DracoLunaris

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

Hillside Hamlet

“They are really tearing it up down there, aren't they?” Rayne observed from her safe aerial position. From up there too, she got to take note of the strange unreal nature of their foes, that seemed to not really exist as actual physical beings, what with them seemingly just coming undone and ceasing to exist upon death, which to her was very odd to her.

“Either of you ever seen anything like this before?” she asked the two other fliers as she kept shooting rockets till the power up ran out of time, and she switched back to short ranged magic blasts that she couldn’t really hit anything with from up on high. Right as she did, the battlefield situation changed, with the arrival of the big blobs coming over the hills.

As soon as she spotted them, she called out “Big ones coming!” in warning, before calling down to Anne and asking “Think they might be leaders?”

Prodigious size alone wasn’t their only virtue compared to their lesser kin, for once in position the big blobs began to unleash a barrage of arcane fire at them, putting the fliers in danger for the first time in the fight, as well as adding to the danger the ground pounders had to worry about.

“I’m out of long ranged fire power, going over and in to handle those! Give me space if you go in too!” she called out, signaling her intent, before starting to blink-dash towards the foes. She didn’t go right at them, mind. Partially because, well, that was a great way to ram into corrupting energy blots, but also because she zipped down close to the grounds t one point, absorbing a few stray mana motes she had created while rocked bombarding things.

Fully charged up, she got closer and closer to the enemy spell shooters, and then dived down through their close ranged fire till she was right above the base of one of the hills, surrounded by blobs, bib and small.

At which point she exploded.

With a flick of her fingers and a cast of a spell card, the witch knight unleashed Armageddon upon one of the hilltops, causing a ginormous detonation that washed across it, annihilating everything in its path in a flash. Certainly not the kind of spell she could or would ever use against people or in any kind of confined environment, but here, on the unoccupied hills, away from everyone else, and against monsters?

Rayne could unleash all her power.

Case and point, her next move was playing her collection card, which caused all of the mana littered across the battlefield post missile bombardment to start to fly towards her in a stream, giving her a few seconds where her usual mana drought issue was banished, and she became a one woman missile. The little lady dashed this way and that, and as she flew, giant swords spun, bullet hells where unleashed, dark clouds of death were dropped, lightning lanced down, and then at the end she exited the mana frenzy with her magic gun re-augmented to be a machine gun that blazed bullets into her foes, causing yet more mana to drop as she gunned them down.

Star Wars - Invasion [ A multiverse Spaceship RP]

Having done some reading I have found this 'tiny' thing warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Viper-cl… which would then be orkified into a wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Grunt_Assaul… for some proper orky boarding action. Crew it with dow.fandom.com/wiki/Kaptin_Bluddflagg who's been promised good looting, fighting, and a cool hat, and jobs a good un

Star Wars - Invasion [ A multiverse Spaceship RP]

Hello there. Thinking of joining up with a 40k orks (blood axes/freeboota who actually can work with humans. Ish) in a within the 1k ship length requirement escorte ship (to start off with before starting to glue salvage to it)

Or maybe something less disruptive

World of Light

Troop-tube, featuring Pit from the Kid Icarus series

Word count: 2,698 (+3) (+1 rapport with all)
Level: 5 - Total EXP: 247/50
Bowser: Level 14 EXP: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (211/140) (+1 bonus pending)
Kamek: Level 13 EXP: /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (87/130) (+1 bonus pending)
Rika: Level 9 EXP: /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////(106/90) (+1 bonus pending)

”Oh thank baddness we have our movement related abilities for this one” was the first thing Kamek said, as he sat on his broom and floated up into the air inorder to reach head height with two out of three of the other members of the team.

”Ah, hello again Sire, Rika and Pit I believe it was?” the mage said to the others

"Yep, the one and only Pit!" the angel replied. He could give Kamek a pass for the name thing, since the koopa was old.

Rika first nodded, and then said ”Nice to meet you” to Pit, offering him a very big hand to shake. Her mitts dwarfed his, but Pit happily took her hand and shook it up and down. Then she asked ”So what are we doing? I hardly understood any of what he was talking about”

”Making a scary film, which should be easy, because I’m gonna be the scariest thing in whatever joint we end up in!” Bowser declared in answer.

"I'm pretty sure we're supposed to record spooky stuff, like ghosts or zombies or Ornes or Reapers," Pit pointed out, without arguing Bowser's comment. He'd always thought Mario's arch-rival was a little scary. And he was quickly getting over the king's sabotage of the previous game, what with how fast they'd been tossed into another.

He looked around at the cozy, colorful environment. There was a tall white screen standing nearby with some words on it that he ignored in favor of the items on the house's porch: four flashlights and a camcorder. Pit picked up one of the lights, clicking it on and off a couple times. "I dunno why we need the helmets though."

”Perhaps it is a flooded landscape down there? Full of underwater horrors” Kamek said, then, releasing what he’d said, visibly shuddered along with the other two troop members.

The diving bell they were going to use certainly didn’t help with the flashbacks to the Maw they were getting, which prompted Kamek to float up, saying he was going to check where and who Jr was with which the other two thought was an entirely sound thing to do.

”Geralt” he confirmed after briefly forgetting what the Witcher looked like now ”He, or rather she, got through the Maw just fine, so the young master’s got someone watching his back incase this goes thataway”

”Good” Bowser replied with a nod, the tension leaving both him and RIka at the news. Turning back to the game at hand, the king before scratched his chin a few times while looking over their equipment before picking up the camera and tossing it to Kamek, saying ”You can be our lakitu” before looking around and wondering if that was all there was to it.

As it turned out, no, it wasn’t as Rika found some kind of shopping terminal that had been sitting just out of view of their spawn point after heading out to take a peek around.

While the crew did a little splitting up, Pit had flitted over to the mechanism that would bring their team below: the diving bell. It looked really old, but sturdy, and though it had a screen inside with something written on it the only other features it had were a single lever, and a single red button. So it was probably pretty simple to use, which was great news.

