“HM!” The moment Band regained his feet, mere inches away from the partner in crime of the zombie he’d unceremoniously dropkicked, the undead wretch lunged for him. All it got for its efforts, however, was a mouthful of beige cotton gabardine so densely woven it barely even tore. It couldn’t even get its infectious jaws around the detective’s broad metal frame, much less bite off a pound of flesh. Of course, Band barely even noticed–while normally one to respect the dead, he hadn’t the slightest bit of pity for corpses like these. He had already crouched down, and now two trombone slides shot out like straight punches to soften the hapless cadaver up. Then, while it tried to catch its balance, Band unleashed a massive tuba that walloped the zombie with a heavy slam, then blasted it away in giblets with a deep, almost flatulent blast of sound. BWAAAAAAMP!

With the first two shamblers taken care of, Band took a quick look around to check on the others. He did not expect to see a medieval knight, well-armed and armored, expertly decapitating a zombie as he approached the embattled detectives. The stranger didn’t look like a member of Martira’s guard corps, so Band could only assume him to be some sort of drifter or sellsword. Either way, he clearly knew what he was doing, so while he didn’t think he needed help against rabble like this, he wasn’t going to object. “Hello yourself, sir knight!” He called back, a tone of mild, metallic amusement on his voice. “Knock yourself out, but don’t go thinkin’ you’re gonna get paid for it!”

The far bigger surprise, as it turned out, was the Icebreaker. After ditching a few articles of clothing, he unveiled a hidden blunt instrument and drowned out the zombies’ ravenous groans with an almost bestial wail, as if his very soul had given vent to its turmoil. He then vaulted over Band -a very impressive feet given their height difference- and charged straight into a mob of zombies with reckless abandon. Holding back nothing, he went to town with an onslaught of brutish bludgeoning and theatrical special techniques, as if working his way through all the signature moves he’d ever seen on the silver screen. It was a jaw-dropping display, especially because his nonsensical fighting style somehow seemed to be working. Zombie after zombie fell to his feverish assault, astounded by feats of acrobatics that not even Band could emulate. Taken aback, the cyborg could only glance over at Amaterasu to confirm that she was seeing this too, only to release a burst of helpless laughter when he found the wolf as slack-jawed as he was. That settled one thing, at least: that this wolf was at least as smart as a person.

Amaterasu didn’t just stand idly by and gawk, though. When a couple zombies came at her, the first few seemed to fall apart on her own, and for the stragglers the white wolf unleashed a handful of unnaturally agile kicks. Not once did she attempt to use her canines’ crushing biteforce like a normal wolf might, perhaps sensing the deadly contagion lurking within these monsters’ failing frames. Band nodded his approval, his expectations thoroughly exceeded. In fact, he was sufficiently distracted by Amaterasu’s antics that he didn’t react to another zombie coming his way until it had already pounced, sailing through the air with claws extended.

Of course, Big Band wasn’t one to be caught unawares. He tilted his body and extended two halves of a titantic tambourine to catch the wretch mid-leap in its vicelike clasp. Once he’d caught his prey, Band rattled the instrument, shaking the zombie to its bones with the reverberation. “Beat…Extend!” Stricken by Sound Stun, the monster felt nervelessly from Band’s grasp, a sitting duck for a definitive double honk from his bike horn. Its head popped, and Band disdainfully scattered its ashes as it slumped to the ground. “Hmph! Deadbeats!”

By then, the combined efforts of the detectives, the dog, and the plate-mailed interloper had put the little horde to route. Whether or not the zombies had ever been alive, they were definitely dead now. As the action dwindled, however, Band became aware of some stomping noises that were quickly getting louder. He turned toward the front doors of Curien Mansion, brows furrowed, and a moment later they burst open to admit a huge multi-limbed horror, a brute seemingly fused together from multiple corpses. Band inhaled sharply, then stepped forward, his stance wide. Two Brass Knuckles deployed from beneath his coat, and with his head tucked in, Band put up his dukes. “Stay back this time, y’all. This one ain’t goin’ down to cartoon super moves or puppy paws!”

The juggernaut roared, its chains and armor pieces clanging normally, but when it stopped the rumbling kept going. When he realized where the new sound was coming from, Band blinked, then looked back over his shoulder. Through the gates thundered a war machine the color of barley corn, its design somewhere between a tank and a high-tech train. Green lights shone all over its chassis, and as the turbine in the front of the vehicle rotated faster and faster, the same light built up inside. For a second Band thought it was going to shoot at him, but the Atom adjusted its aim and belted out a gigantic green laser. It smashed into the abomination and melted it away, blasting what remained back through the mansion’s front door to leave the whole entrance in shambles. Then, just as quickly as it came, the beam disappeared, and the train came to a stop. A hatch on top popped open, and none other than the big, muscular gray conductor Stein climbed out. The sight of the others’ stunned expressions brought a big grin to his face. “You guys look like you’ve got something to say. Maybe…’wow, thanks for the save Mr. Stein, you’re so cool!’ …Somethin’ like that? Heheh!”

His daughter, Tesset climbed out beside him. “Um! Is everyone o-okay?”

“...Uh huh.” Band shook off his bemusement and raised an eyebrow at the unexpected pair. “Just wonderin’ why ya’d go to the trouble, after what happened in the Friendly Arm.”

Stein hefted himself out of the Atom, landed on the ground, and turned to help Tesset down before patting the dust off casually. “Well, after hearin’ that you’re out to solve the missin’ kids’ case, I couldn’t turn a blind eye.” He patted Tesset on the head, prompting her to adjust her hat with pretend indignation. “Not with a kiddo of my own, y’know? So with my help, I figured findin’ this Heismay guy would be a cinch.”

Band nodded, his internal opinion on Stein shifting from ‘jerk who loves his daughter’ to ‘good day with a tough exterior’. “We probably had it handled, but thanks. Monsters like these ain’t much of a challenge, but…” He narrowed his eyes, kicking at a nearby pile of ashes. “Urgh. Sometimes it feels like I can’t go anywhere without the dead rising.”

Stein crossed his arms, a wry smile on his face. “Whaddya expect, comin’ to the house of the dead?”

“You sayin’ this place got some kind of resident evil?” Band gave the newcomer the side-eye.

He shrugged. “Just sayin’ there’s probably evil within.”

“Yeah,” Band turned back and began to approach the front door. “I bet there’s evil within, too.”

He led the way toward the yawning, dark opening that Stein’s laser left in the front of Curien Mansion, with the man himself plus Harry in tow. The wolf could do as she pleased, and now that Kit knew what his new acquaintances were up to, he could make introductions and tag along if he liked as well. Tesset retreated back into the Atom and locked it up to provide support from afar as the team set out to explore the mansion. With the light of day behind them, the newcomers could look forward to plenty of dark rooms, tall bookcases, and nooks and crannies where any number of unknown entities could be hiding. Finding Heismay in here would be like finding a needle in a haystack, and there was no way the fugitive hadn’t heard all the commotion. Still, Big Band was determined to see the expedition through.

As the last of the zombies fell, Kit sheathed his sword and placed the shield on his back. "Excellent work," he said to all in his vicinity. He was about to ask just why the group had come to this place when the doors of the mansion shot open, a giant monster stepping through. The big man stood ready to face the beast and Kit reached for his sword again, but they were both stopped by the arrival of a giant mechanical vehicle the likes of which Kit had never seen that soon fired a massive green laser that decimated the beast.

Out of the vehicle came a man and a young girl, the two seeming to be father and daughter. Kit wondered for a moment just how safe it was for a child to be here, but the man seemed capable enough of defending her. The man from the vehicle spoke to the big man, who seemed to be the leader of this party, and Kit finally gleamed just why the group had come here: missing children. Must be from that town nearby. He had never been there personally, but he still felt the need to protect it; after all, he had been hunting the beasts in the forest just outside the town.

As the conversation wrapped up and the group all entered the manor, Kit looked around at his new companions. They were certainly a motley crew, yet there was something about them that made him feel the need to help them with their quest. After all, they were doing something worthwhile, certainly more than just camping around the forest and killing beasts. Then it hit them that he didn't know any of their names.

"I believe introductions are in order. My name is Kit. I have been hunting beasts around these parts for a good while now. I'd like to aid you in your mission to recover those missing children."

Getting a ride from Sectonia was…an experience. It wasn’t a terrible experience at all, and with Blazermate (and Juri, if she deigned to help) nearby, they’d be well-equipped if it came down to battle. For a while, the ride towards the crash site was fairly uneventful. Scrublands as far as the eye could see, filled with tall, yellow grasses and cacti. It reminded him of stories he’d heard of the Great Plains of America, hundreds of miles of wide-open space where scenes like this played out daily. While he certainly didn’t hate living in Japan, he would’ve loved to see it. This was a good substitute, he supposed.

Eventually, signs of civilization emerged, shacks and stores, an inn and a cafe. They flew past them all, intent on reaching their goal as quickly as possible. Not too long after the last shack was in their proverbial rear-view mirror, the terrain started to become more hostile. Plumes of gas emerged from bogs, and the ground became rockier and more solid.

Eventually, the group came around a bend, and before them was a massive landship engaged in battle. Its size reminded Zenkichi more of a naval vessel than a land vehicle, but it sped along the ground at a surprisingly fast pace nonetheless, all the while under attack by alien creatures. Zenkichi pointed at the attackers, calling out to Sectonia, ”Oh jeez, we oughta give those guys a hand. They might be able to give us a lift, too.” He added, in case Sectonia was of a more practical mindset.

Once she slowed down enough for him to safely dismount, Zenkichi hit the ground running, his Phantom Thief attire appearing on him as he watched the Choppers chase around the Mammoth, soon setting their sights on the smaller vehicles that deployed from within the landship. Their explosive shots tore up the ground as they rode around, and as one turned to realign its guns with its target, Zenkichi struck. He raised his revolvers as the Chopper bled off its momentum into its turn, firing one after the other into the side and back of the Locust pilot. Its initial reaction was a panicked jerking of the controls which led to a swiftly-corrected spinout, but the blood pouring from its side gave away its dilemma.

After a moment, the Chopper turned for Zenkichi, who quickly stowed his revolvers for Ragnell, throwing himself aside as the massive wheels of the vehicle nearly churned him into paste. He pushed off the ground, swinging the holy blade at the pilot, and the second beam of light connected, sending it into another tailspin. The undersized rear where the pilot sat was an obvious weak point, and while the oversized, armored wheels and forward-mounted guns were an obvious counter to that weak point, they weren’t enough to make the thing unstoppable by any means.

By the time the pilot got the Chopper under control again, Zenkichi had gotten close enough to fire a few more blasts from Ragnell, and a moment later, he was close enough to tackle the Locust right off the vehicle. Stronger than it looked, even bloody and battered from gunshots and holy energy blasts, the Locust pilot drew a brutal revolver and fired, striking Zenkichi in the gut. Staggered by the surprise blow, Zenkichi stumbled a step back, allowing the Locust pilot to close the gap and hit him in the face with the butt of its pistol, the loud smack of the metal on his skull ringing in his ears. As the Locust aimed to fire again, Zenkichi rallied and threw Ragnell into the air, evading the shot with Aether. As he came down, he could feel the vitality he regained from the blow, even as the follow up launched the Locust back, its formidable hide entirely ignored by the second blow.

It weakly raised its arm into the air, before the limb dropped limp as it dissolved into ash. Zenkichi quickly scooped up the humanoid creature’s Spirit, a quick flash of guilt running through him, before he shook it off and jumped on the Chopper. The controls were alien, but far from overly complex, so after a few moments of jerking around with the few things there we to manipulate, the vehicle got going again. He jerked forward in the strange hovorbike, before correcting his inputs and slowing to a steady pace, turning towards the hoversled that Armstrong had given a pummeling. Once the Striker had dissipated, it had returned to attacking the LAVs that had come from the Mammoth, leaving its back open to Zenkichi.

He carefully crept up on them, careful not to touch the very obviously-marked firing button. Whatever made this vehicle, did so with little estimation for its rider’s intelligence, which he appreciated right now. Having to parse some alien language would have been annoying. Once he got a good shot on the pilot of the sled, he pressed down the button, a salvo of explosive rounds slamming into the hoversled and its pilot, though most went slightly off-course due to a combination of his momentum and the recoil throwing his aim off in the unfamiliar vehicle.

He heard the Locust bandits grunting and yelling before the sled turned around, and Zenkichi threw it into reverse, keeping the massive wheels between him and his enemy as he continued firing, explosive rounds peppering the hull of the other vehicle. ”Could use a hand over here!” He called out, turning a little out of the way to try and dodge a few shots, but the turret operator was quick to pivot his aim, a few plasma bolts hitting him and the ground around him, causing Zenkichi to hiss in pain and jerk his arm, sending him into a short tailspin.

While the unpredictable maneuver saved him from further shots for a moment, it also left him facing the wrong way. The Prowler beared down on him, the turret ominously turning as the Locust grunted victoriously. Then, a line of sword crashed down directly in front of it, causing the forward momentum of the vehicle to suddenly become upward momentum as the lopsided vehicle tried to keep going forward but couldn’t. It flipped over in the air, landing on its top and bouncing, before rolling to a slow stop, pinning the Locust on the turret to the ground as the pilot and side passengers scrambled to get out from under the vehicle.

Zenkichi angled his Chopper to face them, holding down the fire button and using short taps of the controls to keep his aim relatively on point, the explosive cannons quickly mulching two of the Locust bandits, leaving behind only their ash and Spirits. The third managed to get enough distance that it could raise its assault rifle and fire off a few bursts of high-caliber shots at him, but the oversized wheels of the Chopper blocked all but a few rounds, which pinged off the sides or landed in the hard dirt behind him. Zenkichi turned his aim on the Locust, continuing to fire, when one of the Bloodmounts crashed into his vehicle, sending it careening out of control in a tailspin.

Dazed, Zenkichi grunted as a burst of fire from the surviving Locust found its mark, crashing into his shoulder and breaking his focus. He let go of the Chopper’s controls, abandoning the vehicle and dodging a swipe of the Bloodmount’s claws, summoning his revolvers. He only had a few shots left in each, but he quickly spun to the Locust bandit and fired everything he had, only a couple of shots landing before the Bloodmount was on him again.

Rather than flesh and scattered armor, however, its claws slammed into a massive sword, Zenkichi having favored the Greatsword Sandalphon had bought him over Ragnell. Its size and power made it somewhat better as a shield, even if its attacks came slower. He pivoted and stepped backwards, letting the Bloodmount push forward and lose its balance as it lunged towards where he had been a moment ago, leaving an opening for the massive lump of iron to cave its spine in. The Bloodmount proved tougher than that, however, and lashed out with a kick pushing Zenkichi back at the surprising force.

Remembering how quickly the earlier Locust fell to Aether, Zenkichi repeated the move, hurling his oversized Greatsword into the air and coming down on the Bloodmount like a meteor, healing a bit from the attack and shredding through its formidable hide with the second. It wasn’t enough to finish the mount off, but it had been weakened noticeably. Another lunging claw swipe was blocked with a fair amount of ease, and Zenkichi swung his sword, crushing one of the monster’s claws beneath its weight and breaking the bone. It tried to rise, then collapsed as the accumulated damage overwhelmed it, dissolving into ash. Zenkichi grabbed the thing’s Spirit, then looked to the overturned Prowler, where a group of Sectonia’s Antlers had eviscerated the last two Locust, one of which had returned to help its comrade escape being pinned beneath the vehicle while Zenkichi was busy with the Bloodmount. Nother pang of guilt slammed into Zenkichi at the empathetic action, but he sighed. Nobody said things would always be easy, and if these things were this intelligent, then they had chosen a life of banditry. And antisocial behavior like that was bound to earn you enemies in a world like this. They’d be back eventually, and the cycle would repeat anew.

Shoving off the existential dread of that, he approached the Antlions to offer his thanks and work with them to right the Prowler, the minions proving to be intelligent enough to offer their aid. He left the vehicle as it was, not wanting to risk friendly fire now that the battle was calming down more, the LAVs having made short work of the majority of the bandits while he and Sectonia had fought off the rest, with Blazermate’s support. Speaking of which, he sighed as he felt her medibeam land on him, giving the robot girl a thumb’s up. He’d been moving around a bit too much on the Chopper for her to have been able to safely follow before, even with the speed matching the healing gun gave. Besides, with his own natural bulk and self-healing, he was more than fine to fight a few grunts. It was Sectonia and the soldiers on the Mammoth who needed the most help, with the Queen being such a large target and the soldiers being fairly bog-standard human.

A race proposal was completely unsurprising, especially from Ms. Fortune, and though Therion didn't know Roland as well he also wasn't surprised when the man accepted. There was definitely a little bit of a competitive streak in the guy, or just want for something fun.

