw went through the back of the Empusa as Snake released his grip. Drawing his pistol, he quickly finished the hellish being off with a single headshot as he turned his gun to sweep the rest of the area. With heavy breaths and shaking hands, the man took a moment to collect his nerves as he performed a quick magazine check on his weapon. One round left, and one more chambered. Snake began to leave the area in search of another blood vessel, bracing himself for any more encounters as he at least hoped his newfound allies were on time and on target with their main objective.

With a flash of bright green vital energy and a dizzying burst of speed that made her almost impossible to track, Sandalphon’s rescuer darted into the action. Taken by surprise as it fixated upon its would-be victim, the guardian was an easy target; Juri could take her pick of its many faces. Her foot swept in from the side like a hook punch, cutting through the curtain of stringy black hair to connect with one of the guardian’ cheeks. The snappy blow knocked her target’s surprisingly elastic jaw askew, and it did force the monster to take a half-step back, but the guardian reacted much less to the clean hit than a human would. It was heavy, solidly built, and in this brief moment that she had the guardian on the back foot, Juri could take stock of her opponent in all its nightmarish glory. It seemed to be the product of at least a half-dozen pallid corpses, callously mashed together like clay in a potter’s hand, then tightly bound in barbed wire. The hair of its constituents formed a ragged mane draped down around its exposed spinal column, and it dripped blood with every tortured step. With so many heads to spare, a blow to just one would barely register, and as the rest looked Juri’s way they seemed to leer right back at her.

Juri cracked her neck from side to side. ”Just means I getta crack your skull more n’ once.

The guardian raised its left limb, a grotesque club of amalgamated arms reaching out in a greedy, clumsy grasp. Its voices harmonized in drunken, delirious laughter even as its fists closed on empty air, which suited Juri since its buzzsaw descended the next moment. Wider than the canopy of an umbrella, its heavy blade narrowly missed her, and the overswing gave Juri a moment to position herself in front of Sandalphon. The archangel herself, of course, remained encased in ice and unable to respond, but it wouldn’t be long before the martial artist had her answer. Nevertheless the guardian immediately challenged Juri’s protective commitment, its bloodstained sawblade singing as it charged.

The next second fists met steel, sparks flying as the sawblade ground against Juri’s guard. It chewed away at her drive, spiraling her down toward burnout, but before her energy could bottom out Sandalphon unfroze in an icy shower of red-tinged fragments. “Freeze duration: three seconds,” she informed Juri, her face and voice impassive as she dropped her gunstaff, knelt down, and unslung the Eye of Sol. “Recharge time: twelve seconds. Three to go.” As she took aim, she used a mirage to create a blue tile beneath her, and summoned both her Strikers. The Crimson Vampire Maid Annabella appeared and unloaded her massive rifle into the guardian three times, punctuated by an energetic, full-force slam from the Hammering. Their attacks forced the guardian back, at which point Sandalphon took her shot, not at one of the monster’s heads but at the single spine supporting its grotesque upper body. The guardian let out an awful noise somewhere between hysteric giggles and tearful weeping.

Juri shook her forearm, holding her wrist. ”I ain’t doin’ that for ya again, so don’t shoot yourself.” With her drive gauge low, her options were limited. Sandalphon probably had the right idea- she should go for the body and limbs first instead of the heads. That could come later. Juri sprinted forward at her unboosted but still quick speed, and shifted to the side to give Sandalphon a clearer shot. Then she dropped into a crouch, planting her hands on the ground at her side and kicking out at the creatures back knee. Then she span around and slashed into its ankle with a ki strike. Popping back up she prepared, nay hoped for another buzzsaw to come her way so she could parry it this time.

As the buzzsaw came her way she grinned and met the blade with one leg and her hand. Her body flashed blue and instead of a grinding sound there was a ringing clack sound, almost wooden. The saw blade would find no purchase, and after Juri absorbed the force of the attack she shunted it aside and took another step back. ”Kya ha ha.” With that, she had gotten most of her drive gauge back.

As the guardian stood, seemingly puzzled by the lack of carnage on its blade, another fiery shot burned through the curtain of hair to melt against its spine. It gave a bleary chortle and turned to face Sandalphon, making it trivial for the archangel to land another Frost Lock on its center mass. Ice coated its horrendous form in an instant, but given the guardian’s bulk, one frosty projectile wouldn’t be enough to freeze it solid. Guffawing, the monster reached down and carved into the Qliphoth flesh at its mangled feet, spraying shreds of plant matter until, with a mighty heave, it hurled a mass of debris toward its challengers.

Sandalphon narrowed her eyes. Seizing what looked like nothing, she performed a quick yank, and in an instant a handful of shimmering razor wires tightened. The largest hunks of flesh stopped in their tracks, caught like insects in a spiders web, and with one more tug the wires sliced them to ribbons. Some chunks did fly Juri’s way, but the archangel doubted she’d have much of a problem. The bigger issue was the guardian charging into one of the hollow’s many mirrors, at which point it promptly disappeared.

After a silent, watchful moment, Sandalphon caught a glimpse of inky hair to her left. She pivoted to fix her scope on the guardian, but stopped just shy of pulling the trigger. It wasn’t the guardian, but its reflection in a mirror, and she’d been only one nervous squeeze away from a self-inflicted headshot. “...I appreciate the advice.” Both she and Juri could see the guardian in several mirrors around them, giggling as it approached from behinds its reflective veil.

Juri side stepped into position behind Sandalphon, looking in the opposite direction of Sandalphon. With a frown, she eyed the many reflections. ”Wouldn’t want any more of that brain leakin’ out.” She commented.

”Say, I wonder.” She rolled her neck to the side, almost a twitch. Her green, prosthetic eye lit up. Juri hadn’t used it in a bit, but her Feng Shui engine let her scan the power level of other living creatures. Usually Juri thought everyone was weaker than her so why bother, but, in this instance she wondered if the device would be able to scan illusions. Whichever one of these mirrors had the real Guardian in it should have more ‘ki’ or whatever than the others. If it couldn’t detect the fake ones, then Juri would know. If this little counter-trick didn’t work, she’d just have to start smashing all the mirrors.

Juri wasn’t the only one who put her thinking cap on. Sandalphon’s pupils became concentric circles with clockwise-spinning lines, just as one might see on a radar screen, as she invoked her External Information Network to scan the area. Instantaneously she received a return ping from Juri, relaying an extensive list of vital statistics, but when the invisible electromagnetic wave touched the mirrors, they bounced off their reflective surfaces rather than entering the guardian’s domain. The archangel pursed her lips. “It’s as if it slipped away into another dimension.” Maybe Juri’s efforts bore more fruit, but Sandalphon doubted it. If the guardian could use these mirrors as portals into some backwards mirror world, there was a chance that the duplicates weren’t illusions, but different visions of the same monstrosity. “We should destroy them,” she urged. “Then its either trapped in there, or trapped in here with us.”

”Yeah, yeah!” Juri said dismissively. Stupid eye thing, what are you good for?

Before the two could implement any strategy, the guardian charged. It barreled toward the Seekers with its buzzsaw screeching, ghastly faces alight with laughter. Both Juri and Sandalphon turned to face the mirror that portrayed the incoming guardian head-on, reasoning that it would emerge from there. At the last moment, though, it slowed down. In the corner of her vision, she saw a side profile of the monster advance into the frame of a previously empty mirror, and the next second the guardian veered right, plowing back into reality from the ladies’ left. By then, Sandalphon had already turned. “There!” It sprinted in for a whirring haymaker to carve the Seekers in two, but Sandalphon managed to not-so-gracefully dive out of the way. Before hitting the ground she lobbed a pinpoint-accurate Frost Lock that flash-froze the guardian in place.

While lying on her side, breathless from the impact, Sandalphon called Hammering once more. The Nikke appeared with her trademark maul at the ready, but rather than take aim at the guardian, she obliterated the mirror it came from. One down, thirteen to go. Juri knew how long the freeze would last, so it was up to her whether to go for more mirrors or to rack up some damage.

Juri landed from her leap over the buzz saw, stance low, her front hand on the ground. Her Feng Shui locked onto the Guardian and started scanning it out of spite. With a Drive Rush forward she blitzed towards the Guardian, and then right past her, flicking it on one of its noses as she went. She streaked forward and smashed into the mirror closest the Guardian and then carried her into the next with an elegant kick. With another regular dash she grabbed the back of one and simply shoved it forward onto the floor, breaking it. Then she made a face at the creature, like she had done that last one by accident.

”Oops!” She grinned. As the freeze ended Juri strafed right to get to the next one to toss it, too.

Shards of ice flew far and wide when the guardian broke free, accompanied by a burst of flat, unamused laughter, as if the monster were being sarcastic. Able to see in all directions thanks to its many heads, it identified Sandalphon as the closer, more vulnerable target as she picked herself off the ground, and turned to go after her. It lurched forward, and -unable to use the Eye of Sol without a blue surface beneath her- Sandalphon reflexively summoned her other Striker. Annabella appeared with her rifle trained on one of the guardian’s heads, but much too close.

The monster grabbed the weapon’s barrel with its left hands, then carved into the sharpshooter with an overhead slash. While the striker vanished, her wound opened on Sandalphon’s torso, and the archangel gave a ragged gasp. Her rifle fell from her grip as she staggered backward, only avoiding a fall with a timely summon of her gunstaff in order to prop herself up. As the guardian lumber closer to finish her off, she summoned a Cerulean Mirage on top of herself, then lifted the butt of her gunstaff to shoot the mirage in the foot and detonate a diamond-shaped ether explosion. It knocked the guardian back, and put Sandalphon on her last legs, but with what little strength she had left the archangel began to cast Angelic Praise. As holy ripples expanded around her, the only question was whether or not she’d be in time.

All the while Juri was happily breaking mirrors, getting the number down to about five, all of the remaining mirrors all in the same-ish cluster. When she turned to check on Sandalphon, her shoulders sagged and she let her head fall backwards. ”Huugh!” With an overly big exasperated groan she spent Drive Rush to zip across the chamber and come to Sandalphon’s rescue. Letting it rock, leaning forward with her arms out to the side. No doubt it saw her coming, but it only had two arms and two legs. As it was knocked back by Sandalphon’s spell, Juri came in for an empowered sweep against the same knee leg she had targeted earlier. One big hit to try and roll its knee or ankle and get it to topple.

With several legs messily fused together, the guardian wasn’t one buckle easily, but Juri’s kicks were nothing if not powerful. Combined with the damage already done to the monster’s limb, her strike was enough to throw the nightmare off balance, and its disproportionately top-heavy mass did the rest. It went down, flailing its limbs with helpless, childlike anger, and as Juri pounced to take advantage one of the guardian’s unpredictable thrashes caught her in the act with a painful slash. The next moment, though, Sandalphon’s Angelic Praise pulsed outward to restore the bulk of her health. She took a deep breath, conjured a blue tile beneath herself, and swung her gunstaff into firing position to join Juri in pressing their advantage.

Due to Juri’s natural ki durability, no blood was drawn. But damage was still done, and she still felt that familiar embrace of pain in no small quality. ”You random little-! Hahaha!” She flicked out her leg a couple times with the same intent of loading a shotgun. With a slice of her heel she sent out an OD, Fuha powered projectile along the ground to slash into the creatures side. Then she dashed over it, moving in faster to slam her foot on the beasts damaged knee. Then she would flip over to its other side just as her projectile would connect.

Sandalphon added some reprisal of her own in the form of repeated ether shots, rate of fire prioritized over accuracy since even in the midst of the guardian’s thrashing, she couldn't miss a headshot of she wanted to. She knew it would take too long to retrieve her Eye of Sol, but the archangel definitely missed its sheer stopping power. Though she and Juri exploited the guardian’s tumble as much as physically possible, the two weren't exactly bastions of burst damage, and the horror still had plenty of fight in it once it rolled to its feet.

It wheeled around, giggling madly as it searched for an escape route, but all the nearby mirrors lay in pieces. With no avenue of regress, the guardian went berserk and began to rampage, lurching around on its wounded leg with one giant swing after another. Sandalphon put some distance between herself and the freak with Vault and Heavensent, then scanned the guardian as she drifted a safe distance away. “Only thirty-five percent remaining,” she declared. If Juri could weather this thing’s fury and strike back, victory would be theirs. Once she landed, Sandalphon scooped up her Eye of Sol and began to set up. “Aim for the spine.” Once atop a blue tile, she cast a Cerulean Mirage near the guardian to help distract it, then put the creepy carcass in her sights.

Juri backpedaled, ducked, and dashed away from the swings, using her speed and its sluggishness to her advantage. She was pretty happy with the leg damage she had wrought, giggling.

”Easy money, Sandy!” She called back. She turned away from a swing and then spun her upper torso, clawing the creature across the face. Baiting out a counter swing towards her upper body, she ducked underneath it and shifted around to the back. Twisting and then planting her feet, she turned all that momentum into an eye-watering elbow to the creature’s spine. She transitioned into a four fingered stab like she was trying to find the cracked gap in the vertebrate. Using a significant amount of drive gauge she cancelled that attack into another elbow into the same spot, and followed it up by planting her hand on the ground, turning away from the creature and slamming her heel into its back. Once, twice, she used her Fuha Stocks to slash around elegantly again, creating distance between the two once more.

With each grievous blow, the guardian’s gibbering grew more and more frenzied, it's laughter deranged and despairing. For all its gruesome power, it couldn't seem to land a solid hit on the meddlesome martial artist even after it learned to ignore the tantalizing Cerulean Mirage, but Sandalphon always erred in the side of caution. Whenever Juri landed a hit, the archangel followed up to stagger the guardian with a well-aimed sunstreak from the Eye of Sol. The first headshot could reliably punch a cauterized hole, and the second was enough to pop the head. In this way Sandalphon helped extend Juri’s combos, keep her safe from reprisal, and rack up damage until she judged the time to be right.

The archangel adjusted her aim, and shot her Cerulean Mirage. It absorbed the solar slug and erupted in a diamond blast of blue flame, close enough to the guardian to knock it down. This time it fell on its right side, its huge saw partially trapped beneath its clammy bulk, and it's cracked spine exposed. Sandalphon lowered her weapon and stood, her pupils reverting from crosshairs to normal with a sense of finality. “The honors are yours.”

Juri didn’t need to be told twice. Or, really, even once. And there was nothing particularly honorable about the way she was descending on the creature, slamming her heel into its exposed spine after a full front flip. She stood on the creature and began hopping and down, driving her feet into its back with little hippy hops. It was a gleeful, goblin-like display. She would keep it up until it was broken in half, in which case she kicked one of its heads. ”Loser~!” She spat breathlessly, stepping off the Guardian and watching it start to decay into ash.

Amped up, she shook out her arms and hopped up and down some more. With a cackle she kicked at the ashifying corpse.

Finally, she re-noticed Sandalphon, and looked around at their current location. ”M’kay, Sandy. Even though I had to save your ass twice, you weren’t totally useless. Do that magicky radio doohicky thing you were gonna do so you can tell me what you see all the time. ” She commanded off-handedly.

The archangel had averted her eyes during Juri’s savagery, not out of any misguided sympathy for the monster or unwillingness to do what must be done, but simply because she took no pleasure in the act. Once the deed was done, she approached her ally attentively. “I am grateful for your aid. You performed quite well.” She kept her feedback objective and positive; the fight had gone well enough, after all. Granted permission to bring Juri into her circle, the archangel nodded, then reached out and held a hand beside the martial artist’s face. A ripple of holy water pulses into the air, its concentric rings forming into a yellow-blue sigil, reminiscent of a halo. A second later it faded away, gone when not in use.

”Ulblblbl~” After a moment, Juri made a weird noise and chased Sandalphon’s hand away with her waggling tongue.

“Done.” Sandalphon stepped back, wiping some hair from her face. She knew she must look dreadful, especially since not all of the blood staining her clothes belonged to the Qliphoth, but there were more important matters at hand. She made the executive decision to slick her hair back to keep her vision clear, then noticed the spirit of the guardian on the floor. She nodded at it. “To the victor go the spoils.”

Juri stared down at the spirit, going over the rules in her memory. ”I sure as shit ain’t spirit bonding with that ugly thing, no matter how cool that mirror trick was. God, who would? As for a Striker…meh.” Juri shrugged.

”Plus, it means I get to stop on it ooone mooore time.” She chuckled and then stomped on the spirit. But what resulted seemed to genuinely dazzle Juri.



”What the heck? Oh my- woah.” With quiet reverence, Juri picked up the hefty weapon, though she was plenty strong enough to use it. This time when she laughed, it was an almost sweet, innocent sound. Excited, like unwrapping a toy on Christmas morning. Though when she revved up the nasty weapon and heard it purr, her laugh turned much more familiar and cruel, already imagining the havoc she could wreak.

She swung it around a few times for practice. It was slower and much less precise than her normal attacks, leaving little room for her defence. But the speed and power of the blade itself was undeniable. ”Oh ho, man! It ain’t no fine art but it has its uses!”

When she studied the device closely, she noticed something unusual about its design. ”This thing’s balanced. It’s balanced, Sandy.” She said, the implication clear to her. She planted it in the floor and crouched atop it, the blade sticking into the fleshy ground. Lo and behold, it didn't fall over. Juri looked to Sandalphon for confirmation, her mouth a small, excited ‘o’.

Juri activated the engine and it sped across the floor with a streak of green energy, carrying her with it. For a few blissful moments she rode it across the chamber before crashing into the far wall.

Landing in a heap next to the weapon she laughed uproariously, clutching her stomach and kicking helplessly.

”Did you- did you- did you see that?!” She asked between breaths.

Despite her disquieting demonic surroundings, the intense and painful fight against the guardian, the visceral filth that clung to her once-fine clothes, and the nightmarish road that brought her her, Sandalphon seemed to be smiling. It was slight, not the sort of gormless ear-to-ear grin that Nadia was wrong to wear, but like a diamond it all the bright for it's rarity. “Naturally,” she replied matter-of-factly, collecting her weapons in a routine manner. “I feel as though I've seen another side of you.” Juri breaking the tension with her antics has evidently worked wonders for Sandalphon’s mental state.

Juri didn’t know how to react to Sandalphon saying that. It made her a bit self conscious. ”Haha, yeah, well, ptchuh. Whatever.” She stood up and dusted herself off. She looked down at the weapon and righted it, biting her lower lip. She muttered something about getting practice in. But she couldn’t just carry it around when she wasn’t using it. Juri looked to her tommy gun, and plucked the strap from it, jury-rigging it (Juri rigging?) it to the applicable parts of the ghoulsaw instead. Now she could put the saw over her bag and wear it like a backpack or big duffel bag. As for the tommy gun itself, well, she just plum tossed it out like old garbage.

”Thing was runnin’ low on bullets anyhow. And no way am I gonna lug it the whole time. And what, look for and then carry around drum magazines?” She made a face. ”No way. This new thing is way cooler, and I don’t think it runs outta fuel. There’s no intake, and it’s all sci-fi lookin’.” She said, patting it with approval.

Before the two could go any farther, however, another surprise came their way. The hollow seemed to darken around them, and in front of them appeared ethereal cards, three apiece. Stoic in the face of the unprecedented phenomenon, Sandalphon scanned the area for any threats, then once satisfied, speed-read through the options laid out before her.



After finishing, Sandalphon could only hypothesize that some sort of unseen power had seen fit to reward the Seekers for their efforts in this unholy place. That speculation created a lot more questions than it answered, but for now she would need to accept this unexpected windfall. Since these projections seemed to require her input, she concluded that she must choose between them, and after a moment the made her selection. She could already refresh her own skills via Rapid Analysis, and while temporary defense bonuses could be useful, the extended duration on her Frost Lock would be invaluable–as long as she didn’t freeze herself again. Sandalphon selected Cold Storage, and turned to await Juri’s arbitration.

”Hah?” Juri looked over her cards, one side of her nose wrinkling up. ”Free shit?”



Weaker enemies meant more fun, and Juri was always light on her feet. So she picked Passion Dash.

“Jealousy and love are two sides of the same coin,” rang the impossible voice of Aphrodite. “Maybe there’s room for envy, too, hm?”

”Envy?” Juri asked, an edge in her voice. But the vision faded.

Juri had never used magic before, but she felt like she had the new skill, just like the card promise. She took a long step to the side, and there was a spark of energy. Now she could weaken her enemies whenever she pleased? ”Uh. Okay.”

Once ready to proceed, the archangel eyed a bloodstream on the other side of all the shattered glass, pausing only to calculate how many years of bad luck Juri had incurred. “By my best estimate, we're only about one third up the Qliphoth. I’m glad that you like that saw–you'll have ample opportunity to try it out.”

Juri was trundling alongside Sandalphon on her Ghoulsaw, moving at a slower pace and slowly swerving left and right like a first time skateboard rider. It left a badass gash in the ground as they went. Concentrating, she didn’t look up from the floor when Sandalphon spoke. ”Wonder if I’ll get to hear their screams over the engine?” She mused absent-mindedly in reply.

To any ordinary man, the burly brute at the other end of the hall would have been a daunting opponent. The silently menacing, faceless Keeper made his size and strength plain to see with no need for words, offering no preamble for the showdown about to take place beyond an old-fashioned declaration of war, the din of metal mallet against uncrackable safe an ancient battle cry. In this man, however, Goldlewis saw a worthy opponent. He couldn’t say why a warrior neither demonic nor infested in origin might be here, or why the Qliphoth’s immense interior housed remnants of Redgraccoon City, but he knew there was no avoiding this fight. And thanks to the floodfested horde down below, the veteran was all warmed up.

Still, Goldlewis knew that pride comes before the fall. He suspected that fighting in cramped underground corridors would prove tricky, preventing him from fighting at his preferred range. If he couldn’t swing around his coffin or bust out his weapons, he’d just have to rely on the shotgauntlets from Jack-5. But with Geralt at his back, more powerful and more in control than in their last shared encounter, the Secretary of Absolute Defense felt rather confident. It was time to see what this masked maniac was made of.

As they drew closer in the hallway, both titans picked up speed until they were barreling toward one another like runaway freight trains. Goldlewis kept his eyes on the Keeper’s giant meat tenderizer, but at the last moment his opponent reached for his belt with his right hand and pulled out a large burlap sack, red with blood and bulbous with shapes that didn’t bear thinking about. As the killer whirled it like a flail, the basement’s sparse lighting glinted off hooks, spikes, and orbitoclasts protruding from the coarse fabric. Luckily, the chain on the veteran’s coffin afforded him a bit more range. Swinging vertically, Goldlewis unleashed a forward-down-back Behemoth Typhoon for speed and range. Coffin met sack with a hefty impact, as well as some sickening crunches from within the sack itself, but if the Behemoth Typhoon clipped the Keeper, he barely seemed to flinch. Instead he brandished his hammer for a follow-up but Goldlewis wasn’t done either. He used his Security Gauge to keep the pain train rolling, his coffin a meteor hammer as it pounded the Keeper’s guard with two more Behemoth Typhoons, the final revolution ending in an up-forward-down overhead. Yet somehow, despite all that punishment, the Keeper weathered it all. The moment after the assault ended, he struck back, lunging forward to knock Goldlewis sideways with a disorienting blow from the edge of his hammer, then wallop him against the wall with a mallet smash to the chest.

Geralt kept close to Goldlewis, giving the large man enough room to maneuver with his strange coffin-flail in the rather tight hallways they’d found themselves in. The Keeper looked to be little more than a deranged killer with neck muscles anybody would be jealous of, but Geralt knew better than to judge this book by its bloody cover. Keeping his twinblade at the ready, he cast the Sign of Quen to shield himself as the combatants met, Goldlewis outranging the Keeper but failing to prevent its own attacks once his were finished.

Strange enough, though Geralt didn’t let that slow him down. Immediately after Goldlewis was battered to the side, he lunged forward with the Hydro weapon, applying the Wet status and dealing a similarly negligible amount of damage. He turned, bringing the dual-bladed weapon around for a slash to the body, as the Keeper completely ignored Geralt’s attack and slammed its bloody sack into Geralt’s chest. The Witcher grunted a little from the blow but was similarly unphased, and took a step back to utilize his weapon’s greater range, thrusting the twinblade like a spear and trying to keep its attention. “Takes hits like a proper Fiend.” Geralt sighed.

