[center][h3]Return of None II[/h3]
Lvl 14 Ms Fortune (126/140), [color=Aquamarine]Midna[/color], [color=crimson]Edelgard[/color], Lvl 4 [color=1f66b2]Captain Falcon[/color]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 2800 (+3)

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdBxJ3jqqik[/youtube][/center]

[color=Aquamarine]”Of course it wasn’t going to be that easy”[/color] Midna sighed through teeth clenched with pain before glancing behind her across the bar to check on Emily. In doing so, however she spotted, in one of the small glass cupboards (read, mini fridges), a [url=https://i.imgur.com/o0Qnibx.png]bottle[/url] that shimmered with power in her mindseye. 

Restorative power.

With her shadow hand she reached across the bar and helped herself to the bottle while saying [color=Aquamarine]”Not stealing if the barkeeps a creep”[/color] and then reading out loud that what she’d just retrieved was called [color=Aquamarine]”Jim Roger Bread Soda”[/color]

With a sarcastic declaration of [color=Aquamarine]”Well, that sounds lovely”[/color] she pulled up her helmet and got to drinking down the restorative meal in a bottle while the battle continued to rage behind her.

“Hey, whoa.” A familiar, tired voice reached Midna from beneath the bar, sounding mildly hurt. When she looked, she found the scruffy-haired, pink-wearing stranger from earlier, hunkered down almost out of sight. Unlike Emily, who only crouched down so she could see the action from her hidey-hole, he was sitting on the floor, carefully pouring a bright blue liquid into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. When she spotted him, he nodded his head over his shoulder, as if to say that she should focus on the task at hand.

Midna’s eyes widened, and then she gave a snort of a laugh at the true nature of his disappearing act that she just barely prevented from causing the bread drink coming out her nose. Still, despise this surprise reveal, she did indeed focus on the task at hand, downing the rest of her beverage, slamming the bottle down on the counter and correcting herself slightly to him being a [color=Aquamarine]”sneak then”[/color] before turning back to see the state of the battle and get ready to get stuck back in, the bizarre beverage having miraculously washed away all her wounds.

By then, Nadia had rejoined the fray. Though the murderous aura given off by the memory zone meme once its shadows enshrouded the area made her hackles rise, the feral wasn’t about to sit back and do nothing–especially when it struck down the third person to attack it last time. She took off at a run, then boosted herself into the air with pressurized blood. With Charge she put her best foot forward in a lightning-fast divekick, then performed a high voltage Battery by flip-kicking back off the ground, detaching her head, and swinging it down in an energetic headbutt. Sparks flew as her noggin beaned Something Unto Death in the eye, but the next moment its pulse pushed her back, much to her chagrin. When she slid to a stop and popped her head back on, though, Nadia noticed a red peeper floating above her. “’Eye’ don’t like the looks of this…”

[color=crimson]”Nor do I, but until we learn its true nature, we must continue to fight.”[/color] Edelgard simply replied, stepping forward to put herself at the forefront of the fight yet again, Aymr slashing out at the monster before her. As it retaliated with a Funeral kiss, Edelgard hefted her shield, the claw slamming into the steel barrier and letting off a terrible screech as its talons grated on the metal. Grunting at the impact, the Flame Emperor sighed. Even through her guard, that was quite a hit.

[color=1f66b2]”Fire and Wind are apparently our best bets.”[/color] Falcon noted aloud in case any of the others hadn’t picked up on the boss’s elemental weaknesses. [color=1f66b2]”Good thing I’ve got plenty of the former to spare!”[/color] 

Before he could act, however, the bounty hunter found himself paralyzed once more. Edelgard’s attack had earned her an eye sigil above her head just like Nadia’s, and a moment after it appeared, Something Unto Death faded away into the shadowy backdrop. Countless red eyes opened within the darkness before the meme itself descended from above the two women. Its feather-blade slid across their necks, cutting off Nadia’s scream with terrifying suddenness, and the next moment the monster was gone. When it reappeared, it was joined by two Sombrous Sepulchers containing the captive souls, and flanked by those eerie tombstones it now faced a team reduced by half.

[color=1f66b2]”Not good!”[/color] Falcon finally said when the paralysis wore off. Now there were two team members trapped and in need of an assist. They couldn’t afford for the Captain to go ahead with his planned attack on Something Unto Death. So he turned and redirected his focus, sprinting toward the Sombrous Sepulchers. He recalled Nadia shouting something earlier about attacking the tombstones. So that’s what the bounty hunter would do. [color=1f66b2]”Not today!”[/color] Falcon cried as he began unleashing a barrage of punches and kicks against Edelgard’s tombstone. Even his usual showmanship was briefly set aside for the sake of rescuing a teammate. Sadly, the meme’s pulse shunted him backward all too soon, so the Sepulcher wasn’t down just yet. [color=1f66b2]”Midna, can you get the other one?””[/color]

[color=Aquamarine]”On it!”[/color] Midna called out as she slipped into the shadow of the bar, and then out of something Something Unto Death’s own inorder to cross the distance.

