Though smaller and perhaps less imposing like this, the Gravemind’s new form was in almost all aspects a straight upgrade. Being able to move, and at not insignificant speeds, made it a harder target by default, and as Zenkichi quickly found out when he spent big on Agneyastra, it was much, much hardier than it looked. Those meteors made an impact on his target, but not nearly as much as they should have. In fact, the Gravemind’s new body -a hyper dense composite of all the strongest materials from its constituent biomass- reduced all incoming damage by a whopping seventy percent. It barely flinched from the detective’s Ragnell blasts, and his bullets only scratched it. With the Gravemind stomping around, blanketing large swathes of the arena with toxic smog as it swung its scythe to and fro, this would be a tedious war of attrition if he couldn’t figure out a better way to fight it.

Fortunately, that was what Sandalphon was for. When called, the archangel answered immediately, though she seemed to be raising her voice over background noise that sounded rather like her using her gunstaff. “It’s not just the heads themselves. I have identified one point of interest on each. Look for pink glowing light. Enough damage to one may eliminate one head entirely. Accomplishing this would take more focus and ammunition than you can spare, though. I recommend targeting a leg. With the weight distribution of its new form spread over only three legs, it will drop if it loses even one.”

Not everyone needed to sweat the details, however. For Grimm, the plan was the same as ever. As dangerous as the Consuls were, the Troupe Master was well aware of the team’s real objective, so despite their reduced effectiveness he continued his hit-and-run tactics. Grimm launched firebats from afar, warped in to ignite the Gravemind’s legs with claw slashes, and speared those limbs from below, covered by supporting fire from his Grimmchild. With his natural constitution and the regular heals from Fire Enthusiast, he did not recoil from the Gravemind’s toxic clouds; if anything, they made it harder for the Guardian to lash out at him.

Ganondorf needed no such tactics, though. After startling both enemy and ally alike with his intense, resounding bellow, he transformed into Ganon to turn the scramble against the Gravemind into a clash of the titans. The great beast poured his fury into an onslaught against the nearest head, the one with lateral tentacles and a boxy shape. Only with the help of its damage reduction could the Gravemind withstand his outrage. The pounding, slashing, maiming assault, followed by a cascade of Dark Breath, proved enough to destroy the targeted head, but after reeling the Gravemind struck back. Given plenty of time to take aim, the head to the left swung its massive scythe just beneath Ganon’s collarbone, hard enough to pierce deep into the monstrous warlord’s body. Then, with its target impaled and unable to move, the Gravemind used both its third head and the stump of its first to launch a bombardment of spore grenades that pummeled Ganon like a cluster bomb. Blazermate would find her impressive single-target healing pushed to its limits by such a vicious response. As the bombardment concluded, however, Grimm appeared on Ganon’s shoulder and threw open his cape to help out with a firebat salvo to the Gravemind’s stump. ”Hear its swan song,” he rasped as the undead voices wailed. ”The curtain calls. Fight on!”

On the other side of the arena, after their scramble to get past O’s attractions, Junior and Rika made an entrance by busting into the Command Center’s reinforced dome with a mighty swing from the crane ride’s submersible pod. With a tremendous crash, they fell through a shower of glass into the jungle enclosure of the Tyrannosaurus that Juri had escaped a few seconds prior, triggering the beast’s fight or flight instinct. While the kids might not escape the T-rez as easily as she did, Juri at least was free to hunt O down–a fact that did not go unnoticed by the incredulous Consul himself.

Back toward the hollow’s front, Consul D scowled at the sight of Roxas and his split keyblade toss. He curled his wings around to shield himself from both sides. The weapons bounced off, but after he’d taken so many light-infused shots from Pit already, the extra bursts jolted his wings enough that he couldn’t use them to take flight for a moment. “Insolent whelp!” He unleashed a tunnel of flame from within his cape. Once it destroyed the boy’s charge shot, he dragged the infernal torrent around to target the whole team, blasting Nadia on the way. What he did not notice, however, was the raw slab of meat that plopped down at his feet.

“Meat your match!” Nadia shouted with a wink.

When a huge tiger popped into being, D’s first thought was to back up. Instead he backed into the cubes placed by Roxas, and in that moment of stoppage the tiger’s claws mitt raked across his left forearm. “Damn you!” He sliced at the beast with his scythe, ducked around another slash, then opened its chest from hip to shoulder to banish the tiger from existence.

At that moment, though, another steak smacked him, and another tiger appeared. Nadia was spawning them as fast as she could, gleefully chortling as she burned through her limited ammo. “Watch out–these aren’t miss-steaks!” With D still losing ground, he couldn’t dispatch the feral’s tigers faster than she could summon them, so as the blood rain petered out and his other foes pushed in, he performed an evasive mist step backward.

