Archmage MC

World of Light

Level 11 Sectonia (holding 5 level up) - (10/110)
Location: The Under - Hive
Word Count: Less than 750.

It seemed this false queen had a trump card all along, a powerful gravity spell that would have brought everyone into the honey pit if it wasn't for a combination of Sectonia's crystal platform, and knight Barnabee sacrificing himself in yet another 'final smash' to end the false queen and save everyone, avenging his queen. A queen that had been long dead everyone found out as they progressed into the throne room proper, Barnabee perishing soon after seeing his queen. A bit of a somber end all things considered.

However inside the chamber behind the throne room, the treasure room, three were a fair amount of very nice goodies. The most potent of which being an orb that, when Nadia touched it, returned her back to normal, with all the stuff she had fused with laid out before her. And with that choice, Nadia could change how she fused with stuff, and all in all, it was a very powerful item. Speaking of spirits, Sectonia grabbed the rumor spirit and alongside the iron queen spirit she was going to put into her wings using the Snackvator, decided to fuse. She wasn't sure exactly how the rumor one would go, just placing it on a part would probably be.... pretty poor. She did take a final smash to remove from the board, so there was that. Although Sectonia hoped she could turn someone else into that plane...

For Sectonia

Notable spirit consumed:
Iron Queen
Sectonia’s cape has returned to its original wing based structure, however its structure is now made from a striking bronze rather than its original gold material. In addition, numerous trailing ribbons now hang from her wings, all fluttering in the breeze even if there is none to be found. These are passively white, but when the queen is in rapid motion or in the depth of casting, they shift to the spacy blue of the inside of Bleck’s cape, out of which small stars seem to fall, either trailing behind when she is on the move, or radiating out from her when she display the full might of her magic.

Strength of Gaia: the queen has gained the strength of the living earth, enhancing her physical strength by 20% and giving her proficiency in earth and nature magic (allowing her to more easily learn and cast such spells). She can also form a layer of rapidly regenerating bark over her chitin when in combat. This bark has a collective vitality equivalent to 10% of her hitpoints, and will regenerate any damage done to it in just a few seconds. The bark is, naturally, vulnerable to fire.

Weakness: Rooted Magic: Sectonia’s magic is now drawn from the might of the leaving earth, meaning that the further she is from the ground, the slower her energy regenerates. For every meter she is above the ground, any spellcasting she does using her own power is 25% more taxing on her stamina reserves (externally furled casting such as chaos heart magic is exempt).

Notable spirit consumed:
Rumor Honeybottoms
The host’s blue ‘skin’ has turned black, with horizontal yellow stripes of appreciable thickness. Her head, torso, waist, and abdomen are all a bit rounder and more clearly divided. Her irises are a bit smaller and her eyes and more pronounced whites, which alongside dark eyelashes help make her eyes a lot more visually expressive. There are little cartoon divets in the side of each iris. Her crown is slightly smaller, more golden, and has orbs at the tip of each spire. She now has arms that connect her gloves to her big, poofy shoulders, black in color. This spirit confers the Power Prism Sentence, which grants access to two new spells. One summons a purple tetrahedron that fires off pink triangles from its tips three times as it flies around. The other summons a shimmery pink sphere that will home in on a desired target. Both have a low mana cost and can be cast quickly. This spirit also confers the Weakness Cast Aspersions, which requires the host to use a casting catalyst of some sort in order to cast spells.

Sectonia found these new spirits... Well, the iron queen one brought back her majesty a bit, the rumor one though... she wasn't a fan of the color scheme it added. It did exemplify her curves a bit more though, so if she could only change the color she wouldn't be so against it. The arms she figured she'd have to just learn to live with. Seems like basically any spirit with limbs was going to give her some, and basically everyone had them. "The wings worked right, but I'm not a fan of this... color scheme. I suppose I'll have to find a way to fix that later." Sectonia said. Also this bee queen had some... horrible starting spells all things considered. It would make Sectonia's projectile spam even more unbearable. The big thing was that this gave her access to more male spirits, with the two female spirits not changing her all that much, but for sure saving her from that... side effect.

Either way, that wasn't the end of everything. Beyond the spirits was all the loot. A ton of it besides the respec orb. Seeing as none of the other magic users could even lift it, Sectonia took the staff that Rumor had been using, noting that it was solid enough to be as powerful as her swords while having no limit on what spell it could cast. She did find out rather quickly however she needed to channel her summoning and rings of light through this staff now, a bit annoying but not all that bad. Her magic from that hatted man she absorbed, the one that controlled space and time, didn't need to be channeled through her staff.

Out of all the other items found or crushed however, Sectonia was only interested in the Unstable Tesla Coil. "That is the only item of the treasure hoard I'm interested in." Sectonia said, letting the others divvy out the gold. She then reminded everyone if they had some kind of passive trinket item, she could make it so they didn't have to carry it on their person, smelting the tesla coil to give herself the electric aura. With this and how poor her accuracy was, she'd need to be in close range more it seemed.

For Sectonia

An Unstable Tesla Coil: a lanturn sized accessory that, when equipped will send up to three beams of electricity to zap foes within 1.5 meters of the wearer for low but constant damage. Nearby minions will auto target foes struck by this electricity. It also can be used to attract metal ores from a small distance away.

As for the talk of a 'reward' for liberating the bees. "They will also want a new Queen, obviously. We will have to find a candidate." Sectonia said. Not to subtly hinting that while she is a queen, she would rather have a much bigger kingdom than this hole in the ground.

World of Light

Roland

And
Robot Girls



Level 3 Roland - (9/30)
Level 12 Blazermate (Holding 3 level up) - (32/120)
Level 5 Susie - (41/50) - (Holding 2 level up)
Location: Sector 8 checkpoint
Word Count: 977

Roland wasn't a fan of PSI ops. This wasn't because of competition between them and General Affairs, although there was a rivalry between all the major factions regardless, but more because of how badly they gave him a headache whenever they spoke or used their weird powers. He had enough of that with R corp, but Psi Ops was far more varied and thus, much more of a headache. Although considering they had to fight monsters, while he had to work next to monsters was... well they both had the short end of the stick but that was life.

Blazermate meanwhile was more on board with the whole fighting thing, although she didn't care about the whole lethal vs non lethal debate, she just wanted to get through and see the new spooky area. So when Sandalphon started the fight with her shot to get everyone's attention with Zenkichi and Geralt taking the front line, Blazermate went with the front liners as she normally did, summoning her shield when the bullets started flying. Although considering how fast the soldiers were dispatched, perhaps that was a bit overkill. Well, all but the two that seemed to be an issue for the two guys, inflicting status conditions that seemed to make them meander about.

