Word Count: 752 Level 7 Roxas: 44/70 Exp: 2 NEW EXP Balance--- 46/70
It was immediately obvious that Roxas and his group weren’t the only ones freshly coming from a tough fight. Shinra’s son, and of course that Konoe guy they’d all been warned about. Although the latter had apparently now joined their side, evidenced by his lack of Galeem’s influence. If only everyone they freed could be that easily convinced to help. Otherwise they’d have Sam and Kale there with them as well. But those two apparently had other ideas and now nobody knew of their whereabouts as far as the Nobody was aware.
”After seeing how Shinra runs this city and meeting Armstrong for myself?” Roxas commented, ”It’s almost a good thing all this stuff started happening. City was gonna be rotten no matter who won that election.” Of course that also begged the question of what happens to the city next. Assuming the Seekers succeeded and everyone was freed… well both the President and his election challenger were still gone. So even without the crisis at hand there was still going to be a huge power vacuum just waiting to be filled in with all this smoke finally cleared up.
But with Konoe there he was able to open the wall without Roxas even having to lift a finger. A bit of an anticlimax from the Nobody’s perspective, since his Keyblade was no longer needed. But oh well, best not to complain about any of the extra back up. And Roxas was… not prepared at all for what was waiting beyond. Big open chamber and… was that a giant white hand being chained over there? Was that the Guardian? No time to think. Another Consul showed up, not the same one from the debate though. He summoned a bunch of red pods that revealed a small army of Neuron Policewomen that all looked… creepily identical. Like they were clones or something.
”Umm…” Roxas stammered, having nothing he could really say in the face of this strange and confusing mess he now found himself in the middle of, ”...Is anyone else weirded out by this?” he asked, readying both his Keyblades. Roxas vaguely remembered seeing some of these officers in action the other day, so the thought of having to fight a small army of them was… not pleasant.
Well, nothing for it now. Roxas went on the attack as soon as he could. He sprinted toward one of the clones to strike at her, but something invisible slammed into him before he could get close and sent him sprawling back to his starting position, ”What?” Roxas looked around as he got back up, but saw nothing except for the clones of Akira Howard. He ran for another attack that ended in the same result.
”How are you doing this?” he muttered, now trying to attack what he thought might be invisible enemies around him. But he hit nothing but air. Or was it air? Moments after something invisible seemed to grab and throw him back to the ground. This had to be the clones’ doing. And maybe taking down the clones would stop whatever this was, but how was he supposed to do that when the invisible forces were all around him and not letting up?
”Fire!” He shot a firaga spell at one of the clones. That at least connected, but for any type of attack Roxas might launch, the clones could fight back not only directly but indirectly through whatever invisible enemies were helping them. That meant that Roxas had very little in the way of options. He managed to fight off clones once and a while, but kept getting ragdolled by the invisible things helping them. And it wasn’t long before this was starting to feel impossible.
”Agh!” Roxas grunted, having just been pummeled by invisible attacks. He had no choice but to use Curaga to get himself back on his feet, ”What am I supposed to do here?” He fought off the incoming incoming attacks for what it was worth, but those invisible enemies just couldn't be touched. He managed to knock out a couple of the clones, but just getting to them was hard on it's own because of the invisible things they were commanding. Let alone the fact they were capable of fighting on their own. The prospects of this battle were getting grimmer and grimmer by the second.
"How are we supposed to fight enemies we can't even see or touch?"
Word Count: 2,204 Level 6 Ganondorf: 24/60 Exp: 3 NEW EXP Balance--- 27/60
It was finally over. Ganondorf had at last reawakened after the death of Robin Goodfellow in whatever that dreamworld was. The two warframes lay lifeless on the ground. Dead, or at least he thought so at first. When they continued to lay there and not become spirits, that was when he became somewhat curious. It didn’t take him long to surmise what had happened. They were still sleeping, still trapped in that dreamworld perhaps. And that meant they were also totally helpless.
”My, how the tables have turned.” he mused as he stood over the seemingly lifeless body of Oberan, who had infuriated him so much. He sneered down at the warframe, hand tightening its grip on the hilt of one of his swords. He could have waited for the Seekers to come to some kind of consensus on what to do with them. In fact he probably should have done just that. And the King of Evil drew his sword anyway and brought it crashing down into the head of the helpless Oberon. And only now did the Warframe finally dissolve into a spirit that Ganondorf quickly snatched up for himself.
”I told you victory would be mine.” Ganondorf said to the spirit, even though it couldn’t actually hear or understand him, ”And now your power belongs to me.” The Gerudo King didn’t give much more thought before he hugged the warframe’s spirit against his body in order to consume it.
Notable spirit consumed: Oberon Prime The host is a bit smaller and slimmer, though still sturdy and strong. His armor is more exaggerated into large, intricate plates (trimmed with gold) over a sleeker, more futuristic undersuit of dark gray. His pauldrons have blunt serrations like battlements, his hair is shorter, and he's now wearing a helmet with four horns (two curved upward, two curved forward) that extends down over his nose spartan-style. Small purple lights dot his attire. This spirit confers the Strength Bullet Jump, substantially boosting the host's movement abilities. The host can launch into a quick slide, double jump, aim glide, wall run, wall climb, and high jump. This spirit also confers the weakness Warframe Reactions, causing a certain status affliction when affected by any two of the following elements at once: heat, cold, electricity, and poison.
Like the first time he had done this, there was a brief flash of light that covered his body. When that faded, a different-looking Ganondorf was left standing there. Slightly smaller, so the spirit likely canceled out some of his increased size from the Leo sigil. Also his hair was a little shorter, but that didn’t bother Ganondorf in the slightest. He preferred it being short over being long anyway. It was his clothing and armor that changed the most. The plates were a bit more exaggerated, his clothing underneath them became a dark gray undersuit, and all of it was dotted with small purple lights. Most notably was the helmet he now wore, with its pair of horns curved upward and another pair curved downward in addition to its front slit that extended over his nose. Ganondorf was almost tempted to discard the helmet, having never much cared for wearing those, but decided against that and held onto it for the time being.
The Geurdo bent his knees into a crouch before suddenly launching into a slide that led into a fast sprint. From that sprint he then leaped high until he reached a wall, at which point he began actually running along it for a few steps before launching off and then jumping a second time while in midair in order to land roughly at the same spot he had started from. Just as he had hoped, the Warframe’s spirit had vastly improved his mobility both on the ground and in the air as well. No longer would he have to worry about sluggishly fighting an opponent that was faster than himself. And so Ganondorf gave himself a satisfied smirk, ”Yes… excellent.” he remarked to himself about his newfound mobility, ”Let’s see you try and out-maneuver me now... Hero.”
After a moment of pause Ganondorf looked over at the rest of the Seekers, ”Think I’ll give the prison one more sweep to make sure we’ve cleared it. I could use a chance to stretch my legs with this new form of mine.” he announced to them before he exited out of the lower chamber and worked his way back up the previous layers of Mercy Dreams.
Soon Ganondorf found himself back up around the first layer of the Prison. This was part of an area he had not explored, having entered through the third layer alongside Jesse due to the detour they had previously taken. So this all looked new to him. Still, it was a far cry from the disgusting appearance of the lower layers, so it was at least a slightly more welcomed change of scenery.
In his exploration, Ganondorf found a door that led into someone’s office. This presumably belonged to the prison’s warden - who no longer appeared to be present. Either they had left or - more likely - one or more of the Seekers had already dealt with them. Either way, this left the Warden’s office open for the Gerudo King’s perusal. He didn’t find very many things of interest, apart from a curious set of bronze keys. They looked like they might snap in two just from being used, but in Ganondorf’s experience, keys like this often led to rooms that potentially contained treasure or other useful secrets. Or perhaps some prisoner’s cell that could also lead to a useful discovery.
Ganondorf didn’t have the patience to search through several rooms, so he took only a single key for himself and left the remaining four where they were found. Maybe one of the others could make use of them, it didn’t matter much to him. On his way out, the Gerudo spotted what looked like Bowser and his troop entering a nearby cell. Ganondorf hadn’t paid much mind to it on the way in, but now that the Troop was showing interest in it, he did wonder for a moment if that cell contained anything important. Only for a moment though, as he had no intention of actually joining them inside. It was probably already crowded there as it is and Ganondorf had other things to do at the moment, so in the end he let them be and went on his way.
A little further down on the second layer, Ganondorf finally happened upon a cell with a bronze lock keeping it closed. It wasn’t hard to guess that it could be opened by a bronze key, and that guess turned out to be exactly right. Not only that, but Ganondorf was also correct in his earlier assessment of the key as it indeed snapped into pieces upon turning the lock open, rendering it useless afterward. Before Ganondorf could even open the door, someone came bursting out of it from within the cell. Ganondorf was able to pivot aside and avoid getting skewered by their weapon thanks to his newfound mobility courtesy of Oberon’s spirit.
The young man looked to be a soldier. Some light-scaled armor worn underneath white and green silk clothing. He’d probably be noble and elegant-looking if not for whatever time he spent here making his overall countenance looking more tattered and ragged from the prison cell. Surprisingly, he wasn’t unarmed. He held a fancy-looking trident that he gripped tightly as if his life depended on it. Despite his seemingly maddened state, one couldn’t help but notice a hint of intelligence and studiousness buried somewhere beneath it all. He was probably a skilled commander in his own right once upon a time in another life. A pity then, that fate placed him here in this place that turned him into such a mess of a prisoner, “I-I will see your vision through! I swear it!” Jiang Wei said, even though Ganondorf had no idea what or whom he was talking about.
”Such talent, wasted.” Ganondorf mused in response, showing a rare display of pity for the young soldier as he shook his head, ”A shame.”
The warrior said nothing else and went on the attack. Despite his obvious madness, his actual attacks still contained their original discipline and gracefulness. He spun his body around in order to put as much weight and momentum as he could into his thrusts and sweeps. Ganondorf had drawn one of his swords and used it to block the incoming attacks. But then the warrior did something unexpected. He swung his trident upward, which somehow summoned a quick whirlwind that took Ganondorf by surprise, sweeping him into an upward launch. The warrior leaped up into the air to do a followup in order to capitalize, but encountered a surprise of his own.
Ganondorf used his newfound bullet jump to perform a midair jump as a means of dodging out of the way of Jiang Wei’s follow up attack. This resulted in both men landing back on the floor to effectively reset the state of their duel back to where it was a moment ago. Ganondorf then used a bullet jump to slide forward for a quick slice as a way to go on the offensive and try to put Jiang Wei on the back foot. This seemed to work for the moment, Ganondorf’s aggressive attacks managing to press the attack and push Jiang Wei back a bit. But then he leaped to the side and then pushed himself off the corridor wall in order to try and attack Ganondorf from above with a downward thrust of his trident. Ganondorf spun around in order to sweep his blade upward to parry in the incoming thrust. Instantly he reached a free hand up and caught the falling Jiang Wei by the neck and then slammed him onto the floor with an explosive Flame Choke.
