Level 11 Sectonia (holding 5 level up) - (74/110) Location: The Under - Dirtmouth Word Count: 2310
Having had enough of the prison, Sectonia let the others explore it and find what they will, she wasn't keen on getting trapped in another mirror or another weird dream. She waited until she was informed that the group had found the item they were looking for, the Dreamcatcher. Curious, but considering all the stuff that had been going on so far, Sectonia was a bit too tired to deal with any shenanigans that came with it at the moment.
Sectonia was happy to get out of not only the jail, but the underground as a whole as Nadia, having made friends with some strange creature, pointed the group to some sort of strange transit system where they rode large stag beetles. Being the big lady she was, she took most of the seats of her transit, meaning that one of the smaller party members had to ride with her, if they even wanted to.
Upon reaching the surface and being told the houses were abandoned by the elderbug, Sectonia decided to take one for herself as everyone else debated on who got what, taking the fanciest looking of the group. She wasn't pleased about having to be this 'squatter queen' as it were, and the looks of the abandoned house didn't help matters much. So she summoned some of her antlers and got herself ready to sleep, at least until an ally came looking for help.
Once of the first of Sectonia's teammates to start seeking shelter among the empty ovoid huts of Dirthmouth had been the crew's original cat burglar, Ms Fortune. For a while now she'd been longing for an escape from the inhospitable confines of the underground, but as much as she appreciated the chance to fill her lungs with fresh mountain air, the Charm's surroundings weren't exactly warm or comfortable. Pretty soon she began to poke around the quaint little houses, trying to find somewhere she could tuck in for some much-needed rest. A former alley cat wasn't picky when it came to places to hole up for the night, but she never liked sleeping with one eye open. Plus, her room the Mizzenmast back in Limsa Lominscuttle Town had kind of spoiled her, and Habbo Hotel hadn't been half bad, either. Determined to seize the best lodging she could before anyone else took it, Nadia soon made her choice. One of the huts had once belonged to a weaver, and that artisan had left behind plenty of scrap cloth that could made into blankets. Once Nadia laid down her heavy jacket, belt, and various weapons though, she still had one glaring issue. And as tired as she was, this one couldn't wait until morning.
ust as Sectonia was settling into her own hut (the biggest and fanciest of the bunch, though realistically that wasn't saying much) she received a visitor. Nadia poked her head in, a cheeky grin on her face. "Hiya Toni. You got a minute?" After her guest stepped in, Sectonia could get a good look at her, not to mention an idea of how she'd changed. Down to the bare essentials of jet-black leotard and modified Mantreads, Nadia possessed a silhouette dominated by a huge amount of voluminous snow-white hair, a cape of curls all the way down to the base of her tails. "You might have noticed, but a buncha the spirits I've fused with had something in common." Grinning, Nadia flipped her hair for dramatic emphasis. "I mean, it 'locks' good, right? I knew it'd be handful, but I figured it'd be a small price toupee. After all that fighting in the prison, though..."
Nadia threw her hands up. "It's such a pain in the ass! It's SO heavy, I'm constantly distracted. It's always flying everywhere, getting in the way while I'm doing stuff, and it blocks my equipment. As if covering my left eye all the time wasn't enough. Plus, all kinds of crap gets tangled in it! I mean, look." She ran her fingers through her hair for a moment, and to her own dismay pulled out a root sprig several inches long. "I mean, comb on." After flicking it away, she crossed her arms. "So I figured I better get rid of it. Hair today, gone tomorrow, right? A shoulder-length bob works just fine. And I figured, well, nobody does style like Sectonia. You're not just any royal after all, you're the 'hair apparent', nyahaha!" She clapped her hands together pleadingly. "So whaddya think, Toni? Hairdo a girl a solid?"
Sectonia, having to make the best of a bad situation, was about ready to get to bed. A few Antlers could be seen cleaning the place as the queen laid on a bit of bedding from her camping set. She wasn't expecting anyone to come to anyone after the day they had all had. But considering the advice that was being asked, it made sense Nadia would come to her, the true eminence of beauty, to maker herself more beautiful.
Nadia would see a bit of a snicker on Sectonia's face before she got up, saying. "Well, its good you came to me. Outside of perhaps Primrose, none of the others really understand beauty. " She then looked at Nadia's hair, and could only shake her head. "Welll, you are right. There is far too much hair here to do much, and keeping it proper would take quite a bit of effort." She ran her hand through Nadia's hair and pulled out a few pebbles, shaking her hand clean in disgust.
Grabbing one of her ice Antler who was cleaning, she said. "Well, we should get started then. Although I do think I can do better than a simple bob cut." Sectonia then went to work. Seeing how extremely volumetric Nadia's hair was, she decided the first round of curating this issue would probably require something a bit stronger than scissors. A pair of swords used as a large set of scissors would work though, and Sectonia summoned both of them and got to work.
First Sectonia used her swords as large makeshift shears, making sure Nadia's tail was out of the way before shearing the back of her hair down quite a bit so that it was more managable. She then picked up her ice antler and used its ice powers on their 'warmest' setting to mist wash Nadia's hair and get rid of the gunk in it, pulling out a brush to comb out all the icky part, knots, and just random junk that this mane of hair had all around it. "I suppose its a good thing the downsides of your fusions can be handled with a simple haircut. Its a good problem to have." Sectonia said, as she pulled out what were fairly large scissors by Nadia's standards and started to clean up the relatively neater mess she made.
The steady stream of cool air made Nadia shiver, causing goosebumps to crop up all across her skin, but after being stuck underground for so long she could take it. That went double if it meant getting clean, or at least, cleaner. Nonstop adventuring -and exercise- in all sorts of bizarre environments tended to leave a mark on someone, be it physical matter or just a good pong. Even if the others were in the same boat and would probably understand, Nadia wanted to be presentable. As Sectonia got busy cutting the feral's hair down to size, she idly wondered if she'd always felt this way. A poor orphan had more vital things to worry about, after all, and someone she fused with could have very well made her more self-conscious. Then again, even if she'd always been the rough-and-tumble, tomboyish type, the Fishbone Gang had always called her a diamond in the rough. Nadia Fortune, thief of hearts and wallets, robbing you blind and looking good while doing it--that would never change. Providing Sectonia's aesthetic sense wasn't too dissimilar from her own, of course.
"See, I was talking to someone about this, Primrose I think," Nadia mentioned, continuing the thread of conversation that Sectonia began. "The changes from fusion, they're purr-etty serious, right? Say I just stuck to humans, or catgirls for that matter. Even then a teeny-tiny change in my face or voice should be super noticeable. Uncanny, even. But when I looked at my reflection, it's just...me. My voice doesn't sound weird to me. Nothing seems like a problem, I guess." She paused for a moment. "But that's kinda weird, too. It's like I'm numb to it. I only noticed the hair thing 'cause it got so annoying." Upon reflecting, though, Nadia gave a sheepish laugh. "Sorry, I guess you can't relate, huh? Not a lotta people like you around after all. The pickings must be pretty slim."
Sectonia paused for a bit upon Nadia self reflection. "Yes, the lack of beauty is quite noticeable... and yes beautiful insect spirits are quite rare as well. Considering we are in a place full of them. Especially those of any real power." Sectonia said, before she went back to her work. As she cleaned up Nadia's bangs to get that hair out of her eye, Sectonia continued. "I suppose when you gain power and it changes your form that can be a concern. but you seem to have realized the key to it, your still you. Sectonia said, moving to another section before continuing, musing a bit herself. "Its caught me off guard a bit with some of the strange things I've had to deal with. If you have concerns about your looks because of a fusion, I can make you presentable. And if I can't, Kamek has that item that will make it possible. That and that orb are honestly why I've been looking at other avenues of power. Although so far they seem... lacking."
As Nadia heard this, she couldn't help but give a wry smile. She'd used both the items that Sectonia mentioned already, and in fact, she'd been the one who discovered the orb. Did they really have to little to talk about that they both needed to go over stuff they already knew? An extrovert like her ought to be able to do better. They did have one pressing concern at the moment: whenever Sectonia tried to trim back the bangs over Nadia's left eye (bringing her massive scissors rather close to her face in the process) she found that the hair grew back immediately. "Don't worry about that," she advised after a few attempts. "I think it's stuck that way 'cause I fused with that assassin chick. Like it's her curse or somethin'. I woulda gotten rid of it already if I could. It's not that bad though, and it makes me look all mysterious. So 'eye' don't mind."
The feral shifted her posture slightly to get more comfortable, making no sudden movements that might result in an errant clip. "That whole prison was super freaky, huh?" she asked after a moment. "Not just the horrible monsters, either. All those poor people stuck in a trance. Blurring the line between dream in reality..." Though she wasn't about to share it, her unreal encounters with Minette and Black Dahlia weighed on her most heavily of all. Instead, Nadia laughed helplessly. "After all that, I just wanna black out 'til morning. Gimme some sweet, sweet oblivion."
"Very well. I suppose a hair clip will also solve the issue." Sectonia said, giving up on dealing with the bangs and finishing her work. Sure Nadia wanted a bob, but that was plain... but an egyptian bob... Now that was fancy. Even if it was just a bit of jewelery in the hair that could be easily taken out...
"Much of this area has been horrid. That prison was weird, agreed. You were fortunate you weren't locked in a magical mirror for an undisclosed amount of time. And with your doubts earlier, I assume it played with your mind quite a bit. Perhaps thats why I ran into that mirror instead, hm....." Sectonia said. She ignored the oblivion comment, only partially. "It'll be easier to sleep without that mane of hair, I'm sure."
After a few more snips, Sectonia was almost done. All that was needed was the final touches. Summoning one of her fire antlers, which she was about the same size of now, she had it use its heat on its 'coolest' setting like a hair dryer to finish up. "I will say, after fusing with that last spirit, and that item we found yesterday, its a bit awkward to be smaller than my own summons. So I suppose we have something in common there."
Even after getting cut short, Nadia's locks remained quite thick and prone to fluffing up. Rather than try and force a certain kind of hair into a shape it wasn't suited for, the expert aesthetician could modify the original vision to make the style suit the hair, rather than the other way around. Once the drying completed, the final results were in: a rather short but poofy bob. After getting a look at her reflection with the flat of a blade, Nadia looked pleased. "Hey, not bad! Cute, yes purractical." She grinned at Sectonia. "You're a real cut above, Toni!"
"Yes, well, naturally." Sectonia said. "If the bangs get into your eyes remember a few hairclips can help." Sectonia then let out a silent yawn, her work being done. "Now if only the others would come to get beutified. Either way, its getting late. Careful with your dreams, mine have been weird as of late." and with that, Sectonia lazily shooed Nadia off and went to sleep when her antlers had cleaned the place to her liking.
”We don’t have time for your petty revenge or your awful ideology, so please, do one good thing for this city-” Midna said she formed a massive shadowhand before driving it forwards in a massive punch as she concluded her request with ”-and die quickly!” in a pretty clear indication that she was dropping her avoiding of killing plan for this man.
”Great…” said Roxas. He too wasn’t exactly hiding his irritation, ”...Just what we needed.” He quickly aimed the palm of his right hand gauntlet in the direction of the Senator as Midna threw her punch and began charging. Once her attack was done he let off a charged shot from his newly-acquired RockGun. He figured he may as well get in some practice using his new gear.
”You know, I like muscle guys, but you took it wayyy too far.” Blazermate said, trying to find something the others didn’t say. This guy was a complete loon. Well, either way, he probably hit like a truck so time to overheal.
For a moment, Giovanna hung back. The low-key secret agent lacked Midna’s short temper, and when faced with Armstrong, one all-important question had come to mind. When the senator boasted about killing Shinra, he’d very suddenly revealed true colors that even Gio couldn’t have imagined, but she hadn’t known whether or not to take him at his word. Then, when he pounded his fist, she could help but wonder: could this guy actually fight?
So she let Midna charge in to find out, and Armstrong did not disappoint.
“Hmph!” His tie flapped in the wind as a sudden burst of air pressure accompanied the rapid deceleration of Midna’s punch. Despite a solid attempt to deck Armstrong, the Twilight Princess had failed to lay him out flat–in fact, he’d barely even moved. With coal-black fists he’d caught her shadow hand in his grip, and now he wasn’t letting go. “Cocky little shit, aren’t you?” Seeing Roxas charging his RockGun, he put his incredible strength to work and yanked Midna off her feet by her hair. He swung her around in a circle, using her to catch the charge shot for him before hurling her at Roxas and Giovanna. “You’re going down!”
By that time, Gio was already running. She slid under the living projectile, then came to a stop in a tensed crouch and leaped into the air. After a somersault she cannoned down with a divekick, only for it to slam into Armstrong’s crossed arms. A jolt went through her body; that felt like kicking a wall of solid steel. She bounced off and flipped to the ground, where she immediately pivoted around into a barrage of side kicks with Rei for support. They struck fast as lightning, several ramming into the senator’s unprotected chest per second. Unbelievably, he didn’t even budge. After a moment Gio’s fight or flight reflex activated, and she spent half her tension on a purple Roman Cancel to stop herself short and slide backward. The next second, Armstrong’s huge hand swiped through the air where her neck had been an instant prior, and his grab barely missed. Giovanna dashed backward, wincing at her aching leg. “...What are you?”
Armstrong laughed, pushing up his glasses with a smirk. “Why don’t you stick around and find out?”
Unfortunately for Roxas, he didn’t have enough time to react before the body of the Twilight Princess came crashing into him. It of course knocked the wind out of him and sent them both sprawling, but after a moment the Nobody pushed himself back to his feet, ”Ugh, did someone get the number of that speeding tram?” he asked as he recovered from the sudden and unorthodox projectile attack. He shook his head and then redoubled his efforts.
Not yet ready to give up on his ranged weapon, Roxas decided to run a circle around Armstrong and pelt him with rapid energy shots from his RockGun. But despite the attacks appearing to connect, if they were doing any damage then it was impossible to tell. ”Jeez, what’s this guy’s deal?” Roxas questioned as he activated the StepSword on his left gauntlet while summoning his black Keyblade in the other hand. Then he shot forward at Armstrong with a dashing-slash of the energy blade. And with his Keyblade already out he could instantly follow up on that with another slashing attack.
Unfortunately, both attacks similarly didn’t appear to do much damage to the man that Roxas could see. Even more unfortunate was when Armstrong’s big hand managed to snatch the Nobody by his wrist mid-attack, “You’ll have to do a hell of a lot better than that, kiddo!” said the Senator as he wrapped his other massive arm around Roxas’ body. He then seemed to lift the kid up only to whirl him back down and slam him back-first onto his knee. After letting Roxas hit the ground he then lunged forward and kicked the downed Nobody, which sent him careening off a fair distance, “Don’t fuck with this senator!” He made a show of the giant punt, as if he could hear the crowd cheering from the bleachers. The sight made Giovanna balk. “I played college ball, you know,” Armstrong admitted with a cracking of his neck and knuckles. Of course, there was no way football alone was an adequate explanation for his apparent superhuman abilities.
Somehow not deterred by being used as a flail, the princess rushed past the punted Roxas, hands empty of weapons till she got close and flicked one out into reality with a crescent moon slash. The supernatural strike seemed to work for just a second, only for the second of Zanzo’s cleavers to break just like the first, shattering when it impacted with the senator’s skin, leaving the princess holding just a handle.
“Nice knife” the senator taunted.
”That was my bad one!” she retorted as she flicked second sword into reality, in this case Mao’s longsword he’d hand-me-downed to her, only for a hand to grab it before it could even strike.
“Nice trick, but you can’t fool me twice,” Armstrong told her, before squeezing the blade as she watched in horror, steel buckling under his grip before this well made blade broke just like the terrible one. Midna, who had been trying to wrench the blade free, fell back when the blade snapped in half, which was the only thing that prevented her from having her face punched in. Instead she landed on her back, and had to scrabble back once on all 6 limbs like a bug to avoid being stomped like one.
Then using skywave launched herself up into the air and, she hoped, out of harm's way for a moment. As she fled, Giovanna made her move. Shrugging off blows and snapping swordblades were no mean feats, and she’d seen that before each clash Armstrong’s skin turned black, like the pigment of a cuttlefish or octopus, in anticipation of contact. But what if she took him by surprise? When she unleashed Seismic Hammer to rupture the ground beneath him, however, he barely reacted. “Huh?” Was he not controlling the ability like she thought? Either way, she’d have to worry about it later. Armstrong barreled toward her with his arms spread wide in a humongous running bear grab. She leaped up into the air to avoid it, only for him to spring after her, his meaty mitts like crocodiles lunging for their prey. Only with an airdash did she manage to escape his grasp, and the senator fell heavily to the floor.
When she touched down, Gio turned in a flash and zipped toward him. Her mobility, she knew, was her key to victory. Before Armstrong could round on her, she extended her leg to strike the side of his knee. In the sporting world this was an illegal move thanks to its tendency to cripple people, but here her shoe stopped short against rock-hard skin. “Oh, come-!” The senator turned with a mighty backfist that struck Gio’s jaw, making her see stars as she spun around. She fell to her knees facing away from him, a hand on her poor chin, and Armstrong unceremoniously kicked her in the butt to send her sprawling face-first on the ground. “Guh!”
As people got knocked back and away and someone else distracted Armstrong, Blazermate could heal them up and overheal them as they were picking themselves up from being thrown. ”Man, this is going to be a long fight.” Blazermate said as she healed Roxas. She then got an idea, and as Midna went up to bat, then Gio, she took that time to zoom over a bit to summon her striker, the engineer, to make his equipment before going somewhere else to continue to heal people and generate her resources.
Once recovered, Roxas was back on his feet and already moving to take another shot at Armstrong. He deactivated his energy blade and replaced it with Oathkeeper - his second Keyblade. Clearly this was not the kind of fight for him to be experimenting with his new weapons or abilities, so from this point he would be fighting with his more familiar abilities and tactics. Roxas first turned into a streak of light that zig-zagged at Armstrong with blinding speed. As soon as the light touched him, Roxas instantly reappeared to hit him with a powerful Cross Slash.
Similarly to Gio’s attacks, Armstrong’s skin seemed to turn black at the spots where the Keyblades’ struck him, as if in reaction to the imminent damage that was incoming. But the Keybearer’s assault didn’t end there. He continued forward with a flurry of rapid Keyblade strikes. But each time, the blades were met with the same blackened spots that appeared on Armstrong’s skin. The Senator sweeped his arm and attempted to catch Roxas with a sweeping lariat. But Roxas was quick and able to jump back to avoid the hit. Then he had an idea, ”I need your help, Burn Rooster!” the Nobody said as he summoned the striker. But before the reploid moved, Roxas appeared to target him for attack, ”Freeze!” he called, casting the Blizzaga spell at his own striker. The tactic certainly seemed to surprise Armstrong, who tilted his head and cocked an eyebrow.
But that ice spell - despite damaging Burn Rooster and Roxas by extension - had an interesting side effect. Taking ice damage caused Burn Rooster to explode with a strong, fiery aura that boosted the power and damage of his fire attacks. He then unleashed that on Armstrong in the form of his fire breath attack. In response, the Senator held up both arms to cover his face. The skin on those arms blackened and were able to blunt much of the fire damage he otherwise would have taken, ”What? How is that even possible?” Roxas demanded in disbelief.
The senator then barreled forward as Burn Rooster disappeared and managed to catch Roxas in a choke-hold, “Nanomachines, son!” he yelled before spinning around and putting momentum into hurling Roxas away from him and careening into Gio.
”Ugh.” Roxas groaned, having the wind once again knocked out of him, ”Nano…what?” he finally said when his breath came back to him.
”I don’t know but rushing in one at a time clearly isn’t working!” Midna pointed out as she landed a fair bit away from the big guy, having been caught by her Flygon after launching herself. She slipped off its back and launched a pair of autopistols she’d stolen from the Commando into her hands, gripping each with two hands to steady them better before opening fire with a hail of small arms fire interspersed with more dangerous phase rounds.
The peashooters weren't much on their own, but with a call of ”Blast him!” the princess dipped a hand into every other pool of firepower she had, summoning arrow penetrating psychic spear throwers and ice javelineers to her side, while her flygon unleashed its dragon breath, and she herself formed a twilight volley bomb to slap down at her foe. Her remaining striker not on cooldown, she kept on reserve.