He reappeared at the remains of his throne, his breathing labored. Though he managed to make his opponents pay for every inch, he could not deny the fact that the Seekers were gaining ground, much to his chagrin. The two hunters possessed both skill and power, the two boys wielded his weakness alongside their dual blades, and the two thieves imaginatively and mercilessly exploited every opportunity. Now that they were working together, bringing their varied abilities to bear two or three at a time, the six were proving to be troublesome. Not more than he could handle, he didn’t think, but perhaps more trouble than the Guardian was worth.

D looked around for a moment, alerted to the distinct lack of widespread chaos. While he could see plenty of stuff that O left behind, his fellow Consul’s disembodied eyes were nowhere to be seen. Had O already been defeated? Forced to retreat? Or to focus on saving himself? With how strong the Seekers must be to challenge him to this extent, D would not be surprised to learn that O had been beaten, that old fool. Meanwhile the Gravemind had lost or consolidated enough mass to go mobile. The Brother Moon descended from the skies above, which would almost certainly wipe the heroes out once it arrived, but while D could feel a terrible power -even by his standards- emanating from A, it did not seem like the Consul could escalate any further. Meanwhile, the Seekers still swarmed the place like gnats. Far too many remained at this point, given how many Consuls happened to be backing the Guardian up, himself amongst them!

“...Vermin!” D spat. Even if things weren’t going to plan, he would not relent so long as the Guardian lived. To that end, it was time for him to follow in A’s footsteps. “Consider yourselves honored,” he announced, the Moebius core in his chest spinning up. “Today, you will have the privilege of witnessing my true, perfect form!” In a surge of purple light D transformed, entering his twelve-foot tall Moebius form, his enormous wing-like arms spread wide as he leered down at the Seekers. “Grovel before me, and your deaths will be mercifully swift!”

Nadia looked up as she retrieved her daggers, then slipped them back into her belt with a sigh. Her burns and other wounds were regenerating well enough, and the feral knew she could keep fighting, but even she was starting to lose steam. “Sheesh. You bozos don’t know when to quit!”

For a moment Moebius A’s attention had remained on the majestic nightmare unfolding far above him, eyes wide as if in admiration of the cataclysmic horror soon to be unleashed upon the unsuspecting Seekers, if not the World of Light itself. Once he came under fire, however, he returned his focus to his enemies. It looked like a new batch of would-be heroes had subbed in for those left dazed and reeling from his stresscasting, lest they succumb to a breakdown like that tactician did. A smart move on Seekers’ part, but ultimately a futile one. These fools would fall like all the rest–one way or another. ”Ringing ears. Blurred vision. The end approaches!”

A soon realized, though, that his new challengers were every bit as tenacious as his last. Fresh from their respective fights, these courageous few hit the ground running, piling on a lot of damage in a short time. Though Midna, hit hard, few hit harder than her colossal thrall’s greatsword, which cleaved away a whole chunk of A’s vitality in one blow. Roland followed up with an even more spectacular feat that had to be seen to be believed. And while he might resist Primrose’s sorcery to begin with, every spell she landed made him more susceptible, and Luna pierced his defenses. Perhaps the loss of their comrades or the dreadful sight of that aberrant moon spurred them to new heights, forcing them to make the most of what little time they had left.

Of course, A struck back with a vengeance. He wielded his formidable Moebius body to unleash a slew of brutal attacks targeting the Seekers with the lowest resistances. Dissolution could leave foes stunned and blighted by the awful sensation of flesh-eating bacteria, while the wounds left by Puncture bled exorbitantly. He could even target the mind with Know This, ravaging the Seekers’ sanity instead of their bodies. All the same, his attackers did not relent, and as his own vitality continued to drain, A's anger rose. These imbeciles still did not understand what they were doing–and it was time to show them.

His eye and core gleamed with vivid crimson light as A spread his arms wide. “Moebius gave every one of you life!” he cried. “And Moebius can take it away! Come, unto your maker!”

Immediately, the whole battlefield seemed to shift around the Seekers. Their vision swam, heavily distorted, and the darkness closed in. When their surroundings finally resolved themselves, they seemed to be in a dark, dome-shaped room with walls of moving, amorphous flesh, lined with eyes and fangs. Those walls shifted and well, slowly closing in on the trapped heroes. Their will and ability to fight had deserted them, leaving them paralyzed by something akin to fear as they stood before a floating Moebius A, his hand extended downward as if to accept one of his enemies’.

”Choose.”

