Name: Roland "The Black Silence" Game Origin: Library of Ruina Appearance:
Personality: Roland is overall a good natured man. He as a casual and relaxed denouement which is shown in his attempt to make friends with those who he has to work with and make connections with them, although this can lead to conflict as well. It can be very difficult to tell if this is genuine or not however, as he tends to mislead or obfuscate what he actually knows or what his goals are if they aren't surface level. Even so, he will at least say half truths and wont lie outright. He hates those that gain enjoyment in making others lives miserable, but unless brought into conflict with those people he will work with them willingly as a professional as its "just the way of the city."; this also includes potentially harming those he once called friend if his employer brings the two into conflict and he has enough incentive to do so. Roland is dismissive of bad or good things happening to him or done by him, using the phrase "That's that and this is this.", tending to stay in the moment. Background: Roland was once a high grade fixer of The City, hired police from a continent sized city. Those that lived in the city were forced into a cycle of pain and suffering to benefit their cruel overlords, and Roland was no exception. One day he would find himself inside what could only be described as a magical library and forced to work there to gather books for the library. This often involved fighting those who entered the library seeking knowledge turning them into books. Eventually after these adventures, he would find this library to be his home and enjoyed the company of those who resided in it. At least until a bright flash, similar the light of the library itself, whisked him away to the World of Light.
Gloves of the Black Silence: Roland's gloves are special and unique making anything he does in combat be completely silent, with only weapon attacks that connect leaving a distorted 'underwater' sound effect for everyone but the person being hit, who will hear it as normal. These gloves act like a pocket space, allowing Roland to store and withdraw items at will including weapons. Weapons drawn in this method are fully loaded and prepared to use if they would have any kind of arming or reload needed as long as he possesses the ammunition needed for them.
Strengths:
Emotion Level: Roland starts a fight at 0 emotion level, going up to 5. Roland gains emotion level as he fights based on the emotions he feels during the fight. Weaker emotions will suffice at early levels, but will become far less effective as his emotion level raises, requiring stronger and stronger emotions to reach his next level. Each time his emotion level goes up, Roland gets 10% stronger, faster and more powerful. Other abilities are tied to this directly. Roland's emotion level resets to 0 if there is a small rest period between battles.
Distortion Mask: The mask Roland wears in combat distorts the perception of foes. This makes it more difficult for enemies to notice him and easier for them to forget he is even involved in the battle. Enemies he fights will not remember he was fighting them after a fight.
Weapon Master: Roland is incredibly proficient with all types of weapons both melee and ranged and can learn how to use new weapons almost instinctively. Roland can deflect small ranged attacks if his currently drawn melee weapon attack is stronger than them.
Weaknesses: Mental Weakness: Roland is weak to psionic attacks or attacks of the mind, especially ones that stir up negative emotions in him thanks to the conditions of the city where he's from. Stagger: As Roland takes damage, he loses mental fortitude. When it bottoms out, he is stunned for a moment and takes double damage from all attacks while in this state. When he recovers, his mental fortitude is fully restored. Roland can regain some of this mental fortitude by evading enemy attacks. Careless: After a traumatic experience in his past, Roland went on a careless rampage, crushing lives and causing problems that made him many enemies while he wasn't wearing his distortion mask. This mental breakdown, when resolved, left Roland fairly careless about the things he says. He will say whats on his mind, often in a sarcastic tone. He will also preform actions he thinks are right for the moment, unless they would be outright foolish or dangerous to himself. Spirits:
Guest List: Phantom Thief Retort - Medabots Shadow Queen - Paper Mario TTYD Wasp King - Bug Fables Inventory: Durendel (named longsword), Guns, Clubs, Cleavers, Knives.
Level 9 Sectonia (holding 3 level up) - (46/90) Location: The Crossroads Word Count: Below 750
With a bit of time to breath, with the stronger enemies not around them anymore or not even giving the seekers some attention, the group could branch out and explore a bit. Sectonia went with the group that went to investigate the humming in the chasm, with Nadia and the others eventually pinpointing the source of the humming. While the others did ask Sectonia to help them find the humming map maker, Sectonia took that message a bit differently than they were hoping. Instead of directly looking for the man... bug, Sectonia instead summoned what antillions she could and sent them to scavenge the area for anything that would be useful, perhaps even clear the area of weaklings a bit to make their trip a bit easier if they figured out which way they wanted to go.
Her antillions made short work of some of the enemies here with their basic patterns with their ranged magic. And if any antillion fell? Sectonia could just summon another one, but this wasn't an issue for her fire ones, only the ice ones had any sort of trouble due to their low hp. All in all, while Sectonia observed her little summons dealing with what they could and bring back what they found, Sectonia all in all found a few spirits of the weak monsters here, and some 'geo' which she was later told was used as currency down here. Considering it was found almost everywhere, even in rocks, coming by it wouldn't be that hard. This also did make her wonder though if she would need a lot of Geo to do anything though, as a currency that was easy to get wouldn't have too much value...
Still, she had all these spirits, none of which looked all that useful. Crushing them herself would be a bit of a waste however considering what she had for the others to use. As Nadia and Therion looked over the map they had just bought, Sectonia flew over and looked at the map as well, towering over the two. "Not much of a map, but some intel is better than none." Sectonia said. She then got Nadia's attention. "I have some spirits here that might do better crushed, Would you care to crush them while wearing this?" Sectonia said, pulling out her Symbol of Avarice, the weird mimic hat looking very grotesque. "Should you or any other of the others, as long as you are my minions, can use this freely if you require. It saps a small bit of life force, but allows you to gain much more powerful items from spirits you crush. The items tend to be tailored for whoever crushes them as well, so its a good way to power up."
Sectonia then glanced at Ganondorf and the Koopa Troop. "The other royals will need to pay to use such a privilege however."