Completely ignorant to the Troop's experience in the Maw, Pit wondered why they were so worried. This was just a minigame, and it would be pretty weird if they jumped right from being basically invincible in the last one to being able to be hurt in this one. Maybe parents were just like that, even big bad ones. Though they really hadn't spent that much time loitering around the island, soon enough Pit came bounding down the bell's ramp to stir his team into action.

"You guys ready yet? C'mon! What if everyone else gets a head start and finds all the good monsters first?"

The response of the others was drowned out by the sound of a metal pipe produced by Rika, or rather a little device she was holding that she had purchased on complete impulse. This was followed up by several other sound effects from a car skidding, laughter, crickets and a twelve second long news broadcast intro tune as she joined Pit in the diving bell

”I got a thing” she helpfully informed Pit, before taking a look at the three options on the diving bell and saying ”I think maybe we’ve had enough of tunnels after being in them all day yesterday?” an opinion that was shared by the koopas who joined them a moment later (with Bowser shrinking himself down to a less towering size so he could actually fit in the diving bell).

Pit looked up from prodding at the noise maker over Rika's shoulder. "Tunnels...?"

He followed her gaze to the panel inside the bell. 'Tunnels' was one of the words on it? Wait, that actually made sense - if it was the control for the bell, it probably listed locations it had access to! "Oh! Can we go to different places? What else does it say?"

”One is a ’Cruise ship’, which I guess is a cruiser like me, and the other is a factory” she replied, only to be lightly corrected by Kamek who informed her that ”A cruise ship is a very large leisure vessel for transporting tourists”

"Let's pick the factory! Maybe there will be some frankenstein-type monsters," Pit said without much thought, pulling the lever beside the door. As expected it closed the four of them inside, the vessel sealing shut with an automatic turn of the hand-wheel.

Bowser hmmmed, before shrugging and stomping over to hit the appropriate button while Rika asked ”What’s a frankenstein?”

"It's kind of like a cyborg zombie," Pit began to explain as the crane outside moved and the diving bell creaked. There was the distinct feeling of the chamber they were in being picked up, so they could assume it had started its descent. "It's a monster made up of a bunch of different parts slapped together, and then they - the evil scientists that make them - blast it with lightning or something to make it alive! Er, undead!"

”Huh” Rika replied shorty, before inquiring ”But why would they do that?”

"Do what?"

”Slap lots of bits together to make a monster I guess? Seems pretty…” before pausing, thinking, and saying ”Oh. I guess that’s kinda what they did with all the other lesser ships in my fleet after they died and got brought back all jumbled up” looking a little sad about that fact for a moment before shaking her head once to clear the emotion away and saying ”It’s efficient recycling of resources I suppose” just a bit too calmly.

"Uh... yeah I guess," Pit said, scratching his head. It was clear he hadn't put any thought whatsoever into this. "I think it's just what evil scientists do though.

"Right?" He looked at Kamek for confirmation, since the differences between an evil scientist and an evil wizard were semantics, clearly. He didn't give the koopa much time to answer before turning back to Rika. "Your fleet?"

”Oh, right, you weren't there when I was, well when I started existing” she replied, before briefly explaining how she’d once been a member of the abyssal fleet terrorizing the Blue, only for Kamek to free her from both Galeem and the fleet at the same time, before concluding the explanation with ”I basically wasn’t a person before, everything about that time is kinda, well hazy, same with whatever I was before the world of light, so I basically wouldn't exist without it”

Pit listened with interest, bobbing his head in between brief stints of confused tilts of his head. Her tale was a lot of things, least of all kind of incredible. It also raised some philosophical questions that her one angel audience was not well equipped to deal with, or even really identify beyond wondering how personhood could seemingly be bestowed like that. As such, his response was a pretty simple one.

"Wow. I didn't even know something like that was possible," he said. He would be sure to ask Lady Palutena more about it, if he remembered by the time they found her. "...I guess if you just started existing a couple days ago, then happy belated birthday?"

”Thanks?” the ship girl replied, clearly not knowing what those were.

The descent didn't actually take all that long, even though the island they came down from was sitting among clouds. There was a short jolt when the bell touched down in the 'old world.' With no windows or sensors showing what the situation was on the outside of it, the only thing the group could do was open the door. Pit obliged once again, pressing the lever back up to its original position. The door swung open, but no water entered the vessel. They had arrived in a dry place, one nearly completely devoid of color. The landscape, and everything in it from buildings to debris scattered around was in black, white, and gray with a 'scratchy' look to it. The diving bell was the only exception they could see, and its light poured an orange glow out in a small circle around it. Not far away from them was what must be the factory's entrance.

Torches clicked on, producing only a little glow. Indeed a lot of their light came not from those but from the tentacruel orbs on Bowser’s back, which created a little oasis of light and color in the dark gloom. The rest came from the glowing cotton tail like bulb on the abc of Rika’s rigging belt, which didn’t provide her much light, but did let everyone else know where she was, be they friend or foe.

”I see, so we are in the ‘depths’ just not literally” Kamek mused, before suggesting ”I think taking a short recording of us entering would be good for framing purposes? Otherwise it would simply be a disconnected series of monster recordings which might be a bit disorientating?”

"I guess that makes sense!" Pit had been shining the beam of his light all around the outside, though it failed to penetrate very far into the darkness. Now that they were here, this game was starting to feel exciting. This place definitely had a creepy feeling. What made it even better was that since this was a minigame, assuming they wouldn't actually be in danger, it would be a fun way to experience something scary without actually being scared for your life!

"Do you think we should say something? Introduce ourselves?" Pit asked. Then slightly less loudly he admitted, "I've seen movies and TV and stuff before, but not really anything like this, so..."