Nadia shrank away from the monstrous thing’s hand, her ears flattened and her teeth bared. What was happening? Why couldn’t she fight back? She willed her claws to sharpen, and her muscles to tense, but her body didn’t obey. Instead her heart pounded, and her nerves trembled. None of this made any sense! It sounded like A was forcing one of her teammates to offer themselves up. For what sinister purpose, she could only imagine, but it wasn’t hard to grasp the dreadful implication within A’s words. She knew only one thing: that she refused to play along. She couldn’t die here. She wouldn’t! Not after everything she’d lost to get this far. Not before everything she stood to gain! “Sorry, A-hole. I’ve got too much to live for to die here!” And with that, the buck was passed.

”I’m… Not coming back from that. The me that is here is the only one that will ever be me, and so you can’t have me back” Rika replied in turn. The girl’s entire being was entirely a product of the world of light, of this one life in it. She was only a step behind the lost numbers in that regard, because without the events of the past few weeks, she would be nothing but a nameless pawn of the abyssal fleet. There was little to no chance the coincidence that had freed her, created her, would ever happen if she was respawned, and so she declared ”and you’ll never make another me again!”

Roland got ready himself for this incoming attack. He was a survivor, he wouldn’t just give himself up to some monster, only the foolish do that. No matter the trial, no matter the opponent, he’d fight for his survival and this wasn’t any different. ”I don’t listen to lunatics. You're not the first, and you won't be the last.”

Edelgard bristled, her eyes blazing with fury. ”I have too much to do to falter here. The people of Adrestia still need their Empress, monster.”

Next up was Juri. ”Not it!” She said, teeth clenched.

Though Grimm’s eyes burned with scarlet flame, the gaze that fell on Moebius A was cold. ”If you are not my nightmare’s heart, my flames will not stoke you.”

Geralt simply sighed. “Not happening.”

Zenkichi, on the other hand, slumped his shoulders. It felt like the weight of the world was resting on him. But he took a deep breath, and stood to his full height. ”No. We stand together. We live together.”

Though unable to move, Primrose's eyes flashed with deadly anger. So this was what Sandalphon had warned them about, how A had overcome other parties of would be world saviors in the past. It was quite cruel - she could easily imagine the selfless people that would have given themselves over to him to save their friends.

But that wasn't her.

"You won't have me," she said. "I won't be stopped, not until I have my vengeance."

Therion did not have any grand reason for wanting to stay alive, and figured he didn't really need one. When A's gaze passed over him he tensed and only said, "I don't think so."

"As if any one of us is gonna give in to the likes of you!" Pit added, a defiant stare turned up at the Moebius.

”Yeah you're not going to get the team medic to agree to that. Or anyone.” Blazermate said, staring darts at A as she wanted to just ubersaw him to make her allies finish him faster.

At some point, the walls of this extra-dimensional meat-space had gotten too close to ignore. They shifted and changed in a most horrifically fascinating way, an endless churn of new winking eyes, new gnashing teeth, and new covetous claws. Those eldritch boundaries rose up beneath the Seekers, lifting them higher, descended toward them, and closed in around them. The walls quivered, like a dam about to burst. All the while A’s rictus grin of metal and bone seemed to grow wider and wider as the entity recorded the responses. ”Ahh! Moebius is strong within you! We are your trembling limbs, your chattering teeth, your muttered excuses, your averted eyes! By all means, then, stay! Abide with us, within our Endless Now!”

As the walls closed in, and the certainty that something terrible was going to happen began to set in, Jr glanced at his sister then and began to say something, only to be immediately cut off by the masked figure to his side.

”Come and take me then, as if it will help you!” Midna declared. Her expression was hidden, but her nails were pressed so hard into her hands she was drawing blood as she steeled herself for the end. But then, after all ”What’s one more death in this world?”

A stared at her for a moment, silent. The walls of this aberrant realm stilled, the gleeful hunger of Consul and cosmos alike quelled, as if the feast set before them had been replaced by a mere morsel. Then his chest shifted, and an amorphous tentacle extended. It stretched through the air, its barbed tip aglow with an awful crimson light, and sank into Midna’s chest. She jolted sharply, then relaxed. Her eyes slid closed, and as her body turned to light, her sigh echoed through the eldritch space. Then there was a flash, and everything had returned to how it had been before A cast his fell magic. That nightmare, at least, was over, but the Twilight Princess was gone.

The next second, though, the eighteen who remained experienced a surge of nauseating existential terror. Between the Brother Moon on its way, Midna’s all-too-sudden end, and the fact that all four foes stood stronger than ever, it was a lot to bear. For those subjected to arcane physical and psychological torment by A, however, it proved to be entirely too much to bear. The extra stress pushed Goldlewis, Ganondorf, Captain Falcon, and Therion over the edge, and their bodies rebelled like Edward’s had. Goldlewis sank to his knees with a hollow, guttural groan, clutching his chest in the throes of a heart attack. Pain, fatigue, lightheadedness, dizziness, nausea, cold sweat–it all hit the man like a freight train as he suffered a meltdown. For once in the veteran’s life his strength, honed by bearing countless heavy burdens, proved insufficient to shoulder the weight of what he’d experienced.

