DracoLunaris

Divinus Mk. 8: The Eleventh Cycle (A God Roleplay)

The Tricity Quest

The Mines Of Memory

Lost Souls In The Dark

Together Lilly, Seam, and a Jaxx they’d managed to get to sit still primarily because the buggy they were all riding in was faster than walking headed south, rode through the mostly untouched northern district of Tricity, and then crossed the bridge spanning the river running through the middle of the city in-order to reach the south.

In stark contrast to the north, the south was a wreck, as even being out for as long as Jaxx had hadn’t given the people enough time to clean up the carnage caused by the outer beasts. They had, at least, dealt with the bodies, though not, in what other societies might have described as a particularly respectful way.

Several years ago, a seam of R’kava had been unearthed by one of the city’s quarries, and had halted operations there when it flooded the lower layers of the mining operation. It had then laid undisturbed until it was used as the basis for Lilly and some others with Octari past lives as a source for the experiment that had eventually resulted in the goblin’s new combat tentacles. Now pool had grown again due to the bodies of mortal, animal and outer beast alike having all been dragged through the street and ‘fed’ to the now close to overflowing lake of R’kava, off of which a great fog now constantly billowed, contained from overflowing the city by a divine ward that surly showed the three on one’s approval for the project.

The only parts not tossed in were the heads, which were being preserved primarily so that living would be able to identify who had passed on to a new life, rather than for any kind of burial rites.

The mortals of this city did not, it seemed, have that much reverence for the dead. It was not the end as far as they were concerned, merely a change that left behind an empty shell. Still, even Lilly admitted that this was even more dramatic than usual, but it was that or leave everything to rot in the street as there were just too many bodies.

“There wer a lotta people who couldny or wouldny run for da river” she explained, “most of dem sorry bastards tha never stood a chance, but a lot o the miners thought they could hide down in da dark. Beasts dug in, an tho they foguth em hard, kept em off us, they didny win. So da beasts still down there, makin nests. Canny march an army down der, so, heroes gotsta clear em out”

When Lily mentioned a quest to save innocents, Jaxx’s ears perked up and suddenly the ringing in his mind slowed down. He was on the right path then. This was the right quest that he had to take.

“I am not one to judge you for what you do with your dead, but it feels wrong. Either way, your miners made a grave mistake, trapping themselves but it’s alright. I’m here now. You don’t need an army, you’ve got a hero with more than enough experience and you, with your different souls or whatever you call them. It’s more than enough. ” said Jaxx as he swung his longsword in circles with his new arm absent-mindedly.

“Normally this’d be wer I’d offer to open yer eyes to past lives, but yer pretty unique for not havin any” Lilly replied, before clarifying, simply that she had the “same soul, many lives”

“I feel like I might be bringing the team down a bit here” Seam added, in the tone of someone trying and failing to make light of their own feelings

“I mean yer a fullblood, that counts for sommin, and you had the guts to go fight a beast with just a knife, tha count’s for way more” Lilly told him, as she rolled the Buggy further up the mountains, and towards what looked to be an army camp built into the ravaged remains of a mining complex “Miner’s Union HQ, or wuz left of it”

The buggy was a weird contraption that Jaxx never saw before coming to Tricity. It was like an animal but not an animal. Controlled by Lily, this contraption allowed them to travel faster than on foot which worked out well for Jaxx. As the hero sense’s ringing lessened in intensity as he went towards the direction of innocents.

“Can’t say I understand this whole past lives and souls magic. What I understand is what I see and I haven’t seen nor killed any souls yet. I wonder if my tribe’s souls are here somewhere or if I even met them. ” said Jaxx as he remembered what exactly he did to them in order to survive.

Looking at Seam, Jaxx patted him gently on the shoulder before saying, in his most friendly tone “You’re an aspirant hero, kid. Just remember what I taught you, use your strengths against the enemy. Brawn is not everything in a fight. ”

As Seam nodded in thanks for the pep talk, Lilly confirmed that “they out there somewhere, for sure. Souls, they untouchable, immortal things that forever cycle through life and death, an only thing that can stop em coming back would be if there where no new lives to live” with unwavering confidence.

She would soon be proven tragically incorrect in this assertion.

While normally there would have been a rather rigorous interview and testing process to see if they should even be allowed past the military camp and down into the mines they were guarding, Lilly’s position of influence smoothed them through all of that. Her and her vouching for Jaxx’s innocents in danger sense, as there had been occasional discoveries of survivors, and a better way to find them than random digging and praying was more than welcome.

Going through the checking, Jaxx pointed out the few people that were still trapped under the rubble that were long considered dead, the worst of the worst if any would even survive after being saved, using his hero sense to guide them to them. A fact which made his ringing go down in intensity, now only a simple sound at the back of his mind, easily ignorable.

They rapidly found all those who had been missed, and of those there were rather few. The wide variety of acute animal senses beastfolk had already tracked down all but the most buried, and time had taken a fair share of those before Jaxx had gotten to them. That left those in places that could not be sensed by mortal means, namely those on the other side of undug walls, and it was to a place like this Jaxx’s remaining ringing drew them.

In quick succession digging equipment was found and put to work in the depths, and soon enough they were walking past a driller buggy and into a cavern system it had unearthed following Jaxx’s directions. Torches flickered in the gloom, revealing several natural looking tunnels, although closer inspection revealed a few to be nothing of the sort, dug claw, tusk, and fungal root rather than anything of this world, be it force of nature or divine.

“Where to now?” Lilly asked, peering through the gloom, while Seam nervously adjusted the grip on his new pair of weapons, and a small cadre of backup heroes fanned out behind them.

Before he could answer however, there came a childish and alarmed cry of “Help! Help me!” from somewhere down one of the beast carved tunnels, one that would set off the parental instincts in anyone who had them.

One of the other heroes accompanying them, a hulking large aardvark man, certainly seemed to have them, calling out “Don’t worry we’re coming!” before he went running off down the tunnel on all fours, sending a pair of identical looking goblin women running after him. That left Lilly, Seam, a chef hat wearing snouter and beady eyed dwarfess with massive clawed hands of a mole.

The latter noted that “doesn’t smell like anything other than those monsters that way” with considerable amount of concern. Jaxx’s sense for innocent’s in danger seemed to agree, and indeed they were not at all going off in the direction the aardvark and his party members had run off too.

Before Jaxx could even say something, the others went forward to what probably will be their deaths. Alas’ they were heroes and they were more than equipped to fight off whatever came their way. Luckily, the other innocents that needed saving pushed Jaxx in a different direction than theirs for now, they didn’t need saving. Yet.

“Something is off. That cry and the fact that my hero sense doesn’t pull me there is wrong. Those three seem capable enough, hopefully, to deal with whatever is going on there. Come, follow me. The pull comes from a bit further up. ” said Jaxx with a frown before taking Heropentia out and slowly walking forward, his eyes moving in every direction, waiting for the enemy before adding, with a whisper “Eyes open. Quiet. ”

The mole-dwarf seemed a little dubious, but both Lilly and Seam nodded in agreement with the elder hero’s wisdom and set out to follow him, leaving the two other heroes and a few regular soldiers to hold the entrance to the cavern system. As they moved, the goblin let a past member of the mining union take over to guide her steps, while Seam ducked low and did his best to be quiet despite his lack of experience.

The avian-man got impressively far before he stumbled on a loose rock, sending it clacking across the floor, the sound echoing through the caverns.

Almost immediately, someone old and gruffer than the first called out “help me!” the sound echoing through the caves with no clear source. Then another voice, and another, all with various levels of terror or fear for their lives joined in the cry from elsewhere.

Jaxx followed silently as they advanced, Heropentia raised as much as he could in the tunnel but it wasn’t easy. His tall and muscular build didn’t help either but such was the way of the hero, hard. Something was strange in the place, way too quiet for innocents to even be there, yet…he was pulled into this direction.

Then, the rock clacked on the floor and the voices started asking for help.

“Come out. We’re from Tricity, ready to save you!” said Jaxx raising his voice slightly and letting it bounce through the walls of the tunnels. With a deep breath, Jaxx focused deeply on the hero sense and sure enough, there it was. A light ringing, it pushed him in a direction.

“I can feel them. Follow me, keep close as to not lose each other in the tunnels. Last thing we need is to be separated. ” quickly said Jaxx before starting to walk deeper in.

The source of the voices became clearer, going from econing alla round to drawing them forwards. As they did more joined in, calling out that they were “over here!” and begging that they “hurry!” and “save us!” as the ringer got louder and louder, yet still quieter than the one they had been falling despite how close they now where to the source

As they moved, the ground beneath their feet changed. Stone simply cut by otherworldly hands became coated in a thick, black, light devouring substance that looked somewhere between tar or burnt meat.

“I’ve heard of these. The beast’s make nests” Lilly whispered as they crept forwards, before wondering “but why are there people here, what are they doing with them?”

“There” Seam whispered, pointing forwards, and prompting Lilly to lift the touch she was holding with a tendril up to fully reveal what he had seen: three goblin faces, sticking out of the black tar very near each other, the rest of their bodies buried in the substance, stopping them from moving.

Three sets of eyes swiveled to them, three voices spoke in turn “by the gods” “please!” “don’t leave me here!” their voices strained and faltered, perhaps as a consequence of their confinement.

Shaking his head at what he saw, Jaxx took a better look and just before he took a step forward, he checked in with the hero sense and sure enough, it pulled him to the goblins. The ringing’s intensity would go up whenever he looked at them.

“Maybe they’re food for the beasts or a trap to lure saviors. Keep back, let me go forward. ” Jaxx said as he swapped Heropentia to the left hand and walked forward towards the three goblin heads. With a deep breath, he stuck his otherworldly metal arm into the black tar and aimed to grab the hand of one of the goblins.

That’s when something bit him. A dozen points snagged around the metal arm, digging into it as the three faces screamed with horror, only to look confused for a moment when biting the metal arm resulted in no gush of blood, before the entire black mass rose up, hauling Jaxx into the air with it.

Back material sloughed off, revealing a towering wretched beast with a dozen long spindly limbs attached to a pill shaped body, the front of which was split by a mouth filled with hundreds of fangs, as well as Jaxx’s arm. What’s worse was its face, which was not its own, and instead looked like the faces of thee goblins had been fused with its rounded head, all of them screaming death wails as the beast, nay the demon, tried to violently shake Jaxx apart, screams that made his head throb like the suffering of innocents.