”I was thinking it would maybe be like a nature documentary, only about the supernatural? Not that we know that much about these ghosts and ghouls, I’m no E. Gadd, but it's the only frame of reference I have that comes close” Kamek suggested

”Yeah, they gotta know who the start of the show is after all! Steve Inamazu ain’t gonna have nothing on me when I wrestle these freakshows into the ground” Bowser declared, and before Kamek could object said ”Now let’s get this show on the road! Roll the tape! Clocks ticking!”

Indeed it was. Five minutes was at once quite a bit of time and none at all, and the koopa king urged them to make the most of it stomping into the doorframe of the factory and, once Kamek had hit the record button started up an introduction.

”Alright! Listen up people of spooktub or whatever it was! I’m Bowser, the Koopa King, the biggest and baddest bad guy there is and today you get the privilege of watching me and my troop dive into this freaky factory to find the weirdos in it so I can punch them in the face!” he roared loudly, needing no boom mic to be heard thanks to his excellent vocal projection that probably alerted each and every thing in the place that they had visitors.

In the background of the recording, in what little was left of the frame that wasn't taken up by Bowser's, Pit had been hopping up and down with his wings spread wide. "Pit here, on the job too! We're gonna make the scariest video ever!" he said, then gestured with one arm and one wing to Rika for her introductory words.

”Hi camera, I’m Rika” the ship girl said, leaning into frame and waving with a very large hand, before adding ”and I don’t really know what we are doing but hopefully it will be fun. Or spooky? Both?” and giving a thumbs up with one hand, and hitting the sound player button at the same time to play a dramatic hit to accompany her motion, which seemed to amuse her.

Finally, the last member of the team introduce himself with ”and I, Kamek, will be your camera Koopa for the day” while continuing to record them rather than turning it to show himself, before saying ”now then, let’s see what we can find” dramatically swooping up, over the group and through the doors, before flicking off the recording.

”And cut!” the mage said as he did so, before turning back to the others and saying ”I think that will make for a good introduction”

”Cut what?” Rika asked, her serrated edged spear flicking from her back to her hand in an instant as she looked around for what needed slicing.

”ah it's an expression. It means ‘cut the tape’ which is what turning off the camera does. So by saying it I let you know I am no longer recording” the mage replied, a little incorrect on how this particular camera worked, but still filling her in and getting an ”Ohhhh” of understanding from the ship girl as the spear blinked back to its over the shoulder storage position.

"That sounded pretty professional! This is gonna be fun."

”Troop’s nothing if not professional, so good job keeping up with us Pit” Bowser replied, before thrusting a finger forwards into the dark of the factory and commanding ”Now let’s get in there and find some freaks to film!” which got a little round of cheers and affirmations before they set out to do just that

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

On the road

The next few days on the road were fairly uneventful, sans the occasional spell card duels the Gensokyo ladies got up too, which Rayne joined in on a dodging only basis to get herself used to not being able to blink through projectiles. She got hit quite a lot, the absolute waves of bullets they put out put everything in her world to shame, but better to be hit now than by actually dangerous projectiles. She also attempted to learn how to do their specific kind of non-lethal magic from some of them, but given her power was more granted by the Link and her purchased spell cards (which were entirely different from the Gensokyo’s ones in function, which resulted in unhelpful term overlap) than arcane trained, that was slow going as she had to learn a lot of the basics of spell-casting more or less from scratch.

Fortunately, the next time she needed to fight, she didn’t need to put her crash course of spell card education to the test, as what they came up against were swarms of blob monsters that she had no qualms about blasting her own way. Unfortunately the reason she wasn’t ready to use any non-lethal magic was because they ran into that trouble all too soon.

-

After throwing on her armor and floating to the front just in time to hear about what was going down and how the merchants wanted no part of it, Rayne began to insist “We have to help-” only for Fran to demonstrate how actions spoke louder than words by rushing off to help without a second thought.

She was going to do the same before Anne started coming up with a plan, which she stuck around to listen to. When it came to her part of it, the which knight began to object by saying “I’m more useful when I'm up close and-” only to remember one of the cards she had drawn from her deck and nix that line of complaint with a “-never mind, I can work with this,” before flicking said spell card forwards to cast it. At first it did not seem to do anything, but when she darted upwards, pointed a finger forwards to bring up her targeting arrow, and squeezed the metaphorical trigger it became clear what the card had done: replaced her piddly short ranged shots with unlimited range high explosive rockets.

She still wasn’t being optimal up there offense wise up there even with that spell card in play (almost all her non-shot augmenting ones where AoEs around herself of one kind or another) but having a steady stream of high explosive shots able to be rained down at any point on the battlefield was nothing to be sniffed at tactically.

Firing down from on high also meant that it was fairly easy to avoid any risk of cross fire, and so she did her best to pepper the parts of the horde that were approaching the two defenders of the hamlet, aiming to thin it out at least a little so that they’d have less coming at them. This also left little patches of floating mana orbs near them at the rocket’s impact sites, though if that was of any help to them she had no idea.

That said, she couldn’t provide that much aid to them as she might like, because she was also tasked with keeping an eye out for anything that looked like it might be in-charge of the blobs, or if anyone was in trouble.

In regards to the latter, those who had already gotten stuck in seemed like they were more than capable of handling themselves without her, and weren't going to be having much issue themselves (she suspected) unless there were nasty surprises laying in store. As such, when it came to weak spots in their ranks, her main concern was the slow moving caravan, which she made sure to stick fairly close to them, and gave the odd glance to check and see if they were moving along ok, or if she’d need to dive down to provide close support.

All in all, despite not seeming to be in any danger herself, it was quite the stressful situation to be in, Ryane quickly found, as she kept switching her focus here and there and everywhere to try and work out where she’d be needed, all while worrying she might have missed something important.

World of Light

Childe and Cherub II

Word count: 2580 (+3)
Level: 5 - Total EXP: 244/50
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (89/140) (+1 bonus pending)

The pair’s peering upwards and wondering where the end of this race was was interrupted by a flash of light an earth shaking kaboom courtesy of Rika’s explosive catchup method. The Girl in question came into view a few moments later, pining off a sloped ceiling of part of the mines, before being slapped like a volleyball by Minda and then coming sailing down in their direction.