Though the thought had crossed his mind to throw some obstacles Nadia's way, ultimately the Orsterran thief was just along for the ride, so he left it at that. He'd pulled his arm in and tucked both of his hands behind his head as he leaned back in the seat and looked out the windows. Up until the time the light show in the sky ahead of them caused Ms. Fortune to lose control of her vehicle in their rearview mirror, Roland and Therion's had been pretty nice. Therion had gotten a sense of driving a couple of times already, and riding passenger. Much smoother than a horse and carriage. He could get used to it.

Although he should probably check on the feral since she'd disappeared from view.

Therion pressed two fingers to his feline ear, utilizing the linkpearl there. It had been a few days since anyone in their linkshell had used it to his knowledge, but it probably still worked. As long as Nadia still had her pearl in.

"We saw that," Therion said first, tone bland but with underlying amusement. "Call back if you need help. We'll swing back around after we find all the lost loot."

If it turned out she actually needed help that would be a different story, but otherwise Therion just turned his head toward Roland. "Let's keep going. If that ship up there crashes in our path maybe we can check that out too."

Who knew, maybe they were some kind of sky pirates that were participating in the 'scavenger hunt' as well.

After a moment Therion also asked, "...you know where you're going, right?"

He'd heard Roland tell Ms. Fortune that he had a place in mind, but for all he knew the guy was just aimlessly following the road.

”Well, more or less. These streets are a lot less maze like than the City or Midgar. I figured we should check out that mysterious building no one knew much about.” Roland said, driving fairly casually. ”Why? Place a bit too spooky for ya?”

"We haven't even seen the place yet," Therion scoffed. "Though if it does turn out to be another waking nightmare, could you really blame anyone for wanting to avoid it?"

Especially after the morning they'd all had. The thief turned his gaze back outside of the truck, watching the passing landscape and the dog fighters circling their prey. "Though I guess there are people that like that kind of stuff."

His tone subtly implied that Roland was probably one of them, what with the anecdotes he often brought up and the weird, kind of creepy way some of his transformations looked.

”Yeah, I hear that. Hopefully none of that gross stuff we were just involved with. I’d much rather some kind of mystery than just…. zombies.” Roland said, sort of both confirming and denying Therion’s idea of him at the same time.

”Really, I don’t know if I can apply any logic to this place. But if I did, I’d assume there's probably some guy holding out at that place that knows lots of weird stuff or is like, weird? Usually spots like that can have intel that no one else has though.” Roland said, justifying his idea of wanting to go there.

Realistically, what Roland claimed was baseless and, frankly, should have been absurd. However, the amount of times Therion and his fellow travelers had met someone or something out in isolated areas of Orsterra, let alone everything they could find in this world, well... the thief really couldn't argue that logic.

"Guess that makes sense," he said instead.

As they drove, a point of interest caught Roland’s attention. It was the crashed airship. A little detour wouldn’t hurt, Roland turning off the road and heading for the crash. As they got near, they found there were survivors. Numerous Froggits were running around in a panic around the wreckage of the medium sized airship, clearly in distress as they had survived the crash.

Roland looked at the cartoon frogs and quickly figured that they weren’t much of a threat. In fact they seemed kind of pathetic in a way. ”So… Do we just send them back to Hammerhead? I really have no idea what these things are...” Roland said to Therion.

"Sure, give them directions if you want," the man replied. He popped the truck's door open and hopped out, intending to get a look around the vessel and see if his hypothesis was right. Hopefully before the crew's pursuers caught up. He certainly didn’t want to give the frogs a ride or anything (even though he’d hitched one in the first place), and correctly assumed that Roland didn’t either. Roland pointed them back towards the town, although corralling the froggits was a lot… easier than he thought? They really didn’t have much of a brain among all of them, but they could at least follow the road in the direction Roland pointed.

As the two men found themselves in the wreckage of the ship itself, they came upon some of the cargo that they were told to retrieve. Three crates, with one odd crate that looked like it contained guns. Besides those, there wasn't much else intact. Finder's keepers still applied in this situation, as far as he was concerned.

"Strongboxes," Therion told Roland, dragging the only one that didn't look the same out from under some debris. He could tell just by sight the lock would be simple to pick, but figured they should at least get everything loaded into the back of the truck first. Once they were sure they'd ferreted out everything worth taking, they carried their free finds to the truck's bed and shoved them in.

Out of the three, only the gun box really seemed to have anything that interested Roland. Guns were rare in his world due to their extreme cost and oftentimes relative ineffectiveness against extremely skilled opponents. But this wasn’t his world and there were weird things here.

”Hey, want to see whats in the gun case? Might be something good.” Roland said.

Figuring he meant the red one, Therion obliged Roland and opened that crate first. It took only a few seconds of fiddling with the lock until it clicked open.

"We'll keep whatever's really worth it and sell the rest back to whoever owns the cargo," he agreed.



”Huh. Well, I wasn’t sure what I was going to expect. I kind of like two out of three of these guns.” Roland said, looking over the items in the cargo crate, mostly pointing at the plasma weapon and the shotgun.

Therion held up the remaining one by the chamber chain, giving it a strange look with a raised eyebrow. Was it... supposed to look like that? He still hadn't gone out of his way to learn more about firearms besides how to identify them and, vaguely, how they worked.

He tossed the gun back into the crate. "Have at them. These things are too loud for my liking."

Roland gave the two guns he had interest in a try. Therion was right, guns were often noisy. However his gloves made his movement and weapon attacks silent, so Therion would hear no sound from the two weapons Roland gave a try with. Well, no sound from the guns firing although the impact sound of a smiley face of bullet spread from the shotgun hitting the side of the airship did make quite a bit of noise. The silent way the Fixer did everything was enviable, really.

”Thats uh, strange. Well, guess we should get going then. I’ll have to test to see if my shotgun and pistols do more than these or not.” Roland said, putting the pistol and shotgun into his gloves and throwing the last gun into the back of the truck.

It didn’t take too long before the two had loaded up all the crates they were going to keep, so basically all but the gun chest they had opened, and started to drive back off towards the factory again.

Edward surveyed the Locusts as they closed in on the massive six wheeled vehicle with only mild concern. He’d known they were there, and also that they were none too friendly thanks to them shooting the pair of scouts (that he’d sent their way to work out their intentions) on sight.

Thanks to his portal power, he could have simply bypassed them, but marauders, as he thought of them, were also, again in his opinion, free game. To an extent, his empires had run on the salvage of slain enemies, and so while some might have seen simply an obstacle to be removed, the dreadnaught, leader of a culture of reavers, saw here resources to be claimed.

Not that he intended to put himself on the line for them, his towering form was, he well knew, something of an easy target, but then that was what disposable assets were for.

One such asset had spotted the erupting battle and slowed her motorcycle to a halt, presumably considering whether to get involved or not. All she needed was a little push, one he was more than willing to provide.

Juri came out here looking for a fight, but not some crazy desert battle on an unarmed motorcycle. Especially since there was no obvious reward for diving into the fray, but if she lost her bike she could kiss her chances of finding any loot goodbye. She set a hand on her hip and stood up on her back as the fight moved away from her.

As a few of his scout drones closed in, their master opened a portal and stepped through, exiting a respectable distance for Jur. The now three people tall, hunched-backed, finger-covered winged Edward removed his helmet to reveal his mostly unchanged face as he exited, and then greeted her with a cordial ”Good afternoon Juri”

”Ewww!” Juri yelled in response. ”What the hell happened to you?! Did you fuse with the mold under the fridge?”
”A powerful demoness actually, one that gives me the ability to offer what you desire” he replied, before waving a hand and opening a portal. On the other end, they briefly caught sight of a confused locust as it drove past the hole in reality, before the beastial humanoid andit’s machine exited stage left, revealing the rest of the battle beyond. Before any stay or intentional shots could come their way however, the Dreadnought closed the portal, and concluded his offered devil’s bargain: ”Plunder acquired through violence”

Juri narrowed her eyes under her helmet at the new magical ability. That would make things a lot easier. She wouldn’t have to risk her bike, and wouldn’t have to worry about getting trapped on a vehicle. ”Humph.” She crossed her arms. ”Might be a good time. If you want a share of the loot, better make sure me or my bike don’t go splat.” She said.

”Can you keep up?” She asked.

Edward simply flicked a hand, a flurry of portals opening and closing, to demonstrate that he could indeed keep up. He then offered ”I can even send that back to the armory, to be retrieved once you need it again” because he’d rather not keep guarding it, and then asking as an afterthought ”Or would you like to ride it into battle?” because to him fistycuffs did not exactly seem like a fighting style suited to be used from (mechanical) horseback.

”Hell no, you had it right the first time. Drop me right onto that big sucker! If those guys are chasing it, it might have good loot onboard. I could nab it first.” Juri said, rubbing her hands together. She took off her helmet and rolled her neck, then sent her helmet on her bike for safe keeping. She rubbed her hands together.

”Ready when you are, Fingers.”

The man might have objected before, but he had come here for loot had he not? So instead he simply replied ”As you wish” before snapping his fingers for dramatic effect, and opening a portal directly under the streetfighter. The other end of it opened directly above the giant cannon the six wheeled base on wheels sported, very literally dropping her onto it.

”Kyaha-!” Her shrill laugh was interrupted as the noise was taken by the wind above the vehicle she was dropped onto.

Then with her on her way, the man turned a brief moment of focus to the bike she’d left behind, taking a few moments to initiate the armory recall sequence. As he did this, a squad of his scout drones zoomed closer to the battle, skimming around the periphery and doing their best to kite any attention they got so that Edward could keep track of what Juri was doing.

As both marauding seekers now saw, the owners of the vehicle turned out to be armored human soldiers called Gears, armed with bayoneted lancer rifles, Gnasher Shotguns and snub pistols. Not that either of them would care to find out any of these names.

A dozen of these Gears were in the midst of attempting to repel boarders, namely the flying Reaver squid monsters and their pairs of locust riders, several of whom leaped off the back of the beasts to engage their foes on foot. Armed with hammerbursters, or combat knives boltok pistols, these locusts where exchanging fire with or coming to blows with the Gears who had been firing from the banisters of their vehicle.

Things seemed to be going rather poorly for the Gears, one of whom went down right as Juri arrived as a bullet struck his chest. He did not turn to ash however, as his durable armor took most of the blow and gave a medic among the Gears enough time to toss a stim gas grenade to revive him.

By contrast the locust’s armor was far less advanced, one of them being turned to dust by a near identical bullet to the chest that had failed to take down the Gear, but they were big and tough, and glancing hits were not taking them down. And that was before the fling cannon mounted warbeasts got involved.

It was, all in all, an absolute mess of a situation, and Edward had put her right in the middle of it.

Juri landed and pounced up to the wall, clambering up it to get the top of the vehicle. Her eyes flitted about as she surveyed the situation, and concluded these Gears were losing up here. If she wanted the most amount of time to herself, she would nudge the battle so that neither side got the advantage too quickly. If there was any loot, it was going to be in some kind of cargo area inside, she guessed.

Juri sprinted along the top of the massive vehicle, leaping up to promptly snatch a passing Reaver pilot and kick it right in the face, sending the vehicle off course and over the side. ”Haha!” She cackled. Pissed off, the Reaver turned around to take another pass at her. Juri shifted from side to side, avoiding the bullets coming her way before sprinting to catch it, leaping up with a spinning cleave of her Ghoulsaw. A huge chunk taken out of it, both locusts moved to abandon ship before it crashed and burned, but they would find Juri waiting for her, and with a swipe and two kicks both locusts turned to ash. Juri snatched up one of their handguns and holstered her Ghoulsaw, moving along the top again. A green streak dragged behind her as she got to the other end with a burst of speed, sliding and dropping cleanly. The speed made it difficult for any participants in the pitched battle to lock their attention on her.

She parkoured over the side and went a layer down to where the doors led into the control room. The locked doors weren’t electronic, but that was no concern to Juri. She hefted her Ghoulsaw and brought it down hard on the handle with a spray of sparks, but it didn’t take long for the nasty weapon to start rending metal and digging into the locking mechanism. ”Open Sesame!” She cried out gleefully. This loud entrance wouldn’t go unnoticed by the Gear squad inside the control room, or the circling aerial Locusts. A streak of bullets came in towards Juri, who raised her arm and her shoulder as a bullet glanced off her body. A Reaver was coming in hot, but this one wasn’t going to get too close, and while she was on this balcony-like outcropping of the Mammoth she didn’t have much maneuverability to reach it.
Juri side-stepped the next few shots and then crouched behind cover as the bullets came raining in, the Reaver flying alongside the Mammoth from a safe distance. This was hardly Juri’s specialty, but her extreme hand-eye coordination went a long way in making it possible. She peaked over the edge and returned fire. ”How’s this?” She shouted, her boltok pistol firing off heavy rounds that stuck into the Reavers thick skin or sailed past the Locust riders. Still, they drew back and away as they returned suppressing fire, not wanting to let Juri get a bead on them. They stayed there long enough for another Reaver to show up. The squid beast itself and its two riders descended to meet Juri, apparently having figured out she was going to bust her way in, or maybe just going after a lone target.

”Oh, I’ve got time for all’a you handsome baldies.” Juri said, dropping her pistol and letting her Ghoulsaw hang at her side as she beckoned with her free hand.

As she was saying that, however, a portal opened above the reaver, and a massive armored fist smashed out of it and into the side of the Reaver, sending it careening to one side. As its pilot tried to stabilize it, he flew right into the grasp of another hand that reached out of a portal, grabbed the pilot, and then pulled it back through the portal, leaving the other locust one scrambling to grab the controls of the panicking warbeast.

It did not get the time, as the missing pilot then reappeared, coming hurtling at high speed straight into him, sending both locusts crashing down to the dust below.

”Haha!” Juri laughed.

Deprived of its intelligent riders, the Reaver lashed out wildly at the air with its tendrils, but by then the presence that had taken them had moved on to to other prey, as down below a string of hands reached down trying to grab a locust off of a chopper, before then opening and letting the riderless vehicle roll through once they succeeded.

Juri glanced at a nearby scout drone that flew in, knowing it belonged to Edward. ”C’mon! Need your portals to get outta there with the loot. ” Juri said. She turned away from the chaos and hacked into the door with her Ghoulsaw. As she split the door open, she was met with a shotgun blast to the chest that knocked her far back and clear over the railing. ”Oogh! She vanished from sight.

The Gear inside pumped his shotgun and stayed behind cover, but was surprised when Juri came in through the top of the doorframe like some kind of horrible spider and leapt clean over his shot and kicked him in the chest. A few more kicks lifted him off the ground and launched him clear across the room. He landed with a heavy thud, winded but not out. There were some shouts of alarm. ”Hello boys and girls!” Juri said, looking for an exit deeper into the Mammoth. She spotted a couple different doors, and fortunately the inside of this place was big enough to need to be labelled. Juri could see the driver and the rest of the squad responsible for protecting the interior and manning the turrets.

The driver had to stay concentrated, trusting her team to keep her safe while she kept them all from crashing. Two more Gears opened up, but Juri wasn’t interested in fighting. She dashed to the side, staying ahead of the bullets, and hacked open an electronic door. She waited for the scout drone to follow her and slammed the door shut behind her, locking it.

”You can open a portal inside here, right?” Juri asked the drone. And by extension Sandalphon who could also relay the message, but that would take a bit longer than the drone just ‘nodding’.

Unfortunately for her, the remaining drone (one had been destroyed by stray fire) looked her right in the eye and then glanced left and right several times in quick succession. The specific explanation that he had to see where he was opening portals would come later, but for now the message was clear enough. She’d need to get out herself.

”Good for nothin’ scrap heap.” Juri frowned.

As to where she’d found herself, it looked to be the bay that the little wheel tanks had deployed out of. Now sealed shut to prevent boarding through it, it was now mostly empty, and entirely uncrewed, except for a half dozen crates with the Ficsit logos on them. Four were fairly normal looking cargo crates, but two were a distinctive red hued design and sealed with a hefty padlock. Not the sort of thing you’d store common commercial goods, that was for sure.

Just as she was taking it in, a message relayed via Sandalphon arrived, one that had been sent to her when she’d first mentioned using Edward’s portals to evacuate the loot. It informed her that Edward would like to remind her that he's demonstrated how to send and receive things to and from the ship's armory, and offered to remind her how to make use of said ability to requisition the crates if needed.

Juri was rubbing her hands together, looking at the good stuff. ”Haaah? What the hell is he talking about?” Juri picked up one of the Ficsit crates and shook it around. She knew this was the area with the vehicles in it.