While Blazermate cured them of their status conditions so they wouldn't be as open to attacks as they were, Susie used her opportunity to come from below and get around to take out the two first class privates by using her transporter to fly under while Blazermate, Zenkichin Goldlewis, and Geralt distracted/dealt with the first 3 privates and the sisters. Dropping down behind the two who were also looking at the fight below, Susie summoned her Business suit and suddenly made herself a much, much bigger target as she swung a giant mech fist at Fujimori Mosley who just barely shielded himself with his barrier from the large mech fist that appeared behind him, with his partner Kenji McLaughlin shooting the newcomer with a reactionary energy blast using his own psi ability, but only hitting the business suit itself, and not the pilot.

Blazermate meanwhile was found to be a genuine problem for the two sisters. While her shield blocked their plasma rifle shots, what made her a real problem was that they found their confusion status didn't linger on the medabot for very long at all, and with her clearing the two guys in front of them and healing them from the animal damage or the status conditions, it didn't take too long for their efforts, alongside a burst heal from Sandalphon, and a bit of crowd control themselves, to wear the two down and knock them out, Blazermate moving to smack the sister causing all the confusion with her shield arm. She didn't know why they were doing non lethal takedowns, but she just shrugged and went with the program.

While the rest of the soldiers were being dealt with, Roland finally made his move to assist Susie who was in a 2v1 fight currently. With her in a mech and the others either indisposed, distracted, or outright knocked out, Roland was clear to make his way to the upper platform and support the pink haired bot by striking Kenji McLaughlin in the back with one of his maces in an attempt to knock him out. This didn't go as well as Roland thought it would, with the man slowly turning around to look at the masked man with a "Did you just do what I think you did?" look on his face, before opening fire. This did free up Susie to focus on pounding the force fields of Kneji with both hands now, eventually wearing him out and causing him to pass out from the stress of shielding so much potential damage.

That just left Roland against someone he would be better suited against, but was still something he wasn't really good against. While he could deflect the pistol shot and even the plasma rifle shots with his bigger weapons, when the psychic blasts came out, that was a much taller order. While not the psionic lightning bolts of R corp, they were dangerous in their own right and Roland found himself struggling fairly hard as he was unable to deflect the psychic blasts, something that his opponent figured out and capitalized on, keeping himself at range and away from the masked man in order to deal with him. This lasted until his partner went down and Susie could handle him herself, and while he could keep Roland at bay, once the mech came from behind, there wasn't much he could do having taken a blow from Roland earlier. With a grab, Susie started to squeeze the guy until he passed out, but this did leave a hand free, a hand that he had his pistol in and he got a couple shots on the pink haired girl before finally passing out from the pain of being squeezed.

Thankfully this worked as a good testing bed for Susie as well, testing and showing her shield did work, even if it wasn't all that durable, it did shield her from the sidearm shots that headed her way. Roland was thankful that he had a partner in this situation, as he knew he wouldn't do too well, but he held out at least and would get healed up by Blazermate at the battle's conclusion. "Thanks. I'm not a fan of these Psi Ops guys, they have so many weird powers you never know what your going to get." Roland said, with Susie saying. "Its just basic power manipulation at the end of the day. We have robots that can do the same things.", not having either the context or worry of Roland as she hadn't been in Midgar all that long.

World of Light

Level 10 Sectonia (holding 4 level up) - (93/100)
Location: The Under - Termite Kingdom Ruins
Word Count: 823

While Sectonia wasn't much for long range anymore, shooting out lots of projectiles but making them a bit easier to dodge, that fact didn't matter too much with the additional support of the other seekers. While she didn't do much damage to the wasp swarms herself, her debuffs helped a lot at keeping them in a good position for the others to handle, their attacks covering the angles hers didn't. With the more ranged heavy members of the team dealing with the wasp reenforcements, those that were more single target oriented dealt with the wasp robot queen uninterrupted, which after some time eventually exploded, revealing a pilot that... wasn't a wasp. Instead, they were a bee, which made all the wasps that were left flee in disgust.

While Sectonia didn't care about this dintinction, she did find it annoying that all the puns that had been said int eh fight continued, but instead now based on bees and honey. Its like this queen bee was cut from the same cloth as Nadia, and the two had a bit of a repour, at least until this 'queen', who was a magic user like Sectonia, did something that just outright dumbfounded her. Instead of engaging the seekers in a bit of a magic fight, Honeybottoms turned herself into a... plane? Sectonia could only look at her with a look of disbelief, saying simply. "... Why..."

But now wasn't the time to be confused at such a weird turn of events. With her emergence, Honeybottoms had destroyed the platforms that the other grounded seekers needed to have any bit of mobility, dropping them into a pit of honey and sparse platforms, a honey pit that kept rising. And who knows what kind of honey that could be, it could be lava for all she knew for how weird this situation had become. Waving her arms, she summoned a large crystal for the seekers who had fell to perch themselves upon, giving them far more space to evade Honeybottom's attacks once they made their way to it. While conjuring the crystal, Sectonia muttered. "First that pizza faced lunatic, now this..."

Now the fact Sectonia was one of the few group flyers, her size, and the fact that summoning such a platform took her a bit of time, wasn't lost upon Honeybottoms, who upon seeing the interloper bee queen casting a spell, focused to drop a few bombs on her in an attempt to interrupt what she was doing. Thanks to her items though, Sectonia took far, far reduced damage compared to the seekers from these bombs than what Honeybottoms expected, even more so as Sectonia seemed to 'ignore' being hit by them. They still damaged Sectonia of course, but it didn't visibly look like they made her flinch.

With her platform summoned for those below, Sectonia went to engage Honeybottoms in the air herself. Some of the others, such as ganondorf, seemed to have some limited flying capabilities, but most of the aerial fighting would have to be for Sectonia. Being able to fly even or above Honeybottoms would make her have to choose between her bombs or other attacks, while Sectonia had only one target, the bee plane herself. And since Sectonia could now be in close proximity, her multiple projectiles would be much, much harder to dodge. Although unlike her melee swings, these did leave her open when she went for them. Well, all but her lightning, which was one of her faster projectile attacks.

And lightning was all she really had the opportunity to use projectile wise, as if Sectonia went to try anything else but her melee swings or her lightning, Honeybottoms would move her wing and turn the tip of it into a buzzsaw before swiping at Sectonia, forcing her to drop what she was doing and blink on top of Honeybottoms to drop a sword swing or a blast of lightning. Rising like this wouldn't last too long though, as there wasn't all that much space left before reaching the ceiling, with the ceiling slowly rising with the pit of honey below. Sectonia wasn't going to question this luminal space, she had enough of this craziness as it was. And in times where she couldn't teleport above Honeybottoms to use her lighting, she'd teleport behind her to do a sword swipe or two. Honeybottoms wasn't always using such a slow buzzsaw attack however, and could instead of dropping bombs, fire off 'fist' missiles that followed Sectonia. They didn't do as much as the bombs, but they were far more accurate due to their homing nature and Sectonia's size.

