Level 4 Roland - (12/40) Level 12 Blazermate (Holding 3 level up) - (65/120) Level 6 Susie - (24/60) - (Holding 3 level up) Location: Sector 9 Word Count: Less than 750
With Roland's EGO attack finishing off Vigil, Giovanna giving him a bit of a complex look. Really there wasn't much he could do in the moment. This wasn't the first time he had dealt with something being controlled by another thing, and either they broke free after getting hit a bit, or wouldn't stop until they were dead in his experience. And it seemed to be the latter for Vigil and Penance. Although Giovanna did something Roland wasn't sure how to do, doing a technique to free Penance from the consul's control. "Would've been nice to know you could do that." Roland said in a lower tone of voice. But at least they got one of the mind controlled victims back to their senses. Still, a bleeding heart would get you killed out there, and if Roland was nothing else, he was a survivor even against his own feelings sometimes.
Blazermate meanwhile had gotten blindsided by Akira's partner and ended up getting chained to the ground, unable to move as Akira rained arrows on her from above. That hurt, but seeing that, her allies came to her rescue as she struggled to break herself free. Susie meanwhile had seen what the Consul had done to one of Reunion and that vortex of his. Quite a dangerous ability, but he was a big one to deal with, so... Well, there wasn't much to think about as everyone, even the recently broken free Blazermate and Roland who had quite a 'I'm tired of this" look on his face were pulled towards a single spot and all clumped together. Blazermate saw that Sandalphon was now the most critical, so she started to heal her up as she could, but that pull hurt everyone.
Seeing the situation, and wanting her revenge, Jena did something drastic, and after drinking a concoction, she glew bright, before revealing some kind of crystal angel form. "What now... Did she distort?" And upon seeing this, Sandalphon transformed herself and healed everyone a bit. Roland could only shake his head as he got ready to deal with the element throwing crystal angel lady thing in front of him.
"I got Kritz, if someone is going to do a huge move, let me know! Lets make it hurt!" Blazermate said, giving whoever was going to go in some overheal. Roland saw the platforms leading to this thing, but he decided for now to just use his ranged weapons. Pulling out the gun that he had gotten earlier, he fired that, before swapping to his crossbow, then finally, his own rifle in a combo attack. Susie could deal with ranged attacks as well, as she fired her missile at this thing. Blazermate noted that while the ice couldn't get past a projectile shield, the fire could. Roland found out that his new outfit helped a lot with the fire, but did nothing for the cold.
Level 11 Sectonia (holding 5 level up) - (43/110) Location: The Under - The prison Word Count: Less than 750
Sectonia having found some success on floor 1, made her way down to floor 2 evading the enemies she was told about. She wasn't sure how she felt about being smaller now, but it did make sneaking easier. She was about the size of her now large fire antillions now, so there was that as well, but oh well. Making her way down to floor 2, she moved around the prison, looking at what was around and a bit miffed that most doors needed a key or something to open. And seeing how few keys they had and how many floors they had left to go through, she wasn't going to waste them on this floor if she could help it.
As she moved through floor 2, exploring the area, she heard a peculiar voice, her own. Well, that wasn't unnerving at all. While she just figured it was a trick of this place, she soon saw a flicker of an image of... herself in the corner of her eyes? Well, it was what she looked like before she became gorgeous, but... that was still really strange. Out of curiosity she decided to see what this spectre was, at least for a little bit as she had really little direction on where to go. And if this was some creature messing with her, she would smite it with all of her wrath.
Wrath which was building, as vague phrases such as "You forgot..." or "Remember your happiness" or "I wasn't sad." came from this specter at the edge of her eyes. This was both confusing, and annoying to deal with. She assumed the mixed negative feelings she got from this was from the area itself, although some of this felt... accurate? And that just made her more confused and angry, so much so that after a little while of this, she fired a few spells when she saw the specter, and after a bit more taunting, the shadow finally left her, for now.
Well, after encountering a literal shadow of her past, Sectonia was a bit disoriented and needed a bit of time to process that in a proper manner. Or a distraction, which she found as she found a door that was barred but not locked soon after losing track of her 'shadow'. Or rather, a door she could force open with her new giant axe. Inside that room was a large, chained chest. It shook a small bit but otherwise was just a large chained chest. Well, whatever is inside was probably something of some kind of renown or power, or perhaps the boss of the area or just general loot? Well, she needed a bit of a distraction at the moment, so she used her magic to break the chains and open the chest. And as soon as the chest lid popped open, a bunch of Chop Goblins appeared from the chest. 15 of them in total, which made strange high pitched mumbling and grumbling sound. (Almost like gremlins.) While a couple charged Sectonia, most just ran around her or down different paths to cause chaos in the jail.
Now, 15 of these things wasn't all that bad. Sure the initial surge made Sectonia back up a bit, but those that attacked her fell to her new axe and her magic without much issue. In fact, those that charged her dropped golden ChopCoins instead of their spirits when defeated, but only about every 5th goblin dropped one. And she got 5 of these coins before she was forced to retreat. Why you might ask? because the chest was vomiting a constant stream of chop goblins, 2 every second or there abouts, which forced the queen back due to sheer numbers as they rushed past and away from her or charged her with their choppers out, and soon it was made apparent why the chest was locked as the swarm of goblins grew and grew.
Using her linkpearl, Sectonia said to the rest of the seekers there. "I found a large chest in a barred off room. However opening it has unleashed a horde of... things which are starting to flood the area. I'll need some of you to come here and help me deal with this horde before we are overrun. They do drop treasure when defeated however, although sparingly." Sectonia reported as she made a tactical retreat, summoning some antillions to distract the chop goblins. She'd need a few allies to push through that approaching horde and lock that chest once again. Although if they could control what these things came out of, they could be useful tools... although she hated how they looked so perhaps destroying the thing would be the best course of action...
