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Lugubrious male Member

Player on the other side

STATUS: Wash away the sorrow all the stains of time 6 days ago
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Status

Recent Statuses

6 days ago
Current Wash away the sorrow all the stains of time
3 mos ago
Fusing into the unknown
3 mos ago
Looks like from here it, it only gets better
2 likes
8 mos ago
Forgotten footfalls, engraved in ash
9 mos ago
Stalling falling blossoms in bloom

Bio

Current GM of World of Light. When it comes to writing, there's nothing I love more than imagination, engagement, and commitment. I'm always open to talk, suggestion, criticism, and collaboration. While I try to be as obliging, helpful, and courteous as possible, I have very little sympathy for ghosts, and anyone who'd like to string me along. Straightforwardness is all I ask for.

Looking for more personal details? I'm just some dude from the American south; software development is my job but games, writing, and trying to help others enjoy life are my passions. Been RPing for over a decade, starting waaaay back with humble beginnings on the Spore forum, so I know a thing or two, though I won't pretend to be an expert. If you're down for some fun, let's make something spectacular together.

Most Recent Posts

In World of Light → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Sector 07 - Breaker

Level 12 Tora (70/120)
Giovanna, Susie’s @Archmage MC, Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man, Partitio’s @Dark Cloud, Pit's @Yankee, Roxas' @Double
Word Count: 1085


The ride back to Midgar was a tense and solemn affair. Of the ten who set out on this trip, hours ago, only five remained. Two thirds of the Rust Crew were dead, and only Bo remained. The big man sat with a soldier’s composure, so stiff that his features may have just as well been carved of stone. He betrayed nothing, but his eyes said everything. Poppi had fled, her fate uncertain, and after her went Tora, Roxas, and Pit, their young hearts filled with determination. Yet this world was so big, and so dark, and its weight hung heavy over them, threatening to snuff out even the brightest sparks. Would they be okay? How would they even get back? Giovanna’s expression was grim. She’d have her answers once the storm was over. For now, she needed to focus on the road ahead.

Through today, Midgar had been the one constant. It loomed larger than any ruins, constantly visible from just about anywhere in the Valley of Ruin, and returning to it meant facing its unfathomable vastness head-on as the truck rumbled closer and closer. Though its manmade heights reached up towards the heavens, like a majestic mountain, Giovanna fixed her eyes on its base. Sectors 06, 07, 08, and 08 formed Midgar’s southern half, and of those Sectors 07 and 08 were the closest to the Eternal Apocalypse. Even from a distance she could hear the echoed rattle of gunfire and the percussive thumps of high explosives, and when she drove closer she could see the action itself. A robot army one thousand strong, just as Tora said, had taken an alternative route and now attacked the Sector 08 undercity. Hundreds of Bipeds, Fliers, Goliaths, and others marched through the wartorn wastes just outside the city limits. Shooters like the ones seen near the crane formed a large part of their ranks, too, and above them all towered the gigantic Tsar Runner, its huge guns, fists, and wheels able to tear and smash through city defenses like cardboard. But Detroit raged against the Machines. DespoRHado’s androids, both doll-like and blindfolded, fought with a variety of weapons alongside heavily-armed cyborgs and Unmanned Gears like Gekkos. Even the Tsar Runner found its match against a gigantic Metal Gear Ray, with wings like colossal blades.

Sector 07, though, had no PMC to stand up for it. Giovanna brought the team back to the Slums, pulling the truck to a stop among the undercity scrappers and militia rallying around the gutted hulk of a long-dead starship at the edge of Scrap Boulevard. Dubbed Breaker by the locals, it was their last line of defense against attack from the Valley of Ruin, and for good reason. The walls that still stood here could take one hell of a beating, and through the very center of the boneyard ran a deep gorge with lava at the bottom and a huge laser suspended from a track above, able to cut through any enemies trying to jump the gap. That meant four total positions to secure: the open center, where sharpshooters reigned, the right-side lower tunnel, the narrow right-side high crossing, and the left-side middle crossing where grenades worked wonders. Militia members had unveiled secret machine gun turrets, makeshift battle gear, and cobbled-together vehicles outfitted with whatever weapons they got their hands on. Once Giovanna’s truck ramped over the gorge, the laser blazed to life, and the slum defenders were ready to rumble.

Fortunately, the efforts of the Seekers had paid off. When the Machines came for Sector 07, their ranks were sorely depleted. The rain turned Breaker’s sand to mud, and while the defenders were ready for it, the Machines were not. Partitio, Zenkichi, Giovanna, and Susie all pitched in to mop the robots up. They fought alongside Isaac Clarke, who wielded an unassuming cutting tool to expertly part the Machines from their limbs with lethal efficiency one wouldn’t expect from your everyday engineer. Even Cloud and Tifa put in an appearance at the right-side tunnel, dispatching any rogue machines that attempted to sneak below with the help of a brawny gunner. Within half an hour, the steadfast efforts of everybody involved meant a decisive end to the machine threat. A round of victory cries, borne of a result that went better than anyone could have expected, quickly gave way to a mad scramble as the scrappers scurried to haul away the spoils of war through Breaker and back to the Salvage Depot.

After the fighting died down, Giovanna and the others regrouped in the forward command center. Though only a little better protected than average as far as areas inside the starship wreck went, it was the spot where the defenders kept their medkits, equipment, ammunition, power cells, and other supplies. Believing lives to be more valuable than hardware, Isaac wasn’t too bothered by the loss of one truck, especially when he learned what it had been used for. “Sounds like Sector 07 is in your debt,” he told the Seekers. “I can’t say you’ll be treated like kings or anything, but if you’re up for a round of beers sometime, they’re our treat.”

Giovanna nodded. “No sweat,” she told him breezily before addressing her teammates. “Scuse me while I make a call.”

She left the others to their own devices as she used her glyph to contact S.O.U. HQ. Tora, Poppi, Roxas, and Pit needed extraction, and she reasoned now -while the Machines’ forces were depleted- was the best time to send Mr. U and his Cargobob helicopter out over the Valley of Ruin. Just before noon, the chopper returned with the three boys, no Poppi, and a sorry tale to tell. Tora refused to speak to anyone after his arrival; he just hooked his toolkit up to a mechanical arm in his possession and started hammering away at his keyboard, muttering feverishly to himself. It was up to everyone else to decide where to go from here.

Abandoned Subway - Underground Nexus

Level 4 Goldlewis (55/40)
Karin and Sakura’s @Zoey Boey, Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Blazermate’s @Archmage MC, Geralt @Multi_Media_Man, Benedict’s @Dark Cloud, Raz’s @Truthhurts22
Word Count: 2201


Though the fight against this monstrous thing had been a mad scramble in its own right so far, the introduction of billowing dust clouds to the subterranean parking garage turned everything to chaos. It wasn’t just that Goldlewis could barely see; he could scarcely even breathe. Every time he strove to fill his voluminous lungs, the cloud of heavy particles hanging in the air filled his mouth or coated his mouth, turning his tongue sandpaper-dry and his throat scratchy. Dust on his skin and clothes wasn’t nearly as much of a problem as the grit that quickly caked his glasses, turning the already-bad visibility downright awful.

True chaos, however, came from the sound. There were voices coming from every direction, both the effort noises of attackers and the pained outbursts of those who got hurt. Naturally, the worst offender when it came to din was the Other itself. Its screams were incredibly loud, so loud that they reverberated off the walls in here and made it hard to track the beast down. The metallic scrapes of its ribbons as they burrowed underground were the only warning the Seekers got before they erupted from below. Blocking skewer after skewer, Goldlewis wheeled around in the gloom, trying to find Sakura. Right now, killing this thing wasn’t as important as ensuring her safety. Not even a seasoned fighter could shrug off hits like that. But where was she? “Damn it kid, where are ya!?”

His shouts only added to the commotion, though, for the Seekers were in uproar. Their voices pierced through the haze in a wild tumult, chiefly concerned with the bombshell that a panicked Sina dropped on them moments before: that this monstrosity was Princess Peach. Blazermate confused herself into inactivity, first conflating Others with Chimeras and then likening this dangerous situation to a problem she was supposed to solve, but at least she managed to find and then focus on healing Sakura. After yelling back at her, Midna filled the dust-choked air with poignant questions nobody could answer, even if she did specify who she meant to ask. She fell back and began to call out suggestions, which Benedict promptly overruled, announcing the team’s options but providing no methods.

When Raz tried to read the Other’s mind, his brain suddenly filled with a terrible cacophony. It sounded like screaming, distorted as if by television static, but still woefully assignable to a familiar voice. Almost instantly he suffered a splitting headache. Suddenly, entering this thing’s brain -if he could even get the psycho portal on- seemed like a very bad idea.

Goldlewis could barely hear anything over all the noise. While looking around for his allies, he took a spiked ribbon to the back, eliciting a grunt of pain. Not far away Dexio, overwhelmed by everything going on, took one to the leg as well. He fell next to Sina, and with them both vulnerable Goldlewis stomped over for the sake of safety in numbers. “We got a man down!” he yelled hoarsely, though at this point he couldn’t even hear himself over the ruckus. These people needed to wait to run their mouths until after the Other was done impaling them. He sucked in as much air as his lungs could carry. “COULD Y’ALL SHUT UP A MINUTE AND HIT THE DAMN THING!?”

By now, the disturbed dust was beginning to settle. Midna was the first who managed to make it to the Other during the smokescreen, and she attempted to rinse and repeat the same strategy she used before. Summoning her Darknut upward right next to the Other, however, left it completely obvious -and wide open- to the nightmare as it emerged. The Other did not hesitate to rear up and slam its giant head down on the Darknut with the full force of a small building, as many times as it took to crumple its metal armor and bodily shove that undead juggernaut right back where it came from. Doing so, however, meant stopping its ribbon attack, and Midna’s palm strike helped keep its focus on her. It raised its backwards arm, contorting and cracking it into an unexpected position to strike her, but in the nick of time Luka blinked in. He brought its hammer down on the joint the Other just dislocated, and it let out a roar of pain as the material shattered compromising the already-damaged limb. “Stay back!” he told the others. “Let me handle-!” Whipping its head suddenly, the Other caught him with one of its antlers, slashing him across the chest. “Ugh!” He hit the ground, looked up to find its other fist descending on him, and blinked away not a moment too soon. In his place came Geralt, backed up by a mob of Strikers, who viciously mauled the Other with the bloodstained blade of the Orphan of Kos in a fit of unadulterated rage.

He dealt a ton of damage, but between himself and his Strikers he took a lot in return, and he’d need some serious backup. “Aw, hell.” As the others continued to attack, Goldlewis quickly let go of his coffin so he could reach down and help both Dexio and Sinah up. The former winced, and the latter took a moment to find her footing, but Goldlewis clamped one giant mitt on both their shoulders. “Listen, you two. Whatever happens, I ain’t gonna let anyone else die. There’s no way that thing’s Peach, it just ain’t possible. So let’s work together, knock that thing down, and figure this damn mess out. Okay?” He squeezed them. “Okay!?”

“Yeah. Yeah,” Dexio clenched his teeth, then pulled the ripcord on his jacket. Sina, silent and stony-faced, did the same. Their hoods popped up as they activated Brain Drive, their heads insulated in dark shrouds save for matching radial symbols in vivid crimson: a nut for Dexio, and a six-pronged snowflake for Sina. When Goldlewis ran in to help Geralt and the others, the two Cadets were behind him. He and Dexio closed in and joined the melee, with Sina running support. Working with the others, they laid in damage while blocking or avoiding its mighty but telegraphed blows. After a few moments, the Other slammed its arm down, then swept it across the floor at Goldlewis to trip him up. He jumped, airdashed over the sweep, and battered the creature’s chin -now at the top of its ‘head’- with an aerial coffin pound canceled into upward Behemoth Typhoon. As the Other leaned back from the blow, Sinah formed an icicle from the palm of her hand, then shot it at the upside-down chair in the monster’s gullet, shattering it. It reeled, and Dexio, mindful not to cause another cave-in with his Seismokinesis, instead forced a stone outcrop from the ground below its jaw to bend it even further backward, exposing the basket of pinecone flowers where its stomach should be. Luka warped in and whirled like a hammer thrower, building up momentum. Ice from Sina’s borrowed Cryokinesis grew around his weapon’s head, increasing its size threeful, until with a final shout Luka smashed the huge mass into the flowerbed in an explosion of icy chunks.

It went down, sprawled on the floor. Goldlewis instinctively took a step forward, coffin in hand, but Sina stepped in front of the fallen horror. “That’s enough!” she announced. “This Other is Peach!” Suddenly an orange light fell upon Goldlewis’ face, cast from behind her. Sina whirled around to see an energy field forming around the Other, a huge box formed of interlinking triangles. “Peach!”

“A transfer power?” With his Brain Drive used up, Luka stood with his hood off again as he lowered his hammer. “You need strong abilities to move something that size.”

Before most of those present even had time to process what was happening, the field shone, then disappeared. In a flash, both box and Other were gone. Goldlewis blinked a few times, then noticed some uninvited guests standing at the mouth of the paved northwestern tunnel. One, a masked man with a distinctively tall head in familiar red and black stood with his arms out, his chest heaving as he gasped from extreme exertion. He collapsed, and the soldiers to either side of him grabbed him by the arms to haul him into the back of a waiting truck. The sight left Goldlewis stunned–when did that show up? During the smokescreen? “H-hey!” he belted out, charging forward, but the driver put the pedal to the metal and the truck sped off.

“Wait!” Sina ran after the truck too, shooting and missing several ice blasts. “Where did you send Peach!?”

There came a greenish-blue flash. The familiar skittering sound of teleportation. But the person who appeared beside her wasn’t Luka. He stood at around six feet, dressed in gray, with pointed silver boots, and a long black coat with white fur trim, his hair and long jackal ears white as well. A silver mask adorned his face, and a triangular ruby hung from his neck. “Where are you going?” Major General Karen Travers asked her as he took her by the wrist. “You can’t run off during a mission.”

Sina attempted to wrench free, and the man let her. He turned to face the others as they approached, removing his mask. “Karen?” Luka asked, taken aback. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to protect you,” Psych-OSF’s first-class Septentrion replied. “You, and Peach.”

Goldlewis breathed in sharply. “You ain’t sayin’ that really was her?”

“What happened to her?” Sina demanded.

“She metamorphosed,” Karen replied simply. “She can’t change back. Not like this, anyway.” He slipped open one of his pouches and tossed a multicolored mote of light onto the ground. Pictured within was a Psych-OSF soldier, the same one Sakura saw moments ago, but with her helmet off–revealing the face of the raven-haired sharpshooter, Anya, that she saw yesterday in Anistar Gym. “This was the culprit,” he added.

Furrowing his blow, Goldlewis considered the situation without loosening his grip on his coffin. When Karen appeared his first impulse was to assume that he was somehow in league with the people responsible, but now he wasn’t so sure. “What’s goin’ on, Travers? That woman meant a lot to us. You better start spillin’ some serious beans, partner!”

“If she remains here, or is taken above, she’d be killed as an Other,” he told the Seekers evenly. “The only way to make her human again is to entrust her to the Seiran Defense Force. They won’t kill her. I can guarantee that.” He crossed his arms. “I can also guarantee that if you tell a single soul about what happened here, your safety is in jeopardy.”

Goldlewis bristled. “You sayin’ you’ll try to kill us?”

Karen shook his head. “Not me. Them. And they won’t ‘kill’ you.” From the way he enunciated it, it seemed unlikely he was referring to the Seiran Defense Force. “You must report that Peach was killed in action. Think hard before you act. And don’t trust the Administration. You’ll regret it if you do.” He took one final look around at everyone. “...It makes my blood boil, you know. It won’t be long before things start boiling over. If you’re the same…wait for my sign.” He held a finger to his lips, reminding everyone to keep quiet, and teleported away.

After a moment, Luka took a deep breath. “We have a lot to think about,” he said. “I feel like I just dipped my toe in dark waters. Without the slightest clue of how deep they go.” He looked around at the gathered faces, his misgivings plain to see on his own. “We should disperse. This op has no designated endpoint, and so everyone’s making their own way back. Psych-OSF won’t expect the troops back for hours. Be careful, everyone.” With that he, Dexio, and a shell-shocked Sina all began to make their way to the nearest rally point to get topside.

Goldlewis tugged at his whiskers, clearly agitated. “Guess we’ll debrief back at base? We got a whole lotta figurin’ to do before we decide what we do next.”



The direct route to the surface through the holes in the ceiling made the return journey to the Seiran Reservoir a lot simpler than the subway system would have. Light rainfall made the trip a wet one, but it was otherwise uneventful, and within the hour the Seekers had returned to base. Thanks to the efforts of Bridges, their hideout had become a home in its own right, with reasonably comfortable cots, medical supplies, training gear, water to drink, and some groceries. After what happened, Goldlewis knew that some of the others might not have much of an appetite, but he used the cold cuts to make ham and turkey sandwiches anyway. At this point, people had been bottling up their thoughts for a while, making their own connections and conclusions. He was waiting for -and perhaps dreading- someone to finally speak.

Home of Tears - Gallo Tower

Level 10 Nadia (196/100)
The Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Primrose and Therion’s @Yankee, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Jesse’s @Zoey Boey, Ganondorf’s @Double, Ichiban’s @Truthhurts22
Word Count: 1544


As bone-tired as Nadia was, nothing got the adrenaline flowing like a good freefall at terminal velocity. Her hair, her jacket, and especially her tails whipped in the wind as she plunged downward from the hole left by Ganondorf in Gallo Tower’s crimson clock face, which seemed to be a lot farther up than she would have guessed, come to think of it. Walking all that distance rather than climbing it must have led her to underestimate it. Would hitting the surface of the basin in the tower’s courtyard be much better than hitting the ground at this point? Not that the cavern’s ambient darkness and the fungal garden’s colorful but rather gentle glow made seeing the basin a piece of cake in the first place, either. Not my smartest idea, she was forced to admit. All these factors combined to wake Nadia up plenty quick as she plunged down through the rain, and with her train of thought chugging along full steam ahead, she hatched a scheme.

