[center][h3]Dead Zone Hinterlands - Martira, Old Castle Town[/h3]
Harry’s [@Eviledd1984], Amaterasu's [@DracoLunaris]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 801[/center]

When Band spotted Harry headed toward the tailor as well, he changed tactics and decided to let the man choose his garb for himself. Honestly, if he were in the same shoes he’d want to pick out his own clothes too, but as always, money was the problem. Band didn’t think the two thousand zenny stipend he gave Harry would get him very far. Hopefully he could manage a full outfit and still have enough cash left over for soap and water, or the poor guy would be scrubbing himself off in a very cold mountain stream. 

The detective left Harry to his own devices and stomped off to tie up a couple loose ends, mostly inquiries he’d been meaning to make with people who hadn’t been where he’d expected them last time he looked. Unfortunately one of them -a grocer whose daughter had been among the recent disappearances- wasn’t open for business today either, which Band understood and was actually relieved to see. He’d had second thoughts about questioning the grieving man but resolved to do his due diligence, so having the choice taken out of his hands suited him just fine. He met with the parents of the missing girl’s young friend, but they refused to let the hulking stranger ask their son anything, and with that well within their rights Band had no choice but to look elsewhere. He did manage to catch a clemar guard who’d been on duty the night of the last kidnappings according to Bardon, but the man was defensive, and even after Band guilt-tripped him into cooperating his answers yielded nothing substantial. He settled for directions to Curien Mansion, which the clemar supplied before making himself scarce. With almost nothing to show from his efforts, the detective could only sigh in frustration and head back down to the plaza to rendezvous with Harry. How could this case already be so cold?

When Harry arrived, the sight of his new getup wiped every other thought from Big Band’s mind. “Holy smokes!” He chuckled, shelving his new partner’s question for the time being. “It’s a good thing I ain’t the fashion police, or I’d have to lock ya up and throw away the key!” Harry’s new duds, mismatched and ill-fitting, didn’t look that much better up close, but Band didn’t want to give the man too much of a hard time, given what he’d been through this morning already. He assumed that Harry was not much happier about his new look than anyone who had to see it was, and was simply making do with what he’d managed to acquire. At least, he hoped so. He was happy that Harry had cleaned himself up, though, and now that he got a better look, Band couldn’t help but be impressed by just how many articles of clothing the Icebreaker had managed to acquire. “Gotta say, you sure know how to handle your money. Got it all on clearance or somethin’? Musta been a real steal.” He paused just long enough to make Harry wonder about the intentionality behind his word choice, then turned to go. “But yeah, I’m ready to roll, and I know the way. Let’s bounce, slick.”

The two proceeded through Martira’s main gates and began their trek up the mountain. Heeding the directions he’d been given, Band led the way along the road until he reached a footbridge, then took a hard left and began to follow the little river up the forested slope. Near Martira the woods had been thinned out by loggers for timber to build the town’s houses with, but the woods quickly got thicker as the mountainside got steeper, and the pair’s progress slowed down just as fast. While Band’s mechanical body featured countless sophisticated subsystems and hidden sound-based weapons, its bulky frame and proportionally puny legs were not built for hiking, and soon the detective was wheezing and steaming like a locomotive. Engaging his thrusters and taking to the air would have saved him a lot of trouble, but it would have left Harry up the creek without a paddle, and Band wasn’t the type to let a partner down.

On the way up the mountainside, he happened to cast his mind back to something that Harry said earlier. “Hey, Icebreaker!” he called back as he paused between heavy steps. “Earlier, back when we split. Coulda sworn you called me ‘Kim’ or somethin’.” He raised an eyebrow like a cross-examiner, his tone playfully accusatory. “I [i]know[/i] you ain’t forgotten my name already, so what’s the deal? Am I the spittin’ image of some gal you knew back home?” Where he came from, Band had only ever heard the name ‘Kim’ as short for ‘Kimberly’, so he’d been thoroughly unable to wrap his head around Harry’s misnomer.

