It was somewhat difficult to tell if her ramblings had been coherent and useful to Frankenstine, Rayne found. All she had to go off was a somewhat contemplative look. It was better than one of confusion or annoyance at least, she supposed, so she’d air on the side of optimism and hope that it had indeed helped.
A few moments after she’d finished her spiel, they’d passed through the gate and out into the farmland beyond. She’d seen it before already of course, but it was a bit different to be traveling through the wreck rather than looking down at it in a detached fashion. At least there was farm land further out that was ok.
For the moment.
At least some of it probably got hit as collateral damage as part of what happened next.
Rayne was nodding along with the farmer as he explained the issue with the animals being spread all over, and observing how there was no way to keep them back in their broken pens even if they were herded back, when Fran had an idea. One that started by pulling a massive mace out of nowhere, which was shocking to see anyone else do, and then blasting off in a mighty leap towards the beasts.
“Wait no no no we want them alive!” a panicking Ryne shouted as she started to go after Fran, misinterpreting what her plan was immensely, only for the women to call down the lightning, the thunderous explosion drowning out Rayne’s accompanying shriek of shock and fright. She wasn’t the only one spooked by this, that was for sure, as it prompted the already running about animals to do so even more, now in utter terror.
When Rayne saw Frankenstine proceed to leap and do another lighting flash to spook them in a specific direction, she did at least get what she was doing, but, well it could very much be argued whether Fran was herding the beasts, or just creating a stampede.
The witch knight blink dashed the herd and herdswoman, and, upon catching up, then shouted “Please tell me have a plan to get them to stop!” because that was very much the issue here. Despite her massive misgivings with the plan she didn’t know the specifics of (who knew whatever other powers this metallically augmented lady had after all), the little lady helped out how she could, because she couldn’t exactly stop it.
Thus she went blinking dashing here, there and everywhere, waving her hat, “yaa”ing and even body checking individual animals that weren't worth a flash of lighting. She was also very much on rescue duty, because panicked animals were not at all considerate of smaller, slower animals that might be in their way. As such a lot of her time involved things like chucking chickens out of harm's way, or blink dashing to the side with young animals in tow, lest they be trampled.
Central hub: Smash City Alcamoth Accessible locations: Peach’s castle Limsa Lominscuttle Town Lumbridge Twilight Town Kosm’s Beach
”Ah. Right. Gloating, taunting and threats followed by ultimately getting away to fight another day. That does indeed shape up to most instances of being at the mercy of villains” Kamek sighed with very retroactive hindsight. Not that anyone in the troop was going to learn from at this point if they hadn’t already.
”At least no one started monaloging and we got some answers out of him, vague as they were” he added, on for Jr to pipe up that ”Well he didn’t answer mine! I want my treasure!”
He hadn’t answered Rika’s either to be fair, but she seemed like an exception to their number given that her take away was: ”So should I just shoot him next time?”
”Next time!? We shoot him now!” Jr insisted, and while Kamek were both about to say about how he was gone Jr had an idea, no matter how foolish, and that was that Kamek ”Make me a beetle. Make me a bunch of beetles! We dig!”
”Young master I’m not sure if-” Kamek began to object, only for Bower to clap him in the back and command ”Jump to it Kamek, my boy’s got a plan!” which prompted both grumbling and compliance as the mage began to create a small herd of tunneling beetle steeds for the troop. Rika went without, as she popped on a pair of headphones, clicked on a music track, transformed into The Beast and then got to using that mega centipede's burrowing capabilities to help try and track down where F had dug off too.
While the Troop got ready to bug out, Nadia watched them with brows upturned, her head still cradled in her lap as she leaned back with her palms on the ground. “I wanna tear that jerk a new one as much as the next girl, but he could be anywhere. You dig?” Even if F had resorted to other, more subtle means of egress when it came to making his getaway, Nadia hadn’t forgotten that he could teleport. That notwithstanding, he could have tunneled in any direction. Tracking him down would be like finding a needle in a haystack the size of the entire Underground, and for her part, Nadia thought Sectonia’s idea of rest and relaxation sounded pretty sweet.
Still, she knew her words wouldn’t get through to the stubborn Koopas, and as the dirt began to fly the feral skittered away. After getting to her feet, she saw that the excavators’ progress was nothing to shake a stick at, and tried to think on the bright side. They’d just beaten a Guardian, after all. A victory like that could bring on a serious rush, and if the Seekers could do that, maybe they really could do anything. “Good luck down there!” She held her head out over the hole in order to call down after the delvers. “If you do catch that creep, give him a noogie for me! I’ll burr-owe you one!”
As if on cue, however, the Troop’s luck took a sudden turn. Digging straight down carried an inescapable element of risk, and as it happened, the pursuers dug straight into a section of loose, loamy, clumpy earth. Already disturbed by F’s sudden passage, the dirt began to shift beneath and around them, sweeping them up in a crumbly tumble through a twisting, turning tunnel like a tube slide at a water park. After a few moments the decidedly unfortunate excavators burst from the roof of a cavern in a shower of earth, entering freefall as they plunged into somewhere new.
”Gah the boxy lady was riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight”
Just a second later they landed, unharmed, on what looked like a cliffside promontory blanketed by dark, cushiony grass. A huge open space stretched out in all directions around them, not nearly as large as Ash Lake, but still impressive in its misty, pale green vastness. Out in the empty space, alien trees loomed large, each composed of multiple trunks threaded vertically through what appeared to be giant lily pads. The land beyond this promontory itself looked like a high-altitude maze, sheer drops on all sides, their opalescent turquoise stone crowned by inky purple-black foliage and more strange plants, from tubular stalks to perfectly round bushes to small black trees that smoldered like sticks of incense, their smoke oddly fragrant. Swamps of mint-colored water could be found all over, in many cases feeding waterfalls that led straight into the abyss where lantern bonsai floated, and wherever the newcomers looked the waterways offered still more fascinating flora. They could also see movement all throughout the alien archipelago, creatures familiar but a little weird. No sign of F, but if he’d dropped down here before them, there was only one direction he could go.
Bowser and a centipede body’d Rika uncurled themselves from where they’d protectively wrapped themselves around the smaller, squishier, members of the digging crew. Unlike them, the beetles that they’d been using to dig had not survived the fall, and had insead acted as functional, if not very soft, cushions to soften their impact with the ground.
”Urrrgh… everyone good?” Bowser asked, as he rubbed his head and sat down his son, who murmured an affirmation, before getting another pair from Kamek and Rika, the latter of whom dropped her Beast form to do so.
“You guys okay down there!?” Nadia’s echoed voice called down from far above, to which Bowser yelled ”Yeah! Takes more than a fall to do the koopa troop in!” in response.
As he pointed his focus back up, the rest of the troop focused it around.
”Well, it looks like we found something down here at least, but not our escaped F” Kamek noted as he glanced around the chamber, taking in its beauty ”Still, it makes a nice change from all the barren caves and the mining pit above”
Jr meanwhile, rather than admiring what was around him, was looking beyond, and assessing that there was ”He must have gone over there!” as he pointed across the maze of cliffs to an outcrop flanked by two carved pillars with pink crystals on them. If there was an end goal to the wall-less maze, it was there.
Rika seemed to agree, in that by the time Jr had made that assessment, she had run forwards, leapt out over one of the pits and then with a set of mid air jumps and grapples, landing on the other side. Not one to be left behind, Jr called ”Hey wait up!” before pulling his grapple worm out of his duffle bag, and using the strange bug to latch onto and pull himself to one of the lanterns. From there swung under it, grappled to a weird tree, formed a platform out of iron on it and then leapt into the void, summoning his vespikan strikers to hold up their massive cleavers to act as a quartet of stepping stones before he used one last grapple to finally clear the same jump Rika had just effortlessly made.
”Children wait!” Kamek called after them, but it was already too late, and so he was forced to float on after them with an ”Oh dear oh dear oh dear” leaving Bowser still shouting up at those still above, the king having entirely forgotten about the link pearls they all had.
”There’s a whole cave down here, wet and swampy but kinda nice I guess? Goes on for ages but there’s some kind of end goal over one end and-” he was calling up when he noticed, and only then realizing that the rest of the troop were moving down ”Gah, and now everyone’s run off, I gotta go!”
After those closing words, there came a little jingle of a bell as Bowser hooked one to his spiky collar and transformed into Meowser. In it he took his own singular running leap and launched himself off of the cliffside after the others. He missed the other side, but his claws dug into the cliff face when he hit it lower down, allowing him to clamber back up it and continue his pursuit.
This slapdash chase could have been a call for calamity had the environment contained many dangerous beasties, but fortunately for them all the cave system seemed to have avoided infestation by anything particularly dangerous. The little Barracuda Plants where only really a risk to a fool who stuck thief fingers in them, while Stalking Molds where much to slow to pursue, and one that did pull off an ambush more or less only delivered a hug while doing so. Indeed that might have been what it was trying to do rather than harm or kill. It was unrequited regardless however, and the mold found itself tossed off a cliff for its efforts.
A few obstacles floated through the air, but the oversized Rotfly Mutants mainly made for convenient grappling hook points rather than threats, as much as they tried, while the rather strange Glimmets drifting around where simply left in the dust.
Somehow the worst thing managed to be outcroppings of Cosmic Quartz which when approached emitted a multitude of overlapping sounds, like an entire universe of sound all both uninterpretable and somehow still distinct, which was not the sensory overload you wanted while platforming.
Well. those and some xeno grapes that gave a trying to restock his stamina Bowser a tummy ache.
Still, other than those nuisances, the lush environment and freedom of movement was a welcome change of pace from the claustrophobic black egg temple and somehow simultaneously claustrophobic and agoraphobic dream realm with its narrow platform hanging in an endless void.
