Despite the Seekers’ collective attempts to keep things under control, the fighting quickly got chaotic all around the suspended gladiatorial arena. This came about in large part thanks to Reinhardt’s heroic charge straight through the center of the grand clash, driving some of his opposition’s heaviest hitters back toward the entrance and separating the rest between the left and right sides.
To the left, the vicious bout between the Dragonborn and Mao took a turn as the latter let loose his array of devious mechanical arms. Even at his best the warrior would have been hard-pressed to deal with against the multi-faceted onslaught, but right now going on the defensive was the farthest thing from his mind. Rather than be put on the backfoot and give Mao either his turn back or the space to work around his shield, he charged recklessly forward. Saw, drill, scissors, and scalpel sliced into both flesh and armor, but they couldn’t deal enough up-front damage to stop him. Try as Mao might to block with his ill-gotten axe, the Dragonborn crashed into him shield-first all the same. Once the pint-sized Overlord got knocked off his feet, a good thrust would be all it took--or so the Dragonborn hoped. Since Sven’s magic medicine hadn’t gotten anywhere near fully healing the near-fatal wounds Jesse dealt him, his ability to man up and take trades had suffered a lot. As the rage pumping through the viking’s veins began to subside, all the damage he’d accumulated was starting to take its toll, slowing down his assault.
In the middle, the Phantom Thieves scrambled to deal with the sudden reinforcements Nastasia called in, as well as the overwhelming firepower they brought with them. Even after Joker fired off a well-placed headshot on one of the four Fallen Vandals as things kicked off, instantly dropping the alien gunner, he scarcely diminished the overwhelming suppressive fire that the rest unleashed the next moment. He and Fox were forced to run for their lives as the Vandals filled the air with gunfire and explosives. For a moment it didn’t look like Fuse was doing anything, but the truth was much worse: right as a Vandal stopping shooting to reload and Joker slid to a stop to take advantage with Arsene, Fuse used the launcher on his back to fire some sort of payload straight up into the air. Joker’s Persona hurled an Eigaon into the grouped enemies. Its painful blast of Curse damage scattered his enemies, but not before Fuse’s Motherlode went off overhead.
The roar and flash of Fuse’s fireburst filled the whole arena, and the next moment a circular wall of flame formed in the colosseum’s center, limiting the space the Phantom Thieves could move in. That suited the Vandals and Fuse just fine, and Nastasia even better. The little lady moved quickly, making a beeline for the nearest thief as her minions covered her. “Stay away, you guys!” Necronomicon warned. “I’m reading super-powerful Psy energy. She might be trying to brainwash you!”
Nastasia’s eyebrow twitched in annoyance. “Uh, yeah? Get with the program, already.”
The Persona paid her no mind as she cast Moral Support, boosting Futaba’s friends with Rakukaja. “Okay Thieves. Defense up!”
As if a starting pistol had been fired, Fox and Joker attacked together. They moved in, shrugging off or blocking the Vandals’ energy bolts. As he ran Joker called forth his new Persona, and Jinx manifested with a cackle. The sight of his former ally turned both ethereal and against him took Fuse momentarily by surprise, and before he could plug the Phantom Thieves with his rifle rounds Jinx whipped out her stungun to zap him with Zionga. Fox rushed into the thick of it as the electrified Legend fell back and caught two Vandals at once with a whirling slash. His prismatic katana danced between them at a dizzying speed, filling the air with slashes. With a flourish he reeled back for a finishing blow. “Goemon…!”
From between the stricken Vandals Nastasia threw herself, hand outstretched toward Fox’s head. But the young man had already cut himself off, never intending to use his Persona in the first place. Instead he entered a counter stance, his sheathed blade behind him, and the second Nastasia made contact there came a single, brief stroke of light. The little lady and her minions remained totally still, frozen in time, as Fox stepped backward he slid his weapon back down into his scabbard. “Foolish.”