[center][h3]Paved Wilderness - Hammerhead[/h3]
Lvl 15 Ms Fortune (59/150) Lvl 8 Sandalphon (24/80) Lvl 5 [color=ef6069]Grimm[/color] (7/50)
Junior, Rika, & Edward’s [@DracoLunaris] Blazermate, Sectonia, & Roland’s [@Archmage MC] Geralt, Zenkichi & Edelgard’s [@MULTI_MEDIA_MAN] Ace Cadet, Pit, Primrose & Therion’s [@Yankee] Juri’s [@Zoey Boey] Roxas, Ganondorf, & Captain Falcon’s [@Double]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 2474[/center]

[center][hider=For Ms Fortune]New ability:
[b]Rapid Fire[/b]
A chain skill that serves as a level 3 Blockbuster. Dual handguns must be equipped to use it. Nadia becomes a shadowy blur, leaving afterimages as she whips and whirls around at hyperspeed, unloading her handguns at 410% base damage for 3 seconds. This Blockbuster does not consume ammunition[/hider]

[hider=For Sandalphon]New ability:
[b]Nitro Storm[/b]
A chain combo skill that’s empowered the more blue tiles Sandalphon has contacted in a given fight. She has to have contacted at least 2 to be able to use it. When used, Sandalphon channels her azure light into her weapon and fires off a lustrous round heavensward. After a moment, diagonal rays of azure light rapidly descend on her target like angels shooting down from on high. T1 (2 tiles) drops 4 rays in an 8-foot diamond, T2 (9 tiles) rains down 12 rays in a larger circle, and T3 (12 tiles) rains down 36 rays in a 20-foot diamond. If she has a Cerulean Mirage active, the Cerulean Mirage also uses a T1 Nitro Storm slightly after. After this, Sandalphon’s tile count resets[/hider]

[hider=For Grimm]New ability:
[b]Kindred Spirits[/b]
Grimm can now summon [url=https://i.imgur.com/mA97ORo.png]Grimmkin Novices[/url] while in darkness. Oddly spectral, these strange masked bugs can float around and perform various tasks for him. They can also fight on Grimm’s behalf, charging headlong toward his foes or lobbing scarlet fireballs from a distance with their torches, but doing either leaves them vulnerable for a moment, and they have low health. The Grimmkin disappear in sunlight, and only Grimm can communicate with them. The amount he can summon increase with his stock of Nightmare Flames. At present, he can summon 2[/hider][/center]

Were any of the Seekers to look over their proverbial shoulders as the Avenger zoomed away from the Dead Zone, they might have caught a glimpse of the parasitized Qliphoth as it withered and died. Suddenly robbed of the floodfested tissue that had subsumed so much of its inner structure, and unable to sustain itself through the nourishment of stolen blood, it quickly succumbed to the timefall pounding its trunk and rotted from the ground up. Within minutes, the titanic, demonic tower of Babel crumbled, sloughing off desiccated masses the size of office buildings as it vanished into the chiralium-laced clouds below.

None of the Seekers looked back on the Qliphoth’s demise, however, so its mammoth grave went unmarked. Some things were better off left in the past, with naught but nightmares to mark their passage, ephemeral as life itself.

Given the Dead Zone’s proximity to the Paved Wilderness, the Avengers reached its destination quickly, even while flying at the lowest possible speed. The Seekers were only about an hour into the afternoon when the ship began to descend, and while it didn’t feature many forward-facing windows, anyone in the bridge could avail themselves of the camera feeds arrayed there to lay eyes on the not-so-trackless wilderness unfolding in front of them. Hope engaged the ship’s cloaking to hide the Lost Numbers’ flying fortress from prying eyes, and as Avenger continued to lose altitude, it wasn’t long before Hammerhead itself came into view in the distance. Of course, cloaking or no cloaking, the Avenger was much too big -and noisy- for its artificial pilot to set it down at the truck stop’s doorstep. Instead, the airship veered away from the crossroads and toward a distinctive rock formation in a more desolate-looking scrubland off the beaten path. The Avenger came in for a landing behind the curved crag, its massive thrusters kicking up billowing clouds of sediment until the roaring engines finally quieted down. Then the cargo bay door lowered amidst the haze, and the Lost Numbers could set foot on solid ground for the first time in a while.

