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)
”Hey I asked you a-” Minda began to shout at Brain Drain, before recognizing that now was not the time and cutting herself off with a ”-tch”
They needed to pin down the psychics and free them before they sent everyone falling down the same long long drop she had, and she was pretty sure she was the only one who’d get out of that mess in one piece. Even worse, all the while they were going to have to make sure that the beast of a woman Brain Drain had sicked on sakura’s mind controlled teammates didn’t get a chance to tear them to shreds. There was a plus that plenty of friends had arrived as well, but they were struck by confusion, trying to work out what was going on, just as she had when she had arrived.
There wasn’t time to hesitate however, and so when Sakura moved, Midna moved with her. Unfortunately the streetfighter picked to go for the earth shaker, which left the princess to handle the one throwing ice around (not to mention miss spinning blades on the back). Given that yelling ‘I am weak to ice’ to try and initiate a trading of foes would probably just make the situation worse however, she held the course.
Particularly because, well, the cryomancer was in the midst of freezing Luka to death in a bathtub.
”Go! Get her off him, but don’t kill her! Nobody dies today, not this time!” Minda shouted as she summoned and sent her wolfos racing ahead of her as she approached on foot, the unladen beast able to move much faster than it could if she were riding it into battle. In the next moment she summoned skywave, one of her new strikers, and sent it rushing forwards as well to unleash a flash of light upon both Sina and her victim, one that would blind one while healing the other.
As her beast rushed forwards to try and either bodily tackle the ice psychic, or bite her clothing to drag her back via them, whichever seemed better situationally to first get her away from luka and to then try and keep her off balance, she moved towards the fallen pinwheel and did her best to obstruct her re-entry into the battle.
”Watch out!” she shouted at the patchwork woman, while extending out her shadowhand and placing it in between her and Sina, playing it off as if she was attempting to protect one from the attacks of the other ”Your hurt, let me cover you!”
Whichever way Painwheel tried to rush forwards under her powered up form, Midna would do her best to obstruct and buy time for Sakura, Luka, her wolfos, and anyone else who jumped in to do something to pin down the mad psychics, or rough them up enough that she or someone could flick a heart their way.
While her shadow hand worked to put itself in the way, her other hands pulled out her treespear from a portal. The long spear sported an almost sword like spearhead, but Midna had no intention of using that, instead flipping the weapon around so she would be jabbing people with the base of the shaft instead of the pointy end.
The spear also let her block more of the way forwards, as she tried to put herself in in-between their ‘ally’ and their ‘enemies’ if she could (with the ‘cover’ of shouting ”Stand behind Midna! I mean me!” to ‘explain’ why she was body blocking the blade backed woman). If all else failed, and it looked like Painwheel was going to get past her she could ‘accidentally’ slap from the flat of a quickdraw cleaver into her in-order to taunt her and draw her attention.
She really hoped it wasn’t going to come for that, or her blatant ruse being seen through, but if it did, and it probably would, she'd handle it, somehow.
Central hub: Smash City Alcamoth Accessible locations: Peach’s castle Limsa Lominscuttle Town Lumbridge Twilight Town Kosm’s Beach
The dramatic finish of the foe who had been crushing them, and then vanishing of her seemingly mortality wounded vanquisher, was slightly distracted from when Dazzle, Jr’s sea lion like Popplio, started glowing in his arms.
This prompted a minor panic from the prince and confusion/concern from the rest of the troop save for Mimi who knew exactly what was going on, even if she herself had never and would never experience it. After a few seconds passed with no one pressing any anything resembling a B button the light burst off of the pokemon, and revealed his new evolved form.
The pokemon promptly informed them of his new form’s name with a cheerful “Brionne!” and then did a celebratory backflip.
”I, huh, ok. I guess helping take down the queen wasp, uh, bee, was all the fighting experience you needed to evolve?” Jr said, just now remembering some more of his education about pokemon from a few days back regarding pokemon evolution, before admitting that ”Feels kinda like cheating seeing as Barnabee did most of the work in the end though” which got a harumph from the pokemon.