Eventually however, it came to an end as the troop gathered up at the 2 crystal pillars Jr had identified as the exit, and found themselves looking down yet another long drop. It looked like a pitch-black hole in the green mists that hung over the swampy cavern floor down below, much deeper and much darker than the hole they’d tumbled down to get here. None had seen hide nor hair of F on their way through this beautifully bizarre marshland, and if the Consul truly had gone this way, jumping in after him seemed like an especially risky proposition. That aside, of course, staring down into such an unknown abyss could give practically anyone pause.
”Given how long that took, and that we did not see him at all, he must be far far ahead of us by now” Kamek pointed out as they, indeed, paused at the precipice.
”Yeah, but this is the only way he could have gone, and if he didn’t see us following, maybe he’s slowed down now. Or his lairs right down there, ready for looting” Jr retorted, more enamored with the latter prospect than the former, it seemed.
”Or he’s gonna ambush us like those monsters did when he dropped us down the start” Rika added, not really for either side, but more because it was the obvious tactical thing to do, especially with how they were now split from the others. Unfortunately she didn’t point out the latter issue, having assumed it obvious, and so it led to Jr declaring ”If it’s a trap, we should spring it! It’s the last thing he expects us to do” and her being entirely confident in accepting his take on the situation.
Bowser was about to agree with this when is belly rumbled, once again complaining about the xeno grapes, and so instead started to say ”We should wait for a bit-” but by that point ”It’s too late, she’s already jumped in”
Indeed Rika was already dropping down the hole, though admittedly doing so like a feather rather than a stone so they did have time to spare before she reached the bottom. Time enough for Jr to insist Kamek ”Make me a dragon so I can fly down!”
A few moments later, Kamek and Jr had joined Rika in her drifting down, while a doubly grumbling Bowser hung back for a few moments before simply leaping after them, following them down into the dark.
This time, they descended/fell for several seconds. They flew pasts the mists and into the darkness, finding themselves surrounded by waterfalls on all sides. Then they spotted water below them, and the next second splashed down into a clear, rather warm basin. When they surfaced, they found themselves somewhere new yet again, darker than the alien swampland but by no means too dark to see. And what they saw amazed them.
They’d landed in a still pond, its surface interspersed with patches of water lilies and lotus flowers. More interestingly, this pool seemed to be artificial in make, judging by the intricate, geometric marine tiles that lined its angular walls. Beyond lay a huge, misty cavern dominated by vast basins and surrounded by of well-preserved ruins, a sprawling array of towers, walls, aqueducts, and columns with no clear path. Waterfalls and rays of light descended from the vaulted ceiling high above, sustaining trees, ferns, and prehistoric foliage of all kinds. Beneath the surface teemed the aquatic creatures of antiquity, primeval organisms long thought extinct, from the anomalocaris to the helicoprion to the elasmosaurus, as well as equally ancient pokemon like Omastar and Kabuto . It was an incredible sight–and one utterly antithetical to the purpose of tracking down a singular runaway.
Bowser was the one who got the best look at these, as he promptly sunk like a stone down to the bottom of the pool below the drop, landing amidst a small garden of Lileep. They were quite spooked by the giant’s arrival, and began to waddle away in a panic as fast as their stubby legs could carry them.
A curious elasmosaurus too crane its neck over at the commotion, but it was dissuaded by a perfectly able to breath water Bowser growling a bubbly ”Don’t think about it” at it with his fists raised, ready to fight. Remarkably it decided to not indeed try it, and instead happily snapped up a poor lileep or two before they got to cover, leaving Bowser to start trudging his way up out of the water unmolested.
The rest of the troop, thanks to flight or sailing, had not taken a dunk like him, but that didn’t mean they weren't upset, Jr chief among them, the prince swooping around on drake back crying out ”Gahhh where’d he go. Over there? Or over there or?” in frustration.
”I believe it may be time to give up and turn back young master, lest we leave the others thinking we have run off on our own, never to be seen again” Kamek said, already preparing to teleport back to the group to let them know they’d lost the trail and would catch up.
His plan was scuppered when Rika asked ”Maybe we could ask whoever that is, peeking over that wall?” While pointing over to where an azure skinned individual was watching them some distance away. As she had said, they seemed to be peeking over the banister of a set of neary ruins, as only their head, adorned with long flowing hair and ribbons of some kind, and the red jewel necklace around their neck were visible.
”That is assuming they can speak-” Kamek attempted to reply, but Jr was already flying off at breakneck speed to try and talk to them by the time the mage was half way through his sentence.
The prince swooped over a number of large pokeball symbols embedded in the ground in the process of his flight, and then headed up towards the top layer of the ruins, calling out ”Hey you! Have you seen a-” only to pause, raise a fist to his chin as he tried to think of how to describe the person who’d they only known as wearing a mask, and landing only on ”-a jerk!”
Unfortunately, and oddly, when he looked back up the figure ducked down out of sight rather than respond. ”Hey I was talking to you” Jr called after them, landing atop the ruins a few moments later, glancing around in confusion as to where they had gone, until spotting them peaking around the corner at the bottom of a flight of stairs a few moments later.
”Hey!” he shouted down at them, only for them to duck away again, the prince missing the impish look on their face when they did so. Rather than be put off by this evasiveness, the prince instead dismounted and hurried down the stairs while demanding the figure ”Get back here, I just wanna talk!”
Turning the corner, he found the figure peeking around another. They must have been quite a large figure actually given the size of their head, but that was hardly a concern for Jr, who was easily baited into another quick goose chase til he lost sight of them a few more turns down various corridors.
”Oh come on, I just want to know if someone else came down that pit is that soooo much to-” a panting prince started grousing, only for a presence to loom behind him and whisper in his ear “Flutter!” causing him to jump back and spin around in fright. Then he got a second fright as he saw that the person had no body at all!
”Gah!” he cried out in alarm, scrambling back, but rather than attack the pokemon, for that was what this Flutter Mane was, simply curled one of its claw tipped tendrils below its mouth and laughed titteringly at him as it floated back, clearly highly amused by its prank.
”That was not funny” jr growled at it, but the flutter mane simply tilted its head, or rather body, to one side as if to ask “wasn't it?”
”No! …. Ok kinda a bit” he had to admit before insisting ”But now that you’ve had your fun, are you gonna answer my questions or not?”
“Flutter mane” the creature replied unhelpfully, prompting jr to groan ”Right. Pokemon” while rubbing his forehead, before snapping his fingers, grabbing one of his pokeballs and sending out Mimi so that she could ”Explain what the deal is Mimi”
“Mi!” the mon replied with a little salute, before turning to the other, much bigger, ghost and “mi mi mi” ing at them for a few moments to do so. The Flutter mane “flutter”ed in response, as the two established that not only had the flutter mane not seen some jerk of a plant guy come down that hole, it hadn’t seen anyone come down it at all in forever. They had seen a snouty bug man wandering around with bits of paper recently though, but he’d been super elusive and thus not very prankable, so Jr was the first bit of fun it had had in forever.
They also established that it was a she.
Communicating this back to jr wasn’t exactly smooth, but they got to Mimi shaking her head in response ”So it hasn’t seen anyone coming down the way we did at all?” fairly quickly despite that.
”Shoot” a disheartened Jr said while scuffing the ground with a foot in disappointment before complaining that ”well this has been a complete waste of time.” He groaned, sighed, offered a ”thanks or whatever” to the Flutter Mane and began the climb back up to his parked drake steed only to find the Flutter Mane following after him.
”Huh?” What do you want?” he asked, to which she just sort of bobbed to one side and then pointed at him unhelpfully.
”Is it a reward or something? Jeeze fine here” he guessed, before offering up one of the pokepuffs he still had on him, which the pokemon happily scarfed down, but did not make her go away. If anything it made her stick even closer when he tried to get moving again.
”Wait, you wanna come with? Is that it?” jr finally caught on just as they were about to go up the last set of steps, and that got him some up and down nods of confirmation. ”huh. I mean you are pretty neat. But are you tough enough to hang with my squad, huh?”
Conveniently, a chance for her to prove herself was already in motion, as when Jr, Mimi, and the Flutter Mane reached the top of the stairs, the sound of combat met them. Hurrying over to the edge, they found the rest of the troop battling an ambush of Brute Bonnets that Jr had flown over, the prince having not thought twice about their ‘disguises’ that only worked from that angle.
They were rather slow, but they’d popped up out of the ground around Rika when she’d come after him (Kamek had stayed back and kept watch for Bowser emerging from the water), and they were pretty hardy and nasty at that close range, particularly with their powerful payback punches that they delivered whenever she got in close to strike them.
”Rika! I’m coming!” Jr called out as he leapt onto his drake steed and took off, flying towards her as quick as it could go. He was entirely outpaced in this however by the Flutter Mane however, which casually raced forwards at blistering speeds that explained how she had so easily given him the runaround. She dived towards the bonnets, and then produced a pink flash from her necklace that scoured three of the dark creatures.
They retaliated by blasting dark green life draining energy beams up into the sky after her, but the nimble specter managed to evade many of these. In the process, she distracted the ones shooting at her, and gave Rika the space she needed to target the others with her own brutal punches. After that, with Jr and Mimi joining the fray, and Rika grappling up to the prince’s steed to get fully out of their more dangerous melee range, the remaining brutes hardly stood a chance.
By the time a dripping Bowser and worried Kamek caught up it was all over. The dark plant pokemon had been dispatched, Rika had collected their spirits, and Jr had a new team member ”I’m gonna call you… Peeka! Coz you're like a boo. Get it?”
