Tora & Poppi
Level 7 Tora (100/60) and Level 6 Poppi (39/60)
Location: the End
Word Count: 1501
“Ow-ow-ow-ow!” Tora wailed as he hopped across the end stone after Poppi. Each step landed one foot on another trace remnant of the dragon's acid, which made for a problem unique to those who -like him- happened to be going barefoot. His little nubs didn't have a lot of surface area to burn, but that meant a little acid went a long way, so the panicked Nopon flapped his wings to get as much air time as possible while racing toward the spot where his companion crashed down. “Poppi Poppi Poppi!” he yelled, closing in on her position. As he came she turned toward him, proving that she at least remained functional, but Tora could see at first glance that the damage to her leg was severe. Rather, the entire lower half of one leg was gone. Where it could be was anyone's guess; more than likely it flew off the island and into the abyss. Luckily for the artificial blade she couldn't feel pain, with the closest approximation being the registration and ensuing alert of damage, but it hurt Tora just to see his masterpiece wounded.
He babbled nigh-unintelligibly for a few seconds before Poppi cut in. “Am alright, Masterpon,” she assured him. “Core systems unharmed. But balance off, and flight capabilities limited. Overall fighting power decreased. Poppi is sorry, Masterpon.”
Tora squeezed her in a hug, relieved that she hadn't suffered more critical damage from the fall. “It fine-fine, Poppi. You did lots of damage with big, super-cool attack!” He replayed the move over again in his head and remembered its function. “That level two blade finisher, right?” After Poppi nodded, he broke into a determined smile. “That mean just one more round before nasty beastypon can't wind-smack friends again!”
The artificial blade pointed behind him. “We better hurry!”
He turned in time to see the results of the Ender Dragon's wheeling spin attack. Blazermate, who happened to be along the side of pillars facing Tora, took a glancing blow from the dragon tail that still left her rattled. Donnie somehow avoided getting pounded, but his ride wasn't so lucky. A handful of others, however, received the full brunt of the dragon's strike, either from its tail or the wall of air that followed. The Ace Cadet, Fox, Hat Kid, Peach, Banjo, and Kazooie went flying, gaining no height but sailing outward at high speed. Thanks to their position relative to the Ender Dragon's, each and every one ended up headed for the edge. About half of the group escaped it, however, most of them embroiled in some sort of conflict on the ground level. Now that Tora got a good look, he could see his friends fighting off a swarm of endermen. Must have gotten aggro'd by stray fire, he reasoned. Things seemed to be going well, with rapid warps leading up to a combination attack between Linkle, Bowser, and the force of Sectonia. But if they were all killing endermen, who was dealing with the dragon? As much as he wanted to help, he needed to assist Poppi first.
Before he could, Cuphead pelted the leviathan with a worrisome yellow liquid, the Courier's rifle gave a fearsome triple report, and Jak plunged down onto the Ender Dragon in a dark dive. With the freshly-wounded dragon not fully re-oriented from her attack, she proved vulnerable to an strike from above; Jak's weight and power proved to be more than enough for the job. He slammed her to the ground and unleashed a wave of darkness, dealing a hefty chunk of Jarate-enhanced damage but endangering Link at the same time, who clung to the dragon's tail. Following the wave, Euden jumped into attack, and had already started leaving red-hot slashes in the beast's hide by the time Donnie's warning reached him. In just a moment's time the flying machine crashed down, its unguided course far too inexact to hit the dragon's head, but the explosion that followed was nothing short of spectacular. A brutal pressure wave ruptured organs and cracked bones already ravaged by Jak's Dark Bomb and the Courier's bullets, then raced outward to knock the nearby fighters off their feet, and close behind it followed the fire and shrapnel. The Ender Dragon was devastated, but the withering blast rocked Jak, Euden, and Link just as badly if not worse. Euden and Link disappeared together on the Cadet's remaining Palico carts, whisked back to Lumbridge.
While Tora couldn't see all the details, he knew it was past time to get back into the action. “Here!” He opened his toolbox and produced some spare materials. It took only a moment to weld a makeshift lower leg for her, and another to carve it down to an equal height with her other leg. They wouldn't be flying any time soon, but at least she could run. “Okay, let's go!” They rushed back toward the battlefield, plowing across the end stone with as much haste as they could muster. Up ahead, they spotted the other heroes continue to eliminate enderman, a group at a time rather than one by one. Some took potshots at the dragon, but on the whole the leviathan managed to recover unopposed. “Uh oh.” While Tora agreed with removing the enderman menace, not paying attention to the giant dragon was a bad idea. He watched Donnie try to engage her as she rose, only for the injured monk to be batted aside. Worse still, a portion of the heroic company had been scattered by the wheeling strike, and without the miracle of flight Tora could do nothing to help them. Nothing, except...