Once there, she declared [color=Aquamarine]”Here, I’ve come up with something just for you!”[/color] before reaching her shadow hand back behind her, forming a sword grip, and then crescent moon blading the dead end express out of the twilight realm. The giant train-chainsaw mace wired and revved, bladed teeth spinning as it was slammed upwards. 

Fighting gravity, it was something of a weakened strike, but the impact still unleashed a shockwave of wind that far outstripped what it should have created via momentum alone.


[hider=Midna level up]
Minda: Skill: Wind Element Attunement (herself/Clone of Akira Howard/Ariel):  Midna's strikes create wind based aftershocks in the same shape of her strikes that do 20% of the damage of the initial hit in an aoe that increases the stronger the hit is. These after shocks come in either a drill, blade, or expanding inverted cone depending if the strike was piercing, slashing, or blunt damage. Blunt hits also do significantly more knockback as a result of these secondary gusts.

On top of this, her minions gain access to wind attacks, allowing them to run in circles in order to build and then unleash tornados. The more (and bigger) the minions involved, the more violent and tumultuous the resulting vortex is.
For context the beast legion has a 'beast tornado' skill that does that, and hyrule warriors Midna can also have her minions do a run around in a circle to build a tornado
[/hider]

The massive weapon and its vacuum effect scored both a meaty wallop on Something Unto Death and some damage against the Sepulchers on either side, lowering both to just two feathers. Before Midna could push forward with the massive weapon for another assault, however, a wave of raw force sent her skidding away. Whatever this power was, it seemed that nobody could linger in the memory zone meme’s vicinity for long.

As Midna attacked, her minions appeared to strike at the main body to try and keep it off guard. Her darknut and cybernetic wolf-cycle appeared briefly to deliver a colossal overhead sword strike and point blank maw cannon lighting blast respectively, before her wolfos and beast legion leapt onto the foe, leaping up to nipping at its heels (literally) to pile on the pleasure. Their wind-aspected punishment quickly added up, but just as quickly they were sent packing like their master, leaving Something Unto Death alone with its prizes once more.

At that point, though, the fight took an unexpected turn. Emily vaulted over the bar, her saber at the ready, and ran up to stand alongside Falcon and Midna. “I appreciate you wanting to keep me safe,” she declared, turning to face the specter with a soldier’s solemnity. “But I can fight, too. I won’t stand by and let anyone die on my account!” After donning a [url=https://i.imgur.com/lKXLKUr.png]ferocious mask[/url], she used her saber to draw her own blood and set it alight. “If it’s fire you need, it’s fire you’ll get!”

Before she could put it to use, however, the meme struck again. It launched another Sunken Rain that assailed the Seekers with dark spikes, which forced Emily to block, then lunged toward Falcon with Funeral Kiss. The bounty hunter had temporarily stop his attacks to put up his defenses, but when he did it manifested a reddish bubble around him that absorbed the attack, causing the bubble to shrink a bit as a result. But since it was charging at him, he was able to retaliate with a [color=1f66b2]”Ryuugeki Ken!”[/color] and hitting the Meme with a close range burst of flame before the pushback kicked in.

As the Meme rushed towards the captain, Midna and her pack rushed past it and towards the tombstones holding their other allies. The wolves naturally outpaced her, but the princess merely needed to yank on her astral chain once they got close inorder to catch up, pulling herself to the beast legion, and then spring boarding off of it with the power of flowmotion. With most of her blades scattered to the four corners of the room she instead bore her dragon claws, delivering a quartet of wind power backed swipes to Nadia’s tome. With talons piercing the surface and letting her cling to it for just a moment, she raised up her shadow hand and then sent it crashing down atop of it trying to [color=Aquamarine]”Crack you like an egg!”[/color] Strangely, however, the whole assault only seemed to count for one feather, meaning one remained by the time Midna got repelled once again.

As she did this, the wolves of astral and twilight darted under Edelgard’s and, chasing each other’s tails, whipped up a tornado beneath it, buffeting and rocking it before they leapt into their creation and used it to launch themselves up to bite at the Sombrous Sepulcher. Their efforts shaved off only one of the tombstone’s feathers, however, so that Sepulcher remained standing, too.

Given the speed at which Midna, her summons, and the Captain operated, Emily was only able to make good on her proud declaration just then. She swung her saber, coated in her own blazing blood, in a wide arc to launch an ember that carved its own roundabout path. It looped through one tombstone, Something Unto Death, and then the other before firing off behind her. Though her Ember Reversal didn’t inflict much injury to her adversary, it still burned away the Sepulchers’ final feathers and left them unprotected. Having observed throughout the fight’s first phase, Emily made sure to communicate. “One more should do it!”

