[center][h3]Lilith’s Encroaching Shadow III[/h3]
Lvl 7 Sandalphon (59/70), Bowser Junior, Rika, Roland
[b]Word Count:[/b] 4523 (+5)[/center]

Jr added to Sandalphon’s healing with a cast of [color=SpringGreen]”Medica!”[/color] 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 [color=Aqua]”She [i]is[/i] super annoying”[/color] in something close to a growl, before bullet jumping and dashing towards the foe with the intent to get her to [color=Aqua]”shut up!”[/color] 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. 

[color=Aqua]”Try and talk with a mouthful of slime you peon!”[/color] 

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.

[color=#fa0b0c]“Gah!”[/color] 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. [color=#fa0b0c]“AAAGH!”[/color] 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. [color=#fa0b0c]“Okay, change of plans. I wanna hear you suckers sizzle!”[/color] 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. [color=#fa0b0c]“Burn to death!”[/color]

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.

[color=SpringGreen]”We can do water”[/color] 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 [color=SpringGreen]”Sis, catch!”[/color]

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

[color=SpringGreen]”Bubblebeam her!”[/color] 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 [url=https://i.imgur.com/BqlEJoV.png]beam of water[/url] 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.

[color=SpringGreen]”Ohhhh- that’s a tricky, uh, trick”[/color] 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.

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

[color=SpringGreen]”Found the tape, now onto the next”[/color] 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 [url=https://imgur.com/M4UUWKr]fish monster knight[/url]

[color=SpringGreen]”Yeahhhhh, now we’re talking! Let’s bring the rain!”[/color] 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. [color=d7d7d7]”Oh, you have EGO too?”[/color] 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. [i]Twelve second to go.[/i]

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. [color=#fa0b0c]“Ugh!”[/color] 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. [color=#fa0b0c]”I’m gonna wipe you out!”[/color]

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…”

[color=#fa0b0c]”Heehee! Let’s see you weasel outta this one, Sandy!”[/color]

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.

[color=SpringGreen]”Are we really gonna try and run through that or… what?”[/color] 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 [color=Aqua]”Catch”[/color] 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 [url=https://i.imgur.com/JPcnsP5.jpeg]the Beast[/url] 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.

[color=SpringGreen]”Wait, we can just move them?!”[/color] 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 [color=d7d7d7]”Of course now she tells us.”[/color] 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. [color=#fa0b0c]”How? HOW!? You must have cheated! You’re supposed to be DEAD! Dead, dead-!”[/color]

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.

[color=#fa0b0c]”Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh, damn it! Damn you!”[/color] 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. [color=#fa0b0c]”Sandy…you know…they’ll never love you. I’ll be back…and when I am…I’ll take…everything…!”[/color]

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. 

[hider=For Sandalphon][b]Arctic Ring[/b] - your healing skills now also deal repeated ice damage to enemies in range
[b]Perfect Experience: Fuli[/b] - when attacking frozen enemies, there is a 100% base chance to inflict Dissociation for 10 seconds, which will cause severe damage upon thaw
[b]Block Charm[/b] - you negate the first hit landed on you, once per battle[/hider]
[hider=For Bowser Jr]
[b]Bling Charm[/b] - once pinned to someone, every last hit creates 3 gold
[b]Stygian Turtle Shell[/b] - after taking damage 3 times in quick succession, become invulnerable for 3 seconds. 26 second cooldown
[b]Bolt Marrow[/b] - physical projectiles that deal piercing damage home on their targets, with the amount of homing inversely proportional to projectile speed
[/hider]
[hider=For Rika]
[b]Typhoon’s Fury[/b] - you deal more damage slamming your foes into solid objects
[b]H3AD-5T v2[/b] - when hitting the ground, create a 1 meter diameter ground blast that gains 10% extra damage and 1 more meter of diameter per meter fallen beforehand, up to 100m and 1000% damage
[b]Kill Rhythm[/b] - switching weapons will increase your attack speed by 15% for 2 seconds
[/hider]
[hider=For Roland][b]Dead Inside[/b] - maximum HP increases by 50%, but all healing is halved
[b]Sentinel Satellite[/b] - once per battle, when your life falls below half, you get a shield that can absorb 20% of your max HP for 20 seconds
[b]Connected Mind[/b] - when wielding the same weapon type as a nearby ally, you deal 10% more damage. Doubles if you’re wielding the same weapon[/hider]

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 [url=https://i.imgur.com/Az8u0gX.png]rather on brand[/url].

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 [url=https://i.imgur.com/lcTuMeU.png]frozen emperor[/url], 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.  [color=d7d7d7]”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.”[/color]

“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.

[color=d7d7d7]”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.”[/color] 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. [color=d7d7d7]”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…”[/color] 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. 

[color=SpringGreen]”Urrrgh, stupid hammer stealing hat kid”[/color] 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.

[color=Aqua]”Guess we’ll just send it back? Tora can have another go at it”[/color] 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.

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

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