As the barrage of projectile attacks rained down on him from Midna and Blazermate’s turret, Armstrong breathed in deep, filling his lungs. Giovanna and Roxas had both picked themselves up to rush the senator down again, but hearing Armstrong suck in air -and seeing a huge magic bomb from Midna- made Gio hesitate. A second later, the big man yelled, and the nanomachines throughout his body released stored-up energy in an omnidirectional yellow wave. While it lost its repelling power beyond melee range, its sustained output was enough to crumple bullets, shatter ice, thwart mental energy, and detonate the volley bomb. It didn't protect him from everything by any stretch, but it made quite the statement.
With no other ranged attacks, Gio helped with what she could: a heavy Seismic Hammer. Armstrong laughed it off, then concentrated stored energy into his fist. “That's all you got?” He then aped her, slamming his fist into the ground. A glowing fissure ripped through the arena’s surface, spreading like a bolt of lightning beneath the Seekers and the turret. “Go big or go HOME!” Gio instinctively dashed to safety, and the next moment Armstrong pushed his arm even deeper, detonating the fissure–and with it the annoying turret.
Midna’s strikers were at least all gone by the time the explosive wave, so it was only her and her flygon that had to dodge out of the way, each of them leaping to either side to avoid getting blasted.
”Does nothing phase this guy,” Midna complained as she ditched the two guns she’d been using into portals, and tried to plan, before deciding, simply ”I’ll just have to hit him hard enough that he’ll feel it.”
Rather than follow up on this statement right away however, she instead started dancing. Dragon dancing. The princess stepped and spun with rhythmic grace, building up more and more power every few seconds, power which was visible as a gradually intensifying royal purple aura. As she did this, her flygon hovered nearby, ready to swoop in to defend its mistress if need be.
Whatever kind of attack Roxas had planned was cut short by the literal explosion that Armstrong caused around him. Unable to get close while that happened, Roxas did the opposite and backed off. He hoped that by putting some distance between himself and Armstrong - and if Armstrong continued to pay more attention to the other Seekers - Roxas could prepare another plan of attack without being noticed.
And so after he backed off and found a spot he could squat behind and be out of sight, Roxas retrieved the unused spirit of Fortune from his person and looked intently at it, ”I think we’re gonna need your help here, Miss Sniper. Hope there’s no hard feelings.”
The sudden retreat of both Roxas and Midna moments after the Twilight Princess said that everyone should attack together left only Giovanna standing before Armstrong as he stood to his full height. Taken aback, the secret agent briefly glanced between her allies before refocusing on the man in front of her. “Uhh…” He took off, picking up speed like a charging bull. Gio tensed up, ready to dodge, and when the moment came she ducked under Armstrong’s clothesline haymaker. She got clear rather than trying to attack, but even avoiding one of the senator’s felt like an achievement. When she turned to face him, however, Gio saw that he’d kept right on going. His true target wasn’t her at all. Instead he stampeded toward Midna, arms pumping. “Think you’re cute?”
Waiting for just this moment, her flygon dove down on its own. Armstrong had seen it on guard duty, of course, and when it acted predictably, the senator was ready. He cannoned off the ground and intercepted the pokemon mid-dive. His shirt gained some fresh clawmarks, but nevertheless he snatched the flygon by its long neck, then returned to the ground in a chokeslam strong enough to shake the arena. After kicking it onto its belly in Midna’s direction, he raised his fist and struck the ground to send a chain of flame geysers toward the pair.
In response the princess stepped onto the sliding form of her minion in what seemed an absolutely callus move, only to use the motion of leaping off of it to also kick it down into a twilight portal out of harm's way, followed by slamming her shadowhand down onto the ground and narrowly tossing herself over the wall of flames that only got a few licks on her. Then she kept dancing.
New Striker spiritbound: Fortune A striker that specializes in firepower. She has only two attacks, which have wildly different cooldowns. Using her Beretta 92F handgun has a short cooldown, but shorter range and low damage. Her Lockheed RG-590 Experimental Aircraft Rail Cannon has a long cooldown, as well as a long charge-up time, during which she can be interrupted and banished at any point. Once fired, though, that railgun does huge, highly destructive damage, capable of demolishing heavy armor, terrain, and so forth. When in use, she confers a passive ability to both herself and Roxas that increases the likelihood of enemy projectiles missing.
Then he summoned her. She wasn’t like other strikers, who typically went for their attack immediately. Instead Fortune stayed put and leveled her big railgun to take aim at Armstrong. Then she started charging the weapon. Seeing how it worked up close, Roxas now understood why she had earlier elected to stay hidden and take shots at them as a sniper. Clearly that was the safer and more strategically sound use of her rail cannon. If he wanted this to go off without a hitch, then Roxas was going to have to offer himself up to Armstrong as a decoy.
He moved away from his hiding spot and then took off in a run, specifically choosing to circle around so that the Senator would be in between himself and his striker, ”Hey, Senator Blockhead!” Roxas shouted with a taunt, even hurling a Waterga spell at Armstrong for good measure, ”Are all those muscles of yours compensating for something?”
Armstrong stood, turning from the havoc he’d sent toward Midna to give Roxas a sneer. He put up his arm to soak up the Waterga, then casually brushed the droplets off his shoulder. “Gotta work on your mudslinging, son. I’ve heard way worse.” Gio approached from a different angle, and for a brief moment Armstrong debated the options before him. “Still…” Launching forward, he made a beeline for Roxas anyway to send him flying with a mighty side kick. Gio dashed in after him. “I’m gonna knock you out!”
Blazermate could only really help with her healing for the first part of the fight, but once her striker’s turret got destroyed and he despawned, she had another idea. She could heal two people using her healing drone and her healing beam, but that wasn’t her plan. She’d be the annoying ranged person that hid behind her team, moving from purgatory crack to purgatory crack to summon ghosts that zoomed in and exploded on Armstrong.
Now if they did damage was anyone’s guess, but that was some damage she could do until she got an uber or a good chance to use her shield. Considering how threatening Armstrong was in melee, she really didn’t wanna get close to him with her shield, at least not yet. But it didn’t take too many ghosts until Blazermate got unlucky and a crack spawned under Armstong, leaving her back on healing duty but with her shield ready to use. Now the question was… offensive or defensive? She’d know after Armstrong’s next move.
Unfortunately for Armstrong, Roxas had learned his lesson, and he was clearly more agile. He first dodge rolled out of the way of the Senator’s incoming kick. Then, remembering what happened moments ago, he kept his distance and proceeded to pelt the man with a few Firagas. They didn’t seem that much more effective than the Waterga was, but at least it gave the Nobody a means to keep Armstrong’s attention on him. One thing Roxas remained paranoid about was keeping himself out of the man’s reach. He really did not want to get flung around and punted again like earlier.
Meanwhile, from her hidden spot out of sight, Fortune kept her rail cannon trained on Armstrong. It was almost finished charging up, so she began to look for an opportunity to take a clean shot at the Senator, preferably while his back was turned. They’d soon be able to learn just how good his nanomachines were at blocking a fully charged rail cannon shot from behind.
Roxas was fast, but he was not infallible. He was playing a dangerous game, and before his number came up, Giovanna was determined to help. Just after the Nobody slipped out of the grasp of one of Armstrong's big grabs, Gio struck from behind with a grab of her own. In a flash she was in the senator’s shoulders, her legs locked around his throat in a vice grip. Nanomachines might harden in response to physical trauma, but a squeeze was a little different. By the time they stiffened, Armstrong was already being choked. Rei joined in, chomping the big man’s wrist in an attempt to distract him. Finally, Gio slammed her fists into his head, discharging a massive amount of electricity from her gloves to make sure there really was nothing between his ears.
It was an incredible feat, and most incredible of all, it seemed to work. “Raaaaaaaaaagh!” Armstrong bellowed, struggling against Rei and pawing at Gio’s legs. After just a couple precious seconds, however, he clenched his teeth and sent Rei flying with a sweep of his arm. He reached up to grab Giovanna, but she managed to lean and duck away from his grip. A moment later, though, her wild ride came to an end. Armstrong jumped up, fell backward, and as he crushed the agent beneath his weight the air filled with the awful sound of cracking bones.
”Get off of her!” Midna shouted at the man, having arrived, glowing with power, and once again lashing out with her shadow hand. Not to punch this time, because that would end poorly for Gio, but instead the princess took a leaf out of the agent’s book and tried to grab the man with her mighty mitt. To haul him up. And then to hurl him as far as she could from the source of the move’s inspiration. Her boosted speed and strength allowed her to lift Armstrong off Giovanna, then throw him away from her wounded ally.
Blazermate’s scanners informed her of Giovanna’s now injured state as the massive meat man landed on top of her, only to be thrown away by Midna. ”I’m coming!” Blazermate said as she zoomed up to start to heal Giovanna, the same sickening bone snapping sounds happening, but in reverse as the bones knitted themselves back together. It was probably painful, but healing wasn’t always painless. Stil, Armstrong wasn’t a dumb guy even though he was a mountain of meat, so Blazermate kept her eyes on him and she had her shield ready for if he did anything.
Roxas admittedly froze up for a moment. Not only at the sickening sound of Gio’s severe injuries, but also because he knew he was partially to blame for it. He’d gotten a bit too overzealous in attracting Armstrong’s attention, and she was obviously the one who now paid the price for it. But after that moment of guilt, Roxas sprang back into movement. He ran past where Blazermate was healing Gio in order to put himself between them and Armstrong. As was becoming the norm, the Senator was already back on his feet and was now barrelling toward Roxas.
It was now or never, ”Freeze!” Roxas suddenly cried out. He shot the Blizzaga from the tip of his Keyblades, but it was aimed slightly low. He wasn’t aiming for Armstrong’s body, but rather his legs. And even though the nanomachines in his skin protected him from the damage, they weren’t able to stop his feet from becoming momentarily stuck to the ground. He had still managed to get close enough to slam Roxas with an uppercut that knocked him back to the spot nearby Blazermate and Gio. After that he had no choice but to tend to getting himself unstuck. With a giant yank, he broke one leg loose in a spray of ice shards, then went to free the other.
And that was all Fortune needed. She had a clear shot now, and so she squeezed the trigger and let loose her mighty rail cannon shot.
To say that the railgun’s payload finished Armstrong’s job for him was an understatement. The sheer force it communicated was enough to throw the man a couple dozen feet to the floor, and that was just from the aftershock of its absurd kinetic energy. That magnetically-propelled projectile simply moved too quickly -and struck too suddenly- for the nanomachines to fully absorb the immense damage. His shirt had been blown off, and the shot left a gruesome wound in his chest. Even after the fact his nanomachines did not recede from the impact site, as if their presence was needed to hold them together. Still, not even a shot that would have turned an average man into mist took the fight out of this Senator. After gritting his teeth, his face contorted in pain, he began to laugh.
“Hahahahaha!” he chortled, rising. “That one hurt!” When he stood, the others could see something unusual about his bare chest. It was covered in healed scar tissue, especially around the left side and radiating outward in streaks like swollen veins, too clean to be the result of injury. With no glasses to hide them, Armstrong’s pupils were glowing red.
Extensively healed by Blazermate, Giovanna picked herself up gingerly. Shaken by the traumatic pain of grievous injury and treatment that felt no better, it took a lot of effort just to face Armstrong once more. The Seekers’ foe looked more menacing than ever, but they could all see they were making progress. These next few moments might be the toughest yet, and Gio certainly couldn’t fight at her best, but this was the final round. Only so many seconds remained on the clock. One way or another, this was about to be decided.
”Together?” Midna asked, preparing one final joust against their bulwark of a foe.
”Yep.” Roxas said, ”All for one.” he then added in spite of himself. Sora really had rubbed off on him, not that any of the other Seekers would know that. He brandished Keyblades and gestured with both of them toward the nearby Gio and Midna, ”Light!” And on that command, he spent the last of his MP and shared his light with the two of them, empowering their abilities.
Gio took a deep breath. “Yeah.” Rei manifested beside her. When she ran forward, she’d build up the last bit of tension she needed to max out and cause her passive to kick in, turning her eyes white as her skin and hair began to glow with the power of a damage and defense buff. She couldn’t spend any tension without losing the boost, but as long as the four of them were working together, there was a chance they could win. And Roxas was sprinting right behind her. Seeing her allies on the attack, Blazermate also decided to join in as her kritz was almost charged and she still hadn’t gotten a use on her shield.
The three of them rushed Armstrong together. Both of their mobilities enhanced by Gio’s built up tension and Roxas’ light, they assaulted the Senator with a blitzkrieg of lightning fast kicks and Keyblade strikes. Blazermate was able to keep up thanks to the properties of her medibeam as well. And while they did that, Midna used her shadowhand to begin charging a super large Volleybomb. Armstrong’s nanomachines struggled to keep up with the speed and aggressiveness of his attackers, but he was at least able to shrug off some of their blows as they came. His fists met his opponent’s keyblade and kicks again and again, giving as good as he got, although he had no real answer to Blazermate’s damaging shield, as the speed inherited from Gio and Roxas made her incredibly difficult to even touch as she evaded his moves and kept her shield on him. As Roxas and Gio became little more than vicious streaks of gold and green, however, the output of Armstrong’s artificial heart finally reached its limit. “Grrrrrah!” he roared, reeling in an explosion of brilliant sparks. “You little shits!”
”Done!” cried Midna, leaping up above and readying herself to hurl the Volleybomb she had charged up. But she didn’t do it alone. Gio and Roxas both backed off from their onslaught and leaped up to join her, with Blazermate latching her medibeam onto Midna to give her a dose of kritz to make this vollybomb really hurt. They helped spike the bomb down at the Senator still standing there on the ground, now recovered enough to clench his teeth and tighten his fists. He crouched, muscles bulging, then leaped upward, one jet-black fist extended to pit his strength against the Seekers’ head-on. The next second, his megaton punch met Midna’s amped-up magic, and for a moment everything disappeared in an explosion of orange and teal.
When the light died down and the smoke cleared, Armstrong was down on one knee, his entire body grievously wounded. Over half of his right arm had been destroyed, and he was breathing heavily, no doubt in great pain. Nevertheless, he managed to raise his head and glower at the Seekers. “Huh…huh…not bad.”
”You wanna know what the sad part is?” Roxas asked the man as he dispelled his Keyblades, ”I couldn’t really disagree with you in all honesty. You were right when you said the city was rotten. We’ve all seen that for ourselves by now. But it didn’t look like your methods were making things any better. Are money and politics really the only things people care about here? Seems like a pretty sad way to live your life if you ask me.”
”Seemed like more of a might makes right type, which works all well and good till a hero comes along to stop you” Midna commented matter of factly, before gesturing to the spirit of the man Armstrong had used his might to usurp, asking ”Which took, what? An hour this time? Minutes?” before preparing to move, seeing as it had taken ”Too long for my tastes either way, seeing as we have a city to save”
Armstrong had no choice but to let his enemies’ smugness wash over him as he fought to compose himself, though at this point no amount of catching his breath would give him a second wind. “You still don’t understand,” he grumbled. “It was never about money. It’s about freedom, damn it. The freedom to live as we see fit, without anyone getting in our way!” He clenched his fist. “Do you know how long it’s been? Fighting for causes we don’t believe in. Dying for reasons we don’t understand. Midgar can’t be saved. But if they’re strong enough, its people can save themselves!” Armstrong faltered, but still he laughed. “You know it, too. You’ve taken things into your own hands. You’re dismantling things, piece by piece. Making things change, not letting legal bullshit get in the way, and if it costs a few lives? So be it.”
”Don’t give me that!” Roxas shouted, ”You may be okay with sacrificing lives to get what you’re after, but we’re not! And unlike you, we’re intending for everything and everyone to go back to their lives when this is all over, including the ones who were lost along the way!” He crossed his arms and turned away, no longer wanting to look this guy in the face, ”You may have been right about the rot in the city, but you’re dead wrong about everything else after that. You may have thought you were taking things into your own hands, but you weren’t, and what happened at the debate stage should have been your first clue.” he said, in reference to the Consul who had all but hijacked the debate and made it crystal clear that he was the one pulling much of the strings.
”A fully militarized society is ridiculous anyway. The ‘weak’ forge the soldiers’ arms and armor, they bake the bread that feeds them and build the walls they guard. Your ideas will result in ruins lorded over by starving brutes armed with scrap metal” Minda replied dismissively.
”I mean, you're not wrong, but you don’t have the whole story. Ever wonder why all of this was happening? Well the sun there is actually some super powerful seraphim ball angel thing named Galeem and it destroyed and remade every world and mashed them together, then gave ya false memories to trap ya in a never ending cycle of, this. If you wanted true freedom, you had to figure that out.” Blazermate said. She then remembered. ”Oh right, while under their control you can’t even understand that concept unless you're really introspective or something… huh..” She then looked at the ground for a bit, mumbling so that Armstrong couldn’t hear. ”Why did the super muscle guy have to be evil….”
“You prattle and prognosticate, but at the end of the day, you don’t know jack,” Armstrong declared. “There’s no such thing as good or evil. Just dead, or alive.”
Until now, Giovanna had kept quiet. She didn’t care much about post-victory proclamations, and she didn’t have much in the way of principles she could preach about. She more or less saw all that as a waste of time, and it sure felt that way now, so when Armstrong said something portentous she spoke up. “Right, yeah, that kind of leads in to how this is gonna end,” she said off-handedly. “Soo…”
”Your right, this is a waste of time” Midna agreed, being reminded in this moment of what should have been her last meeting with Zant, before slamming her shadow hand forwards, purple claws glowing at its fingertips. It plunged into the chest of the man who would tear down what little kindness Midgar had in the name of his animalistic definition of freedom, and then ripped out his monstrous heart.
”Brutal.” Blazermate said at Midna’s finisher. Giovanna narrowed her eyes, her lips pursed, and turned away. After calling out Rei, she climbed aboard and began to ride her wolf spirit across the devastated computer garden, toward the huge set of stairs leading toward Arahabaki’s center. Blazermate went over and picked up Armstrong’s spirit. She’d figure out what to do with it later, and went with the rest to the center.
Robin hit the ground hard, and a vast, unnatural creaking noise issued from its body, as if the earth itself were groaning. The awful sound subsided after a moment, but the archangel continued to writhe feebly. Beside it lay its book, splayed open but still intact, though the same couldn’t be said for its horn. Its ten-diamond halo hung empty, listless, and faded. Robin was dying.
”THIS ISN'T HAPPENING,” it wailed after a moment. Badly wounded and thoroughly exhausted, Robin could do little but raise a desperate, imploring hand upward, though unfathomable amounts of earth separated it from the sky. ”LORD OF LIGHT. WHY AM I HERE? JUST TO SUFFER, FOR YOUR DISTANT AMUSEMENT? HAVE PITY ON ME.” Robin grit its teeth, and the pages of its tome began to turn. ”GIVE ME ONE. MORE. CHANCE!”
Robin used Treat, giving itself the random buff Multitarget.
Robin used Fairy Dust.
In that moment, the eyes of every Seeker began to droop. Even the warframes seemed to short out. Everything grew hazy; the darkness closed in. Their limbs, heavy as stone, could not be lifted, and their heads lolled as they sank to the ground.
Then their eyes opened again, and for a moment it seemed as if nothing had changed. Around them towered the underground chamber’s pillars, and over them hung the darkness of its vaulted ceiling. The Seekers could see one another as they stirred. In the air above them, however, hung weightless motes of faint, soft light. Each an intricate, unique circular pattern. The walls of this room seemed to be overgrown with quietly whispering roots, their wood inscribed with barely-perceptible spirals and rings. And the flowers. All around them, the long-dead, withered flowers that they crunched underfoot by the dozen in their struggles against Ten Piedad and Robin Goodfellow were not just alive, but in full bloom. These lumenflowers were even larger than sunflowers, but with milk-white petals, and centers as pitch-black as the inky night.
“Whuh?” Nadia’s head popped up from inside a cluster of lumenflowers, held up by her hand. She looked both angry and bewildered. “Where is…where am I now!?” After seeing her friends, the rest of her appeared and she replaced her head on her shoulders. “You guys too? I’m still dreaming, so…I guess you’re not real, either? Unless we’re all sharing a dream somehow, in which case, hoo boy…”
"That seems to be the case..." Primrose replied, picking herself up once more. When she had felt the now familiar pull of sleep due to Robin's spell, she had expected a third round with Simeon. This was entirely different, but she could tell that she was dreaming too.