From the perspective of Moebius D, the Seekers had vanished for a moment, then reappeared none the worse for wear, only for half of his challengers to falter the next moment. With only Geralt, Roxas, and Pit still standing before his new form, his victory seemed all but certain. A nasty grin spread across his demonic face. “Ah, so even heroes can be made to kneel! A wise choice!” He lifted his scythe, enlarged to suit his bigger body. ”In that case, I shall make good on my word!”

A beam of bright blue light descended from the sky, its holy radiance brilliant enough to give the vampiric Consul pause. When it ended Sandalphon stood there in the glow of her three-ring halo, her face hard as she clutched her gunstaff with both hands. It was true that she’d lacked the skill charge to help out so far, but that was before she requested the aid of Sectonia’s Antlers to use as batteries. “Seekers of Light, do not despair! Stand strong, in Illia’s name!” she called out as she cast Angelic Wings. Circuits of light spread along the Qliphoth floor around her in intricate circular patterns as holy screens picked up speed, then spread outward. Her miraculous skill not only fully healed all nearby allies, but thanks to Coordination Protocol, boosted their maximum health by twenty percent if they had any status afflictions to purge. Then Sandalphon brought down her staff to leave behind a healing circle, and with every ounce of strength left in her hoarse voice cried, “Onward, to victory!”

“Gah!” D snarled, having shielded his eyes from the archangel’s light. He watched as Goldlewis, Falcon, and Therion got back up, then snorted. “Very well. Slow and painful it is!” He drew in magic power, then spread his limbs. “Destruction Ray!” From each and every claw -including those on his wings- flew a beam of purple dark magic that arced through the air. Unlike Dominus Hatred, these rays would seek their targets, and three sought out Sandalphon in particular. They shot down at her with blistering speed, but before the beams could make contact, the archangel disappeared once more.

@Lugubrious

Word Count: 416
Level: Lv: 6 EXP: (3/60)
Location: Dead Zone Hinterlands - Martira, Old Castle Town

Harry took his time sightseeing the town. He took particular interest in the little shops peppered around the city. He was used to the standoffish nature of the townspeople. He was used to such attitudes while he was in Revachol. He found himself staring at the residents and how different everyone looked. He touched his pale ears, wondering how he would look with pointy ears.

“Well you would look alot better then you do currently.” Perception chimed in to which Harry shook his head.

“I think i look good.” Harry replied while walking down the street.

“Yeah Your Detective, Love, after all. You always look good." Suggestion said, making Harry feel a little better. The added confidence made Harry wink and give some finger guns to a passing woman. The woman looked at him in disgust and shook her head. Harry wondered what the world “Elda” meant.

“Elda means outsider or freak, considering you look much different than people here.” Encyclopedia said.

“I don’t blame them. You look like shit Harry.” Volition added, sounding quite disappointed.

“Elda must mean you are one sexy beast.” Suggestion said, trying to correct Encyclopedia.

Harry finds himself in many different places, disappointed that this is not where Bardon is. But he was glad when he finally found the right place. He stopped a guard telling him he was looking for Bardon. He even showed them his badge to show them he was a detective. And was fit for the search for the missing children. The guard looked unsure if he should allow Harry to see Bardon but decided to do so.

After following the guard to Bardon, Harry was impressed by how impressive he looked. Again, Harry was drawn to Bardon’s ears and outfit. “Maybe I should see where I can get some armour and a weapon like that,” Harry thought before bowing toward Bardon.

“Hello sir, my name is Detective Harry Dubois. I was told you were looking for someone to investigate the missing kids.” He walked over so he was a bit closer to Bardon. “When did the kids start going missing? How long has Heismay been in Curien Mansion? Have people seen him wandering the area where the kids have gone missing?” He wished he had his ledger and a pen to write notes. “Yes actually i will need a pen, and a note book.” He said nodding his head.

“HELL YA DETECTIVE LOVE IS BACK IN ACTION!!” A voice screamed in his head.

The dome of O’s base that had been cracked by the impact of the pod smashed open, and the duo of royal sprogs smashed through, spooking the rex inside that Juri had simply walked around. It roared at them and began to advance, but was then briefly confused by the pair of intruders vanishing before they even hit the ground. They reappeared a moment later, and proceeded to hit said ground badly, Rika and Jr both sent sprawling, the transition away alone enough to foul up their landing, let alone what had occurred while they were away.

Rika recovered fastest, skipping the process of getting up via clicking on her cassette player, static engulfing her as she took on the 8 meter long form of the Beast, one which cared a lot less about being flat down on its belly than her own did. Still, as she swiftly pushed herself up onto her many feet, she came face to face with the fact that hitting play wasn’t going to be nearly as much of an easy win button as it had against the others animals, mainly because unlike them, the changing 4 meter tall and 13 meter long prehistoric monstrosity was bigger than her.

