Lugubrious

Under the scorching sun (Fantasy western)

You guys go ahead, I'm not really interested in competing for one of the three slots. Best of luck!

Legend of Benkei(Anime, Fantasy/Sci Fi Blend)

Sounds like Guilty Gear to me. I can sure work with that!

Under the scorching sun (Fantasy western)

I think this looks like a pretty darn cool and fun concept. I really like the idea of a fantasy Western in an appropriately imaginative setting. I've already got ideas brewing for a possible former scholar / current hermit dedicated to the study of exotic/supernatural life in the desert. My only possible concern is the limit of four players. That means that a lot is riding on every one of them and the loss of one could do a lot of damage. Just out of curiosity, do you count as one of the four?

Legend of Benkei(Anime, Fantasy/Sci Fi Blend)

I think this scenario has a lot of promise. It's been a while since an interest check piqued my interest. I'd be interested in learning more about the world itself and what kinds of rules we can operate within for character creation. As well as what would bring our characters together at the start of the RP. The only thing I'm a little shaky on is the dice. I'm fine with attribute stats governing how good someone is in a particular area, but how would you handle the dice rolls? Are you going to trust the players to roll themselves for every action, or would we have to wait on you for the roll results in order to try and do much of anything?

World of Light

Midgar Zone 09 - Through the Dragnet

Level 5 Goldlewis (108/50) Level 4 Sandalphon (20/40)
Karin’s @Zoey Boey, Blazermate, Roland, and Susie’s @Archmage MC, Geralt and Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man
Word Count: 1626

With the brief exception of his surprise pocket sand, Barlow had been on the backfoot against Goldlewis from the outset, but as the big man pushed him farther and farther back with his overwhelming offense Barlow just couldn’t find an opening in his overwhelming offense. Finally Goldlewis steered their one-sided skirmish toward its conclusion with a stomp, coming down on the younger soldier’s foot hard enough to knock him off his feet and face-first into the catwalk’s cold metal. On instinct Goldlewis raised his coffin to deliver a crushing Behemoth Typhoon finisher, but with a conscious effort he managed to stop himself. Instead he dealt Barlow a kick to the ribs that sent him tumbling back into the railing with a yelp.

Figuring that’d be it, the veteran turned to make his way toward the budding brawl between Zenkichi, Geralt, and the Marcias sisters. Things had already gotten chaotic, with Miwa slowing her opponents’ roll with Confusion and Natsuko’s Zoolingualism bringing angry animals out of the woodwork to cause havoc. No doubt they’d appreciate the help, especially if the Closer got into the mix. Goldlewis did not expect for his fallen opponent to come back for more. Even while lying prone with a bloody nose, Barlow used his Sunakinesis to reach out with a big hand of sand to grab his opponent’s ankle. “What in the-!?” Despite his low center of gravity, he’d been in such a hurry to back up the others up that he tripped and fell forward. The walkway vibrated beneath his weight.“Gah, darnit!” He landed on his forearm for support, his coffin slamming down next to him, and he quickly pushed off to roll himself over to get a look at what was happening.He’d been wondering how that shrimp managed to snag him with such force, but a psychic sand construct fit the bill. As Goldlewis tried to rise, the hand yanked on him toward a gap in the railing, but the veteran fought back.

“Need assistance?” Sandalphon asked through his glyph.

“I’m handlin’ it!” He banged his fist on the lid of his coffin. “UMA! Thunderbird!” Obligingly the lid slid open and a cosmic hand slid out with a spiked heligrenade in its palm. The Thunderbird’s rotors spun up as the alien tossed it, allowing it to fly toward Barlow. With a frustrated grunt he let go of Goldlewis to defend himself with the hand, but by the time he struck and detonated the grenade, his foe was on his feet. Goldlewis surged through the sand-riddled smoke and knocked him senseless with a swift kick.

Goldlewis huffed, unhappy with his performance. For such a small fry, Barlow had sure managed to eat into the veteran’s time. He turned and thundered down the walkway toward the central area. Her services declined elsewhere, Sandalphon had come to the aid of Zenkichi and Geralt instead, and when she returned to her sniper’s nest Blazermate showed up to help the men finish the fight. The Marcias sisters fought well, but not well enough. Roland and Susie were just now dispatching two of the others, and when Goldlewis turned his attention in the direction of the guard captain, he found that Karin had skipped straight to the end. By isolating the Closer, Karin cut him off and took him down with speed and power that outstripped even his own. After that, she needed only to cut through the noise that the last private threw at her to render the whole guard force neutralized. Goldlewis didn’t even get the chance to help, and he didn’t mind one bit–victory mattered far more than any personal glory. With an approving nod, he clicked his stopwatch. Ruthlessly fast, and clinically precise. Another successful mission.

“Yeah, you all did great!” H echoed Karin’s congratulations. “Didn’t even know what hit ‘em. Let’s keep moving.”

Goldlewis reached the platform where Karin waited at the same time as Sandalphon, who descended from above at a leisurely pace using her giant, elaborate halo like a glider. When Karin offered to do the honors, Goldlewis nodded, waving his hand at the door. “Go right ahead, miss.” With a swipe the mechanical door unlocked and slid open to grant the Seekers access. Happy to bring up the rear, Goldlewis took a final look at the area and the downed soldiers. Despite his antics with his coffin, guns reigned supreme on the battlefield, and he wouldn’t have minded snagging one if only these soldiers’ sidearms weren’t so piddly. Give me a good sawed-off any day, he mused. At least one of the swordsmen could have relieved Charles of his high-tech greatsword.

Movement at the other end of the area caught his eye. From a distance, he caught a glimpse of two unfamiliar figures, a man in a dark suit beneath a vivid indigo coat, and a woman in brown whose left arm glimmered with golden thorns. Both featured long wolf ears and bushy wolf tails. He and Penance made eye contact. We’re being followed? Goldlewis thought, squinting with his brows furrowed. Unluckily for these two, whoever they were, the Seekers had just snagged the last ticket through to Zone 09. Once everyone entered the passage, Goldlewis followed them in, and the door slid shut behind him.

