Location: Midgar Sector 06, the City of Glass Roland’s @Archmage MC, Partitio’s @Dark Cloud, Goldlewis Dickinson, Sandalphon Word Count: 3818 (+4)
Though not the fastest man around, Goldlewis could make slow and steady progress thanks to his double-jump and airdash. He couldn’t clamber around while carrying his coffin, and it plus his weight meant any one-handed catches might spell disaster, so he made sure to choose the least-risky avenue of ascent.
On the way up, he called Sandalphon again. “Come in, Halo,” he hailed her, his voice betrayed some of the strain of continuous physical activity.
“Reading you, Mustang.”
“Call me old-fashioned, but I like to know who I’m workin’ with.” Pausing a moment after a big jump to wipe his brow, he took a deep breath. “Any chance you could tell me more about yourself?”
“If you like.” Sandalphon’s reply was matter-of-fact. “For a long time I served as the combat coordinator and sigil-bound archangel for the leader of the Apostles, the elite unit of the Northern Illian Church in Grams. Some time after the catastrophe that befell our city, however, I ended up here in Midgar instead, working among the Sankta of the Lateran Church in Piltover, which you might know as Sector 01. While I had a lot in common with the Sankta and worked well alongside their Apostolic Knights, earning their goodwill in return, I felt it necessary to take a more proactive role against the Ever Crisis. DespoRHado did not quite live up to my expectations, but since enlisting I have worked to increase its efficiency and reform the organization from within.”
After himself up onto a ledge, Goldlewis shifted the weight of his coffin onto his other shoulder and rubbed the soreness out of the original. “The Lateran Church, huh? Guess that makes sense, you bein’ an angel and all. It’s easy bein’ laid-back when you got that much firepower; those guns of theirs are nothin’ to sneeze at.”
“Indeed,” Sandalphon replied. “Not only is the Lateran Church Midgar’s leading manufacturer of firearms, but every Sankta is required by law to own a patron firearm for self-defense. Their empathetic racial trait and all-governing Law ensure the peace, but they also ensure that anyone without such traits…can only ever get so close.”
Goldlewis couldn’t speak to that himself, but he felt like he understood the archangel’s decision. “Mm-hm.” With a final effort, he heaved himself over the black-and-yellow stripes and into Plant 04.
Inside lay a hideously tangled mess of assemblers, conveyor belts, splitters, joiners, power lines, poorly designed and bottlenecked in several places, with a large square elevator platform way over on the opposite side. Worse still, there were no elevated walkways or even clear ways through the plant, forcing everyone to squeeze through, climb over, and jump between the conveyors and machinery, with assembly arms and conveyors stopping and starting unpredictably. Goldlewis heaved a sigh and got to work.
”Well, I guess it's time to start climbing.” Roland said, sighing as well as he began to climb. Unlike Goldlewis though, Roland was much better at climbing due to his nimbleness, even if he was complaining just as much. Roland jumped from conveyor to conveyor, making sure he got a steady foothold before he continued onto the next one. When a machine arm tried to stop him on the third conveyor, Roland just sliced it with his weapon to make it stop, not wanting to have to deal with it possibly knocking him off.
Bringing up the rear, Partitio didn't have the edge of the big man's jumps or Roland’s knack at climbing but the merchant knew a thing or three about rough terrain. The Wildlands back home were rife with bluffs and cliffs to climb for a pioneer to traverse, so this wasn't too difficult for Partitio, but as he climbed methodically he lagged a bit behind the others.
”This is dangerous, are you sure this is the safest way?” Roland said as he hopped to his next conveyor belt, not liking having to move around so much heavy machinery.
"Hoo-wee…You can say that again." the merchant called out to Roland sounding out of breath as he did his best to not get hit by the haywire machinery. Just in case he had his machine spear in hand, to strike at a mechanical arm if it got too friendly with him.
“Judging by the rate at which this plant’s factories are producing, I’m estimating an approximate efficiency rate of twenty-six percent,” Sandalphon mentioned, her typically calm tone tinged by disgust. “Give or take. That means they’re just spinning their wheels about seventy-four percent of the time. Despicable.”
Goldlewis nearly stumbled off a conveyor line as it suddenly lurched beneath him, and only narrowly avoided a fall as his attempt to steady himself met with a set of metal beams headed to an assembler for processing. With a frustrated groan he hopped down to the floor. “What a doggone pigsty,” he grumbled as he ducked underneath a conveyor, then climbed up to jump from splitter to joiner to cross a needlessly complicated manifold. Any route the Seekers took was bound to be dangerous, but ‘bothersome’ was another story. Toward the end, his progress came to a dead stop when faced with a solid wall of conveyors and lifters, all shuffling various items around at a snail’s pace as space in the connected machines became available one unit at a time. As far as Goldlewis could tell, there wasn’t any space big enough for him to fit. “Aw, to hell with it,” his spat, readying his coffin. “We’ll be doin’ whatever dolt designed this a favor by tearin’ it down.”
Without hesitation he began to clear out the plant’s clogged arteries, demolishing them one backed-up conveyor at a time with his mighty fail’s giant swings. He bashed, bent, and broke the array of poorly-conceived machinery until it was barely standing, then produced a Thunderbird grenade to blow the pile of shoddy workmanship to pieces. It all came tumbling down in a tremendous noise, and the discontinued conveyors -suddenly free of obstruction- started spewing out batteries, motors, insulated wire bundles, and boxes of screws like reservoirs through broken dams. Quickly the destruction began to cascade through the system, causing assemblers to jam up and precariously-stacked transport equipment to buckle and fall. Still, the destruction opened the path to the exit, and all three hurried to get on. Only after coming to a stop did Goldlewis, much to his astonishment, spot that same KUT-WAN dog squeezing under a conveyor to gallop over and sit down next to him on the elevator. The veteran shook his head. “Still followin’ us? You got some brass balls on ya, boy.”
The KUT-WAN just barked, its tail pipe wagging. Goldlewis reached down, picked it up, and put it on his massive shoulder. “There ya go, you’ll be safer here. ‘Til we get into another fight, anyhow.”
After everyone boarded, it ascended in a blistering burst of speed, stopping and starting between floors two and three until the lift reached the roof and stopped so abruptly that everyone flew into the air. “Whoa-oa-oa!” Goldlewis howled, flailing his arms as he reached the apex of his arc. As he hung in midair, he got an admittedly spectacular view of the Vandelay Campus in the light of day, from the distant Vandelay Building that rose from the Atrium to the volcano atop R&D to the Dendemille Showcase theater. Then he landed with a grunt. “Hah!” he exhaled. “Gets the blood pumpin’, don’t it?”
”A bit unnecessary though?” Roland said, looking back at the huge mess Goldlewis left behind. ”I just hope that the poor line workers gotta clean that up tomorrow.” He then sighed before saying. ”That's that and this is this.” and while not far behind the merchant called after "What in the heck was all that-" Partitio's hollering was cut short as he tripped and fell, thankfully not a long fall only onto his posterior but he grunted and as he dusted himself off he sighed "Darn it…At this rate I ain't got no chance of keeping up."
“Your destination is the tower on the left,” Sandalphon instructed the team. “The one with the yellow and red stripes. My androids just reported that Sundowner is closing in–he’s been carving his way through the Production Center’s assembly lines. Hurry!”
Between here and there was at least half a mile of rooftops, covered with all kinds of external machinery and connected by a labyrinth of teal pipes, steel rails, and hanging cables. Both DespoRHado and Vandelay soldiers could be found littered throughout, usually in the process of destroying one another. Bomb-chucking AIR-1Ns flew around the buildings, helping to highlight targets for the Vandelay Sniper Joes to lock onto. DespoRHado’s cyborgs came armed with Sliders to help them fly around, though, as well as agile Raptor packs to help them hunt down and rip apart their enemies. The Seekers had their work cut out for them.
Looking down, Roland said. ”Be careful you two, that is quite the fall.” With that said, Roland made his way along the precarious footholds. Thanks to his distortion mask and silent movement due to his gloves, it was rare that any of the patrolling cyborgs even glanced at Roland’s position, with those that did soon forgetting what they were doing once Roland moved out of their line of sight. Of course, most of them were paying more attention to the Vandelay bots, anyway. Out of the three, Roland had the easiest time getting to their destination when it came to not attracting attention to himself.
Climbing, straddling, and scaling up and down the various pipes, rails, and cables, Roland found that he was the first to make it to a good destination. Being in such a spot, Roland decided to pull out his gun and give the other two an overwatch if they needed it. His bullets would only tickle from such a great distance, but it could get enemy attention which he could hide from if needed.
With Goldlewis neither the most agile nor inclined to trust the freight rails, since even if they could hold his weight and he could somehow hold his weight a bunch of freight could plow into him either from behind or in front at any second, the former Secretary of Defense needed to find a different way. He ran past noisy, overclocked AC units and small groups of chatty VA-SER units slacking off on the rooftops, not stopping to read any of the blue PDAs left lying around nor the scrolling display screens. The Production rooftops were a visual mess, its workings lively to the point of being boisterous, but on closer inspection everything seemed to be operating along a certain upbeat rhythm. Crane platforms, lifts, bridges, pistons, steam vents, even the flashing lights. Once Goldlewis stopped working against it, navigation got a bit easier.
Out of the other two, compared to Roland and Goldlewis their merchant ally wasn't as strong or agile as either of them. He struggle to keep up with them though not for lack of trying, for what he did lack in those departments he made up for in stamina. Cussing quietly as he worked his way past the same AC units Goldlewis had, he hit a bit of a snag as his coat got caught in the fan thankfully only ripping the hemming slightly but doing nothing to keep him from being any less conspicuous for a man straddling a vent, looking up Partitio glanced between Roland and the VA-SER units "Pssst, give a feller a hand." the merchant whispered urgently.
Offering a hand, Roland pulled the poor merchant up. ”We’ve gotta get you a rock climbing wall or something.” Roland said, noticing the difficulty Partitio was having with climbing
"So you're tellin' me folks would pay for rocks to climb?" well wonders never cease it seemed, it gave Partitio a bit of a chuckle "I tell ya, things here in this world are pretty darn strange." he muttered to himself with a shake of his head before continuing on with both Goldlewis and Roland.
The loudspeaker system came online with a harsh noise so that a tired-sounding robot voice could deliver an announcement. “Reminder: To compensate for Project Armstrong Flow, a new day of the week was added. Please note, on this additional day of the week, working is mandatory.”
That made Goldlewis pause halfway across a walkway he’d just extended to blink in confusion. “What in tarnation…?” Roland could only roll his eyes at such a stupid thing, although no one could see that behind his mask. Partitio just shook his head in disbelief, he wasn't surprised that a big company would make up some nonsense day just to increase work but it also angered him a little, but the merchant didn't linger instead following a bit closer to Goldlewis.
A few moments later, Goldlewis came to a series of what looked like miniature water towers. A little precarious, but nothing he couldn’t jump and airdash across. “Well, here goes nothin’.” Unfortunately the moment he landed on the first tower, it creaked alarmingly, and he froze in place. The next second one of its supports buckled beneath it, and its weight did the rest. “DAMMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!” He fell all the way to a lower section, hollering the whole time. he slid down a sloped roof and slammed down on one of two suspended cargo containers, and though it swayed wildly its cables held. “Gah!” Goldlewis spat, getting to his knees.
“Mustang, are you alright?” Sandalphon asked. “Please respond.”
“I…I’m fine,” the veteran groused. When he got to his feet, however, he was forced to admit otherwise. These cargo containers hung over a large open lot in front of the QA center, full of forklifts and organized stacks of supplies ready to be shipped out across production as needed. Right now though, it hosted an all-out brawl between Vandelay robots (mostly GNRs backed up by a trio of hulking, bubble-shielded BA-B00s with mitts almost as big as their torsos) and DespoRHado forces, including both cyborgs and doll-like androids with a mooing Gekko as the main course. As he watched, a stray shot hit one of the container’s cables, severing it and leaving the other three sorely taxed. “Aw, hell!” he moaned. “I might need a li’l help down here!”
Roland could only sigh as he made his way down to the water towers that Goldlewis fell through, responding to his call for help. In order to pull some of the cyborgs that were going to investigate the loud noise, Roland shot one that was heading there, before hiding himself and making his way to Goldlewis, the cyborg investigating the area where he was shot but going to find no one there. It would only keep the attention of one of them, but that was one less enemy they had to deal with.
Finding his way to where Goldlewis fell, Roland looked down on all the horrible stuff down below in the industrial yard. ”Pssh…. You got yourself in a lot of trouble huh.” Roland said. He looked around, noticing the crane that held the container Goldlewis was standing on. Seeing the battle below, it would be best that Goldlewis didn’t fall into the middle of that mess. Using his stealth, Roland made his way down by climbing a strut and across the catwalks to the crane controls. Giving Goldlewis a motion about his plan, Roland fiddled with the controls to try to get him away from the fight below and somewhere along the upper catwalks out of danger, or at least somewhere that didn’t lead to him falling into the mess below.