The memory zone meme would not let the totems go down without a fight, though. It wheeled around in the shadows, hurling down another dozen flechettes with Sunken Rain, then warped to the opposite side to nail the Seekers from behind with a second. Emily, who’d managed to dodge through the first deadly deluge, had charged forward to try and destroy the undefended totems, only to receive two lances, one into the meat of her calf and the other across the ribs. “Agh!” She stumbled, teeth gritted, and fell short of the prize. Meanwhile Falcon had fared slightly better. His closeness to the memory zone meme at the time kept him from dodging the first volley before taking a glancing blow from one of the lances, but he did manage to avoid the second volley since they came from a longer ways away after the meme had teleported.

Midna sent her wolfos home and hunkered down under her shadow hand to resist the first barrage, and sent her flygon forth to strike the totems while she kept track of the meme. In doing so she was well prepared to block the second barrage as well, and to mentally inform her minion of it as well, the shadow dragon barrel rolling in the air to avoid the spines. 

Rather than get to one or the other, it landed between them and vibrated its wings in such  way as to produce a horrendous bug buzz that pulsed out and struck both targets at once, while Midna focused on Emily, calling out in question [color=Aquamarine]”are you alright?”[/color] while mentally charting an exit route for her. Seeing this, the Captain figured he was alright to refocus his efforts on targeting Something Unto Death.

“I’ll live!” the soldier growled, ripping off strips of cloth with which to staunch the bleeding. She was more concerned about Edelgard and Nadia, but as the flygon dealt both Sepulchers their final blow, the tombstones shattered and returned the fallen to the world of the living.

Nadia gasped as she sat bolt upright, her hair and tail fluffed up in terror. She found it difficult to tell exactly what happened, but it reminded her of suddenly waking from dreamless sleep. It was easy enough to tell what lay before her, though, and with the battle against the many-eyed specter still ongoing, the feral rose to her feet.

Edelgard, similarly, forced herself up as she recovered from what was now her second ordeal trapped within the Sepulcher, and she was [i]not[/i] pleased. Her face tightened in anger, and rather than Aymr, Absolution appeared in her hand. 

Grazed by Sunken Rain but undeterred, Captain Falcon charged back into the fray. He sprinted into a leap that carried him toward Something Unto Death. [color=1f66b2]”Falcon Kick!”[/color] He shouted as his fiery boot made an impact against the meme. Naturally the pushback effect shunted the Captain back a few feet, but he’d anticipated this. [color=1f66b2]”Ryuugeki Sen!”[/color] He threw a series of 4 chi-empowered punches that hurled flaming disc projectiles at Something Unto Death as a follow up to the Falcon Kick opener.

Demonstrating a superhuman ability to push through the injury and pain, Emily rose to follow him into battle. Her bloodied sword burned bright as she lashed out with Crimson Moon, a sweeping crescent slash that kept Something Unto Death scorched. With each blow, more fiery cracks spread across its tenebrous frame, so it must be close to breaking.

Nadia lacked the elements necessary to bust the meme open, but she could still do her part. A crimson blast from her legs hurled her toward her target, and the feral dropped with all ten claws extended for a curtain shredder slash. “It’s curtains!” One on the ground, she stood on one leg, then began to rotate on that thigh scar. Using jets of blood from her arms she quickly picked up speed, spinning with her tail, upper body, and other leg extended like the rotors of a propeller. “Round and round we mow!” After only a second or two the monster’s aura began to push her away, but as she tumbled back Nadia executed one final spin to launch both arms at Something Unto Death like flying drills.

Midna didn’t exactly have the matching element to her allies fury stacks, but she had charged up plenty of wind power beating on the totems which she promptly put to good use: riding her beast legion into the frey and then leaping off of it to deliver a cyclone kick to the meme, creating a stunning shockwave of wind when her foot made impact with one of its many eyeballs.

A fireball crashed against the meme as Midna attacked it, followed shortly by a series of vicious attacks from Absalom’s axe, wielded by the Flame Emperor and literally blazing with her fury. [color=crimson]”ENOUGH! FALL, DEMON, BEFORE THE FLAMES OF AN EMPIRE!”[/color]

[hider=New Ability for Edelgard] [b]Solar Prominence[/b] - A toggleable Ability that adds 25% of Edelgard's attack damage as fire damage to each of her attacks, with a low (1/5) chance to cause the Burning condition as well, causing damage over time.[/hider]

Her blazing might smashed through the last of the meme’s defense, its invisible shell bursting into fiery shards that went up in smoke as Something Unto Death dropped to the ground. Though Edelgard would still be repelled a short distance after her assault, that feeble attempt only served to delay the inevitable, since now everyone could see that their opponent was wide open. With the monster’s weakness broken, it was up to the Seekers to make sure that Something Unto Death stayed down for the count.