First, she steered herself toward the biggest darkest spot in Gallo Tower’s courtyard as best she could. Those luminescent mushrooms might not be bright enough to illuminate the water, but she could at least tell where they weren’t. Then she dispersed her blood limbs, and after pumping out a little extra, coagulated a trio of friendly Copycats to lend her a hand. Twisting around in the air beneath her, they grabbed hold of the blade case on Nadia’s back in order to plant their feet against it. “A-one, a-two…” It was a little tricky -coordinating a maneuver this complex with her clones made the feral feel like steam ought to be wafting off her cranium- but by the time she gave the signal, all three Copycats extended their legs together as if performing Fiber Upper. “A one-two-three!” Their combined power launched Nadia’s limbless body upward just prior to impact, and her momentum not only stopped, but even reversed a little. Still, gravity took its course, and as it did the doppelgangers promptly exploded into blood to fly back toward Nadia. She soaked it back up gladly, and the next second plopped gently down into the water.

Once underwater, though, she met with a different problem. She sank like a rock, and her copied limbs weren’t doing a great job of swimming. In fact, being submerged was causing her blood to diffuse into the water. It being shockingly cold didn’t help, either. For a moment Nadia’s mind filled with panic–she didn’t know if drowning was one of the kinds of death the Life Gem could prevent, having never cared to test that. Then a pertinent detail came to mind, and after rolling her eyes, Nadia rocketed toward the surface. She burst up from the basin, repelling the water beneath her legs of blood with the water-walking ability gained from Massachusetts. “YEESH, that’s cold!” she yelped, crossing her arms around her shoulders. As her breathing normalized, she slapped her copied palm to her face, which left a smear of blood. “My bag of tricks is stuffed so full I can’t even remember what I got half the time,” she sighed. Oh well. All’s well that ends well. She skated over to the edge of the pool and hauled herself onto terra firma. If nothing else, she was wide awake now. At least the water out here was refreshingly pure.

She took a good long breather, but eventually Nadia got to her feet. Ever since P stole her limbs back in the fight, she maintained feeling in them, and though she initially despaired of ever seeing her real arms and legs again something was telling her that they were close. By the time that the doors of Gallo Tower were thrown open and the Seekers emerged from within, Nadia had plundered the dumpster where P had unceremoniously tossed his stolen goods, and piled them up near the door. “Hey guys, look!” she called, hopping over on one leg with only her right arm reattached. “I found all our stuff! You’ll never guess what it cost me, though.”

“Oh, an arm and a leg? I get it! Thou art most humorous.” Barnabee said as he approached Though the battle against the Consul hadn’t been his fight to pick, he still possessed a vested interest in the Seekers’ continued existence. “It gladdens mine heart to see thee hale and hearty.” He squinted his black eyes. “...Though rather weary, truth be told. Didst the Consul truly pose so great a challenge?”

“He attacked us with a bed. But we made it.” After a giggle Nadia stuck her last arm and leg back on, then took a long, deep breath. No matter how hard she and the others tried to be ready for anything, nobody could have expected a fight like that. Though P’s high-density bedframe offered a full-on boss battle in its own right, the real fight began the moment that Consul showed off his special ability. The power to rewrite the past in order to change the present…terrifying. How did it work? Surely he couldn’t have just, say, gone back and killed them in their sleep? But it looked like the secrets of P’s power had died with him. It wasn’t just the heights team that returned, but the depths team too. While Junior, Kamek, and Ichiban looked a little worse for wear, they were here, and P sure wasn’t. “Dead?” she asked simply. When she received her answer, she gave a curt nod. “Figured. Sorry, Ichi. Either him or us, y’know.”

With a sigh she turned her attention to the group at large. “Everyone okay, more or less?” Gallo didn’t show up to see everyone off, but Nadia didn’t really care about him anyway. Even after severe poisoning, bug bites, stings, and a whole host of different wounds from the bedmech, everyone else still seemed to be alive and kicking. The good news didn’t stop there, though. Kamek’s crew came laden with a metric crapton of loot from P’s private stash, including a heap of geo for everyone present. Nadia was all smiles as she got to relish her favorite sound: the clink of coins that belonged to her as she slipped them into her pockets. Or in this case, her magic wallet. “Aw, you guys!” She dabbed at her eyes as if the raindrops streaking down her face were tears. “You’re makin’ me all cent-imental. We should throw you a cere-money!”

“Good fightin’ in there, everyone. Man, what a little bastard that kid was, right? Not to mention some kind of monster. I sure hope the ‘rest’ can’t pull sheet like that. As for me, you can just call me roadkill, ‘cause I’m dead-tired. I’ll feel a lot bedder once I crash back at hotel.” She vaguely remembered Jesse saying something about ‘sleep schedules’, but was that really a thing? It sounded like some fancy-shmancy baloney parents tell their kids to make them go to bed on time. She needed sleep now. It was always dark underground anyway. “What time’s it now, lunch or somethin’? Let’s meet back up around dinner and figure out where we’re headed next. Got two more masks to find, and a whole Under to find ‘em in.”



True to her word, Nadia crashed the moment she got back to her room in Habbo Hotel. There was some sort of big kerfuffle in the lobby -Nadia heard snippets of conversation about ‘food poison’ and ‘hospitalization’- but she couldn’t bring herself to deal with it before having a nice long snooze. When she awoke, her bedside clock said quarter to five. Groaning, she tossed and turned in bed, but ultimately decided to get up. Not even close to a full eight hours, but it would have to do. At least she could be pretty confident that she didn’t miss anything -in addition to being pretty in general- since even if the others didn’t sleep, they couldn’t possibly do anything substantial in the state P left them in. Maybe someone found a clue about the next boss on the Seekers’ list, though, or a better way to traverse the Under than surfing through giant intestines. Only one problem: how was she going to find everyone?



After thinking for several minutes straight, Nadia left the hotel and headed toward the bridge linking Home of Tears’ downtown to Fountain Central, though she didn’t cross it. That point was one that everyone going in or out of Downtown would need to cross. As it happened, a cafe had been erected right there to take advantage of the foot traffic that came as a result of that very fact, and Nadia could think of no better place for an exhausted Seeker desperately trying to stay awake to go. Called the Terminal, this cafe seemed very popular with the undead in particular if its clientele was anything to go by, but they welcomed the living just as well. With plenty of moolah to spare, Nadia ordered herself a coffee with plenty of cream and a plate of scones, then sat near the front to keep an eye on the comings and goings nearby. Hopefully this wasn’t just some harebrained scheme, and the others should pass by sooner or later.
In World of Light → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
We've already had some dealings with the Royal Waterways down there and they're not that spooky, but we could say that Artorias wandered up from a lower region beneath him like Riverdeep. That would cut down on the waiting and give us the chance to meet him sooner. Who knows, maybe Rubick could run into him or something.
In World of Light → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Done ×D



The sheet's good. Partitio isn't quite the level necessary to start playing him yet, but we can think about where to put him. You wanted him to go into the Under, right? Once we're done with Gallo Tower we'll also pretty much be done with the Home of Tears, and King's Station stands ready to take the Seekers to a variety of locations throughout the Under afterward. We could put him Artorias in one such location that might better suit him than the Home of Tears.
In World of Light → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Road to Ruin

Giovanna, Roxas’ @Double, Pit’s @Yankee, Susie’s @Archmage MC, Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man, Partitio’s @Dark Cloud
Word Count: 1544 (+3)


Drawn by the commotion, Pit kicked high off the robot he was currently tangling with to glide toward the overturned truck. Poppi shot off through the air, and as Pit touched down he looked from the direction the artificial blade was heading to the petrified Marshall, then to Bo, Tora and Giovanna with confusion plain on his face.

Roxas spotted Pit in mid-glide and decided to follow after him, reasoning that the angel had a good idea of where he was going thanks to being higher up. When he got there, he heard Giovanna calling for him and he could immediately see why. One of the scrappers was in bad shape. But at the same time, there were still machines around and Roxas wasn’t sure it would be a smart idea to go into another battle without any of his magic. But he did have something else.

”Here.” Roxas said, jogging up to the downed Bo and holding out one of his two Hi-Potions, ”Try this, it should help you out.” The soldier didn’t think twice before accepting the aid, sighing in relief as his health was restored.

"What's going on?"

Out of the new folks present, only Big Bo could really offer any sort of an explanation. "The Machines have infected her," he told the others, his expression grave. "She's losin' control of herself. Y'all saw what happened to Cain, poor sonuva bitch. When it finishes she won't be your friend anymore. Just another mindless, bloodthirsty Machine!"

"No!" Tora yelled, beside himself with worry and anger. Why weren't these people helping him already!? "Even if Poppi sick, Tora can fix for definite! Just need get to her, fast as Tora can!" Tears pooled in the corner of the Nopon's big, dark eyes. "Please!"

Having been called over by Tora, it took a bit for Susie to make her way there as she had been overseeing most of the battle, having been raining down artillery fire from afar. Thanks to this however, she saw Poppi fly away, and when she got to the group, she could hear some of the talk about what had happened to her. ”Hm… A corrupting virus that turns robots into servants of this Ever Crisis? Thats concerning…” Susie said.

So that's why she'd flown off? If something was wrong with Poppi, they needed to help. Pit nodded, on Tora's side.

"We have to go after her!" Though saying that, there were a large number of machines still heading toward their destination. When that fact suddenly occurred to Pit he hesitated to head toward the Tallneck, turning to look at Giovanna with wide eyes. "But what about the people in Sector 7 if the rest of the robots reach Midgar?"

With lips pursed and eye narrowed, Giovanna brushed strands of wet hair off her face. Right now the unflappable secret agent didn't look so self-sure. "DespoRHado might be too busy with their own robots -or too negligent- to help them." She jogged over and pressed her shoulder against the overturned truck, trying to right it, but she wasn't strong enough on her own. "We can't just leave all those people to fend for themselves."

Without a word the simple merchant had taken a spot by the agent needless to say anything but exchange a look of understanding "Ummph…" Partitio's face scrunched up as he pushed with all his might against the truck, he was sweaty and his clothes were no worse for wear after fighting more machines than he could count on his fingers and toes but he still was as hale and hearty as the day he was born. Though even with his help the truck only budged slightly no matter how much elbow grease he put in it.

After staring for a moment, Tora shook his head and took off running for the Tallneck by himself, his wings flapping like scarves behind him. "Meh meh, meh! Tora not care!" He cried. "Tora nothing without Poppi. Not in fight, nor as friend. Poppi only reason anypon care about Tora at all!" He splashed off into the rain, intending to climb the towering machine lifeform by himself if nobody helped him. "World not mean anything to Tora if Poppi not in it!"

"Tora!" Roxas shouted, but to no avail. He started to run after him but paused to shoot a quick glare at Giovanna, "I can't believe you'd just abandon her like that!" and then took off after the little mechanic without even waiting for anyone to respond. In doing so he missed the secret agent’s exasperated expression, but she made no reply–the last thing the team needed right now was more drama.

Roxas was a lot more spry than Tora, so it didn't take long for him to catch up. When he did, Roxas snatched the little guy up and let him hang onto his shoulders, "You won't get there in time on your own, so hang on!" And then he picked up the pace, pointing one of his Keyblades forward and firing a Blizzaga spell. The ice projectile shot forward, leaving behind a thin line of ice for Roxas to grind on, propelled forward by flowmotion with Tora still in tow.

The merchant paused a moment to wipe the sweat off his brow with the cuff of his sleeve but it was enough to try and call after the engineer and the boy "There…Are lives at stake kid, we can't just run off willy-nilly-" Partitio tried to call after them but his words fell upon deaf ears, sighing he looked to the agent "Someone should go with those two, try and talk em' down afore they get themselves hurt…Unnnnnngaah!" the merchant slammed his shoulder against the truck along with Giovanna's strength to budge the vehicle just a little more.

Zenkichi, having followed after Partitio, still in his Phantom Thief attire but much less visibly frenetic than his Wolf persona, helped join the group attempting to right the vehicle, groaning exhaustedly as he pushed.

Pit went to the truck, helping everyone to get it upright with strength belied by his figure. Once it was back on all four wheels he stepped back, panting and wiping the rain from his face.

He didn't think they were abandoning Poppi, as Tora and Roxas seemed to believe. They'd come out there to protect Midgar, and their mission wasn't complete yet - that was all. They were fighting for the greater good and all knew the potential danger.

But Tora's words resonated with the angel. If he was in the nopon's place and Lady Palutena was in danger, he'd do the same whether anyone helped him or not. Pit clenched his fists and turned away from the truck.

"I'll go after them," he said, but it wouldn't be to dissuade them. "We can't just leave Poppi alone if she's hurt. Tora said he can fix her!"

He darted off after Tora and Roxas, making use of the ice path the latter left behind.

”You do that!” Zenkichi waved after him, not at all sarcastic despite the word choice. Turning to those who’d remained, he sighed. ”Damn kids. Always so…sure of themselves. Not that I blame them,” he quickly added, ”But there’s more at stake. And somebody might need to talk to Tora about that uh…unhealthy codependency, I think the kids call it nowadays?” Shrugging, he gave his shoulder a good turn and looked back on the remaining Machine horde.

”We should, uh…probably do something about that.”

”Yes. The horde was cut down to 10% of what it was though, so the rest of us should be able to handle it. ” Susie said, taking a look through the battlefield rubble and taking what she thought might make for some decent parts before joining the team that would finish off the rest of these robots.

After Roxas scooped him up and paved the way to the Tallneck with a pathway of magic ice, Tora reached his destination lickety-split. Flowmotion proved as effective scaling the mechanical creature as it did reaching it, too, so with minimum possible downtime he plugged his toolkit back into the Tallneck’s processor and assumed control. Though this beast was made for measured, lumbering strides, the Nopon had managed to coax it into a run earlier to keep up with the truck, but right now nothing but a gallop would do. Once his upload reached its system, the Tallneck took off as fast as it could go, or perhaps even faster. Tora wasn’t afraid to sacrifice this machine for the sake of his own. With Roxas and Pit aboard as backup, the three headstrong youths charged off into the rain, their ride’s massive strides making up for what it lacked in raw acceleration. Whether the others retreated to Midgar to head off the Machines or attempted to destroy the rest right here was their prerogative. It fell to these three to be Poppi’s saviors.
In World of Light → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Vs Moebius P

Location: The Home of Tears - Gallo Tower
Bowser and Rika’s @DracoLunaris, Primrose and Therion’s @Yankee, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Jesse’s @Zoey Boey, Ganondorf’s @Double, Ms Fortune
+3 EXP




Moebius P did something. An abundance of bug bites and stings appeared on his enemies’ bodies, itching, burning, and hurting. Bees, mosquitoes, ants, spiders, all had apparently gotten a piece of the Seekers at some point in the past. “Hahahaha!” he cackled. “And that’s just a sneak peek. Let’s play another round, worms.” P slammed his fists together, then put up his dukes. “And this one’s for keeps!”

”Yeah it is, because that’s your third phase, and that means it’s your last! Probably” Bowser retorted his scales again letting him shrug off minor pains and wounds. Rika, not so much.

”Itchyyyyy! Itchy itchy itchy I hate him so much!” the ship girl cried out in frustration and anger as she tried in vain to scratch all the bite wounds she had on her, something made rather tricky by her remaining gauntlet. ”Less talking, more sinking him!” she demanded, before adding a belated ”Please!”

”Hmph. Power over time wasted…” Sectonia said, able to tough out the numerous itchy bug bites much like Bowser. While big, the two royals were also tough, so little things like this wouldn’t be as much of a bother.

Gritting her teeth against the itching and pain, Nadia forced a grin. This goon really had played his best trick first. “...That your true face, P-brain? Sucks to be you then, ‘cause you look like a chump!” She sprinted towards him, dragging her boxcutters’ blades behind her along the stone in a shower of sparks. “And you’re about to lose like one, too!”

What did P do? One moment Nadia had leaped toward him, and the next she wheeled wildly in the air, all four of her limbs, gone. She blinked. “Huh?”

“You saying something? Hahaha! Good luck hitting me with no arms or legs!” As the feral flew toward him helplessly, P wound up his arm for a massive punch.

Instead Nadia blasted out blood from her stumps, speeding through the air in a corkscrew of blood. “You really haven’t been payin’ attention!” With larger-than-life Copycat arms of blood she executed an enormous Claws for Concern cross slash, then landed on top of him. “B-negative all you want,” she taunted him, holding his face with one copied hand as she manifested a Purrge of Vengeance with the other. “You’re in for A-positive beatdown!” With a slightly crazed laugh she planted the orb in his face. The ensuing bloody explosion sent her flying and left P momentarily blind.

That made him a sitting duck for a flurry of shells launched from three of Bowser’s shell turrets (the king taking a broadside angle to unleash this fire power) and Rika’s two rigging ones, which between them unleashed a veritable coastal bombardment of firepower … right up until P did something, and the next volley of the barrage launched confetti instead of warship ordinance.

“Nice party poppers, losers!” P gleefully hollered at the pair.

”You! Why! I just bought that ammo you whoreson!” Rika cursed him, the brat’s antics getting her every time, before demanding ”Give him the spikes Bowser!”

”Language!” Bowser chided her, even as his belly hit the deck, and sent the spikes on his shell flying up in an arch to rain down on P like rocket artillery. He raised his arms above his head to block them, mildly annoyed.

Jesse strafed along the back lines. Her Health was strong enough that the effects of stepping on plastic bricks and getting bitten by bugs were minimal. With the big mech down, they just had to power through Consul P’s final form and his time distortion shenanigans. She didn’t want to lose the Tool Gun, and Rika and the others had helpfully demonstrated it was trivial for Consul P to disarm the Seekers. Fortunately, Jesse didn’t have to worry about losing her Service Weapon. It was bound to her. Not only did it spend most of its time in the Astral Plane, even if he could get his grubby hands on it, it wouldn’t go well for him. Staying on the ground to draw less attention, she began charging up a Pierce Shot while he was distracted. Then she aimed it, took a moment or two to line up the shot, and fired one his way. A superheated punch to shut him up for a second. The sniper shot blindsided him, knocking him over and forcing him to struggle back to his feet.

While the other Seekers put on a show in front of P, in true rogue style Therion slipped around behind him. He flipped his new dagger Bronllavyn in his hand and then dashed forward. He struck P a few times in quick succession, scaling his large body. The dagger attacks were meant to distract from the frisking that Therion was doing, his ability to "Steal" mid-battle being utilized to try and put an immediate stop to the demonic Consul's time-travel tricks. Therion backed off as soon as he'd nicked something, but glancing down at his hand while P turned toward him it was clear that this was not the time displacer he'd been seeking.