With her symbol of avarice explained, Sectonia waited for the rest of the group to come to a conscientious on where they should go. Sectonia herself voted for the Basement, as it was the only clearly visible thing on the map. But she would be easily swayed to one path or another as she ultimately didn't care where they all went, since they would need to handle all locations at some point anyway.
82 geo, a couple Gruzzer / Cave Cricket spirits to be crushed by Nadia or whoever wants to test the symbol of avarice, first come first serve.
Being some of the only flyers of black team, it was easy for the robot girls to make it to the escape helicopter when it appeared, Susie already on her way and Blazermate carrying whoever was having issues getting to it. It wasn't that long until both girls and the rest of the group were taken into Midgar proper. It was such a huge, huge city that Blazermate had a streak of wonder in her eyes. Susie had MADE bigger cities than this, but it wasn't too bad. Perhaps there would be something worthwhile here.
Out of all the newcomers, Susie liked this "Raiden" guy a lot. Sure it was only for his looks, but he was already partially mechanized! With a few more upgrades and that steely cold look, he could make for an excellent bodyguard. Maybe better than that metaknight fellow she mechanized once upon a time? Either way, she would often look at Raiden with a look that was cute, but unsettling, like she was eyeing him up.
While the two girls hadn't met most of the people here, it was explained what everyone was and what they were up to, with it being clear the Guardian wasn't known in the area at all. Geralt and Pit were interested in the Ever Crisis, and with them asking that question, Blazermate could ask the question that was on her mind. "Hey... what happened to the spot known as Japan? And are there any other medabots like me in this city?"
Susie meanwhile asked her own question, simply. "What businesses or corporations run this place, and how important are they? Do they run the local government, or are they beholden to it?" If Susie could get some business deals or something going, that would get them much further than just wandering around aimlessly as it seemed the Seekers tended to do.
Level 9 Sectonia (holding 3 level up) - (45/90) Location: The Ruins Word Count: Below 750
Sectonia watched as her minons decided where to go. Overall it didn't matter in the end as apparently they would have to go to all areas, so why not let them have a bit of fun and autonomy? Ganondorf though was someone to be weary of, eve with Bowser beating him up and friend hearting him. Still, he talked a tough game like Bowser, but if the koopa king could beat him, he wasn't all that tough. That little bug thing felt like it would be a tougher, if faster fight all things considered right now, but that could change if the gerudo king showed he had more magical prowess than just punching things or kicking things.
Nadia went off on her own, going ahead towards the first location they were said to look for one of these seals. The troublemaker she was, she got catapulted off a cliff after attacking one of the local bugs, with Jesse coming around and making a platform for her to jump off of and recover herself. Sectonia could only shake her head at the catgirl's eagerness to throw herself off a cliff like that, moving to have a little chat with her.
Although while some might think it would be Sectonia chastising Nadia for going forward like that, that wasn't the case at all with Sectonia, seeing Ganondorf was free and curing Galeem, spoke privately with the feral. "I'm sure I don't need to tell you to beware that one. He seems like the 'king' that would stab you in the back given any opportunity that would give himself power. A ruler is nothing without subjects, and he clearly hasn't learned that lesson." After that, in a more vocal form that everyone nearby could hear she said. "And be careful being the scout of the group. There are holes everywhere."
Speaking of which, everything in this immediate area looked very... bug-like. Sectonia wasn't sure if she liked it or not, but something about it screamed ancient fallen kingdom or something... And with all the horrors that were here.... She'd need to think about that, there might be magic hidden everywhere. Although fisrt they'd have to deal with the locals, who probably weren't the most thrilled that their group had stumbled upon their resting ground. Especially with some of them spitting a horrid smelling orange goo...
This fight was surely chaotic, but it was more due to the trucks themselves than the things they were fighting. Well, for the most part. Blazermate finding she had to spend more time actually dispelling the debuffs of the one demon than anything, needing to Dispel Poppi and a few others of some kind of debuff called 'despair'. Blazermate didn't know what it did, but if it was like its name, it wasn't good. At least her medigun could heal that status, getting those people back into the fight.
Both robots saw their destination, a helicopter that'd bring them out of this chaos. But on top of that, there were 'wild' trucks on the way that were going to collide with the group of trucks they were riding on, their trucks also going a bit crazy but not bothering the two robot ladies as much since they can fly. Well, the bumping trucks did knock off the engineer and his sentry gun, causing the poor guy to get run over and disappear and Susie needing to hop out of her business suit to not get knocked around either. But seeing as there was an 'escape' and the other trucks on the way that would hurt these demons quite a bit if they came in, Susie used her transporter to make her way over to the pickup point.
Blazermate meanwhile stayed with the rest of the team that couldn't fly, healing, cleansing, and shielding them as she could. This built up her medaforce charge and when she had enough, she fired a Medaforce beam at Trumpeteer and his stupid nuke blasts while he was distracted with someone else. The beam would deal quite a bit of damage and heal Blazermate for 100% of the damage dealt if it hit.
Blazermate had been spending her time at the start of the battle making sure her, Susie, and her striker were overhealed before doing anything else. It would generate quite a bit of shield, and with a couple other allies healed or overhealed she could start to go on the offensive. If she could turn one of these demons into her undead minions, even better. Especially since a few of them seemed to be more ranged than melee fighters. Susie meanwhile had been firing rockets at the toilet demon, being disgusted at its design and... sounds... it made.
