Juri’s shouting drew the attention of Therion, his ears flicking towards the noise. It sounded like she couldn't be too far off. He'd found a generator of his own fairly fast, but once he was in front of it the thief's hands hovered above the various wires and plugs. There were lights indicating what was working and what wasn't, and some kind of plunger with a knob jutting out of the side of the machine. Rather than slap around at it with limited success, he abandoned it to race in Juri's direction.

Through a mess of tangled growths he spotted her, and the monster after her. That she'd taken such a bad wound already perturbed the thief, though he kept his caution. At least until it looked like the Dredge was about to catch up to her, at which point he couldn't wait and observe any longer.

Therion burst from the brush and went in with a vicious dagger strike designed to tear through magical barriers, on the off chance that this thing had some kind of invisible shield. But that wasn't the case - and the weapon didn't so much as scratch the hideous creature. It lurched and swung its hooked arm out wide, narrowly missing the thief as he ducked and backpedaled away from it.

Juri took the opportunity to put a lot of distance between her and the Dredge. Not that she would, but shouting ‘thank you’ would undermine the distraction anyway. Juri rounded a couple corners and peered around to make sure it wasn’t following her. Then she put her back against a wall and slid down, clutching her wound. ”Grr…what the hell?!” She groaned through clenched teeth.

”Ugly bastard is playing his own rules…gotta get those generators running and get outta here. Bet that’s it’s weakness. Since when do I talk to myself? Since I gotta frickin’ two inch gash in me, that’s when!” Juri ran a hand down her face. There was a massive meathook on a stick in front of her, causing Juri to frown. She had a feeling Mr. Hooky Hands had nasty intentions for whoever it caught. She spotted a nearby crate and started to rummage around in it. Inside was unfortunately not a medkit, but instead a toolbox. That’d make fixing the generators a lot faster, though one of the fantasy bozos could probably make better use of it than she could. Juri put her hand on a nearby wall and peeked over it, making sure the coast was clear. In the mist she spotted a light, and decided to move over to it, staying low and slow.

Back in the small clearing she'd hurried to leave behind, Therion was having a hell of a time losing the monster now that its attention was on him. He had avoided any hits so far by running and ducking behind the weird trees, but how long he could manage that for he didn't know - it almost seemed like the thing was getting faster the longer it gave chase for.

A glint of something metallic caught his eye and the thief made a sharp turn, barely avoiding the Dredge's hook as it slammed it down overhead in the space he'd just been. Therion sprinted toward what turned out to be one of the copper golems, grabbed its shoulder and threw it behind him as he vaulted over it. The golem collided with the Dredge, and though it didn't hold the creature up for very long it was enough time for Therion to assume his beast form. Faster and better suited to a crazy alien jungle hollow like this as a large white cat, he escaped the terror's radius for the moment.

Elsewhere Edward sprinted through the undergrowth, flames licking around him singing the plants that he didn't hack out of his way with a machete, till he suddenly burst out of the foliage and into a clearing housing a large futaristic structure of some kind. While he would have loved to investigate the building itself, atop it he saw the flickering lights perched atop a pole that his golems had seen before, specifically perched atop the generator Juri had found.

Speaking of those, the golems had lost sight of the creature, and were now scattered throughout the forest, trying to find it once more. Still, while ”Concerning” it was also ”all the more reason to prioritize the generator”, something he did by hurrying up the stairs, and then using the banister and a singular large flap of his wings to reach the roof, avoiding the distractions found within.

There was plenty of one found up top, namely the generator in question, which the man crouched down to inspect, and immediately became engrossed in attempting to understand the workings off, very much overanalyzing the entire device rather than getting to the root of the problem.

This, combined with his slash and burned trail, ment that down beneath his feet, within the base a locker popped open, and the horror slipped free, scent upon him. Moment’s later it ascended to the roof the proper way, and approached the man tinkering with the generator. He was not so blind as to be caught entirely unaware however, as as the hook came down Edward spun and raised his buckler to meet it, only for his arm to be effortlessly forced down and the Dredge’s grotesque weapon to be driven into his shoulder.

”Blast it” the man cursed, stumbling back towards the edge of the room, and then dropping off it, wings unfurling as he dropped, preventing the fall from breaking his ankles upon landing. He still stumbled to his knees, hand gripping his bleeding wound, but he had a single life line for that, his feather staff striker appearing beside him to deliver a burst of healing.

At that moment, several things happened in quick succession.

The Dredge appeared, looming at the precipice he’d just dropped down from and then, as the healing touched him, held up its unarmed hand which glowed with a pestilent aura that just as suddenly surrounded him instead. Yet rather than take effect, a barrier flashed around Edward as the Mirror Weakness passive skill he’d gained from a feather shield reflected the debuff back at the Dredge instead.

Initially this seemed to have had no effect, the Dredge hurling itself off of the roof and coming at him, but as the man rolled to the side to avoid it, the monstrosity charged on, blind to his presence as he pulled himself to his feet.

It then began to swing its weapon around wildly, only for a summoned set of copper golems to arrive just in the nick of time to distract it. Spears were banged together, prompting the Dredge to lunge towards and start tearing the golems apart while Edward used his wings to leap back up the way he’d come and perform a quick rather than clever repair job of the generator. Wires where put where they made sense, jams were cleared, and just in the nick of the time, as the now able to see again Dredge emerged back to the roof, having had to take the circuitous root back up, the engine purred to life.

Job done, the Dreadnaught did not dain to stick around, leaping off the roof and taking flight one more time. He didn’t go too far however, and instead made for a nearby tree that could support his weight, landing within it. Then, when the Dredge came and started to rip that tree down, he took wing for another, doing his best to look unwinded while hanging from his new perch.

He did a little too well at that act perhaps, as rather than continue to hunt him, the monstrosity departed into the foliage.

”Looking for easier prey, or worried about the generators, I wonder?” the Dreadnought asked the creature’s back, though naturally it did not answer. With the generator repaired, and the monstrosity gone after the others, Edward stuck around only a little longer, specifically to catch his breath and to investigate the Base interior for anything of value, finding two chests containing a medkit and a near dead flashlight for his efforts.

Through the window he would catch a glimpse of Juri and her toolbox as she was ducked down at an angle to obscure herself from the Dredge.

Noting her wounds, the man waited for the Dredge to leave the area, and only then approached, not trusting himself to not give her away by mistake, or wanting to find out what the blighting curse he’d reflected would do to a living person.

He offered her the freshly discovered medical kit without a word rather than deal with any predicted stubbornness that offering to help treat her might cause, and instead simply enquired quietly ”How are we faring?” with regards to their progress.

Juri snatched up the medkit and eagerly applied it to her wounds, stemming the bleeding. SHe concentrated on that, gritting her teeth as she wrapped the gauze around her side. Then she set the toolbox in front of Edward. ”This toolbox’ll stop your medieval ass from zapping yourself on a generator.” She said.

”Appreciated” Edward replied with more than a hint of sardonicism in his tone at the barely veiled insult, but he took the kit anyway and took a moment to pursue its contents regardless.

”I managed to get one. Somehow the ugly bastard snuck up on me. I think it can teleport somehow. Maybe through doors?” She theorized, thinking of the open locker behind it.

”It did seem to enter that structure without going through the main entrance” Edward replied, adding to the data point, before thinking back and, with Juri’s theory in mind, coming to a conclusion ”Hmm, and one of the metal cupboards where open within … which explains the otherwise pointless seeming external latches they sport …. As if to seal it inside?”

”It also attempted to inflict some sort of curse when I healed myself nearby, one that left it blind when I reflected the effect back at it” he added, only now after Juri’s self medication had proven that it couldn’t simply do so from anywhere in the arena, and that proximity matter.

Juri looked down at her bandages and then at Edward. ”Eh? Healing curse?” She got back into a crouching position and went to grab his head and squeeze. ”Bastard! Usin’ me as a damn guinea pig, huh?!” She said in a harsh whisper.

”Preferable to find out what it does now rather than when it is on top of us” he replied calmly from within the squeeze, even as he prodded her gut with his (unloaded) flintlock, before suggesting ”now let’s not have it go to waste. You can chew me out to your heart's content after we are no longer in danger”

Juri pushed his head to the side and lightly smacked the gun in the same direction. ”Like I’m afraid of some 1700’s peashooter. Whatever, gramps. I’ll kick your ass later.” She got back into a crouch and leaned around the side.

”Coast is clear. Try to keep up.” She crawled forward and away at a rapid pace.

After a moment the man sighed, holstered the empty threat, crouched down and followed after her.

”Of course it wasn’t going to be that easy” 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 bottle 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 ”Not stealing if the barkeeps a creep” and then reading out loud that what she’d just retrieved was called ”Jim Roger Bread Soda”

With a sarcastic declaration of ”Well, that sounds lovely” 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 ”sneak then” 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…”

”Nor do I, but until we learn its true nature, we must continue to fight.” 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.

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

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.

”Not good!” 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. ”Not today!” 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. ”Midna, can you get the other one?””

”On it!” 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 ”Here, I’ve come up with something just for you!” 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.



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 ferocious mask, 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 ”Ryuugeki Ken!” 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 ”Crack you like an egg!” 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 ”are you alright?” 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 not 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. ”Falcon Kick!” 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. ”Ryuugeki Sen!” 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. ”ENOUGH! FALL, DEMON, BEFORE THE FLAMES OF AN EMPIRE!”



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.

Eager to pay the Seekers -and especially Sandalphon- back for the archangel’s shapeshifting stunt, Lilith kickstarted the action with a powerful -and familiar- hex. For the second time, a great many vortexes manifested along opposite sides of the Qliphoth hollow, facing one another as they gathered energy. As a nice change of pace from Carmelized Sweets, the demon’s challengers didn’t need to worry about any patterns or gimmicks, just survival. Given how fresh in everyone’s mind this attack was, Sandalphon hardly felt it necessary to demonstrate her new strategy by marking spots for the others to run to. They just needed to defy their instincts and approach one of the walls of dark magic, so as to not get blasted from both sides at once.

Unfortunately, given the team’s vitals according to Sandalphon’s scans, this was still a big problem. With Lilith’s wings still intact, these lasers would be unavoidable, and once the smoke cleared her team would be in dire straits. Every few seconds that passed made the Creeping Corrosion in the Seekers’ bodies more lethal, and without any more emergency healing, the archangel needed to charge her skills through damage against Lilith. While the weakness she gained from Azure had seemed manageable at first, the nature of this fight could very well render it fatal. Left with no choice but to press on, however, Sandalphon steeled herself, her eyes squeezed shut. A second later the giant lasers let loose, and an unholy violet luster filled the arena.

Fortunately, while he’d been focused on driving, Jr hadn’t been casting much magic, and so once they were gathered up at the slightly less deadly section of lasers (the prince having painted a trail of ink for him and Rika to sail over there on) the boy started putting it to use

First came two casts of ”Medica!” one before and one after the undodgeable attacks which at least made things a touch more manageable.

”You said something about breaking her wings to stop that?” Rika recalled after recovering from the microwaving, regarding a comment Sandalphon had made near the start of the battle.

”Then let’s break them already!” jr declared, before using ”Presence of Mind!” to boost his casting speed, and using that speed to generate a storm of small metal shanks that he used to ”Sick 'Em”, sending groups of the blades homing in to shank the wings specifically.

Rika joined in on the impalement, deploying her Red Baron Drones and sending the sword sized machines arching towards the foe in a pair of claw swipe like gestures, three blades for each wing.

These lasers that Lilith were firing had an unintended side effect when it came to Roland. With them more or less being canceled out or overpowering his clashes due to their special properties, Roland’s Magical Girls finally had its condition fulfilled and he became immune to all of Lilith’s status effect debuffs, had a massive increase in his own defense, and now whenever Lilith attacked him, a corrosive acidic shadow clinged to her making her take 10% more damage cutting through her defense even more. Still, if the Creeping Corrosion he’d purged claimed his healer and allies, he’d be pushing up daisies nonetheless.

Although this buff came with a downside as all the constant damage had been taking a toll on Roland’s fortitude and with the last laser giving him Magical girls did give him his ability, it also Staggered him. A really bad time to get staggered too as Lilith was still in her super form. The extra defense from Magical Girls would help offset the massive defense drop he got while staggered, but he was stunned for a bit while he recovered.

For the moment, at least, the Koopa Kids were doing their best to keep Lilith busy. Their combined power was nothing to sneeze at, and with the extra attention paid to the demon’s wings, more cracks were starting to show. Even Sandalphon managed to get a few shots in, once she set up a new blue tile to stand on. For now her Eye of Sol remained slung across her back, its extra stopping power useless when she needed a casting catalyst on hand at all times. Instead she plugged her enemy’s wings with one ether bolt after another, as in the zone as the archangel could get.

Sadly, the opportunity lasted only a few seconds, and Lilith clapped back with something new. ”You’ve earned this one…see ya, suckers!” She cast Sugary Surge and immediately disappeared, with seven copies of her winged staff appearing around the arena: one in the middle and six more surrounding it. A red arrow appeared from each, pointing in a random directly. Sandalphon paused, but only for a moment as she scanned the arrangement. Now, more than any point in the fight so far, knowledge was power. “There!” She used her powers to ping one staff with a holographic screen, then jogged toward it. “The one without an arrow pointing to it.” With a moment to spare she reached the staff she’d indicated, where the archangel knew that she would be safe. That said, there was another problem on the horizon: unaccustomed to this much shouting, she found herself beginning to grow hoarse. It wouldn’t be much longer before her pings would be her only means of communication.

Between them, Jr and Rika had the strength to grab and haul Roland to the spot as well. Jr had plenty of experience hauling peach around while running from plumbers, and with Rika’s very large helping hands doing the same with the larger man was no problem either.

With their burden they reached safety with only a split second to spare. Each staff fired off an immense, conical blast of deadly dark magic in the direction of its arrow, blanketing the whole arena in stygian purple save for the spot where the Seekers now stood or slumped. By the time the demon reappeared, Sandalphon had produced yet another blue tile, so an ether bolt straight to the braincase beaned Lilith the second she popped back in. ”Tch!” she spat as she dusted herself off, displeased to see that her challengers had survived. ”Where’s the blood? Where’s the carnage!?”

”Coming right up” Jr taunted, as he formed and magically launched more blades from his metal tattooed arm, while Rika’s gauntlet hangers upended up and unleashed swarms of electrical fireflies that buzzed over to deliver static shocks to the demon. Both attacks were delivered without the kids having to lift a finger, which was good because said fingers where still holding on to Roland.

Roland shook himself out of his stagger, noticing he was being carried around by the two kids. ”Thanks kids. Remind me to give you something later. ” Roland said, getting himself free and ready for more fighting. Annoyed himself, Roland decided to throw an EGO at Lilith, this one being In the Name of Love and Hate, Roland wearing a strange humanoid winged serpent outfit and holding a magic wand in his hand. Behind him appeared a giant heart shaped portal which fired a giant laser at Lilith as the arena temporarily changed into a pink mist filled cityscape.

“AAAGH!” Roland’s spectacular laser soon dissipated, but it left Lilith seared and smoking, her fangs bared in pained anger. “Damn you! Lasers are MY thing!” With a sneer she conjured two more opposing laser arrays, but this time the vortexes seemed different. They were still violent swirls of elemental darkness, but instead of deep dark purple, they appeared to be a less vibrant red, and Sandalphon could tell why. “Her wings are broken,” the archangel calmly informed the others as she moved to one side. “These lasers can now be avoided.”

Caught unawares in her blind rage, Lilith could only whip around and stare at the shreds affixed to her staff. ”What!? FUCK!”

“Language!” As the lasers went off all around, Sandalphon cast her newly-recharged Angelic Praise. It not only restored the bulk of her allies’ health, but allowed her to power through the beam barrage. “Do not succumb to her corruption, children,” she called out to the Koopas Kids as she readied herself to open fire. “We must silence this devil for good.”

Captain Falcon’s barrage of attacks against the Sepulchers earlier had pushed him over the edge of building up a single stock of his Power Gauge. And now that the memory zone meme was dropped again, it was time to capitalize. ”Falcon…” He said as he began winding up his fist. ”PUUUUNCH!” His voice rang with the impact of his explosive fist against Something Unto Death. Then he jumped back a step and spent his Power Gauge stock, chi building in his arms before thrusting his palms forward. ”And one more with FEELING! Haoh Shoukou KEN!” And with that the explosive ball of flame lurched forward from his hands at the downed meme.

Stalking forward menacingly, Edelgard hefted Absolution with a dark look on her face. Not bothering with fireballs or Nosferatu, she returned to close quarters with her memetic tormentor and began carving away at its flesh with the burning axe, her fury only serving to strengthen each blow she hammered on the foe.

With her target downed, Nadia didn’t need any high-flying stunts or fancy footwork this time. Instead she collected her arms, then charged in alongside Emily to join Edelgard’s beatdown. When their slashes raked across the specter’s salamander skin, they realized that no invisible force welled up to push them back. “Finally! Shreddy or not, here I come!” Nadia cancelled straight into Cat Scratch Fever, her repeated slashes accelerated to a dizzying pace. “Fur-serker purr-age!” Still wounded, but resolved to finish the fight, Emily poured her energy into a splendid Crimson Moon to follow up.

Minda summoned her wolves while she raised up her shadow hand, projecting a dark energy zone across the fallen foe, orange lighting wrapping around it like a cage. Once it had engulfed the meme entirely, she snapped the fingers of the shadow hand, and unleashed the beasts with a command of ”sic em”, the field guiding them to pounce and maul each and every eye upon the meme in quick succession at a truly ferocious speed. Her twilight blitz turned out to be the clincher as the cracked eyes burst open like stained glass, and with a hollow cry Something Unto Death fell apart, motes of violet energy wafting upward as ashes poured to the ground.

A moment after the fight’s climactic finale, the victors were once again presented with a selection of random rewards.






At first blush, Nadia wasn’t all that impressed. Blood Line would make her blockbusters harder to do and throw off her internal timing, while Open Wounds sounded like a trap. What if she wanted to tussle with someone non-lethally? Initially she didn’t think much of a paltry sixteen percent speed boost either, but when she thought about it more, the feral became more receptive. It would accelerate her combos, and her mix-ups right after a combo, making it easier to rush opponents down and reset them. With no other good choice, she chose Clockwork Apple with a tap of her finger, a little hesitant since she’d accidentally skipped this part last time. This time, though, something appeared in the darkness before her, for just a split second. It looked to her like a collection of random objects, including playing cards, coins, toys, and masks beneath multicolored spotlights, but a chill ran down her spine as her eyes refocused on the dark, barely-visible figure behind them. Then the vision was gone, and the sounds of tittering laughter faded away.

”Ah, right.” Captain Falcon said when time stopped and three cards floated, ”We’re doing this again, I see.” All three of these sounded pretty nifty in their own ways. But Stamp Rush and Revenge Explosion also sounded like they could be rather inconvenient at times, too. That left Vesicle as the real pragmatic choice. The problem? The entity depicted by the card looked, well, totally evil. A big black space insect sounded like a recipe for disaster. ”Well, here’s hoping I don’t regret this later.” Cap said as he touched a gloved finger to the card. What he heard next almost immediately made him start having doubts. A loud buzzing, like countless insects all beating their wings in unison. At least the previous card he picked actually gave him understandable words. There was no telling what these insects were trying to tell him, if anything at all.

Midna blinked once in the void, and then commented ”Gods really don’t like this place do they? Can’t blame then one bit its like every nightmare’s been crammed into it” as she took in her options. The weaponization of the astral chain seemed useful but, ”I just know I’ll trip someone up with that at some point”, while 15% healing and only in situations that weren't vs a single great enemy seemed quite limited. Up to 24% damage mitigation however, now that was worth taking.

She was no monotheist either, so getting in touch with a second divine was not something she had any issue with. As it turned out however, this one was much more distant. Literally even, as she touched the boon, and bore witness not even to the god of the hunt, but merely one of its arrows. It was like a comet flashing across the heavens at unfathomable speed and with awe inspiring might compressed behind it, and it brought the princess to her knees before it.

Edelgard looked the cards over carefully. While adding more fire to her repertoire sounded good, the ability to punish any foe that harmed her without lifting a finger was promising. Touching the first of the three cards, Edelgard flinched as the god of war himself appeared before her, though his smile was calm. “You've got quite the fighting spirit in you there, I have to say. Most intriguing, and yet no surprise for someone who slayed the nearest thing she had to a god. I’m sure you’ll make good use of this.” Ugh. How patronizing. Edelgard thought.

When time resumed, Nadia’s fatigue caught up to her all at once, and she let out a heavy sigh. “Aaagh, what a pain in the ass.” She leaned over for a moment, hands on her knees, then wiped sweat from her brow. “My specialty is fightin’ people, not giant monsters I can’t pressure right. And that fur-reak wouldn’t even let me combo it!” Given the bizarre nature of Something Unto Death, she was at a loss for puns at the moment. When she looked around for material, she instead found Emily, her makeshift bandages stained with vital fluid. Instantly a sharp pang of guilt struck her, and she rushed over. “Oh, crap, Emily! You okay? You bloody well better be!” She began to rummage through her pouches for her Ripened Heart, hoping it would help the soldier regenerate like it did her.

“I’ll manage,” the young woman told her, her face a brave attempt to mask her pain. Her sword lay on the ground, smoking. Falcon, however, didn't look entirely convinced.

”Can you walk?” The Captain asked, extending a gloved hand and offering to help her stand and walk if she needed it. He even reached for her sword and offered that back to her as well. She nodded, then grimaced as she tried to demonstrate.

The unmistakable pop and hiss of a can being opened reached Nadia’s ears. She looked over at to see that Gallagher character from before behind the bar, with five glasses arranged in front of him, each with ice cubes immersed in two layers of red and green liquid. “How about this?” As Nadia watched, the poured out the can into the glasses one at a time, creating a fizzy yellow layer on top. When he put the can down, Nadia read ‘Lemon SoulGlad’. “Five orders of ‘Death Before Noon’,” Gallagher declared, presenting the Seekers with his drinks.

Nadia glanced over at Emily, then approached the bar. After leaning on it with her elbow, she scraped her claw across the wood. “You already left us with that monster. Maybe even sicced it on us. These things gonna kill us, too?”

“The opposite, actually.” Gallagher did not look particularly bothered or threatened, just tired. “But hey, suit yourself.”

”Hmm, well, I’m not normally one for alcoholic beverages.” Falcon commented. ”But after everything we’ve been through today? Maybe it’s time to make an exception.”

”Sure, I’ll take you up on that” Midna agreed, but not before sending her wolfos off to ”Fetch” her assorted dropped weapons, prompting it to scamper off, grip a weapon by the lilt it it’s maw, before dropping down into a portal to bring it back to the twilight realm.

As the beast did its work, she pulled off her helmet, carefully set it on the bar, and picked up the glass to inspect its contents. She’d never had light-worlder alcohol before, Telma wouldn’t exactly have served her in imp form even if she’d introduced herself and asked, so she took a tentative sip of the stuff, doing her best to disguise her trepidation beneath regal refinement.

”Sort of… spicy-minty? Not bad” she said after a moment of reflection.

Edelgard also partook of the beverage, swishing it around in her mouth like the Emperor she was. Despite her attitude towards much of the nobility of her world, she still tasted booze like a true snob. ”A combination of soothing cool, spice, and…hmm…what seems to be citrus? Enjoyable.” She commented as she sipped the drink slowly.

For all her initial distrust, Nadia would be lying if she said that a stiff drink didn’t sound good right about now. Though her attitude remained relatively sunny amidst all the bad weather, it had been an intense morning so far, even if her visit to Carcass Isle still took the cake. Emily made her way over, eager to partake of the cocktail’s implied healing properties, so the feral followed suit. She took a long sip, intrigued by the mixture of minty refreshment, powerful cinnamon, and bubbly sweet lemon. “Whew! Got a little kick to it.” The carbonation made her eyes water as she went back for another mouthful. She felt pretty great, and a glance at Emily confirmed that her wounds had all but disappeared. Nadia raised her brows at Gallagher, and gave him a begrudging nod. “Looks like she’s in mint condition, eh? Not bad.”

”That’s a spicy whiskey, alright.” Captain Falcon said after having a sip of his own. ”But I’ve always been a man who can appreciate spice. So it gets my approval.”

“Glad you like it.” Was it Nadia’s imagination, or was the mysterious barman suppressing a smile? “Now, you folks better get a move on before that thing shows up again. Or something worse. It’s not safe here.”

Emily furrowed her brow. “It isn’t? There isn’t any sign of infestation.”

After a moment, Nadia shook her head. “That monster’s gone, but that dreamy, surreal feeling’s still here. We shouldn’t get comfortable.” She crossed her arms as she looked at Gallagher. “Aren’t you coming with us?”

“I’ll find my own way out,” he told her. “Don’t worry, this old dog’s still got a few tricks up his sleeve, heh.” He looked over his shoulder toward the left of the bar. As if on cue, a door creaked open. On the other side was Qliphoth matter, with a bloodstream vein nestled among the reddish meat. “We grown-ups all have jobs to do. Off you go, make the best of it.”

”No rest for heroes hmmm” Midna mused after she finished working her way through the cocktail, before lightly setting the glass down and drawing her nightsky ripper inorder to cut her way into the vein.

”Ha, if only.” quipped the Captain as he finished the last of his own drink and set the glass down. ”But not in my experience, I’m afraid.” He added as he followed the Twilight Princess into the vein she’d cut open. Nadia took Emily’s hand once more, then followed.

Finishing her drink, Edelgard sighed. ”Just another day in this endless war.” Not far behind Nadia and Emily, she entered the vein and was brought upward.

Bloodstream travel sure wasn’t pleasant, but by the third time Nadia was finally starting to get used to it, with the help of her rather potent drink from Gallagher of course. Though the firefight against Emily in her monstrous feline form had been a flashy, high-octane brawl, and the full team’s heroic stand against the floodfested horde had been exciting, her quartet’s intense back-and-forth with Something Unto Death left a much stronger impression. It had been very different from her typical fare, even if most of those differences seemed tailor-made to counter her, and combined with the strange battlefield plus the mysterious barman, that encounter would probably stick with her for a while. For now, though, she could only wait until her ride through the Qliphoth vein came to an end, and hope that her arrival wouldn’t precipitate another brawl. The feral had a lot of fight left in her, but she could definitely use a break.

After a little less than a minute -her longest ascent yet- Nadia bubbled up in what could only be described as a blood swamp. Once she bobbed to the surface, she beheld a large, broad hollow full of large pools of crimson ichor separated by small islands of aged, almost fossilized Qliphoth flesh. Some of the demon tree’s internal outcrops resembled more ordinary trees themselves, though most of the flora in here looked far stranger, almost fungal in nature. Though she spotted a few large, pulsating Flood tumors scattered among the chamber’s recesses, the overall infestation rate seemed mercifully low. On one side the floor rose in a series of stony terraces over which blood flowed like water, and the wall there was so badly damaged that a large, frayed opening gave Nadia a view of the cloudy sky beyond. She could only assume that this hollow was very high up in the tree, and that the guardian couldn’t possibly be much higher.

Bubbling springs in the xylem pools betrayed spots where a number of other veins opened into the swamp from below, indicating that this hollow was some sort of convergence point. Hopefully that meant that all of Nadia’s scattered allies would eventually wind up here, provided that they survived whatever ordeals the Qliphoth sent their way. Given what she’d faced so far, Nadia felt pretty confident that the others had run into trouble as well, but pretty much all of her fellow Seekers were more than capable of handling themselves. “Guess we’ll wait and see who shows up,” she declared cheerfully.



She and Emily helped one another along as they waded through the pool to the nearest island, where they seated themselves around a mote of golden light beneath the watchful gaze of a lion-headed statue. There was enough room for Captain Falcon, Edelgard, and Midna if they wanted to rest, but given the size of this hollow, any itch for exploration could uncover all sorts of nooks, crannies, hidden items, or veiled threats. For her part, though, Nadia just stretched herself and tried to relax. Though the Qliphoth was stiflingly warm, a cool breeze blew in through the opening. “Ahh. Pretty flowers, scenic view.” Nadia folded her arms behind her head as she stared at the ceiling. It was not a pleasant sight. “If this place had a shower, I’d be all set. Wait…”

In a fit of inspiration, she forgot all about her attempt to relax and jumped up to try something new: using Hydro Mimics from her Oceanid striker to try and wash off all the blood, sweat, and grime, with decidedly mixed results.