Level 4 Roland - (11/40) Level 12 Blazermate (Holding 3 level up) - (64/120) Level 6 Susie - (23/60) - (Holding 3 level up) Location: Sector 9 Word Count: Less than 750
"Tch, this guy is getting annoying." Roland said, having to deal with Vigil's shenanigans. The wall that was Penance also sucked to deal with, having knocked Roland off his balance for a little while with her attack. At least she didn't really hit that hard even when trying, she instead just wore you down. But that wasn't for Roland to handle, as Geralt and Karin had that. Instead he would assist in dealing with Vigil. It was a shame the guy was not in his right state of mind, but thats that and this is this.
Having not all that much experience with her new shield, Susie wasn't sure on how much damage she could take. Although she learned a bit while Vigil landed a few shots on her in her mech, with one of the bullets just... dropping to her feet fully intact. While some of the others hit the shield. Roland had difficulty deflecting his bullets as well, since they were high callibor bullets compared to the machine gun fire before. Still, he could deflect a couple as he went to clash with Vigil, and his Scars made every 5th hit deal no damage but he still took a fair amount of damage. The heal from Sandalphon was well timed, and with that and the three way tag team between Susie, Roland, and Giovanna, Roland went in to deal with the guy.
Vigil wasn't going to take that lying down though, and getting tired of Roland deflecting his shots, sent in his shadow wolves to attack him, which Roland clashed against. While he blocked the first and parried the second attack with his hammer, the third attack landed. That was when Giovanna had gotten Vigil off of Susie though, with Susie taking that opportunity to spike the serve right in front of her right at Roland. Having the eyes of a guy who just didn't care, Roland struck at the grounded Vigil, overpowering his gun whip retaliation before striking him with his longsword. After getting 3 clashes, Rolands emotion leveled up again which gave him Guilt, with a soft girl's voice saying "Don’t shove the responsibility on others. The agony is yours to bear." making it so he took reduced mental damage, and inflicted a small amount of mental damage when attacked. He now had a smaller effect that Penance had, although Vigil wouldn't see that as Roland got an EGO page, Wrist Cutter.
He then used his new EGO page almost right away to finish off the gunslinger and possibly damage any other enemies around him. Donning the EGO of Bloodbath, the area changed to a scarred, bloody flesh bathtub via the glowing will o wisps for 10 seconds as Roland donned the EGO and filled the area around him with a drowning torrent of blood, washing away any buffs to damage or suitability to those that didn't defend themselves from the depression filled blood. While the attack only lasted a second, Vigil didn't have enough vitality left in him to resist and was washed away by the EGO. "Thats that, and this is this." Roland said, getting ready to help the others with the rest of the fight.
Blazermate meanwhile was just healing people and keeping her shield up to block Akira, using it to advance on the guy and attempt to zap him with the energy shield as the engineer's sentry gun plonked away at whatever enemy was close to it.
While a big monster that could occasionally hit hard, its telegraphed movements made it fairly easy to fight until it got low, but at that point everyone was able to ramp up their abilities and finish the poor chimera off. Knowing the whole system now with spirits, Roland grabbed the now fallen monster and crushed it during the helicopter ride to the Reunion meeting. For once he had some time to breath, at least until the next fight, so he could process what was going on.
Item obtained: X-Baton The standard-issue cutting-edge weapon of the Neuron police taskforce. Made in part with matter from the Astral Plane, it is capable of damaging Gates, chimeras, and so forth even in the hands of someone who can't see them, and it can also transform. Its standard telescopic baton form is well-suited to quick, dextrous melee attacks that compliment hand-to-hand techniques. Its blaster form can release bursts of blue bolts, either in sequence or as a shotgun blast, as well as large projectile orbs. This adaptability and range comes at the cost of low damage, pretty high spread, and below-average projectile speed. Its gladius form is a heavy one-sided greatsword that can deal lots of damage with its slow swings
"Well, this has been 'interesting' so far. " Roland said, seeing how much hes been able to dig into the Evercrisis situation since he 'joined' the Seekers. Although having his world turned upside down, then turned upside down again was still something he was getting used to. What really made him conflicted is that, compared to where he was from, this place was great, yet apparently from both the seekers and those others, the city was still bad. And needing some multiversal godlike entity to fix his world was something he was still... processing.
Blazermate took the time in the chopper to try to tune herself up a bit, with Susie seeing that and doing the work for her in a much, much faster timeframe out of something to let her relax after the constant fighting as well than any sort of charity. Out of everyone, Blazermate was the most relaxed with all the fighting. Still annoyed, but she was a robot made to fight, so she was much more used to this. And she figured that there would still be more fighting if they were heading to this Reunion.
Once they reached the rooftop where Reunion was, they found a Consul as well up here. While they couldn't figure out what was going on too much, with how Jena and Reunion were hostile towards the Consul, and the Consul using his mind control powers to take over Penance, Vigil, Hayato and Akira, well, things had spiced up quite a bit now. While Roland sighed as he got ready for another fight, Blazermate decided to try to take advantage of the situation since it was 3 factions all fighting here. "Hey Jena. This guy is the guy who controls Shinra. Take him out, and the city changes overnight. You see how he mind controlled Penance and the others." Blazermate said, making it clear that her group viewed the Consul as the much bigger threat as she went to do her healing and sentry making. Roland was a bit conflicted here, but decided to go with the seekers in this case as they seemed to know about what was going on way better than anyone else here.
Although Blazermate had no idea what a Consul was, so while she hoped they could at least make him retreat, they were an unknown. Even so, they'd have to attack them at some point... Susie hopped into her suit and stayed at range for now to figure out what was going on, using her ranged missiles like she did on the Consul once she got a grasp of what was going on. And finally, Roland got into the frey. He wasn't a fan of mind control or anything unsavory like that, but he also knew that dealing with someone who could do that would be a huge problem for everyone. Although could he control an Arbiter? the Seekers didn't know what that was of course, but he also only knew two of them, and one of them was working for Shinra so... it was up in the air. He'd have a greater concept of what was going on whenever he saw Binah, as much as he disliked the hag.