Jr was briefly stuck between two worlds of being amazed by how cool that was and being angry that she had totally stolen their (pit’s) idea before realizing they were in trouble and that they had to ”Dodge!”

The boys moved to dive out of the way of the koopa princess, immediately creating their next problem. With Jr. moving one way and Pit the other, the tether between them pulled taut and stopped both of them in their tracks. Pit scrambled to correct his course, but at that point they only barely avoided the wild projectile that was Rika and Kamek. Their dodge attempt saw them tumbling off of their current platform and back down to one below them. A bit of lost progress, but it could have been worse.

Pit poked his head out over the side to watch the other pair careen farther down. "Think she's gonna do that again? Maybe we should Mimic her instead!" he said, thinking that the same outcome of being bounced around the mine and ultimately falling back down wouldn't befall them. And they wouldn’t even need to use a bucket to get around!

”Maybe? That must have been a massive explosion to fly all the way up here though, I bet she spent ages prepping all that, and is super thirsty as a result” Jr replied, not thinking his sis’s idea was a very good one for all it had cool factor in spades.

Since they didn't want to wait around to see if Rika would make it back up to them, they continued their climb. First step was getting back up to where they'd just fallen from, which didn't take very long. From there the path was practically straight up and down, with footholds so small that a fall was liable to reset their progress yet again. Even so, both of the boys were determined to make a run for first place even with a couple teams still ahead of them.

They moved quickly, almost used to each other's pace by now. Mimi created a path up to the first stone, and from there they leapt together and take hold of the next. They alternated who played the role of anchor first whenever they had to swing, gradually climbing and swinging up higher. They moved to a few more crumbling stone platforms, though the danger of falling from those was still completely mitigated thanks to Mimi. Eventually small wooden platforms were interspersed between the stone, making their trek even easier. The light in the mine was growing brighter, and the temperature colder once more. When they started to see snow and ice here and there, they knew they were about to breach the mines' exit.

"We've gotta be getting close!" Pit said as they ran past a wooden sign that displayed only an arrow pointing diagonally up.

”Finally! Did they have to implement the smell of this place? Because I never want to smell another fish in the world of light again!”

The next section they had to traverse was made up of long tracks for the buckets moving fish. They crossed onto the first one, riding it up until they could jump onto the next rock ledge and continue on a path that would have been a simple straight away save for the empty spaces between rocks where slow moving buckets traveled every now and then. They didn't need to wait for the other elevators to get across these gaps, continuing to rely on the ruby cubes to create their own platforms. They raced forward, stopping only to get the briefest of looks at what was ahead of them before making a short plunge down with a whoop.

Pit took hold of the wall right before another underhang, securing his hold so Jr. could swing up to the next set of boards and then reel him in. Then they bounded up a few more smaller platforms, making short work of this part of the mountain mines. Their drive to win fueled them, but the fun of running what basically amounted to a platforming course was just as strong.

They passed another sign directing them upward and followed it. Now that the elevator tracks were shorter and the ceilings lower, they wouldn't be able to pull off the same trick that had sent them so far up the first section, but the end wasn't that far away. The end of the mines, at least. The next area had a bevy of crumbling rock paths, which was no issue at all for the duo. They raced through it with little issue, their only slip up in trying to avoid the blood slicks that told them they'd followed Therion and Ms. Fortune's path. Once again Pit and Jr. moved in different directions when they noticed the trap, and on the ice it sent them forward spinning. Pit dropped to a knee and stuck the climbing gloves into the icy ground to stop them from sailing off the edge, and after steadying themselves the boys got a move on again.

By the time they bypassed what would be the last elevator (via Mimi making a crude staircase to the next elevated cliff), the light had gotten even brighter and they could feel wind on their skin. There was only one path ahead of them now, one completely covered in sheets of ice.

Pit sucked in a deep breath of the crisp mountain air. Sliding around on ice was a double edged sword. It could be both fun and annoying, and though it sounded like fun right now if it led to a fall he knew that both he and his partner would be frustrated. So he looked at Jr. before they got going.

"Ready?"

”Ready!”

They pushed forward, running, sliding, and then jumping across gaps onto the next frozen stone. And, finally, they emerged from the Fishy Mines into the next leg of the course marked by strong wind.

It seemed that several paths out of the mines merged together here. Ahead of them, a little farther up the course, Bower Jr. and Pit could see Midna, Roxas, and the two feline thieves. Just behind them were Captain Falcon and Roland, who'd made amazing time catching up after their tumble. This meant that... Pit and Jr. were actually pretty close to winning, didn't it?

"We're so close! C'mon, let's beat them up to the top!" Pit exclaimed.

”Yeah, let’s get 'em!”

Things had been going so well for the pair this leg of the race that it really was possible they'd take first place. Or at least second or third! Which, of course, is why right when they moved to get going and claim their place on the podium, disaster struck.

In excitement, Pit had spread his wings wide as he usually did. His third pair of limbs acted as another way to gauge his emotions, moving subconsciously at times. The harsh gust of wind chose that moment to blow, catching in his feathers and making the lightweight into an angelic kite.

"Wha-!?" The rope between the two boys went tight with a cracking noise, which is when they both realized that no, Pit hadn't become a kite, but a parasail.

The force of the wind ripped Pit right from the ground, and the connected Jr. right along with him. And then it deposited them over a gap when it died down, dropping the two boys right back down a mine shaft.

”No no no noooooo!” jr cried out in despair as they got dragged along, flailing for the ground and then having a desperate idea. Iron formed around his hand into the form of a pic-ax. This he hurled towards the wall of the mineshaft, forming links of a chain onto it as it flew and embedded itself in a wall. The chain, then snagged, swinging them towards the wall, and slamming them into it, leaving them dangling from the mineshaft’s wall.