In saying that he brought their attention away from that brief distraction, and focused them back on the question of what had happened to their insectile guide. They got their sad answer only a few moments later as they followed a curious Nadia across a freshly formed bridge, into the mostly looted vault, and wherein they found the dead form of Barnabee’s queen, and the dissolving form of her protector.
Jr attempted to cast Benediction upon the bee to heal him, but it was of no use: Barnabee’s life had already ended the moment he unleashed his final smash.
The prince threw up his hands in exasperation at the futility of his act and then, unable to really process the spike of grief he was experiencing, stomped off in a huff. Rika followed him, having much the same issue as her brother in a much quieter fashion, leaving the elder Koopas to join Ms Fortune in her moment of silence.
They all mostly got over the sadness when they realized there was also loot in the room, and when going to take a look at it, got a front row seat to Nadia’s surprise return to her original state.
”Even the strikers? That’s even more powerful than Peach’s extraction” Kamek noted, before pulling out and preemptively offering Nadia the Snacktivator so she could personalize her refusion experience.
It was an interesting (and slightly blinding with all the flashes resulting from each fusion thing to watch, but at the end the troop declined the use of the orb, having already mostly modified themselves to their liking thanks to peach’s power, with only Rika having taken on more fusions since then. What this did remind them of was the fact that they had quite the pile of spirits all stuffed away in bottles, and, as people were going to spend some time tinkering with fusions, or os it seemed, now seemed like as good a time as any to make use of them all before any of them faded away.
Awoken Hollow (shell): the host’s shell has taken on a purple-pink stony texture, and their drugar arms and tentacruel tentacles have been replaced with prehensile vines that retain the abilities of the replaced limbs, as well as having their own. They gain the power Rejuvenation Cultivation: if healed during combat, excess healing will be used to fuel the growth of the vines that are rooted inside their shell. These vines can act as combat tentacles, or wrap around the user’s limbs to act as armor/external muscles. The vines will wither back to their base volume outside of combat. They gain the weakness Kindling Filled: the host’s vines are, naturally, rather flammable, and should they ignite they can act as wicks, drawing that fire back into the host’s shell, setting fire to the internals within.
Power: Dark Magic Lampyre (waist): The host’s rigging has taken on many of the aspects of the corrupted Lamyre. A small emblem/buckle style after its helmeted head sits at the waist, while the back sports 4 small orange wings and a large bunny tail like glowing orb sitting over her tailbone. The turrets have lost a barrel, while the remaining barrels have become thicker, and sport two orange spikes near the tips that together create a loose X shape. The cleaver sections of the hullblades have been removed, and instead two orange claws curve out the front of the metal plates. The metal of the rigging has become a darker hue, while the red parts on the sides have been replaced by a purple armor plate going over the top of the weapon.
The host has become slightly more aggressive.
The host has gained the power Disruption Cannons, which allows them to fire fist sized globs of dark magic from their rigging guns. When they strike, the globs release a small pulse of damaging dark magic, before sticking to the target and sapping some of their physical and magical strength until they are pulled/pried/shaken off. Each blob lasts for 30 seconds, and causes a 5% reduction each, for a maximum of 40%.
The Disruption cannons take a large amount of a resource called SP to fire, which slowly regenerates on its own, but can also be actively regenerated by taking a few seconds to rest.
It also infers the weakness: bright light, which prevents the user from disabling the glowing orb on the back of their rigging, making sneaking very difficult, and drawing additional attention to them in and out of combat.