After a few false starts in wrong directions, with Goldlewis waving to Roland to hurry as more stray shots, explosions, and flying mechanical parts imperiled him, the dangling container began to ascend away from the brawl. A prominent lever also got the cargo trolley moving down the crane’s boom and closer to the mast where Roland was working the giant machine from the operator cabin. “Whew,” the veteran breathed, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. A few moments later the container came to a stop next to the mast, swaying mildly, and with a jump and an airdash Goldlewis landed on a catwalk. “Close call,” he remarked brusquely as his new ally exited the cabin, jabbing a thumb at the wrecked liquid storage tower. Silvery alumina solution spilled out from its wreckage where it had fallen. “Crappy worksmanship’s what that is,” he grumbled. “Don’t fancy that Partitio feller’s chances.” He cast one last glance at the QA center, which seemed big and important, but ultimately out of his way. “Let’s get moving.”
Up above the said merchant put his index finger, and middle finger into his mouth and whistled shrilly "Dang it, I'm up here fellers! Ain't gonna make it down without breaking my dang legs." he held out his hands in a placating gesture, not sure what to do short of falling to either his doom or an injury that no amount of rest could cure. Unsure of how to proceed he did his best to leap to a container in the air, almost losing his grip on the cable as he swung from it but at least he was a bit closer to the ground than before "Oh, maybe-" the merchant began to say reaching out to a loose hanging cable yet was cut short as he lost his grip and fell.
“Partitio!” Goldlewis whipped around, but he knew he’d never reach in time. Instead he slammed his coffin down, popping open the lid. “UMA!” In reply, the alien’s long, skinny arms reached out from the celestial void within, three of them snatching the merchant by the arm as he fell past. The sudden stop in momentum wrenched his arm painfully, but at least he wouldn’t be hitting the ground. Quickly the UMA hauled him up and laid him down on the catwalk before vanishing back into the coffin, which it closed from the inside.
Partitio groaned, feeling his arm he breathed a sharp breath through his teeth "Ah hell." the merchant seethed in pain, lifting himself slowly from the floor.
The merchant gave the big man a weak smile "Thank ye' kindly mister. Really-" Partitio grunted, pushing his arm to set the bone as he used his ability to recover his health to ease the pain "Saved my skin. Certainly owe you a drink." his ability wouldn't heal the injury, it was fortunate however that it was at least superficial and only a slight fracture else he wouldn't have been in any shape to use it.
They moved from the catwalk to a larger walkway, then toward the last factory complex separating them from their destination. Inside were huge conveyor belts with assembly presses big and strong enough to pancake cars. At first it looked like there would be no way to go but straight through it, but Goldlewis spotted an external conveyor lift transporting what looked like circuits to a higher level, open to the air and everything. He grabbed onto a platter as it appeared, propped his foot on one three down, and despite the lifter’s protesting groans found himself gradually elevated upward. After a bit he jumped off again before he could be pulled into and crushed by the machinery, landing on a balcony overlooked. Stepping through the door confronted him with a big rectangular pit surrounded on all sides by huge fans, probably some sort of cooling facility for the whole plant. On the other side he could see the Production head’s office with its scrolling purple ticker, towering over the factory. Unfortunately, the walkways and ramps that spanned it didn’t go the whole way. Goldlewis stopped where the bridge gave way, his brows furrowed as he examined the network of branching pipes that rose up from the coolant reservoir down below like giant trees. Some of the pipe lids barely held on, and he could see pressure release valves everywhere.
”Why is it you always choose the most dangerous way? Do you have a death wish?” Roland said, poking fun at the situation as if it was another precarious one. ”So what's your plan to get across this one now?”
Goldlewis shot a look at the man. “You wanna head downstairs and dodge through the factory line, be my guest, smartass.” Old and experienced the veteran might be, but he wasn’t above trying to prove himself. After another moment of thinking, he set his coffin down and cracked open the lid. The UMA handed him his Skyfish minigun, and once Goldlewis took aim, he squeezed off a quick burst at one of the valves. When he did, a nearby pipe cap went sailing upward on a geyser of steam, hung there for a solid two seconds, then clattered back down into place as the steam relented. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” Given the sheer weight of the minigum, though, it would be very difficult for him to both maneuver around and fire it.
”Ok settle down, gramps. I won't stop you if you want to do it like this.” Roland said, giving another smartass answer as he saw what Goldlewis was thinking. ”I’ll get the steam hatches open and flying, you just make sure you don’t slip again.” Roland then pulled out his gun and took aim at the barely holding steam caps and got ready to shoot. ”I will say one good thing about this city, unlike the city I came from, bullets are cheap and plentiful. No Head putting an obscene tax on ammo.” Roland remarked as he shot the first pipe, then the second, then the third, and so on as Goldlewis made his jumps. Once the veteran reached the top, it was time for him to return the favor. He took a bit longer cycling around between vantage points, but plenty of bullets and not much spread meant that Goldlewis could trigger the same pressure releases to get Roland up to join him.
“Made it!” he wheezed afterward, putting the Skyfish away. The KUT-WAN still clinging to his shoulder rubbed its head against the man’s whiskery cheek, and Goldlewis patted him in turn. He gave Roland a stiff nod, then turned to face the corridor leading out of the building. “How’s it lookin’, Halo?”
“Most of the androids with Sundowner were destroyed as he made his way through,” Sandalphon replied. “I believe he’s riding an elevator up to Rekka’s office as we speak, however. Hurry and you’ll just make it.”
Goldlewis nodded. “Roger.” He squinted at the shiny blue glass that crowned the Production office’s face, unable to imagine a more direct route inside from this altitude than that. “It’s go time, folks.” After a deep breath he took off running down the hall toward the balcony on the far side.
Location: Midgar Sector 06, the City of Glass Roland’s @Archmage MC, Partitio’s @Dark Cloud, Goldlewis Dickinson Word Count: 3060 (+4)
Roland didn’t really care too much who he went with in this group. But from the sound of things, Goldlewis seemed to know the most so he decided to go with him. He really wasn’t sure exactly what was going on with the whole DespoRHado fighting Vandelay, but perhaps he could get two birds with one stone. As he’d be working with these people, he explained how his distortion mask worked as he put it on. ”With this mask on, people don’t pay much attention to me, with only vague memories of what they saw and nothing concrete. But if you guys know what this is, you can overcome some of its effects. At least enough that we can fight together and know that you're fighting with a masked man. Maybe someday you’ll even remember my name.” Roland said, putting his mask on in front of everyone and doing his whole thing. He also explained those with high enough perception could actually fully remember who he was even with the mask on as long as he explained things, stating a couple librarians he knew could do just that.
After a flurry of hastily-made decisions on who would be going where, the five teams bid one another a hasty farewell, then hurried on their separate ways. As Goldlewis took off, quickly picking up speed as he barreled toward his chosen destination, he sized up his two teammates. From the beginning he knew that splitting up the Seekers would be a risky proposition, only possible in the first place because they had quite a few people when out in full force. Split five ways, however, that roster started to look a little thin. Goldlewis hadn’t gotten the chance to work with either Partitio or Roland so far, and with both of them new recruits as of yesterday, he didn’t even really know them. Their demeanors, level of competence, and capabilities were complete mysteries to him. Every crew needed people to fill certain essential roles, from functional ones like offense, defense, and healing to tactical ones like leadership and support. Right now, Goldlewis couldn’t be going in any more blind, and he hated it.
Luckily for the hardened vet the latter of the two quickly showed his true colors, not having been up to much over the past bit since their meeting with Sandalphon. Partitio had spent some of his time the other day going to see how the folk back in the slums were, a bit of a trip in itself or so he told Goldlewis.
Helped a few folk with some heavy lifting, even chipped in at the bar much to Tifa's vehement and many polite attempts to decline his assistance but he wouldn't take no for an answer and went to washing dishes, serving drinks and making quite a few fast friends. He didn't pay for his drink a couple nights back after all and a merchant always pays for the things he gets.
At the very least, it seemed like this trio -without any fliers, speedsters, or teleporters- formed one of the lower-mobility teams, so it was a good thing that the Production division of Vandelay Campus seemed relatively close by. He, Roland, and Partitio ran along the scorched-earth trail left by the invading DespoRHado force until they made it to a breach in the division wall. They jumped through and found themselves in a walled courtyard, surrounded by factory buildings on its other sides and home to a large, showy statue depicting the Head of Production with Amazonian proportions. Trashed SBR units and the remains of a few DespoRHado troops lay in pieces, strewn around all over the place, with some of cyborg corpses messy enough that Goldlewis averted his gaze.
By looking elsewhere, however, he noticed a couple interesting things. One was a curious snail by the statue-adjacent water feature, the pigmentation of its skin jet-black. More importantly, he saw that while the big doors were sealed shut, with ‘LOCKOUT’ flashing on screens above them, there lay a conspicuous access passage marked ‘DO NOT ENTER’ in a mostly fenced-off lot nearby. Cargo containers lay stacked in front of it as a convenient means to climb up, and the heavily-perforated wreck of a four-legged HGOG unit suggested that the invaders had indeed gone this way. He did notice one other thing: a small, blue shape cowering beneath a bench, trembling in fear. It looked like a dog, and even if it didn’t remind him of that poor Meowstic back in Sector 05, he couldn’t ignore the poor thing. He knelt down for a better look, and saw a four-legged robot with floppy ear-flaps and big, shiny, yellow eyes. “Aw, don’t be scared, li’l feller,” he cooed, reaching out his hand. The KUT-WAN tentatively poked out from its hiding spot, then rubbed up against the veteran’s massive mitt, wagging its tailpipe. “Aww, wouldja look at that. What a cute li’l sucker.” As endearing as it was, however, it wasn’t mission critical. He picked himself up and headed toward the way in he spotted earlier to get the mission started.
As he and the others climbed up and into the corridor, he brought up his communication glyph and dialed in on his newest contact. “Sandalphon, come in. You read me? Over.”
“Reading you loud and clear.” Through the medium of magic, the angel’s voice possessed no static distortion, only a slight ethereal reverb. “For the course of this operation, please refer to me with callsign Halo. I will meanwhile hail you with callsign Mustang. Acknowledge?”
“Roger.” Picked due the southern dialect shared between himself and Partitio, Goldlewis supposed. A few moments later, past a couple destructible crates and jerky lifts, the trio reached the end of the hall, and a door slid open to reveal an open-air loading bay, with shuttered garage doors on each side. The trio arrived just in time to see a gang of DespoRHado cyborgs finish off the last SBR unit standing.
Then they turned toward the newcomers, their weapons at the ready. “Hey! Who the hell’re you?”
“They’re not with us,” the heavily-armored unit leader snarled, slamming his heavy axe and shield together for intimidation. “Take ‘em out!” His squadmates, armed with a mixture of swords, hi-tech crossbows, and grenade launchers, obeyed without question.
Roland could only roll his eyes and sigh. ”I’m not surprised these guys want to fight.”. His allies and the enemies, if they paid enough attention, could hear that Roland didn’t make any noise as he moved, nor made any noise as he drew his weapon, a large two handed sword and moved with quickness that his frame or demeanor wouldn’t suggest.
When a slash connected, almost no sound could be heard. It almost sounded like the impact was underwater, with how muffled it sounded. But the damage could clearly be seen as he swiped at an approaching cyborg. Seeing this guy moving way faster than he probably should, one of the cyborgs with a crossbow shot as Roland turned to look at him. With dexterity of a master, Roland used his sword to bash the projectile away from himself before moving in to land his blow. It was a clean cut, but not enough to fell the cyborg outright, and as he used his heavy crossbow to block the swordsman Roland hit earlier came back for round two.
Goldlewis followed Roland into the fray, his coffin held up in front of him as a makeshift shield. A triple shot of crossbow bolts, custom-designed to puncture solid metal and tear through circuitry like muscle fiber, slammed into it as his advanced. Despite the alarmingly loud impacts, the bolts snapped instead of the reinforced lid. When another trooper lobbed a grenade with a punchy FOOM, it exploded against the veteran’s coffin in a burst of flame, only for Goldlewis to burst from the flames and scatter the duo with a mighty Behemoth Typhoon. The bowman leaped back, but the grenadier got clobbered, and as he tumbled away the squad leader surged into fill the gap. He hurled his heavy shield at Goldlewis, landing a painful blow on his shoulder, then caught the shield as it bounced off in order to come down with a leaping cleave from his axe. Unfortunately for him, his attack speed was slow enough that Goldlewis could step back and catch the axe with his coffin’s chain, then turn it aside. He battered the squad leader’s armor with a shoulder barge, then pragmatically brought his foot down on his foe’s strong enough to crack the ground. As the cyborg reeled, a back-down-forward Behomoth Typhoon knocked him away, and Goldlewis followed up with a Thunderbird heligrenade to chase him down.
By that time, of course, the other cyborgs had rallied. One with his sword decided to head after Roland, who had almost ignored him to go after his crossbow ally. He’d soon find this was Roland’s plan, as Roland skillfully parried the cyborg’s sword, before counter attacking himself. It was being shown why he was part of Shinra’s guard at the debate pretty clearly, even if he looked unassuming. That made a couple clean hits for Roland, even if he had yet to decide the fight. When the grenadier started lobbing explosives into the middle of Roland's fight, however, that complicated things.
At the same time, the Thunderbird gave the squad leader a chance to show off a new trick. When he picked himself up, he blocked the heligrenade's blast with his shield, which in turn transferred fire damage to his axe. Clearly the brutish weapon was more technical than it looked. He moved in with the other crossbowman and swordman, all three challenging Goldlewis together. Rather than let rip with a Behemoth Typhoon when he could be easily punished, the veteran put up his defense, waiting for an opportunity.