Once its spine-chilling shriek concluded, the giant, deformed hatchling thundered forward toward the grouped-up Seekers, its head lowered like a bull’s as it charged. As the Grimmchild flew clear, Grimm himself threw open his cape, and firebats fluttered forth to meet the horror’s brutish charge. Not even direct hits to its engorged cranium slowed it down, though, and with clawed footfalls heavy enough to crush bones the demonic bird crashed into the middle of the group. Roxas had only enough time to renew Tailwind on himself before Malphas suddenly crashed into them and began her tantrum-like attack. Even with the speed boost from Tailwind, the Nobody still had a hard time avoiding all the attack impacts and one of them did manage to briefly knock him down.

Grimm teleported mid-barrage, appearing just out of range to fire off the final firebat, but the Troupe Master harbored no delusions about being safe here. Heedless of the heroes’ projectiles, the monster hopped up and down in two enormous stomps, like a colossal child throwing a temper tantrum, with the full weight of its body behind each slam. Even though it didn’t land on Grimm, its tremors almost floored him, and with only a split second to spare he noticed that the bird had reoriented itself with each stomp–toward him. It burst toward him, closed the distance so fast that it clipped Grimm and knocked him down. As it hopped up again he scuttled sideways without rising, at least four legs on full display. Unfortunately, while he managed to avoid the killer stomps, he’d dodged back toward one of his allies, and after two stomps the hatchling charged that way. The Troupe Master took a hefty blow from one of its legs in passing and burst into bugbats that buzzed to safety.

As Grimm was evading and escaping Malphas, Zenkichi was making preparations. ”Primrose, now! Spread this one out!” he called as Valjean appeared behind him. ”Rakukaja!” With Sealticge’s Seduction to spread the defense buff to the whole party, Zenkichi hoped that meant they’d all get a healing burst from Restoration Protocol as well.

"I'd be happy to perform for you anytime, but perhaps with a little more warning in the future," Primrose called as she swiftly moved into her dance steps. It wasn't as easy or quick as casting a spell, after all. As she was performing the final movements the bird's rampage continued until it had reached her too. The show must go on, she thought with a grimace as she stayed put and completed her dance. It took effect on Zenkichi, and thus his Rakukaja took effect on everyone else, just before the demon slammed into Primrose. It sent the dancer to the ground where she tumbled away with a burst of lashing thorny vines, while at the same time the bird rounded on her dance partner.

As Malphas reached the Phantom Thief, Zenkichi hefted Ragnell and braced for impact, grunting as she landed from her first leap, and being knocked back from the second. Still, between Rakukaja and the healing he’d gotten, he was hardly on the verge of defeat. ”Sorry!” He sheepishly replied to Primrose, still needing to get used to some timings with his new allies.

Roxas was quickly back on his feet and - without much time to deliberate - cast Tailwind again on Primrose and Zenkichi. Unfortunately, Grimm proved too difficult to target for the time being due to his initial teleport. And then he also dodged back toward Roxas himself before he could finish casting, effectively interrupting him. This resulted in the Keybearer getting knocked away by another of Malphas’ attacks. And once again, the Troupe Master had moved away in a manner that kept Roxas from renewing his Tailwind buff.

”My Turn!” Roxas said, vanishing on the spot and reappearing in order to slash at Malphas from behind with his StepSword. Like usual he followed that with a sort flurry of Keyblade strikes.

Not far off, Primrose picked herself up and pushed a few loose strands of hair out of her face. The demon's lower body was causing too much havoc it seemed, but as for how to stop it... only a few ideas came to mind. Once back on her feet the dancer took in a deep breath and burned up two of her BP. As the glowing aura surrounded her, Primrose conjured a boulder which grew larger and larger thanks to her Boosts. If she could pin it down or cripple it, then maybe the Seekers could start a real counterattack.

"Give me an opening," she said, though whether it was a request of her allies or a demand of Malphas, it was hard to say. The demon itself had stopped its targeted charges in favor of violently flailing around, its merciless beak and talons ready to do even more damage.

”Well, gun attacks worked before, so let’s give this a shot.” Zenkichi called out, drawing his dual revolvers and unloading both cylinders at the demon, before resummoning Ragnell and launching a series of energy blasts.

Observant and calculating even in the midst of this chaos, Malphas was wise to the dancer’s plans, but whether or not she could get her lower half to cooperate was another story. “Her! Attack her, you fool!” she screeched, but the hatchling would not listen. Instead it went after Zenkichi, driven into a savage fury by his barrage of projectiles. It rushed him down and lashed out with a stone-shattering beak slam, and while that could be dodged without too much trouble, the same couldn’t be said of the sweeping wing strikes that followed. In the midst of its assault on Zenkichi, Grimm warped in, having coalesced from a swarm of bugbats back into his regular self. After a split second spent hanging in the air, he dove down in a corkscrew kick into the side of the demon bird’s head, then kicked away as it went to stomp him. Though simpler to deal with in theory without Malphas’ magic to back it up, this freak of nature was strong and unpredictable, so the sooner this came to an end, the better. As Grimm slid to a stop just out of harm’s way, he could only hope that his and Zenkichi’s efforts had given Primrose her opening.

The massive boulder flew when the opportunity presented itself, the dancer herself willing it to smash down onto the demonic bird with a wave of her arms. It hurtled over the heads of her allies and came down as a single rock slide, solid and heavy.

Zenkichi dodged out of the way of the beak slam, but as Grimm reappeared he would see Zenkichi being smacked about by the demon body’s wings, grunting but standing his ground in the wake of the assault. As the Troupe Master hopped back from his own attack, Zenkichi did the same, just in time for Primrose to launch her boulder.

And then there was Roxas, who Malphas had seemingly forgotten about since his initial opening strikes. That suited him fine, since it finally gave him a chance to cast a new Tailwind buff on Grimm. Then as usual, he used the instant movement from his StepSword to position himself above the hatchling in order to attack Malphas directly from behind. ”Did you forget something?” The Nobody taunted while letting loose a second flurry of Keyblade strikes. This time he decided to punish the demon for ignoring him by extending the combo into a Cross Slash that would serve as the finisher. And then he followed that by summoning Poltergeist and letting the bedsheet ghost apply her buffs to him, including Stealth. If he could stay on the move and keep harassing the demon woman, she wouldn’t be as effective at observing his allies’ attacks and ordering her hatchling monster around.

Of course, the demon bird had been completely out of control for a while now, and things weren’t getting any better for Malphas. Courtesy of the dancer’s magic, chunks of solid stone rained down from above. The demon’s torsos unleashed their magic to surround themselves with dark spikes, shielded like some manner of nightmarish hedgehog against rock and Nobody alike, but her lower half wasn’t so lucky. It took the full force of the rock slide, bursting the ulcerated growths on its head and cracking its bones. After letting out a horrible shriek, the hatchling hit the ground with a slam, but on impact a dark pool spread out beneath it, into which the malformed carcass began to sink. A second later and Malphas was gone, vanished without a trace.

Primrose's boost wore off, but she didn't relax. She would be a fool to consider the demoness finished with just that.

Zenkichi watched as the demon's body sank into the ground, and Malphas with it, though the latter gave him much less relief than the former.

Roxas reappeared as the buff from Poltergeist wore off. ”Now where’d she go?”

Then, in the heavy silence that followed, the whole hollow began to darken. Grimm peered around through the gathering gloom until he identified a solitary, inexplicable light cone in the arena’s center. The next moment, the three voices of Malphas echoed through the hollow in a shrill cry. “Resurrect! Rise with my power!”

Then Malphas’ torsos emerged beneath the spotlight, ringed by crystal spikes as the three bodies loomed over their magic cauldron. Dark magic emanated from their crucible at an alarming rate, radiating throughout the whole room. Waves of spikes washed outward from the middle, and dark orbs rose up from the bubbling brew once or twice a second. Around them the oil shale floor began to melt and roil like a stormy sea, and unseen daemon voices swelled in nightmarish chorus, building in intensity alongside the sorcerer’s magic. Whatever was coming, it couldn’t be good.

”Yeah, of course it wouldn’t be that easy!” Zenkichi cried, rushing forward. A huge charge-up move like that spelled bad news for everybody involved. With Rakukaja still active, Zenkichi could use Heat Riser to buff himself, but with the Guardian coming up soon, he wasn’t sure putting that much energy investment into this fight was the best strategy. Besides, he had something that’d do some pretty serious damage even without the buff at the ready. ”Valjean, no hold barred! Agneyastra!!!” As he cried out the attack name, Valjean struck, a trio of powerful meteors hurtling directly at the stationary Malphas. His focus on offense meant that even as his meteors slammed down, though, Zenkichi received a geyser of spikes the next moment.

As before, Primrose chose to stay back. In her place she sent her striker Bianca to advance with the others. The noble succubus charged in with her heavy sword raised in ochs stance, aiming a powerful thrust at the demoness. The tip of her blade drove forward into Malphas, and she pulled the weapon back to prepare to impale the triplet once more.

Her summoner rose slightly into the air to avoid the fresh wave of spikes. She had been casting so much and so quickly since entering the Qliphoth that even her naturally high mana recovery was struggling to keep up. But she couldn't exactly afford to take a break, especially not now with the massive amount of energy Malphas was gathering, spelling nothing good for the Seekers. Primrose thrust her hand out as she gathered her own mana, silvery light forming around the demon in the form of another round of Luna that would explode from beneath her.

Roxas had paused, albeit only for a moment. With so much in the way of projectiles and blasts from his teammates, it had become increasingly difficult for him to keep the pressure on Malphas without the risk of taking friendly fire. But at the same time he had to do something. The Nobody vanished once more, again using his StepSword to get in an instant slash at the demon’s back. While his normal instinct was to follow that up with some Keyblade strikes, he could see the spells coming from his teammates and so instead he backed off to avoid getting caught by them. But not before generating another cluster of virtual blocks on top of Malphas and the hatchlings so they could get in some constant touch damage before the spells from Zenkichi and Primrose inevitably came crashing in.

While the others -including the Grimmchild- unleashed projectiles or warped in, Grimm rushed forward over the open ground. He leaped over wave after wave of spikes and scuttled to avoid the demon’s dark lances, and right after Luna exploded beneath Malphas in silvery radiance, Grimm made his move. The Troupe Master charged up the oily swell to deliver a trio of claw slashes that ended with an uppercut that carried into the air. He teleported in a blast of scarlet flame that rained down large fireballs, and after reappearing a short distance away he sank his coattails into the disturbed ground to pierce Malphas with sharp spikes of his own.

By then, though, the demon had risen almost two stories, and the mound of pitch-black bone slurry beneath her was huge. Her challengers had hurt her in strong bursts, but they’d either fallen afoul of her defenses or held back to not harm one another, so their overall damage per second had not been high enough. With a wordless cry Malphas cast her spell, and the mound beneath her exploded in an omnidirectional blast of dark magic that revealed the reborn hatchling before her, wings spread as it crowed in victory. Grimm and his allies were thrown to the ground, agonized by internal damage, but not without hope. Their efforts had ensured that Malphas’ ritual had been incomplete, and her lower half was only partially restored. Grimm rose to his feet and accepted the wounded Grimmchild under his wing, his eyes on Malphas as black droplets rained down. This would be the final stretch.

“A futile attempt!” Malphas jeered at them. While two of her torsos remained forward, the highest one had twisted around to pre-empt any more backstabs from Roxas. That one began to cast dark orbs, while others sent forth more spikes and a portal for the bird to kick Primrose through, respectively. “Now die!”

Zenkichi pushed himself to his feet even as he began to reload his revolvers, breathing heavily from the damage he’d sustained, even through his defensive buffs. ”Come on, come on, come on!” He hurried himself, pausing to dodge out of the way of a dark lance thrown his way, and finished reloading the first gun. ”Good enough! It’ll have to be.” He sighed, lifting the firearm and letting loose, firing all six shots into Malphas’s bird body, before Ragnell was summoned again. ”Should’ve dropped a Heat Riser…no going back now.” He muttered, firing another series of energy blasts as he rolled past a dark magic lance and rising. ”Valjean, Triple Down!” He called, another healing burst emanating from him as Valjean fired a trio of gun blasts at Malphas and the bird demon body.

After being forcibly brought back down to the ground due to Malphas' dark wave, Primrose found her feet just in time for a swirling portal to open up next to her. She knew what was coming, but the demon bird was fast. The talon that struck out through the portal grazed the dancer as she twisted out of the way. Rather than wait for another portal to appear next to her, Primrose's eyes flickered to Malphas' main body and she quickly crossed the arena with her own teleportation skill.

With Ravaging Confession it wasn't Roxas that appeared behind Malphas, but Primrose. She'd seen the magic the third torso was casting and countered with her own, Black Fire Orbs crashing against the demon's orbs of darkness, showering the immediate area in shadowy embers. She'd cast with one hand, the other wrapped around the hilt of her dagger to follow through with her attack.

"You underestimate us," she hissed at Malphas as she slashed at the demoness.

When Primrose took it upon herself to attack from behind this time, Roxas responded in kind. Rather than open with StepSword again, he instead transformed into a streak of light that zigzagged at Malphas and opened into a Cross Slash from the left side of one of her lower bodies. He got grazed and was knocked back by a couple of incoming spikes, but the Nobody reacted quickly enough. As soon as his feet were on the ground, Roxas summoned Kayano again. But instead of shifting everyone’s positions, she instead swapped Roxas with Primrose. This allowed the Keybearer to resume his assault on Malphas a mere moment after the dancer had neutralized the dark orbs and slashed at the demon herself. And it would hopefully protect her from the inevitable retaliation that Malphas was sure to hit back with.

Once the thundercrack of Valjean’s gunshots echoed off the hollow’s walls, the exasperated detective found himself staring down the demon bird alone, for Grimm had disappeared as well. In a scarlet flash, the Troupe Master warped in to take the fight to Malphas as well. After Primrose’s dagger cut deep through pallid, wormlike flesh and Roxas beat the devil out of Malphas with his key-shaped bludgeon, the nightmare flames of point-blank firebats blossomed amidst the dancer’s darkness. With all three bodies besieged by vicious close-quarters combat, Malphas couldn’t cast. She could only force her lower half forward in a desperate bid to buck the Seekers off, but no matter how it thrashed, the Seekers persisted.

Grimm, especially, would not be dislodged. His savage claws not only slid through her flesh like wet paper, but also set her alight thanks to his reward from the Gaster battle. That kind of punishment could not be tolerated, and in a brief moment between two of Grimm’s attacks, Malphas found her chance to retaliate. A portal appeared behind him, through which the hatchling’s leg extended to snatch the Troupe Master and pull him through. Once lifted up through the second portal beneath the demon’s bird body, the portal closed and the monster’s leg slammed down with Grimm beneath it. He burst into a swarm of tiny bugbats that streamed out between the wicked talons, swarmed up past Malphas into the air.



When Grimm coalesced, he enclosed himself in his cloak, which then bulged outward, covered with spikes and alight with inner fire like a scarlet paper lantern. ”Ssaire!” A deluge of scarlet fireballs rained down indiscriminately, with openings small enough that agile allies could get through, but not Malphas. The demon shrieked as she burned, her attempt to take back some momentum ruined, and the Seekers could finish the fight–as long as they could weather the firestorm.

Left alone on the ground while the others launched themselves into the air to attack Malphas’s actual body, Zenkichi focused on taking out the chicken demon thing again. One, putting this thing down again would take Malphas’s focus off killing them, if only for a few moments, and two, he didn’t fancy his odds of not accidentally hurting one of the others. He’d mostly gotten lucky this far, but her actual body was rather small, so the risk of friendly fire with his more area-oriented attacks would be fairly high. So, he ran in, swinging on and unleashing a combo on the demon’s body, even as Malphas used her portals to attack Grimm.

Roxas followed up on his attacks against Malphas’ actual body by continuing his own assault. When gravity inevitably pulled him back toward the ground, he turned into a streak of light that zagged back upward so he could use Cross Slash and continue his string of Keyblade attacks. Sensing the end wasn’t far away, Roxas became more liberal with throwing spells like Firaga and Blizzaga as well. He noticed them growing in size as they lurched toward their intended target thanks to the boon he had acquired in the previous room. Whether this increased their actual power, he wasn’t sure yet, but increasing a spell’s area or reach certainly had its uses regardless.

After Roxas had shifted places with her, Primrose was in a much more advantageous position from which to avoid Grimm's fiery rain and keep up her own casting. She glanced up at the troupe master's pufferfish form to see if she could note any type of pattern to the fire balls, but finding none she'd just have to rely on her evasiveness as they came down. She moved this way and that, turning gracefully in the space between the troupe master's falling flames as she once more conjured dark magic to her hands. When the Moonlight Waltz was ready she let the spell fly, bursting against Malphas and her bird.

While Zenkichi struck from below, the others bombarded Malphas with elements, and their sheer volume of magic quickly whittled the revived demon’s health back down even after Grimm’s Pufferfish attack concluded. For all of her tricks and sorceries Malphas just couldn’t regain control, and not even an emergency escape through a portal could stave off the onslaught when these Seekers stuck to her like glue. With her challengers going all-out on offense, this fight was a race to the finish, and the heroes turned out to be faster.

At last, the detonation of Primrose’s Moonlight Waltz seemed to do the job, eliciting a distorted wail from the demon as one of her three torsos withered and died, driving the rest of the fused monstrosity to thrash in what seemed to be death throws. Grimm wasn’t taking any chances, however, and whether or not it might be needless excess, the Troupe Master warped in to drive his claws into another torso and tear the pallid scion from the trunk to which it had been grafted. He leaped from the body with his prize just before the frenzied bird slammed to the ground, a wretched croak issuing from between its rotten teeth. Motes of dark magic rose like the sparks of a dying fire, and the demon began to disintegrate into dash. “How…how do you have so much…power!?” The last torso slumped down atop the ashen carcass, and the battle was over.

Grimm narrowed his eyes at the one-armed growth he’d excised as it began to dissolve in his grasp. ”An impassioned dance…I am nearly spent.” He’d lost two thirds of himself amidst the feverish revelry, so while he didn’t appear to be in bad shape, appearances could be deceiving. He tossed the corpse aside with a dramatic air.

"Impassioned is certainly a word for it."

When it was over, Roxas decided to use the last of his MP to cast Curaga. ”Heal!” Similar to when he was casting Firagas and Blizzagas earlier, the green ring for the Curaga expanded outward slightly while the spell took effect. So that Super Nova card he picked up could help his Curaga reach more allies to heal? He couldn’t deny the usefulness of that. The spell washed over the group, Grimm included, and provided those who needed it a solid amount of restoration to their health. A moment, cards appeared from the either, three apiece for the victorious few.






For Grimm, this was an easy choice. If burning his foes meant that he’d be burned, and being burned would restore him, then the fact that his previous reward gave him burning attacks meant that he could expect constant healing from now on. Once he made his pick, he felt deep within him an extravagant, soul-soothing warmth, as one might expect of a bowl of warm stew on a cold day. ”Shaaah. May the heat of battle stoke the flames of war, and the fire in our hearts sustain us evermore.”

Roxas stared at the cards before him for what felt like forever. Between the three of them, he was looking between Lucid Gain and VEP-18 Occipital Lobe. On hand, he could increase the hitting power of his Limits and Limit Breaks. On the other hand, he could potentially mitigate his MP consumption, even if only a little. After his gaze shifted between the cards a few more moments, the Nobody finally reached out and touched one, choosing Lucid Gain in the end.

But he didn’t return immediately. Instead the guy who was depicted on the card appeared before him. And then spoke. “Greetings from Olympus and well met, there, sunshine! Look, we can’t get to the Guardian, but if you truly mean to stop it, then the least I can do is light your way down!” But before Roxas could even say anything back in return, things went back to normal and he was among the others in the hollow again.

Primrose looked over her own card choices. Elemental statuses... ah, like the 'scorch' from the last choice. In the thick of battle she'd paid little attention to that boon, especially with the fire of her own and Grimm's magic a consistent presence. Primrose didn't much feel like giving up any of the abilities she'd gained, and though the thought of a slow torture by fire over time had a certain appeal to it, especially for some people she could think of... she wouldn't say no to some instant gratification, particularly if it meant she wouldn't have to suffer any similar effects herself. She selected the last card, and once warped back into the hollow she let out a small sigh.

Another battle won, another trio of cards to choose from. For Zenkichi, the choice was actually fairly easy. While the charm could prove useful in certain situations, losing out on flexibility in combat was not something he had any desire to deal with. And while he sometimes used his revolvers in close quarters as a sort of hidden strike to seriously injure opponents, it wasn’t something he was keen on doing often enough to make that boon worth it. No, the boon that showed the same woman as last time would reinforce his best strength- against large groups of enemies. And who knows, maybe if this sort of thing happened again (once was odd, twice was a pattern), focusing on one type of benefit could start to really work up how useful it was. He chose Dying Wish. Rather than return to the battlefield like last time, however, the woman depicted on the card appeared before him, speaking.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance finally, my dear! Already had enough of this world, yes? Heh, well I promised myself that once you demonstrated your resolve to us, I'd take you under my wing. And I always keep my vows.” That was…ominous, Zenkichi decided. Once she was done, though, he reappeared with the others, confusion evident on his face. ”Did…any of your cards talk to you?” he asked.

”Wait yours did, too?” Roxas almost immediately responded. ”So it’s not just me?”

"I was spoken to briefly before, but not this time," Primrose said. That was curious. Visions aside, it appeared that the rewards were still simply just that: rewards following the battle. And with everyone having chosen said reward, it also stood to reason that they could keep moving on. But before they did, the dancer went to collect Malphas' spirit, and when she returned she produced a small flame of Warmth.

"Does anyone else need a little more patching up?" she asked. Roxas' healing pulse had certainly helped, but she would rather go into whatever next awaited them as healthy as possible.

Zenkichi nodded, and so Primrose pressed the healing flame to him, though his faraway expression indicated he was still thinking about what those cards and the people that spoke to them all meant. If he saw one of them again, he’d have to try and ask.

After being restored by Roxas, Grimm definitely seemed to relax. ”Ssehhh…” Untroubled by any inexplicable visions, he lifted his arm beneath his cloak, and when the fibrous curtain fell open it revealed the Grimmchild dangling from its father’s limb like a bat. Grimm bowed his head to Roxas. ”You could learn much from the spiky one, child,” the Troupe Master rasped, gently prodding the insect’s belly with claws as soft as silk. Seemingly in reply, his progeny let go, then fluttered over toward Roxas to sit in the pointy blonde nest atop his head. After a moment, Grimm glanced over at the spirit of Malphas, then to an untouched Qliphoth vein nestled amidst the iridescent oil shell. ”If this pattern of escalation holds, this next dance may be our most spectacular yet.”

With that Primrose agreed. Though it technically did not bode well for them, it also must have meant they were getting closer and closer to their goal.

"It stands to reason that we'll reunite with more of the others as well," she said. "Moving around like this has been quite... disorienting, but we must be nearing the top of this tree."

”If we are, I can’t tell. This whole tree’s been a confusing mess.” Roxas said, tilting his head in thought. ”It’s weird though. We got split up into twos, then I guess we got put into fours? Almost the exact same thing happened to us in Midgar. Talk about history repeating itself.”

Zenkichi shrugged. ”Yeah, it’s pretty weird. Last time it made sense, super-high tech security system and all that. This is just…weird demon tree thing.” He definitely found it strange, but complaining about it wouldn’t get them anywhere. ”Let’s just hit the top and get this done with. I hate this place.” He started off without further delay, and the others fell in behind him, curious -but not optimistic- about what awaited them beyond this next bloodstream.

While watching Miss Fortune try and clean herself ineffectually was quite funny, Midna decided it would be best to remove herself before her uncontrollable urge to tease/taunt/joke about wet cats got inappropriate/grating. In place of that she headed out to go for a little relaxing ride around the lake.

Not that it was the most scenic of views between meat moss, mushrooms and an overlook of the horror infested city below mind, but at least her mask filtered out the smells of blood and rot. For those with an eye for such things, there were valuable resources to be scavenged, but Midna had little interest or appreciation for the possible uses of the scarlet rot corrupted resin or neurode biosensors.

Neither did she for the strange fish paddling around in the pools, but as it turned out there was someone who was in the area who did. Or someone who had access to the area anyway.

Having allowed her wolfos to wonder where it pleased as she rested on its saddle, arms crossed over atop the bar, chin resting atop it, the beast followed its nose, having picked up the scent of something familiar in the corrupted landscape. This led it, and by extension her, to a mound of dirt marked by a sign saying ‘bait + sell’ that also sported a little bell on top.

Bemused by this, the princess guided her wolfos away from where it was sniffing and scratching at the mound, and then reached her shadow hand over and flicked the bell to see what would happen.

At first, nothing, and then after the sound of digging a fox cautiously poked his head out of the mound of soil, looking a fair bit nervous and not entirely enthused by the presence large predator that Midna was riding atop of.

”Uh, hello? Don’t worry it won’t attack without my say so” Midna told the fox, feeling a little silly about doing so, but having met enough animal people to know she shouldn’t just assume this wasn’t a person, before asking ”What are you doing here? It’s dangerous”

In response the fox leaned to the side and tapped the sign, telling her that it was here to “Sell bait, buy fish” in a soft and impossible to gender voice.

”Those weird ones? They look infested, that can’t be good for anything” Midna replied, understandably leery about the health and safety of such things. They certainly wouldn't be good for eating, of that she was sure.

In response the fox just patted the bucket and told her to put the fish “in here” before explaining simply that it had “crafter clients” who wanted the fish, and then looking at her with a tilted head, which was all it needed to communicate the question of if she was going to help him out with supplying them or not.

Well with that vaguely clarified Midna only really had one more question, which was ”Uh huh, and why do you think I’d spend my time doing that kind of busy work?” to which the fox’s onbrandedly short answer was that it would be “Relaxing”

Hence why, if someone was to come looking for Midna, they would need only needed to follow the sound of Lyre music (or at least attempts at it, the princess hadn’t exactly had much time for practice of conventional music since she’d picked up the habit) and find her sitting by the shoreline, back to her dozing wolfos. There she lazed with her helmet in her lap, chewing on cereal bar held in one hand, strumming at her musical instrument with two more, while the final hand, to which her astral chain was attached, lazily drifted too and fro.

There would then come a tug at her wrist, prompting her to yank it back and, from the perspective of the observer, cause a fish-adjacent creature to leap out of the water and then end up hovering in front of her. Of course, the fish was actually being carried in the jaws of her Beast Legion, which could casually phase through the bloody water, making not a single disturbance, as it hunted down prey for its mistress with supernatural ease.

It would then pad over to the fox who’d stopped needing to be called back after the third fish catch she’d made in short succession and deposit it, still wiggling, into the rapidly filling bucket.

Of course, things could only go swimmingly for so long, and so, right after she’d caught and was busy admiring a ‘fish’ that was far more machine than meat she was rudely interrupted when a Deimos Carnis came bursting out of the lake, clearly displeased at this intrusion into its hunting ground.

Alongside it burst several floodfested baslaisks in its thrall, the freaky beasts crawling and hopping up the beach towards her

”Goddesses, it's always something” Minda complained as she rose, but not having enough time to redon her helmet before she had to toss herself out of the way of incoming acid spit.

With her hands full of helm, lyre, and her beast legion’s maw full of the very shiny and valuable looking fish, things weren't exactly in a great state fighting wise. The first basilisk to approche breathing some horrible black mist caused the cold of death to start gripping her bones wasn’t exactly wonderful either, but a flowmotion leap back out of the fog saw to that.

”Want to dance? Alright let’s dance!” she declared, strumming the lyre up to a combat tempo before launching a blast of electrified sand forwards into the oversized eyes of the closest basilisk. It screeched and started rapidly blinking, giving her space to leap full over said eyeballs and to slam both dragon clawed feet into its back, an extra gust of wind joining the double stomp and fully slamming it into the dirt.

As she struck once with sand and once with feet, her new boon activated, surrounding her with two layers of shimmering rainbow barriers that would soften the next blow she took. Given the swarm of basilisks crawling towards her that looked like it might be coming soon, but not if she could help it. With another leap she repeated her gambit against the next basilisk, and then the next, sanding and stomping them with a rhythmic flow that she even managed to put a tune to using her Lyre.

She got so into the tempo that, in-fact, that she entirely lost track of the Carnis, right up until it lunged in and with a slashing claw knocked her entirely off her rhythm. Rainbow barriers burst as they absorbed about a quarter of the damage, and her armor did much of the rest, but it still stung.

”Ach, thank you whatever your name is” she said to the nameless god who’d granted her that boon, and then immediately cursed as the basilisks sought to take their revenge, black mist sweeping towards her.