His foresight buzzed in his mind the moment the monster grabbed, yet, a second too late. Screaming initially as he was caught unaware, Jaxx, the forever hero, quickly regained his senses. Fighting through the ringing that just made his mind shake in pain, he used his left hand where Heropentia was to stab the creature a few times.

Thrashing about, violently, with Jaxx, it eventually threw him away towards the group, hitting the ground with loud THUD.

“AAAAAGHGGGA! You shall DIE! ” screamed Jaxx as if in pain, as he charged towards the demon with Heropentia in his right arm now. With dodge, he managed to evade one of the limbs before another sprang at him from the back, only for Seam to catch it with his knife and then hacking at the offending limb with his sword as he had been trained.

The monster roared with rage at the light wound with its real mouth now, which opened wider and wider, the dancing firelight revealing rows upon rows of teeth within, before it attempted to simply swallow Seam whole in a single chomp.

It received a crossbow bolt to the esophagus for its efforts, as well as Heropentia's blade deep in its mouth as sparks flew where the metal touched the teeth and BOOM. A small explosion happened as the sparks touched the monster.

As he was thrown back, Jaxx sported a few black spots on his new arm but it was nothing to the cries of pain from the demon, which had ignited, its horrible body burning along with the air around it.

“Get down, mine gas!” Lilly shouted with inherited wisdom, throwing herself to the ground as the upper half of the cavern was ignited in a flash of flame, the other two following suit. The heat of flames baked them, but absolutely demolished the demon, its form wreathed in flame as it stumbled and then sagged, before something strange happened.

The three faces of the goblins, lost to the flames, seemed to press forwards, stretching out from the face of the demon before seeming to tear free, three ghostly forms briefly dancing in the flame before vanishing from sight and place. Despite the flames and the horrific rupture in its face caused by the escaping of something from it, the beast staggered towards them, wanting, it seemed, to take them with it.

Or to replace what it had just lost.

A second before Lily could shout, Jaxx’s foresight kicked in and he went flat to the ground. The heat was intense, scalding them all. The hero sense stopped ringing for a second before starting again, quieter than before but still loud…combined with the foresight’s buzz, Jaxx lifted his head and saw the demon approaching.

“Surround it and fill it with holes. I’ll keep it busy. ” shouted Jaxx as he charged at the creature, Heropentia moving so fast it became a blur for the untrained eye. That is when the Galaxor’s Tenant kicked in. Heroic parties.

With a surge of power, Jaxx parried every single limb thrown at him as he walked forward, pushing the demon towards Lily and Seam, hoping that they’re behind it already.

Lilly certainly was, while a rather singed and still burning on a few feather tips Seam was only about half way around due to being the only one here without supernatural information sources. That left the tiny goblin as the one in an ambush position, but ever since she had drank the R’kava she wasn’t quite as tiny as she had been before. Tendrils that had been neatly curled around her body unwounded, revealing snake fang tipped ends that lanced forwards, skewering the demon in the back even as the fires burning it burned her unnatural limbs too.

The monster screamed in pain as it was attacked from the front and the back. A primal impulse in its brain decided that if back and front are attacked, then go for the sides. Seeing Seam being alone, with a last surge of strength in its burning body, is pounced at him. Mouth open wise, read to eat him whole.

Jaxx quickly sprung to action and Heropentia started hacking into the monster’s flesh. Deeper with each strike. It slowed the monster just enough that Seam could come to his panicked senses, and ram his sword up, and his knife down, driving each blade into each of the beast’s jaws, before he strained to hold them from closing down on him with strength far beyond what his spindly body should manage.

He’d only hold out for so long however. That’s when Jaxx did what one would expect from him. Taking a few steps back from the demon, he looked at Lily and just pointed up, as he started running toward the monster.

Lily’s tendrils extended forward and right when Jaxx stepped, they formed well, a step for him. Launching him up into the air. With Heropentia in the left arm and the metal arm extended forward, it crashed through the demon right into the middle of it. Seconds went by, in which the demon just stopped, not moving or anything and then a grisly explosion of gore covered the cave and Lily and Seam, with Seam getting the brunt of it as Jaxx killed the creature.

At least it put the rest of his feathers out.

The beastman hauled what was left of the monster’s jaws off of himself and then slumped against the black goop covered cavern wall, panting hard, heart beating in his chest, shakenly asking “what. What was that?”

“No normal beast that. The faces… The… The shapes in da flames… It can’t be…” Lilly whispered as she stared at where the goblin’s visages had been before they burst from the body.

Shaking his head, Jaxx took a deep breath as the hero sense finally calmed down. Until it would start again…

“I don't understand it either. It managed to somehow confuse the hero sense. I hate it but it never led me astray. How can these things fool a divine sense? ” started Jaxx to say as he cleaned Heropentia on his pants before turning to Lily “Were those souls that we saw? Were they the ones that screamed for help?”

“I… I… ” Lilly stammered, seemingly horrified by the idea, while Seam just slumped to the floor with a defeated groan of “Mothers tits, they eat souls. Of course they eat souls”

“Nononono” Lilly muttered in a building panic, before suddenly snapping to a realization “No. No, not eat. Steal. Covet. It using the soul, not digesting. I hope. So can still save em. Free em. Kill an kill an kill til they all dead and all are free”

Standing up, Jaxx put a hand on the little goblin’s shoulder and gave her what he wished to be a kind smile, alas his scarred face made it look like a beast that was smiling at its prey.

“Calm yourself. We'll take them down. Emotions will get you killed in the long run. No–”

Suddenly the screams of the damned echoed through the caves, as if to challenge the heroes to come and try it, and reminding them that they were in enemy territory. Seam leaped to his feet, while Lilly loaded another crossbow bolt. Both looked to Jaxx for their next move.

Jaxx swung Heropentia a few times in the air before nodding at the two.

“Let's make sure those souls get their rebirth. ” he said with a grin before, for the first time in his career as a hero, followed the sounds, ignoring his hero sense completely.

summary

With his new arm ready, the group formed of Lily, Seam and Jaxx alongside a few other resident heroes of Tricity, made their way to the cities southside, which is still a mess from the outer beast invasion. They pass by a great pool of R’kava the residents have been throwing all the corpses into, and then head to the mines in the mountains to join in with the combination search and rescue for surviving miners, and the extermination of the outer beasts that have made their nests down in the dark.

Jaxx’s hero senses sends them digging towards what they think is a holdout of survivors, but instead they find a nest belonging to beasts who have claimed souls of dead mortals, and are using them to impersonate their victims to lure adventurers into traps. The trio almost falls for one, but they heroically burn and beat down the outer beast/demon, freeing the souls inside, and in doing so becoming fully aware of said soul stealing ability.

We last see them preparing to face down a horde of beasts, come to claim vengeance for their fallen kinsdemon

mp summary

Quest ‘reward’ for Tricity: the city has gained a massive quarry sized pool of R’kava, boiling with magic, thanks to them feeding it all the corpses, mortal, animal or demon, into it.

Asheel start mp: 8

1mp (boosted by 1 by witchcraft) to sanctify the pool as a holy site called the Black Cauldron, and adding runes to hold the fog that boils off R’kava pool in place above , concentrating it and also preventing it from spilling over the city.

Asheel end mp: 7

From Realms Beyond — An Isekai Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

??? — Town Outskirts

“Ah, well, I would, but it's not that simple. I can’t teleport myself for one, and in order to teleport someone else they need to be part of my Link, which people join when I've earned their thanks. It's what my magic is all based on. I help people, my magic gets stronger, and that makes me better at helping people. Which is nice, but also makes it unhelpfully conditional at times“ Rayne explained while scratching the back of her head embarrassingly, before concluding “so we’re gonna have to go back the old way. Sorry.”

“Elaine won’t though, which is good, I wouldn’t want to put her through any more than she has been already. I know I’ve already had enough of the rain, the novelty wore off almost right away” she said, as she turned to look at the formerly injured woman, before adding, worriedly “shouldn’t she have woken up yet?”

Indeed despite her wounds being gone, the woman they’d been sent to find hadn’t roused from her unconscious state. At least she hoped it was an unconscious state, and until otherwise she was going to go with that optimistic take, asking Remilia “Should we try and wake her up ourselves? Is that safe to do” hoping she knew what she was doing in that regard.

A potentially alarming prospect, what with the strangers and the golem who’d be greeting her upon awakening, but she needed the woman’s concert before she could send her off anywhere. Also the peace of mind that really was fine and not an immaculately repaired corpse wouldn’t hurt either.

From Realms Beyond — An Isekai Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

??? — Town Outskirts

“I mean, I wouldn’t know about those two things… but it's good that you know someone here” Rayne replied to the addition to her description of Sanae, not knowing what the first really entailed, and not really sure why someone would find Sanae insufferable. Not that she’d known her long, of course, but she was going to give both parties here the benefit of the doubt rather than choosing some kind of side.

First impressions wise, the little lady of house scarlet gave quite the complicated one it had to be said, with her the offhand derision of Sanae and her high class attitude clashing with her bedraggled and bloody state which clashed again with her willingness to help despite said state. All in all Rayne didn’t quite know how to think of her, but she was never going to nay say someone’s desire to help.

Well, assuming it wasn’t self destructive anyway. She was going to keep an eye on her in case her situation got worse, but getting out of the rain was going to help anyway, so she was more than happy to let her approach and join them in entering the building, as well as thankful that Lewa’s relaying their task had lead to this outcome.

It was only after she’d tried and failed to shake herself dry (dash blinking through the forest had meant dash blinking through the rain, with predictably soggy results) they were heading down that she took the moment to introduce herself “Oh, and I’m Rayne, and I’m a Knight Witch rather than a witch-witch. It's nice to meet you Rem- Lady Remilia”

Having lived underground for most of her adult life, Rayne was entirely used to the dark. It also helped that a spot on her breastplate over her heart and two spots on the backs of her gauntlets glowed with inner light, not to mention the soft golden aura that surrounded her whenever she floated anywhere, like a literal beacon of hope.

Suffice to say there was little issue navigating in the dark for Rayne as she drifted down the stairs, so she instead focused her attention on Lewa just in case he had any issues, being the only one actually taking the stairs and all, and acting as his lightsource if he seemed to need one as she did so.

“You… said you didn’t know what a child was?” she asked rhetorically as she drifted down, reminded of the odd way he’d said they were looking for Elaine and her child while watching his steps, and then explain “its, um, well children are like small inexperienced people who gradually grown into bigger people as time passes, instead of just being made big right away which I assume happened with you?”