Hopefully more of the seekers below could help with this fight, Sectonia could tank and deal damage with her chaos shield, her swords, and her lightning, but it'd be nice for more than just her and a couple other attacks to deal with this unruly, weird, pun happy bee queen.

World of Light

Roland

And
Robot Girls



Level 3 Roland - (7/30)
Level 12 Blazermate (Holding 3 level up) - (30/120)
Level 5 Susie - (39/50) - (Holding 2 level up)
Location: Sector 8 checkpoint
Word Count: Less than 750

Susie and Blazermate, having no real problems navigating the streets thanks to their flight, were among some of the first to arrive. Roland arriving fairly late all things considered even with a high performance motorbike. "Tch. Not as fast as those in the City I guess. Taking it was a waste of time." Roland did park it however where he said he would, using some nearby pole to keep it locked down so it wouldn't be easily stolen. He didn't know if that pair would listen to what he said, but hey, he held up what he said he was going to do.

As everyone gathered, they planned on how they were going to get through to the next area, an area that seemed to hold some answers on what was going on in this city. Plans were being laid out to deal with the G men that were stationed there, 6 in total. Thinking about it, Susie offered to take one out, saying. "A drill dive should take one of them out. With the rest of you dealing with yours, that leaves..." Roland, having worked with these things, but not all that interested personally in helping the shady leaders of the city, knowing what he knows now with his memories restored, said. "I'll take that one. Working with these monsters for so long, only realizing how wrong it was, really doesn't feel great."

As Goldlewis went to start the distraction that'd signal everyone to start their attack, Susie hovered high above the G man she was going to dive bomb, with Roland silently moving to his position, his mask making him less noticeable to the G men compared to Zenkichi and Goldlewis, especially as they were taking up their attention. Blazermate stayed behind, as she didn't have anything that'd let her deal with any of this in a timely matter. Once everyone was in position, the trap was sprung. Roland moved to hit his G man with his massive sword in order to cleave it in two, while Susie summoned her business suit and crushed the G man she landed on into dust. Due to the low hp of these forms, both party members took out their respective targets, and with everything down, they could move on to the checkpoint proper.

Once they got there, it was clear that the checkpoint itself was manned by actual soldiers instead of those monstrous G men. "Well, I think you guys were onto something. Its rare that they lave actual soldiers guarding anything unless it was important. There must be something that they don't want people to see there." Roland said, thinking about what he was observing. Blazermate piped up. "So... I don't see how we're all going to stealth through this. I'm bright blue, Susie is bright pink, and I'm sure the metal detector would go off if we tried to get through one, and I'm sure they got one...." Blazermte said. "But well, if we get into a fight, my projectile shield can protect us from their bullets as well." She then got a look on her face as if she thought of something. "Oh! Oh! Leave some for me to turn into zombies, we could use them to sus out dangerous areas!" The medabot had said she could do this, but Roland had never seen it. At least from what he could gather, she wasn't going to make those puppet abominations from a certain someone he hated...

"I could use a test drive of this shield I got. I'm not a fan of a live fire test, but thats what my business suit is for." Susie said. Roland was silent, he knew it'd probably come to a fight, but he wasn't happy about it. Hopefully this would be worth it, and this wasn't some long long grift.

World of Light

Level 10 Sectonia (holding 4 level up) - (91/100)
Location: The Under - Termite Kingdom Ruins
Word Count: 812

With the introduction to the fight of the Ichor and Iron wasp queens, things got a bit more annoying than just the ranged attacks of the bare basic wasps and the heavy drone. Although with the push from the two 'kings' with a bit of haste, the stalemate that was about was broken at last as they pushed through and started to destroy the opposing backline, causing some damage to the heavy drone in the process. Sectonia, having a bit of fun in the backline for once watching the boys just wreck havoc in front of her was throwing out her spells, even throwing a partial Spacial Rend upon the Heavy Drone when it lost its balance and fell out of the sky temporarily, but soon she'd have to go and join the frey herself as the Iron Queen, having gotten into position, was buffing her own minions with her magic that let them much more easily deflect Sectonia's spells. Sure they could evade the slower spells, but having her spacial rends not having the effect she wanted, and not wanting to leave herself open to charge a bigger one, forced her hand into melee combat as well.

Moving past a recovering Heavy Drone, Sectonia approached the Iron Queen with her blink strike. The enemy wasp had a will equal to her title though, and instead of getting struck by a swipe from Sectonia's swords, instead shot web at Sectonia and stopped her momentum temporarily as she went to strike. This surprised Sectonia a bit, but the webs didn't hold her long. The iron queen got a hit in before Sectonia could blink away, but as her name suggests, she was more for defense than offense. Something Sectonia would learn as she started her counterattack doing a rapid sword thrust.

Still, that iron defense was no joke. With her amount of buff spells on her and her minions occasionally forcing Sectonia to retreat or throw her lightning around to clear them away, it took Sectonia some time to chip through her defense and regeneration. Counterattacks were a aplenty as well, but the incoming damage on the bee queen wasn't all that high, especially when her Chaos Shield came off of cooldown and her commrades keeping the much more offense oriented ichor queen busy. After a bit of a longer fight than Sectonia would like to admit, eventually the iron queen fell after Sectonia focused on her exclusively for a time thanks to Rubick offering a large enough distraction.

With the iron queen dead, her buffs went with her, making the nearby wasps much easier to clear out. Taking her spirit as Sectonia liked the idea of more buffs for her loyal minions, she would make use of Kamek's snackivator much like the mage made use of Sectonia's symbol of avarice and decided to fuse the spirit to her wings to get back her more majestic golden insect look instead of these half cape half wing things they were at the moment.

But that would have to wait until after they were out of this hive and into a safe area. There was still the heavy drone to take care of, which wasn't in a great state. Through the residual damage of everyone's attacks, attacks directed at it, and everything, it was on the verge of falling apart. And Sectonia, retreating back to give herself some passive healing, gave it a courtesy blow with her swords, finishing it off as well as the cumulative effort of everyone worked to take it down. And with that, the spirit as spoils.

With everything calming down now that the large majority of forces had been taken care of, the group made its way deeper into the hive and soon found the 'ursurpor', a giant mechanical wasp! And giant was an understatement, it was far bigger than Sectonia and Bowser themselves, but also immobile. "Hmph, no wonder they were such a weak hive, considering whats before us." Sectonia said. Still, just because it was immobile, didn't mean it didn't have its own tricks as it summoned in many of its wasp minions in large hordes to attack the seekers.