Striker: Vespikan Ichor Queen: A towering wasp woman adorned in crimson robes and with red ribbons trailing from her antenna, armed with a single colossal clever blade who can be summoned (on a long cooldown) for a few second to either attack with her cleaver and venomous stinger, or to cast one of the one of a number of spells:
Lightning Bolt: the queen channels electricity into her blade for a moment before thrusting it forwards, shooting out a powerful lighting bolt that can do heavy damage to a single target
Pull from the grave: the queen kneels in prayer to her dark god for a moment before stabbing the ground with her sword. This causes a 5 meter patch of ground within 25 meters to manifest a flurry of earthen hands, which attempt to grab and drag any undead beings they can find back into the earth where they belong. Has no effect on any other kind of being or entity.
Draining touch: the queen reaches out and touches the body of a target with her hand, and in so doing begins to drain a mundane human’s worth of vitality from them over the duration of the cast time, transferring it to her summoner.
All of these spells take 2 seconds of channeling before they are cast. If the summoner is harmed (either directly or via feedback) the queen enters into a berserker rage, interrupting any spellcasting she was attempting to do as she blindly charges the culprit and tries to deliver a singular devastating cleaver strike to them, regardless of the desires of her summoner, or the feasibility of her reaching her target before her timer expires
Vespikan Ferromancer (arm): the host’s arm has become covered in an inflexible chitin in place of scales, onto/into which iron runes have been carved/tattooed. The hand is absolutely covered in these, making it appear almost entirely metallic.
The host has gained the power Ferromancy: allowing them to magically create iron objects out of their hand and arm. All new metal begins its life in contact with the host’s runes, though it can still be manipulated for a few brief moments afterwards. This can be used to quickly create and launch small blades/shards/spikes, form weapons or shields, coat their arm in metal armor or spikes etc. It can also be used more slowly to make complex components or higher quality equipment, weld things together, create small defenses or structures, etc.
They also gain the weakness Ventilate Heat: the metal inscriptions cause the arm to lose heat at a rapid rate. In environments that are not actively warm, the arm will feel unpleasantly cold and take more stamina to use than the uninscribed arm. Cold environments will make this worse, or be potentially dangerous. Insulation can prevent these issues, but will also reduce the effectiveness of any magic gained from the runes.
Vespikan Charnel Berserkers (striker squad): a quartet of wasp-woman cultists with red ribbons streaming from their antennas who can attack using their massive ultra-greatswords and venomous stingers. They can also use the length of massive weapons defensively in a fashion akin to a spearwall to repel melee attackers. If the summoner is harmed (either directly or via feedback), the berzerkers all enter into the rage of their namesakes, charging the culprit in an attempt to deliver a singular devastating cleaver strike to them, regardless of the desires of their summoner or the feasibility of them reaching their target before their timer expires.
Manikins and common Vespikan: Air x2, death x3, and nature x4 gems: small crystals which can be expended to cast a spell of the corresponding magical class without expending mana/stamina.
A handful of acorns x2: when planted, these acorns will each will rapidly grow into a trio of vineman, an amalgamation of vines and moss that attacks with its fists, for the duration of a battle. Vineman lacks any kind of vitals, making them quite difficult to take down, but are offensively pretty mediocre, being rather slow and only moderately competent/strong fist fighters.
150 gold
Hoppers: 144 geo
Pogostick a bouncing mode of locomotion made for entertainment rather than practicality.
Greater hopper: mantreads: a set of sturdy combat boots which reduce hostile knockback by 75%, and increase air controle by 200%. In addition it will triple the amount of force they transfer any target they goomba stomp, while also prevent any fall damage/recoil from being taken should they pull off this maneuver.
Milk snails: frigid javelin: An ice forged throwing spear that, after striking, melts and reforms in its thrower’s hand. On hit it will ignite the struck foe with freezing flames that block passive hp regen (but not active regen like potions or spells) and deal 1 more javelin hits’ worth of damage over 2 seconds.
Ice Lance: A long spear made from never melting ice. On hit it will ignite the struck foe with freezing flames that block passive hp regen (but not active regen like potions or spells) and deal another spear hit’s worth of damage over 0.5 seconds.