“Grrah!” Given a moment to recover from his brush with the Keeper’s massive meat tenderizer, Goldlewis took advantage of his foe’s focus on Geralt to charge in for a full-bodied tackle. His opponent might be big, but few men were bigger than Goldlewis Dickinson. With his head down and his arms locked around the maniac’s middle, the veteran pushed him from one side of the hall to the other, and when the Keeper’s back hit the wall the clang of his safe against the bricks left him dazed for just a split second. Goldlewis straightened up to go for his trademark throw, a triple headbutt straight to the safe’s metal door, but the steel didn’t yield and its wire-covered surface left Goldlewis both stunned and scratched in turn. The Keeper pushed him off, then swung his hammer with the railroad spike on the other end forward. With a grunt, Goldlewis managed to clamp his hand around the weapon and stop the spike an inch from his temple, then use his other hand to unleash a point-blank blast from his shotgauntlet. Once again the blow barely registered, but it annoyed the Keeper enough to give up on the hammer blow and just shove Goldlewis back the way he came. He stumbled a few heavy, headlong steps toward Geralt, unable to stop his momentum. The veteran would be hitting the ground in two seconds; the only question was whether or not he inadvertently took the Witcher with him.

Geralt jumped back as Goldlewis stumbled his way, the Keeper following close behind. He jumped over his fallen ally and swung at the monstrous purser, putting his momentum and strength into the blow. He could be moved, evidently, but it required physical manipulation. Geralt was many things, but a grappler was not one of them. True to the previous hits, the Keeper did not budge, retaliating with a swing of its mallet which forced Geralt to dodge sideways, pressing himself against the wall of the hallway. He quickly lifted his hand to draw the Sign of Igni, a blast of flames exploding out and hitting the Keeper, triggering a Vaporize reaction to further harm their seemingly-invincible foe.

Just after a loud noise announced the veteran’s inevitable rendezvous with the floor somewhere behind Geralt, the elemental fire and water applied to the Keeper mixed in an explosive burst of steam. By now all the punishment he’d taken surely had to be adding up, but even after all the hits he’d taken so far, the Keeper barely seemed scratched. His brawny frame pushed through the suspense-inducing steam cloud with a heavy shoulder barge, extinguishing the Witcher’s hope. The impact shunted Geralt back into the room he and Goldlewis started in, but his comrade had the good sense to get out of the way as he gained his feet, so that Geralt didn’t tumble over him. The two men shared a look as the Keeper hammered his safe once more, then spread out, glad to be out of the hallway’s cramped confines. “We’re missin’ somethin’,” Goldlewis grumbled. Since his coffin lay in the hallway, he wearily put up his dukes. He’d seen various techniques that could soak a hit or two, but being uninterruptible at all times was beyond the pale. “I’m mighty keen to find out what.”

Faced with two targets, the Keeper chose Geralt, but Goldlewis had something he wanted to try. As his enemy raised his bloody sack, the veteran stepped out into a crouching stance, then rose with a knee strike to the Keeper’s gut. Naturally the bruiser shrugged it off, but Goldlewis canceled his Machine Press into his new Gamma Howl technique, flexing in a hunched-forward stance. This time Goldlewis was the one to absorb a technique, plowing through the gruesome flail in a burst of energy–Particle Barrier. The Keeper didn’t flinch either, but the shockwave pushed him back, confused and primed for a follow-up from Geralt.

Geralt had taken the time, now that they were in a larger arena, to draw a more powerful weapon that required a little more room to work with: the Hateful Flesh. As Goldlewis knocked back the Keeper, throwing it off balance and off guard, Geralt leapt forward, crashing the Siderite blade into its body and sending the Keeper reeling. It fell to its knees, and the safe on its head opened, revealing bloody flesh and its disgusting, disfigured visage. “Huh.” The Witcher simply remarked, hefting the Hateful Flesh and crashing it into the Keeper’s face, sending a spray of thick blood flying. “Goldlewis, hit it! Now!” He called, taking a step back to shift Identities.



Instead of the LCCB Assistant Manager form with its riot shield and pistol, however, Geralt transformed into something new. Rather than the heavy armor, he was now adorned with a tight black wetsuit, with a single chestplate to protect him. Attached to his arm was a strange device with a harpoon blade, and a heavy tank rested upon his back. “This is new…” He muttered. Goldlewis had grabbed the safe with his left hand and begun to pummel the meat with his right. He glanced back to see the Witcher’s new gear, especially the enormous pile bunker on his arm. That thing looked like it could pierce a cargo ship’s hull, so he figured it ought to ‘fix’ the Keeper just fine. Goldlewis pulled away to give Geralt the chance, his ears covered, and with a guttural cry the Witcher punched the harpoon in and let it rip.

WHAM!

In a burst of murky viscera the safe went flying, parted cleanly from its shoulders. It hurtled down the hall and hit the ground, clanging noisily as it rolled and bounced. The body of the Keeper quickly and unceremoniously faded out, and the battlefield became eerily silent.

Goldlewis let out a heavy sigh. So, their opponent didn’t take real damage until knocked down, but it was open season once they cracked that safe. He wanted to be happy that he and Geralt cracked the case, but the veteran had a sinking feeling. “Y’know, as rough as that was, I reckon it was still too easy.”

As if in reply, a static sound resounded through the hollow. For the second time, reality seemed to shift, overtaken by a sepia tone as movements began to blur and skip. Behind the two Seekers, next to the burst blood vessel they came from, the second safe began to rise. When Goldlewis looked back down the hallway, he saw the first safe doing the same. When the anomaly subsided, the men were faced by two Keepers, one in front and one behind.

Goldlewis shook his head in curt disappointment, then held out his hand. “UMA!” His coffin cracked open, and a long, slender, cosmic arm reached out. Once it grabbed him, it used him as leverage to slide the coffin over, then retreated inside as Goldlewis lifted it up. “Looks like we got ourselves another round, partner.”

The Keepers clanged their hammers against their safes and advanced on the Seekers with wet, plodding steps.

“Had to open your mouth.” Geralt joked, rolling his shoulders. “No point crowding each other out. Just call out if we need a hand, I suppose.” He advised, stepping forward to meet the Keeper that had just emerged. He had little to no experience with the kind of weapon he found himself with in this new Identity, but that explosive attack it had launched just moments ago was hard to pass up against an enemy like this. The only problem he'd have until it was downed was its pitiful range, but that could be worked around with other abilities he had.

True to form, he unleashed a quick Demon Fang, the energy racing along the ground and ineffectually crashing into the advancing Keeper. As it advanced, Geralt drew the Sign of Yrden in the air, creating its Area Trap to slow the Keeper if it trudged forward mindlessly.

It did, though the slowing effect was not quite as great as Geralt expected it to be, causing the Witcher to curse quietly and run in, stabbing the pile bunker at the Keeper with a weak attack before stepping back out of the way of a sluggish counter-attack. It had taken a few moments to prime before, and that whistling sound he remembered gave a vague idea that keeping it in that state for long would end poorly. The Keeper paused inside the slowing field, drawing a pair of discs as if from nowhere and throwing them onto the ground, almost in the center of the room. From their shape and the way they settled quite firmly on the ground, Geralt could tell they were not grenades, but what they were he wasn't quite sure. “Some kind of trap, watch your step.” he called out to Goldlewis.

At the same time, Goldlewis made the most of the greater distance between himself and the revived first Keeper. With his Security Level at max, he whipped out his Skyfish minigun to rattle off a barrage of fifty-one 7.62×51mm NATO rounds at a low angle. While their damage was negligible, the Keeper couldn’t armor through them at this range, so he assumed a guard posture to block the barrage. Goldlewis could practically see his foe’s RISC building up, ensuring that once he finally did break through the Keeper’s defense, the payoff would be sweet. Unfortunately he couldn’t rinse and repeat this little trick, since the UMA needed time to refill the gun’s ammo and any more salvos from Skyfish would be anemic until it did. As he relinquished the gun into the cryptid’s care, however, Goldlewis had an idea. Even if Geralt was focused on the other Keeper, the veteran wasn’t completely alone in this fight.

“Marduk!” he barked, which manifested an old soldier with long white hair and an even longer cannon. “Blow ‘em straight to hell!” His striker obeyed in silence, calling in a drone that zipped down the hall to conduct an area bombardment. The Keeper swatted at the drone as it buzzed overhead, only noticing the grenades bouncing around the tight space when they began to detonate. Then he vanished in an uproarious clusterbomb of pure physical force, compounded by the corridor’s confines. The destruction not only demolished the basement walls but took chunks out of the Qliphoth flesh beyond it. By the time the fireworks died down and the smoke started to clear, Goldlewis could see an open area almost as big as the room he and Geralt stood in–as well as the Keeper, still standing amidst all the rubble.

“Tsk.” Made aware of the other Keeper’s traps by Geralt despite his ringing ears, Goldlewis decided to leave the area and take the fight to his opponent before he could back into a concertina bomb. He shouldered his coffin and marched forward once more, but not before firing off Kamael’s Circle of Life to soften his Keeper up.

Geralt watched the traps that the Keeper had thrown down for another moment, before following Goldlewis's lead and putting some distance between himself and them. The Keeper wasn't bothered by that at all, still trudging on silently, so Geralt kept it between him and the traps, while making some room transform again.

This time, he chose the Ardor Blossom Identity. While the extra size wasn't necessarily ideal in these cramped quarters, he needed a big hit to put this thing in a more vulnerable state. Other than the Molar Boatworks Fixer Identity he'd just unlocked, he was somewhat lacking in that front compared to the others. His Strikers were also more on the side of harassment or dealing many lighter hits, with the exception of the Judicator, itself more of a supporting summon than a damage-dealer.

Geralt didn't have much difficulty running circles around the Keeper, flinging fireballs every second or so to keep it burning and slowly charging his larger attack. After a few cycles of dodging around mallet and bludgeon swipes, the Keeper seemed to grow agitated, and it turned its gaze on Goldlewis, much to the Witcher's consternation.

“Oh no you don't.” He growled as the undaunted butcher turned its back on him, charging into it and slashing its back with his claws, only to receive a backhanded swing of the bloody sack to the arm as the Keeper continued forward.

Another fireball proved the final blow necessary to charge Ground Shaker, and Geralt stomped the floor to unleash the barrage of dark energy explosions. The hallway had already been blown open by Goldlewis's Striker, but the Keeper had no room to escape, the explosions softening it up further. Returning to his original state, Geralt tore free the Hateful Flesh again and charged, slamming it into his Keeper and finally getting its attention again.

In the meantime, Goldlewis had been fighting with uncharacteristic patience, finally lending a little credence to his title ‘Secretary of Absolute Defense's. The extra footwork he'd picked up from his Jack-8 fusion helped him play the distance game with the pirate Keeper, peppering him with weaker body shots to keep his RISC topped up until a bigger blow from his coffin could crank it higher. This was a battle of attrition, and busting through the Keeper’s guard without succumbing to his wounds was the veteran’s win condition. His foe fought with ruthless aggression, pausing only to throw down concertina bombs and restrict the field of play.

So focused was Goldlewis that he did not notice the second keeper poised to sucker punch him until Geralt’s Ground Shaker rocked the hollow. It not only forced the second Keeper’s hand, but also demolished much of what remained of the swallowed building. Rubble and ruin rained down around Seekers and Keepers alike. Forcing Goldlewis to take cover beneath his Wall of Light. It took a few moments for the collapse to stop and the dust to begin to clear, revealing a cavernous Qliphoth hollow piled high with debris. With no protection against the limestone downpour, the Keepers had been pounded. They clambered from the wreckage dazedly, dogged to the last.

Goldlewis glanced at Geralt to make sure the Witcher was okay. “Still kickin’ there, hoss? Good!” He allowed himself a smirk as he lifted his coffin. “Let's kick some ass.”

Geralt nodded, brushing off some dust and debris. He'd sheltered beneath a Quen bubble shield, safe from the worst of the collapse. The Keepers had to be on the verge of falling, so Geralt kept up the offensive, hurling the blade forward to slash at the Keeper he'd been fighting. It took the blow head-on without so much as a grunt, and Geralt retracted the weapon to parry a hammer blow as it reached him and attacked. He couldn't stop the follow-up swing from the bloodied sack flail that crashed into his torso, but Geralt got his own hit in with a heavy slash to the Keeper's arm before he stepped back to make some room.

The Keeper abandoned the slow, menacing pace it had maintained for much of the fight, lowering its shoulder and rushing in for a tackle. Not held back by heavy riot gear or a pneumatic tank, though, Geralt was quick to dodge the charge and capitalized on the opening, slamming the Hateful Flesh onto its back with a hearty overhead swing, finally downing this Keeper again. He used the time to transform back into the Molar Boatworks Identity, and circled around to the Keeper's front, priming the pile bunker. Staring down into the open safe, Geralt sighed. Just another monster. He thrust the weapon forward into the vulnerable flesh, and with a rush of air as the mechanism activated, the harpoon crashed into the Keeper's vulnerable flesh, piercing it and dealing massive damage. To seal the deal, Geralt cast Igni and focused the flames into a concentrated jet of fire, scorching the safe and the flesh inside until it melted and bubbled. As the flames abated, the Keeper slumped to the floor, dissolving into ash. Geralt scooped the remaining Spirit up and turned to watch Goldlewis defeating his own foe.

After one final staredown with the dial on his own Keeper’s safe, Goldlewis broke out into a run. He thundered forward a half-dozen steps, and his opponent responded in kind, his bloodlust undiminished. With the demolition of the consumed cellar, though, Goldlewis could do something new: take to the air. He used a fallen slab as a springboard to leap a solid six feet into the air, then airdashed off an orange glyph of magic. Having never fought an aerial opponent before, the Keeper stopped short to steel himself, but he could never have anticipated what happened next. The veteran’s momentum carried him forward with a Behemoth Typhoon that clanged loudly off the Keeper’s safe, but his coffin didn’t stop there; it whirled around and slammed down again, and again. In a ridiculous display of power, Goldlewis used his fully-stocked Security Levels to launch three Behemoth Typhoons back to back, each impact bouncing him back up off his target. Blocking made no difference, and after the third crushing blow the Keeper dropped to his knees. His safe burst open in a spray of gunk, and the next second Goldlewis touched back down.

He cracked his neck to one side, then the other. Then he seized his coffin, muscles and neck-veins bulging. “DOWN THEEEEEEEEE!” With plenty of time to spare, he put everything he had into his mighty coffin uppercut “SYSTEEEEEEEEEEEEEM!” The immense impact launched the Keeper up into the air, and from inside the coffin three Thunderbird drones whirred forth to chase down and blow up on the butcher mid-air. The ensuing explosion lit up the hollow, and only soot rained down with the spirit.

“...Huuuuuh!” As his coffin fell Goldlewis doubled over, breathing heavily. “Gah-lee. Mighta gone overboard there. That sumbitch was sure askin’ for it, though. Tougher’n a two-dollar steak.” He shook his head, then straightened up and smoothed back his pompadour. “Those headbutts still got me woozy. Not my brightest idea…guess that ain’t what they mean when they say ‘use your head’.”

“Perhaps not.” The Witcher agreed, shaking his head. “Must’ve taken it by surprise, at least. Still, that’s dealt with now. Let’s find a way out of here.”

Before the two could move on, though, Geralt’s vision darkened as the world around him seemed to slow to a crawl. Before him appeared a trio of ethereal cards, each with an image and words upon them. Geralt found that he couldn’t quite pull his attention from them, and read the descriptions of each, eventually reaching towards the one with a broken shield on it. With his proclivity for using Quen, it’d be a major upgrade to his capabilities in combat.

At the same time, Goldlewis received a choice as well. Though initially alarmed by the change in his surroundings and the bizarre manifestation before him, he managed to keep his cool. Once convinced he wasn’t under attack, he read over the cards before him. Volcanic Flourish…Battle Nature…Hypereutectoid??? If these blessings were meant to be taken, he supposed that he’d have to choose. As tempting as the more selfish options were, the last one reminded him that he hadn’t been taking advantage of the shielding capabilities he received from Hank. If doing so would strengthen himself and his allies as well, he’d be incentivized to start.





Once the Seekers chose, everything returned to normal–or as normal as things could be within the Qliphoth, anyway. With the inexplicable rewards over with, it was definitely time to move on. Returning to his natural form, Geralt made his way down the hallway they’d destroyed, searching for another vein through which to escape. With the walls of the hollow now exposed they quickly found a suitable and accessible bloodstream. After another moment to compose themselves, the two forced their way in and were borne upward through the Qliphoth once more.

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 ”Hit the big one!”

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 ears used as legs. “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 definitely 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!”

”Keep on it, I’m almost done!” 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 Feral Edge, 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.

”You’re in my domain now, so choke on it!” 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 ”You sneaky Poe!” 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.

”I’m what?” 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 clawesome!” 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.

”Oh no you don’t” 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 ”now stay down”

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.

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

”That thing heal or should I-?” 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 the soldier 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 ”Yes I saw that”

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

”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” 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 Nightsky Ripper.

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

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 my 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.



”You know what? I’ll take the break after miss sunshine” 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 ”I’ve had enough of being blinded, thanks. Not taking a chance on you”

For the second it was ”Tch they’re supposed to get hurt for me” 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 ”I could always do with more meat shields” 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 goddess 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.

”Fitting” she called it, before pressing it to her chest in a salute as she said ”thank you Selene” 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.



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 ”Did a goddess not talk to you after you picked a blessing from the … posters?” 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 people laughing? 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.”

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

Thankfully for Therion, xylem (or whatever it was that actually flowed through the Qliphoth's veins) was not water, so as he traveled through the demon tree's bloodstream he was unharmed. He was pissed off though, not to mention drenched, so he cut himself free from the vessel as soon as the pressure began to decrease. He burst out of the vein, making a three point landing on the uneven ground with his dagger raised and ready to shred anything that might jump to attack him.

But nothing did. Actually, the only other living being in the room at the moment was... one of the new guys. Therion didn't know his name. Had he introduced himself? If the man had, Therion had forgotten already.

Washed of mud and grime but now covered in crimson, Therion's shaggy wet hair and sad waterlogged fur gave him a drowned cat appearance to go with the man's disheveled pigeon look. After a moment of calm Therion stood upright, studying the arena the two of them had found themselves in. It looked like a cave more than anything, with sloping walls and chunks of stone jutting out of the walls and floor, and some kind of aura surrounding the perimeter. In the center was the only thing of note, something his partner had already picked up on: a dark crystalline structure. Once his eyes adjusted, the thief could make out something encased inside.

Therion didn’t stow his weapon just yet, but he did relax slightly once it was clear nothing was coming up after them for the time being. He glanced at the other man, and the magic circle he was fiddling with, then went over to the only other visible vein. He attempted to place his hand on it, but as he suspected - the barrier prevented him from doing so.

Finally he made his way over to Edward, crouching down a few feet away from him.

"Do you already have a plan or something?" The thief asked, eyes flickering down to the magic circle.

”Only the simplest one: to face whatever that is with as many forces as can be mustered” the man replied, before the spell circle on the ground blinked, and he excused himself for ”one moment” before completing the pair of rituals.

First, the spent rifle that had been sitting in the circle vanished in the blink of an eye, sent back to the armory after the somewhat lengthy return sequence was completed. Then he raised a hand and pulled at the copper wires stuck into the floating magic circle, extracting them from it and then, with his other hand, flicking some mechanism at his waist that caused them to reel back in to a coil sat nested among 12 small batteries that thrummed softly as a result of the mana that had been compressed into them.

Enough time had passed, between Therion’s scouting and Edward’s surveying that it was rather clear that ”It looks like it will just be us”

As such the commander requested ”Could you give me a quick summary of how you fight? You seem to be something of a skirmisher, but I’d like to ensure I construct a supporting regiment that best compliments your capabilities” before adding, as something of a formality ”oh and could have your name as well? Mine would be Edward Portsmith”

Therion didn't answer immediately. Since they actually had the time to prepare, he took said time to consider how best to answer the man. Skirmisher seemed right, but he hadn't really thought about it before.

"It's Therion," he started with. "You've got it about right. I'm quick and accurate, way faster than I am strong. I've got some magic, and I can weaken my opponents. Among other things."

Listing out everything would be a pain, so he left it at that for the moment. Normally he might have been more guarded with even that basic information, but hey, he was a team player now. And if the two of them had to work together to get through out of this area, it'd be better if Edward knew what he was working with.

"And I can turn into a giant cat," the thief added, deadpan, with a flick of his ears. Now it was time for the dreadnaught to return the favor. "And you're some kind of… wizard? Golem-mancer? You don't really look the part."

"Like the Tigran mystics once did" the other man replied to that last piece of information without missing a beat, before he retrieved a pair of tomes that hung at his waist.

"Dreadnoughts are generals who make practical applications of magic for the common good, rather than mages who plumb the depths of the arcane. Without an industrial base I am, however, relying mostly on golomancy, yes. A few army wide enchantments and an instant spell as well, but I think given the situation, giving you a defensive line to dart in and out of, or pin your foes against, might be most optimal. Plus something to break that stone"

With a plan in mind, the two tomes flipped open, and the man began incanting from them, first repeating the spell he had used outside to form a singular cannon, and then began one as of yet unheard:

"Since before history began, the humble spear has been raised in defiance against all manner of monsters. It is a great equalizer, and yet, also, oh so often, a burden thrust in the hands of those least prepared for war who then suffer the greatest from it. No more! Let us build bristling walls to shelter the living behind! Let us send forth mechanical might, the likes of which will make the horrors of the night know pause, and in that pause, we shall break them, once and for all!"

A dramatic speech for sure, though perhaps it would have been something of an over embellishment when the much lauded ‘mechanical might’ came in the form of a somewhat spindling looking man sized copper golem.

It helped that they came in packs of six. It also helped that the man proceeded to forge six total packs of these, for a total of 36 additional combatants added to their ranks. He spread them out in an arch defending the cannon and himself, both of which had their backs to a piece of cavern wall. Lanes were left between them, enough space for one man to shoot or slip through, but thin enough that the spears could deny entry with ease. One of these lanes naturally pointed directly towards the obelisk, with the cannon pointed straight down it.

With a defensive perimeter formed, Edward added that "I have reserved 2 mana fuel cells for spells that will briefly make a target more vulnerable and easier to strike as well" before inquiring if "this will be suitable?"

At the beginning of Edward's conjuration spell, Therion had raised an eyebrow. Now that he was seeing these things up close, they didn't seem as impressive as they had from across a battlefield. But as more and more were gradually summoned into being, Therion's doubtful expression morphed into one of mild surprise. Sure it had taken more than a couple of moments, but being able to create a small army on the field was one hell of a skill.

"Yeah, this'll work," the thief replied. He noted Edward's comment about the mana fuel cells, his brain taking a moment to parse out what a fuel cell could be. Then he stretched his limbs out lightly in preparation for what was to come before making his own final comment. "Call out to me if you run out of mana, I might be able to help with that."

"Interesting."

The two men were as ready as they could be. Therion snaked around a couple of the golems towards the front of the line so that he was in a better position to go on the offensive when things kicked off. He didn't wait long for it - as soon as Edward was ready the man set his magelock cannon to light, and the wicked artillery weapon blasted a condensed ball of magic at the core stone in the center of the room. The firing shook the arena slightly, and on impact the hardy dark crystal broke apart.

The encased core stone was then freed, itself unfortunately undamaged by the blast. It remained suspended in the air, floating ominously while it began to form a dark glow around itself. Along the walls behind itself a similar glow began to form, rapidly ripping open portals from which creatures began to surge out in droves. They were roughly humanoid, appearing part man and part deep stone, and they ran on all fours directly towards the Seekers and their golem guards.

"Of course, fresh horrors" Edward noted with casual resignation, before tapping the Amory screen interface he’d had open (having said he’d use it so select appropriate weapon when they knew the nature of the threat) and summoning his magelock rifle into an empty hand. He then rested the barrel against his buckler for support, lined up a shot, and sent the magical round slamming into the skull of one of the creatures- only for the round torichet off the beast’s armored cranium.