A phantom slash erupted across her and her Vandals with enough cutting force to rip through the small-timers and send all three flying backward. As Nastasia skidded to a stop her remaining Vandal and Fuse opened fire with their rifles, and with a scowl she adjusted her glasses. Thanks to her Overshield, she’d taken no damage at all. “Hmph. Struggle all you like. We’re still right on schedule.” With her phone she called up another round of Vandal reinforcements, and the fresh minions rekindled the fight with a needless excess of hurled grenades.
As chaos ensued Necronomicon provided what help she could by firing off a small group heal. “Jeez, they just keep coming! We’ve gotta prioritize the little snob.” She noticed Braum having troubles of his own on the left. Shayne and Aurox’s stealth, armor, and overall versatility left them running circles around him. It seemed like a good chance for a swap. “Braum, any chance we can get you and your shield over here? And someone help miss Jesse, she’s all alone!”
At the same time, things weren’t much better on the other side of the arena. After Midna took off to assist Ciella, Jesse had nobody but herself for company while she weathered the storm that was Orendi. The little gremlin just kept dishing out magic, filling the air with cackles and incomprehensible strings of insults the whole time. Although the spiked rings that appeared before most of her gave away their trajectory, their sheer size left Jesse barely any wiggle room to launch her counterattack. Still, she could have taken a few good shots or hurled chunks of scenery if not for Mordecai’s interference. His bird constantly circled overhead as a painful distraction, swooping down in its attempts to gouge her and split her focus. Whenever she provided even a small opening, the sniper took advantage, shooting from afar. After the first chucked debris he started repositioning himself a little at a time too. Together he and Orendi locked down Jesse on defense, forcing her to wield metal torn from the arena as shields, but even that wasn’t foolproof--one of Orendi’s few spells without spike rings was a magic geyser that could fling foes into the air from below, and she didn’t hesitate to use it to knock Jesse around when the FBC director hunkered down too much.
Midna, meanwhile, had jumped into quite the clobberfest. She arrived to pay Shadow back for smacking Ciella into what amounted to oncoming traffic by giving him a big hand. Rather than try to evade it he answered in kind, gritting his teeth as he punched the incoming palm. He struck with enough force to cancel out the blow and even knock it back, but being magically-infused hair Midna took no damage from it. She was more concerned with Reinhardt, whose hammer was poised to ruin Ciella’s good looks. The princess’s plus-size Wolfos rammed him in the back, hard enough to interrupt him but not nearly enough to knock the titan of a man over. He pivoted around to pound the Wolfos instead. Shadow reappeared for another clash, only barely kept at bay by Midna’s sand long enough for her to throw a Friend Heart at Ciella.
As Shadow confronted Midna with such a blistering flurry of attacks that she couldn’t retreat cleanly, her heart took hold in Ciella, undoing every bit of collective damage dealt to her by the resistance in an instant. It left her momentarily pacified, and in that bleary moment Reinhardt decked her with a full-force hammer swing. The rabbit woman went down like a bag of rocks, and Reinhardt followed up by adding a Firestrike to his upswing that more than doubled the damage as it rolled Ciella limply away. With sluggish muscles she struggled to stand, and as Reinhardt came in for another piece of her and brought up the bow she clutched in a deathgrip in a desperate attempt to defend her vitals. Her longbow withstood one mighty smash, but the second cracked it in half, and the third blew through her best attempt to punch him. Turned sideways by the hammer’s force, Ciella fell to her knees.
All this went down in just a few moments, and after surveying the fight for a few moments, Sectonia decided that she wanted not just a piece of the action, but a piece of everyone’s action. With uproarious laughter the insect queen started pumping out magic, sending dark and light magic wiggling, winding, and warping through the battlefield in every which way. And wherever her spells went, chaos followed. Projectiles flew haphazardly into the left, center, right, and rear fights, and though not all her allies were aware of their immunity, none wasted the unexpected windfall. They sowed discord among the Vandals in the center, gave Braum and Jesse openings to retake control from their oppressors, and one light ring even cut into Reinhardt’s leg as he brought his hammer up to put Ciella down. To prevent it shearing too deeply he jumped to the side, and in her moment of respite Ciella wiped away the fog that clouded her mind.