”You, you, you blockhead! You made us lose!” the prince yelled down furiously at Pit, even as Mimi engaged in a more productive action of spawning blocks underneath the prince so he could stand and, potentially, reel in Pit.

Pit's cheeks colored with embarrassment at the same time that his eyebrows knitted together defensively.

"That wasn't my fault!" he argued up at Jr., swiveling in place until he was a little less wrapped up in the rope. "That probably happens to a lot of people! And... and we wouldn't even have gotten this far this fast without me!"

When he was untangled and as steady as he could get while dangling, Pit grabbed onto the rope with the intent to haul himself up. His wings flapped once, indignantly. "Plus we didn't even lose yet! ...I mean, at all. We didn't lose! You're giving up already?!"

Jr’s furious face turned to one of a furrowed brow and then one of determination as he declared ”not on your life!” before starting to haul Pit up the pit to the little platform Mimi had made.

When both of the boys were back on their feet, they could resume the competition. The shaft they'd fallen into wasn't normally meant to be climbed back up, but Jr.'s quick thinking had stopped them from getting too far down it and Mimi's platform-making meant they could just head right back up to where the wind blew over their heads. There had been a time loss but surely they could still make top three.

They got started right away, hopping up onto smaller and more frequent platforms of their own make in order to regain as much ground as they could in the shortest amount of time. Being the baddie he was, it shouldn't have come as a surprise to the koopa prince that his father's sabotage would begin at this crucial moment.

Indeed, it occurred at the worst possible moment of their climbing strategy. Because the cube power only recharged when they were standing on non-cube based ground, jr had been making very precarious platforms out of raw iron that were more or less welded to the wall. They were only a bit of a stop gap, meant to let them hop onto and then off again right away, but it was while they were doing this that the suction began.

”Wow what the heck!” Jr cried out, as their platform wobbled, buckled, and then was ripped away from beneath them.

Lacking any other way to try and stop their latest fall, Pit flailed in an attempt to grab hold of the mine shaft's sides with the climbing gloves. His palms scraped the rock but couldn't keep their grip - since it seemed like they were contending with some kind of cyclone pulling them in!

They ping-ponged against the walls, the platforms below, and each other all while scrambling to get a good enough hold to stop their downward movement.

Jr’s attempts to repeat the grappling trick failed as said grapples were pulled down even faster than them. Worse still was what happened to Mimi, who was unceremoniously pulled from her trainer’s shoulder and went shooting down into the dark without them, leaving them cheating-platformless.

After some time, which was in reality less than ten seconds but sure felt like a lot longer, the hurricane force suction abated. Pit and Jr. landed in a tangled heap on a moving fish bucket, back down in the darker parts of the mine. If there was a saving grace it was that they hadn't fallen all the way down to the bottom, but it was safe to say their chance at placing highly was definitely shot at this point.

Pit shook his head and shimmied out from underneath Jr., glaring down over the side of the platform to see what exactly had happened. Now they could see a giant koopa head below them was responsible for the sudden sabotage.

"Huh? Bowser?!" Pit exclaimed. Then he rolled over to look at Bowser Jr. "It was your dad!"

”What!? No way! He’d never” Jr replied, before peeking down the mineshaft and seeing the very large head of his father, and a tiny little yellow dot on his nose that was probably Mimi (who also seemed to be bonking said nose with her tail stick.

”Dad! What the heck! We were just about to steal the lead!” the prince yelled down at his dad, who initially only managed an ”Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, oops?” in response.

"Aww man..." Pit groaned. They'd been doing so good, and were so close! Even the whole wind thing above hadn't set them back too much. Now they were so far from the summit there was probably no way for them to catch up. It was frustrating, but it was also what they'd all signed up for. Minigames, from what he'd gleaned, were usually like this - with victory snatched away at the last second. The angel sulked for a few seconds, then jumped to his feet. He was definitely going to win the next one, he decided. For this one, though, he gave his partner a helpless shrug.

"What should we do now? Have any schemes to blast us back to the finish line?"

The prince raised a finger, lowered it, raised it, and then snapped them before whipping out his paintbrush and sweeping it across the closest wall several times before stepping back, and revealing an M with two accent marks above it he’d painted on the wall in rainbow ink.

”Ta-da!” the prince intoned, stepping back and gesturing to it. At first it wasn’t clear why he was so pleased with himself. When Pit stepped close to it however, the chaotic colors melted together, and revealed the image of windswept, snow covered cliffs, the exact same ones they had briefly entered before tumbling back down here.

"A painting?" he asked at first, but with the way it looked and sort of "felt," there was no way it was just a regular piece of graffiti. "...oh! A portal? That's a great idea!"

Now they'd be able to get back to where they were in the blink of an eye! We've still got a chance! Pit thought. Then, eager to get back into the running he said, "Let's go through it right now!"

After a slightly rushed countdown the boys jumped together from their platform right into the center of Jr.'s painting. Neither of them doubted that they'd go through and emerge back on the windy mountain top, so it was a shock to both of them when instead they collided with the wall the portal was painted on and fell backward.

Jr for one was absolutely stunned by the impact with the wall. Not because of any jarring, but because of the absolute bamboozle of allowing everything except the portaling bit of the painting to work out, tumbling down without even an attempt at salvaging their third and seemingly final fall. So the boys ended up reuniting with Mimi, their latest plan ending with them landing on the snout of the enlargened Bowser.

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

On the road

Rayne smiled a little bit at the positive feedback, even if her ‘just say we are from another world’ got turned down. Rather than try and argue a lost point, she instead picked up on someone else’s and added her voice to it.