It still staggered it, and then prompted it to roar in anger/defiance, skull splitting right down the middle and open exposing a host of squirming tongues and feelers, and revealing the head to be more of a 3 part jaw than an actual, well, head.

Delightful" Edward called this display, before pumping a second round right into the creature's open maw, putting it down for good. Its blood splattered to the floor, a purple goop that shimmered like the gateway and looked mighty unpleasant to step in.

This was confirmed a few moments later when the creatures reached the spears. They rose up on their hind legs, roaring, and then came slashing both front limbs downwards at the golems. It was an attack style that let them hit a fair way above their weight class, but the nature of it left them very exposed to being struck before they could land it, and striking first was exactly what the spears were built for. As one, all six golems took a step forwards when an attack was incoming, driving six sharp points into the foes, and at least some of these got lucky hits, spears driven right into the maws of the beasts.

It was after this that the spears suffered. Those that had failed to take down their attackers inevitably lost members of their unit to the blows, while those that stopped the attacks found their positions splashed with the distorting goop, forcing them to take a step back lest it devour from the feet up.

The creatures that survived lept back, seeming to prefer hit and run tactics, which proved perhaps not the best strategy when a pair that had made the mistake of lining up had a cannonball rip through the pair of them. Edward would have joined in on trying to take down the wounded, but unfortunately he was trying to stem a bigger issue: the creature's ability to climb on and leap between the chunks of cavern littering the area, which they were attempting to use to reach the chunk the formation was using to cover their rear inorder to bypass the spears.

Recognizing the threat the crawlers posed if they got behind the line of golems, Therion targeted these opportunistic monsters whenever he spotted one. A well placed reaver bolt would drop a leaping one from the air, where it could be swiftly dealt with by himself or a round of spears.

Although debuffing was Therion's niche, without Primrose to spread the effects to every enemy at once it would take too much time and energy to go about weakening every individual creature in the pack. So he'd been focused entirely on offense, blitzing in and out of the wall of golems to strike at the core crawlers. In his right hand was the dagger Bronllavyn, and in his left the spectral Wraith Blade. Therion had quickly learned that while the creatures had extremely tough face plates and their backs were near impenetrable, the rest of their body featured no such armor. Though the thief preferred a quick take down through the weak points in their head behind the face plate, since they still died when their necks or bellies were cut he wasn't going to be picky with where he attacked them. He easily finished off any of the wounded crawlers, and took out his fair share of fresh ones by employing the same tactics they did: land a hit or two to a critical area and then dart away only to repeat the process. Therion escaped between the copper golems, letting them take any retaliatory slashes aimed at him and using their bodies to physically block any of the residual goop left behind from the crawlers' bodies.

A summon of an angelic striker by Edward patched up the squads all at once, fallen golems being replaced by freshly printed duplicates foged using the excess healing magic. This, however, did not give them back any of the ground they’d had give up, gradually tightening the formation step back by step back.

Although able to deal with the host of crawlers in the short term, once it looked like the flood of creatures coming in through the portals wasn't going to stop any time soon it became obvious that the two Seekers weren't going to be able to hold out in the long term. It stood to reason that the source of the portals was the core stone itself, so as soon as he took care of the closest few crawlers that were attempting to leap over the remaining golems, Therion broke away from the formation and made a beeline for the stone. Some crawlers turned to chase after him, and those he passed lashed out by raking their claws against him as he ran by. As soon as he was close enough Therion leapt at the stone, clinging and climbing up onto its rocky top half while driving both of his weapons into the glowing bottom half.

The core stone stuttered, its glow flickering but remaining lit. A pessimistic thought, or more of a hunch occurred to Therion, but attacking the stone was definitely the right way to do this.

"Aim at this thing!" The thief shouted at Edward as a handful of crawlers converged on the stone.

The man didn’t need to be told twice. With a flap of his wings he launched himself into the air, only to be surrounded by a circle of runes that momentarily anchored him in it, holding him steady as he aimed, while he also designated the target with a blood red aura. Right before he fired, his cannon rang out, its own round curving slightly in the air as a result of the debuff, before it detonated in mid air and sent its wide burst pulsing through stone and crawlers both, clearing the way for Edward’s magelock rifle round to slam home into the stone.

Therion had leapt off of the stone ahead of the dreadnaught's attack. Able to observe up close he noted that the stone's flotation was starting to falter now too, though it was able to stay airborne. The portals it had summoned remained open and more core crawlers continued coming through into the arena, and on the floor beneath the core stone Therion spotted some kind of rumbling. He narrowed his eyes, his ears turning to lay flat against his head. Shit.

The meaty interior of the tree, the bloodstreams they'd had to travel through, the infected enemies they fought... it all unpleasantly reminded Therion of everything that had happened in The Under. There had been something like this in the Under too, a concealed device that called forth hordes of enemies to protect it. The similarities could have been a coincidence, but when combined with everything else? It gave the thief the feeling he knew exactly what was coming next.

"Portsmith!" Therion barked, bringing both of his weapons up and lunging at the core stone once more. "Hammer this thing quick before it rebuilds its—"

Too late. The same dark crystal that had surrounded the stone when they first entered shot up from the ground violently, slicing Therion as it emerged. It reformed around the core stone, shielding it from any further harm. It'd have to be broken again it seemed, but worse was that it did not reset the state of the battlefield. The portals remained open around the arena, and more began to form on every wall spilling yet more crawlers. I hate being right, the thief thought.

”Focusing the cannon on-" Edward started to call out, only for one of the portals to open on the stone he was using to guard their rear. To his credit, the man must have expected this inevitably, as rather than panic or be taken by surprise he pivoted on the spot and pumped a maglock round into the shoulder of one of the emerging crawlers, before dropping from the fringe pose and using the enchanted buckler to block a two clawed swipe from another.

Another rushed past him, slamming its claws into the back of the magelock cannon, disrupting its attempt to blast the piller. The construct was fortunately fairly durable, but it couldn’t exactly fight back against melee attackers, and if it went down, they would be in trouble.

”Moving the formation! Therion, help clear some untainted ground!" Edward called out as the cannon uprooted itself and began to roll forwards, spears marching ahead, doing their best to hold the perimeter even on the move.

Behind them Edward attempted to hold the rear of the formation while the copper golems repositioned to try and convert the semi circle it had been into a full one. His strategy seemed less focused on killing, and more about enduring and exploiting the creature’s psychology. The man hurled himself in the way of foes, in order to prompt them into retreating after delivering that attack against him, and in doing so, preventing them from slipping in between him and the spears and going for the cannon.

A shallow pool of water began to spread underfoot then, gradually healing up Edward and the golems in place of the featherstaff. Therion's striker Nayan stood in the center of the defensive circle, her palms pressed together as her Calling Spirits completed the revitalizing water well encompassing the formation. Any of the core crawlers that did manage to get lucky and slip through slowed down as soon as they touched the water, ripe for being picked off if they couldn't escape in time.

After passing through to drop off the striker, Therion circled around the perimeter like a predator, swiftly taking advantage of the crawlers' retreats or lunges. Unlike the dreadnaught he aimed to finish the monsters off - and each time their bodies crumbled into ash and left a mote of light behind, the thief's wraith blade sliced the spirit in two. Being on the outside of the healing pool, this was how he kept himself fighting fit. The spirits were absorbed into the sword, and in turn the cuts on Therion's body began to cease bleeding and stitch themselves together slowly. Stamina was still going to be an issue, but for the moment he kept clearing out as many core crawlers as he could get his hands on, twisting and stabbing across the arena until the herd was thinned enough to give the cannon room to work.

Edward did his part in this in the end as well, having taken so many blows from them that the crystals on his buckler had begun to glow with stored energy. Mustering it, he left forwards with a flap of wings and slammed into the ground in a superhero landing, sending out a circular shockwave that knocked crawlers down and cripled limbs.

With the thinning of the herd by Therion, and the moment of space granted by the drednaught’s shockwave, the spears finished forming a hexagon around the cannon. The gaps between them were larger, the space between smaller, but still, better than having the wall you’d pressed their back to betraying them, and thus the guns could sound once more. Targeting. Naturally. The obsidian pillar, into which cannon shots began to pound, chunks being blow free til once again, the stone took to the air once more.

”Marking the target in five! Let’s take it down post haste!" Edward called out before he leapt into the air with a flap, freezing himself up there with the magelock’s accurate boosting self buff. Once more the bloody aura surrounded the stone as he designated it as their target (expanding his last mana fuel cell in the process). Once again its defenses were lowered and shots struck truer against it. Once more Edward’s mage lock sang and slammed a round into it.

Therion sucked in a breath and chased after the shot, this time tagging the stone with Armor Corrosive as he slashed at it with his dagger and piling on the defense lowering debuffs. After the initial strike he kept some distance between himself and the stone, wary of it suddenly sprouting a new crystalline shield again. He swapped to using his own projectiles, a mix of reaver bolts and crystal darts that he powered up with a soft silver glow. This was the most reliable way for him to deal damage at the moment, and it kept him free to deal with the every increasing numbers of core spawn crawlers as well. He back stepped as a pair leapt at him, switching his focus to protecting himself. It was a vicious cycle; if the pair of Seekers didn't deal with the swarm, the core stone was likely to just build its protective shell back up. But if they focused only the stone, the portal-summoned monsters would threaten to overwhelm them.

A fiery blast heralded Therion's return to the inner ring of the golem circle. More than one of the crawlers had been getting too close for comfort, lucky claw swipes catching him in his blind spots while he fought off those in front of him. When eventually too many bunched up close to him, the thief lashed out with his Wildfire to scatter them. With the wall of golems in front of him once more, reduced as it was, he redoubled his efforts on the stone - and as expected, once the build up of damage got too much the crystal's growth rapidly accelerated and surrounded the core stone, throwing the men into round three.

”Focusing the cannon’s fire again" Edward announced, because that was their only option right now. With it no longer blasting between the lanes of golems however, the inevitable eventually happened. Thined, and rendered less effective because of it, their attrition had accelerated, and then, now, right when they needed the formation the most, one of the squads was wiped out, and there was no bringing them back from that.

Edward ditched his rifle there and then, drawing his machete and accompanying flintlock and planting himself in the resulting breach, demanding the remaining golems ”Hold fast! They’re almost beaten!" in a way that would have been inspiring had his troops been flesh and blood soldiers. As it was, it was likely the words were primarily called out to bolster his own morale as claws crashed against his armor, blade and shield and his troops fell around him.

While Edward focused on protecting the cannon, Therion set about to clear its firing line again. If they were in danger of losing it then they had to make the most out of it before it was gone. Therion remained in his human form if only to keep getting use out of his wraith blade, mitigating a small portion of the damage being done to him. For every crawler he ambushed, one ambushed him. For every few he killed, more just poured in.

"Set it off!" Therion called back whenever he managed to clear even a slight opening, figuring the cannon blast could get through a few monsters on its way to smash against the crystal. Each time it struck, a host of crawlers took the opportunity to move in on them with their claws and maws snapping.

Things weren't looking good to say the least. But Therion did have something up his sleeve that all of the fighting so far would allow him to use. If he was lucky it would solve a couple of their problems all at once.

The thief cast his eyes about the arena, swiftly settled on a course of action, and then abandoned his post. The unit of golems he'd been assisting would have been swallowed up soon anyway, and the first of them crumpled as soon as he moved. Therion's direction meant he was heading for the nearest cavern wall, moving fast and dodging as many claw swipes as he took. He made a detour only to snatch Portsmith by the collar and drag him along too at the last moment. He hoped the man wasn't going to ask questions, because he wasn't going to answer them at the moment. A bright aura began to form around the thief, rapidly shifting from white to gold to holy blue and getting larger as it did - and when they'd exited the center of the arena for the most part and the majority of the crawlers were in front of them, Therion used his divine skill.

Dozens of spots in the air around the thief began to shimmer, forming small pockets of what looked like they could have been portals of his own. What came out of them were almost too fast to see - a storm of daggers that ripped through the air like divine bolts of light. They covered a huge swath of the hollow, slicing through core spawn crawlers and copper golems alike, and despite the devastating force it was over just as quickly as it had appeared. It may have taken a sacrifice of the last of the dreadnaught's forces, and a not insignificant chunk of Therion's remaining energy, but in return the majority of the monsters lay dead or dying. Those that had been lucky enough to avoid the kill zone lingered on the fringes of the arena, hesitant but slowly creeping forward while looking for a chance to continue the attack.

It wouldn't stay that way for long, however. Aeber's Reckoning had done nothing to put a stop to the spawn portals themselves, and the next batch of crawlers were already pulling themselves out of the swirling purple masses.

Therion took a few deep steadying breaths through his nose as his battle boost aura bled away. He'd released Edward as soon as he was sure the man wouldn't get caught in the Reckoning, and now he re-summoned his wraith blade to swipe it through the small collection of spirits in front of them. It wouldn't get him back to full health but it was better than nothing, and as his wounds slowly began to close Therion looked towards the core stone. At the very least the pillar encasing it had broken under the cannon fire once more, and the dagger rain had chipped away the last remaining chunk of it. The core stone floated ominously, its glow daring the Seekers to continue fighting.

”Seems I will need to replace-" Edward began to say, before pausing as his bent in half magelock rifle (which had been left behind in the rush) fall out of the sky from where it had been blasted and bonk one of the Remaining Crawlers on the head, and adjusting too ”-repair that then"

Despite its miraculous survival (if it could be called that) the man’s main ranged damage source was in no state to be retrieved, let alone fired, and so there was really only one thing to be done: charge the stone.

It wasn’t going to make that easy however, as a fresh rift opened right in between them and it, and fresh horrors spilled out to bar their way, or to at the very least slow them enough that the older horrors could catch up with them.

Without hesitation, Edward started moving forwards, leather boots trapping against living flesh, wings unfurling, flapping as he made a running liftoff to try and get over the Crawlers. Naturally, they disagreed with this course of action, and attempted to leap up and swat him out of the air. He hacked at one leaper with the machete, deflecting its reaching claw, and then pumped the flintlock round that slash had loaded into another, the recoil from the shot boosting his height enough that he cleared the rest with ease.

”Intriguing" he mused, through a somewhat labored breath, before tilting his flight and beginning to glide down towards the stone. The flintlock was holstered, the machete gripped in two hands, and then he banked at the last moment, burning all his momentum for hight, and delivered a downwards gravity assisted chop to the stone, before flapping his wings at the last moment to prevent himself from breaking his ankles upon landing beneath it.

Around him, the crawlers closed in from all sides, converging to come to the defence of their summoner.

Without the benefit of a pair of wings to boost himself over the masses, Therion had to keep to the ground. He fought as ruthlessly as possible, pushing to put an end to things. They could only hope that once they took out the stone summoning them, the waves of crawlers would cease. With that in mind Therion took shots at the core stone whenever he had a decent line of sight to it, silver empowered darts and bolts striking its glowing section. Eventually the crawlers got wise, using the time he aimed at the stone as a safer time to pounce. He already had his hands full with fending them off, especially bad as his attack and defense were reduced in such close quarters and getting rougher by the moment now that it was just he and Portsmith with no support.

Suddenly Therion took a heavy strike from the side, one of the crawlers tackling him to the ground instead of the usual dart-in-dart-out swipe of its claws. It moved to escape back to safety and let its brethren have a go at the thief, but on the way down he jabbed it in its back leg with his dagger, drawing its vitality out of it and siphoning it back to him. He twisted the knife and pulled the creature back to shield himself with its body as pairs of claws came down at him, then sprung back to his feet through the ashes in order to dispatch the monsters around him. Another crawler rounded at Therion, its hard nails connecting with his manacle and bracer as he raised his arm to block it. He chanced a glance at the stone Edward was fighting under. Damn it, we're so close, he thought. The floating rock's light was flickering, and surely it didn't have enough energy to conjure yet another crystal.

Edward for one did not seem to want to find out, and so, even as the Crawlers threatened to overwhelm him, the man, wings bloody, armor dented, limbs burning from exertion, raised the flintlock that was his main source of damage up above his head and pulled the trigger.

The crack of gunpowder barked, the round flew, straight up, and into the core stone, resulting as a second all mighty crack as it shuddered, wobbled, and then its light died, and it fell from the sky.

As it fell, the Crawlers wailed and then collapsed, life gone.

A moment later, and the core stone landed right on top of Edward’s head, and then everything went dark.

Well, dark except for the three floating boons that were presented to both the seekers for their victory.


Edward was not, it had to be said, in the best state to be frozen in time like this, what with his blood leaking from his wings and his head ringing from the core stone’s impact with his cranium. Said stone floating in the air, frozen in time, in front of him certainly didn’t help his cognition at the moment. Still, it was a little reminiscent of how tome research worked, with three options on offer, so he leaned on that familiarity even while his head threatened to kill him.

His eyes briefly skimmed what was ahead of him, reading two things involving blood and injury, and one that did not, and given his current state went for the option that did not require being in this state to be made use of.

He was rewarded by a vision of an woman of quite the age, but who nonetheless had plenty of fire in her. Also on her, considering the hat of burning coals she wore.

“Oh, dearie, you look like you’ve been through a lot, and so far from home though. No time for longing for that though, you’ve got horrors to burn. So chin up sonny, and keep pushing through, because Hestia, goddess of hearth and home, is watching over you”

And then she was gone, and the world was back once more.

When darkness overtook his vision, Therion assumed there actually was some fourth more dreadful phase to their battle. He was tense, locked into fight or flight mode until three cards appeared a little ahead of him. This too was familiar - it wasn't entirely similar to the Basement rooms that had featured mysterious items on pedestals, but it was close enough that the thief lowered his guard enough to read the text on them.


So they really were rewards of some kind. Interesting, he thought. Assuming there were no strings attached, any one of them seemed like they'd make decent benefits. Therion usually went with his gut however, and his gut was telling him to take the middle choice. The power reduction he now experienced when he was fighting in close quarters was annoying, and he wasn't sure exactly which spirit was doing it to him. This way he could fix at least one of the drawbacks, with a bonus to boot.

As soon as his fingers brushed the card he was treated to a vision of some kind. A huge, insect-like figure accompanied by the sound of hissing and skittering took over his senses for a moment. The next, it and the dark space was gone.

With their duly earned rewards chosen, light and color filtered back into the men's visions. Time resumed, and the energy barrier around the perimeter of the hollow had disappeared. They were left with each other, piles and piles of ashes and core spawn crawler spirits, and the core stone itself depleted of its glow.

Therion stood still for a few moments, once again making sure nothing was about to jump out at them now that all seemed quiet. Then he sighed, stowing his dagger until the next hellish fight they would surely have to go through. The wraith blade was still tightly held in his fist, and he swiped it through part of the mountain of spirits to heal up the various cuts and gouges he had on his person.

That had sucked, but they prevailed, somehow. The way forward was clear, but there was nothing stopping them from taking some time to regroup first.

Edward certainly seemed like he needed it, given he was still losing a fair bit of blood from his tattered wings that had absorbed more than one flanking strike by the crawlers. A healing potion from the armory kept him standing long enough for his feather staff striker to come off of its lengthy cooldown, loath as he seemed to be to waste resources oh himself like that.

As for what they had gained, well, after examining the core stone, Edward reported that ”I am fairly certain it is actually inert and not playing dead" something he determined via poking it with the tip of his machete a few times.

”Best we pile it up with the spirits and my rifle, and send them to the avenger for assessment/utilization?" he suggested, something that would give him time to recharge his power banks as well.

The questioning tone Edward added to the end of his sentence made Therion throw a curious glance his way. Was he asking the thief's permission or something?

"I guess," he responded. He couldn't really see the use of a bunch of spirits like these, but then again they could always be made into something else that might be more useful. When he looked back over the arena however, he noted just how many were still left. Suddenly he was loathe to assist Edward in sending them back. "All of them?"

”That does not seem timely, no, but there’s a fair concentration over there, which should provide Sagi plenty of fodder for her ‘Wyverian Melding’ technique, the results of which I am quite interested in seeing" he pointed at the point where the spearwall had spent most of the battle, where indeed, a host of spirits that had died in close proximity that ”We can simply place the returning rituals under those"

Therion could deal with that. He left Edward to scoop up the core stone and went about gathering a few handfuls of spirits on his way over to where the dreadnaught would construct his magic circle, dumping them into the largest pile. He continued to drag his wraith blade through others until the only evidence he'd been in a battle at all were the ripped parts of his outfit. Best to save the more limited healing options while he could. Finally he dispelled the weapon and stepped back, giving Edward room to do his thing.

The pile of the core stone, the dead Crawlers, and Edward’s bent out of shape rifle were all swiftly surrounded by the glow of a large arcane circle, a convenient time in the form of a final ring being gradually drawn letting them know how long it would take to finish. As it did, Edward took it to plug himself in to be recharged, and to talk a little. Starting off with ”My thanks for hauling me out of the defensive line, I and it would have not lasted much longer" tacitly saying that there were no hard feelings about his constructs and rifle being blown to hell a few moments later.

Since it seemed they'd be there for a little longer, and it wasn't like Therion was all that eager to jump into the next vein anyway, the thief had taken a seat on the (somewhat gross) ground and leaned his back against a boulder. His ears flicked towards Edward before his eyes did.

"Don't mention it," he said, and it sounded like he actually meant it. He'd been running with the Seekers for a little while now, but if they got thanked it was as a group, usually, if they were ever thanked at all. Therion was still a bit unused to direct gratitude. It wasn't his style either, so rather than thank the man for summoning them in the first place (they both knew that without the golems or the cannon they wouldn't have even stood a chance), he somewhat awkwardly followed with, "good work..."

And, after a beat, added a cheeky, "...newbie."

"I am aware the power differentials are quite large" the man replied plainly, again entirely honestly it seemed, but he did also have secondary motive for this line of reply, which was "Speaking of, I don’t suppose you were also offered a (supposedly) divine boon for this victory? Is that a common thing?" said with a bit of skepticism about the entire prospect.

"Common? No," Therion answered. He did not seem confused about the question, implying that answer to Edward's first inquiry was a yes. "But anything can and does happen. Just be glad it was something randomly good for once."

"Dice upon dice" he mused, before actually replying "Agreed, any favorable fate in this place of all places is more than welcome"

At that moment, the two spell circles they had been waiting on both filled up their loading circles, recharging Edward’s mana cells, and sending the items back to the Avenger.

"Your patience is appreciated" he said, the time devouring tasks done, before he enquired "Onwards and upwards then?"

Therion pushed to his feet, his tail swaying behind him. "Onwards and upwards," he agreed, though his tone was decidedly lacking in enthusiasm.

High above the ash-covered battlefield that the Seekers had hurriedly left behind, the open air gave way to layers upon layers of hellish, meat-red plant matter, assembled in masses the size of skyscrapers that formed the solid core of the demon tree. Even before the Qliphoth’s parasitization, though, the termite-esque Empusa that dwelled in this place had meticulously carved out many winding tunnels and cavernous hollows in its trunk. One such cave opened directly into the lower atrium itself, a promising cavity in the vaulted ceiling, but when Sectonia fluttered inside she found little in the way of relief from the infestation’s grossly biological ugliness.

Instead she discovered what appeared to be a breeding ground, where leeches swollen to the size of crocodiles clung to the walls in droves, slowly siphoning off the Qliphoth’s stolen blood for themselves. Worse still were the malignant wretches that might have at some point been humans, each both gaunt and bloated in hideous fashion, pieced and adorned by metal instruments in a state of perennial torture, and festooned with the living bloodbags of vampiric elixir that made them into these malformed things in the first place. Some darted or crawled around in manic frenzy, licking ichor from mutilated leeches in the hopes that more blood would kickstart their failed transformations, while others simple stewed in the muck. But worst of all was the horror that floated weightlessly above it all, an ovoid mass of pinkish tissues, limp arms, dangling intestines, and writhing tentacles, with a dozen fleshless skulls that stared blankly in all directions. The Gaster oversaw its foulblood brood with the aid of four very long, sinuous cephalopod tentacles, each tipped with a scimitar hook, and Sectonia’s arrival did not go unanswered.