Despite that, Jiang Wei kicked himself back onto his feet. He was certainly persistent, Ganondorf had to admit that at least. Jiang Wei tightened his stance and wound himself up for another attack. As he did, an aura of might appeared to emanate from his form. Then all at once he exploded forward in a whirlwind of circular swings of his trident in Ganondorf’s direction. In fact his initial lunge seemed to release a shockwave of sorts intended to loosen the footing of his target and get them off balance so this attack could go unstopped. This did catch Ganondorf at first and resulted in him having to tank the first couple of swings. But as tough as this Dynasty Warrior was, even he couldn’t account for the sheer might of the King of Evil. Ganondorf was quickly able to regain his footing and absorb the remaining blows by blocking it with his greatsword.
Then the Gerudo King went right back on the offensive. He used a bullet jump to slide toward the corridor wall then sprang off of it in order to launch himself into a passing slash of Jiang Wei’s now-tiring body. Then Ganondorf caught himself on the opposite wall and launched back off of it. This time he crashed into Jiang Wei with a fiery Warlock Kick that knocked the former Shu General back and off his balance. Then the Gerudo lunged past the tired Jiang Wei with a final slice of the greatsword. With a last gasp of pain, the defeated Jiang Wei slumped, first to his knees, then fell forward onto the floor and ceased moving. Ganondorf’s victory was signaled by his form disappearing and turning into a Spirit, which Gerudo then picked up.
”Hmm… not bad.” Ganondorf mused. He thought for a moment about how best to use this Spirit. The young man would make for a decent striker, certainly. But the weapon he wielded also reminded Ganondorf of a weapon he himself had once wielded long ago. With a nod, Ganondorf squeezed the Spirit and crushed it, allowing it to then become a new weapon for the Gerudo to then add to his growing collection.
Vapor An ornate, but well-made Trident. 298cm in length, it was once wielded by a warrior of the Three Kingdoms.
King of Evil’s Trident: When wielding a trident or other polearm, Ganondorf adopts a somewhat faster fighting style than when he wields great swords, though not quite as hard-hitting. In addition, his attacks forgo being Dark elemental in favor of Lightning. This weapon style consists of quick thrusts, sweeps, and mid-range projectile attacks by way of throwing the trident. When thrown, the trident can then be used as a makeshift lightning rod that can attract powerful bolts of lightning summoned by Ganondorf's magic. Also after being thrown, the weapon can afterward be summoned back to Ganondorf's hand via summoning magic. Attacks with this type of weapon cannot build up the Dark Meter, nor does it possess any kind of chargeable meter of its own.
Ganondorf gave his newly-acquired trident a few quick swings and thrusts. It’d been a while since the last time he wielded one of these, but he hadn’t lost his touch. Ganondorf even gave the Trident a quick hurl, sending it circling around his body before he lunged forward to catch it in midair. Then he jumped straight up and threw the trident straight back down toward the floor at an angle. And then before he could even land, he used magic to summon a big lightning bolt that struck the weapon like it was a lightning rod. Then after he did land, Ganondorf reached forth his hand and the weapon was quickly summoned back to him in a cloud of purple dark magic. He smirked, satisfied with all of his newfound acquisitions. But he had toyed with these new powers for long enough. It was time to regroup with the rest of the Seekers.
Roxas’ @Double / Blazermate’s @Archmage MC vs Blaze / Fortune / RockTrans / HeartRoll Word Count: 7,004 Exp: +8
”Um…” Roxas looked around and was able to put it together that something went wrong. He stepped on the teleport pad like he was supposed to but even he could tell this was the wrong place. His first clue was the fact that he didn’t see any of the other Seekers around except for Blazermate. Did someone rig the pad at some point? Was that even possible? But wait, wouldn’t that mean that someone in Shinra was on to them and knew they were coming?
”Sandalphon, can you hear me?” Roxas asked, pressing his fingers to his ear and hoping the glyph the Angel had given him was still there, ”I got sent to the wrong place, what should I do?” He didn’t have to wait long to hear a response.
“Come in, everyone,” Sandalphon’s voice broadcasted through her personal network. “It appears that we tripped some sort of intrusion countermeasure and have been sent through a number of connected teleporter relays, effectively scattering us throughout Arahabaki. I am with Geralt, and we’re both unharmed. Please confirm your status ASAP.”
It sounded like they weren’t the only ones who got lost, ”It’s Roxas. We’re still in one piece over here. Blazermate’s here with me, too.”
Speaking of Blazermate, she was looking around the area to see what exactly was going on. They were in some weird Japanese themed industrial park with pagoda shingles mixed in with industrial scenery. At least she knew thanks to Sandalphon’s report that everyone was fine. ”Well, I’m glad everyone is fine. A bit weird we got split up like that though.” Blazermate said.
”Sure is. Man, just when I thought we had all this figured out.” said Roxas with an exasperated tone, ”Why can’t these things ever stay simple?” Not that groaning about this was going to help anything. So instead they might as well just get started, ”It’d be nice if we had any idea where this is so we could figure out where to go, though.”
The Keybearer had no idea that he was being watched. How could he? The woman was spying them from a long distance away through the scope of her large rail gun. She currently had it trained on the boy and was waiting for a clear shot. Personally she didn’t like the idea of having to kill a kid, but orders were orders. And these people were apparently extremely dangerous if the reports were to be believed, so nothing could be left to chance.
“Sorry about this, kid. It’s nothing personal.” she whispered to herself, and then squeezed the trigger.
”Well, I know we will be fighting something at SOME point, so might as well keep us both topped up.” Blazermate said, giving Roxas and herself an overheal. This was well timed as the railgun shot, coming from a large distance out of nowhere, hit Roxas and took out the full overheal and a bit of his actual health. ”Sniper, get cover!” Blazermate said, noting that she couldn’t scan where the shot came from.
And it knocked him clear to the ground to boot, ”Ack! What was that?” Roxas said, staggering to his feet and frantically looking around. His instinct was to find some cover, and yet for some reason another shot didn’t appear to be coming yet and he had no idea why. He couldn’t possibly have known that the weapon of his would-be sniper needed a cooldown before another shot could be taken. But before Roxas could begin thinking about it he heard some rather loud and metallic footsteps that honestly sounded more like stomps. Coming toward them head on was a space marine piloting a big bulky suit of power armor painted reddish orange with actual fire decals on the arms and a fiery yellow skull emblem painted on the center of the torso.
”That… doesn’t look very friendly.” Roxas said, pointing at the hulking Firebat stomping their way. As it got closer, he also realized that it wasn’t alone. It was flanked by a pair of robotic figures that bore a striking resemblance to Blazermate. One of them looked like a male and the other a female. The male medabot looked mostly blue and indigo, except for his eyes which glowed green. Also his right hand appeared to be replaced by some kind of cannon weapon. The female medabot was almost all pink and possessed similarly glowing green eyes. And like her male counterpart, her left hand appeared to be replaced by a… cannon? Or was it a crossbow? It sort of looked like a fusion of the two actually.
”Um… friends of yours?” Roxas asked Blazermate on the off chance that maybe she knew the robots. But something told him he wasn’t going to be that lucky and so he summoned both his Keyblades and brandished them in preparation for the fight he was pretty sure was coming.
”Uh nope. They aren’t ones I know. And they’re the fancy limited edition models too!” Blazermate said. ”The male one is model RME00, or RockTrans. The other is RME02, or Heart Roll. I’ve only seen them in catalogs!” She then looked at Blaze and said. ”Nope, I don’t know him. I guess he's their medafighter.”
And as the battle was about to start, out of a chimney popped out an old man in a sports official outfit. For all intents and purposes he just appeared out of nowhere for the group. Even Blaze was a bit confused at seeing this man appear out of nowhere saying “What the?” in a deep voice. As he appeared and began his speech about the oncoming Robattle, Blazermate said. ”Oh it's Mr. Referee! I haven’t seen him in forever! Roxas, he isn’t our enemy and don’t attack him. He just officiates Robattles.” and seemingly oblivious to the actual conflict in front of him, he called the names of both Blazermate and her medabot opponents before declaring a start to the robattle from his slightly off the ground perch.
With the battle starting, Blazermate summoned her striker who got to work making his buildings as she kept her healing beam on Roxas. While she knew what the two medabots names were, she wasn’t entirely sure what they did. ”If I had to guess, RockTrans will shoot you with his gun and be agile. The Heart Roll could either be a healer or an elementalist. It's hard to tell until they do something. Aim for the arms to disable their weapons, or their head to win the robattle.” Blazermate said, giving Roxas info on their medabot opponents She also said. ”That blaze guy is also really tanky, so he’ll take awhile to take down.”
And taking the robattle declaration to begin the fight, Blaze commanded the two medabots under his control to go after the pair as he himself used his jet fist to rocket towards Roxas, as Blazermate flew out of his reach. Much like Blazermate said, RockTrans began to shoot at the pair with his arm cannon, firing out pellets of energy at Blazermate who used her shield arm to block them. Heart Roll meanwhile shot her crossbow at Roxas, but needed a much longer time to reload compared to RockTrans’ cannon.
Roxas was pretty sure he couldn’t block an attack like the one Blaze was using. So instead he dodge rolled out of the way, his agility easily making him faster than the hulking Firebat. But that was also when the pink medabot started taking slow, measured shots at him with her crossbow arm. He deflected the first pellet with his Keyblades and dodge rolled away from a second one moments after. But he also seemed a little distracted by something. He glanced around himself on occasion, and seemed anxious. Whoever had tried to snipe him was definitely still hiding somewhere, and it was only a matter of time before they shot at them again.
He almost didn’t see the attack from Blaze coming. The Firebat sweeped his arm out in front of him and fired a gout of flames from his arm-mounted flamethrower. It almost caught Roxas due to his worrying about the sniper, but he snapped out of it and threw a Waterga spell out in front of him at the last second to keep the flames from getting him, ”Geez, who is this guy?” Roxas wondered, hurling one of his Keyblades at the Firebat. It hit, but didn’t appear to damage the armor very much. And right after that Roxas was nearly caught off guard by another arrow from Heart Roll. He avoided a direct hit, but it did glance him.
Elsewhere, the sniper’s railgun finished cooling down. Now she was leveling it, training it on the enemy medabot in the air. All she needed was the bot to pause for even a moment, then she’d squeeze the trigger and take her shot.