”Crap crap crap.” Roland said, almost a bit comedically as he hopped away from the thrown grenades, trying to defend himself with his greatsword. Still, he took some damage from the explosive nature of the grenades. Through the smoke of the grenades however, Roland dashed out again, swapping his weapon to a pair of swords that he used to slash up the grenadier cyborg who had attacked him in a flurry of blows. Unprepared for the deadly flurry, the cyborg went down, but all the extra attention Roland paid to the grenadier left him open to the crossbowman, who took aim with gritted teeth at the agent’s back to nail him with a black steel bolt, of which Roland deflected with his reflexive counter.
Thankfully or rather embarrassingly for the merchant his throwing of hands were initially in the air rather than at the face of these fellas so he went largely unnoticed when he had dove for cover from the hail of crossbow bolts and explosives "Could've been easier-" the crossbowman hadn't even turned in time as the succinct sound of a high pressure nail as it fired into the back of his skull, Partitio having been the one to fire it yet he looked as though he would have preferred to not have "If we just talked partner." he sighed holstering the unconventional weapon at his side.
Partitio was surprisingly quite a capable fighter as when he dropped the crossbowman he switched up hands and brandished a nasty looking spear made of a sort of mish-mash of robotic scrap, a hand still on his hip ready to draw the nailgun once more.
With the damage already dealt to the cyborg by Roland, a nail to his unarmored head provided enough physical and mental shock to take him down. Since Partitio entered the battle by helping the Turk with his enemies, though, that left Goldlewis with the three that remained. The swordsman and squad leader attacked together while the crossbowman kept his weapon trained on the target, locking Goldlewis down on defense since any action in his part would result in a quick triple-shot and getting combo'd by the other two. When the two melee fighters got tired of chip damage and split up to attack him on either side, the veteran knew he had to move fast.
"Try this on!" He bellowed, swinging his coffin around on its chain in a heavy metal whirlwind to batter both aggressors in quick succession. The crossbowman timed his shot and let loose, only for Goldlewis to Roman Cancel his attack and instantly switch to blocking again, wasting the cyborg's triple shot. As the man grunted in frustration, Goldlewis took his chance to met the squad leader head-on, coffin versus axe. Sparks flew, and the crossbowman hurried to reload.
Unfortunately for him, a sudden gout of flames engulfed him in a fiery blast with a little extra oomph, with a bit of a BP boost Ember lit the ranged fighter aflame dealing a good portion of damage to the cyborg. Partitio had snapped his fingers, causing a spark to ignite that turned into the fire as he stood at a safe distance from the actual fighting. He wasn't no stranger to a good old brawl but he knew when not to bite off more than he could chew.
With the shooter partially consumed, Goldlewis could give the squad leader his full attention. He blocked as his foe chopped away with his flame-infused axe, then challenged with an elbow strike to interrupt his offense. When his opponent blocked on reflex to stop further jab checks, Goldlewis immediately went low, first with a kick while basically sitting on the ground and then a stronger low mule kick to sweep the leg. The cyborg went down, and Goldlewis knocked him away with a down-forward-up Behemoth Typhoon. As his foe recovered he jumped, airdashed, and came down with a windmill of alien arms. The cyborg took it head-on and quickly ate the veteran’s dust, an upward punch from the UMA that knocked his block -or more accurately his mask- right off. Fearless, he still swung on Goldlewis’ followup, cutting another Behemoth Typhoon short with a couple hacks of his axe. He ended with a big kick straight to the big man’s gut, but all his strength only moved the big man back about a foot. Goldlewis shook his head, clicking his tongue, and kicked back, bowling the cyborg over. A deluge of Thunderbird bullets forced his opponent to block on wakeup, though the chip still hurt, and when Goldlewis jumped to airdash at him again he kept his guard up. This time, however, the veteran landed without attacking and grabbed him. “You damn-!” he growled, seizing the cyborg by the chest to deliver three massive headbutts. “FOOL!” When the last one crashed right into his dome, the squad leader’s muscles went slack, and he pivoted away before falling right on his face.
Of course, the other swordsman was still a problem. Or it seemed like it would be, until Roland finished off the Swordsman he had been dueling with with a few precise slices to cut up the poor lad, before swapping out his two swords for a fancy looking shotgun and shot the swordsman that was advancing on Goldlewis in the back with three precise shots, using that opener to advance on the Swordsman with an oppressively big sword that seemed to be made more for crushing than slashing. The swordsman tried to block the massive sword, but found his sword being crushed by Rolands attack, and it didn’t take much more than that to topple him.
With that the skirmish was over, furious but brief. While the Seekers wielded greater firepower and more varied skills in general, the cyborgs’ number advantage and solid weaponry still turned out to be a threat. As his heartbeat slowed back down, Goldlewis stopped his wristwatch as he straightened his tie. Team Mustang’s performance left something to be desired. “Chances are we’re gonna be outnumbered even more goin’ forward. We’re all gonna need to fight toe to toe and coordinate crowd control to keep from bein’ overwhelmed. These ain’t toys these guys are packin’.”
His feedback came to a stop when he noticed a certain four-legged robot headed his way. “You again?” He said in disbelief, his brows raised at the KUT-WAN that somehow managed to follow him from the earlier courtyard. Goldlewis kneeled down and patted it on the head before pushing it away. “I’m sorry, li’l guy, but it’s dangerous out here. If you tag along you’re sure to get scrapped. Go on now, git.”
When he stood back up, he looked between the two shuttered doors leading out from the loading bay, put his hand to the glyph beside his head. “Sa…uh, Halo, you read me? Which way should we go?”
“I would recommend the high road,” the archangel replied. “There’s a button on the barrier wall behind you that should open it. If you use the teal pipes to reach the 04 Plant, there’s a good chance you can reach the facility rooftops. That would allow you to skip more fights inside Production’s factories.”
Goldlewis nodded. “Copy.” He jumped up and hammered the button with a backfist, causing the barrier to recede downward and expose the loading bay to the open air. Then he took a deep breath. It would be a lot of jumping and climbing, but it would be better than a slog through more time-consuming punch-ups. We got this. he told himself. “Let’s move, y’all.”
Roland sighed, but followed. This was such a pain, but a job is a job.
Level 10 Sectonia (holding 4 level up) - (80/100) Location: The Under - Pizza Tower Word Count: Less than 750
Sectonia's efforts to clean up her fellow seekers had... limited success. They were at least smelling better, if anything. There were discussions of stories, both a continuation of her own story to explain the mountain they had to deal with, something Sectonia really didn't want to think of due to the cold. There were some other stories from the group, Bowser having the most interesting one of all of them shockingly. This 'Kirby' sounded familiar, but she couldn't place where she had heard that name before.
With the group eating their respected breakfast, Sectonia had her antillions pack away her new little camp set and the group got going through this tower, deciding to head into these 'staff only' rooms to see what these actually were. And it was... The exit to this tower? but not wanting his new 'guests' to leave just yet, out came this so called 'pizza face'. And the name was apt, as he was just a big pizza. And much like what Nadia quipped, he got right into it without even a single word.
"Perhaps he has no form of higher thought Nadia." Sectonia said, giving her own little quip as she summoned her own minions to compete with the minions summoned by Pizza Face, leading to a strange minion brawl between the denizens of pizza tower, and Sectonia's antillions. with that done, Sectonia boosted her allies with her Haste. Still, it was soon made apparent that Pizza Face was just going to hover above the playing field, making it so the seekers had to come to him.
After making his attacks, Roland will automatically counter the next attack or combo attack directed at him with his currently held weapon. If Roland overpowers the attack with his counterattack, he will nullify the enemy attack and deal damage to them as if he had attacked them with a basic swipe of that weapon. If the attack matches Roland's in power, both the attack and counter are nullified. If the attack is stronger than Roland's counter, his counter is nullified and he takes the attack's damage as normal. Ranged attacks work the same way, but Roland will not deal damage if his counter is stronger.
Once Roland has countered that single attack or combo attack, he no longer has Counter until his next round of attacks.
Location: Sector 6 Word Count: 2134
For a brief moment, despite the assurances of her sense of smell, Giovanna had worried that her hypothesis might have been mistaken. Seeing was believing in most cases, after all. When a tired male voice called out to her in reply, however, her fears were laid to rest. His jokingly indignant first remark made her snicker; given that her sense of smell transcended human limits thanks to her bond with Rei, she didn't need this guy to reek in order to detect him, but it was way funnier if he thought he stunk.
This wasn't all fun and games, though. Whoever this guy was, he'd come to extract information from her. Quickly putting two and two together, Giovanna realized that the Seekers' pursuer must have not only been tailing them since Dendemille, but also been privy to the conversation within it. Happy Chaos? She recognized that name from the security breach in the White House back in her own world. In the moments prior to that incident's dramatic climax she even got the chance to lay eyes on That Man herself, and she counted herself lucky that she never played a major role in those proceedings. Giovanna operated in the wiggle room left by a certain set of rules -the laws of the United States of America- but a man like that broke all the rules. If he was here, that did not body well.
Unfortunately, her ability to answer Roland's inquiries stopped there. Not being present for whatever went down inside Dendemille, she'd been relying on an explanation from Goldlewis in order to get a hold of the situation herself. If anything, Roland probably knew more than she did. That made bargaining for the continued secrecy of the Seekers' activities difficult. But maybe she could still work something out. Sensing no immediate hostile intent, Giovanna relaxed a little. "We know him only by reputation. We're trying to figure out what he's up to ourselves. I don't know whose side you're on, but here's the deal: we're not involved in Midgar's affairs. We're just looking for a powerful monster hidden somewhere in the region, maybe even Midgar itself. If we don't take care of it, the whole city's in danger. Once it's dealt with, it'll be back to business as usual. You'll all be free to play your political games to your hearts' content. So we're not anyone's enemy, okay? Leave us be and we'll be outta your hair in no time."
Roland rolled his shoulders. So whoever this Happy Chaos was, they did know something about him. Or rather, it seemed like they knew about him, but hated him. Roland knew what knowing a crazy was like... Assuming this girl was telling the truth. Considering how her face looked when he mentioned the name of that distortion, she probably was. "Well... I suppose I can understand why you are with some nobodies if that is the case. My job is to protect President Shinra. As long as your not interfering with that, we're good." Roland said, giving a bit of a sigh.
He wasn't happy about what would come next, as walking into a trap wasn't really good for one's health. But considering how that man seemed to be able to destroy entire plates of the city, Roland had no choice. "I've still got questions for those that were there at the time. And if this guy is your enemy too, I don't see why we can't work together for a little bit. "
"Work together?" Giovanna crossed her arms, an eyebrow raised. As odd as doing that with her eyes closed felt, she couldn't be sure that her new acquaintance did away with his vanishing act just yet. For all she knew, this could be an elaborate ploy to make her perceive and then forget about him again for the sake of a clean getaway.
"What makes you think that's in the cards? Either your loyalty's to Shinra, or the common good, and you've gotta know the two don't exactly overlap. The Turks in our group--they ditched Shinra in a heartbeat after realizing what's at stake, and I bet General Affairs isn't happy. Is that why you're here? I can't smell any more goons nearby, but what reason do we have to trust you?"
So far, the fact that none of the new recruits turned traitor -even if a few abandoned the team along the way- was nothing short of miraculous. That could change at any time, especially since it stemmed in part from the recruits' awakening. For this man to join the team, he would need to wake up, too. "...If you really wanna do this, there's something you need first. That stuff you said you didn't understand? It's because they've got you. But I can snap you out of it. Then you can make the call. So before we put any trust in you, you're gonna have to trust me first."
What was this 'common good' talk? This person was a bit naive if they thought this city worked like that. Although that being said, Roland wasn't the biggest fan of how things were either. But thats that and this is this. And all of this talk of 'they' got to him and all of this about trust and stakes made Roland a bit skeptical. "Hey hey. Why does it sound like your trying to get me to join some kind of cult?" Roland said, Giovanna sounding a bit like she was trying to start something big. Although considering that portal looked vaguely demonic, them being a cult wasn't off the table... But then how did they get two turks to join a weirdo cult?
"Huh...I guess it probably does sound like that," an amused Giovanna admitted, running a hand through her hair. While a healthy amount of skepticism about the Seekers' deal would ordinarily be a pretty normal reaction, but so far plenty of new recruits joined in without question. On second thought, both Turks had been press-ganged into it, either with a luster purge from Roxas or a post-fight friend heart. Oof. Giovanna furrowed her brow as she scratched her head, then shrugged. "Well, them's the breaks, I guess. As long as you're under, you're a liability," she told Roland, comparing his state to an anesthesia-induced stupor. "Live in ignorance if you like, we can't save everyone. Just know there's so much more at stake than you could possibly realize. Your call."
Roland was confused for a lack of a better word. While this all sounded like a cult sorta deal, there were things that didn't make sense and they had some answers about... something? What was this about him 'being under' something? Wait... was he under something when that Happy Chaos fellow was at the debate? He did mention something about being able to control... something... And there were Turks with them, all having been 'fixed', and they were no pushovers. Roland started to scratch his head in annoyance at what was going on. "Gah... what would this involve..." Roland said, defeated. Granted if it was anything he knew was bad, he'd retaliate. He wasn't going to be some weird test subject for a wing.