At her intrusion, the sanguisuges stirred. As the thralls quickly formed into a mob, the Gaster stretched out its elastic tentacles, hooked onto a section of wall, and yanked itself over to try and stay out of sight, though the rapid yellow flashes of its mucal sacks betrayed its presence. Before the assault began, however, one of the Qliphoth veins bulged outward. A black claw slashed through both the tunica and a leech attached to it, and in a spray of foul fluids Grimm launched into the arena. He landed in a low stance just shy of one of the massive holes in the floor, his six limbs splayed out beneath his cloak. The sight of another hollow full of undead vermin did not please him, but it seemed that this time he’d have an ally.

”Good to see that I’m not the only one that is going to take out this horrid threat and its ugly spawn.” Sectonia said, a bit annoyed that due to the limited battlefield her minions would do much here. Perhaps later she’d summon them once she saw what this giant creature did.

With that, the Gaster unleashed its beam, a ray of condensed ichor sweeping across the sordid battlefield toward the intruders.

Sectonia, not wanting to see this horrid creature for longer than she had to, blasted it with her holy rays, flying away from the ichor beam as she blasted. She’d also try to keep in range of her auras to do some extra damage to this thing, but once she started to get close, it’d run off with scary speed and attempt to redo its ichor blasts. So it would be one of these huh? Well, her rays of holy light could blast it from afar until it fell to the ground, seemingly stunned from the damage.

As radiant lights flashed overhead, Grimm attended to the wretches on the ground. They staggered toward him without any form of cohesion, driven by raw, bestial hunger. When they attacked, they flailed their limbs in clumsy, unpredictable strikes, but Grimm could see the rabid strength behind them. A dance would be wasted on Philistines like these, and yet it seemed the Troupe Master had no recourse. After bowing, he darted among the vampiric thralls, each blur of pitch-black claws a deft stroke that painted the hollow’s floor in fetid foulblood. He whirled, pivoted, leaped, and swooped in rhythm with some unseen orchestra, accepted partner after partner, and was left wanting. As he threw open his cape to cremate a small mob of vessels with firebats, he noticed an especially deformed sanguisuge as it crept up behind him. He spun and let fly his Grimmchild, which pierced through the wretch’s gut, unfurled its wings, and redeemed the vile thing through scarlet flame.

At that point the Gaster fell from the sky, dazed from Sectonia’s magical bombardment. Grimm turned to accept the kind offering, only for a rogue thrall -missing an arm and presumed slain- to gouge at his head. Viscous hemolymph seeped from the wound, and the sanguisage lapped at it eagerly, only to be repelled by a substance so unlike the fresh blood it craved. Grimm spared it further disappointment with two slices, the first through its odious face -more out of spite than anything- and the second through its thigh to topple it. Then Grimm made his way over to the Gaster, leaping over the holes in the hollow’s floor. His delay meant he arrived just too late, however, and before he could dig in the Gaster unleashed an immense flash of painfully bright light. Blinded and stunned, Grimm staggered backward and into the hole behind him, barely managing to snag his claws on the edge in time to stop his fall. When his sight returned, his scarlet eyes blinked down at the flood-infested battleground hundreds of feet below, then up at Sectonia in a silent entreaty for help.

Sectonia herself using the fact this thing had fallen to the ground to summon her Antlers without chance of retaliation from its beam, Grimm dealing with and having some trouble with the minions below. With her own minions out helping to suppress them with Sectonia summoning a gold and 2 red Antlers to add areas of safety or to cleanse the area with fire, she was ready to start to deal something to this downed creature. Although that would wait as it didn’t remained stunned for long and flashbanged Grimm, causing him to stumble and almost fall through the gaps in the floor. A bit annoyed about the situation, Sectonia swooped down and hoisted Grimm back onto solid surface behind a red Antler who was using its flamethrower upon a thrall which flailed wildly as it was burned by magical fire.

Once hauled to safety, Grimm quickly rubbed the stars from his vision, offered Sectonia a wordless bow of gratitude, and then peered around for any sign of the Gaster. Thanks to its nasty surprise, the brood-watcher had gotten off relatively scott-free and floated back up into the hollow’s dark reaches, but it wouldn't be safe for long. With Antlers on deck to finish the fight Grimm started, the number of lesser sanguisuges continued to dwindle rapidly. The Troupe Master stood ready to repay the favor he owed Floralian queen.

While Sectonia tended to light up the darkness, Grimm was content to work with it. He darted around the battlefield for a few seconds before his scarlet eyes spotted a bulbous shape in the fetid gloom, anchored to the hollow walls by its hooked tentacles. The realization came just in time, as well, and as the Gaster’s high-pressure laser burst forth, Grimm teleported to safety. Three firebats screamed forth from beneath his cloak, followed by the Grimmchild, and the scarlet blaze cut the horror’s laser short.

Sectonia meanwhile was a bit more occupied summoning more minions to deal with the rabble, summoning another gold, another red, and two green to help clear things out. This lead to her paying a bit less attention with the main boss as Grimm was dealing with him, meaning she got blasted with its laser for the short while it was up before Grimm dealt with it. A disgusting, horrid thing that wasn’t very pleasant to get hit by and something that got her attention. Attention she’d pay in kind with it being on the ground again by teleporting next to it and conjuring a large ring of light and using it as a hula hoop, cutting into the creature as it stood there over and over.

Facing with a lustrous circle saw of punishment, the Gaster quickly attempted to reposition. It did not float away slowly, but stretched out two of its tentacles to a farther section of wall, and once they latched on it let go with the other two to snap away like a stretched rubber band. Now that it had invited Sectonia’s wrath, though, the grotesque sanguisuge found her nigh impossible to get rid of. She stuck to it like glue, unrelenting, and the damage quickly added up. And as if that wasn't enough, Grimm teleported up to join her, and with no qualms about physical contact he happily jumped on top of the Gaster itself. He awakened his cloak and plunged its tips into the horror beneath him, which burrowed in and then erupted outward as spikes. That vicious attack was more than enough to knock the Gaster down a second time, with Grimm along for the ride.

As the Seekers prepared to capitalize, however, the foulbloods reared their ugly heads once more. Several bloated thralls appeared covered in enormous, swollen ticks, which they plucked off and then threw at a rate of two per second to bounced toward their foes and explode. Worse were the two Jenu Giants, much tougher and bigger than their deformed cousins, with railroad spikes through their heads and enormous polearms in hand. They went after the Seekers, one for each bug, to stagger them and let the Gaster recover.

Seeing this, Sectonia commanded her currently summoned Antlers to intercept and deal with these things, or at least provide them a shield. Being the giants they were, this was a good order for the slow Gold antlers as they could impose themselves in between the Jenu Giants and the seekers to eat some of the exploding ticks to give them more time to deal damage to the Gaster. Their bulk let them take a good amount of hits until they finally exploded in a puff of magical smoke. Meanwhile Sectonia seeing that the Gaster was trying something new, decided to see exactly how damaged it was from their attacks by hitting it with lightning, before using her Reaper’s Scythe on it to inflict a fair amount of damage, only gauging how injured it was after the attack to get an idea of how close to death it was.

She’d need to eventually turn her attention to the Jenu Giants once her Gold Antlers went down, using her pipe of insight to give herself and Grimm a barrier that absorbed some of the explosion damage as she rained Swords across the battlefield to deal with these creatures.

Though clearly confident in her power and more than capable, Sectonia was wise enough to not get cocky. She gave the metal-studded newcomers their due diligence, but with her array of powers she did not spare the Gaster its punishment, either. Grimm joined in her efforts, making the most of the distraction provided by the Antlers to whale on the Gaster with his claws and spells. Unable to get away, the nightmarish thing could only try to endure, but its efforts were not enough. Together, the magic and might of the two bugs proved sufficient–perhaps even superfluous. Well before the Jenu Giants could overcome the Antler barricade, Grimm’s claws and Sectonia’s swords reduced the wretched Gaster to ichorous chunks, and after that the handful of sanguisuges that remained were of little consequence.

After scraping fluid from his claws, Grimm allowed his cloak to fall back into place over his body. His scarlet eyes peered around the hollow, taking stock of the destruction that he and Sectonia caused. He found many spirits, but as far as he could tell, nothing yet lived, save for the Qliphoth itself. Given just how far its cancerous infestation had spread, though, he couldn’t say how much longer for the world it was. One thing was clear: that he and his comrade would not find its overlord here. He cast his gaze to Sectonia. She had certainly demonstrated her abilities. ”Bravo. A splendid dance. Your fervor burns bright in the darkness.”

Before he could take another step though, the shadows closed in once more, but instead of bloodsuckers the insects found themselves presented with a selection of rewards. In front of Grimm loomed three choices: Dazzling Display, Auspicious Star, Volcano Spear. These things reminded him of badges, the trinkets worn by certain warriors to grant new powers in battle. He cared not for such baubles himself, but given his weakened abilities, perhaps certain concessions must be made. Grimm reached out to take hold of the Volcano Spear card. His talons close on nothing, and all three cards vanished, but when the hollow faded back in he found smoldering scarlet embers on his claws. ”I can feel it. The warmth of the flame. This searing fire…it carries well the Ritual’s promise.” After a moment he averted his gaze in order to begin the hunt for a path forward. ”Shall we press on?”

Sectonia was deciding on a choice of her own, between Wave of Despair, Catalyst, and Darkmagic Blade. She was taking a longer time than Grimm deciding on hers as she tried to figure out the general idea of each item. One would do something if she was attacked, one would buff her allies, and the last one would passively debuff her enemies. A tough choice all around… Although the middle one could lead to some scary Antlers perhaps. After thinking about it for a little bit, Sectonia decided to choose Catalyst. While it didn’t buff her directly, it offered a much stronger amount of power than the other two and an empowered gold Antler could be quite devastating.

”Yes. We still have to find the core of this abomination and snuff it out.” Sectonia said, giving Grimm a nod. The question was… where to go now? If nothing presented itself in a timely fashion, making their own way through the tree might be required.

There was no time for strategizing. While the pair of green empusa took wing, hanging back and looking for openings, their aggressive queen was already on the offensive. She snapped her razor sharp forelimbs out at the pair of Seekers, but her strike found only the steel of Yato. The sword flashed as the Ace Cadet met each of the demon’s quick slashes and stabs with a rough parry, until the monster had enough and leapt backward. The empusa queen landed on all fours, and slowly, menacingly, began to circle around.

It was then that the Cadet glanced back at Blazermate, giving the medabot a confident grin. Out of everyone that could have ended up with him in this arena, she was one of the best to be paired with. Although he figured she must have changed in the few weeks since he’d seen her last, Blazermate’s support style -all technological in nature last he knew- would make this a piece of cake if he focused on the offense.

"Ready for this?" the hunter inquired of her.

”Of course, I’ve got a fun trick that’ll help, get into position!” Blazermate said as she cast Disruption on the Empusa Queen, banishing it in a dark void for a couple seconds before it reappeared with two illusions of itself, those illusions clear to the duo and clearly hostile to the Queen and attacking her. And as Ace went in to do his things, Blazermate stacked on another debuff on the Queen, Disseminate, making it take more damage from every source for a short while.

Under threat by three enemies, even if two were copies of herself, the aggressively territorial queen began to rampage. She slashed and stabbed with her scythe-like arms, viciously cutting down the inferior clones as though to prove they were no match for the real thing. And in a manner of speaking, it was true - they were not as powerful or tough as the true empusa queen, and it wouldn't be long before they fell to the demon's might even before their timer was up.

Which made the biggest thorn in the queen's side the red haired monster hunter. Although wary of the copies Blazermate had produced (and maybe feeling a tiny bit betrayed that it turned out she did have some forms of magic now), the Ace Cadet did not squander the openings they provided. Each stroke of his sword cut deep into the empusa queen, opening up wounds on her legs and abdomen. His defensive options were limited with his current equipment, but he generally tried to keep between the demon and Blazermate. In doing so he relied more on his physical strength than his evasive ability, continuing to parry the queen's slashing when she aimed at him. The queen's movements were not completely predictable however.

The empusa queen suddenly sprang straight up, flicking her legs out as she did and crashing back down on top of one of her copies, crushing it into nothingness. Then she dipped down, lowering her body and striking low at the hunter. It caught him by surprise, though both sides of his rigging extended and closed in towards his front to block the razor arms. That was how he found out the hard way that though they were steel, his rigging couldn't truly replace a good shield against a powerful foe - the demon dented the metal and flung Ace backwards, leaving her free to take care of the last illusory copy.

At that point, the queen's entourage made their moves. One flew in close, hovering over the empusa queen and spraying a green dust over her that began to heal up the demon's injuries. The second green empusa got closer as well, waiting to deliver its own healing and spitting globs of some poisonous substance at Ace and Blazermate to keep them away while the two insectoids worked on undoing the progress the Seekers had made.

The Cadet had recovered quickly, side-stepping one of the projectiles. His rigging was much slower to reorient itself, struggling to properly aim their mini cannons after taking damage. "Those things are gonna be a pain in the buzz," Ace said, eyeing the green empusa. "Let's get rid of them first."

”Ok, use some big hard hitting moves, I’ve got Kritz all ready!” Blazermate said, noting that she had her medigun charged and ready. She also had a way to break the Empusa Queen’s defensive line so Ace could get in there and do some damage to the healer. What helped out a lot as well, is that since the Empusa Queen was focused on Ace, Blazermate’s engineer could safely build his buildings and now a sentry gun was plinking away at her dealing low but constant damage from its large caliber rounds.

Big moves, huh? Ace could do that. So far the maiden fight of his new sword, so to speak, had impressed him. The blade was sturdy, strong, sharp, and well balanced on top of being a beauty. Giving it a real test with some flashier moves would be fun.

"Here we go!" Ace sprinted forward, directly at the empusa queen. She reared up and slammed both of her scythes down at him, only just missing the hunter as he swung the sword and himself to one side with a fade slash. Then he climbed the demon, using the spikes on the back of her arms as stepping stones to propel himself upwards. At her shoulder the Cadet leapt off towards the green empusa that lingered by her, a mid-air round slash slicing through its delicate wings and sending it tumbling to the floor. The monster hunter followed it down (not that he had a choice in the matter), flipping the sword into a reverse grip. As he landed the blade stabbed into the grounded empusa, impaling it through the abdomen.

Once she got the signal and Ace began his rush down on one of the healers, Blazermate got ready to pop kritz the moment he attacked. Likewise, she saw the Empusa Queen turning to advance and gave her something to deal with, summoning Armstrong to bull rush her down and knock her into the far wall with an explosive dash ending with an explosion that put the healers off guard as well.

One deep cut drawn up from the green empusa's abdomen through its neck and mutated head was enough to slay it. The toxic substance inside of it spurted out before it died, making the Cadet grimace and turn his head away as it splashed up at him. These things were particularly nasty, especially with the distorted human-like faces they wore.

Following the explosion from Blazermate's striker, the second green empusa seemed almost frightened. It flew in an erratic circle before it darted over to where the queen had been pushed, and so the Cadet ran after it. He considered loading a flash bomb into his slinger, but settled for just leveling the clutch claw at the flying demon. He fired, the chain and claw extending out to catch the empusa by one of its legs. The hunter then skidded to a halt, yanking the chain backwards and staggering the empusa's flight.

He was a little too late to stop its healing payload from reaching its queen, especially as the much larger demon began charging back towards the Seekers as soon as Armstrong disappeared. The Cadet quickly took hold of the slinger's chain with both hands, giving it another hard yank and pulling the green empusa completely from the air. It hit the ground in front of the hunter and continued bouncing back along the ground behind him. He released the clutch claw’s grip on it, because at that point the queen was upon him once again. Ace took the slinger's chain in hand once more as the claw parts restructured themselves, swinging the newly formed metal anchor at the queen. The flail clocked the side of her face, pushing her slightly off course. Her scythes dug into the ground and then she heaved, bulling forward and splaying her forearms out in an attempt to grab the hunter.

One down, one to go. Although with one of her minions down, perhaps now they could overcome her healing. As Ace had been taking the queens attention, the engineer’s sentry had been upgraded to level 2 and was now really piling on the sustained damage. Blazermate herself really didn’t have too much in the way of things she could do besides healing or throwing out her new healing bolt that did some okish healing on the return.

Something she could do however, was when the Empusa Queen was going for a big heavy attack on Ace, to yank him away from the attack with one of her newly gotten spirit abilities. ”I think we can just overcome her healing with one of them gone. I’ll keep it in my projectile shield, you do big damage, she should go down?” Blazermate said, putting forth her plan and using her projectile shield to protect from the spit of the minion, while dealing some hefty damage to the Queen herself, a bit more than the sentry was doing.

At first it seemed like the hunter might not have heard her. Blazermate's Leap of Faith ability had pulled him from the danger of a grapple, but once he was back by her side it took the man more than a moment to recover. The feel of her agenllic pull had been chilling, and it took the raging scream of the empusa queen to seemingly make him come back to his senses.

"Huh? Oh, yeah - let's go with that." With a click the slinger's chain retracted, snapping back into place on his arm. He placed a hand on the hilt of Yato, more than ready to test how it handled iaijutsu.

But it turned out that the Seekers wouldn't have to try and beat through the remaining green empusa's healing. It had taken flight again, returning to its monarch's side as she scuttled backward away from the painful projectile shield, but after it delivered its latest healing pollen the queen jerked forward and snatched it from the air. It struggled in her grip until the empusa queen opened her mouth and bit down on its body. Her blunt teeth crushed its flesh, pressing harder until demonic blood gushed out which she began to drink deeply.

The Ace Cadet's eyes widened. He appeared to recognize the behavior, or something similar to it, and without any hesitation he sprinted towards the monster. "Let's go with that right now!" he said, urging Blazermate to follow after him and bring the demon back within range of her shield.

The empusa queen's body began to glow, a harsh red light seeping out from inside of her and showing through her exoskeleton. Then she threw away the body of her healer, which broke down into dust as soon as it hit the ground. A moment later the Cadet had reached her, flicking his sword out towards her throat with intent to end the battle as swiftly as possible. But the demon was faster now, and with a parry of her own she caught the jagged guard of his blade with one of her scythes and forced him away. The hunter took a step back, re-sheathing his sword and taking a ready stance as the demon reared up on her hind legs.

As the Empusa Queen crashed down on Ace, Blazermate tried her other new ability. Summoning a dome of pure holy light with the phrase ”We Stand as one!”, the Empusa Queen’s attack hit Ace directly, but nothing happened. In fact, Ace was healing from any damage he had taken and could move normally. While the dome didn’t last long, it was essentially an AoE ubercharge that Blazermate could throw out whenever…. Although it had a hefty cooldown.

The protective wave came at the same time that Ace drew the long sword into an iai spirit slash, and where usually monster and hunter would have traded wounds the impervious dome gave the Cadet a significant advantage. The draw attack was already a powerful one, and without being hurt or interrupted Ace forced the demon to relent when he completed the wide slash. He followed up with a swift thrust into the queen's shoulder as she landed heavily on all fours again, then pulled the sword up in a reverse overhead slash that sliced a deep line through her neck and chin. Though the queen bled, it wasn't enough to end her reign. If anything it only made her angrier. She roared and lashed out with rapid strikes, her scythes cracking the ground where she missed and crashing hard against the Cadet's armor when she didn't. At this point though the hunter entrusted his well being completely to Blazermate, and he retaliated against the empusa queen in kind.

Throughout the drawn out exchange, the sealed sword performed even better than the Cadet had hoped it would. It bit painfully into the demon's body and refused to yield when struck, mitigating any reverberation from being passed on to its wielder. Ace had gotten used to the feel of it very quickly, and the general way the empusa queen moved and attacked, so he knew it would just be a matter of time before he took it down. He side stepped another of her stabs, barely avoiding a heavier strike as the sharpened arm sliced a cut across his cheek, and dove in for what would be the final round.

The hunter breathed out, shifting his grip on the sword. Thinking he'd given her an opening, the enraged queen raised one of her arms overhead and drove it down towards him. With a flash the golden blade had flicked up in a Critical Juncture, meeting the demon's scythe and then slipping under it, severing the insectoid limb at the joint.

The empusa queen screeched in pain and indignity. She wouldn't have backed down even if Galeem's thrall allowed for it - she lashed out with her remaining arm, giving the Cadet another leg up as he met it with his sword once more. He'd swung it overhead, strong enough to force the demon's arm down and use it as a staircase for the second time. He pulled the sword up hard in a cross slash, adding to the wound on the queen's neck from the opposite angle. This time she did stagger, though she didn't suffer for long.

After putting the demon down, the Cadet flicked the ichor from his blade and sheathed it once more. When he trotted back over to Blazermate with its spirit in hand, he could already feel her healing beam patching up the last of his wounds.

"And that's three more bugs squashed," he said, offering his hand for a fist bump, which Blazermate did. She also saw upon the defeat of the bugs that besides the Empusa queen spirit she could grab, she was also offered one of three cards. Mint Condition, Anointment, Sunflower Crown She didn’t know what these meant, so she chose what sounded the best, or rather, cutest with the Sunflower Crown. At first it felt like nothing happened, but she did notice herself getting a bit more durable. Weird for a sunflower crown to do, but things were usually weird here.

Meanwhile, Ace had a decidedly different experience. And upon closer inspection, the cards had text on them denoting multiple different effects.


What are these? Prizes? Was that something caused by the empusa queen's defeat or just an effect of fighting in the Qliphoth, he wondered. As he read over the cards, the Cadet's eyes kept wandering to the first of the three. Compared to the other two, its stated effect was a lot less enticing. But the pink shape stamped on the card was vaguely familiar to him, he just couldn't place it. He re-read it again, and after a few long moments it eventually clicked. This was just like back at the restaurant in Limsa weeks ago! So this card is... a boon from that woman? Aphrodite, I think?

The 'cast' she'd given to him was a useful thing, not that he'd been able to bring himself to use it for a while now. It was some kind of divine magic, or something similar enough that the thought alone gave him chills. But since she had bestowed the boon in the first place, if he could talk to Aphrodite again maybe she could remove it for him?

He reached out to grab the card, but it burst into sparkles as soon as he touched it. A soft pink light extended out from where the card had been, encompassing the area and banishing the blackness completely. In place of the cards, a beautiful woman stood. Though nude, her long hair trailed down her front to tastefully cover her sensitive areas. Adorned with gold and flowers while sporting a spear and shield in each hand, she was even more gorgeous than the Ace Cadet remembered. He fought to keep his eyes on her face. Her gaze then flickered over to him, at which point she smiled sensuously.

"Well, you certainly made me wait, didn't you? I was beginning to think you stood me up~"

"Ah-" The hunter's face began to color, a dusty pink to match the background of the vision. He coughed to clear his throat. "Aphrodite, right? About your pow–"

The goddess tipped her head and raised her spear, interrupting him with a knowing twinkle in her eye. "My power, mm? I've just the thing to help keep you warm and tingly."

The Cadet began to protest, but the vision began to fade away. There was a brief feeling of elation that gripped the man, which mixed very strangely with the apprehension he felt about the one bit of magic being stuck in him just getting stronger. Before she disappeared completely, Aphrodite winked at the Cadet and bade him, "keep following your heart."

And then he was plunged back into the real world.

"Great. Just groovios..." he sighed, pressing his palm to his forehead. He had a jumble of conflicting emotions now, and his cheeks were still pink, and the exact opposite of what he'd wanted to happen, had happened. If he’d known talking with Aphrodite would be no use he would have picked one of the others! But there was nothing he could do about it now, and no use in complaining.

He looked down at Blazermate, wondering if she'd gotten the same choices. It didn’t seem like she’d encountered anything strange, so maybe not. Before he could ask, the medabot noted that the path to the next vein up the tree was now clear, and she hurried towards it. The Cadet followed after her, stopping only to quickly scoop up the spirits of the green empusa (and somewhat comically the severed royal scythe) before the two Seekers hopped into the fresh xylem vessel.

"Pheeeew!"