Off in the distance, the surreal flowerbed stirred. From them rose the unmistakable shape of a being that should’ve been dead. Robin assumed its full height without a scratch on its body or anything in its hands. It took a deep breath, then held its right hand upward.
Nadia swallowed. “Uh oh.”
Immediately, the room began to shake. Cracks opened in the walls, letting in peach-colored light. After a moment they broke apart and fell away in immense, jagged slabs, and as they crumbled they revealed a boundless sky of gentle clouds and floating islands, interspersed by enormous floating symbols like snowflake dreamcatchers, no two quite alike. The ceiling floated away above the Seekers. Wherever they’d been taken, they were clearly not underground any more.
White motes began to coalesce above Robin, gathering into a storm that slowly spiraled downward like a tornado to its outstretched hand. “EVEN IF THIS IS IT,” the archangel murmured. “THE PITIFUL SUM OF MY EXISTENCE…” The light of dreams slammed together in its palm, and in Robin’s grasp it became an ethereal sword that the archangel held half in front of its face with both hands. “I WILL NOT GIVE IT UP.”
One of the first responses to this was a cry of ”Esuna!” followed by one of ”Oh come on!” as the cure spell failed to awaken Jr’s target from within the dream.
”Hmph!” grunted Ganondorf. He’d had just about as much as he could stand of this Robin Goodfellow, ”Asleep or awake, it makes no difference!” he declared, brandishing his twin greatswords and pointing one of them at Robin in a threatening manner, ”Victory will be mine!” and he charged forward in order to continue his relentless assault of twin sword attacks against Robin.
”Ugh, not this again. I suppose it makes sense this happens considering we need an item from this creature...” Sectonia said, annoyed as she began to throw out her homing spell shots.
Wielding its dream nail in both hands, Robin swung it well before Ganondorf got into range. Its ethereal edge created a shadowy lightwave that flew through the air in a dazzling diagonal arc. It cleaved through the lumenflowers in its way as it surged forth, threatening everyone in its path, and in its wake Robin launched a second lightwave at the opposite diagonal angle. Ganondorf had to halt his advance altogether just so he could jump aside in time to avoid being cleaved by them.
Behind him, Bowser, Jr and Rika had a bit of a better go of it, good at jumping as they where, the pair leapt over the center of each diagonal arch, either one after the other like hurdles in Bowser, and his sons’ case, or all in one go with the featherfall launched Rika. Kamek meanwhile just floated over the problem entirely.
“Oboy.” Already not planning to go toe-to-toe with Robin now that it had a giant sword, Nadia took off in a run to circle away from the huge lightwaves and around the archangel for a flanking maneuver. By ducking down to dart along on all fours, she kept a low enough profile to use the lumenflowers for cover, though with Robin mowing down the flowerbed her cover wouldn’t last for long. “This is NOT my idea of a dream battle.”
“It’s probably really boring from the outside.” Jesse said, Levitating to get into the left ‘quadrant’ of the light waves, going over one and under the other. Doing the usual, she found a big rock in the chamber and chucked it at Robin before following up with Grip shots towards his weird face. For a brief moment Robin held up its dream nail inorder to protect itself, but the stone fragments and the bullets that followed still pitted its body.
It might have been the feeling of dreaming, or seeing that Robin was on his last legs, but Primrose did not immediately go on the attack this time. She avoided the dark waves produced by Robin's sword, then stood her ground. It was the final push, and with everyone here, conscious, and fighting together, she decided to empower the Seekers so that they might get this done all the quicker. She started with Lion Dance and flowed into the Peacock Strut, increasing the offensive capabilities of her allies.
Therion was more than nimble enough to get out of harm's way as well. Once he did, he summoned the ever reliable junicorn to use it as cover to slip into the dwindling flower patch the same as Ms. Fortune. The striker rolled forward, firing its lance at Robin once it came to a stop. The rose-red horn impaled the archangel’s shoulder, then disintegrated after delivering its piercing payload, leaving the junicorn to fade out and start its countdown. Its master had already decided his next move, he just had to get a little closer in order to carry it out.
Ganondorf spotted Robin holding his weapon in a defensive manner and knew he couldn’t waste any time. He lunged forward and attempted his assault on Robin once again. Hopefully with less distance to cover and Robin’s momentary distraction he could catch the archangel unaware and snag him in a flurry of sword slashes. The archangel’s stance had hardly been a big commitment, though, and Robin turned while stepping away to perform a revolving wide slash. ”HAH!” Ganondorf refused to be deterred this time. He held both blades vertically with their tips planted into the ground so they could absorb the brunt of the attack to minimize its damage. Then he went back on the attack. Only now he was close enough that he could clash his blades with Robin’s weapon and hopefully stop it from conjuring anymore lightwaves. His guard certainly blunted the blow, but it hardly stopped Robin in its tracks. After the sweep failed to connect, the archangel lifted its giant dream nail to bring it down on top of Ganondorf. RRRAH! Ganondorf had no other option at this point. He pushed himself into a backward leap to avoid the nail. But that of course meant he now had to lunge back into melee range. Thankfully his allies chose that time to jump in and give him a much-needed moment to breathe.
The troops were hot on his heels, but rather than rush in to do their own thing like they had in a lot of the awake half of the fight, Jr was in a position to organize their tactics from the get go, commanding the squad to focus on pulling off a ”Elemental combo! Water and metal, then a shocker!” which they followed his lead in doing. Jr started out by peppering the titan with numerous metal spikes shot from his wrist while Bowser sprayed him with water from his cannons and Kamek used his Crimson Rod to rain down bloody harm. Then once they’d sufficiently soaked and lightning-rodded their foe, Rika unleashed a swarm of electrical fireflies from her gauntlet hangers and sent them forward as she also summoned her Ichor queen striker inorder to have her unleash a lightning bolt, timing it so they’d both deliver their electrical payload at the same time as Mimi (riding her trainer’s shoulder) hit Robin with an electro ball.
Nadia hadn’t been expecting the Troop to actually coordinate much of anything, let alone elemental reactions. More than anything else, though, those seemed to be what all the powers she’d gained from her fusions lent themselves to. “Hey, wait up!” While Ganondorf bought the others precious time by risking his life in close quarters with Robin Goodfellow, Nadia’s flanking maneuver brought her close enough to strike. First, she leaped out of the bed of lumenflowers to slice at the archangel’s hip with her claws. As the iron spikes flew in, she got the great idea to double jump directly into one’s path. The piercing pain elicited a gasp, but it also caused a Conducted reaction, and the Multitarget that gave her boosted her attacks’ range with bursts of blood. When the others’ plan unfolded, she could reapply more instances of wet to keep the pain train rolling with even more procs of electro-charged.
Of course, being close to Robin meant dealing with its massive, dangerous melee attacks, and Nadia wasn’t the only one in that predicament. Having had a second to breathe and to think, Ganondorf sprang back into action. He tried summoning Blastocyst so that it would drop directly down onto Robin Goodfellow from above - primarily to ensure Robin was momentarily distracted as it lashed out against the giant glob with its ethereal blade. Then he lunged forward to put himself back into direct battle against the archangel, ”I’m getting sick of you! DIE!” he hacked at Robin with a handful of swings then followed that up with unleashing whatever dark explosion he’d managed to build up since the last time he used the attack.
About the same time, Therion made his move and used Shackle Foe. Now that Robin had been forced to take a more direct approach to combat instead of just defending himself and casting, Therion could tell that the archangel's attacks would be difficult to contend with. Anyone backed into a corner would fight ferociously, and the same seemed to be true now. Therion's skill would lower Robin's offensive power, for what it was worth, and he got out of the way quickly when he noted Ganondorf's imminent explosion.
Ganondorf’s barrage met with resistance as the much bigger archangel fought back, trading blows, but Shackle Foe made sure that the red-haired warlord could take it until he let loose with a devastating ender, against which Robin had no reply. The entity reeled for a moment, its arms flailing as it strove to regain its balance.
Choosing to be daring, Therion darted right back in toward Robin. In his periphery he could see several other Seekers doing the same to capitalize on the opening Ganondorf had made. With a burst of speed Therion beat them there, stacking another debuff onto Robin with Armor Corrosive to lower his defense. Then Therion skirted around the archangel, slashing Robin's sides as he made way for his allies. His fellow thief dashed in on his heels, hardened claws at the ready. Nadia raked through the unnatural skin of Robin’s leg twice in quick succession, then chained into a moonlight-empowered Charge that carried her through and past her target in a jagged streak of yellow and silver. Her starting point meant that she ended up a ways behind him, out of melee range but not out of throwing range. She turned and hurled Athame at Robin’s back, and while she wasn’t a good enough knife-thrower to sink its blade, it still further debilitated the archangel’s defense on hit.
Once Robin got unbalanced, Sectonia saw a bit of an interesting scheme brewing. Seeing the debuff Therion was putting on him, she decided to hit him with Slow to make his counter attack quite the easy affair to dodge, before following up with her void globules. Might as well let those in melee take the brunt of the hits, but she could make their job easier at the very least.
All too quickly Robin planted a hoof and regained its poise, seizing the hilt of its dream nail with both hands. If its foes had it right where they wanted it, it was time to shake things up. ”RAAAAAAAGH!” Robin rampaged across the arena, swinging the dream nail as it advanced to clear out its melee attackers, then close in on and scatter the shooters.
While Robin was unbalanced, Primrose had moved into the steps of yet another dance - the speed enhancing Panther Dance. It was finished not a moment too soon, an aid to help the party evade Robin's rampage. Primrose herself took no evasive action, instead using the speed boost to swiftly transition from dancing to bringing her weapon up in front of her. She attempted to parry the archangel's swing and found that even with an attack debuff he was still quite powerful. Unlikely to overpower him, she cast a Vengeful Spirit to burst in and through Robin, and in turn his rampage cast her aside.
Ganondorf had to dive out of the way of the archangel’s rampage. This was getting ridiculous. How much more could this thing possibly have in it? Surely it had to be on its last legs by now. The problem was, the Seekers were getting close to their last legs as well. Where was a Bottled Fairy when you needed one? Reluctantly, the warlord retrieved one of the potions on his person and smashed it against himself. The splash healing potions weren't as strong as the instant health potion he drank earlier, but at least it was some healing to get rid of the injuries and damage Ganondorf had been taking.
”I grow tired of this.” he muttered, channeling his dark magic into summoning his Phantom. Once it appeared, Ganondorf grabbed the Phantom’s hand and let it lift him up. After a quick spin around, the Phantom was able to throw Ganondorf toward Robin, allowing him to come down onto the archangel from above. He attacked - not with his swords - but with his Warlock Kick. The kick wasn’t as strong as the Warlock Punch, but it was faster and less telegraphed in exchange. Ganondorf could then follow that opening move by again going head to head against Robin with his twin greatswords. The archangel was getting on the Gerudo’s last nerve and he was determined to kill the bastard once and for all.
The king of evil was joined in his self made projectile attack by Rika, who crossed the last of her hurled distance on the back of a vaultbreaker punch. To follow this slammed her hull claws forwards, as well as firing her rigging disruption cannons, both generating recoil to push her back and away from their foe a bit rather than landing right at his feet.
As for the troop, while Kamek had floated well above sword range as a matter of practice, and from up there continued to harry their foe with what little mana he had remaining, the other three had been in harm's way. At least for a moment till Bowser tossed his children out of it anyway, and left only himself in the way of the rampage. As a result of taking the brunt of it, he was down, but not out, as Jr (who had been the one to hurl Rika after Robin at her request) rushed to his side, helping him stand and using some of his dwindling mana reserves to cast ”cure!” on his papa to get him off of death’s door.
Ganondorf’s intercession prevented Robin taking advantage of the state its frenzied advance left Bowser in, as the shadow-shrouded Warlock Kick smashing into its check took all its attention. Giving the archangel no time to breath, the warlord pressed his advantage with a savage offense, supported by a flurry of dark magic from Sectonia and constant gunfire from Jesse. Robin brought down its dream nail again and again, but Ganondorf did not relent, deftly evading or blocking the blows as his swordblades bit deep. As the rest of the close-quarters fighters closed in to join their furious frontrunner, Robin saw only one option. It inverted its grip on its dream nail, holding the ethereal weapon downward as the fantastical colors gathered around the blade. Then it plunged the weapon downward, creating a column of prismatic power around its body that was breathtaking to behold. Ganondorf, Nadia, and the others were forced to leap clear, lest they be consumed by the unnatural radiance.
Jesse lifted her gun at the sight of the massive column of energy, and switched to Pierce. She began to charge up a round of Pierce. “I’d like to tell you all a story about a dream my brother had once, if you don’t mind.” Jesse said, projecting her voice. She was talking to the Seekers and Robin both.
That deadly x on the end of her barrel formed once again, and a little bead of lead began to vibrate and heat up the obsidian-like rocks that made up her gun.
“See, my brother went to a dark place, and there was a dark man there. His name was Mr. Door.” She says the name, amused. She did some mental math and lined up the shot on where she estimated Robin’s head was behind the pillar. She figured that after all the punishment he had taken, it was time for the Seekers to start going for the finishing blow. For her part, she was targeting his head.
“And he told my brother that there are many worlds, side by side, on top of each other, some inside of others. In one world, there’s a writer who writes a story about a cop.” Jesse said, shutting one eye. The barrier fell, and Jesse had a clear shot. Right between the eyes.
“In another world, the cop was real.” The superheated psychic bullet shot out like a cannon, aiming to punch a hole in Robin’s 2D head.
”Ack” Sectonia reflexivity said at the bright column of light laid out before her. She was further away than the melee fighters, so she was just blinded by it, not in any real danger. Still, she noticed that robin wasn’t moving, and she’d make use of that assuming her spell could go through.
Using her own bit of light magic, she summoned her large rings of light and fired them at Robin, in an attempt to use the light buzzsaw rings to cut through his own light pillar. ”I am tired of this dream world. Vanish.” Sectonia said.
Despite the lightshow, the Seekers’ target wasn’t moving, and the director’s aim was true. Her shot cleaved through the light of dreams, then through the archangel’s self-image, and Sectonia’s spell followed suit. In an instant the pillar of light died, and Robin froze in a stricken position, eyes wide. After a moment a flood of white particles began to spew from its wounds, the same ethereal, radially symmetric patterns that floated throughout this dream world. Its body thrashed limply as it floated there, like a balloon losing its air through a rupture, and the voice that echoed through the field of unreal flowers rang loud and clear with notes of despair.
”NOOOOOOOOOOO! THIS CAN’T BE IT!’ Robin howled. ”I HAVE NOTHING TO WAKE UP TO. I DON’T WANT TO DISAPPEAR!”
Then its body exploded into light, and when the light faded, not the faintest trace remained.
But then a new light began to shine.
Throughout the battle, the floating garden island had been rising through the fathomless expanse of colorful clouds. Now, its upward journey -as frenetic as the pace of the fight itself- finally slowed, coming to an end as it crested the sea of orange clouds to come to a rest beneath a gentle, sunset-orange sky. Motes of light floated calmly here, and the fluffy clouds were piled together like scenic hills. Up through the clouds reached curved stony spires, pointed like ribs or horns, and they framed the gathering glow that now bid the Seekers to turn and look. At first, it looked like the sun itself, brilliant and orange as it would be at dawn or dusk. Yet somehow it seemed far closer. Closer to the dreaming Seekers than they could have possibly managed, closer than it ever should be, and blindingly -searingly- bright.
In moments, the all-consumed splendor of that light had burned everything away, and when all that remained was white, it slowly faded to darkness.
Goldlewis’ @Lugubrious / Susie’s @Archmage MC vs Hank Allen / Jack-8 / Jacqueline / Deckard Pain Word Count: 6926 (+7)
Between the stolid soldiers and unfeeling automatons, there weren’t any more words to bandy, so without further ado the fight was on. Jack and Jacqueline both took off like sprinters from a starting block, the former swinging his massive arms like an ape as he took large, clumsy strides while the latter dashed headfirst on pointed stilettos with her arms and long hair extended behind her. For the moment, Goldlewis held his ground. Considering he was up against a team of four, they probably had a strategy. He and Susie had nothing but their weapons and their wits. While the veteran’s methods might employ a lot of brute force, his greatest strength was the experience and cunning he’d honed over the course of more battles than he wanted to admit. As such, though he didn’t want to give his foes the positional advantage, he needed a moment to scrutinize them. To slow them down he smacked his coffin’s lid and received his Skyfish minigun from within, with which he opened fire. And as the bullets flew, his mind raced.
Jack-8 closed in at the enemy team’s forefront. Clearly a robot of some kind despite his human face, he looked like a heavy metal juggernaut. Probably the equal of Goldlewis in strength, and he couldn’t assume a lack of intelligence or skill, either. Despite her much smaller size, Jacqueline seemed closer, but strangely built. With those crystal skewers especially, she struck him as a product of magitech, perhaps made in Piltover. Her lack of speed made him wonder what supernatural abilities she had in store. Behind the two jogged Hank, a heavy cannon in his hands. Normally someone with defensive abilities would take point, so Goldlewis assumed his plan was to stay back, stay alive, and keep putting shields on the frontliners to keep them alive. If that was the case, going for the tank first might actually be the best option. That came down to the healer, though. Old Deckard moved at a walking pace, staying well away from the frontlines. That didn’t mean he wasn’t a threat though; just that he was where he’d be most effective. In war medics were protected by the Geneva Convention, but in a fight like this victory hinged on eliminating enemy healers. Especially considering that the Seekers didn’t have one of their own.
Well, Goldlewis couldn’t strategize for long. Jack was almost here, and Skyfish hadn’t chewed through his shield. “Get the old guy!” he barked at Susie, figuring that her mobility and ranged attacks would give her the best shot. He dropped his minigun and grabbed the coffin as Jack charged in, then readied himself to block. Like a madman, Jack went for a running tackle right away, and as the throw beat the veteran’s guard Goldlewis went down with Jack on top of him. The robot began to punch, arms like pistons, and Goldlewis put up his own to shield his face. After four punches Jack grabbed hold for a cross arm lock.
Any attempt from Susie to intervene found opposition in Jacqueline, however. The doll used Dark Moon, accelerating her leg boosters to zip behind Susie in a blistering burst of speed, where she whipped her skewers in a two-meter circle to stun her opponent while she stealthed herself. That stun gave Hank the time he needed to jog over and take aim with his laser cannon. A moment after Susie regained control, its powerful beam would blaze her way.
Susie, seeing this coming, transported away and just barely avoided the beam as Hank adjusted his aim to chase her. She hadn’t had a chance to get into her business suit yet, but with their hand shown, she could finally get some height before dropping with her business suit right on top of Deckard. The healer was hurt by this, being the old man he was, but it was soon found that while he lacked in mobility, he gained in the ability to heal himself until help arrived by chugging his potions and tracing a triangle upon the ground using some scroll. Not knowing what this was, Susie started to punch Deckard and push him out of it, and while she managed that, she found her mech was rooted when the rune completed while she was still inside of it. The damage was low, it was just a root, but if Deckard had followed up on the stun from Jacqueline properly there wouldn’t have been anything she could’ve done about that beam.
To finish his retreat before Susie could continue the beatdown, he threw a cube that expanded and exploded in a red flash, causing 3 small red potion vials to spawn around Susie. Bottles that would soon disappear as she spun up her business suit’s spinning fist charge and hit the stealthed Jacqueline as she dashed forward towards Deckard. The healer wouldn’t take this lying down though and as he drank his own potions, he also summoned a tornado of books that Susie couldn’t dash through, instead they knocked her back as she dashed through them, eventually causing her to go around it and clip Deckard instead of hitting him full on with the tornado whirl.