Therion stashed the Friend's Yo-Yo he'd stolen by habit as a sudden pain lanced through his back and one side of his body. One leg crumpled beneath him and he fell to the ground, gritting his teeth. Stupid little bug bites were nothing compared to this familiar pain.

"Feeling at the end of your rope?" P snickered, raising a foot to squash the downed thief.

So what, he'd followed Therion down into the waterway and cut the rope he'd used to climb down into the Junk Pit earlier? Frankly the thought incensed Therion. He summoned the junicorn in front of him to block P's attack, the iron ball demon standing firm and then firing the lance in its head point blank at P. With P pushed off balance and left flailing thanks to the armored critter’s intercession, he took the metal rod right to the belly. “Ooooogh!” he groaned as he grabbed hold of it with his hands. With a pained whine he went to pull it out, only for it to vanish along with the junicorn. Not willing to beat around the bush any longer, he raised his fist to smash Therion flat.

Sectonia then intervened, using her swords and chaos shield to protect Therion from being punched into oblivion. Consul P was quite the hideous creature, and hideous things had no place in her kingdom. And for something like this to control time? Well, putting this one down was a goal. Perhaps even prevent him from teleporting? With a parry of his fist, Sectonia then struck him with a mighty thrust from her rapier only to find… it did nothing? No… What was this? When did she make a rapier out of balloons?

“Have fun with that, you circus freak!” P sneered, turning his attention to Sectonia. His breathing was heavy, almost ragged, but when had he been exerting himself?

”Hmph, most troublesome…” Sectonia said, putting away her balloonified sword to throw a void globule at Consul P. The time she took to stash the replacement gave P a chance to get going, however, and though he took the void globule head on as he leaped at her, Sectonia took a brutal punch to the head right after. If only P was in good enough condition to follow up on that. Still, it was effective enough to get the bee queen off him, Sectonia’s size making her an easy target.

Despite having been rescued by Bowser’s striker spirit, that didn’t stop Ganondorf from being incredibly winded and even a bit stunned by the experience of being launched as he had been. Despite having been back in the tower, he had to spend several moments catching his breath and getting reoriented. And then his anger rose, and rose, and rose some more. To say he was absolutely livid would have been a massive understatement. He reached up his hand to wipe sweat from his brow. Then he clenched that hand into a fist and the Triforce began to violently glow bright. He’d had it with this. He was going to end this, one way or another, even if he had to bring the whole goddamn tower down to do it!

P wasn’t the only person here who could transform. The King of Evil’s body began to swell and grow until it dwarfed even Bowser in size. A snout grew from his face and massive ram horns grew from his head. A reptilian-esque tail appeared behind him and his booted feet became bovine hooves.

Ganon announced his presence with a rumbling roar and then used Dark Breath to aim a beam of energy from his mouth squarely at the transformed Consul. And just like that, all hell had broken loose.

“Eek!” With a surprised cry, P threw himself out of the way of the beam. He hit the ground hard, clipped by the warlock king’s ray of oblivion, then rolled over onto his back, panting as smoke rose from his body. It wasn’t just Ganon facing him down, either–after each of the heroes gave the Consul a piece of his mind, they’d gathered up into a semicircle to back him into a corner. Primrose, Sectonia, Bowser, Rika, Therion, Jesse, and Nadia closed in with their weapons at the ready and their magic alight, ready to finish this. The collective looks on their faces, stormy and glowering, all told the same story: that whatever semblance of leniency they’d been planning to offer him had been expunged by the boy’s shameless stream of dirty tricks. Their merciless scowls convinced P that they wouldn’t even give him time for a final monologue, let alone an appeal to their better natures. And that bloodthirsty boar monster? If he even had a better nature, he was well past the point of reason. It was now or never.

So P did something.

In an instant, Seekers one and all were gripped by a terrible, all-encompassing fatigue. Their energy -and their fighting spirit- drained from them like water into sand. It felt like weights hung from every limb, their eyelids begged to close, and just standing became a chore. It felt like none of them slept so much as a wink the entire night.

“Ha…ha…ha!” Across the weary bunch rang out gloating peals of laughter, although the Consul’s mirth sounded a little infirm. Wobbling like a sleepy toddler, P held up a taunting finger only with great effort. “I…went back. Stomped on the floors. Banged pots and pans. Drums, horns…kept you all up all night long!” Grinning, he balled his fist, only to drop it again in a limp, pitiful swing after an unsteady half-step forward. It took a moment for Nadia to reach the obvious logical conclusion: that the Seekers weren’t the only ones who stayed up all night.

She sank to one knee for a quick breather, fixing the Consul with a gleeful grin. “You really are a P-brain!” she told him. “You…we…I’m too tired…for anymore puns.” Gritting her teeth, she seized her boxcutter and prepared to move. “So say goodnight!”

P staggered backward, slumping down against the wall. Wildly he looked over at the beach, but the machine had already disintegrated. No Mecha-Porkies remained, and Those Who Slithered in the Dark had never appeared. Everyone might be bone-tired, but he was grossly outnumbered. So P did the only thing he could do.

“...You didn’t win!” he cried, and he disappeared.

A moment passed before Nadia let out a great big sigh. “Ugh. Right.” With a yawn she put away her boxcutter blades, then stood there for a moment, trying in vain to rub the sleep from her eyes. Her hand being made of blood at the moment didn’t help. “Guess it was always gonna end like this,” she muttered, remembering the plan. “Up to the others now.”

Jesse disappeared her Service Weapon with a victorious nod and pumping of her other fist. “I must admit,” Jesse said with a yawn. “I’m impressed with his dedication to do that all night. Wonder what that was like. Did he have to do it individually for everyone, or just..?” She shrugged, too tired to entertain the hypothetical.

“Eh, whatever. Now, it’s been a while since I haven’t slept all night, but I’m pretty sure it’d be best to avoid the instinct to take a midday nap, and just power through to the next night? Otherwise your sleep schedule’s fucked.” Jesse advised.

With a mighty yawn, the queen held her hand to her mouth to stiffen it, ”If we are going to power through a restless night, I would suggest we find some coffee.” Sectonia said, weary of P. ”If the other consuls are this petty, they all seem like they will be sheer annoyances to deal with.”

Therion handled a sleepless night better than most, but he remained where he was on the ground while the other decided what to do now. He shifted into a more comfortable position on his uninjured side, looking much like he was just lounging there with his cheek propped up on his hand while Jesse's infectious yawn passed to Primrose. The dancer tried to stifle it with her palm before she said her piece. "A rest would be good at least, but it doesn't feel right leaving the tower before making sure the plan succeeds... and that Kamek and Bowser Jr. are okay." It went without saying that she didn’t even want to attempt to rest while still inside the tower either.

”Unfortunately rest would be a bad idea for me for a different reason. If team B needs support, I’ll probably be summoned… Although I wonder what information we could even get out of Consul P with how childish he is…” Sectonia said tiredly, rubbing the spot on her face she had been punched.

”ARGH!” came the sudden bellow from Ganondorf. Whatever that miserable cretin had done it somehow undid his transformation! No! There was no way that form could be stopped! How?! How had that brat done it, especially without wielding the Master Sword? It didn’t seem possible that Ganondorf could be fuming any harder, and yet somehow he found a way to be even angrier.

”Where are you, you little creep?!” he shouted, unwilling to accept that the Consul had escaped, ”Moblins!” he barked, glaring as his five moblin archers assembled before him. Somehow all five had managed to avoid being killed by the transformed Consul, probably because he had been so focused on the other Seekers. ”Search for him! Tear this tower apart and burn it to the ground if you have to. I don’t care what you have to do, but FIND! THAT! CONSUL!” And at that they scrambled and scattered into the tower to begin what could very well be a fruitless search.

“Relax, Ganondorf.” Jesse said with a suppressed laugh. “This was always the plan, remember? The others can handle the rest. And If you’re having trouble choking down humble pie, just remember that everyone in the world- every world- got obliterated by Galeem.” She said. “That’ll make you feel better...?”

There was a barely suppressed snicker from the poncho clad thief from where he lay, having made use of one of his potions of healing and now waiting for it to kick in.

Whether or not the others put up a fuss, Nadia was more than ready to call this place quits. Just walking back down to the entrance and getting outside again sounded like a lot more of a hassle than dealing with Moebius P in this condition. Plus, her blood limbs could give out any second, and though getting carried all the way sounded pretty nice, even she wasn’t that selfish. Eyes bleary, the feral glanced up at the crimson clock face, through the hole left by Ganondorf’s bedspring-assisted defenestration and into the rainy dark. It occurred to her that the basin in the fungal garden in front of Gallo Tower had been pretty deep. Some fresh water would definitely perk her up a bit.

“...Goin’ down.” With a grin, Nadia blasted off like a bloody rocket, and disappeared into the Home of Tears’ eternal night. Whether the Seekers meant to meet up with the other crew, take out frustration upon Gallo Tower itself, or get some much-needed rest, the first step would be much the same for everyone: getting out of here.

Edinburgh MagicaPolis

Level 8 Big Band (78/80)
Ace Cadet’s @Yankee, Red’s @TruthHurts22, Mewtwo’s @Double
Word Count: 1922


Not knowing the manner in which Red planned to ferry the team to the Aether Resort, Band readied himself for anything when the Seekers gathered at the icy lakeside railing once more. He did remember how the superhero got everyone up to the twenty-sixth floor of that absurdly large library the Noumenon, but without a solid way for Red to himself across this lethally-cold water, just forming everyone else up into a giant hand couldn’t possibly suffice. Luckily, Red had another trick up his sleeve. All of a sudden, waves of pressure began to radiate from the masked man’s position. They were as penetrating and palpable as amped-up bass through a concert hall. The hell’s this guy doing? he thought, sighing as he steeled himself. “Feet, don’t fail me now.”

The next moment all four shot into the air as if fired from a circus cannon, surrounded in multicolored light as they sailed through the frigid arctic air. “Hoo-ly smokes!” Band yelled, his words lost in the wind. It took two mechanical arms to keep his hat from flying off to kingdom come, and he felt his breakfast turn in his stomach as he watched the ground recede beneath him. The real trouble, of course, came when it started to approach again. “Red?” As the group’s majestic arc turned to freefall, just a little bit of panic set in. “Red!?” The detective’s eyes went wide as saucers as the team hurtled toward the Aether Resort’s helipad, no signs of slowing down in sight. “RED!?”

They landed safely, and in Red’s case, stylishly. He came pre-packaged with snappy poses and an inspirational mission brief, while for Band, it took a moment longer for him to collect his breath–and his wits. He quickly realized that he didn’t have that moment, though. Following L’s arrival here, her Galaxy transport ship remained parked on the landing pad, and even after ten minutes a few Aether Foundation employees remained here, either as technicians or just guards. They’d watched Red’s stunt the moment it started, and now here the four stood right in the midst of five white-clad personnel, all stock-still and staring at the newcomers with a mixture of surprise, curiosity, and alarm on their faces.

Band straightened up, clearing his throat. “Ahem…mornin’, folks.”

“Intruders!” one of the employees shouted. He hurriedly reached into his pouches, rummaging for a familiar red-and-white capsule. “Prepare for a Pokemon b-!”

Band’s giant brass knuckle made contact with his chest before he could send out a Pokemon. He fell in a heap and went sprawling, eyes wide and mouth agape, and his pokeball rolled across the ground. The others either froze, flinched, or fell over themselves, utterly shocked by the breach of etiquette. “Keep it down over there,” the detective told them. “We don’t got time for playin’ around. So why don’t y’all do yourselves a favor and clock out early? Unless ya want your clocks cleaned too.” To make his point he deployed his excessively large drum pedal and unleashed Giant Step, knocking all of them to the ground. That only served to remind him, though, of Galeem’s influence in the world of light. “Oh, alright,” he groaned. “Let’s get this over with.” While nominally a four-versus-four, it was anything but a fair fight. The Seekers had places to be.

Not even winded by the time the scrap came to a close, Band took a look around. While the facility dead ahead of the team looked like the Aether Foundation’s main facility, it didn’t take a genius to reason that the organization’s base occupied this entire artificial island, so that overblown greenhouse would really only be the tip of the iceberg. That meant lots of places for L to hide, and lots more employees to tangle with. While searching the area, however, Band noticed something out of place: a much smaller, connected island at the back of the Aether Resort, home to a luxurious mansion of white marble and blue latticed glass. Though bizarrely out of place, its architects had clearly taken great pains to try and recreate an authentic homestead, down to its fake lawn, as well as the coniferous trees, and streetlamps that lined the road leading straight to the mansion’s double doors.

“Hmm,” Band hummed. “Somethin’ about that villa screams ‘executive privilege’. If I just get back from a long trip, achin’ and tired, I know the first thing I’d wanna do is put up my feet at home and take a load off.” He began to cruise toward the mansion, sliding across the ground with the power of sound. “How’s about we take a look?”

Only after the detective’s giant metal busted in the front door did he find that it hadn’t been locked. Not that a locked door would have stopped him, of course. The manion’s interior proved even more lavish than the exterior, with every conceivable surface, wall nook, and cranny packed full of abstract art, pictures of Pokemon, pictures of two children, or pieces technology. Countless smart devices and high-tech doodads littered the place, their functions niche, needless, or downright inscrutable. Once inside the Seekers began to tread a little more cautiously, wary of any hidden traps or security measures. They moved through the corridors and cleared the rooms in relatively quick succession, proceeding until they became aware of two voices down the hall, one male and one female, in what sounded like a heated discussion.

“...And I’m to understand you let them get away? I’m astonished you call it a victory. This doesn’t just reflect poorly on you, you know? It makes the rest of us look bad by association.”

“You make yourself look bad enough all on your lonesome! What, might I ask, have you been doing in my absence? It sure doesn’t sound like you’ve disposed of our little skeleton problem yet. If we don’t start staging real battles again soon, the city’s damn Flame Clock is going to run dry!”

“All things in time, my dear. And consider this: if you’d lead regiments of Edinburgh mages against Alcamoth instead of feeding your not-so-secret army at Eisa, it wouldn’t be running low to begin with…”

“Oh, and I suppose you’d have them fly to the other side of the continent on broomsticks? You sneering simpleton…”

The Seekers reached the double doors the two voices issued from. The plaque on the wall read ‘Ballroom’, and the handles were stylized silver knobs made to resemble Pokeballs. After a quick check to confirm that everyone was ready, the team burst in.

The first thing Band noticed was the temperature. It was cold in here. Really cold. As one might expect, the Ballroom was a wide-open, grandiose affair, with plentiful floorspace and one wall composed entirely of two or even three story glass windows, with a dazzling chandelier hanging overhead. In one corner lay a bar, in another a piano, and before the glass stood a few sofas arranged in a square to form a lounge. There, the Seekers spotted two persons of interest. One was L, reclining on the most plush and well-cushioned of the couches with a cold compress in one hand and a glass of what looked like brightly-glowing wine in the other. The other stood nearby, and this one Band also recognized, though only after a moment. Though very broad-shouldered he sported rather spindly limbs, and his bucket-shaped helmet rose at least twice as high as his head, with two forked spikes up at the very top above a clock face recessed into the headgear’s front. Both his helmet and his armor features the same cherry-red shade as L’s, confirming him as a Consul, and not just any Consul. Band remembered that look from yesterday; this crook was the one who sicced the Metro Cats on the Seekers, splitting them up to all corners of the World of Light. Based on all that, plus the snippets of overheard conversation, this could only be the long-awaited, much-anticipated, Consul N.

Before examining the Consuls further, however, Band found himself distracted by one other not-insignificant detail about this room. Along its walls were life-size decorative displays of Pokemon of all kinds, carefully arranged into dioramas by type, habitat, and theme. There were grass-types posed in a field of flowers, fighting-types arranged in a series of one-on-one or two-on-two matches, and both water-types and flying-types suspended on wire from hangers in front of appropriate oceanic or cloudy backgrounds. The more Band looked at these Pokemon, however, the less he felt sure that they were models, or statues, or even ice sculptures, despite their pallid coloration and the frosty coatings that covered them. No…these looked more like real Pokemon, frozen solid, and put on display like taxidermies. He blinked a few times, swallowed, and fixed his gaze on Consuls L and N.

L clicked her tongue, then sighed, her shoulders sagging. “Rather rude to barge in uninvited, no?” she drily remarked.

Band snorted, stowing his brass knuckles beneath his coat as he began to walk forward. “I knocked. But nobody came.”

“Oh, my sympathies. You just can’t get good help these days.” After giving N the stink eye she settled her gaze on Mewtwo, prompting a gratuitous eye roll. “Oh, you again. Fabulous. So much for out of sight, out of mind.”

“Why, it’s what you get for not cleaning your plate.” N tented his fingers together as he eyed Red, Band, and Ace. “Well, well, well. The ones who got away. What a pleasant surprise.”

“Hardly a surprise,” L snarked. “They’re why you’re here, after all.”

“Hm? I don’t follow” N glanced at her.

His counterpart shrugged. “Oh, since you were having trouble finding them, I thought I’d bring them right to you. Figured you could use a break after three fruitless days. Nothing sweeter than a little revenge, after all, and here they are. Like flies to honey.” She laughed smugly through her nose. “Now there’s nothing for the Master of Time to do but swat them. Or can you not even do that?”

N took a half-step toward her, clenching his fist. “Why, you conniving…!”

“Hey!” Band shouted. “If you goons are done gabbin’, we got your asses all wrapped up and ready to hand to ya.”

“Urgh.” He pinched the bridge of his helmeted nose as he hung his head, more for show than anything. “We’ll have words later,” he hissed at L. “But for now, our new friends, I suppose.”

As L sat up to watch, N turned to face the Seekers. “So, here you are at last. S seems to think rather highly of you lot. He does so love to prattle on about ‘heroes’.” He made sure to add the quotation marks by hand as he spoke. “Me, I prefer any and all annoyances dealt with once and for all. So let’s see if you’re up to snuff...” When he held out his hand, a polearm reminiscent of a giant tuning fork appeared, and as he came to a stop he struck its butt on the tile floor with a resounding clack. “...Shall we?”

Just as things seemed ready to heat up, L called out from behind him, cutting the tension. “Can you take this outside?” she asked languidly. “I’d rather you all not ruin my collection.”

