Virgin Victory teleport room Top of the Split mountain Outside the Convent of Our Lady of the Charred Visage Tostarena Town S.O.U. Building Seiran Clinic Underground Roadway (Seiran Rebel Base Outskirts) Below City of glass entrance (plate maintenance tunnel) Vandelay Campus (Alleyway)
Midna spoke a bit with Gamma in the 3 way junction room, filling him in on the limbless person’s existence, and getting info about what Sakura was up to in turn.
She agreed with his assessment that they’d have to deal with the doll-making doctor first if they wanted to have a chance of extracting his victim, but decided to first back up Sakura. After all ”She’s talking to someone who works in this madhouse? That’s a situation just waiting to go south” she predicted, perhaps projecting herself into the situation a bit more than she should, because she certainly wanted to deliver some pointed words to whoever was in charge.
It was also strange that he didn’t know anything about Peach, or, presumably about people being turned into Others, she thought.
”Was this a trap?” she wondered. The people they were tracking down had certainly befallen something. ”Did they deliberately make a lot of noise about this to lure dissidents here?” she theorized as a result.
If so, it was all the more reason to go and back Sakura up before things went south. After suggesting Gamma also start heading that way (”I don’t think the doctor’s going anywhere, so might as well be ready to charge in like a gallant knight and back us ladies up, right?”), she moved as swiftly as she could towards the third and final room.
Inevitably, she was too late, and things were already in the middle of going south, the princess arriving just in time to see Sakura shoot a hadouken between two psych-off operatives and some unfortunate looking woman with bolts stabbing into her joints, visible dark veins that did not look healthy and a leather mask that seemed stitched onto her face. Despite this unpleasant looking state of being, she was clearly dangerous from her movements, and the giant wheel of blades attached to her back.
The masked princess pulled herself out of the shadows next to Sakura, ready to fight, only to be confused about her subsequent actions of practically begging the operatives to stop and demanding to know if the 4th individual in the room, the one with the exposed brain, had something to do with how they were acting.
”Roadblock, shield us” she commanded, summoning the bulky exosuit before them, who raised a massive translucent barrier shield between them and the hostels that Sakura didn’t seem to want to fight. It’d give them a few moments to get on the same page, she hoped.
”Are these some of the people who came back acting entirely differently?” she guessed, before also guessing that ”We can probably free them with friend hearts? If what that lunatic Consul C talked about is true with it restoring people to their original state is right anyway”
Then she jabbed a finger at the brain person and demanded to know ”The person with their limbs cut off two rooms over, that your dong?” while the other three were held at her sides, ready to draw a flurry of blades if she didn’t like his answer.
Virgin Victory teleport room Top of the Split mountain Outside the Convent of Our Lady of the Charred Visage Tostarena Town S.O.U. Building Seiran Clinic Underground Roadway (Seiran Rebel Base Outskirts) Below City of glass entrance (plate maintenance tunnel) Vandelay Campus (Alleyway)
”Hello? No?” Midna trailed off as her attempt to contact Sandalphon failed ”I’m really going to have to find out how that worked”
It had and would certainly be useful to have a line to the others, she thought, so it was something to look into. The lack of it meant she was still on her own when it came to the limbless patient. Or, well, not alone. She at least had people who might know what the machines were, and so she sought them out.
”I’ll be back” she said, not knowing if the person could even hear her but saying it just in case, before pulling the curtains back in place, and slipping into the shadows once more.
A few hops later, and she was back in the room with the doctor, and a few more and she’d found Gemma, pulling herself out of the shadows in his line of sight and then carefully edging closer to engage in whispered conversation with him.
”I found a person. Arms and legs cut off. Face wrapped in bandages. Machines with tubes and… wires I think they're called, stuck in and on them. Sounded barely alive” she told him quietly, ”We need to help them. I can teleport them back to our bases, but I’m not sure if I can even move them out of the bed. It’d help if you or Sakura had a look, as I’m not familiar with your technology”
”Where is she anyway? Is she not back yet?” she asked, growing concerned, before offering ”I can go check?”
I uh... Uhm... What? I'm sorry, I'm having a little trouble understanding what you said there.
If you're asking if that picture is acceptable as a costume, I suppose it is? I'm honestly having a hard time telling exactly what it's supposed to be, though I'm assunming it's some kind of minotaur or otherwise similar person? It's very... Chibi... So it's hard to get a proper feel for the design. Some kind of cyber-cow?
If that wasn't what you wwre asking, I'm terribly sorry for misunderstanding. :(
Central hub: Smash City Alcamoth Accessible locations: Peach’s castle Limsa Lominscuttle Town Lumbridge Twilight Town Kosm’s Beach
In the battle for the hive’s streets, the rubble of a destroyed building suddenly began to be pushed up, forming a brief dome of paper and wax. Rubble tumbled down, revealing the odd bone, before the top of the dome opened up, pushing all the debris to the side to tumble away, revealing the floating form of the (former) skull girl Marie Korbel, and the legions of skeletons she had summoned to form the walls that had cleared away the debris.
Then the striker turned to a mote, which returned to its owner, causing the skeletal walls to dissipate, and reveal him to the world once again.
Bowser was in the midst of wrestling with a battered heavy drone who’s charge had brought the building down on top of both of them, but now that he was free, he grabbed a tight hold of it, and spun around quickly before hurling it into the air.
”So long ya posser!” he yelled as the machine was launched skywards where it smashed into another building, stunning it long enough for Bowser to take in the state of the battlefield (and also long enough for Sectonia to later finish it off).
Said queen had abandoned her floating artillery role, and moved in to take the Iron Queen in melee, tying up the wasp’s mage core leader, while the chaos Rubick was spreading with his imitation magics was tying up the mage core itself.
In the distance, gunfire sounded as Jesse used her object of power to tear through the wasps, making short work of even the metal armored ones with her array of powers and weapon modes. Ganondorf was busy dueling another, more humanoid, robot of the wasp forces, while the bees had rallied an array of bee-type pokemon which turned their desperate struggle into something far more even and, with the aid of the seekers, something they were actively winning.
The only people really struggling on the seekers side turned out to be the rest of Troop, who were facing down the self empowered Ichor queen, who was very much pulling a Sectonia by charging into the seeker’s own mage line.