In going after Deckard, Susie forced the enemy team to adapt around her. While Hank’s laser cannon ran through each charge too fast for sustained DPS, it could belt out a lot of punishment in a short amount of time, and the moment he could he unleashed the sizzling blue-and-red beam into Susie’s business suit. His weapon’s recoil was such that he seemed to be fighting it as much as his opponents, and when it petered out, he switched it out for a strange two-handed projection device that looked like something between an accordion and a belt buckle. A little after Deckard’s initial shield burst and he healed himself with a potion, Hank’s Shield Charger placed another, beefier shield on the healer to help keep him alive. Jacqueline joined the attack with Burst Harpoon, slamming the ground to create a fissure beneath Susie’s business suit. From the gashes that left behind the machine began to bleed, not blood but coolant, the loss of which would lead to higher internal temperatures.
Meanwhile, the shift in battle had left Goldlewis in the dust, forcing him to go toe-to-toe with Jack-8. After the arm lock Goldlewis managed to dislodge his opponent and rise, and Jack came in swinging with a series of rushing uppercuts. The veteran blocked them while standing, trying to get a feel for his foe’s strength, and the moment the barrage slowed he tried to check Jack’s offense with a couple low elbow jabs. When they caught him, Goldlewis went straight into an up-forward-down Behemoth Typhoon as an overhead. He did not expect Jack to nimbly backdash, moving with deceptive ability, then circle around and struck with Dumptruck, a forward elbow smash right to his target’s padded ribs.
“Bah.” Goldlewis composed himself in time to block the first two hits of Jack’s Pivot Gun, only for him to delay slightly while charging the final two-fisted blow. Goldlewis knew a frame trap when he saw one, and wasn’t about to challenge this combination. Unfortunately, he was wrong; when that double piston punch blasted forward, it turned out to be unblockable, and the impact threw Goldlewis onto his back. “What!?” As he hit the floor, Jack dashed in to deliver a meaty Rocket Kick, but Goldlewis wasn’t having any of it. “Get the hell off!” he roared, planting his foot hard enough to crack the ground as he rose. “Down the…system!” His heavy reversal dealt a chunk of damage and launched Jack off his feet. By the time the robot landed, he’d be reconsidering such impunity in the future.
Susie meanwhile saw what was going on dealing with the three around her. At least she was causing a lot of chaos and forcing the others to focus on her while Goldlewis dealt with the other person. Deckard saw that his 4th team member was getting attacked, but soon his weakness was shown; he had to get fairly close to toss a potion to them. And with Hank having given his shield to Deckard to protect him from Susie, the only thing she had to really worry about was the assassin doll and the occasional blasts from Hank. At least they attacked her suit, and not her.
And she was going to take advantage of all of this. Grabbing Jacqueline and Deckard with her mech, Susie gave them a toss towards Hank and shot the trio with her cow mangler as Deckard and Jacqueline flew through the air at Hank. Seems like she’d have to keep them together to deal with what Hank and Deckard were doing before they caused her business suit some serious damage.
With his Shield Burst recharged, Hank primed it the moment Susie’s mech managed to grab hold of his teammates. To her credit, neither the medic nor the doll saw it coming either. In their efforts to stay alive and bring the pain to the business suit, they’d ended up underestimating the range of its free-floating limbs. What she did with her captives, however, could’ve used some second guessing. Hank’s eyebrows went up as Susie tossed his teammates toward him. Rather than crush them in her grip, pound them against the floor, or even slam them together, she thought she’d try and take them out in one fell swoop? Well, this bot had another thing coming. Hank turned and rolled out of the way; his joints might creak with age, but his muscles had been forged in fire. His Shield Burst went off to give everyone a little extra protection, which Deckard definitely needed as he hit the ground, but Jacqueline ignited her leg thrusters to recover in the air for a graceful landing.
“You wanna play rough?” Hank spat, rising to his feet. “Fine, we’ll play rough. Round ‘er up, fellas.” Jacqueline obeyed without question, running toward Susie. She whirled like a ballerina to cast Crescent Moon, the pointed tip of her leg drawing a semicircle that then fired out toward the business suit. By now, her attacks had generated enough heat to activate her passive Thermoelectric Shield. When she attacked, the residual heat from each strike got converted into a barrier that would help her keep the pressure on for about seventeen seconds. Meanwhile, Deckard shuffled into position to cast Scroll of Sealing again, aiming to root Susie in place.
With their enemy softened up and pinned down, Hank was ready to take her out. He leveled a strange-looking pistol at his enemy, registering her with a harmless laser pointer. After a brief delay, his Orbital Drill joined the party, a pillar of plasma from on high that would track its target as it lasted for ten seconds, wreaking havoc all the while.
Over by the wall, Goldlewis was having trouble with his own opponent. It wasn’t Jack-8’s strength or intelligence that challenged him; it was that this robot moved like nothing else he’d ever seen. In addition to dashing in and out of range in a fast-paced stop-and-go dance, he moved sideways with uncanny speed and precision, sometimes circling halfway around Goldlewis before his Behemoth Typhoon even descended. On one such exchange Jack counterhit him with an uppercut launcher, then kept him juggled with a knee strike on the same side followed by a stubby hinge kick on the left. As if the metallic impacts weren’t bad enough, Goldlewis came to the shocking realization: this machine knew his combos!
Well, that wasn’t going to fly. “Eat shit!” He yelled, using his Burst to break out of the combo much to Jack’s surprise. The energy wave floored Jack just as Hank’s Orbital Drill dropped on Susie, and Goldlewis grumbled as he charged forward. “How does his work underground?” Jack woke up with a low turn kick, but his opponent had taken to the air. Goldlewis airdashed in and landed with a UMA slapfest practically unopposed, allowing him to gatling into an aerial forward-up-back Behemoth Typhoon, land, and get another Behemoth Typhoon on the ground for good measure. Still Jack came back for more. Time to see if he really couldn’t anti-air. Pressing his advantage, Goldlewis jumped again with a knee strike for an instant overhead. That worked too, so after thanking his lucky stars Goldlewis followed up with aerial down-back-up coffin swing, then landed, got close with a shoulder barge, slammed the coffin down, and finished with a meaty back-down-forward Typhoon.
When Goldlewis went for an empty jump low, however, his good luck went bad on him. Jack might be bad at anti-airs, but he could react to this. He performed a low parry, and before Goldlewis knew what hit him, he’d been flipped onto his back and bounced off the ground. His foe struck with an uppercut into a strong hook punch, ran after him to hit the knee, then launched into a three-punch sequence that ended by firing out his forearm like a piston. Goldlewis hit the ground and slid up against the wall, sore from a barrage of hits mostly to his legs and belly. “Oooogh,” he groaned, struggling to rise as Jack dashed in. The robot stopped short to bait the super, but Goldlewis didn’t bite, going for a grab instead. Jack promptly teched the throw, and just like that the two were back in neutral.
Well if Hank thought Susie was slow and going to take that laser, he had another thing coming. Revving up her business suit, she dashed forward with the mechanical arms of her business suit whirring like a buzzsaw, first bashing through Jacqueline’s crescent moon (which both damaged her suit and inflicted more bleeding), then escaping Deckard’s slow to deploy root, and outrunning the orbital laser as she dashed right for the trio who hadn’t really separated much.
And much like a bowling ball running through pins, she rushed through all 3 of them, dealing some hefty damage and knocking them in various directions. With his jetpack Hank had the mobility to take minimal damage, but Jacqueline and Deckard were not nearly as mobile and got caught off guard by the sudden speed of the business suit, granted their various shields dulled some of the damage. Turning Hank’s own weapon against him as she could still turn while doing her rush and made the laser trace a line to her, having Hank in its destructive path, swerving around in a large circle to take another swipe at them.
Deckard got busy, tossing a health potion to Jacqueline as he moved away, after which he cast a Horadric Cube toward Susie to stymie her approach. The doll regretted using Dark Moon earlier, as its stun paired with the Orbital Drill would’ve been a killer combination, but that ability was still on cooldown. She spread out from the others to force Susie to pick a single target. Once Hank landed, his jetpack needing to recharge, he fired up his laser cannon and let it rip once more.
After their reset, the fight raged on between Goldlewis and Jack-8. Both landed a couple short strings on each other, neither overcommitting. Though the robot managed to open up Goldlewis more with his amazing movement, he discovered one other problem for Jack other than anti-airs: projectiles. When he got enough space to let out a Thunderbird, the flying grenade tracked Jack down despite his attempt to sidestep, and paved the way for Goldlewis to close in behind it and overwhelm his opponent with a hard-to-see jump-in. In the middle of his combo, however, Goldlewis dropped it, and Jack bit back. “Ah, hell!” the veteran spat, counterhit and then sent spinning. He slammed the wall behind him and slumped down, allowing Jack to close in and land another few hits before the hapless southerner finally went off to the side.
That robot sure hit like a truck, but Goldlewis wasn’t out of the running just yet. “Got my back against the wall, huh?” he muttered, getting to his feet as Jack marched forward with an ominous Dark Greeting. He sidestepped the unblockable attack, then lashed out with a backhand that pushed Jack back. He applied pressure with a couple hits, microwalking forward between each one. Then he ran forward as if for a throw, only to shimmy backward at the last second. Jack bought it and flinched in anticipation, allowing Goldlewis to actually grab hold, turn him around, and bash the robot with a triple headbutt. “You! Damn! Fool!” Now cornered, Jack fell to the ground, and Goldlewis tapped him with a stomp to force a quick rise. Then he whipped out his coffin for an uncharged dust, and unfortunately for Jack, he read the attack wrong and blocked low. The UMA’s fist hit him overhead, staggering him long enough for Goldlewis to jump with another UMA slapfest, bang him off the wall with an airborne smack, and airdash cancel that into another one that splatted Jack against the wall. At that point, a third and final coffin thrust smashed Jack right through the wall and sent him flying into the distance.
“Whew,”Goldlewis panted, wiping his forehead. If only he could afford to take a break. Instead he turned and took off running for Susie’s fight, hoping he wasn’t too late to lend a hand.
Susie meanwhile had to guard from the counter attack of Hank. Deckard’s cube didn’t really do much but mildly inconvenienced Susie as he wasn’t really meant for doing damage, but Hank’s laser pushed her back towards Goldiewis. Her suit was durable, but not invincible, and it was looking a bit rough now.
”I see you’ve finished with your opponent. Care to help me with these three?” Susie said, a bit annoyed but more focused at the moment. ”Their combination of shields and heals makes them quite durable. And that puppet seems to just inflict constant attacks that cause my suit to leak coolant. I really don’t want to have to deal with an overheat scenario.”
The enemies who might have otherwise been too focused on Susie to notice the incoming veteran (until his heavy footfalls alerted them, anyway) got plenty of forewarning thanks to her speech. “Yeah, yeah, I’m comin’!” Goldlewis called as he jogged over. He didn’t relish getting bogged down by just one opponent while his comrade fought three, but that robot had been one hell of a fighter. Combatants with those sorts of skills were rare, and in terms of raw fighting ability, an outlier. Hopefully the rest were more typical fare.
He stopped and dropped his coffin. It hit the ground with a slam, then cracked open so that the UMA inside could deliver a Skyfish minigun into the veteran’s waiting hands. “Eat lead!” he yelled as he opened fire, trying to draw off one or two opponents. Hank heard the roar of gunfire and scattered away from the others, instinctively looking for cover. As a soldier, he knew what those kinds of firearms were capable of–and he didn’t know that the Skyfish could only fire thirty rounds maximum. What it could do, however, was lock Hank in hitstun when the bullets clipped him, which most bullets couldn’t do.
The arrival of Goldlewis forced the others to adapt, too. Also identifying him as a shooter, Deckard shied away, trying to put Susie and her business suit between him and Goldlewis. Jacqueline, not being a tank who had to concern herself with Deckard’s wellbeing, decided that she’d rather shed blood than coolant. She used Dark Moon, jetting across the battlefield with terrifying speed to get behind Goldlewis and strike him with a thermoelectric burst. The red-hot wave jolted his nervous system, stunning the man for a couple seconds. “Gaaah, the hell!?” With no more bullets coming his way, Hank switched to his shield projector in anticipation of Susie going after the healer, and began to apply a strong shield to Deckard.
Susie knew that going for Deckard wouldn’t work. Hank would shield him and he’d just heal himself. So instead she decided to go after Hank, with Goldlewis keeping the third member distracted. Hopefully he could handle her as Susie hopped over to deal with the two supports.
Now, she wasn’t all that fast in her business suit without engaging the dash drive, so her hopping over or scooting over to Deckard and Hank was more a power move than anything as she had an idea. Deckard was an old man, and she noticed that to heal people, he had to get somewhat close, so the question became; could she take out Hank before Deckard got close enough to heal him? Well, it was time to test that. Giving Hank and Deckard some time to prepare and put their guard up, she attempted to psyche them out by whirring her charge again, before halting it and grabbing Deckard and chucking him as far as she could to separate him from Hank.
Of course Hank wasn’t going to take this lying down and shot at her suit again with his cannon, seeing Deckard was flying out of the range of his shield. While he would like to shield Jacqueline, the approaching mech was a bigger concern. While Susie threw Deckard, showing her back to Hank, he unleashed his beam on the giant mech that was looking damaged at this point having had to tank so much punishment.
Susie did this maneuver on purpose though, and used her transporter to ditch her business suit as Hank’s gun started to run out of charge. She then charged up her dash itself and dashed into Hank to grab him and push him away from Deckard in the opposite direction, slamming him down on the ground after doing a bit of a heart shaped loop with her metal body. This momentarily stunned hank, and Susie used this opportunity to resummon her business suit and as Hank was getting up from the ground and revved up his jetpack to jump away, Susie grabbed him as he started to fly and throw him back onto the ground before using her business suit’s drill bottom to hop up and down on him.
Deckard wasn’t going to let his ally perish that easily though, and walked his way towards Hank. Not being able to get into range to heal him as Susie’s heavy mech jumped on him, he pulled out his book and started to retell a story of his, using his Stay Awhile and Listen. Susie was barely in range of it, and upon hearing the magical words, fell asleep in her business suit which allowed a heavily injured Hank to get out from under her. As Deckard read his words in order to keep Susie asleep long enough to heal Hank, Susie’s hand hit a switch in her suit, and as hank started to pull out his shield generator, the mech fell on top of him, causing his demise and a sleeping Susie to spill out of it. She’d remain asleep for a good few seconds, but Deckard just had his final ally to heal now before he was all alone.
Of course, by this point he was a ways off from Jacqueline, and for most of the time they’d been separated he hadn’t been able to see her. Under the veil of stealth, the doll of destruction had been kicking Goldlewis while he was down, each blow from her bladelike legs leaving a gash or a bruise on his body. He was a titan of a man though, and he recovered from the stun with plenty of health to spare only to find his opponent completely invisible. “What kind o’ doggone hogwash-!” When he took a blow to the face, knocking off his glasses, he wheeled in the direction it came from with a huge backfist, but for all its speed and range his blind flailing failed to connect. “Hmph!” He set up his coffin vertically, deploying a Wall of Light. While he quickly found out that Jacqueline was on the same side of it that he was, the blue energy barrier created a wall he could put his back to, and the probability of being discovered warded the doll off for the last few seconds of her stealth.
When she reappeared, Goldlewis locked onto her immediately. “There y’are.” Jacqueline launched a crescent moon at him, but he whirled his coffin around to intercept the bloodletting blade with his block. His opponent approached behind it, striking his guard with a flurry of kicks. After a brief pause, she looked down, then dropped one leg to stab into the veteran’s foot. “Ow!” Having opened Goldlewis up, she crouched down and supported herself with one arm to launch a double twisting dropkick. Though he almost stumbled, Goldlewis planted his back foot and pushed forward with a mighty stomp just after Jacqueline landed in a crouch. She dodged away from the blow and threw herself forward with a flying kick, only to be met by her opponent’s haymaker. “Go to hell!” The spectacular cowboy punch flipped the doll end over and, and she landed a couple dozen feet away.
Her thermoelectric shield had absorbed most of the damage, though, and the next moment Jacqueline was on her feet. Goldlewis turned to see her readying another move, so he unceremoniously dropped his coffin on the floor with a bang. His opponent hesitated for a moment, not sure why he’d disarm himself, and in that moment Goldlewis dealt the coffin a mighty kick. It slid right across the floor and slammed Jacqueline’s legs out from under her. Without a word, or even a sign that she felt the hard landing, she got to her feet and began to ignite her thrusters. She did not notice the coffin sliding open behind her, or the arms reaching out, until it was too late. “...Hm!?” Hands clasped around her wrists, her elbows, her shoulders, legs, and neck, pulling her off her feet and onto the ground. They dragged her back to the coffin and pinned her against it, locked around her neck and limbs as she struggled uselessly. As their grip grew tighter, her mechanical body began to spark and crack.
Goldlewis sauntered up. “Thanks, UMA.” He frowned at the trapped robot, rubbing his face before replacing his glasses. “Reckon your time’s just about up, partner. Better hurry up and make your peace.”
For the first time, Jacqueline spoke. “Booster, maximum output. Meteor Strike.”
“Meteor…?”
“Initiate!” Jacqueline’s eyes flared orange, and in a blast of air pressure she broke from the UMA’s grip, knocking both Goldlewis and the coffin back. Golden gears unfurled from her back like wings, three on each side. As she crossed her arms, pink crystalline spikes extended from the gear wings like enormous feathers, and she shot into the air. As she flew upward, she fired both of her other spikes upward, which combined into a huge pink drill lance. She flipped upside down, inserted one leg into the top, and swung the whole thing downward. A moment later she reached the apex of her leap, and after that, she began to rocket back down.
“No way,” Goldlewis muttered, speechless at the sight of the giant drill descending toward him. Try as he might, he could think of any good way out of this. His heart pounded, and he gritted his teeth. “This is dumb as hell.”
Susie woke up from her impromptu sleep finding herself outside of her business suit, and a spirit under it. She shrugged and grabbed it, before using her transporter to get her over to Deckard who was trying to get into range of his ally. ”Oh no you don’t!” Susie said as she approached and summoned her business suit again to try to attack the old man. She’d… find this actually a bad move. While he took all the hits she laid into him and could only really root her or throw cubes at her, he didn’t really bother using the cubes as he just chugged potion after potion, able to completely outheal whatever damage Susie did to him as he moved closer and closer to his ally.
Susie could toss him again, but that didn’t matter when it came to dealing with his healing. All while…. Well, there wasn’t much she could do against what Goldweis was dealing with. That could be a fun spirit to use, but… well a drill from the sky like that could be pretty painful. Hopefully her ally could handle that…
When Goldlewis tried to run away from the impact zone, Jacqueline altered her flight path to follow him. No use beatin’ a computer when it comes to calculations, I suppose. Would he bet it all on his Wall of Light, which could stop a platoon’s worth of gunfire, and turn his coffin skyward? Or would he go with his gut? Goldlewis breathed in deep, filling his lungs. There was no time to plan. Only just enough to act.
“Best defense is a good offense,” he muttered, bolstering himself. He grabbed his coffin and mustered his strength. His blood pumped, his muscles bulged, and he called forth every ounce of power of his body. “DOWN THEEEEEEEE…”
“SYSTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEM!”
His coffin, thrust upward like a mountain rising from continental collision, met the spinning tip of Jacqueline’s crystal drill kick in a calamitous whirlwind of sparks, lightning, and sheer force. For a brief moment they contended, but as Goldlewis held firm, cracks shot up the sides of the crystal drill lance. The next second it shattered, flying apart into chunks propelled by its spent momentum. As the glittering pink shards rained down and Jacqueline got thrown back, three Thunderbirds emerged from the coffin and flew after her. Together they slammed into her and exploded midair like fireworks in a terrific send off for the doll’s flashy ultimate move.
Then Goldlewis slumped down, panting. Down With the System might be invincible, but the aftershock had broken his arm, though between the jarring numbness and adrenaline he couldn’t even really feel it.
Well, Susie didn’t seem to have anything to worry about there, although Goldlewis looked exhausted after doing that. Susie really didn’t have a super move like that, she was more consistent in her abilities. Although having a discussion on that wasn’t something she’d really bother with as all that left to what she could see was Deckard, who just seemed to chug a potion as Susie bashed his face in. For an old guy, he was incredibly durable even without Hank healing him, and his potions seemed to be bottomless. At least his damage was basically non-existent, but Susie wondered why he didn’t give up. Was there something he was waiting for? Or was this just a factor of being Galeem-ified? And with all the healing a friend heart wouldn’t even work on him to break that cycle. Sure Susie could interrupt him every once in a while, but those potions were strong. Maybe he’d run out after enough time passed?