He and Poppi entered the inner battlefield, skirting by one of the obsidian pillars. A Mech Arm popped open and released a flurry of missiles that flew up to burst against the Ender Dragon's onyx scales as she rose back into the air. Though not nearly as strong as some of the other heroes' projectiles, the missiles got her attention, and the dragon swooped down. She thrust her powerful, clawed limbs at the heroes on the ground as she flew overhead, primarily gunning Bowser but also threatening everyone else down there, especially those distracted by their extermination of the remaining endermen. The Ender Dragon hit the ground running, then turned just enough as she neared Tora to raised a massive foreleg above him. Sucking in his breath, Tora locked the Mech Arms together, sat down, and braced for impact. Poppi stood clear, channeling ether to form an extra layer of protective shielding, but even she was uncertain. All too soon, the dragon brought her limb down on the Nopon like a sledgehammer on a hamster.
End stone shot out in every direction. The weight of the slam half-buried him in the ground, creating a tiny, circular crater. If Tora hadn't seated himself, his legs would have been crushed beneath him, but instead his super spongy body held strong. Still, he was so jarred by the crushing blow that he couldn't do anything but block again even if he wanted to. With the heroes behind her and her badly-wounded head inaccessible, she lashed her tail to bludgeon any comers as she raised her forelimb to slam again. Poppi winced as a second mighty blow buried Tora completely. “Masterpon!” She froze as the dragon opened her mouth, purple acid welling forth to blast the pair into oblivion.
Tora groaned, silently pleading for his allies to deal a decisive blow. There had been no set-up or grand plan, just the urge to protect and the will to take the pain that others could not. His arms fell limply to the side, his guard broken. “Poppi...go...”
The machine shook her head emphatically. “Poppi will not abandon master!”
“It fine...” he rasped, somewhat surprised it was taking the dragon so long to build up acid. Maybe she did have some limits to her output. “Tora use special skill and survive. If still go south, cattypons will save.” Even while saying that, though, he wasn't quite sure. Knowing one had a trump card was one thing, but staring death in the face and trusting in that card to survive was another. If this worked, he had to move. He couldn't close his eyes. He watched, rigid with fearful anticipation, as the acid bomb descended upon him.
A moment later he was flying through the air. Grin and Bear It had activated, granting him a few moments of invincibility. He hit the ground with his little legs on overdrive, running like his ass was on fire. “One HP! One HP! One HP!” he screamed, in burning pain and flailing his wings wildly. Poppi half-ran, half-hobbled in front of him, moving fast. Unbeknownst to Tora, the Ace Cadet's Palico Rescue had been used up. His little feet narrowly avoiding puddle after puddle of leftover acid, carrying him onward against all odds, until his number came up.
Any second Tora's foot could splash in an acid puddle, smaller even than his trusty wrench, and that would be the end of him.
From the way Sakura fell down, one could be forgiven for thinking that she was the one slugged in the neck and bashed in the groin, but no, it was definitely Ryu. It hurt a lot, too. Still, as he labored to keep himself composed while working through the lingering pain, he felt as though he could guess what troubled her. Not everyone got through life with no home, no friends, and no family; few shared his lack of connections. Right now she was thinking, probably for the first time, about the state of the world and those she cared about. From her reaction Ryu doubted that they had resided with her in the Forbidden Kingdom.
The fact that she shouldered her uncertainty and fear in order to help him spoke volumes about her character. For her sake, Ryu attempted to part the grimacing mask that was his face with a reassuring smile. “I'll be fine,” he told her. “You, on the other hand, must be confused. Full of questions. I am afraid the answers I've found from my battles will not provide much comfort.” He extended his own hand to redirect Sakura's toward the brilliant, seraphic icon floating high in the sky, a long ways away. “That thing is Galeem. An evil god that changed reality. Most everyone in this world is under its spell, but now you are free.”
With a groan, Ryu got to his feet. He looked up toward the sound of incoming footsteps and spotted a familiar girl running over the bridge. She sprinted down the dirt path around the shady hill to where his duel ended. “I heard fighting, some kind of huge energy blast,” she explained as she arrived. With her close enough to converse normally, Sakura could see that the stranger appeared to be a robot, or at least a cyborg, despite the natural way she spoke. Curly glanced between the two fighters, noting their condition before her expression turned to one of surprise. “A sparring match, huh...? Wait, you beat him? Or was it a draw? As far as I know, Mr. Ryu's gone totally undefeated!” The subtly odd sunset red of her eyes shone brightly as concern replaced the intrigue in her voice. “You both look pretty banged up. Should probably take a break in the guild hall. Can I lend a hand?”