Results

Party: Karin, Blazermate, Roland, Susie, Geralt, Zenkichi, Goldlewis, Sandalphon
Encounter Reward: +5 EXP

This restricted zone connected to Zone 09 via a covered bridge, and the Seekers wasted no time clattering across it. Luckily there was no security on this side to complicate things, so Sandalphon could afford to scope out her surroundings to her heart’s content. By now, she and the rest were well and truly in Quarantine Valley. Hundreds of feet below lay the ground floor of the sunken district, awash in redshift corruption so thick even she could see the matter-warping distortion. Those streets, lit only by the faint glow of neon lights from above, harbored no signs of life. Only dust and debris. After a few moments she stepped out from the shelter of the bridge and onto the first building, staring at the lost cityscape that languished in the shadows of Midgar. Just about every living thing that could still be called ‘human’ eked out a living on the rooftops of this modern ghost town, in shacks and shanties cobbled together from reclaimed scrap packed tight enough to form crude semblances of community. Exposure to the elements had turned everything down here a dull rust-orange. Nothing looked reliable or new. Yet people lived here nonetheless, and it was the most entrepreneuring among those survivors that the Seekers had come to see.

Maybe half a mile out, across the rooftops linked together by wobbly sheet-metal bridges, stood the largest of the Zone 09 communities, identifiable thanks to its big, well-guarded gate. To get there, the team would need to make their way across this treacherous labyrinth where anything and everything could very well give out beneath them at the drop of a hat. Little outposts lay here and there, some scarcely more than a few dirty plastic chairs arranged around a fuming dumpster or tire fire. One step up were the rooftop shacks, most in isolation but some grouped together with girder structures or lines of laundry between them. Piles of trash bags and mounds of deposited dirt could be found most everywhere, as well as defunct rooftop AC units and antennae stripped of all useful parts. Within the gaps between buildings lay a hidden lower network of fire escapes, ladders, and catwalks even more convoluted than the restricted area, though perhaps able to offer different routes through this mess than the rooftops themselves. Sandalphon could imagine all sorts of secrets lurking just out of sight in a place like this.

One needed to be careful, too, since H quickly identified a few pockets of red matter lingering around the area. Nothing that would cause an uptick in data corruption, but best avoided nonetheless. Wherever the corruption was higher, the odds of finding a Gate were higher, too. It seemed highest somewhat close to the entry bridge, where At least the handful of haggard-looking locals that lingered around didn’t seem liable to give the Seekers trouble. If spoken to, the men and women here -who seemed to be outsiders among outsiders given their distance from the main community here- might very well yield some information about the shanty-town or even the Hermits themselves.

One exile not far from the gate, doubled over and panting, seemed eager to vent about something. “That guy at the gate’s all, Hermits’ orders this, Hermits’ orders that…screw the Hermits, let me in!” He leaned back, filling his lungs with his hand over his heart. “I gotta get back in. If I don’t, my clothes’ll be ruined!” Not far from him, a man loafed around on one of the low-lying rooftops, trying to soak in what little sun filtered down here on a cloudy day like today. Farther away, a woman leaned against one of the buildings near a long drop, watching the newcomers with her arms crossed when they got close.

Sandalphon set her sights on the tallest structure in the area, a derelict rooftop water tower on one of the higher buildings. From there, she could even look down on the shanty-town. “Go ahead and find out what you can from the locals. I suspect gaining entry to their community will be the first step. I’ll provide support from afar, just like before.”

As she went off to climb up there, one vault at a time, Goldlewis wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. Unfamiliar territory or not, it was time to get busy.

Suoh - Beacon Mental Hospital, the Brainframe

Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Sakura’s @Zoey Boey, Pit’s @Yankee, Roxas’ @Double, Luka, Gemma

Despite Sakura’s good intentions, there was no way that any of the mind-controlled proxies here would listen to reason. Each had their orders: the Psych-OSF soldiers to extinguish the fatal curiosity of the dangerously inquisitive few who’d borne witness to metamorphosis (burying this place along with them if need be) and Painwheel, to kill Dexio before he could bring Brain Drain’s ambitions down on top of him. With lethal intent the two melee fighters rushed together, but while Dexio could avert his collision course with Sakura’s heavy hadoken, Painwheel’s mindless aggression drove her right into it.

“Rragh!” she snarled, rounding on the street fighter in blind rage. The momentary distraction allowed Sina to freeze her lower leg to the ground with an ice shot from her Refrigerant Coil, and her partner wasted no time capitalizing on the crowd control. Dexio decked Painwheel with a bone-cracking right hook from his spiked cestus that smashed the girl out of the ice and onto the floor. He unleashed his Seismokinesis with a stomp that popped his opponent off the ground and into the air. Reaching out, he snatched Painwheel by the ankle and yanked her directly in front of him to drive his other fist straight down. That withering punch not only pounded her against the floor, but shook the whole room for the third time. Dust fell from the ceiling ominously, and plenty of equipment rattled. A couple vials even fell over and smashed on the ground.

That whole exchange took just a couple seconds. Though Midna had used Roadblock to definitively shield herself and Sakura once she arrived, she’d lacked the context -and the means- to protect what looked like enemies from one another while she talked. Now Painwheel lay on the floor, sprawled out and still, at Dexio’s feet. Brain Drain returned the Seekers an angrier and more malevolent glare by far for their interference. ”What do you think you’re doing?” he seethed psychically. ”They’re clearly not under my control. If that man brings this place down, it’s curtains for you, too.” So saying, he fixed his gaze on Painwheel. “Enough slacking. Get UP.”

Purple electricity jolted through the girl’s body, and with a shriek she rose, holding herself up with her arms as her synthetic parasite Gae Bolg went to work. Black blood burst from her legs and feet in the form of spikes and needles in order to pierce Dexio with Warm Spasm. While he reeled from the pain she inverted herself to take out his legs with Malice Clover. Her Buer Drive blades sawed into his calves in sprays of blood, and as he fell Painwheel snatched him with her command grab Buer Reaper to bring him into her grasp and slam her down onto the ground, head-first. Crack.

Before she could act further, a splash of cryokinesis burst against her body, coating her in ice. Sina aimed two more shots to lock Painwheel down and freeze her in place, then formed a long icicle spike to finish the job. It zipped through the air toward the girl’s head, but she managed to maneuver her Buer Drive in between to block and shatter the icicle. Then dozens of spikes burst out from beneath her skin to break the ice, and with a roar Painwheel took off running. She chased Sina down on all fours, and when the soldier created an ice slick with a freezing spray, the young horror leaped into the air and flew the rest of the distance with her Buer Drive blades spinning like helicopter rotors. In no time at all Sina got command grabbed too. After slamming her into a tub Painwheel turned to go finish Dexio.