“Lewa also has a good point: if Lavielle is worried about the capitol, then maybe someone there knows about her? Maybe she has priests or, if the state her temple was in is any indication, maybe a historian would be a better bet?” she suggested before having a thought, and adding “oh, and maybe we could find out if this has happened before? Because if the power to kidnap people from other worlds exists, and works mostly flawlessly, then it must have been used before, right?” before joking that “For all we know this goddess solves all her problems this way, and all we need to do is wait for one of her monks to come and hand out information leaflets about what’s expected of us and how we can get home once we’ve done whatever that is she wants”

Other than that, she also suggested “We should also find out if our various magic powers are otherworldly or not when we’re asking the merchants stuff? Is healing magic a thing they can do, or is Remilia’s ability to do that really rare? How about Frans super, well, everything, or Lewa’s entire existence?” before explaining why this would be useful, by saying it was “So we know how big of a deal they are when it comes to getting the right kind of attention”

World of Light

The Veterans

Words: 849 (+2 exp/rapport)
Bowser: Level 14
EXP: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (205/140) (+1 bonus pending)
Blazermate
Level 13 Blazermate (Holding 5 level up) - (16/130)

Things sure were getting busy up there, Bowser saw as he peered up into the gloom of the fishy mines, one which was periodically lit up by the light procured by people cheating. Bright red blocks and firy kicks flashed, prompting grumbling from the king till something outshone them all: a bright flash accompanied by a mighty kaboom.

”Huh? What was that?” a bemused Bowser asked, only to shortly after get his answer as a round shape came flying in from somewhere up in the mines, only to pingpong between the walls all the way down to where they were. At the end of their ricochetting riot, the balled up form of Rika crashed down into the gravel next to Blazermate and Bowser, showering them with harmless shrapnel and leaving an impact crater at her landing site. Having ceased her tumbling, the young lady uncurled, flopping onto her back and revealing Kamek, whom she’d embraced defensively.

”Oh, uhhh, hi papa, why’s there 4 of you?” a very dizzy Rika proceed to ask as she tried and failed to stumble to her feet, while Kamek was even more out of it, eyes swirling with dizziness.

Blazermate looked at the dazed Rika and Kamek, but noticed that besides just being dizzy from the landing, she was unharmed. Well, Ballywho’s magic really did some cool stuff if he turned off damage entirely. ”Well, they’re fine besides being dizzy. Guess they fell from above huh?” Blazermate said

Bowser let out a little sigh of relief at that, offering her a ”Thanks doc” for her medical analysis. Then he offered Rika a hand and helped pull her up, before asking her ”What’d you even do?”

”Kamek no fly, so made big kaboom to fly instead” she replied as she rubbed her helmeted head with an oversized hand

”Hmmmf, and even with that, your still behind those cheating chumps up there” Bowser grumped as he looked up at where the rulebreakers where getting going, having only been briefly disrupted by Rika’s explosive arrival.

”Why can they use their powers, but I can’t fly or use uber or anything. Or my medi gun rubber banding thing, that’d make us follow your jumps but nooo…” Blazermate said, giving her own ‘hrumph’ at the whole situation.

”We’re going to need to work together to take out those cheaters. Maybe some sabotage or something since it seems no one can actually get hurt.” Blazermate said, giving her thoughts, although she also knew there was nothing she could do about that.

”Yeah, if they want to play unfair, we’ll play even unfairer!” Bowser roared in agreement, before assessing what they had on hand cupping and scratching his chin while going ”Hmmmmmmmmmm” before snapping his fingers and saying ”I’ve got it!”

Then he pointed at Rika and commanded ”Grab kamek!” and then at the mage himself and commanding him to ”Make me big!” before finally saying to Blazermate ”and you, start building that glowy power up boost thingy you can do, because if they think we suck at this right now, they ain’t seen anything yet”

Blazermate looked at Bowser bewildered, saying. ”Uh, if Kamek could use his magic and I could use my flight, we would’ve won by now. I’m pretty sure we can’t use those, I know I can’t, I’ve been trying! It seems it has to be something you can physically do… that isn’t flying or easy climbing or something.”

”Who needs to climb a mountain- '' Bowser replied as a still slightly dizzy Kamek waved a wand and chanted his spell, causing Bowser to start to grow. And grow. And grow ”-When you’re as big as one!''

It was a slightly over exaggerated claim, but Kamek’s magic certainly was something. As his body grew, the kin swung his increasing weight around. Or at least he tried too. As it tuned out, disabling damage meant that he couldn’t simply pulverize the environment to make room for himself, and as a result he more or less trapped himself in between the various platforms and walls of the bottom of the mines.

But did he let that stop him?

No!

Instead he poked his head up between two outcrops, emptied his lungs with a slow calm breath, only to then inhale with the force of a hurricane as the king activated his vacuum breath power, threatening to drag everyone in the mines back down to his level.

”Uh, I guess that works but uh… ” Blazermate said, a bit hesitant at seeing how Bowser was dealing with this whole thing. Well, at least she was on the other side of the vacuum breath, that was going to cause some havoc for sure. Although there were other questions about how this would go and Blazermate looked to Kamek and Rika for an idea of how this was going to resolve itself.

Unfortunately one was too focused on the spell to really offer much input while the other was learning questionable lessons (again), so the only real way to see how it would resolve itself would be to, well, wait and see.

World of Light

Age and youth

Words: 429 +1 (+1 rapport)
Kamek: Level 13 EXP: /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (84/130) (+1 bonus pending)
Rika: Level 9 EXP: /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////(103/90) (+1 bonus pending)

It had been quite a while since the race began, and yet Kamek and Rika’s progress could be best described as 0. Not that they hadn’t tried, but Kamek was, unfortunately, arguably, a worse thing to be tied to than a rock. They’d tried using his a as a grappling hook, but his weak constitution meant he was hardly able to manage such a feat. They’d tried draining all his mana so he transformed into a cat demon thing, but that had a limited life span, and the process had left the mage physically drained even when his mana was back up.

Hence, they were back down at the start again.

All was not lost however. Rika had had a sit down to think, come up with a plan, and was now in the midst of executing it.

She stood atop an igloo home of one of the penguins, who’s front had been blocked up with unfortunate npcs, who’s surroundings had been stripped bare of snow. Said snow, and a bunch of snacks, had been converted into Brachydios goop by way of Rika’s digestive system, which now filled the interior of the igloo.