She cried out as she flexed, releasing a riptide of water that swept Reinhardt off his feet, using his top-heavy body against him. It rippled out across the battlefield, dousing Fuse’s flame and interfering with each fight even more than Sectonia’s magic had. When Ciella rose to her feet and turned, her unmasked face was once of cool anger, and as water swirled into a sphere around her her voice resounded. “Ignorant, pigheaded slaves to hypocrisy. We are wings that unfurl in rejection of the deceit of this world. We are AGITO!”
The maelstrom erupted in a fountain of water, and from the cascade rose a white-feathered
harpy with six angelic wings of enchanted water. Ciella opened her eyes and looked out across the battlefield. The beat of her wings sent waves of pressure through the air itself, and her eyes shone like the sunset. “I will plunge you into the depths of despair!”
Team Kan-Ra
Level 9 Tora (40/90) Level 8 Poppi (110/80) Level 3 Big Band (30/30)
Location: Al Mamoon Northwest - Obelisk Temple
Primrose’s
@Yankee, Fox’s
@Dawnrider, Yoshitsune and Sora’s
@Rockin Strings, Skull and Panther
Word Count: 2714
Expecting a simpler, more concise sitrep, Fox waited idly, patiently for Necronomicon to finish her long-winded summary of events on their end. He had no idea what "the Metaverse" was, had to do with anything, or had any bearing at all on their ability to communicate, and was content all the same to gloss over its mention. He cared more about their well-being, as well as how they "took down" whoever they did, but that half could wait. What he ultimately took away is that they were still alive, well and on-track--going at the same rate, no less.
"Red's down; had to pull back," was all he said to start his more succinct reply.
"The rest of us are moving further in. Remember, we're on their turf, so stay sharp," he reminded.
"No doubt they'll have more waiting for us." With a second's pause for consideration, he issued one more imperative reminder in closing to
"Take back who you can," before ending the call to re-attend matters on his own end.
While everyone broke down their own experiences during the mission thus far upon regrouping, Big Band, having the occupationally keenest eye and sharpest mind for investigation among them, found the last of the three nodes without any difficulty to get them through the door and back on their way. They proceeded deeper down and through an old, dilapidated cell floor, Fox casually marching past the bronze knight with his focus locked forward as if he hadn’t noticed him or his pleas at all, though silently bearing him in mind for later. They were there to help, for sure--more specifically, to set people free, in a sense--but help would have to come first for some. At any rate, it might not make for the last jailbreak they made that day, Fox thought.
At the bottom-most depths of the dungeon (as far as they could tell) awaited their goal, in the flesh. Robin--in some way distinct from his usual self--and his cohorts sat centered within their personal underground sanctum, seemingly alone, but everyone there knew better. As he began making his address to Yellow Team, in particular, Fox stepped forward slowly, pushing his way to the front of the group with a gesture of pause to the others, trading eye contact with his possessed acquaintance and former/to be reclaimed ally to confirm what he already knew--and among other things, what he had suspected. He elected silently to hear him out, for even in a world reshaped and corrupted, Fox trusted that he knew him well enough that he could still find a worthy comrade in him, however ultimately little he may have known him at all.
Yoshitsune glared at the unconscious spellcaster and the one heading him. His anger demanded he decapitate the dragon mage now. His honor held him back. He strode up to the pair, frowning. "When he wakes up, tell him the samurai he ran from wants a rematch." He took in the girl’s appearance but mainly kept his gaze on the one he'd fought. He was listening to everyone else around him as he slowly backed away from the beast man, returning to the group.