She, fortunately, was not alone, as her little performance had been quite the distraction that let her beasts harry the foes rear, which they did so more aggressively now. Claws slashed as the wolfos howled, drawing attention, before they retreated back to draw some of the foes away, the beast legion still carrying the fish in its mouth, which amusingly to Midna meant that said fish must seem like the source of the invisible clawstrikes to the infested foes

”Careful with that thing, thing!” Midna called out, before coughing from having inhaled lingering basilisk mist. That was the last straw, the princess declaring ”Alright, enough messing around” as she yanked herself to her beast legion’s back, and then, while riding it away, finally got her helmet on.

Hand free of holding it, she drew a blade and began charging it with lighting as they wheeled back around towards the horde of hopping horrors and their centipede overlord. Not wanting to put her fresh catch in danger of being death misted however, she leapt off her beast legion as she entered the fray, blade flashing as she sliced it down into one of the eyes of a basilisk. Wind howled and thunder roared, as a wind aftershock sliced into the existing wound, and a lighting blast struck the creature’s back, knocking the wind from its lungs and preventing it from using its death breath on her long enough for her to claw its other eye out.

Neither blow actually killed however, rather intentionally, but it took it out the fight more or less. Naturally there were others, but a circular sand blast gave them just enough pause for her to focus on her primary target: the Carnis.

Her shadow hand punched up, smashing the centipede in the face as it came in to try and slash her again, the strike and follow up wind blast stunning it enough that she had time to summon her darknut. It arrived sized up, sword raised high, and then brought it down in a mighty decapitation strike that was meant to sunder the foe in half, but instead only got some of the rear as it recovered more quickly than she’d liked skittered to the side.

A Basilisk lunged blindly at a frustrated Midna, clipping her and expanding her starward barriers, and causing it to receive a trio of musical bolts to the face from the princess’ lyre for its efforts.

”Not interested in you, you wastes of space!” she yelled at the chaff, before shouting ”I want to try my new thing out, so die already you bug!” at the Canis as she went after it with her sword, hacking at its lower limbs, crippling them enough that, in conjunction with the damage to its rear, the monster went crashing to the ground.

It tried to drag itself away with its remaining claws, but the princess leapt onto its back, running along it, sandblasting basilisks as she went, before leaping head over heels over its horns, and slamming her shadow hand down straight down in a punch right onto its head, crushing its already fractured skull.

This strike launched her up, but she yanked herself to her beast again to get controle of her tumbling flight, and as she did so, behind her, the ashifiying remains of the Carnis suddenly bloomed with lunar flowers and the beast rose again, now, briefly, in her thrall. Towering over its former minions, the reanimated Carnis immediately began to lay into them, claws slicing, acid spitting, as it cut a bloody path through them without Midna having to lift even a finger or put any of her more important monsters in danger.

Instead, content to let it finish the job, she rode up to the dirt mound and sign, and rang the bell to sell the fish they’d so rudely interrupted her selling of.

Unfortunately, that would turn out to be her last sale, as the little battle had unfortunately scared off all the fish. Sure, she could have found another spot, but with the one so conveniently near to the fox merchant ruined, she decided to call it a day.

Thus, with a pocket (or rather portal) full of a few thousand extra zenny, and a few extra spirits to boot, she headed back to the rest stop to see if anyone else had shown up since then.

With the guardian’s arms on their way over and the Corruptor on its way out, Goldlewis got moving. He leaped back to the arena’s right lane with the help of a magic airdash, then checked the area. Sectonia had the flying critters under control, so he was more worried about the arena itself. As the subtle sway of the plant matter beneath his feet could attest, this unusual battlefield hung from the ceiling, so too much damage to the fleshy red cage or interwoven veins could drop the whole thing. Since the Corruptor didn’t need to concern itself with falling, he’d feared that it would actively attempt to undermine the team during the fight, but no dice so far. For now, he and the others could focus on the guardian, and with all its limbs back now the golem was more armed and dangerous than ever. As the renewed titan turned its furious strength toward Pit and Ganondorf, enormous swords carving through the air, Goldlewis began to charge another shield so that the warlord could continue to tank.

Pit was picking up the strategy now, or was pretty sure about it anyway. The temptation to just send seeking arrows at the real arena boss was still there, but going all out against its sentinel to draw it over seemed even more simple. And if he could trust Sectonia with getting rid of the little guys, then he could do just that and continue to focus on offense.

He slipped underneath the swing of one of the guardian's free floating arms and once more leapt over the gap between lanes, this time directly at the titan. Halfway through his jump his bow disappeared from his grasp and the pair of orbitars took its place, swirling around him. The shields' rotation began to speed up just before Pit was about to make contact, and when the guardian raised one of its remaining arms to sweep out and intercept him the angel's orbitars shot forward as well. One met the stone arm of the guardian in a block, while the other smashed against the side of its glowing head to deliver a Shield Smite.

That should make things go a little faster, he thought. A grin formed on Pit's face, though it was quickly replaced by a look of surprise as the guardian swung its other arm up at him. The free orbitar circled around and wedged itself between the stone cleaver and Pit, struggling valiantly as it absorbed most of the impact but ultimately not able to prevent the angel from being flung back. He unfurled his wings to stop himself from going too far, landing precariously back in the middle lane he'd come from. That was fine - he traded out weapons again to fight off the arm that had chased him over with his bow.

Ganondorf, too, had begun to see the strategy at play. He had his Phantom Steed still and could conceivably pursue the Corruptor with it. But to what end? Landing some strong hits on the creature only for the duration of his summon to end and send the warlord plummeting to his doom? Much to Ganondorf’s own chagrin, he had no choice but to play this battle by its intended rules. Still, he did observe a seeming weakness that the guardian had as he recalled the effectiveness of his lighting blast against its head. And while he avoided the swing of one of the arms after dismissing the Phantom Steed, Ganondorf then summoned a squad of Moblin archers. ”Aim for the head!” He ordered, loud enough that the other Seekers could hear if they hadn’t noticed the same things that he had. ”Lightning seems particularly effective on the metal one, use that to our advantage!” Then he looked for an opening and attempted to spear-throw his trident at the guardian’s head, hoping to recreate his previous attack against it from earlier.

Even as it took multiple headshots, the guardian pushed forward with relentless fortitude. Heavy blades in hand, its four arms became a whirlwind of bone-crushing, tree-splitting stone as it stomped toward Ganondorf’s position, each enormous stride able to cover more ground than he or the Moblins could backpedal without a full-blown retreat. With its vitality newly restored by the Corruptor the huge golem was nigh unstoppable, putting Moblin after Moblin into the meat grinder. Goldlewis was quickly forced to retreat as well, since he couldn’t jump over or get around the guardian’s monumental lariat, and if he got stuck in blockstun he’d have to sacrifice all his hard-earned Tension for Faultless Defense, or else take an absurd amount of chip damage.

Unfortunately, the veteran quickly found himself without anywhere to run. Once he reached the rightmost lane’s lower extremity in the arena’s bottom-right corner, the guardian’s onslaught meant that he could do nothing but jump ship to the center lane. At that point, though, Goldlewis realized he’d made a mistake–the Corruptor was not some mindless monstrosity after all. While its guardian fought, it positioned itself at the far end of the gap between the center and right lanes, and now its laser screamed forth. Goldlewis, Ganondorf, and what remained of his retinue were trapped between a mammoth meat grinder, crimson death, and the empty space beyond the delicate organic web that held the battlefield aloft. “Aw, hell.”

Having been dealing with the fliers and keeping the adds off her group, Sectonia figured that’d be enough for them to focus on the main fight and not get caught in any obvious traps or ploys. She was mistaken as the Guardian and the Corruptor had worked together to get everyone in the same lane as the Corruptor began to charge up and fire his laser, to cover their escape from the Guardian’s attack.

Well, she could at least swoop in and save one of them. Although considering their sizes, there was only really one choice, although she could help the other one out. She gave Goldlewis her chaos shield so he could take a hit before swooping down and grabbing Ganondorf. The king of darkness being in the sky essentially let him leap over the Guardian’s attack. What he did after that was his decision though. Much to the king’s own chagrin, there was precious little he could do at the moment. It would be a little while yet before he could summon Phantom Ganon, and the Moblins had already proved ineffective. And with no Warframe energy to use, that left the warlord with only his swords and trident.

Dodging the free floating arm and hopping over to target the guardian's rear side, maybe get it to change direction in order to help his allies, had been Pit's latest intention before the Corruptor made its move. The sudden tunnel of energy engulfing the gap put a stop to that plan before it had even really begun. Now there was no way he could get over there to help until the giant laser between them fizzled out.

"Are you guys okay?!" he shouted over. The guardian's separated arm came at him with a heavy slash while he was apparently distracted, but with a quick Thundering Sands Pit skated down his lane out of the way. Immediately afterward jumped up towards it, kicking against it away from him with both feet to shove it into the laser's path. Sadly, the beam had no more effect on the arm than it did against the guardian itself earlier.

“Hey, wait!” With Ganondorf already protected by his Shield Charger, and a lot more mobile than Goldlewis thanks to his bullet jumps, he would have been a much better candidate to shield and leave behind in the veteran’s eyes, but instead Goldlewis found himself alone between a rock and a hard place while the warlord got airlifted to safety. “Consarn it all,” he grumbled through gritted teeth. Adrenaline pumped through his veins as he considered his options. He doubted that Burst would knock the guardian down, or that his armored Wild Assault could overpower the golem’s whirlwind advance. His strikers wouldn’t help, and even if he could coax out a new Mothman cannon in time, it could only carry him in short bursts. He couldn’t see or hear the others over the Corruptor’s beam, so there was only one ally he could rely on right now.

“...UMA!”

As if intuiting his intentions, the cryptid obeyed. His coffin cracked open, and from within reached elongated arms with a starry cyan texture, first one, then three, then five, then eight. Like the limbs of a spider they stretched out and seized the arena’s organic web. While some hands grabbed on, others reached higher, pulling the coffin into the air. Goldlewis held tight to its dangling chain and was soon hauled off his feet, ascending under the UMA’s power. By that time the guardian was on him, but thanks to Sectonia’s Chaos Shield (and his latest Shield Burst) he shrugged off a couple hits until he’d risen out of range. The trap was sprung, but nobody was home. “Hah! How’d ya like them apples!?” Goldlewis hollered as he slapped the coffin like he might a good friend’s shoulder. “Good work, partner!”

The Corruptor’s laser petered out, and the fight was on. Goldlewis began by bidding the UMA to let go, then plummeting down onto the guardian from above with a heavy coffin slam into repeated Behemoth Typhoons. His pummeling left the guardian dazed, its angry swipes just a little too slow as Goldlewis dropped down and rolled away behind it. Now it was the golem who was cornered, and before the Corruptor got going again, the Seekers had to seize this opportunity.

The King of Evil, meanwhile, was beginning to really feel the frustration mounting. No less than two of the guardian’s arms were hounding him and preventing him from launching any attacks on the guardian itself. And with dwindling options, Ganondorf had switched his swords in the hopes of building up dark energy for an explosion attack later. But that also meant he was doing precious little in the way of short term damage to this thing. At one point he summoned both of his strikers - Riptor and Blast Hornet so that the former could spit a fireball at the guardian’s head while the latter sent out a volley of hornet drones with his Search Strike attack.

Now that he knew everyone that had been stuck in the right lane behind the beam was alright, Pit resumed the fight against the guardian with vigor. Though at that point the arm he'd kicked away had floated back up completely unscathed, the angel focused his offense on the stone golem. When he fired his arrows he took a few seconds between each one, letting them build power before they shot over the lanes and struck against the automaton. Unless he wanted to add some fire to his attacks he didn't need to stand still, so he could duck and weave to keep out of the arm's reach while he loosed dash shots. Once they damaged the guardian enough it would collapse like it did before, right? So he wouldn't need to worry about evading for much longer anyway - a couple of close calls and eaten hits was nothing.

Sectonia meanwhile, knowing the creatures had high defense, started throwing her void globules at the Guardian, their properties bypassing its defensive stats as the void clouds clinged and damaged it in small void explosions. Although she’d need to swap back to dealing with the air units before long, she could suppress some of them for now with a rain of holy swords. Once the corruptor exposed itself again, she had a few choice moves for that one.

Powerful and precise shots and spells from Pit and Sectonia began to take their toll as Ganondorf and Goldlewis strove to keep the guardian busy. It was impossible to avoid every attack, especially with the golem’s remotely-controlled arms attacking from odd angles, but the frontliners kept at it with some help from the veteran’s regular shield bursts in lieu of any healing. Goldlewis could jump deceptively high when he employed a magic glyph as an airborne springboard, but his enemy loomed even larger, so he focused on bashing its knees with his battering ram of a coffin. “Hrrrah! Grrrrrah! Ha-ah!” Beneath the weight of each Behemoth Typhoon, hairline fissures spread and stone shards went flying.

Ganondorf’s sword and spear gave him the wrong damage types when it came to crushing solid rock, but he backed up his might with magic, and combined with the veteran’s brutish blunt force the two were getting results even without a clean shot at the guardian’s head. For all its reach and power, this golem was a simple machine, and it was always going to be the Corruptor to throw a wrench in the works. Trusting the others to call out any danger, Goldlewis put everything he had into this brawl. Smash, backdash, run in, smash, block, block, smash! They were getting close–he could feel it. And this time, Goldlewis had a plan. “Ganondorf!” he called over the action. “When it goes down, gimme your strength!” This elicited a raised eyebrow from the Warlord, but he still nodded anyway after that.

A moment later, one of Pit’s charged arrows sealed the deal. An ethereal clang resounded through the arena as corrupted magic burst from the guardian’s crystalline head, and for the second time it slumped down. Goldlewis wasted no time; he threw his coffin aside, then seized the guardian’s arm. “Now! HEAVE!” He pulled with all his might in an attempt to topple the top-heavy golem and send it into freefall over the edge. At that moment, though, the Corruptor arrived. Its loomed overhead and began to open its underside, ready to pump the guardian -and any nearby Seekers- full of crimson energy.

Ganondorf didn’t exactly know how heavy this guardian was going to be. But he was certain no matter what its weight was, it was no match for the power of the Triforce. And so when the Gerudo seized guardian’s arm himself, the Triforce mark on his right hand glowed with more pronouncement as the King of Evil invoked his Triforce of Power. Then with tensed muscles he too gave a mighty heave, teeth gritted and eyes furrowing into a look of focus and concentration.

Seeing what Goldlewis and Ganondorf were up to, Pit let out a short laugh. "Good idea!"

Of course since the Corruptor could fly it could possibly just go down and pick its golem up and bring it back, but the Seekers would have found a way to be long gone by then if it happened.

Since two of the Seekers were focusing on tossing the guardian over the side of the lane, it left just he and Sectonia to deal with the Corruptor. Pit had seen the beating the thing had taken the first time around so he knew he didn't have the pushing power to physically keep it away from the guardian. He'd have to leave that to the queen bee, if she was so inclined. Instead he'd try and make up for the loss in damage himself. For that he had to get closer, so he hopped back to the right lane behind the Corruptor, opposite his allies. He dismissed his bow as he did, summoning his Breaking Palm. The swirling rainbow orb flew into his skin just before he took position, and Pit steadied his firing arm with his free one. This close the power of the Palm's energy blasts would be near maximum, and their sheer output a marvel.

Of course it wasn't until he actually fired that Pit realized that going through two back to back battles without healing might be starting to take its toll on him. The barrages of light he released didn't come as quickly as they could have, but it was still fast and intense. And it would have to do.

Sectonia meanwhile, with the Corruptor open to attack once again, began to attack it in earnest. Hopefully this would be the last time they’d need to do anything to this thing with this round of attacks. And as such, much to her dislike, she had to get in close to deal as much damage as she could to this thing. And as annoying as it was, she’d have to intercept this thing. At least being so close to it, a lot of her more close range stuff that she had been using on the flying minions would now be affecting the Corruptor. Her death pulses, tesla charges, the occasional bolt from healing herself, her heartstopper aura, and her much more difficult to dodge attacks such as her lightning and point blank large Rings of Light. She was done with this fight, and really done with most of this tree’s shenanigans at this point.

Although being in the way of the Corruptor and the Guardian, made her the main target of the Corruptor’s attacks.

Between the two of them, Sectonia and Pit put the Corruptor’s impressive durability to the test. Luminous rings and arcs filled the air in a majestic lightshow, each splash of deadly radiance illuminating the Qliphoth’s gloomy interior. Their target creaked like felled timber beneath the weight of their brilliant onslaught, physically repelled from its destination, but that wasn’t all they achieved. While Pit’s light rays boasted excellent homing abilities, Sectonia’s light rings expanded outward in all directions, which meant they eventually came into contact with the suspended arena’s organic lattice. Her power sheared through the plant matter with much greater ease than it did the Corruptor’s hardy wooden exterior, and after just a few seconds, enough had given way that the whole arena was beginning to rock dangerously.

Luckily, the other half of the team wouldn’t take very long. Ganondorf was right: despite the guardian’s impressive bulk, the Triforce of Power -with more than a little help from Goldlewis- reigned supreme. Once they maneuvered the disabled golem enough, its own bodyweight took over, and the whole thing toppled over the edge toward the abyss. “Hah!” Goldlewis shouted after it, his muscled aching as his chest heaved from the exertion. “Serves ya right, ya doggone-!”

His taunt gave way to a panicked grunt as the floor beneath him shuddered violently. For a terrifying moment he fought to steady himself, slowly backpedaling from the edge. He looked up toward the resplendent lightshow as Pit and Sectonia continued to chip away at the Corruptor. He realized what was happening, as well as something else: that the monster’s vulnerable underside was closing up now that its guardian was gone, and the Seekers were about to lose their best way to deal damage to it. If this battlefield fell apart beneath them, this fight would be a hell of a lot harder, so he knew he had to act now.

“UMA!” Goldlewis roared as he kicked his coffin. The lid popped open, and the veteran reached in to pull out his new Yowie harpoon gun. He took aim, then fired up into the Corruptor’s guts. “Hrrrrrrgh!” Planting his feet, Goldlewis held fast, determined to neither let the monster get away nor close up. “Take it down! Now!”

With very little time to process what was happening, Ganondorf simply had to assume that Goldlewis noticed something and acted as well. He summoned his trident to his hand and threw it, hoping to skewer the Corruptor’s underside and give it a good blast of lightning for good measure.

Alright right up close and attacking, Pit kept at it even as the lane they were standing on was jostled dangerously. With a shout he mustered up what extra energy he had to push the Breaking Palm into firing more, firing faster, as the fusillade of light continued to blast up into the Corruptor's only vulnerable point.

With everyone throwing in their big attacks at the Corruptor, Sectonia decided that it had to be injured quite a bit now and used Reaper’s Scythe on it, conjuring a scythe of death out of the air which swung at the Corruptor, Sectonia using the windup of the scythe to throw one last void globule at the creature to deal a bit more damage before the scythe hit.

Locked in place and subjected to a withering barrage of attacks, many dealt directly to its vulnerable insides, the Corruptor could only last so long. A deep, resounding howl issued from it as it bucked suddenly. Its root-like tentacles gave one final, violent thrash, then went limp, and as its gravity-defying magic gave out, the Corruptor began to fall from the sky. “We got it!” Goldlewis exclaimed, though he couldn’t celebrate too much, since he could immediately see where this was heading. He hurried to wrench out the Yowie’s harpoon by the cable, then get everything stowed away before the massive corpse made impact. When it slammed down into the arena’s surface, the damaged organic web gave way, and the whole right lane began to crumble. Its fall kickstarted a dangerous chain reaction that would take the center and left lanes -not to mention the Seekers who couldn’t fly- with it.

Goldlewis, at least, could double jump high enough to grab hold of the root lattice above where Sectonia damaged it. The UMA reached out of his coffin to lock its arms around the veteran’s shoulders, which meant he could use both hands to haul himself up. It was no easy feat given his inordinate bulk, but despite his injuries and extra baggage, Goldlewis just barely managed. One possessed of two handholds and footholds, he could finally relax somewhat. Though his team was still in a precarious position, they were alive, and that was all he could ask.

Pit had wanted to just flop onto his back and take a breath after the Corruptor was defeated, but when it fell and took out the only solid ground in the area he found himself scrambling to get to safety. A stumble prevented him from getting the best footing before he jumped, so when he did he didn't go as high as he could have. His wings pushed him towards the nearest section of the fungal lattice that was still relatively intact, it was going to be a real close call reaching it - at least until he felt something snatch him out of the air, and he blinked over his shoulder to find Sectonia having picked him up before he plummeted. Only a little embarrassed, Pit smiled sheepishly at her and flashed her a victorious V-sign in thanks. Sectonia didn’t reply one way or another, more so just done with this whole fight than anything, although in her head she was a bit confused as to why Pit couldn’t fly with his wings. She did hear him mumbling about needing power from his goddess at one point in Skyworld, but that is kind of sad if true.

Reaching a lattice was a simple enough affair for Ganondorf as well. The bullet jump skill he had long since obtained from Oberon Prime was enough for him to launch himself into an initial leap before using the double part of the skill to make up the remaining distance. For a spirit he had obtained quite a while ago in the Under, the warframe in question and its related abilities had proven themselves to be quite useful to the Gerudo. He made a mental note to look into expanding his Warframe abilities somehow if at all possible. He’d grown quite fond of making use of them.

A few seconds into watching the wreckage of the arena and the disintegrating corpse of the Corruptor plummet into the depths of the Qliphoth, the Seekers received one more surprise in the form of random reward cards. Some weren’t exactly in the most convenient spot for this right now, so with the added incentive of getting a move on before any more of the lattice broke off, the four needed to make their choice.









Given his current situation, Goldlewis continued to hold on with both hands until he’d made his decision, and he did not take long to decide. Dazzling Display seemed, ironically, lackluster, but both of the others were tempting. After a moment he opted to go with a second shield-related bonus to add a little more punch to his defensive abilities through immediate retaliation. He hoped that the payback damage would apply to his block as well, but he wasn’t going to count on that. Once he tapped the card for Metastatic Field, he heard the clang of hammers and the shrill scratch of crystal against stone. Through his vision flashed the image of an amber colossus the size of a planet, but before he could even focus, the vision was gone. With no time to lose, Goldlewis began to maneuver his way along the latticed curtain toward the nearest intact bloodstream in the hopes of using it to reach firmer footing. “Guh…doggone it…these old bones are achin’...somethin’ fierce…”

In Pit's choices, the first card seemed like it would only be a little useful, adding incremental damage when he was already fighting. Not to mention he could just fire seeking arrows himself. The last card looked a little more fun and slightly more useful, but if he was reading the middle card correctly (which, in fairness, he may not have been since reading was still kind of new to him) then so long as he wasn't fighting alone, he could constantly be doing more damage. This one's the best pick, right? Argh I wish I could ask someone for advice! Of course he had someone specific in mind, but since that wasn't an option he just reached out to take the card marked Arrow Shades Bow.

Though it wasn't Lady Palutena, Pit did see some sort of divine being, part chariot and part charioteer, accompanied by the sound of an arrow being fired from a mighty bow filling his ears. The vision lasted for only a brief moment, and then it was gone while the interior of the hollow they'd been fighting in filtered back into view. That must have been what Captain Falcon mentioned before.

Sectonia looked at her choices, and while they all looked pretty useful, making her projectiles even more difficult to dodge or even do multiple hits seemed like the best idea, even if the 15% extra damage was very tempting. So she got the Shotgun Shoulders, now making it that her projectiles were much more difficult to handle.

Once again, Ganondorf was faced with a choice between three different floating cards. The first one was not suitable for himself due to the cost of cutting health in half, but perhaps for Phantom Ganon it would be useful? The second card sounded like something that could prove a useful wildcard in a pinch, but something about taking that card rubbed his pride the wrong way. As though taking it would be admitting that he - the Great King of Evil - could ever be felled that quickly by any foe. As such, Ganondorf’s attention finally fell to the third card. Dark magic was something he was already intimately familiar with, and an ability that would allow him to use his trident like a harpoon to pull foes into reach of a follow up attack such as the circular lighting trident throw? Yes, such a thing could certainly prove useful. In the end, he chose the third card - Mortal Coil. And just like before, the isolation faded and he found himself among his allies again.

”Hmph, another challenge and more power for us as a result.” He said with a grimace. Normally a man like him would be all too eager to expand his power. But something about the nature of this still bugged him. ”And yet I can’t help but wonder why. Is the tree trying to stop us or aid us? Because it appears to be doing both.”

“This hellhole’s been infested by all kinds o’ crap. Like some kinda breedin’ ground for undead horrors.” Finally, the veteran’s climb across the fungal jungle gym ended next to one of the Qliphoth veins. With the lanes demolished and much of the lattice torn away, only the bloodstreams remained as anchor points for what remained of the structure. Goldlewis propped himself up and took a second to rest, since anyone with a cutting implement would have a much easier time getting in. “Dunno if the tree’s winnin’ or all the godawful parasites, but whichever one ain’t probably don’t mind a little help dealin’ with whichever one is.”

Pit wasn't at all nonplussed about the random rewards, especially after experiencing that vision. He shrugged his shoulders and offered another perspective. "I think some gods are just rooting for us and giving us stuff for a job well done. They get bored super easily and end up always messing around with the overworld."

”This reminds me of the, ugh… basement. That gave us rewards as well. If this power was offered by the spirits of the bosses it would make more sense than what's going on here. The only thing I can think of is that after the void out, all the ‘good’ of the area has coelesed in here, manifesting itself when a boss dies to help us free it or something.” Sectonia said, agreeing with Ganondorf on how strange this was and trying to figure out an explanation.

”Hmph, the Basement…” Ganondorf mused. “...I’d nearly forgotten about that accursed place. But now that you mention it, yes, it did similarly do something like this, didn’t it?” At the same time he took one of his swords and began to use it to cut open the vein in order to give the Seekers their way out and into whatever the next trial would be.

At first the pressure pushed Ace and Blazermate up through the vein fairly quickly. Though neither of them were among the largest members of their group, they both had a fair amount of pointy bits on them (whether carried or integrated into their body), so it wasn’t long before one of said pointy bits caught on the wall of the blood vessel and tore open a hole. Crimson liquid spilled out and cut the blood flow, dropping the duo out into yet another hollow of the Qliphoth.

The Ace Cadet stood up, wiping the fluid from his eyes and spitting it from his mouth. The first time traveling up through the veins he was more concerned with escaping the demonic horde, and since he’d been immediately attacked by Neopterons after the morbid experience had ended, he hadn’t really thought about what he was covered in. Now going through it a second time, it seemed to him that the substance actually was a lot closer to blood than anything a plant could produce. Especially if that hard, iron-like taste was anything to go by. It was quite a disturbing thought but he didn’t mention it aloud, just frowned and took in the area.

The hollow was dark. Much darker than the bottom floor of the tree or the strangely clean area he and Blazermate had fought the empusa in. Though there were small patches of light filtering in from some membrane that formed the ceiling above them, the majority of the area was covered in blackness. There were various labored sounds that could be heard, but not being able to see what was making them gave the area an even spookier feel. What was visible were mounds of infected flesh; bloated and irritated they bubbled up from the floor and walls of the hollow. There was some kind of smell to the area as well, hard to identify with the stench of the Qliphoth’s blood still fresh in his nose.

Though nothing immediately jumped out to attack, it would be an obvious mistake to think the area was safe. For now, the only things moving in the immediate vicinity were himself, Blazermate -as the two of them had managed to stick together during two vein trips so far- and a fellow monster hunter in the form of Geralt.

Blazermate shook herself clean of blood again, a bit miffed as her beautiful blue was now getting purple in areas and she looked like she came out of some weird slasher game or something. And coming into a dark room made Blazermate’s fear of the dark flare up, causing her to timidly hide behind Ace instead of the usual keeping a shield up and being a bit of a more confident healer.

“Ugh. Lost Goldlewis. Hope the big guy’s alright.” Taking a moment to cast First Aid to patch up his wounds from the Keeper fight, Geralt realized he should have done that for Goldlewis before they entered the vein, but what was done was done. He was still somewhat getting used to having actual magic beyond Signs. “Good to see you two are fine, though.” He greeted the pair, rummaging through his pockets to find a Cat potion. Opening it, he downed a swig and his eyes dilated to take in as much light as possible.

"You too," the Cadet replied, though he hadn't really been worried about the Witcher in the first place. He knew Geralt was tough. Hopefully everyone else was doing alright as well.

"'Course I lucked out getting paired with Blazermate here earlier," he commented, attempting to work the dents out of his rigging. The proof of their victory was strapped to the hunter's back after all. Though when he turned to glance at the Medabot he was surprised not to find her beside him, but behind him. He blinked, surprised by the timidness, and laid an encouraging hand on her shoulder.