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/ziS4vDR.png[/img][/center]

“Mrrrrrrooooooow!” Nadia yawned as she plodded down the ramp, extending her arms to an unnerving extent as she arched her back. It hadn’t been long at all since she last stretched her legs, but to do so free of worry -at least for a while- was a liberating relief. It helped that the Lost Numbers had actually opted to land this time, sparing the Seekers from another nerve-tracking drop in the hellpods. No matter how many times she used those things and lived to tell the tale, the feral just couldn’t get used to falling from the sky in those deathtraps. Once her mantreads hit the dirt, Nadia pawsed to take in the scenery, breathing in the fresh air. The area looked rocky, arid, and dry, with plenty of long, yellow grasses but only a few scattered trees. The Avenger’s arrival had disturbed a number of scaly-shelled [url=https://i.imgur.com/elwAb2W.png]Ceratonoth[/url] that had been wandering and grazing the land in herds, each group of females clustered around a single male, distinguished by the tall keratin spars on their backs. “Guess I was right not gettin’ dessert with lunch, ‘cause we’re in for a rocky road to Hammerhead!”

Her ears perked up as she heard a familiar groan behind her. “Man, if I hear one more bad joke outta you…ice cream.”

Nadia grinned and turned to see Nero. From the look of the humorless, white-haired punk’s face you’d never guess he’d just made a pun of his own, but to Nadia the contrast between the young man’s hard shell and gooey insides just made him that much funnier. “Hey, Nero!” Though she thought she spotted him aboard the Avenger at some point, the two hadn’t really spoken since the Seekers’ first trip through the Dead Zone. “What’re you gettin’ up to at Hammerhead?”

“Just got the sneaking suspicion this girl I know’s gonna be there,” the devil slayer replied, brushing the dust off his navy-blue coat.

Nadia snapped her fingers. “Oh, right! Your friend from the dead zone. Ni…Nick…Nicole!”

Nero smirked, wondering how Nico would take to being called that. “Close enough.”

A quick glance over Nadia’s shoulder confirmed that Nero wasn’t the only one coming along for the ride. Plenty of Lost Numbers were as eager as the Seekers to experience natural, wide-open space. Like Sagi, the quartermaster, who had Caesar on a leash as both strolled out onto the ground, the latter so excited for a walk on solid ground that his wagging tail was a fluffy white blur. Once enough people were out of the way, the Lost Numbers’ two [url=https://i.imgur.com/X7f1QSg.png]Armadillos[/url] rolled down the ramp after them, each armored car capable of transporting twelve passengers in comfort. One was driven by grouchy nopon mechanic Lulubi, while the other seemed to have Tora and Poppi behind the wheel. “All aboaaaaaaaaaaard, everypon!” the little inventor sang. “Next stop: Hammerhead!”

Only a few people hung back aboard the Avenger. Grimm took one look at all the sunshine, shrank back with a hiss, and disappeared into the shadows, while Sandalphon just looked on. Having been keeping tabs on her allies, she’d warped to Pit’s side seconds after his brawl with Juri concluded, and even after freeing and healing him she had hovered around him since then. Maybe something had her on edge? Nadia waved up at the archangel. “Not comin’?”

“I have…some calls to make,” Sandalphon called down.

Her zero-shaped pupils suggested some sort of inner conflict, but Nadia wasn’t going to probe. “Alrighty. Halo and goodbye!”

Still weary from the morning’s ordeals, Nadia was happy to hitch a ride aboard an Armadillo and ride the rest of the way to Hammerhead, watching out of a window. True to her pun earlier, the going was rough for a while, but before long the trucks discovered a dirt road, followed shortly by one of the wilderness’s titular paved roads, which soon led like a river tributary to a highway. From there it was a smooth ride across the flat expanse toward the region’s iconic landmark, Hammerhead.