As Goldlewis took a quick breather, he glanced over at Susie with mild bewilderment, wondering what was going on between her and the enemy team’s last man standing. Most medics couldn’t come out on top against a bruiser if left to their own devices, but sure enough, that old man just kept on trucking. As strong as those potions must be to negate Susie’s assault, the experience of getting beat down indefinitely must not be fun. At least he wasn’t going anywhere, so Goldlewis took the moment he needed to compose himself.
That wasn’t to say that he relaxed, though. Always alert, he continued to monitor his surroundings as he fixed his outfit and hair, which meant that when something flew in over the arena’s outer walls, Goldlewis was the first to know. He spotted Jack-8, hanging beneath some sort of jet-propelled flying machine. “You gotta be kiddin’ me,” he complained as he hefted his coffin and got moving. If Deckard and Jack reunited, he and Susie might be in for history’s longest boxing match. He ran in, grabbed the medic, and dealt a triple headbutt that ended with a knockdown. The man could chug potions or get off the floor, but not both. He then joined the assault to whittle Deckard down before Jack arrived. A moment later the robot hit the ground a couple hundred feet away, posed once, then started sprinting the Seekers’ direction.
With Goldlewis helping keep Deckard under control, Susie could help finish him off using the drill bottom of her business suit, drilling through the surprisingly durable old man before Jack got here.
Susie’s decisive conclusion to the storied healer’s attempt to sustain himself made Goldlewis frown. As someone who’d experienced warfare firsthand, he was no stranger to death, but that didn’t mean that he had to like it. He tried to put Deckard’s gruesome end out of his mind as he turned to face Jack-8, ready for another round with the scrappy machine.
Without hesitation, Jack turned the momentum of his run into a sliding low kick, but Goldlewis had good enough reflexes to crouch and block it in time. He replied with an equally audacious up-forward-down Behemoth Typhoon to smash Jack overhead, but the robot managed to rise and block it standing. It still guard crushed, though, which kept Jack in blockstun long enough for Goldlewis to dash forward. They traded jabs, a metal punch for a beefy elbow. Jack went for a launcher in hopes of counterhitting his opponent, but his opponent’s forward-down-back Typhoon was disjointed enough to wallop him. “Try this on!” Its recovery prevented any kind of combo, though, and when Goldlewis ran in for a throw on Jack’s wakeup, the robot deftly sidestepped his grasp and grabbed him instead. “Dagnabbit-!” Jack hoisted him off his feet and kept him airborne with a barrage of piston punches.
Well if the first teamwork move worked, why not another? Hopping out of her business suit as she doubted it would be fast enough for this, she charged up her dash and got into position as Goldlewis went to clash with this final enemy and waited for her opportunity. Which came fairly quickly as Jack was able to outmaneuver Goldlewis and get him into a combo of his own, a combo Susie would break with her own suplex move coming from a very different angle.
After Jack got snatched, Goldlewis hit the ground with a groan, but hurried to pick himself up. Jack was back on his feet just as fast. Now the robot had two targets to worry about, which wasn’t something he was necessarily designed for. Of course, that didn’t mean that he felt any fear. Unconventional foes just demanded unconventional moves. After dashing backward, Jack spread his arms wide and launched off the ground to deliver a Giant Foot Stomp to his fellow machine. Goldlewis had already airdashed toward him and couldn’t change his trajectory with a double jump, so for the moment Susie had to fend for herself.
Jack had a fair amount of distance to cover though, especially as he dashed back, so in order to deliver his foot stomp, he had to deal with getting pelted by Susie’s blaster fire with Susie also retreating back since she was going to stay at range for now. She underestimated the distance he’d cover, since he could jump again several times midair, but he’d pay for knocking Susie back with his foot stomp by taking quite a few blaster shots before he made contact. After her bit of flight, Susie got back up, dusting herself off. Her shield she had grabbed earlier absorbed most of the damage from that attack, but that didn't’ really matter since getting kicked like that made her a bit annoyed as she pulled out her cow mangler and began shooting Jack with it.
The Cow Mangler’s shots traveled a lot slower than Jack could dash-dance, and they didn’t apply hitstun either, but with Goldlewis on the case he couldn’t just chase Susie down. He got Jack’s attention again with the help of an exploding Thunderbird, and their duel quickly resumed. In a flurry of fists and heavy metal the two titans traded blows, mechanical might versus one hundred percent home-grow American muscle. Putting what he’d already learned to good use, Goldlewis made ample use of jump-ins, abusing his coffin’s range and Jack’s lack of anti-airs for all they were worth. Jack didn’t give him a lot of room to work with, but he also utilized his ranged weapons, throwing out a Thunderbird for oki whenever he managed to knock Jack down. Of course, his opponent was a tough nut to crack, and the robot struck back with blistering speed and force.
Their exchange came to a head when, after taking one too many Behemoth Typhoons, Jack threw caution to the wind and went ballistic with a ten-hit combo of steel-bending slugs. That barrage overwhelmed Goldlewis early, before he could commit to Faultless Defense. “Agh! Augh! Gah! Ow!” When the final strike sent Goldlewis spinning, Jack did not rush in to pressure him one wakeup, but did something strange. Seemingly unbothered by Susie, he stood still and began to whirl one of his arms around like a cartoon character. From out of nowhere, an omnipresent voice began to count his arm’s revolutions. “One…two…three…four…”
Well if this guy was going to dodge her shots…. Wait, these were energy rockets right? Why not shoot the ground under him? He couldn’t dodge the explosions! And using this idea, Susie shot her next rocket at his feet. He wasn’t trying to dodge, so that part of it didn’t come into effect. However, what she did cause him to do, was drop the massive hit he was about to do to Goldlewis by making him go airborne and interrupting his concentration.
Goldlewis had been way too alarmed by whatever it was Jack was going to risk getting anywhere near him, so the help from Susie was just what he needed. As the robot popped into the air, his Gigaton Punch cut short, the veteran charged in. “Thanks, li’l miss!” He jumped up and caught his opponent with a quick air combo, and the flurry of hits ended with a tremendous slam that obliterated the last of Jack’s health beneath Goldlewis’ weight. With a sound almost like a duck, the robot’s body burst apart into pieces that quickly began to dissolve, leaving Goldlewis to lie on the floor for a spell and still his pounding heart. “Whoo-wie!” he breathed. “That sumbitch knew how to fight!”
”It was 4 of them vs 2 of us, and they had support as well.” susie said, dusting herself off and making herself presentable before she went over to take a look at Goldlewis. ”Hmm…. I suppose I should pay you for being my bodyguard this time…” Susie said, looking through her bag of random stuff and pulling out some healing mushrooms she had gotten earlier in the quarantine zone. She held them out for Goldlewis to grab.
“Bodyguard? For you?” Thinking of just whose security detail he’d coordinated in the past, Goldlewis chuckled. When presented with stripy fungi, he was hesitant for a moment until he received the unmistakable aroma of fried pork belly. “Bacon?” He took the mushrooms and ate one tentatively. To his surprise, he felt his injuries begin to recede. “Wow. What in the world?” Quickly he devoured the second, and he almost ate the third before he paused, mouth open to take a bite. “Hmm. That’s probably fine for now, better keep the last one.” He handed the last mushroom back to Susie, then got to his feet, his eyes on the immense pillar that seemed to form the core of Arahabaki. “After all, we ain’t done yet.”
”Yes, we had best get going.” Susie said. She was about to get going, before she remembered about the field of spirits of all the things she had just fought, and moved over to pick up all 4. ”Hm…” Susie thought to herself before remembering the pain some of them were. For now, she figured that the old man she had to deal with, the healing one, could be incredibly useful as a new employee. And taking the military Deckard spirit, she enlisted her in the PMC division of the haltmann works company, gaining him as a striker.
New Striker: Deckard Pain A support striker with a medium cooldown. He can do three things: Healing Potion, which places a potion on the ground that can heal anyone on contact, Horadric Cube, which is a projectile that deals minor damage plus a slow, and Scroll of Sealing, a channeled ability that creates a rooting triangle on the ground upon completion.
The other spirit she had an idea of was that stealthing doll that did a fair amount of damage to her business suit. She did notice her out of business suit capabilities were lacking, and that thing had some interesting functions. The stealth most of all the most useful if she got focused to get her out of there and into a better position…. Well she shrugged and figured the two of them looked fairly similar knowing what this spirit fusion did to a few others, so she shrugged and decided to give it a try.
Notable spirit consumed: Jacqueline The host is a bit taller, with more humanoid proportions, such as a smaller head. Her skirt now has side slits and she has actual legs beneath them, though they terminate in points with brass heels. Her floating hands are now five-fingered and white in color with poofy ‘sleeves’. Her head now has a simple face, though it more resembles a motionless mask, with a simple mouth and more detailed eyes. Her hair is also realistic and is longer, now a pink-to-white gradient, but kept in two twintails with pink diamond fixtures on their tips. This spirit confers the Power Thermoelectric Shield. When using an ability that expends energy, some of that energy is now converted into a protective shield, which can also be released for a burst of dual electric-heat damage. This spirit also confers the Weakness Slow. Her baseline movement speed, regardless of transporter or business suit use, is slower
While she did that, Goldlewis collected the other two spirits. He hadn’t been able to pay too much attention to what Hank could do, and he wasn’t sure that he liked the other soldier’s attitude, but both he and Jack packed some serious firepower. Still, better to hold on to them than shake things up mid-operation. With Susie’s changes complete, he looked her over briefly before jabbing his thumb at the other conveyor bridge leading away from the arena. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Raz’s / Roland’s @Archmage MC vs Rude / Reno / Joryu / Moira Word Count: 3199 (+4)
Being split from the rest of the group upon using the teleporter, Roland found himself with the psychic kid Raz. The area wasn’t anything remarkable, just your basic industrial urban graveyard much like most of the lower class areas of Midgar. Roland didn’t really care much for those in PsyOPs, mostly because they gave him headaches when he was around them for too long. ”Hey, the teleporters messed up. We’re all split up!” Roland said over the linkpearls he had gotten from the rest of the group. Soon though, he was informed as to why, and could only sigh. Looking at Raz, he said. ”Well, I guess we’re stuck together for now.” Having almost no idea exactly what kind of person Raz was, he would hold his sarcasm and witty banter for now.
”I wouldn’t say we’re stuck together,” Raz replied as he donned his goggles, a clear sign of things getting real, ”I see it more as an… opportunity for stronger, uhh, team cohesion!” He hadn’t passed the Psychonauts’ “Positivity Training” yet, but he had a good feeling about it. Whiiiich was a form of positivity! See, he was nailing it. ”I keep getting paired off with other people with R-names, though. I wonder if that means anything.”
As if they were waiting for someone, a welcoming party appeared hopping off from a high perch to intercept Roland and Raz.Two were Turks which Roland knew, Rude and Reno, who were quite the infamous duo within the organization. The other two he didn’t recognize, though one looked like a Turk -maybe a newbie- and the other looked like someone from R&D. “Well now, look who the cat dragged in.” Reno snarked. “Y’know, I kinda had you pinned as the turncoat kind of guy.”
Roland only rolled his eyes saying. ”More like the guy hunting the guy who has Rufus mind controlled, but who's keeping track.” He then turned to Rude, saying. ”How have you been Rude? Asked out that bartender lady yet?” Rude did not dignify the rather personal question with a response, his eyes inscrutable behind his trademark sunglasses. Seeing this, Roland quipped, ”C’mon man, you gotta make your move sometime before fixer life catches up to you. Especially with those assets…”
Reno interjected, cutting Roland off near the end of that though, saying. “You better watch that big nose of yours, plainface. It’s gonna get you into trouble.”
The “third” Turk, the one Roland didn’t recognize, kept to the back of the four-man group. He regarded Roland coolly, sizing the man up in both physical form and attitude. Even though his fists were clenched at his sides, he wasn’t prepared to brawl like the others. His focus turned to Raz, who himself was gearing up in classic psi-pose. More to himself, he simply said, ”...a kid?”
“Hmph.” Moira, the newcomer, crossed her arms stuffily. “They’re already in trouble, so if you’re quite done palling around, let’s cut to the chase.” She lifted her right arm, her mutated, clawlike nails extending as a purple orb of necrotic energy took form above her palm. “And begin operation.”
Well, it was time for combat. Roland knew Rude and Reno, and not the others. One of the newcomers, the one who was using energy, seemed like more of a threat than those two. Nothing good ever came from an enemy that wielded strange energy in his experience, especially something with that color. And that energy reminded him of a specific fallen Arbiter who was the leader of the Floor of Philosophy.
Roland started with a dash at Moira, swords out as she fired her energy ball at him. Rude however intercepted Roland, seeing him go for his medic and fists met sword in a clash of power and wills as Rude knocked Roland away, Moira’s ball taking away Roland’s counter as he countered it and finding that it wasn’t as bad as he thought it’d be. Instead of being one big blast, it seemed to just be a lot of small hits that siphoned his life, which was a lot easier to manage for him. It still tingled in a bad way though. Still, he was open from an attack from Reno now, before swapping over to his lance to clash with Reno’s followup attack and push him away.
Having clashed, he reached Emotion level 1, and with it gained the power of Long Arms, with a chirpy solemn voice echoing “I condemn you, but you will still commit more sin without end…” and with it, everyone saw a series of two pictures within their minds. The first depicted a forest in forever twilight, saying. “Once upon a time, three birds lived in a dark forest…” with the second picture appearing soon after saying. “To keep the forest’s peace, Long Bird weighed the sins of those who entered the forest. For Long Bird’s scale was just and could weigh any and all kinds of sin.”
“What the?” Reno said upon seeing this weird play in his head. “I knew you were a weird one.”
He and Roland clashed again, Roland matching him this time with his durandal and with it, getting to emotion level 2 and acquiring Big Eyes, a deeper chirpy voice saying “With just one simple act, I’ll give you a permanent and comfortable rest…”. And with it, another scene played out, this time of Big Bird and his many eyes, with the caption “Big Bird, with its many eyes, decided to watch over the forest for intruders. For Big Bird’s eyes could see very far and see things we cannot see.”
Roland had gotten the first strike, drawing most of the attention away from Raz. ”You get ‘em, Roland! Wait, we aren’t doing codenames, are we?” The peanut gallery shtick drew Rude’s attention, and with Roland preoccupied with Rude (who was supported by Moira, keeping his vitals up with her healing spray), the Turk rounded on Raz. Raz, only slightly daunted by Rude’s imposing glower, leveled his psychic aim on him. ”My turn, huh?”
Rude dashed towards Raz. The junior Psychonaut fired off a volley of Psi-blasts, the first two nailing Rude in the chest before he ducked the third. Raz was pulling his punch a little - they weren’t robots, monsters, or cyborgs, but real people. Though it was moot since the first hits had already set Reno and Rude into telltale ‘Galeem Fight Mode’, locking them in a fight to the death.
Rude was on him quicker than expected. A straight jab, nothing Raz couldn’t have dodged himself, but the moment Rude pulled his fist back his arm stopped short of throwing it; with a barely audible wrrzt, thin wire coiled around Rude’s wrist.
”Hmph.” Joryu, the as-of-yet identified man and last person to participate in the fight, scoffed. His arm was outstretched, the wires holding Rude back connected to his watch. ”I can’t tell if this was part of the plan,” Joryu mused, still mostly thinking out loud rather than addressing anyone else, ”but frankly, there’s no way I’m gonna beat on a kid.”
With that, he turned tail and ran. ”Hey, do you know something? Get back here!” Summoning his levitation ball, Raz took off in pursuit, chasing Joryu out of the fight and down a set of conveyor bridges leading away from the area. Of course, that short-sighted maneuver meant misfortune for Roland, who found himself abandoned and pitted against a team of three enemies by himself.
Roland kept his clash going with Reno, first with his daggers, coming out about even with Reno winning a bit, then continuing on with a clash with his hammer, which also came out about even. Getting tired of this, Roland then decided to pull out his big sword and finally overpower Reno in the third clash. He’d find that dealing with Moira’s energy balls wasn’t that bad, but Reno was tactically retreating to her as Roland pursued him and he’d find she had another power that he couldn’t parry when he got close, a more direct draining type move. This made Roland retreat for now, with Reno chastising him for retreating from their medic.
Although with those three clashes on Reno, even if he didn’t do all that much damage, he got Emotion level 3, and gained Tilted Scale with the same solemn voice from earlier saying “My scale won’t cease its duty until the day all evil beings disappear.”. He also gained the EGO page Lamp. Being a more utility based EGO, Roland didn’t use it right away, but instead would start to deal with that medic by pulling out his gun and just shooting her from range, keeping his distance, before going to intercept Rude who was trying to break the restraints of his… ally…? Was binding him with. That was… odd… Was this guy the one controlling Reno and Rude?
Using his lance to knock back Rude, but doing very little damage, Roland said. ”Are you doing ok there? I thought PsyOPs could fight a bit more than that.” At least shooting the full hp Moira healed Roland a bit from Tilted Scale, so he wasn’t in as bad of a situation, but they did need to make some headway somewhere as Moira could heal Reno with her yellow healing beam.
Headway would eventually come as Roland clashed again with Rude, finding him a bit easier to clash with than Reno. While not as hard of a hitter, Rude was for sure tankier as he erected a barrier around himself and his allies, reducing the damage they took from the duo’s attacks. Which was helpful for Rude as Roland was starting to overpower him having gotten his emotion level up. As he clashed, Raz was dealing with the 4th member that Roland hadn’t even bothered with, with Moira still healing Reno before he went in with another round with Roland. And as Roland clashed and won his clashes against Rude, he healed himself, although slowly. And also gradually increased his emotion level, getting to level 4 and getting Small Beak, a high chirpy voice saying. “Thus, punishment must uproot sin…” and another scene flashed into the heads of those in combat with Roland, this time showing a small bird with a strange portal on its body, the caption saying. “Small bird decided to punish the creatures’ wrongdoers with its beak.” Roland also gained the EGO page Twilight.
“Something is coming. We should wrap this up before things get complicated.” Moira advised, still acting stoic but was getting a bit unnerved by these weird images flashing in her head.
“Yeah, I get whatcha mean. That one’s from the OSF, it's probably coming from him.” Reno replied, looking at Raz. He then got an idea, and as Rude kept Roland busy, Reno dashed to Raz and threw a device at him, which trapped Raz in an energy shield the shape of a pyramid. “There, that’ll keep you busy until we deal with your friend!” Reno said, before powering himself up to deal with Roland.
Roland wasn’t a huge fan of this, and decided to start to use his EGO pages. He started with Lantern, causing the area to turn into a twilight lit forest of dark trees seen in the first scene, which were so tall the canopy couldn’t be easily seen, with Roland donning the appropriate EGO and revealing an antique lantern. As he did, the area went pitch black, with the only light source being his lantern, and as a low ‘dong’ echoed through the area, Rude, Reno and Moira, all getting unnerved as when the lantern flashed, they saw thousands upon thousands of large yellow eyes looking at them from every direction in the dark forest, before the area returned to its twilight lit aesthetic for 10 seconds. Roland used this time to strike at Reno, who found his powerup had been canceled by the eerie light and eyes that had unnerved him.
Seeing Reno getting hurt pretty badly, Moira had no choice but to keep healing him as Rude had his attempt to get Roland off Reno clashed with, and as the two Turks soon realized as Roland topped off his emotion level to 5, it wasn’t Raz that had been causing those images, but Roland. Upon reaching emotion level 5, Roland gained The Beast, and turned into a horrifying visage of some creature that would make any metal band proud. A voice of a monster saying. “I can’t let evil take all these precious things away.” An aura of dread emanated from Roland, which Rude soon found out made his barriers completely useless and any empowerments also useless. Roland also gained the EGO Apocalypse, and the final scene of Apocalypse Bird played out, accompanied by its deep bird like roar, the caption saying. “Then, in the middle of all the chaotic cries, someone shouted: “It’s the beast! A big scary monster lives in the black dusky forest!”
“The hell is THAT? You’ve been holding out on us?!” Reno said, shocked and a bit horrified at what Roland had turned into, but soon shook off his fear as he engaged him.