For Primrose's part, she was somewhat annoyed that the Resistance was only trying to talk things out now after trying to kill them earlier. It couldn't have even been blamed on the light of Galeem either, as the Resistance had been the ones to ambush the group led by Kan-Ra. Still, any time spent not fighting meant the more she'd be able to recover. The dancer placed her hands on her hips, waiting for Robin to go on. Although she doubted anything he said would change their minds. Whether the Grimleal were as evil as they looked or Robin was about to tell them a lie, eventually the Grimleal and the Resistance would come to blows and the Seekers would be caught in the middle.
Robin glanced down to the diminutive creature at his right and gave a nod, which his acquaintance mirrored with enough enthusiasm to rattle the lantern that dangled from his nose. “Ah, so I’m good to go, then? Tidy! Well first off, ‘owdya do. Name’s Drippy, Lord High, er, Lord of the Fairies. I en’t exactly in with this Resistance lot, seein’ as I never met their boss ‘n such, but it’s a roight important matter I’m here to help ‘em with. But not to worry, I got all the answers!”
As the tactician rose from his chair to stand by the dark healer to his left, Drippy jumped up to the higher ground to better address his guests. He looked out at his audience with a lot more determination than fear, even though Azwel looked mightily impugned upon, and Kan-Ra condescendingly amused. “Well, fer starters, this Validar fellow of youers is a proper bad apple. This whole deal with her Moojesty, the Cowlipha? It en’t some condition what occurs natural-like. She’s been brokenhearted. A piece o’ her heart’s gone missin’, an’ either Validar got summan t’do it or he did it himself, the rotter. Her sense of restraint, most like. Dependin’ on which bit of heart is missin’, all sorts of weird things can happen, see? Without restraint, she can’t control the urge to stuff her right royal face!”
“With the Cowlipha a laughing stock and out of the picture, her trusted vizier could take over,” Robin then supplied. “And bend the city to his will, thrusting the idyllic place of peace into a future it was not in any sense ready for, all under his thumb.”
As his compatriot gave a dismissive noise and sneered, Kan-Ra only smiled. “An intriguing tale, and a magnificent accusation. Yet this all amounts to hearsay. If I recall correctly, my retinue was promised concrete proof.”
Drippy looked indignant. “Wot? This brokenhearted business is from me own world, mun! I’ve seen it all before, I have! I can even tell ya the name of the blighter what’s been spreadin’ war and rrruin ‘cross parallel worlds n’ breakin’ hearts, see? Shadar, the Dark Djinn, his name is!” Crossing his arms, he narrowed his eyes at Azwel and Kan-Ra, attempting to discern recognition from their guarded features.
"...and you are saying that Validar, and this 'Shadar,' are one and the same...?" Primrose mused aloud from her place within the group. She had to admit, Kan-Ra had a point. If everything Drippy said was true, there was nothing that
proved Validar had anything to do with it. Unless the little guy was leaving an important chunk of the story out.
The fairy lord gave the matter some thought. “Can’t say for suere there, lass, but it en’t out of the question, not by a long shot. That said, Shadar’s really strong enough that he doesn’t need to rely on long-runnin’ schemes like this.” Drippy looked between the present Seekers, sensing their attention on him. “Anyhow, if you want youer proof, all we need is a wizard ‘oo can use the spell Take Heart. Find summan with plenty o’ restraint to spare ‘n borrow some o’ theirs, cast Give Heart on her Moojesty, and she’ll be right as rain.” He held tight his
spellbook, its importance clear from the way he treated it.
"And how do you know that will work the way you expect it to?" Yoshitsune asked quizzically, stepping closer to the being. "These spells you mentioned are unheard of to many of us. Do you know them? Do you know someone who can cast them?"
Drippy’s indignation knew no bounds. “Couerse I flippin’ do, mun! They’re simple, entry-level spells where I’m from. Anyone who can wave a wand can cast ‘em after readin’ this here Wizard’s Companion!” He nodded at the book in his hands, jingling his nose-lantern in the process.