At about that time, things got even more interesting. Gemma burst through the doors behind Midna and Sakura. There was no sign of the Doctor other than some echoed moaning from down the hall, and some fresh blood on the soldier’s gauntlets. “Came as fast as I could,” he breathed, trying to make sense of the scene unfolding before him. “What’s going on here!?”

On the other side of the room, the elevator doors opened once more. From within spilled a quintet of familiar faces: Yuito, Hanabi, Pit, Roxas, and Luka. They’d unknowingly followed Dexio and Sina down here on the hunt for Peach or maybe Raz (as Hanabi told Pit that Raz disappeared the moment Anima showed up, giving her the slip) but they couldn’t have imagined what they’d find. Right away Luka recognized all his friends and allies present in the room, though none of them concerned him quite so much as his wayward squadmates. “Dexio! Sina!” In a flash he teleported behind Painwheel, and before she could properly react he drove his Weight Hammer into her like a massive baseball bat. The girl howled as she tumbled across the ground toward Midna, Sakura, and Gemma. Trusting them to take care of the aggressor, Luka then teleported back to Sina. “Sina!? Are you okay?”

He put one hand on her shoulder as he rummaged in his pack for a health-restoring Orange Gel, but before he could find it, Sina jerked awake. She grabbed him, picked the very surprised Luka up, and plunged him face-first into the tub Painwheel smacked her against. After pushing her struggling captain under the water, Sina began to freeze it over, trapping Luka beneath the ice. “No witnesses!” she growled.

With Painwheel distracted, Dexio heaved himself upright. His orders were clear. He began to pound the ground, ravaging the unstable medical ward with geokinetic power. The whole room began to shake and crack; any minute now the floor -the only thing separating Beacon’s bottom level from a lethal drop into the toxic Reservoir- would begin to give way.

Everything was going to hell with terrifying speed. ”No!” Brain Drain poured his psychic power into Painwheel. The moment she could act, she would be granted Hatred Install, amplifying her already impressive power and speed. He would not allow all his work to crumble, no matter what.

The Under - The Hive

Level 11 Nadia (154/110)
The Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Primrose and Therion’s @Yankee, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Jesse’s @Zoey Boey, Ganondorf’s @Double, Rubick’s @Scarifar, Artorias’ @Dark Cloud, Barnabee
Word Count: 3141

By now, Nadia’s adventures with the Seekers had taught her to expect the unexpected, but the feral was still in for quite the shock when Rumor Honeybottoms not only brought down the boss arena that she and most of her teammates had been taking for granted, but deposited them on a stack of magical floating hexagons that quickly proved to disappear mere moments after one of them made contact. After almost falling when the very first one vanished out from under her, and barely clambering up using its neighbors before they timed out as well, she began to jog across the layer’s surface. What began as an expansive sheet of interlocking hexes would quickly erode into a handful of disconnected sections beneath the tread of several survivors, separated by strips of nothingness like rivers in a delta, then diminish further into distant archipelagoes and isthmi. Nadia could make it work, but not for long, and just as she began to get a sense for the timing and dared to look up, the bombs started raining down.

“Damn it, this is stupid!” Nadia yowled as she dodged and dived, hopping and airdashing between the remaining hexes as explosions went off around her. The blasts didn’t destroy the platforms, but they could definitely knock her down, whether to a lower layer or into the honey itself. Down below, that golden tide was inexplicably rising in all its ominous opulence, swallowing everything in its way as it steadily climbed. Nadia knew that the rigging drum still attached to her waist just above her tails would let her skate across water, but would it do the same for honey? She didn’t want to find out; that stuff was so sticky and viscous that if she did fall in, she’d be beyond screwed. Those who’d already fallen to a lower layer might be safer from Honeybottoms’ deluge of bombs, but they could still slip through any vanished hexes. Two blasts grazed Nadia in quick succession as she scrambled, almost knocking her down. With so much to worry about, and nowhere near enough time to pressurize for a rocket jump, the feral couldn’t even begin to fight back against this demented miniboss. As cartoonish as this situation seemed, it was no laughing matter. While some Seekers could take to the sky like Ganondorf atop his nightmarish steed, the rest were in some very hot water.

At least, they were until Sectonia came to their rescue. Only a few moments after catastrophe befell the Seekers down below, the team’s resident queen conjured a giant, shimmering pink crystal in the midst of the hexagons, allowing everyone to jump aboard and finally get some solid ground beneath her feet. Nadia jumped at the chance immediately, and after an extra-strength airdash to go the distance she skidded to a stop on the new platform’s glassy surface. She heaved a sigh of relief, half-inclined to fall to her knees and kiss the crystal like an adrift sailor finally coming to shore. “Bee-utiful!” Nadia knew she had work to do, though, and like Bowser she immediately turned her attention skyward. Up above, Ganondorf galloped through the air with swords in hand to both slash and burn Honeybottoms whenever their paths crossed. Sectonia put her air mobility to work pursuing the bomber as closely as possible to electrocute and skewer her with her swords while avoiding her buzzsaws. Unlike Bowser and Junior, though, Nadia couldn’t take suboptimal long-distance potshots from below. Her only ranged weapon, the Bait Launcher, would summon a tiger where the meat landed, not on what it hit. That left Nadia with quite the conundrum, but luckily she wasn’t the only daredevil around.

Her answer about what to do came in the form of Rika. After a save from Kamek, the abyssal joined him on his broom to gain enough altitude to open fire, but when her ammunition dried up she took a more audacious approach. With a little help Rika closed the distance and grappled onto Honeybottoms herself. She hung on as long as she could to lay on some damage before the usurper queen finally shook her off, but even before Rika pulled off her outrageous aerial stunt, Nadia was convinced. “That’s fanTASTIC idea!” she purred with a grin, crouching down to build up blood pressure within her limbs. “Might just have to steal it!”

As Honeybottoms came around again, Nadia blasted off on a high-pressure torrent of blood. She flew high into the air, leaving Sectonia’s crystal behind, but not high enough. As the cat burglar began to lose momentum, she narrowed her eyes and focused in on the latest batch of dropped bombs. After aiming carefully, she used Charge to dash upward as a bolt of lightning, straight into one of the false queen’s bombs. It blew up, hurting her but more importantly, resetting her air action. Another Charge brought her close enough to launch her arm out and grapple to Honneybottoms by sinking her claws straight into her foe’s undercarriage.