”Yeah, I learned a lot paling around with this group.” Roland said, his calm voice coming from such a monster. Raising his hand, Roland used Twilight, turning the area into a dark forest much like before, but this time it was pitch black, with the only light emanating from a 50 meter tall monstrosity in the back, the light coming from its many, many yellow eyes along its wings. Eyes that started to pepper the area with laser beams that Reno and Rude had to go onto the defensive to deal with as they rained down. He then took this opportunity to rush Moira with his large sword and powered through her orb to deal some damage.
Moira couldn’t help but take this damage, but she also gained her ult from this and said. “That's ENOUGH, I’ll end this now!” and put her hands together and unleashed her ultimate, a massive beam of both positive and necrotic energy that healed herself, Rude, Reno, and damaged Roland. Or that was the intent as Roland unleashed his second stored EGO, Apocalypse. Pointing at Moira and the rest of them, the massive creature in the back roared and lifted up one of its massive claws, intending to crush Roland’s enemies. And thanks to the size of this claw, Moira found her beam couldn’t overpower it as the creature’s claw crashed right through it and stomped down hard, crushing Moira into ash and dealing some heavy damage to Reno and Rude. She was the weakest in her group, so Roland wasn't expecting her to go down as easy as she did.
Roland turned his gaze to Reno and Rude, and pointed at them again. This time though, he tried the technique he had learned before as the two Turks decided what to do, and pulled out a Friend Heart for each of them, before dashing to them in his monstrous form and Friend Hearting both Turks.
”I’d rather not take the lives of people I used to pal around with if I can help it.” Roland said as the area turned to normal, but Roland still stayed in his apocalypse form. Rude shook his head, his head getting cleared as the influence of Galeem left him.
Reno had to blink twice, his sword in his hand raised in a defensive position looking at Roland. “Urk…” Reno groaned, trying to process what was going on. Memories came flooding back to both Turks, but seeing as this area of the world was roughly what they knew, the only thing they really realized was that Roland wasn’t originally a Turk, and just ‘appeared’ one day with the position.
“Ugh… why do I have the feeling I just woke up from a nightmare,” Rude murmured.
”Eh, that's normal I guess? That's how I felt when they did this to me. There's some like…. Angel thing up in the sky you guys can see later.” Roland said. ”And yeah, I don’t know if you guys remember what I said, but there is a thing controlling Rufus and all the Shinra high ups. They are named Consuls, And they might be the ones behind the ever crisis? Their plan is to use Midgar as some sort of playground for their sick games, and they will mind control whoever they can to make that happen.”
Reno put his baton away and could only scratch his head at hearing that. “Oh, I remember them telling us that you betrayed us and we were supposed to hunt you down, then… something else happened I can’t remember.”
”Yeah. Although I think after me and this group fix what's going on in Midgar, they say there is something even bigger out there. That angel thing I was talking about. I got a feeling I’ll have to deal with that. And also more of those Consuls out there. Then there are these weird shadow robed people you can’t see unless you break out of the mind control I freed you and Rude from. And the guys controlling Rufus and the rest of Shinra can’t influence you now.” Roland said, before sighing and saying. ”It's just a huge, huge mess…”
“Well, uh… I guess we’ll go look into that. Sucks that the medic bit the dust, but between you and me, she was pretty creepy.” Reno said, confused on what was going on but accepting what Roland had said.
Rude nodded solemnly with him. “Although not as creepy as you are now Roland.”
”Yeah, this’ll turn off in a little while, not much I can do about it until then. Believe it or not this is something I used to do back where I’m from. I was only reminded of it when I got freed. Maybe you guys can find something cool you forgot as well.” Roland said. ”Oh, and go find that lady you're into Rude. Maybe you can protect her from that mind control thing, and that’d score some big points for ya.” Rude nodded vigorously at this, and with that, Reno and Rude made their way off to do their own things.
With the combat over, Roland moved forward, hoping to find Raz and the man he’d gone to pursue. It wasn’t long before he discovered another teleporter, which he figured the others must have used. After taking it though, Roland found himself alone, and maybe even farther from Arahabaki’s center than the first place he ended up.. ”Uh…. I dealt with the Turks that were sent to ambush me, but I got separated from Raz again due to a teleporter. Where do I go?” Roland said, and soon after got a bit of direction from Sandalphon, Roland made his way there, getting some time to rest as he traveled.
By the time Sectonia got thrown through the air, Nadia was close enough to act. “Enough already!” she cried, pumping out blood to create a Hydro Mimic of a familiar, greatsword-wielding berserker. “Just call it a knight!” Her Artorias mimic leaped forward with his trademark somersault to bring down a heavy slash on Robin’s stomach area. The feral slid to a stop beneath it and hyperextended both legs in an upward kick that blew through the mimic’s back, covering Robin’s chest in her own blood. Her Charge turned her into a lightning tiger that blitzed through the archangel and burst through his back. Lightning reacted with hydro to form electro-charged, and as the sparks flew she twisted around to execute Battery by way of a Curtain Shredder drop slash. “It’s curtains!” The respectable burst of damage made Robin stagger forward for a brief moment, after which he unceremoniously raised one leg and kicked Nadia in the stomach. “MEOWCH!” As she stumbled back, two more of the diamonds in Robin’s halo lit up for a total of four.
Bowser, who had been in the middle of picking himself up, promptly went ”Gah!” as the sleeping form of Sectonia came flying at him and promptly floored him again. He grumbled in complaint, and promptly hauled her off of himself so he could actually get up while complaining about this being no time for beauty sleep.
Once he was up he turned as he heard a call of ”Sire! Throw her over here,” from Kamek, who was gesturing at two of his toady minions.
Rather than question how they were going to carry the big bee, the king simply did this without a thought, hauling the queen up and then hurling her in the intended direction. Her large form should have squished the floating minions like bugs, had Kamek not thrust out his wand, chanted ”compound eyes, transportable size!” and cast a shrinkification spell on her as she flew, resulting in a much smaller and more portable bee who the pair caught with ease, and proceed to transport her the same way others had Jr.
”Owwww!” Jr complained as he rubbed his freshly stomped face ”What you do that for! We’re on the same team right now!”
"Not’a so" the plumber who had performed a little spin before landing to now face Jr’s again replied, before declaring "Im-a take you down!" and then running forwards to give the prince another stomp.
This time, hearing the run up and the following "Hup!" the prince ducked, bringing his spikes up defensively, wrestling in the plumber landing right on them with a cry of pain.
”That’s what you get for messing with me!” Jr shouted, before popping out of his shell and starting to demand ”Now stop this before-” getting confused when he found the plumber lying motionless on the ground ”huh?”
The prince poked him a few times, giving a very confused ”Mario?” not understanding that the hero had died in a single hit. Before he could understand this however, a familiar silhouette jumped up onto one of the walls of the arena, only this one was wearing white and red instead of blue and red.
"It’sa me!" declared mario number 2, this one empowered by a fire flower, before he started bouncing around and hucking flaming balls at the very confused prince.
With the queen being transported after Jr, and thus out of the room and into the middle of a pile of drybones acting as a unliving walls, the two koopas nodded at each other and then focused back on the fight. They were joined in this focus by Rika, who had got her gauntlets back on at last, and who promptly noted the obvious yet awful truth which was ”So is it just going to keep knocking people out?”
”It seems so, so speed is of the essence” the mage assessed, before declaring ”So let’s pull everything out of the bag”
His first step to this was summoning all of his strikers. Quiet and then end promptly opened fire on the titan with their rifles of the lethal and nonlethal variety, while the small green knife armed lizard that was the tonberry started slowly waddling after Robin, with no hope of reaching his evasive form.
”Ah, do you mind delivering that for me?” the mage asked, which got a nod from Rika, who just assumed this was a good idea rather than questioning what the little creature could do. She promptly scooped the striker up in ome massive hand and held it under one arm before dashing forwards.
Not towards Robin directly however, but towards Bowser, at whom she shouted ”Give me a boost!” before firing her grapple at him, and rapidly closing the gap. The king was momentarily confused, but caught on just in time, putting both hands together so she could step into them, before hurling her through the air towards their foe in a team jump maneuver.
Maneuvering thrusters flared as she jetted forwards, followed by her grappling to Robin himself. She winched forwards, launching a distracting swarm of flashing electrical motes as she flew to throw off her foe’s accuracy as she approached, and then should she get in close enough, hold the tonberry striker up to his form so it could stab him. Robin wasn’t stupid, though. Once Rika grappled onto its arm, its gaze turned on the incoming threat, and even she deployed some firefly-like distractions, Robin could tell where she was coming from by tracing her grapple line. It yanked its arm to throw off Rika’s timing, then lashed out with a giant backhand.
In danger, she released the grapple, then fired her rigging disruption cannons to blast herself back with the recoil, while also squeezing her featherfall rune to fire her upwards and out of immediate danger. Unable to be delivered, the tonberry fell to the ground, transferring a little damage to Kamek. Since it hadn’t attacked yet though, it continued to stay active, now much closer to its target.
Rika’s retreat would be covered by Bowser, who, after punching his shell to smash it and give himself an attack and speed boost at the cost of armor, rushed in to take another swing at their foe. As he tried to deliver another leg beat down, he’d summon Marie Korbel, former skullgirl, to raise a wall of skeletons behind Robin to restrict his movements, before blasting him with a volley of flaming skulls.
Once it was clear that Kamek had a handle on defending their sleeping comrades, Primrose left him to it. She could cast her magic while aiding in said defense, but that wasn't what she wanted to do. She needed to go on the attack more aggressively, not just to put a stop to the mule-headed menace as quickly as possible but to release the frustrated tension that she'd built up since its appearance. Though there were better uses for her skills, and allies that she could help out in battle, her sights were set squarely on the archangel.
She moved in, avoiding the battles with Oberon and Titania when they got too close. She collected her lance from where it had fallen and rushed towards Robin. When she used her Ravaging Confession again to teleport behind the angel, she expected him to see her coming and avoid the back attack. She used it anyway to get in close that much sooner, risking retaliation to use her Rites of Termination and summon a large, shadowy lance down on top of Robin.
Unlike Jr. who had a clearly defined nemesis, Sectonia wasn’t as fortunate. As she slept her dream had her in roughly the same room, but fighting a shadow that seemed to shift between a blob and someone wielding a hammer. The star warrior of pop star, who would have been a thorn in her side in her plans of conquest.
Being an enemy Sectonia didn’t know made fighting this apparition strange. While she could strike at it, either her magic would hit or the apparition would morph out of the way dodging the hit entirely as its nebulous shape changed. And not having a voice, it was completely silent, short of how it moved.
It was frustrating that even its attacks were amorphous, coming in for a swing of its hammer, only to have that hammer move around her sword guard and hit her with a fist. Being asleep was something she really, really didn’t like in this case, but beating this apparition was the way to wake up? So annoying, she’d blast that creature when she was out of this…
From nearby came the angry roar of a newly-enraged Ganondorf. The radiation damage had largely ceased by now, but the man was wildly swinging his swords around himself as a result of the confusion he was inflicted with. But now that, too, was wearing off. The Gerudo King was livid, practically seeing red as he set his sights squarely on Oberon. Unfortunately for the summoned warrior, Ganondorf was far more than just a mere bruiser. He summoned a fresh squad of Moblin archers and ordered them to open fire on Oberon. Then he summoned Riptor who immediately used her Mortar attack to lob a fireball at him, then vanished afterward as was the norm for Strikers. But the angry Ganondorf was far from done. He summoned Phantom Ganon and ordered him to float forward and begin hurling dark energy balls at Oberon as well. The warframe got moving, taking advantage of the various projectiles’ slow travel time to run out of their paths.
And then Ganondorf finally re-brandished his swords, ”DIE!” he roared as he charged forward in a dead sprint. The fire that Oberon was surrounded by did little to deter Ganondorf. Whatever radiation damage he suffered from getting close to Oberon was a price he was willing to pay. He lunged for Oberon and went for any and all openings to strike as he could possibly get. In this instance that wasn’t especially hard, thanks to the near constant cover fire the Gerudo King was given by his servants’ ranged attacks. Ganondorf’s attacks were aggressive and fueled by his own sheer rage. The building power in his Swords of Darkness was also proving to be a key factor in how he was hitting harder and with greater strength than previously.
For his part, Oberon fought defensively, bullet-jumping around his Hallowed Ground at high speed to keep his foes from pinning him down and let the radiation damage pile up. Ganondorf wasn’t veiling his anger at all, and if he’d gotten this mad after taking only a couple hits, Oberon was happy to exploit his blind fury. Rather than fight the warlord head-on he attacked mid-jump and with slam attacks, taking a couple sideswipes but avoiding much of Ganondorf’s fury while the green flames burned.
At one point while trading blows with Oberon, Ganondorf slammed his right hand sword into the ground, tip first. Then he tightened his hand into a fist and went for a powerful Warlock Punch directly at Oberon’s front. The attack was telegraphed enough for Oberon to raise his shield to absorb the blow, but Ganondorf did not rescind his attack. Instead Ganondorf’s Triforce shined with power and he just pressed the attack in an attempt to force through Oberon’s guard as well as his flames and at least knock him down if nothing else. No warframe worth his salt would ever stick around for such a laughably telegraphed attack, however. Rather than get in front of Ganondorf and wait for the Warlock Punch to hit his guard, Oberon slid away through the flames and switched weapons. His ivory-white Sybaris was a lever-action rifle with a two-round burst fire, and Oberon squeezed off shots whether sliding, running, or bullet jumping. Though he looked like a sturdy warrior, Oberon was still first and foremost, a ninja.
Although one that was hopefully still susceptible to an ambush. A white, black, and dusty blue blur shot towards Oberon from the room's shadows; Therion in his beast form, now appearing in battle himself since his striker's time had run out. In his jaws was the Kamura blade, with which he sought to cut a chunk out of the warframe. After the initial surprise attack, the thief's strategy defaulted to his familiar hit and run - trying to anticipate where Oberon would run to avoid Ganondorf, then intercepting him.
While Ganondorf dueled with Oberon and the others battled with Robin, that left Jesse to face Titania. When she dodged her second rock Jesse shifted behind a pillar to avoid the sniper shot, and moved out of cover to avoid the follow up grenade. During that time her Service Weapon reappeared in her hand. Going easy on the Paranatural powers to let her Energy recharge, she switched to Spin. Jesse opened up on Titania as she ran, aiming with one hand, spraying a large volume of bullets for her to avoid. Then she slid behind a fallen rock pillar and switched to Grip, putting out more accurate, more damaging shots at a semi-automatic rate of fire. Jesse would try to navigate to where she could put a pillar or some kind of debris between herself and Titania on a relatively short notice, staying on her feet instead of floating around like she usually did. All that would do would leave her more exposed to fire.
The shootout between the two quickly picked up in both speed and intensity, becoming a high-octane shootout and a race to see whether Jesse or Titania could pick the other gunslinger off first. Though the FBC director had seldom been truly threatened by her fights throughout the World of Light thus far, she quickly realized that this enemy would give her a run for her money. Titania moved at blistering speeds, not just bullet-jumping and aim gliding through the air much faster than Jesse herself could hover, but changing direction on a dime. This made the warframe hard to hit, even with the sheer output of Spin–and that firing mode’s innate spread didn’t help, either. Even when Jesse switched to Grip for crucial accuracy, the shots she landed exposed a new problem: the fact that Jesse wasn’t the only one around with a rechargeable personal shield. If the redhead didn’t place her shots consistently, Titania’s energy shield would just refill itself. Worse still, the warframe stole her strategy of hiding behind the underground chamber’s many columns to give her shields that exact opportunity. Both sharpshooters could do this; the difference was that Titania could also use those moments to shoot at the Seekers fighting Robin Goodfellow, her Corinth shotgun blindsiding them with chunks of damage. Still, Titania wasn’t going to settle for a stalemate with Jesse for long. She kept an eye on Robin, waiting for an opportunity.
At this point, Robin definitely needed her help. After Nadia opened it up with a flurry of attacks, her allies followed suit. Knowing the sting of Bowser’s blows, the archangel tried to backpedal away from him, only to run into a wall of bones brought forth by the Koopa King’s Marie striker. Taken by surprise, Robin got battered by the former Skullgirl’s fusillade of skulls. Primrose surged forward in the wake of the skeletal tide, and this time Robin stepped forward to give the dancer a bone-crushing kick. Instead she vanished and reappeared behind its back, a shadowy slash to his ankles both boosting her critical chance and precipitating a cross-shaped spear of darkness from above. The Dark Lance both pierced its eldritch form and continued to release bursts of pitch-black miasma for a short time, keeping the archangel occupied long enough for Primrose’s friend to lend a hand.
“Tagging in!” White hair streaming behind her, Nadia leaped in after Primrose brought down the Dark Lance to keep the combo going. She flew in and sunk her claws into Robin’s arm, using her momentum to swing around it like a gymnast’s high bar. On the third revolution she let go and flew upward, avoiding Robin’s angry thrash just in time, then airdashed toward his head on jets of blood. She landed a quick three-hit air combo, leaped away, and detached her head to launch toward the archangel with Cat Spike. “Service with a smile!” Her long hair hardened as her head flew, becoming a huge buzz saw that sliced into her target’s chest. As it lost momentum, New Moon activated on the final hit for a burst of damage, and both feral and head fell away. “Saw right through you!”
There. Turning away from Jesse, Titania extended her hand toward Kamek and cast Lantern. A swarm of razorflies immediately coated the magikoopa’s body, creating an irresistible floating beacon. The eyes of every Seeker present were riveted to that spot, and anyone drawn to Kamek within the next ten seconds would also fall victim to the razorflies’ eventual detonation. In quick succession, three things happened. First, Oberon cast Renewal, releasing waves of nature’s power to restore health to himself and Robin, who was within its range. The next second, Robin cast Fairy Dust, instantly plunging Nadia into sleep. Finally, Robin cast Night Mare. A dark presence manifested around all three sleepers, and when horrific eyes stared out from that abysmal miasma, all of them took a chunk of unavoidable damage. As the archangel laughed, two more diamonds appeared in its halo. Six out of ten.
Getting back after such a rough fight and getting some rest sounded good for Roland and the two bots. While Susie turned in early after checking her sales on her PDA, Blazermate often being one of the last asleep, even if she only did it to pass time, and Roland were still up and chatting a bit before they turned in.
Roland, going to Zenkichi the only other turk in the group, decided to unwind after the fight they just had in his way by commenting on what just happened. "Phew. Hey Zenkichi, that was one rough fight we just escaped from huh?" Roland said, having a more carefree sound to his voice now that he could relax.
Zenkichi turned to Roland, blinked for a moment, and nodded. "That it was. I feel bad for Penance, but...well, those Consul guys are bad news. Its crazy to hold back against them. I dont think anybody would really blame you, don't worry."
Roland figured this would come up and paused for a bit before saying. "Yeah... its never fun needing to do that. Back where I'm from, that sort of thing is either you break their will to fight, and thus the mind control, or its permanent and there is nothing to do but put them down." Roland then paused a bit thinking, before saying. "Well, there is M corp's stones that make you immune to that, and I wasn't aware we had anything like that until Penance got freed... " Zenkichi could tell Roland had a lot more experience with the whole Mind control and dealing with those under it than he was letting on though. "But besides that. What was with that whole turning into a bound angel thing? Was that something she could do, or some sort of corruption of redshift or something?"
Zenkichi thought about that, frowning a little. That sounded horrible. He'd have to try to explain the Friend Heart deal to Roland. He knew he got brought in pretty quickly, but that was an important bit of knowledge to have missed out on!
"Where I come from, it's...weird. A combo of mind control and emotional manipulation. To fight it, you basically have to enter the subconscious mind of the person, beat them into submission, and force them to face reality. It's really weird and kind of hard to explain?"
Moving on, he shrugged. "Anyway, what Giovanna did there is called a Friend Heart. Kind of on the nose, but I didn't name it, and it fits, so oh well. I'm not like 100% sure how it really works, but basically you reach down inside you, and...then you make a heart that breaks Galeem's control and heals someone. It's also weird and kind of hard to explain, but I think it just works. As for Jena...she definitely injected herself with more of that Blue Evolve crap, but I wonder why she didn't aberrate? Maybe she kept the good stuff for herself..."