As Roxas managed to dodge Blaze’s jet punch, Blaze followed up with a can of oil, followed by his dual flamethrowers to light the oil and hit Roxas with all that fire. Although that being said, all of his abilities were spent for now so all he could do was try to use his smaller flamethrowers on Roxas until his fuel pressure recharged. Blazermate meanwhile was constantly healing Roxas, and blocking the RockTrans with her suffering shield. While a shield was very good against bullet type medabots, it wasn’t invincible. But that's where healing Roxas and herself got her a projectile shield, which seeing as it also did a lot of damage, she’d deploy right away. And just in time too, as another sniper shot aimed at her came at her, but fizzled when it hit the deployed projectile shield. At least now she had a bit of a better idea of where that sniper was as she moved up to start to approach and roast her two medabot enemies with the shield.
Seeing as this was similar to something a nutranurse would do, at first RockTrans and Heart Roll didn’t do much but reposition as they noticed really quick their shots couldn’t pass by the shield. What was new was that when Blazermate’s shield made contact with RockTrans, the medabot found that it hurt a lot, and used its superior agility to jump away as Heart Roll fired a healing arrow at him to heal. Using this, she moved to touch a crack and spawn a purgatory ghost, which zoomed in on the closest target, this being Blaze, and blowing up when it reached him. He was tanky though, and took the hit with a grunt as he moved on Roxas, entering his own fire and healing a bit.
Having some time to himself, the Engineer striker managed to build his sentry and began upgrading it. The gun attacked the closest target, Blaze again, and dealt some steady damage to the tank. Seeing the automated gun attacking him, he commanded RockTrans to fire on it and destroy it, delaying its upgrade to level 2 as the engineer whacked at it and repaired it when it was shot at. At least for now Rocktrans was distracted attacking the sentry, and with that Blazermate moved her shield over to try to zap Heart Roll and get into range to start to brawl with the ranged healer. She knew from experience that ranged medabots like her really didn’t like getting punched. Although like her partner Rocktrans, this medabot was also evasive and did what she could to stay out of Blazermate’s shield and melee range. Although it couldn’t fly like Blazermate, so this was only delaying the inevitable.
Even so, she was only tapped by a bit of Blazermte’s projectile shield before Blazermate had to retreat back to Roxas, but she could at least smack Blaze in the back with her ubersaw a couple times before she came back to hover around Roxas again. She got some uber from Blaze though, and when Roxas went to clash with him again, she’d get more uber from him.
Roxas had been quick to realize that Blaze was somehow being healed by fire. Given the Firebat’s apparent affinity for flame weapons, Roxas had never exactly intended on trying to throw any Firagas at him. But now he was doubly certain about not doing that. Instead Roxas combatted Blaze by wielding an element of his own. He used magic to repeatedly fling Waterga spells at the Firebat and the flames it was causing. By doing this he could not only deal water damage to Blaze’s armor, but also douse the fires he was setting and at least for the time being essentially cut off the guy’s ability to heal himself. And the space marine didn’t seem particularly happy about that, either. Which was probably why he kept trying to focus his attention on taking out the Keybearer.
And as long as Roxas could keep his distance and focus on throwing water spells, that would be all well and good. But there was an inherent flaw in Roxas’ strategy. Namely the fact that his MP wasn’t going to last forever. He’d run out sooner or later and then what? He’d have nothing to combat Blaze’s flames with at that point. So he’d have to get a bit bolder and try something to hit the tanky armored marine a bit harder. But what? His Striker wouldn’t do any good here, and in fact their fire attacks would just serve to heal Blaze! Since he had no other options he could think of, Roxas decided to hurl one more Waterga and then rush in against Blaze while he was still doused.
Being more agile, Roxas was quick to close the distance. He let loose a flurry of swings with his Keyblades against Blaze’s firebat armor. He honestly couldn’t tell how much damage this was doing. After a handful of strikes, Roxas leaped back and hurled another Waterga in anticipation of more flames from Blaze. This seemed like it was working, but Roxas was about to be in for a harder time. Blaze used some kind of spell that seemed to summon a literal bunker that dropped out of the sky and that he was now hidden within. Roxas’ waterga spell crashed into the bunker’s walls and damaged some of its HP, but within Blaze was completely safe and able to use his flamethrowers as if they had a much lower cooldown.
”Hey! No fair!” Roxas shouted. Evidently Blaze had done this out of a growing frustration over not being able to use his flames. Well now it was Roxas who was getting frustrated. Blaze even started throwing out fire from within the bunker. This? Roxas could dodge well enough. But the real trouble was figuring out how to get at the guy inside! And to make matters worse, RockTrans and Heart Roll also retreated into the bunker as well!
Blazermate could see the hp of everyone, even when they entered the bunker, although the bunker’s hp pool overrode theirs while they were inside it. ”You can break the bunker, it took a fair amount of damage from your water spell. The big guy was looking kinda hurt as well from your magic.” Although she wasn’t sure if they were healing inside of the bunker. Still, without RockTrans peppering his sentry, the engineer upgraded it to level 2, and the gun’s damage doubled as it peppered the bunker launching jets of fire at Blazermate and Roxas.
Being unable to really do much with ranged attacks besides grab more ghosts, Blazermate did just that as she healed Roxas, flying out of the range of the flames. The ghosts assaulted the bunker with their explosions, and with that, the sentry gun, and Roxas’ magic, it didn’t take too long for the bunker to crumble. Still, this had given Blaze and his medabots some time to prepare, and as the bunker went down, Blaze threw more oil as he started to charge Roxas again, but this time zooming past him with his jet fist to instead activate two of his abilities, one caused him to emanate intense heat out from himself, and another slowed him down a bit, but he built internal pressure to unleash a wave of powerful fire. He was still getting shot at by the sentry gun though, with Heart Roll healing him and RockTrans doing his best to target Blazermate and Roxas and keep them within Blaze’s fire AoE with some leading shots.
Seeing the automated sentry was starting to be a problem for her allies, Fortune decided to use her next shot to shoot the sentry itself. Being immobile, the sentry took the rail gun shot full on and caught on fire and looked worse for wear, but was still barely standing. Unfortunately for Blzermate, due to RockTrans delaying the upgrade and this new bout of damage, the engineer timed out before he could fully repair the gun. Seeing the gun being so damaged, after unleashing his wave of fire, Blaze turned to the automated gun and used his dual flamethrowers to take it out and alleviate himself of the damage he had been taking. Still, that gun had taken its toll and he wasn’t looking super good, even with Heart Roll healing him with her healing arrows.
The massive fire DoT was something that Blazermate could cleanse from Roxas and heal him up. From what little she could gleam from Blaze though, he seemed to be running out of fuel himself as that combination of attacks was far and away the most damage he had done in this fight, and it seemed to at least take a lot of prep time and be telegraphed if he was to do it again. But if they didn’t take out Heart Roll or RockTrans, their numbers could overwhelm them.
”Hey Roxas, we should go after the medabots while Blaze is behind us, he's kinda slow when he's not using his jet punch.” Blazermate said. And it was true, Blaze, to make sure his close range AoE fire attacks could go off, had gone behind Blazermate and Roxas, leaving his medabots exposed.
“Oh no ya don’t!” said the gruff voice of Blaze. He used his last emergency trick to give himself a neural stim to refresh a cooldown and attempted to use his jet fist to stop Roxas, but the Nobody was far too agile and managed to disengage. And with that, Blaze was left to waddle to protect his allies, having severely overestimated himself.
Roxas charged in the direction of RockTrans. The medabot fired a shot at him, but Roxas was able to bat it away with his Keyblade. Roxas didn’t have much MP left, having used most of it on all those Watergas he was previously throwing at Blaze. So he put the last of his current MP into one more trick. Roxas became a streak of light that zig-zagged its way toward RockTrans at blinding speed. It was a good thing he did this when he did. Less than a second after Roxas streaked away, a shot from the sniper’s railgun blasted the spot where he had just been running. When the streak of light collided with the medabot, Roxas emerged and unleashed his powerful Cross Slash on RockTrans. The last thing he expected was for RockTrans to have a way to safely absorb the blow.
The medabot had disengaged with his arm cannon and switched to his Step Sword, a beam saber that ignited from an emitter mounted on his left wrist. With the blade up he was able to use it to take the brunt of the damage from Roxas’ Cross Slash. After that the two began swinging at each other, beam sword clashing with Keyblades. Roxas hadn’t counted on having to trade sword slashes with this opponent, but at least this was a type of fight that was more his speed. He’d adapt to the medabot’s tactics a bit more easily than he did for Blaze.
Up in her hidden perch, Fortune muttered a curse to herself. It wasn’t like her to miss a shot like that. She’d never known luck to be on anyone else’s side but her own. Somehow these targets were managing to put even her own supernatural luck to the test. She would almost be impressed, if she weren’t also simultaneously frustrated by it.
With Blaze unable to catch up to Roxas in a snappy fashion, he was just left to walk to Roxas now to get him off of his medabots. Blazermate took this chance to ubersaw him in the back which got Blaze to turn around. “Oh, now you’ve done it little lady.” with the space marine turning around to deal with the healing medabot. This led to a bit of a back and forth between the two, with Blazermate taking some flames and Blaze taking her ubersaw. But while Blaze could only do damage to Blazermate, Blazermate was getting uber.
And with that uber, she was going to do what she did in medafights, and pointed at RockTrans as Heart Roll healed Blaze, and fired her medaforce beam at him. Being distracted by needing to parry Roxas, the medaforce beam blindsided him and dealt significant damage, alongside disabling his sword arm and healing Blazermate for the damage it dealt, healing whatever damage she had taken from Blaze. She then continued hammering on Blaze, hopping over him when he brought his flamethrowers up to hit her and zooming away when he threw oil under himself. She escaped with a fair amount of Uber as she distracted him and dealt her medaforce blast damage. And zooming away, she decided to touch some more ghost fissures as Blaze lacked any ranged attacks that zoomed at either Blaze or Heart Roll, whoever was closer. While Blaze could only take the ghost, Heart Roll tried her best to dodge the one zooming at her, but she couldn’t escape and took her first damage of the battle as well.
Meanwhile, Roxas and RockTrans were still going at it. At a glance they looked evenly matched. But if at any point Blaze looked down at his medawatch, he would see the energy levels of RockTrans begin to gradually dip. RockTrans was skilled, but he was a Shooting type Medabot first and foremost, and his Step Sword was mostly just a backup weapon. His build was obviously focused more on ranged attacks with the arm cannon, so being forced into a drawn out melee like this was not good for him. There was also the numerical advantage Roxas had in that he wielded two blades against the medabot’s single blade. This allowed Roxas to get in shots on RockTrans that the medabot simply lacked the ability to prevent or punish.
