Pit would much rather face off against an enemy that was easier to understand than O. A big, straight forward monster or a horde of demons was much preferable to someone that could completely change the battlefield on a whim and summon everything from zoo animals to carnival rides. That was so not nice, rides like that should only be used for fun but the Consul was using them for evil! But since everyone else must have felt the same way, he felt that leaving any one of the enemies unchallenged would be bad.

But then, how could they challenge O?

It might have been possible to make the Consul spend all of his money and get him out of the fight that way, but that plan seemed well above what Pit could grasp. His fusions had made him more clever and, he assumed, smarter if he could read now, but he had no idea what O's movements could possibly cost. Did it matter what kind of currency he used? What if he had way more money than they could drain - he'd presumably been alive in the World of Light this whole time amassing it after all. And how much time would it take, how many more contraptions and habitats could he summon before they made him go bankrupt?

Pit didn't want to try and figure any of that out, so instead he stuck with searching for O's real body.

Lady Palutena had told him that the Consul was most likely physically present, and he was inclined to believe her. But as he'd expressed (mostly to himself) just before, trying to find him seemed like an incredible challenge. Still, it wasn't like he was just about to give up.

However, he currently had to deal with the newest terrain that O had conjured up. Pit shivered involuntarily as the ice and cold set instantly set in, though the polar bears popping into existence a moment later quickly gave him the chance to warm up again.

"He's gonna make us fight cute little bears?" Pit said, despite the fact that these were almost twice as tall as him standing and easily three times his weight, with sharp claws and teeth to boot. Unfortunately for the bears though, there was no way they stood a chance.

Freshly healed thanks to Junior, Pit's battle with one of the polar bears didn't last long. As the mammals split up and went after one each of those in the enclosure, the one targeting Pit stood and brought both of its paws down at him, but only after it had made it out of the fiery goop moat. At that point it had already taken a couple of light arrows while it was slowed. Pit sidestepped the double swipe and parried the next swing the bear took with the broad side of his bow. He spun into a two handed slash, cutting deep across the bear's fur. It roared and rushed in to snap its jaws at the angel, but he caught it by letting it by down on the divine metal of his weapon. Pit then brought his foot up sharply, a vertical kick to the polar bear's chin that sent it stumbling backward onto its hind legs.

A strong charged arrow, big and bright, was enough to put it down after that. Pit glanced quickly over at Junior and Rika to see how they were doing - they seemed alright? Sort of? Pretty alright. They definitely had it from here.

"Alright, time to get a move on then!" he said to himself. He couldn't see anything past these concrete walls, so now was the time to abandon the left side of the arena. Pit leapt up, clearing the enclosure with a few flaps of his wings. He landed on the opposite side of the walls and took off running as soon as he hit the ground.

He flitted around the battlefield looking for any hints to where O might be. The hollow was barren of much else besides the people fighting in it though, so there really weren't many places to hide in the first place. It didn't take long at all for Pit to feel frustratingly like he wasn't getting anywhere. Every moment he spent fruitlessly searching it was less time spent helping his friends and fighting the bad guys. If he could just find the guy it would all pay off, but that was the problem - finding him!

Close by, but not close enough that he'd hurt himself with his own stuff. Somewhere the big ugly worm wouldn't strike. Somewhere hidden that we wouldn't think to look, he thought to himself, having repeated those few lines like a mantra in his brain while he searched. If I wouldn't think to look there then how am I gonna think of it now! ...no, wait, just. Where haven't I checked already?

The angel had flitted about the whole area it seemed like, and he hadn't seen so much as a clue - but if it was somewhere he hadn't looked yet, might not even think to look, then... He turned suddenly, slight curls in his hair bouncing as he looked to the only other place that he hadn't checked in the arena: the door they'd come through, standing atop a raised ledge that half surrounded the final hollow.

It was worth a try. Nothing else had panned out so far. Hoping that it didn't look like he was deserting, Pit ran towards the area, eyes wide and searching for anything that could at least point him in the right direction. That direction, however, turned out to be the one he was already heading. The Gravemind becoming a giant torch cast bright flickering light over the whole area, and he could see things in, well, literally a different light. Sections of the raised area looked dissimilar to the rest of the hollow when cast in the white orange glow of fire rather than the ominous deep red natural lighting - and those sections rippled minutely in response to the sweeping movements of the Guardian's arms, or the powerful attacks being thrown out by Pit's companions.

By the time Sectonia's Reaper's Scythe was cast Pit was within range of these suspicious flaps of flesh. When the queen's blade came down and severed the Gravemind's tentacle Pit had the two halves of his bow in each hand, one reversed, as he cut away the camouflage. When the roller coaster was being built he couldn't help but pause and watch though, especially when its entire construction spanned only seconds - its operation too, as the track curled around Sectonia and the coaster itself slammed into her over and over. And, when the whole thing crashed down on top of her and she didn't get back up, didn't even look like she was there anymore at all, Pit bristled all over. There was no way she had- she hadn't just died, right? Sure she was really full of herself and super critical of everything, but she was one of the Seekers; a friend.

Pit gripped his swords tightly and dove into the hollow space he'd uncovered. Behind the makeshift tarp of infested hide lay a small, narrow passageway, its walls and roof roughly carved into the Qliphoth’s constituent material, but its floor reasonably flat. As he darted through, the cacophony of flame, magic, gunfire, and dead voices behind him grew fainter, and a new noise reached him from up ahead. After another moment he emerged into a small cave illuminated not by lambent pustules or demonic sorcery, but kerosine lamps. They surrounded a rug arranged in the center, and on that rug sat a man in a wheelchair. It was a sturdy contraption of steel and radial spokes, with an upholstered seat of shiny black leather reminiscent of an office chair, and a sophisticated medical device including heart monitor and oxygen tank. And in that chair sat Consul O, his fingers interlaced with his elbows propped up on the armrests, his eyes closed and his head bent forward as if in meditation. He twitched and muttered as the seconds went by, but did not react to Pit’s arrival.

The angel had arrived with his blades raised ready to swiftly strike down the crafty Consul, but he hesitated when he actually found the villain. He's an old man...? Pit's eyes jumped from the wheelchair to the helmet, his brows furrowed. It wasn't quite the grand reveal he was hoping for, and normally he'd feel bad for attacking a geezer on their last legs like this but...

But he had to go. Just look at what he'd done already - he'd been trying to kill them, and might have even just succeeded at it.

Pit's bright eyes flashed with emotion and he stepped into a X-shaped cross slash with both of his swords, scraping hard against O's armor and toppling the man over in his seat.

“GAH!” Before hitting the ground, O suddenly jerked awake, like someone jolted from a dream. His wheelchair hit the ground with a rattling crash, and the Consul spilled from it over the edge of the rug onto the ground. The table set up next to the wheelchair, decked out with a half-empty bottle and wine glass, fell alongside it as collateral damage. O did not rise, but lay there groaning until he managed to turn onto his side, at which point he greeted the sight of Pit with one arm raised in placation. “W-wait! Stop!” He rolled onto his back, his legs weak but seemingly not dead weight, and held up both hands. “I surrender! I can’t fight. Not in this…useless body. Can barely even stand. So…you’ve won. Congratulations.” Though his voice sounded growly and resentful, the fear in his voice was real. In person, he also sounded more British than he did through his avatar. He coughed, one hand pressed against the armor by his ribcage. “I beg you…don’t kill me.”

"You were fighting pretty well before! What, you don't wanna summon a gorilla or something now that you're cornered?"

Pit's divine weapons were still raised in threat, the gold glinting in the lamplight. He was glaring down at O, but the fact that he hadn't already attacked the man again spoke volumes. But he also couldn't just stand guard over O the whole time either when he was needed elsewhere. He shifted, feathers twitching.

"And what you did...! Even like this there's no way you'd surrender so easily. As soon as I leave you're gonna try and kill us again - so I'm not going to let you."

O scooted away as best he could, backpedaling toward the wall of his little hidey-hole with his hands raised in front of his mask. “I’m more use to you alive!” he insisted, his tone urgent. “The others–I know their weaknesses! They dismiss me as some doddering old fool, but my eyes are as sharp as ever! D, for instance. His weakness is light! Holy miracles! And that’s just the beginning.” His back bumped against the wall, halting his retreat. “Look, I’m just a man. The rest are all vampires and monsters and ancient gods, but not me. Just an old man, terrified of dying. A man of business–we can make a deal! I promise!” He turned his head away, cowering.

Though it was surely a boon that one of the Seekers had found O in the flesh, that it had happened to be Pit and Pit alone meant that there was no one who could speak sense to the angel, or who would cut O down regardless while he was fearfully begging for mercy. Even the goddess in his head was silent, unwilling to pass judgement on the Consul or just curious to see what her favored angel would do.

Pit bit his lip in hesitation. He was angry but he was also tense and unsure - maybe it actually was that easy, and O was choosing to preserve his own life over continuing the fight. If O truly was surrendering then... he couldn't just murder the man, could he?

"I..." Pit lowered his swords. "...argh! Okay! If you give up then - I'll... tie you up or something, and you'll tell us how to beat everyone else."

And afterward O could still face justice without pulling some trick to escape, or so he figured. He glanced down at his sash belt where the goddess whip was tied, which was the closest thing he had to rope.

A vivid red light shone from behind Pit, casting his shadow against the wall in front of him. He looked up sharply, eyes wide for the briefest of moments before they hardened. Hot anger and embarrassment bubbled up as he realized he'd been tricked, but it was too late to do anything about it.

The next moment, a wall of thick, solid acrylic surrounded Pit, enclosing a three-foot space around him from floor to ceiling. The instant the perimeter completed, the tiny tank filled with salt water around him. Finally, half a dozen Southern Sea Otters poofed into existence around him, confused but not hostile, and making the tank that much more cramped. The walls of the little cave shimmered with the crimson light of O’s eyes, refracted through shatter-proof plastic and seawater, until they vanished and the Consul himself stirred. “Damn it all,” he grumbled as he righted his wheelchair, then climbed inside. “I’m in for it now.” Purple energy began to surround him, and the next moment O warped away.

And so Pit was left in the hidden area, alone, and very much in danger of drowning. He hadn't had any time to suck in a breath and hold it, so his air supply was low on top of having already swallowed water. The salt was stinging his eyes but he forced them to stay open, glaring at the area O had last been before he started moving in the small tank. That jerk! That evil old man! That... what was that bad word Geralt and the Koopas said? O was that! When Pit escaped he was not going to be fooled again.

He raised his arm, his sword still held tight in it, and went to smash the makeshift hilt of it into the clear wall but stopped himself when one of the otters swam in front of him. He shook his head and waved the same arm so that it would swim by, and only then did he crack the sword against the acrylic. Unfortunately the water slowed him a little, and aquarium tanks were very, very sturdy - it didn't splinter let alone break, and the reverberation of the hit shook the inside of the tank painfully. He winced, and the otters shuddered. Poor things… but he had to get out!

Alright, next plan. His lungs were already starting to burn when Pit dismissed his current weapon. He raised his arm up high again and summoned the Upperdash Arm around it. The much larger weapon ate up a majority of the tank space above him, and... well, he couldn't bring it down in front of him. At best he could knock it against the acrylic from an upright position. Annoyed, Pit willed the Arm's disc to spin for more power - and it churned the water in the tank so forcefully that it made him dizzy, caused another otter to smack into his face, and pushed water up his nose.

Pit dispelled the Arm amid a coughing fit, which only worsened the situation as the saltwater rushed into his mouth. Now he was beginning to panic. Palutena's voice buzzed in the back of his brain and he tried to focus on it while thinking of how to break himself out of this. If only he'd come here with back up, but everyone else was... no, there was one person!

He activated Sandalphon's glyph even as he choked on water.

One second later, a sigil of radiant blue light manifested on the floor, illuminating the hidden hollow. There was a bright flash, a familiar silhouette visible within, though it quickly gave way to the glow of Sandalphon’s distinctive three-ringed halo. In the brief period since she’d returned to the Avenger she’d evidently found time to change back into her blue-and-black formal attire, freshly washed and dried since her last outing, and in her hand she held her high-tech gunstaff.

Despite the bizarre and inexplicable problem facing Pit, the archangel parsed the situation at a glance and came up with a plan. Though she figured that the strength of her Hammering striker would be enough to pulverize the acrylic, the shockwaves from the impact would cause the angel and otters alike a great deal of harm, and the ability to heal someone afterward did not justify a solution that hurt them. Sandalphon unslung the Eye of Sol, then summoned her Annabella striker, and together the two opened fire. Their superheated slugs melted straight through the acrylic and vaporized water, creating two holes at a time that water could drain through. Guided by her steady hand and impeccable accuracy, the two rifles blazed again and again, no shot ever endangering the tank’s contents. After only a few more seconds Pit could breathe again, and not long after that, the cumulative structural damage to the tank led it to fall apart.

The pieces of acrylic were nowhere near as sharp as glass shards, so as the sea otters scattered around her, Sandalphon immediately dropped her weapons and stepped forward to catch Pit in her arms. “Pit. Can you hear me?” If he required resuscitation, she would not hesitate to provide it.

He trembled, grasping her arms weakly until he started to cough. He leaned away as water came up and vaguely answered her question by nodding afterwards. He was a hardy angel, so every pull of air and dislodge of water from his lungs would see him back to fighting shape in no time - but for the moment he let Sandalphon support him and tried to talk to her in between gasps.

"Thanks– Sandal–phon– stupid– O– found– him–" he stopped to properly breathe, and after a moment he raised his wings to help steady himself as he got his feet under him.

"I–" he coughed one last time, a flicker of frustration passing his face as he inhaled. "I found O's real body...! He was an old guy...! He told me he surrendered and told me D's weakness– but then he...!"

Pit still pulled in great mouthfuls of air as he spoke, and rushed his words, but he was recovering quickly. "C'mon, we gotta get back out there!"

A quick scan confirmed that Pit’s vitals seemed to be stable, so Sandalphon had every confidence that the young angel would spring right back into action. “If you’re alright, I’ll go back to standing by and return when needed. Sectonia reappeared aboard the Avenger, so everyone is accounted for, but the battle is hectic enough that nobody need waste time protecting me.” She stood aside to let Pit run past her and back into the fray. “You mentioned D’s weakness? I can disseminate the information throughout the team.”

Pit paused at the mouth of the hiding spot leading to the tunnel, bouncing on his feet as he turned to answer her.

"Right - it's miracles and light. Figures 'cause he's a vampire and all." It was a great relief to hear Sectonia wasn't actually dead, and though he had expected the archangel to take to the field now that she was here he understood why she'd go back instead. Having up there as back up had saved his life, so he wasn't about to try and convince her to stay anyway. With the information delivered he hastened to get back to the fight, calling over his shoulder to Sandalphon just before she warped back to the Avenger, "Thanks again for the save!"