”I know that I've let you down RIka, but maybe this is a bit drastic?”

”Nah. Damage is off. I tested it by trying to cut off my arm earlier” she replied, and then, before Kamek could get over his horror, made a sucking sound as she gathered saliva, and then masterfully spittooned it into a little hole she’d bored into the top of the igloo.

”Oh badness, oh badness, oh badness” Kamek stammered from the baby carrier position he was tied to, while Rika just steadied herself, took a superman pose, and then.

kabooom!

The igloo exploded, sending ice shafts and penguins flying in all directions, while the princess and age went flying up, up, up, and away! Past the swing rope sections, past the under-hanging stalactite section, past even the entrance of the mines before slamming straight into an angled wall in the mines, before pin-balling all around it, Rike having instinctively wrapped her arms and legs around Kamek to protect him from damage he couldn’t take. After being a hazard to everyone actually doing the climb, the pair crashed down into the same pit Bowser and Blazermate had ended up in down at the bottom of it.

”Oh, uhhh, hi papa, why’s there 4 of you?” a very dizzy Rika asked as she tried and failed to stumble to her feet, while Kamek was even more out of it, eyes swirls of dizziness.

World of Light

Light and Shadow

wordcount: 2684 (+3) (+3 rapport per character)
Midna: level 9 EXP: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (25/110) (+1 bonus pending)
Roxas: level 8 EXP: //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (34/80)
^with
Warp Charges: 1

warp locations

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

Warp Charges: 1

An Ushanka and 4 climbing mitten wearing Midna looked up at the tall tall mountain and, after a moment, joked ”Hopefully this one doesn’t have a `don’t freeze to death` challenge at the top of it” before having a thought, tensing, and then the rope connected to her to find her partner, breathing out an audible sigh of relief when that man was not found at the end of it.

Instead it was Roxas, who she hadn’t exactly spent that much time with (they’d somehow managed to end up on different sub teams for every leg of Midgar) but between facing her fears earlier, and the cart racing of all things back in Twilight Town, she only had good experiences with the guy, resulting in her flashing a genuine pointy toothed grin before she asked if he ”had any experience with this kind of thing?”

”Nope.” Roxas answered. But before he could do anything else he looked down and noticed poor Scamp shivering between his legs. And so Roxas put him back in his Poke Ball for the time being so the little guy could stay warm. ”That guy said movement abilities were disabled, right?” He asked, realizing that meant he wouldn’t be able to coast through this with Flow Motion.

”Seems like it” she replied, as she watched her flygon try and fail to take off before unsummoning it.

”Wait.” Roxas realized, ”I wonder if…” He tried to use the Phantom Ruby necklace to summon a virtual cube as a test. And sure enough, it worked! Movement abilities were disabled, but summoning abilities like this one still worked just fine it seemed. And if all damage was also disabled…

”This’ll be a cinch!” Roxas exclaimed. Then he used the power of the Phantom Ruby to summon a set of cubes in a diagonal line. This made them look like a floating staircase. And it also gave them an elevated platform to use as a small head-start for the climb to come. ”I can use virtual cubes to give us extra platforms whenever we need. Normally they hurt other people, but that guy said damage is disabled so you should be able to stand on them, no problem!”

”Only one way to find out I suppose” Midna agreed, before taking a tentative step onto the first step of the stairway. And true to Ballyhoo’s word, the cube was harmless to her. At least inside of this minigame anyway.

”This is as many cubes as I can have out at a time.” Roxas explained, though admittedly he was still fairly new to this specific power. ”But I should be able to re-summon them as we go along without much limitation. So as long as we’re creative with them, they’ll give us an edge. I hope.”

”Say, how good are you at jumping?” He asked when they reached the top of his construct, ”I’m pretty good at it myself, want me to jump first and try to swing you over afterward?”

”Not exactly something I've done a lot of. Used to be able to float after all and the royal life didn’t exactly call for leaping around rooftops” Midna replied, before her face became contemplative, before rhetorically asking ”I wonder” before her hat suddenly rose up off of her head, carried skywards on the middle finger of her shadow hand

”Now that, that is going to help make up for my lack of jumping legs a lot” she said, pointing up at the hand while it gave a thumbs up. And that prompted Roxas to vault over to a nearby natural platform. Of course he couldn’t dispel his cubes right away while Midna was still standing on them. Since he was obviously a lot more “parkour-inclined” than she was, it seemed like he would have to be the one to make some of the first jumps.

”You can try jumping, but if you drop straight down we should be able to swing you back up onto this platform.” Even if he couldn’t actively use flow motion, that didn’t mean he couldn’t still draw from his knowledge of using it to figure out their momentum and the distances it could carry them. Especially since he was able to calculate a lot of that pretty quickly in his head thanks to his Medabot spirit.

”Sounds good, but for these” Midna replied, as she simply reached up and grabbed the first thin platform she had to jump up too, before hauling herself to it ”That’s not going to be necessary”

This strategy worked for about all of the first little cliff, as after that they were presented with a jump that was longer than the rope between them, meaning that it was together or not at all. ”On the count of three?” Midna suggested after eyeing up the gap.

Roxas nodded. ”One-” he counted.

”Two-”

"Three!" they called together and then took a short run up and then leapt up and across the gap. There was a brief moment of panic as Midna’s lack of friction caused her to slide towards the opposite edge of the little platform they’d jumped to, but before she reached it purple dragon claws erupted from her sandal exposed toes and dug into the terrain, preventing any kind of fall.

”Phew, close” she said, before asking ”alright, what’s next” and taking a look across the gap to the other side of the little pit the platform was floating above, one that looked a little bit wider than the one they’d had to just do.