Still unconvinced of how this information implicated the Grimleal, Primrose glanced at those in question. Maybe something in their actions would give away that they'd known about this plot all along, but it was still possible that some malicious opportunist had swooped in and the Grimleal were just dealing with the fallout. On the bright side, if Drippy was right about the Cowlipha's affliction no matter who caused it, then they now knew how to cure it.
“As it happens, that’s what we’re here for,” Fox piped up in response to the diminutive manservant’s qualifying description of a capable, sound-minded spellcaster. Robin fit the bill perfectly, on top of being a precious acquaintance of the Seekers/Smashers anyway.
“We need you back, Robin.” Fox addressed him, specifically, in a soft-spokenly serious tone, beseeching in likely futility that he call back his sealed memory and senses to rejoin them in the real fight.
Fox’s choice of words darkened the tactician’s features. “Back? I was never, ever with the Grimleal. I was born for one purpose--to assist my ‘father’ in resurrecting his dark god, the Fell Dragon Grima, which would bring ruin to the world and all his enemies. Validar attempted to control me by force and make me slaughter my own friends. My own daughter.” Though Robin kept his countenance, it was clear nonetheless how much cold rage bubbled below the surface. “So no matter where I find myself, I will oppose Validar with every ounce of my strength.”
“I’m not talking about the Grimleal,” Fox interjected once more,
“I’m talking about us.” Were he more himself, that might have made sense to Robin, but thus render moot the need to explain anything at all. While that left only him in the room in the know, out of the only two present who were there the day the world ended, it was clear nonetheless he referred to a third party independent of the two warring factions with a greater goal of their own.
“I know you’re not our enemy; that’s just what they want us to be.” Whether ‘they’ referred to the Grimleal or otherwise was their guess.
“I don’t expect you to remember,” he started back up, casually pacing two or three steps further forward,
“but there’s a bigger threat to the world than Validar and his cult.” Plain was his speech even in the presence of said ‘cult’. It was time they were
all a little more honest with one another. He shot a look back at Band while still speaking to the room, and said,
“If you want the truth, go outside and look up. You’ll find your real enemy there. What we’re all doing here; what you’ve been doing the whole time; this is exactly what it wants from us...” Fox casted emphatic glances between the present members of the Grimleal and Resistance as he spoke,
“To fight each other instead… until there are too few of us left.”Though unwilling to give up on what he had come for, a sense of resignation entered his voice as he came to terms with the irrevocable truth of the consignment of the Gleaming to misunderstanding and irreconciliation.
“If none of this makes sense to any of you, I don’t blame you.” Fox attempted to empathize, as much or little as that may have meant to any one of them at this point.
“But you should all know you have a greater common enemy than each other--one that’s afraid you’ll wise up and unite against it.”
“They should be...”Robin looked far more annoyed than receptive. Trying to invoke the bigger picture was tantamount to saying that his campaign wasn’t important, and saying that he should join forces with his foe was outrageous. “Whoever you are, you ought to stop trying to distract us. Our enemy is here in the city, sitting on a throne stolen by subterfuge and kept captive by corruption. If this doesn’t concern you, you should keep your nose out of it.”
“That brings me back to the matter at hand,” interjected Kan-Ra, his voice less gleeful than usual. One look at him and Azwel was enough to tell their thoughts on the matter. “We do have some business here, after all. As peacekeepers it is not our place to question the validity of your claims, mister...Drippy, was it? We will gladly extend you protective custody for an escort to the palace, where you may levy your charges formally.”
Like that, Fox was written off as an agenda-driven tagalong apathetic to the local plight by the one he came there and went through so much trouble to help save. Though it couldn’t be farther from the truth, as the liberation of the world at large--and by extension Al-Mamoon--factored into the overall scheme, perhaps Robin was onto something. Never was Fox so single-mindedly fixated on an endgame goal as to neglect the collateral, but if such could be inferred of his character, mistakenly or not, how much better was he really? Was he so different from the Gleaming if seemingly all he could see was the enemy ahead of him; a vendetta against the apparently almighty to be satisfied?