After one such successful strike on RockTrans, Roxas noticed the colors of his right arm appear to darken slightly. After that the arm became limp, as if it could no longer be used. Again, if Blaze was paying attention to his medawatch, he’d hear it announce the serious damage to the bot’s arm part and its status of being disabled. Nearby, Heart Roll saw the damage her partner medabot was taking and attempted to fly in and use her Heart Hand to heal him. Before she could get close enough, Roxas spotted her and threw one of his keyblades at her to deter her approach.
As this happened, Rock Trans lunged forward for one more last ditch attack against Roxas. The Nobody readied his remaining Keyblade and lunged forward as well. Both combatants appeared to pass by each other with their slashes. Like something out of a samurai film, they both stood there for a brief moment before the sparks flew from RockTrans’ body, eventually resulting in his Medal being ejected out of his back, signaling his defeat. Roxas tilted his head in a moment of curiosity and it picked it up off the ground. It looked like a gold, hexagon-shaped coin. Roxas flipped the medal over in his fingers so he could look at both sides of it. He knew nothing about medabots, but based on the fact that this came shooting out of RockTrans after he was defeated, Roxas could at least guess it was important somehow.
This moment of distraction gave the sniper a shot she had been waiting for. She leveled her railgun and aimed it at the Keybearer. She held her breath and then squeezed the trigger.
Roxas was hit, and it definitely hurt. He screamed out as he went sprawling onto the ground. Unknown to him or the sniper, the medabot’s medal was also caught in the crossfire of this attack. It landed on the ground nearby Roxas with a metallic clang, now cracked and looking like it was ready to fall to pieces.
Seeing her first example of a robattle since coming here and the medal eject, instead of RockTrans turning into a spirit right away was very reassuring to Blazermate. Although that left a lot of very uncomfortable questions she had to ask herself later, if she even had the mental strength to or if she even wanted to. But that was put aside as Roxas was sniped again, not having as much overheal this time to tank the shot and getting hurt pretty bad. But he also took out RockTrans, so it was just the sniper, Blaze, and Heart Roll left, with the latter starting to panic a bit as one of its allies fell. That was usual for support medabots without too much offensive power themselves.
Blaze was running on fumes himself, not hp wise as Heart Roll was healing him, but just on flamer fuel (mana), and with Blazermate finding his fire punches weren’t really all that strong, she could farm uber off of him without too much issue. Yes he out damaged Blazermate’s passive healing, but she could heal back any damage he did with her medaforce beam. Either way, right now, the sniper was the biggest threat and she had to heal Roxas. Smacking Blaze a few more times with her ubersaw, she then hovered out of his reach and began to heal Roxas again. She could build uber quickly though, so this fight would end pretty soon she hoped, as long as that sniper didn’t have a trick up her sleeve or Heart Roll busted out a medaforce beam or something…
Roxas groaned a bit, once the heal beam got under way. He pushed himself into a sitting position, and then summoned one of his, ”...Heal!” he cried weakly. The Curaga spell worked its magic, and coupled with Blazermate’s heal beam he was back on his feet and feeling ready to continue fighting. He didn’t like having to spend all his MP only after having just recovered it, but that railgun shot left him no other choice. It was either that or hang onto death’s door while Blazermate risked her neck trying to heal him and fight at the same time.
Roxas staggered up to his feet and brandished both his Keyblades. Nearby out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the damaged medal turning into a spirit. But the Keybearer couldn’t dwell on this. He sprang back into action and chose to run toward the armored space marine, ”Keep her busy!” he called out to Blazermate in reference to the other Medabot. His plan was fairly apparent. If Blazermate could keep the heat on Heart Roll, then she should be able to prevent her from healing Blaze while Roxas worked to try and finish him off.
”You’re done!” Roxas shouted at Blaze as he went on the attack. Blaze was momentarily stunned in surprise at the fact that this kid managed to get back up after taking a direct shot from Fortune. At this point he really was running on fumes, and so he lacked almost all the tricks he had been employing against Roxas earlier in the fight. Then again, Roxas himself was more or less on fumes too - at least until his MP recharged again anyway. But Roxas did have the edge in that he was a lot more mobile than Blaze was. And the Nobody was quick to take advantage of this, even managing to use flowmotion to keep himself on the move while attacking Blaze with hit-and-run slashes of his Keyblade.
“Argh, dammit kid!” Blaze shouted in frustration, “Hold still so I can kill you, already!”
Blazermate, being the more aggressive of the two medics, rushed at Heart Roll as she had to decide between attacking Blazermate, or healing Blaze. And being unable to fly, she couldn’t evade Blazermate for long. What made this fight even worse for Heart Roll, Blazermate could keep up with her jumping based evasion and also summon homing ghosts that couldn’t be evaded if she got too far from Blaze. And even if she shot Blazermate, having a shield part made any lasting damage on Blazermate difficult to inflict.
This led to a bit of a cat and mouse game for a bit until Blazermate got close enough to hold Heart Roll inside of a deployed projectile shield and roast the poor medabot medic until her medal ejected. If Roxas knew things about robattling and medabot medals, he’d also know that Blazermate was just overall stronger than these two simple medabots due to her rare medal, but that would be a bit too much to point out. Fortune knew what this shield was this time, so she knew to hold her shot until it was gone, but that also held her off as Blazermate went back to support Roxas with Blaze. And with both medabots down, Mr. Referee declared the robattle over and Blazermate the winner, before hopping backwards back into the shaft he had come out of and disappearing like the enigmatic man he was.
”Looks like you’re fresh outta healers!” Taunted Roxas when he noticed that Blazermate had finished off Heart Roll. His own one-on-one against Blaze was starting to wind down now too. With him so low on flamer fuel and his medabot support gone, there just wasn’t much Blaze could do against the fast and agile Keyblade Wielder. And now with Blazermate making it a two-on-one, the odds were even more stacked against him. His only hope now was if the sniper could take one of the Seekers out with her next shot. Of course, Blazermate’s shield and Roxas’ near constant movement wasn’t exactly doing her any favors right now in finding a clear shot.
Using flowmotion, Roxas launched himself off of Blaze’s armored form and toward a nearby shrine gate structure. He used his Keyblade to hook onto it and slingshot himself right back around toward Blaze with increased momentum, ”And stay down!” The Keybearer put his momentum and whatever strength of light he could muster into a downward thrust on top of Blaze that also released some Light as an additional source of damage. And that seemed to be what did it, since Blaze’s armored form finally toppled over and didn’t appear to be moving anymore.
”We’ve gotta find that sniper. And that medabot’s spirit is still back there too, we probably shouldn’t leave it.” he told Blazermate, still unable to relax his guard knowing that their sniper “friend” was still lurking out there somewhere.
”Yeah, I have an idea of where she is, we’ve just gotta get there. Use that cool movement thing and we can get over there quickly, I can follow you no problem.” Blazermate said, keeping her beam on Roxas and pointing him in the direction of Fortune. Her shield would be going down soon, but she got some uber so she could at least uber Roxas a bit after the shield went down to block a final shot and hopefully get them close enough to take them out.
Roxas took off in a sprint. But he wasn’t going in the direction Blazermate pointed to just yet. Instead he worked his way back to where RockTrans’ spirit was still waiting. The Keybearer had to stop long enough to scoop the spirit up off of the ground. And that was the risky part of this move. He’d be giving the sniper a window - however small - to take a shot at him. But he did have Blazermate flying close behind him. So he would trust that her shields could stop another shot from hitting him.
Roxas’ prediction came true. In the fraction of time he had stopped in order to grab up the spirit, another shot from the sniper’s railgun threatened to take him out for good. But true to her word, Blazermate had no problem keeping up with his flowmotion. And when he had stopped, she took that moment to uber off of him and took the shot intended for him with her shield. This was also their chance to close the distance on the sniper while she waited for her weapon to cool down.
”Now’s our chance!’” Roxas cried and went right back on the move again. Flowmotion made it easy to weave through and past the structures and other obstacles. And unlike the first time, now he was going in the direction Blazermate had pointed them in. They had a precious window of time to reach Fortune before she could take another shot. Roxas could close the distance easily enough utilizing flowmotion, and it looked like Blazermate was hot on his tail thanks to her ability to fly and her medibeam copying his speed boosts. In moments Roxas spotted a figure holding a large rifle of some kind on her shoulder. That had to be her.
”Gotcha!” he cried, shifting the direction of his momentum to swing toward her. His MP had also finished recharging by now. So now it was his turn to aim and take a shot, ”Firaga!” he called, shooting the heated fireball out of the tip of his Keyblade. The spell went flying toward the sniper and then… somehow swerved at the last moment and missed her, ”Huh?” Roxas didn’t have much time to analyze that. He was already rapidly approaching melee range. So instead he followed that up by hurling both Keyblades at the sniper, sending them both on opposite circular arcs toward her. And just like with the Firaga spell… they appeared to swerve at the last moment and missed her entirely.
”What’s going on?” Roxas questioned, not having caught on to Fortune’s possession of what seemed to be superhuman luck on her side.
”No clue, let me have a crack at her!” Blazermate said as she zoomed up and tried to ubersaw Fortune, only for her to get knocked back. ”Shes got some kind of like, force field or something.” Blazermate said, her metal body being knocked back by the magnetic field that protected Fortune.
“No one has ever been able to hit me in combat.” Fortune said as she turned her gun on Blazermate, now unable to miss her being at such close range. Blazermate was ready for that though, and before the shot even rung out, she ubered herself and Roxas to give them some seconds of invincibility to figure out what to do here. Wait… what about her ghosts? Magnets and stuff wouldn’t work against them, and they were relentless when they found a target.
”I got an idea, Stay with me Roxas.” Blazermate said as she looked for a purgatory crack to summon a ghost from. Seeing the red crack on the floor wasn’t all that difficult to spot, with her zooming over to touch it. Once it was touched, the ghost summoned out like it normally did, and Fortune was confident it wouldn’t do anything to her, nothing had done anything to her. But she’d be mistaken here as the ghost screeched and zoomed at her, missing her on the first dive due to her field, but taking a sharp turn to try to dive at her again. It took a couple turns, but eventually there wasn’t any speed for the ghost to rubber band and miss her with, and it finally exploded when it made contact with her.
Not without Fortune managing to get off one last trick. She pulled her sidearm, a Baretta 49F and attempted to take a last ditch shot at the ghost, Roxas, and Blazermate. Her shots bounced off the uber Roxas and Blazermate, but did nothing to the incoming ghost, and so its explosion attack went through unstopped.