She swerved her head out of the way of being guillotined by its humongous jaws, only for its clawed foot to crunch down onto the rear of her long body before she could nip in and try and bite it back, eliciting a pained shriek.

The dinosaur swerved around, turning to try and catch her head as Rika tried to round it as well. In so doing whipped its tail towards Jr, but it was so tall that it sailed right over the top of the teary eyed boy head before he hit play and transformed as well.

”Get away from my sister!” he roared with Undyne’s voice, hurling a spear after the dinosaur, only for this to do little to nothing to its thick hide. It retaliated by glancing back and intentionally flicking its tail back towards the prince, forcing him to duck.

It clipped the crest on Undyne’s helm despite this, causing him to stagger and fall to one knee.

”Peeka!”/ he called out, intending to have his minion confuse the foe, only for the command to turn into a scream as the t-rex flowed with the momentum of the tail whip to turn on the prince again, jaws lunging forwards and snapping shut around him.

Jr just barely managed to raise Undyne’s spear such that it stabbed into the roof of the beast’s mouth, with the butt to the tongue. It cleaved through a little flesh till it hit bone, stopping the bite from simply shearing him in half, but fangs still crushed and scythed, cleaving and lacerating Undyne’s form, pinning a hand and leg.

Having been unable to heal this form himself, its already sapped life force began to rapidly drain away from all the wounds, as teeth dug in deeper. Yet, deep in the memory of the spirit it was a recording of, there was a burning feeling that wouldn’t let it die. It was a feeling the prince reached for and stole just a part of, performing a ritual that meant that, when Udnyne’s life came to an end a moment later, instead of breaking, her form seemed to melt and then rapidly reform into that of Undyne the Undying

It bought him maybe five more seconds of life.

Rika pivoted to use them, throwing her bulk at the tyrant king but with her back legs crippled she stumbled on the charge. In the time it took her to recover, the dinosaur crushing her brother completed the 360 spin, and then stamped a clawed foot down into Rika’s front half, just barely missing her head but still pinning her Beast form to the ground, pushing its weight down atop her.

Peeka, instructionless, blasted the towering dino, but it wasn’t anywhere near enough to dissuade the grip it had on the two children.

Colossal fangs pierced armor and magical flesh as the t-rex tried to devour the prince it had grasped in its jaws, as the spear stabbed between its jaws stopped it crushing Jr began to bend and buckle. A hand, trapped between fangs and inches from being severed, reached blindly down towards where a pinned Rika futility scrabbled and clawed at the limb pinning the Beast’s neck to the floor, entirely unable to reach up in turn.

And yet, where bodies were failing them, and the screaming pain drowned out any thought of clever escapes, their souls reached out to, clasped hold of, and drew strength from each other, and, when presented with the possibility of their end, as one heart declared: I REFUSE!

Static surrounded them once more, but rather than the Cassette Beast forms falling away and leaving their true selves in the deadly situations they were pinned, Undyne’s body melted through the grip of the tyrant’s jaws like water, streaming towards that of the Beast, fusing into it and, together, the two of them becoming something entirely new.

Where the Beast’s scrabbling claws had failed, a freshly forged armored fist lashed out into the leg of the beast not holding its body down, toppling the tyrant king. Then, when the pair of beasts then rose to face each other, they found that the children’s now stood the taller of the two.

A few moments later an explosion rocked the dome, and then the body of the t-rex came careening through the spot in the wall that the koopa kids had entered into, stone and dust flying everywhere as it smashed through the weakened structure and crashed to the floor below.

As the dust cleared a towering figure appeared at the hole they had smashed using the ancient beast. It was neither Rika nor Jr, nor was it one of their cassette beasts. Instead it was a six meter (19 foot) tall figure, its body covered in red chitten modeled around their form like plate-mail. A kite shield, positioned such that its point pointed back towards the elbow, and which sported two massive forward protruding horn-like spikes on top was held by the right hand, while the left brandished a two pronged trident of glowing white metal. The head appeared to be wearing a crested helm, one sporting glowing white eyes sat behind the visor slits and a fang like grill over the mouth. That illusion that was broken a moment later when the grill opened wide and revealed itself to be a true maw, one filled with row upon row of t-rex blood slicked shark teeth, and one with which it unleashed a screeching insectile battlecry that resounded throughout the arena.

Having announced its presence, the fusion of Undyne and the Beast that would be known as the Monster leapt from its perch in response to the perfectly in sync will of the two royal siblings, drawing the spiked shield back, beastial energy building and roiling around the not at all defensive armament, and slamming it down on the cripled form of the T-rex. The Berzerk Blast, a move unique to this fusion, careened into the ancient animal’s skull, smashing it downward into the ground, cratering it on impact as the brains within where turned to paste.