“The only thing being ruined is the moment,” N growled beneath his breath.
In World of Light → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Road to Ruin

Level 12 Tora (63/120) Level 12 Poppi (73/120)
Giovanna, Roxas’ @Double, Pit’s @Yankee, Susie’s @Archmage MC, Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man, Partitio’s @Dark Cloud
Word Count: 2721


An intrepid Large Biped challenged Tora’ new weaponry right away with a charge into melee range, a section of rebar partially encased in concrete held like a greatsword. It swung the crude slab down at the little inventor, but Tora caught it in the upturned palm of his Mech Arm. Of course, the force it absorbed hurt his wing a bit, but with teeth clenched he held firm and pounded the Biped's torso with punch after punch. A roundhouse kick from Poppi QT swooshed over his head to knock the Biped's off after the second punch, and a third for good measure blasted it away, half its arm still attached to its weapon as Tora tossed it aside. A Multileg scuttled in with two Medium Bipeds in tow, surrounding the Nopon from the front as a Small Flier took potshots from above. Thinking quickly, Tora staggered them with an explosive ground-pound from the Mech Arms and threw himself into the air. Taken by surprise, the Flier missed its last shot before Tora put his oversized gauntlets together and dunked it with an overhead smack. It fell to earth and blew up in a burst of flame that knocked the other three machines to the ground. Poppi grabbed the Multileg's cutter arms, planted her foot against its body, and pulled the limbs right off. In quick succession both Bipeds found their comrade's cutters buried in their chassis, one apiece, and the next second Tora dropped down right on top of the disarmed Multileg, splitting the robot's pill-shaped body like a spent casing.

Without giving the pair a moment to breathe, more machines pressed in, and a Legpower reared its ugly head. Poppi narrowly snatched Tora out of harm's way in time before the upside-down goliath's stomp squashed the doomed Multileg flat. "Going up!" Not missing a beat, Poppi whirled around and hurled her Masterpon up, out of the crowd and straight into the Legpower's body. Tora put his Mech Arms' hands together like a diver and was promptly embedded into the machine chassis, where he proceeded to open it up and dig right in. Scrabbling uselessly at its torso with its little arms, the Legpowder could only spin its wide-eyed head around in horror as fiery blasts punched out of its body in all directions, one after another. After a moment Poppi boosted up out of the destruction and rocketed forward in a flying kick, straight into the hole in its chest and then out the other side, picking up Tora along the way. She remained airborne as the Legpower fell, not hindered by the weight of Poppi Alpha's armor, and held Tora beneath her so he could rain down missiles on the horde in a sort of makeshift bombing run. After a few seconds the two found themselves faced by a bevy of pink orbs cluttering up the airways, courtesy of a whole battalion of Fliers. "Hold on tight!" Poppi maneuvered as well as she could through the blistering bullet-hell of projectiles, hunting down Small Fliers one at a time until Tora's punches built up enough power for a level three Blade Art.

Tora flipped around to his companion's back and passed her the Mech Arms. "Let's show cruddypons what real engineering look like!"

"My pleasure!" Channeling a vast amount of ether, Poppi threw wide the Mech Arms' missile pods and filled the sky with fiery missiles. In a beautiful dance they rained down on the machine lifeforms, earthbound and airborne alike. "Noponic Destructiooooooooon!"

Elsewhere, Giovanna paused for a moment to wipe her brow. It wasn't just the rain; these hunks of junk were making her sweat. Around her lay the wreckage of an entire pack of Reverse-joint goliaths, their knees kicked out, their heads caved in, their circuits lightning-fried, and their cables Rei-chomped, but still they kept coming. Those wrecks weren't dissolving, which intrigued her somewhat, but she focused instead on the Quadruped that leaped onto and then used one Reverse-joint like a trampoline to try and bulldoze her beneath its bladed front legs. She dodged back and took out both legs in a revolving sweep, then raised her flashing fist and smashed it down with Seismic Hammer to launch its fallen body back up into the air. As it fell a well-timed heavy Thunder Knuckle to the dome spiked its head into the ground, finishing it off. A moment later, however, an orb struck her in the back. Wincing, she turned around to see a Medium Flier hovering a few dozen feet ahead, its gun trained on her and more projectiles in the air, which almost distracted her from the Multileg lunging from the same direction. She blocked two slashes and a final cross-slice from its cutters and went to counterattack, only to fall victim to a frame trap as the Multileg launched into a spinning spiderleg blow. "Agh!" Caught in a flurry of strikes, she hit the ground a moment later, and rose a little wiser. "...Damn." The Multileg repeated the same strategy, but this time she pushed it off with Faultless Defense, forcing its final strike to whiff. The next second her Trovão kick crushed its spin attack on start-up. As it reeled she climbed on top of it and unleashed an EX Seismic Hammer, blowing the Multileg into the air with her atop it. Springboarding off the wreck, she somersaulted through the air toward the Medium Flier with EX Burning Kick and, legs wreathed in fire, melted through its body like butter.

As it spiraled away to crash, a Goliath loomed. She dashed toward it, Rei swirling around her to rip through two marauding Bipeds with her teeth, then unleashed Trovão again to blow through its left knee. It toppled, unable to support its weight, and Giovanna turned her attention to a trio of Large Bipeds with weapons. The one with a spear lunged; she went low and snapped the shoddy weapon in half with an upward kick, then rammed her leg through its torso. The other two pincered her, and when she avoided a killer slash from the one with an axe, the one with dual blades slices through her raincoat and into her skin. "Ugh." The secret agent ripped it off and flung it at the offending machine, disappearing from its sight. Its wild slashes tore the coat to ribbons, only to realize Giovanna had seemingly disappeared. By the time it realized where she'd gone she'd already wrapped her legs around its neck. Electricity crackled around her gloves as she prepared to electrocute the dual-wielder, but at the last second she launched herself off it instead, and the axe-wielder's weapon cleaved its comrade in half. Giovanna's eyebrows rose as she flipped through the air, sparks and scrap metal flying, and a moment later she descended on the culprit with Burning Dance. Her fiery divekick drove it across the earth straight toward a fresh gang of machines. Giovanna ended the ride with a blazing flip kick and landed on her hands to send the newcomers packing with upside-down whirlwind kicks. For the grand finale: a skyward jump straight toward a Goliath, past the punch that would have creamed her were she a split second slower, and into its face for a high-voltage cross chop. With a yell of effort she took it to the ground, frying its systems all the way.

When the titan fell, she came to a rest lying on its chest and in sore need of a break. Drenched by the rain and heavy of breath, she knew this wasn't her finest work. How many of them was it now? Fifty, sixty? In the background lightning crashed, thunder roared, and her allies destroyed machines by the dozens, but still hundreds upon hundreds remained. Everyone knew from that outset that this wouldn't be a walk in the park, but their foes' sheer numbers were taking their toll. Part of the problem lay with the Seekers themselves; a few of them just didn't have the damage output for a slobberknocker like this. After pushing herself into a sitting position, her eyes fell on the Rust Crew's truck as it continued to speed around and through the enemy ranks. All three of those guys would need to take on a hundred each to make ends meet, which included the driver. Did they even have that kind of ammunition? The fact that they seemed to be using their pistols struck her as a bad sign, and as she watched, things suddenly went from bad to worse.

A Legpower planted itself right in front of the truck, and when Cain tried to swerve around it, it swerved to. When its gigantic leg slammed into the truck's front the whole vehicle flipped over, sending both Marshall and Big Bo off its top and into the mud. The mob of machines surrounded them, and they disappeared from Giovanna's view. "Oh no." The secret agent got up and took off running, her pawprint shoes pounding through the puddles as she made her way toward the wreck. More enemies appeared in her path to obstruct her, and she grit her teeth. "No time for you!" Thunder Knuckle decked a Medium Biped. She flipped over and then nailed a charging Quadruped with Sol Poente. She decapitated and then used the body of a Large Biped as a shield against a shooting Reverse-joint, then beaned the shooter with the body and dunked its head into the muck with Burning Kick. Jets of wind from her shoes propelled her through the air to grab a passing Small Flier, which she grappled and then electrocuted to careen in the direction of the Rust Crew. A Golith swatted the Flier like a bug with a massive punch, but Giovanna bailed just in time to flip off, run along its arm, and Seismic Hammer its head straight into its chest cavity. Panting, she paused there a moment to try and get a view of the truck, and when she did she squinted at what she saw. The machines had beaten the men bloody, but they hadn't finished them off; instead, they were forcibly holding them still, and those strange bug-like drones she saw earlier were crawling on their bodies. With their stingers they seemed to be extracting some sort of strange substance from them that glowed bright blue.

"Leave friends alone!" she heard Tora cry.

From atop the staggering Goliath she watched as Tora and Poppi descended on the scene, the latter with the Mech Arms and the former with his hammer. Much more angry than they were hurt, they pounded the Bipeds into the dirt and scattered the drones. Those with tanks full of that blue stuff flew off into the distance, while the rest continued to buzz around while Tora and Poppi mangled the other machines. At that point, Giovanna couldn't spectate any longer. The headless Goliath reached up to grab her, and more machines swarmed. She plunged down into the hole she'd created and burned through until she burst out through the Goliath's underside, then left it to die as she charged into a squad of three Multilegs. The first fought defensively to give the other two a chance to take potshots, which made her growl in frustration. "Out of my way!" In a flash she merged with Rei, overcharging her gloves, then blitzed through the irksome machines in a green lightning blur. The Emergency Combination left all three a fried mess, and she sped onward, still brimming with power. Bipeds, quadrupeds, and even a Legpower all crumbled before her. She dashed through the air from flier to flier, popping each one like a balloon. With shocking speed she took a Medium Flier down with her, crashing to the ground only to find herself just a couple dozen feet away from the crashed truck. As the power faded she hurried the rest of the way to join Tora and Poppi as the last of their enemies fell.

Marshall, the first to succumb and with less vitality to give, was dead. His body had somehow calcified after the drones finished their work, turned to a stony statue. Big Bo was in awful shape, laying there on death's door. "Medic!" Giovanna called, searching for the team's only healer, Roxas. "Kid? Where are you!?"

Tora was holding his head in his little hands, his wings hanging limply. "Meeh-meeh-meeh! Am so sorry!" he moaned. "Stupid Tora got so caught up trashing machines that Tora forgot to protect friends!" He gazed up at his partner imploringly. "Can't we do anything, Poppi?"

Almost as anguished, the artificial blade shook her head. "I can't...look out!"

She pushed Tora just in time to avoid the pistol shot. Furious, Poppi looked up to see Cain halfway out of the sideways truck's passenger-side door, a pistol in his hands as his eyes gleamed red. "Cain?" she gasped, her shock turning to outrage in an instant. "What are-!"

As he adjusted his aim, Poppi abandoned words in favor of action. She burst upward and closed one Mech Arm around his head, yanking him out of the truck. With her thrusters at maximum burn she flew up, then down in a spectacular izuna drop that ended with a fiery explosion.

"Meh-meh!?" Taken completely aback by the suddenness of what just happened, Tora pitter-pattered over as the smoke cleared. Poppi stood a few feet away from Cain's body. "What going on? We thought him friend!"

Big Bo seemed just as baffled as him. "No idea," he gasped. "The hell's gotten into you...Cain?"

Suddenly, the robot moved. He rolled over onto all fours and looked upward, red eyes blazing from the nightmarish mangle left where his faceplate had been. With a wordless cry he launched himself at Poppi. Unyielding, she finished him off with a red-hot uppercut, scattering his parts far and wide.

The whole thing left Tora beside himself, close to panic. "Wh-what in the world just happen, meh!?" he stammered. "He turn into scary monster all of sudden! Tora not understand!"

Giovanna shook her head. Even she was a little horrified. "I...don't know. Black Tech is almost totally alien to me. In fact, that was like something from a horror movie." She furrowed her brows. "I know Midgar is extremely strict about what androids are deployed outside city limits. Could this be why?"

Tora swallowed nervously, the gears turning in his head. Nearby, the scattered machines were beginning to amass. Even with multiple Seekers working hard to fell over a hundred foes each, about eighty still remained. "Tora have bad feeling," the Nopon squeaked. "We should get out of here, meh. Fall back closer to city, get help to deal with rest. Come on, Poppi!" Reaching up with his wing, he tugged at her hand.

She didn't move. Her other hand was on her temple, as if she were suffering from a headache.

"P-Poppi?"

Big Bo’s eyes widened, and he drew in a sharp breath. “Shit. Shit, it’s a virus! Back away, little man!”

“Tora! Get away from her!” Giovanna called, tensing herself to run.

The Nopon glanced back at them, confused as to why they’d even suggest something like that, then back at Poppi as she turned. She was wincing in pain, and the light had vanished from her eyes. “Masterpon…” she rasped. “Please don’t…come after…me.”

Suddenly she pushed him away, then disappeared in a flurry of red ribbon and orange sparks. After a brief moment, Poppi QT Pi appeared, then sprang into the air. The thrusters on her back ignited, and she hurtled away through the rain, past the incoming machines and off into the distance.

Tora blinked, stunned. But only for a moment. “W-wait!” He started running, bouncing along the ground as fast as he could go. Which wasn’t that fast. “Come back! Poppiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!”

He ran for just a couple seconds before he realized that he couldn’t possibly catch up to her like this. Smashing aside a Biped, he looked around wildly, then spotted the Tallneck waiting in the wings where he left it. “Susieeee!” he cried, his voice pleading. “Fly me to garaffypon, fast as can! Am going after her!” He furrowed his brows at Giovanna, and anyone else who might warn him against this. “And not take no for answer!”

Tally (Tora & Poppi):
Medium Biped x 88, Large Biped x 13, Goliath x5, Legpower x4, Multileg x16, Reverse-joint x13, Quadruped x14, Small Flier x18, Medium Flier x13
Total: 212 / 200

Tally (Giovanna):
Medium Biped x 34, Large Biped x 17, Goliath x3, Legpower x4, Reverse-joint x10, Quadruped x9, Multileg x9, Small Flier x5, Medium Flier x2
Total: 92 / 100

Tally (Rust Crew): 100

Tally (everyone): 909




Abandoned Subway - Underground Nexus

Level 4 Goldlewis (52/40)
Karin and Sakura’s @Zoey Boey, Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Blazermate’s @Archmage MC, Geralt @Multi_Media_Man, Benedict’s @Dark Cloud, Raz’s @Truthhurts22
Word Count: 1103


The Other’s massive size made it an easy target, so even in the throes of confusion, anguish, and fear Sakura landed a flurry of attacks, her strength and meter usage unrestrained. Of course, each of her techniques hurt a lot more than individual psi-blasts, so after just a moment spent swinging at Raz the monster refocused on the girl now whaling on its body. Its maneuvered away just enough so that a sweep of its arm across the ground could knock her back in a spray of dust, dirt, and rubble. Then it took hold of its bizarre head with both hands, lifted itself up, and pounded it against the ground, each crushing blow as strong or stronger than the body splash of the Gunkin Fisher. Even with Raz running interference, Sakura couldn’t take this horror head-on by herself.

Of course, Luka had no intention of letting her go it alone. Pushed to the next level by Brain Drive, he struck the other like lightning and vanished just as quickly. His uncanny usage of gravity and momentum to leverage his hefty weapon made the hammer seem almost weightless in his hands, but when it fell on the Other it splintered wood, dented metal, powdered butterflies, and left craters in its flesh. Unfortunately, this freak had a lot of wood, metal, butterflies, and flesh to get through. With Sina still rooted in place, an expression of horror frozen on her features, Dexio focused on protecting her. But the squad wasn’t left wanting for backup. Out of nowhere a whole nother squad of Seekers arrived, and they wasted no time lending a hand.

Karin attempted to convince Sakura to withdraw from the dangerous situation she’d thrown herself into, then entered the fray herself. Rather than go whole-hog like her friend she kept some distance, daringly playing the spacing game with the giant Other. This thing wasn’t playing nice, though. Its punishments were a lot stronger than hers, and its limbs so much longer that landing a hit on its torso might as well be impossible. That left its head, and while the red flash of the pinecone flowers lining its bottom jaw indicated some sort of weak point, a head slam from this thing couldn’t be sustained. Still, Karin made it work. Goldlewis joined in, hammering the monster’s limbs with his coffin rather than risking its business end. After a moment spent crawling on its tiptoes and elbows, hits coming in from all sides, the Other let out a howl with such physical power that everyone in its vicinity got blown away.

“Gah!” Gritting his teeth, Goldlewis remained where the wave of force pushed him back for a moment, and riddled the Other with a barrage from his Skyfish minigun. Luckily Benedict had managed to escape before the roar came out, but the shallow cuts inflicted by his blade amounted to almost nothing. His forte lay elsewhere, and as he quickly demonstrated, one could always trust a strategist to come up with a plan.

He solicited the aid of Sina, although she didn’t respond with the snappy professionalism he might have expected. The girl looked shell-shocked, her eyes wide as saucers and her mouth agape. Dexio had been trying to rouse her gently, but after being shouted at she managed to come to her senses. What she said, however, was nonsense. “Wh-what are you people doing!?” she shrieked. “Don’t hurt her! It’s Peach! That thing is Peach!”

Dexio blanched. “Wait, what? What are you talking about? That doesn’t…!”

One of the Other’s ribbons whipped toward him. Luka appeared in a flash and tackled his squad member, narrowly preventing a grievous head wound. “We need to focus!” he told the team as he stood up, disappearing to continue his hit-and-run onslaught. “Even a second’s hesitation could mean death!”

“R-right.” Dexio hefted his cestus and prepared to join the fight, but despite Benedict’s orders Sina refused to fight. Only when Luka backed the tactician up did she reluctantly begin to use her Refrigerant Coil, but her arm was shaky, and not one shot hit its mark. Dexio joined Geralt and the other melee fighters in their precarious dance, getting clear when the Other attacked and striking back as it wound back down. Goldlewis joined them, able to stay in closer thanks to both his sheer fortitude and an effective shield in the form of his coffin. Midna’s strikers helped stymie the Other’s movement, and even without Sina’s help, when everyone attacked it together they dealt enough damage to its limbs to knock the Other onto its side. The one-two of Midna’s bludgeon and Darknut worked wonders, and a slab of concrete from Raz sealed the deal.

The Other collapsed for a moment, the heads on its roof lolling limply with their mouths open in silent expressions of pain. Luka and Goldlewis both paused, waiting to see what happened. After a moment it stirred, however, galvanized into action in part due to the shots from Blazermate’s new turret. Its wrists cracked and rotated around, followed shortly by its entire body, turned upside down. Now it stood on all fours on its feet and the backs of its hands, its heads dangling beneath its front. It gave a tremendous groan, then plunged its ribbons into the ground. They began to pop up all around the arena, bursting from the stone to skewer Seekers and Scarlet Guardians from beneath on their golden spikes. Their first casualty: the immobile sentry.