Ryu tried to gather himself to say something, but he was a little slow on the draw. A moment later, something strange stole the girls' attention. A cloud of smoke burst out of nowhere on the dirt path close by, and from it issued a wooden cart pushed by three bipedal cats. Curly's mouth hung open. “Felynes?” Atop the cart lay a robot that she couldn't identify. Ryu had seen it before, but knew nothing about it, and so watched in baffled silence as the cart got rolled toward and over the bridge into town, jostling and jerking with every bump on the way. Curly glanced at the others but found no answers forthcoming. “Well, whatever that was aside, do you two need any help?”
The Slayer approached the necromorphs and Rat King with his typical macabre relish, more or less ignoring the bone blades and pummeling as he pulled them apart. As one might expect of such a bulking, amalgamated monstrosity, the Rat King took a lot more effort to put down. Piece by piece the Slayer worked through it, trading blows as he tore off portions of the various bodies that composed it. After the thing took a flying slab from Minos, an undead body broke off of its lower section completely, which quickly proved far tougher than its humanoid size and fractional nature might imply. Nero, biding his time, blew a knee out with a well-placed shot so that the Slayer could take it down without having to think too much. By the time the gruesome Rat King rolled over, its killer's heart rate was up, and the Slayer wasted no time reintroducing Minos to the battle with a few good shotgun shells.
“Hmph!” the judge growled through gritted teeth. “I'll condemn you myself!” He flinched as one of the Slayer's shots cratered an eye, but five could do the job just as well. Using two hunks of the ceiling, one in each hand, Minos pounded at the Slayer over and over again.
Nadia saw her chance and jumped on top of the Rat King's corpse to get some altitude. “Hey, six-eyes!” she shouted, wearing a gleeful smile. “You gonna quit thrashin' yours arms sometime soon, or does the wittle baby want his bottle that bad?” Her enemy unleashed a wordless snarl, and she held her arms wide. “What, you mad? You couldn't hit me if you tried!”
Predictably, he tried. Minos swung both hands down at once to smash her flat, but Nadia ducked out of the way, and his fists burst into the Rat King's ripe corpse. They snagged on the twisted organs, fungal growths, and bones, stuck inside. Before the judge could pick up his arms Nadia split herself apart, linked only by muscle fiber, and cast herself over them. With her claws she anchored herself in the ground, and struggle as he might, Minos could not pick his arms back up.
V allowed himself a snicker as he snapped his fingers. The black of his hair dusted off, revealing white, and the air behind him cracked like glass. A hulking black arm burst from it, throwing shards across the battlefield, and Nightmare stepped into this dimension. With a hop V ascended onto the demon's shoulder, and by his guidance Nightmare raised an arm. Just as planned, Nero jumped and used his Wire Snatch to grab hold. Nightmare spun him around like a lasso, and at just the right moment, the devil hunter released his wire to shoot like a bullet directly into Minos' chest.
The Red Queen sank in up to the hilt, and Minos roared in pain. “You like that?” Nero hissed, his teeth gritted. “How 'bout this?” Using his good hand he wrenched his blade back and forth, back and forth, causing Minos' whole upper body to convulse with each twist. “Now you die!” He ripped his sword free in a spray of gray-brown blood and leaped away.
Behind him, Nightmare had already pitched forward onto all fours. Energy flowed into its terrific pink eye, the gathering glimmer seeming to darken the arena around it. Almost casually V extended a pointing finger. “Apocalypse falls.” There came a split second of deathly foreboding silence before the demon unleashed its beam. Particles of black and pink filled the air as the incredible energy billowed forward, a waterfall of annihilation. The lunatic ray melted straight through Minos' torso, and when it faded, the heroes could see straight through the cauterized hole and out into the city behind the courthouse.
Minos slumped forward, groaning. He came to a rest on his forearms, his head on the ground and his long, forked tongue coiled beside it. Were he a more conventional being and not a creature of hell, he would have been dead already, but some life remained in him. Nadia freed and reconstituted herself, flexing her arms. “Oof. Gonna have sore meowscles for a while after that one.”