This was before well, one of the demons made its way to the back lines and cast some kind of spell on the two bots, putting both girls and the striker to sleep. This was followed by a large blast that injured all 3 and nearly destroyed the sentry the engineer had started upgrading to level 2. If it wasn't for Blazermate's overheal, her striker would be dead and both girls would be in a much worse situation than they were in. Blazermate more than Susie since Susie's business suit took a good bit of the blast for her. At least that damage woke them up, but that didn't do much to help Blazermate's mood at the situation. "OK, that is NOT a fair combo! That one has to go, like, now." Blazermate said as she healed herself, Susie, and the engineer up again. At least this got her a charge of projectile shield, but she was not a happy medabot.
And her team also didn't like what had happened, as a few of them were piling on the guy who had let loose that blast that had damaged the girls. Blazermate made sure to mark the weak points of every demon there as she got ready to go on the offensive. Susie meanwhile just stood back and fired missiles as the engineer got back to work upgrading his buildings. Blazermate making her way to the injured Midna and getting to heal her up, having her projectile shield (And suffering shield) ready to make any approaching demon's life hell. Susie continued to fire her missiles from her business suit and cow mangler at the toilet demon meanwhile. It seemed no one had an element to give her, so they were just the basic explosives, or... whatever the cow mangler was shooting. Some kind of exploding radiation missile?
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Level 9 Sectonia (holding 3 level up) - (45/90) Location: The Ruins Word Count: Below 750
With her little entourage of new 'serfs' (Seeing at they weren't willingly loyal like her minions/allies, or magical constructs made of her own power.) Sectonia flew deeper in the ruins with the rest of the group who were all looking upon a strong jawed, somewhat regal looking man. Sure, that regalia screamed 'evil lord', but unlike Bowser who just said he was evil, this guy looked it. Sectonia was a bit surprised someone who actually dressed somewhat reasonably well was down in this underground area.
Ganondorf as Bowser blurted out, Sectonia hearing the big koopa's bluster while she was making her way there, was this man's name. And yeah, he wasn't even hiding that he had his own goals. Sectonia knew someone like him would not be loyal, and would be some incredible trouble later down the line. But he made an offer that, well, interesting to say the least. At least they wouldn't be down here very long with said offer; He would guide the group to some sub guardians that were keeping the guardian of this area locked behind a wall of fairly impressive magic seals from the looks of it. Almost if those seals were made to hold the power of a god or something... Hm.... Sectonia had already seen two of these Guardians and they held some strong powers themselves. But the chance of one being something she would be interested in were slim. If it was at least somewhat beautiful, its power could make up for the lack of perfection... potentially.
"Hm... If the dark warrior wizard that stands before us doesn't do something as foolish as try to stand against us and instead works with us, his information would be useful." Sectonia said, affirming her thoughts on the matter. After all, if he did try to betray them, he'd have many, many to contend with here, and his power would be put to use on one of the group. Hopefully for him, his agenda didn't go against theirs or interfere in any way. If it was something as simple as just wanting more power, Sectonia could at least work with that.
Being the group that could fly, Blazermate and Susie were the first ones to arrive at their destination in the trade depot, trucks they'd use to get into the city proper. The two robot girls sat and waited on top of their truck for the others to make it there, with the others running at full sprint and making it in time, being chased by the G men. As they got onto the trucks, the trucks left the depot after some weird mumblings from those loading the trucks. This left the G men in the dust, at least, thats what should've happened....
But once they were on their way, the boss of the G men appeared as a group of G men came driving a school bus(?), and commanded the G men to transform into their REAL forms. Susie had thought these things were just stupid, but they apparently were playing stupid which was... better? worse? Still, considering what these demons looked like, Midna and pit commenting on the one riding a toilet, that wasn't here or there. And much like Midna and Pit, Susie and Blazermate were disgusted at that thing, but unlike Midna, hid their disgust behind getting ready to fight these demons with Blazermate summoning her engineer striker so that he'd make his buildings while she began to overheal everyone and charge up her shield and uber. Blazermate's engineer able to make his sentry and beginning to make his dispenser before he upgraded the sentry to level 2 and 3. Susie meanwhile summoned her business suit, only realizing afterwords all she could do was use it as a weapons platform as the suit would be left in the dust as the trucks drove along. At least Susie had her cow mangler that let her fire energy rockets alongside the baseline rockets found in her business suit.
"Does anyone have any elemental like effects that would be stronger against these demons? Haltmann Works Co. technology has the feature of absorbing the elemental properties of allied attacks and reusing them in their own way." Susie said, informing those around her of that ability of her business suit. Sadly Blazermate didn't have anything like that she thought... but maybe someone else did?
Level 9 Sectonia (holding 3 level up) - (44/90) Location: The Ruins Word Count: 509
With the fight over, and all of those ugly, hideous monsters gone, Sectonia and her allies could only get a little bit of rest before a few more monsters came wandering up. These monsters however were... Weak. Like, super weak. So weak that Nadia just ignored getting hit by one and she wasn't the most durable one here. With Bowser and his family healing up, and Nadia having dashed off to intercept the one mosnter that was apparently calling their 'boss', Sectonia moved to deal with these little monsters.
Summoning her Chaos Shield, Sectonia went through the monster's weird attacks. She noticed pretty quickly however that she didn't need her shield, as these attacks barely even registered on her carapace without it, and with it? Well, she did have an idea... "You know, I think instead of destroying these monsters, perhaps since these ones can talk, we could get some information from them instead. They aren't as hideous as the other ones after all." Having said that, not even paying attention to the weak attacks of the other monsters, Sectonia grabbed the Loox and Astigmatism and summoned her striker, Natashia.
"Yeah boss?" The blue secretary said, fixing her shades. "Do your thing to these two, lets see what information they have.", Sectonia commanded, with Natasia giving a simple "kay" before moving to each monster that was being held by the Queen bee. As she touched the monster, it screamed in pain as a red ring appeared around it, and while they tried to struggle free, Sectonia kept them pinned while Natashia did her work. Not even half a minute later, both creatures were under Natashia's mind control, and with them under her control, they stopped struggling. With her job done, she said. "Right. You'll now serve Queen Sectonia. Be a good team player, k'ay?" before disappearing and with that, Sectonia let both monsters go who ceased their attacks saying. "Hail Sectonia!"