Once he’d managed to cut his way free from the vein further up the tree, Pit shook his wings free of liquid and released his held breath, gladly taking in a fresh one. Riding up the vein had definitely been effective, and truth be told it wasn’t the grossest thing about the Qliphoth. At about the same time as the angel himself arrived, another Seeker popped out from a nearby vein.

"Oh, Captain Falcon!" Pit greeted him with. "Yeah, it happens all the time. I guess things would be too easy if all of us were always fighting together, huh?" He put one hand on his hip as he spun the Palutena Bow in the other to rid it of the demon tree’s blood while he answered the man’s question. Pit didn’t seem to be troubled by the separation, it was just a fact that it was going to happen at this point. Maybe Galeem actually was awake and subtly making this kind of thing happen? If only portions of the Seekers could work together to defeat Guardians, then all of them combined could take on any threat easily. Well, mostly any… definitely anything in here at least.

Like the battle that awaited the two of them now, for example. The area Pit and Captain Falcon had ended up in was mostly made of the same kind of stuff the bottom floor of the tree had been, complete with little patches of infected tissue here and there. But somehow, it looked like a whole church had gotten sucked into the Qliphoth and had ended up where they were standing. Broken pieces of what were once stone walls littered the area, and the dilapidated remains of the building itself were lodged right in the middle of the arena. With the arrival of the two Seekers, a pack of walking carcasses dragged themselves out of the ruined church and began skulking towards them. Four creatures, all distinct but equally horrific looking, barred the pair’s path forward.

The Captain assumed his fighting stance, ”These things just keep getting uglier and uglier.” He said while he eyed up the four walking carcasses. One with fists shaped like spiked clubs, another with an arm shaped like an oversized bulging club with the other looking slimmer with pointed claws, another with what looked like a big shield bulging out of its bicep, and the last one looking to be carrying some kind of weapon - an axe maybe?

”Ryuugeki Sen!” Cap declared, channeling chi into fiery discs that he could launch at the creatures from his hands for a high shot and legs for a low shot. ”What’s the play here, Pit? Should we turtle up or split off and divide and conquer?”

It was no surprise that Pit favored the second option, and he was quick to tell the bounty hunter so. "All offense is kind of my style, Cap! There's only four of them, so if we each take two... we'll be done in no time!"

While he said the last part, Pit started to move. He rushed to meet the quartet of monsters, drawing his bow back as he did and firing to cover his approach. The carcasses weren't grouped tightly together nor did they appear to be a true cooperative team - so Pit made it easy when he picked the couple he was going to engage with, which were just the two most on the right hand side. The light arrows zipped forward and struck each of his chosen targets, the giant axe and shield arm wielding creatures, and the two of them directed their attention to the angel. Pit ascended part of the church's exterior with one wing assisted leap while they chased after him, just before another wave of warm blue lights streaked through the air and crashed down upon the carcasses.

”Divide and conquer it is, then.” Cap agreed before he sprinted into action. He veered left to take on the remaining two carcasses that Pit did not target. They didn’t appear to be armed much in the way of actual weaponry which suited the Captain just fine. When the heavy carcass tried to throw a small series of slow-but-power punches, Falcon was able to duck and weave around them easily enough with his superior speed. Then he countered the punches with one of his own, uppercutting and staggering the carcass back a few steps with a ”Ryuuga!” That also consequently sent Falcon himself upward several feet. And before he landed his fiery body shot downward toward the Bloated Carcass, delivering a ”Falcon Kick!”

By then, the Heavy had recovered enough to try launching another punch, but Falcon lunged forward with his palms outstretched. ”Ryuugeki Ken!” A short ranged blast of fiery chi exploded from Falcon’s palms in a close-range blast that briefly staggered the Heavy again. He still had 2 Power Gauge stocks leftover from the previous fight, but the Captain chose not to use any Special Moves for now. Better to save those for later after wearing his opponents first. Plus he could build up an extra stock in the interim time by keeping his attacks simple for the moment.

Not far off Pit's battle had long been underway. He played keep away for a little bit, shooting at his opponents as they kept after him. The almost fluid nature of his arrows made it easy to strike them from unexpected angles, especially the bulbous shield arm carcass. Its engorged limb had initially taken the shape of a bludgeon, but it mutated into a strong barrier once the arrows started falling upon it. While it was protected from the front, the light arrows could just curve around and pierce it in the back. It eventually staggered, falling forward onto one knee.

"Gotcha now!" Pit had been in the middle of another backwards hop to keep a steady amount of space between himself and the carcasses, but once the shield arm made itself vulnerable he dropped down to land in a crouch, then dashed directly towards it.

The axe wielding carcass seemed the faster of the two monsters, and its reflexes were fast enough that it was able to quickly change gears from chasing the angel down to intercepting him. While still in motion the carcass threw itself sideways into Pit's path. Colliding with the young angel they both tumbled to the ground, and both quickly got back to their feet. The monster spun with a fast horizontal swipe, though the head of its axe clanged against a quickly summoned Guardian Orbitar. The two combatants broke apart, and while the giant axe carcass dragged its weapon up over its head in preparation for another attack, Pit swapped out his own weapon completely. His bow and orbitars disappeared, and the golden gauntlet of the Upperdash Arm formed around his limb. "Fine, I'll deal with you first!"

The two weapons crashed against each other, the blade of the axe smashing into the whirling disc of the Arm. The carcass was powerful, but Pit was no slouch in that department either. They traded a few blows, and though the angel could feel some kind of status ailment take effect on him he seemed to gradually be getting the upper hand. His health was slowly being chipped away at by the decay the monster carried and passed on to him, but in return the charged up Arm was dealing stronger blows to it. Pit pulled the weapon back and then drove it forward in a single quick motion, punching it into the creature's side. It stumbled backwards, let out an enraged gurgle, and came back at him with abandon.

And then Pit noticed something else. In the middle of battle, his divine weapon seemed to lose its luster. Whatever handicap the carcass had hit him with seemed to be affecting the Arm too - and when the first hairline fracture formed after the latest clash with the carcass the angel's eyes widened in shock. Without thinking about it he dispelled the Arm to protect it from further damage, which was a bad move when he had been entangled in melee with a monster. It took a heavy swing at Pit with its own weapon, cracking against the angel and sending him flying backwards. He struck the stone wall of the church, the hard impact making part of it crumble down on top of him.

Pit gasped and coughed as he sat up in the rubble, bringing a hand up to his chest plate. Even with armor on, that had really hurt. At least he hadn't been cleaved in half, just left with an ugly bruise most likely.

Lady Palutena! Can you hear me inside this tree? Can the divine weapons break?!

You're loud and clear now. No need to worry though, Pit. If something did manage to damage your weapon, it'll come back as good as new in a little while. Then again you could always use that as an opportunity to get a different one. Try the Volcano Arm next!

Sure, next time I—

Catching movement he looked up, just in time to see the axe armed monstrosity hit the peak of its leap as it sailed towards Pit's location. Pit scrambled to his feet and dove out of the way just before the carcass swung its axe overhead as it came down, smashing up the stone where Pit had been upon landing.

Not a moment later the recovered shield arm barreled in from Pit's flank. He ducked under its wide swing, evading around to the carcass' back side, jumping and kicking off of its hulking form to put some distance between himself and them. As he did, he felt the Goddess of Light reach out to him through their telepathic connection once more.

I didn't suggest the Volcano Arm just for fun. These things are mutated test subjects, but there's no helping them now. You'll have to put them down, and the best way to do it is with fire and lightning.

With his elemental arrows that was doable; with Captain Falcon's natural fire affinity it was doubly so. And now that he didn't have to worry about his weaponry, Pit could get right back into the battle.

"Got it!" He said aloud, summoning the Palutena Bow back to his hand. He pulled the bowstring hard, charging a light arrow as the two carcasses charged at him. The arrow's color shifted from blue to purple as its power grew, and when he loosed it the streak of light shot straight through one of the carcasses before looping back around to strike at the second as well. Static electricity began to jump around their bodies, and though it certainly didn't look like they had taken any extra damage, Pit trusted the hint he'd been given.

Pit dashed out of the way when they reached him, avoiding the axe and club as he let loose a dash shot for good measure. He charged up another Electro arrow, sending it sailing through the giant axe carcass and willing it to come back around again - but the arrow missed the mark when the shield arm ran forward to make up for its electrocuted partner. The carcass slammed its arm in bludgeon form down at Pit, forcing the angel to avoid it. Thundering Sands saw a burst of lightning catch the carcass as Pit skated backwards, and he grinned when he jumped right back towards it a moment later. He connected with a flying kick, sending the carcass tumbling much farther than he'd intended - putting the monster on a collision course with Captain Falcon.

"Oops- Uh, heads up Cap!" Pit called out as the giant axe carcass shook off its static and leapt to continue its assault on the angel.

The Captain, for his part, had been holding his own well enough given the circumstances. He was much faster than his opponents and therefore had little difficulty avoiding their attacks. Right up until the Bloated Carcass switched tactics and started attacking him with its leaner arm, resulting in surprisingly faster swipes. In pure one-on-one this still wouldn’t be difficult to manage, but when coupled with the Heavy Carcass attacking at the same time, it became a little more challenging. After weaving around a series of punches from the Heavy Carcass and staggering him with another ”Ryuuga!” Cap was getting ready to launch a counter strike on the Bloated Carcass when he heard Pit’s warning.

Falcon had little trouble rolling himself out of the way of the incoming Carcass. After he did so he watched in amusement as it instead barrelled into the Bloated Carcass sending them both staggering away. ”Much obliged.” The Captain commented as he spotted the Heavy Carcass recovering from the earlier Ryuuga and lunging for another punch. Falcon responded in kind by launching forward and smacking it what-good with a ”Raptor Boost!” The fiery uppercut proved especially effective thanks to the flame property, resulting in the Heavy Carcass getting blown back slightly farther than intended, where it would end up in the thick of Pit’s engagement with the Axe-wielding Carcass.

”Whoops, looks like we’re trading partners.” Falcon said, turning and tightening his stance to ready himself for the imminent attack that was coming from the recovering Bloated Carcass and Shield-Arm Carcass.

That wouldn't be a problem for Pit. As the Heavy Carcass careened towards his side of the ruined church battlefield Pit dashed towards it, prompting the Giant Axe to leap in an attempt to catch the angel with a deadly slam. Instead all three combatants came together violently - Pit stooped just in front of the heavy monster, ensuring that the axe of his other opponent crashed down onto it instead of him. Then with a quick summoning the Upperdash Arm made its return, driven into the Giant Axe Carcass with a mighty uppercut. The damage the weapon had developed still remained for the time being, but Pit trusted it would go back to normal eventually as Palutena had said.

The axe flew from the carcass' grip as its gangly greenish body was sent flying. It landed in a splayed heap nearby, just about finished by Pit's estimation. He went to hop over the downed carcass in front of him, but then something seized his leg. The angel let out a noise of surprise as the Heavy got to its feet, yanking him up and holding him upside down as it did. Little embers still clung to it, flashing against the emerald-like protrusions all over its body. It pulled its other fist back to strike its new punching bag, unfortunately slower than said punching bag reacted. Pit quick summoned the Guardian Orbitars, but instead of defending he willed the shields to smash into the carcass' face. In conjunction with Shield Smite the weakened monster reeled back, allowing Pit to get free once his bow was back in hand by slashing up at the creature.

He flipped to land in a crouch, but transitioned in a kneel for better stability as he lashed out with a leg cutter against the monster's inner calf. The blade struck deep, once more putting the carcass on its back. When Pit was on his feet again he hopped backward, a push of his wings sending him toward the Giant Axe Carcass. "Like I said, you first!" he told it, spinning his bow and driving the pointed end into its chest.

Over on the other side, Cap was having some issues of his own. He could still handle the Bloated Carcass well enough as before. But that Shield-Arm Carcass was proving to be a tough customer. Attacking it was like punching and kicking an opponent that was constantly blocking. Falcon figured he just needed the right opening and he could break through that guard. The trick was actually finding that opening, which proved difficult when he had to divide his attention between the Shield-Arm and the Bloated. As the Shield-Arm mostly seemed content to turtle up and tank hits, Cap decided to shift gears and attempt to focus his attacks on the Bloated one.

And since he’d built back up to 3 Power Gauge stocks, Falcon decided now was the time to go a little more hard-hitting. He dodged and weaved his way around yet another flurry of swipes and big punches from the Bloated Carcass. After that he hopped up and performed a triple spinning kick in midair that staggered the Bloating Carcass back. But rather than shift to his opposite target as he had been doing all this time, Cap instead decided to press the attack on the staggered Bloated Carcass. ”Let’s turn up the heat!” The Captain declared as his body momentarily flashed blue. He lunged forward in a single stride and managed to catch the Bloated Carcass before it could finish recovering. ”Ryuuko Ranbu!” Falcon shouted as he connected his flurry of punches and kicks, before adding the Ryuuga uppercut at the end for the finisher.

And while he was still midair, Falcon reoriented his body and aimed a fiery ”Falcon Kick!” That launched him diagonally downward at the Shield-Arm Carcass. It endured most of the blow, albeit not completely thanks to the fire affinity of the technique in question. The main point was that Cap was maintaining his momentum, and sustained it further when he kicked off of the Shield-Arm and landed back on the ground right in front of him as he winded up his fist. ”Let’s see you block this! Falcon… PUNCH!” His fiery fist went smashing into the bloated arm of the Carcass. Cap had no idea that these things had a weakness to fire, but that became increasingly apparent as the monstrosity reeled in pain from the explosive punch, and only now did the bounty hunter notice the overloaded explosion from some electro arrows that Pit had earlier shot it with.

”And stay down!” Cap said victoriously. Now he could turn his full focus toward finishing off the Bloated Carcass, which he saw was just about recovered from the earlier beating it took from the Ryuuko Ranbu.

With two of the carcasses done and dusted, the Smashers turned Seekers had the battle well handled. It wouldn't be long before they put the remaining monsters down and could move on. The heat of the Falcon Punch and the ensuing explosion washed over the arena, briefly taking Pit and the Heavy Carcass' attentions away from each other as they glanced at the fiery spectacle.

Though Pit had always found the F-Zero pilot's special move to be super cool, he didn't want to be outdone by it! Pit skipped backward away from the carcass and fired his light arrows at it, swapping between the faster, weaker streaks of light and the larger, stronger dash shots as it went after him. The angel ducked or dodged every punch it threw, its speed lessening as it took more damage. Its strength had already been flagging by the time Captain Falcon had sent it over to him, and Pit was careful not to let his most precious weapon take even one hit of decay. The pattern of dodge, slice, back away, shoot, and then dodge again continued for a few moments until the Heavy attempted one last ditch attack. It took a huge step forward and lunged with both of its club-like limbs at Pit, bringing them in from the sides to try and crush the angel between them. If it had tried that while it was in better shape it might have connected - but Pit leapt up as its arms crashed together, vaulting over the carcass' shoulder and landing behind it. He swiveled, bow already drawn back and charging a light arrow into an Electro one.

"You're done for!" Pit declared, firing the purple projectile. It shot straight through the carcass, and as it stuttered and turned to face Pit the arrow curved and came back around to deal the final blow. Electricity scattered throughout its body just before it fell face first onto the ground for the last time.

"And now I'm done here," he said, pleased with himself. With two down he flitted over to Captain Falcon, eager to see if he'd managed to finish his fight before the man.

As it turned out, they were wrapping up their fights around the same time, give or take a second or two. What Pit saw was Captain Falcon weaving out of another onslaught of attackings from the Bloated Carcass before he cracked back with ”Gen’ei Kyaku!” The rapid kicks barraged the carcassed and left it stunned long enough for the bounty hunter to spend one of his left over Power Gauge stocks in order to channel chi through his arms and out of his hands. ”Haoh Shoukou Ken!” Shouted the bounty hunter after aiming his cupped palms in the direction of the Bloated Carcass.

What followed was another fiery display. Not a punch this time, but instead a big fireball that surged forward from the flats of the Captain’s palms and went hurtling into the carcass with a fiery crash. The Bloated Carcass found itself similarly engulfed in a fiery blast much like the Shield-Arm was. And after the smoke cleared, the carcass fell over in a smoldering heap. ”Ha!” Captain Falcon posed victoriously, ”And that’s how it’s done!”

Pit approached him with a wide grin. If the angel didn't still have his bow in one hand, he might have applauded.

"Nice one, Cap!" he said. "Now we can move on to the next level!"

Unbeknownst to the two of them, there was one last order of business. A wave of darkness washed through the area, taking the both of them separately to what could only be described as some kind of reward area. Of course it might not have appeared that way at first, given the slightly ominous solid shadow surrounding them and three unexplained cards on offer.


"Good thing I can read now," he murmured, leaning in close and squinting as he worked through the words. Bouncing back... pro... projectiles. I can already do that, but it would be pretty cool to be able to shoot them back with my arrows! Next... attack up when shielded... hmm. Do I have to stick with the Orbitars to use this one? Pit tucked a fist under his chin, curling his other arm around his elbow as he thought about the options. Being half as strong in the air though? Why would someone pick... wait, twice as strong? 50% is half, so half a boost... uh... He decided it was a power up for sure, which would be great if he could actually keep himself airborne, but then again...

Umm... they all seem pretty good. Which one do you think I should pick, Lady Palutena?

...Lady Palutena?

Well it seemed like there was more interference again, or considering that Captain Falcon wasn't around, some kind of personal vision. Left to decide by himself, Pit's hand alternated between hovering over each of the three. In the end, he grasped the rightmost card. It might have been wishful thinking, he couldn't get the thought of a souped-up flying version of himself out of his head. So in the interest of being more useful in the future, he went with the mid-air strike.

The bounty hunter was about to give a celebratory thumbs up when he suddenly found his vision darkening, and not just because of the visor on his helmet either. Then he spotted the three glowing cards floating in front of him. They depicted names, images, and even small descriptions of what Falcon could only assume were power-ups of some kind. ”Guess I’m supposed to pick one…”

After reading each one carefully, Cap made his choice and reached for the left-most one.



As soon as he grabbed it, the other two cards vanished. Then the Captain heard a gruff voice in his head. ”The strongest metal still bends effortlessly to his will.” And before Falcon could even register what he heard, his vision was normal again and he was back in the hollow with Pit.

”Uh… thanks, mysterious voice.” Cap murmured in confusion before adding with a shrug, ”...I guess.”

Pit blinked as his eyes readjusted. "That happened to you too, right? The whole place suddenly went dark and you got to pick a power?"

”Pretty much, yeah.” Cap confirmed. ”Did a voice say something to you in your head too?”

"No, even though I asked her to," Pit huffed, clearly not on the same page as the F-Zero pilot. He found it kind of unfair that Captain Falcon got some kind of telepathy through to him, not considering the implications of that whatsoever. He didn't dwell on it for long.

"Do you think we'll keep getting prizes all the way up to the Guardian?" he asked, turning his attention across the hollow to where more veins snaked up the tree's interior. "C'mon, let's go find out!"

”’Asked her to’?” Cap asked curiously, ”What does that-?”” He started to ask but then paused in realization, ”Oh right, that goddess of yours. Lovely lady, green hair, right now I remember.” He mused and then said, ”Bit weird for this tree to be giving us power ups since we’re here to, I dunno, defeat it? Ah well, I’m sure things’ll become clearer as we get further in.”

Pit nodded vigorously in response to both of Captain Falcon's observations. And as for the latter, since they definitely wouldn't learn anything else by sitting around this ruined area they'd have to move on to the next. He led the way over to their exit, but at the last moment seemed to remember something and bounded back over to the battle site. "Don't wanna forget these," he said as he collected the four spirits, bringing them back over to Captain Falcon before they ascended.

After being rather unceremoniously pushed out from the vein, Primrose had done her best to wipe the blood-like xylem from her face and wring out the hem of her dress - which is when Ganondorf found her, having been coughed out into the area from another vein. She glanced at the warlord, going through a mental checklist of his strengths and weaknesses that she’d observed so that she’d be able to better support him. Having arrived in this hollow a few moments before him, she’d unfortunately seen that conflict would be swiftly upon them.

"Separated, yes," she said. But then she raised an arm and pointed Ganondorf’s attention toward the far side of the area. "But unfortunately it’s not just the two of us."

The hollow itself was a disgusting place; pustules throbbed over the Qliphoth’s infected tissue all around it, and the whole area was a sickly yellow pallor. But more importantly, opposite the two Seekers were three hulking monsters. One looked as if it may have been human at one point, though its flesh was bloated and distorted. Another carried a mass of sagging flesh on its head and wielded two tentacle-like arms, and the last was a quadruped with skin so hardened it looked to be made of stone.

They lashed out at each other, none of them doing much damage to others, but it wouldn’t be long before one of them took notice of the two newcomers to their arena. Primrose and Ganondorf couldn’t just beat a retreat either, as around the infected walls a soft magic barrier rose up, allowing entry by denying anyone’s exit.

”So it seems.” Ganondorf agreed, forming a grimace on his face. He quickly sized up the hulking monsters before him as his lips curled into a smirk. ”I’ll keep them focused on me.” He said, a hand already grasping the hilt of the Sword of the Six Sages. He drew it from its scabbard and let its white blade glint in the horrid environment. He summoned his Moblins as well as Phantom Ganon and commanded them to stay on guard near the dancer, offering them to her as additional protection.

Then Ganondorf drew Litania from its scabbard and dual-wielded it alongside his Sword of the Six Sages, brandishing them together. ”You’re MINE!” He shouted as a warcry before he charged forward to engage in battle with the three Juggernauts. Immediately the quadrupedal one let out a roar, either some kind of battlecry announcement or an alert to the other two. Ganondorf targeted it first in order to shut it up. He made a leap and attempted to plunge both blades into the creature’s back and flanks. Of course, the other two didn’t remain idle.

The bulky one turned to throw one of its hulking fists with a punch, meanwhile the other swiped with its tentacle-like arms in an attempt to spear the warlord with the spikes on their tips. As for Ganondorf, he did successfully manage to mount the quadruped’s back and forced it into a run to avoid taking the incoming attacks. If Ganondorf could maintain his hold he might be able to turn this beast's strength against its own allies in some way. All the while, his Moblins standing next to Primrose leveled their bows and loosed their fire arrows to take pot shots at the bulky one. Phantom Ganon went on the move to try and strike with his nail weapon in an attempt to inflict Bleeding on the Juggernauts.

The bloated walking earthquake easily shrugged off the arrows shot at it, each one simply bouncing off of its body while it continued chasing after Ganondorf. Only the phantom version of the warlord earned its attention, and the brute turned to take on the new contender when it approached by throwing a nasty punch.

Back with the moblin squad, Primrose had gotten to work. Ganondorf's willingness to jump right into battle hadn't surprised her, and if he planned to take on all three of the juggernauts himself she wasn't about to argue with him. She had her own way of fighting, and this was the perfect situation to hang back to empower the Gerudo while striking from a distance with her magic.

She'd started with the Mole Dance as Ganondorf first charged. She moved with short, graceful and controlled motions. Ganondorf was plenty physically strong already, so a moment after the dancer completed her performance with a low spin the man found his defense boosted.

What next, she considered, standing fast with the entourage Ganondorf had lent her. Perhaps another dance, stacking her battle partner up with as much additional power as possible? She could boost his dark magic as well, or perhaps she could cast a spell of her own, catching as many of the monsters as possible in her attack. She settled on the latter, beginning to summon a large amount of magic to her hands.

All the while, one of the juggernauts had suspiciously pulled out of the fray. The spindly one had taken a step back, letting the other two fight to their monstrous hearts' contents while it actually seemed to be evaluating the situation. It took notice of all of its new opponents and judged which of them it should go for to maximize its killing chance, deceptively smart for how it looked.

It crouched, what little muscles it had in its legs tightening before it leapt high into the air, crashing down with a mighty slam at Primrose. Its landing squashed a few moblins and scattered the others, cracking against the protective barrier that formed around the dancer as she prepared her spell. The shell didn't hold up, it shattered and forced Primrose to abandon her planned magic for the moment and move.