[center][img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DOhP3hyU8AAzCd-.jpg[/img][/center]

One after another, the Armadillos turned off the highway and pulled into the parking lot to discharge their passengers. As an all-in-one blend of gas station, truck stop, service shop, and garage, Hammerhead had always been impressive, but among all of today’s visitors only Tora, Poppi, Bowser Jr, and Blazermate could appreciate how different it was since last time. Hammerhead as a whole had undergone a surprising amount of expansion in just two weeks, gaining not just its own [url=https://i.imgur.com/HNhMNBM.png]oil refinery[/url] but a new [url=https://i.imgur.com/KCwi9Nj.png]forge hut[/url] for the local manufacture of custom parts. The previous adjunct restaurant, Grillby’s, had also been taken over and completely remodeled into Cheesetopia, a more traditional retro diner.

It was a lot to take in, and today it seemed that the whole place was already bustling with activity. Whether it was loading, unloading, gassing up, or breaking down, dozens of drivers and technicians were hard at work all over the place in a cacophony of voices, industrial sounds, and radio tunes. Both Nadia and Nero were drawn to a familiar-looking [url=https://bloody-disgusting.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/dmc5van.jpg]van[/url] parked next to the forge hut, but Tora’s eyes were more drawn to its owner out front. The glasses-wearing, chain-smoking country girl [url=https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/927060284008826461/DE838BE42B038389DEB78332FF357CC1B23783C5/?imw=734&imh=1024&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=true]Nico[/url] seemed to be in a heated conversation with a [url=https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/e/e0/Cindy_Aurum_Render_FFXV.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20170601003930]the mechanic Cindy[/url] and two of the forge’s smiths, the [url=https://i.imgur.com/MthvIX0.png]red-headed Minayle[/url] and the [url=https://i.imgur.com/0Osvb65.png]blonde Gemma[/url]. In fact, the nopon’s eyes were practically bugging out of his head. “Tora must be in heaven!”

Embarrassed by him around so many people, Poppi quickly smacked him in the back of his head. “Masterpon should be careful around mechanics, lest they ‘fix’ you like dog you are.”

Nadia, meanwhile, zeroed in on a different quartet, and not for the same reasons. Nero had spotted [url=https://fsmedia.imgix.net/84/7b/e8/71/2d71/4dda/90be/a8eafb628086.png?rect=0%2C0%2C1920%2C960&auto=format%2Ccompress&dpr=2&w=650]four young men in black[/url] by the garage and gone to talk to them, so the feral followed him over. While Noctis, Ignis, Prompto, and Gladio had retreated from the Dead Zone well before the Seekers reached the RCPD station, she’d heard about these boys from Nero afterward, and was happy to see they made it. “Hey fellas! What’s up?”

The guys fired off a round of friendly greetings. Nero had just asked what they were up to, prompting Prompto to give a good-natured smile as he shrugged. “With no kingdom or empire around, we’re basically stuck on one big road trip, right? All we gotta worry about is making ends meet.”

“Which is why we accepted a collection job,” Ignis mentioned in his posh English accent.

Gladio grunted. “Us and every other buncha guys in the whole Wilderness, looks like.”

Unperturbed, Ignis continued. “Indeed. All we know is that yesterday evening, a Ficsit company freighter crashed into a very tall structure to the northwest just last night. Fittingly known as ‘Highertower’, it apparently extends so high into the air that it poses quite the hazard to air traffic. The tower survived, funnily enough, but the ship and its cargo were scattered all over the Wilderness. Ficsit has issued a region-wide commission offering rewards for retrieving their lost property, which would be enough of the occasion on its own, if not for the rumor that illegal firearms were being smuggled among the cargo.”

“Yeah, turns out, it’s totally true,” Prompto chirped. After a surreptitious look around, he opened his jacket to reveal a [url=https://i.imgur.com/Cfglz0N.png]huge, blocky revolver[/url] that seemed to be made of ice. “We found a weapons cache on our first trip. Worth way more than the two thousand we woulda got handing it in! Cool, right?”