Gesturing to the rest of the group, Sectonia said. "These are also your new friends. Be delightful little serfs and answer any questions I or they have." With that, Sectonia flew back to the group, her new two monster minions following her. It was clear they wouldn't disobey the bee queen, but besides that, they seemed to be their selves.
And with that combat was over, at least for now. Sectonia asked her two new little serf monsters to explain themselves and why they attacked the group, and where there little frog friend was going and who their 'boss' was. Those creatures answered, saying that they attacked only because the seekers attacked the other monsters and this is where they live and following up explaining Toriel was the boss of the ruins they were talking about.
With that all sorted Sectonia pulled out her Mark of Avarice, telling those who didn't know about it what it did and the rules involved with it. Although since the koopa troop weren't her minions, she made special rules for their group where they'd have to pay with something upfront as they weren't her minions. Sectonia also put the scythe she had claimed from her journey above to the pile of spirits, offering it to any of her minions who could make use of it.
Location: Outside Dystopianscape Word Count: Less than 750
When the two girls got inside the petshop, what they saw wasn't what they were expecting. Both bots hadn't seen any of these people, but apparently a few others that had gone to the desert did. This new group of people, at least to the ladies perspectives, were quite strange overall, talking about what was going on and about the G men and everything. Blazermate was way out of her depth with this whole 'conspiracy' thing. Couldn't they just beat up everyone til they won? They would have to beat up the area boss anyway, so all this 'what is what and what is this' really went over the battle medibot's head. Blazermate could be seen visibly confused about all of this, just wanting to go beat up the big bad since that'd fix everything.
Susie meanwhile, having been mostly uninterested in what she had been seeing so far got really into it though. She didn't know what was going on either, but unlike Blazermate she knew what conspiracy and espionage was about, having tried to play a corporate spy herself at one point in her life. But the coolness of that idea was drowned out by the whole lameness of these 'G Men' who just seemed to be really, really stupid from what she could understand. Dangerous, but stupid. These 'turks' though sounded like they had a bit of brains that some basic acting couldn't get the group through.
Either way, with a plan set in motion, Raz and Roxas volunteered to lure the G Men away so the rest of the group could escape. Geralt and Bede also did what they could to distract the ones that were entering the store, which meant... Well, they all did have a place to go, so the lady bots got into the air, flying above all the bothersome stuff on the ground heading to their destination they were told to go at the trade depot. They could probably fly over the trucks as well, but it could be more fun to ride them.
The two girl bots made their way out of the store with the two distractions going on. Blazermate carrying anyone who needed it."Ugh, this sucks. Why can't we just beat them up..." Blazermate complained as she flew over the streets of the city, watching Raz and Roxas being chased by the G men and doing some... shenanigans to lose them, Susie giggling to herself as she saw how they outsmarted the perusing G men, one hand holding her transporter as she flew besides Blazermate. "You don't care much for spy stuff do you Blazermate." Blazermate replied, a bit flustered. "I mean, its cool when your watching, it, but not when your doing it. You'll be beating up a big bad in the end anyway, so why do they have to make it so complicated?"
Level 9 Sectonia (holding 3 level up) - (32/90) Level 10 Nadia (42/100) Location: The Ruins Word Count: 5347 (+6)
Sectonia, having gotten her chunk of gold from that worm which she crushed, getting a
Insect Scythe A two-handed polearm, made unwieldy by the large, heavy blade at the end. In exchange for its low attack speed, however, it boasts good reach and high slash damage
in the process. It seemed that the others who were having their own fun exploring the area were also done and ready to head down into the unknown depths. Still, while she could have her antillions carry this large nugget of gold, there wasn't really a good way for her to bring it with her all things considered... Plus it'd have to be made usable. Well, she had antillions to do things, so maybe she could work something out with them...
Well, besides the bandits and maybe some of the wildlife, perhaps she could leave some antillions in a spot to guard it with a few signs and whatnot. If anyone stole from her they'd be in quite the bit of trouble, but she figured her antillions could deal with most of the lower level riff raff out of sheer intimidation anyhow and she did just that; summoning a a group of 1 blue, 3 green and 2 red to guard her little gains there until she could come back and claim her little prize here. Finding a landmark area that was in a spot that would be difficult for anyone but her (Or anyone else who could fly) to reach, Sectonia left her nugget with her antillions and would need to pick it up later. She mused to herself that this wasn't her area of expertise, but they had just gotten someone who was good at the monetary sort of thing, so perhaps if that person was to take a look at this... She wasn't too adverse to her minions taking a slight cut for getting the best deal after all...
With that done, she made her way back to the group, meeting the rest at the crane where they had to descend in order to go down into the Chasm, at least those who couldn't fly. Sectonia summoned a single blue antillion to operate the levers, as she had already a fair chunk of her minions guarding what she figured would be a couple magic items at the very least. It seemed like she'd have to make use of mostly blues down in this chasm... Well, that was fine. She had her actual minions around so they could bring up the difference.
”Your sure this lift will be safe for the vast majority of you?” Sectonia said, eyeing the lift as the group descended, herself lazily flying next to the descending group. With her having an antlion operate the thing, at least none of the others had to stay back and wait, but that also did make the platform quite heavy with the likes of Bowser not helping matters and the sounds coming from it didn’t help matters either. But after descending a few more meters it looked like the platform would hold.
