Primrose had made herself as comfortable as possible, although as time went on she was starting to regret taking the lantern. It made her camouflage even better, but she had to hold it still over her head for six minutes. It was possible that a seeker would notice the minute movements of her hand, especially if she swapped which one was holding it if her arm got tired. If she set it down next to her, its glow might be visible from outside of the veil’s illusion. If she threw it away, that could easily draw a suspicious seeker to her location. She knew she hadn’t planned that far ahead when she decided this would be a good idea, but there was one other thing that could blow it for her: Ganondorf.
The warlord had declared his intent to do battle, even going as far as summoning his moblins. And his own hiding spot wasn’t all that far from hers, both being within the area the hiding players started in. He seemed serious enough that he’d even struck that boy, Roxas, which made Primrose narrow her eyes. If whatever chaos he caused reached her, her hiding spot would be easily revealed. She might even reveal it herself if he actually planned to harm one of the members of the seeking team. She hoped he wouldn’t though - this was only a game after all.
Primrose had a fairly wide open view in front of her, so when things kicked off she noticed Kamek’s wisps beginning to spread around the rooftops of town. She could hear the small group tasked to catch them somewhere nearby, but when one appeared in her vision it wasn’t the old mage, but Rika.
The day old did not, it had to be said, look like she was having the best time, armored boots scuffing along the dirt road as she looked around with a mix of confusion and frustration on her face. She paused at an intersection to scratch her helmeted head with an oversized finger, before gesturing that same hand around palm up accompanied by a look of bemusement
After giving a sigh and then raising the gauntlet she counted off three fingers while muttering
”Ok. Right. So. Ganondorf, Primrose, Blazermate. Somewhere. Kamek said to look for stuff that is out of place but, well,” to herself making a sound of
”eeegh” to express her self assumed inability to do this.
Poor girl, Primrose thought. The former abyssal really didn't seem to be having a good time. Since the whole point of the minigames was to wind down and have fun, maybe she would give Rika a freebie and let herself be found after all. Subtlety, as though she'd made a mistake instead of turning herself in. Of course during the few seconds she mulled the thought over, the thing she was actually concerned about began...
Finding something out of place proved to be both easier
and harder at the same time. The Town Square was dotted with a litany of crates, barrels, urns, and other assortment of random furniture items that Ganondorf’s Moblins had had time to place about the area. This may as well have been a flare signaling that there was hider among these objects somewhere. But figuring out the right one to check? The only option was to check each one and either get lucky, or get unlucky enough times that Rika would risk accidentally eliminating herself. All the while, ignorant of the fact that at least one of her targets was in fact disguised as the largest object present in the Town Square. The assortment of other objects had created an effective mask to hide what could otherwise be the potential obviousness of Ganondorf within the horse cart.
Not that the warlord intended to remain hidden for much longer. Above the Town Square, his five Moblin archers were spread out on different rooftops. They were under strict orders not to take any lethal shots so as to avoid violating the rules of the game, should such a rule exist. Instead they were lying in wait for a certain signal to spur them into action. Then seemingly at random, a deep-voice laugh could be heard. It was the voice of Ganondorf, albeit from within his hiding spot as he had not moved out from there just yet. Was it an attempt at an intimidation tactic? Partially. But it also served as the signal the Moblins were waiting for.
So moments after hearing Ganondorf’s menacing laugh, Rika would also hear the distinct twang of a snapping bowstring followed by the whistling sound of an arrow flying through the air. And immediately after that she found an arrow sinking into the ground at her feet with a thunk. If she looked fast enough, she could spot the Moblin archer scrambling from its spot over to another cover spot it could hide behind. That shot wasn’t supposed to be a killshot, instead its purpose was to divert Rika’s gaze in the opposite direction of the horse cart that hid Ganondorf. So during that moment he lifted the illusory veil and stood with his trident at the ready before flinging it forward in her direction. It wasn’t a spear or javelin style throw, either. Instead the weapon spun around as it flew through the air. This way, even if it did strike Rika there was little chance of any lethal or lasting damage.
The precaution turned out to be unnecessary, for though his distraction worked perfectly, the hurled trident’s heft struck a theretoo invisible barrier rather than her chest as it should have done. The golden spartan energy shield shimmered into existence across her torso and head, taking the blow for the princess and, as the ui on her helmet indicated, suffering 0 actual damage for the trouble. A moment later a massive hand closed around the weapon before it hit the ground, grasping the weapon.