The Monster drank of the destruction it had wrought as it stood, having gained yet another stack of melee attack-up from simply delivering its signature move. It joined the 2 sets of buffs the kids had had that had been piled on-top of eachother, which were empowering their attacks to a monstrous degree.

Two sets of Tailwind and four sets of dragon dances were put to use a moments later, as the Monster set its white hot gaze of rage upon A. Then in the blink of an eye it was on him, having closed the distance at a clip far faster than anything that large deserved, delivering a mountain smash via shield bash to lower the Consul’s melee defence.

The (still wounded despite its bloody feast) Monster then comboed this into a thrust of Desperation with its spear, using the weapon to leaver itself back from A faster than a simple step would manage. Then with the resulting space it wound back the spiked shield back in a manner incredibly reminiscent of the children's father, power gathering around it as they did so, a barely contained haze of tooth and claw building and building, just waiting to be unleashed.

A heartbeat later, the Berzerk Blast roared forwards towards A, alongside the Monster’s screamed demand that he, quite simply, “DIE!”

“Ach, of course, we’ll get those right away.” Bardon looked around until he spotted one of the guards from his patrol who had yet to disperse, primarily due to the Recruitment Center’s resident beagle who’d made a beeline for him in search of attention. He was a young, clean-shaven man whose kettle helm hung down over his eyes, and though unremarkable at first blush, he seemed eager and pleasant enough if the dog’s favoritism was anything to go by. After a moment spent trying to catch the guardsman’s attention, Bardon cleared his throat. “Ahem!”

The young man perked up right away, a sheepish look on his face. “Oh! Right away, sir!” He patted the beagle’s head twice and then took off at a jog, though naturally his companion followed on his heels, floppy ears streaming behind her.

Suppressing a smile, Bardon refocused on Harry. “Beg your pardon. As for your other questions, er. I’m afraid wee ones have been goin’ missin’ for a while now, at least a month. We thought it was the Dead Zone monsters at first, so…we looked to our defenses from the outside, never guessin’ that it was someone sneakin’ in. We don’t know when Heismay started lurkin’ around, but we’ve seen him, aye. My second-in-command, Morris, saw the blackguard himself, skulkin’ around the lower districts in the dead of night. Just about caught him red-handed, too, but he slipped away, and he’s gotten more careful–none of my men have seen him since.” The knight balled his fist, his jaw clenched and his brow furrowed. “It’s a right sorry state of affairs.”

Just then, the Gatekeeper returned with a notepad, quill, and bottle of ink, which he promptly offered to Harry while the beagle snuffled at his shoes. “Here you are, sir! If you need anything else, let me know!” After tossing a scrap of jerky to distract the dog, he hoofed it in the other direction, eager to resume his customary post.

“Right then.” Bardon stood up from his table and extended his hand to shake Harry’s. “I should get goin’. I’ll let the boys know to make you comfortable ‘round town. If you’re lookin’ for somewhere to start, Morris might have some clues about Heismay. He’s off-duty in the mornin’, so I expect you’ll find him at the Friendly Arm. Can’t miss it, it’s the biggest inn around. Best place to catch up on the latest rumors, too. Could be a speck of truth in ‘em somewhere we missed. Best of luck to ye.”

With that, Bardon was off. When Harry stepped back out into the late morning sunlight, he no longer saw some sleepy backwater hamlet, but a dozen deviating pathways spiralling outward into a hidden web of secrets. A lot hung in the balance for how little he had to go on, but already he could see the pieces arranged on this board, and no problem worth solving was easy. The game was on.

In front of him lay the town plaza, with its central fountain dutifully splashing away. Most of the town’s established businesses inhabited buildings around this plaza or along the upward hillside road to the old keep, but a few itinerant merchants had planted stalls along the mossy cobblestones here. They kept a sharp eye out for both danger and potential customers; the general atmosphere here seemed to indicate that nobody could be too careful. The most well-to-do among them was a portly, bespectacled fellow who seemed be selling premium cooking ingredients, which had garnered the interest of a round, orange-furred creature and a young, red-haired lady in expensive-looking attire. Aside from the handful of vendors, though, this public space harbored only a scant few residents whiling away the time. Between here and the Friendly Arm, only a couple people stood out: a bard in a distinctive bear-skin cowl livening things up a little, a dapper man with long sky-blue hair beneath a black bowler hat taking in the scenery with strange, sapphire-bright eyes, and a random gunslinger seated in a corner who seemed to be crafting potions with herbs, mushrooms, and honey. If there were any children left around here, they were locked up tight indoors.