Band wore a scowl as he considered the rapidly developing situation in front of him. There wasn’t an ounce of sense talking turkey to people still under Galeem’s influence, and tensions had continued to simmer while If the allegations of corruption against Validar’s administration -and by extension the Grimleal that served under him- held water, little Drippy wouldn’t be getting any time in court. More likely, he’d vanish off the face of the planet, never to be heard from again. All of a sudden the wounds of the detective’s past ached afresh. He knew what crooked cops looked like, and how they operated. There would be no justice. However Kan-Ra bandied about his words, the Grimleal had already made it clear that they intended to wipe out the Resistance this very day, and in so doing silence any chance of serious opposition for good. The truth that the detective sought would never come to light.
The sorcerer continued just as Band expected, his lipless grin cruelly wide. “That said, on account of the Resistance’s many crimes, up and to including theft, arson, and murder, we will be leaving this temple with all of you, and in whatever state you see fit to put yourselves.”
“So be it.” Robin did not look surprised. If the combat already endured by the temple’s marauders hadn’t doomed negotiation from the start, then the matter of making accusations with members of the offending party present certainly did. He waved Drippy away, and the little fairy took off running for safety. “You must realize that we will not come quietly.”
At that, Azwel smirked. “Alas, we dared not hope that might be the case.” As the Seekers readied themselves for combat he summoned his twin red and blue crystal scimitars to hand, saying, “So, this dingy place is to be the stage of history. Very well. Thus begins the final act…!”
His proclamation was suddenly cut off by a dark shape falling from above. A
man in white robes dropped onto Azwel from the darkness and plunged a hidden, wrist-mounted blade into his neck. Simultaneously, Robin produced a fire-red tome, and with a cry of “Arcfire!” created a carpet of raging flames in an arc before his rug. In its glare Band lunged for Azwel’s assailant with Take the A Train, but the assassin leaped nimbly out of the way and threw something down at his feet that hissed and smoldered. From nowhere Tora appeared to save the day, leaping on top of the bomb with his Mech Arms blocking downward. When it detonated a second later he flew skyward for Poppi to catch, but everyone else had bigger problems than how that turned out.
As Azwel sagged to the ground, a hand pressed against his bleeding wound, the cell doors on either side of the dungeon flew open. Dante, Earthquake, and Beast came in from the left side, while Daisy, the Witch Doctor, and Es appeared from the right. As his allies ran to join the fight, Robin called, “Now, Tharja!” and in a spray of concentrated life magic the woman next to him restored Charnok to two-thirds health, ready to fight. She then got to her feet, weary but still capable, to fight at Robin’s side. Band took a deep breath. Things were about to get wild.
Filled with fear and even despair, both for the fate of her friend and her own uselessness, Nadia kept her eyes glued to Cadet’s flailing form as he hurled through the air. It felt like an age, but only about a second later the small hunter crashed down among the debris on the first floor. In her heart of hearts Nadia knew that Ace must be okay. A human could survive this, after all, and he was no ordinary human, even in child form. But as the seconds dragged on and the monster hunter did not rise, she felt a terrible chill inside her. Were she already standing she might have sunk down to the grate of her catwalk, every ounce of fight drained from her, but as it was she could gawk at the spot where Ace lay, unblinking.
Nadia stood upon a precipice; the darkness yawned before her. Only her grip kept her from plunging down into the abyss she’d never rise from. In this nightmare of powerlessness, this hell of darkness and hunger, all the children really had was one another. If Nadia lost the ray of sunlight who’d joked and fought by her side since she’d arrived...she didn’t know if she could hold on. For all his pathetic mewling, Moreau might very well pick them all off, one by one. They would die in the guts of a metal monster deep below the surface of a bottomless sea, never to be found. The idea filled Nadia with dread, but it also spiked her with rage.
Screw that, she thought, bitterly.