Kamek and his clones swooped past the king as he looked for them, only for the queen to come slamming down with her titanic blade to cleave one of the doppelgangers in half, while her own refracted around her in a mesmerizing haze. Rika, who had returned to the fold, fired her rigging guns at the queen in retaliation, only for her shots to be blow off course by a swirling barrier of wind surrounding the queen.
The queen turned on the princess, buzzing towards her, hauling her sword over her shoulder again as she flew, before bringing it down in another overhead swipe. Rika used her maneuvering thrusters to boost out of the way, and then just barely brought her cloyster striker out in time to block the queen’s stinger as she swung its poison dripping tip forwards in a combo attack. She tried to jab her spear in in retaliation, but hit only air as it passed through one of the illusions, and then grappling hooked away as the queen reached out with one of her hands to try and touch her, which she correctly assumed would not end well.
A ball of electricity flashed through one of the illusions, prompting the queen to turn again and focus now on the final member of the Troop she had not yet tried to take down.
”Uh oh”
Presently lacking his clown car, the prince was not the most agile, and given that he was carrying two pokemon, that agility was even more limited. So, as the queen charged once more, he saw only one choice
”fire everything!” he yelled, summoning superscope wielding Primids and pan hurling chef bros to his side to add to his firepower. Kitchen utensils flew, energy bolts flared, electroballs zapped and fireballs from the princes’ own maw sizzled, but all their efforts flew off course or hit falsehoods, all except for Dazzles.
Held under his trainer’s arm, the popplio opened his mouth and unleashed a beam of pink soundwaves which could not be blown away, and as he swept them over the whole illusionary ensemble, he struck true. In an instant, all the illusions vanished, and the queen became visible.
Somewhat.
It was as if her body was writhed in a veil of mist, one that made it appear hazy and unclear. Where the sound beam hit her, that haziness lessened somewhat, but it by no means became clear. What was clear was that the pokemon was doing no harm. Neither did Rika as she hit the queen with a burst of rifle fire, the bullets that were not blow off course unable to bring the queen’s body into clarity to properly harm it.
Which meant she kept coming.
The prince turned to run, but burdened as he was, there was no chance of escape. The queen’s blade rose up, and then swung down- and cleaved into the king’s shell, as Bowser hurled himself forwards to shield his son.
It would have cost him greatly, had his son not immediately called out ”Benediction!” and used his long cooldown full heal to restore his father to peak condition in an instant.
It still cost him, for as he spun around the queen’s massive stinger, came to meet him, striking him in the chest and injecting venom. The king roared in pain but soldiered on, claws ripping forwards, yet the queen buzzed back, using her great blade to repel his attempted attack.
Behind him, his son backed up to get clear of the royal rumble, and lent his father his aid, using ”Esuna!” to clear the venom, and cures to try and keep him topped up, yet the queen was relentless in her attacks, swift in her evasions of the kings heavy blows, and immune to any of his lighter ones. She also called some of her remaining cultists to go after Kamek specifically, while not minding Rika’s attempts to aid her father.
Yet from her actions, Jr sussed out how the spell protecting her must work, and in turn what it must be weak too.
He stepped closer despite warnings and noises of concern from his minions in order to cast ”Holy!” causing a pulse of power to blast out from him, striking the queen and searing her body, bypassing the misty defense due to its magical nature.
That was why she had distracted Kamek, now as to avoid the heavy hits: ”Hit her with everything you’ve got papa!” he called out, as the holy magic had briefly stunned her, giving him an opening.
The king, trusting his son’s plan, followed up immediately, he jets flaring on his kinetic strike module and sending his rocket empowered fist slamming forwards into the queen. Where it hit, the haze fully dissipated, and then the entire effect shattered, along with a fair portion of the queen’s carapace, though the blow was by no means lethal, the magic having reduced the blow’s damage in its final moments.
In the moments that followed it would have been wise for the queen to use her mobility to back off and re-apply to her buffs, or to switch to hurling lightning from afar. Instead the damage enraged her, driving her into a berserker rage like the ones the other cultists had experienced, turning the spellcasting leader into a furious single minded brute.
She was by no means harmless like this, and indeed the massive bleeding crack she immediately left in Bowser’s shell with a rage fueled cleave was evidence to that, but any cunning she had was gone. Bowser went on the defensive, and Jr kept him alive with spellcraft, while Rika and Mimi both flanked the queen. The pokemon used her shadow to attack from one side, briefly drawing the queen’s attention and allowing Rika time to flip her spear around, jabbed barrels on its base past the air shield that had been deflecting ranged attacks, and to then pulled the trigger.
Two point blank shells blasted into the queen, punching through her chitin and then exploding within, spraying blood and guts everywhere, before Bowser slammed another punch in, this one doing its full harm, and shattering the rest of the ichor queen’s inside, ending her life.
They took a moment to breathe, and then started to move to aid Kamek, only to find the mage had just finished dealing with the cultists the dead queen had sent after him. This same thing was true most of everywhere, with the seekers having dealt with the biggest threats, and the free bees having the rest in hand.
And thus, the way forwards lay open.
They had some taodies gathered up some spirits of the different types of wasps they had killed, including a few mages and of course the Ichor queen, before they kept moving and caught up with Nadia.
”Which is to say, we dealt with the wasps response force, meaning we won’t have to deal with them now” Kamek added to the hive knight’s one word response to Nadia’s joky accusations of them being late.
As it turned out they probably could have taken all the time in the world that they wanted, because the ‘true’ wasp queen seemed to be something of a fake. She was a machine, and one far less impressive than some of the ones that they had fought outside, a contraption of scrappy looking iron, unworked wood and patchwork canvas. She was also hanging from the ceiling, and couldn't exactly go anywhere, or come to attack them.
She herself might be rather defenseless, but her loyal swarm still fought for her, ensuring that there was still a fight to be had. Said wasps lacked any special abilities, but they were also far more coordinated under this grand queen than they had been on their own, or under the lesser ones.
The troop were forced to scatter to avoid the first living weapon that came their way, and then started to play their own parts in the battle. Bowser and Jr both took on wasp handling duty. The king’s mega fireballs were his most flashy contribution, creating slow large moving balls of danger that the seekers and wasps could move around individually, but that seriously disrupted the formation of any swarm trying to swing past them.
Less flashy was the use of his cannons to blast swarms with supersonic waves to sow confusion among their ranks, or blasts of water, regular cannonfire and fire breath to thin their numbers.