“Keep movin’, and watch your feet!” Goldlewis called out, taking off at a run as ribbons erupted behind him. Noticing that the Other wasn’t moving during this attack, he charged in and struck at its head with a Behemoth Typhoon spun like a lasso, battering the loosely-hanging statue heads like speedbags before a final overhead smash cracked its eaves. The Other withdrew its ribbons and leaped backward, then reared up. Its hands flailed around as if scratching at the eyes of a normal head that wasn’t there, its body contorting wildly, before it unleashed an even more terrific roar. Debris flew away from it in every direction in a heavy barrage, and dust billowed into the air. In mere moments the entire room was one big smokescreen, with no more than a few meters of visibility in any direction. “Damn it,” Goldlewis cursed, hearing more ribbons burrowing through the earth. “Where are you?”

Perfect. In a corner of the shrouded room, a lone, slender figure dressed in black leaped from a hiding place and began to run, sprinting through the haze toward the tunnel that Team Goldlewis came from.
In World of Light → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Edinburgh MagicaPolis

Level 8 Big Band (75/80)
Ace Cadet’s @Yankee, Red’s @TruthHurts22, Mewtwo’s @Double
Word Count: 721


When the Psychic Pokemon began to recount the course of events that brought him all the way across the World of Light to this very moment, Big Band had been standing up, but by the time Mewtwo finished the detective felt like he needed to sit down. From what he said, L clearly hadn’t been exaggerating when she described the offensive launched against Alcamoth as war; what Mewtwo spoke of was an all-out invasion. Huge armies, massive airborne battleships, and the bleeding edge of murderous military technology, with a staggering death toll to match. It was hard to imagine, especially given Big Band’s somewhat outdated perspective. Neither could he assign a face to any of the names Mewtwo mentioned. Nevertheless, the gravity of this woeful revelation weighed heavily upon him. A few moments passed between the gathered fugitives, in silence and in grief.

Along with the anguish, however, came anger, and thanks to the rest of Mewtwo’s report, an opportunity. Alcamoth’s finest fighters had emerged from the fog of war to confront the enemy’s masterminds in the high-up perch where they roosted, and made them pay dearly for their crimes. While it did Big band some good to hear that Smash City’s avengers had managed to exact some vengeance against the Consuls, the end results sounded anything but definitive for either side. Both Mewtwo and Red agreed: with L back home in Edinburgh with her tail between her legs to lick her wounds, it fell to this motley crew of Seekers to finish the job. His rational side knew that nothing about the situation surrounding the Aether Resort had really changed, but Band could see the fire in the eyes of his teammates. He could feel it, heating up the room. The fate of ill-fortuned Alcamoth had ignited the will to mete out some richly-deserved justice inside them, and he’d be lying if he said that same feeling didn’t burn within him, too.

He took a deep breath in through his nose, his eyes closed to think, then out as he fixed Mewtwo with a firm stare. “I ain’t gonna argue. L’s got a hell of a lot to answer for, and I sure don’t mind askin’.” Agreeing to do something about the unconscionable Consul did not mean throwing caution to the wind, however. “But let’s make sure we don’t do anythin’ stupid and hang ourselves out to dry. Right now, there’s only us four. No way to get in touch with Peach or the others. Same goes for Frisk, Albedo, and Lucia. We sure weren’t expectin’ a chance like this to come along outta nowhere. If we run off on a wild goose chase, we might lose our shot at L, so if we’re makin’ a play it’s gonna be as a four-man band.”

Instinctively Band glanced around, peering throughout the Pokemon Center for any sign of eavesdroppers or other threats. Then he continued. “For a bit I forgot you got it easy when it comes to movin’ lots of folks at once, Red,” he mentioned to the superhero. “We’ll be relyin’ on you to get us up there, then. I can fly well enough, but I only got one seat, and it sure ain’t for passengers.” The detective narrowed his eyes. “Once we’re up, we gotta find her fast. Don’t want any more guards on our case, whether they got guns or Pokemon. My main concern…” After clearing his throat, he lowered his voice just a touch. “Is N. I figured this might be a trap from the start, and just ‘cause she’s real hurt don’t mean it ain’t. ‘Catch more flies with honey than vinegar’, y’know? Makes sense she’d see him after goin’ out on official business anyhow. Plus, you said y’all took care of four of her ‘beasts’.” He raised an eyebrow at Mewtwo. “Was that all of ‘em? How many you think she still got?” Once supplied with a response, Band went ahead and wrapped up his precautions. “All I’m sayin’ is, it ain’t outta the question that we’ll be runnin’ up against two Consuls for the price o’ one. But if y’all are game, let’s make it a killer quartet..”

If everyone was in agreement, it was up to Red to kick things off once the Seekers retraced their steps to the waterfront.
In World of Light → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Road to Ruin

Level 12 Tora (45/120) Level 12 Poppi (55/120)
Giovanna, Roxas’ @Double, Pit’s @Yankee, Susie’s @Archmage MC, Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man, Partitio’s @Dark Cloud
Word Count: 1012


As the squadron of Bipeds splashed toward them, backed by that lumbering Goliath, Tora and Poppi could enjoy only the briefest lull in the action. The rain had picked up, turning from a light shower to a downpour, and when the murky, roiling heavens flashed with lightning, hundred and hundreds of marching machines were revealed through the haze. Thunder roared high above, and across the battlefield the booming report of Susie’s missiles answered in kind. Neither Tora nor Poppi could see her, only the destruction wrought by her electricity-infused onslaught. Behind them, they were vaguely aware of rambunctious shouts and incessant gunfire. Azure flame split the dark as Zenkichi blazed a trail through the horde, the warpath he mowed through the Machines and punctuated with huge blasts of Almighty light. Given the sheer numbers they were up against, the Rust Crew ditched their strategy of background support to plunge into the enemy ranks aboard their truck. The heavy-duty hauler crushed smaller Machines like soda cans while Marshall and Big Bo fired away, their environment so target-rich that they scarcely needed to aim.

That was all behind Tora and Poppi, though, and their moment had come to a close. The gang of Bipeds stampeded them like raging cattle, Were he and his shield much larger Tora could have held them all off as a living barricade, but his diminutive size made it all too easy for the Machines to circle around him, so the pair had to rely on offense. He bludgeoned and bashed, eating hits for breakfast in order to doggedly strike back, while Poppi hacked and swung. Only when sure of stabbing through two or three Bipeds at a time could she go for a thrust. Often enough they overlapped on the same target, though that also led to an inadvertent extra blow to an already-beaten Machine. This frantic melee went on until the Goliath reached the pair and made its presence known with a megalithic punch, smashing through a couple Bipeds to send Tora soaring with a panicked cry. “Meeeeeeeeeeh!”

“Got you!” Poppi dove like an all-star goalie to try and save him. She caught him and the two hurtled backward, Poppi shielding Tora as they bounced along the ground. Thinking quickly, the Nopon fired a Boom Biter at the ground to launch them both upward, giving Poppi a chance to slow down and stick the landing. “Nice one!”

Machines cruised toward them, filling the air with marbled pink projectiles, but Tora pointed straight at the Goliath with his wing. “Nopon delivery system, go!” He hopped over onto Poppi’s back as he passed her the Drill Shield, who used it to launch two Riot Gun shots at the Goliath to tide it over, before boosting forward. From atop her back he swung his hammer at every Machine in their way, felling Small Fliers left and right, as they closed in on the Goliath. It raised its massive hands and brought them together in a calamitous clap at the perfect moment, but its metal palms didn’t quite meet in the middle. After a tense second, Poppi’s superstrength parted the Goliath’s hands to either side with such speed that the titan staggered back. “Meh-meeeeh!” With a battle cry Tora springboarded off his creation and fired his shield’s thrusters to hurtle the last couple dozen feet and drill straight into the Goliath’s chest.

As Poppi landed and raced toward it, the Goliath found its footing. It snatched Tora before he could fully breach its chassis, and as the Drill Shield tumbled to the ground, it squeezed him like a stress ball. “Pop-! Pi-! Help!” Tora wheezed, his eyes bugging out with each squeeze. Gritting her teeth, the artificial blade snatched the shield and span it up like a buzzsaw. The Goliath pulled its arm back to throw Tora off into the horizon, but Poppi blazed upward at maximum thrust with the shield extended, and sawed through its narrow upper-arm at the last second. Cut loose, the whole arm -and Tora- went flying, arcing through the air until Poppi caught it on her shoulders. Tora plopped down on top of it, shook his head to clear the stars from his eyes, then hefted his hammer. “Full throttle!” With a shout, Poppi used her superstrength to cast the arm like a giant javelin, hurling it through the air to finish what Tora started by caving in the Goliath’s torso. A mechanical groan echoed out as the sparking hulk fall backward, crushing a handful of other Machines as it slammed into the ground.

While the two waged their war, Giovanna had stepped up to the plate as well, and with the serious, pragmatic manner that befitted a professional. Dealing with one hundred opponents minimum might sound like a tall order, but in the end, you only needed to do the same, simple thing one hundred times. Like stamping a form, making a copy, or dotting an i. And this was a lot easier -and more fun- than filling out paperwork.

The secret agent carved through the battlefield like lightning. With Rei at her back, she dashed across the ground and slid in with a triple kick, her leg firing like a machine gun. Bangbangbang. Three craters appeared in the Large Biped’s body in ascending order, and with a strong turn kick she blew the Machine’s electronic innards out its back. One. A Quadruped stabbed at her with its bladed leg, but she went low and Rei swept its legs out from under it, sending it to the ground head-first. Giovanna’s leg then shot upward in a burst of dust, and the Quadruped’s front half ripped off to disappear into the sky. Two. A Reverse-joint took aim at her as Medium Bipeds charged in, but after a flying knee to the first one she kicked off it with burning legs to stomp, melt, and jump off each one’s head in turn. Three, four, five. With her flying dropkick Trovão she shot through the Reverse-joint’s flurry of projectiles like an arrow, unimpeded, to slam into its face. A Roman Cancel kept the pressure on, and the next second Giovanna had wound around its head like a snake, her electrified fists plunged into its neural processors. ...Six.

By the time her target hit the ground, Giovanna was already gone. A Biped with a sword chopped at her and got nothing but air. Giovanna took out its legs with two quick low kicks, leaning on a prone Rei for support, then flipped the Machine head over heels with a rising kick. Another attempted to block her with its scrap-metal shield so its buddies could pincer her. She flipped out of the way and nailed both with a withering Sol Poente split kick, then beat the shielder’s block with a throw and finished it off with a spinning Rei crescent. Without giving her a second to breath, another Quadruped raced in, forcing her to guard against its flailing legs. It whipped around to follow up with a mule kick, but Giovanna blew straight through it with a well-timed, upper-body-invincible punch. As it teetered over she leaped herself forward with a flying snap kick and bodily launched it off the ground, straight into an incoming Legpower. Medium Bipeds surged around her, but so too did the power inside her, and with a green flash she merged with Rei to unleash Ventania, scrapping them all with her whirlwind breakdance. By that time the Legpower recovered enough to challenge her, but despite its legs’ size it just couldn’t compare. Giovanna dodged its stomps and kicks, putting cracks in its armor with every punish, until a final Sepultura shattered the Machine’s oversized leg into metal shards. As it fell she smashed the earth with her powered gloves, then rose in a series of fiery flip kicks only to shoot down again in a burning dive. After knocking the Legpower onto its back, she rode its burning body down the road for a few hundred feet, and all the small fry in her way quickly found themselves reduced to spare parts. Once it came to a stop Giovanna was on the move, the force of her incredible legs clear-cutting the machines like so much timber. She squashed spiders, broke horses, and ravaged raptors between entire courses of Bipeds, all dispatched with the same impersonal, pragmatic precision. Only the fliers remained well beyond her reach.

Meanwhile, Tora and Poppi were clearing a path of their own. With the Drill Shield’s bit extended, its thrusters engaged, and Poppi pushing up from behind with her own rockets, Tora bored through the Machines’ ranks like a mole through the earth, a constant spray of sparking scrap in his wake. While the two didn’t finish off everything they hit this way, they racked up a lot of kills and managed to sow chaos through the horde for a solid thirty seconds, until finally their momentum came to a halt against a hunkered-down Multileg. In an instant the two found themselves completely surrounded By Machines on all sides, weathering a storm of blows as they tried to defend themselves. It was too much, however, and after a moment the pair were dogpiled, buried beneath the machines that grabbed and held them while the others pummeled, slashed, and stabbed away. “Poppi!” Tora cried as the tide of metal swallowed him up. “Defense not work….mmmmph!”

Orange light suddenly shone from within the pile, quickly building in strength, and after another moment it exploded in a shower of molten slag. Poppi QT burst up from within in a blazing uppercut, her mode and elemental core both Poppiswapped out. Then, hovering in midair with her Masterpon clinging to her back, she popped open the Mech Arms to take a page from Susie’s book and bombard the whole area with missiles. When they fell to earth Tora took hold of the Mech Arms, the pair switched from Block Tank to Evasion Tank and ready to rumble.

Tally (Tora & Poppi):
Medium Biped x 41, Large Biped x 18, Goliath x4, Legpower x2, Multileg x14, Reverse-joint x7, Quadruped x8, Small Flier x5, Medium Flier x2
Total: 101 / 200
Tally (Giovanna):
Medium Biped x 23, Large Biped x 11, Legpower x3, Reverse-joint x5, Quadruped x9, Multileg x6
Total: 57 / 100


Abandoned Subway -Underground Nexus

Level 4 Goldlewis (50/40)
Karin and Sakura’s @Zoey Boey, Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Blazermate’s @Archmage MC, Geralt @Multi_Media_Man, Benedict’s @Dark Cloud, Raz’s @Truthhurts22
Word Count: 1168


Not until their yellow glare shone upon him did Goldlewis, fixed on either shooting at the camera or jumping between L.I.F.T.s as the situation demanded, notice the Cleansers’ appearance. “What in Sam Hill is that!?” he roared over the scream of the rails and the groovy synthwave. While he flinched from their antimutagenic light after one accosted Midna in its gaze, it turned out to have no effect on him other than some minor discomfort. That didn’t mean that he could rest easy, however. The half-man, half-car monstrosity gained ground as it pursued the L.I.F.T, its brawny arms outstretched to seize the team’s’ mode of transportation and wrench it from its track, oblivious to any harm it might cause itself in its single-minded attempt to send the Seekers to their death. With a frustrated grunt Goldlewis performed an about-face to bring his Skyfish and Thunderbirds to bear against the Cleanser. Loathe as he was to prolong this ordeal, the camera would have to wait.

With the supply of Session Pounds cut off, though, the members of the group who struggled at long range could refocus their efforts on the Cleansers as they appeared. Even with their spirit powers stripped away, both Midna and Geralt were still seasoned warriors with a bevy of magic and experience under their belts. The Twilight Princess’s plus-size arcane explosive proved wonderfully effective, blowing the first Cleanser almost all the way back into the void on hit. Only by a twisted miracle did it avoid a violent derailment. The Witcher, meanwhile, stopped another Cleanser in its tracks just as it reached one of the L.I.F.T.s with a combination of deft swordplay and good use of his Signs. Try as it might, the monstrosity wouldn’t be getting a good grip on any L.I.F.T with Geralt on it. That left one track unattended, with a third and final Cleanser en route to sabotage it, but an intervention proved unnecessary.

After helping Benedict, Blazermate took the lack of opposition from the camera’s direction -as well as what seemed to be a slight relaxation on its part- to nail it with a Medabeam. That full-force blast, stacked on top of the bullet and erosion damage dealt to it already, was just what the team needed. The ActionMaxx Camera gyrated wildly, giving off a boatload of curious red energy, and the entire tunnel seemed to distort. After another moment the entire scene just blipped away, returning the Seekers to exactly the point where they started: standing on a single L.I.F.T. in a dead-end tunnel in front of a solid wall, an ordinary-looking camera in front of them. With the Altered World Event finished, the recorder displayed no more anomalous activity, and the subway system was back to normal. As normal as it was going to get, anyway. Only one thing was different: the presence of a VHS tape at the feet of the tripod, titled ‘The Seekers of Light in: Swift Platform!’. Goldlewis didn’t recognize the archaic technology, and even if he did, he sure wasn’t touching anything else in here. “Let’s get the hell outta here,” he grumbled.



The team reunited with Karin, who happened to be looking down a different dead end when the others wound up taking an unexpected ride, then proceeded through the tunnels. After a few minutes the echoed sounds of voices reached them, and Goldlewis called out, “Hello? Anyone there? We’re friendlies!”

“Hello!” a no-nonsense voice called back. “Be with you in a minute!”

After a few moments the Seekers made contact. As Goldlewis expected, they turned out to be a Psych-OSF platoon, this one under the command of the man who’d responded to him earlier: the dignified Captain Seto, his manner and manner of dress the consummate battlefield professional. His soldiers introduced themselves as well. The rather curt glasses-wearing blond guy was Shiden Ritter, the lackadaisical girl with pink twintails Arashi Spring, the friendly redheaded airhead Sam Boole, the dapper lavender-haired man Lucian, and spiky-haired dude with a conspicuous lack of shirt Akira Tadokoro. This platoon seemed to have a thing for face masks, being featured by three of the four male personnel. “Seems like we’ve been encountering more people than Others down here this last hour or so,” Seto remarked. “Though, you don’t exactly look like Psych-OSF personnel. May I ask who you are?”

“Goldlewis Dickinson,” the veteran replied, not missing a beat. “Former Secretary of Defense? We were sent down by Konoe to make sure everythin’s hunky-dory down here. Think of us as consultants. We been busy, too. Sounds like y’all got it easy.”

Seto cleared his throat. “Ah, forgive me, that does ring a bell. We did just take down a Major Other known as a Gunkin Fisher a few minutes ago, and we were wading through Others for a while, but yes, it seems like we’ve managed to clear things up. The operation must be coming to a close.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” Goldlewis gave a nod of approval. “Did y’all happen to link up with any other squads down here? We’ve been looking for Luka Platoon in particular.”

Brows raised, Seto nodded quickly. “How fortuitous. Yes, in fact, they assisted us against that Other. Hurry this way and you may be able to catch them.” He pointed the Seekers down the tunnel his squad came from. “Good luck and farewell.”