She evaded backwards, now facing down the enemy only a few feet in front of her. The remaining moblins scrambled to get back into formation between her and the flood juggernaut, hollering at the overgrown parasite as they did. The fighting spirit she’d picked up didn’t allow her to flee and let the moblins try and handle it - she glared at the thing, preparing a counter attack.

Under normal circumstances, Ganondorf would have attempted some means of coming to the dancer’s defense. Unfortunately, he was rather preoccupied with two separate opponents and couldn’t spare the moment. His phantom, on the other hand…? Phantom Ganon began to glow red as he flew through the air after a lunging strike against the bulky one and aimed its attention on the spindly one attacking Primrose. Ganondorf had ordered him to act as her protection, after all, and he was nothing if not a loyal servant to his master’s commands. When he got close, Phantom Ganon engaged the spindly Juggernaut by trying to plunge his trident into its side. While glowing red under the effects of Ripping Bear, Phantom Ganon’s plunge was empowered to ignore all forms of invincibility, effectively allowing the strike to ignore armor. Then he struck while in close proximity with the N Corp Nail wielded in his off hand. If the spindly Juggernaut hadn’t been afflicted with Bleed before, it surely would be now.

Meanwhile, Ganondorf continued to contend with the other two Juggernauts. The quadruped had managed to shake him off, but the two swords remained plunged into its back. This forced the Gerudo to switch to his trident, Vaper - which he summoned to his hand with dark magic. The polearm’s long reach allowed him to strike at his opponents while keeping a short distance away in order to formulate a strategy. He noticed that the bulky one had indeed been suffering from Bleed thanks to an earlier strike from Phantom Ganon’s N Corp Nail. Good, so perhaps he could focus his attacks a bit more on the quadruped while the other bled away health over time, he could keep this manageable. Not that he wasn’t confident he could take them on fully himself, but quite frankly the warlord was getting sick of being in this tree and therefore wanted to finish this mission as quickly as possible. Ergo, pragmatism was taking precedence over pride… at least for the moment.

His opening move with the trident was of course to throw it around himself in a circular arc that would hit both Juggernauts as they attempted to close in on him. Naturally, the trident was also imbued with lightning during this time, adding to the strength of the attack. After this he spear-threw the trident at the quadruped, and upon landing a powerful lightning blast was called from above. Between the trident and the two swords stuck in it, there was no shortage of objects that could serve as lightning rods to attract the electrical blast. In the meantime he briefly engaged the bulky Juggernaut, who had thrown a punch at Ganondorf. But through a combination of Ganonfdorf’s own immense strength and the increased defense from the buff he received from Primrose, the Gerudo chuckled as he seemed to casually catch the incoming fist with an open hand before retaliating with a strong Gerudo Dragon uppercut that sent the Juggernaut stagger back some steps while Ganondorf re-summoned the trident back to his hand.

With Phantom Ganon's intervention taking the alien juggernaut's attention off of her, Primrose followed through with her own attack. A glowing aura enveloped her as she boosted her power, and then she brought a Black Fire Orb into being. When she threw the dark sphere at the monster its explosion pushed it backward, closer to the other two once more while Ganondorf's forces chased it down. The Flood juggernaut whipped its elongated arms around, fighting off the phantom and moblins by rapidly striking at everything around it.

With every opponent now occupied, Primrose had a second chance at her original intention. She took in a deep breath, burning another battle point to further increase the range of her next spell in order to make sure it caught every one of the three juggernauts. Once more she conjured dark magic into her hands, and this time once she had enough gathered she performed a graceful spin - and the darkness flew out, circling a wide area around the juggernauts.

"Be engulfed in my Spell Song!" she said, triggering the spell. The dark magic coalesced from the edges of the circle and burst apart, inflicting damage to the trio of monsters - while the lingering, glittering specks of black that now clung to them weakened their physical and magical defenses both.

Since the two bleeding juggernauts didn't need to recover from being electrocuted, they retaliated at once. The Flood juggernaut opened what constituted for its mouth, horrific little fingered tongues protruding out as it breathed heavily. When it next lashed out its speed was massively increased, its arms making for deadly flails that could extend to fall upon a huge area. It whipped at Primrose and Ganondorf both, as well as the minions conjured by the latter. At the same time the Infected juggernaut pounded the ground with both of its fists, unleashing a wide shockwave just before it physically tore up a chunk of the Qliphoth and hurled it at the Gerudo warlord that had been tangling with it so far.

A blast of dark magic was not something Ganondorf expected from the likes of Primrose. But he wasn’t about to complain about it either. A nice sizable hit that appeared to weaken their defenses to boot? He could definitely capitalize on this. While they were still near enough to him, the Warlord made another circular throw of his trident, letting it spin around him in a wide arc while empowered by lightning. That would be another decently strong hit. But before he could capitalize further, the Flood Juggernaut went on the attack, flailing its extended arms with surprising speed at both himself and the dancer. Ganondorf’s buffed defenses coupled with the Triforce of Power allowed him to block the attack coming for him and endure without too much issue. Meanwhile, the remainder of the Moblins were finished off, while Phantom Ganon moved to intercept an attack intended for Primrose, taking it himself instead. He wasn’t defeated just yet, but he wouldn’t last much longer at this rate.

And before Ganondorf could retaliate, the Infected Juggernaut pounded the ground and ripped a chunk out to hurl in the warlord’s direction. Ganondorf had to launch himself out of the way with Bullet Jump, but did so in a direction that would allow him to temporarily regroup with Primrose and Phantom Ganon. He brandished his Trident in a way that let him consecrate the ground where the two Seekers stood, turning it into Hallowed Ground. For ten seconds, this would give them an area they could make a stand in that would deal constant Radiation damage to the Juggernauts that stepped into it to attack them, and Ganondorf was reasonably certain that at least the Infected Juggernaut and the quadruped weren’t smart enough to recognize a hazardous zone when they saw it. He followed this by using Renewal. He released waves of healing energy that granted them temporary health regeneration for the next 23 seconds. During that time, and for the following 20 seconds after the Hallowed Ground wore off, they would also benefit from a 15% reduction to damage thanks to being under Renewal while standing on the Hallowed Ground.

”Now,” Ganondorf said, brandishing his trident and readying it while digging in his heels, ”let them come if they dare!”

And come they did. The juggernauts converged on them from three sides, eager to crush the interlopers now that they were gathered close together. The four legged infested juggernaut ground one of its front legs into the fleshy ground before setting off in a strong charging tackle. As Ganondorf had surmised, the Flood juggernaut did not enter his radiation field. Its long, powerful arms were more than enough to reach the three however, and it started off with an overhead double slam of its tentacles from the side opposite of the quadruped. Finally, the bloated juggernaut approached from the air - by abandoning its attempts to run after the group and simply directly at the Seekers.

Though Primrose was content to let the Ganondorfs on either side of her protect her from direct damage, she didn't intend to completely play a damsel in distress. She burned one of her last battle points, meeting the infected juggernaut's jump with another boosted Black Fire Orb. The spell crashed into the monster while it was airborne, the concussive force of the pyromancy dropping it to the ground before it could complete its landing. It landed hard on its back, but it wasn't yet defeated. As it struggled to its feet she turned her attention to the infested. While keeping in Phantom Ganon's shadow to prevent the Flood's slam from reaching her the dancer used her Vengeful Spirit. The small ghostly white phantom of her own flew forward from her, passing right through the animal-like juggernaut's hard carapace and burning it from the inside as it went. The thing howled in pain, but did not stop its charge.

When the quadruped made its charge, Ganondorf dispelled his trident and instead strengthened his footing and, with his monstrous strength, took the charge head on. His hands grabbed the charging animal-like beast by its head. And while Ganondorf did slide back a step from the impact of the charge, the warlord stood strong in the end. Seeing the infected juggernaut downed after its jump attack was thwarted, the Gerudo decided to seize upon the opportunity. He channeled the strength of the Triforce and lifted up the quadruped before slamming it back down onto the ground right on top of the recovering infected juggernaut. Then he reached for the swords still embedded in the quadruped’s back and pulled them free, dual-wielding them once more.

"Ganondorf, it's belly," Primrose pointed out to him, noting a soft glow from the now exposed area of the bull-like juggernaut. The entirety of the creature was covered in rock hard carapace, and though this section wasn't much different the subtle red light must have meant it was different from the rest of its body somehow.
The Warlord’s eyes narrowed as he quickly scrutinized the exposed area that the dancer had called to his attention. Then with a smirk he brandished his blades and proceeded to hack and slash away at the quadruped’s underside. If there was a weakness to be found there, he’d find it. Even if he had to physically carve it out of the beast’s hide by force. And for the efforts, it appeared to be doing the trick. The creature looked like it was suffering more massive damage compared to previous attacks that hit its sides or back.

Meanwhile, Phantom Ganon had managed to recover some of his strength thanks to the Renewal. But it was clear that he did not benefit as fully from the regeneration as Ganondorf and Primrose had. Still, he at least still had enough strength to defend the dancer from the Flood Juggernaut’s slam attack. But he began to become overwhelmed by the followup flailing attacks. Knowing his end was near, Phantom Ganon glowed red again and charged straight through the air at the Flood Juggernaut, aiming to get it with one more powerful lunging strike with his trident while under the effect of Ripping Bear before he could be dispelled from the battle. This left Ganondorf and Primrose with only themselves, which Ganondorf rectified by summoning a fresh squad of Moblin archers with fresh quivers of fire arrows. The moblins weren’t strong with their attacks, but they at least proved useful enough as decoys and distractions.

Ganondorf’s Hallowed Ground wore off at around this time as well. But while the radiation damage zone was gone, the defensive buff from Iron Renewal would still remain in effect for a further 20 seconds.

It was a buff Primrose intended to make the most of. She left Ganondorf to deal with the two Juggernauts he'd pinned and set her sights on the Flood monstrosity once more. She stayed within its range, a dangerous gamble with the speed and strength with which it flailed its arms around. Her saving grace was that it wasn't solely targeting her, so she managed to keep herself from being struck with a direct hit as she danced around the danger and looked for her opening.

It came when the limb slammed down on top of one of the moblins right beside her. She reached out, splaying her hands, and when she caught the juggernaut's arm flickering black flames immediately flared up from between her fingers. Her Black Serpent Pyromancy raced up the length of the tentacle, setting the creature aflame as it dove into the softest part of its body: its disgusting maw. The Flood Juggernaut jerked backwards, pulling its arm from the dancer's grip, but at that point it was too late. It still bled from the wounds inflicted by the Phantom, and the dark fire burned its flesh. It dropped down onto one knee, and the moblin firing squad pelted the vulnerable monster with arrows that further fueled the fire.

Meanwhile on his end, Ganondorf’s frenzied slashes with his sword slowed to a stop as he noticed the increasing glow in their blades. Good, that meant the Darkness energy was building up and could be spent on a strong explosive attack. And since he had these two Juggernauts pinned down together, he decided to do just that. He briefly rose up in the air a few feet as dark magic runes began to cover a circular zone below him which would indicate the radius of the attack he was about to use. Then he came crashing back down, plunging his blades into the floor and letting loose a Dark Explosion just big enough to engulf the two Juggernauts in its radius. But it wasn’t large enough to hit the Flood Juggernaut.

The moblins continued to loose their fire arrows in support of Primrose’s efforts against the spindly creature in question. One or two of them had fallen to the Juggernaut’s slams, but three still remained to take their shots when they were able to. It wasn't lack of trying on the Flood juggernaut's part that kept them alive. It, like the rest of the brutish trio, had taken heavy damage. If it was a lesser monster it would already have died. Even now it struggled to live, striking out at its assailants more sluggishly than before. It got back to its feet, taking a few staggering steps backward so that it could regroup. But Primrose didn't let it get far before she raised her hand, conjuring the dark magic of her Moonlight Waltz. Without ceremony a powerful pillar of shadows came down on the monster, forcing it back onto its knees. The dancer was ready to call forth another spell to finish it off, but seeing that it didn't react after the latest round of arrows struck it she lowered her hand. It had succumbed, its body was just slowly disintegrating from below.

There wasn’t much left of Ganondorf’s targets either. Between the Bleeding, hacking & slashing, and the Dark Explosion - they were just about down as well. And so the Warlord used his blades and finished them both off.

After their defeat, the infested hollow grew quiet save for the tittering of the few remaining moblins. Primrose made to regroup with Ganondorf, but she found that as soon as she turned her head her vision was overtaken by darkness. She nearly startled, wondering if she'd been pulled into a spell or a dream, but... it didn't quite feel like that.

Floating nearby were three cards, each with an image and text below them.


They all appeared to be useful effects of some kind. Rewards if she had to guess.

One of the options was a little questionable. Oil for blood...? Primrose thought, raising an eyebrow at the card. The immunity to fire it supposedly would grant almost made up for turning all of her blood into oil. She hesitated, actually considering it, her drive to grow stronger fighting with her increased vanity that recoiled at the mere idea. After a moment she reached out for a different card, selecting the leftmost.

When she touched it, the other two swiftly disappeared back into darkness. Then a woman that seemed to embody iron and fire appeared before her.

"Well, look at you, hot stuff!" The woman grinned at Primrose, her smile warm and somehow comforting. Like coming to rest by a hearth after a cold night. "You've got a spicy spark in you, I can just tell. So, what say we make a cozy little fire, then put all our enemies in it?"

She faded out of Primrose's vision before the dancer could reply, taking the darkness with her. Between one blink and the next, Primrose was back in the hollow with Ganondorf and the trio of juggernaut spirits.

After the juggernauts were gone and Ganondorf cleaned his blades of their blood, he too found himself overtaken by visions of darkness. Before him floated a trio of cards, each depicting a different name and image associated with it.


Rewards? Spoils of victory? The warlord wouldn’t say no to more power, of course.

All of them seemed rather useful, but two of the three appeared to be associated with some kind of god or similar being. And since Ganondorf had no interest in becoming beholden to a god, he chose the third card. His vision faded back to normal, and as he stood there paused, Ganondorf could already begin to feel the beneficial effects of the card he chose.

”Well, that was… interesting.”

Primrose was not surprised that she and the King of Evil seemed to have experienced the same type of vision.

"Nice of whomever is in control of this tree to reward us," she said, assuming that that was the case. Though she appeared flippant with her comment, there was an edge of suspicion in her voice. After all, it begged the question of why they were being offered more strength regardless of whether they'd earned it or not, when the whole reason they were here was to kill the Guardian that made the Qliphoth its home.

”I does make one wonder, doesn’t it?” Ganondorf observed. ”About who actually controls this tree? I assumed it was the Guardian, but why would the Guardian be giving us powers that will ultimately help us defeat it?”

My thoughts exactly. After gathering up the spirits and brushing herself of dust and debris the dancer set her eyes on Ganondorf, answering his question whether it had been rhetorical or not.

"Perhaps we've unknowingly stepped into a trial," she suggested. "Whenever we've gotten close to a Guardian, that giant hand appears to us through our paces. Maybe this is part of the latest one."

”’Giant hand’...?” Ganondorf asked, a subtle grimace of recognition appearing on his face. He narrowed his eyes and then, ”Which one?” He suddenly asked.

'Which one?' Now that was a curious question. Primrose regarded Ganondorf carefully. She knew that Midna took exceptional issue with the man, though the dancer herself had yet to learn the full story. She also knew that when they found Ganondorf he'd been chained up by that old kingly goat who had told them point blank that the man was evil. And, of course, she'd seen the ferocity and fits of anger he was capable of first hand while fighting together with him. Still, she didn't see any reason that he would betray them, and so she did not keep the information from him.

"A disembodied white glove, larger than a person," she said. "Connected to the Consuls and the Guardians in some way... and a right hand, if that matters."

”That would be Master Hand, then.” Ganondorf clarified. “”I’m quite familiar with the entity, you see. And you all should be aware that there’s another hand like it out there most likely. Crazy Hand, I think it’s called. A left hand that moves much more erratically and chaotically than Master Hand does.”

Now that was news to the dancer. She blinked in surprise before her features smoothed to casual indifference. "How lovely," she said sarcastically. So they had to watch out for yet another threat.

She spoke again after a little sigh. "Regardless if we're caught in some kind of game or we just happened to come upon some luck," which she doubted, "I suppose we'll just have to keep playing, hm?"

Ganondorf nodded, his lips curling into a smile of agreement. ”Indeed.” He also noted that the veins that were previously closed off were now opened yet again. Ganondrof made a gesture forward. ”Ah, our way forward has opened, it seems. Shall we?””

”Would that be a stroke of fortune, or merely our demise? I mean no offense to your skill, but I doubt the two of us alone would be sufficient to take on a Guardian, if the threat they pose has not been overstated by the others. Edelgard replied casually to Roland, trying to size up the utterly massive zombie before them. Given that they could only see the upper third or so of it, their enemy's scale was unprecedented for her. Even Absalom was not this large.

”Probably not with these abnormalities, no.” Roland said, giving his own banter, still, it didn’t help you in a fight to lose your nerve upon seeing an enemy like this. Granted, this thing was HUGE, usually things in the City didn’t get this bad or big.. Usually. ”But we should probably be careful with this thing, let's just hope his size makes him slow.”

”Indeed. Edelgard hefted her shield and began approaching, as Killabilly began launching zombies their way. ”Great. He means to slow us with mere fodder. Let us dispatch these distractions and make haste.” Edelgard sighed, stepping forward to crush a zombie beneath her axe as the arena slowly filled with easily-slain zombies.

Roland meanwhile really didn’t have much time to deal with these small things and let this giant charge up some kind of super attack or something and pulled out Gold Rush, equipping the EGO of a giant spiked golden gauntlet. This turned Roland into a caped warrior king while turning the whole area into an opulent throne room of golden pillars. Portals appeared in front and behind every zombie as well as Killabilly and Roland reared back and punched forward, zooming through each portal as if it was a straight line and smacking every zombie that couldn’t defend itself with his mighty gauntlet the size of his torso and gaining strength for every successful zombie hit. This ended with a punch on Killabilly who just took the punch in the stomach and didn’t seem all that phased, Roland clashing but failing and getting knocked away from a retaliatory hit from the big guy.

Edelgard gaped at Roland's attack, but quickly shook off her shock and ran forward towards Killabilly, who was quick to react to his successful defense against the Fixer. He laughed and swiped his hand at the pair, a trio of cadillacs appearing from nowhere and launching forward, threatening to bowl them over and crush them with sheer momentum.

Edelgard planted her feet in defiance, hefting her shield and roaring angrily. She pivoted stance slightly as the cadillac struck, and the bone-tingling shriek of metal on metal sounded out as the projectile vehicle deflected off of her shield, though not without having pushed her back a solid five feet. Bones aching and breath heavy, Edelgard cast a Heal spell to revitalize herself before advancing once more.

”Phew, thanks!” Roland said. Having done a large amount of damage to Roland’s current fighting partner, a mark that looked like a serpentine eye appeared over Killabilly making him the “villain”. All attacks from this point forward would be doing a bit of extra damage to him and healing whoever was lowest a bit upon successful landing of the attack. And with how big he is and how he was throwing CARS now, that would probably be necessary.

Speaking of attacks, Roland went in for a few more, using his giant two handed sword to cut a car in half before successfully striking Hillabilly with it. Although his followups of single swordplay didn’t play out as well as his sword was blocked or deflected and the exchange would end up with Roland riding on top of a car towards Edelgard, shooting a farewell shotgun blast before hopping off and doing a tumble to the ground.

Getting up from the ground, Roland decided to use a few ranged attacks to see what Edelgard could do. He did have something in his back pocket, but he doubted it’d finish this thing in one go.

Having been forced to leap to the side to avoid the second car, Edelgard stood up and shook her head before rushing forward again. This monster was a nuisance! The sheer weight behind the cars he was throwing could not simply be ignored, and if she tried to deflect them all like the first one, she'd wind up being ground down before too long. Even her prodigious durability couldn’t stand up to several thousand-pound vehicles being flung into her.

Reaching one of Killabilly’s hands laid upon the platform they were standing upon, Edelgard brought Aymr down on his finger, feeling and hearing the crack of bone as her ax shattered the joint it hit. Tearing free the blade, she swung again, this hit slicing clear through the flesh and severing the digit. In retaliation, Killabilly roared in pain, lifting his hand from the platform and slamming his incredibly long tongue down like a whip, attempting to slam into Edelgard and sending her to her knees. However Roland dashed up and clashed with the tongue using his daggers, able to parry it and cancel the attack out thanks to Intemperance making it so Roland couldn't’ fail the clash protecting his ally.

”So whats the plan?” Roland said to Edelgard, still figuring out what they could do and how they could work together to take this giant zombie down.

”I had been planning to carve his hands to pieces so we could render him unable to attack, but he appears to be regenerating his finger as we speak.” Edelgard reported and, true to her words, Killabilly’s finger was already regrowing. ”We will need to make an opportunity to deal damage so severe that it leaves him vulnerable until it is regenerated. Perhaps his head?”

”Alright, I’ll try to get an opening for you to do some serious damage. You’ll know the signal when you see it.” Roland said. Now, getting the attention of something wasn’t really something he did, but even Killabilly would see this. Starting first with a shot from his rifle to make sure Killlabilly was paying attention, Roland used his other EGO page, In the Name of Love and Hate, and adorned himself in a strange pink winged snake humanoid outfit, while behind him appeared a giant heart shaped portal and the arena temporarily changed to a cityscape with a bright purple fog rolling in. Although getting Killabilly’s attention like this lead to a situation Roland wasn’t expecting as Killabilly fired a laser from his mouth at Roland as Roland unleashed his EGO attack, which was also a massive laser from said heart portal causing both lasers to clash and struggle against each other keeping the attention of both participants for a short time.

Edelgard had to force herself not to think on just how strange this man and his powers were, instead attacking Killabilly’s arm with Flickering Flower to distract and stun him for a few moments. Her axe carved into his palm as the crest of Seiros flared, boosting the Ability’s power further. With a few seconds to act, she climbed onto the titanic zombie’s arm and pointed at his face, casting Fire to launch a ball of flames at his face.

Roland meanwhile didn’t have anything flashy left, at least not yet. Although once he hit the zombie with his hammer, he finally had something useful. Much like Edelgard, he went for the head, and after having used 9 different weapons from his attacks, he used Furioso. With Edelgard having his attention, Roland was able to strike the zombie with a long, flashy combo involving all 9 of his used weapons dealing a hefty chunk of damage and keeping the zombie stunned for a moment for Edelgard to followup with something that should hopefully help put this thing down.

Edelgard, unfortunately, did not have much left to fire off. Instead, she used the time he was stunned to further scale his body until she reached his shoulder, where she embedded Aymr into his collarbone, the sound of bone breaking filling the arena. She roared and hefted her axe again, this time slamming her shield into the wound left by her weapon, pushing against it like a prybar. Killabilly roared as he started to regain his senses, and brought his other arm up to grab Edelgard from his shoulder, squeezing onto her roughly. For now, her armor held, but it wouldn’t last forever.

Roland himself was mostly out of big tricks, so all he could do was build himself up again. A couple tricks he did have though were some of his new powers. First, pulling out the ink brush he got from absorbing one spirit, he threw a glob of ink at Edelgard which would soon explode in an eruption of ink tentacles to free her from Killabilly’s grip, then summoned another ink glob which turned into a vengeful spirit familiar to Roland which went after Killabilly’s throat and made him unable to use his laser. The other thing he had to help was an attempt to possibly cut off his arm with an enhanced massive two hander buffed by his other spirit right at the shoulder. Unlike Edelgard, Roland was much more agile and able to move around Killabilly, which was probably why he went after his companion. And with Killabilly having a bit of trouble dealing with Roland, he started to build up his Furioso again by using his lance, daggers, and sword on Killabilly’s head to rip his eyes out and make the fight much easier.

The exploding glob of ink managed to pry Killabilly’s hand open just enough for Edelgard to brace herself against his palm and lop off a pair of fingers, affording her escape. She climbed over his hand and back to his shoulder, slamming Aymr into the titanic zombie’s neck like a lumberjack to a tree. Roland’s attack to the wounded shoulder did not quite remove Killabilly’s arm, but it did deepen the wound even further, exposing part of the zombie’s undead chest cavity, revealing what looked like a hollow within. ”There! We may be able to strike more permanently from inside!” She called, dragging Aymr through and out Killabilly’s neck. ”While I have his attention, deal the mortal blow!”