That was until they were ‘ambushed’ by someone that made their home in the Under? Sectonia didn’t recognize him, nor did anyone else. But with those magic bullets he cut loose the already fairly rickety transport, causing all of her minions to fall into the chasm. Considering a few of them were tough, they’d probably survive a fall like that, especially since they had all gone down quite a distance already so the bottom couldn’t be that far down… but it would be best for her to check.
Still, that left this fellow who was laughing at the situation he had caused. Now, Sectonia could fight this person here and now, but she wasn’t sure of how long that would take and that time could be used making sure her allies were ok. So with that in mind, she pointed at the armored person and said. ”You had better hope we do not cross paths again.” before hitting him with a cast of Slow and descending down with the rest of her allies to try and at least make sure most of them survive.
His reply was stretched out by the fluctuation of time. “Ohhh, I hooope weee dooo…” He snapped his fingers with a brief yellow flash, and suddenly teleported to a spot farther up, his status purged as if it never existed. The echo of his mocking voice chased Sectonia down the Chasm“...’Cause it’ll be fun for the whole family!”
After descending a fair distance with that armored man not following Sectonia, the bee queen found the rest of her allies, with basically all of them knocked out from the fall. At least they fell on some soft vegetation that surrounded what looked like ancient ruins of some sort, so that helped them. Did those flowers really cushion their fall? Well, there wasn’t much she could do besides wait for them to awaken as she watched them, her pipe of insight at least giving everyone near her a bit of extra help in healing any wounds they suffered.
When everyone began to wake up, Nadia being the first of them to do so thanks to her fast regeneration, the things that lingered in the darkness outside of Sectonia’s view began to move onto the group and they were… extremely hideous. Sectonia could only feel rage at seeing such ugly creatures and began to charge up her reality shatter to wipe them all out.
Almost as affronted by the ghastly horrors as Sectonia, Nadia jumped to her feet. She sharpened her claws and bared her teeth, her eyes quickly shifting between the various monstrosities to size them up one by one. These things were freaky enough to give the Orphan and other nightmarish denizens of Carcass Isle a run for their money. That hideous frog-mouthed gorilla in particular, with its gaping acid-green maw full of gooey, googly eyes, made her shiver; hopefully someone else could take care of that one. But with the nasties crawling, tottering, and talking every closer, she couldn’t spend any more time deliberating. She poured water pressure into her arm for a long-range punch to get the party started.
Right then, she heard a crackling thrum as Sectonia began to charge nearby. The sound and sight of potent magic instantly drew the six-eyed gaze of the wretched Dark Horse. Its eyes, both fiery and drippy as molten lava, fixed upon the insect queen with killing intent, and like some sort of twisted turret it straightened up with its sucker-like maw aimed like a fire hose.
Nadia’s eyes widened. “Look out!”
Rather than attack, she thrust her arm out sideways and launched it past Sectonia to sink her claws into a stone pillar. She jumped and retracted her muscle fiber, flying sideways to skid to a stop in front of her new acquaintance with two Copycats summoned, and just in the nick of time. Dark Horse unleashed a torrential beam of ghostly blue flame that slammed into Nadia and her doubles’ guard, blowing them backward in a blast of steam as the fire and Hydro reacted. For her attempt to save her ally’s bacon the cat burglar now flew on a collision course straight for Sectonia.
Sectonia didn’t have the time she needed to fully charge her reality shatter as while Nadia did defend her from the counterattack, the catgirl was thrown in Sectonia’s direction which forced the bee queen to unleash what amount of shatter she had charged. Not as devastating as the fully charged version or nearly as big, but space around the Dark Horse did shatter, leaving a white void where it stood, the creature clearly visible to all with its figure juxtaposed by an area of pure white. As she unleashed her blast, she had to then focus on catching the steaming flying kitty heading her way.
Figuring she could catch Nadia with one hand, Sectonia was taken aback and thrown off balance for a moment as she wasn't expecting that amount of weight to come from Nadia, slowing down her speed but ultimately dropping the cat girl as Sectonia herself spun around a bit before correcting herself. ”Fire… Hm that could’ve been a problem…” Sectonia mused to herself as she recovered, thinking of what to do next. Seeing as she was fighting this thing directly with Nadia, she helped the catgirl back onto her feet.
”I don’t think I’ve seen you fight yet. Show me what you can do.” Sectonia said, giving herself and Nadia the shield from her Pipe of Insight that would block some of that creature’s fire damage, then giving Nadia a touch of Haste while sitting back and throwing small rings of light at the creature.
Nadia snickered. “You got it, bwoss,” she said, mimicking the voice of Zelmer’s cat crony from the Metro. As Dark Horse, lightly ravaged by Sectonia’s spacial rend, sucked in air to unleash another spectral firestorm from within the void, Nadia sprinted toward it in all fours. With Sectonia’s haste she dove into a slide below the horror’s despicable head, then burst upward with a flip kick. The blow to the underside of Dark Horse’s jaw caused it to reel back, which in turn forced it to adjust its footing to not fall over backward. Its stream of flame went high, terribly bright but ultimately in the upper reaches of the cave.
Grinning wildly, the feral landed and revved up her arms to drill into her foe’s exposed stomach, only for a long, sinewy tongue to wrap around her neck. “Mrrow!?” she yelped, forcibly wrenched off her feet and dangled before the veiny, throbbing faces of the looming, seven-fingered, seven-headed giant Idea. For a moment their eyes locked, sharing a mixture of instinctive revulsion and hatred, before Sectonia’s light ring cut into Idea. It looked her way for just a moment, but that was enough. Clenching her teeth, Nadia reached up and sank her claws into the slimy tentacle to pry it loose, which sent the twisted creature into a thrashing frenzy. It whipped her around and hurled her into the floor.