”Did thou taketh me for a coward?” Ganondorf said to the ship girl with a grimace.
”If thou wish to eliminate me, ye shall have to defeat me first!” With an outstretched hand he summoned the trident he threw back to his hand. If Rika wanted to tag him with her unicorn horn, she’d have to fight him for it.
After blinking in surprise, she replied
”I can do that too!” before summoning her cannon butted halberd into her now empty hand. After spinning it around once for flare, and then following it up with a
”thanks, this makes things so much easier” before charging forwards towards the king of evil, the game’s seeker speed boost kicking in and turning it from infantry to cavalry charge speed.
As she closed in, she’d suddenly flare thrusters to close the gap with a burst of extra speed as she swung her weapon low, attempting to use its unusual curved blade like crook to trip the king rather than a futile attempt to impale him. That’d be a lot easier said than done, given the king’s tall stature and immense physical strength. He actually
did have a legitimate weak spot she could potentially exploit, provided she could spot what that was.
The incoming charge didn’t come as a complete surprise to Ganondorf. He knew from the rules that any seeker pursuing him would be granted a boon to their speed. Rika being able to further enhance that boon was something he had been unaware of until right now, however. But for the low-aimed sweeping attack, he need only plant the trident into the ground to take the brunt of the force while crouching down in order to reinforce his stance and make him harder to knock off his feet. And since he was crouched anyway, he decided to use that positioning to spring himself into a Gerudo Dragon uppercut that could launch her away from him if it landed.
Around them, meanwhile, the Moblins were taking aim with their bows and looking for any opportunity they could find to take potshots at Rika to either annoy her or distract her focus on Ganondorf himself.
She certainly made for an easy target as she was launched up into the air, several arrows smacking harmlessly yet distractingly into her as she tried to orientate herself. Rather than come crashing back down a moment later however, the princess’s tiny wings buzzed, and her antigravity gauntlets and feather fall rune slowed her fall, letting her, pivot in the air, aim a palm down, and proceed to start blasting at the king with ink from her grozco-blaster. At the same time, she pulled back and began charging her other, unicorn horn tipped, gauntlet, prepping up for a meteoric return to land.
While none of the ink blasts could harm the warlord, they could still blind him with a shot in his face. So it was only natural that he held up his right arm in order to shield his eyes from stray ink shots while he spun around and used Bullet Jump to slide several feet away from her in anticipation for what he assumed would be some kind of followup attack. Then he planted the trident into the ground so that he could call down a lightning blast on top of it as a form of punishment for any attempt to charge into him. Whether he was fast enough to do this before he was outrun by Rika’s ever-increasing seeker speed buff would be a matter of luck in the end.
It wasn’t that speed he needed to worry about however, as Rika hammered her fist forwards, flared her boosters, and fired her rigging guns backwards all at the same time she fired her grappling hook.
Her unicorn horn tipped hook.
The tagging weapon blasted forwards boosted by every speedboost she had and arrived in a flash. He tried to grab a nearby barrel and hurl it up into the trajectory of the grappling hook, but all those speed boosts made this last ditch hail mary next to impossible to pull off. And so the king instead exploded into confetti for all his efforts.
His spectral form merely stood there with crossed arms, looking almost uncharacteristically calm and, well, not enraged. These odds were stacked against him from the start. His chances of actually overpowering the seekers were always going to be slim at best. Honestly all he wanted out of this was to end this farcical game sooner rather than later and to go down fighting rather than cowering. So he still basically got what he wanted in the end regardless of the game’s actual outcome.
”That was for my papa!” Rika decade boldly after she picked herself up from having crashed down into the confetti shower, before adding
”Because he doesn’t like you that much, which is why people say that kind of thing, maybe?” rather ruining any impact her declaration had.
After watching it all play out, Primrose let out an audible sigh. It had turned out just fine. None of the moblins' shots had gone wide either, leaving the dancer safe and sound in her front row seat. She shifted in place, the light cast by the lantern turning a little behind Rika.
Rika
”Hm?”’d at one of her shadows (she was making her own with her tail light after all) moving a little bit. At least she thought it did, and so she turned to look behind her, finding there a tree flanked by two hay bales each with a pumpkin lantern sat on top of them. Well, that and a bunch more lanterns scattered around as well. Someone really did like them as an aesthetic it seemed.