”First time for everything, huh?” Roxas said in response to the successful ghost attack. And it indeed managed to surprise even Fortune. The ghost attack did its job, maybe even a little too well since all that was left of Fortune after the dust cleared was her spirit. ”Guess you weren’t as untouchable as you thought you were.” He picked the spirit up and stared at it a moment before pulling out the spirit of RockTrans that he picked up earlier.
”Well? What should we do with them?” he asked Blazermate. He knew what could be done with spirits like this, but… he still hadn’t really reconciled with the idea of fusing with one. Would it change who he was? Would it still be him underneath it? For someone like Roxas, who once fought so hard to prove his own existence… well it was no wonder he had his fears about something like this.
”Well, if you're afraid of the fusion stuff, fusion with a medabot might be just for you! I’ve noticed that I tend to not have as many side effects when fusing than the others. I mean you saw how Bowser looked that one time, and I have fused with almost as many spirits and don't look nearly as chimeric as he did before the snackvator!” blazermate said, puffing out her chest in pride. ”Although you’ll have some robot bits once you fuse with that, and well, I guess it’ll be up to me and Susie to teach ya how to deal with that. But hey, you can then have a gun arm!” Blazermate continued. ”And you’ve gotta fuse sometime, this’ll just help you with that.” Blazermate wasn’t aware of the actual conflict Roxas had with the whole thing about losing his identity or anything, she figured he was just worried about looking weird.
”Will I still be… me?” Roxas asked with some hesitation, ”Will my Heart still be in there?” He closed his eyes and thought about it all. Was it really so different from when he had to return to Sora? He could accept that back then, so why did he hesitate now? Even though he faded into Sora’s Heart for a time, deep down he was still there through it all. He and Xion both were.
”I can’t let fear control me.” He finally said, ”Not when I know that Xehanort is involved in all this. Here goes…” Roxas squeezed his eyes shut and hugged the spirit to his chest, and then all that was left was to hope for the best.
Notable spirit consumed: RockTrans The host is slightly paler, and his spiky hair is darker toward the bottom, a dirty blonde shade. He has been equipped with bulky yet sleek blue metal boots and gauntlets, with a matching helmet that has a deployable green visor for shielding his eyes. The palm of the right gauntlet has a red energy core in it, while the back of the left gauntlet has a module that resembles an arrow pointing toward the knuckles. The host is a bit less hot-tempered and a bit better at mental math / calculation. This spirit confers the power RockGun / StepSword, giving the host two handy abilities. The right gauntlet can fire an unlimited amount of energy shots at a rate of 2 per second. They have mediocre power and range but can be charged to boost both, with a full charge taking 1.5 seconds. The left gauntlet can be used to perform short-range a dash slash with an energy sword that expands from the module. This dash tracks targets, even ones in stealth, and it can be used every few seconds. This spirit also confers the weakness Medal Eject. If the host is reduced to low health, a medal will be automatically ejected from the helmet. With the medal out, none of this spirit's abilities can be used. It must be manually reinserted to regain functionality
After a short flash of light, Roxas tentatively opened his eyes, ”Whoa!” He cried out in momentary surprise at the sight of his new gauntlets and boots, then felt his head and realized he was also now wearing a helmet, ”This… it is still me!” He called out in triumph, only to accidentally shoot an energy shot out his right gauntlet, ”Oops… That’s gonna take some getting used to. But can I still…?” He held out his hands and, sure enough, both of his Keyblades still appeared to him as usual. He gave one of them a swing to see if it felt any different under the weight of his newly worn gauntlets, and accidentally triggered his dash slash, ”Whoa! Guess the gun’s not the only weapon this fusion gave me…”
”Aw lucky, you got two powers! But I guess the sword is redundant since you got those keyblades.” Blazermate said, patting him on the back heartily. ”I dunno what you were mumbling about back there, but I haven’t seen much in the way of anything but getting stronger with everyone who has fused with stuff. Except Geralt, but uh… he fused with a Guardian spirit so I guess those are special. I can totally understand your apprehension if you were thinking about those. He didn’t always go on those berserker rages ya know, that's kinda new.” Blazermate said, more or less going off a bit of what she has seen with the various fusions and everything.
”Wait, what?” asked Roxas, though naturally the fusion was already done so no point in being worried now, ”Uh, I’m gonna check in with Sandalphon and let her know we’re done here and on our way.” Roxas then pressed his fingers to his ear… only remember that the helmet. Would the glyph still work with the helmet? He was about to find out.
”Halo? It’s Roxas. We got ambushed, but we’re fine. Do we have a rendezvous point?”
After a moment, he heard the archangel’s voice. It sounded subtly different from how he remembered it, both in voice and intonation, though given how little time he’d spent around Sandalphon, maybe he was imagining things. “Good to hear from you. Unfortunately I have been unable to confirm an exact exit to this labyrinth. Advance toward Arahabaki’s central structure however you can. Be on the lookout for security turrets, mines, laser grids, and mobile conveyors.”
”Central structure.” Roxas repeated, ”Got it! We’ll see you in a bit… I hope. Roxas, out.” He then ended the communication and looked back at Blazermate, ”We may as well bring the other spirit with us. Maybe we’ll figure out what to do with it once we’re back with the others. Let’s get out of here for now.” Blazermate nodded and hovered next to Roxas, keeping them both healed and overhealed as they moved juuust in case.
”What’s this?” Kamek exclaimed, confused as his body was surrounded by a swarm of strange bugs, ones that oddly enough they seemed to be doing nothing but being rather freaky.
”You alright Kamek?” Rika called over from where she had landed after bailing out on the attempted tonberry delivery run.
”Seems so, which is its own kind of concerning” he replied, before deciding that ”So I shall back off and prepare for the worst”
To do so the mage first teleported back up to the top floor of the prison, and then used the rather long period before detonation to create 4 copies of himself (which the flies promptly spread doo, giving warning of how they worked). He then proceeded to turn 3 into green mages, which promptly stacked defense buffs on him, along with a white mage which healed up the damage he’d taken from the failed tonberry attack. When the lantern finally exploded, it did so in a larger area than he expected, but with all his preparation the blast was entirely manageable.
He wasn’t the only one able to restore himself unfortunately, as the Oberon warframe promptly showed off by restoring both it and its master’s health. Rika, despite having befitited from this many battles before, considered this most unfair, and promptly switched targets, maneuvering thrusting into the fray alongside Ganondorf with a call of ”Backing you up!”
Her medium of doing so was to go all guns blazing, gauntlets held up with palms facing forwards, unleashing blasts of burning goop that detonated in mid air, rifle fire, while her rigging blasted out disruption globs, and her hangers unleashed a swarm of shocking bugs. Alongside her she deployed her cloyster striker, which added a rapid fire burst of 5 icicle spears to the mix. The ensuing barrage caught Oberon as he went to resume his dance with Ganondorf, landing a handful of status-inducing shots. With his Sybaris still in his hands instead of Silva & Aegis,the warframe couldn’t block, instead rolling away from Rika’s onslaught.
Somewhere in between Therion and Rika’s interventions, Ganondorf felt himself approaching his last legs. Just being in proximity to Oberon incurred near constant radiation damage. And adding on top whatever attacks Oberan landed, it all left the Gerudo King finally beginning to reconsider his strategy or lack thereof. For a moment he considered assuming his true form, but decided against it - not wanting to waste it on a warframe that at the end of the day was just a peon to the main enemy. So instead he quickly pulled out his last strong instant health potion and downed it. That at least undid a lot of the damage he’d suffered. But he didn’t go back on the attack, Ganondorf instead finally cooling off, choosing to reassess the situation.
With Kamek protecting himself and Rika switching targets, that left only Bowser out of the Troop still facing Robin, and his own back up dropped by one when Nadia was put to sleep.
The king promptly caught her with a ”I got you” before she fell apart on the floor, and then after realizing Kamek wasn’t around to order his toadies about, used his trowlon striker as a self propelled stretcher, laying her on it and then having it fly over to the area the sleepers where being stored. Of course, now he and the others knew that Robin could hurt every sleeper no matter where they were, and that realization spurred the Seekers to action.
Then he promptly slammed his fist into his own shell, causing glowing cracks to form all over it as he gave up defense for offense, and then re-engaged Robin with a new and surprising burst of speed, mixing up claw swipes followed by bursts of fire breath. While the King tried to blitz down their foe, the entirely forgotten by everyone Tonberry had picked itself up, and began to waddle towards that same foe, it’s deceptively plain knife raised to strike just as soon as it caught up.
”Why won’t you stay dead! How many one ups did you farm?!” Jr yelled horsley, while surrounded by dead marios. Yet the 2 hit wonder still kept coming, this latest one sliding in on his belly wearing a penguin suit, avoiding the metal spike Jr had fired at him the moment he had sensed movement in the process.
Then the plumber hopped to his feet, and began to hurl ice balls at the prince, freeze-burning his scales before he formed an iron shield to protect himself. Unfortunately raw iron was very conductive, and just like the fireballs before them, it rapidly shifted temperature, cooling immensely and rapidly sapping the strength from his arm far faster than it should. Unable to hold it up, the prince was quickly prevented from keeping up this guard, his shield dropping to the ground, and arm to his side, completely limp from fatigue.
The rest of his body wasn’t doing much better, but he still pushed himself to keep fighting. He leapt to try and get away from the frost balls, and as he flew through the air he breathed in, charging fire, before spitting a fireball back at the plumber when he landed.
It missed.
Agile as ever, the plumber leapt over the shot and up onto a low wall, which he began running along while continuing to try and pelt the prince with ice shots. The prince was forced to duck behind another one to avoid being frozen to death. Once behind it he grabbed his frozen arm, shaking it violently in an attempt to get it to work again, before shoving frostbitten fingers into his mouth and burning them with his own fire.
When the plumber slid around the corner, he came face to face with a prince holding a ruined hand with the other, and then face to face with a burst of metal shrapnel. With a distinctive wup wup wup the plumber lost his power up, but was not dissuaded, instead coming at the prince with first and boot till a lucky claw swipe took him down.
Panting hard, one arm dead from fire, ice, and mana burn, the prince tried to use his other to hold himself up, only to fail and slump against the wall. In no state to face the latest Mario, this one accompanied by eight mini hims and yet even so, he tried to push himself up with a near inaudible taunt of ”come on, whats, what’s nine more?” only for his arm to give out, along with his body.
The prince fell to the floor, consciousness fading … and then he woke up.
For once, Nadia failed to land on her feet. Before she even hit the ground, a terrible heaviness settled over her, far weightier and more inescapable than gravity. It felt like sinking deep underwater, or being blackout drunk, as her muscles went slack for want of oxygen and her mind shut down. In a way, it was a great relief, all her pain and stress sliding away into a sweet oblivion. Then she smacked into the floor, and though her general numbness masked the pain somewhat, the impact was sudden and surprising to bring her to her senses and jolt her awake.