”I’m gonna hack open the bay doors. Could you portal all the loot out then? I can’t carry all these crates outta here. I’d have to stick around and clear the entire damn vehicle if we wanted all of ‘em.” Juri surmised.

The drone, which had just finished rolling its eye 360 degrees in response to the comment she’d made to its controller’s relayed message (which Sandalphon had taken all of the snippyness out of), paused for a moment, and then nodded twice.

Juri targeted the bay door control panel with her hacking ability and disabled the ‘close’ function, causing the bay doors to slowly begin to shift downwards. Immediately she was greeted with the sound of gunfire from the frantic battle outside. Not just that, but another door into the bay opened, four Gears coming to stop her from making off with the loot and opening up the bay door. If they were trying to maintain a defensive position, they stopped when they realized the bay door was opening. ”Finally got some nerve?” Juri taunted.

Three came in with shotguns, while one, a medic, stayed in the door frame to shoot his assault rifle. They spread out and began firing at Juri from three different angles. For the first three shots, she used Drive Parry to swat all three blasts aside with her leading foot, and then dashed to the side. She cracked into one Gears knee to send him toppling to the floor, and then jumped over another blast to bring her heel down on the next Gears head, before grabbing her to throw her to the side and to the far door where the medic was. The third Gear rushed Juri, and smacked the butt of his gun against her face, interrupting her grinning attempt to keep up her own offense. He kicked her to the ground, where the medic blasted her with a spray of bullets. Juri hissed as she took a few painful shots before she rolled out of the way.

By this point both tossed Gears had stood backup, but Juri pounced upon the nearest one and disarmed him with a furious few kicks followed by a chop towards his gun. Wrenching his arm out of his socket she turned him to face the others and used him as a human shield, two bullets smacking into his chest piece before the medic raised his gun with a swear. Juri launched this Gear towards the other one, downing him for the count and knocking the one that hit her earlier over.

The female gear and the medic opened fire, but Drive Parry made Juri prove impossible to hit, though it did lock her in place on the defensive. ”This is actually pretty fun!” Juri crowed.

By this point the bay doors had opened. Juri could see Zenkichi doing battle against the Locust bandits. The medic tossed a stim grenade to the two downed troops, and the standing Gear made a dash to the bay doors control panel. Juri interrupted her run with a slashing projectile that the Gear jumped over, but before she could find her footing Juri slammed into her with a running spin kick. Juri once again used her has a human projectile, wrapping her foot around her head, dragging her around, and launching her at the others with a kick. This time they managed to dodge, but the medic’s magazine had ran dry so he couldn’t return fire, instead dropping his spent mag to the floor and reaching for a fresh one.

The marauders outside had noticed the opened bay doors and were now trying to force their way past the battling LAVs to get inside. Juri glanced over her shoulder at the loot, expecting to see an escape portal or something better.

What she found was a portal opening underneath the loot, and for it to all tumble down into it. They had already crashed out of the sky after all, anything fragile was already done for. Then another opened, human height and ready for her to escape through and onto the patch of land beyond. Unfortunately, while the portal was static, the vehicle she was on was not, given its attempt to escape its attackers, and so from her perspective the portal began to run away from her and towards the incoming foes.

It also moved towards their fire, a bolt of which smashed into and annihilated the remaining scout drone, while the Gears behind her all scrambled to take cover from it.

”Better hurry” Edward casually called from the other side.

And hurry she did. Juri Drive Rushed forward, headlong sprinting into the trailing portal. ”See ya chumps!” She cried out before vanishing into it, reappearing with Edward. She dove through and landed on her back.

Juri clutched her stomach and guffawed, kicking her legs with impish delight. ”Ahahahahaha!” She laughed. ”Not bad, not bad!” She rose to her feet belly first, her head and arms dragging behind her as she settled bizarrely into a standing position.

”You’re not such a stiff after all, Edward!” She said. ”I like you better like this! With those portals and my skills there’s nothin’ we can’t steal.”

Juri excitedly made her way over to the boxes. ”We can keep the Ficsit boxes closed if we want for the reward, but I’m popping these two bad boys open for sure.” Juri pointed at the red crates. ”There’s one for each of us.”

”In just a few moments. I can only open portals where I can see with my own eyes, you see, and well…” the sound of approaching engines made it clear why that was an issue.

”So if you will follow me” he then added, and property solved the problem by opening a portal and stepping through, while the loot crates were simply dropped again. A few steps and a bit of weaving put them past the battlefield entirely, and in a nice secluded spot where they could inspect their spoils without fear of interruption.

”If you're amenable to a continued 50/50 split, then I can certainly see this being a fruitful partnership as well” He agreed as they walked, while being privately amused about the additional spoils of a handful of locusts spirits, a reaver spirit, and an undamage chopper that where currently sitting on his side of the scales, which he’d acquired and sent to the armory while she’d been busy doing the majority of this smash and grab.

A moment later, they were home free, Edward putting terrain in between them and any pursuers, and putting them closer to the high tower to boot, the scouts drones that had not run into the battle having already looped round and mapped out the terrain on the other side of it.

”Now then, let's see what spoils we have reaved, shall we?” the man who had already been no stranger to the idea of looting and pillaging for a higher cause before the demon’s curse said, gesturing to the two red weapon crates.

”More like 60/40. It was my ass on the line, after all. ”Juri said. ”But we can split the red ones.

”And what the hell were you talkin’ about back there? The armory?” She asked.

”I’d note that you’d have been unable to get away with the prizes without me, and would be stuck physically dragging through this wasteland. You performed your end perfectly, but this operation would have never been without my new power” Edward replied smoothly, before opening a portal and putting a hand through it, causing it to repeat on the other side of him, and then joking ”besides, I did risk life and limb, did I not?”

To actually strengthen his case, he then deigned to answered her question:

”With just a simple combination of gesture and will, you can do this” Edward explained as he flicking a hand and summoning a hovering menu suspended within a magic circle that listed the content’s of the ships armory, which he then showed her ”and retrieve objects from both the armory and the vehicle bay of the avenger”

He then stepped over to the other crates, and made a slightly more complex gesture, forming another hovering circle, explaining ”you can also do this, to send things back” before he then drew a line around the 4 regular cargo crates till it formed a ring. This ring flashed, and then formed a magic circle on the ground beneath the crates, a circle around which another ring started to form, which turned out to functionally be a loading bar, as once the ring was complete, there was a pulse of magic and the crates were gone. Or rather, as he showed her on the armory screen, now within the armory.

”It’s how I stored your bike” he then added, flicking the screen to scroll it to where her personal transport was listed, alongside one of the choppers sat next to it.

”Huh.” Juri mimicked the gestures to confirm they worked. To test, she picked her bike out from either.

”Not bad. I like that a lot. Make sure not to croak like that Princess did.” She said, impressed.

Then, flatly: ”60/40. Let’s just say I get one more crate than you. I couldn’t have done it without you, you couldn’t have done it with me. Difference being if something goes wrong, I’m the one who’s in danger while you’re safe on the backline running support. It’s hazard pay. If you wanna run any more ops like this with me, or anyone like me, I’d recommend getting used to that concept. Fixers and operators.” Juri said. Maybe it was the Sombra in her finally coming to surface, but she sounded reasonable and emotionally unaffected. ”Think about it. You know it makes sense. You can run a ton of heists like this without breaking a sweat. Meanwhile, I’ve still got some yummy little aches from where those goons blasted me around.” She set a hand on her hip.

”Either way, I saw that Chopper. That counts.” Juri said with a nod. ”We can do 50/50 this time if you insist, but don’t expect me to put my ass on the line for you again. It’ll be a one and done arrangement. But give me that extra 10 percent and I’ll accept the greater risk for greater reward.” Juri said.

”Then we’d best aim even higher next time. Here” Edward said as he summoned his feather staff striker and had it heal her of her ”We can hardly have you anything less than 100% for your next mission” implicitly agreeing to the deal, before saying ”Now how about we find out what we’ve acquired” and turning their attention back to the still unopened red chests.

Juri grinned, happy she and Edward could come to an agreement. ”Hell yeah.”

”Oh hey, it's those banana tree lizards from the land of adventure” Jr called over to the whale riders as they sailed through the sands, pointing skywards to a small herd of Tropius soaring above them, before asking ”wonder what they’re doing out here?”

”My Pokedex says it’s called a… Tropius.” Roxas said, looking at the screen of his Rotom Phone.

“Could be migrating.” Geralt guessed, though he could do more than that, having little knowledge of Pokemon habits and biology.

Having been staring up at the flying plant dinos as well, Rika didn’t notice when they went over the rim of a perfectly circular pit with steep slopes of sand till it was too late. Initially, however, everything was fine, just an unexpected little dip, but then when the whale started to climb back up, it found the loose grains offered no grip to its supernatural sand swimming, causing it to start sliding backwards deeper into the pit and towards the center, where a faint glow could be seen.

”Huh? What’s going on?” Rika asked, as they slid down what Jr, who had halted at the edge of the pit, identified loudly as a ”Sand trap!”

“Dammit!” Geralt cursed, holding tightly to the whale even as he tried to see what it was that had laid the trap. It was well-hidden, though, so he gave that up in favor of keeping a grip on their summoned mount.

The whale sunk and sunk, and then when it got close, the glow in the center suddenly burst up as the Balahara that had dug the pit burst from the sand, lunging for the whale, prompting a shriek of alarm from Rika as she panic tapped her featherfall rune, launching her straight up into the air. The Balahara just barely missed her, but it had not been aiming for her, and instead plunged down onto the back of the whale, smashing its spine in the process and then crushing it beneath its weight.

”Again!” was Rika’s complaint as she double jumped, and then used her grapple to latch onto a nearby tree, and reel herself to it and, thus, to safety.

Knocked off the whale by the Balahara's impact, Geralt scrambled up the edge of the sand pit they'd tumbled into, only looking back to make sure the others had escaped as he escaped the trap.

As for Roxas, when they started to fall he generated a platform of virtual cubes that he could land on to avoid falling toward the waiting Balahara. ”What even is that thing?” He asked.

Below, the beast started to rip chunks out of the crippled whale while it was still alive. It seemed content to simply do so, till Jr launched a hail of iron knives and his Brionne a bubble beam at it in retaliation for the attack on his sister.

Unfortunately, the hastily forged knives simply shattered against its scales, and the beam of water failed to leave any lasting harm. Double unfortunately, the beast took issue with this, raising its head opening its maw, revealing its glowing interior, and promptly spitting a massive glob of water (large enough to engulf the Ace Cadet) at the prince and his mon, prompting both to duck into the car, and then to be blasted back as the water splashed into them, drenching them with a stamina regen reducing waterblight debuff.

The Balahara then turned this attack on Roxas and Geralt in turn, aiming, it seemed, to shoo off these morsels from its prize.

The glob of water was simple enough to dodge, though Geralt had trouble regaining solid footing in the sand when he landed hard. Assistant Manager would be too slow to fight here, so he transformed again into Ardor Blossom, hurling a fireball in retaliation at the monster.

”Reflect!” Roxas cried out, instinctively managing to recall and cast a protective Reflectga spell on himself. It conjured an omnidirectional shield around him that was only up for a second. But in that second the water glob collided with it and as a result the intended damage was reflected back at the Balahara instead.

While the first projectile got the Balahara’s attention as it scorched the tough armor notably but not significantly, the second reflected one very much caught the monster by surprise. Receiving a mouthful of its own spit was not something it could have ever expected, and though it was more confusing than it was damaging, the beast having to swallow gave the seekers a moment to act against it.

Rika did so by deploying her many drones. Two scout planes launched from her gauntlet’s hangers, the red baron drones from her back, all of them forming an arch of machines hovering over her head and arms. Col. Droneman joined them, floating up to the top of the formation, and deploying his solar panels, drinking in the sun, and activating his boon.

All at once all the drones and planes had a small gimbal turret mounted minigun spawn under their nose, except for one of the red baron drones which had an entire robot arm holding a handgun sprout from one side. With these, the ship girl immediately opened fire, resulting in an onslaught of 81 rounds being fired every single second at the Balahara.

Unfortunately, just like her brother’s knives, these small projectiles shattered or were deflected by the beast’s tough armor that seemed to have no real weak spots. The volley of mini-missiles fired from every drone in response to every 1/10 bullet impacts certainly had more of an impact however, though the damage to the armor was rather spread out.

Geralt took advantage of the Balahara's confusion to lob a few more fireballs at it, but he noticed that they didn't seem to be having much of an effect in its tough hide. “Hide’s too tough for weaker attacks! We need to hit it with something big!” He yelled to the others.

Roxas wasn’t faring much better with his Firaga spells. They didn’t appear to be doing much more damage than Geralt’s fireballs were. He switched it up and tried a Blizzaga instead that appeared to garner the same result. Then he switched up again and fired a couple of charged shots from his RockGun for the self-same result.

All this incoming fire very much convinced the Balahara that the smallfry were very much a threat, prompting it to lunge forwards into the sand, corkscrewing its body as it did so to drill into the sand of its own pit. Then the ground beneath Geralt began to suddenly stink down into a minute sand trap before the beast burst up from below. It rose up half its length, and then arched its form down towards Roxas’ floating platform, before burying back into the sand at a shallower arc, the land bulging as it passed beneath the Seekers and emerged atop a dune behind them.

There it lunged at Jr, who’d only just emptied his clown car, forcing the prince to deploy his clown car’s wheels and race back towards the rest of the seekers to avoid the attack, dashing between them as the Balahara bore down on them.

Geralt had too little time to react, and was tossed into the air by the Balahara's emergence, landing roughly in the sand with a grunt. He forced himself to his feet slowly, turning to find the Balahara atop the dune, preparing for them to attack. He transformed back to his normal Identity and quickly cast Quen on himself to protect from further attack.

Roxas ditched his platform just before the Balahara crashed into it. And while the cubes obviously did their touch damage, that too didn’t appear to phase the creature much. Roxas landed on the sand just outside of the pit and hurled his Keyblades down toward where the Balahara was. He was starting to wish he had his Fortune summon, thinking maybe her railgun shot would actually hurt this thing. But unfortunately she was still in storage and Roxas still only had Kayano and Poltergeist to work with. So he summoned Kayano and had her blast the beast from below with a geyser of dark water.

The water blast threw off the Balahara’s charge, causing it to stumble off course, and then to roll the side to get the spectral water off of it. The actual impact of the water seemed to have had little impact, but the darkness within it had caused some of the already damaged scales to blacken as it seeped into small gaps.

The striker also shuffled the seekers around, mainly by putting Roxas up in the tree Rika had grappled too, and shoving both royal children into the frontlines. It was only thanks to Balahara taking a sand bath that this didn’t have dire consequences, but a moment later it reared up, jaw opening up, preparing to deliver a face slam down on the pair.

Before it could however, Jr recovered from the confusion of his relocation just enough to panic summon Blodia, or rather its massive fist, which slammed into the side of the Balahara’s head, knocking the blow it had been attempting to deliver off course, and briefly leaving it stunned, face first in the sand. While Dazzle hit it with a blast of his disarming voice Rika took this opportunity to dash in (the accompanying tidal burst also doing little to the monster) and to then deliver one, two, and then a third (Kayano empowered) punch into the spot the giant robot’s fist had impacted with. As she struck gauntlet’s Denting Blows stacking up and then on the third blow triggered it, cracking some of the armor on the beast’s face on the final hit she delivered before backing off.

Roxas was momentarily taken aback by his sudden relocation, having forgotten about this aspect of Kayano. And so he saw his places had been switched with Rika, and that she and her brother had been forced into close range against the Balahara. ”Uh oh, forgot about that, uh…” His mind raced on what to do about this and an idea popped in his head, ”Wind!” He chanted, successfully recalling how to cast the Aeroga spell. A shielding whirlwind swirled around Jr’s body which would halve all incoming damage against him for the next 18 seconds. And then he cast the spell again, targeting Rika. She would benefit from the same shield of wind as well as the shield itself dealing minor wind-elemental touch damage to the Balahara while she was striking it.

Geralt was standing on the ridge, steel sword in hand as he recited the chant for one of his spells: “Oh divine spear, run mine enemy through! Holy Lance!” As he finished the chant, the telltale five spears of light appeared around the Balahara, the sixth hanging overhead like a sword of Damocles. Each launched itself into the monster, taking advantage of its stunning to inflict its massive damage.

Five of the spears punched into the beast’s dark water weakened armor, getting about half way in and then leaving bleeding holes after they dissipated. The sixth struck right into the patch of armor Rika had softened up, skewering all the way through one of the beast’s two lower jaws. It roared in pain as it staggered to its feet, but the skewered mouth part didn’t manage to close, leaving a third of the fleshy interior of its maw permanently weak and exposed.