Whether or not that was a good explanation, and the two unusually small adults before him most likely did not help matters, the mechanical man soon got to see a live example, as well as its very injured mother.

“Oh no” Rayne whispered in quiet alarm at the sight, before she floated closer alongside Remilia to inspect the situation. As the vampire quipped and inspected the mother’s injuries the Knight Witch drifted down and to try and to console the crying child “shshsh, it's going to be ok now, we’ll get you both to safety-” before going “huh?” and then “oh wow” in amazement as she watched Remilia casually healed the injured woman right before her eyes.

“That’s amazing!” the Knight Witch whispered-cried (not wanting to upset the baby any more than it already was with loud sounds), looking upon the little vampire with adoration for her healing powers, before realizing with even more amazement“you could help so many people!”

“The town they’re from was attacked, and I’ve been teleporting everyone we’ve found that survived back to this hunting lodge. If we get you back there, could you heal them too?” she asked, filling in a tiny bit more context in the process, before adding “oh, and that’s where Sanae and all the others who were brought to this world are too” which likely only raised further questions.

From Realms Beyond — An Isekai Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

??? — Town Outskirts

“We’ll find them, I promise” Rayne reassured the man, making sure to memorize the name and description, and thankful that Lewa had thought to ask for those in the first place, before sending him back to the lodge, where, hopefully, he could help or at the very least some rest.

Once he was gone, the Knight Witch simply said “Let’s go find them” to Lewa and then went ahead with the plan she had proposed, picking up the pace of their search, dashing through the woods in flashes of light that made it fairly easy to keep track of where she was even if they split up a bit.

The new pace swiftly found them a second set of ruins, though these where in far worse repair than the abandoned church, which caused Rayne to wonder if the town had once been bigger, long ago, or if it had just happened to have been settled atop/near some a previous settlement.

She naturally gravitated to the one part that had any structural integrity, floating over the other ruins to reach the tower. Once there, she found the door and then, as she got close, her pointed ears picked up the sound of a baby's cry coming from somewhere down below, prompting a little sigh of relief from Rayne. This certainly was not the kind of weather an infant should be out in, she was pretty sure.

That little rush of relief was immediately replaced with one of concern as, when she turned to look to Lewa her vision slid over and then raced right back to the young girl standing in the rain with blood coating her arm. These were the only features that read as odd for Rayne incidentally, as many of the people she had interacted with on a daily basis back would have been described by some as monstrous, be it for their singular massive eyes, oversized horns, or just being skeletons. Bat wings, slitted pupils and pointy teeth? Not something she’d seen before but entirely within the bounds of the potentially normal.

Thus the first thing that came to Rayne’s mind was to call over “are you hurt?” in a concerned tone before it processed what had been said by the stranger and recognized the name “did you say Sanae? We know a Sanae! Long green hair and can fly? I can bring you to her, somewhere out of the rain”

Divinus Mk. 8: The Eleventh Cycle (A God Roleplay)

To claim a heart

In the swamp where Egrioth had sunk after death, in the waters that had been tranquil since that day, something shifted and stirred as something rose from the depths. Earth bulged, and then exploded as three things burst from it, a witch, a stone, and a grotesque lump of flesh that pulsed with both life and power.

“Your a tricky beast, hiding this away in a leg of all places” the Breaker told the outer beast’s still beating heart “and ya would have gotten away with it, where it not for … whatever this is”

She glanced over at the rock that had poked into the heart while she had been attempting to harvest more flesh so she could use it to curse yet more outer beasts, causing it to spasm and give its existence away. It was by no means a natural stone, this was obvious due to the symbols carved upon it, although carved was perhaps the wrong word. It was as if something had pressed the symbols into it all at once, compressing the stone rather than cutting it away.

“Hmmm, now what does this say? Hmmm. Hmmmm?” the goddess hummed and hawed as she tilted her head to and fro while attempting to read the symbols “Ah yes, I think I see. It is you, your power outsider, that is written here. Pain. Hurt that can harm even I, a pain I know quite well sadly and-ow”

She paused in her musing as something jabbed her in the side of the head. She raised her hand up and grasped at it, only for her fingers to be prickled, forcing her to tear them away. Then she steeled herself, grabbed the source of the pain, and tore it from her face before tossing it into the waters, revealing it to be her riding goggles, now warped, half turned into the translucent purple curse energy of Egrioth.

“Hmmm, well that’s strange” she muttered, before glancing back at the runestone and immediately understanding what had occurred as the same force that had warped her goggles attempted to warp her now unguarded eyes instead

“ack, what a nasty drawback you have” she complained as she glanced away, before thinking for a moment, and then tipping the stone fully into the water, before reading again. The marshland’s waters themselves twisted as she read through them, but the sheer volume ment a single learning had little impact, and soon enough she knew Egrioth’s heart from the runestone spawned by its energies.

“Interesting, interesting … Now what in the world do I even do with this information, huh?” she asked, before thinking for a moment and then snapping her fingers in memory of something she had seen from on high while orbiting the world.

“Ah so that is what that was. One moment please” she requested of the heart, before blasting across the sea of origin to the other example of these stones she had seen. There, through a veil of mist, she snooped on Rúnaritari’s diary, and then once she had digested everything she thought she had a pretty clear idea of what the goddess had been going for. So after a quick pit stop to collect a bucket full of R’kava goop, she returned with a plan in mind

“Thank you for waiting dear” she told the heart, as she set down the bucket, as well as a small pile of knives on a convenient rock, before telling it “now let’s see if we can’t get you to cooperate, and cut you down to a more portable size to boot. I’m hardly going to lug you around as you are now, am I?”

If the lump of still living muscle could feel fear, it would have. Instead it simply suffered as the Breaker began carving runes into it. She too suffered, mainly because what she was trying to do kept warping her knives into unusable twisted things, and even then they kept breaking against the godlike flesh of the heart, resulting in what was very much just torture rather than anything productive.

An increasingly frustrated Breaker cursed and swore, and then was suddenly replaced by the Maiden who screamed out “I can’t take it any more!!!!” in frustration as she grabbed all the broken knives, and the bucked, shoved them all into each other somehow in order to produce, of all things, a chainsaw. The blade whirred, R’kava running slick across it, before she began carving into the heart, rendering onto it not a rune they had learned from either stone, nor one written in the khodex, but a simple ring shape that was, functionally, because of the power of repetition, hers.

Or, to put it another way, she carved the runic equivalent of slang or a gang tag onto it.

“There, that’s how you do it!” she declared, before passing off to the mother who hadn’t really been paying attention to any of this, and was rather surprised to find a wiring blade of godly harm in her hands. She stumbled, complained about this “reckless nonsense!” and then only after the other two badgered her did she carve a circle onto the heart.

The breaker followed it up with her bisected circle, and then proceed to go to down on the rest of the heart, carving a massive network of runes all across it, forming chains of curse runes linking the three, which when completed began squeezing and contracting inwards, shriveling the heart, contending its power tighter and tighter until the massive organ was the size of a walnut.

“And there we go, understand who’s in charge now, little thing?” the Breaker enquired as she picked up the heart in one hand and gave it a squeeze. In response a massive sea of translucent purple arrows formed around her, all pointing inwards at the goblin goddess herself. And yet, with a simple “no,” and a flaring of the runes carved into the heart, she willed them all to turn arch up into the air, and then rain down on a poor unsuspecting outer beast that had survived the battle here only to foolishly come to inquire as to what was causing all the noise, the rain of arrows resulting in it to feel so much pain that its nervous system exploded and it expired.

“Much better,” the breaker declared, before producing a mundane little locket for the heart to be set into so she could hang it around her neck. Then she proceeded to stash her new craving implement, strapping it to her bike for safe keeping. That only left the giant rock as a loose end, only for it to subsequently mysteriously appear in the ruins of Tricity, along with detailed instructions about how to not lose your eyeballs and a copy of a certain goddess’ runic journal as an added bonus.

mp

Start 15 mp

4mp to claim Witchcraft: Mastery over witches and their craft, which is a rather diverse discipline conforming more to an archetype, an idea, than a strict code or doctrine. Witches are in touch with tradition, and the power that tradition entails. Witches have familiars. They brew potions. They cast complex rituals under moonlight. They curse their foes. They fly through the air. Most importantly, they wear pointy hats.

In the context of existing magic systems however, Witches are in touch with reincarnation, the power of cycles, rune craft and the evolutionary fuel R’kava the most. They are very much about indirect power, such as enhancing the body, creating artifacts or cursing those of their foes, rather than chucking fireballs around.

Gained as reward for participating in Hell in Heaven: the Heart of Egrioth (godbane artifact) : shriveled from titanic size to small enough that it can fit in a locket, the heart of this Greater Outer Beasts still beats, and grants the wearer the ability to wield its curse magic to cause pain even to the gods. Its translucent purple power can come in the form of storms of arrows, great building sized ballista bolts, sweeping blades and other mimicries of weapons of war, as well as producing simpler explosions and energy fields. Though these attacks do not cause physical damage, the intense levels of pain can themselves be lethal via causing circulatory shock.

2 mp witchcraft (boosted to 4 by wheels) to make the godsbane item the paintsaw, a chainsaw like device capable of drawing for a bigger on the inside well of R’kava set inside of its hub, which is then slathered on the blades so they can be used to paint/carve without needing to dip the brush. It’s a godbane so it can be used to tattoo divine flesh. The base witchcraft keeps the inevitable warping effect rune carving causes from actually damaging the device’s functionality, while wheels make it nice and slicy.

1 mp (boosted by witchcraft) to teach the people of Tricity about runes. Witchcraft boost used to make a copy of Rúnaritari’s diary runestone, which contains a fair amount of basic grammar and fundamental concepts.

End mp: 8

summary

Asheel digs up Egrioth’s heart, and a runestone that has formed next to it due to its immense magical power (which is a thing that can happen). She uses that to learn about curse runes, then goes and finds Rúnaritari’s diary holy site and learns some of her thought process on how runes should work from reading. Finally she returns, makes a godsbane chainsaw come tattoo needle, and converts the heart into a godsbane of its own using runecraft. Then as an added bonus she drops off the rock, a copy of Rúnaritari’s diary rock, and a bunch of notes on how to use em in Tricity so they can do rune stuff.