"A shock to the system." Giovanna put one hand on her hip and held her other up, manifesting a friend heart above her palm. "This thing can free you, but you'll resist it if you don't loosen up first." Discarding the heart, she crossed her arms. "By the way, you turned off your stealth power yet? It's pretty awkward talking with my eyes closed, you know."
Roland looked at the cartoony looking heart. Well, he hadn't seen anything like that before. And it was far, far too pretty to be anything from this city... And come to think of it, Roland didn't have his mask on at the debate until things started to get hairy, so they did already know his face... "Sigh, either your telling the truth, or your even higher up than I am and are just running experiments on turks." Roland said, taking off his distortion mask to reveal his tired, slightly worried face. "Come on, lets see what this does..."
"Did you just say 'sigh' out loud?" Giovanna laughed, incredulous. When she opened her eyes, she found a rather ordinary-looking man in dark suit. Though she hadn't been paying a ton of attention to the debate broadcast, she remembered seeing a lot of people in that sort of attire over on Shinra's side, which made sense given Roland's stated allegiance. Rei, who'd been sniffing him, slunk over to take up her usual position behind Gio's back as the secret agent approached.
"Alright, what's the best way to do this..." she muttered to herself. She stopped right in front of Roland, her chest barely an inch away from his as she sized him up. Tall, thin, composed. Clearly professional, but that 'sigh' and that funny exchange about smell hinted at an inner dorkiness. Plain, but not bad looking. "...'Kay. I'm throwing you."
Before he could object, she pounced on him like a tiger. Her legs clamped down around his neck, and as Gio pulled him off balance, she twisted her midsection to slam him down into the hard asphalt. The hard landing left him stunned, winded, and, more critically, pretty hurt. Enough for Gio to conjure the Friend Heart again and smack it into the forehead of the man asphyxiating between her thighs. Roland was instantly healed, and as Giovanna released her headlock, suppressed memories flooded back into his mind just as the oxygen flooding back into his lungs.
Roland gacked and sputtered, having just been crushed between this woman's thighs in a surprise attack. "Gah, what is wrong with you?... Well, at least it wasn't as painful as Ms. Head Librarian's introduction into her little book club." Roland said, getting up and cracking his neck. "So is that it? Crack a man's neck and shove a heart into him? Are you sure your not part of some freaky dominatrix cult or something?" Roland said, on guard now, but having been friend hearted, his memories came back. A bit slowly at first, but as the two just stood there, he remembered more and more. "Wait... This isn't the city I know. Whats going on?" Roland said, glancing at what he'd assume would've been the backstreets. They were remarkably clean, and it was still too early for the sweepers to be out and about.
"Welcome to real life," Giovanna said as she rose, casually dusting herself off and straightening herself out. "Midgar, Dystopiascape, the whole world, it's all a lie. A giant mashup of different worlds, crammed together by Galeem." From here, surrounding by buildings, neither of them could see the Lord of Light in the distance, but it was there. Always there. "Whatever it is, it messed up everything. Sounds like a conspiracy, but it's true. Good news is we can mess it up right back. And the monster I mentioned it just one step on the road to to get there." She put her hands on her hips, smiling wryly.
A few thoughts then went through his head. Without that introversion that just happened, Roland would be stuck in more or less the same grind as before. That, and he noticed pretty quickly that Ms. Librarian wasn't here either. And while his world was messed up, he did have a pretty good group of friends that weren't here, or might not even recognize him if they did meet up again. That... well... "Well... I guess I can take a look at whats going on. Still strange, but thats that and this is this. Name's Roland, a grade 9 fixer." Roland said. Even saying that, it seemed even in another world, the way of the city was ever still present.
"Giovanna." After scratching Rei's head, Gio beckoned Roland to follow her. "C'mon then, Roly-poly. Midna's gonna be back any second, and we've both got a lot to catch up on."
Upon entering the portal, Roland found himself in quite the circus. Giving a nervous chuckle, Roland introduced himself to everyone the same way he did to Giovanna. To be fair, he didn't really need to say his fixer grade anymore considering he doubted Hana or the Head was even present in this city. It was mostly habit at this point. Looking at the group, they had been halfway through discussing their plans about dealing with Happy Chaos. And it was quite the strange crew. There were a fair share of humans or human adjacent sure, but there were a couple robots and people who clearly were not human as well. He also got a bit of an earful from Goldlewis as well as Roland was new to the group, and had to be caught up on exactly what was going on in much better detail.
Level 10 Sectonia (holding 4 level up) - (79/100) Location: The Under - Pizza Tower Word Count: Less than 750
Sectonia ended up being the first of the group to speak up after Nadia had figured that while they ate their breakfast of pizza, Sectonia trying one of the fruity ones as she had all the time in the world to eat the tons of dessert pizza they had made. "Yes, I wasn't there long, but that 'Dead Zone' was a dreadful place. I wasn't there long though." Sectonia said, adding her own thing. "If we are talking about what we've seen so far... the great desert was quite annoying. We had to defeat a grotesque giant worm thing using a train that had some kind of rail gun on it. There was a land of sweets there however, I didn't grab many of them at the time, so I decided to make sure I gathered as much as I could this time around."
Munching on her bit of pizza, she then thought of something to say. "Its a shame that consul chased us out of that city. It would've been a lovely kingdom to add to my own. It would need some remodeling, but its art aesthetic worked for the environment in most places. I'm sure whoever I found to be reagent there would do a much better job than that P."
She used this downtime to smelt the other worm trinkets she had gotten off of rika and Jr, making her projectiles even more of a pain to dodge. Thinking of how that would be useful, Sectonia had another story that not many here had seen. "With these odd trinkets having their power transferred to me with no downsides, It reminds me of how at one point during that little desert adventure how I had to deal with this strange, black spiky thing that could warp around, stop time, and pull out some incredibly painful guns. the creature was very fast. Perhaps the unpredictability presented by these trinkets will benefit myself should I run into such a creature again."
Looking at the group, Sectonia noted a few of them hadn't cleaned themselves up properly. Or at least, her version of proper. So as the group ate, she summoned some antilliosn to touch up a few of the group. (You can choose if you interact with this or not.) The antillions tried not to get in"While we have some time to ourselves, I should make sure you are all presentable." And with almost a 'tut tut' motion, Sectonia said. "Its best to be beautiful. Its a bit of a shame I don't have a mirror to see my own beauty. But that doesn't mean I can't make you all beautiful in hte mean time."
With the lunacy of Consul C concluded, Susie followed the group thinking about what she had heard. Some things this Happy Chaos said were... interesting. Susie thinks he gave more info than he even meant to, as if it was so casual to him he didn't even consider the group not knowing about any of it. This 'Flame Clock' was new to her. And considering he kept trying to infer to the two political forerunners that what they thought wasn't the core of this city... could this clock be what he meant? It didn't take long for both groups to merge, and soon after everyone was together again.
As they looked for a place to put Midna's portal to head back to base, Blazermate had her scanner ping something. But for the life of her she couldn't remember what it was. She looked at it, but it vanished as soon as it appeared. The only thing she could remember is that it was some kind of shadow or something. And with how often her scan went off and how often she felt like she was looking at shadows, she could only rub her eyes. "I think my head part needs some fine tuning. I keep looking at shadows." Then she was reminded of that dark ship, that horrifying dark... With Midna opening up a portal, Blazermate having just spooked herself jumped in trying to be one of the first ones in.
Susie could only shrug. What had gotten into that girl? Well, they had a lot to discuss about Happy Chaos there. A group of individuals that could freely control those under the influence of Galeem was not something to be taken lightly. And get her explination she did, as Goldlewis apparently knew Happy Chaos. He had come from his world! Well, that was helpful as that meant they might know what things he could do.
"Hmm... hes a super powerful magic user? Thats a bit concerning. Knowing how his abilities work might help though. Perhaps there is a scientific way of dealing with it. Part of my company motto was to make your wishes come true. That is almost literal. Well, it would be if I had contact with the Access Ark..." Susie said, trailing off as she started to annoy herself. But she snapped back to getting to her point. "My point is, with proper technology, even magic can be made to heel."
Blazermate, having been told what had gone on when the feed was cut out, pointed at something else. "So, that logic virus thing 'corrupted' people unless they got 'formatted', IE reset? That... is really weird. There has to be a way to fix that. Poor Tora is beside himself with worry." She glanced at where Tora had gone, the Nippon heading to bed and not joining in with the conversation. "Wait, doesn't beating the guardian kinda do a 'reset' on those nearby? Or the friend hearts? If we can even trust that guy. Hm... Man, this is so confusing. "
"Either way, it sounds like we will need to hack quite a few systems to get into wherever this guardian is." Susie said. "I can handle that. But something still doesn't sit right with me. If Shinra has this guardian under lock and key, but he doesn't know about the Consuls, that is... odd." Susie said, offering that question up to everyone. ---------------------------------------------------------
Roland
Level 1 Roland - (1/10) Location: Sector 6 Word Count: Less than 750
Roland had been tailing these people for a little while now. Thanks to his mask, he hadn't been noticed really. Well, he had been noticed a few times, but just ducking out of view before they really paid attention to him was usually enough. For the most part, even when they noticed him, they seemed to not be overly cautious about being followed or anything. Roland could pass this off as possibly people getting caught up in a shady business they weren't even aware of, if it wasn't for the presence of a couple folk that worked for the city. Roland didn't know the likes of Giovanna, Goldlewis, Benedict, or Zenkichi personally, he could recall that a couple of them worked for the city itself. Especially since two of them are turks, you have to at least know those faces if they are the office your working for.
Seeing the time and considering the heightened security over what had just happened, the group seemed to be worried about being caught after hours. A valid concern he guessed. That was when he saw something interesting. The shadow lady opened some kind of portal near a group of dumpsters and everyone in the group barring Giovanna entered. Sniffing the air, she looked at Roland, eyes closed as to not be affected by his distortion mask. She then got into a battle stance, summoning an electric minion to assist her but also giving Roland quite a helpful tip.
Seeing her sniff in Roland's direction, Roland then sniffed himself saying. "I don't smell that bad. I know I was sweating bullets during the debate, but..." His voice wasn't harsh at all, but instead very lax and carefree, swapping gears, he said. "Thanks for the tip ma'am." Shuffling a little bit, Roland then continued, undisturbed by her combat stance. "What is a member of the secret police, two turks, and a director head doing moving around with random people?" Roland then put on a serious voice for a moment as he said. "And what is your group's connection to that 'Happy Chaos' person."
Roland had no real reason to distrust Giovanna or the other members of the group yet, and he harbored no ill will. This was reflected in his tone of voice afterwords. He had a very 'I don't wanna be here.' kinda tone to his voice as he said. "I'm just doing my job. You helped me out before, can ya help me out now?. Then, turning his voice to a more curious sounding tone, he said. "I noticed I couldn't understand a few things that guy was sayin'. Yet it looked like the people your with could. Considering how on edge everyone was, I can assume your not allies. But something doesn't add up here. Care to explain?"
Central hub: Smash City Alcamoth Accessible locations: Peach’s castle Limsa Lominscuttle Town Lumbridge Twilight Town Kosm’s Beach
Sectonia, having not slept the previous night thanks to that consul, had her antillions set up camp. Seeing as there were others that were as tired, if not way more tired than her like Nadia, she also told her antillions to get them ready and in bed and protect the camp while they all slept. Entering her tent, it wasn't super opulent like she liked, but she was too tired to really complain all that much about 'roughing' it, and just crashed for the night.
Her dreams weren't as extensive as some of the others, with it being mostly just her looking into that large body mirror she used to lok at herself through back on Floralia, although a bright, bright light started to encompass everything around, reflecting off the mirror and blinding her, with her seeing a white, fluffy figure in the light before she woke up.
Upon waking, Sectonia was rested, but didn't really feel it. Being the beauty queen she was, she took a bit to get herself presentable and ready before leaving her tent. Upon leaving her tent, she saw a disheveled Nadia who looked like she tried to groom herself, although she didn't do a good job. Surprisingly she had managed to wake up before the koopa clan and the 'king of evil', and even with her prep time, she was up and about before then. Perhaps those sounds she heard before she fell into dream land were them arguing. They did seem to have history, and it wasn't all that good, so that could've been it.
After observing, Sectonia wasn't too impressed with the area. Although purple bricks were quite an odd choice, the look of these pizza trolls wasn't much to be desired. What's more, they seemed to block the way until the group found stuff they wanted, and they wouldn't tell Nadia what they wanted. They seemed to live up to their name then, but in an effort to try to deal with the rage of, well, basically the whole group but mostly the royals, they offered a deal almost in spite of their own nature. An infinite storage bag and boxes that preserved things perfectly, specifically pizza, and even suggested the group use these to get all the food they could need to survive out here in the 'wilds'.
"In spite of our rage at such a random, potentially time consuming request, you offer us a method of dealing with a food crisis. I am curious as to why. It seems both requests are paradoxical in nature." Sectonia said, questioning the trolls.
"Para-whatta? Rage?" Arno scratched his head, looking around. "Doesn't seem like anyone's mad to me lady. You come to Pizza Tower, you get pizza. Just gotta work a little for it, that's all." they replied.
Sectonia wasn't stupid, if they refused to answer or just avoided the question like they just did, she knew it was someone above them and this was their way of helping. Well, if they weren't going to be annoying about it. She could always mind control them if they were far too annoying. Although this might take some time, since well... this was an infinite food source and it would take the seekers time to find enough food for the group.