”Eww, this sucks.” Roland said, not all that interested in getting inside this bloody thing but if that was the only way to kill it… Roland sighed, got his swords out, and went to town carving up the inside hollow of Killabilly. All while cursing at how disgusting it was. Usually he tried to stay out of the gullet of things, not go into one, but there was some weird glow in here, and a lot of flesh tentacle things. Nothing too big that Roland couldn’t cut through with his swords and various weapons, but it upped the gross factor by quite a lot. A gross factor that caused him to get hit a couple times by said tentacles as he was a bit more apprehensive about them than he should’ve been.

It took a bit, but eventually Roland found his way through the hollow flesh to some kind of corpse tied to a heart. Roland could only guess this was the weak point, and he was done with dealing with this whole thing, so he started carving and shooting up this accursed creature’s heart. In doing so, he gained Emotion level 5 at some point during his trek through the giant zombies innards and gained Acidic Sludge, granted its voice was only heard by Roland. This was probably a poor time to trigger such an effect, but maybe it was a blessing in disguise as the wave of highly corrosive acidic sludge drenched the core of Killabilly and made it much, much easier to hack away. It didn’t take long until Edelgard could see Killabilly starting to glow, and with a poof of page and a wisp of light, Roland was in mid air holding a book of Killabilly.

With a bit of a stumbling landing roll, Roland got back up on his feet and faced Edelgard. ”Funny thing, I got the feeling this isn’t the first time I’ve done something like this. But I can’t remember the first time… It makes me sick thinking about it though.” He said, not having come out of his little impromptu internal adventure unscathed, covered in weird fluids, a couple tentacle smacks visible, and overall just not in a good mood.

With the defeat of the boss of this area, an additional reward was offered to Roland. A series of 3 items appeared before him. Ares' Aid, Decaying Implosion, Lone Ranger.. Roland wasn’t sure what did what, nor was he really familiar with the name of the named item, so seeing as they were all the same to him, he grabbed Decaying Implosion. Upon doing so, he was blessed with a power, with the other 2 options disappearing. ”Huh, wonder what that is about.” Roland said, a bit confused. ”Also, where do we go now?”

Edelgard, having spent the time Roland was inside Killabilly fending off his feeble attempts at grabbing her again, also saw the three cards appear before her. Carefully considering her options, she chose the one that made her spells more versatile.



”Thank you for finishing that vile…thing…off. From here, I suppose we find another vein to traverse, and head deeper within.” With Killabilly gone, the pair could see a series of platforms behind and under where his torso had been, leading to a more fleshy section of the Qliphoth, this part less severely impacted by the Floodfestation. ”I believe that will be our means of egress.”

Zenkichi nodded at Roxas’s comment, shrugging. ”History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes.” He quipped back, pointing at the hideous form of Nyx, which was in the process of absorbing a Flood combat form. ”Whatever that thing is, it’s bad news. Eating the smaller guys. Dunno if it’s just eliminating the competition or if it’s getting something out of that, but I’d rather not find out the hard way.” Summoning Ragnell, he started forward. ”Let’s make this quick.” He decided to keep Preservation Protocol as the active protocol from Sandalphon's covenant for now.

”I got your back!” Roxas said, agreeing with the detective’s assessment that they were better off getting this over with. Before he got too far away from him, Roxas gave Zenkichi a temporary speed buff with Tailwind. It seemed pretty obvious that the big devouring one was the main threat here. But even just getting close meant hacking and slashing his way through the demons and undead that surrounded it. And also, well, it was literally eating things that got close, so… did Roxas even want to take that risk? Even so, he had to at least try to eliminate some of the smaller fry before they could be devoured, just in case the nasty one actually was getting something out of it like Zenkichi theorized.

”Thunder!” Roxas cried after using his StepSword to instantly move himself in the center of a group. The lightning was called down after the slash from his energy blade allowing for a solid bit of opening area of effect damage on the group. After that he went on the defensive, using his Keyblades to block an incoming strike and then retaliate with Dual Counter, allowing for a wipe-sweeping circular slash to enable some extra crowd clearing.

Zenkichi, having given a quick “thanks” for the speed boost from Roxas, proceeded to harass the edge of a group of demons, swatting Empusas from the sky with Ragnell’s energy blasts. From within the group fighting off the floodfestation came a few blasts of hell energy, Hell Razers turning to fight off the attack from the Phantom Thief, who quickly dodge rolled out of the way, calling on Valjean to attack the group before it could scatter. ”Triple Down!” He wasn't as concerned with each of the three area shots hitting as he was with softening up the group before going in, though a few Empusa and Hell Razers took the full brunt of the attack, the Empusa bursting and the Hell Razers roaring in anger before doubling down and turning even more attention his way. The defense boost from Preservation Protocol would probably come in handy as he dodged and tanked even more attacks from the demon swarm.

The Flood and Infested that the demons had been fighting took advantage of this, charging in and overwhelming the group as Zenkichi continued to fire explosive blasts of holy energy from Ragnell, but following not far behind them was Nyx, now sporting a Hell Razer's energy weapon from feasting on a weakened one before the others could kill it. ”Roxas, we got a problem! This thing is absorbing them and now it has a laser gun!” He called out to his teenage companion, breaking off from his attack and moving to regroup with him.

So that’s what the monster got when it devoured things? It could gain their abilities? Well that… certainly complicated things. With another quick Thundaga he gave himself enough space to disengage and then regroup with Zenkichi. Roxas put up a medium-sized wall of virtual blocks between them and Nyx, hoping it could take at least a few shots without breaking so they could formulate some kind of strategy. ”Should we focus on the big one instead?” He asked, taking a moment to use his RockGun to fire a charged shot at Nyx, a potshot more than anything else. ”What do you think happens if it eats one of us?”

”Do you want the serious answer or the hopeful answer? Because I’m pretty sure if it gets one of us, the other one is dead basically right away.” Zenkichi sighed as the B.O.W.’s attention turned away from the wall of blocks and back onto the hordes of demons and undead around it. ”And frankly, I think we divide and conquer. One of us gets its attention and keeps it distracted, while the other mops up the hordes and keeps it from getting stronger. You’ve got some pretty smooth maneuverability, and dealing with groups of weak enemies is sort of my specialty. But if you have any other ideas, I’m open to hearing them.”

”Get its attention and keep it distracted. Got it!” Roxas repeated with a nod of confirmation. ”I think I’ve got just the thing for that.” Then he ignited the energy blade of his StepSword and dispelled the wall of blocks. He vanished on the spot after that, only to reappear directly behind Nyx and slashing it with his StepSword. It wasn’t a decisive blow, but it wasn’t meant to be either. It was just a means of repositioning Roxas to a spot where he could cleanly get the creature’s attention. He followed that by summoning Poltergeist, and thanks to the fight having gone on for a bit the bedsheet ghost girl was able to use The Sun Isn’t Kind to endow Roxas with a number of buffs that would last for 10 seconds. The most pertinent of these was Taunt and Stealth. Taunt would clearly draw the aggro of Nyx toward Roxas, while Stealth would help keep him out of the line of fire of that laser gun weapon.

Roxas had to make sure he didn’t waste the 10 seconds he was given by Poltergeist. He darted to the side and got himself on the move. Thanks to Stealth, Nyx had a hard time finding him to attack in spite of being Taunted. When precise shots from the laser weapon failed it, the Nyx then resorted instead to swinging and flailing its arms and tentacles. These were wilder and less predictable attacks, but was able to manage for the time being. During these 10 seconds, Roxas took whatever pot shot he could, whether that took the form of a charged shot from the RockGun or an instant movement with StepSword to position himself behind the Nyx for a back attack. Of course he knew his attacks on their own wouldn’t bring this thing down any time soon, but it was better to start wearing it down as he could for the time being until it was time to coordinate an actual attack alongside Zenkichi later.

Once the buffs from Poltergeist wore off, Roxas had to get a little more creative with his strategy. No longer under Stealth, this meant that Nyx could start better focusing attacks on the Nobody. In response to this, Roxas had to make more use of his virtual blocks. He could put up small walls to help defend against shots from the laser weapon or just generate floating platforms he could launch himself from with Flow Motion as a means of maintaining his momentum and helping to avoid incoming physical attacks. Of course, this wasn’t always successful, case and point one of the tentacles managed to barely catch him in its swing and sent him sprawling to the floor. Thankfully Roxas wasn’t hurt too much and was able to get back into the swing of things in mere moments, but he knew couldn’t afford to let too many attacks like that slip through or else this thing would end up wearing him down.

While Roxas was doing a damn good job of keeping Nyx distracted, Zenkichi focused on dealing with the hordes of demons and floodfested. At least this one wasn’t nearly as massive as the previous group, and their numbers were actually a lot more fair, though he’d given the undead an advantage over the demons with his initial strike. To that end, he charged the floodfested horde, casting Tarukaja on himself to trigger Preservation Protocol and stack a defense boost on as well. As he reached the undead group, Zenkichi leapt in, Ragnell carving down an Infested runner. A reddish-looking volatile runner took the distraction for what it was, charging at Zenkichi with reckless abandon. The Phantom Thief didn’t quite catch the difference in time, pulling Ragnell up to cut it down a touch too slow to avoid the explosion.

Staggered, Zenkichi took a few moments to recover, giving an opportunistic crawler time to latch onto his leg and start wailing on him. Once he regained his composure, he kicked the infested creature in the head. This knocked it onto the ground, letting him stab Ragnell into it and the floor, groaning. ”Let ‘em catch me off guard. Can’t do that again.” Despite the successful combo, Zenkichi wasn’t terribly wounded, thanks to Preservation Protocol and Ragnell’s own defense boost. To these monsters, he was a one-man army, and it was time to start acting like it. Hefting Ragnell again, he went to work as Roxas dodged and ran around. Infested, Flood, and demons fell to blows from Ragnell, the holy energy burning the creatures into light.

As he made his way through the hordes, Zenkichi called on his new Striker, Sosha, for what felt like the first time. The Dragoon appeared, stepping back before thrusting forward with her spear and impaling a runner, whipping the spear to toss the decaying Infested off before sweeping it along a line of Flood combat forms. She then changed up her attacks, thrusting her spear in rapid succession as Zenkichi dodged a Charger’s rushing attack to carve at its flank. As the Charger stumbled, Sosha jumped in to finish it off before despawning, leaving Zenkichi in the midst of the horde. ”Alright, Valjean, let’s Triple Down!” He called, another trio of gunshots peppering the horde around him and finishing off a good portion of already-wounded undead. By now, about half the original amount of undead and demons remained. Good progress.

Roxas had to hand it to the detective. He wasn’t kidding about specializing in taking on large numbers. That was mostly based on glimpses the Keybearer caught of Zenkichi fighting while he himself was seemingly zipping and flying around. So far he managed to avoid another hit from the tentacles. And one of the main reasons for that was because Roxas realized that there was nothing stopping him from using Tailwind on himself. Once he figured out he could do that, Roxas was practically buzzing around Nyx like a fly that refused to be swatted. And with the speed buff from Tailwind, Roxas could afford to be a little bolder in how and where he got in his shots. In one instance he switched to his Keyblades immediately after using a teleport-slash with StepSword to get off a follow up flurry of three strikes before he quickly moved on his way to avoid the inevitable retaliation.

All the while, Roxas was using his silver jackal mask to keep track of the cooldown for Poltergeist. As soon as it wound down, he summoned the bedsheet ghost again and allowed her to once more give him the benefits of Stealth, Taunt, Defense Up, and Healing Up. Once again, Taunt and Stealth were the most pertinent buffs, although Defense Up would certainly be helpful in the event Roxas slipped up and got struck down again. And now with that combined with the boon of Tailwind, Roxas could afford to be that much more bold in how he got his occasional shots in. This involved setting up a set of scattered virtual blocks that surrounded Nyx from multiple sides, off of which Roxas then launched himself between them in order to get off a few hit-and-run Keyblade slashes while zipping by Nyx. He’d just gone from being an annoying fly, to a full blown hornet.

But at one point, Roxas’ more risky maneuvers got the better of him when one of Nyx’s tentacles managed to catch him again and swat him away through the air - good thing he had Defense Up or this would have hurt him a lot more. Thinking fast, Roxas managed to generate a small wall of virtual blocks to catch him in his trajectory, so he could then kick himself off of it to go right back on the attack against Nyx. Just as Poltergeist’s buff was wearing off, Roxas seemingly transformed into a streak of light that zig-zagged toward Nyx only for Roxas to re-emerge and unleash a frontal Cross Slash on the B.O.W.. After that he had to let himself land back on the ground so he could touch a non-virtual surface, which would let him instantiate a new set of virtual blocks if needed.

Zenkichi could barely catch any glimpses of Roxas flying around Nyx and harassing it, but that was a good thing- if he couldn’t track the kid, it meant Roxas was doing a good job of keeping himself out of harm’s way. Which, in turn, gave Zenkichi plenty of time to focus on his enemies. With Sosha’s quick cooldown, she was fairly safe to call in often, though he was careful to keep her on the periphery of enemy groups so she wouldn’t get bogged down. With his own self-healing from each enemy he hit, Zenkichi was tough to bog down, especially for the many weaker demons and undead that fought on the battlefield. As the lesser enemies fell, though, Zenkichi was left with some harder threats: a carnis slithered out from behind a group of undead and swiped at him with its clawed limbs.

Zenkichi had to endure the hit, but he brought Ragnell up for a counterstrike before jumping back to put a little room between him and the giant centipede monster. It pursued and took a swipe as it ran, using the momentum to increase the power of its attack, but Zenkichi blocked the attack and kicked at one of the carnis’s primary legs to knock it off balance before stabbing the holy blade into its body and pulling it out through the side. Ichor and infection poured out of the monster, which chittered angrily and limped forward, sagging to its injured side. Zenkichi almost felt bad, but whatever this thing used to be, it was just host to a horrible infection now. Even as it tried to swipe at him, he dodged back and swung Ragnell, a beam of energy exploding in its face and stunning the carnis for Sossha to appear and finish off.

With the horde slowly abating and the tougher enemies dwindling with it, Zenkichi was satisfied that the mutant Nyx wouldn’t be able to get much else out of the remaining undead and demons. Looking over to Roxas, he called out, ”Alright, man, I think we can do this from here!” As he did, he made his way over to the B.O.W., swinging Ragnell to fire blasts of holy energy at it all the while.

Roxas ran after Zenkichi to start fighting Nyx for real. The first thing he did was re-establish the Tailwind buff for Zenkichi, then did so for himself. He resumed his harassment strategy, at least first. Tailwind and Flow Motion gave him all the agility he needed, and summoning virtual blocks would give him platforms to vault or launch from even in midair. In the time since he’d left Twilight Town two weeks ago, he’d gotten quite good at carrying on fights without hardly ever needing to touch the ground save for an occasional moment or two, and this was no different.

Unlike earlier in the fight, Roxas let himself be more aggressive with his attacks now that Zenkichi was fighting alongside him. This meant he executed longer strings of combos that usually opened with a teleporting slash with his StepSword as a means of putting himself in a favorable position, then following that with 4-5 Keyblade strikes. He thought about using spells or his Keyblade techniques a bit more, but he wanted to save what was left of his MP in case he needed to cast an emergency Curaga.

So instead he let one of his strikers get in on the damage-dealing - Kayano. Not wanting to accidentally repeat what happened the last time he summoned her, Roxas made sure he backed off a bit before bringing her out. When white-dressed beauty appeared this time, she did not shift around everyone’s position. This time she cast some kind of sacred spell that summoned a spectral geyser of water that erupted from underneath Nyx’s position that dealt both dark and water elemental damage.

With the speed boost Roxas granted, Zenkichi reached Nyx in fairly short order. He stayed back a bit as he approached, drawing his revolvers and emptying both cylinders into the mutagenic B.O.W. The more solid portions, the ones that had absorbed some of the various undead and demons from across the battlefield, seemed to be taking damage more readily than the main body, more jelly-like in form and hidden behind bone plates and the consumed corpses of demons and whatever the Flood and Infestation had taken. Indeed, after only a few shots, the torso of a Flood combat form that Nyx had absorbed collapsed, falling off of Nyx’s body and dissolving into ash.

”Roxas, focus on the stuff it’s absorbed! If we destroy that, it’ll be weaker and easier to hurt!” Zenkichi called out, stowing his guns and drawing Ragnell to fire a blast of energy at one of Nyx’s elongated arms, carving off an Infested runner’s oversized arm.

”Fire!” Roxas cried, aiming a Firaga spell at another of Nyx’s arms. And sure enough, a part of it that was absorbed from some other victim fell off in a flaming heap and turned to ash. ”Looks like you called it. Thanks for the tip!” That allowed Roxas to re-adjust where he targeted his spells and attacks. And the Medabot spirit he had fused with back in Midgar made calculating his aim a quite simple task. So Roxas strung together attacks at specific parts of Nyx’s body now. An arm here, a leg there, all while still maintaining his current strategy of harassing the mutant rather than engage it directly.

He tried to keep an eye out for how Zenkichi was fairing, too. He wanted to be ready in case he needed to swoop and heal them both up with a Curaga. Then he also decided to test the waters to see how effective the RockGun was when its charged shots were aimed at actual weak spots. And it turned out to be a marked improvement, not enough to destroy the absorbed spots in one shot, but enough to soften them up for a follow up strike by either himself or Zenkichi.

Zenkichi rushed in as Roxas started using his RockGun, hitting Nyx from behind with Ragnell and catching its attention. As a beam of hell energy swept across the battlefield, he performed an acrobatic front flip over the laser and focused on the Hell Razer Nyx had absorbed, the holy blade slicing into the engorged tentacle-limb that the demon was part of. The main body of the demon was buried beneath a few others, floodfested and demon alike, which implied Nyx could manifest weapons and attacks wherever was most convenient, annoyingly enough. It would have been too easy for the laser blaster to be buried under a pile of flesh, though.

As Nyx flailed and violently slammed its arm into Zenkichi, he brought up Ragnell in time to block the blow, but it had more momentum behind it than Zenkichi was expecting, sliding him back a good ten or so feet. ”Damn, this thing’s tougher than it looks. You got any ideas other than just…keep doing the same thing?” he asked.

”Just one.” Roxas answered with a quick nod. Then he summoned Oathkeeper to his left hand and held it above his head, ”Light!” It was the sign of his sharing his light with an ally, in this case - Zenkichi. The Phantom Thief would find himself empowered enough to immediately summon his Persona, Valjean, to perform a wide-reaching whip attack with his chains before disappearing again.

After that was a hail of gunfire and bullet spray as Zenkichi was able to unload a volley of explosive shots from his revolvers, which were instantly reloaded for the Limit attack. Meanwhile, Roxas hurled both Keyblades forward and the weapons proceeded to zip around Nyx’s body making numerous cuts and slashes while the Nobody himself charged up a finishing blast that he fired from the RockGun embedded in his right gauntlet.

”Oh YEAH!” Zenkichi whooped, immediately rushing forward with his Greatsword to attack the battered Nyx, which had lost a large portion of its accumulated biomass and was now almost fully exposed in its gelatinous form. ”Oh yeah, this thing looks a lot different now. And…grosser. I regret everything.” Zenkichi joked, jumping back for another attack from Valjean. ”Valjean, One-Shot Kill!” Before the B.O.W. even had time to react to the previous strike, a massive bullet summoned from Zenkichi’s persona crashed into it, sending it stumbling backwards.

”Ugh, you’re not kidding.” Roxas said. He had no more MP now, but it didn’t seem that would be an issue anymore. He also charged forward, managing to trap Nyx’s gelatinous form between an array of virtual blocks that surrounded it from different angles. Then the Nobody simply launched himself between those blocks and sliced and diced with his Keyblades as he passed by the B.O.W. until he was ready to put that momentum into one more downward thrust of his Keyblades from above.

”Yuck, please tell me it’s gone now.” Roxas said hopefully.

Watching Nyx stumble and fall, its slowly pulsating inner core slowly fading from Roxas’s thrust attack, Zenkichi sighed in relief. ”Looks like it.” As the B.O.W. faded into ash, leaving its Spirit behind, Zenkichi’s vision began to tunnel as a trio of cards appeared, each showing an image and a block of text, like playing cards. ”Huh?” He wondered, reading them over. The one that appealed to him most, though it was not an easy choice, earned his selection, and once he touched the card, his surroundings returned. ”That was weird.”



Roxas, meanwhile, had been having his own little experience. When his vision darkened and tunneled, he too had a trio of cards floating in front of them. They looked like they were granting some kind of power up, maybe as a reward for beating that nasty gelatin thing? All three of the powers seemed incredibly good to have, so choosing just one was tough. But Roxas did choose one in the end and touched the card in question. ”Brilliance without measure, talent without equal.”

And then his vision went completely back to normal. ”So whoever’s behind this tree is trying to… help us… destroy the Guardian?” Roxas wondered, utterly confused now by the design and purpose of this place.



”Might be. If this thing is alive, maybe the Guardian is the source of the infection. If that’s the case, let’s pop open another vein and get going. It ain’t gonna wait for us, after all!” Following his own advice, Zenkichi started making his way over to the edge of the battlefield, scooping up some Spirits to crush later along the way.

Roxas nodded in agreement and let a smile form on his lips. ”Right behind you!” He replied as he followed after the Phantom Thief, stopping only to pick up Nyx’s spirit. He wasn’t about to fuse with something this disgusting, and making it a striker wasn’t appealing either. Could result in a useful item if he could hold onto it until they got back to the Avenger. After that he followed Zenkichi through one of the freshly unlocked veins, ready to put this hollow behind them.

Under the Unsigned’s command, his undead troops spilled into the tomb the koopa kids had drilled into, very much intending to make it into the kids own tomb. Unfortunately for them, said kids had other plans, starting with putting these boneheads to rest.

Bonenoids with shields went first, forming a shield wall beneath the entrance to the tomb, while their rifle wielding compatriots lined up behind it, using the shoulders of the shield bearers as supports for their long guns.

It was quite the impressive little formation, which was, before it could be put to any kind of use, blown apart by Rikas white whale as it breached out of the ground, having taken a bit longer to get up than the flying kids. Its massive double jawed mouth snapped shut, swallowing several boneoids like a swarm of krill, before it slammed down atop several more, and smashed yet another pile with a flick of its anchor tipped tail.

A second later, Jr and Rika both charged the remaining bonenoids on either side of the whale, gauntlets and clown car boxing arms plumbing the skeletons, smashing them apart in a series of swift and brutal punches.

”Now give me back my gem-” Rika called up at the Unsigned amidst the hashes of his minions, only to see the tail of his cloak swishing away as he abandoned the entrance to the tomb

”Hey, get back here!” Rika demanded, tapping her feather fall rune to launch up to the entrance, only to yelp and drop back down when a barrage of machinegun fire came flying her way in response to her attempted chase.

A few moments later, Rika and Jr (standing/hovering on the back of the whale) both took a much more cautious peek outside of the tomb to find out what was out there. As it turned out, it seemed to be the remains of a mausoleum. Other tombs lay scattered around, some half buried in the tree’s walls, others shattered apart either by the act of being risen up out of the depths, or by the Unsigned’s excavating of them.

As for how it had been excavating, well, that seemed to be via combination of stick grenades tossed by grenadires and the raw lifting power of supersoldiers

The final new undead they could see where a number of skeleton riding sidecar sporting moterbikes which were patrolling around the still intact brick pathways of the mausoleum, and who had been the source of the gunfire that had driven Rika to dive back down into cover.

Naturally, there were also bonenoids to spare out there too, all of them taking similar degrees of strategic cover as their fellows inside the tomb had attempted. Concerningly, the Unsighned was in the process of producing more of these grunts, holding open its cloak till a dozen more had popped out, before doing an odd little head shoogaling dance for a few seconds, seemingly to recharge in the process, and then summoning a dozen more.