Jr meanwhile mostly made use of Dazzle, the mon forming great bubbles of cold air, which when popped blasted forwards in a gust of icy wind that crystallized on the wasps wings and bodies, slowing down their flight speed. With Mimi copy catting this attack, the prince could give himself and others more time to avoid the slowed down swarm strikes.
While they did this Rika launched herself up into the air with her feather fall rune, and then used her grappling hook to latch onto the queen and pull herself to one of the bandages, whereupon she set herself to work chainsaw bayonetting though it. Kamek covered her back, granting her a sphere of protection to make her mostly immune to physical damage, and using his and his clones magic to blast nearby wasps with magic bolts, or summon spinning rings of playing card suit symbols using the wand of pocus.
Once a pice of the armor fell, he summoned his so far unused tonberry striker and dropped it directly atop the machine piece below. The little creature slid and bumped down it for a few moments before it caught itself on a bit of the metal skeleton. Once secure it ominously raised its plain chef’s knife, and then stabbed it down, doing a disproportionately immense amount of damage to the component with that single blow.
Virgin Victory teleport room Top of the Split mountain Outside the Convent of Our Lady of the Charred Visage Tostarena Town S.O.U. Building Seiran Clinic Underground Roadway (Seiran Rebel Base Outskirts) Below City of glass entrance (plate maintenance tunnel) Vandelay Campus (Alleyway)
After reporting in to Gamma, and finding out where Sakura had gone, the princess went to find out what was in the final room, confident that the street fighter could handle herself, and that she had backup if anything went sour.
Said final room was open to the air rather than sealed by double doors, which allowed the princess to simply slip inside without any risks of falling for any traps (deliberately set or not).
What she found was disturbing. The first thing she sensed was the beep beep beep of some sort of machine, the monitor of which showed a line that pulsed in tune with the sounds. The machine had a pair of wires coming off of it, which joined up with tubes coming from other, less noisy, machines, and which all slipped under a set of thin curtains shrouding a hospital bed.
The curtains did their job of hiding what was inside rather poorly, for a strong back light revealed the silhouette of a limbless figure, its chest slowly rising and falling. As the princess got closer, slipping between the shadows of strewn around visitor chairs and a bedside table, she started to hear that breathing too, once it was no longer drowned out by the machines. It was a hollow and sickly sounding breathing, while also being strangely staticky as well (though not being familiar with the concept of white nose, the princess would have described it as a combination of sizzling meat and a snake’s hiss).
With a mix of dread and curiosity, the princess pulled herself out of the shadows of the machines by the bed, and reached out with her shadow hand to pull the curtains aside with care. Upon seeing what was within, Midna gasped with horror, and dropped the curtain, before forcing herself to look again.
What she beheld was a person, arms and legs severed at the joins leaving not even stumps, and their face sheathed in bloody bandages. Their torso meanwhile had numerous wires and tubes stuck too or into it. The ones from the beeping machine were right over the heart, the princess unsure if it was mirroring, stealing from or maintaining the organ beneath, while tubes carried various fluids to and from the brutally injured person.
While most of her was appalled at what she saw, a little part of her mind mocked the hypocrisy of her horror when she had just done this to a certain obnoxious ex-head of R&D.
”He could have fixed that” she bit back at her own mind with a harsh whisper, before continuing the thought ”He did fix that... He could, or someone could, fix this!” which briefly ripped away the horror and replaced it with hope. Mere moments later however her spirits came crashing down again, as she stared at the mass of tubes and cables and then followed them back to the machines, and then from the machines to cables linking them to a slot on the wall, one that sat beside a large switch.
”That … turns them off?” she guessed, which she had no idea if it was bad or good. Even if it was good, she wasn’t a doctor, she was quite sure that if she tried to remove all the things plugged into the patient/victim, she might very well kill them by accident.
”Skywave?” she said, summoning the newly acquired exosuit striker to her side, but the dead pilot within knew nothing that the princess did not know, and so could simply put motion to the princess’s doubts as to her effectiveness with a shake of the head. This person needed the kinds of surgeons who made DespoRHado’s cyborgs, or miracles, and the princess had neither.
She could only pray and hope that an angel was listening ”Sandalphon? Are you still listening? Can you see what I see? Can you help them?” she asked the air, unsure if the Archangel’s power worked this far away.
If it didn’t, she would regretfully leave, and go to inform the others. Something needed to be done, but with such a delicate situation, she would not risk doing something without the others, and could only hope they knew more about the machines in the patient/victim than she did.
Virgin Victory teleport room Top of the Split mountain Outside the Convent of Our Lady of the Charred Visage Tostarena Town S.O.U. Building Seiran Clinic Underground Roadway (Seiran Rebel Base Outskirts) Below City of glass entrance (plate maintenance tunnel) Vandelay Campus (Alleyway)
Light flared, and for a moment the princess thought she was doomed, the flickering flame in Gemma’s hands banishing the shadows and, in doing so, the way she had intended to escape the small horde of patients she had taunted into chasing her.
Only after a pair of seconds on her overpriced watch had passed did her vision clear enough that she could see that the light’s return had been far more impactful on their foe’s mobility than hers.
”What kind of children's nightmares are these, stopped by lamplight?” she asked, as she poked a motionless patient with the tip of a sword, only to start away as the blade’s shadow blocked just enough of the light for it to move an arm to try and grab her.
She stepped back hurriedly, and the returned light froze it once more.
That was only the minor flaw in this defense. Much worse was that it was, according to the man casting it, on a limited timer.
”Then let’s move” she agreed upon learning this, discarding her blades into portals and summoning her wolfos steed beneath her, having to size it up a bit to make sure it could carry her new larger form. Its clawed paws clitter clattered across the tiled floor as it moved to catch and then keep up with the other two.
Her beast scampered around and lept over obstacles, while the princess mentally rummaged around her things, first looking for the flamethrower, cursing when she remembered she’d just given it away. This was probably for the best, as if she had had it, there would have been a real risk that she would have ended up burning the building down while they were still in it.
As it was, she did pull out her sharpened volcano fragment, but thought better of trying to hack it into the wall of grasping arms (not because of the potential fire hazard igniting them represented, but because she might lose the axe) and instead hunkered down atop her steed and had it rush past them, only to end up what she briefly thought was a dead end.
Fortunately, it turned out to instead be a mechanical moving room, one that she had to unsummon her wolfos to not overcrowd, and also one that fortunately seemed to have a different powersource from the rest of the floor. Its light came on, its doors slid shut, and it delivered them down into whatever fresh hell awaited them below.