A ring that lets the wearer cast Ice Spear for a small mana cost, shooting a icicle like spear of ice from the ring at a target.
A ring that lets the wearer cast Coffin, which spawns a (fortunately empty) coffin out of the ring for a small mana cost.
15 gold
Blood Blamish Snails: Bruise blue snelm (round): a helmet made from giant snail shell that grants a reasonably large amount of protection, and also intimidates other snails, making them do less damage
A Bruise blue snelm (pointed): a helmet made from giant snail shell that grants a reasonably large amount of protection, and also intimidates other snails, making them do less damage
A cooked lava eel: caught from a lava river using a rod oiled with snail slime, this spicy fish restores a moderate amount of hp when consumed
131 gold coins
Dark Magic Lampyre: A golden spinner: a device that is very effective at capturing and taming monsters, and works exactly like a pokeball
An Unstable Tesla Coil: a lanturn sized accessory that, when equipped will send up to three beams of electricity to zap foes within 1.5 meters of the wearer for low but constant damage. Nearby minions will auto target foes struck by this electricity. It also can be used to attract metal ores from a small distance away.
Vespikan drones:
A Pungent Blood Cocktail: a throwing weapon that attracts the focus of carnivorous beasts for 10 seconds to its point of impact.
A Double knife glyph: a small glyph that can be applied to the arm or hand as easily as a temporary tattoo, though is by no means as easy to remove. Allows the user to spend a small amount of mana to summon and toss two gravity defying knives. The knives do relatively low damage, but are very accurate and inexpensive to cast, making them good for striking nimble foes, or for those with low mana pools.
Inkulinati snail: Black Knight’s Sword: a Greatsword made of a dark metal and inscribed with holy script, which allows it to do 20% extra damage to demons (but 0% extra damage vs snails). Designed to take on large foes, it is also more capable of breaking the poise of an enemy, and in doing so knocking them off balance. Finally, the holder can briefly raise the sword in the name of the First Lord (a salute involving holding the hilt in front of their chest with the blade pointing straight up) to gain perseverance, a buff that grants 45% damage reduction for 4 seconds.
The result was a lovely pile of goodies which Kamek proceed to poke through, shooting ice spikes and spawning random coffins first before poking the other items a bit, and then finally requesting Sectonia take a look, both for appraisal, and to see if she (ore anyone else) was interested in anything in the pile.
The others meanwhile experimented with their new powers.
”So uh, I’ve got plants in me now?” Bowser said as he wriggled the vines that had replaced all the other limbs stashed in his shell about, not really seeing what was new about them yet, and he wouldn’t till he got hurt.
Rika meanwhile had a rather obvious addition, in that she was now literally lighting up the room with her new tail light, which she spent a few moments chasing as she tried to get a look at it, the floating wings around it fluttering and throwing strobing shadows around the room.
Once Kamek got her to stop with some gentle chastising, she proceed to instead blast one of the walls with her new blob firing guns, drawing a smiley face on the wall out of the projectiles, and enjoying how she didn’t need anything but short rests to regenerate her ability to fire them. That would let her stretch her remaining ammo refills a lot further.
Finally Jr initially got annoyed at how cold his new arm was, till he instinctively formed a coating of iron over the top of his arm. That he found cool in the other way, before he had a brief moment of struggle to try and remove it, which he resolved by forming even more metal under the new armor which eventually caused it to burst off. After that he proceeded to tinker around with these metal forming powers, making caltrops, screws, knives, spears, and more, forming a small pile of iron items as a result, some of which Bowser borrowed to experiment with arming his new vine tentacles.
”Well I’m sure this has been very entertaining and informative” Kamek commented, pausing for a moment as he was interrupted by Rika’s new Ichor Queen striker blasting a metal target Jr had made with a lighting bolt before continuing ”But perhaps we should finish divvying up the items, and then work out where to go next?”