Thinking of the Library, Roland remembered when he started there on the Floor of General Works. And after his first clash with Penance to keep her off balance, he gained Scars, a womanly voice saying "The depth of a cut depends on the moment’s mind and willpower.", reducing some of the damage he took. Which would come in handy as every 5th hit he took was outright ignored, alongside him taking reduced damage from any attack in general.
Speaking of Penance, Blazermate saw that she had managed to disarm Sandalphon. Also she saw that the battlefield was fairly... small all things considered. So she had an easier time summoning purgatory ghosts as she moved around which zoomed around at the Consul and those he controlled at random, using Roland's diversion to grab the gunstaff and bring it back to Sandalphon as Susie took the attention of Vigil in her business suit. For now, Blazermate looked like she was just moving around making exploding ghosts come out of the ground, but how long it would take for the opponents to realize she was a healer was unknown. These guys were a lot smarter than things they've been fighting so far after all. They also had the distraction of the engineer and his sentry gun to deal with in this chaotic battle, so there was that.
As Susie was starting to get double teamed by Vigil and Akira, Roland came to deflect and clash with Vigil and his guns so Susie could handle Akira. After a clash with his sword and lance against Vigil's guns and followup melee strikes as he soon found Roland was very adept at deflecting his bullets with his varied weapons, Roland got to emotion level 2, and with it got Urging, with a mosnterus voice saying. "Join me in this feverish pulsation.", increasing his speed and health by a fair amount.
When Blazermate was eventually fired upon, she summoned her projectile shield to give herself and those she was fighting with some cover and pressure. While initially being hostile to Jena and her group, seeing the Consul in front of them, she would at least heal up Reunion as long as they were on the same side of the conflict. This could come back and bite them sure, but eliminating one side of the conflict first before dealing with the other was the smart play.
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Level 11 Sectonia (holding 5 level up) - (42/110) Location: The Under - The prison Word Count: 1025
With their coordinated assault, the caretaker fell. And much like they did, the koopa clan scooped up the leftover spirits and went to town getting various bits of loot, with or without the symbol of avarice Sectonia held. Still, they left the big thing behind, the caretaker, which Sectonia took. it would be completely useless as anything but an item, and who would fuse with what was essentially a giant inverted immobile pyramid?
Item obtained: Data Rack A large, long, octagonal device with an immense amount of memory, complete with its own internal reciprocal power source that allows it to sustain itself indefinitely. As a result it hums and emits a low-yield electrical aura best described as 'tingly'. In addition to data, it can house sophisticated artificial intelligences. Its adaptive port means that it can absorb data from any device connected to it. If destroyed, it will cause an explosion proportional to the amount of data in its memory, from a minimum of 1 stick of dynamite to a miniature atomic bomb. It's currently empty
After the dwarves had hitched what they came for onto their four legged... molly, things started to get hectic again. With the troop taking the spoils as they had the inventory space for it, which Sectonia would have them divvy up later, she moved with the group, striking at the various glyphids that emerged from the wall. Eventually the group made it to the dwarves 'escape pod', a giant drill looking ship with tracks that let it ride up the wall. Those who couldn't fly were squished into the pod, but thankfully for her, Sectonia could fly and just follow the pod to their next stop instead of being subject to what was probably a foul smelling pod.
And with that pod, they found themselves at the part they were told of, The Mercy Dreams. A prison complex that gave off quite the creepy vibe. Even Sectonia was put off by the oppressive atmosphere. Something was watching them, or so it felt like, and getting spotted by the guards wouldn't end well or so it felt. So Sectonia did a bit of a smart play, being able to see reasonably well in the dark she sent out a single antillion to catch the attention of a guard and lure it away as she moved through the prison. Stealth wasn't her forte, she'd much rather destroy these things, but the air of the place made it seem like doing that with these things, at least while the boss was alive, would be a poor choice. She'd also offer a distraction antillion to anyone else who needed it to go through the prison, but she wasn't going to wait for the koopa clan to do their shenanigans in the office she found. Instead she decided to move forward a bit.
As much as this was a prison, it was also a dungeon. After getting a green antillion to distract an Illuminator, Sectonia moved past its now fading lantern light and soon after, one of Kamek's Toadies delivered her some bronze keys. While she wasn't a dungeon delver herself, as it was shown that neither her or Bowser could open these doors by force, perhaps these were sent as they were what was needed to open one. When there were no guards nearby, she looked at the various doors and the howling of all the various prisoners and decided to just open one to see what it would contain.
The first door she opened contained something she wasn't expecting, someone quite decent looking. but they had been driven mad by the atmosphere of the prison, and attacked as soon as the door was open and freedom lay before them. Secotnia didn't take it well when this crystalline looking knight attacked her with a giant battleaxe with Sectonia only barely able to reduce the damage from the sucker attack by giving a slight deflect with one of her own staffs but still taking some damage. Being as large as she was, Sectonia made it difficult just by her bulk for this knight to get past her beyond the initial push to get out of their cell, and Sectonia wasn't going to take being attacked lying down. Being in such a small area, her projectiles wouldn't miss and would be extra devastating as she used her honey staff to summon her lightning and clash with the axe of the other person. This caused her opponent to reel as the lightning hit them. Seeing this opportunity, and combining her lightning with her tesla coil lightning, she pushed Agate back into her cell and continued to roast the blade with her electrical attacks. She even threw some fireballs from her fire breath for good measure. Still, the blade wouldn't go down so easily, and attempted to fight through the lightning barrage by throwing their axe at Sectonia and doing some damage before the queen backed off the spinning axe before it returned to Agate's hand.