”I really hope there’s something binding those things to this place” Midna said, shivering at the thought of what could happen should those indestructible things get out into the wider world.
They would not, fortunately, have to deal with any more of them down below, at least not right away. The elevator’s door slid open and, while there were manikins to be found, none of them tried to get up, either due to the dim light or because most of them were incomplete.
That latter state of affairs looked like it wouldn’t be a permanent one, as their next discovery was the man, or thing, responsible for the patient’s creation.
Midna watched the man or monster at work, peering from behind a set of supplies, her mask hiding a look of visible distaste. Still, as much as she wanted to attempt to take whatever this entity was down, she thought this might be unwise.
”For all we know, this doll maker playing doctor is protected by whatever vile power does the same for his creations. Best to not attract his attention if we don’t have to, I think” she suggested.
If they took that course, then there was the question of which way to go.
”Three ways forward. Let me check the one with the doors by sneaking through the shadows, and then I’ll come back” she offered, making an assumption that the other two would at least peek into the open doors from some kind of cover while she was at that.
Then she slipped away, hopping from shadow to shadow till she was near the double doors and then, while the doctor was busy making noise and getting parts, she slipped back out, pushed open the doors and quickly stepped through.
Yet instead of ground, that foot stepped on nothing but open air, causing her to topple forwards into that same absence, her low friction combing back to bite her in the butt for the first time in a while as it prevented any kind of grip from the remaining foot. Had she used a hand to try and grab the ledge, or a shadowhand to grab one of the wire hung beds swinging above the drop, she might have caught herself. Instead, she reached for her levitation, and found nothing.
And so she fell, tumbling end over end, four arms flailing. Yet the bit of the fall that would kill her, namely the ground, did not come. Instead the princess had the time to stabilize her fall, mostly using her fan-like flygon tail, and then look down to find out why.
Far, far, far below, and yet still approaching at speed, was the sight of familiarly scummy water, and if that didn’t give away what she was looking at, the glowing, semi translucent form of a psifish certainly did.
It was the reservoir that sat down at ground level beneath Suoh’s plate.
For a moment, the princess found herself pondering if this right here was how the psyfish had been flushed down into the reservoir, before the reality of her situation reasserted itself. There was time to think, but it was rapidly running out, and so in the scant few moments remaining she came up with a plan.
A few moments later, the psyfish she had spotted spun on the spot upon sensing something falling, and then proceeded to watch the princess' final moments before she hit the water. Yet strangely there was no splash, and so it moved over to inspect the spot, yet found nothing to be found in the shade of one of the tall metal pillars holding up the plate above.
Back up above on that same plate, the princess of twilight pulled herself out of the shadows and onto the lower half of a hanging bunkbed. She’d managed to angle herself so that she could drop into a shadow, the immaterializing nature of that act preventing her from becoming past on impact, yet it had been a close thing, and her heart was beating at machinegun speeds in her chest still.
”Once again. Can’t fly any more” she quietly reminded herself with a rap to her helm, before glaring at the precipice by the door she had fallen off of and asking ”Who builds a room like this? Are they all built like this and if you break a floor that’s it down into a pit you go?” before shivering at that thought.
Once she had recovered, and identified that there was really nothing of note worth investigating this way (just a few vents that went who knew where), she carefully crossed over the gap between the bed and the narrow lip of concrete by the door. Then she listened for the rumbling before slipping back inside of the room, and then back into a shadow once more, skipping around the room till she found either or both of the others
”Unless you want to climb on beds hanging over a drop all the way down to the reservoir to get to nothing interesting, I do not recommend going that way” she informed them quietly, before adding a warning ”And if we do, watch your step, there’s less than a foot of space on the other side of the door before that drop” and leaving out that she herself had not done so and almost suffered the consequences as a result.
Central hub: Smash City Alcamoth Accessible locations: Peach’s castle Limsa Lominscuttle Town Lumbridge Twilight Town Kosm’s Beach
”Alright, let's get this party started!” Bowser declared as Barnabee leapt forwards to take care of the first patrol that ran across them.
Rather than do the same and get stuck right, the King leapt up onto one of the nearby buildings, before roaring at the top of his lungs to announce his presence. Stealthy he was most certainly not being.
If the roar didn’t give that away, then the king proceeded to belt out a challenge of ”Listen up chumps! I’m going to tell you this, and tell you this once! The Koopa king has come to town, so you better run away wasps, or you're going down!” too the occupying army certainly did, followed up by him giving the command ”Koopa troop, attack!”
Attack they did, joining in with queen Sectonia and opening fire on the various bee-bop drones hovering around the hive. Magical blasts from Kamek, gunfire from Rika and pink sound waves from Jr (who was using Dazzle as a hand cannon) all lashed out and knocked the robotic drones from the sky.
While a wasp on camera drone watching duty some ways away ran to find someone in charge, the troop entered the fray properly, just in time to back up Barnabee as the additional squads came in.
The troop opened up with a gust of icy wind launched by Dazzle, the pokemon’s frosty gust hampering the flying foes as they were pushed back, and frost formed on their wings. Then magic blasts and water cannon shots, followed by explosive bursts of goop, and that was all before they got into melee where spears, claws and rocket powered punches awaited them.
Suffice to say that, if the seekers stayed grouped up, the individual wasp patrols were no match for them when the numbers were remotely even. They were meant to keep the various bee workers in check after all, not see off a concentrated invasion force.
Worse for them, in seeing their oppressors fall, and the return of a hero of their people, some of the bees abandoned their indentured tasks to race to his side. Not all, not even many, but some. They picked up tools, raided now undefended weapon stockpiles, or went to battle with only stinger and bear fists to their name, fighting for the hive and for freedom.
”Ha ha! This is going to be a cake walk! We’re building our own army and everything, and what have they got? Nothing!” Bowser laughed, right on cue for his earlier aggrandizing to come around to bite them in the thorax.
The thrum of heavier wings, much, much heavier wings was heard, and then two titans, twice as tall as their lesser kin and far more bulky, entered the battlefield, or rather, by their very presence, truly made it one.
The first of the pair brought the swarm. Adorned in crimson robes and with red ribbons trailing from her antenna, the ichor queen carried with her in her four arms a single cleaver as tall as she was. Accompanying her where lesser pretenders to her own image, also carrying great cleavers and dressed in red, as well as a very small cadre of male drones, their faces veiled, every hand carrying a weapon, and something stirred in their blood that made them far more dangerouse than mere mortals.