Sectonia, being one of the group that brought the widespread damage, used her Slow on one of the groups of wasps before throwing her various spells. Due to them being in a large group, hitting them wasn't as difficult, although seeing as it was a large group of individuals making an object, her spells had a mixed effect. She also summoned her striker, which shot its own lasers at the swarms, as well as her antillions to help support however they can, granted they seemed to be able to only attack the giant metal wasp queen itself instead of the wasp hordes due to their limited range, but any damage going out was good damage so far.

World of Light

Roland

And
Robot Girls



Level 3 Roland - (6/30)
Level 12 Blazermate (Holding 3 level up) - (29/120)
Level 5 Susie - (38/50) - (Holding 2 level up)
Location: Sector 7 > 8
Word Count: 3414

As Roland moved through the slums, having been cured of his drunkeness by Blazermate (Which he was part thankful for, part annoyed with.) he noticed Sandalphon's new outfit. "Hey, So, i notice you changed your outfit. Is there anything more to that or are you just changing jobs? Its hard to tell with some people nowadays."

Sandalphon looked down at him for a moment, question marks in her eyes. Then her pupils returned to normal, a look of understanding flitting briefly across her face. "Oh, I see. You must have been rather low on the proverbial totem pole," she stated matter-of-factly, despite the brisk pace at which she and the rest of the Seekers were moving through the Sector 07 slums. "I observed other members of your group partaking in spirit utilization, but if there are gaps in our collective knowledge, it would behoove me to make sure all are up to speed."

She paused for a moment, considering how best to explain the phenomenon. "Spirit utility is seldom practiced and even more seldom understood. The powers that be in Midgar, and I would assume the world at large, keep what it is -and how to use it- top secret. It is understandable, since I have no doubt that if word were to get out the crime and especially murder rate would spike drastically, but it means that they control the single most expedient way to gain power." Sandalphon put up a display that showed off a number of spirits, with the images of various people shimmering within the orbs of prismatic light. "Despite the name, spirits have nothing to do with a being's consciousness or immortal soul, and are themselves inanimate. Suffice to say, a spirit is an agglomeration of data about a particular being. Very much like the genetic code of biological organisms, albeit greater in scope. And like code, spirits can be merged. Following a brief conflict resolution, which influences the host's physiology and psychology, the host gains a boon from the merged spirit as well as its 'potential'."

After going quiet while the group navigated through a crowded junction, Sandalphon wrapped up her explanation with a little specificity. "How this works can take different forms depending on the fusion method. Cerebrofusion injects a spirit's Skill. Cardiofusion injects a spirit's Ability. Physically destroying a spirit will itemize it, resulting in a semi-random object. Spirits can also be co-opted through a brief ritualistic act in order to make use of it remotely, and the resulting projection is known as an Assist. Think of it as a ghostly puppet, but make no mistake, it's still just an extension of oneself." She thought for a moment, then shrugged. "That about covers the basics."

Roland nodded, listening but not really understanding the big words she was using. "Sounds like this thing we did back in the library. We turned people into books, then copied their combat abilities by donning their persona. "

Blazermate, making sure Roland wasn't too intoxicated as he moved through the slums, had been following behind, and clarified the spirit thing. "Put it in your chest for power, head for knowledge; although no seeker I know has done that one yet since it doesn't seem like it helps you fight, bond with it to summon it as a friendly thing for a bit, and crush it for an item. Oh yeah, and if you fuse with too many spirits of your opposite gender you'll turn into that gender until you equalize the spirits, unless you have some kinda innate power or something that lets you bypass that like me. And uh, if you absorb too many spirits you'll turn into some kind of chimeric monster. Kamek has something for that part, and Peach did have the power to unfuse spirits, but.... yeah...." Blazermate said, trailing off.

Side eying the medabot, Roland said. "So... its like that EGO thing, but different... Wait, is that why Midna looks so weird? I didn't want to say anything, but that doesn't look right."

Blazermate nodded, saying. "yep! She needs to visit Kamek to fix that up. At least its not like Bowser, who had it even worse. I wonder what that guy looks like now, the big teddy bear."

Sandalphon glanced at Blazermate as she reiterated what the archangel had said, but dumbed down. Had her own explanation been too cerebral, perhaps? The medabot did add one or two things of note though, more or less confirming Sandalphon's inference that one should be careful what one consumed. You are what you eat, as they say.

Susie didn't have much to add to this discussion, and also learned something new as well. She wasn't aware of the gender change part of spirit fusion, something she'd have to keep in mind.

While the slums were pretty quiet, the Detroit sector was anything but. With the dismantling of the leaders of Despirado, those cyborgs were going crazy, with the general police force dealing with that. It was kinda like when two Syndicates were fighting each other for territory in a way, although not as brutal.

Still, Roland was here to get through the area, not participate in the combat itself. His mask at least made him less of a target. Still, he'd have to find a bit of transport that wasn't shut down due to the riots in the streets. Unlike the robot girls who could just fly above the city and; while getting a birds eye view of the chaos below, could ignore most of the chaos, Roland had to stick to the ground. Blazermate offered to carry him, but Roland wasn't sure if the robot girl that was her size could carry a tall guy like him.

When he looked around near the entrance from Sector 07, Roland quickly found a possible solution to his quandary--and a potential source of trouble. Just outside a corner convenience store, a couple bikers had pulled to a stop in the parking strip and put down their kickstands while they went inside for a quick top-up. Their vehicles were both very impressive, one big and red while the smaller one came in glossy black, but both motorcycles were sleek, high-end machines that stood out against the gritty backdrop of Detroit, as powerful as they were beautiful. Unfortunately, the timing worked out that both bikers were just now returning from the store with a bag of snacks and such apiece.

Though quite dissimilar to one another, the pair matched their motorcycles perfectly: tall, broad-shouldered, and scruffy, the long-haired man sported a roughed-up look thanks to his eyepatch and bandages, but an easygoing smile and disarmingly melancholic eyes. Meanwhile, his short-haired lady friend seemed small and thin but fierce, her black leather contrasting white hair but complimenting a sour expression. Fittingly enough, Roy wore a heavy toolbelt but no weapons, and Sugar came strapped with both a long shotgun and a sawed-off double barrel. Upon exiting the convenience store, however, the pair found their bikes under examination by a pair of G-men, both with wrenches. "Hey!" Sugar yelled, her voice turned up to eleven instantly. "The hell're you doing?"

The G-men turned her way. "We are mechanics, and we are mechanizing these machines with our wrenches," one told her in his deadpan voice, gesticulating with his tool like a conductor's baton. "Who, might I ask, are you?" He was dangerously close to provoking Sugar, and Roy clearly didn't like these spooks, either. Things seemed liable to escalate fast.