”Yeesh, that’s a lot of bone heads”

”and he’s making even more. So we have to stop him soon”

”With a plan”

”A quick plan”

Observations made, they ducked back down out of sight before they could lose their heads and, swift as they could, formulated exactly that.

A few moments later, a sheet of metal with a pair of eye slits was put up into the doorway. Rounds immediately pinged off of this, but the shooters were then distracted when Rika’s white whale came bursting out of the ground next to the shooters, though it sadly missed a shark attack level strike this time due to the lack of vision of the target.

It was distraction enough however, and so as bullets began slamming into the poor beast’s blubber, the rest of their plan burst into action. Literally.

Another part of the wall to their tomb exploded (outwards this time) as Jr’s clown car drilled through it, and then hit the path outside, go kart wheels deploying and engine revving as he burned rubber towards the enemy defensive position.

Rifles pivoted back to try and take them down, only for Rika’s giant wasp queen of a striker to finish her incantation from behind the metal face protector they’d popped in the doorway. Her titanic sword slammed tip first into the ground, prompting a 25 meter squared area of the ground beneath the bonenoids to reach up in the shape of hundreds of hands and to then drag them back into it, reburying the undead creatures.

Most of them, anyway. The supersoldiers and the Unsigned himself managed to wrestle free from the earth, but the chaff were by and large simply gone. Unfortunately, the Unsigned began immediately replacing them, declaring this merely a “minor setback” as the troops that had not been reburied fought to cover their creator from the incoming clowncar.

And the whale, which Jr healed to full hp using a manaless cast of Benediction, taking it from close to dead right back up to to a massive distraction in the blink of an eye. It promptly lunged at the closest supersolider, big enough to swallow even those whole, while trading cannon for machiengun fire with the rest.

With the footsoldiers being respawned, and the super soldiers busy with the whale, motorcycle skeletons were the bulk of the force of undeath still in the fight. With their patrolling beyond the barricades, and high powered motor vehicles, they had avoided the fate of the footsloggers more or less entirely.

”Alright bring it! Battle mode time!” Jr challenged the botany bikers as he and they started racing towards each other, only to then have to immediately duck when the bikes’ sidegunners opened up, sending a blaze of gunfire his way, though it was fortunately incredibly inaccurate due to the bad roads and bad driving.

In response, his own side gunner opened fire, Dazzle the Brionne blowing a trio of water bubbles and batting them out over the clown car’s windscreen. One slapped into the side of a bike, knocking it over, another knocked a skeleton gunners head off, and a third hit the road infront of a bike, fowling its traction as it drove over it and sending it careening off the road island into a tomb.

He then however barked in pain as a bullet clipped his tail, prompting the mon to hunker down for fear of further damage. Still, thanks to his mon thinning out specifically the gunners, they were close enough that Jr could execute his plan:

In the air above him, the titanic mechanical fist of Blodia appeared and then slammed forward into the pack of bikers, clearing a path through them, into which the prince wizzed. Then, he unleashed the spell he’d been challenging, a blast of holy magic ripping through the pack of bone bikers, either wrecking them alright, or stunning them when they were moving at high speed which had predictable results, causing a pileup behind him.

The prince cackled with glee at this carnage, only to ”Ach!” as rifle rounds started flying his way, the Unsigned having gotten another round of bonenoid out, and who was now in the midst of his head shaking recharge dance once more.

The prince swerved and dodged as best he could, shots pining off the clown car’s hull. The volley of stick grenades tossed by the grenadiers however was far more of an issue, the explosives littering the road leading towards the new sheildwall, fuses fizzing.

”Uh oh, up up up!” Jr cried out in alarm as he bunnyhopped the car into the air, deployed the propeller, and tried to fly up and over the bombs, only for them to detonate while he was above them. The blast sent him flying far higher up into the air with a ”Wawawawaaaaa!” followed by a thunk and shower of dust as he slammed into the ceiling.

”Owww”

Below, the Unsigned finished his latest recharge and took in the battlefield situation.

Whale: almost torn apart.

Turtle in ridiculous vehicle: Taking shots to the undercarriage

Girl overlanded with gizmos: …

“Where-” he began to ask, only for a quartet of black globules to slam into him from above, dark magic pulsing through his frame.

”Give it back!” Rika shouted from the high ground she’d gotten to via platforming from tomb to tomb, relying on all the carnage to get into a spot where the Unsighned’s shield totting bonenoids would be no help in covering him.

“You will pay for-” he began to say, only to receive a hail of gunfire to the face for good measure and command “-take her down!” before retreating towards one of the tombs he’d previously cracked open.

”Get back here!” she shouted at him, bullet jumping from atop thumb for a burst of speed, flaring her maneuvering thrusters for even more speed, and then launching her grapple at the retreating Unsighned and starting to reel herself in towards him.

Her Black Lance appeared in her hand, and she started charging up a vault breaker, looking set to impale the foe in one swift blow, only for a supersoldier to grab the grapple cable and wrench it free from its master’s body, it and its kindred having just in that moment successfully put down the whale.

Its reward for this loyal service was receiving the blow that had been meant for its master, Rika blasting forwards, black lance punching through its armor at the place its belly button would have been. It did not have one of those, however, nor any organs to perforate, and so even while impaled it attempted to bring up its double barreled machine gun to fill her full of holes.

She summoned Maria the dark knight to chop at the weapon arm twice, taking it off, but not actually taking down the soldier fully. So she instead wrenched him around, and put him in the way of the others, blocking machinegun fire with his body and the shield that was the twin of the lance she still had stabbed through him.

This didn’t help her from being shot in the back by the bonenoids however, rifle rounds pinging into her spartan energy shield, the skeletons fortunately going for her protected center of mass instead of limb shots. The grenades that got tossed at her feet, however, were a bit more of a problem.

She got back control of the gauntlet that had vault breakered just in time, however, letting go of the lance and shield combo, and tapping her feather fall rune to go flying upwards. Both weapons then shifted to the lighter helbard form and teleported into her back just in time to avoid being annihilated by the grenades. The supersoldier was not so lucky, being vaporized on the spot by the friendly fire.

That left several more however, and up in the air, Rika was a bit of a sitting duck. It was fortunate for her, then, that her brother had just managed to free himself from the cave ceiling, cured himself of confusion, and then came swooping in to the rescue. He swept under her, prompting her to grab the back of the car with her gauntlet, and then deployed a massive wrecking ball that smashed into one of the super soldiers, shattering every bone in its body.

The rest raised their guns to fire up at the kids, but Dazzle, who had worked up his nerve again, offered fire support via water bubbles knocking their aim askew, letting Rika make a safe leap down among them. The little lady then squared off against the towering power armored skeletons, fists flying, delivering denting blows to break their armor that buffed her attack speed on the third strike.

She stayed mobile, ducking dodging and weaving, disarming skeletons, using them as cover for gunfire coming from the others, and then when her strikers came of cooldown used them both, the queen and knight of blood’s massive/empowered blades cleaving the armored skeletons in half despite their armor.

By the time Jr had banked back around, she’d taken most of them apart, but in that time, the rest of the bonenoids had rallied/been reinforced by fresh bones popping out of the tomb the Unsigned had retreated into.

Not at all pleased with the pouring of bones out of the pit, Jr demanded ”You quit that!” and then, because obviously the Unsighned wasn’t going to do it just because he was asked, set about actually putting a stop to it. Mainly by slamming a wrecking ball into the already unstable ‘excavated’ tomb, demolishing it entirely and sending its ceiling crashing down atop the Unsigned inside.

That certainly put a stop to any more skelly spawning, though the ones outside did not crumble, or anything of the sort, so presumably their master still lived.

So they set about making sure they where dealt with before he came back

Blodia’s summoned fist crunched one of the remaining super soliders into powder right away, while Jr deployed a flamethrower equipped tank wheel as a more nimble wrecking ball, smashing it into the bonenoid shield wall, the flamers on it whirling and causing grenades to cook off, the grenadiers in the regiment blowing the rest of it apart in the process.

Rika meanwhile kept systematically taking apart super soldiers in a way that was very reminiscent of a certain pint sized boxer, and once they were through, lobbed a torpedo at the remaining bonenoids, blasting them to pieces.

Dazzle, finally, had a field day watergunning skeletons, the bludgeoning blasts blowing them apart ever so satisfyingly.

By the time that the Unsigned managed to claw himself out of the rubble, then, his forces were all gone, and he came skull to helmet with Rika who demanded he ”Give it back” one last time

“Ah. Certainly. Let me just-” he said while reaching down into the rubble he was still half buried in, before quick drawing his revolver and blasting her in the head again with a cry of “never!”.

It promptly bounced off her shield again.

”Then perish” she told him, echoing his own words, before grabbing the gun wielding arm in one hand, snapping it off at the wrist, before unloading her own point blank firepower into his skull, which included, after a clever catch and twirl, the Unsighned’s own oversized revolver that fit rather perfectly in her massive gauntlet hands.

Then the world went dark, and, like the others, for their victory, the pair were offered a choice of boons

---

The ship girl was one of the few who had any idea what was going on, and that was due to her papa having told them about how he’d run into this exact situation back in Limsa Lominscuttle Town. Based on that tale, she hazarded a guess that the watery boon would come from the same person, and she was indeed correct.

Unfortunately she didn’t get exactly what she wanted with the resulting ‘meeting’

”Where is papa!” she demanded to know, hoping that being that had blessed him might still have a link from which she could get a leed. Unfortunately, it seemed like whatever connection this involved was one way, as the god soldiered on with his spiel regardless of her questioning: “Look how much you’ve grown, little minnow, sailing free from your father’s wake! I’m glad to see that the currents of fate still brought you here to me regardless, because no ship should ever be parted from the sea for so long. Fortunately for you I, Poseidon, god of oceans far and wide, now stand at your side! Metaphorically of course”

And then he was gone

---

Just like his sister, Jr had also been told the tale of this place, though unlike her he didn’t have a secondary motive for picking any of the boons, and so sat, wracking his brains, for maybe a bit too long. He had all the time in the world, of course, but the latter two boons really confronted him with what he was supposed to be, hitter or healer, which made all that time he spent thinking it through just… agonizing.

Eventually he cried out with a ”Gahhhh I don’t care any more just let me outa here!”, closed his eyes, waved his finger back and forth, and jabbed randomly at one of the two options.

For him there was no god or divine being come to comment on his choice, and instead simply the sound of a magazine clunking home before he was kicked out of his long overdue stay with hew new weapon boosting aura.

---

Then they were back and had the start of a rapid fire conversation that had just gone down before Rika remembered what this had all been about and asked ”Wait… where’s the treasure?!”

The pair looked down at the spirit of the Unsighned and the pile of rubble he was sat upon that Jr had created by dropping a tomb on top of him, prompting the prince to give an embarrassed ”uhhhhhhhh” before declaring ”I’m gonna go get the cool spirits” and then hurrying off while Rika cried out in alarm and started digging through the rubble by hand.

Or rather by gauntlet.

Even with her oversized mitts this was not fast, at all, and by the time Jr had piled up the useful spirits (the super soldiers, the Unsigned, and a pile of biker and grenadier skeletons), teleported it all to the armory, and then also banged out some of the dents in his clown car with a spanner, she still hadn’t found it.

And then they were all out of time

A roar of floodfested echoed through the chamber, coming from all sides, prompting Jr to more or less koopa handle his sister into the clown car and to once again go drilling through the ceiling to escape, the pair bickered about if jr’s destructive solution to getting the unsigned out of the tomb had been worth it or not as they went.

As much as Goldlewis wished he could stop and rest, he knew that the hollow where he and Geralt faced off with the Keepers would not be a safe place to recuperate. That brawl had been a messy one, and if the sounds of battle didn’t draw floodfested reinforcements from the demonic woodwork, the tremors that accompanied the misplaced basement’s demolition probably would. He figured that wherever he and the Witcher ended up would probably be just as or even more dangerous, but the chance of linking up with one of the Seeker’s healers was enough to make him push forward. While the two men were tough as nails, they could only go so far without someone to patch their wounds, after all. At the very least he’d probably be safe while pushing up through the xylem vein like a five-hundred-pound blood clot, even if it didn’t do much for his headache.

Ultimately, Goldlewis had very little control of where he ended up; after his initial separation from Sandalphon, he couldn’t even guarantee that he and Geralt would emerge in the same place. Like real veins, these ones branched in odd places, the xylem within flowing in any number of directions. He could only wait until his pressurized ascent slowed down, and the increasing translucence of the bloodstream’s tubular walls suggested a way out. Taking hold of his coffin, he pushed its spiked top through, then tore open an aperture large enough to see through. Sure enough, he could see what looked like a section of floor about twenty feet down. Right away he could tell that this area was very different from the claustrophobic hollow he emerged into previously, but Goldlewis didn’t have much of a choice. Better this than be stuck with nothing but open air or solid Qliphoth flesh on all sides. The veteran shoved the coffin out, then pushed off the tunica behind him and tumbled through after it.

He fell for a brief moment in a shower of xylem, then landed on a platform of murky red matter somewhere between meat and wood. To his horror it shook beneath his feet, less like a solid ground and more like an elevated catwalk, and a quick look around showed him why. Rather than a cavernous hollow in the Qliphoth substrate, he stood within an organic structure suspended from the roof of an immense open space within the demon tree’s trunk. It appeared to be an elaborate bell-shaped lattice, not too unlike an enormous, upside-down jungle gym, its walls threaded with a couple larger Qliphoth veins, and at its bottom hung three long, rectangular strips separated by strips of empty space. When the veteran tentatively approached the edge and looked down, he could see nothing but empty air for hundreds, perhaps thousands of feet. Just how high had that bloodstream taken him!? Goldlewis wasn’t typically one for vertigo, but a drop like that could make even him queasy.

Much to his relief, he wasn’t alone. A couple other Seekers had managed to find their way here, emerging from various veins around the arena. Even if Geralt wound up elsewhere, Goldlewis would find a staunch ally in Ganondorf, if not an agreeable one. He waved at the others. “Howdy!” the veteran hollered. “Good to see y’all made it! What I wouldn’t give for a li’l healin’ right now, though.”

At a deep, rumbling crackle, Goldlewis looked up sharply. The interior environment of the Qliphoth was so alien and so cluttered that it could be difficult to parse sometimes, but he could not mistake the massive shape floating down around the strange bell. It was huge, and like most things in this hellish place, a strange blend of unnatural flesh and demonic plant matter that would be shaped roughly like a horned helmet, were it not for the tentacles that branched from the sides and the skin-colored roots that dangled below. At its center gleamed a hellish red slit, fixated on Goldlewis like an evil eye as the behemoth hovered into the bell itself. With a nasty creaking its underside opened, causing red radiance to pour out like some infernal spotlight, and from inside the horror descended a titan of magic and carven stone. It landed even heavier than Goldlewis did, and the whole structure shuddered. Then it raised its four arms, rune-inscribed broadswords held high, and began to march.



Not for the first time, Nadia thanked her lucky stars that she’d ended up unfusing with the spirit of Rhodeia the Oceanid. That spirit had made her a lot more sensitive to the quality of the water around her, and she didn’t even want to think about the quality of the fluid flowing through the Qliphoth’s veins. Sandalphon had called this stuff something else, but to Nadia it really was indistinguishable from blood, from color and viscosity right down to the pungent coppery smell. She didn’t really want to consider any possibilities beyond the demon tree simply having blood for some reason. Hopefully it would prove to be a lot less disease-ridden than the wretched blood that flowed through the guts of the Under–the last thing she needed was another stop at a sanitarium.

Throughout the ride, the cat burglar had clung tight to the hand of her newest friend Emily. Reasoning that the currents in the Qliphoth’s veins could sweep the Seekers away and separate them, she’d chosen to take Emily’s hand to ensure that she wouldn’t get separated. So far it had worked out fine, straining her somewhat as the two bounced around in the bloodstream, but not enough to shake her grip. Nadia knew that getting even a combat-capable survivor to safety would be a tall order, but she burned with determination to get Emily out of here in one piece. Saving people was what heroes did, after all, and that was the path she had chosen.

Nadia’s inner monologue came to an abrupt end when her bloodstream suddenly altered its course. Though winding back and forth in serpentine fashion, it had borne her generally upward, but now it twisted and dumped her out sideways. “Bluh! Bah!” The feral found herself propelled into a pool of xylem, where she sputtered and splashed until she realized that she could simply stand up, the pool itself only waist-deep. Once she did, she crossed her arms and grinned at Emily as if she had everything under control. “Haha, bloody well told ya we’d make it!” When she looked around, though, her bravado gave way to confusion. As strange as the Qliphoth had been so far, the surprises just kept coming.



In front of her lay a hotel lobby in astonishingly good condition. It had all the furnishings one might expect, from lavish loveseats and end tables to potted plants and lush red carpets. Soft, warm light radiated from within exquisite patterned lampshades and elaborate wall sconces. The pool itself was done up like a luxury bath, semicircular, with steps leading in from all angles, sparkling brass handrails, and a handful of beach chairs arranged around it. Farther into the room it quickly got much darker, but Nadia could see ornate tables and chairs around a large circular mosaic of polished marble tiles. At the very least she could see a few places where cracked or peeling wallpaper revealed bits of reddish plant matter, which suggested that she was still inside the Qliphoth, after all. Things were weird in here, though–even weirder than a hotel lobby existing within the demon tree. There were large bubbles here and there, and a number of objects that floated weightlessly, making the whole place seem surreal.

Nadia climbed out of the pool, grabbed a couple floating towels, tossed one to Emily, then began to wipe down. She kept a sharp eye out for danger, but saw no immediate threats. When something broke the silence, it was the arrival of several other Seekers through the same bloodstream: Midna, Edelgard, and Captain Falcon. “Oh hey guys, what’s up? Looks like your struggles are no longer in vein!“ Toweling off helped her compose herself, but an uneasiness remained, and after tossing the bloodstained towel aside she crossed her arms. “This doesn’t feel right,” she whispered as she walked forward, her voice lowered. Midna, Edelgard, and Falcon might not recognize this sensation, but she did. “Like the underground prison. Like a dream. It doesn’t feel…real.”

“What is ‘real?’”

At the baritone voice, Nadia fixed her gaze on the darkness beyond the tables and chairs. After a moment, a lighter flared up, illuminating a man behind a bar. Bottles of all shapes and sizes, many filled with seemingly random objects, lined the shelves behind him, and above them the wall featured an odd abundance of clocks.

Emily looked surprised. “Another survivor?”

Nadia narrowed her eyes at the man, then walked toward the mysterious stranger. Maybe in his thirties, he was handsome, but a real mess, with a five o’clock shadow, unkempt brown hair, and garishly colored formal attire worn haphazardly, including hot pink slacks and tie. He looked tired, with bags under his orange eyes, and he reminded her of a stray dog. As she drew close, Nadia crossed her arms again and looked at him expectantly, as if daring the ordinary-looking man to transform into some monster and attack. “Who’re you supposed to be?”

“Me? Gallagher.” The man smiled.

When he didn’t elaborate, Nadia gestured to the room around here. “What’s this place?”

Gallagher looked amused. “A bar. What’ll you be having?”

Smiling wryly, Nadia put her hands on her hips. “You, if you try any funny business.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “How old are you, anyway?”

Gallagher’s face was deadpan. “I’m thirteen.”

Nadia blinked. “What?”

“Listen, you can’t stay here, it’s dangerous.” Emily beckoned to the man. Even if he was nuts, he deserved to live in her book. “We need to keep moving until we can get out.”

The feral looked at her incredulously. “We can’t trust this cat, he’s su-purr suspicious!”

“You trusted me, didn’t you?” Emily seemed confused.

“Sounds like you’ve got a lot on your mind. Or maybe…on your heels? Heheh.” Gallagher held his palm by his lighter’s flame, warming it. “Can’t say I blame you though, pretty lady. Get haunted once, and everything starts looking like a ghost.” He raised the lighter, peering at one newcomer at a time through the flame. “It’s all just fate, playing a cruel joke on us.”

He flipped the lighter closed.

The hairs on the back of Nadia’s neck stood on end.

She whipped around, and behind the Seekers floated a monstrosity of black feathers, golden claws, and psychedelic pink-purple eyes, its blade just inches from her throat. Nadia backflipped away and landed on the bar, glancing down only to see that Gallagher was no longer there. She returned her gaze to the shadow of death as it snarled, and sharpened her claws for battle.



Sandalphon waited in stoic silence as the xylem current propelled her higher and higher, alert for her next opportunity to emerge. She had lost sight of her predecessor Juri within moments of entering the bloodstream, but if her hypothesis about the Qliphoth’s setup mirroring Arahabaki’s held water, she would be reunited with other allies soon enough. There was no good reason why the two immeasurably different areas would work similarly, of course, but the World of Light was nothing if not full of odd coincidences. Ever watchful even amidst the bloodstream’s tumultuous crimson torrent, Sandalphon spotted a likely exit before long. She propped up her gunstaff against opposite vein walls to slow her ascent, then used her sharp heel to pierce through the tunica. As she rose higher her heel tore open a long slit, and when the xylem pouring through caused the pressure to drop, the archangel washed out along with it.

Despite her best efforts, Sandalphon plopped down onto the floor with the grace of a newborn farm animal, forcing her to try and salvage some dignity by slicking her hair back again as she rose from her blood-red puddle. Junior and Rika were here too, which made her happy to see. They’d arrived in another enclosed Qliphoth hollow, though unlike the one she came from, this one seemed much less organic in nature. It was darker, as if burnt, and cylindrical in shape, with sheer walls, and a ribbed floor whose pattern radiated outward from the middle. Instantly Sandalphon noticed the large golden staff planted at the centermost point, as well as the figure who lounged atop it, her tail coiled around the staff’s length, and the archangel went still as a statue.

Proportionally this being appeared to be a petite woman, but at her full height she’d stand much taller than a grown man. White scales and red cracks covered much of her pale skin, as well as the entirety of the enormous fan-like protrusions from her back, more like fins than wings. Small black spikes protruded from random points across her body, but those among the white hair on her head were dwarfed by the demon’s enormous, ruby-red horns, alike in color to her gleefully glinting eyes. She’d been wearing a bored expression as she sucked on a lollipop until Sandalphon arrived, at which point her eyes widened, and she plucked the candy from her mouth.

“Lilith.” Sandalphon stated, her tone cold.

”Omigosh. Sandy, is that you? No. Fucking. Way!” Though high-pitched, her voice did not sound childlike, and the delighted, shark-toothed grin that spread across her face held no love. ”Wow, you had me going for a sec. You’ve gotten so small! Well…” She boggled her eyes at Sandalphon’s chest. “In most respects, damn! Way to make a girl feel inadequate.” She pretended to pout, then put on a mocking smile. “Guess that pet of yours likes ‘em big, huh? You’ll really try anything to make humans like you!”

Sandalphon’s grip tightened on her staff, and her marble expression almost seemed to crack. Were any of her allies in front of her, they’d see that her pupils were now skulls. “I had always considered the possibility that I might meet one of you again. If you’ve been here all along, I should thank Illia that you haven’t been tormenting innocents.”

Lilith winked at her. “Weeeeell, don’t be so sure. Idle hands, and all that.” She licked her lollipop, then shrugged. ”Still, you’re right about us demons. No matter how many times you put us down, we always pop right back up.” Her eyes glittered as she narrowed them with a nasty smile. ”Shame you can’t say the same about the other archangels, huh?” When Sandalphon didn’t reply, the demon tittered and continued. ”Oh yeah, I heard all about it. Word is that the big boss wiped all the others out. Gone the way of the dinosaurs, just like your big sister. Poor Sandy, all alone…”

“If you know me so well, you should know that trying to provoke me is useless.” Sandalphon remained calm. “Nevertheless, I will kill you. By my authority as the leader of Illia’s Apostles, and as an angel, it falls to me to exact punishment for your sins. And I remember exactly how to do it.”

“Then you remember I’ve got your number, too.” Lilith sneered at the archangel and her allies. “Gotta wonder…do they know the strats? Awful lot of trust you’re putting in a couple little shits, Sandy.” She grinned, then crunched her lollipop between her teeth. As she extended her hand, the shadows danced around her. “Let’s see how you feel after failing them, too!”