Too soon the fragile calm before the storm came to an end. Drawn by the Seekers’ voices, something moved. The arena trembled slightly as the sound of something huge brushed against its sides and stepped upon its floor.

And then it paused. The air stirred and a horrific figure emerged, just barely visible from the darkness.



“Fuck, it’s ugly.” Geralt sighed as the Tormentor appeared before them, summoning his dual Hydro swords. The orange pustules on its shoulders stood out fairly well, and he narrowed his eyes at them. “It’s shoulders look wrong. Infected. Might be a good place to target.” He called to the others as he dodged out of the way of a massive clawed arm coming his way, stepping back to cast Quen to protect himself.

"Sounds good to me," Ace replied, unclipping the Breechshot from his side.

Geralt’s nose twitched and he took a deep breath, coughing slightly, and sighed. “Of course there’s poison in the air, as well.”

”I can keep you guys healed, so the poison isn’t that big of a problem. Just keep that dark thing off of me!” Blazermate said, deploying her drone to help heal alongside her own healing beam. She’d need to build up her uber again, but she could do that without too many problems.

Geralt nodded, running in to attack the Tormentor with his hydro blades, a quick slash doing little to even phase the massive Necromorph but applying the Wet status nonetheless. He backstepped to dodge a quick claw stab, then rolled to dodge a follow-up swipe that aimed to lop his head from his shoulders.

Without the darkvision Geralt now possessed this would be a tougher time for Ace, but he stepped up to face the horror alongside the Witcher all the same. Though it was obvious this creature was huge, it was difficult to tell exactly how big, so finding its shoulders would take some trial and error... but the hunter was up for the challenge.

"Back up, Blazermate!" he warned as the Tormentor's swipe came through. Its size was so great that even if it was focused on the Witcher right in front of it, its claws still threatened anyone too close by - and the Cadet dove to avoid it, coming up in a kneel and cycling through his gun's ammo.

The three Seekers formed a sort of line now, with Geralt taking the monster on in melee, Ace preparing for ranged support, and Blazermate in the back line to provide any needed healing and assistance. Between her cleansing and the inherent poison resistance in the Rathian pieces of Ace's armor, he did hope they wouldn't have to worry about the poison gas, otherwise this fight would turn into a time trial.

The Cadet opened fire at the Tormentor's face, and then followed logic to try and locate a shoulder joint from there. Of course there might be a better way to increase his accuracy, which would be asking the people who could actually see in this darkness.

"Hey, how far off am I?" he called out, keeping a mental note of when a shot seemed to completely miss and readjusting.

“Adjust your aim to your left about a foot and upwards by half that.” Geralt replied to help direct fire as he slashed at the Tormentor's thinner legs, weaving in between them as it readjusted to try and grab him with its arms. “Never mind.” He followed up, sighing. “This thing might be too mobile for you to be at range, Ace. Blazermate, you have a light source we can use?”

Blazmerate shook her head, while her eyes glowed in the dark, she herself didn’t have a flashlight attachment or anything. If she got a good look at the boss though, she could put a marker on it that’d glow for everyone else to see. She knew where it was vaguely, but that was more because of her scan ability than actually looking at it. ”I can kinda tell where it is, but beyond that nothing.” Wait, she did have one light move, but it didn’t illuminate much. She fired out her light wave ability at the creature she could ‘see’, and as the ray of light went out and hit it, for a second it was illuminated in full by the holy light… at least before the light wave turned into an actual wave and came back to Blazermate healing everyone for a bit.

That bit of illumination was all Blazermate really needed though, and she put a highlighted mark on the creature on where to hit it for critical damage which glowed through the darkness.

The little bit of temporary light was perfect. It was about as much as Ace could have produced with a flash bomb, and probably less blinding too, and it allowed him to quickly take stock of where his target was - especially since he was just now realizing that apparently his world used a different unit of measurement.

As requested he moved up, narrowly dodging the splayed claws of the Tormentor as it reached out to grab him. He didn't put away his gun just yet, only changing up the ammo type. By the time he'd swapped out his ammunition Blazermate had already set up her targeting, which would make things even easier. Though this gun was technically meant for longer range, close proximity had never inhibited a gunner hunter before, and it didn't for Ace now either. He aimed and fired off a few piercing shots as the Tormentor swung itself around to try and flatten both men at once. A few of the bullets bore into its bony arms, but those that connected with its festering shoulder shredded right through, tearing small holes into its body.

The monstrosity screamed. Clearly Geralt had been right about its weak point. The Tormentor whipped many of its limbs out, its main arms and small ones both, aiming to snatch any (or preferably all) of the three pests in its crushing grip.

Blazermate wasn’t an easy thing to grab with her speed, so the Tormentor had little to no luck there. However the other two weren’t as fast as her. However when Geralt was going to get grabbed by a tentacle, Blazermate banished him with Disruption, causing the tentacle to completely go through the black shadow ball Geralt found himself in. And after being banished for a couple seconds, he was back with 2 illusionary Geralts who helped him with his next play whatever it was.

She also during this time grabbed Ace with her Leap of Faith, causing him to quite literally slip from the grasp of the creature. Having felt the pull of Leap of Faith once before, the hairs on the back of Ace's neck stood on end as the magic rescue ability was cast. It was too quick to avoid though he tried, and as soon as he was deposited by Blazermate's side the Ace Cadet turned to her.

"You don't have to use th—" he started to say, but as they were all still in the thick of danger his attention shift proved to be a mistake. Not a moment later the necromorph swatted him hard with the back of its arm as it continued its rampage. The hunter was flung into the darkness and the Tormentor lunged to slam its claws down on the remaining Seekers.

Geralt cursed as Ace was flung away, his two shadow clones drawing their steel swords to hack away at the Tormentor's legs, while Geralt himself made some distance and drew Odysseus’s Bow, firing arrows at the glowing orange pustules to trigger a lightning attack, and the Electro-charged reaction that dealt some electric damage over time. Continuing to fire away at the weak point, Geralt coughed. Whatever was in the air was starting to irritate his throat. “Might be worth seeing if we can get rid of this gas.” He advised. “Not as big a deal now, but could also clear up some visibility.”

”I can’t really help with that. All I can do is keep you guys healed through this toxic fog. It doesn’t seem to be growing in strength.” Blazemate said, her robotic body completely immune to the poison in the air. Although she was still mostly on healing duty with the occasional damage taken debuff applied to the boss to make it take more damage.

While the toxicity of the gas remained constant, the level of it did slowly rise. Either the vapors naturally rose up or something was pumping more into the hollow at a steady rate. Around the arena there was debris and patches of swollen plant matter, breaking up the landscape and making it hard to pinpoint anything that could be producing the poison smog. Not that anyone could afford to take their eyes off of the main threat for long.

The Tormentor ripped through one of the illusory Geralts with its fangs, a vicious bite that snapped the fake clean in half before it dissolved. The damage it had sustained so far to its right shoulder caused it to stagger slightly with the next arrow shot into it, but it still had plenty of other limbs with which to strike with. It lashed out with its two thinner arms, raking against the other Geralt copy and forcing it away from its legs while its larger arm struck out in a wide range swipe, deadly claws poised to slash apart anyone caught in their wake.

Gunfire rang out from the necromorph's opposite side, signalling to the others that the Ace Cadet was alright even if still enveloped in the dark. His piercing bullets continued to bore deep holes into the monstrosity, weakening the tendons at its shoulder. Those weak points were still easy to see thanks to Blazermate's targeting, and even if the aiming was tough at this angle and low light, the hunter focused as much as he could on them. The Tormentor itself was too busy with the group in front of it to bother turning around anyway.

Ace steadily moved up while firing, trying both to get a better angle and to reunite with the others. It was slower going than he would have liked with the landscape dotted with obstacles as it was. He bumped into once such polyp, though when he pressed against it to steady himself and keep on it shifted under his hand.

While at first glance it appeared to be just another cancerous growth of the Qliphoth's flesh, the bio-mass slowly turned to show that it was alive. Noxious gas and fumes leaked out from the open maw of the mutilated humanoid as it wheezed noisily, but other than that it made no attack. If it could even move at all beyond swiveling its head, it didn't.

The reveal near startled the Cadet, and without a second thought he put the thing out of its misery. Then he shook his head and continued to move. The fact that it wasn't any easier to breathe in the hollow implied there were more of those poor souls around.

At the same time, the remaining copy of Geralt revealed another environmental hazard. On the nearest wall to the Seekers, a cyst began to expand once the illusion of the Witcher got close. A moment later the blister split open, expelling a disgusting and volatile mass into the thick of the battle. If they could dodge the Tormentor's swipe, the bomb would pose a problem - and vice versa.

“Some kind of explosive traps?” Geralt grunted when he saw the cyst explode, frowning. The infection in this place had clearly developed some strange counter-measures. Reaching up to his neck and pulling off the bleed amulet, Geralt let out a sigh of relief as its magic ended on him, resulting in him regaining some poison resistance and the ache he was feeling easing. “Not sure if it’s this big thing gassing the place up or more traps, but I’ll be alright for a while longer.” He reported, transforming into his newest identity. If he could get a charged hit off on any of this thing’s legs, it would probably be enough to break it clean off.

“Ace, can you keep it busy a minute? I got a big hit ready!” He called, running forward and sliding under a swipe of the Tormentor’s main arm, circling around its body towards the back.

”If you stay behind my shield, the explosions wont be a problem if you wanna focus more on the boss.” Blazermate said, activating her projectile shield and shielding Ace and Geralt from an explosive trap going off, the explosion bouncing off her shield. She could also help them advance and even stick the Tormenter inside the shield, dealing some decent damage to the creature as long as it stayed inside the shield.

"You got it!" Ace said as he and the Witcher swapped places, circling around opposite sides of the Tormentor. "And I think I found what's making the gas, there must be a couple of them around, stuck to the floor!"

As he rounded to the Tormentor's front, the Ace Cadet dipped into the shelter of Blazermate's projectile shield to avoid another explosive bio-bomb. With the amount of Geralts back down to one, the Tormentor's head trailed after the original until the Cadet shot a few rounds off that drilled into its face. It screeched and turned back, raising a claw and slamming it down at the hunter. Ace dove to avoid it, making sure to stick well within the monster's sight and buy Geralt the time he needed.

"You're biting off way more than you can chew!" he said to the necromorph as it surged forward at him with its teeth and fangs.

Taking position near one of the Tormentor’s back legs, Geralt kept his footsteps as quiet as he could, moving with its head to stay out of its field of vision while he waited for the right moment. It couldn’t be moving too much or he might miss the shot. With a sword, he could always flow into another strike or a parry, but with this beast of a weapon, he had to put his back into every charged blast.

Once it reared back and swung its main arms at Ace after reaching him, Geralt struck. The pile bunker let off a pneumatic hiss as it reached full charge, and the harpoon head exploded into the right rear leg, just where it forked into its strange wishbone shape. The limb was blown off with little fanfare beyond a splash of blood, and a screech of pain from the Tormentor as it lost its balance slightly and leaned backward. Geralt was already moving away into the arena at large, eyes darting to and fro, searching for what Ace had called out.

Of course the hunter had failed to describe what they looked like, but if Geralt couldn't rely on finding them by sight and the clouds of poisonous gas prevented him from following his nose, he could always rely on his ears. The harsh, pained gasping and wheezing was easily distinguishable from the Tormentor's stomping and shrieking once he got close enough to them. The first of the remaining Wheezers looked listlessly up at Geralt with one bulging eye glazed over.

The noise wasn’t hard to track, and after following the wheezing gasps to their source, Geralt looked down at the thing with pity. It looked like a human with its lungs twice the size of its torso that had burst out through its back. Its entrails spilled out onto the floor, blood and viscera coating the ground around it. Transforming back into his normal Identity, Geralt drew the Sign of Igni in the air and activated it, focusing the flames into a stream of fire that incinerated the toxin-spewing Necromorph, slowing the buildup of poison in the air. “Wonder how many of those are around…” he mumbled, before taking off to search for more.

”Oh, I can go look for those, one of you guys use up my current uber first though!” Blazermate said, ”I can use their defenseless bodies to generate another uber for free.”

After Geralt had snapped the monstrosity's back leg off, it compensated by using the smaller arm on the same side to stabilize itself after reeling. It still proved ferocious and even down to three arms The Tormentor was a force to be reckoned with. The Ace Cadet continued to keep it busy, steadily dealing damage to it - though it was also steadily dealing damage to him too. When the Tormentor's massive claws were coming at him quick and cloaked in shadow, he couldn't escape every time. He was clipped, pushed, slashed, and cut, his armor suffering and and the exposed parts of his body even more so, but so long as he could avoid a pin that would lead to near certain death between the Tormentor's teeth, he'd be alright. Plus there was always their stalwart healer Blazermate to patch him up even in the thick of battle.

At this point the Cadet was firing with his rigging as well. Every bullet he shot came with a brief flash that illuminated the immediate area for the Seeker that couldn't see well in it, which was just enough for him to keep doing what he was doing. The breechshot, though not as advanced as the bowguns he was used to, was a pretty high damaging firearm. In conjunction with the pierce ammo it was doing a fine job getting through the bony exoskeleton of the creature. It might not be sustainable for a drawn out fight, but it didn't need to be. Since targeting its glowing weak points the Tormentor had been lurching more and more. It would give out before the Seekers, especially if the Cadet any say in it.

Then Blazermate announced she intended to go take care of the poisonous gas issue. It had been building up for a while, and even with the men's poison resistance it was only a matter of time until they were afflicted. If she changed priorities that would be alright - and when she called out for someone to take her buff, the Cadet responded quickly.

"If you're swapping with Geralt, give it to him!" he said. The Cadet dared to dart beneath the Tormentor, making sure its attention was pulled down and away from the medabot if she planned to move. It snapped at him with its jaws, missing as he threw himself to the side. It managed to seize one of the Cadet's arms with its own smaller one, but the hunter slammed the butt of the gun down onto what constituted its wrist to break free. Then he was backing up, and calling out his latest observation at the same time. "Its shoulder joints are softened up, they'll pop with enough force just like its leg!"

It was true. The marked areas on both arms were oozing blood and pus, significantly weakened after having been fried and filled with arrows and bullet holes. If Blazermate tagged Geralt back in, the Witcher could get up to them and sever even more limbs while the monster hunter kept it distracted.

"Let's get this thing on the chopping block already!"

Trading Geralt for herself wasn’t all that difficult, and Geralt would get a nice Uber or Kritz, depending if he wanted defense or offense, to attack the Tormentor with before Blazermate went off clearing out the poison.

“Alright, then give me the invincibility when I say to.” Geralt agreed, returning to the site of the battle with the Tormentor to go with the adjusted plan. He pulled the Hateful Flesh out, grunting and making sure to re-apply Quen before reaching the massive Necromorph. It roared before scuttling forward, slashing out with its primary arm which Geralt rolled under before calling out to Blazermate, “Now!”

With the ubercharge granting him a few seconds of invulnerability, Geralt could forgo defense to unleash an unstoppable offense. He leapt from the ground, easily clearing the Tormentor's head, and landed on its neck. While the Necromorph thrashed to try and dislodge him, the Witcher paid it no mind and summoned Monsoon to target its remaining back leg. At the same time, he unleashed a stream of Igni flames at the shoulder on the same side of the leg he'd broken, to weaken it before his strike. Once the Sign ended, he hefted the cleaver in his hand and struck, driving it into the oozing flesh like a butcher trying to separate a joint off a hog.

The eldritch weapon tore through the ruined shoulder slowly, agonizingly, as the ubercharge began to flicker. Geralt grunted, planting his boot onto the back of the weapon and pushing, pressing all his weight onto it before he was suddenly falling, the severed arm dropping to the ground next to him, an instant before the invulnerability ended.

The Tormentor screamed. With only its spindly middle arm remaining on its right side it was unbalanced, and it fell over with its heavy impact scattering debris and gasses. The Ace Cadet went to let out an encouraging whoop, but halfway through it turned into a fit of coughing due to the smog.

The Seekers were making quick progress against the monstrosity now, but they couldn't let their guards down. The Tormentor stretched its neck out suddenly, its mouth open wide to try and catch Geralt in its deadly fangs.

Geralt was caught, the Necromorph’s large fangs quickly cracking through Quen’s shielding and earning it a crash of lightning as a reward, but it held fast, trying to drive its teeth through his armor. The Witcher, for his part, did not take this lying down, and he almost immediately drew his hunting knife with one hand and plunged it into the Tormentor’s eye, the other lifting the Hateful Flesh and slamming it into the monster’s neck, just above its head. Stabbing and twisting his knife, Geralt pulled the blade out and used it to stab one of the tiny arms holding his torso like crab’s claws, his armor creaking from the pressure. “Fucking…dammit! Judicator! Heal!” He cried out, summoning his abominable Striker to grant him some sustain, as he desperately stabbed and struck at the monster holding him. “Ace! Armor’s not gonna last!”

"I'm working on it!" the hunter called back, voice slightly strained. As soon as he'd seen the creature lurch at Geralt, barely illuminated by the light filtering into the hollow, he'd gone for its neck. He had run into the same issues that the other man had though, and no amount of slashing or shooting seemed to dislodge it. It was time to try something different.

Ace turned and fired his slinger at the Tormentor's remaining shoulder joint, pulling himself up onto the beastly thing. It had gotten its large arm back underneath itself, but while it was focused on trying to bite Geralt in half there was little resistance it could offer - which was good because there was no time to lose.

The Cadet slammed the blades of his rigging into the open shoulder wound, wedging them deep before pulling them apart inside to stress the joint further. He couldn't just rip the limb from its body as is, but there was nothing to stop him drilling right through. His mini cannon batteries swiveled downward as he stuck the barrel of the gun right into the pustule and opened fire. The rifle's piercing ammo flew through the joint and out the other side, opening more surface area for his cannons to tear away at. With the seconds ticking it seemed to be taking way more time than they had, but then Ace felt something essential snap under his feet.

"And with no further decay...!" Finally the glowing weak point on its left arm popped, dropping Ace to the ground and splashing viscera as it too was severed from the Tormentor's body. The blow shook the monster and it couldn't help but let out a high pitched roar, its hold on Geralt loosened as it opened its mouth to shout its pain.

Blazermate meanwhile had been using her remote drones to heal the others, healing that was a bit less than her actual medigun as she zoomed around dealing with the toxic spewing creatures around. The miserable things gave no resistance as Blazermate mercilessly stabbed them over and over with her Ubersaw, gaining a large amount of uber from each one. And as she killed them, the toxic gas lessened with each eliminated.

Once the last one was defeated, the toxic gas started to clear out and Blazermate could rejoin her allies in dealing with the main boss again, having farmed another full ubercharge.

Geralt crawled out of the Tormentor’s jaws as it roared in pain, peeling off and tossing in a flesh bomb from the Hateful Flesh for good measure, limping behind Ace to put some room between himself and the mutilated Necromorph. Once he was satisfied with the distance, he paused to cast a First Aid on himself, healing back a good chunk of the damage he’d taken. “Fuck. Much better…” he sighed, standing back up fully. “Okay, I’ve had enough of this thing already. Air’s clearing up, let’s finish it.”

It might have been a little early, but there was a triumphant look on the red head's face (as stained as it was) which he turned on Geralt and Blazermate. "I'm right there with you. Doesn't look like there's much gore to go."

The Tormentor was in a sorry state as it struggled to hold itself upright. It stood on one hind leg and its two smaller arms, swaying due to its elongated torso and neck holding most of its weight in its front. It drooled blood from its toothy maw, and its disturbingly human eyes glared at the Seekers. Without warning it threw itself forward at them with its claws outstretched, at last ditch attack or just compensating for the fact it could barely have walked.

Blazermate was a bit ready for this though, and as it launched itself forward, Blazermate hit it with a Disruption, banishing it for a couple seconds before it could hit Ace. This time gave everyone a bit to prepare for it to re-emerge, Kritz ready to pop so they could really wreck this thing… especially as it came back with 2 illusions of itself that attacked it alongside the seekers.

Geralt kept the Hateful Flesh at the ready for when it reappeared, and with little delay the cleaver slammed into the thing’s head, knocking it into the ground as Geralt circled around the back, aiming to take the other rear leg off while Ace and Blazermate dealt with the head. With the illusions keeping its attention split, there wasn’t any resistance to speak of as the heavy weapon severed yet another limb, the Tormentor’s roars filling the hollow they were in. If this were almost anything else, Geralt might blink at the savagery they were employing to kill it, but it was like this thing was…designed to be cut apart.

The Tormentor squirmed rather like a salamander -a giant, spiky, dangerous salamander- after being so thoroughly dismantled. It swiped and grabbed at the illusory copies of itself on either side of it with the two skinny arms it had left. The display would have been pathetic if the necromorph was any less dangerous. It still attempted to fight viciously, and with its copies even weaker than it had been when they were made, they couldn't last very long. But they served their purpose in keeping its claws away from its front, where Blazermade and the Ace Cadet were determined to put it down for good. With the kritzkrieg bestowed on him making his weapon deal even more damage, Ace drilled as many holes into the monster's head as it took until it gave up the ghost. He stopped firing only when its face slammed against the ground and it lay unmoving, bleeding from its bullet wounds and amputation points, and finally its body slowly began to dissolve.

Around the arena there was still the subtle sizzle of the explosive cysts on the walls, but otherwise all seemed quiet. The poisonous gas had been draining away since Blazermate had dealt with the last wheezer, and the way forward must have opened up for the Seekers somewhere in the darkened area.

It didn't take long for Ace to break the silence.

"Man, that thing ate a ton of ammo," he said light heartedly, taking the magazine out of his gun to unload the piercing rounds. Maybe things would have gone a little faster if he'd used his long sword, but he hadn't wanted to take the chance that he or Geralt would trip each other up in the melee. Yeah the Tormentor had been big, but not so enormous that running into each other would have been impossible. That, and it was always refreshing to swap weapons.

The hunter grinned at Geralt and Blazermate. All three of them were completely filthy, and at least two of them probably still needed some additional patching up, but they were also alive and well. Things couldn't really have gone much better, all things considered. "Gargwawesome job, team."

”Uh, give me a bit and I can have the engineer make a dispenser for you to replenish your ammo.” Blazermate said, trying to brush off all the gore that had accumulated from this fight off of her, the faint sound of metal scraping metal being heard.

Ace waved his hand in front of him a few times in a dismissive motion. "Don't worry about it, I can make more later." Especially since all these spiky bone bits that had been broken off the necromorph could probably make a decent catalyst for his alchemy barrel.

Much like Blazermate, Geralt was wiping some of the blood and gore that had built up on him, sighing. “Wasn’t too bad, all things considered. Getting eaten wasn’t exactly part of the plan, but I’ve had hunts go worse.” At least he didn’t get his throat gouged out this time.

Then, the air shifted. It was delayed as if making sure that the Tormentor really was defeated, but similar to what each of them had experienced in a floor below a darkness swept in and a choice of rewards was offered.




For the Cadet, the choice was a simple one. He was still kind of kicking himself for not choosing a different card last time, but he really thought he would have been able to speak with Aphrodite. Now that he knew she'd probably talk right over him again he would be avoiding her boon, as useful as it might be. "Super Break" intrigued him - if it would make it easier to shatter a monster's shell or horns he definitely wanted that... plus it would probably be more useful more often than the last card. After all, breaking and severing limbs had helped a lot in the battle they'd just fought!

He wasn't expecting to get another vision when he touched the Tide of Devastation card, so genuine surprise hit as another being took shape before his eyes. Coincidentally this person was equally as topless as Aphrodite had been, but they did not speak - and their presence inspired a much darker feeling compared to the goddess. The sound of steel being drawn and pieces of something being scattered into a smoldering fire accompanied the vision, but it lasted all of a few seconds before it vanished, leaving the Cadet back in the darkened hollow with his allies once more.

Blazermate took a look at her cards. While they were kinda good, there was one that struck her as odd. “2 extra strikers with no downsides.” That was really odd, how did this tree know about the mechanics of the world itself? This would have to be made for this world, as she was pretty sure this wasn’t like whatever world it came from. And as such she chose that. Plus it could help her get a bit more offense.

Geralt looked over each of the cards intently. Each was extremely useful, actually. The first would work with him having a few sources of lightning attacks, between the effect on shield break, as well as the Orphan’s scream, though something about the figure on the card rankled him. The second would keep him going longer in dangerous fights, especially because he was loathe to continue to rely on whatever effect kept bringing him back from the brink of death. The final card would make his potions gain an effect like Thunderbolt, though having to rely on emptying out all of his potions, then finding a dozen enemies to kill to get them all back was a steep price to pay, even if the benefit was similarly great. If he went with that option, best not to even bother trying to utilize that aspect of it, frankly.

Thinking it over, he chose the second option, as the automatic self-healing would suit his style best. He didn’t necessarily want to focus too heavily on any type of attack, and the many sources of healing and the rarity of using Cat meant that his potions were not terribly often used. Twelve seconds was also simply such a short duration for the boost to his attacks that he couldn’t quite justify it, even if doing so might have brought him to use his potions more. As he touched the card, however, a vision of a man appeared before him. Unbeknownst to either of the monster hunters, it was the same man that appeared to Ace, his chest open and leaking sand like blood from the “wound”.

”So with these rewards all done… I guess we gotta go up again. More blood veins, yay…” Blazermate said, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she stabbed open a blood vein using her ubersaw and gestured for the boys to go in first.

After scooping up some of the larger bone shards and entrusting the spirit of the Tormentor (and the Wheezers if they were so inclined) to the other two, Ace was the first in. Though he couldn't help but try and cheer his battle buddies up before they possibly got separated in the bloodstream.

"Well we knew we'd have to take another one up e-vein-tually. But c'mon, we've got a good win streak going - let's keep up the flow!" he said with a grin before squeezing into the xylem vessel.

Making sure to snag the Tormentor’s Spirit, Geralt followed after the pair. They could go over what to do with it later, but not even Geralt was willing to fuse with that thing.

Jr added to Sandalphon’s healing with a cast of ”Medica!” after the laser barrage to top them up even more, although between attacking and healing with magic, he was now running low on mana again.

Rika meanwhile agreed that ”She is super annoying” in something close to a growl, before bullet jumping and dashing towards the foe with the intent to get her to ”shut up!” by way of raising her Grizzco blaster up and unloading a stream of rapid-fire flak cannon shots that burst into showers of explosive goop, all aimed specifically at Lilith’s face.

”Try and talk with a mouthful of slime you peon!”

Roland joined in with the ‘silencing’ of Lilith by throwing his ink spirit at her again, granted at this point it only did damage thanks to Lilith’s raid boss resistances to debuffs like Silence. The screeching ghost did make her words fairly intelligible though. He then moved behind Sandalphon to break line of sight from Lilith and as she focused on the koopa kids, Roland moved around the battlefield to get behind Lilith and attack her with his swords.

“Gah!” Momentarily blinded by Roland’s ink spectre, Lilith fell prey to the volatile fusillade from Rika, pounded again and again by the non-stop bombardment until all the slime went off in one giant blast. “AAAGH!” As the smoke cleared it revealed Lilith bruised, seared, and very pissed off, too mad to do much more than send flecks of spittle flying in all directions. When she felt the bite of Roland’s blades, though, the demon seemed to regain her senses. She fended him off with a quick, solid kick -her first physical attack so far- then crossed her arms over her head. “Okay, change of plans. I wanna hear you suckers sizzle!” A moment later the dark magic around her detonated in a spurt of flame, and from her hands a column of sparks streamed upward. Three more orbs appeared over each Seeker, fiery this time instead of tenebrous, and after a brief delay they plummeted down, one after another. “Burn to death!”

Sandalphon paused her fire support for a moment as Lilith switched modes, then gave an affirmative nod as tongues of flame surrounded her. “She’s now vulnerable to water. If only I actually wielded water-aligned miracles.” Her healing skills couldn’t take advantage of her elemental advantage, and with its purpose being crowd control rather than damage, even her Frost Lock wouldn’t be much use. Instead she began to move as the new Candy Shower took form, skirting around the edge of the arena so that the napalm puddles would trouble the team as little as possible. Toward the end of her strafing run she spotted a blue tile she made earlier and headed that way. Her side had made good progress, but only by taking advantage of every little opportunity would the Seekers get through this.

”We can do water” Jr said as he put paintbrush to the ground and proceeded to sail after Sandalphon, painting a path as he went, with Rika riding along on his coattails. Step one of that was plucking a pokeball from his bandolier and chucking it behind him with a call of ”Sis, catch!”