As she rolled its pulse quickened, pumping blood brighter and faster through its body, until a bevy of tongues burst out from its seamlike mouths to lash sanguine projectiles toward her. Nadia braced herself for the worst, but the Pipe of Insight barrier protected her from the arcane blood. Once she realized the feral spring to her feet and stood alongside Sectonia as Dark Horse and Idea stood opposite them.
“Careful with those rings, unless you’re spoilin’ for a battle royale,” Nadia warned.
Sectonia shrugged, since really she couldn’t control the direction of some of these light rings. ”Very well…” Pulling out her swords, she joined Nadia in fighting this thing in melee combat instead. While Nadia seemed to be someone who used fisticuffs and some strange abilities, Sectonia relied on magic and her own swordplay instead. Casting her Chaos Heart shield on herself, Sectonia got in the way of this Dark Horse, grabbing its attention as she began to rapidly stab and slash at it with her, frankly, huge swords. She would occasionally do a short range teleport to its side to get a flanking strike, but more or less got its attention and thanks to that one magic item she consumed, her attacks were really fast.
And the Bee Queen, keeping the Dark Horse's attention so Nadia could get behind it and do her thing, forgoed a fair bit of her own defense in the process with the Dark Horse spitting its flame at her or getting the occasional hit in that she didn't parry. That was what her chaos heart shield was for however, and thanks to her pipe of insight, she took even less damage from the Dark Horse’s fire breath than its melee swings, but the creature wouldn’t notice that as it struck at the large bee boldly attacking it from the front. Nadia could notice Sectonia was not doing this for fun or anything, but was going for whatever openings she could that would utterly destroy this thing.
Unfortunately, Nadia couldn’t spare any attention to Dark Horse, for its gaunt counterpart demanded everything she had. With its lithe limbs, the splashes of accursed blood, and the array of tongues that swung and writhed like a gorgon’s serpent crown, it confronted her with a non-stop barrage of attacks from any range. Limber and light on her feet, Nadia kept herself in constant motion as well, dashing in and out of range and through the air in a madcap effort to open her opponent up, but Idea just controlled so much space. For every few slashes she landed on its rubbery, plastic hide, it did the same damage with a grab.
“Nya-HAH!” the feral cried, springing off a pillar to come in with El Gato. With a disjointed right claw swipe she batted away the tentacles coming in from the left, then with her left paw swatted off those to the right, allowing her to somersault into the air and crush Idea’s guard with an axe kick. “Chop-chop!” she called as her X-Scrape Claws carved across its upper torso. Idea reeled for a moment, then wordlessly brought its tongues back to close around Nadia like a flytrap. Just in time she kicked off its gut, but as she landed Idea stepped forward and delivered a football kick that dodged so narrowly she could feel the air pressure pulling at her hair. “Holy-!” Her foe advanced with a walloping slap, and Nadia began to block. She defended herself as Idea threw out blow after hefty blow, following each one with a couple rapid jabs from its tongues to keep Nadia in blockstun. Just when it seemed poisoned to bring down a massive overhead slam, however, the monster grabbed her. “Dammit!” she groaned as it brought her close to its odious heads, only to be silenced as Idea delivered a brain-rattling psychic shriek that left teetering on the edge of unconsciousness.
At that time Sectonia’s offense against Dark Horse got just a little too lax. Though pierced in a dozen places, the monster pivoted its enemy’s way and lifted its leg to plaster Sectonia with a stone-shattering kick, strong enough to create an air wave with plenty of impact all on its own. Even if not struck by it (and shortly thereafter whatever wall lay directly behind her) she would need to step back a moment to rethink her strategy–and in so doing, catch wind of the pickle her partner was in.
Sectonia was knocked back by the Dark Horse’s attempt to get it off of her. Thanks to her Chaos Shield, the damage was greatly reduced, but this thing was annoying and tough. At that time Sectonia got a look at Nadia having difficulty with the other creature. Seeing her minion was in trouble, Sectonia blinked over to free the feral from the grips of this horrid creature by appearing behind it and giving it a nasty uppercut slash with both of her rapiers, which caused the creature to drop Nadia.
Much to her annoyance, Sectonia saw that her minion wasn’t doing so well, yet there really wasn't any way for them to retreat. Knowing this, Sectonia dropped her own Chaos Shield and gave it to Nadia, before removing her haste effect and instead inflicting both creatures with the Slow condition. ”You should be more careful. This will help but it will not be nearly as durable as my own.” Sectonia said as Nadia felt the pure darkness rainbow shield surround her.
Panting, Nadia wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. By now, nothing remained of her new hoodie’s sleeves. “...Yeah. Thanks.”
Sectonia then looked at the Dark Horse and decided that she’d help her minion with her foe before dealing with that thing. Sectonia summoned the remaining antillions she could, 1 red, 1 green, and 4 blue, to fight the Dark Horse or at least distract it while she helped Nadia with her foe in the Idea. At least Sectonia could make sure her magic didn’t zap Nadia as she despawned a sword and pulled out one of her staffs to barrage the creature with her dark lightning as Nadia recovered. Meanwhile the antillions, having been commanded by their queen to take out the foe in front of them, began to do what they could. The red one soon found its fire did very little, deciding to hit it with its mace while the others did what they could with their electric and ice elemental attacks.
As the Antlions moved in to keep Idea busy, Nadia quickly reconsidered her opponent. “Damn thing’s attacking constantly, but the second I guarded, it grabbed me…” She blinked, realization dawning on her as she watched the horror fight the Antlions, disadvantaged on offense but easily thrashing any that went on defense. “Wait, this thing’s a grappler?” The feral remembered her bouts with that bouncy Medici legbreaker, Cerebella. Anyone who dished out tons of punishment with big throws relied on a high-risk, high-reward playbook, and Nadia knew just what big shots like that hated. She pulled off a Nyawn to kickstart her healing, then narrowed her eyes. “Alright, I’m tired of thinkin’,” she declared, crouching down as Idea scattered the Antlions. “Time for round two: non-stop purr-essure!”