The second arrived with a smaller contingent, but neither it nor she were any less dangerous because of this. Her brown hued chitin had a metallic sheen to it, and spikes radiated off of it. She carried with her a small rune covered hammer that was no weapon, but instead a tool she had been using to craft artifacts, many of which she now carried: she was armed a sword who’s reflections shone like sunlight and which could summon vines, and a large poisonous thistle shaped like a mace, while being protected by both a shield and a helmet made of lead. A thick layer of soil clung to her feet and lower legs, giving her the appearance of wearing boots made from the earth itself. Accompanying her were several wasps carrying staves and wands decorated with ribbons, these blue and green instead of the blood red of the cult.
These immediately demonstrated what exactly they were by taking up defensive positions, whereupon those with green banners engaged in some kind of ritual to draw strength from the earth, before they began barrages of launching spinning blades from out of thin air, while those with blue banners immediately began hurling lightning bolts. The brown hued iron queen meanwhile began casting spells that empowered small groups of wasps, turning chitin to iron much like her own was, and conjuring spectral beast hides atop that same defense to further increase the resilience of the swarm.
When combined with the missile onslaught of the Heavy Drone B-33 and the odd javelin wielding wasp, the arrival of the mages meant that the heroes no longer had an overwhelming ranged advantage, forcing the troop, at least, to back off and take cover.
Rather than surge forwards into this space, the cultist wasps took the moment to pray … and to sacrifice. A number of bees adorned in white robes of purity and bound in chains had been brought with them, and in the moment they were given, the cultists turned their blades on these captives first, spilling blood from which a swarm of bloodflies erupted. The flies, like redfured mimicries of the bee’s own hivings, surged forwards as an expendable vanguard which the blessed cultists then followed. All but their ichor queen. She instead channeled her magic, empowering herself, readying to enter the fray at a decisive moment and deliver the executioner's blow.
The charge was met by sporadic firepower that mainly managed to cut down the swarm of flies, and then crashed into the seeker’s minion frontline. Man sized cleavers were swung overhead, crushing dry-bones and antlions in a single swing, while the wasp drones utilized their four smaller weapons to overwhelm with flurries of blows, cutting down nimble hivlings that avoided their sisters’ singular strikes.
They did not do this without taking blows, of course, but this seemed to only make them more furious, the wasp cultists devolving into a frothing berserker rage when hurt that rendered them even more dangerous, their blows keener and heavier than ever, though in that fury the became far less focused on protecting their remaining vitality. The enraged drones were even worse than their sisters, for on top of being empowered by harm, their wounds also knit shut shortly after they received them.
As they broke through the expendable summon line in places, or simply flew over it, they entered into a street fight with whatever seekers were on the ground, and the bees fighting for their freedom alongside them.
While fights with the latter were rather one sided in the cult’s favor, the former was anything but. For the troop’s part, Bowser and Rika were their frontline.
The ship girl's first cultist kill came easily, a hail of lead from her rifle gunning down one of the massive cleaver wielders before she could get close. The second she splatted with her grizzco blaster, covering it in goop that caused it to drop to the ground, where she blew it apart with a barrage of shells from her rigging guns. The third got close enough that she had to bring her lance out, skewering it upon the needle thin point thanks to the element of surprise.
It was the fourth that caused issues: a drone, his hide turned to iron and a phantom cloak of some beast’s hide draped across his shoulders, all thanks to the iron queen’s magic. Bullets pinged off his enhanced chitin as she tried to gun him down, he recovered too quickly from the goop blast for her to nail him with her ship guns, and the point of her spear was parried away by two of his many blades.
With a wordless cry the ship girl princess met him with gauntlet and hull blades. She slammed an armored fist forwards, only for the drone to buzz to the side and only be grazed by the blow, after which it struck back. Cleavers smacked against guardian hull blades, energy shielding and armor, doing more harm from their bludgeoning weight than any cutting.
Her chainsaw bayonet squealed against steel as she tried to cut though his armored skin as he continued to hack away at her, one of the blades finding her narrowly missing her unarmored neck. In a half tactical, half panicked move, she fired her maneuvering thrusters, slamming herself forward into him, and then him into a wall, his magically metal hide doing little to increase his weight it seemed.
She kicked off the wall while the drone was momentarily stunned and hammered him with her grizzco blaster, first with fiery goop, and then with electricity. That last seemed to do the trick, the electricity coursing through his metal chitin, stunning him just enough that she could line up her rigging guns and open fire.
The heavy anti ship shells hammered the drone, punching through armor and detonating inside of him, turning the drone into a shower of gore. In the half second it took her to realize that this itself was odd, the demonic blood that the drone had been filled with formed into a writhing living thing and attacked, tendrils of blood streaking out, tips hardening into crystalline ponts.
The princess cried out in pain as these hammered her armor with rapid jabs. She tried to fight back, but being made of blood, the slime-like mass resisted being punched and chopped. So she retreated, grappling hook latching onto a building and pulling her up and away.
There she took a half second to breathe, and then, before the demonic blood could flow off and attack nearby bees, she launched herself back at it. Her goop blaster fired, striking the blood, filling it with inky contamination. Again and again she shot, till the blood was to full of ink to remain cohesive and at last her foe fell
Yet he had been only one of ever so many, and no sooner had she dealt with the blood than she had to run forwards, bringing up her spear as she rushed to support an embattled team of worker bees. They needed all the help they could get. The princess rammed her spear through one wasp, hammered another with her fist, and then unleashed an all out assault on another drone to stop both him and his cursed blood, and by the end of it found herself leading the remains of the bees in a charge across the street to aid a second group of their kin.
Behind this melee, as much as was possible to be behind the messy streetfighting anyway, Kamek and Jr engaged in duel of ranged firepower with the wasp’s mage core and the Heavy Drone B-33, who were quite contrasting in their era, but neither was outdone by the other.
Lightning flashed, hammering into buildings and shocking right through armor, while hails of double ended throwing knives rained down, all accompanied by laser blasts and missile strikes.
Kamek and his doppelgangers returned fire, poking heads and wands out from out above the tops of buildings to blast at the enemy mages, while Jr wielded Dazzle like a gun, and had Mimi on his shoulder, both pokemon blasting away with lightning and song when the prince ducked out from cover.