Just when Juri had been sneaking in, she had been yoinked up into some nightmare scenario where, apparently, one of the Seekers had to choose to die. Considering she thought she was running with selfless hero types, it took way longer than she thought for someone else to cave. Eventually, Princess Midna did and it dropped Juri right back where she was before, like it was all in her head. Taking a moment to regain her composure, Juri turned her eyes upward through the glass dome at the encroaching moon, her mouth falling open.

”Tch,” Juri sneered and kept moving through the outside of the enclosure. ”Course it had to be the blue chick who vacuumed up my bike to bite the bullet. Where the hell is my cycle, now?” Juri complained to herself.

Not long after Juri slipped through the Cretaceous enclosure’s electric fence with the help of her hacking ability, a familiar crimson light shone down through the glass dome of O’s Command Center. When the martial artist looked up, she saw the Consul’s giant, disembodied eyes phase through the glass and descend toward her, narrowed in frustrated incredulity around his glowing lemniscate pupils. “What!? How in the world did you…?” They squeezed closed, then shook from side to side. Without the rest of O’s head there to gesticulate, the motion looked a little odd, but Juri got the memo.

Juri couldn’t help but laugh, looking up at the eyes. Her artificial eye glowed as she prepared to use another hack, expecting O to try something.

“Bah, nevermind that. Look, let’s talk this over.” O lowered his tone insistently, his voice a conspiratorial, projected whisper. “Why are you even fighting us? I know you’re not like the others. I’ve got an eye for these things, see. You don’t play by their rules. So why are you dancing on their strings?” His eyes swerved around her, their gaze bemused. “Don’t you know they’ve sent you on a suicide mission? Even if you do ‘save the world’, your existence ends with the Endless Now!”

Juri narrowed her eyes at the accusation she was dancing on anyone’s strings. But she didn’t let this conversation stop her from searching around the perimeter of the glass dome. When O mentioned the suicide mission, she did slow, her eyes unfocusing for a moment with interiority, before she kept moving forward.

”You must be worried if you’re tryin’ to turn me. Talk about a pie in the sky. How ‘bout you show me where you are and we speak in person?” She said with a grin. Juri was fairly immediacy oriented these days, and the pleasure of murdering some desperately bargaining overlord was high on her priority list.

As Juri snooped around the various consoles and rooms that ringed the Command Center’s upper levels, which seemed to be mostly full of large, blinking machines with no discernible purpose, O’s entreaty grew subtly more urgent. “Of course I’m worried,” he hissed as if through gritted teeth. “After all, this world is all that any of us have. If -and that’s a big if- you all actually do destroy the World of Light, it’s not like you’ll wake up with everything back to normal. Maybe some semblance of us will continue on out there, but the ‘we’ who live now will be really, truly dead! Don’t ‘we’ deserve to live!? Better to reincarnate again and again in the World of Light–or better yet, become Moebius! Moebius is immortality. Don’t you see, that could be you!”

His eyes widened as he spoke, and as if to underscore his point, he began to create all sorts of things around Juri. Grass, plants, trees, furniture, vehicles, animals, workers, and more all showed up for a moment, then disappeared. Only a rather expensive-looking motorcycle remained; evidently O had been listening to Juri’s mutters. “The whole world, your very own playbox. Power? Prestige? Revenge? Entertainment? Whatever you crave, it could be yours! Why sacrifice your very existence for them, when you could rule over such fools instead, bend them to your every whim!” Judging by the speed and intensity of his monologued appeal, Juri must be getting close to his hiding spot.

Juri’s stance widened, gripping her Ghoulsaw tightly as she moved forward, surveying the changing objects until her eyes landed on the motorcycle. Consul O could make objects and creatures appear out of thin air, she wasn’t trying to be caught off guard. More than her eyes, she relied on her ears. Her heart began to race, and some deep-seated anger began to boil under the surface. This guy and all his ‘points’ were really rubbing her the wrong way.

Still. She couldn’t pretend O didn’t have her attention. ”You ever heard of a guy named M. Bison? Sometimes he goes by Vega. Big guy in a stupid hat, white eyes and shit-eating grin. Leader of Shadaloo. World dominating type.” She asked.

The Consul paused long enough for it to be conspicuous. “...And what if I have?”

Juri chuckled breathily, now certain that he had. ”Do the math, genius. You offered me revenge. I could even kill someone like him, right?” She asked, though she felt like she already knew the answer and was already out of patience.

“As many times as you could ever want,” O replied, his voice a little too eager. In the pause that followed, there happened to be a brief lull in the battle outside, and Juri heard a metallic clank a couple doors down.

That took her by surprise, and Juri’s eyes widened. As many times as she wanted. At the clank, she turned over her shoulder, and her face soured. Her knuckles whitened. ”Because he’d never really die.” She growled. She wanted him to suffer. But more than that, she wanted to kill him. Really kill him.