World of Light

Arahabaki - Dog Moms

Giovanna / Midna’s @DracoLunaris vs Erendira Quinn / Commando / Annette Durand / Parnell
Word Count: 5,823 (+6)

Midna had dodged and weaved in pace with Giovanna, or rather her wolfos had, until they’d reached the conveyor belt. At that point, said wolfos got shown up by the agent’s own spectral wolf as she used it to burst ahead, while her own only made slow progress.

Fortunately, the princess had other options, and so promptly decided to approach the problem from outside of the design parameters, by hurling herself off of the side of the conveyor, and then being caught by a swooping flygon that had replaced her wolfos, and upon its back taking to the skies.

The pair swept forwards, rising up above the laser drones and blasting a few of them from on high to ease their allies running of the laser gauntlet, before swooping down to land down next to her. As she dismissed the flygon, Midna began to make a half jokey suggestion about Giovanna using the lovely little garden as a place to take a short rest, only to be interrupted when something came flying down from on high towards them.

Midna took a half step back, concerned that whatever it was might be a bomb, before glancing at Giovanna and then copying her nonplussed response, assuming that she knew what the pod’s deal was. She had to admit, she was still a bit surprised when it turned out to be a personnel deliverer, but her mask/helmet combo covered the accompanying look.

”Alive if we can?” she murmured in query to Giovanna as the bike wielding leader told them to stop or else, before summoning, catching, and starting to charge Hanabi’s old Prometheus polearm with electricity as her own equivalent of a taunt.

The secret agent shrugged casually. “Sounds like a lotta extra hassle.” Dealing with brainwashed allies and friends was one thing, but these goons were choosing to fight -and possibly kill- her of their own volition. Turning sideways, almost backwards, she raised her hands with fingers splayed like claws and gave her foes a sidelong glance. Rei swirled behind her, teeth bared. “I’m not that picky.”

”If we can” she reiterated. She wasn’t going to risk much, but there was an opportunity to disarm, or simply cripple and then run, she’d take it.

Seeing the two ready to fight, Quinn turned up her nose. “Hmph. Very well. I don’t mind doing this the hard way.” Couching her lance in the crook of her left arm, she extended her right with a dramatic flourish. Behind her, the Commando flicked the safety off his machine pistols, while Parnell pumped his meaty-looking shotgun and Annette powered up her scatter laser. “Brynhildr!” Erendira cried, springing into the air. Beneath her, a wellspring of cosmic pink and blue energy manifested a sleek, supernatural motorcycle. When Erendira landed in the seat its engine roared and it shot forward in a burst of speed, an opalescent shield conjured before it. As Parnell and the others sprinted behind it, the enemy team’s tank raced across the battlefield with lance extended to scatter their opponent’s formation and leave them wide open.

”Two can play at that game” Midna countered, summoning and mounting her wolfos steed with a burst of more subtle twilight glow. Then with electrically thrumming bo staff tucked under one shoulder, she counter charged, facing the biker to an impromptu joust that was entirely out of place.

Said glorious bout was sadly interfered with when Annette thrust a seemingly empty hand towards Midna, or, rather, her steed, causing the wolfos to stumble for a moment as its mind was assailed by hallucinations. With the princess’s urging and tugs on its fur, it had enough confidence to charge on relatively blindly, but its mind was now ripe for further interference.

It certainly wasn’t in a state to react to the Commando bashed one of his guns into one of several launchers he had strapped to his back, specifically one that was inexplicably made of cardboard where as the rest where much sleeker and modern. The built it yourself launcher proceeded to spit out a volley of 12 missiles that flew over the head of his charging comrade, and towards both of the seekers.

While some dived down towards Midna, who had to manually tug her steed to and fro to barely avoid them (but not the edges of their splash radii which clipped her steed) the rest flew onwards and then down towards Giovanna.

Part of Gio had wanted to jump astride her own lupine companion and charge at Erendira alongside Midna for a clash of epic proportions, but she wasn’t impulsive enough to heed that urge. Besides, she boasted neither a long lance nor an energy shield, so she didn’t feel confident giving the enemy tank a run for her money. Still, that motorcycle was badass, and as Gio dashed after Midna she kept her eyes on the opposition. If she intended to back her partner up, though, the Commando’s Seeker-seeking missiles further solidified Midna’s lead by forcing Gio to slide to a stop and block, which meant that when the two frontrunners came together, she couldn’t do much about what happened next.

Erendira’s lance had the range and accuracy advantage in a situation tailor-made for thrust attacks, and any hope that Midna and her off-kilter mount might have of landing a counterhit came to an end against Brynhildr’s shield. The lance pierced the chest of the wolfos, turning its forward momentum into extra damage as Erendira lifted it off the ground. It flipped over and landed on its back, dragged across the artificial rock garden’s rough surface for a couple dozen feet before Erendira raised her lance to send the poor beast flying.

“Sheesh.” Giovanna zig-zagged to avoid the makeshift projectile as she darted in, getting closer. Seeing her, Erendira swerved in order to drift straight into the secret agent with Brynhildr’s chassis. Gio narrowly jumped in time to avoid the maneuver, side-flipping right over Erendira’s head and striking a three-point landing on the motorcycle’s other side a second later. Her opponent came to a momentary stop out of melee range, but Gio had a way to hit her. She slammed the ground with a Seismic Hammer to cause a shockwave explosion beneath Brynhildr, but the move failed to unseat its rider. Engines revved, Erendira sped toward her. When Gio jumped, planning to bring down a dive kick and knock her foe from her seat Erendira eased off the gas and thrust her lance upward. It stabbed into Gio’s stomach, and Erendira performed a spin to whirl the agent around before launching her off the lance. She hit the ground and tumbled back onto her feet, one hand on her stomach. “Urk.”

She ended up practically back to back with Midna, who was a bit roughed up from the unhorsing, as well as, thanks to portal shenanigans, the princess’ equally chest stabbed Wolfos.

”Not the best start, so time flip the hourglass and start over” she declared, as she summoned her skywave striker, which immediately turned its gun to the floor and started a three shot volley of healing blasts. They needed to stick together to get optimum use of this however, which meant the enemy runners had plenty of time to close in. In response she brought out Roadblock, who raised a shield just in time to block a volley of pistol bullets, shotgun shrapnel, and a spread shot of laser blasts from them.

From behind that cover, the princess returned fire using less than accurate pistol fire followed up by a twilight volleybomb that prompted the trio of close range assault specialists to scatter and take individual more covered protected approaches. All three took at least a little damage from the arcane explosion, so Parnell got a head start on healing. Mutagen Shotgun at the ready, he held his fire to wait for an opportunity to deal some of his own and charge his Heal Burst.

This barrier did nothing to cover them from the bike riding Erendira however, who was in a perfect position to rear charge Midna’s defensive position. Knowing this, Giovanna turned to face her, a more serious than usual expression on her face. As crazy as work got for the Special Operations Unit, this was something she hadn’t trained for. Rather than charge straight at her, though, Erendira performed a wheelie and jumped her bike into the air with its rear tire engulfed in flame. “Better move.” Unable to protect Midna, she could only save herself by dashing away, and Erendira descended atop her motorcycle like a miniature meteor.

After the fiery impact she bounced twice, chasing Gio down as the Commando peppered her with bullets. That’s where Erendira got a little overzealous, though. On the second bounce Gio got a bead on the timing, then leaped up toward the threat rather than dodging away. She met her foe in the air, vaulted around Brynhildr’s chassis with one hand, and did an airthrow. Her legs locked around Erendira’s neck and she twisted around, hurling the surprised woman off her ride and into the ground. The moment she landed she cannoned forward with a Trovão flying kick, only for Erendira to right herself and resummon her motorcycle in front of her like a shield. As such Gio’s kick only knocked her back a little, and as the agent rose, Erendira mounted up. Unable to focus on one enemy like this, Giovanna clicked her tongue and dashed over to take cover behind a rock monument.

”Goddesses this is not going smoothly” Midna complained through clenched teeth, having resisted some but not nearly all of the fire damage thanks to a charm on her rosary. Her wolfos really wasn’t doing well either, as she’d only managed to get limited healing off before their skywave got blown away by the flaming impact. At least Roadblock was still up, though it was about to not be.

”Ok, time to switch this up” Midna said to herself, intending to switch out the wounded minion for something more durable that would actually have her back. Yet instead of hopping down into the portal she opened, her wolfos turned its now much to wide eyes upon her instead.

The princess barely got a moment to go ”Huh?” before her own minion lunged towards her suddenly, jaw opening wide before it sunk its teeth into one of her arms. Fortunately it managed to grab a magical instead of a fleshy one, but she was still too surprised and confused to react for a moment.

Then the shield dropped as Roadblock timed out, and she was in trouble. She struggled and punched her beast on the snout to no avail, before remembering that the arm that was being bitten wasn’t real. She canceled the spell, freeing herself even as she grabbed a nearby bolder with her shadow hand, and used it to haul herself up and out of reach.

The confusion as to what was going on was resolved by Annette, who, after Parnell
forced the princess to drop down behind the rock to avoid being riddled with shotgun pellets, did a gesture akin to pulling on a lash towards wolfos, before pointing and sending the mind controlled beast running around the flank of the server towards the princess.

”Goddess curse psychics, down thing!” Midna shouted, jabbing her own minion with her bo staff, delivering a painful electric shock. As its mind was not its own however, the wolfos had zero survival instincts, and indeed it was to Annette’s benefit when it did get hurt, and so it came on still. Only a blast of sand to foul its vision prevented it from immobilizing her with another bite hold. Instead it just rammed into her, knocking her out of cover.

Both of them where promptly racked by pellets as the two shotgunners closed in for inorder to deliver more decisive close ranged kill shots. Cursing with pain, the princess opened another portal to summon her flygon, enlarged, which promptly grabbed her and soared through the air to deposit her at a different point of the battlefield, one conveniently near the rock Giovanna had just taken cover behind.

”She stole my wolfos!” she shouted to the other woman as an explanation as to why the beast was currently racing ahead of the two shotgun armed foes she’d just bailed on ”Also we need a plan!”

Giovanna’s gaze flickered toward the enemy team. Rather than speed her enemies’ way immediately, Erendira had picked up the Commando on her bike, then momentarily grouped up with the other two while Parnell switched out his shotgun for his rocket launcher. When he fired a single Generyst Rocket at his feet, it exploded in a burst of biotic energy, healing the whole team in an instant. Then they moved in, Erendira leading the charge with the Commando in tow, both protected by a barrier. “...No kidding.” Her mind was racing, trying to figure out an angle. She felt confident that she could outbox any one of these goons, but the biker would take some doing, and she couldn’t multitask. How would she get any of them on their own? Then she snapped her fingers. “If I can land a high kick on one of ‘em, I can take ‘em out. Guaranteed. Takes a whole second to do it though. Maybe you can grab one?”