In the air, queen faced queen, as the iron queen’s ledden shield and helm let her resist a lot of the damage of magical attacks and her transmuted chitin mundane attacks, while a ring of 7 gems and a self empowering spell she had cast caused any wounds she did suffer to regenerate at a frightful rate. She actively placed herself in harm’s way, protecting her team with her own durable form while they continued to trade fire with the seeker’s ranged fighters, as well as healing any who became harmed.
Sectonia’ idea to send their pair of brutish kings forwards under magical empowerment then was doubly wise, as it seemed like the best way to break this stalemate, and Kamek joined his own spellcraft to hers, surrounding one or both with a physically resisting barrier.
In response, the damage Drone charged forwards to meet them, Bowser and it slamming together, sending a shockwave echoing through the battleground. They pushed at each other for a few moments, before the king grabbed the drone with both his claws, and hurled it to one side, sending it smashing through the wall of a building.
He laughed in victory, only to turn in response to a warning call as the ichor queen finally entered the fray on her own. She had not spent the opening moments of battle idle either. A barrier of air surrounded the queen, deflecting projectiles, while her body had turned to mist, protecting her from minor blows while doing nothing to reduce her own deadliness, and she was surrounded by a half dozen illusory reflections of herself.
She and her mirrors slammed down their great cleaver, though only the true one struck true, smashing into the king’s shoulder. He grunted in pain but the barrier protected him from the physical harm. It did not protect him when she buzzed back, avoiding his retaliatory punch that would have hit an illusion anyway, and blasted an electrical shockwave from an outstretched hand.
Convulsing from the super effective damage, the king was unable to avoid the return of the drone, which slammed out of the ruined building, into the king, and then carried him and it into another one, slamming him through said wall and leaving the empowered ichor queen unchecked on the battlefield, and ready to charge forwards to deliver death whenever she might please unless someone faced her.
Central hub: Smash City Alcamoth Accessible locations: Peach’s castle Limsa Lominscuttle Town Lumbridge Twilight Town Kosm’s Beach
”In hindsight, I suppose the place with the trees growing out of it would have root caverns beneath it” Kamek mused as the troop looked up at the foliage bursting from the abandoned arboretum. They’d come here after receiving Therion’s message, but, unbeknownst to them, had ended up coming at the place from a different angle, and thus an entirely different entrance, than the thief and his friend had taken.
Nevertheless, they picked their way through the top layer with relative ease and lack of any notable encounters, until they came across a curious sight. Streaks, or paths, of slime coated the ground in one area, all of which converged upon a singular path down towards the lusher garden below.
They found out this latter fact because Rika had immediately stepped on, or rather above, the still wet slime, the presence of even that thin layer of fluid letting her sail rather than walk, which she much preferred. To follow her, the royals were able to simply walk alongside this trail for a while, but when they found the way down, well, it was entirely coated in the slime
”Are we really going down that way” Jr complained
”It would be best to not make the others wait too long, but I suppose we could take a look for another one?” Kamek said, looking to Bowser to get a final say on that matter.
Before he could give it, however, Rika, who had already been sailing ahead to check out the tunnel, piped up ”I think I hear fighting going on down there? There’s magic pew pews and shouting and stuff going on I think” which settled the matter.
”We’re going to get down there and back up whoever’s gotten themselves into a mess. Koopa troop, charge!” he commanded, before stomping forwards onto the slime and down into the tunnel. Jr groaned and then followed his papa on foot while Kamek floated slime free above.
The tunnel dipped and bent, and then took a steep decline which had some rather unfortunate consequences, namely both royals losing their grip on the ground and instead starting to slide down the slime.
”Wowowowow!” Bowser panicked while his arms pinwheeled to maintain his balance, while jr entirely altered his opinion on the slime trailed path, sliding swiftly past his papa with a cry of ”Woohoo!” as he effortlessly kept his balance while shooting down the rest of the tunnel.
The prince burst out into the lush lower level with Rika at his side (the ship girl having matched his pace, one he caught up with her) a little while later, which sent them both careening into a miniature warzone.
One side, that of the garden, had formed a defensive perimeter centered around a relatively normal looking tree tree, sans for the fact that green energy periodically emanate from the tree to settle upon the hulking form of an Awoken Hollow, both revitalizing it, and seemingly causing it to grow even stronger after each revitalization as more vines sprouted from its shell.
The tree was also host to six of sword armed harpies who swooped down out of its branches to attack, before retreating back to it if harmed inorder to be healed by their roost. The remaining bulk of the garden’s forces meanwhile consisted of a number of what seemed to be the fleshless shells of termites, the capitol’s former residents, reanimated by a mass of vines and moss, and a few harpy skeletons animated in the same way (the living ones did not seem to mind this at all), all of which shambled forwards in zombie like fashion towards their foes.
Such slow speed might have made the termite and harpy manikins easily outmaneuvered by most foes, but as it turned out they were matched for speed by the ones they were facing. The decimators of gardens. The leavers of the slime trail. A horde of snails.
The main mass of the slimy invaders consisted of blamish snails which crept along the ground, their shells as tall as men, their maws full of surprisingly sharp teeth. Where they and the manikin met, the snails attempted to simply devour the vines animating the undead, while the manikin in turn tore into them with claws of bone or chitin, or attempted to lash the snails with whip like strikes from their vines that seemed to inflict fatigue at the touch.
These ground borne foes where no threat to the harpies, but what was where the milk snails whom while the where where only about half the size of their blamish kin, where able to unleash bolts of blue magical energy from their stain glass patterned shells. It was they who kept the harpies from simply harassing the snail army to death, as each attempted swoop would be met with an AA barrage of magic blasts.
Finally, at the center of the mass, pushing forwards towards the tree and its awoken hollow guardian, and showing no fear for the way it was smashing aside foe after foe, was a single member of a third kind of snail, one smaller than all the rest, that rocked on its shell rather than its slimy body.
Like the groves forces Rika or Jr noticed that final third kind of snail, for they were much too busy careening into the rear ranks of the slimy army. Literally careening in Jr’s case, as, having no real way to slow down, it was all he could do to spin himself around and slam spiky backed shell into one of the blamish snails, punching holes its armor in the process and eliciting a bubbling cry of pain from his impromptu crashmat, and drawing the ire of the other snails in the process.
His victim attempted to bite him with a mouth containing just enough hard parts that it might actually hurt, and got punched in the face for its efforts.