Screw it! That can’t happen. He’s not dead. He can’t be!And when her eyes refocused and she looked again, he wasn’t. The Ace Cadet stirred from where Moreau tossed him, bruised and bleeding but alive, with no foreign objects embedded in him. Even better, he still held tight his clippers, ready to keep fighting. “He’s okay. He’s okay!”
Pent-up breath surged from Nadia’s lungs. When she squeezed her eyes shut, tears streamed down her face, but the stray kitten inhaled deeply and wiped them away with her arm. She found Junior and Mimi below her once again when she opened her eyes, the fan in hand. Anything else he’d said she hadn’t internalized, so as far as she knew they were good to go. “I’m alright, but we’ve got to move. Get up here!”
She took a quick look around the formerly flooded base. More shouts issued down from Kamek in a bid to keep Moreau occupied, but the monster looked like he’d made his mind to Nadia. The not-so-magic Koopa would find his efforts more rewarded if he started making his own way toward the exit. Link appeared, still alive if not exactly well, to check on Ace and lend him a hand. Nadia would have liked to do so herself, but all things considered Link had a much better position, so she was grateful. From here she could also see teammates from the Command Center way up high, starting to make their way down with some help from a certain someone’s darts. She spotted Mirage, Geralt, Sakura, Bowser, Bella, Blazermate, Peach, and Rika--everyone accounted for. Whatever it was that confronted them up there must have been dealt with. Good news all around!
Of course, her team was still a long way from victory, and Moreau lay squarely in their path. Nadia kept her eyes on him as she got back up, using the catwalk’s railing for support. After destroying Ace’s walkway he’d rolled back onto his belly, that tantalizingly weak-looking body withdrawn back into his mouth. His lack of immediate objective and the way he twisted around in search of a target told her he didn’t know where anyone was at the moment, except maybe Kamek, far beyond his reach. Still, it wouldn’t be long before his stomping around flushed out Link and Ace. And everyone would need to descend to the second floor sooner or later to use the elevator. He needed to be dealt with. Somehow.
Nadia’s focus shifted as she spotted movement in the corner of her eye. She expected to see a kid making a break for the exit, but instead she spotted a different familiar figure. A hulking diving suit, stained with black streaks of structure gel, minus one forearm. The eerie way it shambled, like a zombie from a monster flick, sent a shiver down Nadia’s spine. Worse still, when Moreau wasn’t making noise, she could hear it talking.
"Take
care of..." It echoed from memory, during it's slow trudge. It groaned as it tried to understand what it was supposed to take
care of. "Elliot, you're not an idiot." It told itself, one hand it had to spare scratching at its suit, which became more aggressive as it grew anxious, seeming to be reliving a memory of sorts. "Don't become a legend without having a bit of Witt." As if holding two sides of a conversation, it's scratching stopped as it replied to it's own words with a small scoff and a simple: "You're right,
Ma."
The Mockingbird managed a recollection of what it was trying to care for:
Mother. Though, as it felt a moment of pride in it's revelation, it felt a voice ring in it's mind: Small, squeaky, the voice of a little girl. It set the Mockingbird back on track, on the mission at hand. In a drawn out exasperation, it actually remembered what it was intended to
care for down here. "Where are you?" It practically growled out the name: "
Junior." before finding itself met with no response. Fixated on this goal, it shambled forwards, calling out again in a more desperate manner, not wanting to let the little voice in his mind down. "Junior? Where are you?"
It wasn’t long before the loathsome shambler got Moreau’s attention. With a bellow the mutant hauled himself the Mockingbird’s way, stomping the floundering mutant anglerfish into paste on the way. Given his target’s position, Moreau made his way toward the northeast corner of the bottom floor, close enough to Nadia at the top middle to make her shrink down. The racket he made as he scrambled over the scrap got the Mockingbird’s attention, but though the wretch turned with its hand outstretched as if to grab and choke the life from Moreau, it stood little chance. Without ceremony the mutant reared up, then crushed the Mockingbird beneath his weight. For good measure he then did it again. Nadia shuddered. Even if she had a hard time feeling for a machine simulating a real person, that was not a fate she envied.