”Well I see you are in high spirits once more young master, despite F having gotten away” the mage noted, before hoping he hadn’t jinxed things.
”Yeah… Peeka didn't see him come down, so I guess he musta gotten away some other way. She did see someone else though, right?” Jr replied, before nodding to the pokemon, who proceeded to use one of her claws to mimic a trunk, the other two miming scribbling on a bit of paper, and then the fourth to point over in a direction.
”Sounds like that map guy, yeah? Maybe we should check it out, in case there’s a way we can avoid going alllllll the way back up there” he said, to which the others agreed it was worth a look.
After a brief time spent traipsing through the prehistoric sanctum, aided greatly by the mobility of the party’s fliers, they picked up the curious cartographer’s trail. At that point his humming clued them in, and after that the searchers found Cornifer right away. Happy to see the adventurers again after so long, he offered a discount deal on his maps. For a very reasonable price, the Troop got maps not just of the Ancient Pools, but the Abyssal Forest above and Ash Lake nearby. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be any connections between them. As beautiful as this place was, a way forward wasn’t one of the secrets it offered.
As such they were forced to head back up regardless of their finding the map bug, which caused a lot of grumbling that was for sure. Bowser used a combo of cat claws and Carrie the trowlon striker to ascend, while Jr and Kamek flew and Rika did some absurd wall jumping and grappling combos to slowly ascend out of the pit all under her own power.
The two fliers went a bit ahead of the climbers so that they could get into radio range of the rest of the team all the way back up at their digging spot as soon as possible.
”Hello? Am I reaching anyone? We are all right and on our way back. We didn’t find F or even where he went unfortunately, he may have dug out of the chamber we found or had some other means of escaping from it, but we did get some more maps from Cornifer of Ash Lake along with the areas we have just been through. Also the young master made a new pokemon friend” Kamek began in a vague attempt to justify the delay, before offering ”If you’d like to go on ahead to Asgore, there’s no need to wait for us. We know the way ourselves after all, so we’ll catch up with you” which they’d at least not have that much trouble with if Kamek made use of his steed creation power, though he’d need to have a rest once they did catch up, that was for sure.
Speaking of catching up, the flying pair had a little bit of time to kill before the climbing pair caught up, time they promptly squandered picking, eating, and then freaking out as a result of the dark visions brought to life by the local Nightmare Pommes.
Between that and the prior alien berries, the troop swore the entire region off as straight up the worst of the bunch so far, which was most inconsiderate of them.
Rayne was glad that she didn’t seem to have been talking, or acting, to fast for Frankenstine to keep up with, so maybe she wasn’t concussed, or she was only hurt in a way that stopped her from talking a lot, or maybe she was just a woman of few words? Either way, she was more than ready to make up for her lack with plenty of excess when one of the villagers enquired if she’d be willing to help with some escaped animals.
Which probably only went to show how accustomed the villagers had already become to strangers with strange looks and stranger powers showing up out of the middle of nowhere, given as he barely even blinked at Frankenstine’s presence.
Speaking of the women in question, she seemed more than happy to help as she agreed to do so in what was, it seemed, her minimalist style.
Rayne, naturally, also agreed with a “I'd be happy to help” before lifting off into the air, picking her hat up off her chair, and then setting it on her head, giving it just the littlest turn of adjustment before being satisfied with it.
“I’ll admit, I haven't had the most experience with herding, mushrooms don't exactly get up and run around thankfully. Imagine if they did though, little legs scampering under bobbing caps” she joked, farmer to farmer, before pausing and adding “which I guess maybe they could do in some other world” because the familiar was now no longer a given.
“Either way, I’ll do my best!” she concluded, before turning around to Frankenstein to continue the fairly one-sided conversation they’d started.
“So, let me explain some stuff while we go '' she said, before proceeding to do just that “First things first, this is a different world from the one you're from. But also I’m from different different world. There’s also this big Toa, they’re a bit like golems but they’re people, called Lewa from yet another different world, a lady called Anne from another, for some reason 3 ladies from one specific other other one and… well you get the pictures there’s a bunch of us, and you’ll meet the rest in time I’m sure. Most of them are out in the woods dealing with monsters but they’ll be fine, I know they can handle themselves”
To explain why she knew this, and also just what had happened here, she then gave a quick little summary of the prior day’s events “See, yesterday, most of us sorta showed up in this church summoned by a goddess to protect these two children from these jerks called the Raven Heralds, but like I said, we already ran them off. Doesn’t look like that’s all she wants though, as the goddess seems to keep teleporting people here, like you and lady Remilia, so I guess she wants us to do more stuff. I don’t know what though, she’s not exactly said anything since we got here, but I guess whatever they wanted those kids for is still a big deal maybe? We never did find out exactly why the Heralds attacked the town.”
“Either way, right now we’re helping the town get back on its feet, and then after we’ll probably try and work out what in the world the goddess wants, or even just how to get in contact with her so we can go home” she concluded her quick summary as they headed out of town to where the farm animal escape situation was going down.
Central hub: Smash City Alcamoth Accessible locations: Peach’s castle Limsa Lominscuttle Town Lumbridge Twilight Town Kosm’s Beach
”Come on, come on! At this rate we aren't gonna get back before-” Jr shouted at his family as they raced back up the train, only for he feared to come to pass and for them to not be able to reach their foe before the darkness took them down, prompting a disappointed ”awww” from the prince before he huffed about the tentacles being ”rotten kill stealers”
”Now we have to hope that the darkness is satisfied with just blotting out the light” Kamek said, not at all sad about the final phase being, if not trivial, then at least a swiftly done thing. The run back had not exactly been a fun time, what with it involving dodging through the endless piles of indiscriminately launched sword power coming their way, something they’d only really made it through thanks to Rika’s shot slowing power.
Bowser in particular was flagging, and was not going to be much help if they had to fight the ocean of darkness next
Fortunately, Kamek’s concern was unfounded, and, having taken down its sworn foe, the void was satisfied and retreated, leaving them to wake back up in the egg.
They were not alone however, as the hollow knight still kneeled where it had fallen when they entered its dreams. Now, in response to the death of the Radiance, the corruption both within and without it withered and died, leaving its long watch finally over.
As jr cheered about how they’d saved the underground (which only he really cared about among the Troop members) Bowser raised a claw and waved at the big bug, beginning to say ”Oh, uh, hey there buddy. Are we good?” only for F to appear and cut down the knight before anyone could find out what it would have done with its new, and likely entirely unexpected, duty free existence.
”Well now, that was quite uncalled for” Kamek commented, having been rather curious about what was about to happen as well.
”Yeah I had that” Rika agreed, tilting a raised gauntlet a few degrees from where she’d been ready to casually execute the knight herself to instead point it at F ”and now you” only for Kamek to raise a hand and lightly press her gun hand down, saying ”Now now, let’s see exactly what this fool expected, throwing himself at the mercy of villains” with a sneer on his beak.
”Yeah, what’s the big idea you sniveling shnook? Gonna help us till you can stab us in the back huh? Already gotta keep an eye on this guy for that” Bowser agreed, jabbing a thumb at Ganondorf before bringing the hand back and punching it into his other palm and telling F that ”So you better start talking and make yourself real useful before I decided to just beat the answers out of your sorry mug” while repeating the motion intimidatingly.
”Yeah like, where are the other guardians and and what they are and… and…” Jr piped in to add to the demands, before faltering for a moment while trying to think of more before suddenly launching into ”.. and give us all your treasure! Bet you got all sorts of cool stashed away somewhere, right?” in the exact tone a bully would demand some kid’s lunch money.
While all the others were demanding to know about things that would be useful in the future, Rika ended up looking back and asked ”Also why you haven't just done that time thing Kamek said you could do and undone everything we just did?” while scratching her cheek thoughtfully with an oversized finger while doing so.
Virgin Victory teleport room Top of the Split mountain Outside the Convent of Our Lady of the Charred Visage Tostarena Town S.O.U. Building Seiran Clinic Underground Roadway (Seiran Rebel Base Outskirts) Below City of glass entrance (plate maintenance tunnel) Vandelay Campus (Alleyway) Arahabaki’s entrance Deep Ground - the Source
By the time Midna had blinked her sight back, it was all over, and whatever machine had been built around Tychoon began to fall apart. The gateways which she hadn’t really paid attention to due to being focused on fighting collapsed, tearing apart the machinery that had been going through them.
”Huh, I wonder what that was all for?” Midna asked nobody in particular, and then, much too late, got a very bad feeling about this. C had, after all, just said that they had no idea what the consequences of their actions were going to be, and he was very much right. Well. That she didn’t know anyway. Sandalphon worked it out in short order, and it was very bad news.
At least that’s the impression she got, she didn’t exactly know what a ‘citywide blackout’ was exactly, but she could infer that it wasn’t going to be a good time.
”How much of the city’s… everything is going to stop working? Is there nothing else they can use in its place? The actual reactors maybe, if they are off?” Midna asked. Not that she was exactly in favor of draining life from the world or however those worked, but ”It only has to keep running till we win, seeing as this is going away once we do” she suggested.
For Sandalphon, Midna's first few questions were a matter of guesswork, but she tried to provide perspective as best she could. "I am no electrician, but I can only imagine that the power needs of this city are truly staggering. Even if we could get the systems running in time, the region might not have enough life energy left to meet those needs, thanks to Nox."
Speaking of both Nox and power sources, the man had abandoned his at the start of the fight, and her eyes ended up drifting over to where it now lay, the untold amounts of life force it had held spent to undo his own victory and nothing more. It had also driven him mad, despite being just an energy storage device according to Sandalphon which might have dissuaded others from picking it up.