”Yeah! We got it on the ropes now!” Jr cheered, only to make a panicked shout as it whipped around, slapping both him and his sister with its tail, and sending both tumbling backwards into the sand. Fortunately Roxas’ wind barriers softened this blow considerably, causing it to only pop Rika’s energy shield, and smash jr’s clown car’s ablative armor. It still left them concussed however, but rather than follow up on this, the beast kept facing away from them and began to hustle away on foot, now unable to burrow through sand thanks to its broken jaw, leaving six trails of blood as it did so.

“Go after it, or let it be?” Geralt asked, starting to slide down the sand to the others. “Your trip, your call.” He added, looking at Junior and Rika.

The answer which Rika at least had already decided on before being asked came in the form of the sand beside the Balahara before her white whale burst from it, having escaped the sandpit now that the beast that had dug it was no longer maintaining it. It was also in a terrible state, and yet by the will of its creator it still fell upon the monster that had tried to eat it with all the might it had left. A volley of three bombs was spat out of its mouth, colliding with the beast and tossing it to the side, before cannons roared, punching shells into its underbelly.

This was not quite enough to fell the beast, and so the whale fell upon it, biting at it while being clawed at and bit in inturn, two great monsters wrestling in the sand as the lifeblood rapidly drained out.

Well, until Jr picked himself up and cast ”Benediction!” upon the wounded whale, fully healing it and giving it the edge. After that it was all over, and with a last crushing bite the Balahara’s armor finally buckled and broke, allowing the whale to crush the life out of it, causing it to burst into ash in its maw.

”Finally” Rika sighed, as she called the whale back to them, delivering the spirit to them in the process, balanced atop the whale’s snout.

”Glad that’s over.” Roxas murmured, dispelling his Keyblades and using Flow Motion to parkour his way back onto the whale’s back. ”I feel a little bad taking down something that was just trying to eat, but… Self-defense, I guess.” He concluded with a shrug.

”Shouldn’t have messed with us!” Jr replied, the prince having hopped out to repair his clown car. Thanks to the new ablative armor tech, all this involved was him forging new armor plates out of his magic iron, before slapping them onto the outside of his vehicle, and then with a swipe of his paintbrush applying the machine’s ‘makeup’ at which point he was ready to go.

Rika merely nodded to the sentiment as she stepped up and retrieved the spoil of her vengeful whale attack, before asking ”Anyone? Or store it to make stuff with?”

“Store it. Ace might know the best way to use that thing. His folk make weapons and armor out of monsters I'd never dream of fighting.” Geralt advised once he climbed back atop the whale. “Any healing needed?” He followed up.

”Not me.” Roxas confirmed. ”I think the whale was the one who took most of the punishment here.”

”I’m good” Jr replied from his car (which had taken most of the beating and mostly rattled him and Dazzle around inside of it while it was knocked about) to which Rika added a ”Same” as she got them underway again, sailing deeper into the desert, and now keeping a closer eye on where they were avoiding to avoid any more sand traps.

Even if the well-traveled, sun-baked road was a little bumpy, with plenty of cracks and its fair share of potholes, the experience of simply watching the environment roll by from the comfort of a vinyl barstool was nothing to scoff at. The magnificent painted desert, rolling plains, and enormous buttes, interspersed with scrubland-clad serpentine rivers that shone like diamonds in the afternoon sun, possessed a beautiful grandeur, especially for a city-bound alley cat who’d missed her chance to see the Sandswept Sky in all its glory. At the same time, the sheer scale of the Paved Wilderness meant that the surroundings changed slowly, with only the occasional shack or race track to break up the peaceful monotony.

That meant that staring off into the distance for minutes at a time, especially with the trailer’s toastiness and the engine’s growly purr, was a rather soporific experience, and Nadia soon found herself struggling to stay awake. “Hooh…” she sighed, leaning more and more on the bartop as her eyelids drooped. “Guess I’m more tired than I thought…” All this dry air was making her thirsty, too, and the more her eyes rested on all the bottles of booze stocked by the semitruck’s onboard bar, the more she licked her lips. The felonious feline managed to reign in her base impulses, though; given how risky it must be to pick up a hitchhiker, how could she possibly think to repay the driver’s kindness by stealing from her? Her mind began to conjure up images of Limsa Lominscuttle Town, especially Heaven’s Edge, with a whole ocean’s worth of cool, refreshing water to soak in followed by a round of free drinks from Karin Kanzuki afterward, all shared with Ace of course. As she imagined paradise, her eyelids’ gradual descent turned into a headlong plummet, and Nadia passed out.

“Hey. Hey. He-eeey.”

The feral jolted awake suddenly, almost falling out of her stool before she remembered where she was. While its engine continued to putter idly, the Steeltusk had stopped, and before Nadia unfurled a network of red rocky canyons littered by rotund barrel cacti and uniquely crooked Joshua trees. All the heat around here was making the air swim, but no matter how surreal they looked, the wildlife the cat burglar saw were no mirages. She witnessed half-racks of ribs that crawled through the crevices like centipedes, mothlike puffs that left trails of cheesy dust as they flapped their crispy orange wings, and peppery scorpions with red-hot stingers. Nadia had to rub her eyes to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.



“Welcome to Scorched Gorge,” a familiar tired, reedy voice said. Nadia looked down to see the little truck driver staring up at her. Her eyes were impossibly world-weary for how old she looked, which was more than a little off-putting. Still, Nadia had reached her destination in one piece (or at least, with all her pieces together) so she could hardly raise any objections. The girl crossed her arms. “I had to poke you a good five or six times. You sure you’re okay, miss?”

Nadia wiped the drool from her lip with the back of her hand, then gave her most reassuring smile. “Yeah yeah, I’m good! Just dozed off or somethin’. Thanks ‘fur’ the ride!”

“Uh huh. Whatever you say, kiddo. Well, if you need anything, the name’s Piper. Gimme a call.”

Seemingly unconvinced, the driver stepped away, and Nadia hopped down from the truck to the dusty ground. Chucho followed, almost invisible in the bright sunlight. The catgirl took a few steps away, looking around, then reached up to her ear. She’d honestly forgotten about the linkpearls for a while, but hearing from Therion earlier reminded her, so now seemed like a good time to repay the favor. “Hey guys! I’m at the place, and I gotta say, it’s Scorched Gorge-ous. Might, uh, need a ride back though. So when you’re done checkin’ out that other spot, don’t forget to pick me up, or I’ll take it purr-sonally!”

She’d already spotted Roland and Therion’s destination on the other side of all the canyons. Tall, blocky, and gray-brown in tone, the Refinery stuck out like a sore thumb amidst all the pristine natural beauty. Her sharp eyes could make out a strange, dark-red sigil plastered on the side of one of the buildings. She couldn’t see any people or vehicles from this distance, but the fumes billowing from its four smokestacks suggested some kind of activity.

“If you’re meeting friends near here, I reckon you all oughta stay away from that factory,” the truck driver advised.

Nadia swiveled her head back around to see the girl seated at her own bar, a glass full of ice and murky brown liquid in her hand. Both were momentarily affronted -Piper by Nadia’s 180-degree head turn and Nadia by Piper’s premature alcoholism- but after a moment both managed to get over one another’s eccentricities. The feral turned her body around sheepishly. “Uh, why?”

“I hear there’s some real odd folks ‘round there. Strange critters, too. The kind you hear, but can’t see, not ‘til they’re already breathin’ down the back of your neck.”

Despite the heat, a chill ran down Nadia’s spine. Which she thought was honestly weird, given all the horrific things she’d already seen and overcome. “I’ll let ‘em know, but we can look after ourselves. Besides, what if there’s treasure there?”

Piper blinked. “Treasure?”

Nadia nodded enthusiastically. Since the girl had done her a favor, she didn’t mind sharing even if it meant a little more competition. “Yeah! The whole region’s gone crazy over this big scavenger hunt some shipping company started after they lost their cargo. Turn in their loot, and you could win big! That’s why we’re out here.”

“Huh! Well, I’ll be.” Piper scratched her chin lazily. “Guess I’ll let the others know when they get here. Thanks, kid.”

Already regretting her choice somewhat due to the trucker’s patronizing tone and the prospect of even more competition, Nadia moseyed away with Chucho right behind her. Once she reached the nearest precipice, she began to survey Scorched Gorge with narrowed eyes, searching for anything that might have come from the crashed freighter. Fortunately, it didn’t take long to locate a sphere of compressed salvage almost as tall as she was, but unfortunately, it somehow seemed to be perfectly balanced on top of a sheer rocky spire. The feral did a double take, baffled. “Huh? How does that happen?” Chucho didn’t have any answers, though, so Nadia had no choice but to roll her eyes and head on over.

After jumping down into the canyon, she meandered through it at a leisurely pace, preoccupied by scattered pieces of what seemed like ancient ruins. She stopped a couple times to pick through skeletons or pieces of prehistoric pottery for anything valuable, and during one such perusal Chucho seemed to catch a scent on the wind that intrigued him. “Chuch? Where ya goin’, boy?” He floated out of sight, and when Nadia followed him, she found a bizarre plant with bright pink flowers and huge orange stamens that looked like bottles more than anything else. Curious, she pulled one off and sniffed it. It looked like a fruit, but it smelled…spicy?

Just then, a strange noise caused her ears to perk up. Nadia peered up at the nearby canyon wall to find two Ribblepedes staring at her. “Whoa!” Reacting instinctively, she jumped back and hurled the fruit at them. It struck the bigger one and burst into bright orange liquid, coating it, and the smaller one promptly dove at the other, causing both to plummet down to the canyon floor and roll away in a heap of scrabbling, bonelike limbs. No longer alarmed but instead mildly concerned, Nadia watched them tussle, absently licking at some of the fluid that had spattered on her knuckle. She immediately blinked in surprise–it was hot sauce! “Weird…but cool!” Nadia turned to continue on her way, a little faster and more situationally aware than before.

After another minute, she reached the spire. At only around thirty feet tall, Nadia figured she’d have no problem reaching it, but before she could get started she ran afoul of the wildlife again. This time she noticed the checker-shrouded creature well before it reached her, thanks in part to the noise it made. “Bunger, bunger, bunger!” it hollered, charging on curly-fry legs with curly-fry tusks extended.

Smirking, Nadia stood her ground, then leaped up as it charged and somersaulted onto its back. Surprisingly sturdy, the BBQ Bunger bore her weight but went into an immediate frenzy, running this way and that as it tried to buck its passenger off. “Yee-haw!” Nadia laughed as she held on, her tail and arms extended for balance. Only when the Bunger tried to ram into a rocky outcropping did she crouch down and sink her claws in to brace herself. The next moment the critter slammed into the stone and stunned itself, ripe for Nadia to finish the job. “Think fast, food!” She detached her tail, tossed it up like she saw Zenkichi do with Ragnell, then flipped up to catch it and slash down. Hardened like a blade, her tail neatly cut the Bunger into halves, its googly eyes becoming spirals as sweet, savory barbecue sauce eked from within.

Nadia hesitated for a moment, her arms on her hips, then shook her head. “Okay. I gotta know.” She ran over to the nearest river to wash her hands -better than nothing, right?- then carved out a portion of the BBQ Bunger to stuff in her mouth. Much to her delighted surprise, it was identical to an actual barbecue burger. Of course, she’d already eaten plenty of burger for lunch, so Nadia only helped herself to a little bit of the bugsnack’s body before it began to dissolve. But even that was enough to metamorphose the feral’s right arm into something altogether unnatural.

“...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!”

Even after the initial panic wore off, Nadia’s heart pounded as she queasily tried to come to terms with what had happened. Most of her right arm had been replaced by appropriately large, spring-shaped curly fries, approximating the original limb. Her fingerless glove had been replaced by checkered wrapper, and strips of bacon had replaced her fingers. She flexed them experimentally, aghast. “Okay…okay. You are what you eat, I guess?” As she wondered how feasible it would be to trick Juri into eating bugsnax, Chucho sniffed at her hand, prompting her to jerk away, horrified. “Knock it off! I’m not a hamburglar!” The bigger issue was the salvage, since she no longer had claws on her right hand to climb with, and her grip was woefully greasy. Ever inventive, however, Nadia found a solution: she could extend her new limb like a spring in order to grab onto better handholds. Doing roughly the same with her other hand via muscle fiber and pressurized blood, she managed to scale the spire, reach the salvage, and push against it with her shoulder until it rolled off and fell down into the canyon below.

“Alright!” Nadia gave Chucho a high five, then winced. Only when she finally began to consider her next step did she realize her much, much bigger problem: how in the world she’d be getting that loot wherever it needed to go. “Oh, hell…”

Things were decidedly less whimsical, though, over by the Refinery. Neither Roland nor Therion saw any signs of life as they drew closer, but the whole place was locked up tight, practically a citadel of concrete, stone, and metal with only a few heavy, reinforced doors and no exterior windows anywhere near the ground floor. All the doors featured mechanical deadbolts sealed by keycard access, invulnerable to conventional lockpicking. Outside of the ability to fly or scale shear walls, the only possible means of ingress seemed to lie at the end of tire tracks: a heavy garage-style segmented door that safeguarded some sort of loading bay, kept in place by the weight of the door itself. While the newcomers couldn’t see anyone, they could see old-fashioned security cameras, so even though their approach garnered no response, it felt like someone was watching.



When Zenkichi, Sectonia, and Blazermate arrived from the sky to assist the Mammoth and its occupants against the gang of Locust marauders, the battle began to swing in the Coalition’s favor, but not without a heaping helping of confusion. The Gears didn’t know who these newcomers were or what their intentions might be after all, and when more fighting broke out atop and even inside their vehicle, the skirmish became even more of a scramble than before. The situation in the Mammoth was helter-skelter, with rapidly changing and often conflicting orders dividing the troopers’ attention between the assailants outside, the unidentified infiltrator wrecking havoc, and keeping the giant machine running at all.

Things were even more chaotic among the units of the Locust assault force, scattered around their target and presented with multiple new bogeys. Wheeling around to try and deal with Sectonia or Zenkichi guaranteed that the COG war machines would gun them down, while not addressing the new threat practically guaranteed a crash into the bug queen’s summoned swords. The dangerous but clumsy choppers got picked off quickly, while the slow Bloodmounts made easy targets. Prowlers and Reavers were more flexible, but as the Locust rapidly dwindled it became clear that victory would be a pipe dream. The retreat order was given, and the last Prowler -which happened to be the newest into the fray- broke off to flee through a swampy ravine. Reavers zoomed away in different directions, and the battle concluded with a decisive victory for the Coalition.

Of course, reports quickly reached the Mammoth’s crew chief about the theft committed during the chaos. Eyewitness accounts described a maniacal woman who fought and defeated veteran Gears barehanded. They said that she shrugged off Gnasher slugs like one might swat flies, then warped away through some kind of magical wormhole, taking all the Ficsit cargo they’d recovered with her. With no sign of the fugitive, the chief could do little but order the Mammoth to be stopped to recover the damaged vehicles. One of the Centaurs had been totaled, but the LAV had enough horsepower to drag the wreck back inside so that salvage and repair could begin in earnest.

If Zenkichi and the others expected to receive medals of honor for their help, though, they would come away disappointed. The troops remained standoffish with them, unconvinced of their motives and suspicious of their involvement with the inexplicable theft. At the same time, though, the woman barking at them through the Mammoth’s loudspeaker tried to downplay the deed with a braggadocious tone, saying, “That stuff we lost? Psh! Small potatoes compared to the haul we took in this morning, and the haul we’re headed toward now! You pipsqueaks wanna see some real action? Follow along and you’ll get to see what happens when we turn this BFG on Sweet Tooth’s circus! Hoorah!” With that, the Mammoth got moving again, headed east with its sights set on a much, much bigger target: the Carnival of Carnage.

Of course, unless Edward’s scout drones were listening in, he and Juri were too occupied by their own payday to catch wind of the COGs’ plans. With just a little finagling, the red chests they finessed from the Mammoth’s hold popped open like trophy cases, proudly showing off the three firearms contained within each.



Once the skirmish with the Mammoth ended, the Seekers had to pack up and move on. With Edward’s drones performing reconnaissance, those still headed toward Highertower got enough of a lay of the land to plot out an effective route. Beyond the boggy badlands lay a biome of oil, tar, and silt, bruised black and blue by untold years of excavation and extraction to fuel the Paved Wilderness and lands beyond. The flatter areas had been turned into sprawling oilfields, while the more mountainous parts were an oil-rich ecosystem all their own, where there dwelt bizarre lifeforms touched by the strangeness of the Outback down south, like colorful Muk, quiet Lurkers, and predatory Rompopolo. It wasn’t an ideal route, but with half of the biome ablaze in an infernal Firespring that filled the sky with smoke, it was better than the alternative. Passing through there brought the Seekers toward Highertower from the south, and after ascending through a canyon roadway up from Oilwell Basin, they crested a hill that gave them a good look at what they’d be dealing with.