And just like that, the two were out of time. A thin blue Phase Round shot straight Gio’s cover, missing her head by a hair. Her eyebrows shot up. “Huh.” Then Erendira zoomed in, circling around the pair’s cover. Sitting behind her, the Commando threw a frag grenade toward the Seekers, then opened fire at six rounds a second. “Tch.” Gio dashed out from her cover to avoid the grenade, right in front of Parnell. The futuristic paladin pulled the trigger, and while he stood a little outside his shotgun’s effective range, that blast still hurt. “Ugh.” She dashed toward him, then paused to block, rinse and repeat, but before she could reach him in this fashion Annette joined in. Then Gio was stuck blocking, the chip damage gnawing her health away.

”Knock them down! Midna commanded as she rolled to her feet, having leapt out of the way of the grenade. In response to her call, her 3 initiate strikers appeared, and then immediately retook the cover two of them had just abandoned, before charging up and then hurling psychic spears at the pair suppressing Gio. The mental attacks struck with surprising force, staggering the pair for a moment and cutting off their alternating shotgun blasts.

As they fired, the princess joined in on the spear tossing by hurling her boa staff at the incoming barrier protected duo, and though the impact was negated by their defenses, it prompted a trio of lighting bolts to strike down from the sky in front of it, bypassing the shield in the process.

Though she had briefly distracted the humans with mental and magical might, her wolfos was still part of their squad, and it came rushing in towards them on its own, still utterly uncaring about what little of its life remained. The most she was willing and able to do about that before it reached Gio was blast it with a sand attack to further foil its accuracy.

Given just enough of a reprieve to make a move, Giovanna picked her target and darted in. Going for the Annette meant that Parnell would be free to heal her, but that was better than getting double-teamed by two soldiers on offense. Plus, rattling the psychic might help Midna’s own wolf, who Gio definitely felt sorry for. The agent transferred her momentum to a speedy triple side kick as she leaned on Rei for support. Her pawprint shoe slammed into Annette’s belly, chest, and chin in quick succession, which flowed right into an upward crescent to pop the psychic off her feet. Parnell was coming, but Gio worked quickly, darting forward with her special dash Chave to flip forward into an enhanced Sol Poente. The ground bounce that caused allowed her to land and keep Annette juggled with a high knee, but a shotgun blast from her right suggested that she end the combo quickly. Gio knocked her foe away with a roundhouse, then turned to dash away from Parnell’s gunfire. She didn’t manage to avoid everything, but by zig-zagging the agent managed to close in on the healer in hopes of taking him out before Annette could stop her.

Meanwhile, the other two kept up the pressure on Midna. Still pretty comfortable even after the lightning strikes, the Commando kept on blasting, only pausing to fire off a defense-piercing Phase Round every three seconds. Erendira joined in with her own ranged attacks, first firing an aura spear from her gunlance, then sweeping her weapon to unleash a horizontal shockwave.

All but the piercing round slammed into an extended shadowhand Midna was using to ward herself, while that shot itself punched through, causing the princess to stumble and almost fall as she grappled with her Wolfos.

Then Erendira gunned Brynhildr to run Midna down, pincering the Twilight Princess between wolfos and motorcycle, yet at just that moment, Gio got her hands on Annette, pummeling the psychic enough to break her concentration. The wolfo’s to wide eyes returned to normal, and instead of continuing to try and bite her, its ears flopped down to its side and it emitted an apologetic whine as it tried to back away.

Midna didn’t have time to accept the apologies, instead shoving the beast down into a portal while she herself was launched upwards into the air via Skywave ascend, resulting in the pair going under and over the bike charge.

Unable to run her target down, and noticing Parnell possibly in trouble, Erendira broke it off and veered toward her teammates to assist while the Commando kept shooting at the princess as she and her striker reached the top of their arch.

Skywave dissipated under the hail, but rather than being left to fall, Midna was caught upon the back of her flygon who arrived via portal to replace the battered Wolfos. It immediately caught fire itself of course, but that caused it to emit bursts of homing needles that rained down on the two bike riders. The Commando returned fire, but without a shield to protect him from the back, he took a number of needles from the Flygon. It swooped down, almost matching the bike in speed for a moment, before slamming into the ground just behind it and quaking the earth around it with its impact. Thinking that Brynhildr was the target, the Commando planted his legs on the bike and leaped off, shooting down at the Flygon as he vaulted overhead. The impact unsteadied Erendira atop her motorcycle, causing her to swerve.

Ahead of them Annette picked herself up from her plumbing, and, having dropped her gun that was too short range to interrupt Gio’s charge of Parnell, reached out a hand towards her foe instead. Psychic energy leapt across the gap, sinking into Gio’s mind and battling her will for control of her fight or flight response, attempting to induce a brief but potent panic in her.

“Agh!” Giovanna stumbled, gripping her cranium. As close as she was to her target, she couldn’t suppress the urge to take cover, but with no hiding spots nearby she did the only thing she could: hunker down to block. Immediately Parnell laid into her defenses. His shotgun clicked empty, but right away he empowered himself with Righteous Fury, boosting his reload speed by 67% and his fire rate by a staggering 80%. The fusillade of shotgun shells started chewing through Gio’s guard with chip damage. Stuck in constant blockstun, she couldn’t stop Parnell using Heal Burst to patch up Annette either, were she even in the right mind to do so. Right now, there was only one thing she could do.

Gio unleashed her Burst. The omnidirectional blue wave radiated out from her, hitting Parnell and Annette right after. It didn’t hurt them whatsoever, but it completely broke their composure and knocked them down. That freed Giovanna not just from blockstun, but from the psychic’s panic. Even Erendira, already wobbling from the Flygon’s quake, had to slide to a halt. The tank wasn’t about to stop, though, and as she dismounted her bike she used her momentum to hurl Brynhildr right at Giovanna. “Whoa.” The agent threw herself sideways to avoid getting splattered, only to see Erendira resummon her daimon the next moment. “Man,” she groaned. Annette and Parnell (who still had his buff) were already back up, and now she had no burst. This way going poorly. Choosing the lesser of three evils, she dashed away from the gunners with Chave and toward Erendira, dodging her lance shots as she moved in. Hopefully Midna would see the chance for a pincer maneuver.

She did indeed, her flygon lunging forward, its claws glowing with purple draconic energy. The real prize, however, was a struggling captive commando who, having vaulted over said flygon, had failed to take into account its rider, who had lunged up and grabbed him out of the air with her shadow hand.

The two shotgunners where not happy to be left in the dust however, with Parnell firing a Generyst Rocket at the pincered Erendira in anticipation of the damage she was going to take, while Annette sent out the tendrils of another psychic attack at Gio, this one the same kind that had filled Midna’s wolfos’ mind with hallucinations.

Putting her faith in her teammates to deal with Giovanna, Erendira whipped around atop her bike with a swing of her lance to strike the flygon with an energy slash. That wasn’t enough to stop it though, and the pokemon pounced to return the favor twofold with its claws. Their struggle left her burned and torn, holding off the flygon’s claws with her lance held laterally for protection. Then Parnell’s rocket healed her, and she found the strength to push back. Brynhildr’s tires screeched as the lancer performed a flaming donut to slam the flygon with her motorcycle’s rear end, setting the ground alight as she did.

Once again, Gio found her assault cut short by the gunner’s interference. Her mind was not as weak as that of the wolfos, however, and the strength of her frustration helped her pushed back against the psychic attack. “Enough of this…” she growled, her jaw clenched against the pain as her vision swam. “Crap!” If she couldn’t fight Erendira like this, might as well go for the root of the problem. She brought her fist down in a EX Seismic Hammer, and the ground beneath Annette’s feet erupted. That knocked her down yet again, and Gio performed a high jump utilizing jets of air from her shoes, followed by a sigil-assisted airdash that kept her one step ahead of Parnell’s shotgun blasts. That left just one problem: Annette taking aim with her own firearm as Gio cruised in from above. She just needed to be faster.

“Fear on the wind.” Giovanna let loose Tempestade a little early, instantly altering her trajectory as she shot down with a supremely fast divekick. Rather than her target she hit the ground in front of her, but the shotgun blast went over her head, and Gio was in melee range at last. She immediately went with a low kick into low dust, and Annette hit the dirt yet again. Gio blocked a distant slug from Parnell, then hit Annette meaty as she tried to rise, sweeping her once more. Desperate not to take another humiliating, painful pratfall, Annette finally tried to defend her legs. In that full second of hesitation, Giovanna’s breathtaking charged high kick struck the psychic overhead and launched her like a baseball. Howling, Annette sailed into the sky, a swirling air current in her wake. “This is gonna hurt.” Gio smirked, crouched down, and soared after her.

With Gio having pivoted back to fight the shotgun toting pair, and apparently doing quite well, Midna was left holding the commando in her shadow hand with no one to land a high kick on him. Fortunately a different opportunity presented itself when her Flygon instinctively flapped back and away from the fire Erendira’s donut had produced, as the princess proceed to throw the commando down at his ally, and, in the process, the ring of fire she had just created.

Forced to catch her teammate lest he fall into her own hazard, the moment left Erendira vulnerable to Midna’s flygon slamming down into the ground again outside of said hazard to cause a second earthquake. As the ground shook and forced both foes to do nothing but hold on to the bike, Midna reached her shadowhand over to a nearby stream of coolant, dipped it in, and then surged the hand forwards, sending a wave of it splashing over pair, soaking and chilling them, while also extinguishing the flames.