Or was she awake? The sounds of magic, technology, and battle had instantly given way to a dreadful silence. Raising her head from where she’d fallen, Nadia opened her eyes and recognized nothing. Though still underground, and reminiscent of a prison, she’d wound somewhere new. Or more accurately, she’d been sent somewhere new. For a moment her memory had been hazy as her mind struggled to recollect itself, but the details of the fight with Robin Goodfellow quickly came back. He did something to her, that much was clear. On high alert, she picked herself off the ground, scoping out the area. It looked to her almost like some kind of arena, surrounded by a couple levels of cell block. There were no guards or prisoners, though. She could hear nothing but the tense inhale and exhale of her own breath, and see no movement except motes of dust in the air. Though the more she peered at them rather than past them, those motes seemed strange. They shone softly, and they bore beautiful, intricate geometric patterns, rather like snowflakes. The more Nadia thought and remembered, the more sure she felt. “Is this…am I dreaming?”
“You’d have to be.” A cruel, smug, teasing voice. Delivered with an air of upper-class sophistication and superiority. Nadia turned in an instant. Second ago there had definitely been nobody there, and she hadn’t even heard the disturbed air currents of an aerial approach, but now a woman leaned against the wall. She wore a black cocktail dress, a cape shaped like a doily, a white opera glove on one arm and a huge drum-fed shotgun on the other. Behind her dark veil, a vicious smile that sent an icy chill down Nadia’s spine, freezing her in place with a look of unmasked horror on her face. “Poor little alley cat. How long has it been since I filleted that family of yours? Yet here you are. The one who got away.” Pushing herself off the wall, she put one hand on her hip and swaggered forward, slowly. “You know, if they really meant that much to you, why didn’t you hunt me down? An avenging daughter, dead set on righteous retribution…yet you never even tried. You just frittered away your carefree days in Little Innsmouth with other Dagonians.” She stopped, putting her hand in front of her veiled face as she tittered. “Heehee. Did I really scare you that badly? Or…did you just not care? This fish or that fish, it’s all the same to a cat, isn’t it? Whatever nets you a full-!”
“MRRRAH!” Nadia hurled herself forward, her face one of abject hatred. Black Dahlia turned, bringing her cape up as a shield, and as Nadia’s claws sliced through it she teleported a couple dozen feet away. “SHUT UP! I’m not scared of you! I’ll kill you, right here, right now!” Nadia was screaming, spittle flying as she charged in incoherent rage. “I’ll slice you to pieces and make you BEG for it!” Dahlia produced a handful of giant shotgun shells, flipped them into the air, and caught them in her gun to load it. Behind her veil was a nasty grin, but Ms Fortune wasn’t smiling.
Primrose's gaze had been fixed to Nadia as she succumbed to sleep, then forcibly to the afflicted shining form of Kamek. Once the Koopa left, she could refocus on their enemies in the room. She blinked away the bright spots from her eyes, noted that Bowser had got Ms. Fortune out of the immediate danger zone, and turned right back around to face Robin once more. The Seekers had been sustaining damage, herself included from the pot shots Titania had been sending their way, and many of their healing sources were asleep or gone at the moment. That power Robin had used on the sleeping was particularly worrisome. Primrose remained, and with a dance she could spread the healing flame of Warmth to all of her allies... if doing that had crossed her mind at all. She wasn't in quite such a rage as Ganondorf, but she was single-mindedly focused on taking down the archangel all the same. His defeat would mean he would be unable to keep casting his tricks. Her eyes flickered to the diamonds collecting around his head, and though unsure what they meant the mystery didn't dissuade her from attacking.
She called on her magic again, this time while Boosting herself. Her body's glow flickered against the shadows in her hand. Her arm trembled with the effort of condescending and empowering her magic.
New Strength: Dark Magic Mastery. The power and potency of Primrose's innate dark elemental spells has increased. She also has gained access to the spells Dirge of Dusk (deals dark element damage to a foe up to 3 times and lowers their resistance to dark element) and Spell Song (deals dark element damage to all foes in a wide area and lowers their physical and magical defenses). ***
The shadows surged into each other, creating three dark spheres by way of the spell Dirge of Dusk overhead. Primrose released her hold on them, flinging her hand forward as though she was throwing them at Robin, and the spheres obeyed. "Suffer!" The stygian orbs, heavy and thick as the night itself, crashed against Robin’s form, threatening to smother him in darkness.
Therion gladly let Rika take his place facing off against Oberon, shifting targets himself to the other warframe after being freed from the lantern spell's pull. He sprinted around the long way towards Titania, intending to flank her while Jesse, the only other Seeker engaging her, was on her other side. His feline body propelled him along all the faster, and when he leapt at Titania it was with blade brandished and the claws on both his paws extended to maximize the slashes aimed at her.
From what he'd seen so far, both warframes were incredibly quick - enough so to evade and be able to recover afterwards. Hopefully more pressure from more combatants could better break through their defense, even if it did mean less people contending with the archangel. Restricting their movements was another option. Therion followed through with his attack on Titania by stowing the blade, rounding on her again. He bared his fangs, reared up and let out a loud, paralyzing roar.
Having noticed Therion incoming, Jesse shifted so that she was on the exact opposite side of Titania. The Warframe was fast no doubt, but Jesse could cover a short gap nearly instantly with Evade. Jesse was glad to have the help because while she was holding her own, she wasn’t able to stop Titania from shooting at her allies. Jesse ripped a heavy chunk of pillar up and then let it float by her menacingly. Titania knew the Launched projectiles could barely be dodged on reaction. And Jesse was only going to Launch it once Therion had done his work, or Titania had somehow avoided it.
Not knowing what this warrior of the lower realm was, Sectonia was just fighting shadows. Even if she crushed it with her lightning or her axe, it would just dissipate into shadow to coalesce into another shape and begin again. And when she summoned her Antlers to fight it, she just found that was a poor choice as the hero’s shadow would swoop in and absorb one of them, gaining its elemental powers and using them against the Queen.
”How many times must I crush you before this ends?” Sectonia said, her various defensive powers gained from the objects and spirits she had absorbed so far making her tougher for this shadow to take out, although unknown to her, this was just making her sleep for longer. And this seemingly endless battle vs what was an inscrutable foe was making her extremely angry.
Titania had a lot going for her, but battlefield awareness wasn’t necessarily one of them. Unlike Oberon, she hadn’t been summoned here to heal or protect Robin Goodfollow. Her role was the hunter, weakening his attackers one by one before going in for the kill. That meant zeroing in on her target of choice, even if Jesse was taking more time to chew through than she thought. That also meant that when a second vicious tiger jumped Titania out of the blue, she did not see him coming. While she was busy taking potshots at Jesse, Therion’s cutting edges carved into her as he struck her in passing. Though his slashes didn’t reach her bio-metal exoskeleton, they just about wiped out her shield. As the two rounded one another, the barrel of Titania’s Corinth shotgun a deadly promise the moment it aligned with Therion’s chest. In the nick of time the thief managed to save his own skin by paralyzing his foe at the speed of sound, which left her at a standstill just long enough for Jesse to pound her with a slab of rubble.
That hefty projectile did a lot of damage, blowing through the remnants of Titania’s shield and way into her health. It also knocked her down, even if she sprang back up with an ukemi the next moment. Wanting to avoid more hits like that, she began to pick up speed right away. Faced with two agile and punishing opponents, she used Tribute to extract a buff from Therion. The ability dealt a little damage and gave her Dust, which would passively decrease the accuracy of her enemies for the next twelve seconds. Corinth in hand, she began to fire off explosive grenades to keep her enemies on their toes without having to aim as she built up momentum.
Though the sight of seeing their hard work undone might induce despair in the average fighter, the Seekers were not dissuaded by Oberon’s healing. If anything, his Renewal galvanized them into attacking all the more viciously. Bowser slashed Robin’s papery form with raking claws and scorched it with guttural flame, followed shortly by the threefold dark eruption of Primrose’s Dirge of Dusk. Yet, strange as it might seem, that all paled in comparison to what happened the moment Robin stepped up to take its turn. The tiny, unassuming green goober summoned so long ago had finally reached its target, and once the tonberry lifted its carving knife, it stabbed the blade into Robin’s hoof.
The disproportionate burst of damage that caused was enough to stagger Robin, bringing the archangel to its knees even if just for a moment. That assault more than made up for Oberon’s healing, leaving Robin at about half health. For the moment though, that was all. With Sectonia, Junior, and Nadia asleep, Kamek gone, and Therion, Ganondorf, Rika, and Jesse fighting the warframes, only Bowser and Primrose were left to oppose the main threat. After a moment Robin stood and took action. First it used Trick, randomly inflicting Resonance ⅓ on Bowser. For a brief moment a sensation of glasslike fragility coursed through his body, accompanied by the sound of vibrating glass. Then Robin glared at Primrose, and the dancer knew what was coming. A shower of Fairy Dust fell on her, and she plunged once more into the depths of sleep where her hated enemy awaited her. That left just one koopa standing against Robin as two more diamonds in its halo filled in. Now only two remained unlit.
Frankly, I'm glad I chose to draw from a predefined archetype like Time Mage. It'll make it simpler to figure out what my mid-game and late-game abilities should be. (Lethal Frame, Time Splicer, Ghost Drive, etc)
I gotta say, the Final Fantasy games have some weird choices for what they consider Time spells. Regen? Quake? Vanish? Stone/Break? Those are all counted as Time magic spells in various FF games.
Edit: Even Reflect/Reflectga? Okay *that* one is definitely worth going for in terms of KH spells.
Word Count: 1,261 Level 7 Roxas: 30/70 Exp: 3 NEW EXP Balance--- 33/70
When morning came, Roxas sat up on the sofa and rubbed his eyes in grogginess. He was only just then realizing that he had passed out there on the spot last night. But at least the exhaustion was gone now. The morning at the Sumeragi Hideout went by pretty quick. In fact Roxas really only had time to eat a single piece of toast and drink a small glass of orange juice before Luka appeared. He explained that he was there to take Roxas and Raz back to the other Seekers in Sector 07, and the three of them went on a convoluted series of teleports until they were eventually dropped off on the SOU Building’s helipad.
”Thanks for the lift.” Roxas told Luka as they arrived and regrouped with the Seekers. The place wasn’t exactly a home, but it was the closest thing the Seekers had to one in this massive city. Plus it was a relief to see that everyone made it back here no worse for wear. The last time he’d seen one half of the team was when the Seekers split up after the mission at Vandelay Campus. And so he was glad that Karin, Geralt, Blazermate and everyone were all doing okay. And it also looked like someone had brought muffins.