“Ow!” the usurper grunted, but right now she could afford to pay the little sting any more notice. Not with Ganondorf, Jesse, and Sectonia still buzzing around. Even Rubick was in the air, though the odds weren’t on his side for his Web Wrap. But Nadia was far from done. Connected via her hyperextended muscle fibers and flying behind Honeybottoms like a feline flag, the feral pumped out a huge mass of blood that quickly took the form of three Copycats, racing after one another on all fours up the line in toward the bomber’s undercarriage. Upon reaching the top, they grabbed hold of the muscle cord with both hands and began to swing around it in a loop, slashing into Honeybottoms repeatedly with their toeclaws at the top of each one. “Urgh! I cat believe this!” Angered, she dropped another handful of bombs, and as they fell their air resistance slowed them enough that they threatened to hit Nadia on the way down.

“I think ya mean, ‘ya gotta be kitten me’!” Nadia instructed her, a wide smile on her face. Though wackier than ever, this was starting to be a whole lot of fun. She used jets of blood to push herself left and right to dodge the bombs. Unfortunately she was a little low on blood at the moment, and one hit her. It hurt like a bitch, but having stomached worse, Nadia held on. Honeybottoms went into a barrel roll to try and throw her the way she threw Rika, but the feral had seen this coming from the start. Doggedly she held on, slung around in a crazy spiral as the miniboss spun through the air, until at the height of her arc she finally wrenched her hand out. Nadia hurtled upward, dangerously close to the ceiling. It took a couple seconds to snap out of her disoriented dizziness and course-correct, but once she did she snapped her arm back into place, absorbing her Copycats as she did. “Alright, ya big bug. Hate to pun-ish a fellow jokester, but…” Then she jetted downward back toward her enemy with her most death-defying Feral Edge to date, diving toward and sinking Athame right into the top of Honeybottoms’ head. “It’s been KNIFE knowin’ ya!”

The false queen cried out in pain, her wings flapping like a penguin’s flippers. After a moment they morphed into saw-arms to reach over and carve Nadia up, but the feral worked quickly. She grabbed Athame in her mouth as she drew her boxcutter hilts, snapping two fresh blades into place from the case on her back. Then she sunk them into the softened-up exoskeleton and sprinted forward, plowing down the bomber’s back, leaving the saws behind and two deep furrows in her wake. She kept on carving until she reached the living plane’s tailfin, at which point she yanked the boxcutters free. Knowing another barrel roll was imminent, Nadia leaped off into the open air, twisting as she did. When she squeezed the hilts’ triggers, a final parting gift sailed Honeybottoms’ way in the form of the detached blades, and the catgirl began to fall. Carefully she inserted her hilts back into her belt, then boosted herself toward one of the huge room’s walls to bury her claws into the waxy surface and gradually slow her descent. Once she got low enough, she leaped back toward the crystal platform.

By now, Honeybottoms had taken a huge amount of punishment, and at last she could stomach it no longer. “Gyaaaaaaaaagh!” she screamed, morphing back from bomber form to bee form. She fell through the great hollow, only managing to catch herself about a hundred feet above Sectonia’s gemstone island. By now, the honey had risen all the way to the level of the throne room’s entrance, turning what remained of the platform by the arched doorway into a jetty overlooking a lake of honey. Its luminous golden glow plus the bright, almost crystalline glint of the blue wax walls made for quite the spectacular contrast, befitting such a spectacular battle. After slowing her descent, the usurper queen looked haggard, but angry, too. “Enough of this!” she roared, magically summoning her scepter to hand. “GRAVITY!”

Her spell swept over the Seekers, instantly afflicting the Weight status. The fliers dropped from the sky, and those standing on solid ground were floored beneath a crushing force ten times stronger than that of gravity. Nadia groaned in pain, pinned to the ground and unable to do much more than writhe.

“Bahahahaha! That’s right, kneel!” the big bee crowed. “Bow your filthy heads before Her Majesty Rumor Honeybottoms, almighty mistress of magic, queen of all that is golden!”

As she raised her heavy scepter to cast, however, a blurred flash passed before her, and the Hive Knight touched down on the giant crystal. His blade blazed in his hand, its teeth grinding in anticipatory relish. When Honeybottoms began to cast Gravity, Barnabee had recognized the spell in store for the team and warped out of range. “Mine apologies, friends. I failed to warn you. As I’ve failed so many times in the past. But I will not fail now.” He turned his black eyes on the usurper, burning with anger. “Traitor! Betrayer of thy own people! Thou took everything from me! From us! Thou art no queen. Only a pale, pitiful imitator! In the glorious name of Her Majesty the true queen, Vespa, I am here to fulfill my oath!”

“Hah!” Honeybottoms spat, gathering magic around her scepter. “I beat you once, little drone. This time I’ll finish the job!” With a wave of her catalyst, she sent a torrential cascade of pink magic shapes flying toward both the Hive Knight and the Seekers. “BEE-GONE!”

The Hive Knight breathed in deep. Sectontia’s crystal had already taken a beating, and any second now it would shatter, sending the Seekers to certain doom. He needed to be faster than fast, and stronger than strong. His choice had already been made. A prismatic light surrounded his body, and when he opened his eyes, they radiated a brilliant yellow.

“HUZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

From his wide-open mouth poured a flood of hivelings, a tide of brown that slammed into the wall of pink. Immediately the hiveling swarm began to beat Honeybottoms’ sorcery back, sacrificing themselves faster than the false queen could cast. After a moment they blew through her magic and poured over Honeybottoms herself. En masse they gave up their own lives by plunging their stingers into her body, their collective heat so overwhelming that the usurper couldn’t even fight back. Her scepter fell to the crystal’s surface from her nerveless grip. As the hivelings worked, Barnabee bashed the hilt of his blade against the crystal. From the honey lake flew dozens of golden globules, floating up to surround Honeybottoms before growing eight needle-like spikes apiece. By the time his hivelings wiped themselves out, the Hive Knight began to warp-strike between them, both releasing the needles when he reached them and slashing Honeybottoms on the way. He blitzed around her as a fiery blur, dicing her up as over a hundred needles pierced his mortal enemy’s body. Finally, he dashed straight above her, hung for just a moment, and then dropped. His burning blade sang as it carved through the shocked usurper in half vertically, finishing with a tremendous flame wave that sent Honeybottoms hurtling backward over the honey lake.

“IMPOSSIBLE…!” she cried as she flew through the air, desperately trying to hold herself together. “I’M…THE QUEEN! THE QUEEEEEEEEN-!” Her voice cut off as she slammed into the far wall of the hollow, flying apart into halves that soon sunk beneath the lake of ill-gotten gold.