The tremor dislodged the Commando, both from Erendira’s tenuous grip and the bike. He hit the ground, then got bruised black and blue as he bounced up and down. Brynhildr couldn’t stay upright, so its rider used her leg as a kickstand to try and stop a fall, which was painful. When the spray of coolant came, some of it splashed against Erendira’s weakened energy shield, icing it over like a windshield on a winter’s morning. As the chilled Commando got away with a tactical dive, Erendira wiped away her shield, leaving her open but able to see Midna as the screech of her tires drove her forward, lance first.
High above, Gio went to work with uncommon gusto. Despite Annette’s best attempt to fight back, no amount of training could prepare her for this, and as she sailed through the air she took a rapid-fire barrage of kicks. Generyst Rockets from Parnell down below, more desperate than practical, whizzed by the two by a large margin as they flew. This damage was nothing to scoff at, but it wasn’t necessarily Gio’s end goal. After using up all her jumps between hits to keep her foe juggled, she finished with a stylish Burning Kick that blasted the psychic away in a burst of flame. Her trajectory took her over the edge of the rock garden module and over the long drop to Arahabaki’s jagged, piping-hot floor, turning a probable survival into certain doom. A second after Annette disappeared over the edge, Giovanna landed next to it, sliding up against the server rack wall. “Whew,” she sighed, turning around to find that she’d descended quite far from the action. “One down.”

Back in the action Erendira rammed head first into the summoned shield wall of Roadblock while Midna had her flygon steed leap to the side after the soaked in coolant Commando. In response to her doing so he fired a round that punched through both steed and rider, harming both, and earning him a shower of needles in the process. The damage that was caused was nothing compared to that he felt when the princess ripped a longsword out of nowhere in a crescent moon slash that flicked a bolt of lightning down atop of him.

Electricity arched over and through his coolant soaked suit from the first bolt, which was quickly followed up by a vortex of three pillars of lighting which spun around, trapping his body between them. As she maintained the storm assaulting the Commando, Midna’s flygon dropped into a portal beneath her, being replaced by her Darknut which arose to block the charging Erendira.

The biker was more than able to drive around this obstruction, only for the still summoned Roadblock to slam his shield behind her, drawing her attention. It was enough obstruction for the princess to burn through her power, leaving the unconscious body of the Commando to hit the floor.

Before Parnell could get a chance to revive him, the princess bodily leapt onto him, fingers glowing purple as she clawed and slashed at him, but not to end his life. Instead the rocket packs attached to his suit were severed, and then both them and his guns tapped by her un-clawed hands, stealing them away into the twilight realm.

A moment too late, Parnell’s rocket arrived. The princess leapt off of her foe, leaving him to stir awake, only to find himself completely disarmed and, unlike Annette would have been in such a situation, now a mostly worthless asset to his team.

At that point, the race between Parnell and Giovanna to get back into the action reached its conclusion. While the medic could propel himself into a superjump with his jet pack, Gio had both superhuman speed and Rei on her side. When it became clear he couldn’t beat her to the punch and help the Commando, his priority shifted to avoiding Gio. He altered his flight path and fired at Gio from above, forcing her to veer away. If he could supercharge himself again, after all, he could pin her down and chew her up at a moments notice. Of course, bullets moved faster than Giovanna, and taking even part a shot while trying to evade hurt like hell. Still, she managed to evade the worst of it, and Parnell’s jet pack wouldn’t last forever. He made for the computer garden’s biggest cable tree and tried to land on its upper boughs, thinking himself beyond Gio’s reach. He was not. The agent cannoned into the tree’s ‘trunk’ with a burn kick, partially melting the insulation. Then she struck the weak point with Thunder Knuckle, again and again. Parnell shot down at her through the trees while holding the wires tight, thinking his foe was trying to knock him down, but Gio stayed mobile and kept knuckling. After a couple seconds, she smashed through the last of the insulation and struck the wires inside with her electric glove.

“Hnnnnghghghghghgh!” Parnell gurgled, electrocuted by his contact with the wires. He used his heal burst to undo some of the damage, but he still slipped from his perch a moment later, numbed by the shock. He landed on a lower ‘branch’ groin-first, making him see stars, and when he swung off the branch upside-down Gio finally got the satisfaction of laying him out with a big punch.

Roadblock had gotten the better of Erendira for a brief moment, but the striker timed out soon after. That meant all she needed to do was get around Midna’s massive undead obstruction in order to put her lance right where it belonged: between Midna’s ribs. Engine roaring, she circled around with her lance couched to fire shot after shot, then finally gunned it and charged forward, ready to chase Midna down and spear her wherever the Twilight Princess fled.

Instead of fleeing however, the princess held her ground and called upon the final set of strikers in her repertoire, her chilfos. Four spindly icey undead rose between her and Erendira, ice armored forms shrugging off the energy blasts as they raised a spear wall in the way of the charging mechanized cavalry woman.

Yet guarded by her shield, Erendira dared face the stone with her superior scissors. Icy polearms snapped upon impact with her defenses, and then frozen bodies smashed aside by her mechanical steed as she broke through Midna’s protection, and burst right into the space beyond. A space who’s ground had turned black as shadow, surrounded by a ring of orange.

Right before she could be skewered, the princess snapped her shadow hand’s fingers, causing the trap she had laid to spring to life, her dark energy zone stunning her foe, and empowering her minion to deal a final blow.

With magically aided speed, the darknut crossed the gap between itself and Erendira with a lunge, driving its massive blade forwards to stab it through the front of her bike, skewering the machine. Then, with its broad headed blade firmly lodged in the bike, it pulled both it and her back towards it, and slammed it's shield down on top of the rider in a knockout blow.

The difference between unconsciousness and head trauma was a fine one, however, and when Giovanna jogged up to scrutinize the concluded battle, it looked like Erendira wasn’t moving. “Wow,” she deadpanned. “I didn’t even really see what you did there.” Annette was history, the Commando was senseless, and even though Parnell was definitely still conscious, he was too injured (not to mention concussed) to continue. Giovanna crossed her arms, exhaling as her adrenaline drained away. “Guess we’re done here. That was kinda tough. Could’ve been worse though. Hopefully there aren’t any more where they came from.” Given just how monolithic a company Shinra was, however, she wasn’t going to put any money on that.

”Let me just grab some things” Midna replied while tapping Erendira’s lance with a finger, before jogging to collect her previously tossed bo-staff and grabbing any other still intact weapons while she was at it. Avoiding killing didn’t mean she was above robbing people while they were down.

for (stolen by) Midna

Commando auto-pistol (x2): an auto pistol able to fire off 3 rounds a second, as well as firing a piercing phase round every 6 seconds. Unlimited ammo and no reloads necessary.

Mutagen Shotgun (12 rounds available): a 7 round capacity shotgun with 120 RpM

Erendira‘s Gun-lance: a long lance that, aling with being able to be used for stabbing, can also shoot small purple aura bolts, or swept to the side to launch a wide angle projectile. It must be charged by supernatural energy to use projectiles

Disposable Missile Launcher: a cardboard assembly that can be used to fire a swarm of 12 homing missiles every 45 seconds.

”Ok now we’re good” she concluded, as she regrouped with Gio and set about healing them a bit using Skywave (she could have used the last of Parnel’s rockets, but she’d left the launcher somewhere he’d be able to reach once they were long gone), before asking ”But what happened to the psychic one?” having to embroiled in her own bit if the fight to see Annette’s end.

“Took a hike,” Giovanna replied off-handedly. She did not elaborate further. A gun or two might have been useful, but her ally had gathered everything up like lightning. She didn't care to make a fuss about it, though. Her gaze lingered on Erendira for a moment, frowning. That woman was tough and probably wouldn't be down for long. She also couldn't help but admit that summoning a motorcycle was pretty badass. Still, might as well let sleeping dogs lie.

“Let's get going,” she said, summoning Rei to ride on. Elsewhere in Arahabaki, other fights raged on. The sooner the two reunited with the others, the better, something Midna readily agreed with, remounting her wolfos alongside the agent and then, a moment later the two were racing forwards once more.

World of Light

Same Old Story - the Second Turn

The Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Primrose and Therion’s @Yankee, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Ganondorf’s @Double, Ms. Fortune
Word Count: 2,072 (+3)

Both Bowser and Rika had the same issue as Nadia, their kinetic strike module and gauntlets respectively unstrapped themselves from their arms and fell to the floor. For Bowser this was only inconvenient, the King promptly abandoning the punch enhancer in favor of charging in and proceeding to try and deliver a series of regular punches to one of Robin’s legs.

Rika, however, dropped to the floor alongside her gauntlets, dragged down both by the cables attaching them to her back, and by her need for their anti-gravity effect to support her naval warfare intended form. She scrambled to put her hands back inside of the gauntlets, while sending her ichor queen to fight for her, the massive wasp queen buzzing forwards, prompting Bowser to leap out of the way, giving the striker room to swing its massive blade at the same leg he had been delivering a beating too.

Back around Primrose, Jr and Kamek first dropped their casting implements (paint brush and wand respectively) before the prince himself hit the ground a moment later, out like a light, taking their way of undoing the slumbering curse with him. He should, it seemed, have kept that in their back pocket.

Jr’s Dream - Stage One

The prince slipped seamlessly from the waking world to the one he had just freed Primrose from, though of course he had no idea about any of this. Instead he glanced around, scratched his head, and then called out ”Hello? Where did everybody go? Is anyone there?”

"Hello!" a familiar voice from somewhere else in the room called, before an even more familiar silhouette appeared atop one of the low walls in the arena-like rooms.

”Mario?” Jr asked, surprised to find his dad’s (and technically his) arch enemy here. They hadn’t seen him since he wandered off to do his own thing at some point early in their adventure after all (and the Troop hadn’t run into him in smash city. Nor did they know he was dead).

"It’s a me!" the plumber confirmed, which left the prince rather relieved for all of half a second before the plumber leapt into the air in an arch that was even more familiar than anything that had come before, and promptly drove a shoe right down atop the utterly taken by surprise prince’s noggin.

”Young master? Young master! This is not time for dozing” Kamek shouted in the sleeping prince’s ear while shaking him, but to no avail.

”Oh dear.”

Defeated, the mage glanced too and fro till he found his wand, which he moved to retrieve inorder to use it to summon a set of toadies which he could use to at least transport the sleeping prince out of the battlefield.

Primrose immediately realized that this is what had happened to her. That dust had put her into a magical slumber. Maybe he would even have a bad dream of his own. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to wake him since no one else in their party had a counter spell or cure that she could recall. If only that lizard copycat had seen fit to come with them.

"I'll cover you, Kamek," Primrose told the elder mage. It was the least she could do since it seemed the prince had dispelled the sleep cast on her while the others had made sure she was safe. The dancer was now fully recovered and eager to destroy the 'Goodfellow.' Her lance had already fallen from her hands when she'd been put to sleep, but she still had her magic to fight with.