Still, Sectonia had dealt a significant amount of damage from her passive and active electrical attacks, and while Agate had managed to leave her cell again, she wasn't in a great spot with Sectonia using her rings of light to deal more damage and finish the blade off as they continued their desperate escape from the prison. While taking more damage than she would've liked to, Sectonia had felled this aggressor, and claimed their spirit as her prize. She did like the way this one looked, and it was feminine, but she'd only know what she got by fusing with it...
Notable Spirit consumed: Agate The host has gotten about 20% smaller. Her attire is now predominantly white with a gold trim, and her hat is now a blend of a witch's hat and a crown with a wide brim. Her wings are back to being metallic in appearance, wrought of the same gold material, with white ribbon cloth stretched between the metal. There are two glowing blue 'discs' in the wings like the 'eyes' on the wings of a moth. The heart-shaped holes in her wings, as well as the hearts on her attire/body, are now pink crystal, which also adorns her garments. The result is a coherent and glamorous mage-knight aesthetic of white, gold, black, and pink. She has a second set of limbs just below the first, arranged much like an actual wasp's, but rather than hands they end in points with pink crystal spikes beneath them. This allows them to be used as additional arms or as actual legs. Both sets of arms have white armor. The host's personality is a bit more knightly, gallant, and protective. This spirit confers the power Crystalline Knight, allowing the host to manifest a large, double-bladed gemstone greataxe. In addition to being a strong, heavy melee weapon, it can be used as a casting catalyst, and if thrown it can spin through the air like a giant sawblade before flying back to its owner's hands. If it's used to strike the ground, it will create an outcrop of pink crystalline spikes. This spirit also confers the weakness Earthbane, giving the host an inherent elemental weakness to electricity and causing her to count as 'earth/ground' for the purpose of additional elemental reactions
Well, she'd have to see what she looked like, but she felt smaller after fusing with this spirit. That and the extra arms were a bit... Well they'd take some getting used to. But at least this beautiful figure didn't make her look ugly, she felt like she was more radiant than ever. Although at this time that might be an issue potentially. She would see, still she had one more key to use and if the surge of power she felt off this first one was anything to go by, there were some strong people here.
Using her second key, she opened up another jailcell, finding another person, Nocturne. This one was... hollow looking but wasn't outright hostile like the other one. She also didn't look all that pretty or strong, so if she wasn't hostile, perhaps she'd make a new minion. Although minions would have to be strong to be worthwhile, but she has been proven wrong before on the whole 'strength' scale. "If you still have your wits about you, it would be best for you to come with me. Perhaps you can be of use to me and escape this place."
Level 4 Roland - (8/40) Level 12 Blazermate (Holding 3 level up) - (61/120) Level 6 Susie - (20/60) - (Holding 3 level up) Location: Sector 9 Word Count: Less than 750
Well, that was about what Roland expected. And like the psycho Jena and her gang presented themselves as, they left after their mess started to catch up to them. One of those super large non chimera chimeras showed up, perhaps attracted by the commotion they had all caused. "I knew she was evil. She summoned this monster to fight for her like a bad guy!" Blazermate said, pointing at the huge creature. Well, she was ready to fight this thing having a full ubercharge from the previous fight.
"This city is turning to be more trouble than its worth." Susie said with a sigh. Staying a bit back to get a read on the opponent, she gave it a look and saw that its massive size made it slow. It swiped with ferocity from time to time but from what she could understand it moved in a simple way and besides a sudden sweep, attacking it from the side or behind seemed to be super safe. And with it having its initial aggro on Roland, Penance, Geralt, and finally Goldlewis once he joined in due to them being melee combatants, she shot at it from afar with her pistol for a bit until she was confident to go in with her business suit to lay on some spinning buzzsaw pain when it was recovering after bounding or doing a swipe with its claws.
Blazermate kept her healing beam on whoever was taking the monsters aggro like usual, but seeing as it wasn't all that mobile, she decided to get a bit bold this time around. She decided to spend her first Kritz on Geralt to see what the witcher could do with it. Once that was over, there wasn't much stopping her from doing what Susie was doing and stabbing the monster's side with a few bites from her shield and a few hits from her ubersaw as the monster had a notable delay between its attacks for how ferocious it made itself sound. This let her get ubercharge pretty fast, as long as the other didn't face tank the creature's attacks and she moved out of the way as it started to recover much like Susie leading to a bit of an "in and out" sorta dance with the creature as it thrashed about.
Roland quickly noticed this rhythm as well. Being a single target, a few of his 'debuffs' such as the buff from Home didn't have any effect, but he still had his self buffs and the team buff of False Present. Considering its size though, when Roland tried to use the EGO of Road Home on it, it just swatted away the house that landed on it since the small countryside house was just a tad smaller than the creature itself. The change in landscape really didn't add any tactical advantage or disadvantage either to anyone so the attack was basically wasted besides showing what a large creature would do to grasslands if given the opportunity. And while Blazermate's overheal let him take the hits he failed to clash or dodge when they connected, it did nothing to stop his stagger from lowering.
The creature itself attacked like a large beast for the most part. It swiped at who was in front of it with his front claws, spinning around to get whoever was on its flanks off of it, or doing a bounding pounce with some massive lag if it missed. A few things a creature wouldn't normally do that it did though was attempting a shoulder check on Susie while she was at its side, causing her business suit to be knocked back, and firing a laser beam when it got the opportunity that Blazermate found her projectile shield couldn't block due to its sheer size. The laser itself surprisingly didn't hurt as bad as it looked, but it was hard to dodge and got Blazermate and Roland in it.
Still, with the periodic downtime the creature left open for itself, it didn't take too long for Blazermate to get another Ubercharge, which she saved for either this creature going into a panic, or someone who had an attack that would finish it off. While she had an easier time getting around the battlefield, Susie being in a big robot, was often knocked away with the creature's retaliation attacks to her spinning punches reducing how much she could really do from melee, and when she tried to do some ranged stuff, the creature fired a laser at her to get her off its back. That shield was getting some really good use thanks to that.