Her Gravity spell ended, freeing the others, and the Hive Knight landed on the crystal. He looked horrible, his body ripped and torn from within by the strength of its own exertion. Prismatic ichor eked from his countless wounds. A sigh of relief escaped him, and he allowed his swordblade to fall to the ground beside Honeybottoms’ scepter. The next second, he warped away.

Nadia stood gingerly, swallowing. That had been one hell of a trump card from Honeybottoms, perfectly tailored to this environment to slaughter anyone she deemed a real threat. But it had nothing on the Hive Knight’s awe-inspiring finisher. He’d dispatched the false queen with style, not to mention hitherto-unseen power, but what had happened to him? By the time the lightshow came to an end, he looked like he stood on death’s door. “What was that?” she breathed, still astonished by the boss battle’s climactic finale. “And…where’d he go?”

With Honeybottoms’ demise, the throne room seemed to respond. Magical hexes appeared just over the honey lake, connecting the entrance to another, previously inaccessible door on the opposite side. These ones didn’t disappear when stepped upon, and Nadia could help but be curious where they led. She jumped from the crystal to the bridge, jogged down its length, and entered the door. On the other side of the passage she found another room, its floor tiled with solid honey like burnished bronze and its ceiling resplendent with hardened honey drips like countless gleaming icicles. Against the back wall, fully visible from the overlook where Nadia stood, rested the long-dead husk of an enormous queen bee, and on the edge of the precipice knelt the Hive Knight. His body slowly dissolving away.

Results

Party: The Koopa Troop, Primrose and Therion, Sectonia, Jesse, Ganondorf, Rubick, Artorias
Encounter Reward: +10 EXP
Not Just a Phase Bonus: The Koopa Troop, Sectonia, Jesse, Ganondorf, Rubick, Artorias, Ms Fortune
Bonus Reward: +5 EXP
Loot: Rumor Honeybottoms spirit, Yato, Honeydipper Scepter, Hiveblood, Orb of Undoing, Watcher Mask Fragment

Nadia stood there for a moment in silence, her ears drooping in sorrow. So, Barnabee’s precious queen had been dead all along. It made his quest for vengeance seem a whole lot sadder in retrospect; she thought he intended to return home in glory, a conquering hero, but maybe he’d never planned to live to tell the tale.

Most of the treasures in Queen Vespa’s resting place had been looted by the wasps, but aside from the mask fragment, two still remained. A hexagonal charm that could restore the patient lay on a plinth, and in a pile of ash sat a cloudy, spherical artifact that possessed far greater power–the Orb of Undoing, not claimed because the wasps mistook it for decoration like the charm, but because it would undo any unqualified individual who used it.

Of course, after her moment of silence concluded, Nadia picked it up without doing any critical thinking. Noticing that its insides seemed to move, she held it up to peer within, her eyes narrowed. Then the orb flashed with blinding light, physically knocking the catgirl flat. The arcane power that coursed through her being scoured every upgrade and addition she’d gained since the start of her journey, turning them back into possibilities.

Ms Fortune Undone

Powers Lost: Claws for Alarm, Dramatic Tension, Infinity Burst, Full Mrow-tation, Fifth of Dismember, Outtake, Nyawn, Water Purr-essure, Copycat, Cat-aract, Shipshape Type L, Purrge of Vengeance, Lightning Stickers (10)
Strengths Lost: Tag Team, Swordfaire, Su-purr-conductor (1)
Weaknesses Lost: Watery, Lightning Reactions, 2700 Pounds of Justice, Impractical Style
Defusions: Rhodeia of Loch, Massachusetts, Cat-5, Kronya (4)
Spirits Unbound: Rapturous Cultist, Idea
Upgrades Refunded: 11

“Oww, what the hell!” When Nadia regained her senses a moment later, she found herself completely restored to her original state, the exact same vanilla Ms. Fortune she’d been when her journey began. White hair, cat tail, crop top, normal feet. Around her sat her various weapons and the spirits of Rhodeia of Loch, Massachusetts, Cat-5, Rapturous Cultist, and Idea. “I’m…back to normal? Well, hah, normal as it gets for me anyhow.” She gave the orb, laying a few feet away from her, a look of mixed awe and horror. “Wait, does that mean I lost all my powers!?” When she tried to summon a Copycat, all she managed to do was splash a little blood on the floor. “Ohhh, jeez. All gone, huh? Nyahaha...” she chuckled nervously. “Well, uh, that’s some paw-erful magic for sure. I’m gonna need all those abilities though. Guess I’ll try and get everythin’ back the way it was?”

She came to one important realization, though: thanks to the Koopa Troop’s Snacktivator, she could be a little more particular about how she fused. With that in mind she began redoing her upgrades, which took both a little time and a lot of brainpower. Nadia found she could be more intentional with her upgrades, though she couldn't finagle everything when it came to the abilities she gained. Unfortunately, while she fused with Rhodeia and Massachusetts wholesale like before, she got the order wrong and ended up with slightly different results. She also accidentally got Cat-5 and Kronya backwards, using the former with the Snaktivator on her tail, and fusing with Kronya normally.

Ms Fortune Redone

Powers Gained: Claws for Alarm, Dramatic Tension, Full Mrow-tation, Fifth of Dismember, Water Purr-essure, Copycat, Cat-aract, Shipshape Type L, Purrge of Vengeance, Lightning Stickers, Luna-tic, Preda-torrent (9)
Strengths Gained: Tag Team, Su-purr-conductor, Big Mamie (2)
Weaknesses Gained: Watery, Lightning Reactions, 2700 Pounds of Justice, Impractical Style
Fusions: Massachusetts (Cardiofusion), Rhodeia of Loch (Cardiofusion), Kronya (Cardiofusion), Cat-5 (Tail)

New Abilities

Luna-trick - Nadia can power up an attack she makes with New Moon, adding a dazzling silver aura that treats her strike as if her foe suffered Def/Res-30%. After use, thirty seconds must pass before she can do this again
Preda-torrent - After charging up some Hydro energy in her limb, Nadia can create a whirlpool at the point of impact, drawing enemies toward the center, wetting them, and dealing damage over time for five seconds within a six-foot radius
Big Mamie - For each ally fighting alongside Nadia, her ranged damage, damage against airborne enemies, and evasiveness increase by 8%, stacking up to 24% at 3 stacks