The two teams parted ways, with the veteran’s moving double-time. It didn’t take long to pass the junction where the battle against the Gunkin Fisher took place, but they didn’t slow down; heavy rumbles were shaking the underground, making Goldlewis worried about the possibility of a cave-in both for the sake of his team and Peach’s. Soon after, a hideous roar echoed through the tunnels that made the blood freeze in the veteran’s veins, spurring the group on even faster. Goldlewis pushed past his fatigue to keep on running, pounding the floor with one heavy footfall after another. Just what had the others gotten themselves into?

Suddenly, the six emerged into a large, open area. It looked like some sort of dug-out underground complex, like a quarry, long-abandoned and recently collapsed. Rubble littered the whole place, blocking off a whole portion of the otherwise square space, but Goldlewis cared less about the stage and more about the actors upon it. Another Psych-OSF squad, five strong, were faced by the biggest, most monstrous Other that Goldlewis had ever seen. It was a contorted mockery of the human shape, covered in greenery and swarms of live butterflies, with weaponized sashes and a head like a three-dimensional painting, an empty chair depicted inside. Above that bizarre aperture perched two cowled marble heads. It wasn’t just any OSF troopers this horrific Other was attacking, either: it was Sakura, Raz, and their teammates, although try as he mighty Goldlewis couldn’t see any sign of Peach.

First things first, though. “Here to help!” he bellowed, charging in with his coffin at the ready. Raz had managed to get the monster’s attention with his shots, but its size meant it could cover a lot of ground quickly, so everyone needed to hurry and make sure it didn’t reach him. “Let’s work together an’ send this bastard packin’!”



Home of Tears - Gallo Tower

Level 10 Nadia (164/100)
The Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Primrose and Therion’s @Yankee, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Jesse’s @Zoey Boey, Ganondorf’s @Double, Rubick’s @Scarifar, Ichiban’s @Truthhurts22
Word Count: 2059


After Concetta left, Nadia got right back to trying to figure out her new tails situation. Having them be smaller and more flexible than the fish-tail she’d gotten from Oceanid was a welcome change. It had not only had it been unwieldy to fight with, but also thrown off her balance especially in the air, which only got more difficult after her fusion with Massachusetts made hangtime that much harder to achieve. And don’t even get me started on chairs, she thought wearily. Sleeping on her back last night turned out to be flat-out impossible, and she’d only managed to seat herself at Definitely Not Fried Chicken last night by turning her chair sideways. Though, leaning on the seat back with one arm did give her new monster friends a particularly sassy impression that she didn’t mind. Of course, everything was a trade-off, though, and in this case her new change also meant muscles at her disposal that she’d never had before. Nadia crouched down, span her head around, and tried to get her new tails to cooperate. After a few moments, she managed to curl two of them together into the rough shape of a heart, which made her giggle. “Nyeheheh…”

Before the team’s preparations concluded, Nadia found herself solicited by Ichiban. She quit goofing around, turned her head back around, and stood to face him. “What’s up, Itchy Buns?” At first she’d just taken him to be a local handyman with a daredevil streak, tagging along to the Soul Sanctum out of curiosity or a desire to help, but if he planned to stick with them to challenge a Consul he might be with the Seekers for the long haul. That very confrontation, however, was what concerned him. Nadia pursed her lips as she considered the man’s trepidations, one eye narrowed and the other’s eyebrow raised. It sounded like Ichiban knew the little guy, and he made it sound like P wasn’t all that bad. His obvious good intentions made the situation all the more frustrating. “I…well, I get he’s a kid, but no way he’s just some brat who doesn’t know any better. These Consuls are, like, Galeem’s henchmen or somethin’.” Right after she said that she remembered that Ichiban wouldn’t be able to understand her. Not with that sunset-red glow in his eyes. The cat burglar momentarily considered finding some other roundabout way to explain things, but gave up with a sigh. Too much effort. Not my problem, she thought. You’ll just have to find out for yourself, buddy. Besides, Ganondorf offered as good a reason as any, she supposed. Though Bowser’s reponse made her second-guess her initial, somewhat callous reply. After making a mental note to try and Friend Heart Ichiban during the fight if she could, she shrugged and added, “Look, offin’ a child’s the last thing I wanna do. But if this guy tries to kill us, we can’t afford to kid around. The bigger your heart, the easier it is to stab. Take it from me, I LITERALLY got stabbed in the back like half an hour ago. Not a knife feelin’!”

Ichiban also threw some shade at Gallo. Nadia glanced over to where the mage-scholar seemed to be engaged with Junior and Kamek in conversation. He did look pretty shady to be fair, what with that classic conniving wizard look, but the feral felt like he’d made his motives pretty clear. Up in the Soul Sanctum he made no bones about the pride and pettiness that drove him to vengeful, nigh obsessive scheming, nor that he shamelessly meant to use the Seekers for his own ends. Could be be planning to replace P as the city’s ruler? Maybe. To be honest, Nadia didn’t really care to analyze him further. Everyone had agreed that these Consuls were going to keep being thorns in the Seekers’ side in their campaign against Galeem, so getting rid of them would make things easier. Besides, the heroes could just beat him up too if he became a problem. So unless turned out to be one big, elaborate ruse that ended in a classic double-cross, there was no need to worry. Still, might as well offer Ichiban some reassurance. “Guess I’ll keep an eye on him,” she told him, though in her mind she thought, Why is he telling me this, anyway?

Before much longer, everyone was ready. Nadia had her blade case strapped on tight, and both her box cutter hilts and new dagger Athame in her belt. Once the Seekers marched through the garden of bioluminescent fungi, their softly-growing crowns umbrellas against the rain, Gallo gathered everyone together before the immense building’s majestic gates. “A few final words,” he began. “This tower -my tower- is magic in nature, and the space within it, convoluted. For starters, you’ll be pulled in the moment I open the door. It would be easier to show you than tell you, but suffice to say, once in you will not need to climb. Just walk. Those of you who mean to engage P in battle should head toward the light. Those who mean to finish him off, toward the dark.” He looked off into the distance. “...There is one final domino I must still erect. I will join the latter group in a few moments.” Gallo positioned himself beside the doorway, then extended his hand to push it open. “Go right ahead.”

Moving inward with startling speed, the grand oaken double doors slammed open. With a surprised Nadia flew off her feet, falling straight toward the yawning doorway as if gravity itself had reoriented ninety degrees. Caught completely off guard, she could do nothing but twist wildly in midair as she plunged into the insides of Gallo Tower. Once everyone was inside, the doors closed behind them.

Now alone, Gallo turned his attention back toward the mushroom garden, and waited patiently. After a few seconds, a dark portal opened up in front of him. Out stepped a figure in a black hooded coat, only a couple feet in height. “‘Ello, ‘ello,” she greeted him, her voice a youthful chirp. “Wotcha think, eh? Think they’ll do the job?”

Gallo exhaled wearily. “I must admit, I thought your prediction too good to be true, at first. Yet they not only came, just as you said, they also toppled the Agarthans in the span of a single morning–nay, in less than two hours. They may very well possess the strength to make my dream.” He coughed. “Our dream, a reality.”

The hooded girl chuckled. “See, I toldja so, didn’t I now?”

“Where’ve you been, anyway?” Gallo asked, unamused.

“Oo, me? I’ve just been playin’ with F, is all.” Smirking, the girl summoned a glowing blade of silver, cyan, and black, bedecked in hollow spikes, clock faces, and devilish detail. “Course, I play rough. Gave ‘im a proper runaround, I did. Needed to keep ‘im off our heroes’ backs while we deal with ‘is friend, after all.”

Gallo sniffed. “They want to let him live, you know. Too soft-hearted to slay a wolf wearing sheep’s clothing.”

“Well, then. Sounds like you’ll be needin’ this in case they muck this up.” From her pocket the girl produced a glowing hourglass. “Don’t go studyin’ it now, you bookish old git. And don’t waste it either, yeah?” Banishing her weapon, the girl crossed her arms. “We’ve gotta show ‘em they can be beaten.”

Only with a concerted effort did the mesmerized scholar tear his eyes off the hourglass’s beguiling glow in order to place it in his Inventory. He then turned his back, and headed for the tower’s door. “I understand.”



After a brief but terrifying moment, Nadia landed, and as always she landed on her feet. For a moment her head swam, her senses of orientation one hundred percent confused, but after readjusting she got a look around. Despite entering what she understood to be a tower, she and the others now stood in a huge, stone brick corridor, extending in a straight line as far as she could see in both directions, one way bright and the other increasingly dark. At first it looked normal enough, like a haunted castle from a cheesy vampire flick, but her keen eyes quickly noticed a couple abnormalities. The windows, for one, were oriented sideways rather than upward, and unless her eyes were playing tricks on her, the rain was falling sideways, in the direction of the corridor’s dark end. When Nadia looked up, she spotted something that left her blinking in confusion: the double doors through which the Seekers entered, neatly built into the ceiling.

“This is…weird,” she murmured, at a loss for puns for once. But only briefly. “I’ve been tryin’ to come up with a pun for like ten seconds now, but I guess a cat got my tongue. I’m pawstruck!” Against all odds, it really looked like gravity within the tower oriented sideways, against its back wall.

After a few moments the doors opened again, and Gallo came flying through. He landed on the ground with is robes fluttering, his tome in his hands. “Still here?” he asked. “There’s no time to waste. Let us be off. Just remember: the furnishings up ahead may…unnerve you, but you must not disturb anything. When you find Consul P, be ready for anything.” With that, he turned to proceed toward the darkness.

Nadia shrugged and turned the other way, headed toward what she assumed would be the top of Gallo Tower. Weird as this might be, it actually came as a major relief; just the thought of climbing hundreds of flights of stairs before a tough battle had been making her woozy. She, Ichiban, Sectonia, Ganondorf, Bowser, Rika, Jesse, Primrose, and Therion moved at a brisk pace, past numerous antique sofas, fireplaces, bookshelves, and candelabras. Everything seemed more or less normal for a solid couple minutes, but eventually the truth behind Gallo’s warning became apparent. They began to encounter what appeared to be young boys, all completely identical to one another, with blond bowl cuts that covered their eyes and blinking red lights on their heads, white shirts, red bow ties, gray shorts held up by suspenders, their expressions all frozen in an open-mouthed look of surprise between rosy cheeks. The first ones Nadia spotted were playing hopscotch on a pattern scrawled onto the stone brick with white chalk. Their movements were stiff, uncanny, and mechanical, and they often wasted time in a lazy manner between their turns. “Well, not really ‘unnerving’,” Nadia remarked, watching the robots closely as she gave them a wide berth. “But weird.”

It only got weirder from there, though. Robots turned up more and more often the further the Seekers went, engaged in all sorts of hollow activities. There were machines playing tag, jumping rope, drawing with crayons, doing arts and crafts, play-fighting, and more. There was a kitchen table surrounded by decorations where four of them sat with presents, the spot at the head of the table empty but surrounded by piles of half-eaten cake and torn wrapping paper. There were couches with TVs where robots sat waiting to play, the Player 1 spot always empty. There was a little movie theater full of robots, the best seat sticky with soda and popcorn but unoccupied, and a vacant stage in front of robots with their hands poised to clap. There were plenty of board game pieces and broken machine parts scattered around, too.

“Kinda creepy,” Nadia admitted after a while. She crouched down for a moment by what must have at one point been an incredible structure built from tiny plastic blocks, which now lay mostly in ruin. “But also…sad?”

The echoed sound of coughing caught her attention, and she stood in a hurry to catch up with and pass the others. After all this walking, the top of the tower lay nearby. Nadia gazed up at the ‘ceiling’, namely the massive red-tinted glass that shielded the face of Gallo Tower’s clock, though the clock itself seemed to by missing. From it a vivid crimson light poured down to bath what looked like a medieval throne room in its glow. At its center, atop the carpeted stars, on a plush red mattress in a purple bedframe, laid a boy. Though shaped like the machines the Seekers had seen so far, he wore futuristic red armor atop a dark gray suit, and his helmet resembled a pig’s, with its snout’s nostrils where the wearer’s eyes should be and a crown atop its head. The whole area was a mess, strewn with discarded amusements, packages, and wrappers, but Consul P just sat there, leaning on his arm.

“Miniooooons!” he whined. “I’m booooored. So, so, bored. Bored out of my mind! Get me something fun to do!” Looking down, he noticed the newcomers with a slight start. “Wait. Who’re you? Did my minions send you to play with me?” A hint of excitement entered his voice.

No doubt everyone had something to say about that, and Nadia didn’t hesitate to say hers. Hiding her thoughts behind a smirk, she withdrew Athame from her belt and gave it a twirl. “Actually, your ‘minions’ are takin’ time off. Purr-manently.” She replaced the dagger. “Not to alarm you or wind ya up, but we’re here to clean your clock. Y’know, face off. Throw hands? Strike one–that one bein’ you.” Laughing, Nadia sharpened her claws and clanged them together. “Your luck’s run out, P-brain. Big time.”

After everyone said their piece, P coughed a bunch, then straightened up in his chair. “You guys don’t like me? That’s too bad.” Suddenly, his bed began to rattle. It sprang from the ground into the air, sprouting arms, spider-legs, and two ferocious faces: a fanged one on the underside, and a crowned head up above. The bedmech, a terrifying combination of bed and mech, landed hard enough to make the tower rumble, and when the dust cleared, the Consul glared at the Seekers from within his protective casing. The lights on the heads of nearby Mecha-Porkies began to blink, and the machines turned to approach the budding brawl. “Anyone who doesn’t like me,” P announced. “Can just die.”
In World of Light → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Road to Ruin

Level 12 Tora (46/120) Level 12 Poppi (56/120)
Giovanna, Roxas’ @Double, Pit’s @Yankee, Susie’s @Archmage MC, Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man, Partitio’s @Dark Cloud
Word Count: 1635


First things first. “Poppi?” Tora called, as much to get her attention as to make absolutely sure she was by his side. “Need focus on defense, meh. Please switch Alpha!”

“Roger roger.” Sparks flew in the rain as the artificial blade reconfigured. The sheer mechanical power of her Masterpon’s original design, combined with the heavy metal plating from Poppi’s fusions with the Armor and Chemtrail would provide the strength and durability the pair needed for a knock-down, drag-out battle of attrition. After a moment the gear shift finished with a hiss and a burst of steam, Poppi’s red cape flapping in the wind as she hefted her claymore onto her shoulder. “Alpha by name, alpha by nature!”

Tora pulled out his new hammer, and once Poppi constructed a Drill Shield for him, he hefted that in his off-wing as well. “Meh-meh,” the Nopon laughed, only a little nervous. A true heropon knew no fear, after all. “Time to begin!”

With Poppi at his back he started to move, advancing toward the horde of machines still a little ways off. He began to beat his hammer against his shield, the repeated slams satisfyingly loud. The racket bolstered his courage, even as the baleful red eyes of machine lifeforms locked onto him by the hundreds. The role Tora accepted and strove to fill was that of the protector, the ironclad tank who drew the enemies’ ire away from his allies and withstood whatever punishment they could heap upon him. Sure enough, his clamor did its job. After just a couple moments, the machines -moving at a steady march down the desolate avenue- broke off in twos and threes to sprint in his direction, their metal feet splashing through the puddles. A Legpower Goliath charged out at the head of the pack thanks to its huge, long gait, the terrific slams of its footfalls enough to make just about any heart quail.

But not Tora’s. He tightened his grip. “First one in fight…”

“...And last one left standing!” Poppi replied.

The Legpower closed in with terrifying speed and lifted its huge leg to bring down on Tora with a massive stomp. Its immense limb landed dead-center, but rather than squash the Nopon flat it stopped short, the pancake-making wallop blocked by a combination of Tora’s upheld Drill Shield and a channeled ether barrier from Poppi. As the barrier faded Tora engaged the thrusters to push back against the immense force crushing down on him, holding it just long enough for Poppi to slide beneath the titanic foot and put her shoulder against its weight. With a mighty push she and Tora threw the foot off, sending the Legpower off-balance, and a moment later Tora followed up with a Boom Biter fired from his shield to take a chunk out of its torso. Enraged, the Legpower aimed a giant kick at the pair, but they split to either side to let that death sentence pass them by. Noting a matching robot head on the Legpower’s underside, Tora got into position as Poppi hacked at the big machine’s leg joints with her sword. He deployed his shield’s drill and put its thrusters to full burn to fly straight upward, digging into the head. “Uppies!” he cried, and Poppi dropped her claymore to oblige. As the Legpower stomped around, she used her thrusters to buoy Tora up from beneath, allowing him to carve straight up through the Legpower’s innards and finally burst up through its top head in a fountain of oil, sparking circuits, and scrap metal.

“Meh-heh-heeeeeh!” he cheered as he landed in Poppi’s waiting arms, watching as the Legpower crashed to the earth. Of course, the minute it did it got stomped underfoot by the mob of Bipeds only just now catching up to the opposition, so Poppi put her Masterpon down and hefted her sword back up. The first Large Biped used the fallen Legpower’s leg as a springboard to launch itself at Tora with a double overhead slam. It pounded his guard two more times before he deflected its blow, opening it up for a massive horizontal slice from Poppi that breezed over Tora’s head to carve through the machine like butter.

As its upper and lower halves fell, two Medium Bipeds attacked. Tora ducked lower and hammered his assailant in the side of the knee, caving it in sideways, but the Biped replied with a blow to the head. It barely left a bruise, and armed with that knowledge Tora happily took a second minor inconvenience to finish what he started and knock the Biped’s legs out from under it. A second later he cracked its head like a watermelon, and that was that. Meanwhile, Poppi lopped off her attacker’s right arm as it went to punch her, then neatly transitioned into a horizontal cut. Without enough momentum, it lodged halfway through, so Poppi put her other hand against the embedded blade and began to rotate her torso. She dragged the machine around her in two full loops before bifurcating it with a final heave, which sent its halves flying off toward the rest.

Overhead, two Small Fliers and a Medium Flier began to circle, shooting down iridescent pink orbs at a middling pace. While moving to avoid them Tora came under attack by a Large Biped that windmilled its arms in a constant onslaught, forcing him to block until he came to a sudden realization. He positioned the edge of the shield in the arm’s path and watched with glee as the Biped rammed its arms down on its serrated edges. From there a good wrench was enough to part its forearms from its body, and when Tora twisted back he buried the shield into the machine’s lower torso, knocking it to the ground. An overhead hammer swing drove the shield the rest of the way to finish it off, though Tora quickly retrieved the shield to block the Fliers’ shots. Poppi boosted up to get them off her Masterpon’s back, extending her blade to stab through its rotors and into its body. After taking aim she hurled it from the sword into one of the Medium Flier’s four turbines, sending it spiraling to the ground, then boosted toward the last one to wreck it beneath her weight as she descended to earth like a meteorite.