Level 11 Sectonia (holding 5 level up) - (25/110) Location: The Under - The vault Word Count: Less than 750.
The fight with the caretaker was going pretty well so far. It seemed like it was built to deal with 4, maybe 5 opponents. Not the huge swarm of opponents constantly pounding at it to bring it down. Thanks to all the people focusing on the tentacle arms, they barely had any chance to do anything while the caretaker was being systematically disassembled. It took until it was nearly broken before it did something with some bite to it, summoning a few of the bots they had run into already that didn't fall over at the slightest tickle from Sectonia's lightning. It seemed they were at the final stretch, and getting through this would be much rougher than the first two phases.
As the dwarves and a few of the people below hunkered behind a shield to protect themselves and give themselves some breathing room from the oncoming robots, another robot, although different as it was piloted by a... well endowed plant girl. From what Sectonia could gather, she tried helping earlier but caused issues? Well, this time whatever effect she used seemed to be helpful? Although the distortion of reality from some kind of plant mixture was... odd. It did seem to have a profound effect as it made all the enemies weaker and spawned magical flowers that gave tons and tons of mana when touched.
Still, keeping a vigil to deal with all the shredders that were still spawning was what Sectonia was mostly doing. With her tesla coil and her own lightning, which she could use more often thanks to the mana regenerating flowers, it wasn't difficult for her to keep them suppressed and also deal with the caretaker itself. Seeing as everyone was having issues hitting the vents more than the eye, Sectonia cast Slow on the caretaker once the vents opened up again, making it spin very slowly and making its vents easier to hit. Still, being a big target that floated in the air wouldn't do super well for her health if and when the bots decided to focus on her, so Sectonia summoned her Chaos Shield, and used the caretaker itself as a bit of cover from its own minions, using her new staff to both cast lightning and smack the robot arm tentacles that she got near.
Level 11 Sectonia (holding 5 level up) - (24/110) Location: The Under - The vault Word Count: Less than 750.
Sectonia watched as the koopa clan decided to fuse with some of those horrible creatures they had just fought. Just as he was starting to slightly endeer himself to Sectonia, Bowser had to go and do something foolish by fusing with such ugly things, and he was rewarded with it. As the other koopa members decided to make their little comments on her change, Sectonia had a zinger of her own. "Your face looks like what that self proclaimed 'king of evil' turns into. " Sectonia said, pointing out the pig similarities to Bowser's current new form and Ganondorf's transformed form.
But there was time for making fun of Bowser's poor life decisions later. Right now they had to deal with a giant pyramid in front of them. As the dwarves started it up, it sprung to life and much like they said, it summoned 4 mechanical tentacles to defend itself. Getting a buff from Tingyun, Sectonia decided to observe a bit high in the air as she summoned her Antillons to swarm the tentacles and bring them down. While the ground would electrify and poof the antillions soonish, their sheer numbers did a ton of damage before the caretaker's defenses would come online to zap them.
Sectonia learned fairly quickly however, that when the caretaker shot those barriers out, they didn't cover its top. In fact, it seemed the only thing that covered its top was the arms, as everything else was just off. And that gave Sectonia her in, teleporting above the caretaker and showering its vents with her lightning. And with everyone else dealing with the arms, she could more or less freely rain damage upon the top of the caretaker. And being in such an advantageous position she was in, when the swarmers finally came into play, they just got zapped instantly by her lightning rain and her tesla coil making them a non issue.
The occasional claw would shoot at her, but her Chaos Shield and bark shield put an end to that chip damage. The phase bombs weren't too difficult to dodge either when they appeared, all she had to do was blink away and back to continue her assault. She'd summon antillions from time to time to give the arms more things to shoot or smack, but she was mostly just casting down her lightning on the immobile caretaker. When the eye opened up, it was a simple matter to blink to it and fire void globules and her new arcane orbs at it. She'd like to melee it, but considering all the other ranged here, friendly fire was a real concern.
Level 4 Roland - (7/40) Level 12 Blazermate (Holding 3 level up) - (60/120) Level 6 Susie - (19/60) - (Holding 3 level up) Location: Sector 9 Word Count: Less than 750
After beating another round of enemies, the boss of the area showed up. Or at least thats what Blazermate guessed based on what they had all seen before. And like a villain, just went on their monologue on how they were going to change things and yadda yadda, with Goldweis being very much against this person. Blazermate only had the idea of who they were,, with Susie just being annoyed that there was yet another fight while they were dealing with the whole red shift storm chasing them. Roland had the more informed take out of the three, noting that this girl had the same energy about her that the blue sicko did. Considering they had roughly the same plan, or this one was grander, he wasn't all that surprised. What did surprise him is being in this situation, perhaps thats how his whole band felt when he invited them?
Well, this person was open to questions. But as the group would find out, while they said they would take questions, they really weren't that great at giving concrete info. Roland's first question of how they'd treat the cityfolk was answered with "Without Shinra's boot pressing down on their faces, the people of Midgar will be able to live, not just survive. Moreover, if Yoseph isn't dealt with, they'll never get the chance to live as human beings. And I mean that literally.". Which seemed noble, but then when asked her question, it was disregarded which made Blazermate and Roland basically summarize Jena's stance and dispositon as "Are you stupid? Shinra is worse! Anything I can do is better than Shinra!", or so thats what Blazermate and Roland thought. When Roland asked his question about how the person's group would improve the city or Susie saying how the collapse of the city's worth would cause many, many issues. Blazermate got a bit of a different response, but it was more an affirmation of what she thought. "If you want us to help you, you gotta stop causing red shift." which she got the reply of "Redshift is caused by contamination from the Astral Plane. I didn't cause this storm; I'm just the one who's able to stay afloat." But after that question and Susie's question, she wasn't much one for talking anymore, having been annoyed from the barrage of questions.