It wasn’t the pokeball she was meant to catch however, but instead the mon inside: Dazzle the Brionne

”Bubblebeam her!” Jr then instructed the pair, prompting Rika to pivot as they sailed, holding the sealion pokemon in one hand almost like a pistol, and for the mon in question to then shoot forth a high pressure beam of water surrounded by cutsier bubbles from his mouth at their target.

The prince himself then set about preparing the other half of their attack strategy, namely by rummaging around in his duffle bag in search of a specific cassette tape.

Elemental attacks weren’t something Roland had, not really. All he could do was make himself into a nuisance by keeping up his melee assault on Lilith, countering her retaliatory melee strike. Although going into a fire phase gave Roland some flashbacks to a certain fire EGO user he had to fight, and he really didn’t feel like burning today. As she summoned fireballs over everyone, Roland pulled out his hammer and managed to knock 2 out of 3 of the fireballs away with it, meaning there was still a napalm puddle near Lilith, but that just meant Roland had to come from a different angle. He’d also have to step out of the way of the water attacks coming from the koopa kids, but that wasn’t too difficult as keeping Lilith distracted with his own weapon attacks was more beneficial to the fight, as Roland hit her with a couple combos from his daggers, mace, and one with his sword. Low damaging attacks, but then the point was to help the others hit their water attacks.

If the sizzling sound was anything to go by, Dazzle’s Bubblebeam was doing good work, and even if they didn’t get any bonus damage Roland’s own efforts helped. Since Candy Shower wasn’t that dangerous, though, they wouldn’t have much of a chance to pile on damage afterward. For the most part the team had managed to space the fire patches out, but they would have to be extra careful either way given what came next. Sandalphon watched at rapt attention as Lilith summoned three staves that floated in the air through magical means. At her direction, one of them flew forward toward Junior and Rika, laid out and spinning horizontally like an enormous boomerang. As it began to slow down the next one began to whirl toward Roland. They weren’t too difficult to avoid–deceptively easy, in fact, given what Sandalphon remembered about this little trick.

As Junior and Rika sailed away from the first staff, the archangel jogged toward it. She tried to call out the answer, but after all her shouting, all she could manage was a hoarse croak. Instead she pinged the first staff with her powers as its spin petered out, indicating that the others should go there. Once she reached that spot herself, Sandalphon looked over toward the second staff to ping it as well, just as a cyclone of flame consumed the entire arena except for a small circular area around the first staff.

”Ohhhh- that’s a tricky, uh, trick” Jr commented with a hint of respect for the dragon’s ploy, the kids having headed back to the staff spot following the ping with confused looks on their faces after easily avoiding the attack via jumping over it, but now getting the deal after the explosion went off.

”Just annoying” was Rika’s much more derisive comment on the deal, before she blinked in confusion at being handed Jr’s paintbrush.

”Found the tape, now onto the next” Jr said, prompting rika to nod and press paintbrush to ground and lead the way for them to sail over to the next staff, while Jr focused on putting on a pair of headphones plugged into a tape player. Into said player went the cassette he’d found that had Undye written on it, and as they arrived at the next stop he hit play and promptly transformed into the ritual fish monster knight

”Yeahhhhh, now we’re talking! Let’s bring the rain!” the prince bellowed in the bombastic woman’s voice, before of all things thrusting her hand out into the fiery blast that erupted around the second safe zone. Rather than suffer greatly for this however, the fish woman came alive with a burning passion that was then channeled into a torrent of watery spears that erupted beneath Lilith, tips forming harmlessly on the ground before shooting up in a peppering watery barrage.

Rika, naturally, joined in, bringing up the sea-lion beam cannon and having him shoot another watery blast at the foe, while she herself deployed an electro swarm from her gauntlet hangers to try and combo with all the water damage they were blasting their foe with.

This whole “dance” thing was getting kinda old. But he knew he had to follow it and as such, once Sandalphon started to rush for the first swirling staff, Roland ran his way over there as well as she seemed to know exactly what to do. Same with the second and third. As he did the dance, he saw Jr. turn into a different creature. ”Oh, you have EGO too?” Roland said, although what Jr. did was a bit different, since his whole body changed. It didn’t look like he distorted either, since this was something on command. That’d be something for after this fight. Being unable to get into melee range until this staff attack was over, Roland fired his gun at Lilith.

Already aggravated that Sandalphon was guiding her teammates on how to deal with her various spells, Lilith had hoped that special spell would finally spell her enemies’ ends, but it was not to be. When the wall of flames from the final blast died down, the demon was greeted not by the sight of her challengers’ charred corpses, but by a torrent of water spears, pistol rounds, and shotgun shells. Even Sandalphon joined in as she made for a cerulean tile to shoot from, lobbing a Frost Lock at Lilith as she ran. To some the usage of ice against a fire-type foe might seem suspect, but Sandalphon knew better than most that in her world, ice counted as water. The frigid cluster burst against Lilith in a cloud of diamond dust that riddled her pale skin with goosebumps, but it would take another to freeze her. Twelve second to go.

The Frost Lock also got Lilith’s attention. She wanted everyone dead very badly, but nobody more so than the angel. Thanks to her, this was going poorly, and as much as she hated to admit it, targeted attack wasn’t her forte. In order to win, the demon would need to turn Sandalphon’s prior knowledge against her. “Ugh!” she spat, whipping up vivid red flames. A devilish look appeared on her face as she summoned three more staves for another round of Sugary Spinners. ”I’m gonna wipe you out!”

She threw the first one not at one of the Seekers, but at the arena’s 2 o’clock position. The second she threw toward six o’clock, and the third to ten o’clock. As soon as she realized what was happening, Sandalphon’s eyes widened, her pupils turned to stress marks. Given how fast the fireblasts went off in succession, the sequential safe zones were impossibly far apart. “That’s not…”

”Heehee! Let’s see you weasel outta this one, Sandy!”

By that point, though, Sandalphon’s pupils had turned to spinning gears. As the first staff began to slow down, she took off toward the second staff, doing calculations in her head. Then she dropped three pings, two on the first staff, and one not near any staff, but exactly halfway between the first and third. If Lilith was going to cheat, so would Sandalphon. But she couldn’t do this alone; the others needed to trust her, even though it looked like she was sending one of them to their death. This was it: the final test, and this one was for all the marbles.

”Are we really gonna try and run through that or… what?” Jr began to ask, not quite getting the pings' intent and assuming they were intending to run from staff 1 to three. Rika however, got the gist of the plan, calling to her brother to ”Catch” before she tossed him Dazzle and then proceeded to legged it for the third ping, out in the middle of the death zone, ping.

Like a good soldier following orders.

She did not do so entirely blindly however, nor without preparation. As she ran she pulled a leed from a cassette player strapped to her rigging to a port on her helmet and then pressed play on it, transforming herself into the Beast giving herself a hefty health buffer, plus plenty of legs for running wherever she needed to be next.

Just then, Sandalphon reached the second staff, right as it planted itself in the floor. With no time to hesitate, the archangel seized the demonic polearm, then used her teleportation miracle to warp to Rika -now halfway between the other two staves- with the staff in hand. The two had only a moment to share a knowing glance as Sandalphon’s plan dawned on the abyssal soldier-turned-centipede; this was a desperate gambit, and neither would emerge unscathed, but it was the team’s only option.

Sandalphon closed her eyes, braced for impact, and began to cast Angelic Wings just as the first eruption went off. Junior and Roland were safely sequestered in the first safe zone, but Sandalphon and Rika disappeared in the hellish inferno. When the intense but short-lived firestorm faded, however, both remained, charred and smoking but alive. Maybe they just barely survived the blast and then healed back up, or maybe they’d been blown past the brink and restored before their bodies knew they died, but either way, there they were. Junior and Roland just needed to run to the second staff for the second blast, then help the two to the third, and the Seekers were home free.

”Wait, we can just move them?!” Jr cried out in amazement at this bit of lateral thinking, even as he jogged forwards to the second staff. Roland was just as surprised, but more exasperated, only letting out a sigh and saying ”Of course now she tells us.” in a mumble as he moved with Jr. While the explosion went off he moved Undayne’s spear to his mouth to free up his hand, grabbed Sandalphon in the now free hand and hauled her over his shoulder. If they’d had to haul Rika in Beast form as well, that would have been a problem, but fortunately the said form was an absolute pile of vitality and so as soon as it was time to run for staff three, she was able to do so on her own two-dozen feet alongside her person and pokemon hauling brother.

The sight of her enemies alive and well after her Sugary Spinners left Lilith agape. ”How? HOW!? You must have cheated! You’re supposed to be DEAD! Dead, dead-!”

Even on the ground, Sandalphon could calculate a standard trajectory without issue. Her Frost Lock struck Lilith in the middle of her furious rant, and in an instant the demon was frozen solid. A laser pointer appeared in the archangel’s hand, and she took aim to call in a Headquarter Support Request. A cluster bomb descended and shattered Lilith in a withering chain explosion, leaving her defense, elemental, and status resistance crippled for the next twenty seconds. “Dispense…justice.” With that Sandalphon slumped down, too exhausted to move. The rest was in her allies’ hands.

Rika responded first by charging in to add to the debuffs, her Beast form ramming horns first into Lilith and delivering a melee defence lowering Mountain Smash strike. SHe then pulled back a bit, using sharpen to raise her own melee attack, and then finally delivering a flurry of bites to one of the dragon’s legs, restoring her own hp in the process for half the damage dealt.

Jr, still in the form of Undyne and still carrying both Sandaphon and Dazzle around initially looked to have a bit of an issue engaging, at least until Dazzle wiggled free and used Twisting Dive to launch himself at Lilith, a wave of water carrying him forwards to crash into the dragon. Then he flopped his way onto Rika’s centipede back for transportation, using it as a firing platform to shoot more bubble beams and leaving Jr free to get into the fight.

The prince grabbed undyne’s spear from his mouth, rushed forwards, skirted around the chomping Rika to get his own angle of attack, before he thrust the spear upwards to launch an Undertow strike, creating a massive spear of water beneath Lilith that then after a notable delay that a more evasive foe could have taken advantage of, lanced up into her. The kept the spear aloft to Raised Arms and buff his melee attack, before delivering swift double slices to the foe, joining in on Rika’s melee pummeling.

Roland joined in on the melee attacks, having most of his weapons being melee. A few seconds gave him quite a bit of time to stack up enough weapons for a Furioso and recharge some of his EGO. And with how free these hits were, he could use Nether Blade on many of the heavier hitter attacks like his massive sword or swordplay, and get some free damage in with his phantom that Lilith couldn’t shake off in time. He could also prepare an Ink Swell, but he doubted she’d be stunned by such an attack.

With Lilith frozen for an extra few seconds due to Sandalphon’s new blessing from Demeter, the team had every advantage when it came to piling on the punishment. Though the demon pitched a desperate attempt to fight back once she thawed out, the damage to her mental state had already been done. The Seekers had downloaded her attack patterns and eroded her defensive buffs, so Lilith knew better than anyone that her defeat was only a matter of time. She belted out boulders of molten sugar, beams of concentrated flame, and enough foul language to make a sailor blush, but it all came to naught. By the end of Roland’s onslaught she was on her last legs, and as Sandalphon watched, the detonation of the Fixer’s Ink Swell dealt the final blow.

”Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh, damn it! Damn you!” Though she’d spent the whole fight levitating smugly, Lilith now lay in the ground, her white scales scarred and her crimson horns broken. Blood trickled across her lips as she scowled at her hated foe who she’d gotten so tantalizingly close to death. ”Sandy…you know…they’ll never love you. I’ll be back…and when I am…I’ll take…everything…!”

The archangel said nothing. Though still exhausted, she’d mustered the energy to prop herself up in a Healing Circle generated by her gunstaff, but she had no more energy to offer Lilith. Maybe some small part of her would be happy to kill Lilith, but she did not want to indulge that part of herself. She simply stared, her pupils in the shape of skulls, until the demon crumbled away and a book was left behind.






Rika had to examine the fine print of the H3AD-5T v2, but once she did, and found the willing activation needed to cause the explosion and always on fall damage negation features it became rather a no brainer. No more worrying about how to get down after she’d launched herself up was worth it on its own in her opinion.

Jr meanwhile once again got faced with a choice between what he was meant to be focusing on in fights, but, given the one they’d just been in, it was very hard to argue with the Stygian Turtle Shell’s life saving capabilities, and so he ended up going with that. Plus, you know, the time pictured was rather on brand.

Neither received a vision as a result of their boon acquisitions.

When presented with possible rewards, Sandalphon chose quickly. One option only applied if she made a mistake, and even then the benefit was not reliable. Weaponizing her healing skills could muddle her role and endanger the whole team if the incidental ice damage diverted her foes; enmity away from the frontliners. Perfect Experience, however, would make any application of Freeze much more dangerous, even without allies at her side to take advantage, and it wouldn’t interfere with her support abilities. She picked Perfect Experience, and for a moment beheld a vision of a frozen emperor, as resplendent as a perfectly preserved memory. Then it faded, and Sandalphon looked over at the others. “Well done, everyone. Are any of you injured? If so, please allow me to tend to your wounds.”

Roland looked at his rewards, and while one power said what he felt, from the looks of them, there were only two choices. And knowing how his fights tended to go, anything that’d help him get going could be a great help. So he chose Sentinel Satellite. He was debating Connected Minds, but from what he knew a lot of his allies used magic or non weapon based attacks so he doubted how often such a thing would happen. Much like when he gained an abnormality page, a bit of a flash of something entered his mind, but he was extremely desensitized to such things at this point so it didn’t leave much of an impression. Roland went over to grab the Book of Lilith before he made his way over to Sandalphon, having taken a lot of damage during the fight even with his deflections. ”Yeah I could use some. It's better than going into another fight bloody. Although with how we’ll need to get up, I think the ‘bloody’ part will still happen in a different way.”

“Understood.” Sandalphon took another brief moment to breathe, but for her ally’s sake she pushed through her own fatigue. Her body rattled under the duress of taking lethal punishment several times over, sustained only through repeated restoration. By using up her last store of Rapid Analysis, Sandalphon managed to work one more miracle in the form of Angelic Praise. Once finished, she planted the butt of her gunstaff once more and used it to prop herself up.

”Oh, and if this girl’s death got to you, you could use the words I go by. ‘That's that and this is this.’ We still have to move forward and finish the job.” Roland said, giving Sandalphon the words he gives himself. Sitting down to wait for when they’d move on to take a bit of a rest, he continued. ”Not the first crazy woman I’ve had to take out. At least this one didn’t try making spaghetti out of people’s blood vessels…” Roland said.

The Fixer’s words turned Sandalphon’s pupils into question marks, then dashes. “I care nothing for that beast’s demise. I am only grateful that this world will see a little less suffering, for a time.” Her eyes drifted to the book left behind by Lilith. “That should be destroyed immediately. A demon’s corruptive influence cannot be tolerated.” Roland was right that the team needed to move on, though. Despite her current state, the archangel knew that the Seekers only had a couple dedicated healers overall, and any teams that went without would need her help as soon as possible. She quickly pinpointed the location of another Qliphoth vein and wordlessly marked it with a screen.

By virtue of having not been putting their own actual bodies on the line for the latter part of the fight, not to mention their supernatural durability and own source of healing, Rika and Jr were in better shape than the other two after the fight. The same could not be said for the prince’s flying machine, which had been reduced to even more of a wreck since it had been abandoned.

”Urrrgh, stupid hammer stealing hat kid” Jr complained (regarding the loss of a mallet that he’d once used to rapidly repair devices that had since been stolen by a hat wearing kid) giving the machine a kick that caused it to crumple even more.

”Guess we’ll just send it back? Tora can have another go at it” Rika suggested, which got a little laugh out of Jr as he thought about how mad the guy’d be that all his hard work had been undone in less than an hour.

A few hand gestures later and the circle was charging up, preparing to send the clown car back to the armory, while the little royals headed over to the others, back in their actual shapes once more and with Dazzle stored away in his pokeball.

”Over there then?” Jr said as his eyes followed the ping Sandalphon had made, before adding that ”Those are real handy huh, and you’re pretty good with them too,” in an off handed compliment.

”Staff trick was smart too. That lady really was a big cheating sh-” Rika stopped herself with an annoyed grunt, taking the whole risk of corruption trick rather literally, and went for ”jerk huh?” instead.

Sandalphon’s pupils turned from targeting reticles back to normal as Rika amended her word choice. “Thank you. I am pleased to have been of use.” With nothing else to say, the team proceeded toward the exit.

In between the monster's ambushes, the alien hollow was unnervingly quiet. There was the occasional ambiance of foliage shifting, copper golems clomping through brush, and the repaired generators chugging, but otherwise there were hardly any other sounds at all. It was clear that besides the Seekers, and the Dredge, there were no other living beings around. If one could even call that thing alive in the first place.

After separating from the others, beast-Therion slunk through the jungle-like area and took note of any of the machines he passed. Even through the trees it was easy enough to see the gate they were trying to power up, so there was no real concern about getting lost. So long as he didn't need to bail anyone out again, he was fairly confident that he could avoid the monster playing hide and seek with them. So far so good, he thought, as he slowly circled his way back around to where Juri had been when she fixed one of the generators. After making sure the coast was clear he padded over to the machine so that he could get a closer look at what an operational one should look like. His feline eyes flickered over the bulbs, the wires, and various other doodads. Assuming that all of the generators were more or less the same, if Therion just copied Juri's work then he wouldn't have any problems fixing a couple on his own.

Therion's ears twitched and he felt his hackles begin to rise. Trusting his instincts he leapt back into the underbrush, concealed enough that when the mutilated mess of a monster drifted by a moment later it didn't spot him.

The Dredge hovered by the generator, slowly turning its head to search for any signs of its prey. Then, it raised its knotted appendage high before slamming it down onto the machine. The generator sparked and smoked as its lights powered down, making Therion narrow his eyes. Maybe it had been too much to hope for that this thing was some kind of mindless killer. Clearly it knew what they were trying to do and was going to deny their escape however it could.

Therion waited until the Dredge had moved on in its search, then waited a little longer, before he emerged once more. He shifted back into his human form, kneeling in front of the generator. Since he'd just seen how it should look, fixing it from this state had to be possible. Otherwise the monster would have just broken them all beyond repair before they'd even got here. Carefully he reattached wires where they'd been pulled from, shifted plugs into their correct places, and hit the plunger that would start the thing back up. There was a drawn out moment where nothing seemed to happen, and Therion's tail flicked back and forth in agitation.

"Come on," he hissed at the generator, smacking the side of it. It came to life then, rumbling as its lights all blinked on.

After confirming it would stay on (unless the Dredge turned back around to sabotage it again), Therion left it to head to one of the other non-functional ones he'd spotted in order to get them working again as well. It had been a little while since he'd heard any cries for help, so he could only assume that the others were avoiding the thing on another side of the hollow.

Edward for one was indeed out there somewhere, as was Juri, the pair making for a rather effective team despite all the thornyness involved in their cooperation. Stress left the already brittle working relationship full of fractures, but with their unkillable foe lurking out there they more or less had to trust the other to watch their back.

Especially when it was left turned and exposed while focused on fixing a generator as Edward was now. With various tools, from pliers to move wires without risk of shock to a soldering iron to more securely fix them back in place, the job was certainly quicker, but it still left ample time for the killer to come across him, and the increase in heart rate its mere presence caused was too late a warning sign.

It was a good thing then, that he had a look out, no matter how abrasive she was.

Juri silently scuttled back and forth across the floor of the ‘house’ they were in, though it was mostly just a selection of half-broken walls at this point. She was on a patrol, moving from window to window to check all the angles. Even the little red wooden locker a short distance away from the house. Besides making a few quiet noises that implied annoyance at how long Edward was taking, she was keeping her voice down.

The man was certainly making enough noise for both of them, clinking and clanking away, till all of a sudden there was a rumble as the generator flared to life, its flickering lights stabilizing and flooding the room. Unlike the times before, however, this wasn’t the only place that the lights came on as, through the ‘eyes’ of his cannon still parked by the gate, Edward saw that the gatehouse own had also stabilized, which to him indicated that ”I think that's enough power to open the gates”

As if to confirm this, only a short while later, the cannon’s existence came to an end, informing Edward that ”It seems our ‘friend’ agrees with my assessment, and will be rolling out the welcome wagon, which is… inconvenient”

”Gee wiz, talk slower. So the monster will be waiting for us. Big whoop, he can’t stop us.” Juri said. ”Let’s go already.” She dropped any pretense of stealth and began sprinting to where she remembered the gate was, coming short to survey the situation.

Edward followed her there in an even less stealthy approach given the flames wrapping around him as he ran, but as Juri had expected, stealth really did not matter right now. The Dredge knew exactly where they needed to go, and had brazenly parked itself exactly there: namely right in front of the switch they needed to pull to open up the exit to its hunting ground.

Even the man’s flaming arrival did not prompt it to break off and come on at them, leaving mortals and monster staring rather awkwardly at each other before the former ducked into cover to try and work out what in the world to do about this.

Juri stood out in the open, hands on her hips. ”There’s medkits and toolboxes all over for this stupid game. There’s probably somethin’ we could find to get it to budge.” Juri said, moving her hands to behind her head. ”Stupid ugly freakshow thinks he’s real smart. I could just pull the damn lever anyway, I don’t care.”

”Only other thing I have found is this” Edward replied, retrieving the flashlight he’d found and then stored in the toolbox, and offering it to her, while saying ”which I am unsure how much help it would be. So far all that has managed to inconvenience it is it blinding itself after all”

Juri took it and looked it over. It felt useful, even if it was just a normal flashlight.

"Go pull it then so we can get out of here," came a familiar voice following Juri's comment. Therion poked his head out from some nearby plants suddenly afterward, having seen the gate's power activate and coming to the same conclusion as Juri and Edward. He then looked from the former to the later, noting the other man's words. "So at least one thing works against it. We can throw off its senses while someone hits the switch."

Unfortunately while he was off on his own the only thing of note he'd been able to find was a brass key. Intriguing but unhelpful at the moment.

”I blinded it by reflecting a curse that it tried to cast on me when I healed myself nearby it, and unfortunately I think it will be smart enough to not repeat the incident” Edward informed him, getting over the important detail of said curse’s existence in the process.

Therion narrowed his eyes at the Dreadnought. He should have said that when he mentioned the blinding in the first place. "Unless you two have any other ideas, it still might be our best shot."

”She was already aware” Edward replied to the expression of irritation, now two for two on annoying people with how he delivered this information, though in this case he did not consider this his fault. Juri chuckled.

”As for ideas, given it seems content to wait us out, I could always put that time to use to make some more expendable bodies to throw at the problem” he suggested, gesturing to the conveniently timed arrival of one of the only remaining copper golem squads to their impromptu meeting.

”So you just pull these guys outta thin air, or what? Break your toys if you want, it’d be funny to give this creep the runaround.” Juri said, letting the flashlight hang from her palm.

”A touch more complex than that I assure you, but practically speaking” Edward replied, before initiating what was, ultimately, a mildly time consuming process of charging back up his mana fuel cells and then reforging his army. Given he was entirely committed to making copper golems, that resulted in them having twelve whole squads at their disposal. Thus, when they commanded operations, seventy two golems came marching out of the treeline, spears down, metal hearts hardened with unwavering will to fulfill their directive.

All the while the Dredge stared unnervingly, standing guard over the switch. It had all the time in the world to prevent its prey from getting out of there after all, while they would have to go for the exit sooner or later. The monster seemed intent on catching and presumably slaughtering all four of the intruders into its domain.

”Seventy two. That’s hilarious. Go forth!” She pointed to the dredge, commanding the robots onward with her own authority.

Whether it be through good timing or Edward unintentionally responding to the command, the legions did indeed match forward at her order, copper feet stepping in perfect rhythm as they did so. As they moved, Edward cautiously advanced after them, the way his wings were slightly spread out in preparation to retreat the only sign that the steely gazed man was not quite as unwavering as his creations.

For his part Therion was more than content to let the copper constructs get torn in pieces in place of them, and he waited, crouched with his tail swishing, for a better moment to move.

The golems closed in, threatening to form a wall of animated metal around the Dredge. Spears were angled forwards not to try and stab it, for that would be pointless, but to try and sneak past the foe and flick the switch. The only question the was this: how close would it let them get before reacting?

The answer was not that close. As they'd already established, Dredge was not a mindless monster. A calculating killer laid, somewhere, beneath its sagging flesh. It slowly looked between the first line, its head twitching, before it raised its hooked limb and moved in swiftly to destroy the first of many.

As the golems made to slip around it, blackness descended on the area. Suddenly it was as if night had fallen, making it hard for the Seekers and the golems to see more than a dozen feet in front of them. No such issue was present for the Dredge, and in darkness it began tearing into the small army, intent not to let any close to their only means of escape.

What Juri lacked in vision, the Dredge more than made up for in racket. She dropped down from above and blasted the things face with light. Their intuition paid off and the Dredge reeled back, now even more blind than its attempted curse. ”Kyahaha! Sucker!” She jeered as the copper army now easily overwhelmed the beast and reached the lever. There was a shower of sparks and the gate lifted. Juri sprinted over and slid underneath it as it was lifting.

That was also the cue Therion was looking for. Without any fanfare he went along the outside edge of the golem pack and moved towards the exit. The Dredge was still taking golems apart piece by piece but driven almost to frenzy by the fact it couldn't see and thus its prey were probably mid-escape the monstrosity turned and lashed out with a wide slice in the direction of the opening. It was easier to dodge than its regular swings; the thief skated beneath the swipe and crossed the threshold a moment after.

”Why in the worlds did that-” Edward began to ask, questioning the logic of why the device had managed to harm the Dredge when nothing else had, but it really was ”No matter” at that moment. With his many many copper eyes the man had been far less impacted by the darkness than the others, and so was more than able to make a beeline for the exit. With a flap of his wings he rose up over his remaining creation’s ranks, using one of their heads as a stepping stone to get the height he needed and then swooped towards the exit as the remaining troops moved to bodyblock the binded horror while they got away.

As soon as its sight was back, the Dredge ceased its destruction and looked at the open gate. There it could clearly see the Seekers behind it, but strangely enough it did not give chase. It stared after them with an eerie blank look on its mangled face. A few moments later the gate's power shorted out again and the door began to close itself up once more.

”Yeah, see! Chump! Coward!” Juri jeered as the door began to close. ”Know you’d get your ass kicked if you faced me out here! Haha!”

That fact raised one sudden question from Edward, who began to ask ”Wait a moment- did anyone ever see-” only for the man in question to suddenly silently step into view, taking everyone by surprise, including the Dredge itself. The hunter got its first and only view of the master infiltrator who had been repairing generators right under its nose for a mere moment, and then the gate was fully shut and they were left out in the small room found beyond it.

He gave them a curt nod, before turning, gesturing for them to follow and striding towards one of the vines in the wall, slashing it with a knife and entering the bloodstream.

”Tch,” Juri said, kicking the ground and approaching the open bloodstream. ”We should carpet bomb this place after we’re done.”

"No objections here," Therion said, though with only a vague idea of what she really meant by it he understood it was something destructive. He glanced at the mercenary who'd quietly joined them, briefly thinking he's good before continuing forward.

When they were well and truly away from Dredge, and only a short distance away from the Qliphoth's veins they'd have to take to ascend, the world darkened once more. This time it was a much more complete darkness, one that offered a choice of rewards for the victorious Seekers.



It was a somewhat selfish selection, but in the end Edward decided that he could only be of value if he were alive, and the goddess Hestia quite clearly wanted to keep him that way, though very much in her own way. “You’ll find it easier to see what your foes are doing when they're lit up, eh? Now keep on climbing so you can burn this place down already”





Therion's choice was fairly quick. Although getting some free money every fight was amusingly tempting, as always if he wanted something he only had to take it. And while becoming invisible was also a tempting choice, one that could definitely be useful in battle, there could really only be one choice. The middle card was almost tailor made for him, so he didn't hesitate to take it. When he did the same creature he'd had a vision of in the last hollow appeared to him again. It loomed large, and the sounds it produced were even louder, but ultimately like before nothing else happened.

Therion touched a hand to his forehead as the world came back into view. "More of the same..." It seemed the others were finished picking as well. The thief nodded towards the huge blood vessel in front of them.

Juri made her choice as well and looked to the others. To prove some kind of point, she got out her big chainsaw weapon and cleaved a huge hole in the wall, revealing another bloodstream. ”I can make an exit anywhere I damn well please with this puppy. Catch ya later, losers!” She exclaimed cheerfully, and dove into the bloodstream. With her new chainsaw weapon she was confident in her safety and her ability to literally carve out her own path in this fleshy tree gauntlet.