”Did, did one of those move maybe?” she said while tapping a hull blade with a gauntlett-ed finger, before giving a little excited gasp as she realized
”Does that mean one of them is a person?” before wondering out loud
”But, hmm, um, how do I… know which one it was?”Well, the way she started to try and work it out was pacing up to each one and just sort of, staring at it intensely as if doing so would let her see through the disguise which included, eventually, Primrose's own bale topper.
The girl's genuine excitement at having potentially found someone made up Primrose's mind. Even concealed, she pressed her lips together to suppress a smile as she let her arms fall a little lower, slowly sinking the lantern somewhat into the hay under Rika's gaze.
The princess blinked behind her visor, made a little
”huh?” as she leaned in closer and then an
”ah!” of understanding before she suddenly lept backwards into the air, she brought up a gauntleted fist and fired the grappling hook mounted horn down at lanturn and hay bale.
To really play into her role as an unfortunate hider, Primrose too threw off her veil and revealed herself. She stood up in one swift motion, looking like she was fully prepared to flee. But the hook, and the unicorn horn attached to it, struck her leg as she moved.
"Oh no~!" she gasped, and then her short performance was ended with a fanfare of colorful paper bursting out from where she once stood. In her now invisible spectral form, she brought a hand up to her mouth and chuckled lightly.
The ship girl looked positively delighted with her first actual catch, and entirely unaware of the handicap she’d received in doing so, doing a happy little head bob before looking more serious again.
”Ok, still one more to go though” she said to herself, before glancing around and wondering where Blazermate might be, only to receive a little complication in her ear, namely that:
”Pit found Sandalphon, but she seems to have teleported away somewhere” from Kamek who then added that
”I did not see her appear anywhere with my whisps, so she must have arrived inside a building. You may need to recheck inside some places unfortunately” ”Haven't looked in there yet so its fine””Ah, I see” Kamek replied, before cautiously inquiring
”and how are you faring, might I enquire, young mistress?” only to be delighted when the ship girl replied that
”I’ve found two so far!” in a chipper tone.
”Very well done young mistress” the mage praised, before wishing her
”good luck with the rest of your hunt” before returning to his own
”alright, so, Blazermate aaaaaand that Sandalphon lady” Rika then said to herself, giving a confident nod, excited rather than put off by the additional target on her seeking list, regardless of how unlikely it was, at least with the information she had, that the angel would have decided to teleport anywhere near where either she or Blazermate where.
As it turned out however, Blazermate was watching all of this from her perch on top of the tallest building, the stone carver mansion, using an awning to hide from Kamek’s little eye in the sky. She was doing pretty well so far, no one had even bothered to look up at her as they were too preoccupied by looking at props to think to look up, although she wasn’t too surprised at Ganondorf going down the way he did. She thought about saving him, but with how fast things were happening and his bulk, Blazermate didn’t think she could do much of anything to get him out of there in a speedy fashion. Plus if the hiders won, he won, so she stayed put.
Although her hiding spot was doing well so far, the giant Sandalphon teleported onto the roof with Blazermate, too big to hide under an awning like the much smaller bot.
”Hey, you're going to give me away!” Blazermate said.
The angel crouched down, offered an apology as she cracked open the window of the stone mason’s home and slipped through, with Blazermate only rolling her eyes
Unfortunately for both of them, just a little while later, Rika came along, and, well, even she could not miss the giant angelic halo floating above one of the statues down below, though she still felt pleased about her discovery. Well, pleased up until the point that Sandalphon teleported away again, but she did at least get a little bit more praise when she reported what had happened to Kamek, even if neither could figure out how they were going to stop this seemingly very unfair ability.
Having found one person in the building could have given Blazermate an edge
in not being discovered herself, however, unfortunately, while people did often fail to look up, they did tend to look out of windows.
”Hi Blazermate” Rika called out as she cocked her wrist mounted horn and then declared
”I’m going to wind this time!” again spoiling her own cool declaration, this time with a slight verbal hiccup, before letting it fly out of the window Sandalphon had come in through anyway. Blazermate had good reaction time though, and while it would’ve been close with only her scan pinging rika when she appeared, Rika giving her forewarning before using her little horn launching trick gave Blazaermate time to dodge out of the way. Well, now was the time to start running! Although before she left, she had to correct Rika.