Blazermate was pretty well set for another fight, even charged from her healing. But she did note that everyone else was getting tired. Roland was still in his fighting mode, but having been fighting for so long was getting tiring, and Susie was just getting frustrated at the whole situation, but keeping herself composed. While the bots were fine with whatever happened, Roland spoke for himself. "Yeah... If you have no plan that benefits anyone but yourself I suppose thats just the way the city works. But I'm not interested in helping another insane person gain power in what is a pretty decent place overall. Just sounds like you want to cause chaos for chaos sake and taking no responsibility for anything. So no, I'm not interested." Although him saying the city was fine when they were in such a terrible district was really hypocritical. But at least this was still better than the Backstreets. For one, no Sweepers, and there was no district 23 in Midgar either.
At least this little chatting would let Blazermate top up people. It was nice having a co healer that could do AoE healing as well, as she lacked that ability. She just hoped people weren't too tired for another fight.
Level 4 Roland - (6/40) Level 12 Blazermate (Holding 3 level up) - (59/120) Level 6 Susie - (18/60) - (Holding 3 level up) Location: Sector 9 Word Count: Less than 750
With the defeat of the transformed hermits, there wasn't much time to breath at all before the group was running again, this time from a red wave that would be really, really bad. Blazermate had no complaints as she flew off chasing Iron as instructed, as that was in the opposite direction of the oncoming red cascade. Susie complained a little with a sigh, but rellented and started to fly herself. Roland was the most vocal about his complains, saying. "You guys have some bad luck. Do you run this much?". Blazermate gave him a reply, looking back at the red cascade to make sure no one was getting left behind. "Uh yes and no? Sometimes we just kill everything. Or you get stuck in a giant ship filled with monsters and darkness..."
Roland sighed himself and ran, his emotions running high which made him faster. He hadn't any time to rest yet, and all the fighting was getting a bit tiring. Still, he had dealt with multiple long combats while working as a librarian, so this wasn't new to him. It still sucked though, and unlike before, he didn't have that safety net Angela gave him. Blazermate having a mobile version of K corps singularity though was extremely useful though. Blazermate was already getting tired of all the red shift stuff, but more because it scared her since she couldn't cleanse it. Susie was likewise not as interested either, but that was because she hadn't been able to make any usable deals.
Eventually they had all caught up with Geralt and the now deceased Irons. Looking at the scene, Roland could only say. "I guess they couldn't handle the city life. I don't blame them, but this was a cowards way to go out though." There wasn't much time to ruminate on this though, as a gunshot outside caught everyone's attention. Heading outside, Roland saw his old boss Penance. While his life in Midgar seemed like a distant dream after being awakened to the truth, it was still his job right now and he said, as everyone was agreeing to team up against these... humanoid chimeras? "Hey, sorry for not reporting in sooner. Its been a whirlwind since I tailed these guys. I can explain things after we take care of these things." Roland said as he got ready.
Blazermate, seeing this as a bigger fight, summoned her engineer so he could start building his sentry. Susie didn't really have any prep work herself as no one had elements for her to use, so she could only get ready for the fight. And Roland, having still gotten no rest, was at his max emotion level and giving his allies his "False Promise" buff. (30% extra strength and defense, 25% weakness to psionic and mental attacks.) And from that, he got started as he moved in to flank one of the Chimeras as Penance went in with her hammer, double teaming it with his old boss for old time's sake. Striking it with his daggers, then his hammers, then finally his one handed swords dealing a respectable amount of damage.
Susie sat in the midlines firing her missiles as she learned what each of the enemies did to see if there was one she could jump on and start to beat up. Blazermate trying to keep herself safe as she healed everyone and getting an opportunity to send a single purgatory ghost that zoomed in and exploded on one of the Chimeras that Goldweis was dealing with. Seeing his ally get attacked, one of the Chimeras decided to attack Roland, getting his first attack parried by Roland's counter, but getting a clean hit on the next one. Roland wasn't going to have that though, and decided to show this newcomer not to mess with him. Using his last acquired EGO page, those light wisps illuminated the area again as the battlefield turned into a twilight bathed wheat field as Roland donned a bloody scarecrow outfit and launched a fleshy barb at the other Chimera, using it as a chain to fly towards it and swing at it with his giant scythe. The Chimera might've been able to parry this attack or even negate it entirely with its counterattack, if Roland wasn't surrounded by his friends and running high on emotion. Still he just barely won the clash on this one.
10 seconds later, the battlefield turned back to normal, Roland contending with his own Chimera as the others dealt with theirs. Susie having found that she could join in on the melee when one of the others grabbed the attention of a Chimera with a drill stomp. Some dodged, some didn't, and while at first they attacked Susie's mech as it was bigger than them, eventually they learned to attack the thing inside of it, which would've been really bad if Susie was trying to 1v1 them, but as she went after ones others were tangling with, she could defend herself with her mech arms while she was attacked, leaving a Chimera's flank wide open for her partner.
This lead to a bit of a save on Susie's part as Roland had gotten hit by another Chimera attack, causing him to get Staggered and his defenses left completely open. Susie managing to smack the Chimera to focus her after it landed an attack on the staggered Roland, dealing some chunky damage and forcing Blazermate to come over to heal up the fixer and putting herself near the center of the battlefield. Roland soon recovered, and was back on the attack, but he was getting tired of all this fighting either way.
With Karin finishing up the rest of these things, there wasn't much to do but collect their leftover spirits or in Blazermate's case, heal. And she'd soon find with Geralt going into a blind rage due to the guardian spirit he had absorbed earlier, that she'd have a lot more healing to do especially for Goldlewis. Roland, after picking up the spirit of the thing he beat, noticed this blind rage followed by guilt and had a bit of empathy for Geralt. "Hey man, I've been there before. You'll get the hang of controlling it at some point." Roland said, although in his case, it was a bit different. He would've said more, but there wasn't time for it as another big enemy appeared, chasing after the VIP they had just rescued.