The tower certainly lived up to the legend. That sheet metal spire was a legitimate skyscraper, dwarfing everything in the region in height if not girth. Wind’s Gasp? No comparison. The Rocket League Arena? Nowhere near. Noctis, a town built up into a mountain? Close, but no cigar. It was comical in its repetitious simplicity, especially since the only means of ascent seemed to be ramps around the outside, but it was apparently sturdy enough to withstand a collision with a Ficsit freighter. This zone, perched on the precipice of Empty Space, had always been a hotspot for conflict, but with Ficsit’s scavenger hunt ongoing, it looked a lot more like an actual warzone.

There were dozens of psychos camped out everywhere, identifiable by their minimalist orange attire, white masks, and ramshackle weaponry. They wielded all kinds of guns, as well as machetes and saws fused together from scrap. Opposing those gangs were all kinds of soldiers and mercenaries, entrenched in a ceaseless war of attrition. Everyone was fighting over a dozen entrenched stockpiles, capturing and then attempting to extract Ficsit loot via payload while keeping the other factions at bay. The various factions weren't making much progress, since any time one got close to extracting a payload, the others tended to gang up on it. Big team battles were going down farther away from Highertower itself, with cars, trucks, and tanks all going at it in vicious bursts, then limping away to lick their wounds and prepare for the next round. Over everything blazed the purple light of a nearly-full Flame Clock, attached imperiously to Highertower itself. In this place, both danger and opportunity abounded, promising a rich payday to those who picked their fights wisely.

@Lugubrious @Simple Unicycle @DracoLunaris

Word Count: 583
Level: Lv: 6 EXP: (3/60)
Location: Dead Zone Hinterlands - Curien Mansion Courtyard

Harry finished off his last attack with a dramatic pose He stopped posing when he noticed the split in his pants was fixed. “How did that happen?” Muttering to himself as Inland Empire spoke up. Assuming that Harry was wearing some sort of magical pants. He quickly turned towards the remaining zombies. Harry got into another fighting pose before getting back into action. However, he couldn’t do much since Band and his new canine companion seemed to be finishing off the other scrambling dead. “Good job, Band and Dog.” He said, complimenting both their fighting abilities. Harry’s backside was shone in a bright green light. His flat behind being quite noticeable. The detective turned around, wondering where it was coming from. Moving beside Band so he wouldn’t get run over by the large vehicle. He wondered who could have created this vehicle.

“Holy shit that’s awesome.” Harry exclaimed as he watched it atomize the zombies. The thought of shooting laser beams would be such an incredible superpower. He approached the stopped train and ran his hand on the chassi. “What kinda vehicle is this? How did you make it shoot that nifty laser?” Harry asked Stein and wondered if this vehicle was legal.

"Mr. Tank is a Metal Attacker," Tesset replied for Stein. "Unit designation NORA MA-03."

Stein patted her on the head. "Its real name is Atom, and it ain't a train. More like an all-terrain tank. I overcharged its cannon with a Sophinium smack from my thingamajig." Evidently technical explanations were the support droid's specialty.

“This doesn’t seem legal. You should press them to see if they have a license for such a weapon.” Authority said, to which Harry asked if Stein had a license to use this train. After Stein’s answer, Harry fixed his clothes from the fight.

"Uh huh." The big man outshined Harry's yellowish glint with a toothy flash of his pearly whites. "Makes me wonder, though: what d'you think you'd be doin' if I didn't? This mountainside part of your, uh, jurisdiction?"

"Your god dam right roughneck." Authority said but Harry just shook his head.

"No but I try to maintain the law as best I can. It comes with being a police officer." Harry said with a soft smile.

“Oh yeah, I’m all gravy.” Harry said to the girl, smiling, exposing his yellowing teeth to her. “So you're also looking for Heismay too? Were you hired to find those missing kids?” Adding while eyeing Stein and Tesset. “Yeah, I can tell it’s gonna be a dead space.” Harry added to the conversation. As they continued their conversation, Harry picked up the hat he had given to Dog Mullen. Picking it up and sadly looking at it. Putting it in his bag when he was able to find it. Perhaps Dog had dropped it while she was fighting the zombies. So maybe once it was dry, he could give it back to her.

He was worried that there would be worse things than the living dead inside of the mansion. Following the others, he kept his eyes out in case any creep would try to ambush them. “This is Detective Harry Dubois with the RCM; I want to ask you some questions. You're not in trouble. I just want to ask you some questions Mr. Heismay. ” He yelled out, his voice echoing through the mansion's foyer.

It had not, perhaps, been in a goddess’s infinite wisdom to use up her last inkwell on that little hat trick, given that her assumption, that when the zombies where done the fight would also be done, had been very wrong. Fighting was noisy, and noisiness attracted attention, in this case that of a horrible multi-armed affront to nature.

It wasn’t it that she turned to face however, having to hope that Not Kim would be up to the task, but instead the source of the rumbling approaching from behind that her keen senses picked up before any of the humans. She hopped round, stance low, ears alert, fangs bared, a growl on her lips but she was not ready for the machine that came rolling through the gate.

She’d seen the wrecks of the mortal’s motor vehicles in the deadzone, but never in this life had Amaterasu set eyes on one in motion, let alone something that looked quite like this. She was briefly caught like a deer in headlights, before crouching and preparing to lunge and grab Icebreaker to haul him to safety when it started charging some sort of power. Fortuitously, the resulting blast of power took out the horrid creature instead of striking towards Not Kim, and then it slowed down to a standstill and a hatch popped open on its side.

As it turned out, this machine belonged to someone the big man knew, namely another big man who was apparently called Stein. The following conversation between the two large lads promptly filled her in on what they all were even doing here, namely looking for lost kids. It turned out putting her trust in fate had indeed paid off, as she was now exactly where she was needed to be.

She wasn’t the only one who was getting filled in on what fate had brought to this place for, as the knight had also walked that same path of destiny and stumbled right into a worthy quest indeed. Kit was his name, and that he immediately offered to help certainly got her divine seal of approval, which she communicated mainly via briefly meeting his eyes briefly before turning to go, rather than just ignoring him entirely as she would have otherwise had he not been worth her time.

Before she entered the building, however, she took a moment to feel smug about her plan of getting the hat working out as Icebreaker retrieved and stored it for her. Fate really was smiling on her, given that little mistake hadn’t had any consequences, and that her little stunt would surely have no future karmic consequences when the hat dried out.

None at all

Fully secure in her certainty, and blind to her hubris, the divinely wise wolf padded into the hole blown by Stein’s big machine, only to glance over at Icebreaker, or, rather, Harry, in a moment of surprise as she suddenly learned his actual name as he made a rather professional callout to the home at large to try and get the attention of one Mr. Heismay.

That latter certainly sounded like the name of a living person, and Harry treated him as such… Well, given the nature of the man, it didn’t exactly confirm that suspicion but it was certainly a weight of the scales in its favor. Which raised the question of why he was here, and why he was suspected of kidnapping children to this place of all places.

She very much did not like the implications of those bits of information, that was for certain. Some man stealing away kids and bringing them to a place probably crawling with the undeath? The mere thought of what reasoning he might have for doing so made her fur stand on end for a moment, before she steeled herself and set her mind to the task at hand with more seriousness than she had had when it had just been wandering alongside the stinky man and his metallic companion and seeing what might come of it.

With that in mind, while the humans called out to or scanned the halls, the wolf stalked to the side and to the door they hadn’t used to get in. There she put her nose to the floor in-order to begin sniffing for signs of the scent of the living that might have come in through the proper entrance to this place, rather than the hole they’d just blown, while her ears stayed perked up and alert for the sound of whatever trouble their announcing of their presence would bring.

If she found a trail, she’d follow it, and just assume the humans would follow after her.

Given the sheer scale of this overwhelming eerie mansion, and the fact that this place had already coughed up one multi-armed abomination, Big Band was pleased as punch when the surprise knight ventured his name and offered to lend his help. No longer a stranger, and having already proven his skill, Kit received an appreciative nod of acceptance. “Glad to have ya. The name’s Big Band, and this…” He laid down a giant brass arm on Harry’s shoulder as gently as he could. “Is the Icebreaker.” He pronounced the nickname with a certain amount of dramatic gravitas, just shy of being satirical. Having a codename of his own, he couldn’t get too facetious without throwing a brick in a glass house.

Half-turning around, Band quickly took stock of the team. With Kit on board alongside the Icebreaker, the wolf, Stein, and himself, the team was up to just shy of a half-dozen members, which was about as good a posse as Band could hope for. “With all five of us on the job, those kids’ll be back to their mommas and poppas by sundown. Long as we ain’t barkin’ up the wrong tree, that is.” Stein’s Metal Attacker had made one hell of a racket, as well. Without backup to secure a perimeter around the mansion, Band could only hope that they hadn’t already scared Heismay off.

The squad proceeded into the foyer. Thanks to the Atom, the towering bookshelves had sustained some damage, with wooden shrapnel and shredded pages scattered all over. Between the rows, Band identified four doorways leading further into the mansion’s ground floor, one on each side wall and two on the back wall, all symmetrical. All were closed, and while he couldn’t tell if they were locked, he knew they’d be even easier to unlock than the front gate if they were. Band had just taken his first step onto the central stairs to check the upper level, prompting a loud creak of protest when the wood shouldered his weight, when Harry belted out an announcement. After wincing, Band’s face gave way to bemusement at the other detective’s real name. Obviously he hadn’t given his away either, but as far as he was concerned Big Band was his true identity, and the only name anyone needed to know. Was Harry’s earlier introduction just grandstanding…?

Regardless of what Harry said, though, only a resounding silence followed his declaration. Band couldn’t say he was surprised; what kind of kidnapper would show his face to talk things over. “Psh,” he muttered after a moment. “So much for the Icebreaker, eh?” That said, he did have to admit that Harry had well and truly broken the ice. The problem with that was that breaking the ice was an ultimatum, and the next step after that was either sink, or swim. “Well, if he didn’t hear us comin’ before, he definitely heard us now.”

Unlike the humans, who had yet to see or hear any more clues or threats, Amaterasu was close to experiencing sensory overload. Even just this foyer was a smorgasbord of smells, criss-crossing one another in confusing scent trails leading mostly between the various doors or up and down the stairs. She could detect the odors of a couple animals, such as frog, bat, and insect -that last one much heavier than she’d expect for such a small creature- as well as the rotten stink of zombies, but there were plenty of scents like nothing she’d ever smelled before, most of them bad. Through all the olfactory noise she could detect at least one human other than the ones she’d entered with, though. It was unfamiliar, male, and musty with age. It came from upstairs, sporadically enough to make her wonder if its source had fallen down those steps, then slowly, methodically led through the door on the right.

While Amaterasu nosed around, Band checked in with Stein, who’d stopped close to the entrance of the foyer with arms crossed. “You’re comin’ with, right?”

The conductor shook his head. “Don’t wanna leave Tesset alone, even if she’s got Atom and Mr. Mug.” He glanced back to see his girl and her little bear companion wave, prompting him to wave back at them. “Don’t want Heismay to slip around you and escape out the front, either. I’ll cover the entrance and make sure nothin’ gets in or out. Just yell if you need me.”

As the two spoke, Amaterasu’s keen ears picked up a different sound: the patter of very light feet, accompanied by quickened breathing, coming from the left-hand upstairs door. It was soft enough that none of the others could hear it, but it was quickly getting louder. The next moment it crossed the threshold, but the door itself didn’t open, even after the sound of footsteps continued inside the foyer. A series of quick, barely-audible creaks issued from the stairs, but neither the wolf nor the men could see anyone, and nobody noticed anything amiss until Harry -still waiting for a response from Heismay- suddenly lifted into the air.

Still turned back, Band didn’t realize what was happening until Harry made a sound, at which point the detective was already being hauled away. Lifted and grasped by unseen arms, he flew backward up the stairs, powerless to resist. “What!? Hey!” Band charged up the stairs, his legs taking the steps two at a time, but his mechanical frame was much too slow. Before he even reached the halfway point, Harry had slammed through the left upstairs door and disappeared into the mansion. “Hold on!” he yelled as the man’s voice faded from sight, hoping that Kit and Amaterasu could give better chase. “We’re comin’ after you!”

For Harry, of course, the experience was more than a little terrifying. The thing carrying him moved like the wind, fast as an Olympian sprinter, and while his captor could hold him, it seemed completely incorporeal otherwise. The detective had been kidnapped by a ghost. He could do little more than pull his arms and legs in to avoid painful collisions with walls, furniture, and doorframes as they rushed by. The whole time he could hear the thing in his ears, chuckling oafishly like a child who’d just stolen some sweets. “Huhuh! Huhuh! Huhuh! Huhuh!”

It would be difficult, but still possible, to keep track of the rooms as he got carried through them. He passed through a living room with a roaring fireplace, a dining room, a kitchen, a large bedroom with floating beds, and various halls before being rushed down a set of stairs. One narrow corridor later, his captor took a right and charged down another set of stairs into the mansion’s basement. At that point, though, the wild ride came to an end. The ghost slowed down and released Harry, at which point it filled the room with heavy, labored panting, so intense that it might as well be asthmatic. After a few seconds the gasping grew fainter, as if the ghost were staggering away to rest, and Harry was left to his own devices.

He’d been deposited in some sort of study, just one room with an adjoining bathroom, so the only way out was the way he came from. There was nothing getting in his way, but one look around was enough to realize that this place was loaded with valuables. The shelves and tables in here featured several jade plates and cups, a golden pocketwatch, an expertly made ocarina, and what looked like a diamond the size of his fist. It also featured a black-and-gold vase almost as tall as he was, a huge painting of a skull, and a ticking grandfather clock that all must be worth a fortune, if they could only be extracted from here in one piece.

Elsewhere in the mansion, the others were still giving chase. With no idea where in this posh labyrinth Harry had been taken, Band and Kit had no choice but to follow Amaterasu and trust in her nose as she pursued the faint but unforgettable pong of Harry that lingered in the very air. Bringing up the rear, Band thundered through a living room, pausing only to avoid a blinking landmine, then turned left and pushed through a narrow hallway. It opened up a moment later, making Band think he could gain some speed with a musical slide, but the next second he ground to a halt instead, stopping just short of a yawning, pitch-black pit that divided the rectangular room in two. A single plank of wood stretched across the chasm, easy for Amaterasu to patter across and carefully traversable for Kit, but Band didn’t think for one second that the plank would bear his weight. “Damn.” The ceiling in here was too low for him to rocket across, and one double jump was nowhere near enough to clear the gap. The hell is this house? He shook his head, nose wrinkled, and called after the others. “Y’all go ahead. I’ll find another way!”

With a frustrated grunt he turned back the way he came, stopping at the four-way intersection bordering the living room. That gave him two options, but one looked like some kind of sauna, so he opted for the cobweb-covered hallway instead. It led him through a two-story library with a staircase leading up to the mansion’s third floor, and right after that Band stopped on the precipice of a large square room with another huge pit, this one in the center. He edged his way around it to the door on the left, took a few steps into a bedroom, and realized it was a dead end. “Damn it!” He turned to retrace his steps and try the next door in the room with the pit, then froze at the sight of a pale mannequin figure half-visible in the shadowy doorway, motionless except for the twanging bob of its coil.

Meanwhile, Amaterasu and Kit reached a kitchen with golden goblets on the counter that gleamed in the glow of the dangling overhead lights. Unfortunately, this kitchen was occupied. Hidden at first behind the counter, a freaky frog hopped into view, spotted the newcomers, then pulled out bloody cleavers with a smile. While the wolf could sprint out of danger, it would be much harder for Kit to avoid the chef’s flailing leap, and harder still to not get turned around by the encounter.

Sectonia wasn't sure what she would see when she got here. She was really annoyed that there wasn't much that was gotten with the big truck, although hearing over their megaphone that they were going to some place that involved a "Sweet Tooth" got her interested. After they were done at highertower, perhaps they could sweep in and clear out what remained... or extort them. After all, they didn't pay for their assistance, so now they had to pay in a different way.

Highertower itself was a chaotic mess. A mess that the seekers could really capitalize on as it was a large battle royale where each side was trying, and failing, to push a cart up a hill in order to extract the loot from their side. Well, that made things simple as they just had to swoop in and take these carts away. And the psychos were pretty ugly themselves, so Sectonia wasn't all that worried about taking them out. Especially with some of the words she caught some psychos yelling at the top of their lungs before they... used themselves as explosives? Well that wouldn't do. At least Sectonia would be really hard to get with that.