Midna on the other hand, who was presently wearing a madness inducing artifact as a hat, was fairly sure she could handle it. Just to be safe however, she formed and used her shadow hand to pick it up, the great orange glowing limb pinching the cube between thumb and forefinger, and then bringing it close to inspect.
It felt heavy in her hand, though not so much with mass but with import. It also seemed to have a lingering mote of power as well, she could see, as she brought it close to her face. She moved a hand to slip aside the mask she was wearing, the lens was damaged and getting in the way of a detailed inspection, only for the fracture lines along it to close back up, fully and perfectly repaired without so much as a hint of fanfare.
”What?” she asked, slipping off the mask and turning it around in her hand, confirming its repaired state with her own eyes. She made a little surprised sound at the sight, before hanging the half mask around her neck and then saying ”Well, aren't you a handy little thing?” to the cube.
Eliacube A mysterious artifact. Under normal circumstances the cube is dark and closed, with a texture like jade, and it never opens. It seems to hold some sort of restorative ability, and it can hold a seemingly limitless amount of energy, but how -and perhaps why- it works is an enigma. It's rather interesting and gives off an important feeling. Probably warrants further study. Could it have some sort of psychic effect on those who own it? Or is it just a mirror, reflecting your own uncertain face back at you, and its magic is all in your head?
In short order she’d used it to repair her broken tree spear, failed to find enough bits of her pistol to repair it, and then realized she could use this to fix the caved-in armor on her darknut.
”We really need to find a way to make you more durable, don’t we thing?” she said as she was patching up the undead knight ”Nearly everything we’ve faced that’s dangerous just ripped through you. That mech was way better… oh! Well there’s one way to solve that isn’t there?”
At this point they’d moved up through the one available teleporter out of the generator, and ended up next to the mainframe computer that controlled the city. She didn’t really have the know how to use it however, so instead she just answered and asked a few questions.
”Think it can tell us how much time the city has left power wise, and if there’s a way to turn on the other reactors? Also anything else we can really use? Such as why the regime was making Others in the first place?” she asked first
The archangel could make no suppositions about the inner workings of Shinra's power infrastructure. "I am unsure. Given the sheer scale of this facility, not to mention the city itself, restoring it to its original configuration could be an infeasibly gargantuan undertaking." When Midna mention Others, however, Sandalphon seemed to be at a loss. "Making Others...?"
Goldlewis realized that, as a member of DespoRHado down in Detroit, the healer must have seldom, if ever, interacted with an aspect of the Ever Crisis that mostly concerned the psionics of the plates above. "Uh, to be specific, she means targeted metamorphosis, not all Others." He stroked his whiskers. "I reckoned it was a way to assassinate their enemies all stealthy-like, turnin' 'em into monsters nobody'd think twice about killin'." The veteran's brows furrowed. "Now that I think about it, though, we never figured out how to stop Others droppin' from the Extinction Belt. That ain't good..."
”Still a strange thing to have developed in the first place, right?” she replied, but she had to admit, that even if they did work it out, it wasn’t a solution. None of the questions she’d asked had solutions, it seemed.
She did at least have one of her own, and that was ways of how to get out of here: ”I’ve got enough power to make one more, but I did also make one down in the guardian’s room to escape the massive explosion attack. If we can get back down, we should use that”
”As for places we can go in the city, that’d be the entrance of this place, the S.O.U. Building, the Seiran Clinic, two in the city of glass, and one in the underway subway tunnels out in the outskirts. Only useful one that doesn’t just put us back in the desert or up a mountain is the virgin victory, which is out in Port Meridian west of here. If it’s fixed, we could fly it anywhere, assuming it doesn’t get attacked again” she wasn’t exactly for that however. They’d come to solve the ever crisis, and by all accounts, they’d just made it worse by undermining the city at every turn, regardless of how corrupt it had been.
Questions asked and answered, she got back to the whole improving her darknut situation, resummoning it and applying the spirit of Roadblock to its chest.
Spirit absorbed: Roadblock The host is now a hulking seven-foot titan of yellow and black metal, futuristic in make and fantastical in style. Nigh impervious to slashing, and resistant to practically anything else, it is an immovable object on the battlefield that foes are forced to play around, although its slow speed and short range make it somewhat one-note. This spirit confers the Power Obstacle, allowing it to project a large rectangular energy barrier from the shield on its left arm. Allies can move and shoot through it, but enemies cannot do either, and it can take some serious punishment. This spirit also confers the Weakness Mighty Glacier, making the Darknut unable to jump or run
”Quite the makeover. I think you got a bit of an armor upgrade out of that too which is good. So, can you-” she began asking even ash she magically commanded it, prompting it to raise its shield and project a barrier before it, a rectangle with beveled edges rather than the angular ones of the original Roadblock ”- yeah you can. Perfect”
After that very fitting and needed upgrade, she was still left with several more spirits of unfused strikers. She was tempted to fuse with one of the initiates, but her fusion had been getting pretty costly as of late, and so she decided the worth of the mediocre power was probably not worth whatever she’d sacrifice this time. Skywave might be worth it given its toolbox of tricks, but she ended up offering it to Sandalphon seeing as it fit well with her entire aesthetic and role in the team. The chillfos were not even worth considering, so she crushed them alongside the initiates.
Items obtained: Ice Shield A somewhat cumbersome medium shield, decorative and heavy. It nevertheless provides great defense, especially against ice, water, air, and slash attacks Horned Ice Helm An enchanted helmet that protects against the elements, numbing cold's sting and cooling one off in the heat. The protective ice, which provides the resistance and extra defense, can be melted or broken but will refreeze if given the chance Festive Spycicle An ice-cold spike wrapped in blinking Christmas lights. Though very strange, it's actually incredibly valuable to anyone with an eye for appraisal. If not for the light on the end it could probably kill someone with a backstab, but it still deals critical damage from behind. If the holder is ignited, it will extinguish the fire at the cost of melting for good Ice Geode Smithing material that's great for ice enchantments or making ice-themed weapons, though it'll take a master to put it to good use Psi Stone of Dissonance A crystalline pyramid that can be used to launch a conical energy wave that deals mental damage, applying high stagger. It takes a long time to recharge, however, and can only be used effectively once every five minutes. It darkens after use and starts glowing again when ready to blast PSI Core A disembodied eye with an alien appearance. If combined with nine PSI cards, it forms a PSI Challenge Marker that's can provide a free psychic level upgrade to a psychic character PSI Card A collectible from a mental world, fairly common in psychic circles. If nine of them are combined with a PSI Core, they form a PSI Challenge Marker that's can provide a free psychic level upgrade to a psychic character
”Well would you look at that, I’ve been needing a replacement shield-” Midna commented as that one appeared, grabbing it with two hands before it could fall on her foot ”- bit heavy though. Still, if it works it works”
Among the other items produced there were some additional useful oddities. The icy knife was bizarre in form but felt swift and deadly in hand to Midna, though her analysis was that it would be good to sneak into weak spots rather than specifically into the back. The Psi Stone meanwhile might have been awkward to use for some, but she figured she could blast with it, and then chuck it into a portal to free up her hand, which would work rather well.
As for the last bit of equipment she ended up asking ”Anyone need a helmet? It is nice to see all your pretty faces but it would be wise to protect them” in a bit of hypocrisy given she was basically only wearing a helmet for protection. Maybe, she thought, she should change that.
Then finally the geode, weird eye and card were stashed for when she could work out what in the world they were for. Or, more likely, worth.
With that all out of the way, all that was left was to try and avoid going blind from any and all other flashes of fusion going on, as well as sit back and see if anyone who knew how to work the computer would find any value in doing so. That and see if anyone was going to be the bearer of bad news to the city. Their premier hero and leader were both dead, their power about to fail, who knew how bad the machine attack had gotten outside without them. Things were not looking good.
”Only thing we can hope for is that Nox’s giving up puts a damper on the machine army. Do we think that without their leader they’ll just, well, stop?” she asked, very much hoping that it was a take of the king of evil’s head and his armies melted away sort of situation.
When Midna asked about the Machines, Sandalphon nodded stiffly. "Not Nox, per se. While we made our way through Deep Ground, the Machines clashed with Midgar's defenders just outside the city. I've been receiving reports from YoRHa operatives the whole time, and according to them, the loss of two humanoid units -known as Adam and Eve- left the enemy force leaderless and unable to fight. By now, their extermination should be nearing completion."
Goldlewis gave a sigh of relief. "Guess that's one third of the Ever Crisis that oughta be over with. If the OSF's busted and the city's shut down, though, the Others could still finish the job." He crossed his arms. "After seein' just how rotten Midgar really is for myself, I really wondered if there was any savin' it. Just too many people all crammed together, everythin' dug in too deep. I thought to myself, maybe it'd be better if we all started over. If the city's fixin' to go dark, maybe a mass evacuation'd be for the best."
”But where would we evacuate them too? This place is so isolated. Plus where can you even support this many people?” she asked, before pausing, and finally thinking out loud ”... there’s no farms here. There were ones where the Virgin Victory is parked, I think, and that’s nearby. So that’s probably where they get the food from. If they can get the food to here, they can get the people to where the food is the same way?”
Sandalphon opened a map screen. "Options nearby include Gutsford, the Satisfactory industrial zone, and Everdream Valley, where Meridian is located. New settlements could also be established in Kunad Highway or the Valley of Ruin, now that the Machines are no longer a threat. However, it is doubtful that 'we' have the means or time to evacuate them, beyond delivering a message. Chaos and panic will set in soon, if they haven't already. Many will no doubt refuse to leave, even with the continued threat of Others and Chimeras, and many will fight over the scraps now that the tenuous rule of law has shattered."