He was out of O's hiding space only a second or two later, and as soon as he stepped foot into the arena proper again he learned where O had disappeared to. In front of his eyes a reinforced building rapidly taking shape.

Far from the parasitized demon tree and its smorgasbord of horrors, where the Seekers of Light struggled against an amalgamate alien mass and three of the Endless Now’s despotic architects, a sleepy little town lay in among the foothills of the borderline mountain range. To the southwest lay arid, rocky scrublands, a lawless wilderness ruled by racers, biker gangs and motor-clans, a place of asphalt, gasoline, and sandworms. To the west Curien Mansion peered down, opulent and imperial, from its mountainous, pine-shrouded perch above the moor. And to the northwest lay the muddy, mossy wastes pounded by perpetual timefall, its solitary tower safeguarded by the wandering spirits of the damned.

For a long time the people of that lonesome hamlet had cowered in the shadow of the not-so-distant necropolis known as Redgraccoon City, home to unspeakable nightmares that could at any moment march forth in their thousands and bring doom to the old castle town. A good night’s sleep was a rare treasure in a town where disappearances were woefully commonplace, and just about anything could go bump in the night. That all changed, however, when one fateful night the necropolis disappeared in a blaze of ungodly light, reduced to the rainy, tar-covered crater that it is today.

In the weeks since then, some semblance of normalcy had crept back into the lives of the townsfolk–a testament to the residents’ tenacious will to live. Though muted in color, strings of pennants flutter in the wind over the varied market stalls and visiting merchant caravans of the town’s fountain plaza, ringed by ivy-walled townhouses, and aged stone fortifications. Most of Martira branched out from that hub, including Cattleracket Road, where children advertized their insects and seeds over the sounds of cows and sheep, and locals clamored for the honey of Dudbear beekeepers. Those in need of healing would need to disregard the worrisome rumors, make their way to Blind Well Alley, and choose between Iosefka’s Clinic or the Kissers of Wounds who dwelled in Order of the True Shrine Church. The town’s best-known establishments, meanwhile, could be found back at the plaza, like the ice cream parlor Dimwit & Duke’s, Sanza’s Map Emporium, and the Friendly Arm, the inn that cornered Martira’s market. Crossing the bridge over the neighboring ravine -where the daring could tempt fate by bungee jumping- would take one up the long, winding path up the mountainside, surrounded on both sides by humble homes and shops of all kinds, until one finally reached Indels Castle, where the governess of Martira, Lady Johanna, dwelt with her aides.

Not all was well in the wake of Redgraccoon City’s obliteration, though. The townsfolk still look over their shoulders, and the guards clutch tightly at their partizans as they patrol the worn-down ramparts. Though sandworms do threaten parties dispatched to the Paved Wilderness to collect the local delicacies -sandworm larvae and cheese from Cheese Land- it’s the disturbing continuation of disappearances that keep the people on edge. Children continue to disappear overnight, and the militia -led by the formidable and well-meaning but maladroit Roussainte, Bardon- seems powerless to stop it. All signs point to Heismay, the reclusive and disgraced former knight said to inhabit the abandoned Curien Mansion, but without enough men to mount expeditions to that cursed place, Bardon and Johanna have looked beyond Martira’s borders for anyone able to bring this crisis to an end.

Minda’s mount skidded to a halt as a wall formed in between her and the trio who’d been distracting O. It wasn’t that much of an obstacle, and she considered simply shadow hand hauling herself over it, but the confident tactical call out of Jr and Pt’s describing their foes as ‘cute little bears’ made her think it was unnecessary. Besides, the Gravemind clearly wanted her attention, given that it detached and sent a flight of Mutalist Ospreys in retaliation for the spear team attack she and Primrose had launched at them.

Pivoting to this incoming threat, she used what little of her mana remained to charge her sword with electricity, which she then thrust out in a beam at them as they approached, only for one to produce a chilly looking frozen bubble shield to block the strike.

Undeterred by the attack, the Osprey then airdropped a small pack of crawlers on the ground, which charged towards her, but the princess was already doing the same. She thrusted her sword forward with the intent to pop the bubble shield, only to find her attack, and then her body, passing right through it and into a chilling aura found within, one that gripped her bones in such a way that it would have slowed her stride had she not been riding an untouchable otherworldly horror.

”Alright, that’s it, you’re mine!” she declared, hopping her legs up onto the back of her beast legion, and then launching herself at the Frozen Mutualist. One clawed hand and two clawed feet grappled the foe, but she found they dug into some sort of protective barrier rather than its own metal/flesh, which protected it from har.

That was fine, she felt, as she started hacking at it with the war-fan, but naturally the other Ospreys weren't going to just let her do that, diving at her and releasing clouds of toxic gas all around their ‘leader’. Her mask and armor protected her against it better than she would have before she started wearing it, but it still bit and stung at her, especially her exposed ears.

As such she let herself fall, and then pulled herself down onto her Beast Legion, which had been slashing away at the crawlers. They tried to swarm her, but crawling as they were, they struggled to strike the mounted princess, who considered them ”Not worth killing” and instead turned her eyes skywards for her prize.

The Frozen Osprey emerged from the toxic clouds above a moment later, at which point she and it immediately launched themselves at each other.

Gas erupted, obscuring vision, and a moment later, the frozen aura vanished… only to appear again. Then, a moment after that, the Frozen Osprey rose into the air out of the cloud and beneath it hung Minda, the princess making the Night Bloom raised flood-fested carry her up into the air and out of its own attack.

”This is mine now!” she taunted the gravemind, before calling out ”Thank you Selene!” to the grander of the boon.

She ditched her sword and fan into a portal as she rose up, freeing up two hands so she could strum her lyre with one, and get a better grip on her temporary ride with the other.

She and it ascended up, a melody following them along as they floated over the people fighting D and the Grave mind, granting them all her Rainbow Rondo boon. That included her ride, which the other Ospreys found out as they rushed her again, covering Minda and her own Osprey with their gas attacks. Said gas constantly gnawing at hem meant they kept on procking the boon she had just given her minion, causing several trios of musical bolts to launch out from the lyre she was strumming, and to crash into them, leaving her and hers the only things to escape from the cloud.

”Music to my-” she began to joke, only to cough and finish more dryly ”ears”

All this gassing left her in need of a fair bit of healing, but she only had 12 seconds with her frosty friend, and she intended to make the best use of it.

Thus she rapidly ascended up towards the Gravemind’s body, the frosty barrier tanking any lesser shots that might get thrown her way. Then, when they got close to her, she had it race forward, the dumping of a toxic cloud over the foe’s head mainly a bonus to the intent of using the speed for evasiveness purposes, before using the momentum generated by its subsequent rapid deceleration to toss herself up and forwards.

Heat and ash from the burning foe buffeted her, spikes formed, hands grasped and jaws opened below her, but she did not intend to touch down upon any of them. Instead, at the top of her arch, she used her astral chain to yank her Beast Legion to her, the creature having followed below and even began to climb the foe in-order to keep up with her flight.

It arrived beneath her just in time for her to land on its back instead of on the back of the Gravemind itself, with the height of its body hopefully keeping her out of easy arms reach. She portal tossed and caught her sun on a stick in-order to further reduce the risk of being cooked alive, while using the mana she’d stocked up by melee fighting the Ospreys to form her shadow hand up above her in preparation of her main attack: crescent moon slashing the Dead End Express out of the twilight realm.

The massive engine of destruction smashed down into the shoulder of one of the Gravemind’s tentacles, blades whirling, wind based aftershocks smashing and slashing as she proceeded to try and finish her severing of the limb, chainsaw style.

As she did this, the Frozen Osprey hovered above her, its frozen shield blocking enemy fire, slowing down any flood-fested that tried to charge her through it. Once it was spent, either due to 12 seconds passing or its bubble bursting under the onslaught, she was bailing, releasing the blade to let it rev itself into a portal and then tossing herself skywards before summoning her twilight Flygon to ride on out of there, ascending on the thermals roaring up from the body of their flaming foe.

As the Gravemind burned and accumulated more and more damage, its flailing grew more frantic, more violent. More and more Floodfested were flying off the Guardian to attack, keeping Zenkichi occupied with covering his allies’ rears where he could. Triggering Fury to quickly cut down larger groups, and deactivating it to avoid the slow damage it caused him over time while he fought smaller groups, the Phantom Thief was in his element while the others worked on taking out the big boss. He swapped out his Greatsword for Ragnell to use its passive defense boost, while taking advantage of its ranged attacks to knock flying Floodfested out of the air before they could do too much damage.

Edelgard, for her part, was carving into the titanic Flood with Aymr, the flaming axe leaving behind burning furrows in the amalgamated flesh. Her shield gave her protection from the most feeble of the Guardian’s retaliations, though it did also offer a large surface area from grasping limbs to grapple, more than once forcing the Empress to break free from the grabs or cut the arms down on her own. The explosive cysts filled with acidic pus were a much more difficult problem, and when one exploded and covered her in bile, she was forced to retreat to a distance to heal. Once she had, she offered a ricocheting fireball to Zenkichi’s aid, the spell slamming into an infested charger and igniting it, before bouncing and burning a combat form to ash and popping an infection form like the cyst that had burned her.

”Purification Protocol. Tarukaja!” Zenkichi called, giving Edelgard an attack boost and cleansing the lingering acid that was weakening her defenses. Giving the Phantom Thief a nod, Edelgard returned to the fight, but not before sparing a curious glance at the glowing halo that had appeared above the man’s head. ”Alright, now that’s what I’m talking about!” He cried as Sigil Released activated, granting him the effects of Preservation, Restoration, andPurification Protocol all at once. If he kept his head, he’d be damn near unstoppable.

Geralt, not far away and fighting Consul D, meanwhile felt very much stoppable. He had been caught off guard by Dominus Hatred, the first failing to catch him, but the second and third hit him hard, sending Geralt to his knees as a swarm of bats flew his way. Pushing himself up with a grunt, Geralt incinerated the weak group of bats with Igni, after which he felt Junior’s heal on him, releasing a sigh. “Thanks, kid!” He called out over his shoulder as he summoned the Judicator and Monsoon, directing the former to heal him while the latter ran in to attack D’s wolves, throwing his sais while circling to keep them from getting to him before his time ran out.

When D launched a barrage of meteors, Geralt cursed and ran in, drawing his silver sword, bathed in Edward’s flames. He traded blows with D with surprising effectiveness, though even his twice-enhanced body could not match the power of a Consul in single combat. Geralt twirled around a punch only to eat a knee to the gut, followed by the vampire bodily grabbing him about the waist and tossing him into a pool of boiling blood. He rolled out of the liquid soon enough, but Geralt had taken quite a beating after the healing he’d already been given. Pulling out his flask of Swallow while the others kept D distracted, the Witcher downed a dose, feeling himself recovering already. As Nadia and Juri rejoined, Geralt gave the feral a nod of appreciation and pulled himself fully back to his feet, rolling his shoulders as D summoned his scythe. “Oh, we’re bringing out the big weapons now, huh? Well, you can certainly try, Consul. But the Orphan couldn’t do it, Y and C couldn’t do it, and you won’t either.” As he spoke, he sheathed his silver sword and withdrew the Hateful Flesh from his body, the self-inflicted damage quickly healed by the lingering regeneration granted by Swallow.

As the battle against D accelerated, the slow and steady destruction of the Gravemind continued. As the hordes of Floodfested grew larger, Zenkichi decided to rely on more cost-incurring tactics to beat them back. ”Valjean! Deathbound!” He cried out as a swarm of spectral hands appeared from the ground, tearing apart the weaker Floodfested, and grievously wounding anything with a good amount of bulk. Spinning on his heel, he pointed at one of the Gravemind’s three remaining tentacles and cried out. ”One-Shot Kill!” Valjean struck, the bullet slamming into the limb and carving out a great chunk of it, resulting in the Gravemind’s attention turning wholly to Zenkichi for a moment. ”uh oh…” He gulped when the wounded tentacle swiped at him, diving to the ground to avoid the hit, while a new batch of Floodfested appeared, this group lead by a Flood Tank form barreling his way.

Edelgard’s own efforts to fell the fleshy monster continued in earnest, though the Garvemind was beginning to adapt methods to thwart her efforts. Spikes grew faster and sharper, Floodfested came in greater and greater numbers to try and distract her, and once she had been bitten by a mouth that had formed as she tore Aymr from its flesh, the razor-sharp teeth grating her armor and piercing the few weak points they had been channeled to by failing to pierce the steel. Nosferatu could heal the damage she took, but the memory of a disembodied mouth gnawing at her rankled her mind. Like a damned rat. Still, she slashed and carved away at the Guardian, trusting her Crests to help keep her vitality bolstered as she attacked the Gravemind.

Geralt joined the other Seekers in harrying D, this time using the Hateful Flesh to attack from afar, whether it be by launching it from a short distance and withdrawing it using its umbilical cord-like tether, or hurling explosive flesh bombs pulled from the disgusting cleaver. He had reapplied Quen when his stamina revitalized, and when he heard Sandalphon mention the Consul’s weakness, he laughed. “Roxas! This thing’s our prey!” He cried out, knowing the Nobody also used light magic as part of his offensive repertoire. When he did move in to clash with D, he did so aggressively before quickly backing off to let another take D’s attention while he attacked from afar.

---

With Fortune back in action, the jumping of the smug prick ‘D’, or Dracula, continued in earnest. He seemed displeased about it, and pulled out some magic scythes. Juri played it cool, letting the others take the brunt of his attention. It was a necessity, taking a significant amount of time to allow her Burnout period to end. Without it, she still had some speed and strength, but her combos, defense, offense, and mobility were all severely limited. She swiped in occasionally, but usually just threatened to attack with her presence, trying to fake the lord of vampires out and overload his mental stack. This run and gun approach limited her effectiveness but also made her a lot safer.

Really, Juri considered the other battles. The Gravemind loomed overhead, bellowing and hollering about who knows what. Should it come down to it, Juri could start hacking into the monster with her Ghoulsaw. Consul A was casting crazy spells, which Juri had no interest in dueling against. Moreover, though, the only one who had actually managed to put a Seeker on ice was Consul O, who used a rollercoaster to smash the ugly bee queen into the ground. She got carted away by magic cats. A bizarre sight, but with everything else going on Juri pieced together it was some kind of insurance policy. No wonder the Seekers were being so careless. Though Juri had pushed her luck with that battle with Fortune.

When Sandalphon chimed in about O being on the move and the nature of D’s weaknesses, Juri thought a swap was in order. O was dangerous, and currently only the little boy angel was on him. Plus, the technologically oriented O could be stimied by Juri’s natural hacking prowess…and there wasn’t any animal that could catch her.