She charged forward, and Idea whirled around to face her. Its tongues lashed out, but Nadia skidded to a stop just outside its range and threw her head like a bowling ball once the icky appendages whooshed by. Her head bopped Idea’s ankle and she sunk her teeth in, which instantly turned her expression from fierce to nauseous. “Bleh!” With the monster distracted, however, Nadia leaped into the air. “Knock knock, time to block!” She fell with a jumping Shock and Paw into a three-hit combo before she touched down. In an instant she sprang up again, but as Idea brought up its tongues to block high she soared straight over its heads to cross it up with Claws for Alarm. A meaty tail slap to the noggins spun her around so that she could pull off a ten-claw Curtain Shredder all the way down Idea’s back to the ground. Her body then backflipped away to avoid a retaliatory slash, which Idea immediately followed up with a seven-tongue headbang to crush Nadia at the end of her dodge.
Luckily, her head -being on the ground beneath Idea still- saw it coming. “No ya don’t!” At her command her body went the extra mile, dodging again to avoid the tentacle smash. Seeing herself also reminded Nadia of that little drum on the back of her waist, courtesy of Massachusetts. “Oh right! Anchors, aweigh!” Her body grabbed the anchors and pulled them from the sides of the drum on lengths of chain, then began to spin them like lassos. Idea attacked with both tongues and blood magic, but Nadia powered through thanks to Sectonia’s shield to land lash after lash. Enraged, the pulsating monster charged, but Nadia’s body leaped to perform a triple somersault slam with the chain anchors. Once doubled over by the blow, Nadia sneezed to add insult to injury with a head-on collision. “Right back achoo!”
As it bounced off, her body reattached her head, only for Idea to grab her again the next instant. “Uh oh.” It pulled her into the air above it with all seven tongues wrapped around her limbs to make sure she couldn’t escape this time, not before it obliterated her psyche with another psychic screech. Nadia, however, looked nonplussed. “Oh no, it got me, whatever will I YAH!” She let go of her own limbs, effectively allowing Idea to pull her apart so fast she launched into the air, where she used her spare blood to replace her lost arms with Copycat limbs. As her chain anchors flailed around her new arms grabbed them, and with a grin she triggered blood rockets from the stumps of her legs. “Here’s some food for thought…EAT IT!” She came down with her three hundred and sixty four pounds of effective weight behind a double plunge attack. The anchors pierced through two of Idea’s heads like rotten grapes, sinking so deep into the torso that when Nadia jumped off and yanked on their chains, the heads exploded off the monster’s body like shredded chicken. “Poultry in motion!” she sang, all too happy to use the line she thought of while looking at I’m Stuffed.
She landed as her foe collapsed, and lifted her head to see Sectonia still fighting Dark Horse. The other monster seemed almost as durable as the wasp queen herself, and while Nadia doubted that Idea was down for the count, she wanted to pay Sectonia back for her help earlier. After reattaching her limbs, the feral bolted Dark Horse’s way. “Here to help!” With its ring of eyes Dark Horse saw her coming from behind, but as it went to kick her she split at the midsection. Her bottom half slid low to slice at the monster’s other ankle, while her top half flew into the air. “I’m rubber…” The feral spent her Dramatic Tension to form and throw down a ten-foot-wide ball of water. “You’re glue!” Dark Horse shrieked as the torrential orb exploded on top of it, bowing it over and applying Hydro to it as Nadia fell back.
While Nadia was dealing with the Idea, Sectonia was dealing with Dark Horse. Without her chaos shield, as she had given that to Nadia, Sectonia was being more evasive than before. This didn’t matter too much though as her large size still made her easier to hit, but Sectonia was getting hit mostly with the fire attacks of Dark horse, using her time to deflect its melee attacks. This is mostly because Sectonia couldn’t really dodge the fire attacks very well, and her pipe of insight made them do reduced damage anyway.
Still like Nadia, Sectonia was doing her own ways of attacking Dark Horse, with a combination of blinks and spawning rings of Light around herself to cut into the creature like buzzsaws. (But not throwing them.) alongside her swordplay. Either way, Sectonia was angry at this creature for how hideous it looked, and if she could avoid an attack she would, often with a counter swipe from her blade. And whenever the creature landed a hit, often using its own cunning to block one of the Bee Queen’s swords before spitting fire at her, Sectonia would blink around the creature to confuse it before landing an overhead swing with both swords at its blind spot. Even so, this thing seemed as durable as she was.
Nadia, thanks to Sectonia’s buffs and antlion distraction, managed to finish her fight from the looks of things. Or at least cause the monster to stumble. And as to repay her Queen back for her help, Nadia blasted Sectonia’s opponent with a large orb of water, causing it to be completely drenched and putting out nearby fires caused by its fire breath. The creature was incredibly soaking wet, far more than what would be caused by just water, so Sectonia figured this was one more of her weird water abilities. Still, this gave the bee queen an idea, and as the creature reared for another attack, Sectonia pulled out her staff, teleported above it, and bombarded it with her dark lightning. Thanks to Nadia’s Hydro, this caused the creature to howl in pain as it was electrocuted to the bone, its skeleton showing as it was zapped by the dark lightning. When Sectonia’s barrage of lightning was done, the creature twitched a bit as electricity surged through its body before snapping out of the paralysis and coming at the Queen with newly invigorated fury, landing a few blows that greatly annoyed the queen. ”How dare…” Sectonia said, pulling out her rapiers again and hitting the creature with an equally as furious barrage of sword stabs with a finishing slash that sent the creature hurtling towards its collapsed brother. ”Careful Nadia.” Sectonia said as she launched the creature over to where the feral was.