”it’s win, not Wind! Speaking of, off I go!” Blazermate said, flying up and over the roof, now standing on top of it. Now was the time to play tag, and Blazermate was good at that game.
Rika came bursting out of the window a moment after, and then tapped her feather fall rune, launching herself up into the air. As she rose she spun around thanks to the little buzzing wings on the back of her rigging, letting her turn and find Blazeramte on the roof. And with her flight, it was time for the game of chase to begin.
”Cool, let's see if you can catch meee~~.” Blazermate said as she dove down under the awning of the roof and got herself ready for a big aerial chase.
Maneuvering jets flaring, Rika boosted down after her before grabbing the edge of the awning with a hand and swinging around under it that way, blindly firing her hook back into the space they’d just vacated. Blazermate wasn’t there though, and had zoomed off to the side and back into open space. She giggled like she was having fun before she zoomed off, being much faster and maneuverable than Rika. Blazermate did give her a bit of healing as she left though, but Blazermate wondered if Rika knew what she was planning.
At least, she should have been faster, but the game was hide and seek, not tag, and so the game’s systems stepped in and gave swiftness to Rika’s feet as she dropped to the ground and started sprinting across it at an absurd rate. So fast that she got ahead of Blazermate, and then processed to wall jump up the nearest building before launching herself into the air towards the medabot, grapple hook mounted horn lashing out again.
Blazermate expected this though, and as Rika got near, she put her healing beam on Rika and echoed her massive burst in speed, easily evading the grappling hook. Although now that Rika was starting to get a massive speed boost, Blazermate would have to keep inside her healing beam range to match her. And with that the two started playing ‘tag’ like Blazermate intended, gaining more and more speed until they started to move at near supersonic speeds.
”Wait. What? What! Get back here!” Rika shouted up at her as she tried to run after the speed matching bot, the pair going faster and faster and faster as Blazer weaved in between grapple shots, until all of a sudden Rika’s horn struck something and caused it to burst into confetti.
It just hadn’t been Blazermate.
”Huh?” the ship girl said, halting her pursuit as she got a brief afterimage of Sandalphon before she faded away into spectator mode, and then wondered
”Where’d she come from?” Blazermate shrugged, then zoomed off once Rika started to move as well. Since Rika was so fast now, Blazermate was essentially tethered to the ship girl which Rika could potentially use to blindside her team mates… something blazermate didn’t think about. Granted she figured they’d all be hidden, not running, so… At least if blazermate could keep up the chase for a couple more minutes, it’d be over and they’d all have won!
She was proven wrong on that first point moments later when she caught sight of a big bee who’s cunning tree hiding spot had been rather spoiled by the appearance of Sandalphon right next to it, and the appearance of Kamek next to her a moment after that. As a result of all that, she’d had to make like a tree and leaf with post haste, as she was now being pursued by Kamek through the skies. Sectonia’s movement wasn’t fast, at least until she started to use her teleport. Kamek would have to be careful not to stab at her afterimage when she started to rapidly teleport around him, but the elder koopa knew a thing or two about teleporting and since Sectonia’s side made it so that he couldn’t stab anything but air, he had no worry about losing ‘tries’.
Seeing this, Rika pivoted, and pointed her now absurdly stacked speed boost towards the queen bee instead, boots hitting the side of a building which she practically ran up the side of, before blasting into the air with ludicrous speed a whoop. Her flying form reached Sectonia’s position half a breath before the sound itself, blindsiding the bee entirely.
Well… Rika was for sure using the boost in chase speed quite well, and now Kamek was on her tail now too! Was she the last one? It seemed Sandalphon escape mechanics ruined the hiding position of a few people, and she made it worse by making Rika super speed! But as long as she held out til the end, it’d be worth it!
Blazermate’s thoughts were by the sight of Rika racing towards her … and getting larger as she did so. Much much larger. Under Kamek’s magic, the ship girl grew and grew till she was a titan towering over the town, which should have made her slow, but. Well.
Speed boost.
To the sound of Kamek cackling, the now battleship sized boat girl blitzed forwards with her fist pulled back, charging a punch, and then, before getting into medi beam range, pulled off her everything propelled horn firing trick, sending the now ballistic missile sized shive blasting forwards at about the same speed as one of those would go towards a not at all speed boosted Blazermate.
Which was a good move by kamek, as the hook was too big for Blazermate’s projectile shield to block. And with that, the shipgirl, after minutes of running, finally caught the medabot medic.
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