”Someone should use one of those wooden fences to stake him in the heart,” Juri commented off-handedly, before spending a Drive Rush to blitz across the battle arena, towards O’s little command center. While smashing people with her own hands and feet was fun, she was eager to flex her technological prowess. With Sombra’s power she could shut systems down with a wave of her fingers.

Juri sped towards the constructed command center, hopping from high point to high point as she did. As her head long sprint concluded she prepped her hack.

”Outta my way, Hallmark!” She warned Pit.

Roller coasters would go dead, rides would malfunction and sputter to a stop before O wanted, etc. Well, at least one would before the ability went on cooldown but that was all Juri needed. When she was close enough, she felt as if she could just use her hacking skills to bid the door of the command center: ”Open Sesame.” and stroll inside.

Edward grasped his chest as the darkness wrapped around them, and the unnatural stress built further. He groaned, but rather complain, he steeled himself and continued what he had been doing while the others had been wailing on the copies, which was, of all things, donning a Sousaphone he’d retrieved from the armory.

It had been something of a gamble to retrieve it, but A pushing all the melee fighters back opened up a perfect firing line for Edward to make use of the instrument he had received from the spirit of a false angel. Still, it never hurt to improve the odds, and so the Dreadnaught Designated target on this new form of A, marking it and briefly increasing its variability, before placing his lips to the mouthpiece of the bass instrument and blowing.

Rather than music, a beam of faux heavenly light lanced out of the instrument, blazing brilliant and bright in the darkness, and continued to blaze until the weapon was spent and it was reduced to being a mere implement of music making.

As for the man's comrades around him, Therion had not even tried stepping into those rings. It didn't matter if they were actually harmless and just looked dark and ominous, he wasn't going to test it. Instead he was glad to swap back to fighting at range. Even though the battle seemed to be going decently well for the Seekers, there was a persistent dread that made his heart beat harder and his brain pulse, and though the stress didn't diminish whatsoever even with some distance between himself and the Consul, it still had to be safer than being right up close. Therion lit his darts up in silver for a little extra power and threw them at A, along with a pair of magic knives that formed in the air and flew directly forward.

Just as leery of the distorted space as his allies, Goldlewis opted to keep his distance as well. He opened with another thundering salvo from his Skyfish minigun, then passed the baton to his most heavily-armed striker. After manifesting, Marduk hefted the Rage Serpent, then bombarded A with concussive blasts. As his Security Level refilled, Goldlewis considered which weapon to use next, and ultimately settled on Yowie. If sound energy, knives, and bullets could get through those strange zones, it couldn’t hurt to try this. With ease his burly arms lifted the ship-mounted harpoon gun into firing position. “Get a load of this!”

Much like the Junicorn’s horn did earlier, the harpoon pierced A’s body clean through. Thanks to its barbed tip, however, it caught on the Consul’s eldritch flesh as Goldlewis reeled it in, and to his surprise he managed to drag A into the Absolute Nothingness around him. When he moved into one of the dark rings, it switched to the area he’d been in before. Unfortunately the harpoon dislodged after hauling A just one ring from the center, but already Goldlewis had a plan. “Keep ‘im busy, folks! I’ll reel ‘im fast as I can!” It would take a few seconds for his Security Level to refill between each shot, but it wouldn’t be long before Goldlewis dragged the aberrant overlord into melee range.

A would not stand idly by, however. Still quite healthy thanks to the Seekers’ damage debuff, he stirred vile magicks into being. ”Witness the wondrous fury of the stars!” He held out one hand with two curled fingers raised. Then he turned his hand as he might a key, and the blood in his challengers’ bodies burst from them in crimson spikes. Ganondorf and Falcon, being the closest, got the worst of it, left bleeding and stressed. Specters crawled at the edges of their vision, and for a moment a five-pointed crown of shadows seemed to adorn them.

Edward stumbled in the middle of trying to remove the spent Sousaphone as his blood impaled outwards from his body, preventing him from switching weapons fast enough to play a part in the distraction tactics.

Still, that was what minions were for.

With its incredibly short cooldown, Edward’s Pyrobat was resummoned only a few seconds after it had last been used. This time, rather than swooping forth, it flew up, and then began to spew a beam of fire down at the ground, charging up its attack before sweeping the beam forwards, slicing it up and across A’s enlarged form.

His Bronze Golems meanwhile, lacking blood to burst forth from them, marched forwards into position next to Goldlewis, such that they could stab their long spears into either side of A once he was dragged close enough, and to then assist in reeling him in by backing up and pulling him between them. If they should ignite and armor sunder him in the process before the heavy hitters got to lay the smack down, then all the better for it.

Therion didn't know how they could 'keep 'im busy' when the Consul had no need to turn his focus onto any one of his adversaries, able to do harm to all of them at once with only a wave of his hand. Regardless, the thief kept up what pressure he could put on A. Within a moment he called on his wraith blade, reaver bolts fired from the weapon's tip joining everything else he could throw at the Consul. And when the retaliation he expected came he grit his teeth and fought through it.

He called on one of his strikers to mitigate the area's lack of healer somewhat. A warmly dressed girl appeared, and she seemed to pray for a moment before a ring of her own spread out from her summoning point, overlapping with A's Absolute Nothingness and encompassing all five men fighting him within a spirit water well. Though the spirit infused waters would slow A down, Therion had summoned Nayan for her healing ability. So long as the Seekers were standing within the zone of her Calling Spirits their wounds would begin to repair themselves over time. It would heal their bodies just fine, but could do nothing about the stress that continued to compound.

The soothing spirit water elicited a sigh of relief from Goldlewis as it worked to counteract the blood loss inflicted by Consul A. With how dangerous the battles in the Qliphoth had been, those with restorative abilities of any kind were very much in demand. If this was going to be a battle of attrition, and his Security Level needed to be saved for Yawie rather than spent on his other longer-range options, he figured he had better shore up the team’s defenses. Since A’s visceral eldritch magic seemed to ravage them indiscriminately, he opted for a simple Shield Burst rather than a single-target Shield Charge. Once he slammed his coffin on the ground, a pulse of energy expanded to cover his team, shrouding them in bright blue hexes. These barriers wouldn’t hold for long, but between them and what healing this motley crew did have, hopefully they’d be in it for the long haul.

A wasted no time in testing the new shields’ mettle. He thrust his hand forward in another arcane sign. It blew through the barrier and into the Seekers’ bodies, with Falcon, Ganondorf, Edward most affected. Their flesh seemed to shrink away from his touch, peeling back from their bones to expose the skeletons beneath. The golems seemed to soak up the rest of the spell, and even their metallic shells were stripped away. For a split second there was nothing but exquisite pain, and then it was gone. The heroes’ bodies were back to normal, the damage of A’s curse mitigated by the veteran’s barrier, but blood seeped from inexplicable seams. The bleeding was now stronger than the regeneration from Calling Spirits, and the knowledge of the Seekers’ own mortality loomed over them like a dark cloud.

Goldlewis groaned, his head spinning. His nerves were on fire from the brief but terrible sensation he’d experienced. He didn’t know how much more damage his mind could take, but he did know that he had to act, while the 20% damage boost from Hypereutectoid was active. He could see that the feedback damage from hammering the Seekers’ shields all at once had A reeling, a perfect target for Yawie’s harpoon. “Pucker up!” He fired, pierced the Consul’s body, and dragged him into the Absolute Nothingness one step closer. One more ring to go.

The flesh ripping spell struck just after Edward had managed to toss the Sousaphone from his shoulders, causing him to double over from the pain.

His golems didn’t react as graphically, but they certainly were struck hard by the magic against which they had limited resistance, metal forms warping and buckling, the energy holding them together periodically flickering. It could have been worse, however, as unable to hit A as they were, they had locked themselves into defence mode, letting them endure the spell just that little bit better.

Their creator recovered a moment later, pushing himself up as the healing aura somewhat dulled the pain of the damage, even if it wasn’t enough to revert it faster than he was bleeding out.

Gritting his teeth and sticking to the plan of keeping A busy, he re-marked the Consul with a cast of designated target, and then quickly hip firing his pistol at the foe, relying on that make (and the foe’s prodigious size) to see the shot land true. The time he could have spent aiming better he instead used accessing the armory and retrieving the Charr Pirate Musket stored within.

There were probably better firearms to use available, but without time to analyze them, he had gone for what was familiar. With practiced efficiency he raised the musket, sighting down the barrel, and aiming for the Consul’s center of mass as a precaution that turned out to be well considered, as the smooth bore rifle’s shot went wide of where he was aiming, enough that had he aimed at the head he would have missed entirely.

Then, holding the rifle by the barrel, he quick-drew his maglock pistol again (the magical firearm having reloaded itself in the time he had spent fetching and using the rifle) and fired off a third slug at their foe’s center of mass, aiming for debuff applying rate of fire over his own damage in anticipation of the final reel in.

With every one of A's attack, Therion's breath came heavier and his muscles tightened. His heart beat harder, which really didn't help the bleeding either. He was really starting to question whether they could take this guy down before their bodies just gave out. Once the spectral shredding A was dishing out hurt them more than Nayan could heal them, there wasn't anything else Therion could do to help keep his allies healthy - that was the only group healing he had access to. The others were on their own for now until some of their strikers regenerated. For his own well being Therion reached into his bag to squeeze the Constrained Heart, giving himself a little more healing and defense once Goldlewis' shields went down.

Then it was back to trying to deal as much damage to A as possible. He didn't have an inexhaustible supply of throwing knives, and though the ones he could summon from his glyph wouldn't eat too much of his mana to cast, he couldn't swap completely over to them if he wanted to save his supply of magic for his own debuffs, or for donation to an actual mage that may need more energy to cast. He still had the reaver bolts at the very least, but it would hardly do much on their own.

The hand that wasn't holding his wraith blade ghosted over the items he had access to, searching for something helpful. The dwindling supply of blades and darts, a couple of potions he'd held onto, his thieves tools and-

Ah, right. He'd almost completely forgotten about the power he'd gotten from one of those spirits from the big top. Instant body and ability changes on top of the chaotic violence they regularly faced could make it easy to lose track of what even one's self could do.

"I got it from here," Therion said, tapping Goldlewis to let the man know to prepare for melee early. With his grappling hook in hand the tool flashed briefly as he prepared to use it for his Chain Hook. And what the hell, he spent a Battle Boost to ensure this would actually work.

With his aura flaring from the Boost, Therion let the Chain Hook fly. It wrapped around A, the sharp edges of the empowered hook's head digging into him. The thief yanked it back hard as soon as it was attached. Now matter how large, heavy, or dug in the Consul was, he would move.

When Edward’s barrage came to a close, Goldlewis was ready to pull the Yawie from his coffin for the third (and hopefully, the last) time, but he paused when Therion stepped in to take over. Though he couldn’t imagine what the little man had up his sleeve that could replace his harpoon gun when it came to reeling the Consul in, he wasn’t about to second-guess or underestimate his comrade. He watched, nerves and muscles tense, as Therion unleashed his Chain Hook. It flew through the black-and-crimson haze of Absolute Nothingness to ensnare and embed into A’s body, leaving him stricken and susceptible to the thief’s strength. A single, impressive tug dragged A through the final protective ring and to the forefront of his makeshift formation, where the melee fighters could reach him at last.

Goldlewis had been waiting for this moment, and he was ready. Given a moment to prepare by Therion’s efforts, he stepped in and crouched down to unleash Piston Gun Assault with his shotgauntlets, which acted as a Heat Engager that left him powered up. As A reeled from the blast, he bulled forward to unleash a withering combo that incorporated both immense coffin slams and destructive shotgun punches. Seconds later it came to an end with his Heat Smash, Meteor Raid, a grounding wallop followed by a divebomb from the veteran’s Mothman railcannon, powered up to max by Security Level 3.

At either side of goldlewis, the Bronze golems also struck, and though they lacked flair, the now larger A was exactly the size of target they were built to take down. With all the grace of mechanical pistons, the halberds were thrust forwards, drawn back, and then thrust again, all four spear tips striking at the same moment.

Knowing that A was about to be piled on by all their fighters who wanted to lay the smack down, Edward didn’t bother preparing more shots. Instead he rushed in as well, briefly igniting in flames, before skidding to a halt parallel to the building brawl. There, he waited for the right moment, and then when they were aligned, summoned his Feather Staff striker once more, who cast a healing spell on all of the fighters in the front ranks which would, at that point, be everyone.

And all the while as the others went to town in order to lay A low, Therion kept a tight hold on his chain. He used his Armor Corrosive again as soon as A was close enough, counteracting their own damage debuff with a defensive one on the Consul and making sure that everything his allies were throwing at A did as much damage as possible.

In the midst of the Seekers’ assault, the wounded and irate Consul unleashed Embrace Futility once more. His dark arts’ arcane force shuffled the Seekers’ positions, hauling Goldlewis, Therion, and Falcon to the front while sending Ganondorf and several golems to the back, while Edward moved up just a little. Having gotten lucky with Therion, A used the extra slack to retreat behind one ring of Absolute Nothingness. His challengers all suffered a reduction in strength and speed, but worse was the sensation of dreadful hopelessness, pushing the Seekers ever closer to the brink.

For Edward, though, this extra mental duress pushed him past the precipice and into the dark beyond. Overcome by all the stress, he suffered a meltdown, his mind screaming and his body seizing. ”The human mind–fragile, like a robin’s egg,” A observed dispassionately, raising his hand. ”And now the true test: hold fast, or expire?”

When he brought down his hand, the Gravemind tore its attention from the fight before it to respond in kind. An unsevered tentacle descended, massive and mighty, to fall upon the squad of Seekers fighting A. It moved just slowly enough that most could save themselves with a timely dodge, but Edward was not among them. Goldlewis recognized the Consul’s finishing blow for what it was and threw himself at the strategist in a bid to save him with a tackle, but the deplorable limb was simply too vast. It slammed down on both of them hard enough to shake the floor, yet when it withdrew for use against the Gravemind’s own attackers, neither of the men were gone. Though bruised and broken, Goldlewis could still fight, and against all odds Edward endured, albeit on his last legs amidst the shattered parts of his golems.

A narrowed his eyes. ”A trifling victory, but a victory nonetheless. Still…” The next moment, Edward’s unabated bleeding dealt him the deferred deathblow, and palicos appeared from the ether to whisk him away to safety. ”Great is the weapon that cuts on its own!”

When Therion came up from where he'd dove to avoid the wayward tentacle, it was just in time to see it crush two of his allies. He cursed, heart beating with uncertainty, and it didn't slow down any even when it was revealed neither man had turned into a pile of ashes. Especially when their dreadnought succumbed to his wounds not a moment later.