"Ooh, is that something anyone can do? Would've been nice to know that, but thats that and this is this. I'll have to learn it before tomorrow if thats possible." Roland said, before getting reminded of something. "Or am I wrong and thats something only you guys can do? We can't do that where I'm from. Instead there is this weird thing called E.G.O., but I can tell you that and this aren't the same thing."
Roland then noted Zenkichi's experience with mind control, only saying. "That is a lot nicer than what I had to deal with." Roland said plainly and with a tinge of jealousy. "And yeah, I'd expect the drug kingpin to save the best stuff for themselves. But to do that to yourself, it really wasn't all that great. There are better ways to get stronger."
Oh, for sure, Jena was completely insane. I have no idea why she'd do that to herself, but it...it must have been bad. Whatever happened to her, I mean." Sighing, Zenkichi shook his head. "But you're right. That's that, and this is this. We can't save everyone, we just have to do our best to make it a world worth living in. Or, I guess, get as many people as we can back to their own worlds..."
Frowning, he just shrugged. "We still have no idea what'll even happen if we beat Galeem. Do we all just go back, does everything revert back to normal, or...do we just free everybody and is this the new world we gotta live in?"
Roland nodded sagely at Zenkichi agreeing with him. He knew he liked this guy the moment he saw him! Fixer life wasn't much different even in other worlds it seemed.
Then he asked the question of what would happen when Galeem was beaten, which is something Roland was told about and the cause of all of this. He shrugged himself, before giving a bit of a controversial take. "I'd prefer the latter if I can find my friends here. As dark and corrupt as Midgar seems to these guys, its way better than where I'm from. No worrying about the Night in the Backstreets, no worrying about people going missing because some psycho butcher wanted to turn them into pies, no Syndicates to extort the people of the backstreets, no Pianist.... Heck there is even room to get out of the bad spots of the city into the Nest... err good parts without needing sponsorship from a Wing. Not as much or even no random experiments from Wings testing singularities, no monsters on the streets besides what we just saw.... I do hope its the latter."
This little spark of hope, of being able to actually change things for once, of the cycle of the City being more or less broken or changed, was a new thing to Roland.
Zenkichi nodded a bit, unconvinced but understanding of why Roland would prefer not to return to his own world. "It sounds bad. My world...eh, it wasn't perfect, but it was a heck of a lot better than Midgar. Same corruption, though, just...less death, and a whole lot less monsters to deal with. None, in fact, unless you count the subconscious world things. Just plain boring old animals, and those don't really bother people much."
Zenkichi gave a wistful smile as he remembered his Japan. It certainly wasn't perfect, but it was his home, and he was hoping he'd get to see the fruits of his and the Thieves' labors if they ever got back there.
"Sounds like you grew up in a Nest where I'm from." Roland said, again with a bit of jealousy, but not as much as before. "Still, I suppose we wont know what happens until it does."
"We just call em countries. Or, cities? Depends on how big a Nest is, I guess." Zenkichi chuckled, shaking his head and shrugging. "But yeah. Until Galeem's done and dealt with, we got no clue how it's gonna end."
Roland could only agree with that, and getting on and a bit tired, he decided to try to get to bed. Blazermate only caught snippets of their conversation, but she did catch the part about Roland not knowing how to friend heart and regretting it, and as Roland was making his way to his room, she flew up to block him.
"Whoa! Whats the problem? Need something?" Roland said, taken aback by the sudden blazermate jumpscare.
"Oh, I just overheard your conversation with Zenkichi. You don't know how to friend heart? We've gotta fix that! Its super useful! It seems to override or heal basically EVERYTHING, although only once." Blazermate said. She then explained the whole thing with more direction and explanation than Zenkichi, having done it quite a few times. Roland could only tiredly roll his eyes at first, but it didn't take him long to learn how to do this trick with Blazermate's help. Although with how easy it was, that didn't make him feel all that much better.
"Oh... Well that was easy. Would've been nice to know this earlier." Roland said. Blazermate patted his shoulders, needing to fly to get there due to being 2/3rd of a meter shorter than Roland. "Don't worry, until you've been freed and fought a bunch, you actually can't do this right away. You probably unlocked how to do this after that huge fight we just had. We have a couple royals that had issues with this too for awhile." That indeed made Roland feel a bit better, and with a wave of his hand, he went to bed thanking the medabot for the help, both here and in that fight.
Being the robot she was, Blazermate was up when the first person to come down was up. While everything else was getting breakfast, seeing as Susie was the only repair person nearby, Blazermate went to her to get some tune ups before the fights today while Susie herself, having spent almost no time getting ready, was fully dressed and proper with a coffee cup in her hand. While she was a bit annoyed at first, she agreed and found that Blazermate was fairly simple to do fixes on. It was almost like she was made for a child to do repairs on her, which amused Susie for some reason. A battle robot that could fight horrible creatures at the control of a mere child, that must be quite a hectic world.
Roland came down a bit later than most, being a bit of a slow riser. While he ate the bagels and muffins in front of him, he was disappointed in the coffee that was brewed; Chesed had really ruined his taste for basic coffee with his fancy brews. He also looked at Sandalphon just eating honey like a bee, and could only look at her with a little bit of contempt, but amusement. "It feels wrong seeing someone eat only honey. You've gotta have something with it. Next time I'll make breakfast if we're still alive and show you that there are way better foods than just raw honey." Roland was a bit of a foodie, so seeing that was a bit appalling to him, but not to the extent of anything but "why".
Soon their objective for the day was explained, they had to stop the machine part of the evercrisis. Roland found it strange that a problem that had been causing them issues for months was being resolved in mere days by some strangers with superpoweres. If only that could happen in his world... But now wasn't the time to bellyache about that.
And to spurn them into action even more, a cloaked figure appeared and gave them some vague warnings that they were on a clock. Who was this person even? But considering how the rest were handling them, especially Roxas. Much like Roxas, Roland stayed behind to get a bit more info out of this cloaked figure that everyone seemed to be apprehensive about, but unlike Roxas, just stood and observed. And from what he could gather from the conversation, these Organization members would be his enemies. And from what Roxas seemed to talk about, they reminded him of the blue sicko's ensemble. Especially with such vague things as 'fixing the world'. That couldn't be good.
Blazermate had been one of the late leavers as well, but that was more so because Roxas had offered to pair off with her and she was waiting patiently at the portal. Susie had already stepped through with Goldweis, and Roland after following Roxas stepped in with Raz, while Blazermate went with Roxas. Before they all stepped through the portal though, Roland came up to Roxas and put a hand on his shoulder saying. "I don't like what those robed people are doing either. So your not alone there." and went through the portal with Raz. He'd still have to get used to this instant travel, but at least it wasn't as harsh as W corp's singularity.
When they got there, Roxas announced that once they found the door they were looking for, he could open it no problem. "Oh? You've got something from F corp? I had an... acquaintance that had that as well. Lets hope we don't run into her. She could be really bad news if we have to fight her." Little did Roland know Roxas' method of opening doors wasn't anything nearly as brutal as fairy.
Looking up from the ruined fragments of the statue’s decapitated head, Nadia sized up the monstrous perpetrator as it began to move towards her. Ten Piedad stood about triple her height, taller even than the statue in whose cold arms it found some semblance of comfort. Too tall for her to leap over with her usual double jump, that’s for sure. With gnarly flesh somewhere between wood and bone, pierced by a dozen nails and crowned by a ghastly demonic skull, it looked like a paralysis demon come to life. It closed the distance in a floundering stumble, like a man in a drunken stupor or sleepwalking in the grip of an awful dream, cracking floor tiles and crunching dead flowers beneath its sinuous trunks.
Ten Piedad was nothing short of nightmarish, and Nadia had already tensed up in anticipation, but at the same time the smile on her face was one of genuine glee. Just today, the Seekers had already fought a reality-warping, miniboss-summoning maniac, a gigantic mechanical wasp plus the royal pain inside, a dance-obsessed necromancer, and an armada of alien robots. Pulling her hilts from her belt, she inserted the blades in quick succession. Chkk-chkk. If the boss of Mercy Dreams was just some big tree demon, she could blow this joint in time for dinner. Providing her bad luck didn’t jinx things, of course. The feral flourished her boxcutters in the flickering candlelight, and assumed a battle-ready stance.
Sectonia hovered her way down, following Nadia but keeping some distance for now as the feral charged into battle. She unwittingly agreed with Nadia here, this was pedestrian considering what they had just fought all things considered.
Knelt down on one knee moving around as he stared down the Ten Piedad, Artorias looked akin to his namesake; a wolf circling its prey “Tis like the beast moves as though it were half conscious.” the knight observed quietly, the sudden bit of unexpected insightfulness took Osvald by surprise though he only raised an eyebrow.
The scholar's hand glowed brightly flames dancing in the palms of his hands, the light casting a glint in Osvald's round spectacles ‘Whatever monstrosity this is, it looks as if it cannot hold up its own weight easily.’ not surprising considering that it seemed as if it were only just waking up “It should burn all the same.” the scholar shrugged “That shalt be seen.”
Both men stood at the ready, the knight held his hefty blade in one hand while he moved slowly waiting for the moment to leap at the Ten Piedad, the scholar meanwhile stood back standing with one hand out of pocket producing a ball of fire in his palm.
Long before it got into melee range, Ten Piedad raised both its arms, then bent and slammed them into the ground. The earth began to rumble, and thorny briars as tall as itself began to sprout around the arena with enough force to scourge the flesh of its enemies.
Being a flier, Sectonia was immune to the sprouted thorns, but this creature was much larger than other things in the prison for sure. It was a tad bigger than she was now due to that spirit fusion she had done earlier. And with the damaging ground below her, she knew her Antlers wouldn’t survive dealing with that. So instead she gave everyone her pipe of insight shield and haste to reposition. She also summoned her Homing Crystals, which floated about her as she apparently wasn’t close enough to have them launch off yet.
Meanwhile on the ground the melee fighters would need to compete with the spiked briars that shot from beneath the ground, Artorias fared better than his scholarly acquaintance.
Osvald stumbled backward only narrowly escaping being impaled by the briars grunting the scholar scrambled for footing “Flames! Reduce them to ash!” the scholar called out, the Ten Piedad suddenly became engulfed in a blazing conflagration as Osvald's spell took effect.
Through the fire and the flames, the Wolf Knight rushed the Ten Piedad head-on expertly cleaving at the briars as he dashed at the monster.
Nadia followed his example, racing through the vaulted subterranean chamber. Dead flowers crumbled beneath their footsteps, and their swift passage blew out candles not already toppled by the random outcrops of spiky vines, but the flame from Osvald that set Ten Piedad alight rendered it clearly visible to all. “Guess we’re both fired up now.” She darted around the briars rather than try to chop them down, so with her edge in speed over Artorias the two of them reached their target at about the same time. This monstrosity was downright scary up close, its height and demonic visage horrible to behold, but the feral didn’t lose her head just yet. Ten Piedad knelt, one arm raised. Its limb contorted, bending more like a tentacle than an actual arm, then lashed out with crushing force and much greater range. “Nice try!” Nadia uncoiled the muscle fibers in her legs to spring into the air, leaping over the enormous branch slash, then double jumped to somersault toward the monster’s head. “Here’s your treant!”
Klonk! Her flashing blades connected with the ghastly head, and stopped only a couple inches in. Though it looked like a skull, it had the consistency of a log, every bit as solid and durable as it looked. “Wood you look at that.” Nadia wrenched her blades loose, leaving a couple fresh grooves across the nightmare’s face, then planted her feet and flipped backward off Ten Piedad as its thrashing head brought one of its twisted horns within inches of her body. “It’s tough! Who’s got some serious chops?”
Sectonia wasn’t much of a pun lady herself, but she got what Nadia was saying and summoned her new greataxe as she got into throwing range and threw the large weapon at the tree demon. She was sure Nadia had some kind of pun with axes and trees. Her greataxe hurtled through the air and slammed into Ten Piedad’s shoulder from above, its blade embedded about a foot deep into its wooden torso. The function of the arm on that side did not seem impeded though, and when Sectonia got close enough to trigger Homing Crystal Soulmass, the spiky orbs fired off of their own accord and shattered against the monster’s wooden body to barely any effect.
Not much for humorous vernacular himself the feral's jokes flew over the stoic knight's head however her words did illicit a raised eyebrow from the Seekers newest recruit ‘Is she always like this?’ Osvald didn't linger on the thought long, the beastkin though weaving it into a play of words still pointed out something of value.
Meanwhile the headstrong knight lashed out violently with his considerable strength, his intimidatingly large blade though hefty sinking deep into the Ten Piedad’s body causing its body to creak as the place where a human torso would be splintered.
Artorias dislodged his sword, rolling backwards quickly to evade the wooden creature's strikes. Assuming a stance with both knees bent, he placed the palm of his hand on Finstertöter's hilt readying himself to leap and slam his blade down.
As the fight began in earnest, a few teammates waited outside of the danger zone. Primrose and Therion looked on, recovering their stamina and letting the fighters inside do as offered and take care of the beast - for now. They both knew that Ms. Fortune hadn't shown up at the last second during the battle with the two jailers; she and the others she'd had with her must have been waiting in the wings to assist, without getting in the way due to the narrow battlefield. So the two of them returned the favor, keeping an eye on what was going on inside should they be needed.
Then when they heard the several people approaching they promptly got out of the way.
Behind the team, the heavy weight that was Bowser slammed down, the turtle from a world of platforming casually leaping down a story to join the fight. His son landed beside him, wearing a set of headphones connecting to a cachet player. As Rika and Kamek both floated down to complete the quartet, Jr hit play, and transformed into a towering red armored centipede that stood head and shoulders above his father.
With a roar from the two royal koopas, and a whoop from the ship girl princess, the troop came charging into the fray to provide backup. Ironically it was the slower and less enthusiastic Kamek whose influence was felt first, as a magical semi-translucent fist as large as the koopa himself appeared above Ten Piedad’s head and took a swing at its chest at his command. The blow left a handful of cracks in its chest, stretched out like spider’s web. A second after that a singular crack of gunfire joined the fray as Quiet, one of Kamek’s strikers, perfectly slipped a sniper rifle round in between and above the melee fighters, this too aimed straight at the towering brute’s skull. A handful of splinters flew as the bullet buried into and lodged somewhere within the wood, yet Ten Piedad registered the headshot no more than it did the body blow. Was there really a vital organ in there?
The troop’s closer ranged fighters arrived a few moments later, the first pair doing so traveling atop a dozen or more legs as Jr in the guise of the Beast wove between thorny bushes charged in with Rika perched atop his chitin-armored back. The ship girl herself charged up a vaultbreaker punch as they approached, and then unleashed it when they got close, flying across the last remaining distance to deliver an unsteadying strike. Despite its power, the punch collided with Ten Piedad’s own swipe and lost, knocking Rika back just as the much larger target of Jr got into range. He followed up by delivering a Mountain Smash strike with his new horns, an attack that would reduce Ten Piedad’s resistance to further melee attacks, before both royal children got out of dodge, Rika launching herself into the air via feather fall rune and then grappling away, while Jr dove down into the earth, tunneling away from danger. As his long body worked its way in, Ten Piedad lifted its arms to pound his exposed tail against the floor, resulting in an earth muffled yelp.
Luckily, the Seekers also in this way got out of the way of their later arriving father’s own follow up, which was to leap up into the air and drive a powerful dropkick into their foe’s torso, a blow that would launch him back a bit in the process, and free up more space for follow ups.
That mighty dropkick resulted in the first sign of actual poise damage done to Ten Piedad so far, as the monstrosity took a half-step back, its arms and head lolling. Then its gruesome skull snapped to the side, and as Bowser flipped back to land after his dropkick, Ten Piedad stepped forward. It lurched two gigantic steps forward, leaving Nadia’s own attempt at a follow-up in the dust as it did, and lifted its arms to bring both down on top of the Koopa King. “Watch out!” the feral yowled, hoping her warning came in time.
Ten Piedad’s arms descended, unyielding and uninterruptible as it pounded the earth. Immediately a forest of briars, tall as bamboo shoots, shot up around it in irregular and expanding concentric circles. Those thorny brambles tore through the ground itself, an agonizing snare both above and below ground. As she rushed in to try and stab the nightmare in its exposed back, Nadia got blindsided from below by the impossibly fast growth, sliced in a dozen places and launched off her feet. “Nyagh!” By twisting around in the air she barely managed to land on her feet, sliding a short distance in a crouched stance as she bled from fresh cuts on her arms and legs. Worse still, the plant-type attack inflicted Grounded on her, reducing her accuracy. She felt woozy and drained, far more than she ought to be. As the briars disintegrated, she sucked in her breath and stood, ready to push through.
Bowser meanwhile attempted to counter the monster’s plants with his own, slamming both firsts and then a flurry of thorny vines into the ground, prompting his own wave of growth to race forwards to do battle with the titans. Rika meanwhile avoided it by leaping up and grappling up to the ceiling, where she hung for a moment as she used her rigging guns to fire a set of 4 power sapping globules at the foe. The distance between herself and her target, plus the globules’ spread and Ten Piedad’s motion, meant not all of them hit, but those that did splashed and crackled against its massive frame.
Jr and Kamek meanwhile focused on empowering themselves, the mage summoning a quartet of doppelgangers to increase his survivability and firepower, while Jr, after bursting back out of the ground again to get the speed needed to avoid the rootsplosion, pivoted and flashed silver for a moment as he sharpened his Beast form’s natural weapons, readying to come in for another attack.
Artorias was unperturbed by the vicious briars, fearlessly rushing towards the monster the knight swung Finstertöter in a circular arc slashing the forest of thorns as they appeared in his way ignoring the pain as the briars that shot up beneath him caught his legs, with a howl both of pain and battlefury he leapt at the Ten Piedad whom seemed busy slamming its arms down, he landed an overhand slam with his blade that reverberated against the ground.
With laboring breaths he flipped into the air again bringing his blade down the clang of Finstertöter against the hard floor almost deafening.
Then with one final guttural howl the knight somersaulted and brought his blade down like a lumberjack chopped wood. If the monster hadn't moved it would certainly be in danger, but not enough to cause it to fall. The impressive strength behind that heavy cutting edge worked to great effect, hacking so deep into one of Ten Piedad’s arms just above the elbow that when it withdrew the limb, it was dangling by little more than a strip.
It's body would certainly be in rougher shape than it had at the beginning of the fight, meanwhile behind the knight Osvald contested with the thorns doing as much as he could to avoid them “Fire burn these weeds away!” the scholar called, flames exploded outward from the Ten Piedad the knight kicked himself off the monster and into the air narrowly escaping the flames, landing on his feet already assuming a fighting stance.
Sectonia meanwhile summoned back her axe and used it to conjure her massive Rings of Light, which she threw at the tree demon, taking some hits from its erupting briar shoots as this attack kept her stationary for its short duration. With all the others getting into melee, there really wasn’t much room for her at this time, so she was stuck using this attack for now.
It seemed like the entire fifth layer had shaken as the wood monster struck the ground in its room. It was about that time that Primrose and Therion thought that they should lend a hand.
Primrose was already in motion, preparing another buff for her allies. The thing they were fighting seemed to shrug off most physical attacks, but rather than increase the Seekers' physical strength to account for that she chose to give them a boost to something she thought would work out better. She danced, her steps flowing into the powerful, provocative Peacock Strut. Kamek, Osvald, Sectonia, and all other spell casters in their group including herself would see a bump up in their magical power.
Then she entered the room proper, leaving the narrow walkway behind and dashing inside. She flung a Fire Orb at Ten Piedad as soon as it had formed in her hand.
Therion did not enter the room immediately. He might be able to survive in there, avoid the worst of the monster's attacks, but he could tell he'd have a hard time dealing damage to it. And at that point the only thing he'd be able to do is maybe act as bait, which he wasn't about to do.
He could feel Primrose's dance magic increase his fire power, so if it came down to it he could join in and set this massive pile of wood and bone to torch. For now though, he had at least one thing in his arsenal that might work.
"Get in there big guy," he told his striker as he summoned it, giving it a push with his foot to help it get going. The junicorn rolled into the battlefield, with its hard iron shell to protect it from Ten Piedad's attacks as well as any crossfire from the Seekers themselves. It came to a halt when its blood red limbs popped out of the shell, along with the massive lance-like horn. It fired that horn off at Ten Piedad.