Upgrades Spent: 11

Appearance: Nadia has gotten slightly shorter, but is much less lanky/scrawny, and more curvaceous. Her scars have a pattern of interlocking diamonds, silver in color like her nails. Her hair resembles a bob cut with side-parted bangs, albeit long, flowing, and messy, reaching the middle of her back and covering her left eye. Its outside is white in color, its inside vivid orange. She has two narrow, bladelike cat tails tipped with metal diamond fins that look like USBs, all black like her ears. She’s wearing black eyeliner and has a black tear drop beneath her right eye, as well as a bright white triangle on her forehead. Her slitted eyes are red. She’s wearing a crop top that connects to her belled collar, spats, a leather belt full of pouches, strapped thighhighs cut around her calf scars, fingerless opera gloves cut around her bicep and forearm scars, sneakers with their fronts missing, and a baggy, unzipped jacket. All her clothing is shiny black with blue highlights and orange accent lines. The jacket has blue swirls all over and a big, flashy white collar, while the sleeves have three ‘fins’ apiece that hang from the wrists. Nadia’s rigging, fused into her blade case, is attached to the back of her jacket, creating what functions as a metal backpack shaped roughly like a guitar
Personality: Slightly quieter and less expressive. More concerned with water, particularly its wonders and its purity, and more hateful of contamination/corruption. More sadistic, cheerful, cruel, and crazed

Nadia looked herself over, trying to gauge how she felt after going through the bizarre ordeal of redistributing her abilities. “Uh…I thiiiiink this is how I was before? More or less?” She couldn’t ignore certain differences, like her lack of paws, leather-replete outfit, and novel number of tails. Having white hair again made her happy, even if Massachusetts made it way longer again, but where did that orange come from!? After a moment she shrugged and put her hands on her hips with a wide smile. Sure, she’d have to cut her hair short when she found a mirror, but a ponytail would work until then, and overall she was pretty pleased with her appearance. “Eh, good enough! I sure ain’t fiddlin’ around with that crazy orb again, heehee! Anyone else wanna try your luck?”

She watched as the others looked into it, devilishly curious about what would happen and eager to see from an outside perspective, but Nadia also took a moment to use Sectonia’s Symbol of Avarice on the strikers she didn’t really want. With Cat-5’s electricity expanding her kit even further, she felt compelled to reign her number of options in a little. Just too much to think about. After crushing the first one she pocketed the result, but the second auto-equipped itself the instant she touched it, just like the Night Light she’d forgotten about for over a day. The mutation caused her guts to churn as a second stomach joined the first. “Man,” she winced, holding her belly. “I get all the bad luck.” After that sat back to see what her teammates made of the Orb of Undoing.

For Ms Fortune

Obtained:
Ripened Heart
On use, provides a quick burst of fast healing (about 20%) provided by a prolonged stretch of slower healing, about 40% over 5 seconds. Only three uses between rests

Second Stomach
A gastrointestinal mutation that doubles the health received from health-restoring items

World of Light

Midgar Zone 09 - Through the Dragnet

Level 5 Goldlewis (100/50) Level 4 Sandalphon (12/40)
Karin’s @Zoey Boey, Blazermate, Roland, and Susie’s @Archmage MC, Geralt and Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man
Word Count: 1146

Crouching down near the restricted area’s entrance, Goldlewis tugged at his beard uncomfortably as he considered the others’ feedback about H’s proposed plan of action. In truth he more or less knew the score before his teammates so much as said a word, as much as it pained him as a former soldier to admit it; this group just wasn’t made out for stealthy subterfuge. Though Goldlewis was many things, ‘subtle’ wasn’t one of them, between his immense frame and eye-catching outfit. In fact, the braggadocious style he cultivated practically demanded to be noticed, and in a situation where a single glinting belt buckle might catch a guard’s attention, there wasn’t any way on earth he’d be sneaking through this place even with Sandalphon on high to guide him through.

The archangel wasn’t any more optimistic. Even if everyone else could get through unnoticed, she’d been planning to wait the operation out from the rafters so that her bright white attire couldn’t give her away, then slowly descend behind enemy lines. While having more adaptable comrades would’ve been a plus, the confidence with which they selected their preferred gameplan -together with what she’d already witnessed today- suggested that the Seekers would be fine finishing the mission in their own way. “If that’s the case, better to plan for an ambush from the start than scramble once we’re discovered,” she reasoned. “I can still provide support from above. Please keep in mind that, unlike before, these are flesh-and-blood humans. Simply doing their job of quarantine security. Killing them would not be justified.”

While not one to take life without cause, Goldlewis furrowed his brow. “Sure, I don’t wanna take ‘em out if I don’t have to, but we got a lot restin’ on us. When you pick up a gun, you’re signin’ a contract that means you’re willin’ to kill, and willin’ to die. If it’s our lives or theirs…” He let that sentence hang.

“Ohhhh…” Mr. H sounded very unhappy. “W-well, just…don’t do anything you’ll regret, okay?”

Hastily the team split up, keeping a low profile to the extent that they could. Goldlewis didn’t get too far, forced (like Geralt) to remain behind shelter as Zenkichi advanced. Blazermate and Susie could fly beneath the catwalk network and lurk down below where nobody would think to look. Sandalphon used her new ability to vault all the way up to the rafter beams behind the shelter of a pillar, hustled carefully to a near-central position, then crouched down with her gunstaff shouldered at the ready. Her radio glyph glowed faintly by her head, ready to relay her callouts, as she rested her cheek against the cold metal. Her impassive gaze needed no scope in order to scrutinize everything in the area.

“Keep in mind, these aren’t Peace Protection officers,” she whispered to the others through her direct line with them. The telltale red and black uniforms of the troopers here suggested their true origins. “They’re…Psych-OSF. I’m afraid I can’t ID them and get any additional information, but they’re bound to have psychic abilities in addition to standard-issue firepower.”