The thief cursed again, darting forward to retake to the fight. He passed the inexplicable cat cart before they disappeared with their charge, not bothering to try and puzzle that one out but understanding that it clearly meant the man was out of the fight.

He had dropped the Chain Hook to avoid the Gravemind's arm but now he threw it again, catching the Consul once more and forcefully dragging him back into range. With the toll this fight was taking on their minds and bodies, especially in the wake of Edward's defeat, none of them could last much longer. But hopefully the same was true for A. With that in mind Therion burned through his BP instead of saving it for his divine skill, the aura around him flaring bright gold with two Boosts as A was hauled closer. This time, with his own power heightened, Therion let the chain go once A was in striking distance. In its place his wraith blade reappeared instantly, and just as quickly the spectral weapon sunk into the distorted Consul's flesh. Therion tore through him as much as he could, his bladework rough but quicker and deadlier than ever.

Feeling in his gut that this was a pivotal moment, Goldlewis gritted his teeth and mustered up the strength to follow Therion’s example. Just after the thief carved through the Consul’s armor to rip open his torso, the veteran airdashed with a tremendous Behemoth Typhoon, his coffin’s spiked end planted directly in the squirming wound. “RAAAAAAAAAAAGH!” he roared, his great strength amplified even further by his lust for revenge. He twisted in the air, spending his Security Levels, to pummel A with two more brutal Behemoth Typhoons before Goldlewis finally hit the ground.

On impact he sank to his knees, his mind and muscles afire, his chest heaving from exertion and his breath ragged in his throat, but through his weary eyes he could see that A had been brought to his knees once more. The warped space around him was gone, and even the Consul was breathing heavily. ”As the fiend falls, a faint hope blossoms…” he muttered, as if narrating the battle from the Seekers’ point of view. A attempted to rise, then sank back down, and snorted in derision. ”A moment of respite, then. Steel yourselves…against the coming horrors.”

Goldlewis glowered as he fought to catch his breath. Just as he thought–this wasn’t over yet.

Roland had been fighting D, although mostly to a standstill now. He had already activated the condition needed for his Decaying Explosion, Sentinel Satellite, and gained Emotion level 4, gaining Emerald, a scheming woman's voice saying "I’ll make your wishes come true. What do you wish for?", and also gaining the EGO False Throne. Much like a few others, the machinations of O and his roller coaster wasn't missed. Although being stuck in combat with D, Roland couldn't offer much to that situation other than to be wary of a roller coaster being built around himself or something.

Combat with D has been mixed so far. As Roland had been gaining power from his allies and emotion level D had been progressively stepping up his attacks. From just sitting firing stronger projectiles, to using his claws to deflect Roland's bullets, to now standing up and using a flaming scythe to clash and fight all those attacking him while throwing meteors about. At least now Roland had started to get going and could now use his speed to start dodging these projectiles instead of attacking them. Especially since a lot of them tended to just... stall him and being stalled when meteors are flying towards you was a bad, bad idea.

A few more clashes, a few more hits, and a heal out of nowhere thanks to Jr. And Roland finally hit his max emotion level, emotion level 5 and gained Powder of Life, a sad woman's voice saying "Here, child… I’ll give you new life.", giving every ally on the battlefield the ability to ignore one lethal hit and get healed for a fair amount. As well as the EGO The Homing Instinct. Roland noted that the scythe D was using was sorta similar to the scythe the blue sicko used, although a lot more gothic in nature and with much slower swings. Still, that didn't make it any less powerful.

Blazermate meanwhile found herself drifting towards the D group. Having been hovering around O, she had been too far away to help Sectonia when she got comboed by a roller coaster. Although, she didn't know that'd even happen since O just DID things and it happened. Nor that it'd chunk her health as fast as it did considering it had only been slowly going down while dealing with the Gravemind who seemed to do way, way more damage due to its size. But that was what a Consul did. She'd be much more worried if she didn't know Ace had something for this, but it would be best that its not used in the first place.

With D and the guardian close to each other, Blazermate could start healing those people now with O having seemingly disappeared, only to reappear in some giant building of sorts? A relief to people like Roland, Ace, and others who had taken some big hit so far. Soon she'd need to turn her attention to the group attacking A, but so far it seemed they were mostly fine. Exhausted but... Well they were fine until Edward got hit pretty hard by the Gravemind. Seriously how tanky was that thing? Wait... looking at it, Blazermate got an idea, although she'd need a fast partner like Roland or Capt to really make use of it.

Primrose had dismounted the wolfos as soon as it brought he close to the Guardian. The creature returned to Midna, and the dancer followed up their combination attack with individual spells of her own. Darkness was most familiar to her, and she relied on that even as sparks of flame burst against the Gravemind with every spell she cast. She joined in with lighting it up, pumping magic into her finger tips and conjuring swirling shadows, and glittering moons.

The Gravemind's response was one that Primrose would describe as throwing a tantrum. Still, that suited a monster whose fate was death just fine. As it sloughed more creatures from its body, and changed its shape to repel its attackers, Primrose backed off. She had to be smart about her mana reserves if she was going to be fighting for the long haul.

Daringly, she chanced another performance of Sealticge's Seduction. The Guardian saw through her before she was even half way done, raising a tentacle and cracking it down like a whip towards her. Primrose's eyes widened - she quickly began to cast a spell even as she abandoned the dance and attempted to get out of the way. She avoided a direct hit, and was spared from a more substantial sideswipe due to her Baldur Shell. The tentacle had smashed through it though, shattering the last protective ward she had. She could no longer rely on its protection for the remainder of the foreseeable future.

Undaunted Primrose completed casting her hasty spell, unleashing a multitude of magic moons that erupted in flashes of light and fire against the horde and their master.

Alright then, she thought to herself. Even if her Seduction was too elaborate to perform while the Gravemind was wise to it, she still had other dances up her proverbial sleeve.

Primrose wove her dances in between casts of her wide range Night Ode, encircling the minions the Gravemind summoned in volatile darkness. For her fellow dancer Grimm, the Peacock Strut, making his own magic even stronger. For her regular dance partner Zenkichi, the Panther Dance, speeding the man up so that his continued destruction of the Flood was even swifter. For her most recent partner Midna, the Mole Dance, to help the reckless woman take less damage than she dealt.

After the most recent round of masking her dances within her spellcasting, Primrose paused to catch her breath. She was burning through mana quickly like this, and opening herself up to stray monsters she or Zenkichi weren't able to put down fast enough, but so long as it worked.

When one of the Consuls managed to bring down Sectonia, Primrose turned her glare on O's floating eyes. She'd seen the cats and heard the Ace Cadet's call out, so at the very least the queen bee was still alive, but that news did nothing to quell the frustration she was beginning to feel. She took it out on the Gravemind, knowing that was where she could contribute the most. Energy encircled her body, her aura flaring white as she Boosted her next spell. She empowered her Moonlight Waltz, a pillar of purest darkness crashing into the Guardian from below.




With his hunter art Devouring Demon active, the Cadet's attack power was much increased from his already high baseline. Each cut he made with his sword was wide, deep, and expertly delivered. Though massive, the Gravemind's body was soft and fleshy compared to the hard scaled monsters Ace's technique was used for, and so he cleaved into it fairly easily when he had his openings.

The trade off for the power boost was that his vitality was constantly draining. He could regain it so long as he kept his combos up, but it was getting harder to as the Gravemind flailed and spawned more horrors, and his allies' magic ramped up. Every time its body morphed and spit at him, clawed at him, bit at him, or struck out at him it undid the health he restored, meaning that he was headed for a net loss. The hunter knew his limits though, and he kept track of how his body was holding up as he continued to fight.

After splitting into groups the Seekers were holding their own well all things considered, but each of their opponents was powerful and deadly; eventually something had to give.

When the first of the Seekers fell and a pair of furry felynes burrowed their way up from beneath the hollow, throwing the queen of Floralia onto a makeshift cart and hurrying her away from danger before disappearing, Ace knew better than any of them what that meant.

"That's one! We get three!" He shouted out, making sure that the group's morale wouldn't suffer if they thought that Sectonia had been kidnapped, or that she'd died if they hadn't seen the palicos. Hopefully they wouldn't need to use all three of those carts, but the longer things dragged on the more intense they would get.

The Cadet focused most of his offense on assisting with the severing of the Guardian's remaining arms. Cutting through them would take work and coordination for those of them that didn't have a big finisher to pull out, and with the less arms it had or more time it took to regenerate them, the better off they'd all be. While the Gravemind's body burned, Grimm struck out at the monster's head, and Zenkichi and Primrose kept most of the floodfested away, Ace fought beside Edelgard and -when she wasn't airborne- Midna, sucking up his discomfort with their spells so that they had the best chance to cut through the tentacles together.

Though he wasn't near the group doing battle with A, his ears picked up the all too familiar yowling of more palicos as they scooped up another fallen friend. That's two.

One of the Gravemind's tentacles came slamming down towards him, sending Ace backward as he back-stepped with a wide flick of his blade across the Gravemind's skin. When the arm hit the ground he held his own, bracing himself through the shock wave and driving forward with a thrust. He connected, and he prepared for a jumping strike as the tentacle rose back up to keep up the pressure, but to his surprise it didn't lift.

The Guardian was not a mindless beast. It shifted and rolled its arm, slamming into Ace laterally. It kept moving its limb until the hunter was trapped, pressed hard between it and the Gravemind's trunk. Only barely managing not to have the wind knocked out of him, Ace grit his teeth and attempted to maneuver his sword in front of him to cut himself free. It was much easier said than done, especially when the master of the Flood's body shifted, and suddenly he was surrounded on all sides by mouths with hooked fangs.

As the teeth bit into him, piercing and crushing both, Ace let his hunter art go with a harsh exhale. Like the flick of a switch in his head he dropped out of the Devouring Demon state. He'd put good damage in with it, but he hadn't been able to keep up with healing himself - and now he was being eaten alive. The canon's on Ace's rigging began to fire where they were stuck, and he forced the metal extensions to shift so that their blades would cut. He pressed one arm against the Gravemind's tentacle and with pure force made a small gap, enough to get his sword in a better position. He ripped himself free from the predicament with a fast spiral slash from the longsword and his bladed rigging, literally, as teeth were torn out of the Gravemind's body as their sharp parts were still embedded in the hunter's armor.

Ace grabbed at the fangs that were attached to him and yanked them out with small sprays of blood. Ah, yeah, he did seem to be bleeding a lot now. He could have healed himself, taken the time to pause and drink a potion or throw another lifepowder, but outside sources of healing began to filter in as people abandoned the battle with O. If he entrusted his health to his teammates, he could finish the job and get another tentacle separated from the Guardian's body.

And he did trust them.

Consul D’s Dominus Hatred was something Roxas didn’t see coming. He wasn’t expecting the vampire lord’s green ray to come raining back down on everyone. He was fast enough to dodge the first ray while under Tailwind, but the buff wore off right in time for the second one of the green blasts to catch him. After that, D summoned an oversized scythe that he hefted on his shoulder. ”I’m guessing that’s not a good sign.” Roxas muttered, having brief flashbacks of a certain scythe-wielding member of Organization XIII. While he wasn’t sure if D’s powers were anything like theirs, usually scythes were a pretty good indication of attacks or spells that could inflict instant death. Plus the two wolves that now flanked him were certainly not helping matters either and would keep Roxas from launching a StepSword slash.

But the Nobody couldn’t let himself get deterred now. He joined in on the attempts to jump Consul D. Not much was accomplished apart from Geralt getting thrown into the boiling blood while Roxas himself only managed to clash with the scythe a few times before it caught him and sent him sprawling back to the floor again. Roxas was about to use a Curaga on Geralt when the Witcher instead downed a healing item of his own that got him back onto his feet. ”Man, this guy isn’t messing around.” He muttered.

And then, he heard Sandalphon over his own glyph telling him and the other Seekers what D’s weakness was.

”Oh yeah, definitely our prey!” Roxas agreed with Geralt, brandishing his Keyblades with renewed vigor. ”He can boast all he wants about this being his dominion. But light can shine through even the tiniest of cracks!”

Fighting Consul D was always going to be tricky, no matter how many people were up against him. More combatants meant less time any one hero needed to bear the brunt of his fury, but it also increased the risk of friendly fire incidents and generally getting in one another’s way. Confident that greater numbers meant nothing against his wide-ranging magics, D welcomed the Seekers’ five-on-one challenge with open arms and dramatic flair. When Geralt offered his rebuttal and stepped forward to lead the charge, the battle was on.

After the indignity of what happened to her before, Nadia was eager to pay D back, and with interest. This time, though, she knew to keep her head on straight and do this the smart way. Duels might be her specialty, but after all her time with the Seekers, Nadia could tag team with the best of them. She skirted around the edges of the battlefield, neither too close nor too far from the action, to irritate D with shots from her newly-recovered handguns until Geralt or Roland created an opportunity. Then she pounced, leaping into to apply extra pressure or land follow-up attacks for her friends. Her speed and aerial mobility could get her to D reliably, provided he wasn’t casting magic. Her team needed to be careful about being too passive or spending too much time on D’s minions, since the vampiric Consul tended to unleash his magic the moment he got any space.

Fireballs flew, flame pillars erupted, blood rained down, and meteors scorched the earth. Of course, he was no slouch in close quarters either. His challengers quickly found that his scythe was no joke. It could fend off the heavy blade of Geralt’s cleaver, and even turn away Roland’s expert sword strikes despite its ungainly heft. Their clashes, however, brought the Fixer to his Zenith, and as he gained Powder of Life, the sorcerer Consul scowled. “A ward…? How irritating.” He then snorted, his eyes narrowed. “But if that’s as high as you can rise, you’ll find I can fell you as many times as needed!” From his cape he conjured a verminous wave of black rats, and the fight continued.

If one thing could be considered constant about the battle against the Gravemind and its accompanying Consuls, it was the noise, amplified by the almost amphitheater-like shape of the arena within the Final Hollow. The roar of flames, the chorus of undead voices that railed and rebuked, the visceral sounds of organs and limbs as they were made and unmade, the thunderous report of various firearms, the furious clashes of instruments of destruction against shields, armor, and hateful flesh, the frenzied utterances of O’s animals and the metallic screeching of his machines, the voices of the heroes raised in effort, or callout–it all made for quite the din. Tensions were running high, and not just for those traumatized by A’s stresscasting. Any Seeker not hindered by severe tunnel vision could see that their numbers were starting to dwindle.