“So as you can imagine, there’s quite the hullabaloo,” Ignis summarized.

Gladio crossed his arms, clearly impatient. “So we were just discussin’ our next move. Right Noct?” His big hand descended to pat the team’s quiet leader on the shoulder, pressing him for an answer. “Can’t sit around forever while the others make off with the goods.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Noctis sighed as he stood. He gave Nero and Nadia an apologetic nod. “Join in the scavenger hunt if you want, but we’ve gotta get going.” Without disclosing where they’d be heading, the four took off and jumped in their [url=https://i.imgur.com/csEG53J.png]convertible[/url] to hit the road.

Nero and Nadia exchanged a look, the latter raising her eyebrow. Then the devil hunter gave a curt wave and began to jog in Nico’s direction. “Happy hunting.”

Nadia rushed back toward the largest group of Seekers with a pep in her step. While spending her break snoozing somewhere warm sounded pretty nice, a fun diversion was more the catgirl’s style. “Hey, guys! Found out why it’s so crazy around here. Some flyin’ cargo ship crashed and s-cat-erred cargo everywhere. We can earn some money findin’ their stuff for ‘em, or…” She leaned forward as she lowered her voice. “Keep it for ourselves!”

With her plan outlined, Nadia hustled over to the nearest map board, where a handful of other miscellaneous treasure-hunters were gathered. It gave a top-down view of the whole Paved Wilderness, including countless race tracks and many points of interest. In the southern plains lay Chutes Meat Plant and to the southeast stood the mountain pass leading to the Land of Adventure, both so far from the impact point that neither could possibly have much salvage. To the east lay Scorched Gorge, a network of red sandstone canyons home to particularly unusual wildlife, and a little farther north beyond stood a somewhat ominous complex known as the Refinery. Farther to the northeast the racetracks gave way to Cheese Land, which as far as Nadia could tell was supposed to be made of actual cheese. [i]Reminds me of those cheesy  caves near the Home of Tears[/i], she thought. Way to the north lay the Rocket League Arena, as well as the attached settlement Noctis.

Nadia blinked. “Huh?” Did the village on the map have the same name as that broody guy from the boy band? That was a funny coincidence.

She quickly finished off the map. Hightertower could be found to the northwest, and as the crash site, it promised to be a hotly-contested area, especially if the murmurs Nadia was hearing about psychotic bandits held water. Apparently the scrubland where the Avenger landed was called the Windward Plain, and the ecosystem only got stranger the closer one got to a settlement called Outback. “Lots of choices,” she muttered.

In the midst of the feral’s pondering, Tora pushed his way through the crowd to stand beside her, Poppi hot on his heels. “Wherever you go, you not get anywhere without set of wheels.”

Nadia blinked. She hadn’t thought of that. “Ah, crap.” She took off her head and held it up to look over the crowd, disturbing almost everyone in her immediate vicinity. In terms of transport, her only options were the Armadillos and [i]maybe[/i] Nico’s van, if the gunsmith wasn’t gone already. Then something else Tora said clicked with her, and she looked down at him. “Wait, you’re not doing the scavenger hunt with me?”

He shook his head. “Much more interesting things going on here, meh.”

“Double crap!” Nadia groaned. Kooky Cabbies had proven that she could sort of drive, but she did not feel confident about the Armadillos, even if they were hers to use. All the locations within walking distance were probably picked clean, too. What was she going to do? 

That was when she saw it as she scanned the whole station from her elevated perspective: a splendid [url=https://i.imgur.com/mOqNpEr.png]red dune buggy[/url] with impressive suspension and room for two. What caught her attention wasn’t the vehicle, though, as much as the [url=https://i.imgur.com/C05qUf2.png]little guy[/url] who’d left it purring at the gas pump to go attempt to flirt with Cindy. Nadia promptly stuck her head back on, wiggled her eyebrows, and scampered over.