“Better bee-lieve it,” the feral quipped, dropping into a feline crouch to avoid the tumbling monster. Sectonia’s speed and dexterity really impressed her, and to send a creature of that size with a slash and not bifurcate it spoke of remarkable strength and precision, too. This battle wasn’t over just yet, though. Covered in electric burns and holes that eked out red-hot ichor, Dark Horse got to its feet in an ungainly fashion, its bizarre anatomy swaying back and forth. Idea pushed itself up too, two of its seven heads reduced to pulp. For the second time the monsters stood beside one another, and together Ms Fortune and Sectonia opposed them. It looked like their fight had brought them to a section littered with ruins, away from the others. Elsewhere in the cave the battle raged on, but Nadia felt pretty good. “That went a lot better,” she told Sectonia. “You up for round three?”
”Yes, these things must be purged, they are too hideous to live.” Sectonia replied.
“And, y’know, ‘cause they tried to kill us,” Nadia reasoned. “Let’s do it!” With that she detached her limbs and extruded a huge mass of muscle fiber, packing it tight into the shape of a giant yarn ball with her constituent components poking out. “Throw me!” she commanded.
Sectonia looked at Nadia with a look of ”What did you just say to me?” but thought about it for a second. ”We should make sure they are truly gone.” and with that said Sectonia pulled out her staff and zapped Nadia with her dark lightning, making sure to charge her instead of damage her so that her giant mass of…. Well Sectonia would put that at the back of her mind for now otherwise she wouldn’t go through with her idea… with a surge of dark lightning and as the dark electricity arced around the feral, Sectonia did what her minion suggested and began to move the large… ball… towards the other two creatures.
At first Sectonia wasn’t really sure how to do anything with what Nadia had turned her into, but soon she figured she was very, very bouncy and that made things much easier with moving her around. Like some horrifying basketball, Nadia was being dribbled along the ground as Sectonia passed from herself to herself, rapidly blinking towards the pair of creatures as they tried to strike the queen with their ranged attacks, failing as they would only hit her after images and once Sectonia got close, she slammed the electrified… ball… into the creatures She then finished with a blink behind the creatures and began charging another dimensional break to finish these things off.
The moment the slam dunk hit the ground, both monsters disappeared in a bloody, electro-charged explosion, lashed again and again as Nadia unwound and retracted her limbs. “Woohoo!” she yelled, a little discombobulated from all the bouncing around but having the time of her life. With the grace of an acrobat she landed between Dark Horse and Idea, where she took a bow. “Now that’s what I call a Lightning ‘Strike’!” she quipped dazedly, her mind still on bowling terms
As her head stopped spinning, Nadia noticed Sectonia charging again. Though jolted and reeling from the Lightning Strike, the monsters could still galvanize themselves into action and stop her, unless Nadia stopped them first. A quick look around informed her that among the nearby ruins was an old archway, still intact. Thinking quickly -or as quickly as she could, given the circumstances- she pulled out her anchors and snared both horrors’ feet, then with the chains held tight took a running jump over the archway. Her effective weight, strength, and blood-powered downthrust combined allowed her to pull the creatures off their feet for a chain and hoist them up to dangle below the arch like meat in a butcher’s shop. They flailed wildly, but couldn’t break free, and after just another moment Sectonia finished her charge.
Being able to get a fully charged Dimensional Break on these weakened creatures did wonders. Nadia was caught in the attack as well, but unlike the creatures she wasn’t damaged. She still got hit by the disorienting sensation of hearing and seeing space around her shatter like glass and be left in a white void that echoed a distant flat-line sound as she stood in it, but the creatures she was holding onto, having shattered alongside the very reality she was standing in, appeared as nothing more than spirits hooked on her anchors. Eventually the space would recover like it always did, but those creatures, they did not.
With both creatures dispatched, Sectonia had time to process what she had just done and looked down at her hands. Well, they weren’t stained with blood or anything, but… ”As a minion, I can’t deny your idea was effective, but… I don’t even know how to go about making something like that beautiful. But I suppose you did your best to work with what you had. ” Sectonia said. It was clear Sectonia didn’t approve of how Nadia used her own body like she did, but more out of the gorey aspect of the whole thing than the results. ”But you keep yourself clean and organized somehow, so I can tell you're trying your best to make yourself presentable.” Even saying this, Sectonia still gave a slight visible flinch before regaining her composure. How that didn’t hurt the feral was another question entirely.
“Presentable?” Nadia scoffed with a smile, putting her hands on her hips after she retrieved her anchors. “Maybe I don’t look like much to some high-falutin’ bug, but to humans I’m the cat’s pajamas!” Having worked up a sweat in her hoodie, she unzipped it down to her belly button as if to help illustrate her point. She then put her hands in her pockets. “Still, for a high-falutin’ bug you’re a pretty good fighter. Somehow didn’t hurt me with that giant explosion, either. So…thanks.”
Sectonia looked at Nadia, not really used to people like her but trying to get a read on her either way before saying. ”Before all of this, my plan was to take over Popstar, then the galaxy with the star warrior taken care of. You can’t have such grand plans of beauty if you are weak. And of course a Queen would make sure her minions don’t get destroyed in her own attacks.” Sectonia then paused for a moment, almost doing a tsundere move herself with her continuing, looking at Nadia at the side of her eye. ”Good minions are hard to find.”
Such an out-of-touch response, at least from her perspective, left Nadia a little puzzled and deflated. Did Sectonia mean to say Nadia was or wasn’t a good minion? Did she even want to be a minion? Still, even if the two minced words, the results spoke for themselves. The feral shrugged, a resigned smile on her face. “Whatever ya say, Sec.” After taking Idea’s spirit she tossed the other monster to Sectonia, then jogged back toward the flower patch where everyone had all fallen.
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