Roxas couldn’t help himself. He’d skipped eating last night and only ate that one piece of toast back at Yuito’s hideout. So he hungrily snagged one of the unclaimed muffins that still remained and scarfed it down. While he did, he overheard Sandalphon and Goldlewis talking. He watched Sandalphon summon some screens that she used to show everyone images of a landmark tree. Something had apparently damaged it during the night while they were all asleep. And the situation only got worse from there.
The Machines were about to launch what sounded like a full-blown invasion of the city. And as everyone pointed out, most of the strongest factions had now been crippled by some means or another over the last couple of days. Did that mean that the Seekers were partially responsible for this? And who exactly was the one behind the machines anyway? Roxas couldn’t remember if they had ever figured that out yet.
But then, that’s when she appeared. Her voice was harsh and unfamiliar. But the black coat and portal of darkness she entered from were unmistakable, ”YOU!” Roxas cried, having to fight the urge to attack her on the spot. But the Nobody, whoever she was, explained a bit more about the situation - including providing the name of someone who she claimed was behind the attacks. How she knew this and whether or not she could be trusted was another matter, entirely.
When Goldlewis suggested they all get moving, Roxas appeared to be the only one who remained where he was. He was standing there staring at the hooded woman with icy-cold daggers of pure hatred, ”I’m not going anywhere.” he declared in a tone that none of the Seekers had heard him use yet. Clearly this was something that in his mind took precedence over even the crisis in Midgar, ”Not until I get some answers out of her.” he added, pointing a gloved finger straight at Xatow to really hammer home who he viewed as his enemy here.
The Nobody crossed her arms. “You’re being pretty irrational right now.”
”Oh, I’m sorry.” Roxas retorted with some venomous sarcasm, ”Were you expecting me to treat the group responsible for ruining my life and the lives of my friends with open arms and hugs? Think again! So spill it.” Roxas demanded of the Organization member, ”Who’s giving you your orders? Xemnas? Xehanort? What’s your game in all this? And don’t give me some story about how you’re trying to help. I probably know the Organization better than you do, so mind games aren’t going to get you out of this.”
“Xehanort, of course,” Xatow replied bluntly, her tone disinterested and a little bit put-upon. “Our game is the endgame, kid. We need you guys to kill Galeem so that we can fix everything.” She tilted her head slightly. “You didn’t think that beating Galeem would just turn everything back to normal, right? Like the universe is a spring that Galeem stretched out, and letting go would just snap the worlds back into place?” She shook her head. “Get real. What’s done is done. Luckily, you’ve got us to get things moving again.”
He shouldn’t have been surprised by that answer. Yet for some reason, he was. So even here, in spite of everything Sora had to go through to put the bastard down for good… He was still managing to live on and continue scheming. Even just thinking about the man and remembering all the horrible things he did made Roxas' blood run cold, ”I’m curious,” Roxas mused, ”How much do you actually know about Xehanort? I’m willing to bet you don’t know much.” he said with a shake of his head, ”But I know just about everything there is to know about him. The stuff that matters at least. So if you expect me to just trust Xehanort at his word, then you couldn’t be more wrong.”
In fact, Roxas already had at least one idea about what Xehanort was actually planning to do. But that was something he would keep to himself for the time being, ”I’ll defeat Galeem, alright. But I will NOT be some pawn in whatever game Xehanort is playing. You can tell him that if he thinks he’s gonna play puppet master with people’s lives again, he’s got another thing coming. Because when I’m finished with Galeem? He’s next.”
Xatow’s gaze lingered on him for a moment before she spoke. He couldn’t see her face within the darkness of her hood, but it was easy to imagine a bored, half-lidded expression. As long as he did what he needed to in the short term, she could care about the future later. “Okay.” She nodded her head in the direction of Midna’s portal. “Better get to it then, kid.”
Roxas hardened his expression, ”This isn’t over.” he warned. But after that he finally relented and rescinded his earlier refusal to leave. By this time, Midna had already made two trips with her portal. That meant Roxas didn’t leave until he had joined the third and final group to be transported out.
”Sorry for the hold up.” he told Midna and the remaining Seekers, ”But I couldn’t just leave it. Not without trying to get some information out of her.”
After the transport had been done, Roxas looked around himself at the place he assumed was Arahabaki. Hard to imagine such a massive area existing underneath the city. He could only imagine how difficult and complicated the architecture had to be in order for this to even be feasible. But Midna was right. It looked like Shinra was more on to them, their presence down here seeming to be suspiciously higher than anticipated. But in the end, he wouldn’t let that stop him.
”Just get me to the door we’re looking for. he told the other Seekers, ”Doesn’t matter how tight they got it locked up. My Keyblade will open it, no problem.”
Powers/Abilities: Essentially a Time Mage. He specializes in the Stop, Haste, and Slow spells - while occasionally using spells like Comet and Gravity as a source of damage. While he is capable of the higher-tiered forms of these spells, the trade off is that he can't use any other types of spells. No healing, no elementals, etc. He tries to make up for this shortcoming by utilizing well-timed strikes and flourishes in conjunction with his Time spells.
Known Spells: Haste, Slow, Stop, Gravity, Zero-Gravity These function exactly as they do in the games.
Comet - Calls down a short rain of small meteorites that strike a single target with light/medium non-elemental damage. It's upgraded form is Meteor, which calls down a single large meteorite capable of striking multiple targets within it's area of effect for heavy non-elemental damage.
Backstory: Tempus is a bit of an oddity, even for an anomaly. He has no recollection of the homeworld he was actually born on. Much of his early life was spent instead in Traverse Town, a world largely made up of castaways from other worlds - Tempus included. Beyond that he has spent a great of deal time hopping between worlds wherever he's needed as part of the rebellion. The impetus for his joining the rebellion came in the form of his Keyblade, that came to him for reasons he doesn't fully understand. This of course has resulted him being decently high up on the Organization's "to do" list as it were. Deep down he is also trying to search for his forgotten homeworld in the hopes of eventually filling in the blanks of his past.
Other: Having no recollection of his actual birthplace, Traverse Town serves as the de facto "homeworld" for Tempus. But his lack of any real, tangible connection to any world he goes to seems to be the reason why he remains unaffected by the resets and time loops perpetrated by the Organization of Light. While he hasn't quite figured why his Keyblade came to him, his current theory is that it was a response to his desire to find his true homeworld.
Powers/Abilities: Essentially a Time Mage. He specializes in the Stop, Haste, and Slow spells - while occasionally using spells like Comet and Gravity as a source of damage. While he is capable of the higher-tiered forms of these spells, the trade off is that he can't use any other types of spells. No healing, no elementals, etc. He tries to make up for this shortcoming by utilizing well-timed strikes and flourishes in conjunction with his Time spells.
Known Spells: Haste, Slow, Stop, Gravity, Zero-Gravity These function exactly as they do in the games.
Comet - Calls down a short rain of small meteorites that strike a single target with light/medium non-elemental damage. It's upgraded form is Meteor, which calls down a single large meteorite capable of striking multiple targets within it's area of effect for heavy non-elemental damage.
Backstory: Tempus is a bit of an oddity, even for an anomaly. He has no recollection of the homeworld he was actually born on. Much of his early life was spent instead in Traverse Town, a world largely made up of castaways from other worlds - Tempus included. Beyond that he has spent a great of deal time hopping between worlds wherever he's needed as part of the rebellion. The impetus for his joining the rebellion came in the form of his Keyblade, that came to him for reasons he doesn't fully understand. This of course has resulted him being decently high up on the Organization's "to do" list as it were. Deep down he is also trying to search for his forgotten homeworld in the hopes of eventually filling in the blanks of his past.
Other: Having no recollection of his actual birthplace, Traverse Town serves as the de facto "homeworld" for Tempus. But his lack of any real, tangible connection to any world he goes to seems to be the reason why he remains unaffected by the resets and time loops perpetrated by the Organization of Light. While he hasn't quite figured why his Keyblade came to him, his current theory is that it was a response to his desire to find his true homeworld.
The "??" denote sections that I have questions about. Namely, what age-range should we be going for? And second, are we meant to be Keyblade Wielders or no?
”Man, I’m beat…” Roxas said as he slouched onto the sofa. He tried to mentally consolidate everything that happened that day. Vandelay Campus in the morning. Beacon Hospital in the afternoon. The Other attack in the evening. Milla and Sasha’s platoons - not to mention the two Septentrians themselves. The assassination plot and Lili’s outburst. It was almost hard to believe that so many incidents and crises could happen in a city over the course of a single measly day. But it did, and the Keybearer was now just plain exhausted.
Raz took up a chair himself (one closer to Lili than not, wherever she decided to go) and, for maybe the first time since he joined the Seekers, removed his helmet. ”Not me,” he said, ”I actually do some of my best work in the span of 12 hours. In fact, I…” A yawn interrupted him, as much as he tried to stifle it. ”...maybe a little mental exhaustion.”
A can of lemonade-soda sat on the nearby coffee table, Roxas reached for it and took a good gulp of the drink. It was tasty, but in his mind he couldn’t help but have a craving for a certain something else, ”What I wouldn’t give for a sea-salt ice cream…” he mused, letting himself think of home and his missing friends.
From her sprawled-out position on one of the other couches, Hanabi chuckled wearily. “That does sound pretty good right about now. We kind of missed dinner, didn’t we?”
”Oh, uh…” Roxas sat back up with a brief jolt, having temporarily forgotten that he wasn’t alone in the hideout, ”I know it sounds kind of silly, but in a… job… I used to have, I’d hang out with my friends after a long day of missions and we’d eat sea-salt ice cream together. Guess today felt like one of those long days, ya know?”
Yuito appeared from the kitchenette, nodding. With his equipment off and his coat removed, he looked more or less like an average teenage guy. Someone who should be worrying about year-end finals before summer break rather than brain-devouring monstrosities and government conspiracies. In fact, he looked rather haunted, and not just by his near-death experience with Anima. Something was weighing on his mind, which made the brave face he put on that much more laudable.
“I’m with you there,” he said frankly. “If you guys are hungry, there are some rations in the little pantry here. Wouldn’t be a proper shelter without some. I’m heating up some stew myself.”
Hanabi sat up. “You’re a lifesaver, Yuito. I’ll put some on too.”
“I’ll get it, don’t worry,” Yuito replied, smiling warmly. There wasn’t much Hanabi could say to that, so she just averted her gaze, scratching her head as she smiled herself.
Maybe Hanabi didn’t notice it, but Roxas did. He’d gone through the same thing, after all, as did all the Seekers. And he could only imagine how many questions Yuito had, that there was no time to answer. At least… no time until now. He grabbed the can of the soda and quickly downed the rest of it. That gave him the perfect excuse to get up and go into the kitchenette. He dropped the can into the trash bin, and then he looked over at Yuito.