”ew, gross, you got your slime on my fist” jr complained as he pulled said fist back after leaving the snail’s head a ruined pulp, before pushing away from its disintegrating body, and finding himself surrounded by its angry kin.
”What, are you supposed to be scary? Maybe if I was a cabbage” Jr taunted, before twirling his paintbrush and then giving a warcry of ”Lets see how you like the taste of your own goopy medicine!” before slashing with the brush, leaving a streak of burning slime that started to roast a pair of his foes.
As they burned, the prince leapt up onto their backs, clawed feet finding footing on their large shells despite the slime coating them, after which he started leaping from snail to snail, stabbing down with his paintbrush to deliver ironically slimy death to snails after snail.
Rika meanwhile had avoided smashing into the snails, but by virtue of association also became a target, causing several milk snails to pivot around to attempt to blast her with their magical bolts. They achieved little in trying to do this.
Rika’s gaze slowed the snail’s shots, while she continued to take advantage of the slimy snail trail to sail to and fro, thus avoiding the shots with ease while returning fire with her grizzco blaster and lancing any snails that got close with her spear. As she did this, the harpies took advantage of the distraction, swooping down and swiping at the odd snail with their claw held blades, shrinking cries of triumph and thanks as the unintentional intervention from the pair of youngsters seemed to have turned the course of the battle in their favor.
Then the snail traveling on its shell rather than foot got close to the Awoken Hollow. Fooled by its unassuming stature, the construct of vines and purple armor made the mistake of striking at one of the larger blamish snails instead of this small strange one.
It was a fatal mistake.
The snail opened its maw wide. Wider. And then engulfed the entire hollow within, devouring it in a single bite.
The harpies' cries gradually died out as they all came to realize what had occurred, and then ramped right back up into ones of panic as the snail that had devoured the tree’s greatest defender now moved slowly towards it. Vines rose up around the snail at the tree’s command, attempting to esnare it, and manikin shuffled forwards to try and fill the breach, yet in response the other snails crawled forwards with the devourer, consuming vines and letting what might well be their leader keep moving towards the prize.
The harpies tried to swoop in to defend as well, but bolts shot up, swatting one from the sky, and warding the rest away.
The snails swarmed the fallen harpy as she tried to struggle up, and none, not even the young troop members, could get close to help either her or the tree.
Then Bowser came careening out of the same snail slime slick tunnel his kids had shot out of only a little bit ago. He’d gotten stuck in a wall at one point, slowing him down, but now caught up, once again sailing fourth uncontrollably and as a result, where his son had smashed into and been slowed by one snail, the king stopped for no one and nothing.
Shells and slimy bodies were smashed aside as the king unwillingly entered the fray, careening through the slimy army. He flattened several of the snails trying to eat the fallen harpy alive, giving her sisters an opening to swoop down and pull her out of danger, and then careened right past the devourer snail and smacked, rather lightly (most of his momentum having been killed by flattening snails), into the trunk of the tree.
”Urrgh” the king groaned, before looking down at his snail roadkill splattered clothes and groaning ”and I just got these too!”
“Behind you, noble turtle! The devouring abomination comes to eat us whole!”
”Huh?” the king enthroned as a voice spoke from the tree itself, before turning to look back the way he’d come.
”Devourer?” he asked, when he saw nothing worthy of that name
“There, right there, sitting on its shell, its coming!” the voice cried out in fear as the strange slowly rocking on its shell snail came closer and closer, along with several of its taller kin
”I don’t see anything except more snails” the bamused king said, still not seeing the danger.
”Look out papa! Don’t let it get close!” Jr called from where he was balancing atop a sail shell, to which Rika added ”Shoot it shoot it shoot it!”
Bowser looked even more bemused for a moment, before shrugging, deploying his shoulder cannons, and giving the weird snail both barrels. Shell after shell slammed into the snail, which while a terror to plants and medieval monks was no danger to modern firepower, and quickly blew it to smithereens.
”That good?” Bowser asked, as he dusted of his hands and undeployed his cannons
“Ohhhh thank the Pantokrator” the voice sighed in relief, as the remaining snails that Bowser had not flattened while rolling were rapidly finished off by the tree’s remaining forces and the rest of the troop (including a very late arriving Kamek).
”So am I talking to a tree or what?” the king asked as he took a step back and then turned to face it.
“I am no simple tree, I am a Hamadryad and a wise and magical guardian of this here domain” the tree, or rather dryad, spoke, before offering “for your gallant and timely assistance, i offer you my ancient wisdom. Please, ask, and I shall tell”
”Hmmm” Bowser hummed as he scratched his chin, and the harpies cries of “what are you gonna ask!?” drowned out any attempt by Kamek to get a word in, before asking ”You know where the way down is?”
After they gathered up the various spirits, or rather had some toadies do it, they were given a harpy as a guide, who brought them to the place where the siren had been freed by the siren, and prevented them from running into any trouble along the way.
There they camped down and tried to wash off some of the snail slime while waiting for the others. Once they were all together, they ended up making a bit of a display of all the spirits they had, from the 3 kinds of snails they had just killed, the Awoken Hollow and a few manikins they had scavenged, and the hoppers and Dark Magic Lampyre they had slain earlier while sorting through them all, leaving a perfect opportunity for anyone who had any interest in any of them to make a request before the troop used them up themselves.
If Ganodorf asked him/filled him in, Kamek would comment that the clock the king of evil had seen was most likely a flame clock, and wonder out loud about the strangeness of it being out in the open in the city’s seat of power, when they had never seen any but the one tucked away above the city of tears before.
After that, they headed down with the others and sure enough, the cave led right down to the bee kingdom as the travelers had predicted. There they saw a few bee-like bots enforcing the wasp’s orders, but interestingly, no actual wasps, even though the paper hives clearly indicated their presence.
”I suspect that once one of those flying things sees us, we’ll kicking the hornet's nest, or well, the wasp’s nest, and the occupiers will come buzzing” Kamek predicted, guessing that the bee-boop drones where as much security cameras as they were security.
Bowser meanwhile agreed with his fellow inhuman royal with: ”Yeah, what do we look like, sneaks and thieves? Lets’ get out there and conquer this kingdom already!”