Blazermate looked at this and got a wee bit of nostalgia out of nowhere, especially since this wasn't really a medabot thing. Still, she choose the right place to go as there was a ton of combat going around and everyone would need healing. Sectonia would be super noticeable and probably focused, and Zenkichi and Juri were ground bound. Speaking of, wanting to have Blazermate to support him as he went in to go get some of the loot, the former suggested Blazermate comes with him to have a bit of fun.

Sectonia shooed the Medabot away, not unkindly, but more to let her go with the others as she declared she'd be sitting back and letting her antlers and spells cause mass havoc from afar as to not be a giant focus in the middle of such a huge firefight. The queen had already been at the receiving end of a heavy caliber machine gun, so she didn't want to be involved in a firefight with tons of them and her being a massive massive target. She knew her limits. And with her declaration, she began to use portals to conjure Antlers of all colors around the battlefield to take out the psychos or distract them with the occasional rain of swords. Due to the range she was at, all she could do was use the Radiance's abilities as they didn't get duplicated and made chaotic by one of her items.

Blazermate meanwhile went with Zenkichi, keeping her healing beam on him and following his lead as he got started.

Upon arriving at the refinery, it was soon found that it was mostly sealed up with only one way in, a loading bay door that was still closed, but a lot weaker than the rest of the other entrances to the building. Parking the truck near the loading door, Roland got out and gave it a quick look over. "Yep... Looks like we'll need to break in. No lockpicking this door." Roland said, looking up at the camera that seemed to be watching them. Although with his mask on, he looked much like any monster that might be in this place. Taking out his katana, he cut at the locks of the door until they fell off, letting the two enter the building.

Entering the building sounded a bit of an alarm as automated turrets popped out of the walls and began to shoot at the two. Roland, having his sword in his hand, approached the turret at rapid speed as he used his sword to deflect its bullets and slash it to bits. With Therion taking out his own turret, the way seemed clear. "Stuff like this only works on unskilled people. Enough skill, and you make automated stuff like this useless." Roland said, pointing at the turrets and basically explaining why he wasn't even spooked when he saw an automated gun.

Although soon a pair of soldiers and cultists appeared in robes, masks, and burlap sacks responding to the alarm. These opponents had simple weapons, the cultists having nothing while the soldiers wielded chainsaws. This looked more normal to Roland, although one thing stood out as he got a heavy whiff of fast food. That would be for later though as he clashed with a soldier using his hammer against his chainsaw, sending himself and the cultist back. Remembering the floor of General Works, Roland raised an emotion level and gained Urging, a rapid heartbeat being heard for a moment as he gained more health and a massive boost in speed. Afterwords the cultists soon showed why they were unarmed, they were spellcasters and fired magic balls at Roland and Therion.

Much like the bullets beforehand though, these weren't coming from a very strong force and Roland was able to knock these energy balls away with his hammer before striking a cultist down with a barrage of dagger and gauntlet strikes. He then swapped to his new smiling shotgun and fired at the burlap soldier that was starting to rush him, blasting him into the wall and ripping apart his face covering. The cultist too, had his mask shattered when Roland smacked him with his attacks. And with Therion dealing with his group, the two could finally see what these cultists were.

"OK. I was expecting a flesh cult or something with those chainsaws. But this... I wasn't expecting this. How did this happen?" Roland said as the face reveals of the cultists and soldiers revealed themselves to be Bugsnax corrupted people. Totally changed, these people looked like humanoid bugs made out of junk food or fast food. While Roland had a calm head, even sounding a bit bored up to this point, he was a bit shocked as to what he was seeing. "So wait... These guys are fully... uh... whats a good word? Snackified? I guess there is some kinda creature or something living here turning people and bugs and such into food or something? Or maybe the cult is turning people into these and these bugs are naturally occuring? I'm both horrified and relieved. This is a different kind of horror to what is in district 23, although I'm sure that place would love to experiment with creatures like this, but its a lot more... whimsical in a terrifying way compared to just cooking people in horrific ways."

As the cultists and soldiers finally expired, their books lay on the ground for the pair to pick up. Picking up one of a cultist, Roland gave it a quick read. Being simple souls, there wasn't much there, but he did get some information which he read aloud. 'We are snax. We must be snax. All must be snax. All will be snax." Roland closed the book and did the same for the soldier, which was identical. Seeing no use in these books, Roland burned them, which gave him a choice of 5 different food items. All of them looked like junk food, so he decided to just choose the hamburger.



Letting Therion have a crack at the other books if he wanted, Roland motioned for the two of them to continue. "Until we know whats actually going on here, I suggest we try to be stealthy. These guys might've been pushovers, but usually the cults have their stronger members deeper inside."

To say Zenkichi was disappointed in the situation with the Gears would be an understatement, but given the confusion surrounding the battle, along with the fact that Juri and Edward (he saw the drones) had decided to rob them, he couldn’t argue much. The trio decided not to bother with following them to fight Sweet Tooth, and proceeded onward to Hightower instead.

Zenkichi ditched his Chopper and instead took control of the Prowler hoversled, the damage to its front having ultimately been fairly minimal. It would need to be looked at when they returned to the Avenger, assuming he was able to keep the vehicle intact that long, but otherwise was still in working order. He offered the turret to Blazermate, the medibot readily accepting the position, if not the weapon. She was more focused on keeping him overhealed and charging her own weapons, at least on the ride there.

As they passed through the Oilwell Basin, Zenkichi got a good look at the environment around them. It was filled with some strange lifeforms, as well as what Zenkichi could have sworn was one of the weirder Pokemon, but he did not stop to get to know the locals. The Prowler sped along, hovering a scant few inches off the ground and performing remarkably well in the uneven terrain. Finally, though, they crested the hill and reached Hightower, a massive series of battles unfolding before them. ”Oooohhh that’s not great…” Zenkichi muttered, driving them closer and skirting the edge of the battlefield. The imposing figure of the Flame Clock loomed over the battlefield, and Zenkichi got a chill down his spine. Would a Consul show their face here.

Deciding to err on the side of caution, he lifted his fingers to his temple to contact Sandalphon. ”Sandalphon, this is Zenkichi with some good news and some bad news. Good news is, I’ve located a Flame Clock. Bad news is…I’ve located a Flame Clock, and there’s maybe five of us here. If a Consul shows up, we’re gonna need immediate extract. I’m still running on low, and I’m not sure where Juri and Edward ran off to. I’ll keep you updated. Zenkichi out.”

”Alright, with that out of the way…let’s figure out where we’re going here…” he muttered, driving slowly around a tank desperately fighting off a half-dozen light vehicles, turrets all spewing lead at the heavy vehicle’s armor while speeding around to avoid being blasted to bits by the high-explosive rounds that the armored vehicle was firing. It was apparently equipped with more than just that, however, as one shot from the main gun launch a spread of vicious shrapnel, catching one of the lighter vehicles off guard and turning it into a pile of scrap and Spirits.

Being very careful to avoid being turned into his own Spirit, Zenkichi found a quieter area to start an incursion into the pitched battle at the base of the tower. He eased the vehicle in, looking around and witnessing the Psychos going all out, launching hatchets, saw blades, and using all kinds of weapons to attack the mercenaries they were fighting. He even saw a couple throw themselves carelessly into the line of fire, primed grenades in their hands as they tackled their enemies, blowing themselves up in the process. So, be careful getting close to them, he made a mental note.

”Alright, let ‘er rip!” he called to Blazermate, who scrambled to put away her medigun and grab the turret, turning the weapon onto the Psychos and cutting a pair down with high-intensity plasma blasts before they even realized what was happening. The rest scattered, finding new cover from both the massive vehicle and their previous opponents, who took no chances on whether this new group would help or not, and immediately split to turn their weapons on the Prowler. Bullets and a couple of rockets flew their way as Zenkichi let out a quick ”oh, shit!” and pulled back on the controls of the Prowler, sending the hoversled jolting backwards and throwing off Blazermate’s aim.

”Looks like it’s a real Mexican standoff, now!” he joked as he pivoted around towards the better-armed mercenaries, silently directing Blazermate’s fire their way. She obliged, firing plasma blasts at the few open soldiers she could, the pair using the maneuverability of the Prowler to circle around spots of cover and hit their enemies from behind. After being directed to drive over a sinister-looking crack in the ground, Zenkichi piloted the Prowler over it, a red ghost appearing to chase down and detonate on one of the mercs. A familiar-looking beam of energy attached to another of the mercenaries as plasma burned away at him and his cover, and the grenade-launcher wielding Scotsman leapt from cover and began unloading everything he had their way.

Zenkichi had to bank hard to the right, throwing off Blazermate’s aim again, but he managed to evade the grenades coming downrange and get his gunner back into a good spot. She focused the medic hard, plasma burning right through his flimsy lab coat and sending him running screaming. The demoman yelled and rushed forward to pull aggro, but a Psycho tackled him to the ground and began hacking away with his saw blade machete.

”Yikes.” Zenkichi grimaced, a sigh of relief escaping him as a trio of Antlers joined the fray, Sectonia’s distant aid finally arriving. The Psychos split their forces further to attack them, however, which left Blazermate and Zenkichi facing down the squad of mercenaries.

”What an eclectic collection… I think that’s just a beehive” Edward said as he examined the items in his box, before picking up Odden’s Pinky between an oversized finger and thumb and describing it as ”Fascinating” as he examined it before setting it back into the crate.

”What the hell?” Juri asked with a delighted giggle. ”Can’t be normal bees if they were inside that box. That’s sick.”

”I look forward to experimenting with those once I return to normal” he commented, before leaning over to see what Juri had acquired.

Juri’s grasping hands gravitated towards the Akjagara hand guns first, picking them both up and twirling them around her finger. ”Hey, alright! Double the bullets double the fun.” She aimed down the sights as practice. She put them back and picked up the Sterilizer next.

”Woooah. Pretty sure this thing’s a damn war crime. Gotta admit I ain’t eager to pull the trigger without a gas mask.” She said, in a reverential type of way. As for the magic sniper rifle thing, Juri was less impressed.

”Dunno if that one’s my style. Might trade it.” Juri said.

”I like these thingies. ‘Akjagara’. Badass. Fast, light, lethal. Easy to carry.” To demonstrate, Juri simply shoved the twin pistols into the back of her pants.

”Care to trade for the rifle right now? It seems more my ‘style’ certainly” Edward requested, before suggesting ” Perhaps you can find out what the beehive does?”

”Well, damn,” Juri said with a happy smile. ”What kinda person would I be if I turned down a weaponized beehive?” She tossed the magic rifle Edward’s way.

Edward caught it, and then tossed her the beehive in turn as he said ”A less interesting one, certainly”

He then placed the rifle in his chest, and began the sequence to send it back. He, after all, could not wield any weapons in his enlarged state.

Juri put away the beehive and the sterilizer, casting her magic spells. She’d use both later. Right now she wanted the handguns.

After everything was put away, Edward opened another portal in the direction of the high tower, before sweeping an hand towards it and asked ”Shall we?”

”Let’s earn some money.”

A couple of dozen steps later, they reached the oilfields, which slowed down their advance a fair bit, as the smoke from the firespring choked out the sky and most of the good vantage points, resulting in shorter hops.

It wasn’t quite enough for the various predators and threats to catch up with them, though at one point they did get surprised by a toxic pool suddenly rising up and revealing itself to be made up of a half a dozen Muks inorder to spray acid at them.

Edward’s armor was signed before he opened up a portal to act as cover, sending the acid raining back down on the slimy creatures. He used another portal to get another angle on them, and after one moment of analysis said ”Lets not” because he had absolutely no interest in trying to punch or stomp the poisonous to the touch looking things.

”Is this really the fastest way to go?” Juri complained, taking a few potshots at the creatures for target practice. Whenever the sprayed acid at her she just casually hopped to the side.

”It is preferable to walking through land that is actively on fire” Edward replied, as he recalculated their path and opened another portal, taking them away from the muckpool.

While they could simply step away from threats, Edward’s drones were relying entirely on outrunning them, which mostly worked till one got itself pinned between a pack of Lurkers and a stalking Rompopolo.

”On slight detour here” Edward said as the situation became clear, stepping them along the path towards the scout squad, which they found knocked down to one member and dodging and weaving for its life between sprays of poison and the lashing claws of the lurkers. It was already dripping in the stuff, being mechanical and all, but the fragile thing was still taking a beating from the force of the spray.

”To me” the man said theatrically, as he opened a portal to bail the machine out, only for one of the lurkers to lunge through it as well before he closed it.

Juri smashed her foot into the thing, appearing from the left to launch it back through the portal. ”This is pissin’ me off.” Juri said. ”I ain’t here for playtime with the local wildlife, I wanna get to that bigass tower!”

With that in mind she started unloading her pistols into every creature she could see. This worked wonderfully against the Lurkers, not so much on the Rompopolo, which as a hulking brute wyvern was not butt off by mere handgun fire, as it demonstrated by igniting an entire oilfield around itself, and by extension them, in retaliation for the pistol fire.

”That explains” Edward paused to cough at the resulting toxic fumes ”Why large areas are on fire I suppose”

Juri shielded her mouth and nose with her arm, coughing. But she’d been dosed with worse poisons. ”Alright, fine!” She ‘holstered’ her pistols and got out her Ghoulsaw. A much bigger, heavier weapon. She Drive Rushed forward and met the Rompopolo in combat, slashing into its thick hided with spray of blood. As it came to bear down on her she dodged backwards and kicked the beast in the face to stun it before curling around the side.

It stumbled to the side, taken aback by the amount of force the little human could output, and was then double stunned as Edward’s armored boot stamped down out of a portal and squashed its face down into the oil sludge.

Juri took the opportunity to charge up a quick Fuha stock that empowered her next move, a twisting OD heel slam into the creatures skull. Stunned, Juri got her her Ghoulsaw and slammed it into the things bruised head, spraying blood and then ash everywhere. Juri frowned and pulled her saw from the muck. ”C’mon, let’s get a move on already.” It was only fun when the things she was crushing were sapient.

”As you wish” the man replied as he portaled the spirit into his hand, chanaling the return ritual in it as they kept moving.

After all that, the duo emerged from the oil and smog and finally got a view of the high tower and just got to bask in its awe inspiring tallness for a bit. Mainly because Edward was finding himself a bit winded. A military man entirely used to long matches or days in the saddle, he found this a bit perturbing. Juri gave him a side-eye, she herself was a highly conditioned martial artist but even still she didn’t think he was the type to get tired after walking.

Juri whistled appreciatively at the distant chaos. People were shooting each other and scrambling around and desperately trying to secure payloads of crates before being warded off or biting it. Her eyes traced the massive tower up to the evil flame clock above. ”It’s a total shitshow, Edd.” Juri surmised. Some part of her wanted to make the hike up the higher tower to smash that thing and avoid the view.

”Let's make sure we know what we're doing before we jump into that” Edward suggested, as he portaled two of his few remaining scout squads onto the tower itself. One stayed low to spy, the other just started going up and up and up, because the mystery of what in the world was up there was just too tempting for the Dreadnaught to ignore.

”In the meantime, let me recharge my fuel cells, and make us some disposable fodder. We’re going to need it in that” he then said as he sat down on the ground, pulled out his tomes, and charging and casting. In contrast to his weakened constitution, this seemed to come a little easier than before, as he forged a cannon and several copper golem squads.

Juri was squatting, checking the ammo on her new handguns and trying to get a read on the battle. ”It’s a real party down there, so I’ve got mixed feelings about staying out of it. On the other hand, if we want the goods, we gotta be smart. And I definitely want the goods.” Juri rolled her neck.

”Way I see it, our only chance to get anything is using those portals of yours like before.” She pointed a pistol at Edward like a finger. ”So we need to find a good spot to extract to, and enough time to make sure no one follows us through like that freaky thing did earlier.” She strategized aloud.

”A sound strategy” Edward (unconcerned by the tiny firearm being pointed his way) said, after completing one of his incantations, before adding after a moment added ”Ah, which is not exactly what I would call the other seekers who just arrived’s, plan, which has involved blindly endearing the fray in one of the two person from our heist”

He was observing this from his scout, which then picked up a more distant figure, upon which he also commented, saying that ”Sectonia seems to be doing what I am doing, portaling in disposable summons”

He pointed out this (somewhat distant from them part) of the fighting as he stood up once more, his own squads of disposable troops now arrayed around him, ready to set off.

Juri scratched the shaved part of her temple with the barrel of her gun. ”Morons. But still, useful.” Juri looked around.

”You found a good spot to post up yet?” Considering the battle seemed to be a total stalemate, she wasn’t in a rush to get down there right this very minute if they could secure an advantage first.