Well, motorcycles weren't his thing, but it'd do for now. Better than running, anyway. G men were.... unique to deal with if anything. He'd hate to be the poor guy who got on their bad side. That being said, those two the G men were irritating were also in a bad spot, and right now Roland needed those bikes the most. Wait... did any of the others even drive, let alone motorcycles? Either way, now was one of the those times Roland got to throw his weight around.

Approaching the scene, Roland said. "Hey pals, don't you know what G men are? Say or do anything suspicious and you go straight to jail. Or disobey the cops." And upon saying that final statement, Roland showed his turk badge to the group. "Turk business, I'll be needing those bikes. You can pick them up later." Of course Roland didn't know if that was actually true, but considering he could just trigger the g men if needed, well... sucked to be these guys.

When Roland veered off without a word to take a small detour, Sandalphon followed him, unsure of his intentions. Communication was key to the function of any organization, after all. He turned out to have his sights set on a scene unfolding nearby that reeked of trouble. Sandalphon meant to advise him not to get involved, but she was too late, and just as she expected, neither biker took Roland's intervention well. "We didn't DO anything!" Sugar fumed, turning on him. The sight of his badge, and the declaration that followed, turned her indignation into fury. "No goddamn way! You Administration goons leave us high and dry when we need help the most, then think you can show your face here and walk all over us? Go die in a ditch somewhere!"

Before Roy could try and calm the situation, the original G-man -emboldened by Roland's arrival- stepped forward. "Suspect under arrest for obstruction of General Affairs activity, suspected insurrectionist sentiment, and threatening a peace officer." It reached out a hand to seize Sugar.

"FUCK!" The woman jerked away violently from his outstretched grasp, her face one of raw panic. Almost without thinking, she grabbed her sawed-off and unloaded both barrels directly into the G-man's chest in an obscenely loud blast. It went flying and fell on the pavement in a heap, then melted and erupted into a badly-wounded Myrmecoleon. Promptly the other G-man switched into combat mode, removing its hat and transforming into a Yowie the size of a horse. As soon as it appeared, however, the reptilian monster turned toward Sandalphon, who was approaching in order to help control the situation. Aggravated by her new Bane of Dinosaurs weakness, it roared at her and cast Zio to shock her with a bolt of lightning.

Meanwhile, Roy went to deploy something from his toolbelt, and Sugar rounded on Roland, reaching for her pump-action shotgun rather than trying to reload. "Get away! Not a step closer!"

Roland wasn't surprised this is what was going to happen. It always did with punks like these, although to be fair, he wasn't sure himself if they would get the bikes back. Well, either way, they opened fire first so.... "It would be best to run now. Maybe you'll get away fast enough that we wont get an ID." Roland said, giving these poor sods one last chance to fix their mistake. Still, he wasn't going to say no to a fight and was ready to draw a weapon to deal with these two if needed.

The weird thing was the transformed G man attacking Sandalphon, that would have to be dealt with. These things were always so predictable. Roland moved to smack the Yowiel to knock some sense into it.

Not only did the Yowie's cast take less than a second to perform, meaning Roland couldn't possibly get in the way in time, but it descended from above like a real lightning bolt, so it struck Sandalphon near-instantaneously and without mitigation. The archangel gasped, flinching. Even if water-aspected beings from her world took extra damage from wind-aspected attacks rather than light-aspected ones, her defense was low enough that she felt even this rather paltry spell. Of course, Sandalphon didn't plan to take that lying down. She bore no more love for the Administration and its peons than Sugar evidently did, especially the G-men, who jumped to conclusions at the drop of a hat and happily backed their presumptions up with mindless brutality. Her gunstaff materialized in her hand as she prepared to take the Yowie down; these mooks were designed to be expendable, and the archangel wasn't so cruel as to deny them their purpose.

In the commotion, both Sugar -her weapons quickly holstered- and Roy -now surrounded by a handful of his mechanical bees, the Sweeties- went for their bikes. They swept up their kickstands and noisily revved their motors as they prepared to make a break for it. However, by that time the Myrmecoleon had recovered enough to attack, and as it faced the bikers it inhaled deeply to knock them over with Wind Breath.

Roland sighed. Well, he really didn't have any beef with these two bikers, and they didn't look evil or anything, so he would've let them go without much fuss, but now that the situation has gotten so bad and they were making a run for it, he shrugged and made a move for the G man that attacked Sandalphon, coming down on it with his daggers, before moving to intercept the bikers with his sword drawn. He would then notice the other inhaling and getting ready to blow something upon the bikers, and held his attack for a moment to see what it would do.

His dagger strike against the Yowie distracted it long enough for Sandalphon to close to melee range and take over. Using the head of her gunstaff she dealt the monster a heavy smack across the face, and as its long neck whipped sideways the Yowie over balanced and fell over. The moment it hit the asphalt, Sandalphon planted her heel on its neck just behind the head, then planted the butt of her staff -which happened to be the weapon's barrel- on the monster's face. As the weapon spun up, her pupils turned to targeted reticles, and the next second she squeezed the trigger. In an instant the Yowie was dead.

At the same time, the Myrmecoleon battered Roy and Sugar with its Wind Breath. Though the spell lacked stopping power, it dealt enough damage to trigger the bikers' Gleam, and both immediately changed tactics. Roy's Sweeties surged forth to pierce the half-lion, half-ant monstrosity with their stingers, keeping it busy long enough for Sugar to unholster her pump-action shot gun, take aim, and blast the thing to kingdom come. Although both shadows had been mercilessly exterminated, Roland had a chance to act freely.

Having a bit of time, as the two bikers unloaded on the unfortuniate G man, Roland moved behind Roy, the one of the pair that didn't seem extremely jumpy with his silent movement, and as his bees dispatched the G man, Roland squatted on the front side of his bike as his back was turned, tapping him on the shoulder once the monster was obliterated by their combo attack. "Hey, make this easy for everyone here. You two bring me and a coworker where we need to go, and perhaps these G men went missing dealing with some cyborgs. I don't want this to get messy if I don't have to." roland said.

"Whoa, whoa!" Roland startled Roy with his sudden appearance, causing a reaction before he even finished his first sentence. With the ill-meaning stranger way too close for comfort, the brawny man turned and shoved Roland away, then revved up his bike to get the hell out of dodge, his Sweeties ready to follow behind him. With her Gleam sated as well, Sugar hurried to do the same, but that meant she needed to sling her shotgun across her back again before she could speed away.

Well, it couldn't be said Roland didn't try the peaceful method. But such was life in the city, it was rare to find anyone who could be considered neighborly. Flipping off the bike as he was shoved off, Roland decided to go for Sugar, who was having some difficulty getting into a riding mode due to her shotgun. An opportunity Roland would take by knocking her off her bike with a non lethal hammer strike to the side, before hopping in the seat she occupied and using the pre-revved bike to speed away, swinging by to make sure Sandalphon had her own transport before heading off himself.