As she came down with a bang, Tora bashed a sword-wielding Medium Biped’s head sideways with its hammer, then as it spun jumped into the air to come down with a front flip shield crush that crumpled the machine’s head into its still-standing body. He rolled off and right into a block against a Multileg Cutter. It sliced left, then right, then angled its blades downward for a double stab over Tora’s block. He angled his defense up just in time, only to be thrown for a loop as the Multileg then began a rapid spin attack. It blew open his guard as the sparks flew and began to smack him, only for Poppi’s sword to fly in and pierce straight through its torso. It ground to a halt as a trio of Bipeds closed in, so Tora tossed Poppi the shield to unleash a Blade Art–Noponic Axiom. Her Electric Core flared to life as the whirling Drill Shield sent forth a rippling cone of chain lightning, frying all four machines until they blew up in an impressive chain explosion. A Quadruped circled around the blast, but with the weapon in her hands the Artificial Blade could fire off Riot Guns, and it took just two to blow the Quadruped to bits. As Tora felled a Medium Biped with a solid battering from his hammer, Poppi noticed the Medium Flier about to take off again and got an idea. “Boost me!” Poppi passed the shield back to Tora, pulled her claymore out, and springboarded off him in a mighty somersault slash to finish off the quadrotor.

More machines charged in. Poppi charged through a Reverse-joint’s gunfire to challenge it head on, stopping its pounce with a terrific left hook to floor it before hacking away with her swordblade. Tora fired off Boom Biter after Boom Biter, blowing two or three Bipeds up at a time, but his third only staggered a Large Biped with a glancing blow while a Quadruped leaped over the blast. It ran him down and pivoted around for a nasty double leg kick, but Tora’s low profile meant he could sweep underneath the blow and then fly up with a rocket-propelled drill. It dug in as he flew in a short arc, flipping the Quadruped onto its back. Once they landed the drill bit stuck fast and the shield itself began to spin, Tora with it. “Meeeh-eeeeeh-eeeeeh!” he cried as he whirled around, holding on with a single wing with the hammer in the other. The Bipeds that closed in hoping for an easy kill instead took a brutal pounding and hit the dirt as smoking, dented wrecks. Only when a new flier shot Tora off did his wild ride come to an end, but as the Nopon rolled along the ground Poppi yanked the busted-up shield from the Quadruped’s body to hurl at the airborne machine like a flying sawblade.

The flier hurtled to the ground and blew up on impact. As the flame and smoke cleared, a Goliath closing in on the pair looked up from the wreckage to stare the dynamic duo down, then resumed its approach, surrounded by Bipeds and a handful of small, bug-shaped Drones neither remembered seeing before. They seemed different, but nothing the two couldn’t handle. “Not done yet, right Masterpon?” Poppi helped Tora to his feet and passed him a newly-constructed Drill Shield, which he accepted with a grin.

“Tora only just get started!”

Tally:
Medium Biped x 13, Large Biped x 5, Legpower x1, Multileg x1, Reverse-joint x1, Quadruped x2, Small Flier x3, Medium Flier x1
Total: 27


Edinburgh MagicaPolis

Level 8 Big Band (74/80)
Ace Cadet’s @Yankee, Red’s @TruthHurts22, Mewtwo’s @Double
Word Count: 1339


While a seven-foot-seven, five thousand pound detective in a tan trench coat couldn’t be called inconspicuous with a straight face, Band did what he could not to stand out, or to stand in front of any Edinburgh civilians and block their view. A few more feet wouldn’t make a difference if his person of interest descended on that artificial island across the water. When L finally made her appearance, though, Band watched and listened to her with bated breath. So this is the woman I’ve heard so much about, he mused, his eyes on the tall, slender figure’s strangely ceremonial cherry-red armor and helmet. I feel like I know you already. Even if that headwear blocked her features, Band felt like he could safely say that this was the face of the enemy.

How many Consuls was this, now? He’d heard about N but couldn’t attach an appearance to the name, and he’d both seen and heard the Consul of the Metro, but missed out on his name. Then the one reported by the contingent who reached Twilight Town by boat, S. Two alphabetical aliases might have been a coincidence, but three was a pattern. Did that indicate the existence of twenty-six Consuls, all endowed with clear authority over some section of the World of Light or another? Their presence and purpose intrigued Band to no end. Virtually everywhere had someone or another in a position of power, but this felt different. With so many worlds involved, what were the odds that the same caste of people reigned in such different places, and so far apart? That smacked of something intentional. Galeem’s intentions? he wondered. If it possesses such faculties, instating stewards to keep a chokehold over the World of Light -and to quell any opposition- made sense. That meant getting rid of them made sense too.

Unfortunately he, Ace, and Red were in a bad spot to think about challenging her. From here, the Aether Foundation’s headquarters looked less like a paradise and more like a citadel, ringed by a gigantic, ice-cold moat. Band might be able to rocket across the freezing water to reach the island, maybe even with Red hitching a ride, but his power of transportation ended there. But even if all three managed to face L, with Lucia -currently attending to personal matters elsewhere in the city- and Frisk plus Albedo -cooped up in Grammeowster’s Kitchen with Sierra to avoid L recognizing them- thrown in for good measure, that might not be enough. Sure, L looked tired and wounded from her battle, but to Band’s world-weary eyes that looked too good to be true. If he were a betting man, he’d put his chips down on Edinburgh’s other Consul being nearby. Rushing in half-cocked at the smell of blood sounded like an easy way to spring a trap and get killed.

In the midst of Band’s musings, an unexpected guest appeared out of the blue. Mewtwo blinked in, gasped an urgent plea straight into the Seekers’ minds, and collapsed. Ace seemed to recognize him, his surprised exclamation letting the others -and bystanders- hear the creature’s name. The detective blinked -in the traditional sense- a couple times himself, then got to action. Already the crowd’s attention in their immediate vicinity lay squarely on Mewtwo. A warp like that would’ve gotten their attention even if he hadn’t been a legendary Pokemon, but thanks to that all eyes lay on him, and excited whispers filled the air. Eager trainers began to rummage through their bags for Pokeballs. The Monster Hunter quickly explained Mewtwo’s origin, and Band gave an urgent nod of understanding. He needed to control this chaos. “Scuse us, folks,” he began, turning to stand in front of Mewtwo as Ace began to carry him off. “Our friend here’s been travelin’ all day, poor guy’s all tuckered out.”

“Oh, it’s your Pokemon?” one of the nearby trainers asked, sounding disappointed. “Well, Mewtwos are very rare, you all should take better care of it!” She crossed her arms, looking indignant for Mewtwo’s sake. “Take a page out of the Aether Foundation’s book!”

“...Right.” Seeing that Ace had cleared the crowd with Mewtwo and was on his way back to base, Band looked around to make sure he wasn’t missing anyone. “Red? Hey Red, where’d you…?”

A voice from behind him got his attention, and the detective whirled around to see the superhero as he shouted at the top of his lungs across the lake. Balancing on the railing there was no mean feat considering his disproportionately large head, but Band found his audacity a lot more impressive. For a moment the stunned detective thought that Red was trying to confront L about her evildoing directly to bring her to justice, but Red opted for the thinnest veneer of subterfuge possible rather than none at all. While he managed to outstrip the volume of the crowd, which by now had died down thanks to their increasing dispersal, his voice had a long way to travel to get all the way to L on top of the Aether Resort. Band doubted she heard it, but he wasn’t about to let Red try again. He zoomed over, sliding across the snow-dusted stone brick, and snatched Red right off the railing with Take the A Train. Of course, he didn’t perform the percussive follow-up he usually did when landing this grab, and just rumbled back the way he came with his captive in tow.

“Ain’t no way you just tried to pull a stunt like that,” Band chided as he hustled to catch up with Ace and Mewtwo. “You wanna blow our cover or somethin’? That back there was a trap, one hundred percent. I betcha ten to one N was lurkin’ around there somewhere too. The last thing we need right now is the Consuls’ attention., and even if they didn’t suss us out, ya think she’d make time answerin’ questions for random nobodies?” After a couple dozen seconds the group got a safe distance away, so Band let Red out. “Look, I wanna know just as bad as you,” he admitted to the superhero. “But let’s look after Mewtwo here first. Chances are we can get the story from him.”

Before getting too far away from the Aether Resort, however, the group happened upon one of Edinburgh’s many Pokemon Centers. The boxy white building, roofed in red, before the trademark Pokeball symbol that identified anything and everything Pokemon. Mewtwo had fainted after using the last of his strength to reach Ace, but his red-haired acquaintance had the means to ease his pain: Lifepowder. A dose left Mewtwo lucid enough to recognize the Pokemon Center when he saw it, and while he couldn’t be healed by its machine as a free Pokemon, Band didn’t mind forking over some of the money earned from yesterday’s show to buy him a Revive.

Once administered the yellow crystal, Mewtwo would awaken on a red chair in the Pokemon Center, with the others standing by as the nurse’s kindly Audino took care of him with Heal Pulse. He’d still be tired, his PP painfully low, but his health was fully restored in no time. Once the Audino took her leave, Band stepped in. “You feelin’ alright?” he asked. “The name’s Big Band. We’re all Seekers.” He paused for a moment, swallowed, then continued more tentatively. “Don’t mean to rush ya, so take your time an’ all, but before we do anythin’ we’re itchin’ to hear whatever you’ve got to say about Alcamoth. Ain’t seen it myself, but it sounded important.” He narrowed his eyes. Red had mentioned Nelson evacuating people with the Virgin Victory, but last Band heard that airship was still undergoing repairs in that oasis outside of Gerudo Town. That meant that the inhabitants of Alcamoth might not have been able to evacuate during an attack.

“What happened?”

Underground Nexus

Sakura’s @Zoey Boey, Peach, Luka, Dexio, Sina, Raz


The sight of so many Vase Paws shook Peach, but only for a moment. Even in a big pack, these Others weren’t anything she hadn’t seen before. Four of them charged her way, led by a swift-footed frontrunner that zigged and zagged from side to side. Peach white-knuckled her Scatterboom, tracing the monster’s path with the barrel of her weapon, but only after the Vase Paws lunged for her did she make the final, critical adjustment and fire. A thunderous report echoed through the collapsed nexus as her point-blank blast sent the shotgun flying back in a burst of blood-red flower petals, its smoldering corpse tumbling along the ground until it burned away.

Its fellows hopped over its body and closed in, the clack of their heels and the jingle of their tails an intimidating cacophony. The first one jumped at her, flying through the air as it lashed out with both legs in a double kick. Peach dodged to the side and let it fly past her to focus on the second one, following close on the other’s heels. It unleashed a grounded, straightforward door-buster kick, and Peach span past it, staying close. With an adrenaline-fueled heave she bashed the Other’s narrow waist with a melee from her shotgun, then as it stumbled ditched the Scatterboom for her parasol. The princess deftly flipped it in her hand and grabbed it in a reverse grip to reach out with its J-shaped holt and hook the off-kilter Other’s leg out from under it, dropping it to the ground. By that time the third Vase Paws reached her, and with her teeth clenched she managed to block its high roundhouse with the furled parasol. After two quick strikes to the body with the hilt she took hold of the handle with her other hand and jabbed it point-first into the Other’s center of mass to then pop it open, flinging the Vase Paws away.

The move took just a hair too long, however, and as Peach turned to face it the last one delivered a tail lash right to her cheek that left her seeing stars as her jaw stung. Peach leaned into the spin to avoid stumbling, however, and recovered just in time to lean back away from the Vase Paw’s backflip tail lash. “Whoa!” she yelped, almost falling over backward. On instinct she manifested Grimm’s revolver, and the moment the Other landed a screaming wraith slammed into it, instantly flooring it in a shower of petals and ceramic fragments. The first Vase Paws ran up and came around with a mighty spin kick that Peach just barely rolled under, but by the time she came to rest on her back she’d already taken aim with the revolver again. With a hideous cry the Vase Paws fell, one leg blown clean off, but its second-fiddle kindred took revenge as Peach tried to rise with a swift kick in the guts. “Oof!” she grunted, tumbling backward only to activate Levitation and spring into the air. Out of the Vase Paws’ range, the princess pulled out her launcher, and a rocket aimed at her attacker’s feet knocked it down. As she fell the third Other charged in to intercept her, but Peach paused her fall mid-air with her float ability and nailed its head with repeated kicks instead. Her barrage ended with a point-blank inferno from her re-manifested Scatterboom. That left just the second Other, discombobulated by her rocket’s splash damage, and when it ran at her Peach got a spark of inspiration. Borrowing Sina’s Cryokinesis, she froze a patch of the floor, watched the Vase Paws slip and fall. Peach sidled up and beat it down with her parasol until a bulb popped up from its body. With a grin, she manifested a golf club and lifted it up. “Fore!” Crash!

All four foes defeated, Peach straightened up and let out a heavy breath, then checked on the others. Sakura dealt with the lion’s share of the Vase Paws with ease, naturally. Sina had things a little harder -and positioned herself behind Sakura, somewhat- but had gotten a few kills of her own. Even before Peach had, she’d used an ice slick to topple an Other in order to line up an icicle kill shot from her arm cannon. As the princess watched, Sina managed to stop her last enemy in its tracks with a torrent of freezing spray. She then saunted her up and casually pushed it over to shatter messily on the ground.

Peach smiled. Another battle won. “Nice work, you two!”

In the wake of the action, Luka reached out through Brain Talk again, the connection a little fuzzy thanks to the blockage.. ”I’m not hearing anything. Everyone alright in there?”

”Just took care of them,” Peach replied.

Dexio’s voice entered her mind next. ”Thank goodness. We’re gonna teleport in there in a second, I’m using my seismic sense to find a spot that’s clear. Need to be extra careful, so it’s gonna be another few seconds.”

Peach nodded. ”No rush, we’re-”

In the corner of her eye–a telltale glimmer. Maybe it was her experience fighting a protracted campaign against the Rabbids back in the day. Maybe it was the showdown with the sharpshooters at Spiral Mountain. Or maybe it stemmed from the traumatic stress pounded into her head during the Battle of Blackwater Bay. Regardless, Peach recognized the glint of a sniper scope when she saw it. She said not a word, but her body moved on its own; her Scatterboom manifested in her hands as she turned to take aim at the threat.

There was a muted sound, and something hit her, right in the stomach. For a moment, it didn’t even hurt. Then she felt a powerful twinge, like nausea, and her gun fell from her hands. Her eyes went wide, and she clutched her midsection, frozen as if in shock. “Peach? Peach!” Sina called, jogging over, but her voice sounded far away. Even Peach’s own ragged breathing sounded muffled, as if from the other side of a window. The princess looked up, but a red scar blossomed across in her vision, blocking everything out. She spasmed once and, spreading from the impact point, her body turned to glass, laced by a web of cracks like veins. Then the air around her turned to glass, riddled by fractures, leaving Peach’s image distorted. Looking like something inhuman.

Then the glass shattered. And an Other appeared.

It was massive. Its mannequin body, vaguely humanoid but sutured together and twisted backward at the waist, its weight on its tiptoes and elbows. Red ribbons tipped with golden spikes extended like tentacles from a hole in its belly. Its hands gripped the sides of its head, a little shed with a throat like interior, an empty chair recessed within with a bed of blue pinecone flowers at its feet, crowned by two veiled busts with black wrought-iron crowns and a pair of antlers. Swarms of fluttering butterflies clustered on its thighs and beneath the eaves of its head. The Other towered above Sina, who stood stunned beneath a rain of glassy fragments, until the monster raised its atrocious head and slammed it down.

“Agh!” Sina cried as she got launched backward. She hit the ground hard and slid to a stop in the dust against some rubble, still conscious.

At that moment a blue flash heralded the arrival of Luka, Dexio, and Raz. “Holy hell!” Dexio shouted the second he saw the thing, followed by, “Sina!” he took off running, and the Other lashed its ribbons at him. He shielded his head and slid to a stop in front of his partner.

Luka gritted his teeth and hefted his hammer. “Everyone who can move, lend a hand! Activate Brain Drive, now!” So saying, he grabbed the cord that dangled from the left side of his collar. When he pulled it, his hood flipped up and shrouded his face in darkness. Red streaks flashed through the pitch and formed his unique Brain Drive pattern of two glowing triangles. This state of intense mental focus, charged up by all the combat thus far, would grant him greater speed, attack, and psionic power as he strove to face this new challenge head-on–before it killed them all.

In World of Light → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Valley of Ruin

Level 12 Tora (43/120) Level 12 Poppi (53/120)
Giovanna, Roxas’ @Double, Pit’s @Yankee, Susie’s @Archmage MC, Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man, Partitio’s @Dark Cloud
Word Count: 1237




With the proposed plan of action already imperiled by another big problem, the Seekers in the clearing prepared to descend across the water to try and salvage the disastrous-looking situation down by the water’s edge. Roxas in particular launched himself from the precipice with an almost manic ferocity, using flowmotion to speedily navigate his way through the ruined, sunken landscape toward the machine-on-machine action. Despite their fatigue from the drawn-out Spider fight the three members of the Rust Crew set off in a sprint to circle around with Giovanna in the lead, dashing through the rain across the weed-riddled concrete. Tora jumped into Poppi’s arms, and the artificial blade took flight. With their comrade’s life in jeopardy against fearsome odds, the Seekers weren’t going to stand idly by.

Almost as suddenly as the crisis arose, however, it was averted. Enfeebled by the bite of Chillwater, doused with power-scrambling Purgewater, and surrounded by enraged machines that eagerly chomped and tore into the reinforced plate of her Business Suit, Susie bailed out right away. Not knowing where the group would be by now, she flew with her Transporter back in the direction of the parked -and currently abandoned- salvage truck, leaving her mech behind to suffer the machine lifeforms’ wrath. Only then did Roxas reach the fight, allowing him to bludgeon the futuristic creatures’ plated exteriors with the blunt ends of his keyblades. Rather than take all these well-equipped war machines head-on, however, he unleashed a grand parting shot. His Thundaga rippled across the metallic menagerie, electrocuting the Snapmaws with their Shock weakness but barely registering with the Shellwakers and Widemaws thanks to their Shock resistance.