”It’s okay,” Roxas told him with a knowing expression, ”I was confused at first, too. We all were.” And so rather than immediately return to the couch he remained behind in the kitchenette so he could have a much-needed conversation with Yuito, ”Ask me anything, and I’ll tell you what I know.”
”And you, Lili,” Raz added, getting onto his knees in his seat so he could look over the back of his chair. ”Me and Roxas had a lot of time to get used to the whole, uhh, fake-world-mind-control stuff, and the two of you-” he nodded between Lili and Yuito, ”-kinda came into it at a really hectic time.” He nervously rubbed his cheek, side-eyeing Lili. ”Uh. Sorry about that, by the way. How I handled… that.”
Lili shrugged. “Just…ugh, don’t worry about it. We’re all in way over our heads.”
Yuito glanced over at Raz, then back to Roxas. His expression made his concern clear, as well as his relief now that he could get it off his chest. “It’s definitely an awful lot to take in. It doesn’t seem real. But the more I saw of Suoh since that moment, the more I realized just how unlike the Suoh I know it was.” He shook his head helplessly. “Everything’s jumbled up. Beyond recognition. How did this happen? More importantly, is there anything we can do about it?” He looked over at Hanabi, who was only half-following the conversation. “And…is there anything we can do for Hanabi?” He shifted his target of address to her. “I tried talking to you about it, but I don’t think you really understood.”
While she might have taken offense to this, Hanabi seemed more worried and self-conscious instead. “I-I’m sorry, uh, what didn’t I understand? Maybe I, uh, wasn’t paying attention or…or something, it’s been a long day after all, hehe…”
”Weeell… there's technically something we could do…
Roxas gulped, knowing exactly what was coming. And it would be the sixth time today that he had done this. But as far as the Nobody was concerned, saying “No” wasn’t an option, ”He’s right, there is.” He said in a hushed voice, ”It’s not easy, though. So we should only do it if you’re absolutely sure you want to.” After this Roxas started to feel like he probably owed Yuito more of an explanation.
”The way I helped you in Beacon Hospital,” Roxas then said after a brief pause, ”was by using this.” he produced a pink Friend Heart in his hand for Yuito to see, ”It’s called a Friend Heart. Anyone can learn to use them. You can throw it into someone who you want to free, and it’ll do just that.” After this he closed his hand into a fist to cancel out the Friend Heart, ”But there’s a catch. It only works on someone who’s been weakened or tired out first. But on the plus side, it fully heals and restores the person you use it on in addition to freeing them.”
Roxas paused for a moment to give Yuito a chance to process the information before continuing, ”Since you already had your soul sucked out of you by that monster in the hospital, I used one on you hoping it would restore your soul.” He paused again, then summoned Oathkeeper in his hand, ”But Friend Hearts aren’t the only method we have. My Keyblades have the power to free someone as well, and they don’t even have to be weakened first. But…” Another pause, but this prospect having a catch of its own shouldn’t have been all that surprising for the Psych-OSF soldier, ”...the thing that influences people - Galeem. It’ll make them resist and try to fight back. So it’s only practical if the person is restrained first.”
With a look of utmost solemnity on his face, Yuito absorbed everything Roxas had to say. Hanabi listened as well, her manner no less serious. While she couldn’t understand anything about Galeem, she could gather that something had happened to her -possibly in Beacon- that needed to be taken care of. The girl might not be sure what she needed to be freed from, but being free was always better than the alternative. Still, Yuito looked her way with a pained expression. “I don’t want anyone to hurt her,” he said. “So…let’s go with the second method. I’ll find a way to keep her still.”
Hanabi seemed a little shaky. “I’m really not sure what’s going on. I’m kind of scared, to be honest. But I trust you guys, and…I trust you, Yuito. Whatever’s happening, if you believe it’s for my own good, then so do I.”
Yuito took a deep breath. Then he smiled. “I know you do. You’ve always been there for me, Hanabi. Ever since we were little. My dad and my brother were always so distant, but you and Nagi made me feel like I wasn’t alone. You’re both my dearest friends. But that’s not all you are.”
Hanabi’s eyes went wide. “Not…all?” Yuito moved toward her, then wrapped his arms around her in a hug and pulled her close. In an instant Hanabi went beet-red, her face only inches from Yuito’s. She averted her gaze, so nervous that she couldn’t bear to meet Yuito’s eyes, but as he leaned closer she couldn’t look away any longer. Their lips met in a long-overdue kiss, so close that for that moment, there was nothing in the world but one another.
Raz chuckled nervously, hopping over the back of the chair, whispering to Lili, ”I, uh, didn’t know that was an option before.”
Clutching the hilt of the Keyblade, Roxas took a tentative step forward. It didn’t feel quite right to interrupt a moment like this. But this was what Yuito and Hanabi both seemed to want, and so Roxas obliged them. May my Heart be my guiding key. He tightened his grip on Oathkeeper, and held his breath for a hesitant moment.
Then he lunged.
The Nobody plunged the tip of the white Keyblade into Hanabi’s back. To any normal onlooker this would look like some kind of heinous attempt at murder. But thankfully everyone in the room knew better. The blade produced the searing white light from its tip that had become so characteristic of the technique being used. The Keyblade Purge was a power Roxas had admittedly only recently learned about. Within the last three or so days to be exact. And yet with each time he used it, he unmistakably felt like he understood it more and more.
Such as how to strengthen his footing for example. Roxas planted his feet on the floor and leaned forward into his apparent attack. Such a stance kept him from being pushed back by the resistance he inevitably knew was coming. And that was when the scream came from Hanabi. Roxas had failed to mention this particular aspect of the procedure to Yuito, and wondered for a moment whether he would falter and change his mind about proceeding. But the soldier appeared to be standing his ground and tightening his hold on Hanabi’s body. It looked like he was going to see this through after all.
Roxas grunted and breathed through gritted teeth as he pressed forward. Each inch seemingly increased the intensity of both Hanabi’s internal resistance, but to her credit the poor girl held as strong as she could, squeezing Yuito tighter as she fought through the pain. As usual, Roxas swore he could hear something else screaming from somewhere deep inside Hanabi. He wasn’t certain, but his guess was that this was Galeem. Or whatever aspect of Galeem that controlled people anyway. In some ways this was almost like an exorcism of sorts.
”Get! OUT!” Came the shout from Roxas, as if he was struggling against whatever had its hold on Hanabi. But the Keybearer stood his ground, and with enough exertion he finally twisted his weapon from its original vertical angle to a horizontal. It rather looked like a key being forcibly turned in order to open a particularly stubborn lock. But when he did this, both he and Hanabi became washed over by a blinding flash of radiant light. When that brightness cleared, it left Hanabi no worse for wear and - more importantly - freed.
She and Yuito broke apart. They both looked exhausted, and more than a little shaken up -either by the power of the purge or being used as a live stress ball- but they were okay. Against all odds, their strategy had worked wonders. As much as the purge shook Hanabi to her very core, her mind had been elsewhere–in a sanctuary of long-awaited happiness. Even now, she and Yuito were smiling.
”Hah… did you… see how her colors changed?” Roxas asked Yuito and Lili between heavy breaths, ”That’s how you know she’s been freed. Anyone… under Galeem’s influence… will look like she did. All muted… with glowing red eyes, and all.” Roxas stumbled over to the sofa and let himself collapse on it. This, he knew, would also happen. As much as he felt like he was getting the hang of the Keyblade Purge, using it this many times in succession was still going to take its toll.
”By the way…” Roxas said, now laying on the sofa with one arm lazily hanging over the edge, ”...there’s actually a third way to free people that we didn’t mention earlier: Defeating the area Guardian. If we do that, everyone in the region will be freed all at once. So that would mean all of Midgar, and probably Gutsford too I’ll bet. That’s why Raz and I came to Midgar with the rest of our friends.”
Both soldiers gave him a grateful smile. “We’ll think about all that in the morning,” Yuito told him. “We all need rest, you most of all. For now, just take it easy.” He took Hanabi by the hand. “As messed-up as things are, we can still make everything right, I know we can. It’ll be a long journey, but we’ll get there. One step at a time.”
Having just watched the Keyblade-based awakening, since he missed out on it when he and Roxas had tried to do it with Lili, Raz walked over to the couch. ”Sorry if it’s a bad time to ask if you’re too beat after doing that, but in the spirit of… team cohesion? I was wondering what you’re doing exactly, when it comes to freeing people like her and Lili?” He gestured to the hand Roxas usually held his keyblade with. ”And what’s with the giant key?”
”It’s called a Keyblade.” Roxas answered, ”It… um… huh, come to think of it, I have no idea where they originated from actually.” He mused, then continued after a pause, ”But I do know they’re a special weapon that only certain people with strong enough Hearts can summon. Where I come from we had these monsters called Heartless that come from the darkness in people’s hearts. The Keyblade is the only weapon capable of permanently destroying a Heartless. They’ve got other powers too. Like opening any lock. Or sealing the entrances to the Realm of Darkness where the Heartless come from.”
He thought for a moment and then added, ”And apparently they can free people from Galeem’s control. Admittedly I had no idea they could do that until after I joined up with you guys at Twilight Town. Remember when I freed Benedict when we fought him on the way here? That was the first time I ever discovered I could do it. I’ve just been… playing it by ear ever since, I guess.”
By this point Yuito and Hanabi had gone to actually eat the simple meal that Yuito had prepared. Once they finished the fold-out cots in the exercise room were where they’d sleep for the night, but neither of them could fault Roxas if he elected to pass out on the couch where he lay.
”The darkness in people’s hearts,” Raz repeated, musing. He hoped for something more, you know, informative, though he couldn’t fault Roxas for not being a Keyblade scholar anymore than he could fault himself for not being a brain surgeon. It was a little hard to wrap his mind around - it felt much more ‘magic’ than anything Raz was familiar with. But it’d been a long day, and he didn’t want to hold Roxas up with a round of 20 Questions.
It wasn’t like he could learn everything there was to know about Roxas’s home in just two days, the canonical length of time they’ve been together, after all.
”You did good today, Roxas,” Raz added, trying to leverage the slightly longer time he’d been a Seeker as enough seniority to make that call. ”And before I forget… thanks.” He left the Keyblader and moved back to Lili. ”Hey, how’re you feeling?”
Roxas offered no further responses, as he was now out like a lightbulb. To be honest this was a long time coming. He’d been running on fumes for a while now and had officially reached the point of no longer being able to stay awake. So there he lay on that sofa, finally getting that much deserved sleep after a long, LONG day.
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