”Oh, yeah, hmmm” Bowser hummed in response, before trying to think of a plan
”Maybe we can ask some of the bees? They must know a bit about the stuff around their home, right? Threats and paths and stuff?” Rika suggested, thinking it would be pretty foolish to not know your surroundings.
”Plus I bet they’ll be happy about us freeing them! Maybe they’ll throw us a celebration!” Jr suggested excitedly, to both of which Bowser nodded along, before adding ”Maybe they’ll even make us a cake!” because that was what Mario got for his heroics he was pretty sure.
”That does sound like a plan” Kamek agreed, before asking the rest of the seekers if there were ”any objections or suggestions?”
Central hub: Smash City Alcamoth Accessible locations: Peach’s castle Limsa Lominscuttle Town Lumbridge Twilight Town Kosm’s Beach
Together the seekers took down the scrapwork wasp queen, tearing off its metal armor, and destroying its internals, sending both falling down into the massive pit below the platform the ground pounders were fighting from.
That proved to be a bit of an issue for Rika, who had been clambering around on the machine like a chainsaw armed tick, because as the last bit fell, it took rika with it, machinery and princess plunging down into the abyss
”It’s been cutting you up, but I gotta blast” Rika told the wreckage as she angled her rigging guns down at the wreckage and then fired them in tune with giving her featherfall rune a squeeze, launching herself up into the air with explosive speed.
She fired her grappling hook upwards towards the platform the seekers had been fighting on, only for the fall to have taken her too far down to reach it.
”Uh oh” she intoned, before calling out for ”Help!” as she started to (slowly thanks to the rune) fall into the pit.
Fortunately, Kamek had been keeping an eye on her, and was already swooping down to help her.
”Not to worry! Just grab on and-” the mage called down as he descended upon his broom, only to go ”Ek!” in surprise as Rika’s grapple grabbed his broom, and dragged him down to her.
”Oh! Sorry” the shipgirl apologize as she swung from the line where it connected her to his broom, and then managed to get a hand up to awkwardly grab on, her gauntlet kind of getting in the way of that as she almost knocked him off with it ”Sorry again!”
”Ah, Oh dear. Well. I suppose that works” the mage said once he’d steadied them both.
”Now hold on, this might take a while” he warned, as he slowly started to ascend back up towards the paltorm- only for it to shatter as a result of Rumor’s scepter throw mere moments later.
Light suddenly graced their eyes, revealing a second, rather more precarious set of platforms down below, which was convenient as it meant there was something for the plummeting King and Prince of the koopas to land on after they careened past the princess and their royal advisor.
”Oh, guess I could have landed on that just fine” Rika calmly noted (not at all perturbed by the giant bee turning into a plane above them) only to correct herself when she saw one of the platforms disintegrated beneath Bowser as the king was trying to pick himself up and dumped him down another layer ”Oh. Or not”
”Do you think he’s ok?” she asked, only for the King to come leaping back up onto the upper set of platforms with a furious roar, rejoining his son who had been faster and avoided being dropped down despite his 2 passengers ”Oh, yup, looks like it”
They two turned out to be even more Ok when Sectonia summoned up a massive crystal for them to stand on, giving the pair some permanent ground from which to start launching AA fire up at the bomber bee. Bowser alternated between charging and firing flash cannon beams which didn’t care about the issue of firing against gravity, while Jr had Dazzle sing his disarming voice up to the heavens and Mimi copycat his song yo make it a duet, one that bypass the same gravity issue, sending twin beams of pink soundwaves pulsating up into the air.
Rika meanwhile knew she would have the problem of gravity to deal with if she joined them, and would rather not have to worry about any missed bullets or shells raining back down ontop of them, so she requested ”Fly me closer please, so I shoot her with my guns”
”One moment, almost done” the mage who had been waving his wand around replied, before he finished the spell and summoned four of his toadies. The propeller hatted mini-hims grabbed Rika and hoisted her up so she didn’t have to hold on to the underside of his broom any more.