There were eight rank-and-file guards in all, two squads’ worth. Pvt. Gima Koch, Pvt. Hano Barlow, Pvt. Kou Kaufman, and Pvt. Matsumura Atkinson wielded Chlorokinesis, Sunakinesis, weak Hallucikinesis, and Levitation respectively. Pfc. Fujimori Mosley and Pfc. Kenji McLaughlin wielded Flyrokinesis and Blastokinesis. Finally, LCpl. Natsuko and Cpl. Miwa Marcias -sisters- wielded Zoolingualism and Confusion respectively, the former’s power made more noteworthy by the presence of both black bats up above and, down below, an infestation of crysales that would always attack in groups of three and could use Sleep Scales to pacify opponents. While the privates patrolled the walkways alone, their paths sometimes crossing, the privates first class Mosley and McLaughlin patrolled the same large platform, and the Marcias sisters never strayed far from one another. All had been doing this for a while and seemed more bored than alert except for the sisters, who never suffered a dull moment so long as they were together. All troopers wielded standard-issue burst-fire plasma rifles, a sidearm of choice, and a tool of choice that complimented their psychic abilities in some way.

Then there was the Closer. He stood at the very back in front of the security door without moving, surveying the whole area ahead of him with both hands resting on the pommel of his high-tech greatsword, its tip planted against the metal below him. Sandalphon shared what she knew. “Since I memorized the DespoRHado databanks, I do have some documentation on Charles. His damage output is nothing to scoff at, but he is deceptively fast as well, favoring offense over defense. If an ally of his attacks, he will gain Perception for a short time, which will make his attacks even more punishing according to the target’s lost vitality–hence, ‘the Closer’. Be advised, if allowed to use his ultimate technique, Descent, all of them will gain a temporary bonus: evasion for him, and attack for the rest.” From above, the Angel of Information stood by to lend assistance whenever her allies called for her, or her judgment bid her intervene, once she gave the signal.

Down below, Goldlewis maneuvered himself toward what looked like an opening in the guards’ security, away from where Zenkichi advanced. If the Seekers weren’t going to fight united in a wide-open space that gave gunners the advantage, they needed to split the guards up so that nobody ended up facing a firing squad. When Sandalphon finally kicked things off by shooting a stack of pipes, causing an ungodly clamor that got the attention of everyone in the area, Goldlewis emerged from behind a pillar and charged down a walkway toward the guard he’d selected.

The young Hano Barlow yelped and unloaded his rifle, only for the deluge of red plasma blasts to spatter against his Wall of Light. A moment later his gun clicked empty, and the next second Goldlewis barged in with a shoulder charge into a backfist. Caught mid-reload, Barlow stumbled away, reaching toward the hourglass-like container at his waist. “Pocket sand!” He hurled a handful of stinging grains into Goldlewis’s eyes, then used his ability to command the rest of his sand into the shape of floating spheres. Since the veteran had glasses, however, the pocket sand wasn’t as effective as it could have been, and before Barlow knew it Goldlewis bore down on him once more. His choice of full-auto Recital-17 sidearm handled well, but it lacked stopping power, so with massive swings Goldlewis quickly pushed the sand-manipulating psychic into a corner. Once he overwhelmed the man and knocked him out, he could move towards the area’s center and help someone else against more dangerous opponents.

Suoh - Beacon Mental Hospital Medical Ward

Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Sakura’s @Zoey Boey, Gemma

If Brain Drain’s robotic face could have been construed into any semblance of human expression, the remark Sakura gave him about the Grandfather’s Axe paradox would have resulted in a ‘kill me’ expression of elephantine proportions. ”...I see,” he murmured for a moment, more to himself than to his new acquaintance. ”It seems I find myself in the company of a profound brainlet. I’ll have to remind myself to use smaller words…”

With a concerted effort Sakura might have been able to tap into Brain Drain’s less-than-glowing review, if not for her brief exchange with Gemma. Her news didn’t exactly set the Psych-OSF soldier’s mind at ease, but it wasn’t often that a run-in with someone in a nightmarish place like this ended with an actual conversation rather than a fight. As fortunate as this might have seemed, if this doctor couldn’t offer any information about the soldier who’d been metamorphosed, their operation here would be in serious trouble.

Gemma had other things to worry about, too. Midna reappeared from the shadows to report that she’d actually found someone alive. What she described sounded downright horrific, though, and close enough in appearance to the patients that littered this deranged hospital that notions about some sort of conversation sprang to Gemma’s mind, sending a shiver down his spine. Midna wanted to save the poor person, but before the two could do much of anything, they needed to deal with the elephant in the room. “Got to get rid of that thing before we do anything, I feel like,” he whispered back, tilting his head toward the Doctor. “As for Sakura, she found someone who works here and is talking to him. Said he didn’t know anything about your friend, though. Go ahead and follow her, call out if you need me.”

Back in the STEM chamber, Sakura tried not to wilt beneath the powerful psychic’s accusatory gaze. Though his emotions were inscrutable, the girl got the definite feeling that Brain Drain wasn’t buying her claims of innocence. ”So you say. But while lips may lie, lobes will always surrender the truth. It’s just a matter of prodding.”

Brain Drain did not take any action yet, however, and he did not move while Sakura asked a question of her own. Once she finished, he ruminated on what she said for a moment in silence. ”People into Others. How intriguing. You witnessed this phenomenon when it befell this Peach, then came here in search of answers. I’m afraid you’re barking up the wrong tree. This facility has everything to do with people, but nothing to do with Others. Yet, I get the distinct impression that both share the same tangential connection to Psych-OSF. Those who solicit my services here aren’t exactly chatty, but…” He went quiet suddenly, turning his head to look at one of the other sets of doors leading out from the room. ”Hm. It feels like I have more unannounced guests…and speak of the devil…”

The next moment, the doors opened, revealing a brightly-lit elevator with two dark figures silhouetted against the glow of its harsh incandescent bulb. When they stepped forward and the doors closed behind them, Sakura could see -and recognize- the newcomers, a brawny young man and a full-figured young woman. Their sleek black-and-red outfits, faces, hairstyles, everything was unmistakable, save the strange looks on their faces, and the empty dullness of their eyes. It was Dexio and Sina, and for whatever reason, they did not look pleased to see her.

”You two,” Brain Drain intoned telepathically. Sakura wasn’t the only one who recognized the inseparable pair. ”P-types EPL133902 and HB2797521. Didn’t I already fix you?”

They ignored him, instead zeroing in on Sakura. “Rebel filth,” Dexio spat at her.

“We’re here to cleanse you,” Sina told her flatly. “To wipe this stain from the face of the great New Himuka!”

She powered up her Refrigerant Coil, her Cryokinesis coursing through her arm. At the same time, Dexio plunged his hands into his cestus and smashed the ground, sending a ripple through the building with his Seismokinesis.

”What do you think you’re doing?” Brain Drain demanded, his mental tone urgent. ”No fighting in here. I forbid it. I will suffer no damage to my STEM system. Or my brains. Whatever this is, take it outside this instant.”