Through the chaotic clamor, however, there came a ray of hope. Bright blue sigils of holy light appeared by the heads of everyone within Sandalphon’s network, whether actively engaged in battle or momentarily standing back. The archangel’s familiar and welcome voice, deadpan as ever, helped to center and soothe them in the midst of their turmoil, as if even this utilitarian miracle possessed curative properties. “Attention, everyone. I’ll keep this brief. Sectonia and Edward are well, but unable to continue fighting. We have ascertained D’s weakness: light, incantations, and miracles. Pit has also flushed out O’s real body. The team fighting A is experiencing abnormal stress that cannot be allowed to escalate further. In light of this bulletin, please reallocate personnel with all haste. And call me if needed.”

With that, Sandalphon allowed her sigils to dissipate and returned to her silent vigil in the Avenger’s Comm Center, her unblinking eyes fixed on the light screen in front of her. Though Edward and Sectonia were ultimately fine, which she’d confirmed personally via External Information Network when they arrived, the fact that they’d invoked Palico Rescue in the first place was worrying. According to what Ace said, only one more person could expect such salvation. Then the Seekers would start sustaining casualties for real. Sandalphon drummed her fingers on her arm restlessly. Though part of her wanted to stay in the Final Hollow after Pit summoned her and do whatever she could to help, the archangel had managed to be rational about what she could and couldn’t do. Her own fatigue aside, her miracles and especially her shapeshifting needed time to build up via damage. All her expenditure during the Lilith fight meant that she’d bring almost nothing to the table if she did warp in. Better to do her real job and coordinate things from afar to get the Seekers functioning like a team.

After a sharp inward breath, Sandalphon lifted her mic to her lips and reached out again, this time targeting specific Seekers. “Blazermate: Goldlewis, Ganondorf, Falcon, and Ace need medical attention. Midna, Ace, Primrose, Ms Fortune, relieve those fighting A as soon as possible. Pit, your new target is D.” Though the young angel was no doubt eager to make up for his slip-up against O, he did not need to be any more emotionally charged, and his abilities would be better used against D. “Junior, Rika, your target is now in the structure behind you. Juri…” Sandalphon could see the martial artist already peeling away from the D fight to speed toward O’s new base. Whatever the archangel was going to say, she thought better of it. “Play well.”

Sandalphon switched off her mic, then breathed deep. Nineteen Seekers remained on the field. Grimm, Zenkichi, and Edelgard still opposed the Gravemind, while Roxas and Geralt would hold down the fort against D as the four against A rotated out. She suspected that Captain Falcon and Therion would naturally gravitate toward D alongside Pit, while Ganondorf and Goldlewis joined the others against the Gravemind. That left just Juri, Junior, and Rika to hunt down O, and Blazermate on general support. Sandalphon believed that this was a good breakdown, but against foes like these nothing was for certain.

Down in the thick of it, some things were easier said than done. For a few moments, the fight against D seemed to favor the five Seekers. They could attack in quick succession, and from a variety of angles. When tipped off about O, though, Juri up and left, and D quickly started to find his footing. He gave Geralt and Roxas a murderous stare, incensed by their taunts. “I am nobody’s prey. Wield light against me, and you’ll soon see the folly in your selfsure provocations.” D threw up his off hand to cast Dominus Hatred, and as his opponents’ eyes turned skyward to trace the green ray’s path, he made a move of his own.

He hurled his scythe at Roland as a blazing wheel that the Fixer clashed with, the air filled with the clangs of steel against steel. Roland won out and sent the scythe flipping into the air, only for D to teleport up, seize the scythe, then drop on him with a meteoric guillotine impact. When the Hateful Flesh soared in D sidestepped it, then hooked the cleaver with his scythe. He yanked the blade down into the ground, planted his foot on it to keep it in place, then severed its connective tendon. “Knife knowin’ ya!” Nadia arrived the next second, ready to sink Athame into D’s unprotected back, only to get jabbed in the gut by the butt of D’s scythe. The counterhit made her stumble, and D whirled around with a horizontal slice. Nadia hadn’t stopped believing, though, and she stopped the Consul short with her extended knee to finally land her Blue Monday counter. “Hah! Don’t ‘count’ me out!” She grabbed D, hoisted him off his feet, and threw him over her shoulder to the ground. When she went to elbow drop him, however, he transformed into mist and streamed away, meaning the feral’s elbow hit the ground instead. “Yowch!” Grimacing, Nadia got up just in time to crouch-block another wave of rats, which pushed the four Seekers back to neutral.

Beep, boop, beep. Sombra’s hacking skills made quick work of the antiquated firewall pre-installed in the doors at the base of O’s Command Center. With the lockdown lifted, Juri could waltz right inside, taking the chance to cast an impatient side-eye glance back at Junior and Rika as they hustled over from the ruined Polar Bear exhibit. As they rushed toward the Command Center, however, O himself stepped in to impede them. “Little brats!” His voice resounded from the pair of disembodied red eyes descending toward them. “My poor bears…don’t you know they’re endangered!?” Angry that they’d survived so long, and more than a little rattled by his own close shave, O got down to business. First, he created the Scorpions around them, trapping them inside a desert-themed arena where giant mechanical arachnids played the role of highly-overtuned bumper cards. Then he constructed a Drop in the Ocean ride on top of it, putting a pit of freezing water right in front of his Command Center. Once built, the crane immediately went haywire, swinging around its submersible pod like a wrecking ball. “I’ll just have to endanger you, too!”

With all that chaos outside, Juri could be forgiven for rolling her eyes, hacking into the elevator, and riding up to the top floor all on her lonesome. The moment she arrived, though, she found herself greeted by an unexpected sight inside the futuristic dome: a miniature tropical rainforest, surrounded by tall electric fences, with no sign of O anywhere. Instead she spotted an animal she hadn’t bargained for: a Tyrannosaurus Rex, a sixteen-foot monstrosity of cruel claws, massive fangs, olive-green scales, and primeval ferocity.

By now, the Gravemind was definitely suffering from all the Seekers’ attention. After Sectonia parted one of its tentacles, her allies picked up her mantle, starting with Zenkichi and Midna. The detective struck first to take a big bite out of one tentacle with One-shot Kill, leading to the deployment of Floodfested reinforcements. After the Twilight Princess turned the tables on an eximus-led Mutalist raid, she used the frosty Osprey and her Beast Legion to pull off a high-flying stunt with the Dead End Express. Thanks to the extra wind power, its absurd cutting ability was more than enough to sever the tentacle and leave the Gravemind at two. Ace wasn't quite as lucky when he went for a third and took some punishment in the Gravemind's grasp, but he'd still done a lot of damage. Add to that Primrose’s magic and Edelgard’s unrelenting offense, and the Guardian was hurting.

Once Primrose kindled his flame, Grimm took center stage. He first stretched the strands of his cape into the ground, adding insult to injury after the dancer’s splendid Moonlight Waltz with a bed of spikes from below. Of course, it was a fine line between the Qliphoth ended and the Gravemind began, so most of his spikes popped out of the flesh heap itself. After that, Grimm around between the mob of Floodfested being demolished by Zenkichi and leaped above the fray to put the Peacock Strut to good use. He hung in the air like a paper lantern, then belted out a torrent of scarlet fireballs that fell upon the Gravemind like rain.

The Guardian did not like all this one bit. Having realized that its current strategy wasn’t working very well, and having lost a great deal of biomass in the process, it set about making a change. A cacophony of rumbling and snapping resounded through the hollow as it retracted its remaining limbs and began to consolidate its bulk. Extraneous tissues were broken down and emitted as toxic gasses that shrouded the Gravemind’s body as it transformed. ”KILL ME? A RIDICULOUS NOTION. YOU MIGHT AS WELL TRY TO KILL THE EARTH, THE SKY, THE STARS. THE UNIVERSE IS, AND WE ARE!” It became stronger, denser, less a sprawling heap and more a reinforced pillar. Then the upper and lower parts of the Gravemind both violently split into three, and a ambulatory colossus was born. With three enormous heads, one wielding a gruesome infested scythe, the Gravemind declared itself anew. ”I AM A MONUMENT TO ALL YOUR SINS!” It reared up, then slammed two of its newly-formed legs against the ground to unleash a knockdown-inducing shockwave.

Those tremors helped drive Ace, pushed back by the toxic miasma, even further away. With Blazermate only able to heal one person at a time, and the rest of her prospective patients grouped up, the hunter had yet to be healed, which meant that he couldn’t risk racking up environmental damage. With all the magic flying around thanks to Consuls and Seekers alike, Ace was more than a little queasy, and not fully cognizant of his surroundings. The Gravemind’s transformation had disturbed the other fights nearby, the brawl against Consul D most of all. Still under attack by Roland, Roxas, Geralt, and Nadia, D used the distraction to veil himself in another bat tornado, then charge an unknown spell. By the time his opponents realized he was up to something, it was too late to stop him. “Demonic…” the Consul called, surrounded by dark magic. “Meggido!”

A huge explosion of collapsing stars amidst pitch-black magic went off at his position, big enough to threaten not just his opponents, but the Gravemind’s as well. Even if blocked it would still chip off a third of its victims’ life, but those unprepared for it -like Ace- had only one saving grace: Roland’s Powder of Life. In the wake of D’s destructive blast, Ace found himself partially restored, but only for a moment. Seeing the hunter separated from his allies, D rushed to make an example of him, and despite the health granted by Powder of Life Ace still happened to be below the Death Scythe’s threshold. With a single lunging slash, the monster hunter fell.

“ACE!” Nadia wailed, running forward with one arm extended. Instead of the ground, however, her companion plopped down on a cart manned by a crew of phantom palicos, much to D’s stunned bemusement. The felynes disappeared with their cargo the next moment, leaving Nadia with flattened ears and reddening cheeks. “Oh, uh, yeah. Right. Ahem…” After clearing her throat, she turned her nasty grin on D, her grip tight around the handle of Athame. Forget Sandalphon’s orders–Nadia wasn’t going anywhere now. “Alright, D-lister. You’ve officially raised my vamp-ire. Better say your purr-ayers, ‘cause this is gonna hurt a clawful lot!”

D spun his scythe in his hands and planted its butt in the ground. “Enough talk!” He warped forward, weapon raised for a scything blow. “Have at you!”

On the arena’s right side, A didn’t stay down for long. He saw how the fights were going against O and D, as well as the state of the Gravemind, and made his choice. Though vulnerable to attack for a few moments, his core quickly began to accelerate, glowing bright and brighter to the sound of a rapidly beating heart. Finally, the Consul’s body melted away in a burst of virulent purple light, and Moebius A came to be. It stood before them, easily twelve feet tall, a being somewhere between mechanical monstrosity and ancient abomination, an armored biped of demonic aspect adorned with bulbous black eyes, a spiky crown, and a heart-shaped protrusion on his back.

”Behold, the heart of this World of Light!” Moebius A proclaimed, its arms held wide in welcome embrace. ”Father and mother, alpha and omega! Moebius, incarnate! And you…” On one side of its face, a cluster of three black pearls bulged, while on the other a single red eye peered down. A glowing crimson lemniscate shone within it. ”You still don’t know what you’re up against. You are but figments, who flatter and delude yourselves. Can the nail go against the finger? The finger, against the hand? You are born of Moebius, same as I!” It lifted its arms up, claws turned toward the outside. The Gravemind obeyed, pulling its terrible puppet strings, and the demon tree infested by its flesh bent to its will. A dreadful crackling and groaning filled the Qliphoth as the ceiling far above the arena began to tear. When A drew his arms apart, as if ripping into some cosmic corpse, the canopy of the Qliphoth split apart. Fragments of twisted, fleshy wood rained down but not timefall, for the Qliphoth towered above over the clouds. Instead the Seekers could see the pale blue sky, and above that the moon, pitted and scarred in a fundamentally unwholesome manner.

”Behold, the body,” A pronounced, drawing its clawed hands downward. ”Of which the Gravemind is but the head. Behold, the infinite malignity of the stars!”

Far above the Qliphoth, the sky appeared to warp, distort, and darken. Horror gnawed at the frayed edges of the Seekers’ sanity as the day seemed to turn to night, and yet the moon still shone, aglow with some inner radiance. Then, in a scene conjured from feverish nightmare, the moon burst from its celestial eggshell, and slowly stretched out its execrable limbs to smite the battlefield below.

Word Count: 835
Level: Lv: 6 EXP: (3/60)
Location: Dead Zone Hinterlands - Martira, Old Castle Town

Harry felt something touch his body, and a voice spoke to him, urging him to wake up. Harry slowly opened his eyes, noticing an older man standing above him. The man was wearing a dirty green shirt and equally dirty pants. He was kneeling beside him with a friendly smile on his face.

“Where am I? Is this Heaven?” Harry said feeling like he had been abducted or something. The man chuckled, shaking his head. The man helped Harry up onto his feet.

“Here, have some water; it’ll help. Are you okay?” The man said, offering him a flask of water. Harry took a sip from the flask, with the man holding Harry’s head to let him drink. Eventually Harry slowly got onto his feet again, asking him where he was. This didn’t look like Revachol to Harry.

“From its appearance, it looks like a town. And judging from the buildings you must be in the old part of the city. And below you is some sort of stone tile with a strange symbol.” Perception said.

“It looks like some sort of teleportation device. That must be how you got here.” Encyclopedia stated.

“But what city am I in? Where am I?” Harry said with the man quickly answering his question.

“You're in Martira, sir. Are you sure you are okay? You look like you’ve been through hell.” The man said

Harry smiled at this comment. It was true he had been through a rough couple of days. He wondered if Kim and the others were still in the city—or hoped so. The thought of losing them filled him with dread. “My name is Harry, Detective Harry Dubois. What’s yours?” He said, wiping off some dirt from his jacket.

“My name is Leonard Grosse. What’s a Detective?” The man asked while helping wipe off some dirt from Harry’s clothes.

“Nice to meet you, Leonard; mind if I call ya Leo? Thanks for the drink. A detective is a police officer of sorts. So where can I go for some work?” Harry thanked Leo, being reminded of Gaston Martin.

“You're a decorated supercop, so why don't you go out there and start copping.” Authority stated and pushing Harry to start acting like a cop.

“Speaking of drinks, you should get some firewater in your belly. You deserve it.” Electro-Chemistry chimed in. But Harry just disregarded this thought.

“You feel something in the inside pocket of your jacket. Checking it you notice a bottle of red wine.” Physical Instrument mentioned with Harry checking the inside of his jacket pocket. When he noticed a wine bottle.

“JACKPOT!!!” Electro-Chemistry exclaimed enthusiastically.

“STOP!. You are better than this; you don’t need alcohol. I’m sure you’ll find Kim eventually.” Volition interrupted the two. Not wanting Harry to spiral and mess up his life like last time.

"Get a grip on yourself. This kind of self destruction is what got you in trouble in the first place." Composure said adding to the conversation.