Then, before the battle-ready beasts could bombard him with a fusillade of lightning and Purgewater-soaked earth, he fled. Roxas scrambled up from the collapsed riverbank toward the upper highway cliff where Pit still tangled with with a handful of howling Clamberjaws. A burst of healing out of the blue fixed the angel right up, allowing the pair to take on the last member of the troop without worry. The final machine fought bitterly with tooth and claw, jumping between walls and trees to afflict its opponents with concussive screeches and burns from hurled slag. Still, this was a fight that the boys could -and did- win in short order. Meanwhile, the machines at the riverside could not ascend to give pursuit to their enemies. Instead they regrouped, and with their precious cargo of base minerals, scrap metal, and chemicals secure the Shellwalkers made themselves scarce, dispersing into drains, tunnels, and so forth to return to base through the safety of the earth. The others resumed their processing duties.

“Oh,” Tora murmured, watching from afar as things died down. “Well, that good, at least.” The sooner the team could attend to the real cause for concern, the better. It wouldn’t be long before Giovanna, Marshall, Big Bo, Zenkichi, and Cain reached the remaining salvage truck via the semicircular upper route, where they would no doubt reunite with Partitio, Pit, Roxas, and Susie. With just one truck left, though, it would be hard to transport everyone, even if they could be assured they were headed in the right direction. Tora stared up at the Tallneck, annoyed that he lacked any sort of receptacle into which he could extract the mobile comm station’s positional data, until something occurred to him. “Meh-meh,” he muttered, thinking. “If Tora can gain access to machine mind, why not machine body? If Tora can control, friends have way to make sure everypon reach right spot!” He turned to his companion. “Poppi, take Tora up one more time!”



After a few minutes, the Seekers who’d gathered at the salvage truck found themselves approached by the towering Tallneck. Rather than attack, however, it stood harmlessly over them while Tora waved his wings down from the top. “Hello, friends!” he called. “We need hurry to intercept machines, meh! Anyone want ride?”



The Tallneck was surprisingly fast once forced to move at top speed, almost able to keep up with the truck given how often the vehicle needed to maneuver and turn, while the machine itself could make up the lost distance with shortcuts over rougher terrain. Consulting the stolen comm data often, Tora steered the Seekers through the Valley of Ruin, away from the flooded district and half-built neighborhood. Their path took them northeast, not quite back the way they came but close enough to make Giovanna worried–worried that while her team searched, the enemy force had already advanced toward Midgar. Unfortunately, she turned out to be right.



Tora’s directions brought the Seekers back to the edge of the Valley of Ruin, where the haunting remnants of a vast metropolis gave way to the barren no-man’s-land that formed Midgar’s immediate vicinity toward the south. A massive avenue, coated in rippling, reflective pools of rain, stood between two great rows of rusted weathervanes and derelict skyscrapers, crumbled and tilted off-kilter by the relentless ravages of time. Truck and Tallneck rounded one of these hulking husks and ascended a slope of sediment-covered rubble to crest a hill overlooking the street, and what the Seekers saw took their breath away.

Packed shoulder-to-shoulder as they marched down the avenue were hundreds and hundreds of Machines. Most appeared to be Bipeds, either Medium (about as tall as the average man] or Large, but there was plenty of variety to be found. There were handfuls of Goliaths over twice the height of the Large Bipeds, with gigantic hands capable of squashing cars flat. Some took the form of Legpower Goliaths, faster and more mobile with multi-ton kicks, and others Reverse-jointed Goliaths with gun arms, stubby tails, and raptor-like gait. Quadrupeds galloped on all fours with bladed legs, while insectoid Multilegs wielded cutters or cannons. Small and Medium Fliers hovered overhead on their single or quad turbines, too, with guns at the ready. Even among the basic Bipeds there existed some variety. Some adorned themselves with armor or warlike attire, and wielded a variety of handmade weapons. Most staggering of all, though, were there numbers.

“By my estimate…” Poppi began, not sure if she even wanted to say. “At least a thousand.”

Tora took a deep breath, shaking slightly. “Meh-meh…unfortunately, fact that they not reach Midgar yet is good news. Bad news is, this not half of it. There other group at least this big headed in direction of Detroit.” He furrowed his brow. “This army headed to Sector 07. Friends there not have DespoRHado to fight for them.”

“So it falls to us,” Giovanna murmured. “Well then. That’s what, a hundred each? They don’t look so tough.” She stifled a wry laugh. “Imagine if these were all high-tech baboons and hippos.”

With a final long breath to steady himself, Tora put on a courageous smile. “Hundred each not so bad!” he declared, wiping rain from his face before posing in a determined fashion. “Let’s give baddypons what-for!”

“We don’t have a lot of choice,” Marshall agreed. “But we’ve gotta be smart. Use everything we got to our advantage. Terrain, teamwork, you name it. Don’t let yourselves get surrounded, and shout if you need help.” Clicking his rifle’s safety off, he climbed up onto the truck. “We’ll stay ahead of them and cover you from behind. Mow down as many as we can, and make sure none of them slip through toward the city.”

Giovanna nodded. “Alrighty then. As Goldlewis would probably say, let’s git ‘er done.”

She, Tora, and Poppi jumped down from the overlook, sliding down the slope until they reached the rain-washed street. They turned to face the vast horde, a sea of clanking metal and glowing red eyes. Tora faced them with a smile, however. If he could do this, there wouldn’t be any more room for doubt in his mind; he would know that he was a hero.



Abandoned Subway - Infinite Corridor

Level 4 Goldlewis (33/40)
Karin’s @Zoey Boey, Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Blazermate’s @Archmage MC, Geralt @Multi_Media_Man, Benedict’s @Dark Cloud
Word Count: 767


Planning to lead by example, Goldlewis wasted no time bringing out the big guns. A tremendous bang reverberated across the surface of the L.I.F.T. as the UMA heaved the immense minigun out of the coffin and onto the ground. Goldlewis grabbed hold with his suitably massive mitts and lifted it up to open fire. His bullets flew toward the runaway camera in a withering torrent, but the anomalous doohickey didn’t just idle in place. It floated up and down and from side to side, and though the veteran’s gunfire put a couple dents in the camera’s exterior, a handheld minigun wasn’t well suited to adjustments in aim, and most of the shots ended up missing.

The others followed suit with whatever ranged weapons they had. While Midna managed to pull a revolver out of nowhere, the Twilight Princess was by no means a deadeye, and after emptying every one of its chambers the six-shooter offered nothing more than a complicated and unfamiliar reload process. Geralt took shots with his crossbow, but the rushing air that buffeted everyone in this tunnel either knocked his slow-moving projectiles off course or stopped them in their tracks and sent them hurtling back to sender. Blazermate’s sentry, meanwhile, was perfect for the job. Once built it started plugging away at the ActionMaxx Camera with a steady stream of well-aimed shots, but the arrival of giant signs and alternate L.I.F.T.s quickly spelled the end for that plan.

In fact, this new development forced a paradigm shift out of everyone, obliging them to stay on the move or be battered by tunnel obstructs straight into the yawning abyss. With a magic airdash at his disposal Goldlewis could take to the sky with the best of them, though he still needed to put in extra effort to keep his extra-large and easy-to-hit frame out of the path of oncoming signage. The Session Pounds added even more chaos to the mix, through Geralt and Midna’s efforts to intercept and dispose of the flying bombs lessened the threat they posed a good amount. Still, even with Panther putting in an appearance to swat the camera with lasers, the team’s already less-than-stellar damage output was only further hampered by the shifted focus to constant movement. Goldlewis couldn’t afford to stay put and belt out lead with Skyfish if a giant sheet of yellow-painted metal could cream him any second. His perceptive peepers did notice one thing, though: the ActionMaxx Camera itself inadvertently warned of incoming obstacles through its movement. If imminent signs would block two of the three tunnels within the next few moments, it would fly over to the third.

Noticing this began a strange, high-octane version of Follow the Leader, obliging Goldlewis and the others to race after it from L.I.F.T. to L.I.F.T. whenever it made a move. Doing this gained them some ground and afforded them better opportunities to take aim. Ever the pessimist, the veteran considered the possibility of a feint, but if this paranormal object possessed any intelligence it seemed wholly focused on filming the frenetic chase scene. Making the most of his Security Level when it filled up, Goldlewis unleashed as many level-three bullet barrages as he could. If this whole thing hadn’t happened underground, he mused, this would’ve been a perfect opportunity to Burn it Down with his satellite laser. In the midst of the chaos, the team managed to chip away at the camera’s integrity, reducing it by over half.

At that point, though, things got even more interesting. The trickle of Session Pounds came to an abrupt end, and something else took their place. Sometimes, the abyss behind them would belch out a chimeric being of rusted metal, gnarled horn, and sallow flesh, not unlike the Others encountered earlier but just different enough to strike the Seekers as particularly weird. Bathing the tunnels in front of them with the odious yellow glare of their headlights as they raced along the tracks, the Cleansers attempted to take hold of the L.I.F.T.s and physically wrench them off their tracks. Worse still, that awful xanthous glow came with a suppressive effect, hampering the spirit-derived abilities of anyone caught in their baleful luster. Their arrival and subsequent slow but terrifying gain on the L.I.F.T.s turned a salvageable situation into an incredibly stressful one in no time flat–which was about how long the team had left to take down the rogue ActionMaxx Camera.

Home of Tears

Level 10 Nadia (161/100)
The Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Primrose and Therion’s @Yankee, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Jesse’s @Zoey Boey, Ganondorf’s @Double, Rubick’s @Scarifar, Omori’s @Majoras End, the Knight
Word Count: 1871


Despite her positive outlook, Nadia had no doubts that the destruction and panic she’d helped cause -however small in scale- would draw the authorities like bees to honey, so she got a serious move on. Even if that piscine policewoman seemed more oblivious and friendly than sharp and authoritative, the cat burglar didn’t want to be spotted by her near the scene of any more crimes. With Omori following along, she proceeded deeper into the vast fairground district grateful for its unusual size. It took no time at all for her to immerse herself back into a part of the park with plenty of guests, where any rumors or alerts about an injured woman and a knife-wielding maniac on the loose met with either mild concern or brow-raised skepticism, and not much farther than that the panic died out completely. Nadia saw only fun-loving bugs and monsters enjoying their weekends with their friends and families. Some news spread like wildfire, it seemed, but others blew away like dust in the wind.

Nadia and Omori eventually wound up at the Amusement Park’s warmly-lit boardwalk, jutting out over the waters to the north of the district. Possibly due to its proximity to the Royal Quarter that lay just across the Home of Tears ’northeastern channel, this area possessed a certain air of class. All done up in pristine white, with nice railings and awnings, it offered a distinct vintage feel to many of the city’s modern monsters. To Nadia, however, its aesthetic rubbed her a different way. It almost perfectly matched the art deco era design of the boardwalk park back in New Meridian, and though she seldom got the chance to visit Little Innsmouth’s prim-and-proper, touristy counterpart, this place felt achingly like home. It even had a little ferris wheel! A wave of uncharacteristic melancholy washed over her. New Meridian might be a pretty awful place on the whole, but it was home, and she never thought she’d miss it this badly.

Once she got over her heartache, Nadia got down to business. As promised she bought Omori a cotton candy, freshly spun from the centrifuge. She did not indulge herself however, and she didn’t insist that he accompany her further. The kid could take care of himself after all, and Nadia still didn’t know if he liked her company or not. For a few minutes she just meandered the boardwalk, looking around. She saw plenty of carnival games scattered around, from bottle-knocking to whack-a-mole, but after a little consideration she turned away. The decision almost took her by surprise -who wouldn’t want to take a load off after what she’d been through with some fun distractions, after all?- but the more she reflected the more Nadia knew that she just didn’t feel like it.

As much as she put on a brave face for Omori, and the world at large, she wasn’t smiling on the inside. Not right now at least. Since arriving in the World of Light she’d done plenty of killing, but mostly monsters. Even the Abyssals were basically mindless tools of destruction, regardless of appearances. Always chaotic evil. But not so with Massachusetts or Kronya. They’d been foes that stood in the path she needed to tread, sure. Deadly combatants, and Kronya in particular seemed like a real piece of work. But they were still people. Maybe more of the ‘monsters’ she’d killed were real people too. Hell, if she met most of this city’s inhabitants in a dark alley she might not have thought twice about cutting them down. How much blood was on her hands? How much would be, by the time this was done? Was it all okay as long as everything went back to normal when the Seekers triumphed over Galeem?

What if it didn’t?

Nadia ended up at a table beneath an umbrella at the side of the water. She nibbled at a footlong coney stacked up with onions, relish, cheese, and ketchup, gazed at the spirit of Kronya on the table before her, and listened to the rain. What were these things? They were capable of extraordinary things. If Nadia commanded that this spirit fight for her right now, it probably would. She could bring that knife-wielding assassin back into being as easily as recalling a lost memory. But was that really her? Or, like the savage monsters like Idea that now served at her beck and call, was it just a puppet? She knew by now that if she died, she’d leave one of these things behind too. Someone else could take her powers, as well as a pinch of Nadia seasoning mixed into their body or mind. The feral’s eyes narrowed at the thought. Dying had always been a terrifying concept. Probably always would be. If she died before finishing this mission, it would all go to waste. Every drop of blood, sweat, and tears shed on this journey. No. I need to see this through, she thought. To see the World of Light whisked away, and everything restored just how it used to be. For the sake of everyone, of course, but mostly for herself. So that things could be simple and clean again–all the blood on her hands, rinsed away. Whatever it takes, she thought. I have to live.

Lucky, then, that survival came easily to someone who couldn’t die.

Nadia’s mood picked up as she ate her coney. It was a great mixture of flavors and textures, very nostalgic, and the chorus of rain on the ink-dark lakewater soothed her. Jokes, laughter, and noises of jubilation reached her from the nearby guests. It was hard to stay in a dour mood in a place like the Amusement Park. It also wasn’t the best place to be alone, in a strictly positive sense. A couple times Nadia found herself approached by random passers-by, including a group of friends about her age wondering if she wanted to join them and a couple young fellows who couldn’t just pass a comely catgirl by. It reminded her of her impromptu group last night at Definitely Not Fried Chicken; the people here sure were trusting and friendly. Though alternatively appreciative and flattered, Nadia had to turn them down. By now she’d spent more than enough time on herself, and she needed to meet back up with the other Seekers to continue the mission.

With two-thirds of the group plus their final objective in the Royal Quarter, getting over there sounded like the best way to start. Nadia skirted along the fairground’s northern edge until she reached the bridge connecting it to Fountain Central, all the while regretting the spurt of mopiness that tricked her into passing up the fair games earlier. On the way across the bridge, she spotted a couple people she knew headed in the same direction, although she couldn’t call them a sight for sore eyes. After hurrying to catch up with them, she pulled up alongside Ganondorf and Rubick and fixed them with an accusatory look. “Hey, where were you two all morning?” she asked, one eyebrow quizzically raised. “We ran into all kinds of crazy critters in the Soul Sanctum, then we had to split up to hunt down these local bozos called Those Who Slither in the Dark, ‘cept the one I got was slitherin’ in the Park. Kinda bummed me out too, got me thinkin’. Less a-mew-sing and more a-musing, if ya get me, heheh.” She couldn’t help but giggle, pretty pleased with herself for that one. “And now I find you were there too, all fun and games the whole time? How’s that ‘fair’, eh?”

Unfortunately, while the Great King of Evil possessed a great many remarkable qualities, a sense of humor wasn’t one of them. That led to a somewhat frosty trip for the mismatched pair as they headed toward the Royal District. All Ganondorf needed to know was that with the Agarthans neutralized following the other teams’ success, their target -Consul P- could finally be taught a much-deserved lesson. Rubick, however, left to visit some shops instead.

The majority of the Seekers reconvened before the gates of the garden compound that surrounded the base of the Clock Tower. Beneath the bridge that spanned its large pond lay the underwater pipes that brought several of them here, and the garden’s luminescent fungi illuminated the undersides of the great fragments of masonry that floated overhead, too steeped in magic to heed the laws of gravity. Past the gates, through the garden, and over the bridge stood none other than Iguana Gallo Valetto, shielded from the rain by some sort of charm. Behind him the grand doors of Gallo Tower lay unbarred, ready to receive the guests invited in by its former master. If anyone needed a refresher on the plan they could inquire with him, but after that anyone who wished to deal the final blow to P could follow him to the Consul’s bolt-hole. The rest need only track down and confront P himself, bereft of his Agarthan honor guard and vulnerable to the heroes’ machinations. The Seekers only need ready themselves and enter.

Before going in, Nadia paid a visit to the Koopa Troop. “Hey, could I borrow that thingie that focuses changes?” she asked them, Kronya’s spirit in her hand. “I need to see it in detail. In de tail, literally.” She pointed her thumb at her fish tail. “This big ol’ thing’s just been a giant pain. Figured it’s time I put it behind me.”



While the others prepared to storm the tower, Nadia found herself faced with the prospect of trying to get used to two new facets of herself: the feeling of having three tails, and the hair that now stubbornly hung over her left eye. The tails felt more or less alright after a few good wiggles, but her attempt to clip the new covering off led to frustration as her bang immediately regenerated. While doing this, she happened to notice an unfamiliar face among the crowd, breaking her concentration. “Oh, hey,” she said, waving to demon Bowser, Rika, and Therion brought back from Shambhala. “How’s it goin’? I’m Ms. Fortune.”

“The name’s Concetta Caciotta!” the airborne musician announced proudly. “Things could be a lot better to be honest, I’m gonna starve to death any second! The stuff we found in the bad guys’ base was basically tripe. At least I’m free, though. Who are you all and what’re we doing here?”

Nadia winced. “Oof. Sounds like we gotta lot of explainin’ to do.” Rifling through her pockets, she presented Concetta with a couple dozen Geo in loose change. “Here. We’re about to take care of some business, so why not go off and get somethin’ to eat? We can catch up after.”

“Hey, you’re not bad!” Concetta accepted the cash and clapped the catgirl on the back. “I owe you one, Fortune! When you get done here I’ll buy you a drink!”

With the most daring members of the group seconds away from breaching the tower, Nadia turned her attention to the gates after waving Concetta goodbye. “That works out pretty good, ‘cause dependin’ on how things go here, I might need end up needin’ one.”
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