Osvald’s conflagration had set Ten Piedad alight, igniting the flames that now smoldered across its body, but it took Primrose’s Fire Orb to really get the beast burning. Now the nightmare was engulfed in an inferno, a truly hellish vision and yet it neither languished nor agonized, just lurching forward toward the nearest Seekers to beat them into the dirt as well. Nadia recoiled from it, giving up on offense for a moment to backpedal toward safety. That Grounded status interfering with her depth perception was even more of a thorn in her side than the actual thorns, making her swings miss frustratingly often. And now she was loath to approach Ten Piedad’s burning body, remembering what happened when the illuminator’s red-hot iron hit her. That gave her an idea, though.
Just after Junicorn’s horn slammed into the demon’s hip, Nadia stuck her boxcutters in the ground and charged forward. “The only spike I need…” Putting her palms together, she conjured a maelstrom sphere of Hydro power that she tossed up into the air. Then she leaped after it and brought her palm down on its roiling surface like a giant volleyball. “Is this!”
Empowered by Peacock Strut, Purrge of Vengeance struck Ten Piedad’s burning body in an explosion of magic water that immediately caused Vaporize, dealing an extra burst of damage in a concussive blast of steam. It also put out the fire, putting the pyromancers’ efforts back to square one. Now that she’d figured out a better strategy than just hitting the thing, though, Nadia was on a roll. She had just enough tension for another Purrge of Vengeance, so when Ten Piedad turned toward her she threw it and ran away. While it hurt less, it left her enemy Wet, so when Nadia grabbed her boxcutters she bolted into and through the monster with Charge. “Just call me the branch manager,” she joked, whipping around to deliver two critical electric slashes that also turned Wet into Electro-charged. “‘Cause here’s some budget cuts!”
Even as lightning coursed across its frame, Ten Piedad didn’t seem too impressed. No sound issued from its head, but for a moment, Nadia could swear that she heard something issuing from inside its torso. It sounded like whimpering, or maybe crying. As she tried to press her advantage, the monster shrugged off her attack and struck Nadia with its dislocated elbow, knocking her away in a corkscrew. “Gah, this thing just doesn’t budge at all!” When Ten Piedad continued to fight, it attacked in a frenzy somewhat faster than before.
Staying out of range of this frenzy was Kamek and his doppelgangers. The latter risked themselves more, as 4 red hued ones swooped in and started flying around Ten Piedad while pelting it with magical blasts. The monster’s incredible reach meant that it gave a lot better than it got, though. Their ranged firepower was joined by a swarm of lighting bugs launched by Rika, and a bolt of lightning fired from the tip of her Ichor Queen striker’s massive blade, both attempts to follow up on Nadia’s soaking of their foe. Unfortunately the latter missed, and while the former hit, the feral had already used up the Wet status she applied to cause Electro-charged, making the lightning bugs no stronger than normal.
Kamek himself meanwhile turned his magic to support, wrapping Jr in an amber sphere of protection that would reduce any physical damage the prince’s large form would take to but a fifth of what it would have been. He did so just in time, as the prince went charging in a moment later to try and sink his sharpened teeth into one of the titan’s arms inorder to steal its hp and restrict its movements for a moment.
He was joined in this by Bowser, who, having ‘won’ the plant war, now went on the offensive, forming grappling roots that tried to intertwine with the ones on their towering foe’s feet to trip up their movement. At the same time he deployed two cruel cannons and unleashed a supersonic bombardment to try and confuse Ten Piedad for good measure. Ten Piedad was nothing if not stubborn, though, and in a way it already seemed confused. It threw its weight around with nigh-unstoppable might, overpowering Junior and dragging him around while the roots only slowed it down. However, Junior’s weight on the arm already carved into by Artorias put extra stress on the remaining material. Any more and it might very well snap off.
It seemed like the elemental attacks had some effect on Ten Piedad, but only after several of them had combined in a volatile way. Was the creature resistant to magic as well? Primrose could certainly keep using her pyromancy, but she could also leave the fire to the Seekers' newest addition. When she attacked next it was to add to the magical bombardment with another spell entirely.
First she had to make it through the monster's frenzied attacks. She leveraged her dexterity to avoid most of its wild swings and the thorny vines it summoned. They were quicker than she'd expected, but at least she ended up with cuts instead of impalement. Then her hands lit up, not with flames but silvery moonlight. Her entire body followed suit when she used up one of her battle points to further increase her magic power.
"Luna!" Glittery moons shaped by the spell converged on the monster. As that glittering moonlight blast cut not just through Ten Piedad’s magical resistance, a very muffled scream issued from inside its torso. For a moment the monster spasmed.
As all this was going on, Therion's striker had just enough time left to roll in and try to stab Ten Piedad in melee range before it was knocked away and disappeared.
Around the same time Therion himself slunk into the large room proper. He stuck to the walls and darker areas, avoiding the monster's attention and keeping out of the way of its vine attacks. With so many allies giving it their all, and the monster itself on the offensive, it was difficult to find an opening for himself to get in close. So he watched and waited. When he got the chance, he could at least try and soften the thing up for the others. And as he watched and waited, he spotted something odd. Another one of those paper butterflies fluttered around one of the nondescript, candle-festooned altars at the periphery of the fight. He’d seen enough of them in Mercy Dreams that it almost didn’t register, but in here it was the only one, and this one fluttered weakly on torn wings. He knew those things had information written on them - and it was possible that there being one monster and one butterfly in the same room wasn't a coincidence. On the edge of the battlefield the thief made a beeline towards it to snatch it up and see what it read.
I'm still inside the creature. I can hear its roar outside, I can hear the thunderous beating of its heart. I just wanted to sleep, but I saw the Miracle in my dreams. It spoke to me. That is why I lie down in the Lady's open arms. But the Miracle appeared to me again. It was more and more tangible. Then I woke up, but I was no longer myself. I was a prisoner trapped inside a rooted body. A body immersed in constant anger. In constant pain. I am awake in a sleeping body.
Sectonia meanwhile changed her tactics from her rings of light or axes, to try the whole fire thing and electric thing the others were trying. They seemed to elicit some kind of reaction when the creature was hit by them, so Sectonia teleported above it to rain some lightning and fireballs over it before retreating to see what effect it had. Naturally, the wooden demon burned better than it got shocked.
Grounded once again, Nadia quickly learned not to waste any energy or resources on big attacks that her disoriented state might cause to miss. Instead she played a noncommittal hit-and-run game, dashing in for a couple chops with her boxcutters and then hightailing it away from Ten Piedad’s crushing blows whether she connected or not. Although the nightmare flinched for almost nothing, the Seekers’ efforts seemed to be having an effect, especially heavy slash damage and fire damage. She could see a couple cracks across its torso, some with small holes deep enough that she couldn’t see anything but darkness inside. The problem was that Ten Piedad didn’t behave like something alive that felt pain or needed vital organs. It was more like wood animated by some mystical force. But Nadia could swear she heard a voice from inside it, and Primrose’s magic actually got a reaction. So what was this creature’s deal?
When the monster lifted its leg and brought it down for a massive stop, sending a line of thorny vines racing across the floor, Nadia dropped her boxcutters and rushed in. “Grub’s up!” She hurled Athame, which thudded into Ten Piedad’s rib cage and lowered its defense, then jumped up. Without thinking she transformed her right arm with Fluffy Soft, swelling it into the striped limb of a white tiger with a paw as big as her head and kukri-sized claws. “It’s a rib dinner!” Her big swipe ripped out a bunch of wooden chunks, but beneath she could see nothing but petrified flesh. “Tch!” she snarled, landing the next moment. Ten Piedad chased her off with a much bigger, much more dangerous swipe. “Looks like I’m a ‘shallow’ person after all,” she griped. When she pulled out her Free Lemonade, she found it magically refilled, and splashed it on Ten Piedad to do slight damage over time.
At this point the group's other thief actually entered the thick of battle, if only to deliver some information. In light of it, he wasn't sure that his debuffing would have any real effect anyway. Therion weaved through the vines that erupted and spread out, stopping when he was in a close enough position that most of the Seekers would be able to hear him.
"There's someone inside of it," he told the others. He was confident that was the case. He still had the unfolded paper moth in his hand and its contents, like that of a prisoner's firsthand account, explained the noises that his sensitive ears had been picking up. The faint, muted sounds of pain that had seemed like they were coming from the monster, but not from the monster itself.
"Like a mecha?" she suggested, using the term Jesse had used in regards to a smaller entity controlling a larger one. The look Therion threw her clearly said he had no idea what that was. Regardless, now she definitely knew what to do. She could use her Vengeful Spirit or continue to cast Luna to get through the outer shell. She prepared to do the latter.
"They could be trapped," Therion warned before she cast. This he had no basis for besides the writing, but given everything he'd seen in the prison so far, he wouldn't be surprised if this was some other, extremely unique kind of torture device. He didn’t make any suggestion to free that person; they were probably just yet another unfortunate stuck here, but if anyone else was so inclined and actually had any ideas for how to go about doing that, he’d help out.
Primrose had no such ideas. "Noted," she said, and conjured another round of moons.
Having a potential weakpoint exposed, Sectonia wasn’t as worried about there being someone ‘trapped’ inside this creature, in her eyes it was the thing inside piloting this thing. And seeing its super high defense, she had to start using something that got around that. She had a spell just for that, and started throwing her void globules at the creature, the dark energy bypassing its resistances much like the moonlight did beforehand. Being assaulted by both light and void probably wasn’t too comfortable for it.
The Troop members were not exactly sure what they could do about the person within either, particularly given they had been beaten back in each attempted assault. Kamek’s doppelgangers were down, Jr had been hurled clear of the fight despite his damage resistance, and Bowser had uprooted and backed off to avoid being stomped on. They were also rather lacking in coordination, which is why Jr proceeded to group up with and then drop out of his Beast transformation to strategize.
A strategy that mostly boiled down to ”Burn it!” which in hindsight should have been the obvious strategy vs a plant monster, but a desire to try out new tricks had been rather suppressed. Fortunately they had plenty of firepower in their back pockets to pull out now.
Kamek switched to furling blasts using his Fire Materia, while alongside him jr used a combination of his paintbrush and his Ferromancy to form and then fire burning goop coated spikes at the towering tree.
As they did this, Bowser and Rika closed in again. The ship girl made use of the same burning goop that Jr was, but fired at a much more rapid rate from her grizco blaster, at the cost of having to get in close, meaning she had to also focus on dodging and throwing out blocking strikers to avoid getting smashed. All she wanted/needed was to fire 8 however, at which point her all out assault kicked in and hammered their foe with a rapid fire spread shot wave.
Bowser was right there with her, coated in defensive vines thanks to a heal from jr, and had a much more straightforward way of bringing the flame. Fire breath. Admittedly there was a slight increase in complexity, namely that he summoned his trowlon striker, and had it float him to and fro evasive while he focused on burning down the tree, as well as blasting it with armor melting acid from his shoulder cannons while he was at it.
While the beast was pelted with either flame or sword the Koopa Troop seemed to fair just fine without the need for Osvald's magic “So that's what could be making that noise…” the scholar muttered under his breath overhearing the dancer and thief's conversation.
The plume upon Artorias’ helmet whisked this way and that, breathing heavily as he crouched low. The knight's attention solely focused upon the enemy, Artorias ignored the words of those around him. Drawing in one last sharp breath, he filled his lungs. Muscles tensing as the Wolf Knight pushed himself off the ground with a beast like roar, the knight leapt into the air raising his weapon as he went down to strike a deadly blow. If his crushing weight didn't somehow make the creature fall then the length of his blade as it plunged through the Ten Piedad’s body surely would.
By the time Artorias mustered up his ferocious might for a final effort, his strength was practically overkill. At this point, Ten Piedad was missing most of one of its arms, and its wooden flesh -already carved into and gouged in a dozen places- was charred black by the abundance of fire the Seekers inundated it with. His greatsword pierced through the nightmare’s torso, sinking up to the hilt and protruding from the other side. Ten Piedad froze, its back arched. It convulsed once, coughing up a lot of blood, and as more began to seep from the deepest holes in its torso it slowly turned toward the kneeling statue. It took one staggering step, then fell, its one remaining hand outstretched in a final plea for mercy.
“Whew, there we go. Now that’s what I call an unpleasantree.” Nadia let out her pent-up breath, relaxing her shoulders and stance somewhat. Yet she didn’t ease up completely. Though she watched the giant corpse rapidly age and crumble away for a moment, she turned her narrowed eyes around the shadowy room, searching. “Well, take a breather while you can, guys. ‘Cause that felt just a little too easy.”
Therion approached the corpse while it rapidly cooled and disintegrated. He was looking for the sign that this was the prison's boss, something like that item they were sent here to fetch in the first place. So far, the only thing he saw was the monster's spirit - one single spirit. He'd probably never really know if he was right and there had been someone stuck inside of it, but in the grand scheme of things he supposed it didn't matter either way.
He did get the feeling that Ms. Fortune was right, especially because as he sifted through the ashes he found nothing besides the spirit. No keys popped out like when they'd defeated the zombie jailers outside, and no mask fragment fell for the Seekers to claim.
"Yeah. Plus there's nothing here, it didn't drop anything."
”Seriously? After all that? Uuuuurgh” came a whining from jr, and although the other troop members where a little less high pitched in their complaints there was certainly a fair bit of frustrated grumbling to be had.
”Hmm… Or this could just be a magical construct like my Antlers, possibly by the boss itself.” Sectonia pointed out, noting the lack of a spirit.
Level 4 Roland - (13/40) Level 12 Blazermate (Holding 3 level up) - (66/120) Level 6 Susie - (25/60) - (Holding 3 level up) Location: Sector 9 Word Count: Less than 750
The ranged attacks of Roland and Susie weren't going to do much it seemed, and after getting punished with more damage, they both groaned a bit before deciding to try to get into melee and beat up this corrupt angel thing. At least Roland reflected a bit of the damage he took back at the angel as mental damage, if that thing was affected by that at least. At least Blazermate got a good use out of her Kritz.
Roland used his skill with his giant sword to deflect a fireball shot aimed at him as he approached, before finally closing the distance to strike her with the same large sword. Susie meanwhile used her transporter to fly over before she got close enough to start beating this thing up with her business suit. Their maneuvers got them off the platform that was about to get blasted, and while they approached the angel, Shinra arrived in a helicopter to aid some 'support', but only really took a laser for them before flying off. At least that gave Roland and Susie enough of a distraction to get close enough to start attacking the already cracked arms.
Roland continued with a couple swipes with his swords, before switching to his polearm for a stab as Susie worked ont he other arm, punching it with her mecha fists. This as well as all the rockets that Shinra had fired managed to break an arm, and before they could work on the other, Goldlewis told eveyrone they had an escape route to leave this thing for the shinra forces to take care of. Roland didn't need be told twice, and disengaged to make his way back, same with Susie as the creature was busy dealing with Shinra's helicopter. Blazermate, being near who was injured, was closer to the copter than the other two, but as Roland tried to make a jump to another platform, being unable to fly like Susie and Blazermate, the platform got blasted by one of the various missiles flying about forcing Blazermate to zoom over and catch the fixer and bring him back her way.
"Ugh, what is even going on anymore." Roland said, sighing as he was being flown to the evac point, Blazermate saying. "A big boss monster. Not the first time this has happened, but more laser beams this time. The consoul is new, but its strange how they're fighting this thing since I figured they caused all of this. Man, this is so confusing." Blazermate said. Susie, having gone ahead due to not needing to carry someone, could only look back at what had been going on and said. "And to think there is something bigger out there, then something bigger than that. We're going to need more firepower to deal with all of this."
Level 11 Sectonia (holding 5 level up) - (45/110) Location: The Under - The prison Word Count: 1106
Sectonia wasn't too thrilled about the endless sea of goblins coming from the chest, even if they were easy to handle. And juas as she was getting pushed to the stairs, clearing goblins that came after her. With her antillions and tesla coil and the occasional massive Ring of Light, she could keep the goblins and their choppers away from her. This was more or less a case of chasing the unchasable, as she cleared 1 goblin, 3 popped up to take its place. That on top of Nadia coming out of nowhere with some white tiger chasing her, which caused the chest to fall off the railings and down, down deeper into the prison. Considering the group had to eventually get down there, she sighed as she knew they'd have to deal with them as they moved down...
Speaking of moving down, she had to find a way down that wouldn't put her in the center of what would probably be a huge goblin mess first. Considering the sounds she was hearing below and the bright flash of light below, the others had made their way down there so she could do the same. As she moved through the prison, she found an unlocked door which she figured would bring her down to the next level. However instead, she found herself in what others would call a 'modern' room. Well, a modern room with some research equipment. Surrounding a blue tinted black ornate framed mirror was various research equipment, some green herbs, and some audio tapes and a typewriter. Sectonia tried to listen to one of the tapes, but all she got was gibberish. Even so, she was more interested in the mirror since now she can see what she looked like after all those recent fusions.
As she approached the mirror to look at the changes she had undertaken, she noticed right away she was a bit smaller. She knew this as her antillions were now 'bigger' to her than they were, but this confirmed it. Also the extra armor which she didn't really feel was something to get used to, but at least it was opulent and crystalline so it at least looked good. Her eyes were the bit she found to be the strangest, with such weird pupils. But they made her look more... cute than beautiful which she wasn't sure what to think about at this time. As she moved to touch the mirror to get a better look at herself, something... happened. She felt like she went through the mirror, but could still see herself on the other side. It was a strange feeling, and as she turned around after getting a good look at herself and her outfit, she noticed everything had a weird tint to it.
She noticed pretty quickly that she couldn't teleport, nor could she summon antillions in this weird space, and that while she could see herself on the other side of the mirror, that 'self' wasn't moving anymore. It was as if she had been sucked into the mirror. She also noticed that all text was reversed, and if she spoke, she also spoke in reverse. She could only sumize she got trapped in the mirror or some kind of weird mirror world. Now if this was a trap, or the way forward, she wasn't sure, so she decided to at least explore a bit.
She found that where there were guards and other things, the prison was vacant. No chop goblins, no guards, nothing. At least until she got back to the place where the chop goblin chest fell, in which she found something that looked like herself. Considering the whole backward speech thing that Sectonia couldn't understand, all she could gather was this individual was called Ainotces. Considering she wasn't going to decode backwards talk, she got ready for the fight with an alternate looking version of herself.
The battle started with the fake casting a spell Sectonia herself didn't know, a spell that encased the faker in a skin that looked like marble. This slowed them down a little bit, but greatly increased their defense. Sectonia soon figured this out as she found that her arcane prisms did very little, but all she had to do was swap to her void globules to bypass that. But that was just setup for the next spell, a bunch of homing soul projectiles that seeked out Sectonia. Sectonia countered with her own pipe of insight, before blasting her clone with lightning, the void globules beforehand and the lightning shattering the marble armor.
Annoyed with this pretender, Sectonia decided to get rid of this thing using her new weapons after having shattered her marble armor. Although she soon found that, without her telelporting, that she'd have to use her new fancy axe as it seemed to do lots of damage when thrown. Her doppleganger meanwhile attacked her with her own antillions, being actually able to summon them. Sectonia knew how to handle them though, and unleashed a large Ring of Light to clear them out, although that lead to her counterpart showing her third new spell, a longer cast of green energy that Sectonia found went right past her magical defenses and hurt really bad. The cast time was long though, so she wouldn't let her counterpart do that again.
And to make sure of that, Sectonia hasted herself to get in close again to stab and bash her counterpart who was getting ready to cast another one of those homing soul bolts and get in a melee combo mid cast with her swords and staff. And when her counterpart teleported away to use that green bolt again, Sectonia moved to her and just held her giant ring of light right against her counterpart to not only make her drop the spell or get hit really hard, but in an attempt to finish her off. This broke her concentration and forced her to move, which Sectonia followed up by firing the large ring, hitting her counterpart on the teleport arrival and shattering her.
After the fight, Sectonia found herself back in the real world, staring at a blank mirror. She found an item in her hands as well. A scroll that let her cast some homing souls. Although she could only use it a couple times a day. She also found another item that seemed to hold some appearance of some kind, but now wasn't the tiem for that. She had to get down to the third level now, who knows how much time had passed while she was inside the mirror.
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