”There aren't that many good ones unfortunately,” replied as he scanned the area through his drones’ eyes, ”cliffs too steep, structures to small, and then, well, there’s just the void out there”
”Thppppbt.” Juri blew a raspberry.

”With the cliffs blocking line of sight, I think we’ll have to portal through the warzone several times to make it out to an uncontested spot. But when it comes to spots to start from, I believe up there will grant us an unparalleled strategic advantage” Edward said, pointing towards a structure hovering above the valley. It was too small to fit much on it, and so any loot would simply tumble off the side if they tried to teleport it there, but for getting in, it commanded a dominating position over the battlefield.

”Can you shoot from up there?” Juri asked. ”Or just send one of those drone thingies with me and portal when I ask and you have line of sight?”

”I’ll send more than drones” Edwards said, as he gestured to his troops, before crouching down, picking up the self animated cannon and then preparing to wield it like a small-arm ”and yes, I think I should be able to help from on high”

Juri grinned, making sure her pistols were fully loaded. ”Then what are we waitin' for? Let's get this show on the road. I got skulls to crush.” She lifted her foot and twisted it, gathering ki energy for her Fuha stocks.

”Lets” Edward agreed, before opening the portals to begin their raid upon the highest tower.

While traveling, the wild wastes gang came across a curious sight, or, rather a curious sight came across them.

A Revaroom came hurtling out from behind a tall hill, hurtling across the desert floor with a shieldon clinging to its back. What it was fleeing became quite clear when a pair of pair of Tonglegrops came rolling after them, using the massive orbs of acid as wheels while their squat legs kicked them along. The grotesque things would have looked quite silly if they were small, but instead they towered over the trees and crushed everything in their path as they pursued their prey (music)

The chase didn’t look like it’d be directly intersecting them, indeed the Revaroom was actively turning away from them. In doing so however it was being forced to weave around terrain (while being careful not to lose its companion cargo) that its pursuers simply crushed beneath them, allowing them to gain ground.

Geralt hummed as he looked over at the ongoing chase, furrowing his brow. “Those things look…huh. You think those are Pokemon?” He asked the others. “There's this…sense of whimsy I'm feeling that yours have, too.”

”I dunno, maybe?” Jr called over from his clown car, before beginning to say ”I can check on my pho-” and then pivoting to ”-Roxas check it on your phone!” because he was, after all, driving.

”Looks like they are Pokemon.” Roxas confirmed after a few swipes and buzzes from his Rotom Phone. ”The one driving is called Revavroom, and the passenger is called… Shieldon. Looks like they’re both Steel types. And… hey, look! They’re not gleaming!”

At that moment, the Revaroom suddenly hit a bump in the road, and its diminutive cargo lost its footing. The poor shieldon went flying off, and careened head first into a rock. Surprisingly however, it was not the mon’s skull that broke from this impact, but instead the rock, which cracked into half a dozen pieces. This did not stop the metal headed mon from being very dizzy, stumbling around on the ground, and preventing it from getting back on top of the Revaroom that raced back to help even as the Tonglegrops closed in for the kill.

Roxas didn’t need any other cue. ”We have to help them!” He suddenly said before leaping right off of the whale. Before he could even hit the ground, Roxas vanished while in midair. In the next moment he reappeared behind one of the Tonglegrop and slashed it with his ignited StepSword. Roxas had no way of knowing that there was only one sure way to actually kill these creatures. So while his energy blade didn’t appear to be that effective, his sudden attack did have the benefit of getting the predators’ attention.

”Pick on someone your own size!” Roxas taunted after he dived over to put himself between the Tonglegrops and the Pokemon, Keyblades at the ready. The second Tonglegrop began to shudder before it vomited acid as an attack aimed for Roxas who was thankfully quick enough on the draw to react in time. ”Reflect!” He called, conjuring the Reflectga spell to catch the acidic vomit and then promptly returned to sender.

The result was the stream of vomit bouncing back up into the Tonglegrops’s mouth, which made for the second time Roxas had made a creature eat its own weaponised fluids. Rather than just having to swallow its own spit however like the last one had to, this one got a very unpleasant bit of acid reflux, causing the oversized monster to sputter and cough grotesquely.

This didn’t stop its momentum, however, the free rolling monster continuing to hurtle towards the boy.

”Huh? Uh, ok?” Rika said, not exactly getting why Roxas was doing what he was doing but joining in nonetheless, deploying her drones and unleashing a barrage of small arms fire at the one bearing down on Roxas. This beast had no lighting forged armor like the Balahara, and so the bullets were more effective, but it was still massive, and its skin tough, so the pile of bleeding wounds she inflicted were not taking down the titan.

It was the rockets, along with a bubblebeam from Dazzle as the mon followed a comment from his trainer who was power sliding towards the fight, that had the most impact. Together the pair applied enough force and pain that the Tonglegrops was forced to tilt to the side, and away from a direct collision course with Roxas and the pokemon he was protecting.

This also got the attention of the other one, which thanks to its tiny brain, saw larger prey in the form of the whale rather than a threat, and started to roll towards them.

Geralt leapt into the fray after the others, having taken a moment to transform into his Molar Boatworks Fixer Identity, pile bunker held threateningly towards the second approaching Tonglegrop. As it was still a bit away, he took the distance to channel Luminant Scythe, using the spell to deliver a moderate bit of damage to the approaching monster and get its attention.

The Tonglegrop pivoted directly for Geralt, accelerating as it rolled on its strange orb-like acid membrane. He was forced to dive out of the way, letting the creature slide past him and force itself to turn, its feet digging into the ground and bleeding off its momentum. Geralt didn’t let the moment go to waste, rushing in to stab and slash at its back with his weapon, though its sheer size meant that the attacks were hardly enough to do more than annoy it.

Thus it continued towards its prey, which didn’t get time to even line up a shot before it was upon it. Rather than get run over however, the whale dove down into the sand, while its creator launched herself into the air to avoid that same fate. Rike then had to frantically double jump and maneuvering thruster to the side to avoid the massive open acid vomiting maw that was still hurtling towards her, while her drone swarm parted around it like mist. Angry bullet spitting mist, the shots pin pricking the titan’s cheeks as they wove around it.

Then there came a thwip followed by a reeling sound as Rika Grabbled to the back of the beast and then wall jumped her way to its flat scalp, where she began to repeatedly stab it with her spear. Unfortunately, the thing’s skull was absolutely miniscule compared to its vast form, and so it seemed like up there there was mostly bone and air inside its head rather than anything vital, resulting in the ship girl mostly making her perch slippery with blood spurting from the puncture wounds she was inflicting and not much else.

The same went for her swarm that buzzed around it, peppering it with shots while holding back on the explosives due to the shipgirl herself being up there.

Still, 1000 cuts would do it in the end, they, and the pokemon, just had to avoid being run over in the process.

“Dammit, get back here!” Geralt grunted as the Tonglegrop proceeded to ignore him completely and target Rika and the whale. As the shipgirl mounted its head and began stabbing at it, Geralt approached from the back and tried a different approach. He circled around to its front and cast the Sign of Axii, focusing on it to try and override the Tonglegrop’s mind and turn it against its fellow monster.

Roxas, at least for a little while, remained focused on protecting the Pokemon. He accomplished this by first casting Aeroga on the Revavroom in order to help shield it and its passenger from incoming damage. Then he remained nearby and tried lobbing Firaga, Waterga, or Blizzaga spells at the Tonglegrop Rika had mounted - hoping for some elemental weakness to show itself. But none did, and it was hard to tell if the raw damage of the spells were even all that effective, like most attacks he’d tried so far.

”Shocker, give us a hand here!” Roxas called as he released his Rotom from its Poke Ball. It’s recently-acquired Frost Form made it look like a floating red mini-fridge with a purple aura around it. ”If we can’t hit it very hard, maybe we can confuse them. Shocker - use Confuse Ray!” With its usual cry, the refrigerator-shaped Rotom flew up enough to flash its glowing eyes at the beast. If this worked, then it had just as much chance of attacking itself in confusion as attacking normally.

The Revavroom, meanwhile, seemed to notice what Roxas was attempting and tried to contribute to the strategy. It let out an ear-piercing cry, using the move Screech to try and sharply lower the Defense of the Tonglegrop so that if it did hit itself, it would deal more self-inflicted damage. This of course would also make it more susceptible to physical attacks used by the Seekers as well.

As for the confused Tonglegrop, it tried swatting at Shocker like it was a fly buzzing around its head. ”Careful, Shocker!” Roxas cried, ”Use Double Team!” At this command, the Rotom began sharply flying around at blinding speed, leaving behind afterimages to confuse would-be attackers into hitting the wrong target and making itself harder to hit as a result.

The Tonglegrop, with their tiny brains, were incredibly susceptible to this kind of mental attack as it turned out, the confused one slashing its own claws by mistake, and then being completely blindsided as the other one came charging at it. The mind controlled Tonglegrop rolled forwards, claws both held in front of it, spearing them into the confused one, while Rika, still riding atop it, thrust her lance forwards and into one of its eyes.

Both titans proceed to furiously swipe at and acid vomit on each other, both inflicting heavy damage in the process, but the confused, half blind, elementary blasted and defenced down one lost that battle as one of its legs was torn clean off. It lost its balance as a result and went tumbling to the ground with a mighty crash that kicked up a great cloud of dust, obscuring both of them from view.

A few moments later Jr had Dazzle whip up a chill wind that swept the sand away, revealing the spirit of one Tonglegrop on the ground, while the other was half way through stuffing the severed leg into its mouth. It noisily slurped this down, and then turned its galeeming eyes to seekers, but made no move to attack, enthralled by the sign of Axii as it was.

Then Rika stabbed it in the head again, prompting it to dig its claws into the ground and to violently jerk its head back and forth till the shipgirl tumbled from her blood slick pearch. She stabilized her fall with her air based mobility, and launched herself towards the rest of the seekers with a vaultbreaker punch to avoid dropping down into reach of its claws, prompting the titan to roll after her and towards them once more.

Geralt approached the enthralled Tonglegrop as Axii began to fade, priming his pile bunker. As its mind returned, the monster was subjected to the explosive force of the harpoon-like spear end of the weapon launching out into its back, sending it toppling forward with a gaping wound in its back, prime for a follow-up.

Seeing as how the confusion strategy worked pretty well previously, Roxas saw no reason not to keep using it. ”Confuse Ray!” He called to Shocker, who made another approach to the remaining Tonglegrop in order to flash its glowing eyes into the monster’s face. And the Revavroom, without missing a beat, let out its cry again to use Screech. But Roxas decided to try to at least do a little more this time around. He took another of his Poke Balls and tossed it to his side.

”Your turn now, Titan.” Roxas told the released Golett, ”Let’s attack together. Use Shadow Punch!” And as the Pokemon winded up its fast, Roxas charged forward and vanished into a StepSword strike that instantly brought him in close range to the Tonglegrop. Roxas’s energy blade slashed at the Tonglegrop at roughly the same time Titan’s Shadow Punch connected, but Roxas himself followed up with a flurry of Keyblade strikes for good measure.

As Roxas and his Golett tore into the down Tonglegrop, which slashed its own face when it tried to take him down, Rika and Jr rounded the other side. The ship girl’s whale had surfaced beneath her, and now she, it, Jr and Dazzle all opened fire at close range, shells, missiles, bullets, magical metal and a bubble beam all slamming into its side in a great conflagration of firepower.

Beneath the weight of all of their efforts, the second titan was felled, collapsing into a small hill’s worth of ash with its spirit sat on top, much to the amazement of the two pokemon who’d been being chased.

Geralt breathed a sigh of relief as the second monster fell, giving the others a short nod. “That wasn't too bad, I think.” He grunted, turning to the two Pokemon that were running from the monsters. “And they're alright, too.”

”Hey… you two are safe now.” Roxas assured the Revavroom after he dismissed his weapons and recalled his two Pokemon back into their Poke Balls, ”They’re not gleaming.” He added, reiterating what he’d said earlier after identifying them on his Rotom Phone. ”They were born in this world, just like the Lost Numbers were. No telling how long they’ve been out here for.”

”It’s okay,” Roxas said, moving a little closer to the wild Pokemon, ”we don’t wanna hurt you. You don’t have to be alone anymore if you don’t want to be.”

The pair glanced at each other, and then the little shieldon stepped towards them in turn, followed by the Revaroom.

“They actually understand you, or just attack names?” Geralt asked Roxas and Junior.

”They’re pretty smart” Jr replied, which was not nearly as convincing as Dazzle nodding in agreement to this. Rika meanwhile was in the process of carefully climbing the ash-pile to retrieve the Tonglegrop spirit, entirely content it seemed with her distinctly intelligence-less machine minions.

”It’s up to you.” Roxas said, holding up an empty Poke Ball like it was an offer. ”I won’t make you come if you don’t want to.” There was a little hesitation followed by the Revavroom making a noise that sounded like an engine being revved up. Not a sound of acceptance, but of challenge. Its response could be pretty easily interpreted as ‘Prove yourself.’

”You want me to battle you for it, don’t you?” Roxas asked, ”Okay, if that’s how you want to play this. Come back out, Titan!” He re-released the Golett from its Poke Ball and the Shieldon hopped down off of the Revavroom’s back to give the Pokemon space to fight.

Geralt watched from the sidelines, impressed by the intelligence the Pokemon were showing. If he hadn't seen it for himself, he wouldn't have believed it.



”Titan - use Stomping Tantrum!” Roxas called. From what his Rotom Phone said earlier, Revavroom was a Steel/Poison type and thus was doubly weak against Ground type moves. But Roxas was about to learn the hard way that despite his big type advantage, the Revavroom was a lot tougher than he anticipated. Titan’s attack sent tremors that struck the Pokemon from below, but Revavroom was tanking it impressively. It simultaneously let out its piercing cry, using Screech while taking the Stomping Tantrum to sharply lower Titan’s Defense.

This exchange alerted Roxas to how tough the Revavroom actually was. ”Use Defense Curl!” Roxas called, trying to get Titan to regain some of its lost Defense. But the Revavroom had revved itself into action and was already barreling onto Titan. And before the Golett could finish using its move, Revavroom crashed into it with a powerful and hard-hitting Iron Head. Titan was sent reeling, nearly knocked out in one shot thanks to its Defense being so sharply lowered.

”Whoa, not good!” Roxas said, quickly recalling Titan to its Poke Ball before it could be knocked out entirely. ”Talk about strong…” Roxas murmured to himself as he weighed his options. Then he made his choice. ”Your turn now, Scamp!” He tossed the Poke Ball and released the electric puppy to battle. Scamp barked, but looked a little hesitant at the size of Revavroom. ”Don’t let it scare you, Scamp. Titan already got a big hit earlier - use Nuzzle!” The Yamper barked and charged at the Revavroom, doing exactly as the name suggested and nuzzling against it while charged with electricity.

Revavroom took minor damage but most importantly, became inflicted with Paralysis - cutting its Speed in half and giving it a 50% chance of not being able to move when it tried to attack. It did manage this time, using a move called Swagger that caused Yamper’s Attack to sharply increase while also inflicting it with Confusion. ”Try to shake it off, Scamp!” Roxas called, ”Use Fire Fang!” The Yamper shook its head and tried to bite, but hit itself instead. Meanwhile, Revavroom revved up and barreled forward - another Iron Head. Scamp was hit and knocked back several feet. But at least its Defense hadn’t been lowered like Titan’s was. But it still struggled to get back on his paws.

”Come on, Scamp…” Roxas said, trying to give as much encouragement as he could. ”Don’t give up, yet, we’re still in this.” Finally, Scamp was back on his paws again. His body flared with electricity as he barked with determination, unwilling to let his partner down. And then his whole body began to glow brightly.



”Wait, what…?” Roxas had never seen this before. As for Scamp, his glowing body appeared to grow a bit bigger and different in shape. Until finally it wasn’t a Yamper standing there anymore. Roxas’s Rotom Phone piped up.

“Boltund, the Dog Pokemon.” It explained. “The evolved form of Yamper. Boltund’s Strong Jaw ability allows its biting attacks to be especially powerful.”

”Evolved…?” Roxas was momentarily confused but a big grin formed when he realized this meant Scamp was stronger now. ”Let’s test those new jaws of yours, Scamp! Fire Fang!” Scamp - now a Boltund - gave a strong bark and charged forward even faster than when it was a Scamp. He managed to fight through the Confusion and hit the Revavroom hard with a Fire Fang - boosted not only by Strong Jaw, but also by the increased Attack from the earlier Swagger used against it. Revavroom veered back from the hit and tried to counter attack with Poison Jab, but sparks flew off its body as the Paralysis kept it from moving.