Giovanna shrugged. "Even if we took this chance to, I dunno, stick Vernon in the power vacuum, it'd be meaningless at this point."
"Midgar was already a hellhole," Goldlewis grumbled. "And now it's been dismantled from the bottom up."
”Living under a monster spawning sky and in a place where dimensional rifts kept opening was probably not the best idea in the first place, yes” Midna agreed plainly ”Not that anyone decided to do that I suppose, its all Galeem’s fault”
“Your… Frankenstein? A… Servant Berserker? Or is that a servant who is also a Berserker?” Rayne echoed, checking that she was putting the slowly delivered words together. She had plenty of other questions too, like what a servant berserker was, or who she was a servant of, and so on, but it looked like the latest divinely abducted individual was in no state to answer any of them. Rayne’s incorrect guess was that the fall must have hurt Frankenstein more than her unharmed body might have suggested.
“Also are you hurt? Concussed?” she asked before glancing around and saying “You should probably sit down if you are. Here let me get you a chair, I think there was one just around-” before interrupting herself by blinking away round a corner, and then returning in a flash, finishing her sentence with a “-there” as she set down a plain but well (hand) carved chair down and then floated a step back as she offered it to Frankenstein.
Then she thought for another moment, considered that it would be rather strange for her to be sitting in the middle of the square on her own, and so in a few flashes another, non matching, chair was added for Rayne, as well as a table because why not, it completed the setup that she’d now made in the shade of one of the town square’s bordering buildings.
“There we go,” she said, dusting her hands off. If Fran did take a seat, Rayne would join her in doing so, the very short woman hanging her hat off the back of her chair when she did, before saying “now I’m sure you have questions, so ask away. We have time and we’re not in any danger. Anymore anyway. We already ran off the people who did this” gesturing vaguely at the state the town was in.
Virgin Victory teleport room Top of the Split mountain Outside the Convent of Our Lady of the Charred Visage Tostarena Town S.O.U. Building Seiran Clinic Deep Ground - the Source
While C might have been happy to sit the rest of this out, and she was frankly thankful for that, she wasn’t going to just sit around after handling him. She still had carrots left in the saddlebag (or, as she might have said if she ever learned how motor vehicles worked internally and wasn’t mostly convinced they all worked like cluster trucks, juice left in the tank if she’d), and she was going to put it to good use.
She glanced around the room, getting an idea of the situation and it was, it seemed, good. Nox really must have been the linchpin of his own pre-reset victory, because things were going well. C’s team was gone, and all that still stood was the guardian, and it looked like it was on its last legs thanks to the team that had been focusing on it while she was busy with C.
”After everything it took to get here, we don’t even need a massive train canon for this one” she noted, before adding nonchalantly that ”Still, a big gun can’t hurt” before getting herself one of those.
Her (slightly bullet peppered now) warthog rose out of a portal in response to her will, and then its wheels touching down as said portal close beneath it. It wasn't going to be using those to go anywhere however, as she was interested in what was on the back: the big gun she desire. True, it was no railway mounted artillery piece, but the chain gun mounted on the back of the reconnaissance vehicle was nothing to be sniffed at.
The princess promptly hopped onto the back of it, grabbed the turret in all four hands, spun it round, and let her rip, filling the air with a steam of lead from a relatively safe distance from their foe, a plethora of tracers making it clear where her bullet stream was even as she did her level best to not put her shots anywhere close to her allies. That plan worked relatively well, at least until Roxas and Tycoon started putting on a competitive laser light show anyway, because that rendered her entirely blind. There was no way she was going to fire like that, the risks of hitting friendlies where just far to great, and so the princess promptly diving off of her turret and into the shadows to recover her sight.
With any luck, by the time it was back, the cause of its loss would have ended the battle in their favor.
Appearance:Midna initially appeared how she did at the end of hyrule warriors. After absorbing Urbosa's spirit has ascended to the approximately halfway between her and Urbosa's height and proportions, combining Gerudo muscle with Twilit shapeliness, and the bluish portions of her skin have taken on Urbosa's shade. Her nose has gotten longer and stronger, with a higher peak, and her ponytail is both fuller and reaches her waist. Her fused shadow is now gilded, and she also gains golden wristbands (resembling the shackle holding her ponytail together), and a gilded belt holding up a black waist wrap.
With the addition of a Flygon's Spirit Midna has gotten taller, reaching four feet. Her waist, hips, and thighs have gotten larger and wider. Her already long hair has turned green and split into two thinner ponytails. She has a striped tail with a fanlike end Her fingers are also more clawlike. Her waist wrap has gained two extra lengths of green lined with red, and she has green slippers atop striped knee socks.
With the addition of Orendi Midna has gotten shorter again. Her limbs darken to black starting at the halfway points and lost one digit each. The green parts of her tail, hair, and waist wrap have turned orange. She’s also gained an orange vest with a big collar, and the eye hidden beneath her fused shadow is a bright scarlet throughout. The result is a much more coherent color scheme.
Upon absorbing the Harbinger into just her torso she has gotten a little taller and her torso has become a bit beefier, bringing it more in line with her hips in terms of size. The skin is somewhat mottled, as if healed after an extensive burn, though it is hidden beneath a black priest’s cassock, buttoned up. There’s also a stole, though its frayed, bug-eaten appearance leaves a lot to be desired.
Finally, she ditched all her new cloths (except the sandles) due to the uncoordinated mess they have become, and has replaced them all with a nice hoodie.
While exploring midgar, she doned a Sennyu Suit to blend in with the general asthetic vibe of the city.
After absorbing Mursame she is now taller than an average woman. She's gained some futuristic red armor plates, most notable on her shoulders, chest, and thighs, all loosely styled after the armor of a Samurai. Her helmet is now adorned by the same material and is mostly symmetrical except for one covered eye, its faceplate, and assosiated psyco mask, fixed in a demonic scowl. Her skin now has an artificial look to it, with seams as if between interlocking parts, rivets, small built-in metal plates, and a few blue light fixtures.
After fusing with a Clone of Akira Howard Midna is a bit more average in all aspects, including height, looks, and build. Her skin (which has lost its artificial feel) is now almost completely flesh-tinted, tan in color, and her hair is both shorter and a less vivid, more brownish red, akin to maroon. Her tail is now completely gone. Her garb has been unified somewhat into a mostly futurustic, slightly fantastical suit of light SWAT armor, mostly black and red with a little bronze.
Personality: Midna is not exactly a picture of princessly grace and virtue. She can be manipulative, mocking, selfish, vengeful and violent to get her way.
Opposed to these negative traits she displays intense degrees of determination and willpower, a deep concern for the well-being of her people which she has learned to apply to others as well, and is more than willing to repay compassion and sacrifice in kind.
After absorbing Urbosa's spirit she has an increased warrior spirit and sense of nobility, although her sense of playfulness is preserved and even enhanced.
With Orendi her personality has become more impulsive and unpredictable, and she’s a faster talker more prone to colorful expressions.
With the Harbringer she is more enthusiastic about burning things
Fusing with a Clone of Akira Howard has left her personality is less strong.
Background: Midna was once the princess of twilight, heir to the throne and future ruler of the Twili, a race of beings who lived in a shadow realm their sorcerer ancestors had been banished to from the light world of Hyrule. Upon the death of the previous ruler Midna was chosen to succeed them, but was soon overthrown by one of the failed claimants to the throne, Zant. Using powers gained from his new “god” he conquered the twilight realm, transformed its people into monsters and cursed Midna with an impish form before banishing her from the realm. Rather than sink into obscurity or die in disgrace however, Midna aimed to rebuild the Fused shadow, an ancient artifact of shadow magic, and use it to reclaim her throne.
She recruited the aid of Link, who had been transformed into a wolf, a sacred beast of her people, and together they embarked on a quest to first reassemble the fused shadow, and then, once its pieces were stolen from them by Zant and Minda is almost killed, the rebuilt the Mirror of Twilight which they would use to take the fight to Zant in the twilight realm.
Together they overcame first Zant, and then (with the aid of princess Zelda) Gandorf, who, as he is want to do, had revealed himself to be the man behind the man of Zant’s usurpation. Midna died in the process of defeating the villain, but was revived by the light spirits into her true form. She then returns to her home to claim her throne, but as she does so she destroys the twilight mirror to prevent the two antithetical realms from ever coming into conflict again
Then some crazy yarander called Cia tares time and space apart because of their crush on Link, re-implifying midna, reviving Zant and chucking her out of her kingdom again. After a brief misunderstanding she teams up with the Hylians to successfully regain her kingdom, beat Cia and then return to her own time, only to come back to Linkle’s time for a final battle against Ganon who pulled another true final boss maneuver and before finally returning to her kingdom for the third time. She did not get her true form back this time however. She was just getting into the swing of being the imp sized queen of an entire dimension when reality got torn apart for a second time and she ended up being dumped in Smash City.
Summon Wolf Mount: Midna can summon up to one of threeTwilight Wolfos, a wolf-like creatures which are definitely not a retextured Wolf Link with an added head decorations. These Wolfos are summoned from the twilight realm via a small portal when Midna is in need of a mount, and can be sent back there just as easily. Fast, agile and armed with sharp fangs and claws, the Wolfos makes an excellent mount for the diminutive Midna. Each of the three is a unique and living being, and thus they are all capable both of absorbing spirits and being killed outright.
Call of the pack allows her to shift the size of her mount to suit nay size changes she herself incurse from Spirit absorption or other sources.