What it was, though, was a chance for her to get the hell out of dodge. With Junior and Mimi hopefully by her side, she took advantage of the freak-on-freak carnage to sprint down the walkway away from him as fast as her wearied legs could take her. If luck was on her side, the others would make a move too, or if they’d put together some plan to keep Moreau off their collective backs, they would put their plans in action.
Once Linkle made her way back to the newly-connected blue flagpole by the Badge Seller, she needed to wait just a couple moments before Albedo joined her. Although in the end their activity didn’t end up being much of a race, if his new friend managed to enjoy herself, that was all that really mattered to Albedo. During the descent he did spend a few moments wondering why he felt compelled to try and help Linkle have a good time, but ended up writing it off as something that normal people -and friends in particular- just did for one another. Besides, with that vile Skull Heart both literally and metaphorically eating away at her, she deserved whatever she could get to take her mind off it.
With their pons combined, Linkle and Albedo could make just one purchase from the Badge Seller. It seemed as though it would take a lot more than a few minutes’ platforming to assemble the funds necessary for anything else, but Linkle could still get something she liked. A couple of the badges tickled Albedo’s curiosity, but since nothing fascinated him he left his share of the green gems for Linkle. Instead he busied himself at the flagpole, examining it in an attempt to divine how it worked. With no visible connection to the elements it magic was like nothing he’d ever seen, but at the end of the day it was just a rope with flags, and when Linkle came over he was ready for another chilly, high-speed ride.
The old windmill stood tall and straight on its blue-tinged mountain spire, a monolith of white planks and blue-painted rings. The bright red banners of its blades, being more than half as tall as the mill itself, could be seen from an incredible distance. It made for a splendid sight, wholly without any appearance of neglect, since even though the populace of the Alpine Skyline turned to smaller, more convenient and accessible mills for their grains some time ago, this grand fixture of the region had never stopped turning.
Linkle and Albedo arrived at a slightly lower mountaintop courtesy of the flagline, but since their objective was another line purported to be on the premises rather than the mill itself, that didn’t pose much of a problem. At least, it didn’t until a quick look around confirmed that this alleged line did not terminate on the same plateau. As far as the alchemist could tell, the place looked deserted, so they couldn’t ask around, but searching wasn’t much of a challenge either. After a glance at another nearby peak with an odd house and a cat-shaped rock atop it, he summoned a solar isotoma from the surface of the rocky crag for Linkle to ride up toward the mill. Another brought him up soon after. He treated the risky jump with apathy since, although Linkle hadn’t seen him earlier, clinging to and scaling a sheer cliff posed no challenge for him.
Once on the main plateau he paused for a moment to check out the windmill. Up close it was much, much bigger than it looked from afar. The fence that boxed in the yard around it stood easily twice his height, and if either he or Linkle wanted in they’d need to make use of the nearby hay bales and trees, although the giant entrance to the windmill featured no door to bar them entry there. There seemed to be no need to go in, however, as getting up here confirmed the presence of another flagline leading down into the clouds. It would be smooth sailing from here.
Or so he thought. Somewhat taken by the sights, he didn’t notice a slight disturbance in the air as it grew close to him, or the soft pitter-patter of paws. Suddenly an
orange cat burglar appeared just inches away from him and shoved him, stealing his sketchbook in the process. The next second it turned invisible again, its silhouette sprinting into the mill. “Hey!” As Albedo got to his feet, a second cat appeared behind him and jacked his pouch before vanishing as well. A third cat surprised Linkle and nabbed her crossbows before following his brothers toward their hideout. Quick intervention could stop the third and possibly the second cat, but the first made a clean getaway. Albedo looked annoyed. “How unfortunate. That one probably just took something to distract me, but he ended up stealing my most valuable item.” He jogged toward the entrance to the towering structure before him. “It would seem we have more running around to do.” Once Linkle joined him, he proceeded inside, ready to whatever it might take to recover his lost property.
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