With an agonized grunt Sugar hit the ground, several ribs broken. Because she'd been straddling the motorcycle, the force that knocked her over also knocked the bike over, forcing Roland to pick the heavy thing up in order to get it rolling again. As one might expect, however, Roy hadn't planned on leaving his lady friend high and dry. "Sugar!" he yelled, his voice echoing down the street as he slid his motorcycle sideways with the screech of tires. Then he sped back the way he came. His Sweeties hovered around him, ready to attack, and while he now appeared to be holding a grenade in his hand he clearly didn't want to risk hitting Sugar. Speaking of, she wasn't down for the count just yet, and she gritted her teeth through the pain as she reloaded her sawed-off as fast as possible. Roland having been starting to ride away.

In her current state Sugar took too long to reload to get a good shot off, so by the time she fired, the spread of the breaching round only grazed Roland and the stolen bike in a number of places. Sugar was effectively out of the equation, but Roy was not. His Sweeties hurtled toward the Turk en masse, not just trying to pierce him with their metal stingers but also bull into him and compromise the motorcycle's precarious balance. Still, he didn't prime the grenade. It was too risky, and there was a slim chance that Sugar's prized possession could still be recovered later.

It was at this point that Sandalphon stepped forward. She approached the spot where Sugar writhed from behind and planted the butt of her gunstaff to create a healing ring. Addressing the biker might have provoked her ire, so the archangel allowed the relief of restoration to speak for her. Once Sugar realized what was going on, she relaxed somewhat, accepting the help.

Roland wasn't an ace when it came to using a motorcycle, but he knew a thing or two. Having deflected the bit of buckshot that streamed his way, Roland put his sword away and pulled out his gun to shoot the tire of the guy persuing him with his little nanoswarm of drones, swapping weapons back to his sword to deflect the drones when they got close before taking a sharp turn to head down an adjacent street towards quarentine valley.

While Roland's shot missed, his heart not really in it, Roy's Sweeties didn't manage to make much headway either, and the two men passed within a couple feet of one another as they sped in different directions. That left the biker with a decision: Roland or Sugar. Although it pained him to see some psychopath make off with his friend's motorcycle, the Turk had demonstrated zero sympathy and maximum violence. Better to make sure Sugar was okay than risk both their lives. As the motor of Roland's stolen bike receded into the distance, Roy headed over to the two women, regarding Sandalphon warily. "You okay, Sugar?"

"I'll live," she replied, running her hand along her midriff. Though this prompted a wince, she was already feeling much better thanks to the healing ring. She looked up at Sandalphon. "Who the hell're you? Weren't you with that...that lunatic?"

Roy shot her an apologetic look. "I think Sugar means to say 'thanks for the help'."

Sandalphon's face betrayed nothing, but her pupils had turned into stress marks. "You're welcome. Be safe, you two." With that she hurried off. The archangel had a lot of ground to cover to catch up with the others. Hopefully her familiarity with the sky-line network that ran through Detroit would make up the difference.

As Roland rode away, he shouted behind him. "You can pick this back up at the interplate train station near the Quarentine Zone." as he rode away, saying that more to clear his conscious than anything. Overall he was being pretty nice, but he didn't have any reason to be more hostile than he was. These people were just common folk that had a bad shake, but thats that and this is this.

World of Light

Level 10 Sectonia (holding 4 level up) - (89/100)
Location: The Under - Termite Kingdom Ruins
Word Count: less than 750

"I see no point in stealth, the less enemies, the easier leaving this place will be." Sectonia said, and upon saying that, got started on the frontal assault. She started by summoning her antillions, which if the guards weren't looking at the group before, they sure were now as they saw Sectonia's summoning portals. But considering the royal was out for blood (and loot), and she much preferred the bees over the wasps asthetically, she opened up by causing the chaos she often did in a battlefiel. Making and throwing her large rings of light that just went in a general direction, they for the most part waved, weaved, zig, zagged, and zoomed through the hive. The bee workers would be unharmed, but the wasps would be enraged as these attacks went at them. Their agility made dodging through the ring of light barrage easier due to Sectonia's lack of control on them, although a couple as they approached got caught off guard by the mild homing properties of the ring thanks to the smart worm.

While melee based wasps couldn't really approach Sectonia due to her barrage of attacks, ranged attackers could still hit the intruding bee queen. Due to her size, she herself couldn't really dodge these ranged attacks that well either, but summoning her Chaos Shield greatly, greatly reduced the damage these did as her antillions advanced onto them. The queen herself would also advance forward, spitting out more projectiles if any wasps got near her, and with the others help things wouldn't be nearly as bad as they could be.

Since Sectonia and her minions basically caused chaos, attacking whatever wasps came around, this also aggroed the miniboss of the area, the Heavy Drone B-33 and its Bee Boops. While the Bee Boops were not too much of a problem, either shooting their honey shots at Sectonia's antillions or rushing towards the group and dying to the bruisers of the group or even an antillion as they got frozen solid, the same couldn't be said about the Heavy Drone. Unlike the bee boops, it was far tankier, and hit much harder with its missiles and its laser sweeps. It was big, and couldn't really dodge that well unlike the wasps, but it made up for it with its ability to deal damage and tank hits.

These missiles attacked anyone in the group, with the Heavy Drone B-33 having no concept of what was more threatening, instead just shooting its missiles at every hostile unit it could see at random. While this made it easier for the group, as these missiles would either take out an antillion or target Sectonia or Bowser, they could also target the less tanky members of the group if not intercepted. Even then, its laser sweeps would also cause mild explosions around the hive and damage anyone who got hit by them.

"Rush forward and deal with these weaklings." Sectonia said at Bowser as she gave him and Ganondorf Haste, giving them some breathing room with her projectiles. This was for sure causing quite the distraction for the wasp forces, and while tanky, the Heavy Drone couldn't withstand attacks from all of them. As one of Sectonia's light rings hit it, it started to have some of its heavy armor drop off. This made it more threatening, as it had lost some of its defense, but now with its much greater mobility it could more reliably dodge the errant projectile from Sectonia, and even though it was a bit lighter, it was still quite a large object and upon seeing the distraction team advance, decided to meet them head on with a thruster boosted charge, wiping out any antillion it came into contact with as it charged the group.