Nadia had accepted their offer without question, and just as she was deciding which of the rooms to go into, Sectonia stopped her for a moment. "Before you go catch your fish, you should at least look proper. You were out of sorts after what happened yesterday after all." Sectonia said, summoning a couple antillions to clean up Nadia's hair and make her look proper before she went into her pizza run. This didn't hold Nadia back for very long, as she was far smaller than Sectonia herself, and soon the feral was off on her own little 'pizza run'.
Speaking of a pizza run, she had to figure out where she would go. The queen’s musings were interrupted by what was now becoming a rather common event: a request for Rika to don the hat of greed so that she could crush some spirits.
Specifically that request came from the girl herself, and her now brother bowser junior, who was unusually on foot rather than riding around in his clown themed flying machine.
”SAYU, that giant mermaid v-tuber, busted it up when she kicked it” the prince explained when asked, before reassuring the queen and princess. Sectonia could only ask ”What is a v-tuber?” but got cut off mid sentence by Jr saying. ”But don’t worry, I got something out of that to make up for it, so I’m not gonna be slowed down one bit”
”You mean the tape right?” Rka asked, before ignoring the preceding whining about spoilers and instead repeating the request ”Could we please borrow your hat again? I have these flukes that we killed because they were stealing food from the city” before broaching a question on morality ”Wait, isn’t that what we’re about to do now? So is that a bad thing or not?”
”I uh” Jr umm’ed, not really knowing how to address that, before noticing a discrepancy and jumping on that ”hey wait what happened to those adventurer monsters that we found dead on the ground? And I ‘m sure there was more flukes”
”You did make minions out of some of them” the shipgirl pointed out, only for jr to retort that ”No I mean the other ones, dummy”
Flukefey An airborne fluke on a short cooldown. Its only move after being summoned is to fly toward a target, homing in slightly as it picks up speed, in order to bite it
Multi absorption via Minion Captain Power results in a swarm of flukes being summoned to perform a swooping barrage
”From what I can tell, this place generates infinite food. Far different from a place that has limited food being stolen.” Sectonia said, a bit taken aback at these two having a ‘moral’ question after having done all the stuff they have. Still, she was fine with them crushing their loot, with the same stipulations as before.
”Oh. Ok that makes sense yeah” Rika replied to the queen, before thinking a bit, and theorizing ”I think we must have had them for too long and they faded away?” regarding the missing spirits.
”Aw, that is so lame” the prince sulked, mood dampened a little, though there was still treasure to be had.
You have acquired: Geo x1850 Flukenest A living charm that can be affixed to one's clothing. It transforms outgoing projectile spells into masses of volatile baby flukes near equal in size to the original projectile. This increases their damage, potentially doubling it, but also severely reduces the spells' range and makes them less reliable, as the flukes' explosion isn't consistent. It also removes any added effects or elements from said spells Wiggle Worm A living, energetic trinket that causes projectiles and spells to travel in a from side to side as they fly, making them more chaotic. In addition to being harder to dodge and harder to hit, they also fire 40% faster Brain Worm A living, intelligent trinket that, if the user isn't too close to the target, will cause missed projectiles to hook 90-degree turns to try and hit the instant said projectiles pass perpendicular to the missed target. This can happen once per projectile Pulse Worm A living, bipolar trinket that causes projectiles to undulate between 150% size and 50% size as they fly, making them alternatively easier and harder to hit. The undulation happens the same way every time Lazy Worm A living, lackadaisical trinket that causes projectiles and spells to move 50% slower, but with 40% extra range Flat Worm A living, dopey trinket that increased the width of projectiles and spells, giving them an oblong shape that makes them easier to hit with
If you called a pile of worms treasure that is.
”Eww what even the stuff they give is gross” the prince compiled, as Rika stood there nonchalantly holding the wiggling worms in her crushing hand.
Sectonia was as repulsed as the younger of two kids, but her curiosity on scanning their magic found quite a few interesting things coming from these wriggling worms. ”Hm…. With the trinket smelter, I suppose we wouldn’t have to hold onto these ‘worms’. Either way, they seem to have magical attributes of their own when held.” with sectonia explaining what she sees from each worm. Honestly thanks to that trinket smelter, she was interested in a couple of them that would make her projectiles very, very difficult to dodge out of their sheer chaos.
”Huh, they do all that?” Rika, who had little context as to why the worms were repulsive and just sort of found them strange. As such she was still holding them after the explanation, and thus had the opportunity to test the result of holding all of them.
The resulting slow moving, pulsating, oval shaped wildly swaying from side to side shot from her grizco blaster was certainly a sight to behold as it flew through the air for a fair bit longer than normal before detonating off to one side of where the ship girl had been aiming.
”Ok, that is like, super weird. How am I supposed to hit anything like that?” she asked, and she had a point. Only fear of ricochets made her hold off on firing her rifle, but she could only imagine how utterly unhelpful it would be to adjust those ”I mean, how does it help at all?”
Taking the wiggle worm, Sectonia showed Rika how it could be of use to her as she fired off a ring of light, which in addition to the weird attributes her mask gave her, also now wiggled making it much less predictable. Although due to its size, this also made it much, much harder to dodge. At least no one would be hurt by it with her control over friendly fire matters, but it did show how she could use them. ”This one, that one, and that one would make dodging my attacks even harder than they were before. And surprisingly more accurate.” Sectonia said, almost self burning herself as all she had to do was de-equip her mask that tripled her projectile count in order to get her accuracy back.
”Ohhhh, I get it now” Rika ooo’d before asking ”Do you want them then? They seem to work way better for you than for me, seeing as yours are already big and stuff”
”Which leaves us with the really useless slow one” Jr complained, only for Rika to add ”And the fluke one”
”I guess but … oh, maybe if I” the prince mumbled to himself, theorizing to himself about how to use the fluke nest. Then he snapped his fingers, attaching it to his bib, and the raising up his paintbrush and casting ”Stone!” which caused a brick to be ripped from the wall, and then for that brick to immediately explode into a shower of tiny fluklings, which then promptly exploded like goopy firecrackers.
”I. Alright. I guess” Jr said, still not entirely convinced this was good.
”Worse comes to worse, perhaps a magic shop would be interested in such matters the next time we encounter one.” Sectonia said to Jr. to cheer him up a bit.
”Anyway” Rika said, having now handed over the relevant worms and pocketed the cash, ”there was one other thing, and that was that Dad Bowser said we should go with someone else while doing this. You know to be safe. Also so he and Ganandorf can fight or something I think? I dunno” even if she wasn’t blind to the hostility between the two ”So would you like to come with us? Or have us go with you?”
Sectonia looked at the two and thought for a moment. ”I suppose if you are going to where I am, I don’t see why not.” Saying that, Sectonia pointed at Peppibot factory, the two seeing that the queen had quite the sweet tooth if her first instinct was to go to desert land.
”Wait, you want to go there too?” Jr said, surprised, particularly because he was fairly sure that the ‘go with other people’ had also been an attempt to stop the youngsters going for sweets. Well that plan had failed spectacularly, which got a cheer of delight from the pair.
Sectonia wasn’t sure how to reply to that with nothing but a simple. ”Of course, why wouldn’t I?”. She hadn’t been secretive about her sweet tooth, but it still was strange to talk about eating habits.
”I can hardly wait! So let’s go already!” Rika insisted, only for jr to request ”just one sec” as he popped a set of headphones on, slotted a tape into a tape deck. Play was pressed, the tape began to play, and the prince was consumed by static, that flowed and expanded up until it vanished with a little flash of flare and revealed the form of the guard captain Undyne.
”Alright! It worked!” the transformed prince cheered, before summoning and twirling around a pair of spears showally, before dismissing one and planting the butt of the other to the ground. ”Pretty cool right!”
”Yup” Rika agreed, before she made to copy him, summoning her own new polearm and giving it a spin too. They might have engaged in a contest of increasingly elaborate spear tricks, had their stomach not grumbled and reminded them of what they needed to be doing.
Sectonia looked at Jr with a puzzled look on her face. ”This area seemed like it would be quite dangerous, have you managed to get some practice in with that?” Sectonia said. While she was neutral on him, having Bowser’s son die under her watch would lead to quite a fight, and while she found him to be a buffoon, his strength was no joke.
”Other than being a fluke for a bit, nope, none!” Jr replied cheerfully, before clarifying that ”But it's fine, this tape acts like a second health bar, so even if I go down as Undyne, I’ll be just fine. I’ll pop out, fit and healthy and ready for round two, and won’t that be a nasty surprise if something manages it. Not that they’re gonna”
The queen hovered in through the gates of her chosen level, flanked on both sides by the pair of spear-wielding warriors, and found herself before the Peppibot factory. Or, more specifically “Joe Peppoibot: Pizza Production” going by the signage emblazoning the brick building sitting inside the room of the tower. A fantastical land of sweets it did not seem to be, and certainly, the tanks of “grade A quality pizza slop” did not seem particularly encouraging either. Yet through a few high windows they could spy patches of color, eye catching deviations in hue that stuck out from the grinding metal machinery that filled most of them.
Above those windows, fumes rose from smoke stacks and then into some kind of ventilation system in the rooms walls, while ahead of them stood a set of wrought iron gates locking off a small courtyard leading up to the factory entrance.
A moment later the inviting and open gateway they had entered through slammed shut with a bang, sealing the trio inside with whatever dangers lurked within.
Like the fedora wearing cigar smoking Weenie, which patrolled past the inside of the gate, gave them a side eye through the iron bars, but did not stop or do anything else but keep walking.
”Well that was weird” Rika commented, before airing the question of ”So. How are we gonna get in?”
”If there isn't a way, we may have to break in. We do have to make an escape route for the ‘escape ‘portion, if those trolls are to be believed.” Sectonia said.
”I mean, we’re gonna have to break in at some point, and having the front gate that’s right in front of the exit unlocked sounds like a good escape route” was jr’s preference, very much intending to just storm the place so he could fully make use of and show off his new power.
”But maybe if we go around there’ll be a back door somewhere? Or even just a window we can jump up to and go in. That way we can bypass their defenses“ Rika suggested. Not that she thought the patroing sausage goons looked all that dangerous, but anything could be behind the big double doors leading inside the factory.
”I suppose, although I still think we’ll have to cause some chaos if this ‘pizza face’ is the threat they make him out to be. And once that starts, it won't end.” Sectonia said, fine with the stealthy approach, but very much aware they would be slinging spells and hitting things once the whole factory was alerted.
”Fiiiiine. I guess it’d be more dramatic to bust out through the front gates anyway” Jr conceded, while Rika glanced from one side to another, and then arbitrarily decided to scout the perimeter in a clockwise direction, her little scout plane buzzing on ahead.
She, through it, quickly found where the wall went tight with the building and, above, saw a window that led into the second floor of the factory.
”That’ll do, I think?” she suggested, before having her plane fly up and take a peek, and finding out that within there were ”Just a whole bunch of old ladies in there, making cookies. Not much of a threat at all I’d think”
There was also, she reported, a simple maintenance door looking, well, door down below said window, though with it being shut she had no idea what was behind it.
”Let's get started then.” Sectonia said, grabbing Jr and Rika to bring them up to the window before entering herself. Starting out she summoned her squads of antillions, telling them to go about and collect/clear the factory but not to hit a ‘pullar’, whatever that was, as she herself readied herself to start throwing her own ‘pizza’ like weapons, Ie her rings of light with even more unpredictability.
In front of her the two youngsters brandished their spears, and pointed them at the rows and rows and rows of grannies, who more or less failed to notice their intrusion. Instead they kept rolling dough, sticking in chocolate chips, cutting out shapes on a series of countertops running the center of the chamber, and then loading them into many many ovens lining the walls of the sweltering room.
”This is a robbery … no it’s a requa-requweh-uh, the thing where royals can take stuff for the war effort. One of those. Now hand over the cookies and nobody .. gets … hurt?” Jr started boldly before trailing off when he realized that Rika might have been a bit light on the details.
”Requisition.” Sectonia said, correcting Jr. At least he was trying to be a royal.
For one the grannies weren't exactly … healthy looking. Their skin was the color of exposed flesh, and wrinkled to an extent that they looked dehydrated and their eyes were glowing red, but not just with the light of galeem. Their movements were also strange. Jerky, twisting, limbs bending in ways limbs should not bend, as if they were not humans, but some other thing wearing human skin
The other thing was an odd clicking sound filling the room, one which drew the trio’s gaze upwards, where they found a giant floating cookie surrounded by 2d white gloved hands that where periodically clicking on it.
The youths looked at it for a few moments, with a mix of hunger and dread they did not understand the source of, only to find, when they looked back down to the grannies, that each and every one was looking at them, having paused mid bake, or roll.
”I thought you said it was just grannies” Jr hissed at his (new) sister, to which the ship girl whispered back ”I mean they are aren't they? Just some kind of monster ones, right?”
”What kind of Sarkic eldritch… cookie… cult is this?” Sectonia said, the ‘cookie’ part of her declaration being something she didn’t understand.
They would have started bickering about that, had the old ladies all cried out, at the same time, with one voice “Naughty children, you can’t have cookies for breakfast!” and then brandished their rolling pins and charged the trio while shrieking at the top of their lungs with ancient voice boxes, older than the stars.