She gathered a swirling spiral of darkness in one hand as she stepped forward to better return the favor and protect the prince and Kamek. She closed her fist, sending the wave of shadow of her Night Ode spell to wash over the three enemies. Though large enough to crash against Titania and Robin, it did not reach Oberon.

Though Primrose's fellow Orsterran had appeared to be missing from the fight, his striker the junicorn rolled onto the scene at that point signaling that he was at least close by. His camouflage was far from perfect, but in the dark on the fringes of battle it was easy enough to remain undiscovered or ignored while the combatants had bigger threats to focus on.

Therion was not a strategist by any means, and all he could really glean from watching the three enemies was that they all seemed very troublesome. Not getting stuck in the middle of it had been a good call, but once his striker's timer ran out he wouldn't have much of a choice. As much as he might complain, and no matter how hard his instincts wanted him to flee, he didn't intend to abandon everyone to the fight.

The junicorn moved as a big iron ball rolling through the area. The goal Therion had given it was to get closer to the archangel in order to deliver its payload in the form of the lance on its head, while being less likely to miss - and it made a beeline towards that goal.

”You…” Ganondorf muttered, getting back to his feet after the interference of Oberon. Ganondorf glared at the ox-like warrior that Robin had summoned, ”You’re about to learn just who it is you picked a fight with.” he raised his right hand blade, a signal to his Moblin archers who then resumed their fire arrow volleys against Robin. The Gerudo King squared off against Oberon, sizing the armored creature up a bit before going for his first attack.

Ganondorf made a lunging thrust with his right hand sword. Immediately after he spun himself around with a circular slash utilizing the left sword. Then he briefly crouched down after the spin, in case Oberon attempted to retaliate. And then from that crouched possession, Ganondorf brought his right arm up in an attack that appeared to be fusion of his Gerudo Dragon uppercut and an upward slash with the greatsword his right hand wielded. That last hit aimed to launch Oberon upward, which Ganondorf would capitalize on if successful by performing a short series of upward slashes with his blades that would effectively juggle the enemy in the air a moment before finishing with a double upward slash delivered as a power attack.

When the two bruisers clashed, Ganondorf had the range advantage, so he struck first. His attacks clanged off Oberon’s Aegis, and each impact seemed to fuel the flames that ran through both weapons, increasing their critical and status chances. The warframe executed a horizontal swing with Silva while blocking the second blow, but the blazing head of his golden mace passed over Ganondorf’s head as the man went low. Immediately he carried the momentum into another bash that traded with his foe’s uppercut, but while both hit each other, only Oberon got launched. Still, Ganondorf’s follow-ups came late as a result, and he only managed to land two before his target fell out of range and performed an ukemi off the ground. Oberon rolled backward, then used an ability of his own. Hallowed Ground ignited a field of bright green flame around him with a ten-meter radius, burning and inflicting constant radiation damage for fifteen seconds. Of course, that was just step one. After setting up area denial, Oberon used Smite; with a crushing fist motion he detonated the vital energy within Ganondorf. That dealt radiation damage, caused a hard knockdown, and inflicted Confusion. While he dealt with that, the warframe prepared to return to Robin to aid in its fight against the other Seekers.

Meanwhile, Sectonia weaving in and out was for the best as Titania turned her guns upon her. While the first shot missed, once Sectonia got close, the shots got more accurate until the third shot which hit home. She was a tanky bug, so she was able to retreat but it still hurt. The worse part was what came next, a spell that made her new axe fly out of her hand. It was at this point she learned that such effects weren’t actually as bad as they could be, as she could recreate her axe without needing to pick it back up unlike the koopa troop. Her antlers were also just floating helplessly from this power as well. Still, that could be quite the annoying thing, especially with this paper monster putting Jr. to sleep next.

At least Titania had to partially let go of her shotgun to use that power of hers, and Nadia was capitalizing on that. To make sure Nadia succeeded, Sectonia gave her a bit of haste to make her even faster at grabbing that stupid gun. She then buffed herself with her Chaos shield before going back on the paper goat again, blinking around to strike him with her large axe again.

Jesse wasn’t even going to bother with her Service Weapon seeing the trouble some of the others had. Instead she crossed her arms and flung the debris Nadia had used to jump to shred into Titania. “Rocks incoming, Fortune!” She warned beforehand. Keeping it simple she wrenched a rock from the stone beneath the dirt floor and flung it into Titania to smash into her ‘armor.’

Nadia perked up, her ears swiveling as she heard Jesse’s warning. “Got it!” She crouched down, then threw herself to the left in a blood-propelled dash. Though she saw the slabs headed her way, Titania made the executive decision to track Nadia’s evasive action in order to cast Tribute. Not sure what was happening, Nadia took a burst of impact damage -like a slug from a giant fist- that extracted a buff alongside a burst of blood from her body. The buff gave Titania Thorns, reducing her damage taken by twenty-five percent, just in time for the debris from Jesse’s shield to hit her like a stony shotgun blast. Wiping a little blood from her lips, Nadia grinned to see the warframe stagger. “Off to a rocky start!”

Titania wasn’t about to sit still and take any more punishment, though. She sprang into the air, narrowly avoiding Jesse’s next rock, then whipped out her own shotgun. The simple act of aiming in the air lowered her gravity while boosting her horizontal movement, leading to a very action-movie style of bullet jump as Titania took aim, first at Nadia and then at Jesse. Her Corinth thundered twice as the hurtled through the air, and when she flew into a pillar, she clung to it hands-free to unload her weapon’s alternate fire. A grenade flew through the air that Titania manually detonated to unleash an inaccuracy-inflicting Blast in an area of ten meters.

When her opponent took to the air, Nadia sprang upward to follow suit, but she quickly realized she couldn’t keep up with Titania’s aerial mobility. Blocking the first multishot left her in blockstun long enough that she couldn’t do much before hitting the ground again, at which point she watched the warframe sail away like a butterfly on the breeze. “Guess I shouldn’t take our advantage for granite,” she muttered. Well, if Titania was going to be flighty, she might as well join those attacking Robin. Nadia sprinted across the earthy, husk-littered ground toward the towering archangel to join the royals’ assault.

Robin had stayed mobile, trying not to just stand there and take whatever its opponents could dish out. After the Moblin arrows and the first spell from Primrose, it maneuvered to a safer distance, but Bowser, Rika’s striker, and Sectonia still managed to chase it down. Their efforts left a dent in its body, especially Bowser’s mighty mitts, but Robin did not buckle. Instead it lashed out with its huge hoof, repaying the Koopa King in kind with a hefty kick. It was the queen that really earned Robin’s rancor, though. Protected by some sort of strange matter that coated her as a damage-absorbing barrier, Sectonia warped in to cleave into its body again, and now the archangel turned her way. This time, Sectonia hadn’t retreated after her attack–a big mistake. “...Figments.” Nadia approached fast, but not so fast that she could stop Robin casting Fairy Dust on Sectonia. As the big bug’s gilded wingbeats slowed and she began to falter, Robin reached out with its free hand and snatched the sleeping queen from the air to hurl her body at Bowser.

World of Light

Same Old Story - the First Turn

The Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Primrose and Therion’s @Yankee, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Ganondorf’s @Double, Ms. Fortune
Word Count: 2,129 (+3)

Sectonia was fine with blasting this thing, as was their prerogative to dealing with bosses as it were. ”About time we can silence this thing.” Seeing this thing was made of paper, or something akin to that, she started by summoning her fire Antlers before she got in close to hit it with her axe and fire breath, dancing out when needed so Bowser could do his shenanigans as it were. Still, whatever he did to Primrose was a bit concerning, so Sectonia figured they were all on a time limit.

Fortunately, another royal had a solution to that problem, the koopa prince hurrying over to the sleeping Primrose inorder to cast ”Esuna!” on the dancer, a spell that could magically cleanse minor status effects. Even as she cured her, the prince also grabbed her with his free hand, aiming to help Nadia in moving her clear while she was waking up.

Primrose’s Dream

It had happened so suddenly. One second the dancer found herself unable to keep her eyes open; the next, they opened to an unfamiliar scene. Now, instead of the vaulted chamber where Ten Piedad had been laid to rest, she sat on the floor of a strange arena, half-melted candles all around. She remembered attacking Robin Goodfellow... had it warped her into a cell to take her out of the fight?

How irritating, she thought. Was this how most of the prison's cells were filled? Threats to the status quo faced down that demented mule-man and were trapped? Then, maybe, Yufusa had accidentally stumbled into Mercy Dreams and had been imprisoned the same way...?

Primrose approached the cell door, the only one in the room. She couldn’t hear any noise from beyond it. After a brief moment, though, she realized that she had more pressing matters than whatever might be going on outside. She wasn’t alone in here. Within the shadows, the shape of a man arose - a silver-haired man with the mark of a crow hidden beneath his cravat.

She stared at the man in disbelief. The last time she had seen him it was the moment of his betrayal revealed. When he had stabbed her, mocked her, and left her for dead. She hadn't expected to see him in this world. It was impossible that he was here, at the same place and time as herself and Yusufa.

This prison conjures up dreams. Nightmares. Of course none of it is real. If nothing else, this helped her really come to terms with the fact that the Yusufa in the silver-locked cell was a fake. And she should just ignore the fake in front of her - but then the man spoke.

"My dear Primrose..." He sighed, his tongue curling around her name.

She lunged at him. Her lance had been lost somewhere, but she had her dagger. It flashed forward, seeking the man's neck where that damn tattoo sat. He laughed and danced out of the way. She didn't expect him to retaliate with his own dagger - it cut the skin of her cheek as she threw herself to one side. She turned back to him, murder burning in her eyes.

"Simeon!" Primrose snarled. She hadn't had a lot of time to process what had happened between the two of them. After being awakened in Alcamoth, Simeon had been the first thing on her mind. The confrontation in the Obsidian Manse was the last thing that had happened to her in her original world. She had been lost, anguished. Angry. And then she'd set out to fix the universe.

Ultimately, whatever had happened in the past, what they had felt for each other and what could have been didn't matter. Her goal was still to eradicate the Obsidians. Simeon was one of them; their leader, the final crow. This shadow would be a good warm up for the real thing.

She collected dark fire in her hand and struck the ground, letting her Black Serpent spell give chase. She started on another spell when Simeon was suddenly in her face. He'd gotten past the serpent by moving in close instead of trying to run - and he had his own spell prepared.