Edward merely signed at this continued irreverence, while being quietly relieved she had not followed up on her promise to (attempt to) ‘kick his ass later’ now that they were free of the Dredge’s domain. Then he drew his machete, gave a small flick of a salute and a farewell of ”I’ll see you on the other side” before hacking his way into the vain and diving in.

Therion rolled his eyes as they left. What a group. And they were all going the same way so what was with the theatrics? He followed after them by just simply slipping into one of the openings they'd made, and shortly after him the mercenary followed, though where the blood stream would take them after this they wouldn't know until they got there.

Though pleased with herself for yet another great idea at first, Nadia quickly found her commitment to the bit wearing thin when her scheme to get clean did not work as well as she hoped. After all, the copycats created by her Oceanid striker weren’t technically water, but pure Hydro elemental energy. They couldn’t wash her so much as repeatedly smack her to inflict the Wet status, which gradually washed the xylem off but left her soaked instead. Given the humidity in here, the poor feral wasn’t going to dry off anytime soon, either. With a deep sigh she set off across the blood-red bog to scale the terraced falls and face the aperture in the Qliphoth’s trunk, where she shivered beneath the bluster of frigid high-altitude winds.

While up there, Nadia looked around to see how the others were doing. Now by herself, Emily had spurned the site of golden grace in favor of a softly shining bone-white plant she spotted near some of the other strange plants. It didn’t look like anything special to the catgirl, but its serene glow seemed to offer Emily some sort of comfort, so she was grateful. There was no telling how many more survivors like her might be trapped in here, and Nadia knew she couldn’t save everyone, but as long as she could rescue one person, maybe there was some hope for her as a heroine after all.

It took her longer to figure out what Midna was doing, but eventually Nadia realized that Midna must be using her weird powers to fish in the crimson mire. Calling any of the verminous critters she pulled from the muck ‘fish’ was something of a stretch, but if it helped the Twilight Princess de-stress, the feral was all for it. Too many back-to-back battles would take a toll on even the most energetic Seekers. And who knew how many more dangers still lay between them and their goal?

Naturally, Midna ran into trouble, and a skirmish erupted at the shoreline when some monsters popped up from below. Nadia stood up to get a better look, wondering if she’d need to help, but she could see only a couple critters and not a whole horde. Midna and her summons quickly wiped them out with a localized lightning storm and a little dark magic. Though intense in the moment, the scuffle was small compared to the Qliphoth hollow, so it didn’t end up concerning anyone else, and Nadia turned her attention elsewhere.

Finally, after what seemed like ages, more Seekers began to arrive. Roxas, Zenkichi, Primrose, and Grimm bubbled up from an unseen vein beneath the swamp’s surface. “Heya!” Nadia called, her distant voice echoing across the hollow as she waved. She pushed off the terrace where she’d taken a seat by the opening, landed, and began to jog over. Not wanting to disturb any lurking horrors like Midna had, she skirted around each pool of murky, ruddy xylem until she’d reached the newcomers. While all of them received her cheerful smile, only Primrose got a hug. They were a mess, but they were alive. “Ya made it! You guys alright?” She quickly let go, then jabbed a finger over her shoulder. “I was just lookin’ out the window there. Couldn’t even see the ground! This swamp’s so high up, it really bog-gles the mind. Nyaha.” She wiggled her eyebrows, then turned and threw her hand in the vague direction of the Site of Grace. “Anyway, since nunna the big shots’re here to give us our marsh-ing orders, mire-ecommendation is to take it easy and relax ‘til the others catch up.” She pulled a pitcher of lemonade from her pouch and offered it to the others. “Wanna drink? It’s ‘sour’ little secret~”

After shaking the xylem from his cloak with remarkable ease, Grimm offered her a polite bow of greeting, then heeded her advice in silence and took refuge in the warmth of the golden grace.

Not even a minute later, another squad of Seekers arrived. Ganondorf, Pit, Goldlewis, and Sectonia all washed up in quick succession, and while none of them looked especially happy, Sectonia seemed downright livid. While she fumed and raved about the unclean, ugly innards of the demon tree, Nadia was impressed she’d managed -or agreed- to fit inside a bloodstream at all. “Sheesh, just one soak and you’re seeing red, Toni? All-red-y? Shame you can’t just fly outside and wash off in the rain ‘cause it ages you, but that’s old news, I guess~” Nadia then turned her attention to Goldlewis and put on an egregious southern accent. “Howdy, partner! That color really ‘suits’ you!”

“Ugh,” Goldlewis groaned as he pulled off his suit jacket. He tried once to squeeze the xylem from it, then gave up and tossed it aside. “No salvagin’ that one, I s’pose.” When he saw Primrose, he tried to flag her down. “‘Scuse me miss Primrose, but could I possibly persuade ya to cast one o’ yer healin’ spells? We got ourselves into a real pickle down there without any doggone medics to patch us up.” As he made his request he reflected that if not for the shielding abilities he’d gained from Hank in Arahabaki, the showdown against the Corruptor might have gone a whole lot worse. Goldlewis knew he was lucky to be standing here, and he made sure to count his blessings.

Next to bob up from the swamp were Blazermate, Geralt, and Ace. Nadia was happy to see all three, having been by their side through thick and thin, but her heart especially soared to see Ace alive and well. “There you are!’ She ran over to hug them one by one. When she reached the hunter, she jumped into his arms, both as a sign of affection as a prank given her effective weight. As the others greeted one another, Goldlewis narrowed down his count of Seekers who had yet to return. Sandalphon, the kids, Roland, that li’l fella, Juri, and both newcomers. The veteran pursed his lips as he scratched at his beard. With the Qliphoth’s convoluted circulatory system somehow bringing everyone to the same place, there could be little ambiguity about what happened if anyone failed to show. He worried about the soldier and the witch especially–this was one hell of a first assignment. “Shoulda known better than to bring ‘em along,” he mumbled.

Before long, Goldlewis had his answer. A sudden fountain of xylem heralded the arrival of Roland, Rika, Bowser Jr, and finally, Sandalphon. Though all appeared to be healthy at first glance despite their inundation in the demon tree’s blood, Sandalphon’s body language implied otherwise. Only with difficulty, and the aid of her summoned gunstaff as a walking stick, could she rise and begin to make her way to the edge. It was clear that she could use some help, and once he saw her in distress, Zenkichi was all too quick to rush in and lend a hand.

‘...Thank you.” Sandalphon suppressed her impulse to thoroughly scan her surroundings and focused on not being too much of a burden until Zenkichi saw her safely to the site of grace that several others were treating like a bonfire. Its golden luster briefly captivated her, but before seating herself she planted her gunstaff to expand a healing field for the others. Then she eased down onto the ground.

“Repetitious exposure to severe injury and healing has rapidly accumulated fatigue in my body,” she explained. “While I could have more effectively avoided injury in the previous battle, the primary reason is my lack of athleticism.” Though everyone had encountered opposition throughout the Qliphoth so far, nobody seemed as depleted by the ordeal as she. It frustrated her, but so did her teammates’ reactions after the fight with Lilith concluded. They owed their survival to her and her experience, but only two had even acknowledged her. Still, she knew that she couldn’t succumb to arrogance. Upon reflection, she was simply grateful for her good fortune in running into Lilith–not because any part of that experience appealed to her whatsoever, but because her challengers would have likely perished otherwise.

The real -and much more galling- problem was her current condition. Even if Sandalphon was the only Seeker to show such weakness, she could not allow pride to silence her. “I don’t believe I can continue in this state,” she admitted. “I should return to the ship. I may be able to return later if properly treated.” After a moment, Sandalphon lowered her voice, her next words for Zenkichi only. “I have one other task aboard the Avenger in mind. De-fusion with at least two of my human spirits.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, but her pupils were stress marks. “Human weakness is compromising my physical and mental state. I almost got everyone killed back in that canyon. Reversion is the logical option. And yet…I know it’s this humanity that…allows me to express how I feel. I am conflicted.” Sandalphon couldn’t say much more than that.

After another moment, Emily tentatively approached. “Excuse me, ma’am. My name is Emily, Nadia found me in here. Did you say that you have a way to get out?”

The archangel straightened up, her usual air of stiff formality restored. “My method would not work for you, but now that I see that hole in the Qliphoth exterior, I could guide the shuttle back to this spot. The Lost Numbers should be able to extract any number of us in such a manner.” She looked around the assembled Seekers. “Does anyone else wish to return to the ship?”

“I will,” Snake spoke up suddenly. He’d faded into the background since arriving with Juri, Therion, and Edward, but now the mercenary took center stage. “I’ve managed to keep a low profile so far, but I can tell when I’m out of my element. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll back you up some other day.

Goldlewis nodded, unexpectedly supportive. “Fine by me. We got plenty o’ manpower, don’t need any o’ y’all dyin’ needlessly.”

A minute or so after everything was sorted out, Grimm returned to the group. The Troupe Master had gone with his Grimmchild to scout ahead, and both seemed to be in good spirits. ”I have discovered a means of ascendance. The going will not be easy, but I can feel our grand finale close at hand. A showman’s intuition.” His scarlet eyes seemed to scour the Seekers around him. He then rasped, ”If you are rested, we must away.”

Grimm’s words helped get the team moving. As everyone who would be proceeding got ready to set out, Goldlewis took his final tally. Everyone was here…except the Witch. Nobody willing to say anything about it had seen the Witch since the standoff against the horde. The revelation aggrieved Goldlewis, but it did not stop him. During his military career he’d lost more men than he cared to admit, and newbies were always the quickest to go. He could not let it bother him, lest all the weight he’d been forced to carry come crashing down. He simply caught his breath, accepted some lemonade from Ms. Fortune, and joined the convoy of heroes on the climb to the Qliphoth’s canopy.



Once the team took to the upward path through the tunnels, the going quickly got rough. Right away the infestation began to thicken. Though as unmistakably -and disgustingly- fleshy as the cancerous Flood growths down below, this infestation seemed to be of a slightly different strain, more fungal than anything. It grew into and melded with the Qliphoth itself in strange ways, creating structures that blurred the line between plant and animal. Sinuous ganglions and fibrous nerve clusters gleamed an unnatural orange above pools of still, stagnant rainwater leaked in from outside, and undead horrors reared their ugly heads around every turn. With almost two dozen Seekers present no Floodfested persisted long enough to pose a threat or call for reinforcements, but the tunnels’ twisted denizens kept their intruders on their toes. Several times they needed to deal with peculiar growths, such as passages blocked by hardy organic valves that would only open once certain nerve clusters were stimulated, sometimes in sequence.

Between the odd puzzles, enemies, and the terrain itself, it was a difficult hike. Still, there were plenty of opportunities while traveling to strike up a little conversation. Nadia, in a good mood thanks to Emily’s impending rescue, took the first opportunity to blabber away to Ace about her encounters with the Successor of the Claw, Something Unto Death, and the mysterious bartender Gallagher. The feral did not hesitate to embellish a little, and her motor mouth seldom skipped a beat, even when a handful of Floodfested monsters showed up to crash the party. Before long she was hearkening back to their shared misery on the Maw as well, only too happy to fill other listeners in on all the gory details. Her energetic chatter -and nonstop puns- helped keep the mood light as the team climbed closer and closer to the final showdown.

When Sandalphon mentioned that she'd be returning to the Avenger, Zenkichi nodded in understanding. She was far from the most durable Seeker, and the fights they'd all endured had been pretty damn grueling. When she followed it up by whispering her plans to undo her previous fusions, he gave her a small smile.

”Hey, if that's what you think is gonna work best for you, I'm with you 100%. Humanity and being emotional can be..really complicated. You've gone your whole life until now feeling things completely differently. If you’re afraid of not being able to connect with us again…maybe we could work on that together? It might just take a change in perspective. People can change and grow, and I don't think that's unique to humans.” Giving a halfway-embarrassed smile, he gently squeezed one of Sandalphon's hands reassuringly.

The archangel’s pupils became bright green sparkles when Zenkichi held her hand. She remained quiet for a moment amidst the hubbub of the team as the Seekers wound down, caught up, and sorted through the spoils of war. “As ever, my loyalties are to heaven and humankind. That has not changed, and would not. Yet…” She looked around at her allies, from the good-spirited kids like Junior, Rika, Pit, and Roxas to the dependable warriors like Geralt, Goldlewis, and Roland. “Were I unchanged, however, I would not be here on the front lines.”

Sandalphon reached up and gingerly took hold of her halo, then brought it down to wipe at the xylem-drenched ring with a handkerchief. When the cloth passed over its surface, its luster was restored bit by bit, and she continued to speak as she polished. “It would be more efficient to remain aboard the Avenger, monitor the battle from afar, and intercede only when necessary. I have always wanted to stand alongside my teammates, though. To have…friends.” Her lips pursed together in a slight, sad smile. “Regina seemed to understand that, though I never breathed a word. She was too good to me. Reminds me of you, in some ways. Albeit…a bit more put-together.”

Laughing a little, Zenkichi replied, ”Ouch. Can’t really argue that one, but dang, hold nothing back, huh?” Nonetheless, he gestured for her to continue.

Sandalphon turned her eye to Zenkichi, her pupils shaped like carets. “Forgive me, I meant no offense. All I mean to say is…while humanity is a tactical liability, it offers a great deal of benefit, as well. I can feel more, want more. Be more. In addition, humans can grow and overcome their flaws. It is a daunting prospect to embrace weakness and fear in hopes of one day overcoming them, but if I reverted to my old, mechanical self for short-term gain…I feel as though I would be sacrificing much. So…I didn’t want to throw it away without discussing it beforehand.”

Nodding slowly, Zenkichi gave her words more thought. He’d felt that her mind was pretty set on this before, but now he was realizing just how much doubt she had. Taking a deep breath, he organized his thoughts before replying. ”I think I understand. There’s more to it than just what’s more efficient on the battlefield, or what makes you happy. You’re trying to balance those things, and to avoid getting yourself killed, or holding everybody else back, at the same time. I can tell you this much. Finding a group of people with the same goals, hopes, the same ideals as you, and working with them to do real good, to help improve the world…is an amazing feeling. The pride of knowing that what you’ve done mattered, the camaraderie of working with people you can trust with your life, and the exhilaration of actually doing it. Of fighting for what you believe in. Even after some days when I was sore all over, my feet were begging for a chair, and I could barely keep my eyes open, I felt more alive than I had in years.” He sighed, running his hand through his hair.

At that point, Sandalphon tilted her head, an intrigued look on her face. With her elaborate halo more or less clean she allowed it to slip from her grasp and bob back into place, as if it had been bound to its proper spot above her head by a stretched-out spring.

”Seeing the kids again, the other Phantom Thieves, really helped me remember just how important what we’re doing is. Beyond just…doing the right thing, ya know? The bonds we make with each other, the life-long friendships we forge in fighting for our lives together for a greater cause. They change us, make us better people. For knowing each other, for choosing to stand up and fight, even when it’s hard to.” He was smiling now, looking right into Sandalphon’s eyes as he took each of her hands in his. ”So I take back what I said. I think you should give being human a chance for a little bit longer. It comes with its weaknesses, yes, but now that we’re more aware of them, we can better work around them. Besides, you’ll have me there. Comedic misunderstanding aside, I accepted your covenant for a reason, Sandalphon. I trust you. You helped make sure Aurele got back to Sector V safely back in Midgar, even when splitting your concentration like that could have jeopardized the mission. I’ll be around to help keep you safe. I promise.”

As he spoke, Sandalphon’s pupils looked like loading rings, as if the archangel were downloading every last word. For the most part at least–when Zenkichi held both of her hands, her telltale eyes seemed to glitch, quickly cycling through various symbols until they became sparkles again. Many people had trusted her with their lives throughout her storied career in the Illian Church, Lateran Church, and beyond, but Sandalphon had trusted very few in return. Why put stock in such an abstract concept, after all, when logic and numbers provided such firm footing? But being able to trust in Regina had been an invaluable experience, and now she had the chance to place her trust in someone new. Thanks to their shared covenant, she and Zenkichi were united no matter how far apart they might be. She hadn’t used their bond to spare herself during the fight against Lilith, but the option had been there. Sandalphon believed this man when he said he would keep her safe. She did trust him. When she realized that, a weight seemed to lift from her, and something deep within her was moved.

For a brief moment, the archangel’s pupils became hearts.

Then they reverted back to normal, and the archangel nodded. “I will hold you to that promise, detective,” she told him, her tone solemn. “In accordance with your advice, I will remain as I am for a while longer, and seek the betterment of bonds. Thank you for your counsel.” Though about as stiffly formal as usual, she did not retract her slender fingers from Zenkichi’s grasp.

Zenkichi had gotten pretty good at keeping an eye on Sandalphon’s pupils since that first conversation after the Quarantine Zone, but even still he barely caught the hearts in her eyes, his own skipping a beat at the sight. His lips pulled into a bright smile even as her normally-stoic demeanor started to reappear. ”Of course. I’m just glad to be here for you. I…care deeply for you, Sandalphon. It feels like we’ve known each other longer than we really have.” Gently squeezing her hands again, his gaze turned towards the hole in the Qliphoth that she’d pointed out earlier, where she had planned to have the shuttle return to evacuate Emily and Snake. ”I am really looking forward to getting out of this place. And…if it’s not too much to ask, would you be able to check on Akane? I know she worries, especially with us going up against a Guardian pretty soon.”

Without a moment’s hesitation Sandalphon nodded her agreement. “Consider it done. And…I care for you as well. All my allies, of course, but you in particular.” Her eyes lingered on Zenkichi’s for a moment longer before she looked away. She spotted Grimm on his way back to the group, and observed that the others seemed ready to move on. Sandalphon returned the man’s squeeze and then let him go. When she got to her feet, she seemed steadier than before, and her newly-polished halo shone extra bright in the gloom of the Qliphoth hollow.

When Primrose arrived in the new hollow, she came prepared for yet another battle. Since making it to the demonic tree it had been non-stop fighting, so even when nothing immediately caught her eye she didn't relax. She cast her keen eyes around the area as she trudged out of the blood-like swamp, noting the strange interior. She also noted that Roxas, Zenkichi, and Grimm had all arrived with her. Most of the veins must lead here, she reasoned, flicking her hands to rid them of the xylem.

A friendly, familiar voice caught her attention, and Primrose looked over to see Nadia approaching from a relatively open area of the hollow. She was glad to see her friend was alright, and it looked like Midna and a few others were with her - including a face she hadn't seen before. Were there other, actual people trapped in this hellish place? She hadn't seen any so far, but it would be just as much of a surprise if this woman was the only one as it was that there were other people here at all.

The newly arrived group walked to meet Ms. Fortune part way. Primrose pulled her long braid to the front, giving it a squeeze to get most of the liquid out of her hair before she accepted Nadia's hug. It was a tight but ultimately brief embrace, which was about all the dancer was comfortable with. Primrose gradually found herself smiling lightly at the multitude of puns as they were led back to the small golden glow.

"It's a miracle that hasn't been contaminated by now," she said of the lemonade, though she accepted the offer all the same. When she passed it back to its owner another batch of arrivals popped up from a different swamp than her group had.

Pit's expression wrinkled once more once he was out of the vein. He liked swimming, but definitely not in this soupy plant blood. He extended his wings and pushed himself up, double jumping to the swamp's shore a short distance away. He then shook his head and rapidly beat his wings to clear the xylem off of himself, spraying it on anyone that stood too close.

"We made it!" He declared. He spotted Captain Falcon whom he'd been in the first hollow with, giving the man a small wave. It looked like Roxas and a handful of other Seekers had gotten there first, and though it wasn't a race Pit did feel a small sense of accomplishment about not being the last to arrive. He made his way over to the site of grace that most people were congregating around, splaying his feathers out wide in front of it (but closing his wings back up soon enough when it became apparent it wasn't an actual fire) and snorting a laugh at the feral's jokes.

When Goldlewis joined the group at the site of grace and motioned for Primrose's attention, the dancer gave it to him easily. His words brought to light something she hadn't even considered when everyone was split up, that some parties would lack for ways to heal their wounds.

"Of course," she said, conjuring the flame of Warmth. She reached up to press it to Goldlewis' bicep, but after only a second she withdrew it. "Actually, give me a moment."

If there hadn't been anyone capable of healing with his group, then the other three must need some patching up as well. Primrose hadn't fully recovered her mana, but she could spare a spell until more dedicated healers showed up. She performed Sealticge's Seduction and used its effect on herself. When she was finished she let out a puff of breath and pressed her healing flame to the large man again. This time when he was healed, the healing also spread to everyone present in the hollow. It was far from a full heal, but it would tide them over.

When she was finished with her spell she gave Goldlewis a couple of pats on his arm as the flame died. With that she took a seat by the statue, intending to get some rest and recover as much magic as possible before the group moved on.

The next people that emerged from the swamps included the Ace Cadet. He'd managed to stick with Blazermate the whole time, and Geralt had ended up in the same place too which was good news. Though the ride through the blood vessel had cleaned off most of the gore from their battle with the necromorph, it did leave them drenched in the xylem instead. Ace went to wipe it from his face, with little success seeing as his hands were no less covered in it.

Including the newest hollow he found himself in, the Qliphoth's interior reminded the hunter of the deepest reaches of the Rotten Vale - but worse. It was all strange plants, deadly fumes, and pools of viscera. Even the monstrous and mutated inhabitants weren't all that far off in a way. At least in this one there didn't immediately appear to be anything hostile. In fact it was just the opposite, with several friendly faces having gathered around what looked like a golden bonfire.

"Hey!" Ace called out to them, raising his arm so the group could see the new arrivals. He immediately spotted Nadia running over to them and welcomed her with open arms. Her prank probably didn't have the intended effect as only a brief flash of surprise shown on the Cadet's face before he grinned and lifted her up to spin her around, her misleading weight no issue at all. He set her down so she could greet the other two before all of them began to make their way over to the larger group.

When Therion finally made it to the area alongside Juri, Edward, and the mercenary Snake, it was as part of the last group to arrive. His hair and fur had taken on a pinkish tone due to the multiple trips in the Qliphoth's veins, wet strands clinging to his face especially on the side that covered one of his eyes. That being said he didn't actually look any more miserable than usual, but given he was still a bit standoffish just in general that wasn't saying very much. He joined the other Seekers and greeted a few of them with a slight nod of his head.

He'd missed Sandalphon's healing pulse that shored everyone else up, but since absorbing (or whatever was actually happening) the spirits of the corespawn crawlers he'd been able to heal himself, and he'd avoided the Dredge the whole time. It would be a lie to say he was in peak condition, as stamina and mental fatigue was still a concern, but at the very least his physical state was completely fine.

Fatigue was definitely hitting some of the Seekers harder than others. It was normally a hero's lot to carry on despite everything, but it wasn't always the smartest option. Knowing that, Sandalphon spoke up with her intentions on returning to the Avenger. It took some of the Seekers by surprise; Pit especially looked at his fellow angel with slight confusion. It didn't occur to him that she might be more human than angel now. She did look really tired, so maybe it was for the best. She could always help out from afar once she'd rested up too.

He hopped up from where he'd taken a seat on the ground. "Take care of yourself. We'll be alright - and come fight with us again when you feel better!" he told her.

Pit himself planned to keep on until the Dead Zone's Guardian was defeated. The Ace Cadet was the same, and if anything some of their allies choosing to take themselves out of the fight only further encouraged him to get the job done on their behalf. For better or worse Therion was planning to stick with it as well, and though Primrose was more on the tuckered out side due to her extensive magic usage, she knew she'd be alright after a little while with her high natural mana recovery. Even if she chose to continue playing a supporting role, she would be continuing all the same.

Following Grimm's words, the Seekers gradually moved out and up. The Orsterrans sort of naturally found themselves walking close to each other, and mostly let the others deal with the adversaries and puzzles as they came up; Primrose to conserve her energy to go into their greatest battle in the Qliphoth with as much mana as possible, and Therion just because he didn't need to with so many allies around.

It was good that even after everything they'd been through that morning, and at least one missing face among them even before those that chose to stay behind did, the general morale still seemed high. Ace was more than happy to listen to Nadia regale him with what had happened to her since they got split up. While the fight in the fiery hollow seemed intense, the one after it was apparently on a whole different level. Once more he felt lucky he ended up where he had, not to mention that she had made it through the whole fake death thing alright. For his part Nadia could see the trophy still strapped to his back from the Cadet's first hollow battle, and though he mostly just listened with a smile on his face he filled her in on his own fights too, and perhaps wisely didn't mention his run-in with the goddess Aphrodite. He was her conversation partner at least until someone else pulled her into a different one, as the Seekers ascended.

After some time off, and some folks getting out, the seekers were on the road again. Or trail. Or really on the spelunking path when you got down to it, because neither the tree itself nor the floodfested were particularly interested in providing a straight forward route into the Qliphoth’s upper reaches.

Case and point were the massive valves in the biological structure, tough as vault doors and always placed at the most inconvenient points, as well as being spots that whatever intelligence controlled the swarm had delighted in setting up ambushes. There were enough heroes on hand to slaughter the Floodfested before they could call for backup, though, so the bigger concern for Ms Fortune was the opened valves’ resemblance to large lamprey-like mouths, which gnawed at her lingering phagophobia.

For the most part the biological mechanisms for opening these blockades provided little challenge, but in one early case, after whipping the floor with the monsters that had tried and failed to crush the Seekers in these choke points, the associated puzzle did not turn out to be located in plain view of the door.

Various tunnels snaked off from the tricky valve’s main chamber, including one that lead into a ruined chunk of some kind of high tech facility, though it was only large enough to roll a large ball through, rather than crawl in any practically distinguished manner. Well unless you were a child, however Midna, who had found said hole, wasn’t exactly a fan of the idea of sending the koopa kids crawling through no matter how tough they were, because even for Bowser Junior id’d be a squeeze with his hard shell. After a moment she did however come up with a different candidate based on recent interactions with them.

”Miss Fortune?” the princess(who was hanging from the ceiling from her shadow hand to inspect the duct that halfway up the wall) ”Do you think you can get your bits and pieces in here? If you do I can ride your shadow and we can see if the meat buttons have grown into this ruin?”

By this point the team had been trekking long enough that even Nadia’s motor mouth was running on empty, so when Midna hung down to say hello the feral didn’t mind turning her attention away from Ace for a bit. “In there?” Nadia hopped up to grab hold of the ledge and inspect the opening. She was no stranger to squeezing through vents when it came to heists, but these days she wasn’t quite as skinny as she’d been in her vagabond era. Her head would fit with room to spare though, and while she would be loathe to dispatch her noggin on a solo mission in a hellish place like this, Midna’s company offered a little more assurance. Plus, Midna coming to her for help felt pretty nice–no doubt their battles had shown just how capable the catgirl was!

“Yeah, sure! Good thing I’m not claw-strophobic, eh?” She swiveled her head around then waved goodbye to the others with her ears. “Be right back. Won’t be a meowment!” Then she rolled her head backward off her shoulders and into the duct upside-down, where she used her ears to walk. Meanwhile her body dropped back down, detached her tail, and began to dance.

The farther the duo got in the vent, though, the less happy-go-lucky Nadia became–inwardly, at least. As demonstrated by the team’s various encounters throughout the demon tree, the Qliphoth had consumed a great variety of detritus from Redgraccoon City when it first grew. Now, with the city destroyed, the Qliphoth was a literal vertical slice of the Dead Zone itself, housing everything from demons and zombies to ghosts and goblins, with a healthy -or rather, unhealthy- dose of extraterrestrial parasites to boot. Nadia had never seen an area like this before, though. While it still seemed high-tech from the perspective of these two Seekers, the facility they were infiltrating was a far cry from the clean, sheer, well-lit metallic interior of Alcamoth, or the militaristic utilitarian style of the Avenger. Instead a strange smell filled the air, and deposits of unidentifiable meat grew along the seams and cracks in the duct like mold. When Nadia’s head finally reached an opening, she hopped down into a hallway of bizarre and macabre design, equal parts ghoulish and alien, all hewn from some unidentifiable material in unmistakably organic shapes.

“Huh. That’s new,” the feral remarked, struggling to think puns that might suit this unsettling environment. The floor in here was tilted, making her wonder if this whole area would be a little off-kilter. The more pressing concern was the fleshy mold. She looked around, raising an eyebrow. “Midna? You can come out now. Mind carrying my head? I’ve got no-’body’ else.”

Like a demon called, the princess appeared, monochrome form stretching up out of the feral’s shadow before the vibrant red and gold was painted across her armor as she solidified fully and her heels clacked against the tilted ground. Claws of purple energy snapped out of them, preventing her from sliding down the corridor as she took it all in.

”Can’t remember dreaming about a place like this, not that they were ever that exact. Blurred nightmares those two, except for the start and the end” Midna said as she crouched down and picked up Nadia’s (living) severed head. It took a few moments for her to figure out how to actually hold her in all her arms, resulting in her placing two hands on either side of the neck and holding her up in front of her chest.