“You could see Bardon; I’m sure he could have some work for you.” Leo said to which Harry thanked him for his kindness. Harry gave him back the flask. Leo then showed Jarry where Bardon was, giving him detailed instructions on how to get there. Enjoying the sights of the city. Feeling a sense of sorrow. Sorrow because he had lost his friends and colleagues. Again, he wondered if he would be able to see them again. He opened his jacket, noticing the bottle inside of the pocket. The thought of drinking and once again going down the rabbit hole of alcoholism came into his mind.

Midna rose up to the back of her flygon, the pokemon’s accent towards the ceiling aided by the hot air billowing up from the burning Gravemind. It was chased by several large flood swarm forms that had detached from the wounded corpse mass, the mutated predators spitting infectious barbed projectiles after the princess who had stolen a limb from their overlord.

”Get lost you oversized kees!” Midna yelled at them, before having a thought and changing her mind, saying ”Wait, no, on second thought, come here!” and prompting her beast to pivot and dive right back down towards them.

As she did spectral poes swirled out around her along with a ghostly aura as she made use of Shemira’s magic, one that engulfed the swarm forms as she dove into the midst of them. As her magic smothered them, the princess sword flashed, severing the wing of one foe, while her flygon lashed out with draconic claws to rend the face of another asunder.

As they hacked at the oversized bats, Minda strummed her lyre, causing her to unleash retaliatory musical bolts against the swarmers when they slashed at her flygon, retaliations joined by the cactus needles that spiked out from it when either of them were hit. At the same time, her specters slipped through the swarmers, sapping their life from their bones, and granting half of it to their mistress. They also ensured she always had two stacks of Starward Demonhunt, reducing the damage she took.

”Come on! Keep trying! Keep falling!” she cried out as blade and claw reaped a bloody toll, till the last swarmer fell. Once the aerial battle was over, the princess’ flygon was certainly worse for wear, but she herself had actually gained life from fighting these lesser foes.

It was as it ended that Sandalphon’s chime for her to switch targets came in, but before she had a moment to respond, things got worse.

Up on high as she was, Midna was right there by the ceiling as it ripped itself away, and un-engaged as she was, she had all the time in the world to turn her gaze up to it, and see what A had initiated.

”Goddesses. Selene, what have they done to that moon?” she asked the silent heavens, but there was no answer from the distant divine, only the rapidly approaching eldritch horror.

After a moment of heart pumping dread, she ripped her gaze away from the impending doom, and instead set it upon its herald, telling Sandalphon she was ”on it” before diving down towards A.

As she approached, the princess roared ”These ones can claw!” in response to the question of what a nail or finger could do against a hand, as she lept off of her flygon (which then portaled home to lick its wounds), whipped out her shadow hand before her, and extended from its fingertips great purple dragon claws.

With the momentum of her plummet behind them she drove her claws into the pulsing heart attached to A’s back, and then used that grip to pivot her downward momentum into a swing around the feet of the towering figure, slideing across the ground when she touched down on it. As she began that spin she re-summoned her Beast Legion that she had stashed before fleeing skywards, the chimera dropping behind the foe and then having its chain swung halfway around the titan’s feet before Midna was forced to let go of his back.

Rather than speed away from A, she extended a clawed hand and dug it into the ground, causing her body to drift like a motorcycle around A. Sliding like so, she linked up with her beast legion, and in so doing completed their encirclement of him, briefly binding the Mobius in place using the astral chain linking them together.

In that moment, she threw the rest of her mana reserves into summoning a force to humble the bound titan, her Darknut stepping out of a portal behind her, enlarged enough that it towered over A. It had failed to strike him before, but now, faced with a stationary target, it was able to bring the pain.

Its titanic broadsword, already larger than a man before its bearers enlargement, rose up, silver edges of its black blade flashing in the fire and moonlight, and then crashed down upon A, dealing a devastating singular strike to his form.

”Get my point?” Minda taunted as she pushed herself to her feet (having Akira slid herself to a halt) wincing a little as she did so. Though she had transferred much of the momentum of her fall into him, it still hadn’t been a painless landing.

She did much more than wince as a maw opened on the chest of A as, in response to her attack (and inability to retaliate against the darknut itself who had stepped back into the portal it had come out of before he had recovered), A spewed a torrent of blighted fluids at her.

She recoiled in disgust, and then stumbled back to her knee as the horrendous feeling of being eaten alive by a million tiny organisms overwhelmed her for a moment. It primed A to deliver a second retaliation, tendrils lashing out of that same maw, only for claws to lash out from the aether as her beast legion pounced to her defense, deflecting the blow just in time for Midna to recover.

Her night sky ripper flashed up as she stood, cleaving into the tendrils as they attempted to course correct back to her. A windy aftershock knocked it back more, buying enough time for her to leap up, vault off of the back of her beast legion, and slam a Cyclone Kick into A’s face, unleashing a devastating cyclone of wind, and winning her 73% chance to stun him in the process.

The recoil blasted her back again, the princess landing and sliding backwards a bit as she did, before coming to a halt. ”This one’s for you, my captive audience” she told A, as she used her 5 second grace period her stun granted to strum her lyre, blessing her allies in this fight her Rainbow Rondo buff, and leaving the stage clear for them to take their own shots at the Consul before he could act again.

”Nice one Pit!” Jr called up towards the winged hero once Sandalphon filled them in on what the heck the new building O was building was for, before he and Rika started making a run towards it with a battlecry of ”Now let’s go get that scaredy-jerk!”

They were, unfortunately, rudely interrupted on their way there with a construction that was set up far faster than the animal enclosures the consul had been putting up beforehand. One moment they were scampering towards his base across sudo-fleshy floor, the next they were stepping on sandstone, and giant mechanical scorpions where barrelling towards them.

Rika immediately grabbed her brother with an oversized hand and then with a ”hup” launched herself skywards, leaving the scorpions to bump into each other … only for the crane on the Drop into the Ocean ride that had been built right next to the sandstone structure to swing around towards them.

She tried to double jump to the side, but the wreckingball of a ride still clipped her shoulder, sending her tumbling back down to the ground. She landed hard, losing grip on Jr, who bounced a few times before coming to a stop as well. In a parallel, he lost his grip on his brush, which bounced even further till it bounced out of the arena entirely, back to where they’d been wrecking the polar bear enclosure.

After landing, Rika tried to push herself up with both hands, only for the arm that had been clipped by the crane’s pod to collapse under her, and for her to roll back to the floor with a whined ”owwwww”

Jr had it worse, not even having a moment to try and get to his feet before a scorpion came slamming into him. Rather than be roadkilled however, the impact sent the prince sliding along on his belly, the boy instinctively withdrawing into his shell as he started ping-ponging around the bumper car arena in his koopa shell.

Before Rika had the same run-in/over, the ship girl managed to click her tape player with her good arm, and transform herself into the Beast. A mechanical scorpion rammed into the oversized centipede a moment later, which still crippled limbs and hurt a lot, but she now had limbs to spare, so their injury was far less of a concern. As a bonus, her bulk also brought the bumper car to a halt, giving Rika the space and time she needed to grapple it and slam her horns into the top of it.

The mountain smash strike smashed apart the armor atop the machine apart, exposing its sparking guts into which the princess snapped her jaw, ripping out mechanical innards and swallowing them whole. How exactly this healed her was unclear, but it did, just in time for another car to come careening into her back legs with a crunch, eliciting a shriek of pain.

She scrambled up onto the wreck of the car she’d broken, then had to duck to avoid the Drop in the Ocean pod swinging overhead, giving the car time to back up and escape retaliation.

Jr’s flutermane Peeka had to do the same, bobbing down to avoid being smashed by the brass pod as she tried to catch up with her trainer. A tricky task, as a bumper car slammed into the still shell stuck prince, sending him bouncing away again in a way that looked like it might end up being a perpetual pain till his sister intervened.

Rika, having shed her beast form but still perched on the wrecked car, launched her grappling hook, tagging Jr with its end and reeling him towards herself. With a dexterous flick of the cable, she got him to bounce up, and then placed her good hand in front of her chest to catch him like an incoming oversized baseball.

The impact of the fast moving koopa knocked her clean off of the bumper car wreck, right before the car chasing the prince slammed into it, reducing it to scrap.

”I have you” Rike told her brother reassuringly as she used an aim glid to extend her fall to the ground, and then used her maneuvering thrusters to slow it down, the dash releasing a burst of water that knocked the Drop in the Ocean’s pod off course before it could hit them out of the air.

Her feet lightly touched the ground, and a moment later so did Jr’s, or, rather, Undyne's as the prince swapped to a sturdier form to face down the remaining incoming bumper cars now coming towards them.

”Bolt em Peeka!” Jr yelled at his flutter mane, giving direction to the direction less mon, and prompting her to blast the middle car with a fusion bolt, which then split and hit the other two on either side. The shot briefly slowed all three to a crawl, leaving them monetarily without their most dangerous aspect, and the pair took immediate advantage of that.

One was smashed from below by an anchor of water, flipping it over, while Rika used her good arm to direct half of her red baron drones to fly over and then stab down into the hull of another. It wasn’t quite enough to disable it, but as the car picked up speed again it was smoking, sparking, and lagging behind the untouched car.

That one did not stay untouched for long, as both royals leapt up as it came close, raised spears, and plunged them into the back of its hull. Again, this was not quite enough, but the spears did let the pair stay anchored to the vehicle as it swerved around, and then the other car slammed into it.

Spears were pulled out, intending to be used to end the machines, only for both of them to have to leap aside as the pod swung above once again.

”That’s super annoying” Rika complained, regarding the pod, as she rubbed her hurt arm. Her helbard had blinked to her back so she could do this but was a moment later joined there by her brother, who hopped up and said that she should ”get us up there!” meaning up to the crane trying to wreck them.

She glanced from the 2 damaged scorpion cars, which were in the middle of knocking the third tipped over car onto its wheels again and then up at the swinging pod before agreeing ”alright” and making the leap.

She high-jumped up, and then her featherfall rune launched her skywards, before she double jumped, maneuvering thrusters past the swinging pod (the accompanying blast of water once again knocking it clear) and then grappling up to the top of the rocky spire the crane was attached to.

It lacked any kind of operator's cabin, but there was a little circuit box thing that Jr ran over too and flipped open, but not before calling out ”Peeka! Grab my brush!”

Then he set to work, getting his Rotom phone out, plugging it into something in the box before starting to tap away at something on his device.

As he did so, Rika had to put some of her focus into just holding on to the widely swinging crane that was not happy about them being there, but she still had the time to actually focus on what had been going on in the rest of the battle, which had been a bit tricky when avoiding the bumper cars. As such it was only then that she really noticed the ceiling was gone and that there was an entire moon's worth of tentacles descending towards them.

No one had ever found it necessary to explain to her how a moon was both very big and very far away, so the impact of it descending down was a little lessened, but only somewhat. The resulting sensation was still highly unpleasant to her.

She decided to not point out that this was happening to her brother. Everyone else was getting on with bashing things (though they were different things compared to the last time she’d seen them, the princess having also missed the 2 transformations of the gravemind and A) rather than running for the hills, so it could wait.

That wait ended just a moment later as it turned out as Jr declared ”I got it!” with delight, before gleefully declaring ”Now to wreck this thing!” before sending the crane spinning around, its pod crashing through the remaining scorpion cars in its first rotation, and then smashing into the side of the moonbase in a second.

The prince giggled with glee at the carnage he’d inflicted, before raising a hand up and intending to catch his paintbrush that his pokemon had fetched for him, only to miss the catch and be bonked on the head as he only now saw the infested moon coming down towards them.

Rika didn’t really have any idea what she could say that would help wipe that look of horror off of her brother’s face, and so instead, in a mix of distraction and selfishness, simply asked ”Arm?”

”Huh? What? Oh!” Jr replied, before as he snatched up his brush and cast ”Cure!” on his sister. Being back on task had indeed knocked him out of the stunning psychological impact of the moonfall, and in so doing allowed him to remember ”Oh! I can paint a way out of here if we need it!”

Rika blinked and then nodded. It had been a while since he’d used that magic, but they did have a way out, didn’t they? Till they needed it though, they’d make double time to stay on Sanaplhon’s plan, namely: ”let's get O then”

”Yeah! We’ve broken his stuff, now let’s break him!”

With an escape method assured, her brother hopped back on her shoulders and his pokemon floating alongside them, Rika pushed forward to take them back into the fight. She ran up the crane’s jib, and then with a series of leaps, boosts and a grapples carried them over the gap between it and where Jr had slammed its pod into the moonbase, taking them into wherever the hole they’d punched that in O’s last line of defense led to.

---

Juri did indeed disregard the little punks Rika and Jr, who she remembered from their time at the bar. While Junior did upgrade her tommy gun, she had since cast it aside in favor of her Ghoulsaw. What had he done for her recently? Not much. Besides, she had no interest in fighting…hippos or whatever.

Juri cracked the door open with her hacking and went inside O’s command center, on the hunt for the wizard behind the curtain. Forgoing her martial arts for now, she went with her Ghoulsaw, figuring precision and speed weren’t needed for now. Those annoying red eyes, floating around the place. Where was this little creep?

Well, she didn’t find a little creep. Instead she found a dinosaur. ”Haah?” She asked, tilting her head to the side. That wasn’t what she expected. ”Badass…” She muttered to herself, looking the beast over. A quick scan of the environment showed that O wasn’t here. There must be a secret door or something, right? Unless Sandy’s intel was somehow wrong.

The fences were definitely electric, given the voltage. This all looked very Jurassic Park. There was nothing she could do with this T-Rex in the way. The downside of relying on wild animals was that they weren’t inherently aggressive, Juri thought. Just, well, wild.

Juri wasn’t afraid of the T-Rex. Worst case scenario she felt like she could sever a single ankle with her Ghoulsaw and cripple the poor thing. Sure it was dangerous but so were assault rifles, and Juri could handle those no problem. Instead, though, she thought she might have a quicker way. Or at least, a more fun, less animal-chopping kind of way.

Making a mad dash to the right, she quickly hacked the electrical fence to temporarily disable it. Then she dove right through the bars and slipped through, crawling into the space between the round dome and the square fence. She shimmied right. Either the fence would come online before the Rex came after her, or she would slip to the side as it crashed into the fence and damaged the glass dome around the exterior. Since she hadn’t triggered Galeem’s aggression curse, she wondered if the T-Rex would choose to pursue after some prey like her crammed behind a re-electrified fence, or seek freedom in the outside world. Either way, by Juri’s calculations it was a win-win for her.

”Heh heh” She giggled. As she went, she scouted out the room from the edges, looking at the interior and at the ground beneath her feet for any sign of exits or entrances. O had to be here somewhere. She’d flush the little rat out.