The two kids screamed with them, though they did it while opening fire, Rika with her rigging and double barreled spear butt, while Jr first tried and failed to breath fire, and then jabbed his spear forwards, sending a Torrent of watery mirrors of the weapon shooting up from around his feet. Sectonia did what she did, just throw discs of light at them, the large discs vibrating in the air now thanks to the wiggly worm and covering even more area.
Grannies fell before them, but horrifically, instead of turning to ash, they instead underwent metamorphosis. Some, cut in half by Sectonia’s discuses, had their blood congeal into sacks that buoyed them up into the air, while their fingers became rigged with razor sharp teeth and their skulls burst into pulsating flesh, becoming Floaty Grosses.
Meanwhile the torsos of those same bisected grannies sprouted jaws at their bloody midsections, and then hold themselves up to come charging at the trio, wanting to use their massive new chopmers to take a bite out of their own midsections.
Others fell into a pile of guts, a few of which merged together into a mass of mouth meat with a single eye that could fire pulsating orbs of bioplasma, or sprouted legs and tentacles to become stalking abominations that spat volleys and beams of bile from their several mouths. The half dozen hulking masses dwarfed their unfused sisters, and slowly advanced upon the trio, unleashing their sickening strikes as they closed in.
Finally the ones not cut down kept screaming, their lower jas elongating and muscles strengthening till they became a mass of tendons, fangs and claws called face monsters, able to tough through attacks that the the grannies still holding onto a semblance of humanity could not.
The siblings were forced to move, cutting off their fire as acid and bioplasma hit their position, rika slowing the shots enough to get away unharmed while Jr stumbled with his lanky fish woman proportions, and received an armor scorching hit from one of the mouth meats, which sent him sprawling to the floor.
Rika raced to his side, driving her spear tip into the far to wide maw of a face monster, and then when that didn’t kill it, used a touch of stamina to instantaneously invert her spear, putting both barrels there instead and blowing its head clean off.
There were, unfortunately, far more where it came from.
”Remember, we’re here for the sweets. Not dealing with…. Whatever horrors these things are.” Sectonia said as she raised her pipe of insight shield to have it block a blast of fire that had been shot her way by a granny holding a lighter to her eldritch mouth and spitting her bio plasma through it. Meanwhile a monster Sectonia had turned into chunks coalesced into a Mega Clotty. Seeing that there wasn’t much for them to do in this room, Sectonia turned her focus onto the giant cookie above and the various Wrinklers around it. One ring of light cut through all of them and hit the large cookie itself. The wrinklers exploding into an… obscene amount of cookies. Whatever cookies showered upon the trio or any of Sectonia’s antillions that were alive were ‘collected’ by the group.
The giant cookie however also fractured and exploded when hit in a dramatic dusty explosion. As the cookie dust descended upon everyone on the ground, all the uncollected cookies, grannies, and well, everything popped out of existence with an audible “pop” as a constellation of cookie shaped stars appeared where the cookie once was.
”Destroy the source of their worship, and the worshippers disappear….” Sectonia said, not intending for any of that to happen at all. She just wanted a chunk of the giant cookie to take with them as they escaped. She wasn’t expecting THAT to happen.
”Uh huh, sure” Jr replied, having gotten that kind of excuse from his dad enough times to know it was a lie.
Rika meanwhile went ”Ohhhh. That is so smart!“ genuinely impressed and 100% falling for the ruse. In her defense, she did have other things on her mind, namely leaning her spear up against a wall and then huttying over to steal a cookie from one of the antlions. She took a little chomp out of it, and gave a delighted ”mmmm, so good“ as she chewed and swallowed her taster, before proceeding to chow down on the rest in rapid fashion.
Jr starred at this for a moment, before concluding ”Ok, so, I guess we know the meat granny cookies are safe then” and then going for some himself.
”Oh wow these are good”
Sectonia was a bit apprehensive at eating the cookies when Jr. said they were meat granny cookies, but continued to taste test one as Jr. ignored his own words and commented on their taste. Yes, they were good, and that got Sectonia pontificating a little bit. ”Hm… interesting. So to chase the ultimate cookie flavor, whoever ran this place made a deal with eldritch horrors beyond this realm. Upon whom’s source of power I just destroyed.” Sectonia said. Well, at least they had thousands upon thousands of cookies to collect in their endless pizza bag, so they wouldn’t be running out of cookies anytime soon.
”Do you think they’ll be upset?” Jr asked rhetorically, which Rika responded with ”Probably“ anyway, before suggesting ”so we should get moving before they notice?“
She indicated to an area at the other end of the room that seemed to be an exit. Notably it was not a door, but a conveyor belt, heading through a flap. Whoever had built this room had simply walled the grannies in and left the entire production process to run itself.
The two children rolled out along the conveyor belt into a maze, a veritable spaghetti bolognaise of steel, with not a main bus in sight. Instead layers upon layers of machinery stretched from the ground floor up several stories to a vaulted roof.
Up on high was a glass windowed overseer’s office, one which seemed to hold a massive gray pillar of some kind, which overlooked the entire chamber, and from which a person could watch the entire process of pizza production from beginning to end.
From the various sectors of the factory confectionary flowed in at a steady pace, such as the cookies, and then fell into funnels atop machinery, which then dotted pizzas coming in via other conveyor belts, before sending the whole thing off to be either baked and boxed or simply immediately boxed by floating stamp creatures flying with tiny wings on their ‘handles’. Finally, after everything was packed up, they were shipped out to whatever place required the unending amount of pizza being produced.
If they followed that production line back, they could doubtless find the sources of the various sweet treats, coming out of a variety of holes in the chamber’s wall like the one they had just exited. Everything from hard candy to chocolate to marshmallows and even ice cream could be seen flowing into the room, and so if they wanted ingredients all they had to do was take their pick and head for their treat of choice.
Though as it turned out that was easier said than done.
The trio’s own conveyor quickly came to its own terminus, a grinder that turned the cookies into crumble, forcing the kids to hop down onto the conveyor bringing the pizzas themselves. Then they had to start running along it to avoid going into the machine’s base and getting dusted with crumble, fighting against the flow of the machine and trying not to slip on the pizza bases themselves.
The queen certainly had an easier time of it, though with the gordian knot nature of the assembly, she had to contend with the resulting lack of airspace, and the constant risk of getting a wing caught in a gear, oven, crusher or other mechanical hazard. This slowed her down greatly, much to her annoyance. She could at least see the other two were having an issue navigating on their own, and when they needed a bit of a boost, Sectonia could give them some Haste to let them clear the crusher.
”The logistics of this place seem super bad“ Rika commented, her military instincts abhorring the clutter and convoluted supply lines, while Jr replied that ”It does make a pretty good platforming challenge though. Papa’d probably give it an 7 at least''
And that was without enemies. The Bowser score might have reached a 9 when the other part of the automated factory introduced themselves, namely the eponymous [url=eponymous]peppibots[/url]. The facsimiles of a man they had not met yet where not best pleased by the kids clambering around their construction and messing with the merchandise, and they let this be known via battle ax sized [url=i.imgur.com/20u2vyJ.png[pizza cutters[/url] and ranged pizza launchers.
While the wheel based bots could not engage the queen other than by taking potshots, another part of the factory could, namely fridge sized logistic bots. Normally they acted as a bandaid on the factory clutter by ferrying things to and fro inside their cooled interiors, but when an intruder was spotted, they switched to defense mode, rocketing through the sky to try physical ram the intruders with all the force of, well, a rocket propelled fridge.
Sectonia wasn’t having any of that. Summoning her Chaos heart shield, she really didn’t have much choice but to take these fridge rockets head on, with lightning. Lots of lightning thanks to her items, which went haphazardly everywhere. Sure it could be pointed in a direction, but beyond that not even she knew where the bolts would fly. There were a lot of them though, and while she struck down an approaching rocket fridge with her lightning, another collided against her shield, ricocheting off and into one of the wheel based bots below. Her dark lightning also made for an interesting light show, if this factory was a rave spot or something. Still, she had to make quick work of what was attacking her while the massive damage reduction of her chaos shield lasted.
It was a good thing she didn’t cause friendly fire, including the electricity arching through the metal maze. What her skill did not stop was the damage that shocking caused, as machinery overloaded and caught fire, or got straight up demolished.
Not that she was the only one causing carnage. Jr and rika were causing some, as shells and spears that missed the surprisingly speedy bots blasted and splashed stuff to bits, but ironically the bots were worse.
Rika leapt off of a conveyor right before a fridge smashed down into when she had been standing, and shattered the belt in the process, sending it and the machinery and pizzas crashing down to the floor 3 stories below. Then her head snapped to the side, slowing a pizza themed disk that was coming at her just enough for her to combat roll under it, resulting in it whistling overhead and then detonating somewhere behind her, sending candy flying through the air.
Burnt marshmallows and candy corn rained down and bounced off of Jr’s armor, or got stuck in their long flowing red hair, which felt ever so gross to him, but at least it was undyne’s hair and not his getting decorated like a dessert pizza. Then he promptly lost several hairs of said hair to a saw bladed pizza cutter that he just barely avoided, before going ”oof'' as the peppibot turned the failed killing blow into a full body charge, wheel picking up impressive pace as it rammed him towards one of the ovens.
Fish and machine smashed into steel, buckling it and unleashing a gout of flame that washed over both of them, heralding a scream of pain and anger from the prince, one that transitioned seamlessly into a shout of Burning Passion as the flames empowered the prince’s form as much as the harmed it. Healing steam rose off of the cassetbeast, stitching burnt scales and flesh back together as the prince summoned a spear and rammed it through the chest of the machine, before hurling the impaled peppibot off of him and down into the mechanical mess below.
Then he had to leg it as the oven behind him started coming apart at the seams
”Sec, please tell me you can see a way out of this mess!” he shouted up at the shielded queen.
Sectonia couldn’t really see much in this storm of chaos, but did see an opening they hadn’t gone into. ”There is something sweet coming from this outlet, and they are producing a lot of it.” Sectonia said, smelling the sweetness in the air as she pointed to an outlet a little below Jr. and Rika and made her way towards it with the other two following behind wanting to get out of this chaos.
Sectonia had chosen an interesting spot. Inside was chocolate. Fields of chocolate. Everything was made out of some kind of chocolate, with a few chocolate covered items such as strawberries. All of different colors and shapes.There were even some rivers of chocolate that flowed about from a large spring that shot chocolate into the air.
All around they could see various robots mining away at the chocolate, which after having a large piece taken out of it, slowly regenerated. Although chocolate before it was refined was often bitter, so with a cautionary swipe, Sectonia snapped off a piece and tried it.
”Hm, this area is made of premade chocolate that these things seem to be harvesting as if they were rocks. Considering the different colors here, I assume each is a different type of chocolate.” Sectonia said, pointing at the different shades of brown, black, or even occasionally white or red chocolate.
Surprisingly many of the inhabitants of this area paid the trio no mind, at least for now. The Protectrons continued to do their tasks while the Bouncies just ignored the group. Kabus got close, but as the trio moved aside, they found this was just so they could bring the chocolate that was being harvested over to the conveyor belt.
”Well, we’d best start harvesting, before another eldritch cult attacks us again.” Sectonia said, a bit too gleefully, using her swords to shatter and collect chocolate.
”I think she really likes chocolate?” jr whispered to Rika, who replied ”Who wouldn't? This stuff is great“ through a mouthful of it.
The two followed the queen’s lead, doing their own labor instead of stealing the fruits of the workers within, which seemed to prevent any kind of hostility erupting between them. The same could not be said of the peppibots, who would occasionally burst into the scene to interrupt their hard work. In one way this turned out to be a boon, as Rika and Jr teamed up to disarm a pair of them of their pizza cutters, and then turned those same cutters on the chocolate, which worked a lot better than jabbing at it with spears.
With a bit of sweat and effort, they filled up a multitude of boxes with all sorts of chocolate, from dark to white, and from sea salted to pop rock filled. Which presented them with the daunting issue of going back into carnage land again, till Rika had a suggestion: ”How about we just go out the window, circle round, and then go in another one this time?“
”Indeed. It should be much faster. Although we’ve yet to find a way to escape. Either way, I’ll send some antillions out to distract those bots outside before we do some window shopping.” Sectonia said, doing just that as the group found the window nestled in a moon shaped imprint on the wall.
With that done, it wasn’t too difficult for the trio to hop from factory room to factory room, finding all sorts of sweets from fruit flavored gummies, to marshmallows, to various hard candies, some of which were made of honey, ice cream which stayed surprisingly cool inside the pizza boxes that it was put into. Of course not every room was filled with delicious treats. There was a room where they spun liquorice like giant ropes which wasn’t a hit with the queen for one, who declared: ”How is that even supposed to be deemed ‘candy’, it's not even sweet!” to which Jr agreed while Rika thought that ”I dunno it seems kind of neat“. The princess was, however, outnumbered in her vague interest, resulting in them bypassing that room entirely.
Eventually, they’d done a complete loop of the outside of the factory, which left the question of how they actually were going to get out. With nothing else for it, they poked their heads out of a sauce manufactory and back into the main room.
Within, they saw traces of the destruction they had wrought, but only traces, as the Peppibots where wheeling around what was left of the factory and actively building it back up again, laying out conveyors, ovens, and topping appliers in a whole new complex mess. Above all this, was the one place they hadn’t gone yet: a large glass window overlooking the whole room.