World of Light

Roland

And
Robot Girls



Level 3 Roland - (2/30) Level up! Learned Memories of the Library.
Level 12 Blazermate (Holding 3 level up) - (28/120)
Level 5 Susie - (37/50) - (Holding 2 level up)
Location: Sector 7 (Seventh Heaven)
Word Count: 1036

As they went down the whole way down to the underplate, eventually the motorball couldn't keep up as it was. not as nimble as the rest of the group, it eventually turned into a hunk of molten metal. A big ball of it that was coming down to crush the pedestrians below! But there wasn't much her projectile shield could do against something that big, she had tested it and objects of massive size still took damage, but weren't blocked by the shield. That was when Goldlewis showed one of his super skills, using his coffin to smash the machine into much more manageable smaller chunks which Blazermate used her projectile shield to block so that only a small amount even touched those behind her and Goldlewis. Still, seeing as Goldlewis did the hard task of breaking that monster scrap into smaller chunks, Blazermate let him take the adoration of the people, just hovering to the others and healing if necessary.

Wanting a break, Goldlewis suggested some bar that Susie knew about, having been there prior, or at least something similar. Roland had heard of that chain as well, and considering he wasn't the one buying, he was up for it. Sandalphon had appeared as well with her supporting androids and had fused with a few of the spirits Midna had given her. Susie would have to figure out how this whole spirit thing worked, as seeing what kind of strange abomination Midna had become and the changes to Sandalphon made her interested, but also cautious. Roland was just as weirded out by Midna's change, but noticed that Sandalphon hadn't been as a radical change. And Blazermate was fine with everything, although she'd have to find a medabot spirit for Midna to fuse with later so that she didn't look so... weird? It was like she was made of way too many clashing parts!

Roland had heard about the under sectors, how they resembled a safer version of the backstreets back from where he was from, and yeah, they looked it. Dilapidated, rough, but at least the smell of blood and body parts wasn't anywhere to be seen, nor were their sweepers cleaning up at night and eating anything that was unfortunate to be out then. Susie wasn't too impressed with the area herself, this place needed a lot of fixing up and probably didn't have the money to do so. Even then, there wasn't much she could offer this place with how limited her business aspects were at the moment. Finally Blazermate thought it was quaint, being more on Roland's side of things thinking this place wasn't that bad. A little dusty, but rustic. Reminded her of a show she saw regarding a cowboy and his trusty nine iron, and on top of that the bar they entered was even cowboy themed!

"Oooh, I like this place! Its got that country vibe to it! You don't see these very often in Tokyo!" Blazermte said, floating around the place and looking at everything. Roland could only look at the robot looking at everything with a strange nostalgic look combined with puzzlement. He didn't say much of anything though, instead grabbing himself a couple beers and joyfully drinking them. "Ah, thanks for buying them buddy. Nothing like a cold one after a hard day's work!" Seeing Benedict and Partito drinking and rambling on about some of their past co-workers, Roland decided to join them. He was already a bit pink in the cheeks at this point. "Hey whatchya two talking about over here?" and decided to have some casual chit chat with the two.

Not wanting a beer, Susie decided to take a light stroll outside to see if there was anything of interest. Even though this place was dilapidated, that could also be opportunistic as that meant there could be things here that are far, far more valuable than people knew. It didn't take her long before she ran into a Vending machine that spoke in a southern drawl as she approached.

It wasn't like anything she had seen, and it had both an intake for items, and an outake for them. It offered mostly medicine and ammo, most of which she didn't need, but it also had a 'daily special', a shield module, but marked down from its obscene price down to 400. Now, this was something she could use. Even with all of their advancements in technology, Haltmann works couldn't ever miniaturize a shield like this. Yes they had large shields on the access ark, but they were only temporary at best. This boasted that it worked all the time and just needed time to recharge. Now if this was a scam or not, Susie didn't know. But even if it was scrap, if it held some of its former tech that could be extremely useful. Pulling out some of her credits, she bought the thing, and with a 'plunk', it appeared in the slot before her.

Susie obtained

VLADOF basic white shield.
Capacity 125
A basic VLADOF shield that has a 9% chance to absorb a bullet shot at the wielder, giving it to them as ammo. Shield recharges after taking no damage for 5 seconds. (absorbs every 11th bullet)

And it... worked! It even sized itself down to fit her great, only taking a small slot on her belt. Yeah it ruined her outfit a bit, but she was soon surrounded by a shield that would absorb every 11th bullet aimed at it, and gave her some extra shields to boot. Very nice. Maybe with how annoyingly fast these cyborgs and other creatures were, this would help her a lot. She didn't find much in her little stroll, and soon returned to the bar to chat with the others on what she had found and may be able to replicate in the future.

Blazermate, not being able to partake in any of the festivities, just floated around and made sure no one got too drunk they couldn't do anything. She had ways of getting them back up if they passed out, which it seemed Roland would be close to being after his third bottle, but she'd prefer not to. Or perhaps she would love to do so, but not in a calm way. Oh, she could play out a funny scene for everyone who wasn't drunk to watch, that'd be fun!

==============================================================================================

Level 10 Sectonia (holding 4 level up) - (88/100)
Location: The Under - Termite Kingdom Ruins
Word Count: less than 750

Sectonia, after giving Rubick his requested stickers and putting away the bottle of magic fairy tears, went back to meet up with the rest of the group as she got a call on her linkpearl. During that travel, she inspected the bottle to see if she got ripped off, but no, this was fairly valuable if a bit mundane. It was a bottle of magical glass that seemed like it could hold almost anything that could fit inside it, even incorporeal things like souls. But it could only hold one thing, and the current thing it held was tears of some great fairy that not only boosted her damage, but healed her to full upon drinking it. Sure the bottle was a bit too small for her, but this would be valuable. And if this was just to get him to start moving, perhaps finding the rest of the poes would offer something extremely useful? She'd at least let the others know about them when she joined the group.

Apparently Primrose and Therion had managed to find the place they were looking for, an entrance into the hive. And inside the hive was, well, it was a hive. She'd prefer the area to be full of hexigonal glass and crystals rather than honey, but being a bee herself, she understood what she was looking at and there was a very comforting look of it all either way. What wasn't as comforting were all the wasps bullying about the honey bees, using various mechanical devices to enforce their rule. She had to agree it was smart, but now she had to deal with all of that 'smartness' on the reviving end as there wasn't much opportunity for stealth as they entered the main chamber, with Nadia suggesting the same. As she gave out her bee pun, and looked at the group, Sectonia gestured to herself and Bowser with a look of "Does it look like this group is about stealth?" on her face and got herself ready to start to fight off the wasps and drones hovering in the air. The big drone probably had something really, really good inside of it, considering how it looked much stronger than the rest.

"We should deal with the 'eyes in the sky' as it were. I'm sure that big drone above there has something valuable on it." Sectonia said.