”There, if that works? Or would you prefer the back of the neck like a kitten?” she asked with a light tease as she summoned up her shield in one of her remaining free hands to let her better defend her cargo if need be. The head was a little less than she’d hoped for assistance wise, but the lady’s strikers would be a help if nothing else.

“This is fine. The more stable, the better,” Nadia reported. “If something comes at us, just chuck me at ‘em. I’ll head ‘em off.”

”Will do” princess replied as they set off down the corridor

At one end of the hallway sat a strange chair festooned by scraps of skin like Spanish moss, wholly unsuitable for any humanoid occupant. At the other end, past what looked to Nadia like a trough of ground beef, lay a decently-sized room. The growths in here were extreme, and strange organisms the size of human heads clung to the dangling masses like polyps. Repelled by the disturbing sight, Nadia failed to suppress a shudder, even though the rest of her wasn’t here right now. “Ugh…what’re we looking for, again? Some kinda switch?” Her eyes fell on what looked like a some kind of console with a number of lit and unlit nodes arranged around a system of rotating connectors. “Uh oh…that looks like a puzzle.” Nadia grimaced. When it came to logic puzzles, Nadia Fortune was the wrong girl to ask.

”I’ll take that over more meat monsters. Maybe it’ll even be fun?” Midna replied, before taking a second glance at all the twisted machinery and revolting growths and making groan that made it clear she had a hard time believing her own statement

”Whoever built this place probably wouldn’t know what that is with all this grey. Still, might open a way forwards or reveal a hidden chest?” she said instead, approaching and using one of her secondary hands to interact with what seemed to be a controller on the right hand of the device ”Let’s see, what do you do”

The controls weren’t immediately obvious, but with a little trial and error they turned out to be relatively simple. A button could be pressed to change which of the four nodes was currently active, and around the button were two dials. The outer dial would rotate the rod attached to the currently active node, while the inner dial would rotate the node itself. Once each rod pointed to the correct dial, that node would light up, but any node connected to another would rotate it if it itself was rotated. Nadia stared at the intricate device as the rotation of rods and nodes caused lights to flicker on and off, thoroughly baffled. After about fifteen seconds she lifted her eyebrows and blinked a couple times, shaking her head. “Ahem! Well, seeing as I don’t have any hands to fiddle with, why don’t I just, uh, keep watch? Set me down somewhere reasonably clean, will ya?”

”Hmmm? Oh” Midna replied, the expression of confusion mixed with focus on her face obscured by her helmet being wiped away by a few blinks. She glanced around, saying ”lets see” and finding nowhere that really, truly, counted as clean, before coming up with an Idea.

A moment later she’d summoned up her Darknut, and had it hold its shield out in front of it horizontally like a serving tray, onto which she popped the feral’s head, before saying ”There, that should work. You can even order it to serve you up in whatever direction you’d like” before returning to fiddling with the dials somewhat ineffectually. During her stint of dungeon crawling, she hadn’t exactly been the one figuring out the last step of the puzzles most of the time.

Nadia gave the skeletal juggernaut a dubious glance from her new perch. “A little knight-marish, but I’ll take what I can get.” She took the chance to scope out the room, but there was not much she particularly enjoyed looking at. All the alien meat, much more visceral than the reddish-purple plant matter that constituted the Qliphoth, made her stomach churn despite her stomach being a good hundred feet away. A shame, she thought, that she couldn’t have left her nose behind as well. With nothing else worth seeing, the feral turned her attention back toward the puzzle. “So, Midna. You went to the desert and the city, while I hit the sea and the caves. Haven’t seen much of each other before today, but I guess we’re makin’ up for lost time now, huh?” She wore a friendly smile, as usual. “I hear you’re some kind of princess? Lotta royals in the Seekers. At least you’re not snooty like Toni, buuut I couldn’t say I’d blame ya. Not every day a royal gets to hang around some mangy alley-cat, or vice versa.” Her tone had become somewhat pointed, as if leveling a vague accusation.

”Toni… Sectonia?” Midna, who had been humming to herself tunelessly while failing to crack the puzzle during Nadia’s look around, guessed. Rather than being annoyed at being interrupted from her task, she was rather thankful Nadia was here for conversation instead of to ask why she wasn’t done yet.

”Maybe not a cat, but I owe a lot to a flea bitten mutt. Well, farm boy turned wolf turned hero but still. Not that I was as above it all as the Queen before him but I had my own kind of contempt I needed to deal with” she replied with more honesty than might be necessary, before really losing track of her tongue, first saying ”I wish he was here” more than a hint of wistfulness before catching herself, switching gears much to hard, and promptly thumping the machine and declaring the reason for that desire was ”so he could solve this goddess forsaken puzzle!” even if that obviously wasn’t all of it

Either Midna hadn’t understood Nadia’s subtle provocation, or she’d rather effortlessly deflected it. The feral didn’t mind, though; so far, Midna’s behavior had been much more down-to-earth fashion than the team’s other royals, so much so that Nadia might have never guessed at her status otherwise. If the Twilight Princess did not acknowledge any disparity between the two of them, the cat burglar wasn’t going to draw any more attention to it. Instead, she considered asking about the farm boy wolf hero Midna mentioned, but truth be told, she wasn’t all that interested. It seemed like neither of them was suited to this task, but at least Nadia had the excuse of not having any hands to help with.

She couldn’t help but smile at Midna when she vented her frustration with the alien mechanism. “Hey, if you don’t have any ideas, might as well go ham on the controls. Gotta luck out sooner or later, right?”

The princess paused, thought about this and then grinned under her mask, saying ”You know what, I can do one better” and setting about a quick little magical scheme. She placed the false set of arms on the controles, and then her real ones on top, sinking the fingers of them into the fake ones and then rapidly rearranged the glowing green runes and lines that appeared as a result of this action. Then she pulled the fingers back and smiled as the second set of limbs did indeed start to go ham on the controles, while Minda rested an elbow between them, turning her focus away from the puzzle entirely and moving it over to Nadia.

”There, now they’ll do it for me” she declared smugly, clearly quite pleased with her little automation trick, before trying to pick up the same conversation from where she’d interrupted it.

”So, yes, odd how that worked out. Not even those silly games put us together” she noted, adding more to the pile of coincidences, they really had missed each other at every turn somehow hadn’t they, before she thought about how to further rectify that ”But maybe next time? Or something before we launch ourselves back into the fray? I could go for another spa visit or twelve after this grim grimy place.”

Though the spectacle of magical automation stole her attention for a moment, the mere mention of Balan’s Big Top was enough to bring a bright smile to Nadia’s face. “Oh man, those minigames were the cat’s pajamas. We’ve gotta go back some time, or find more stuff like that. I like a good scrap as much as the next gal, but we all need breaks, ‘specially after crap like this, yeah.” She chuckled, her nose wrinkled by the ambient foetor. “I’m sure that angel lady feels bad sittin’ out, but even a live wire like me has her limb-its. After the Maw, all of us on Blue Team spent, like, a whole day on a tropical vacation.” She stared off into the middle distance, the morbid architecture fading away into white sands and crashing surf. A heavy sigh escaped her. “Life’s a beach, eh?”

Just then, the swivels and clacks of the alien machine gave way to a loud click, then silence. When Nadia looked over, she found four yellow lights starting back at her. There came a series of loud, mechanical -or possibly organic- sounds, and after another moment, a door near the hallway began to slide open. The sudden movement disturbed a handful of the head-shaped parasites, which flew up toward the rafters. Nadia made the mistake of looking too closely at one as it passed by, and despite being elsewhere, her stomach did not thank her for the experience. Green-tinged smoke wafted through the doorway as it revealed a triangular room. One wall, even more bio-engineered than the rest of this alien facility, hosted a row of canisters in which ghastly homunculi had been grow to fit their containers. The other wall lay in pieces, exposing the familiar Qliphoth matter behind it, and with it the nerve cluster that would open the valve back in the main tunnel. In between lay some sort of workbench, or perhaps operating table, on which a handful of biotech weapons had been fashioned.

“Guns?” Though leery of the freakish tube-babies that were definitely starting back at her, Nadia edged toward the table to satisfy her curiosity. Of the various half-baked projects on the table, only three seemed to be complete: two pistols of flesh and bone, not quite alike, and a scoped SMG. Nadia seemed especially interested in the pistols, but with no hands of her own to claim them with, she could only raise an eyebrow at Midna. “Finders keepers?”

”Power is power but, urgh, it's hardly ever pretty in this world” Midna replied as she caught up, having had to pause to set her false limbs back to normal. Unsurprisingly she used those to pick up and carefully examine the weapons rather than her own ones. Doing so also let her avoid looking at or thinking about the tank beings, but she’d have to get round to what to do about them eventually.

”Not exactly an expert with guns even if they can be useful” she said, implicitly asking if the feral was.

If Nadia had her shoulders around, she would’ve shrugged them. “Not really my deal, to be honest. Only got one, and it’s more for…’meating’ people.” Though the Bait Launcher was a pretty unforgettable weapon, she couldn’t remember if she’d used it around Midna so far. “But I wouldn’t mind tryin’ them. Got an itch trigger finger lately, for whatever reason.” Maybe that cowgirl she’d fused with was rubbing off on her, but Nadia couldn’t help but feel like she had some sort of potential that she couldn’t tap into without a gun or two.

”I know the feeling” Midna replied, as she pulled her Nightsky Ripper scimitar out of a portal ”Wouldn’t have known the first thing about using one of these a few weeks ago, and now it just feels…right”

She then put the guns down on the table again and opened a portal below them while saying ”Once we get you back to your fingers we’ll see if these fit like a glove. If not, trying to give them to Edward would be funny” before then moving onwards to the nerve cluster and slicing into it with her sword.

With their task complete, there was nothing stopping them from heading back. Nothing except well…

With a sigh, Midna stepped towards the pods with the creatures inside, saying/asking ”OK, can’t avoid it any longer, what are you and are you going to be a problem or burden?”

Though the homunculi within tracked her movements with their bloodshot eyes and bared their lipless teeth at her, they couldn't move an inch inside their pods, having been horrifically molded into ovoid shapes by their own steady growth within their cramped confines. Nadia did not like looking at them or thinking about them. “How about we skedaddle before we find out? ‘Uppies’ me!” She hopped her head up and down to signal Midna to pick her up.

Midna glanced down at the feral, up at the trapped creatures that didn’t seem very friendly all things told, and then up at her darknut that was no longer burdened by its body-less cargo before replying ”Sure” and picking Miss Fortune back up in the same manner she had before.

She turned away from the creatures and strode out of the door without looking back, heading for the vent into which she popped Miss Fortune’s head. Right as she did, there came a crash as her darknut ripped the top of one of the pods trapping the homunculi, and prompting the princess to declare it was ”Time to go”.

Whatever the homunculi did with it's freedom now, it wasn't her problem.

”Urgh. Guess I’m gonna have to pick up the slack then” Jr complained upon finding out that Sandalphon was going to be bailing out. Not that he exactly blamed her for doing so, she looked like a wreck and healer really was a thankless job, but someone had to do it.

”Maybe she should get some not human in her instead of human? Dragons n boat girls n stuff worked for me, no getting squishy and human and stuff here. Just not that big jerk dragon though I guess” Rika replied. The pair had set up on top of a little outcrop for a sit down and snack, along with Jr’s pokemon (and weird living worm grappling hook), though after the sweet filled fight with the Lilith both of them where finding they didn’t have an appetite for the sweet treats they'd gotten themselves while unsupervised.

”Is this what growing up is like, because it's lame. Stupid jerk. Now i really want to crush her face but noooo, she turned into a book or something”

”Oh yeah” Rika replied, and, having been reminded about that, thought to ask ”who was the guy who did that again?”

”uhhh. I dunno. Just some guy I guess?” Jr replied, not really being able to remember who had fought alongside them and Sandalphon at all now that he thought about it.

”The name is Roland ya squirts.” Roland said in a sarcastic manner, still bloody from the vein ride and a bit from the previous fight, but not as bad as he should be. If anyone could tell, he had shaken himself clean, or at least as close as he could get. While not sharing the rage of a few of the others, most notoriously the big bee, he was getting tired of this place.

”Quite the fight huh? Feels a bit like when I had to take down some abnormalities in their books. A real… puzzle dance fight all things considered.” He said, striking up friendly conversation. ”If I had a nickel every time I’ve had to fight a crazy lady in a blood themed area…” Roland said, pulling out Lilith’s book.

”Not entirely sure what her book will tell us about her, other than the crazy ‘kill kill kill’ stuff.” He then pulled out another book, the previous boss he fought, Killabilly. ”Nor this one, but this one didn’t talk at all.”

The kids were pretty clean all things considered, having been sprayed down by low power bubble beams, and then mostly dry thanks to floating above some hot hot goop. They also exhibited 0 shame at not remembering who Roland was, but they were interested in what he could do.

Rika immediately rattled off a bunch of questions ”How does it work? Can you still do spirit stuff with them? What do they say?” while Jr asked, a touch more practically ”can you do that to ones that are spirits already?” as he tapped away at an armory interface for a moment and used it to summon back the spirit of the towering cyber-skeleton called the Unsigned

”This guy really wanted a shiny rock we found” he explained, loosely, prompting Rika to quietly huff ”and that you then lost” still a little upset about her brother’s accidental burying of said stone under a mountain of rubble.

The prince coughed, actually a little embarrassed about that, but rather than carry on that conversation he instead stuck to the current one by explaining ”He also summoned a buncha skeleton soldier guys, but they were pretty much all pushovers. That Lillith lady was crazy in comparison for sure”

Roland began to answer their questions, this was something he was very accustomed to and he rather enjoyed sharing his knowledge even if it was new to him as well. ”Yes, these books can be used like spirits, but from what I understand, way better. Besides giving an overview of the person and what they might give you, if you burn the book you can choose between one of five items instead of getting only what it gives you. To my knowledge the books don’t expire unlike the spirits, and they probably have a spark of the Light of Creation, or whatever Angela called it, in them as well but I can’t use that.”

Showing the kids the book of Killabilly, Roland handed it to Jr. ”This is who I fought before Lilith. If you want to give it a read.”. A picture of the creature was on the cover. As he flipped through the book, the story of what Killabilly was, how he came to be, and what he wanted as well as his darkest secret. Granted most of this was pretty simple outside of the fact he was made of the souls of the damned coalescing into a building sized zombie.

”Well that’s kinda gross and cool at the same time” Jr commented regarding the creature’s lore, before also noting that ”I guess it also kinda works like that book Kamek got from some crazy mule guy we took down in a freaky prison. An ‘Archangel’ thing that gave me the creeps. Anyway It’d tell you stuff about people a bit like this, which is what made the mule guy crazy coz it said he was from a book and not real or something”

[color=d7d7d7[“I don’t know if this is the same thing. This is a person turned into a book more than something that tells you about things. Since you know, you kinda gotta defeat them to even get a book out of them.”[/color] Roland said. ”Information is very valuable where I’m from, and there was always someone looking for the secrets stored in these books when a guest perished in the library.”

Letting Jr. look over the book, and Rika too if she wanted, Roland eventually took it back. ”Now this doesn’t just tell you about the person, you can get things from them too. Which is probably why this matches so well with these ‘spirits’, they’re effectively the same kind of deal. Wanna see what loot we get from burning this?”

”Burning it?” Jr echoed, before looking up at Rika (who was doing a very careful read of the book with her massive gauntlet hands) with a look that said ‘please please please be done so i can roast it’ which she did not at all understand and so had to be asked that explicitly.

”oooh. Why didn’t you just say that?” she wondered once she had been asked, before tossing Jr who then in turn tossed it onto the ground and spat a fireball at it to set it alight, while imagining in his head that it was a dusty old textbook of Kamek’s about a subject he didn’t care about at all.

Once Jr. did that and the book burned, the ash, reminiscent of spirit ash, blew away and 5 burnt pages were left behind. Each had a picture on it, in order; A Pristine Elvis suit, A Guitar, a Microphone, Underworld Ectoplasm, and a small van. Each page under the picture also had a vague description on what each item did. The suit was just a costume, the Guitar could be used as a mace and made musical sounds when it struck, the Microphone could be used to amplify someone’s voice to do damage, the Underworld Ectoplasm seemed to be some kind of crafting ingredient, and the small van could be tossed to summon a fully human sized van.

”Well… you don’t need to BURN it burn it, you just have to destroy it. But yeah, burning it will destroy it. You can choose an item from one of the pages, but once chosen, the other pages crumble into dust.” Roland said, letting the kid have a pick of the items as he wasn’t really interested in any of them.

After looking over the things, Rika pushed for thought for a moment, raised a (large) finger and pointed ”Wait. Shouldn’t we have used the hat for that?”

”We got an actual entire van out of this! How could that be better? That’s crazy” Jr retorted as he grabbed the mini motor vehicle, holding it his hands like a toy with which he was clearly delighted

”Sure, but here, what if we do both? We could get, I dunno, a golden van or something” Rika replied, already tapping away at an armory inventory screen, scrolling through it till she found the hat of avarice, which she summoned to the rest spot.

”That’d just be slow and soft”

”But it would look way better than that one” Rika replied as she put on the hat, before opening a gauntleted and and making a beckoning gesture as she said ”Now let me destroy that big jerk already”

”Hat?” Roland asked, noticing that Rika mentioned something probably important.

”This one” Rika pointed at the very silly toothed chest hat she’d put on for distinctly non fashion related reasons ”Sectonia found it. It makes spirits give better stuff. Also it hurts to wear so could we do this quick, so be ready to heal me please bro?”

”Yup yup, ready for when you're done sis” Jr replied, picking up his paintbrush and priming to fix Rika up once she’d finished having her head nibbled on by the hat.

”Honestly, that sounds about right.” Roland said with a hint of grim to his voice. Nothing good came without suffering after all. Although at least this just injured you, instead of using all your future luck all at once. He kinda wanted to try the hat out for himself, but it would be best to see it used first.

Handing Rika the book of Lilith, who proceeded to toss it up in the air and blast it with flaming goop, again resulted in 5 pages, each with a different demonic weapon. An Axe, Dagger, Bow, Sword, and Mace. Surprisingly with how much she liked and used candy, there was no candy themed item there. Perhaps if they hadn’t used the helm, one would show up? But either way, these were 5 useful weapons, although the bow less so.

”Urgh, always a pain” the princess complained as she removed the helmet, put it down and got a quick ”Cure!” from her brother for the bite marks. Then she crouched down and took a look at the pages along with junior, but both of them were not particularly interested in actually using even if the thought they looked ”Neat” and ”Cool”

”Want one?”
.
”Yeah. I don’t have an Axe.” Roland said, grabbing the page of the Demonic Axe. In his hands was just that, a demonic axe. The axe seemed to be on fire, although the fire didn’t hurt Roland so it probably lit opponents on fire. It was also hefty, and would do a fair amount of damage.

”Well, thats what the books do. There is probably more, but Angela would have to tell you about that.” Roland said, showing that he had no more books.

”Guess you can’t turn this into one then?” Jr asked, regarding the spirit of the Unsigned, and when the answer came back as no his only response was a shrug and an ”Oh well”

”Who’s Angela anyway?”

”Nope, I can only turn uh… living things? into books, not spirits.” Roland said, scratching his head at the comment, trying to think of why he couldn’t, but it was clear he couldn’t. Maybe something to do with how the library works or something?

”As for Angela, she is my friend from the library. Well, she ran the library and well, made it. No clue where she is, but she knows way more about this than I do. To be honest, she probably knows a lot about the world as it is now? Or not… She tended to be naive about the world but knew a lot of uh… how do I say niche things?” Roland said, giving a bit about Angela, but not really much else as a lot of what he’d say is more her place to say, not his.

”So, what about you two? Got anyone you miss or are looking for?” Roland assumed their parents, but looks could be deceiving.

Both gained a pair of conflicted looking expressions from that, but Jr hesitated to share their deal with someone they had just met Rika had little in the way of social filter and filled him in by saying that ”Papa and Kamek left to go keep Peach safe now that she’s a Consul, but Jr says they always come back from that kinda stuff so no not really. I wasn’t a person before like everyone else so where I’m from doesn’t matter to me. Just where I’m going”

”I… yeah! They’ll be fine” Jr agreed with what was definitely forced confidence, before scratching his chin, thinking about the question properly, and then saying ”I mean I kinda wanna know where the koopalings and the rest of papa’s minions are but, they’re not exactly gonna be strong enough to do” he gestured vaguely around at the massive demon tree they were in and the nightmares it contained ”all this stuff”

”Yeah. Angela can handle herself, but I doubt she’d be up for all of this. I’d say she probably has the other patrons to protect her if needed, but then Binah was in Midgar so…” Roland said, shrugging.

There was one thing Roland wanted to talk about, the reason he came over here. ”So I saw you transform in that last fight. What is it? It’s kind of similar to something in my world I suppose, but not really since you can change back. ”

”Huh? Oh that!” Jr replied, before eagerly showing off the trick like a kid with a favorite toy

”So what you can do is use one of these” he pulled out the cassette player and thumbed but did not pressed a red dotted on it ”to ‘record’ a monster into one of these old ‘tape’ things” which where clearly archaic technology for him ”Then once you’ve done that then you can play it back through some headphones like this:”

The boy, having slipped on the headphones while explaining, hit play on the tape and was suddenly transformed into the royal guard captain Undyne and in her voice declared ”and you can turn into an AWESOME monster! Got all their own moves, n stuff, and best of all getting hurt like this doesn't hurt you at all!”

There was another clock and then the prince had turned back, adding that ”Does kind of mess up the tape though if the monster ‘dies’ though. You gotta rewind them and it takes forever.”

”Doing a recording also takes a while, and you gotta beat up the monster first so that’s why we’ve only really got two good ones. Better the asset something’d be, harder it is to record, which is a pain. Really tricky to pull off when it’s been just us two. Like it woulda been such a risky thing to try vs that big jerk, even if she’d have been a real good one, so I didn’t even consider it” Rika added, being a bit of a downer all things considered

”me neither. Still, the ones we’ve got are pretty good. Shame we haven't worked out this whole fusion thing you can apparently do though, where you can combined two transformations into one big strong one” Jr added, finishing by saying that ”Not really sure how that works with being two people in one monster, but I bet we’d figure it out no sweat” to which Rika gave an ”mmm hmmm” of agreement to that last, saying ”we work together pretty well after all, so it’d be fine I’m sure”

Roland nodded, saying. ”Well, it's a nifty bit of tech. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the Wings eventually made something like that, although with a lot more suffering involved I’m sure. That’s much nicer in comparison.” before asking the obvious question. ”But what ‘IS’ A monster? Just anything not human? Even so, I know a lot of humans that are worse than monsters. That just looks like a human turned into a fish to me. Granted, that looks a lot better than the fish woman I met once. Also, what's stopping you from copying, say, that big bee lady over there? Or the spooky guy in the armor, or the angel boy? Or the robot medic? Or the…” Roland went, stopping himself since this was getting a bit redundant and the semi joke was wearing itself thin considering he knew their names.

”Uhhhhh” Jr replied, having not thought of the implications, while Rika didn’t bother with them and just went with what they knew straight up ”We got it from a kingdom of monsters, like they called themselves that and everything but most of them were just, like, regular people till F tried to get em all to kill us. The people doing the recordings were humans who were living there disguised as monsters, so they weren’t’ gonna record, like, other humans even if they could coz that’d be pointless, so maybe that’s why they didn’t bring it up?”

”Huh. Yeah. I guess maybe they can record whatever? Dunno, haven't tried much” Jr said, getting to the heart of their lack of data before addressing the last point with a question that was ”It’d be kinda be weird to have another Blazermate or Sectonia running around in a fight though, right? I think”

”Another Bazermate would be super useful for the team though, right? Especially with Sandalphon heading back, we’re losing a core part of our military formation” Rika pointed out, slipping into military jargon in a somewhat jarring manner given its contrast both in tone and in vocabulary to her usual childish tones she’d gotten from being around Jr a lot.

”Exactly. Might be something to try later. I don’t think Blazermate would mind, from what I gather, she's a mass produced robot anyway. Probably has something special with her though to come this far and do what she has done.” Roland said, remembering the robot’s mutterings in Midgar about other medabots and such.

”Wait she is? Huh. I just kinda thought she was someone special like everyone else instead of someone like me” Rika said and then added on ”I mean that, like, in the big system-y thing that’ll respawn us if we die I’m no one. Just some peon of the abyssal fleet. The me who is me is someone though, if you see? And this me matters” which got her brother nodding along when he’d been about to object to the negativity in her initial phrasing.

”Well, If you can use those things but they just have a long reload, you could ask her and see if it works? Although I've got a feeling it probably won't work.” Roland said, glancing over to Blazermate.

Speaking of the robot girl, she was moving around, making sure everyone was healed up and ready for what could be the guardian coming up. Unlike her angelic compatriot, she didn’t tire or have any stamina to worry about. Although her healing was single target, not AoE, so she had to go to each person one by one.

Despite Roland’s pessimism, the kids still wanted to test out to see if making a recording would work, and so hurried on over to her, with jr calling out ”Blazermate-Blazermate! Can we try out a thing on you?” before she could zoom away from her latest patient.

Blazermate, being called by Jr, stopped her flight and did a strange maneuver where she orbited around him a bit before landing. ”Whats up? Need a look over?” Blazermate said, sending her healing drone out to do some patch work while Jr had her attention.

”Nah I’m good I did us already” Jr replied, giving his paintbrush a little twirl for emphasis, before saying that ”What we wanna do is try and make a tape recording of you so that we can turn into you and have, like, two of you. Coz your so useful” and then showing her the tape recorder.

”So we can do this” Rika added, before helpfully demonstrating the power of the tapes by flicking in and out of the Beast form ”but with you instead”

”Uuhhh… Hows that work? Do I just stand here or is this a ‘beat up the robot’ sorta deal?” Blazermate said, more worried about the last part. She didn't seem to mind having a clone of herself running around at all.

”I mean, we could…” Jr began to say, but Rika shook her head, saying ”Really don’t wanna risk that with those around” while pointing out at one of the infested clusters. It was distant, but odds were good that the sound of fighting, even one sided fighting, could attract attention which would be not at all something they wanted when their best healer was hurt.

As such, they resolved to just give it a go in general and see what happened. As it turned out, the tape did indeed begin recording, making a distinctive sound that the kids recognised from their last four recordings. Mostly. It sounded far more strained, the common tappe’s wheels practically grinding as it tied and tried to do its work, before it was all too much and it buckled under the pressure, tape snapping in half a dozen places, and the entire cassette cracking under the pressure.

”Awww” entoned disappointedly, before giving an ”eh” and a shrug before extracting and tossing the tape, saying that ”It was working for sure, but looks like your too strong for just a regular tape?”

”Makes sense? We beat up Undyne and the Beast before beating em up, and Blazermates probably higher rank than them with all her fusion powers n stuff?” Rika guessed, though obviously it was somewhat hard to compare a support to two tough frontline fighters.

”Well, I guess that makes sense? I don’t know anyone else who can make people invincible like I can.” Blazermate said. Roland had a different take, inferring how spirits and his books worked, there was probably something similar going on here.

”Or perhaps it's a ‘strength of spirit’ like you said. Like she has a super strong spirit, and these tapes can only ‘record’ spirits of a certain strength. I know that in the library we had books of different power based on the willpower or strength of those that came to the library. ” Roland said, giving his thoughts on what was going on. ”Either way, it seems like that answers my questions about the whole concept.”

”Well, I'm almost done patching people up. Is that all you guys needed or is there something else?” Blazermate said, being more matter of fact than anything as she knew that there was going to be a big fight coming up.

”Think so” Jr began to say, before changing his mind when his eyes happened to land on the robo-medic’s shield. It sported a jaw that could turn undead into stronger undead, but generally didn’t see much use. He, however, had something in his dufflebag that she might find use out of.

”Actually, here, maybe you can use this?” he said, pulling out the spirit of the cyber-skeleton Unsigned they’d failed to book-ify earlier ”He could summon a load of skeleton guys which used shields and guns, I thought that’d maybe work with your bitty shield thing?”

”Yeah, I could try it as a striker I think? I got something that lets me have 2 more which is neat.” Blazermate said, thanking Jr. and trying to make a striker out of the Unsigned. Having some minions could be neat, especially if she can mutate them into weird things like she did the drybones.



”Nice”

”How’s the healing and stuff going? Everyone doing alright?” Rika then asked, glancing up and after where the medi-bot’s drones had gone.