”Liberate” Kamek lightly reminded him
”Same difference”
”At any rate, perhaps we could, as Primrose suggested, have it both ways? We have a, ah, daring and powerful team go out there and get the wasps' attention, while a more subtle force goes around the disturbance and takes out the queen wasp while her soldiers are distracted?” the mage suggested, expanding on the plan that was somewhat coming together.
wordcount: 1,404 (+3) Midna: level 9 EXP: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (31/110) Location: The City of Glass Warp Charges: 1
Virgin Victory teleport room Top of the Split mountain Outside the Convent of Our Lady of the Charred Visage Tostarena Town S.O.U. Building Seiran Clinic Underground Roadway (Seiran Rebel Base Outskirts) Below City of glass entrance (plate maintenance tunnel) Vandelay Campus (Alleyway)
As it turned out, yes, holding hands was what they did, and so the princess proceeded to fully offer her hand to Sakura as if she was inviting her to dance at a royal ball, despite the urgency involved in needing to flee the giant machine that had just crashed the party. Once it was taken, they were off, waltzing across the city in a series of teleporting leaps.
In doing so they excited the fantastical futuristic city found near the heart of the city and entered a region near the outskirts that was far more mundane. Well, mundane for those who were familiar with the modern world at any rate. To Midna it was still new and interesting architecture, just of a different flavor. More somber, less garish. She felt like she might have liked it if she hadn’t found out it had been used for some sort of vile practices, and they really must have been vile indeed considering some of what the city authorities thought was ok.
”Or I suspect they might have not closed it at all, and simply claimed they did. It seems like a stupid decision to start using it again for new terrible things. Hmm, or very smart cover due to how obvious it is” the princess mused, before shrugging ”we’ll just have to demolish it to be sure it can’t be used a third time. After we get everyone out. Dark deeds tend to linger so it’d be best to get rid of the place if we can”
Speaking of dark deeds, the princess could not stop herself from commenting on the theories on where OSF got more psychics from, despite the fact that she should really have left it to Sakura on if she would elaborate or not, by adding that ”the psyfish part certainly was, at least according to the psyfish themselves” and then leaving them to do with that information what they would.
After that she stepped back to let the psychics do their thing, but made sure to take note of all the abilities whichever one of them she was going to go with would have access too. As it turned out she ended up heading out with Gemma, mostly because she happened to be standing near him when they were sorting out teams.
He ended up leading them into a lovely combination of hospital ward and prison, or at least that was how she interpreted the presence of the metal gates. Kept prisoner within where no people, but rather collections of manikins in various states of disassembly.
”Creepy” she commented, before jokingly telling Hemma ”You’ve really brought us to the nicest place for our first time together, didn’t you”
Midna was slightly concerned that the collection of manikins might hide among their mist some of the Other, like the Rummy type ones who were rather manikins-ish already, but that fear turned out to be misguided. It was the manikins themselves that were to be feared.
It started with the flickering of the lights when they were powering up a gate, a hint of movement that could have just been a trick of the light, and then a full blown attack when the fuse blew and they were plunged into darkness.
Ironically, it was the last gasp of the light that made it hard for Midna to see rather than the dark itself, the flash from the blown fuse momentarily blinding her. Meanwhile, when she turned to face the noise of several approaching somethings from behind them, and her vision returned, the darkness was clearer to the princess of twilight than if it was a brightly lit space.
What she saw was a headless manikin lunging for her, already past practical summoning or shadowhand range. She momentarily wished she had been carrying a weapon in preparation for an ambush, but even as she had that though she felt a thread of connection to her blades she hadn’t before.
She always knew roughly where they were in her otherworldly collection of course, but now it seemed clearer, as if she could reach out and touch them. So she did, the princess reaching down to her side, clasping two left hands around the hilt of her longsword, and in one swift motion drew it into the world of light.
In a soft flash of moonlight she drew the blade from a portal as if it was a scabbard, cleaving the blade into the side of the manikin, sending it stumbling to the side. She flashed a grin behind her mask, and prepared to line up a strike on the next of her foes, only to see out of the corner of her eye the one she had struck was entirely unharmed, not a dent in its clothy gown or wooden looking body.
She only had a moment to process that before she had to deal with the next, backing up a step and bringing her blade down, before swiftly drawing one of Zanzo’s cleavers as she had the long sword to strike a third. The heavy blow smacked it away, but again, no harm was done. A fourth foe was struck by a third drawn blade, but now that they were out, the 2 cumbersome cleavers proved as unwieldy as she had expected.
She took another step back as she clumsily bashed a fifth manikin aside, before having an idea. She lightly tossed the two cleavers to the ground as she guarded with the longsword, letting them fall into portals.
Then she took another step back, and proceeded to quickly draw the cleavers again, bashing two manikins away. Drop, step back, draw, strike, another step back- and she suddenly found herself bumping into the wall, and having made no noticeable dent in her foes.
It took that bump to knock her out of the rhythm she had gotten herself into, one free of thought and focused in action, and to really take in the futility of what she had been doing, but by then it was too late.
The princess was swarmed by the monsters, who reached past the blades that she tried to cut them with and grasped her arms. They pulled her forwards as more hands reached out, crushing grips grabbing her chest and neck, trying to crush the life out of her. She gasped, robbed of air, before dropping her weapons all at once, and then dissolved, slipping through their fingers.
A moment later she reappeared on the opposite end of the darkness cloaked room, having faded into shadows and then hopped from where the horde was upon her to another spot. Momentarily losing their quarry did little to phase the manikins, though what did was an odd disunity that proceeded to occur. The ones the princess had struck with the crescent moon blade drawing strikes moved to cross the room to reach her specifically, while the others went for the closest hero, causing a small traffic problem in the process and at least one manakin stumbling over another and tripping to the floor in the process.
”Interesting” she commented between heavy breaths as she observed this, her mind switching gears from what kind of firepower she could bring out to hurt these things, to something more immediately and observably useful that she could do.
With a wave of a hand she summoned the stocky shield bearing exosuit roadblock whom she had turned into a striker, and commanded him to ”Get their attention for me”
The suit obliged, challengingly beating its shield with a fist, which caused a half dozen or so heads to snap in its direction. While her striker taunted their foes, the princess stepped forwards to strike another manikin with an attention drawing slash, having deliberately dropped her blades into portals before hopping away, adding another member to her growing crowd of manikins who wanted to get their hands on specifically her.
That became the core of her strategy going forwards, the princess taunting the unkillable foes, and then using her ability to shadow hop about the dark environment to lead them in a merry game of cat and mouse which they were unable to win, thereby keeping them off of the others. Her hope, then, was that they would be able to find some way to win or move forwards while she acted as bait, drawing as many of the foes away from them as she could.
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