This wolfos has now evolved into a flygon, crossed with a saboquill. The disk on its head has fused with its chitin, giving it a dark metallic crest, one with the wider fronds of the Saboquill. Its green hues are much darker, and the reds on its wings and eye protectors have turned teal. Its arms are more akin to the Saboquill, with wide spiked shoulders (which sport circular teal twilight markings) and larger claws. Its thighs are similarly spiked, and its feet have gained small clawed toes. Its fan-like tail tip sports a metal band/shackle at its base, has been filled with a darker red and has gained several more segments, making it look like a 2d dragon fruit.
Powers: Moves: Dragon Breath: breaths a blast of purple energy that will paralyze the target 30% of the time. Bug Buzz: Buzzes it's wings to create harmful sound waves and will increase vulnerability to non-physical moves 10% of the time. Dragon Claw: The user slashes the target with purple energy wreathed claws Earthquake: The user sets off an earthquake that strikes those around it. Technically a physical attack, as they need to touch the ground to perform it.
Strengths: Hit Reflect: which causes 50% of all damage dealt to the host to be inflicted to the attacker as well, calculated prior to defense modifiers and immunities. This also applies to the vibrava’s owner if both are together. Damage delivered via retaliatory volleys of cactus needles/spikes.
Ground/Dragon type resistances: Immune to electricity, half damage from poison and rock moves.
Levitate: able to fly, and immune to ground type moves as a result.
Physical attacker: Its physical (melee) attacks are 25% more effective than special (ranged) attacks
Weakness Ground/Dragon type weaknesses: quad damage from ice, double from dragon and fairy
Plant Property: increasing the host’s fire weakness to 4x
Appearance: After being fused with a Pendran it has scales as well as fur, with the fur coming out from beneath the scales in tufts. Its tail now arches over like a Shiba’s and the fluff on the end is long, hardened with ice into spikes. Its legs are now splayed outward and it has longer toes, allowing for more precise navigation of rough terrain. Its ears are now longer, fan out sideways like wings, and have three spikes on the ends.
After fusing with the Rampaging Cyborg the wolfos is more bearlike in terms of body shape, with a thicker torso. Metal plates also adorn the legs, head, and lower back. In terms of personality, the host is more brutish and less intelligent.
After fusing with Blodia the summon is now a bulky wolf-bear mech, thirty feet tall but still quadrupedal, completely mechanical in appearance, part bright red, part dull ice blue, and par brown
Powers Rabble Rouse: allows it to increase the attack speed and movement speed of allies that it strikes with its tail.
Metal Wolf Chaos: granting a cannon on its back. The cannon can fire projectiles loaded into it at high enough speed to explode on impact. If not manually loaded with actual ammunition, it will extract a chunk of the host's flesh at the cost of HP to use instead
8 Way Airdash: which allows the mech to dash forward, up-forward, straight up, up-back, backward, down-back, straight down, and down-forward after jumping in the air. This can be performed twice per airtime.
Weaknesses:
Cold-weather: giving it a weakness to fire
Powered: If not powered by an energy cell, the host's cyborg parts remain inert, rendering the gun unusable and lowering its movement speed
Piloted: requiring someone to actually get into the summon to pilot it in order for it to do anything
Equipment
Spit: A sticker that, when applied, allows the user to spit damaging projectiles that fly in a slow arc. They deal damage of whatever single element most closely matches the wearer (in this case shadow/dark)
Deegahla Hide Scale Mail: a set of light, durable armor, that also has a saddle with stirrups to help Midna fight from it's back, as well as two holsters for pistols, and saddle bags modified so it is easier for Midna to open portals in them.
Dark energy zone: Midna projects a growing ring of dark energy around herself and her mount. This ring starts out small but gradually grows to a significant radius. Once activated Midna makes the power held in the ring lash out at enemies within its dark interior, stunning them with an electrical attack and allow her mount to quickly lunge between all targets stunned by the field
Call the pack: Midna can temporarily summon her other two wolfos into combat at the same time as the one she is using as a mount. The summoning window is brief, a few seconds at best, making it optimal to use them as part of attacks that act as permanent troops. The wolves can pinwheel like spinning blades, spin dash like drills and even run circles to create vortexes that draw foes in or keep them in place, as well as use any other abilities they might pick up.
They wolfos can also be larger than the one being used as a mount, though whether this is indicative of their true size or a magical buff is unclear. Whichever is the case, the hulking beasts can be devastating to groups of enemies, careening through them before vanishing back to the twilight realm only to reaper from another angle a number of seconds later.
Passively, this power also lets Midna adjust the size of the wolfos she is riding to suit any shifts in size or proportions she herself experiences.
Dragon Type (flygon): Midna has the capability to learn all Dragon-type moves a Flygon can, as well as the starting moves Dragon Claw and Dragon Dance.
Siren Sands (Flygon): Midna gains sand manipulation abilities that give her the equivalents of the following moves: Sand Attack: Sprays the target with sand, irritating their eyes and reducing their accuracy Sand Tomb: Creates a localized sandstorm around the target. Does not do a lot of initial damage, but remains active for ten to twenty second, slowly sapping the target’s strength and bogging them down, preventing them from escaping. Sand Storm: Whips up a large sandstorm that indiscriminately buffets everyone inside it.
Sand based attacks cannot use naturally occurring sand and instead Midna has to dump sand into the environment from the realm of Twilight. Other than its color this black and silvery sand is mostly normal, except for the fact that it wordlessly “sings” as it flies through the air. Bringing more sand out takes more time: Sand attacks can be hurled out at once straight from a small portal, each sand tomb needs its own brief prep time and a sand storm needs an almighty amount of twilight sand dumped into the environment in-order to be pulled off. Already dumped sand is, of course, reusable, allowing the combining of sand attacks into sand tombs, and then sand tombs into a full blown storm if the princess focuses on using this ability in a fight.
Thunder Blade (Urbosa): Midna can store up to four ‘bars’ of electrical energy in a metal weapon, and then use it to unleash short ranged electrical attacks when swinging that blade. Abilities include shooting a tight beam of lightning, firing out a short ranged but wide thunderbolt, having 3 bolts hammer a small area around a blow, create a vortex of 3 swirling lightning steams, launch an electrical sword beam and so on. (basically everything from the combos section of this video except the last massive 2 combo’s massive aoe lightning.
Using lightning uses charge, which can be regained by charging, which involves holding the weapon close to her body to fill it with lightning once more. Charging generally refills one ‘bar’ per second, but starting to charge right after an attack can steal back some of the used power and charge one bar instantaneously.
Simply hammering on foes with the sword will also build static electricity, but this takes a fair bit longer than stepping back and charging it would.
Midna’s lightning is a limey twilight green, and she and her mounts are naturally resistant to it, or at least enough to prevent themselves from being fried by being so close to the blast zone, but not enough to protect them if they are literally in said blast zone.
Twilight warp: Midna can set down gateways (at her own location) that allow her to fast travel between them by skimming along the boundary of the twilight realm. This hop does not go deep enough to expose the traveler to the mutating energies of the twilight realm, and so it can be used to safely transport light-worlders as well as the princess herself. The creation of each gate requires a charge. She begins with 3, and gains one more each time she gains combat exp.
Twilight volleybomb: Midna can charge up large translucent-green spheres of energy from her shadow hand, the maximum size which can be quite astounding which she can then ‘serve’ and then ‘spike’ at her foes. Most of the sphere can phase harmlessly through solid matter except a solid core. When that core impacts with something, it creates an explosion the same size as the sphere, which can, again, be very large.
There are a couple of downsides. First off, charging to max size takes a few seconds, is incredibly obvious when being done, and has a lot of friendly fire potential due to the size of the explosion. The ball also has a kind of weight, causing larger balls to travel slower, resulting in lower ranges. Finally, the volleyballing attack method is not proclivity to the greatest accuracy or attack speed, also limiting the effectiveness of smaller balls.
Twilight Darknut: Midna adds a reanimated Darknut to her roster of creatures she can summon from the twilight realm. As with the other’s it is its own entity (one cobbled together from spare Midna discovered in the equivalent of a dusty broom closet in her twilight storage room, having used a few of these as captains of her short lived personal army during the time war) capable of both death and fusion.
The darknut itself is a towering figure, close to twice as tall as the average human, and clad in thick metal armor. It is also equipped with a large round shield that it is highly capable at blocking blows with. Combine these defenses with its undead nature, and it is safe to say that Twilight Darknut is an incredibly resilient combatant, at least when it comes to physical damage.
Its main weakness is a very slow movement speed, the armored warrior able to at best advance at a walking pace, although its turn speed is comparatively nothing to be sniffed at. High caliber weapons, electricity, heat, and other types of attack that counter heavy metal armor are also natural counters to the towering knight, as are holy, light and other undead killing damage types.
Offensively, it is armed with a hulking broadsword and a lighter longsword as a back up, which it wields with impressive skill and speed despite its armor. It can be equipped with other weaponry, though it’s proficiency with new gear is related to how closely it matches the starting gear.
Roadblock The host is now a hulking seven-foot titan of yellow and black metal, futuristic in make and fantastical in style. Nigh impervious to slashing, and resistant to practically anything else, it is an immovable object on the battlefield that foes are forced to play around, although its slow speed and short range make it somewhat one-note. This spirit confers the Power Obstacle, allowing it to project a large rectangular energy barrier from the shield on its left arm. Allies can move and shoot through it, but enemies cannot do either, and it can take some serious punishment. This spirit also confers the Weakness Mighty Glacier, making the Darknut unable to jump or run
Crescent Moon(Mursame): This special sword slash allows Midna to near-instantly draw and strike with a bladed weapon and taunts the enemies it hits, making them more likely to target the host.
Mass-produced Legionis (Clone of Akira Howard), which allows her to use a legatus to summon a bound Beast Legion from its core, connected to her by an astral chain. She can also now see chimeric entities clearly. The Beast Legion is an agile close-range fighter and can be ridden or used to track scents. It cannot be seen or attacked by most enemies. The astral chain can be used to send it out, pull it back, pull the host over to the legion, or bind enemies by encircling them. The Legion can also be modified with spirits.