”One more time, Scamp!” Roxas called, ”Fire Fang!” Scamp barked and managed to snap out his confusion, then obediently ignited his fangs with flame for another fiery bite against the Revavroom. The Pokemon reared back again, now finally showing signs of being weakened. This, Roxas decided, was enough to give it a shot. He readied an empty Poke Ball and threw it. The ball arced through the air with a curve before striking the Revavroom, opening up and pulling it within in a glow of red light. The ball then hit the ground and began to shake. One. Two. Three. Click. The Ball stopped shaking and the light on the button darkened. A confirmed catch.

And before Roxas could even celebrate the catch, he was almost immediately tackled by Scamp who was happily barking and licking his face. ”Okay, okay!” Roxas said through his laughter, ”You were great, Scamp. I’m proud of you.”

”So, what you gonna call it?” Jr asked from the impromptu spectator stands

By now, Roxas had finally managed to calm Scamp enough to get back up from the ground. He picked up the Poke Ball that now contained Revavroom and scanned it with his Rotom Phone. The Pokedex App identified that the Revavroom in question was female, despite how mechanical and genderless it appeared to be. ”She kind of reminded me of a race car with all that revving up. Maybe… Turbo?”

”Cool”

”Neat” Rika added, before pointing at the shieldon who’d also been watching the battle with one of her gauntlet’s oversized fingers and asking ”What about that one?”

Geralt, watching in semi-stunned silence, nodded. “Huh.” He stated simply, watching on until a nudge against his leg caught his attention, the Shieldon nudging him with its plated head. “Think I might've caught its eye. What is it?”

The Shieldon hopped back, rearing its head at Geralt and letting out a small cry, scraping one of its feet along the ground. “What, you want a fight too?” He asked rhetorically, only to sigh and remember that they could actually understand human speech when the little critter let out another short cry, seemingly energized by the challenge.

“Fine. But you're fighting me, I don't have any others for you to fight. Understood?” The Shieldon responded by backing up a little, then barking out another cry. “Alright, then.” Geralt shrugged, drawing his steel sword. “Won't be easy, though.” he warned.

Taking the confidence as a go signal, the Shieldon immediately took a defensive stance, using Iron Defense to boost its defense, while Geralt used his own protective measures, casting Quen on himself and giving the Pokemon a once over. “Hmm, not bad. I can almost see the metallic gleam leftover.” he murmured, spinning his sword in his hand. He took the initiative, charging forward and letting loose a Demon Fang, a line of energy sliding along the ground and crashing into the Shield Pokemon.

It took the blow commendably, keeping a steady posture and retaliating with a Swagger of its own, sending a rush of powerdul energy theough Geralt, but also leaving him thoroughly discombobulated. He paused to steady himself, taking a deep breath to recenter and staring down the Pokemon. “Not bad.” He sighed, furrowing his brow and drawing Igni in the air.

However, with the confusion affecting him, Geralt's fingers missed the mark, and instead of erupting in a plume of flames, the Sign exploded, launching him backwards and shattering Quen. Groaning, he pushed himself to his feet just in time for the Shieldon to reach him in a charge, crashing into the Witcher with a Take Down for a fair amount of damage. Grunting, Geralt brought his sword down onto the Pokemon, the pommel of the steel blade slamming into its plated head and eliciting a grunt of pain from the Shieldon, who felt the pain from Geralt's enhanced strength through its defense buffs. It let out a battle cry and charged again, slamming into his shin and drawing a pained inhalation of breath.

Geralt let out his breath with a cry, lighting crashing down around him and radiating outwards, bypassing the Shieldon's defense buffs and dealing electric damage to the Pokemon. It let out its own roar, taking a defensive posture again and buffing itself with Iron Defense, leading to Geralt sighing.

He shook off his confusion, and drew the sign of Igni in the air again, this time the attack going off without issue and bathing the Shieldon in flames. It stumbled back out of instinct, though its rock typing prevented it from taking super-effective damage. Yet again it launched forward with Take Down, though Geralt was ready and pirouetted out if the way, catching it on the way by with the blade of his sword.

The Shieldon looked at him with narrowed eyes, its breath starting to come heavily. Geralt looked over at Junior, Roxas, and Rika, raising an eyebrow. “Now good, you think?”

”Could be.” Roxas replied. ”Only one way to find out. Press the button on one of your Poke Balls to expand it and then give it a throw!”

Geralt did just that, taking out his Great ball and pushing the button on it. The purple ball expanded in his hand, and he threw it at the panting Pokemon. Upin impact, the Shieldon transformed into a red beam of light that returned to the Great ball, which shook once, twice, then three times before finally clicking to indicate a successful capture. “Huh. That was both easier and harder than I expected.” He admitted, rubbing his shin. “So, what's the deal with this one?” He asked the two resident Pokemon experts.

”It’s called a Shieldon.” Roxas said as he scanned the Great Ball with his Rotom Phone. ”It says this species is a very old one, like… a hundred million years kind of old. Pokedex says it’s thought to be extinct, but clearly it’s not. It’s a Rock/Steel type, and what it lacks in speed, it makes up for in defense. Looks like it has an evolved form if it reaches a high enough level.”

“Hm. Shieldon. Fairly on the nose.” Geralt commented, though his own nickname of White Wolf was just as obvious.

”Urg, why’s it all steel types” Jr quietly muttered in dejection, his team of fairy types further being countered in terms of any future friendly bouts they might have.

”Got a less nosy name?” Rika asked, not quite getting the expression, as she stepped up onto her whale, implicitly prepping to go.

Turning his head to Rika, he hummed. “Think so. Tirn. Means ‘steel' in Elvish.” He said, looking down at his Great ball. “Still on the nose, but only we know that.” He smirked a little, before shaking his head. “Might've just called it Roach, but I don't think I'll be riding it any time soon.” He mused.

”So you’re all still with me then?” Rika asked, rhetorically, before insisting ”Well let's get going already. We still need to find some treasure somewhere out here between all the monsters”

“Fair enough.” Geralt grunted, stowing Tirn's Great ball and climbing back atop the whale, making sure to cast First Aid on himself once he was up. Then he was joined by Roxas after the latter recalled the evolved Scamp back into his Poke Ball.

After climbing back down the rocky spire, Nadia left her prize where it fell and set off at a brisk jaunt through the branching canyons, her polterpup an ephemeral presence behind her. Scorched Gorge wasn’t that big an area, all told, so even while steering clear of the resident bugsnax, it didn’t take the feral that long to find what she was looking for. Most of these red stone ravines were bordered by cliff walls, either tiered or sheer from bottom to top, but at one end of the broadest valley the terrain sloped upward, becoming a gravelly hill where slow erosion had at some point caused a miniature landslide. Even now rivulets of water trickled down amidst the pebbles, their paths forked like lightning but reunited at the bottom of the gorge to feed a shallow creek that flowed back toward the pools near the central spire. If Nadia could roll her salvage out of this place anywhere, it would be there.

Of course, getting it there was no easy task. Though Nadia’s fusions had filled her out and softened her up somewhat, her physique still featured plenty of lean muscle, which unfortunately did not lend itself to feats of raw strength. Sure, the salvage clump might be spherical in shape, but being just shorter than her, it was unconscionably heavy. Worse still, the feral wasn’t at full strength after exhausting so much energy this morning. Only by pushing against the sphere with all her strength, and also expelling blood behind her for extra thrust, could she get it rolling. Even then, she was at the mercy of any little rock or groove that happened to be in her way, so the road to her destination was by no means straight. Shaking her head, Nadia took a deep breath. “There’s gotta be easier money out there than this.” With no alternatives in sight, though, she hung up her jacket on a nearby cactus and got to work.

Swaddled by the dusty air and midday heat, with not even an errant breeze to relieve her, Nadia toiled away. It was hot, stifling work, and naturally it left her sweating like a big. She decided right away to take breaks every few minutes, which involved her jumping in labyrinth’s central pool, sapphire blue and mercifully cool. Bit by bit, she made progress, and after twenty minutes or so she reached the gravel slope with her salvage. At that point, her philosophy to ‘cross that bridge when we come to it’ came back around to bite her, since it quickly became apparent that her meager strength would not be enough to get her sphere up that hill.

Nadia tried hitting the sphere with her strongest attacks, but even if she could send it flying, it would only bounce and roll back to the bottom. Standing on top to roll it like those thugs in Mafia town did with giant meats didn’t work either, so pushing was her only option. “Hrrrrrrgh! Hrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!” No dice. She even tried slashing her own shoulders to better use her blood jets like rear thrusters, but while that seemed promising for a second or two, the only thing it accomplished was making her dizzy. “Oogh…maybe…that wasn’t the brightest idea…” She staggered over to a patch of shade, sat down with Chucho beside her, and pulled the Ripened Heart from its pouch to boost her blood replenishment. As the artifact worked its magic, she stared at the hill, then let out a heavy sigh and stroked Chucho’s head. “The hell am I gonna do…?”

Her ear flicked at a familiar and unwelcome sound. “Bunger, bunger, bunger!” She glanced over to see one two of those grotesque burger-beetles tussling over territory. They charged, locked fry-horns in a bid to wrestle one another to the ground or toss them overhead, then did it again. Nadia’s skin crawled just looking at those freaks, now that she knew what consumption of their flesh could do. Her right arm was still disfigured, and every minute that passed by made her more and more worried that the affliction might be permanent. Better to ditch it and get a mechanical replacement than live with that indignity, she thought. As she continued to watch the BBQ Bungers clash, however, her thoughts turned back toward them, and the hotsauce plants nearby. After another moment, her eyebrows shot up, and she snapped her bacon-fingers. “I got it!”

An excited energy sped her on her way as Nadia moved to put her latest and greatest idea into action. First, she ransacked the nearby sauce-plants, using her jacket as a makeshift container to carry as many as possible. As long as the ‘bottles’ were still in one piece, the Bungers didn’t seem to care. Next, she climbed up to one of the rope suspension bridges spanning one of the Scorched Gorge’s many canyons and cut sections of rope with her claws. By knotting them together, she created two lasses connected to a loop that she tightened around the salvage sphere. Then, with everything ready, she baited the Bungers. One at a time she lobbed sauce bottles where she wanted them to go, leading the greedy bugsnax straight to her setup. Once both were lapping away at hotsauce she’d splattered at the base of the slope, the dextrous catgirl slipped the lassos around them, then positioned herself halfway up the hill, giggling gleefully.

She turned around, cleared her throat, and yelled down at the Bungers as loudly as she could. “Hey, frysores! Yeah, I’m talkin’ about you, grease flunkies! Your buns are soggy, your cheese is moldy, and your beef is ground ‘cause it tastes just like dirt! Bunger? Hah! More like…” She paused, drawing a blank. “...Dunger! Yeah! Screw you guys!”

The bugsnax reacted predictably, charging straight toward Nadia with everything they had. The ropes went taut, and the Bungers began to drag the salvage behind them. Nadia continued to taunt, berate, and generally agitate them until they’d pulled their load all the way to the top, at which point their speed really picked up. The feral was ready, though, and as the bugsnax barreled toward her with the sphere in tow, she called upon her newest striker. “Well? ‘Water’ you waiting for!?” The huge abyssal Harbor Water Demon manifested behind her, lifted her enormous clawed mitts into the air, and brought them down on the Bungers to reduce both to paste in one fatal instant.

“Hah! Now that’s what I call a smash burger! I’m a fur-reakin’ genius!” Panting, Nadia looked up at the Harbor Demon and saluted her with a smile as she disappeared. Then she froze, her face aghast, the sight of her striker’s huge hands and immense strength freshly imprinted on her mind. She stared back down at the gravelly slope and all the way she came, hauling that heavy load, then clapped both hands to her head in despair. “DAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!”



From their vantage points either in the sky itself or atop the Forerunner pylon that hovered weightlessly above the oasis, both Sectonia and Edward could get a much better lay of the land in order to properly direct the Seekers’ efforts, even if some of their allies were already in the action. Broadly speaking, it all lay atop a cliff overlooking Empty Space, a breathtakingly vast pit occupying the center of the continent. This void was so broad that nobody here could actually see the other side, just a distant horizon where a black-brown gradient gave way to blue. Neither could they see the pit’s depths if they peered over the edge, just a starry darkness like the night sky itself. As absurdly tall as Highertower was, it would certainly not reach the bottom if toppled into it. Huge structures and landforms, like asteroids and miniature planets, floated out in the distance both above and below the horizon, unburdened by gravity, but it still held sway for anything -or anyone- that tumbled over the precipice.

The primary point of interest was the Highertower compound, hemmed in on all sides by the slim, slipshod faded wood or rusted sheet metal buildings of Red Valley Mining and Blu Industries, to the point where no land vehicle could gain entry. On the opposite side of the central boulders from the tower, a multi-tiered shack hung precariously over the edge of Empty Space, ready to fall and take whoever happened to be taking cover inside with it at a moment’s notice. Pieces of the Ficsit freighter, some large enough to cave in the surrounding buildings, were scattered around, their contents looted and packed onto payloads. Hastily arranged tracks criss-crossed the area, meant to convey the carts to wherever the people currently in control of them wanted them, but with all of the possible exits uphill nobody was making much progress, though.

Of course, there was more to the battlefield than the compound. It formed only one extremity of a battlefield that could roughly be divided into thirds: an outdoor battlefield, an underground battlefield, and a central facility built into the mountain that divided them. Roughly rectangular, that facility offered both an indoor path between the Highertower compound and the fuel depot opposite it, and a route between the open and enclosed sides of the battlefield, both converging at a central atrium where an an alien artifact regarded the surrounding bloodshed in stolid silence. Much wider and conducive to vehicular warfare than its underground counterpart, the outdoor battlefield sported not only a glittering oasis in the middle, but a handful of sunken structures that served as bunkers for anyone skittering across through the war zone on foot.

It was the outdoor battlefield that Zenkichi and Blazermate had taken their Prowler on a joyride through so far, and while Antler reinforcements from Sectonia helped a little, their assistance wouldn’t go as far as the bug queen hoped. Lacking mobility, Antlers were easy targets, not just for vehicles but for any of the dozen-plus fighters ferreted away in a foxhole somewhere on the battlefield, where they laid low looking to pick off easy targets or make a break for the next bit of cover. One could never know if the rock formation or bunker one just drove past had a soldier with a rocket or grenade launcher hiding in it, after all. As a result, the whole area was one big mess, with blurred and constantly changing battle lines. The longer an observer like Edward looked, though, the better he could define the teams.

Naturally, the Psychos were the easiest to identify. ‘Ramshackle but dangerous’ described not just their weapons, but their vehicles like the Rollerhog and Treadmaker, reclaimed from the junkyard and weaponized by acts of unmedicated ingenuity. While many of the crazed raiders were little more than lackeys, a few were racking up impressive kill counts, like a musclebound maniac with an explosive scrap saw, and a dynamic duo that hooked foes into deadly traps. The psychos had the strongest presence throughout the central complex, and their salvage extraction route seemed to be underground, with five payloads stalled in the underground battlefield.

The faction with the best hold of Highertower itself was the Mercenaries. With a versatile arsenal, the well-armed mercs -each more numerous than it might appear- worked as a cohesive team when outsiders were involved, but could resort to color-coordinated infighting just as easily, making it difficult for either sub-faction to make off with any of the four payloads. Aside from highly-mobile scouts and soldiers, the mercs could seldom be found out in the open, since they had the least vehicular options. That said, they could still field a surprise or two in a pinch. Moreover, they seemed to have the easiest access to plentiful explosives, which would be much more effective against Edward’s golems than bullets were.

Lastly, the fuel depot opposite Highertower seemed to be the stronghold for the third faction, a conglomerate of more futuristic Troopers in blue and yellow, which could field a handful of different vehicles like tanks and aircraft. With their exit so far away, though, only three payloads were in their possession, and any interference left them rolling back down the hill into the open. This came not just from the Psychos, but smaller bands of freelancers also trying to muscle their way into the mix, like militaristic soldiers with various gadgets and alien gunslingers with excessively customized firearms.

With all of these factors in play, disposable minions would get disposed of quickly, and Zenkichi and Blazermate would find themselves in hot water if they stayed out in the open for too long.

Edward’s drone saw all this, and a good deal more as it ascended alongside the tower. There were random people fighting on or just climbing it, though these grew more sparse past the nearby cliffs that fighters could jump to or from. Higher up, it spotted some people just sitting there taking a break, watching the chaos unfold from above, to the point where some nominal enemies had reached a temporary truce. At the very top of the tower, the drone found a giant archer clothes in chains, rags, and a metal helmet. He turned his head to peer at the drone, seemingly curious. “Friend?”