Owed in large part to its age and origins, Martira was not the simplest town to navigate. Its core had been built to not to facilitate quick and easy travel, but to obstruct and frustrate invaders back when war had embroiled the Kingdom of Euchronia. During the times of relative peace that followed, the surviving soldiers beat their swords into plowshares and raised families in this borderland bastion. As a result, Martira had not undergone any urban planning, but had grown in an almost organic fashion around the old keep. The locals might know its irregularities like the backs of their hands, but newcomers were bound to experience their fare share of wandering.

As such, Harry had plenty of time to take in the sights, and he certainly found his fair share of interesting things to see, but what he did not find was an excess of hospitality. The townsfolk here were furtive, nervous, and standoffish. Learning about the calamitous Dead Zone in uncomfortably close proximity to Martira would explain some of this behavior, but not all of it, since most of the citizens seemed rather cagey about something specific to Harry himself, completely unrelated to the accursed territories nearby. As Harry saw more people and got a better idea of the populace, however, he might begin to figure things out. The vast majority of Martira’s townsfolk sported not-standard features of some stripe, such as strange ears, horns, animal tails, or straight-up inhuman physiology. Of particular prominence were the Roussainte, the tall long-eared ones, and the Clemar, with their distinctive horns. Each ‘tribe’ tended to be clannish and curt, if not downright exclusory, to the others, and for some reason or another that seemed to go double for Harry. Everywhere he went he found strange looks, wary glances, and narrowed eyes, and the word ‘Elda’ muttered under folks’ breath.

After about half an hour, and a couple inquiries at incorrect places, Harry finally found the guard captain at the Martira Guard Center. It was essentially a one-stop shop for recruitment, bounties, barracks, and everything that concerned the town’s defenses, and a Dead Zone patrol led by Bardon himself had just returned. While his squad dispersed in the general direction of Martira’s taverns, though, Bardon himself stuck around, offering the detective the perfect chance to meet him.

Bardon turned out to be a tall, broad-shouldered, middle-aged fellow whose long ears marked him as a Roussainte, to use the local terminology. Formidable, but not flashy, he sported an olive green overcoat tailored to be worn over high-quality plate mail, with a saber at his side and an arcane artifact known as a Magic Igniter around his neck. He had grayish hair just starting to thin, a chinstrap beard, and an exceptionally stern expression. Children seemed to quail at the sight of him, but he bore no hostility–only a frank and painfully serious nature. When he caught sight of a newcomer, his initial surprise quickly gave way to hope.

“G’mornin’ to ye,” Bardon greeted Harry with a strong Scottish accent. “There’s lots o’ folks ‘round here that need help, but if you came to me lookin’ for work, aye, there’s somethin’ I -the whole town really- need help with. I dinnae think it would come to this, but…loathe as we are to admit it to outsiders, we’re desperately in o’er our heads at this point. See, every week or so, some wee lad or lass goes missin’. Sometimes two or three at a time. At first we thought it was monsters from the Dead Zone, but it blew up almost two weeks ago and the situation hasn’t improved." Though he kept a stiff upper lip, Bardon seemed rather despondent about the whole matter, as if the burden of responsibility lay on his shoulders alone.

After a moment he cleared his throat and continued. "The only lead we’ve got left is Heismay, a disgraced knight who’s been livin’ near town. Problem is, he’s holed up in ol’ Curien Mansion up the hill. Place is a deathtrap, and we don’t have the soldiers to storm it. If you can solve this crisis, the bounty on Heismay’s head is yours. Lady Joanna put it up herself, so you can expect a handsome reward.” Bardon pursed his lips, his hand rested on his belt by the hilt of his sword. “If there’s anythin’ ye need, anythin’ at all, whatever assistance I can offer is yours.”

Roland swapped over to A, giving them relief from the Consul as some of the people fighting A swapped to dealing with D. Mostly those with holy power to deal with the Consul. Well, A was more up Roland's alley anyway. A creature using flesh and other horrid, unspeakable things to attack. There were far more people like this in the City than bloodfiends. Although Roland would soon find that A was a really bad opponent for him to face as he attacked the mind more than anything.

A's attacks, at least the physical ones, Roland could clash with and overcome. Unlike D, A didn't have monsterous strength. Well, not AS monstrous. His stress attacks though, Roland had a lot of issues dealing with. They were clearly his stronger attacks, and Roland had a bit of a weakness to these kind of attacks making them even more effective on him. He had to close this battle quick, and at emotion level 5, he had the tools to at least give that an attempt.

Donning the EGO of Road Home, Roland wore a dapper suit and with a snap of his fingers a moderately sized farmhouse fell from the sky and landed on A as he was trying to do his Puncture attack, overpowering it and crashing down upon A for a fair amount of damage. Using the damage boost offered by this attack, Roland went in with a massive mana powered swing from his massive sword in an attempt to put in as much damage as he could as he got ready to do Furioso. He also threw one of his spectres at A to deal more damage with the Consul sadly being immune to the silence portion of the ability.

Blazermate healed up those that were low, most of them being involved with the Gravemind. Speaking of said Gravemind, it seemed she was now helping deal with that enemy now. A strong enemy that she had only a few things she could do to help pile on the damage. First she summoned the Engineer, who thanks to the rubble of O's attractions, had more metal than normal and could quickly build up his sentry gun to level 2 and then 3 without needing to wait for dispenser metal. Blazermate herself throwing out a holy bolt to deal some damage and heal everyone it passed by; this notably being her only real AoE heal.

She had a few other things ready, building up another Ubercharge to use on someone soon, who to use it on though...

Pit took a moment after exiting O's original hiding place to take in the state of the battlefield, and the new building. The other battles didn't exactly look like they were going fine but since the state of things hadn't shifted into the truly dire yet, he planned to stick on O and actually bring the Consul down for real this time. Besides, though Pit was an angel he wasn't the healing or supporting kind. The only thing he had to offer was his offense, and he'd be putting that towards O first. He wouldn't be the only one this time either, as he noted Juri fast approaching.

"What does that even mean?" he called back to the woman, falling in behind her as she rushed to the command center the Consul had put up. He had a score to settle, but when Sandalphon gave him a new assignment he skidded to a halt right outside the door, even as Juri hacked her way inside.

"What? No way!" he protested. "I found him! And he locked me in that tank after he said he gave up! I gotta pay him back!"

He probably could help out against D, but he wasn't the only one that could wield the power of light, right? Pit cast his gaze back at the center of the arena where D was single-handedly holding off more than a handful of Seekers. He frowned, petulant, even as Junior and Rika went by to tackle O's building itself. While the archangel was in one ear, his goddess was in the other. He didn't speak aloud to her, though his face twisted up like he wanted to argue. He spent a few precious seconds there, just standing, listening, sorting out his own thoughts.

"Argh, fine!" he said eventually, turning to run back to the other side of the arena.

He had re-summoned his bow already, but if he wanted to use his elemental light then it would have to stay a bow, rather than be used up close as a blade. Since there were still a bunch of people fighting D in close combat even after the shuffle, it was probably for the best that Pit wouldn't be just another body up close. The angel made his way toward the battle all the same, stopping when he judged he was the best distance away for his arrows to get up to a decent speed after shooting, but not too far that they'd be too easy to see coming.

Pit stood, drawing the bow back to its maximum pull. The light arrow the formed gradually grew larger and brighter, its pale blue fading into warm yellow. When released the charged shot flew forward, snaking around Seekers and D's spells to attempt to snipe the Consul with his elemental weakness. Naturally Pit didn't stop at just one. The following arrows swooped up and over, or around at odd angles, Pit taking full advantage of their maneuverability to try and make every shot a hit. He held them until the powered up most of the time, figuring that with D's attention pulled in so many directions he could get away with that instead of relying on the faster but weaker versions. So it was that the air buzzed with streaks of golden light as the other battles continued.

In another section of the hollow, Primrose had heeded Sandalphon's advice as well. At the first mention of those battling A in some real trouble, she had turned her attention over there to take stock of the situation herself. With so much going on it was hard to get a complete picture, but she could see all but one of the five men she and Midna had left to fight A still there. Their movements were haggard though, not quite sluggish but certainly strained. Then Primrose had to focus again on the Gravemind, lest a whipping tentacle put her into the ground.

She cast another spell, watching the flicking black and red of her magic burst against the monstrosity. Then, she turned to A once more, this time with intent to take him on in battle herself. "I hear you, Sandalphon," she said, her hand brushing against the glyph as though it was her linkpearl. She passed the men as they disengaged, but she didn't stop to offering them any healing. There were others better suited to it, and her flame of Warmth required her to touch them one by one or attempt Sealticge's Seduction again. There was little time for a break like that. She briefly met eyes with Therion, each of them assessing the other's well being, before they took up their new roles.

As the ceiling cracked open and the Qliphoth split apart, Primrose did her best not to get too distracted. It was a pretty insane sight, that demonic looking moon descending toward them on top of the Gravemind's new form, the two monstrous Consuls out in the open and whatever was going on in the building behind them. Instead, Primrose conjured her magic and summoned her striker Bianca. If brute force was enough to take down A, then she would force it alright, and put a stop to whatever he had planned. Hopefully it would prevent that monster from falling from the sky, but only time would tell.

"Fall," she commanded as her Dirge of Dusk was conjured, the black masses converging on A and weakening him further to dark magics with every bolt that struck home. Then she breathed in and out, bombarding the Moebius with whatever she had.

Unsure how much armor Moebius A had in his newest form, Primrose cast her Luna alongside her Vengeful Spirit to get around any kind of defenses he had. They blew through A, shedding sparks of fire as they connected. With Midna's Rainbow Rondo they also produced notes of music that bounced and burst for only a moment before being turned into yet more flames. Her striker lashed out with rapid stabs of her own great sword, joining the close range fighters while Primrose kept to the back line. Without the protection of her Baldur Shell she was careful to keep a close eye on A's movements, making sure he didn't blind side her while she cast her magic.

As Edelgard hacked away at the base of the Gravemind, she was quick to react to its transformation, jumping back as the colossal Floodform consolidated its flesh and began to retract. ”Now what is this?!” She cried out, hefting her shield in preparation for an attack.

Zenkichi, meanwhile, was busy handling the Flood tank form that had been so kindly dropped in by the Gravemind before its transformation. Each swing of Ragnell launched a blast of energy its way, but the monster was undeterred, barreling ahead with reckless abandon and swinging its trunk like limbs violently. He was forced to dodge the attack or be launched away, but the Tank form was quick to stop and turn once it had gone past him. It roared, turning and slamming its massive arm down with enough force to kick up a small cloud of dust and lingering spores. The light of Ragnell’s energy blasts illuminated it as Zenkichi circled around the tank form, calling out to Edelgard. ”Can you handle this thing? I can at least get some ranged hits out on the big guy!” While this earned a huff from the Flame Emperor, she nonetheless obliged.

As he and Edelgard switch targets, Zenkichi rolled to avoid a glob of deadly poison, standing up and pointing his target out for Valjean. ”Agneyastra!” Of all times, now wasn’t the time to hold back, though he could feel just that one attack taking a lot of his reserves of energy. Even as he took in a deep breath, the meteors crashed into the main body of the Gravemind, a few hitting some of its heads and dealing solid damage. He didn’t have too many more of those left in him, even as he felt the three protocols of Sandalphon’s covenant healing and reinforcing him.

Edelgard met the Tank form with a charge, Aymr flashing out with Returning Axe before she even reached the Flood form, already in her hand again by the time the two clashed. The crash of its mighty arm rattled her even through her shield and armor, though the Tank form suffered Doom for its efforts, cursing it to be harmed by a spectral crimson blade a second later. She hadn’t noticed this effect actively until now, given how hectic the battle had been, but Edelgard hummed when she saw it take place, cementing the notion in her mind that taking that boon had been a good idea.

She took the offensive, crashing into the Tank form shield-first and slamming Aymr’s blade into its shoulder before kicking off and circling around to target its larger arm. While others might go for the weaker side, Edelgard meant to dislodge the limb entirely, thus rendering the Flood nearly powerless. Though her target did not give her an easy job, lashing out violently and trying to run the Flame Emperor down any time she put distance between them for even a moment to breathe. The Gravemind’s new form made this all the more treacherous, as the toxin grenades it launched left fields of toxic gas behind to turn the battlefield into a place where not one inch was safe.

As Zenkichi hurled blasts of energy from Ragnell at the now mobile Gravemind, he was forced to take a more passive approach than earlier as two of the three heads nearly continuously belched out globs and grenades of spores and toxins. He’d found himself hit a few times by now, and while the stacking defensive buffs from Preservation Protocol and Ragnell’s magical protection had kept him relatively hale, each projectile still did a noticeable amount of damage. Stashing Ragnell for a moment, he drew his revolvers and fired them at the head firing the lingering toxic clouds, quickly replacing them with the holy sword when they clicked empty and running out of the impact zone of another blast.

As soon as he paused for a moment, he saw the utterly colossal scythe coming his way along the ground in a horizontal sweep, and he hefted Ragnell in time to block the attack, only for the sheer momentum to launch him a few dozen feet away, tumbling head over heels. ”Owww…” He groaned, body aching as he stood. ”This thing is crazy. Agneyastra looked like it barely budged it. The heads are an obvious weak point, but unless we can knock it down…” Now, that was an idea. Though he certainly didn’t know how the heck they’d pull that off. Bringing his finger to his ear, Zenkichi activated the communication glyph Sandalphon had given him. ”Sandalphon, you got any ideas on something we could use to knock this giant thing over? Its heads are the obvious weak point, but half of us can’t even get to them.” It was a long shot, but if they could pull it off…they could put some serious hurt on the Guardian.

Rage. Pure, unfiltered, seething rage. That was what boiled in Ganondorf’s blood after the heavy attack he took during the battle against Moebius A. And even he had begun to feel the stress inflicted on him by A’s attacks. And that? That was about to be Moebius’ gravest mistake. Stress did not make the King of the Gerudo afraid or anxious like it might for other warriors. No, it made him angry. Even more so than he was already. And an angry Ganondorf? Was a very dangerous thing.

He heard Sandalphon’s words and commands on the glyph over his ear. Normally the King of Evil would never suffer another being to give him commands. But the archangel was not wrong in her assessments, nor was she incorrect in the suggestions she gave to the Seekers - Ganondorf included. The warlord pushed himself angrily to his feet as Captain Falcon limped himself away to join another battle. And then?

”MOOOOOOOEBIUUUUUUUUS!”

Ganondorf’s roar was booming, deafening, and filled to the brim with pure rage and hatred. How dare they? How DARE they manage to push him this hard? They would pay. They would ALL pay! Ganondorf’s heartbeat felt deafening in his ears as he felt a familiar burning sensation coming from his right hand.