Strengths:
Twilight Princess: Midna has regal authority over the denizens and beasts of her realm such as other Twili and Shadow Woflos. She also has the ability to claim command over beasts or beings corrupted by that realm, like the twilight Kargarok, and some affinity for other creatures of shadow not from her universe/dimension.
Basic Shadow Magic: Midna can float in the air, hide in shadows and teleport short distances. None of these abilities are fast enough to be used for dodging anything but the slowest of attacks but they can be useful for hiding, bypassing obstacles or basic locomotion.
Monstrous Cavalry: Midna has a talent for mounted combat using unusual steeds such as Wolfos and Kargarok. She can easily command her strange steed and fight at the same time and is able to adapt to new mounts with relative ease.
Champion Mindset(Urbosa): increasing Midna's natural authority and charisma and giving her a complete affinity for the Divine Beast Vah Naboris.
Champion Moveset (Urbosa): Midna can draw on the spirit of the Grudo champion’s martial talent, a flowing melding of might and magic that gives the princess increased skill and versatility when it comes to melee combat. It also gives her proficiency with various melee weapons, most notably the Urbosa favored armaments, the ever-reliable combo of the sword and shield.
Skirmisher Style(Orendi), increasing Midna’s agility and acrobatic sense to allow her to better avoid damage through mobility without having to rely on flight or hiding in shadows.
Tempered Flesh(Harbringer), increasing effective HP and bodily defense appreciably.
Earth Dragon Resistances (flygon): Gain the flygon's typing's resistance, resulting an in immunity to electric type damage and effects, as well as a 50% resistance to poison, fire and rock type moves
Weaknesses:
Imp Body: Midna’s imp body isn’t exactly the hardiest of forms, nor is it the strongest. Finding suitably scaled armor or weapons is also difficult. after fusing with Urbosa she is now somewhat larger and notably more muscular, reducing this weakness somewhat.
Light Based Attacks: While mere sunlight is no longer enough to damage her, as a Twili Midna still has a weakness to light based weapons or attacks (lasers, light magic, etc.). On top of this bright light is uncomfortable for her to bear and she is more vulnerable to being blinded/stunned by flashes or high intensities of light.
Fated End(Urbosa): Suffers heavy stress when facing either electric enemies or enemies wielding a sword and shield, and near-paralysis if facing an enemy with both
Dragon Weakness(flygon): Midna takes more damage from both dragon-aspected and anti-dragon attacks and weapons, as well as Fairy-type Pokemon moves and ice
IWHBYD(Orendi):: making her much more likely to compulsively spout off whatever comes to mind, even in combat or potentially awkward social situations
Mighty Glacier(Harbringer): decreasing running and flying speed somewhat
Can't Fly (Mursame): making the host unable to fly under her own power
Born for One Thing Only: disables all of the host's Strikers and spitting out their spirits, as well as preventing the gaining of new ones
Spirits: N/A
Rapport:
Sectonia: 17
Primrose: 7
Roxas: 12
Goldlewis: 8
Geralt: 4
Bowser Jr: 6
Bowser: 3
Therion: 3
Ganondorf: -3
Inventory:
Money:
4100 Zenny
Fused Shadow (1/4th) Worn by Midna as a helmet this physical manifestation of Shadow magic gives Midna the ability to transform her ponytail into a large prehensile limb tipped with a large hand. This hand has immense strength, capable of smashing foes aside, grabbing and hurling people or things and wielding large weapons. The force of blows or weight of lifting is not applied back to Midna, which is convenient as otherwise usage of this artifact would likely break her neck. The fully completed artifact is many times more powerful than its component parts. Despite its appearance it does not damage her depth perception.
Spaulders of the Bat - A pair of shoulder guards that bind to the wearer when equipped, meaning they will be destroyed if discarded or given to someone else. They provide extra physical protection and incremental increases to intellect, stamina, and haste (casting / attack speed). With the Andrew Oikonny sticker applied, the wearer is also a little more launch resistant, flying back a shorter distance when launched. With the Maglev mod equipped, the wearer's slide speed is boosted by a notable 30%, but with 30% less friction she's also a bit slower/slipperier both to get started and to stop moving on all surfaces (no effect while airborne)
Mimic Tooth Necklace When worn, any chest the wearer attempts to open will be unlocked automatically if locked, and also be a mimic. The mimic deals more damage depending on the quality of what’s inside it and behaves as if whatever’s inside it is equipped.
Rosary: Rope knot made from the threads of habits of monks deceased in ancient times, crafted by Engracia to whom all other’s works paled to such an extent they were branded a heretical. Holds Beads that can grant boons to the wearer. Beads: Frozen Olive: Summer fruit trapped in an endless winter. Born from an olive tree turned into a prison, its frosted oils bolster the wearer's defenses (by 50%) when their strength is nearly exhausted (at 20% or less hp). Piece of a Golden Mask Piece of embossed gold, part of a mask broken years ago. The nuns of the Convent of the Charred Visage swear never to let the world see their burned faces, and the conviction of its old wearer has permeated the metal. A rosary bead that grants 25% protection against flames
Psycho Mask - a wearable statement of freedom--freedom from society, morality, and sanity, all in one. It has no actual effect on the wearer but features a built-in filter which can purify incoming air, and two ports that gas canisters can be plugged into
Biteturn Charm - a charm of human bone with a touch of the Stranger’s power. Whenever a bladed weapon strikes the holder it will take massive durability damage, enough to shatter conventional weapons. When this happens, however, one of the wearer’s teeth will turn black and fall out. The tooth cannot be regrown via healing.
Cursed Sword - a strange blade imbued with fell sorcery. It deals extreme damage when used as a weapon but is difficult to grasp and use effectively. While equipped, any damage taken by the user will result in an instant kill
Climber’s Bandana:A light piece of headgear that decreases stamina consumption appreciably
X-Naut Uniform: An Alternate Costume that, when applied to a person, near-instantly clothes them in a perfectly tailored version of the comfy red and poofy white suit, gloves, shoes, and hood of the X-Nauts. Includes goggles. In addition to being comfortable and warm, it also pretty much completely masks the wearer’s identity
Sharpnened Volcano Fragment Deals less damage than your average axe on hit, but will light the target on fire, causing the target to take damage over time until the flames are quenched or 7.5 seconds pass
Sun on a Stick Deals less damage than your average bat on his, but will deal a critical hit to a burning target without putting the target out. Also grants 25% protection against flames while in hand
Ammo Synthesis: A consumable device that creates enough ammunition to fully replenishes a single weapon when configured (a straightforward, intuitive process) and used
Clubba Club:A heavy weapon of solid metal. Its weight makes it a pain to use but a whole lot more pain for anyone it’s successfully used against. Just picking it up and dropping it is more practical than actually trying to swing it
Freindship bracelets: A simple metal bracelet sporting a heart shaped emblem made from a red stone. When worn the two ‘lobes’ each gain their own stylised icon representing the two people wearing the matched bands. When the bands are close together (so in the same general area sucha s a room, small building or garden) each half of the stones will glow softly, with the light intensifying the stronger the bond is between the two wearers.
At a base the band increases damage by 5% and movement speed by 6% even when the wearers are not around each other, but it can raise it by up to a maximum of 15/18% respectively for incredibly close friends. This the current owning pair most certainly are not, but they still gain a decent 7.5% damage and 9% movement speed boost, and could easily raise this to a pleasant 10%/12% by spending a bit more time with/around each other.
Comes with an instruction pamphlet that attempts to translate the glow intensity to various stages of friendship (from simple acquaintances all the way up through BFFs and Ace life partners) and effect efficiency, but fails to deliver the above information to the wearers particularly effectively.
The bracelet can also prevent the wearers from being forced to fight each other via various mind control or enrage effects, the effectiveness of this effect again being based on how close they are.
Mordant Dew: A whole vial of the nasty, toxic venom that Stingers inject into their victims. While underwhelming at first brush, it is actually a very valuably magical and alchemical opponent, as well as one of the requisite ingredients of the Grim Talisman, a charm that -when equipped- allows the user to build up his or her special resource with every landed attack
Charr Pirate Musket: A somewhat primitive, somewhat fantastical smoothbore rifle with less-than-spectacular accuracy and reload time, but boasts the property of infinite ammunition. in the form of metal slugs
Therian Viral Rifle: A long-barreled marksman carbine that utilizes compressed air to launch projectile syringes at high speed, long range, and high precision. The syringes can be loaded with a viral compound, which causes bothersome irritation on the skin around the infected point of biological targets, or a a hyper-restorative compound that circulates healing medicine throughout the bloodstream. A cumbersome reload process and the limited number of syringes limit its frequency of use
A boat load of survival rations of various kinds.
A now rather small amount of wooden crates stollen off the back of a truck (empty)
A cheap watch (which she got overchaged for)
A bottle of blood themed shampoo
A bag of smoke powder, which by itself isn't enough to create an effective smokescreen
Smoke Grenade x2: The J4-M35 Smoke Grenade has helped many soldiers out of dire situations. Simply throw the grenade wait for the smoke to spread and change firing positions when the enemy can’t see you
Treespear: Golden spear with tree-like design. Hits are infused with yellow lightning, their strength dependent on the wielder's Faith. Requiring superior dexterity to wield, this greatspear can perform consecutive thrust attacks despite its larger size.
Warthog: a light tactical ground vehicle fitted with a M41 Vulcan turret.
moterbikes x2: stolen, or rather confiscated, from deliquents in Gutsford.