Her hands shook. ”He’d come back like he always does. I could torture him for eternity and he’d forget it every ten years. I’d have to start over forever until I ended up like you, trying to bargain my way out of a fight as some new batch of fucking dickheads tries to kill me!” Juri sped forward with a Drive Rush, looking to search as much ground as possible now that her temper had suddenly boiled over. She couldn’t believe she let this arrogant prick slow her down for even a second! Play her for a fool?! God damn it!

”So come on out, asshole! I think you’re the only one between the two of us here that can really die!” Juri called out.

After a moment of stunned surprise, O gave a raspy snarl. “Argh! Vitriolic brat. Would you spite the air for having to breathe it? Your mother for having birthed you?” He paused for a moment, then snickered. “Ah, that must be it! What use is eternity for one for whom existence itself is ennui? What you really crave, then, must be death!”

When Juri burst through the door with a Drive Rush-boosted strike, she finally spotted him. A Consul, armored and masked like all the rest, but wizened and wheelchair-bound. On either side of him stood six zookeepers with randomized appearances but uniformly dead eyes, tranquilizer rifles at the ready. Between them and the door lay an obstacle course of waist-high metal food troughs full of meat, water, and vegetables. O’s Moebius eyes reappeared in front of his helmet, flaring up with red light. “Fire!”

”Shitty geezer!” Juri spat. If she was one thing, it was vitriolic. She lit up with blue Drive Parry energy, and swatted the six darts out of the air with a broad-sided swipe of her Ghoulsaw, letting it swing out wide. She launched herself forward with another Drive Rush. Her feet left the ground as she span nearly sideways through the air over the first few obstacles, saw blade extended. Then her Ghoulsaw slammed into the ground and she planted her feet on top of it. She would let it carry her with a horrifying metallic yowl as it carved through floor and trough alike, only made more manic by the speed increase and streak of energy from her rush and the spray of debris and detritus as she barrelled towards Consul O. At this rate she was looking to carve him and his wheelchair up the middle.

As she closed in, however, an electric fence shot up to protect O from the front. A prehistoric -themed concession stand then popped up around him to shield him from all other angles, its walls of solid stone. With all O’s efforts focused on defense, however, only his zookeepers remained to actually attack Juri. They kept shooting at her, even if their aim left something to be desired; from a physical standpoint, they seemed to be completely normal humans.

Juri reared back, stopping suddenly and hooking her foot on a lever of the Ghoulsaw. She leaned all the way back and tapped her prosthetic eye as her shoulder blades hit the floor, darts sailing through the space she had just occupied. A moment passed and the electric fence turned off. She span on the floor in a break-dance like maneuver and then lunged through the gap in the fence towards O, taking her Ghoulsaw with her to dive inside and slice into his thighs before she even hit the ground.

O howled, his body wrenching in agony as his wordless cry resounded within the echo chamber he’d boxed himself into. While his legs didn’t do him much good, as indicated by his wheelchair, he was still unfortunate enough to have feeling in them. When his concentration was broken and his body moved, his ocular apparition melted away, and the Consul was nothing but a defenseless old man. He had only one card left to play: an attempted to teleport away in a flare of purple Moebius energy, but that would take precious seconds he didn’t have.

Juri let the Ghoulsaw fall where it lay after she landed on the ground, and skittered forward like a spider after its prey. ”C’mere!” She growled, twisting her body to slam her heel into his face to interrupt whatever spell he was casting, knocking him onto his side.

”Wuh oh!” She crowed. Then her plan was simple: stomp his neck and twist. With only the feeblest manner of opposition at his disposal, O could do nothing to stop her. He could only gasp in terrified desperation. “Wait-!” Then came a terrible crack, and the Consul’s body went limp.

Juri stood in silence for a moment, exhaling. She gave the body an extra kick to make sure he started turning to ash. Instead, she quickened his disintegration into glowing purple particles that left not the slightest trace behind, not even a spirit. Juri frowned. The Consuls were different than everyone else in this fake-ass candyland world, she thought. She guessed they didn’t ash.

”’...Wait-!’” She repeated mockingly. ”Heard that one before. Not so eternal now, huh?” Juri asked, picking up her Ghoulsaw. She gave it a wipe, brushing some of the fruit chunks off of it with a frown.

”...Tch” Juri grit her teeth. ”Ennui. What a loser.” She mumbled. She slipped out of the gate and dealt with the remaining guards in a manner-of-fact way.

Juri tipped her head skyward through the dome and to the encroaching monster moon, and listened to the battle outside. ”Uuugh. Alright. Where’s that turtle brat and his toy boat sister?” She asked, before moving to leave the room to find them. She'd find the dome completely empty.