With their flight, Blazermate and Susie were able to get away from the big creature without too much difficulty with Blazermate able to help the slowest member of their group if they weren't too heavy. Roland, still charged by his emotions, was also pretty fast even though he was on the ground. Without her hands being free though, Blazermate was unable to heal anyone as she flew, which also meant she wasn't able to give anyone an uber if they needed it. At least they could get a headstart with the creature posturing and acting all threatening.
When they escaped the portal, something wasn't right. Out of a case the VIP had, was some purple liquid that the hermits called the 'elixir of immortality'. And boy these hermits were being awfully suspicious Roland thought, expecting a backstab but not surprised about it. And even though they had been running and fighting all day, having even fought some of these hermits earlier, it seemed their elixir had caused them to redshift. "Well, thats one way to become 'immortal'." with Blazermate saying. "I am so sick and tired of everyone we meet backstabbing us in this city!", Roland almost giving a schadenfreude chuckle at her naivety as he got ready to fight.
Having no time to rest, Roland was still at emotion level 3 so he was starting combat a lot stronger than others had seen him at this time and started to intercept and clash attacks like he usually did. Having more than 4 allies with him in this fight, he had his full strength gain from Courage and numbers appeared above the heads of the hermits. But due to the sheer amount of them, keeping to the number path would be difficult, meaning they'd be resetting every 10 seconds when someone inevitably hit the wrong one. Susie decided to stay at range and fire her missiles at whatever Other she could, and Blazermate did what she did and healed, having a projectile shield to deal some damage and protect others from ranged stuff for awhile.
After a few amount of clashes, Roland had gotten his emotion to level 4, gaining "Power of the Past", reducing his speed but greatly increasing his strength. This came with the usual quote being emitted, from what sounded like a witch. "I want you to feel it all the same… The misery of forgetting it all… losing it all…". Roland also got an EGO page, "Faded Memories", which he used right away to give his allies and himself a possible strength buff. Roland, donning a decayed looking dress, blasted the area with a strange dust that smelled of cinnamon that attacked the mind of the Abberations as the yellow wisps changed the immediate area into a ddecrepit ruin filled with emerald mist., with some pillars able to be used for cover if needed for the 10 seconds it would be up. This would spawn platforms for those who were on an already elevated part of the environment, not caring for if they were friend or foe so they wouldn't fall.
Once the area dissipated, with Roland clashing during the whole thing and Susie shooting her missiles to give some cover alongside Sandalphon, Roland had finally gotten to Emotion level 5 as the fight was wrapping up. This was the final push everyone needed as Roland gained "False Present", giving himself and every one of his allies a strength and defense boost, but making them take more mental damage if there was any. And with this quote, a much more sinister witch voice could be heard, saying. "Drink this potion, it’ll give you courage. You’ll be braver than anyone." He'd also gain the EGO page "Harvest", but the battle was closing soon so there wasn't really much reason to use it.
With the defeat of the Tyrant, Roland did what he came to do and crushed the spirit to see what he'd get. Last time he got a crossbow, this time however, he wanted to see what would happen. Susie, with Blazermate's help looted the crate meanwhile.
Robosaurus Hunter Bundle A full suit of futuristic armor modeled after the apex predators of the ancient past. It provides solid defense and limited EVA operations, as well as better defense against electricity, heat, and dark/void attacks
Inside the freighter are a handful of Bacon Agaric samples, which are mushrooms that taste like bacon and provide 20% healing when eaten, various components like modular frames, automated wiring, circuit boards, and crystal oscillators, a radio control unit, and some packaged liquid biofuel. (For Susie)
Roland was expecting a weapon, but got armor instead? Were these always just random? Seeing as the two bots knew what was going on, he asked, and Blazermate gave him a resounding. "Yep! Be glad its not bolts or something. We've seen weird things come from crushing spirits sometimes." Roland shrugged, and decided he'd at least try this armor the next time he got the opportunity to change.
Having discovered another rift with a VIP inside, Roland, Susie and Blazermate were told where to meet up. They met up with everyone else at the portal as Goldweis and Geralt jumped in to handle what was in there. While waiting, Roland decided to pass some time asking Zenkichi. "So... what did you do while you explored the area?"
As Zenkichi met up with the others while Goldlewis and Geralt headed into the portal, Roland struck up a conversation. "Checked out the lower areas. Found a kid. Sounds like he made it back alright, or I think Halo would've said something." Zenkichi's tone was a bit more matter-of-fact than the others were probably used to, and he sighed. "I hate this place already."
"yeah. I hear ya pal." Roland said giving a knowing sigh. " Me and the robot sisters over there fought some giant dinosaur robot for supplies. Pretty sure the pink one has them." Roland continued, being a bit more expressive than Zebkichi but sharing his disdain for the area. Susie only looked at the two chatting puzzled, but mostly just sat around doing a bit of bookkeeping on her PDA. Blazermate stood at attention, but more or less was waiting as well.
"Nice. Hope you got something useful out of it. I've got a couple Spirits but...not sure what I'm gonna do with em. Actually...lemme crush this one." Pulling out the Lady Nya'gai Spirit, Zenkichi glared angrily at the monster before crushing its Spirit. The umbrella that it left behind was..not actually unexpected. He'd have to give it a closer look later, though.
It was then that Sandalphon called for the others to enter the portal, and they went in. They had to wait around a bit while the fliers activated some moving platforms that wouldn't have looked too out of place in a Mario game. Carefully traversing the platforms, Zenkichi found himself wildly uncomfortable here. Being inside of one of these portals, in another dimension, was disturbing. It felt fundamentally wrong.
Perhaps even more wrong than that was the strange portal of dark energy that appeared, letting out a group of armed combatants that looked very, very strange. Definitely not human, especially given the centaur-looking one they had with them. "They...definitely don't look friendly." Zenkichi muttered.
"Do ANY of these monsters look friendly?" Roland said with a bit of sarcasm as he pulled out a sword and got ready for combat.