The Triforce was glowing.

Not just glowing, but radiating - burning with power fueled by the Warlord’s rage and malice. And then? The mutations started. Ganondorf’s muscles began to grow and bulge. His red hair began to ignite into a fiery mane as a snout grew from his face and sharp tusks began to protrude from his mouth. Even his very swords began to change and grow in size with him. He became overflowing with dark magic and the raw power of the Triforce burned onto his hand. And before long? Ganondorf was no longer standing there.

Instead, Ganon towered in his place - and let loose an even more mighty and deafening roar of rage. And the first thing Ganon locked his searing evil eyes onto? The Guardian itself. The Gravemind. The other monster in the room that had taken a new Floodform while Ganondorf was transforming.

And then Ganon went on the attack. With massive swords brandished, the giant boar-monster that was Ganon charged through the battlefield straight toward the Gravemind. He gave no mind whatsoever to what or who he was crashing through. Whether it was one of the walls or fences conjured by O, or even D’s conjured blood rain. The Demon King simply didn’t seem to care. His sights were locked onto the Guardian, and there was nothing that would stop him from unleashing his fury. Even as Gravemind’s tentacles attacked Ganon on his approach, or its smaller creatures tried attacking, many with poison - Ganon still didn’t seem to care. Not because the attacks weren’t damaging him - they were. But Ganon was just so blindly enraged that he ignored all of that as he tunnel visioned into a bull charge against Gravemind. And also perhaps because Blazermate was also in the area and could focus her Healing Beam on him when needed.

And so the Seekers fighting the Gravemind would hear the thundering footsteps of Ganon’s charge and were surely agile enough to know it was coming and to get out of the way of it. And after his massive form crashed into the Guardian? Ganon wasted no time in opening his mouth and unleashing a powerful Dark Breath, spewing out a searing beam of dark energy right into the Gravemind’s body like a dragon’s breath attack.

A whole lot more chaos ensued. The most pressing thing Roxas had to deal with was when D cast another Dominus Hatred. But this time, the Nobody knew what to expect - and he even had an answer for it. Using his Phantom Ruby, Roxas quickly generated three layers of virtual cubes above his head arranged in 3x3 patterns. They would absorb the incoming rays of green that fell down from the sky onto him. He was unable to provide similar shielding to his allies, but he was able to use that moment’s reprieve to renew his own Tailwind buff as well as provide one for Geralt and Nadia - but was unable to do so for anyone else due to D swiftly taking action following his spell.

During these moments, D engaged with Roland and then with Nadia. Roxas had to fight the urge to teleport with his StepSword, knowing the Consul’s wolves could still strike at him if he tried that. And before Roxas could jump in himself, the ground started to rumble. From elsewhere in the Final Hollow, the Guardian was undergoing its transformation, the effects of which were being felt even here. So Roxas generated a new set of virtual cubes that he could launch himself along using Flow Motion to avoid touching the trembling ground. But as he was about to be within striking distance, D unleashed another spell. This one created a spherical blast of fire around him that kept the Keybearer from striking as well as pushed him back.

”Again?” Roxas exclaimed in frustration, ”Gimme a break!”

Meanwhile, Captain Falcon had spent a chunk of the fight against A stunned and in not-so-good shape. He along with Ganondorf had taken the brunt of a nasty attack. And as a result he was not only hurting, but stressed as all hell thanks to the Consul’s abilities. He heard Sandalphon’s voice coming from a glyph over Ganondorf’s ear, recommending that he and the others in this fight switch opponents to relieve themselves of the stress being inflicted on them.

She didn’t have to tell him twice.

With determination, Cap staggered back to his feet and began to unevenly run toward one of the other Consuls, D to be precise. Behind him he could hear Ganondorf's roars of fury and found himself feeling glad he was not in the shoes of whoever was going to have to face him next. The trembling ground did not do the Captain any favors, and by the time he was close enough to actually join the fighting, it looked like D was already making his moves.

Geralt nodded at the bounty hunter as he approached, barely taking his eye off of D. Losing the Hateful Flesh had made him incredibly angry, but for the moment he was managing to avoid completely losing his mind. However, between that and the rapid-fire loss of their allies, with Ace as the pinnacle, Geralt was very close to the edge of his rope. D’s speed, strength, and variety of magical abilities didn’t help much, either. Without the Orphan’s eldritch cleaver, he was forced to resort to using his silver sword, though the familiarity of the weapon was a welcome change.

As the Consul swung on Nadia, Geralt stepped in to deflect the blow, sending it upwards and over the feral as he ducked low, lashing out with a kick to D’s knee before stepping back with a wide slash. While the joint didn’t buckle beneath Geralt’s blow, it did halt the Consul’s advance, and when he raised his scythe to deflect the ensuing swing the loud clang signalled the return of both men to neutral.

Roxas, now more injured after being blasted back by D’s Demonic Meggido spell, pushed himself back to his feet - refusing to give up. By now he’d noticed the injured Captain Falcon coming to join them, and the beating some of the other Seekers had been taking from D as well. And so after only a moment’s consideration, a tactical decision was made.

”Heal!”

With a raised Keyblade, the remainder of his MP was fully spent and the Curaga spell was cast. It had a slightly extended range now thanks to the Supernova boon he had earlier received from Apollo. As long as he positioned himself right, Roxas could ensure all his nearby allies would be within the spell’s radius giving them a much-needed heal and hopefully getting them all back in shape for what would inevitably be Round 2 against the vampiric Consul. And then? Roxas vanished.

He no longer cared about the wolves flanking D. He’d try to take him from behind in spite of that risk. Roxas teleported to D’s back and attempted to once again slash at him with his ignited energy sword. But he wasn’t attacking alone. After the much-appreciated heal courtesy of the Keyblade Wielder, Falcon sprinted into action toward the Consul at the same time that Roxas vanished. The bounty hunter leaped and came flying back down at the Consul head-on. ”Falcon Kick!”

Though the destructive power of Demonic Meggido had annihilated his own minions, D was by no means defenseless against Roxas’ StepSword. The boy had already given the game away by abusing his teleportation technique to catch D off guard, so by now the Consul was keeping one eye on Roxas at all times. When he disappeared in a flash, D knew what was coming. He intercepted the blazing blade with style by not even turning around, but catching it with his scythe slung over his shoulder, his left hand behind his back to support the weapon just beneath the head.

If D had planned to enact some sophisticated counterattack, however, he never got the chance. Instead his smirk transformed into a look of surprise as the Captain ignited his flames above him, in the very moment where his focus had been diverted behind him. D attempted to pivot, but in an excess of confidence he’d overcommitted to dealing with Roxas, and now could not respond to the Falcon Kick in time. It slammed into his cheek with a meaty impact, leaving his pallid flesh bruised and seared, but the Consul did not go sprawling. Instead he planted his foot, teeth gritted and growling in anger, to try and power through the blow, as if to make up for the indignity of a hit to the head by showing Falcon how inconsequential it was.

Before Falcon’s balance could make him vulnerable as his momentum petered out, however, Nadia happily took advantage of the Consul’s obstinance. The Captain’s kick was a clean hit, maybe the first one the Seekers landed since the battle began, and one good turn deserves another. “Hell nyeah!” She darted in for a right-hand inward slice to D’s belly with Athame, held in a reverse grip, then came around the other way for a giant left-hand slash made savage by Fluffy Soft. With D’s defense double reduced, she kept up the combo with Tailspin, launched him with Limber Up, kept him airborne with a rotary Wheel of Fortune kick, then slammed him down with a jumping backflip kick. It was a short and sweet combo since D was heavy and liable to drop out easily, but it still got the feral fired up. “Know de-feet!”

With a snarl, D swept himself up from the floor as a swarm of bats, appearing a dozen feet away the next instant. “Finally working together, are you? Pathetic!” His cape fluttered, then split apart, becoming giant bat wings. When he gripped his scythe, the flames around it surged, and the next swing launched a volley of whirling fire sickles at the Seekers. “Die!”

Glad to know that she was being an annoyance, Nadia got moving. Running on all fours, she circled around the fiery onslaught. As bad as things had been going so far, even a little triumph amidst the adversity filled the feral with energy, and not just figuratively. Sparks of lightning danced in her eyes and around her bloody scars, telling her that she was fully stocked up on AP. “I’m fully charged!” she called to the others after narrowly avoiding a fire sickle. “Stagger him, and I’ll follow you up!”

Geralt pivoted around a flaming sickle, now in his Molar Boatworks Fixer Identity. All he needed in this form was a moment of distraction and he knew he could put Nadia in a position to follow up. He summoned Monsoon to attack with his metallic corkscrew technique, timing his Striker’s attack landing and punctuating it with a use of Axii. He knew the spell wouldn’t do much to the Consul, but if it bought him even a second, he’d use that time to launch a charged explosive attack from his pile bunker. If not…hopefully one of the others could use the distraction to get Nadia the stagger she needed.

Just when he thought he was about to get a nasty cut from the scythe, Roxas was actually saved from punishment by Falcon’s kick and Nadia’s follow up. And with Geralt engaging the count after that, he used the moment to establish a Tailwind on the Captain. Sure, he was already blisteringly fast, but now he could be even faster. The Nobody had also been utilizing his silver jackal mask to pay close attention to the cooldowns of his abilities that had them, namely his MP. Right now it ticked to 20 seconds exactly, still a bit longer before he could cast again.

But that wasn’t the only cooldown that was ticking, and Roxas noticed that Poltergeist’s cooldown had now worn off. So he figured it was time to let her shine again. He summoned the Striker, only this time it wasn’t to buff himself. Instead the bedsheet ghost girl played a little Prank on the vampire lord - conjuring a bucket of ice water that she proceeded to dunk over his head for a burst of moderate mental damage that could somewhat penetrate resistances as well. If D wasn’t annoyed by Roxas before? Then he definitely was now. And it turned out that someone else was trying to take advantage of Poltergeist’s distracting Prank.

Captain Falcon was nearby and reigniting his flames. Not in his leg this time, but in his fist. With his speed further boosted by Tailwind he was circling around the Consul’s flank in a blaze of blistering speed as he wound up for his infamous signature technique. ”Let’s turn up the heat! Falcon… PUNCH!” Maybe D could block the explosive punch, or dodge it considering the wind up. Or maybe, just maybe, it could give Nadia the stagger she needed.

For focusing a little too much on his various cooldowns and not enough on his opponent, Roxas took a direct hit from one of the Consul’s conjured flame sickles. It whirled into him repeatedly to slash and burn him, but at the same time, his Poltergeist’s prank took D by surprise, as well. He had used his scythe to try and parry Monsoon’s corkscrew, and while Axii had no apparent effect on him, the attempted mental assault was enough to reduce his riposte to an unremarkable glancing blow. The bucket of ice water that followed was a shock to the system, though, especially with his helmet gone. His long, somewhat foppish hair stuck to his face, D leaving D astonished, eyes alight with indignant rage. That moment was just the opening that Geralt had been looking for. He and Falcon arrived at about the same time, both with powerful short-range impacts that took just a split second too long to wind up. A devilish idea popped into D’s head in the nick of time, and without hesitation he transformed into a swarm of bats. Both strikes passed harmlessly through what had a moment ago been his body, and collided with one another.

In his haste to counter them both, though, D had not considered the ensuing explosion. The blast not only staggered Geralt and Roxas, but sent bats flying in all directions, smoking and charred. When D reappeared amidst the chaos, he was reeling and disoriented, and Nadia struck like lightning. Already bowed down and tensed up on all fours, she wiggled her tail, then burst forward with Charge. The yellow bolt blasted clean through D, and the moment the feral rematerialized she spent her AP on a second Charge that carried her back the way she came. Five times in total she blitzed through him, creating a star pattern of lingering lightning, before finally leaping into the air. “Zappy BIRTHDAY!” She hurled both daggers into his armored chest.

“Hmph!” Though hit in rapid succession, D had not been downed. Somehow he stayed standing, his jaw clenched as he ripped one Athame out and threw it on the ground. Now on the back foot, he knew he had to retake control. He lifted his arm to cast his infernal magic, meteors taking shape overhead.

It was then that Therion struck, the oft-forgotten second thief on the Seekers' roster. He had decided to abandon the battle with A even before Sandalphon's suggestion in order to save himself from ending up like Edward had. The stress that A had put him under was still there, simmering, but his physical state was alright - made even better by Roxas' heal, even if the boy himself hadn't even seen him. Therion had taken a back seat and let everyone else fight, waiting for his opportunity like he normally did, and that opportunity was now.

He took a cue from Nadia and struck with both of his own daggers in hand, one powerful and one laced with poison, as he came up in D's blind spot. He used his Battle Boost only at the very last moment, as the swirl of color would give him away otherwise. The Boost powered him up and boosted his critical damage as Therion sunk the blades one each into both of D's sides, newly exposed thanks to his casting position. With his target’s defenses reduced by Athame, it was guaranteed to do some damage. At the same time Therion used his Energy Thief to sap away as much of D's own mana as he could, siphoning it into himself.

“Hrrrgh!” This was no mere indignation; the pain D felt was very real. Though the Consul would survive what would normally be an excruciatingly lethal attack, Therion’s assassination attempt exacted a heavy price from him, both in terms of life and magic. Nevertheless, D had plenty to spare. Powering through the pain and poison, he began to cast a flame pillar at his own location to burn Therion off, before twisting it into a blood rain around himself. With the Seekers no doubt held at bay by such a perilous hazard, he would concoct even stronger sorcery to spell their doom once and for all.

That may have been the case for Captain Falcon, who was still shaking off his accidental clash with Geralt earlier. But Roxas, who was now recovered for the most part from the flame sickle he’d been punished with? Not so much. ”That won’t stop me!” He shouted as he hurled his Keyblades in arcs that circled around to try and flank D from both sides. And meanwhile Roxas aimed and charged up his RockGun, looking to close in on D with a three-pronged ranged attack coming from different angles. And just for good measure he threw in a cluster of virtual cubes to make it harder for D to dodge without coming into contact with them.

Though he considered taking the time to debuff the Consul while he was close enough, ultimately Therion's self preservation was the stronger instinct. He wrenched his blades out from D and backed off quickly, disengaging as the fire spell fell upon the vampire. It came fast, and Therion could feel the heat scorch at him even though he'd avoided the flames themselves. He kept moving as the blood rain swirled up, making sure he was out of range before he flipped the daggers in his hands, stowing one. He narrowed his eyes at D, his tail flicking. He wasn't the least bit shocked that his surprise attack hadn't spelled the end for the man, but now that he'd gone through with it he knew he wouldn't be able to pull it off again.