With the main area wrecked, there was little preventing the queen from flying up to the top, other than, of course, harassment from the bots. The prince and princess held them at bay, acting as the side mounted miniguns to her transport helicopter impersonation.
Then with a smash of the glass, they broke into the overseer’s office. Inside were plush carpates, a mahogany desk, numerous fake health and safety awards, a few bookshelves of unread books, and the man, the myth, the legend, the namesake of the whole facility: Joe Peppibot.
Because he looked no different from all the others, Rika promptly shot the robot chef in the head, sending circuits spilling across the floor and his entirely standard spirit that was identical to his many worker drones falling to the floor.
Of more interest than the dead factory owner was the massive stone pillar with a face just sort of sitting in a corner of the room, minding his own business.
”There’s gotta be, like, a secret button or something in here to open the front gate” Jr insisted as he made a b-line for the desk, only for the pillar to tiredly inform him that “That’d be me”
”You are? How does that work?”
“Load bearing pillar” he replied, as if that explained everything, and when asked why he was even telling them this he informed them that “Existence is suffering. Also I’m a hive mind so even if you knock off a bunch of me I won’t actually be dead, only suffering less”
”But don’t you want to keep us stuck here?“ Rika asked, still confused as to why he was giving away this information.
“I hate that Pizza face guy. I’d tell you to punch him in the face if you see him, but you don’t want to hang around long enough for him to show up. Trust me” Pillar John concluded, before waiting patiently for them to get it over with.
”Well… I suppose it's about time we got this underway. Get ready to escape you two.” Sectonia said, not too concerned with giving this Pillar John his death wish. It was a good thing Sectonia had a haste ability to help them escape.
The two nodded, and left her to do the honors. When she did, and Piller John fell, Pizza time began.
As soon as it did, alarms started blaring, a number of small wall sections rotated to reveal a 4 minute countdown, and a set of blast doors slammed shut over the shattered window, blocking the way they had entered the room. At the same time, one of the bookshelves slit to the side, caused not by the death, but by a curious Rika having tried to pull the only non dusty one off of the shelf, having been entirely nonplussed by the queen’s execution of the pillar as well.
”Well, I guess that’s our route out of here” Jr said, before running into the secret passageway.
A few seconds later they burst out of another hidden door, and into what turned out to be the onsite power plant for running all of the pizza manufacturing machinery. As with said machinery, the set up was not at all safe, coherent, or efficient. Arcs of lightning lanced from generator to generator, while entire sections of the wall were made up of oversized electrical sockets that shocked anything that came near them.
There where a few hoovering electro bots patrolling the area naturally, and could shoot out close range shots of chain lightning from their plug like hands, but once they were in an open space Pizza Time’s other effect came into play. Portals shaped like Piller John’s face started to open around them, spitting out backup enemies such as additional peppibots, fridges bots and fedora wearing weenies (who proceed to just patrol around rather than attack) to try and slow down their escape.
”They are not going to make this easy… Don’t hold back.” Sectonia said, keeping her use of haste up on the trio so they could blitz through the area as well as they could. Thanks to her pipe of insight, the electricity that hit the trio did a bit of reduced damage, but it was difficult to dodge either way. Add in Sectonia using her own lightning to fry the bots that got in her way, and it was just difficult to even see at times. Plus getting constantly zapped by lightning wasn’t enjoyable at all.
It especially wasn’t enjoyable for Jr, who after getting hit once by electricity, had his water cassette-beast form turn conducive, resulting in every single shot of electricity arcing towards his position. In a room as shock filled as this, the prince was promptly engulfed in a blinding flash with the power of several lighting strikes, giving everyone a brief moment of panic before he emerged unscathed , or rather, his actual base form did, while his casset-beast tape now needed manually respooling if he was to use it again.
”Hey you jerks, I was having fun being that big fish lady!” jr yelled at the electrobot who had zapped him, before leaping at it, and shotgunning it with a blast of flukes caused by a transformed stone cast. The prince hit the ground, twirled his paintbrush and then tossed a pokeball out to summon Mimi atop his shoulder, who started mimicking Sectonia’s chaotic spellcasting to add yet more indiscriminate fire to their stage clearing.
As they crashed through the generator room, it occurred to Sectonia that they… didn’t really know the way out from here. They’d need to rush to beat that clock or at least find a spot they were familiar with so they could reach the exit and escape. At least there were these little stopwatches littering their path forward, which seemed to freeze the time momentarily when collected, giving them a bit of extra time.
After about a minute of racing around they all suddenly burst out into the main floor of the factory, now down at the bottom of it, rather than up on high with all the machinery. Well. all the working machinery. The floor was presently littered with the jagged and often burning reminders of their first pass through the room.
Brush wielding Peppibots paused their work, and went on the attack, while a fresh wave of enemy spawns bolstered their ranks.
Jr flicked his paintbrush to splash a streak of electrical goop over one of the brush wielders, short circuiting the unfortunate cleaner before pointing ”over there, I think I see some kind of lobby? That’s gotta lead to the main gates” while Rika looked over to one side and spied ”There’s a small little door over there! Maybe it goes to that one we saw before we came in“
Making her choice for the trio, Sectonia pointed at the lobby area. Their plan was to demolish the front gate, so that had to be linked there.
”Then let’s go already! Time to bust out in style!” Jr called out, before they got to running all over again, as fast as the prince’s stubby little legs could go. Bots were smashed, ice cream slicks leapt over, hot coals danced through and then they busted through a pair of lobby doors.
A tv screen faced vidbot secretary screamed as they went bursting through the entry lobby, which had of all things a statue of the god atlas with his face replaced with a smiling pizza. At the other end of the hall was the exit to the courtyard they’d seen when they entered, but said exit was in the middle of being welded shut by a pair of peppibots, who spun upon their entrance to try and turn their welding equipment on the trio.
”This one doesn’t have much taste, for being a pizza.” Sectonia jabbed as she fired a ring of light at the bots and front door to cut both to shreds. Of course due to its weird pattern and twin rings, this also busted up some of the ugly pizza faced statues. Unfortunately for the weiner guard they had seen before, he happened to be on the other side of the door when it met its fate, and got cut in half as well.
The way clear, the trio made their escape out into the now unguarded courtyard, and proceeded to do one last bit of vandalism as they totaled the front gate of the factory that stood in front of the now open door that led back to the tower. With time to spare thanks to Sectonia’s haste and the group’s destructive tendencies, they crossed the finish line, at which point a mechanical hand with a glove at the end reached out and gave them a bit of paper with a letter B on it.
”Huh?” jr said, as he took the card, looked at it for a few moments before exclaiming ”What is that our score! It gave us a B rank? A B RANK!?” and then turning right around, absurdly declaring ”Come on, let’s go again! We can do way better than a-” only for the door behind them to reveal the factory had been destroyed, explosions going off and everything.
Seeing Jr. trying to head back in, Sectonia grabbed the young koopa by the scruff of his bandana, saying. ”We have more important things to do.” She didn’t want him going back into something exploding after all.
”Yeaaaah. Ok. Never mind” Jr agreed after taking a look at the mess they’d left, spinning right back around and starting to walk away from it like it wasn’t his problem.
”Awww, now I’ll never know what licorice tastes like!“ Rika complained, as if that was the worst tragedy involved, before going along with him, the trio heading off to go see if they’d actually gotten anything the trolls would like to eat.
As they left the door behind, the timer within continued to tick down till it hit zero. Then a certain face arrived on the stage much too late, took one look at the devastation, and then left entirely nonplussed. A moment after that, the door to the level slammed shut for a moment, and when it opened back up the peppibot factory showed not a hint of the devastation that the trio had wrought, the stage reset and ready for another run.
Location:The City of Glass - Vandelay Campus Attendees: Susie, Raz, Goldlewis, Zenkichi, Roxas, Midna, Karin Viewers: Blazermate, Tora, Giovanna, Geralt, Sakura, Pit, Benedict, Partitio Word Count: 2617 (+3)
Once the argument about the candidates’ intentions for Psych-OSF concluded, with Shinra staring silent, venomous daggers at anyone who looked at him askance and Armstrong wearing an infuriatingly self-assured smirk, Udo opened the floor on the debate’s third question.
“Continuing in the same vein, gentlemen. As you well know, the Ever Crisis has wreaked havoc on Midgar since its founding. In addition to widespread destruction, it has claimed countless lives over the years, both those of civilians and of soldiers fighting to keep the people safe. Still, despite a high mortality rate and lower approval ratings than ever, both Psych-OSF and DespoRHado continue to field soldiers in massive numbers. How do you plan to reduce casualties going forward? Mr. President, you’re up first.”
Shinra straightened his tie. “First, allow me to set the record straight on some statistics. While Psych-OSF does have a high turnover rate, it is not due to casualties in the line of duty. As psychics fighting a psychic threat, the Scarlet Guardians often experience heavy mental stress. To this end Suoh offers numerous high-end medical and psychiatric facilities, but Psych-OSF has one other benefit: the option of honorable discharge at any point in one’s career as a soldier. This gives anyone who wishes the option to simply retire from active duty, and many do. Better to live to fight another day. This benefit also continuously attracts new recruits who might otherwise be reluctant to commit. It’s a win-win situation, plain and simple. And as the Psych-OSF grows in number, they also grow in strength. Thanks to the Struggle Arms System, every last individual is a drop in the ocean, and a rising tide raises all ships. Soon the collective psychic power will outmatch the threat of the Others, and not long after, the Machines and Aberrations as well.”
Nothing Shinra said really sparked suspicion from Raz, though he might’ve been a tad too naive in his hope that people would realize Scarlet Guardians going missing and not retiring. Either way, Shinra doing something weird within the organization’s ranks wasn’t news to them. So he decided to level his telepathy at Armstrong for this round of the debate.
Armstrong put his hands on his podium. “Not being affiliated with DespoRHado myself, I cannot claim knowledge of the organization’s inner workings. However, during my time in Sector 08, I have continuously observed DespoRHado reaching out to the poor and disenfranchised, not just of Detroit, but of the whole city. They create jobs, offer purpose, and give people a chance to fight for what they believe in. Not just on the front lines, either, but in logistics, support, and other such vital departments. While this has ensured that the forgotten people of Midgar have somewhere to belong, DespoRHado is also fast approaching the reality of a fully-automated fighting force, with Unmanned Gears and androids on the battlefield to phase out any need to risk human lives. Soon, there will be no casualties in the war against the robots–just machines fighting Machines.”
Need to be ready…won’t be easy…bigger and better…damn Vandelay…muscle in on our turf…mess with the bull…
Udo nodded, a smile on his face as if he appreciated slightly more professional answers. “With your opening statements concluded, you may now rebut your opponent.”
“Gladly.” Shinra turned his icy-cold glare on Armstrong, who gave him an amused look in return. “My opponent has said that DespoRHado gives opportunities to the poor. He makes it sound like charity. The truth is that, desperate for reinforcements, your friends in DespoRHado snap them up. They snatch the homeless from the streets, and entrap the sick, the crippled, and those with nowhere else to turn with the debt of ‘free’ medical treatment and cybernetic augmentation, forcing them to fight and die to repay them, forced to viciously compete against their fellow cyborgs in the hopes of one day seeing their families again. Using debt to turn people into fighting machines, some of them no more than child soldiers…it’s sick, twisted, and barbaric!”
The crowd broke out into a fresh round of whispers and murmurs, stronger than before. Armstrong’s guards seemed uneasy, though Sundowner looked nonplussed. For a moment the Senator stood with his mouth slightly ajar, but then he curled his lip, his brows furrowed dangerously.
“This is an absurd strawman. With enough misrepresentation and reductivism, anything would sound bad. How, might I ask, are you getting such a crystal-clear view of the undercity streets from your ivory tower? Arguing by fallacy isn’t a good look for you, Mr. President!” Armstrong crossed his arms, an ugly smile spreading across his face. “But it doesn’t look half as bad as Project Advent. Spearheaded by your very own Research and Development Division. Surely people have been wondering how Psych-OSF keeps managing to find so many psychics to refill their ranks?” He cast his gaze around the suddenly-hushed room. “Well, I’ll tell you. They don’t find them. They make them. From ordinary citizens who want power, or feel excluded by Psych-OSF’s psionic-only rule, using the illegal art of Spirit Fusion!” He allowed that to sink in a moment before expounding. “First they used the Psifish, but eventually they discarded them into Seiran’s reservoir, dooming the undercity’s lower levels in the process. Why? Because they found something better!” He raised his hands. “That is the secret behind Psych-OSF’s new forces, the P-Types…or should I say ‘Psychic Types’, made from the fusion of human and Pokemon to create the perfect, obedient soldiers!”
In the uproar that followed, Shinra really raised his voice for the first time. “This is a preposterous outrage!” he snapped at Armstrong. “Lies, slander! Where’s your source?”
“My source?” Armstrong snickered. “Well, I didn’t just make it the fuck up. It’s straight from whistleblowers on the inside!"