”Oh, that works, well” she commented as the minions started to buzz forwards with her in their grasp. Along with Kamek, she swooped after the bomber plane, the mage unleashing spell blasts and fira spells, while the ship girl opened fire with her machine gun and rigging guns.
Unfortunately these then proceeded to rapidly run dry, she’d fired rather a lot of shells and bullets between the city of tears and here after all, and this was hardly the time or palace to fiddle with ammo boxes to refill them.
She tried to urge the toadies to catch up, but their flight speed wasn’t exactly comparable with a plane. ”You’re going to have to toss me” she told Kamek far to casually for what she was requesting
”What?” Kamek asked, not sure if he’d heard that correctly.
”Toss me. I can just float down to the crystal if you miss” she clarified
”I suppose … very well, here goes nothing!” Kamek decided, before having the toadies hurl the shipgirl towards the plane, and even joined in by conjuring a magic fist and using its unfurled hand to push her onward at the last moment.
The shipgirl whooped as she sailed through the air, maneuvering thrusters flaring for extra speed and rune squeezed for extra height as she sailed through the air. Her grapple lashed out and caught the tail of the plane pulling her in as she blasted it with a few electrical goop shots from her grizzco blaster. Then her grapple snapped back into its launch tube, and she had mere moments to try and cling on, hull blades hacking, spear summoned and hooking over the wing, hand awkwardly trying to grab on.
She got a brief purchase and began to try and chainsaw bayonet off one off the tail fins, only for the plane to yell “get! Off!” after which she proceeded to do a barrel roll which flung the ship girl off of it once more.
Rika yelped in surprise as she went flying again, losing grip of her spear, which plummeted down below uncontrollably.
Still, the feather light ship girl did not plummet down with it, and instead managed to right her fall with her thrusters. Just in time to see two massive white gloved fists homing in on her location.
She launched herself into the air once more with her rune to avoid the fists, only for them to slowly turn to chase her, leaving her a slowly sinking duck, one out of range of the rapidly escaping plane.
”Uh oh. Um. Um. oh!”
The ship girl spotted her way out. She briefly canceled the rune as she summoned a striker, before kicking off the spirit’s body, launching herself forwards. Maneuvering thrusters fared at the same time, launching her forwards as she shouted ”Ah, wait up please” at her new target.
Said target, Sectonia, paused her own pursuit of the plane briefly to check on the sound, at which point the princess fired her hook forwards, latching onto them before calling out ”Coming in” as she started to rush forwards.
Angling herself, the ship girl swung under the queen’s abdomen as she was reeled in, boosting again at just the right moment to launch herself forwards (while giving a partying ”Sorry! Thank you!”) even more so she could catch up to grappling range with the plane. Grapple flew out, latched on, but instead reeling in inorder to try to board she swung under it, firing her grizco blaster and splattering the plane with electrically charged ink from all sides.
Then as she was on the upswing she triggered her feather fall rune, the rope still attached turning the upwards momentum into momentum back the way she had come, the princess launching herself over Sectonia’s head and into the awaiting arms of Kamek’s flock of toadies.
”See, It all worked out” she told the mage, (who had been worried sick from the moment the ship girl had been tossed off the plane) before admitting ”Though I am a little dizzy now”
”Then let us perhaps hold off on doing it again?” Kamek suggested, before adding ”or next time you might lose more than just your spear”
”No that’s fine, I can get it back, see” the princess replied, concentrating for a moment before her helbard like weapon teleported back into place hung over her back by its strap. Doing so seemed to take a lot out of her, energy wise, due to the distance involved from bringing it up from however deep the hole went, and so she was far easier to talk out of any more misadventures as a result.
The mage suspected the others would be glad to have freer sight lines, and in the koopa royal’s case, he was entirely right, as the beams of light and sound they had paused in the firing of resumed now that there was no more high flying trapeze artistry going on.
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.
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