Others had had to use elaborate swinging tricks to pass this, but them? They had tricks of their own to bypass this. Roxas himself was the source of one such trick. With a gesture he was able to generate a basic bridge of virtual cubes they could simply walk across. Of course he assumed it wasn’t always going to be this simple. And he was right. The next platform was a bit elevated and too far for a bridge of cubes to reach. But there were a couple of narrow, vertical wall structures hanging down along the way. And the mittens were able to stick to vertical surfaces for short periods.

"I think we’re gonna have to do some swinging this time around." He admitted, "How do you wanna do this?"

In response to that, Midna reached out with her shadow hand and grabbed the bottom of the first overhang while she was still standing on their jumping off point before saying that ”I think we can get away with just one”

Roxas was pretty sure he had an idea of what she had in mind and nodded. "Got it. You swing us forward and I’ll give us a place to land so we can try to jump the rest of the way." He said and then grabbed her non-shadow hand as a signal that he was ready to go whenever she was.

Midna blinked once in the most miniscule moment of surprise, before flashing him a confident grin as she wrapped the remaining three of her four hands around the back of his hand for a secure grip. Then it was a ”1- 2- 3!” before she leaping off of the edge, using her shadow hand as a rope to swing both of them down under the overhangs and then tossing him forwards, bypassing the 3 underghangs others were using, and sending him towards the end in one fell swoop.

It didn’t look like they quite reached all the way. They would have barely missed the platform, but for the virtual cubes Roxas summoned on its edge in order to make it close enough for them to touch down without any problem. He was also quick to dispel the cubes afterward, to prevent any other teams from utilizing them. Climbing up onto the top of the structure they had just swung underneath was a simple affair. But the next actual platform challenge was… less simple. It started with a long jump onto a very small floating platform, in order words a target that was easy to miss or overshoot. And then three more jumps onto similarly narrow platforms that also increased in elevation followed by a long overhang that blocked anyone from being able to reach the next elevated platform.

"These just keep getting crazier, don’t they?"

”They really do” Midna agreed, before also adding ”Also if you mess up-” as she looked down and down and down at a drop that could well them take them all the way to the start ”well, it's a good thing damage is off but that is a long way to get back up”

Still, they seemed to be making good time, she spotted at least one team down below making much slower progress, but that was no reason to let up the pace. ”You can make it bigger, and even if we miss, I can make a grab for it, so it’s going to be ‘crazier’ for everyone else I think”

”Sounds good.” The Nobody agreed. They pretty much followed that plan exactly. Roxas used virtual cubes to expand the landing area of the jumps. And as for the overhang, they did have to do a bit of momentum swinging to pass underneath. But once they were on the other side, they kicked themselves off the side of the overhang in order for Roxas to instantiate another “staircase” of virtual cubes they could climb to reach the elevated platform. ”Nailed it!” he celebrated. ”Haven’t had any chances to practice with my virtual cubes much, so this climbing race was just what I needed.”

”Still getting used to not being able to levitate here too, so it’s working out for me too” Midna agreed before adding that it was a ”Shame those will only work for you out of here tough”

"What do you mean?" He asked in confusion. A split second later he realized what she meant. "Oh the cubes don’t hurt me at all. They only hurt other people who touch them." He clarified. "Anyway, where are we going next?" He looked around and the only thing he could see was some kind of cave entrance. "I guess we’re going in there next?" He asked as he pointed at the entrance to the mine.

”Right, but i’m going to have to unlearn that they are safe and useful is the thing” the princess clarified before nodding and agreeing that ”that it does seem like it's the only way forwards”

With that said, there was nothing to do but step inside and see what it had in store for them, which turned out to be a bunch of slow moving and fairly narrow platforms. ”So now we have to time the jumps with those? Crazier and crazier” Midna observed, before correcting ”or, well, everyone else does, you can just pop some wherever we need them”

"We gotta be careful about it though." Roxas warned. "I can only create more platforms after I’ve touched a non-cube surface. So we have to make sure we touch the natural platforms in between my virtual ones. Other than that, we should be good." Their somewhat shady tactic had gotten them ahead of most of the other teams. Well, there was one other team that was equally ahead. And that was Captain Falcon and Roland, who’d been managing to blaze through the platforming. And they didn’t even use any virtual ones or anything!

"I think I just figured out who the team to beat is going to be…"

”Look at them go” Midna commented as she stood and watched for a moment, impressed by their straight up skill, before saying ”well then, let’s not get left behind” because the two had definitely been a bit lax in that department thanks to their cheating abilities.

"On it!" Roxas said. The first moving platform was intended to be used to let a team swing their way onto an overhang they could then climb up to where a vertically moving platform awaited. At least, that was the intended way of doing this. Roxas, on the other hand, gave himself and Midna another staircase of virtual cubes that would allow them climb up directly toward the second moving platform, skipping the first one altogether.

Midna then casually reached up to grab onto and pull herself to a little rock below said second platform, only for it to shake in a worrying manner, prompting her to let go. A few moments later, it fell down, only to be replaced by another little rock.

”Nasty. Can’t trust these ones it seems” she said in reference to the rock, but, fortunately, again, they didn’t have too. That was a super easy fix for Roxas, who could just give them a few cubes in about the same spot they could safely stand on without them crumbling beneath their feet. And that also made timing the vertically moving platform easy as well so making it that far was a snap.

”Problem solved. Onto … however many more problems there are” Midna said, before commenting ”You know, I thought these were supposed to be ‘mini’ games, but this is already a lot, and I can only imagine how bad it would be if we fell” right on time for a roar of frustration to come echoing up below that sounded rather distinctly like Bowser being furious about falling who knew how far back down.

”Or maybe there’s some shorter route that we don’t know about?” Roxas suggested. Some of the next sections looked like they relied more on the falling blocks from the looks of it. On the bright side, by now Roxas had figured out that the blocks only crumble and fall when one stands on top of them. So that at least meant they could be trusted so long as the two of them were clinging to the sides. He supposed it wouldn’t matter too much so long as they could keep using his virtual cubes. But that did make him wonder if they would eventually reach a section where those alone weren’t going to cut it.