Prometheus Torch type 1: A torch researched thoroughly to allow. a pyrokinesis psionic to unleash their full potential. Damages the taget with fire and bashing. Lakcing pyrokinetic ability, Midna uses this less refined and bulkier version of the torch purly for bashing
Power Cell: A cartridge loaded with electricity. Its built-in converters mean that it can be used to fully charge almost any device that runs on electric power
Orange Gel: A sweet medicinal jelly capable of providing 33% instant healing when eaten
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, along 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
Eliacube: A mysterious artifact. Under normal circumstances the cube is dark and closed, with a texture like jade, and it never opens. It seems to hold some sort of restorative ability, and it can hold a seemingly limitless amount of energy, but how -and perhaps why- it works is an enigma. It's rather interesting and gives off an important feeling. Probably warrants further study. Could it have some sort of psychic effect on those who own it? Or is it just a mirror, reflecting your own uncertain face back at you, and its magic is all in your head?
Ice Shield: A somewhat cumbersome medium shield, decorative and heavy. It nevertheless provides great defense, especially against ice, water, air, and slash attacks.
Festive Spycicle: An ice-cold spike wrapped in blinking Christmas lights. Though very strange, it's actually incredibly valuable to anyone with an eye for appraisal. If not for the light on the end it could probably kill someone with a backstab, but it still deals critical damage from behind. If the holder is ignited, it will extinguish the fire at the cost of melting for good
Ice Geode: Smithing material that's great for ice enchantments or making ice-themed weapons, though it'll take a master to put it to good use
Psi Stone of Dissonance: A crystalline pyramid that can be used to launch a conical energy wave that deals mental damage, applying high stagger. It takes a long time to recharge, however, and can only be used effectively once every five minutes. It darkens after use and starts glowing again when ready to blast
Kindred Spirits:
The Warlock (Xcom 2: War of the Chosen): master of psionic abilities, the elder’s (self proclaimed) greatest champion who wages a religious war against the followers of the Great Commandy One war against the gorilla resistance force known as xcom who are attempting to retake the earth from the alien lead Advent coalition.
Crow (Nafariouse): “Stop me if you've heard this one before: Bad guy crashes party, kidnaps princess, makes dramatic exit. Plucky, handsome hero gives chase. Epic quest ensues. But, funny story... Yeah, I'm the bad guy”
Central hub: Smash City Alcamoth Accessible locations: Peach’s castle Limsa Lominscuttle Town Lumbridge Twilight Town Kosm’s Beach
”Well then. I knew I was wise to not go under those clouds, but I did not realize quite how wise” Kamek commented from on high as he observed the void rising up to try and smother the light that was their foe. At least the darkness seemed to be on their side this time, though he was a touch concerned as to what would occur once they won.
At any rate, they certainly hadn’t done so yet, and indeed the Radiance seemed to decide that it wasn’t going to give them the opportunity to be done ever as, after taking a lashing from the dark and then blowing it away, it promptly decided to just leave.
”Wait. It can just do that?” Jr asked, rather dumbstruck, while Bowser roared ”Coward! Get back here and take your lumps like a proper boss!” to no avail. It wasn’t coming back.
”Maybe I can sail on that?” Rika began to suggest, regarding the sea of black darkness around them, but fortunately before she could actually try this help arrived in the form of train based transportation. It was crewed by a friend of Nadia apparently, and their appearance here was apparently entirely unexpected as it had to exposit a bit to explain it, but more than welcome.
Speaking of expositing, given they had a touch of breathing room, Kamek decided to do some of that himself as he flicked open Robin Goodfellow’s book and sought out the Radince’s own page on it, just in case it held some helpful tips.
The Radiance A higher being borne of light, enemy of the Void and all it progeny, who created and was in turn revered by the Moth Tribe. When the Pale King arrived to create the kingdom of Hallownest, bestowing enlightenment upon his subjects, the moths turned their back on the Radiance, and over time she was almost forgotten. Yet the Radiance endured, and through the medium of dreams began to proliferate through the underground kingdom in an effort to undo what the Pale King had wrought. Her timeless wrath, spread as a meme, became the Infection, offering each and every living thing unity at the cost of mindlessness. Unreachable within the dream realm as her plague spread, the Radiance could only be imprisoned, never defeated, never forgotten.
In battle, the Radiance is a fountain of pure power, a beacon of ceaseless light and immaculate metal. She abhors darkness, and if threatened by her ancient enemy, is capable of ascending to her perfect form, Absolute Radiance. In this form her powers are without limit, and yet, no light lasts forever.
While the mage did wonder about who on earth the Pale King was, what stood out at the end was the note about darkness. That, and the earlier comment about the void, certainly explained what the shadow stuff was, and it also gave him an idea about a plan of (magical) attack.
While Kamek did that, and exposited to anyone that was interested in what he was reading, Jr used the moment they had to check on and top up everyone’s health with his healing magic, ensuring they'd all be primed and ready to go for round two.
After that, it was time to climb abroad. Climb being the key word here as they would be riding atop the train rather than inside of it. None of the Troop questioned this however, it was simply the logical place to fight from, and soon enough they were up top and ready for action.
They just had to reach said action first
”Well, this looks like it might take a moment” Kamek commented as they began their minuet long catch up to the Radiance, before he glanced at his green doppelganger and decided ”We might as well make the most of it”
Thus 3 more green orbs were tossed, three more green mages were made, and as they rolled on towards the second confrontation with the ‘end of thought’ they were put to work, giving each and every single of the party a nice little boost to their speed, attack, and defense.
Of course, the Radiance wasn’t exactly content to let them approach, and so proceeded to blast at them with inaccurate laserbeams which, fortunately, had a tell and wind up time that left them perfectly dodge-able. Things started going particularly well when Rika took point and the rest began a game of follow the leader, the troop, Kamek clones included, forming a line that dodged back and forth to avoid getting lasered under the princess’ guidance.
By the time they had arrived, everyone was boosted up by the clones, and Kamek wasn’t the only one who’d been busy prepping, as the front of the first train carriage was absolutely littered with iron knives that had been stabbed into the roof.
”Opening salvo, go!” Jr shouted as they got close enough to attack, having used the travel time to scheme as well as stockpile magic, thrusting a finger forwards and sending a hail of pre-prepared blades stabbing towards the Radiance, forming and launching more alongside the initial volley. He was joined in this by Rika who launched a fresh volley of disrupting shots at the Radiance inorder to debuff the firepower she was throwing back.
The Troop’s final hit came from combo attack from Kamek and Bowser, the king grabbing the mage’s doppelgangers by the broomstick and hurling forwards like javelins, and then, once they got close, Kamek had them cast his explosion causing dark magic beams spell.
The clones were, inevitably, cut down soon after launching, and it was an inefficient way of casting the spell, but it was safe and strong and that was what mattered, even if it did leave the mage rather drained.
Indeed, between them the Troop expended most of their rechargeable resource pools in that opening strike, which could have been an issue had it not been the plan. As a volley of swordblades came hurtling down the train, Bowser grabbed Kamek in one arm, Jr in the other and waited for a moment for Rika to grapple hook onto him before leaping backwards, over the heads of those behind them on the train.
The wind blasting backwards along their path, though nowhere near as strong as it should have been, caught them, sending the entire Troop flying all the way to the back of the train, and in so doing opened up the front-lines for someone else to give it all they’d got.
Just as Jr had planned.
Bowser touched down, thorny vines stabbing into the train’s roof for grip, his and Rika’s heels screeching as they slowed their backward flight, stopping them right before they tipped off of the back of the train, and right before the swordblade volley hit.
It was faster, but, thanks to Kamek’s now destroyed green clones, so were they. With speed he hadn’t had till now Bowser (still holding Kamek and Jr) stepped between the swordblades and received only a light scratch for his efforts, helped greatly by Rika sticking close to and slowing the shots down for him.
After they’d done that however they did have to face the slight flaw in their plan however, and that was that they were going to have to advance all the way back up the train to take another swing at Radiance.
”Nothing for it to get moving. Let’s go, let’s go!” Jr commanded as he was set back, leading the charge back the way they had come.
“And so I told her, we don’t sell that kind of truffle but she just wouldn’t-” "-aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAH!" “-huh?”
Rayne’s retelling of a tale from the happiest and least interesting chapter in her life came to a halt when the interesting times she was currently living in came along and reasserted dominance by taking a boot to the monotonous rhythm she’d gotten into with helping the townsfolk with their scavenging.
And what an interruption it was. It wasn’t every day that you got to see a woman fall out of the sky, let alone find her more or less unharmed when you dashed over to see what was going on.
There was a little moment of tension when the horned person emerged as people, Rayne included, waited to see how this sudden arrival would act, one that was thankfully broken by the awkward greeting and wave the stranger gave them that put them all at ease.
It was enough that Rayne stopped focusing on the distinctive mechanical augments the woman had had done to her head, the equivalent of which she’d seen only once (no, twice now actually with Anne) and took the rest of her in. Other than being generally very pretty the other thing about the rest of her appearance that stood out was her outfit, one that prompted Rayne to to raise her hands to her cheek as she gasped “oh no. She didn’t steal you away on your wedding day did she?” before shaking her head lightly and responding to the situation properly, replying “Hi, hello” (along with her own little wave) to the well, greeting.
As she did so she floated down to hover just above the ground and approached to a distance she deemed close enough to not be standoffish, but not so close that she might worry the stranger with her own strangeness before introducing herself. She did so by tipping her witch hat to the stranger and then saying “I’m Rayne, Witch Knight, and, I hope, a friend” before asking “What’s your name?”
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op2024
Ariamis
Double
Lord Zee
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wintersoldier
Snowdrops
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