World of Light

Level 10 Sectonia (holding 4 level up) - (87/100)
Location: The Under - Termite Kingdom Ruins
Word Count: less than 750

With Rubick having helped her deal with and collect more poes, Sectonia found that looking through these ruins for the additional 10 poes was going to be quite a pain, especially if the rest of the group would be done doing their explorations. All for a treasure that may or may not be great? Well, there was a way to speed this up.

"More eyes on the ground would find these poes faster." Sectonia said, summoning a whole horde of antillion and giving them instructions. They would look about the city, and if they found a hovering blue lantern to report back to her so that she could deal with the poe. She would command the antillions to handle the poes themselves, but she figured this would be easier. And with those orders given, the Antillions scattered about the ruins.

"And now we wait." Sectonia said as she watched her antillions fan out through the ruins. While some got trapped by the other spider creatures inhabiting the ruins, others soon returned having found a poe. Much like the royal she was, Sectonia delegated. She would follow one antillion and clear out a poe, while leaving the other to Rubick. The meeting spot would be in front of Jovani's house when they had claimed the poe they were looking for. Having been around the ruins and seen most of the area's tricks, Sectonia didn't have too much of an issue defeating the poes she was lead to with her magic or swords; really whatever she felt like using at the time.

With each poe defeated, it was harder and harder to find more. Occasionally Sectonia had to summon more antillions, but the poes themselves stood no chance when they were challenged by two powerful mages, and eventually they had collected the 20 poe souls in this area. With that done, Sectonia went to go see Jovani and what this 'reward' would be. If it was horrid, she doubted she'd go through with breaking his curse.

For Sectonia and Rubick

You have obtained:
Rewind
A pencil used to rewind a cassette. It can restore any tape that hasn't been broken to full health
Web Wrap Sticker
A sticker that can be stuck to (and peeled off from) any combatant to grant the usage of the move Web Wrap. It has only 20% accuracy, but if the silk bind hits, it will inflict the Tape Jam status effect for 30 seconds. Those afflicted with Tape Jam cannot change forms or use summons by any means
Great Fairy's Tears
A bottle full of immensely magical glowing pink liquid. If fully consumed, it will restore the drinker to full vitality and provide a large attack boost until the drinker takes damage again or sixteen seconds pass

World of Light

Roland

And
Robot Girls



Level 3 Roland - (0/30) Level up!
Level 12 Blazermate (Holding 3 level up) - (26/120)
Level 5 Susie - (35/50) - (Holding 2 level up)
Location: Sector 6
Word Count: 1032

"Phew, That was a tough fight." Roland said as he walked to the rest of the group, wiping his brow. "To think that lunatic would send attack helicopters to blow up the building he was in. I knew he had a screw loose, but that...." Roland said, sighing and shaking his head. With everyone grouped up, talk about what people were going to do started, with Roland learning that some of his party was part of PsyOPs and had, from what he could figure out, a friend they had taken? Either way, they were asking for a couple more from the group to help them out. Roland was going to have NONE of that mess though, stating at much. "Look, I'm a man who knows my limits. And I draw those limits at invisible things that can break your mind." He wasn't much of a fan of that whole part of the city.

Blazermate meanwhile was in the same boat, but for a different reason; she knew she wouldn't be of much help considering what she knew about the whole PsyOPs stuff, only saying. "Hey, I hope you guys can find Peach and free her, but there isn't much I can do either. Good luck." Susie had been spending her time gathering information, and why she didn't join the fight was due to her learning that the DespoRHado cyborgs specialized in dealing with her kind of mech robots. With her lack of ability to really defend herself due to the new rules of this world so far, she figured staying back and getting info would be best.

After the people that wanted to help with the peach rescue mission got teleported away, things... started to break down. Attracting the attention of the Public Security Division and their Motor Ball, they all had to make a run for it. Thanks to Sandalphon, and a decision of the group NOT to fight it as it would be too much trouble, it was time to run using an underground tunnel to find an escape tot he plate under this one. Blazermate was fine with running, attaching her medic beam to whoever seemed to be the fastest and matching their speed with her own thanks to the medi beam's ability. So whenever they took a dash pad, so did she in a sense. And thanks to her flight, most of the obstacles that appeared on the way down didn't really bother her much. Susie had a bit more vertical speed than Blazermate with her flying, and could use the dash pads as they were intended, even while using her transporter to fly. Like Blazermate she had an easy time getting around obstacles, but her movement wasn't as free as the medabots.

Roland meanwhile wasn't happy with needing to run on foot, but was at least equipped to deal with it. As he took the first dash pad, he used a small communication device to call up his superior to figure out why Public Security was chasing them. "Tseng, come in Tseng. Why is Public Security ruining my operation here?" Roland would soon get a reply over the device, with a reply of. "Roland? Where have you been. Last I heard you went AWOL after the debate with Shinra." Roland then replied. "Yeah, sorry about that, but I was investigating that moderator that got under President Shinra's skin and had managed to plant bombs under those sectors."

After saying that, the radio went silent for a little bit, with Roland needing to watch his footing a bit as the road got a bit rough soon after hitting another dash pad, as it was in need of some repairs. Then the voice over it came back saying. "I see... And did you find anything?" Roland then thought a bit, saying. "A little bit. It seemed like some parts of DespoRHado went rogue and were attacking Vandelay under orders from that 'moderator'. Apparently he has some kind of mind control powers, and very potent ones. But finding that out got me stuck in the middle of their internal struggles and now I've got this tank chasing me." That last part about the moderator being the one responsible for the fracturing of DespoRHado was a lie, but considering according to these people that woke him up out of his stupor, it would do well to get the whole city looking for him.

There was a pause before Tseng continued, saying. "... So you were at Vandelay which from my reports is on fire right now. What happened." Roland then explained a bit of what happened, and how, continuing with his story, explained how it seemed the senior cyborgs, including the one that lead Armstrong's security detail, were going crazy and attacking Vandelay. He explained that some of them had fused with 'something', and were crazy. They also had glowing eyes that didn't look right, which were in fact their Galeeming as he could see that now, but he used that as an excuse to say that they were mind controlled. He also stated that not all of DespoRHado were controlled that way, and how some tried to defend Vandelay from their rogue elements.

Near the end of the story when Roland was saying he beat Sundowner and saved the head of production, Tseng came back on saying. "Your breaking up. Return to HQ for debriefing." Well, that didn't sound great, but Roland was going underground to the next plate, and this plate didn't have very good communications due to the poor development of Shinra, so it made sense. It was good then that the conversation got cut short, as soon that 'poor development' came into fruition as the first thing that Roland ran into that was a bit of trouble was a large pit in the road with a launch ramp.

Seeing the two flying robots soar over this pit without issue, Roland sighed saying. "Why did Shinra refuse to make these lower plates..." before he ran into the launch jump pad, and found that there.... weren't any problems. It sent him flying right over the pit without issue and onward he went.