For almost a minute straight the Dendemille Showcase Theater was in a tumult as the debate administrators and Vandelat security tried to restore order. Both candidates' security guards were on their feet, each daring the other to take action first. Seeing the first bit of ‘action’ of this debate, Roland pulled his hands out of his pockets, revealing his black gloves but made no other moves. Penance, who looked horrified -whether at the current situation, the allegations against Shinra, or both- quickly moved to calm her side down. Almost begrudgingly, Sundowner did the same, urging his cyborgs to give it a rest–all without ever rising from his languid slouch in his own seat. All the while Raz fought to listen in on Armstrong’s mind, and what he managed to pick up on surprised him. White as sheet…probably true…cat’s out of the bag…forced to act…gotta hand it to that blue guy…tipping me off…but how the hell…insider knowledge? After a few tense moments order was restored, and the moderator had some harsh words.
"Gentlemen, this is your last warning," Udo told them sternly. "Tensions are high and everyone's on edge. I don't care what either of you heard; it is unbecoming and irresponsible to fan the flames with such unsubstantiated mudslinging. Stick to the facts, or this debate will come to a premature end."
"... Right, right," Armstrong said. "We'll get into that kind of stuff later."
Shinra huffed, taking a deep breath. "Let's get on with it, then."
Letting out a deep breath, Goldlewis wipes a bead of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "Ho-ly smokes. This is a madhouse," he murmured. "It's like satire or somethin'. Can't help but wonder though. If either of 'em were tellin' the truth, things'd be bad enough. Worst case scenario is both." None of his fellow attendees had been part of the original Detroit detachment, so they wouldn't know about DespoRHado. Psych-OSF, though… "I gotta bad Feelin' about this. What Armstrong said about P-types…I was wonderin' why so many soldiers had weird features. It lines up a li'l too well."
”Pokemon?” Roxas asked with a whisper, ”I don’t remember seeing any Pokemon in Suoh, much less any with psychic powers.”
”We know the bit about treating the psi-fish as cattle for slaughter and then dumping them is true, and it looks like we have now the answer as to why. The results of fusions with those are a lot more obvious after all” Taro was certainly a demonstration of that. She also hoped the man was doing alright.
”Wait, goddesses, the capture squad we saw! The one that took away that psychic pokemon…” Midna whispered, mostly to herself, as she realized said pokemon was now almost certainly dead, and becoming even more alarmed as she realized ”-and what about Bede? With them making those illegal, they might have arrested him and taken his away to-” but leaving the worst unsaid
”Didn’t that Raiden fellow tell us about how DespoRHado was a lot shadier than it seemed? Considering they are all Galeemed and Raiden wasn’t. Could that be related? Although with the OSF using fusions… that seemed obvious, but at least we know what they were using now. I didn’t think spirit fusion was this illegal though, if it even put Shinra on the back foot… ” Susie said, processing the information they had all just heard. She wasn't discounting any of this, especially as those in their group who were part of the OSF had seen that procedure firsthand.
”Wait, how do they know about Spirits, anyway?”” Roxas suddenly asked, the question directed toward Goldlewis, ”I didn’t know anything about them until after I was freed from Galeem. I always figured that was just something that’s hidden by his influence. So how do these people know about them if they’re still under that influence?”
Goldlewis could only shrug. In fairness, this boy didn’t seem all that perceptive. “You sure you didn’t just…not notice ‘em? There’s so much supernatural stuff around that li’l vanishin’ lights probably didn’t even register. Gotta know what to look for, son.”
”They know enough about spirits to have banned them. They aren’t invisible, they can be learned about if explained. Either it’s someone distant to us who just happened to be free of Galeem, or more likely, a Consul or something to that effect.” Karin said.
”They must have a presence in this city, somewhere.” Karin mused.
Unfortunately, Goldlewis could neither confirm or deny this. “‘Fraid I never heard of anythin’ called a Consul,” he whispered back. “I know fusion’s illegal, and ownin’ spirits in general too. Do y’all remember what happened while we were fightin’ alongside the OSF, though? After the fightin’, they made sure to collect all the spirits. So the OSF knows enough to use ‘em to power up their troops.” He’d come to the same realization as Midna. That poor stray Pokemon had probably fled from its cruel fate as fusion fodder. But if that was the case, it had to have come from somewhere. His eyebrows suddenly went up. “This fusion’s gotta be happenin’ in Suoh. But the question is, where?”
”I can find and tail one of their capture squads, have them bring me right to whatever compound they use” Midna said, and it was no mere offer.
Karin raised an eyebrow at Goldlewis. ”No one’s told you? The Consuls are, from what I gather, the direct servants of Galeem. They go by single letter names.” She explained.
”I wonder if they have an interest in this election. Or in elections past…hm. Well, I suppose this would be the first one, wouldn’t it.” Karin mused. Goldlewis looked at her as though she were crazy, but said nothing.
Zenkichi frowned and leaned forward in his seat, hands resting in front of his face. What are you doing, Shinra? If DespoRHado is doing all that, it's happening under your watch. It's like you're serving up every ball for Armstrong to knock out of the park… He didn't say anything just yet, though. It was entirely possible that Armstrong was just better at capitalizing on Shinra's mistakes. Armstrong wasn't fooling anybody with that 'I'm not affiliated with DesporHado' line, either. What Goldlewis said about OSF troops taking Spirits didn't strike him as odd, though this new accusation threatened to contextualize that in a more sinister light.
In Penguin Sniper, Pit blinked in surprise at all of the accusations the men on TV were spitting at each other - though they came across as facts to him, as he didn't even consider that they might be lying.
"They've been going behind everyone's backs and hurting people this whole time?" He half-whispered, half-yelled. Perhaps that sort of thing was assumed by the more pessimistic types, but it was only now that Pit was starting to really understand why the city was the way that it was. Taking advantage of the poor, the powerless, even kids... it all painted Midgar in an even grimmer light. Was Neuron the same way? And even with methods like this, were any of them even making a dent in the Ever Crisis?
This whole time the former Turk had been listening quietly and watching the debate from the television, when the winged boy spoke up he gave him a sideways glance pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose "Unfortunately that is the way the world works." the old strategist said simply, before returning his attention to the screen.
Giovanna looked over at him from her game of darts, her eyebrow raised. “I mean, society can be pretty messed up sometimes, but I’m pretty sure this is way worse than usual.” She threw her last dart of the set and managed to hit her first bullseye of the game–only for the bounty of points to drop her and Sakura’s score down below zero. Damn. When playing 301, the goal was for the two players to earn enough points to reduce their score to zero exactly, which meant their first game was a loss. She sighed, shrugging. Projectiles just weren’t her strong suit. “Well, if it’s all true, anyway. Kind of weird they’re both suddenly spouting off such serious accusations. If the public had any inkling of that kind of stuff, there’d be riots in the streets.”
Partitio however shared the view of the way things worked as something that needed to change, these damned people in charge were nothing but lowdown scoundrels "People like them ain't know nothing bout' a hard days work or eating crumbs. That really gets my goat." the merchant muttered to himself his knuckles turned white as he balled them up.
Geralt's claws tapped against the wood, a frown on his face. "Did you notice that?" He mumbled. "They really thought they were about to break out into a fight…and if they did…." He left the horrific inevitability of that for the others to figure out.
Even in a state like this, and with people he could scarcely care less about, Tora couldn’t just shake off the idea of wanton bloodshed. “...Tora sure hope not.”
”Its almost like… do they know what they’re under? That happens sometimes, but… yeah its rare..” Blazermate said, thinking considering what everyone else said.
"Doubt it, but if someone who was in the know wanted to cause chaos inside Midgar's borders, civil war would be an awfully convenient way to do it. Especially when every fight ends in a bloodbath." Geralt was perhaps being needlessly conspiratorial here, but he wasn't sure things were adding up.
Susie thought to herself as she had gathered what info she could. This Kale Vandelay seemed to be trying to take over the tech sector from what she could gather as you would as a mega corporation head. Controlling the media on top of that to put himself in the limelight... it is interesting to think of. Was he trying to become the face of the city then expand outwards, take over the city itself, or was someone using him as a puppet with their hands in even more dark places? Well, all of these were thoughts to keep in mind as she caught up with the others boarding a boat that would take them over the lake, thanks to Sakura being a friendly person. Probably something those in this sector of the city rarely saw. Still, she doubted she'd find anything regarding a connection to the ever crisis or their missing allies and that was the case. She'd have to keep an eye out for these suspected connections in this part of the city. Not even the most careful, paranoid companies could keep their secrets fully hidden if one knew where to look.
Blazermate meanwhile really didn't have too much to add to anything going on at the moment. It was cool to learn that Geralt could mind control people if needed, patting him on the back and saying. "Do what works if it works and helps. Could get us a lot, and I mean a lot of information if used on the right person. Maybe we can find information about Poppi and Peach if used right." With her opinion stated about that whole issue, Blazermate waited for everyone to get on the boat, casualty flying besides it as she got a slightly better view of the lake. Susie was one of the last ones on, preferring to sail instead of fly unlike Blazermate. Seeing as they were on the boat with someone who was part of this section of the city, Susie asked Wallace "So Wallace. What is it you do here? I assume with a lineage as vast as yours, it must be something interesting." Susie said, turning up the charm.
Level 10 Sectonia (holding 4 level up) - (68/100) Location: The Under - Home of Tears Word Count: Less than 750
Hungry from the horrible auction house ordeal, Sectonia stopped at a local eatery to grab some fruits and honey. One good thing about being in a primarily bug town, they had food for a queen bee such as herself in many many places. As she was munching on her snack, much like the others, she saw the icon in the sky. Unlike a few others though, she wasn't sure what it meant, but it would be best to investigate.
Her other allies had the same idea, as a great many of them gathered in the fountain square to see the other Consul of this area, Consul F, being the originator of this mark. Much like what she saw before, this Consul was quite sadistic and... frustrating would be the proper word. Spouting expository about how he was so much stronger than Consul P, and other useless stuff. Although Sectonia did notice a running theme with these Consuls, they all seemed to 'play' rather than actually do anything worthwhile with their 'power'.
And to showcase this power, he did 'something' to turn the entire town against Sectonia and her allies. Sectonia could only guess this was related to that 'clock' that was mentioned earlier, but now wasn't the time to ponder on that as this was quite a really bad situation. Bowser had an idea for an escape route, toting his 'experience' in this matter; something that Sectonia doubted he noticed made him look really bad to boast about. Still, it came in useful now as he had Rika make a water transport for everyone so they could escape easier.
"First that petulant child, then that horrid auction house, now this while we are weary from sleep..." Sectonia said, extremely annoyed at the emergence of Consul F. Every time this one has shown up, its always when the team was compromised. And whats worse, he was trying to turn her new annexed kingdom against her! If this wasn't such an awful situation, she would teach this consul some manners like she did the last one. And as she was going to rule this kingdom, killing all of its inhabitants would make for a poor ruler, so there wasn't much to it.
"I suppose its best to flee." Sectonia said, summoning her full entourage of antillions to offer some sort of distraction for all the mind controlled townspeople, looking to subdue rather than hurt. (With any that spawn nearby Consul F to 'accidentally' hit him with their attacks.) She then cast her Slow on what townspeople she could, knowing a few of them would be trouble if they caught up too fast, before making her way with the rest of the group on this 'whale'. At least she didn't take up any space as she was a flyer, but that also made her another large target. She could at least shield their getaway shipgirl with a Chaos Shield, as that seemed to be where most of the attacks were going to. She could keep attempting to Slow any of the townspeople that got close, making them unable to catch up and making their escape faster.
And while the whale was the main target, Sectonia made herself out to be another target for a few of them, including a one IGV they had helped not half a day earlier with his plans. Sectonia knew to keep out of the range of his time sells, but that didn't mean he didn't have long range magic he could throw at her. Him and a few of the other magic users, seeing an easy target of Sectonia, hurled their damaging spells at her. Thanks to her pipe of insight though, she had a vast amount of magic resistance so she could take this punishment, but it wasn't very enjoyable.
Being a flyer who could debuff their pursuers though, Sectonia assisted many of the others to get down the river into the next part of the under, the Crumble Caverns. A food inspired place that might be either good or bad.... either way a weird smell permeated the area regardless.
Blazermate's plan worked, teleporting everyone in. In hindsight, seeing as everyone was teleporting in, Susie probably didn't need to take a pass, but she was going to use it now that she had entered the city of glass. While Goldlewis had some difficulty at the checkpoint, being robots, Blazermate and Susie had to go through a different scanner. Blazermate didn't really care about being X rayed, as this was standard practice for medabots, but Susie was not happy at all. Still, she just kept that this happened in mind, and would just upcharge whatever city official she ran into next that needed some HWC tech.
Upon reaching the city itself, Blazermate got to work with Giovanna to get the teleporter up and get everyone inside, While susie took that opportunity to flag up a nearby information terminal to learn about the area. Specifically she was looking for any news on the major robot corporations in the area as according to Giovanna and Goldlewis, this was where many of them were stationed. She'd also look for other opportunities, but that was her main goal.
"Oh Wow, this place is shiny!" Blazermate said, noting all the glimmering lights and everything everywhere. Unlike Susie, she didn't really have much of a goal in mind, instead just taking in the sights as they moved through the city to their destination. Susie, having gotten the information she could, even though she was one of the first people in, ended up being one of the last ones to progress towards their goal. But gathering information wasn't a slow process, so it made sense. As for what she thought of the city, Susie could tell it was a high end place and that there would be some opportunities here if she played her cards right. Now if this was an actual glass city was to be seen, as that could have its own amount of issues.
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