"I mean, they're not here right now but some of the Machines look kind of friendly" He retorted sarcastically, Closing Statement appearing in his hands as he buffed Roland's attack with Tarukaja. "What do ya say we take the sword guys?" Zenkichi posited to Roland.
He didn't have to tell Roland twice. Getting a buff from Zenkichi, Roland went in to clash swords with one of the sword guys. His first slash caught the creature off guard, but the creature pushed him away by overpowering his second slash. As he did the smell of coffee whisked by him as he remembered a certain coffee nut librarian. He gained some Courage from this clash, with a gruff voice saying"There’s nothing that can stop us!" buffing his strength by an additional 10% as he had 3 allies backing him up.
Blazermate and Susie meanwhile went to work on the centaur and the two cannon soldiers. With Blazermate's ability to conjure a projectile shield and Susie able to give Blazermate a good solid wall to hide behind, it was surprisingly effective. At first Susie went for the centaur that charged her, pulling out her business suit and getting ready to box it as Blazermate healed her and summoned her engineer spirit to start making a sentry gun. The cannon guys backed up the charging centaur, aiming at Susie's business suit as they weren't aware of her weakness quite yet. Susie still reflexively blocked her pillot seat with a single fist, while using the other to punch the centaur down and away, which sort of gave that away later, but their target would quickly change as the engineer constructed his level 1 sentry which started to shoot at the centaur and put continuous damage on it.
Zenkichi followed closely after Roland, his sword coming down in a heavy overhand swing on the other Voidranger. The space-themed villain deftly deflected the sword sideways, thrusting in with its other blade. Zenkichi tanked the hit, one hand coming off the Closing Statement and letting it crash into the ground as he drew his pistol, point-blank dumping its cylinder into the Voidranger's gut and recovering a bit of health.
The dual-wielding swordsman quickly stepped sideways when the revolver clicked empty, attacking with both blades while Zenkichi stowed his empty pistol. Once again tanking the hits thanks to Closing Statements bulk making it difficult to block with, Zenkichi retaliated with a series of heavy slashes, trading blows with the first hit, while the Voidranger dodged the second and third.
"Valjean! Deathbound!" Zenkichi called as a follow-up, a wide swarm of hands appearing from the ground beneath them all, swiping twice at both Voidrangers. The first attack caught his enemy off-guard, leaving it open for both the second swipe of the summoned hands to strike it, as well as a running slash from Zenkichi. The attack had enough power behind it to bowl the Voidranger over in a tumbling roll backwards, which it dextrously recovered from by pushing off the ground with its hands and springing into place.
With Roland dealing with one of the Voidrangers and Zenkichi dealing with the other, one of the cannon guys broke off from its fight with Blazermate and Susie to shoot a shot at Roland. Using his hammer at that time to clash against and parry the sword of his current target, he had to reflexively counter the shot only to get knocked back by it. Susie capitalized on that by striking it with a giant fist while Roland rolled back to his feet and went to break through another sword combo using his lance. This gave him Gleaning as a higher timber voice said. "Good… Very good… I’ll be smarter the more I eat, right…?" To assist Zenkichi, Roland gave him a bit of cover fire from his gun, shooting the creature he was fighting.
Being near the ranged fighters now, the centaur and the other cannon soldier attempted to get Susie off of their third partner. Knowing to aim for the girl inside the giant robot, they focused their attacks there, but Blazermate activated her projectile shield to neutralize the cannon shot and slow down the centaur long enough for Susie to grab it, spin it around, and throw it away. Susie then went back to working on the unfortunate cannon guy before her.
"Thanks!" Zenkichi called as a burst of gunfire hit the Voidranger, giving Zenkichi an opening to crash the Closing Statement into its torso, following up with a rising diagonal slash that was caught and deflected before Zenkichi took a slash to the chest. Grunting, he bashed the Voidranger in the face with the crossguard of his sword, stunning the enemy long enough for Valjean to land a One-Shot Kill, which performed just as advertised, reducing the enemy to ash.
"I see why you got this job." Roland said as he went to clash his giant sword against the other Voidranger, easily overpowering it's first slash and slightly parrying the second, but getting hit with it's final part of its sword combo. It then took a defensive posture as Roland struck at it with his daggers in 3 quick dashes. The Voidranger took to damage but that was all Roland needed to get to Emotion level 3. This time, he got the power of Home, in which a young girl's voice said. "Friends. Oh, friends. Will we get to go home?" Which caused the numbers 1 through 4 to appear over the enemies heads. As well as an EGO page, The Homing Instinct. Roland said. "Hit them in order to do lots of damage." As Roland did just that, firing his crossbow on the distracted centaur which caused the 1 to disappear over its head and causing it extra pain. Susie followed up by shooting a missile at the one with 2 over its head, the extra damage finally destroying the cannon soldier.
Zenkichi charged the weakened Voidranger, his speed and dexterity boosted by Closing Statement against the wounded enemy, and crashed into it with a savage swing down its chest. The Voidranger skid back from the blow before leaping in to counter-attack.
Roland, having gotten an EGO page, decided why not use it now? And with a flutter of will-o-wisps the area changed into a grass hill with a road leading to an emerald castle with Roland now wearing a suit and top hat. With a one armed bow and a snap of his fingers, a small prairie house was conjured, then fell on the Voidranger. The Centaur, rearing up to attack Susie with a rush from its hooves, was immune to the attack, but the Voidranger wasn't so lucky as it got hit by a literal house that disappeared a second after it landed filling every one of Roland's allies and himself with hope and 10% more power. Although hit by a house, the attack didn't seem to do as much damage as you'd think.
Rushing in once the house was gone, Zenkichi stood over the stunned Voidranger, looking down on him and shaking his head. "Tough luck..." He muttered, stabbing his sword down into the enemy, who dissolved into ash immediately with the killing blow.
"And make that two."
And with 2 left, one weakened, the fight goes on...
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