The sound of footsteps bade the heroes look up from their achievement. “So, that's the strength of a notable demon in another world's hell? And a king, no less.” Pandemonica approached, walking past the heroes and around the malodorous remains of the Rat King. She held a disposable cup of steaming hot coffee in her hands, and something seemed different about her. From the back the others could see her longer horns, and when she turned to sneer down at Minos, her slitted eyes became visible. “Pathetic.” She lifted up a leg and brought her heel down on the judge's tongue, evoking a weak snarl of pain. Grinning, she did it again harder.
Nadia was taken aback. “Uh...Pandy? What's going on?”
“Pandemonica,” the demoness corrected her, glowering. “I believe I said earlier: I'm not myself without my coffee. I doubt you'll enjoy making me repeat myself again as much as I will.”
Nadia bristled. “Say what?”
Shaking his head, Nero released his breath and turned away. “Hey, you,” he told the Slayer, trying to change the subject. “Finish him off already, wouldja? Just make it quick, time's wasting.” He remembered the nuclear fate scheduled to befall the city after that porter made his delivery. While he could very well die before completing his mission, Nero got the impression that he wouldn't fail. Despite being a normal human, that guy seemed like the reliable sort who'd pull through against any odds.
In short order the deed was done. Behind the courthouse, the Qliphoth root started dying right away. Deprived of a life source, it quickly turned gray, brittle, and crumbly, like the countless human victims whose blood the Qliphoth sucked dry. It made for a poetically fitting end to the tree, the sort of thing Nero thought V might appreciate, but the demonic tree couldn't grasp the ironic justice of it. Retribution would need to befall the mindless growth's master. “One down,” Nero remarked. “One to go.”
V looked up from his book. Whatever he seemed poised to say got crushed by Nadia, who skipped forward. “Well, hopefully she's as easy as this guy! We might be a buncha weirdos, but we sure get the job done, huh?” Having her back toward Pandemonica gave a pretty clear indication of who she considered 'we'.
Something she said prompted a sidelong glance from V. “'She', is it? If you have any knowledge of who the final root boss is, who you expect our help to deal with, it would be inconsiderate to leave us in the dark.”
“Uh...” From the look on Nadia's face, the feral clearly messed up. After a moment of consideration in consternation, she glanced back at Pandemonica to make sure she wasn't listening in, but the demoness appeared to be more focused on collecting Minos' spirit. The feral beckoned the others closer. “Yeah, I know who it is. I don't know her name, but she's the Skullgirl. A real strong woman who can control the dead.”
“And why must you defeat her?” V questioned. “You have demonstrated no interest in this region's ruler, like us or that odd group we worked with.”
“The Skull Heart,” Nadia hissed, as if the words were being squeezed out of her. “It can grant a woman's wish. Happy now?”
Nero's eyebrows went up. “Is that right?” His acquaintance nodded. “Huh. Now there's something you don't see every day.”
After slipping his book into a pocket V agreed. “Indeed. While I expect we will continue to help you, I must first ask what you intend to wish for.” His tone and the look on his face all said the same thing: this was a test.
Nadia, however, had nothing to hide. “I want to bring back the Fishbone Gang. My friends...no, my family. The Medicis butchered us, but I survived. So...its like my duty. I owe 'em that much.”
A moment passed before Nero nodded to himself. “Alright, whatever. One down, one to go. Let's get moving.” He made for the back of the courthouse, which presented a much easier route to exit by than the way the group came in. Pandemonica stood by, clutching her coffee. “...You coming too?”
She looked down into her empty cup, annoyed. “As long as you find more coffee. But if it's bad, I'll break your fingers.”
“Uh-huh.” Nero said, wondering why he bothered. He jumped through the hole in the courtroom wall and clambered onto street level. Nadia, V, and Pandemonica followed behind him. “Maybe Nico's got some. Probably just cigarettes though.” The streets looked mostly intact, so the devil hunter got searching for a phone booth.
“Smoking is Zdrada's thing,” Pandemonica ventured, starting to look a little tired. She watched him pile into a half-destroyed booth, deposit a quarter, and make a call. Glaring at him, she crossed her arms. “Now's not the time for chatter. Do I need...!?”
A nearby storefront exploded, and from the dust and debris careened the Minotaurus. The van spun around, tires screaming on the pavement, and stopped just short enough to make Nadia and Pandemonica jump in panic. A moment later the side door popped open, and a brown-haired woman in glasses leaned out. “'Sup?”
Nero went for the passenger's seat in the front. “Can you get us to the other root?”
“Can I?” Nico laughed. “This ain't some rinky-dink go-kart at the state fair. Get in.” Once everyone got inside, Nico floored it, and the crew was headed south.