”Uh… fine? People are more tired than hurt now, but I can’t really tell how tired they are, just how healthy they are. And I never get tired so… yeah. ” Blazermate said with an affirmative nod. ”I just hope we’re close to this guardian. We’re a healer down and I don’t know if our luck can hold on people being split up.”

”Yeahhhh we’re gonna have our work cut out for us, woulda been super handy if this had worked out and we had two of you” Jr agreed with a sigh, tapping his paintbrush against his shoulder ”and I dunno about you, but even if there is some weird meat monster healer here, I dun wanna turn into it”

”Probably should head out before they show up again. That big head one seemed smart, bet it's looking right now”

”Yeah” Blazermate and Roland said at the same time, although one with an inflection of ‘jeez, more?’ and the other was tired.

As the Seekers trudged onward and upward through the infested, labyrinthine passageways of the Qliphoth, Goldlewis paid attention mostly to his own progress. He hadn’t been lying back in Al Mamoon when he said he wasn’t much of a climber; it took prodigious strength and stamina to haul a body like his uphill, and for all his herculean might, the veteran was still human at the end of the day. While he focused on staying upright and not slowing down, the younger and more spry members of the team could put down demonic ambushes or marauding parasites. When it came to the various valves that blocked the heroes’ way, more hands didn’t always make for lighter work, and to avoid having too many cooks in the kitchen, Goldlewis happily let the others cook. At the end of this arduous ascent, after all, lay a battle on par -or perhaps even grander- than Red Eye’s rampage across the Sandswept Sky, though personally Goldlewis couldn’t fathom such a thing. Still, if this fight would take almost every Seeker on the roster, he couldn’t afford to take the coming showdown lightly. So for now, he took the climb step by step, keeping pace toward the rear of the pack.

When the path evened out a little and the going got easier, though, Goldlewis could look beyond himself. On one such occasion he found himself traveling alongside a familiar face, albeit one half-hidden in shadow by its owner’s distinctive red helmet. Captain Falcon had joined the Seekers a week ago in Carnival Town, and the veteran hadn’t seen much of him since then. He dimly remembered there being some sort of history between him and some of the other Seekers, related to events that somehow preceded the whole World of Light. Though still mostly in the dark, Goldlewis assumed it must be important. Why else would a celebrity racer join up with a band of heroes out to save the world? Of course, Falcon must not be any ordinary celebrity. He had a remarkably impressive build for a mere racer, with the chiseled musculature of a bodybuilder and none of the functional drawbacks. He also didn’t seem phased by the smorgasbord of horrors housed in the Qliphoth. It all made Goldlewis inquisitive, and with nothing but dead air around anyway, he decided to speak up.

“So, Falcon, is it? What’s some big shot racecar driver doin’ throwin’ his lot in with folks like us?” His tone was not derisive, but genial, conveying his genuine curiosity well.

The Captain couldn’t help but stifle a chuckle. The phrase ‘racecar driver’ was certainly underselling the F-Zero Grand Prix a bit, but he was courteous enough to not be offended by something so minor. ”Well, it helps that I do more than just racing.” Falcon replied, ”When I’m not taking home the checkered flag, I’m bringing justice to lawless systems as a bounty hunter.” He explained with a grin. This was generally considered basic information about him, but he was willing to assume that not everybody was privy to how his own world worked.

”But if you’re referring to this world specifically? Well, in a sense, you could say I’ve… been around the block a few times when it comes to this sort of thing.” Cap hinted, pausing a moment before clarifying. ”A few of us were originally brought together to fight in what you could describe as a sort of ‘Tournament of Champions’, orchestrated by the entity we know as Master Hand. There were originally just twelve of us back then, including me. As well as Mario and Luigi. Some of the other folks like Bowser, Ganondorf, and Princess Peach didn’t come around until later on when Master Hand’s twin showed up to cause more chaos. Well, I always assumed the two were twins anyway, since they looked identical save for Master Hand being a right hand and Crazy Hand being a left hand.”

“Huh.” Goldlewis couldn’t reply with much more than that at first. The idea that the World of Light wasn’t the first collision between worlds intrigued him. And for a tournament, no less? For the entertainment of whom? From what little he’d seen deep beneath Midgar, Master Hand was more like some eldritch entity stuffed into a giant, inexplicable glove than anyone who’d enjoy pitting people from different realities against one another. The World of Light, at least, seemed to exist at the pleasure of Moebius, the cruel despots at whose whims countless poor souls fought and died. Grim as it was, it made some kind of dreadful sense, at least at ground level. As for the big picture…well, Goldlewis couldn’t really question it at this point. In the end, the ‘how’ and ‘why’ didn’t matter. He had his orders, and that was all he needed.

After a moment Goldlewis zeroed in on the more workable response Falcon gave him. “A bounty hunter then, huh? That explains a whole lot. You ain’t the first tough-as-nails bounty hunter I seen, either. Back at the last G4 Summit, when everythin’ was goin’ to hell in a handbasket thanks to Happy Chaos, a feller by the name o’ Sol stepped in to lend a hand. Sol Badguy, they call ‘im, but between you an’ me he saved our asses out there. Ain’t gonna catch me gettin’ on the bad side of a guy like that, no sirree.” He shook his head to emphasize his point, brows raised. “Come to think of it, from the footage I saw he was a fiery fist-fighter too. If y’all are anythin’ alike, I reckon I’m in good hands, eh?” He reached over and jostled Falcon’s shoulder with his elbow jovially.

”Absolutely. I haven’t met a single bad guy I couldn’t overcome with my trusty Falcon Punch.” The Captain replied, giving one of his patented ‘nice guy’ thumbs up gestures. Although he had to admit to himself, it was kind of funny for someone saving people's lives to be named ‘Badguy’. He wondered if that was a real name or if maybe it was just a moniker like his own name technically was. ”But this Badguy fellow you mentioned sounds like he’d be interesting opponent to go a round with.” Falcon admitted. ”Little known fact about me, the reason I got into racing and bounty hunting was because I’ve always liked to find ways to challenge myself. And taking on outlaws and rival racers in the F-Zero Grand Prix were both pretty good ways for me to do just that.

”Now, all that craziness I mentioned didn’t stop with Master Hand and Crazy Hand.” Cap paused and rubbed his chin thoughtfully, as though he wasn’t certain about the details he was recalling. ”We fought a another tough faction once. Came from some other dimension. I think it was called the Subspace Emissary? Admittedly my memory of that particular time is a bit hazy when it comes to the details, though. But if I recall, I think that was when I first met Pit.”

The Captain’s braggadocious response made Goldlewis wonder if he might have talked up Falcon a little too much with the Sol comparison, but he decided not to rain on the man’s parade. After all, given everything he’d witnessed during his time with the Seekers so far, he couldn’t deny the possibility that Falcon really was as good as he said. Instead he considered what Falcon said about subspace. The word indicated some kind of layer of reality beneath the one he’d consider his own, or maybe beneath all realities. Just as the world’s different countries, no matter how different or isolated from one another, all lay beneath the same sky.

Goldlewis put a pin in that line of thinking as he hauled himself up over a ledge on the slope he’d been climbing, careful not to brush against a throbbing floodfested bubo. After taking an upward hairpin turn, he squeezed past a bushy ganglion and continued on. Up ahead, a handful of parasites crawled out of a fleshy hive, only to be obliterated by the team’s frontrunners. Once he was sure that the danger had passed, Goldlewis spoke again. He couldn’t push aside his thoughts from earlier, especially when he remembered the dying words of Moebius Y. “It all makes me wonder…why? Moebius wants to rule the world, live forever, entertain themselves, or whatever, but they ain’t the ones who dumped this on it. Seems like they’re just maggots crawlin’ around in the pile. Galeem’s just some godlike ball of light, though; it ain’t doin’ much o’ anythin’, unless it’s usin’ all its power just to keep this world spinnin’.” He knew it wasn’t much use posing Falcon an impossible question, but even a meaningless conversation was better than the Qliphoth’s guttural ambience.

The Captain, meanwhile, was having less of a hard time with his climbing. He was quite spry and athletic after all. ”Hmm, well, why does the sun shine?” Falcon asked. ”Maybe that’s all there really is to Galeem? A ball of light acting on some kind of cosmic instinct or chemistry? Either way, we’re all here now.” It didn’t sound like much of a satisfying explanation, the most logical ones rarely were. This was more a case of Occam's Razor being in effect. Possibly. Falcon’s guess could also turn out to be wrong as well, of course.

Goldlewis shrugged. At the end of the day, there wasn’t all that much that could be said. Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of much else to discuss with Falcon either, and with the trek getting tougher, he needed to focus on traversal. Maybe he was just getting antsy due to the lull in the action, but the veteran had the sneaking suspicion that the Seekers’ destination was close. Any mission now the team’s mission in the Qliphoth would come to a head, he could feel it, and maybe the Captain could too. The two men quickly lapsed into silence as they tensed up for the final stretch of their upward journey.

Roxas was in the middle of trying to wash all the xylem off of his coat when he heard Sandalphon’s announcement. He couldn’t really blame her, though. Between the timefall outside and all the nasty stuff they encountered inside? The Dead Zone was definitely living up to its name. He also placed a gauntleted hand on where his trio of Poke Balls were kept. From the start he was hesitant about bringing his Pokemon here, but at the time decided to do so only on the proviso that he keep them in their Poke Balls unless absolutely needed. Now, though? Now he was questioning even that line of thinking. What if he’d been hit by the timefall outside? Would that have still affected Scamp and the others even within their Poke Balls?

Roxas decided that he didn’t want to risk finding out. He walked over to where Sandalphon and Zenkichi were talking, but politely waited for them to finish their private conversation before he got close enough to speak. ”Um… Sandalphon?” Roxas asked, before he held out the shrunken Poke Balls that contained Scamp, Shocker, and Titan. ”Could you… take my Pokemon back with you, too? With how dangerous this zone is, I probably shouldn’t have brought them, and now I guess I’m kinda scared of something happening to them.”

The archangel glanced briefly at the spheres, then looked up at Roxas. “I understand. I’ll see your companions to safety.” She accepted the storage devices, which she carefully slid into her pockets. After a moment, though, Sandalphon gave their owner an inquisitive look. “If you like, I can let them out while aboard the Avenger, under my supervision of course. I know someone with a pet of her own, and we could all keep them company.”

Zenkichi chuckled, nodding at that. ”Yeah, I asked her to check in on my daughter, Akane, too. She’s got one of those Pals, too. I’m sure she’d be happy to play with ‘em all.”

Roxas smiled and his worried expression lit up into something mixed with relief and cheerfulness. ”Sure! Just keep an eye out if you feed them. Or Scamp’ll make off with your lunch if you’re not careful. Thanks, Sandalphon. I appreciate it.”

After that he took his leave so the archangel and detective could resume their private moment. It didn’t take long for Roxas to spot his angelic buddy and roommate though. ”Hey, Pit!” Roxas called as he jogged over in his direction. ”You holding up fine? Man, this xylem stuff is pretty nasty, huh? I’m gonna need so many baths before I feel clean again.”

Pit perked up at Roxas' call. Though Primrose and Sandalphon’s healing had patched him up there were still signs of the battles Pit had fought through with everyone. His clothes were torn in some places, and he sported a couple patches of yellowing skin that would probably become bruises overnight if they didn't heal completely. Despite that though the angel did appear to be holding up fine, as he turned to Roxas with a grin while the continued journey up the Qliphoth got underway.

"Tell me about it, plus it gets everywhere," he said, smile becoming a grimace. Even his singlet was soaked, to say nothing of his scarf and chiffon. "I didn't even know trees had this kind of stuff. Then I was wondering if it's only Underworld trees like this, and now I'm wondering if it has like a heart inside of it that it's all connected to."

He paused, a sudden look of scrutiny coming over his face as he glanced around the swampy area. Surely this wasn't its heart, right...? Since everyone had ended up here then all of the veins led here, but... Nah, couldn't be.

”Yeah, and what’s up with all the cards that always show up after a fight?” Roxas wondered, ”After my second one, the card started… talking to me. I saw a guy I’ve never seen before with bright armor and a bow. He said something about lighting my way and then he was gone. Weird…”

"Huh, when I saw someone they didn't say anything to me. But Captain Falcon said someone talked to him too," Pit replied, easily turning his thoughts back to the conversation. "I'm pretty sure those cards are gods pitching in to help us. I asked Lady Palutena about them and she said the same thing."

Apparently he'd reached out to his own goddess at some point while waiting for the full group to reconvene. Pit crossed his arms in front of his chest plate as he continued. "I've met a ton of gods and they love poking their nose into stuff like this. They're probably betting with each other on who does the best or what side is gonna win!"

”Really? That sounds… kinda horrible.” Roxas said, although he was willing to admit that maybe he was misreading the idea. ”I wonder what kind of god was talking to me?” He mused. ”He had, like, bright gold armor and a red cape, and bright hair. Although maybe that doesn’t narrow it down much… The first card I picked only talked to me, saying something about unequal talent. It was the second card where I actually saw him and he talked about ‘lighting my way’, whatever that means.”

”Now that I think about it, with how this world works… I guess there’s probably a lot of gods from different worlds that could be around and watching. And how much stronger do you think Galeem is if even gods are controlled by its influence?” It wasn’t the most pleasant thought to think about. But it was also undeniable. ”No one ever said this was going to be easy, did they?”

While Roxas was describing the god that spoke to him in more depth, Pit tried to picture what they looked like and if they seemed familiar. Unfortunately nothing came to mind, so at the very least the angel had never met them personally. Of course something he had seen firsthand was how often deities happened to fall for each other's tricks, control, corruptions, and more. Pit would have felt embarrassed on their collective behalf if he was the type to, but he wasn't. At least with that experience he could put a more optimistic spin on Roxas' outlook.

"Plus if it was easy then there wouldn't be a need for heroes like us, right?" he said with a shrug and a smile. "I wouldn't worry about how strong Galeem is - it just got the jump on everyone. Even gods can get surprised! And mind control powers like that are OP anyway."

Pit nodded sagaciously at his own words. That kind of ability was really hard to counter. Then again the amount of times his goddess alone had been trapped, hypnotized, or body snatched made it seem to him that Galeem's Influence wasn't as big a deal so long as there was someone around to eventually put a stop to it. Which there was, in the form of the Seekers and Lost Numbers.

"Hey, if you're really curious about the god that talked to you I could always ask Lady Palutena. I'm sure she'd know about him," he offered, steering the conversation slightly away from their still distant goal.

”You think so?” Roxas asked, ”You sure we won’t be bothering her?””

"No way! Back home we'd chat it up on missions all the time, way less important stuff too." The angel seemed quite confident that asking Palutena wouldn't be a big deal. "Here, hold on. Did you catch all of that, Lady Palutena?"

Naturally Roxas did not hear a response. Pit was quiet for a few seconds, then let out a drawn out hmmmm as he listened.

"She said after checking Divinipedia, that god is probably Apollo," he finally said, turning his attention back to Roxas. As he delivered Palutena's message, his own curiosity sparked in his eyes. "He's a god of light from some place called Olympus."

”Apollo, huh?” Roxas echoed. ”Well, he didn’t seem like a particularly bad guy.” He said with a small shrug. ”And I’d rather him be a god of light than a god of darkness, so… that’s a plus I guess.” He sighed as he looked up at the climb they were going to have to get started on. ”Guess we better start heading up if we don’t wanna fall behind.” The Nobody suggested, which was kinda ironic since he and Pit were two of the Seekers who would have the easiest time making a vertical climb due to wings and flow motion respectively. And so catching up would be a relatively quick and easy task for them despite how their conversation had slowed them down. With a chirp of agreement from Pit the two boys sped up into a short lived race to the front of the pack, weaving through, around, or over their allies as they went.

After the seekers had gotten to the Scarlet Swamp they got a little chance for some rest. Most of them. For a pair of them, whispers only they could hear prevented any relaxation from being had.

Edward had heard them since his arrival, and had intentionally followed them with weary interest, wading through swamp water with hands firmly placed on hilts of weapons in anticipation of this being some kind of trap.

They lead him to the island upon which Miss Fortune had tried to wash herself, but by then both she and her companion had abandoned the spot that led him too, leaving only a pool of diluted blood as evidence of her attempt. Instead, he found only the source of the whispers, a talllion-headed statue holding a massive hourglass.

He paused for a moment, examining the artifact with a clinical eye, blood dripping from his wings and clothes, before movement to his right caused him to tense and shift it. He did not find an enemy there however, but instead the armored form of Edelgard causing him to relax, hands moving away from his weapons, and for him to instead rais one in greeting.

”Well met. I’m glad to see you made it out of that gauntlet as well”

Edelgard nodded, eyes focused on the statue before the pair. ”Indeed. It was a…most frustrating experience, if I am to be blunt with you. I hope that your ascent was less unpleasant, at least.” The small talk was helping to keep her mind off of the frustration of being frozen within the Sepulcher, but it could not break her gaze from the statue.

”Another of this tree’s mysteries, you think?” She suddenly spoke after a few moments. ”I noticed that we are the only two so…drawn…to this thing.”

”Hordes and an unkillable hunter, horrors both” Edward replied to the first question, before saying that ”and now this regal statue that would seem rather out of place if not... well…” as he gazed up at the piece of art before them before he glanced at her and asked to confirm ”I assume you hear the whispers too?”

Edelgard let out a huff of air, nodding imperceptibly. ”Were it not for the peculiarities of this place, I’d have thought myself mad. I assume the two of us being the latest additions to this group has something to do with it?” She mused, still staring at the statue. Why was it calling to them? What did it want?

”Hey Ed,” She said, ”If you two like this statue so much, why don’tcha marry it?” She dropped down from where she had been watching. Setting a hand on her hip she balanced on one foot, hooking the other behind. Truth be told she had been hearing whispers, too, but, like, who didn’t? But more than one person hearing voices from the same source was something to investigate.

Edward suppressed a sigh as he turned to face the quarrelsome streetfighter, and then tried to avoid being derailed from the topic at hand, saying ”I suppose that throws a wrench in that theory, unless you joined only somewhat recently as well? Before us, naturally, but how long before?”

”I dunno when you guys joined, you’re all so forgettable. But I was a little over a week ago.” She said.

Edelgard did not suppress her sigh when Juri approached, not looking forward to her intrusion. Thankfully, however, this time her ‘barb’ was more of a juvenile teasing than anything meant to actually rankle a person. ”Regardless, we ought to do something. Does it want us to call out to it? Touch it? I suppose we do not have overly long to wait to test our theories.” And with that, she strode confidently up to the statue and placed her hand upon it.

For a few moments, her vision flashed white and red, before returning to reality. She gasped as the xylem slowly flowed from her arm onto the statue, pooling into a large bubble that floated between her and it. Leaving her hand there, Edelgard watched as her armor was cleansed of the bloodlike substance, which floated into the statue and disappeared. ”How odd…” She muttered, stepping back.



”Even if that is all it does, then this meeting will have been worth it. These wings have already proven a nightmare to keep clean” Edward said as he stepped forwards to touch the same statue, and he too was cleansed of the tree’s stolen vitality. Then he stepped back, blinking as if he’d been blinded by a flash. He waved a hand before his eyes and then looked into the distance, before saying that ”Odd certainly describes it. I think my vision just got sharper?”



”Haaah?” Juri put her fists on her hips and leaned forward, taking a big couple steps before she plopped her hand on the statue. The blood was absorbed from her as well. But in her mind’s eye, she was taken back to her first kill when she was still a freshly orphaned teenager prowling the rainy streets of the criminal underworld in Seoul. Then the one after that, and after that, and after that. Everything she did for SIN and Shadaloo. That long day when she scoured the entire research division of everyone who knew about Seth and the Feng Shui Engine. Every life she’d ever taken. But she didn’t get the impression the statue was judging her. Just acknowledging it, and taking it, and turning it into strength she had yet to remember. The others would see each life represented by a small orb of blood that left Juri’s hand and travelled into the statue, the victim dimly reflected in the orb itself. There was probably a little more than fifty orbs in total.



Juri pulled away her hand and looked at her palm, now clean of blood. ”What the hell?” She asked. But she couldn’t deny, she was brimming with restored power. ”Let’s just hope this lion statue isn’t a snitch.” She looked at the other two.

”You’re tellin’ me neither of you saw anything?” She asked.

Edward glance up at her from where he was checking over one of his floating tomes, one that looked like it could be used as a weapon thanks to the spike lining it, with a questioning look.

”Nothing specific” he replied, before the commander gave it a moment more thought and saying that ”there was something of a blur, as if something was attempting to be communicated, but no discernible details came through” and then asking ”why? Did you see something clearer?”

”I likewise only saw flashes of color. White and red. I have little idea as to what it meant.” Edelgard added, somewhat confused. What did Juri see that they did not?

Juri looked between them. ”I saw every chump I ever merked.” She said, and then cast her eyes upon her own hands. ”Guess the statue didn’t mind all the killin’, though. Hell, I feel stronger for it.”

She set a hand on her hip. ”Either you two goodie two shoes have never killed anyone, or…” She trailed off, letting the implication hang.

The look on Edelgard's face was a mixture of bemusement at being called a ‘goodie two shoes’ and horror at what her empty flashing vision had meant. ”Indeed.” She simply replied, turning away and steeling her gaze.

Edward’s meanwhile was a stern mask, the man effortlessly hiding whatever it was he felt at this revelation, yet not quite well enough to disguise the fact that that was what he was doing. ”I am exactly what I appear to be” the man in military dress holding a tome with which he conjured weapons of war explained simply, before snapping the book shut and moving to affix it back at his hip.

Juri let out an appreciative whistle. ”Mrs and Mr Geneva Suggestion over here! What’s your favorite type of township to raze?”

”Where were you raised?” Edelgard replied with a cold glare, before rolling her eyes and continuing without giving Juri a chance to respond. ”I did what was necessary to root out those who had forced innocent people to toil under an unjust system, hiding a shadow war beneath the noses of an entire continent, all to maintain the last dying throes of the power they once had. And I will do the same to Galeem.”

Juri’s grin widened, feeling like she touched a nerve. ”Oh, forgive my manners, your majesty. Don’t throw me to the lions! You’re right, I’m sure all those dead people are super grateful you came in to save them.”

”and do you consider the deaths at your own hands just, or did you needle them to death with endless provocation for your own amusement?” Edward stepped in to ask, more to diffuse Juri’s attention than to get her to lay off.

Juri swivelled, leaning forward. ”Nah, I killed ‘em cuz I wanted to. Though I’m sure if I asked them, they’d say they were only doing what was necessary.” Juri winked.

”and if you were in our boots, with armies, cities, a whole nation at our beck and call, would you do the same? Kill whoever you wanted too simply because you felt like it?” the man replied, hands folded behind the small of his back as he stared her down.

Juri shrugged, making a face. ”Meh, too much work. I’m not the world-conquering type. Plus, I prefer to kill people with my own hands. Just seems like the decent thing to do.” She added cheekily.

”I will not pretend that what I did was good. Only that it was necessary for people to live a life of their own choosing, rather than being suppressed by hidden societies carrying out a millenium-long war. And if you think I took no pleasure in ending the people who tortured me and turned me into a living weapon, you are as much a fool as you've made yourself out to be already.” Edelgard replied, her voice steady and emotionless.

”I do not need your approval of my actions to assuage my conscience, I assure you. Some of the others gathered here may fancy themselves heroes or champions, but I've a feeling you think yourself their better for your lack of restraint. Such narcissism ill suits a woman of your talents.” Letting out a short breath, Edelgard turned away, a distant look on her face. This woman reminded her of a less magnanimous Ferdinand, though she was just as self-aggrandizing.

Juri raised her hands placatingly, making an exaggerated face of surprise. ”Hey, you’ll get no arguments from me, princess! I’m sure you had a grand old time. That’s why I asked. Not often I get to chat with a fellow carnage enthusiast.”

She took a few steps forward, swooping around Edelgard’s side. ”And so ambitious. And you hate a secret society, too? We have so much in common! Why don’tcha like me, huh?!” Juri asked, pouting.

”I can hardly guess” Edward said with a straight face as he stepped around Edelgard’s other side to keep track of the young woman, and in so doing making circling her like some kind of street shark that much more awkward.

Juri was suddenly in Edward’s face, her eyes bulging. ”She’s a big girl, I think she can handle little ol’ me.” She whispered. ”Maybe you’re just trying to make up for something.” She said with an unimpressed shrug, backing off.

She turned to walk away, raising a hand in a flippant goodbye wave. ”Have fun reminiscing about the good old days, Eds! Don’t lemme get in yer way.”

Once Juri was well out of earshot, Edelgard sighed. ”That woman is insufferable. And I have more than enough to ‘make up’ for than she could begin to fathom.” Gritting her teeth, Edelgard whirled on Edward, before slowing to compose herself. ”Though, I must thank you for attempting to take her attention off me. She is simply a nuisance, and I wonder if she realizes it, or she believes herself clever for managing to get a rise out of us?”

”I spent far too much time trapped in a forest with her and an unkillable mass of bodies, and she was more of a threat to my sanity than it by quite some margin” Edward quipped in response, leaving out the two rogues who had has seen neither hide nor hair of due to their talents. He added that it was ”most certainly not a fate I want someone else to endure, particular when she had latched onto something so… personal” before leaving the floor open for her to vent about or withhold what it was she had made up for, at her own discretion.

Edelgard hummed, nodding. ”I can scarcely imagine how miserable that must have been, Commander. I suppose I should count myself lucky with regards to those I encountered on the scent of this demonic tree.”

Taking the hint, he made no effort to pick up that dropped subject, and pointed the conversation towards the future, saying ”I expect once she is distracted by the chance to commit violence again that’ll be the last we hear of her on the rest of the climb other than the odd bit of inflammatory yelling that the din of battle should mostly drown out” as he scanned the room with his sharpened sense of sight, spotting and then pointing out that ”and there does at least seem to be a path heading upwards. So perhaps we’ll be able to ascend in a more coordinated fashion this time?”

”That would be nice. I grow weary of these strange challenges we face, in limited numbers. I would much rather overwhelm our enemies with unstoppable numbers and power, rather than have to guess at what strange manner of fighting we will need to employ to win.” Nobody ever called her a tactician, that was for sure. ”You remind me of my retainer, Hubert. Only much less…dour in outlook. It might have been easier to get a demonic beast to smile than that man.”

Proving that point, that certainly got a smile from the man, who guessed that ”I take it he was the sort of man to foresee every possible bad outcome? That certainly has its values in a strategist, as long as there is some counter balance”

”He was. After the attack that destroyed Arianrhod, he drafted a letter to release to our enemies should I be felled in battle, giving the location that he determined the weapons had been launched from. It took some time, but he was a military and magical genius, if a bit stone-hearted. He had to be, to do what we did.” Sighing, Edelgard shook her head. ”I look forward to the day I can see him again. If only to have a truly loyal face around. Not that you haven’t been pleasant conversation thus far, but we’ve known each other only a day.”

”Of course” Edward replied matter of factly, along with a slight nod in additional agreement. ”Still, I have so far found your company entirely agreeable. A steady ship in a lake of… eccentricity” he said, choosing the word politely rather than carefully because they were ”competent, certainly, but from different worlds than you and I. More than just literally I mean. This is perhaps the most adhocly run force I have ever been a part of, save perhaps the one that was meant to save my world before Galeem so rudely interrupted our attempt. Some of them where already well past it before starting to style themselves as ‘Godir’ of that I’m sure”

Edelgard let out a small chuckle at Edward’s description of their compatriots. ”Indeed. I am used to people of a much more military bent, whereas this group is very cobbled together from whomever they could find. I understand the reasoning, but it has resulted in a very eclectic group nonetheless.”

”Indeed” Edward agreed, before suggesting ”I suppose we shall simply have to lead from example in the professionalism department”

Shaking her head, Edelgard gave another mirthless chuckle. ”I feel that might be a fool’s errand, Commander. Regardless, let us join the others, it appears that the time has come to mobilize.” Nodding at the group, which had begun to stir and move out, Edelgard likewise followed.

”I suppose, but what else is there to do but try?” Edward asked, only for Edelgard’s point to be hammered down by a tiny turtle yelling ”hurry it up slow pokes!” at them from the exit of the chamber, prompting him to gave a sigh that turned into a slight, genuinely amused, chuckle at the absurdity of it all and add ”If only for the sake of attempting to maintain our own dignity”

”Whatever dignity I had died in the mud, Commander. I have only spite left.” She sighed, rolling her eyes at Junior as she broke into a light jog. The shuffling and clinking of armor heralded her every step.

”Mine alone then” Edward said, only to himself, and then moved to follow, the more lightly armored man catching up and then keeping pace while his mind switched gears to strategizing army compositions.