"Rondo of Stillness." Dark magic slammed into Primrose, flinging her back. She got to her feet quickly, less graceful than usual in the face of her hated foe. She felt herself growling in annoyance, but couldn't hear it. A chill ran down her spine. She touched her throat, tried to summon her magic, but she'd been effectively silenced.

No matter, she thought. She held her dagger up in front of her, but before she could go back on the attack she felt her consciousness pulling away from her again. Confusion and hesitation took her, distracted enough that Simeon easily knocked her back again. This time he caught her before she hit the ground.

He held her loosely. One of his arms was cradled around her back, the other had taken hold of her dagger hand. He still held his own weapon, the two blades gripped tight and hanging menacingly over the both of them.

"How nice it was to know I'm still the man of your dreams," he said. Sweetly, smugly. His smile grew wider, showing his pearly teeth. "Alas, it seems our time together is up."

So that was it? She was being pulled out of the dream? No! She had to kill this man!

Simeon! She cursed at him in her head. Simeon! The nasty smile was still on his face, and he shrugged as if he had no choice but to let her be pulled back to consciousness. She struggled to get her feet back underneath her while in his hold, to thrust her dagger into his head while it was tangled with his, but blackness swallowed her vision once more.

As the boy helped, his papa and sister put themselves in between the sleeper and her 2 helpers to protect them from whatever the two humanoid enemies Robin had summoned could do, assuming they tried to take down the sleeping target, readying shields and defensive strikers. As a result it was instead Kamek who took advantage of Sectonia’s dancing away, as the mage proceeded to fire a multi elemental cosmic spray across the battlefield at Robin, hoping that at least one of the elements would tickle a weakness they could exploit.

Jesse sprinted forward, putting herself in front of her comrades. Noting the two warriors had guns, she figured they planned on using them in moments. So she put out her hands and ripped debris from the floor and bound them together with her paranatural powers, creating a Shield in between her allies and Robin’s bodyguards.

Coming to was slow for Primrose. Even though she knew what was happening around her wasn't real, she struggled to stay asleep all the same. Whatever inner demons she'd found in that nightmare, she wanted to stay and fight them.

"Simeon...!" Her voice was quiet and strained as her body woke up before her mind. She felt hands on her, jostling and moving her. She forcefully pulled herself out of the grasp, not quite realizing that her allies were taking her out of harm's way.

"Don't touch me." The words were a clear, dangerous warning. Nadia heeded them, jerking away as if Primrose had burned her hands. Then, the dancer’s dark eyes brightened a little in recognition of Ms. Fortune and Bowser Jr. Ahead of them, Jesse and the others. She touched her forehead gently as consciousness fully returned to her. "I...?"

”Hmph.” Ganondorf huffed with a grimace. He finally decided he’d seen enough. He held up one sword as a gesture to command his moblins to temporarily hold their fire. Then with a smirk he took off in a run toward the creature called Robin. He’d seen the sleep-inducing fairy dust attack and now knew to be wary of it. He would not be so easily caught off guard by it.

Rather than a direct forward attack, the Gerudo King instead anticipated some kind of frontal defense of riposte and pivoted himself into a side step. That side-step then led into a jump that took him up and allowed him to come slamming back down onto the creature from above with an aerial Warlock Kick that of course wrapped his foot and leg in a dark, purple-ish magical flame, ”Show me what you’ve got, creature! Do your worst!”

Robin hadn’t been the one to attack Ganondorf, however. Instead it was Oberon, and the strong-bodied warframe had bulled forward to bring the blue flames of his golden mace Silva down on the warlord’s head. Instead Ganondorf deftly dodged the crushing blow, then while Oberon momentarily raised his Aegis shield to defend himself from a counterattack, leaped away from it to target Robin instead. Unfortunately for Ganondorf, he’d earned himself an enemy that was far more mobile than he realized. Incensed, Oberon sprang into the air with surprising accuracy, hurtling after Ganondorf in a corkscrew leap. In the middle of his Warlock Kick, he took an aerial shield bash to the back, knocking him off course. Both flew off to the side, and Ganondorf had only the briefest opportunity to course-correct before Oberon followed up with an overhead slam from Silva to bring both himself and the Gerudo King back down to the ground.

Meanwhile, Titania had been more focused on the other attacker who flew in to attack Robin, that being Sectonia. With Primrose well protected by the Koopa Troop and Jesse, the sprightly warframe took aim at the swarm queen with her regal Corinth shotgun. With six punchy pellets, it had short range, middling fire rate, and a nasty propensity for critical hits made all the worse by a decently tight spread. With her first shot she missed, with the second she got a glancing blow on Sectonia, and with the third she scored a direct hit. By that time though, her target was backpedaling and the Antlers were closing in. Titania released her shotgun with one hand to cast Spellbind. This created a cloud of fairy dust, five meters in diameter, in the vicinity of herself, Robin, Jesse, Nadia, Primrose, the Troop, and Sectonia’s minions. Immediately, her enemies fumbled their weapons, and the Antlers floated into the air, surrounded by ghostly teal butterflies. Meanwhile, she and Robin became immune to status effects, and would be until Spellbind ended in sixteen seconds.

In the first few moments of the fight, Robin sustained a heavy axe chop, fiery breath, and a barrage of different elements. None of them seemed any more effective than any other, however, so while a smart move, Kamek’s gambit didn’t amount to much. With its minions already engaging the enemy, Robin followed suit. First it used Trick, inflicting Jesse with a random debuff, Melee Attack Down, for thirty seconds. Then the archangel used Fairy Dust again, this time targeting the major threat to its gameplan: Junior. The Koopa Prince immediately fell into a deep sleep, and around him the battle continued. One other thing happened, however. Within Robin’s strange corona, two of the ten empty diamond outlines now shone with vivid purple.

After seeing Primrose stir and confirming that she’d be okay, there was nothing else stopping Naida from cutting to the chase. When Titania’s Spellbind caused an unseen force to wrench her boxcutters from her grip, she didn’t even slow down. Instead she jumped onto Jesse’s barrier of torn-up slabs, claws sharpened, and pumped her limbs full of blood. “Nice trick,” she smirked, grabbing her right arm by the bicep as it spun up like a drill. “But I’m never unarmed!” She took aim, then fired at Titania. Rather than try to block, the warframe leaped upward on a conjured trampoline of energy, but Nadia was faster. On jets of blood she cannoned skyward, transforming her left arm into a white tiger’s as she raised it over her head. “Here’s your escape claws!” She descended with a strong slash that brought both back down, knocking the Corinth from Titania’s grasp.

The warframe landed and slid backward, drawing her Pangolin saber, while Nadia did two things. With her left she pulled off and rolled her head a bowling ball (which missed her target), and with the other she shot out muscle fibers to attach to her detached arm and pull it back on. Titania sprinted toward her, sliding to collect her shotgun, then rose to meet flashing claws with swirling blade. Nadia struck thrice in quick succession with Cat Scratch, each metallic clash gaining no ground. Only when the feral’s head flew in from behind Titania did Nadia manage to catch her off guard and land an El Gato axe kick that pushed the warframe back.

From Realms Beyond — An Isekai Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

??? — Woods outside the smoldering town

Rayne ended up accompanying Lewa out of the town to follow up on his plan-intent to find out what the guy’s deal was. As it turned out, he was looking for his family that had run off into the woods, which in hindsight was something of an obvious place for them to have gone. She did worry however that that could have meant the retreating heralds might have run into them, and so she agreed to join this search: “I might not have seen a regular forest for close to two decades, but I can still help out”

Unfortunately, the initial search did not prove fruitful, as no one was to be found in the outskirts of the town. Then the rain that had been threatening to fall began to do so, slowly at first, but picking up speed with every passing moment. It pitter pattered on Rayne’s hat (which was novel at first but quickly became annoying) as she floated nearby to the man, who’s calls she added to, but to no avail.

It was pretty clear that doing things this way wasn’t going to work out, and so after a moment of trepidation she brought this up beginning with a gentle “I don't think we’re going to find them this way,” before swiftly clarifying “sticking with you I mean. We can move much faster if we go on our own, and if they are out here, we’ll find them, I promise. But you’ll catch a chill out here, and having a building fall on you can’t have been good for your health either, so maybe I can send you back to town?”

If he accepted, she’d do as she had suggested, and if not, she’d remove her hat and offer it to him “Here, to keep the rain off, and maybe find some cover so that we can find you again, if, once, we locate your family. I ‘d hate to find them only to lose you in the process.”

Either way, as long as there were no objections to her (or them, if Lewa also wanted to race ahead through the forest) pushing forwards, she’d take off, blink dashing through the woods, calling out “The heralds are gone, it's safe now, I’m here to help you get back to the village!” and looking for any landmarks equivalent to the church where the rest of the villagers might have taken cover from the storm, be it the one of ravens or rain.

From Realms Beyond — An Isekai Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

??? — Burning Town

“Just hold on ok, I’m almost there” So said Ranye to yet another victim trapped beneath fallen rubble, the witch knight straining as she used Runedge to pry a fallen plank up, exposing a bloodied and bruised hand.

Using a foot to keep pressing the sword down, and in doing so keep the wood she had pried up held up, Rayne reached in a hand and grasped that of the victim, giving it a reassuring squeeze as she insisted that “I’ve got you”

There was a sob and a deeply relieved “thank you” muffled by the still uncleared debris, but that obstruction wasn’t going to matter. That moment of connection, physical and emotional, was all the Witch Knight had needed, and a breath after the Link was formed, she used it to whisk the injured person away, teleporting them out from the rubble, across the village, and into the hunter’s lodge as she had done with several more already.

She could only hope that someone there would know how to treat whatever injuries they had, because while her magic was born of the need to help people, or rather of people’s need to be helped, it could transport and destroy, but ironically could not heal. So the best she could do was try and make sure everyone was free before the rain started to come down and complicated matters.

That thought gave her pause, causing her to tip her head and hat back and just, actually look at the sky. The whole, unbroken, not near instantly fatal to be beneath sky. It had been more than 14 years since she’d seen one like that, indeed she’d never expected to see one again, and with all that had been going on, she hadn’t taken the time to just look at it, and take it all in.

The wide brim of her hat being in the way hadn’t exactly helped either.

So she took a moment, just a moment, and then once she had her fill she pushed herself to get back to work.

When she did so, she went to check if Lewa had found anyone that needed moving, and in doing so saw arrived just in time to see a man he had freed hurrying out of town, prompting her to enquirer “where’s he off too?” and to then listen to whatever instructions the Toa gave regarding how to respond to the situation.