A psychic wave rippled out from him, his mental authority practically tangible, but Dexio and Sina seemed to resist. “Don’t stand in our way,” Sina growled at him. “This traitor and all her friends must die!”

“For the glory of New Himuka!” Dexio added.

Brain Drain lowered his head, glowering. His brain began to glow. ”I should have known better than to rehabilitate you the way they wanted. So much for blind loyalty. It’ll get you killed.” He snapped his metal fingers. ”Painwheel”

Another control wave rolled out from him, and the masked girl laying in one of the tubs suddenly spasmed, pink electricity arcing across her body. “Rrrraaaaaagh!” she howled, clutching her temples. “Get outta my head!” Yet she obeyed all the same, climbing out of her resting place with her four enormous blades held aloft above her. Painwheel’s eyes blazed red, and with an inhuman roar she charged toward Dexio and Sina.

Suoh - Beacon Mental Hospital Residential Wing

Pit’s @Yankee, Roxas’ @Double, Luka

The friend heart offered by Roxas to Yuito was not in vain. Upon making contact with the shambling hollow, it instantly restored the young psychic to perfect condition, his life force full to burst and his mind completely intact. “Whuh!?” he gasped, jerking suddenly before going limp as if awakening from a frightful dream. He managed to catch himself before hitting the ground and stabilized himself on one knee, his head still spinning from both the haunting experience and the resurgent memories. Despite the chill in the room, Yuito broke out in a cold sweat. “I…we…”

Before he could cause a ruckus, though, the lilting singsong of Anima that echoed through the mess hall recentered him. Instinctually Yuito crouched down behind one of the tables to hide himself alongside Roxas, narrowly avoiding the deadly gaze of the specter as it roamed their way. While hunkering down he became aware of the intermittent cries and sniffles of Hanabi as she wept, all the fight drained out of her even as Anima drew closer to where she lay. ”Hanabi?” he asked, reaching out for his childhood friend through Brain Talk. ”Are you okay?”

”Y-Yuito!?” Hanabi sounded terrified, as if unwilling to believe that she’d heard the voice of a living being. ’I-is that really you?”

”Yeah, I’m okay. Listen, we’ve got to make a run for it. Can you move?”

Her reply came after another moment, and another couple sniffles, albeit ones from joy rather than misery. ”Y-yeah. Let’s get out of here!”

With Yuito restored, everyone moved with renewed determination and vigor. They snuck around behind the turned-over cafeteria tables to avoid Anima, waiting patiently when pieces of furniture floated up to reposition themselves, and gradually closed in on the exit. Only Luka ran into a spot of trouble. He happened to get cornered right as a few tables lifted up near him, forcing him to dash and slide to cover. Anima spotted him and turned to walk through the air in his direction. When she got close enough, she lifted the table she was sure he’d hidden himself behind, only to find nothing. Bemused, she looked around, floating everything in her vicinity. At that point Roxas, Yuito, and Hanabi realized that Luka had grabbed onto the table to rise with it when it lifted up, using his impressive arm strength to hold himself up without so much as a grunt of discomfort. When he was sure Anima wouldn’t notice, he used his high vantage point to pinpoint a spot by the door he could teleport to, then warped straight there. Anima whirled around to claw at the source of the noise near her, but she found nothing to grab a hold of. A second later the doors clicked shut, and the specter was alone in the cafeteria.

The youngsters ran through the halls of the mental hospital until they couldn’t run anymore. They came to a stop and took refuge in a janitorial closet, out of breath and panting. Hanabi wasn’t completely exhausted, though, as she immediately balled up her fists and started punching Yutio. As the rain of ineffectual blows fell against his chest, the young man put his hands up in surrender. “H-hey, what gives!?”

“You idiot!” Hanabi cried, tears streaming down her cheeks again. “Don’t you dare ever do anything like that to me ever again. I thought…I thought I lost you!”

With a look of pity on his face, Yuito wrapped his hands around his friend’s shoulders and pulled him close. “Hanabi…don’t worry, I promise.”

Though terrifying for a brief moment, the turn of events had not only brought two teams together (sans Raz) but led them a safe distance from the residential wing to a clerical part of the hospital, where records and such were kept. It was safe to say that Anima had lost them. Where to go from here, though, was anyone’s guess. At least, until they happened to hear voices coming from a hall nearby, but as they arrived the last sliver of incandescent light shining from within the elevator got cut off, and whoever just boarded it began to descend to the depths of the Beacon Mental Hospital basement.

The Under - The Hive

Level 11 Nadia (150/110)
The Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Primrose and Therion’s @Yankee, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Jesse’s @Zoey Boey, Ganondorf’s @Double, Rubick’s @Scarifar, Artorias’ @Dark Cloud, Barnabee
Word Count: 1368

Once the battle got underway, things got hectic fast. Although way less cramped and chaotic than the fight against Pizza Head atop his eponymous tower, the confines of the Hive’s throne room made for quite the brawl given the sheer abundance of wasps that showed up to lend their mechanical queen a hand. Once formed into all sorts of weapons and sent forth with some appropriate wordplay by their overlord, the swarm attacked the seekers relentlessly.

“Mind if we cut in?” A gigantic wasp scimitar hurtled forth.

“Try blocking this!” Several swarms grouped up into huge cubes that began to roll around the arena, one loud whomp at a time.

They even took the shape of a giant musical instrument for a monumental guitar smash. “Play them a b-flat!”

Nadia had to hand it to this impostor queen: she could sure belt out puns, almost as fast as she sent forth minions. The minute she touched back down on the throne room’s main platform following her rail ride, three separate swarms assailed her in quick succession. As a super-sized boomerang made out of wasps whirled toward her she dropped to the ground and performed a Cat Slide underneath. Just as her momentum from the slide gave out, a wasp cube tried to upend itself on top of her. Thinking quickly, she unleashed her Fiber Upper, planning to abuse the reversal’s nigh-invulnerability to carve straight through. For a brief moment she disappeared, seemingly crushed, only for her paws to shoot out of the cube’s other side on hyper-extended muscle fibers. Then the rest of Nadia snapped up to join them, tearing through the swarm as she did to burst free in an explosion of bug parts. When she landed she found that the rest of the cube had moved on, but above her loomed a gigantic bow and arrow made entirely of wasps.

“Ready for your shot?” the wasp queen asked.

Nadia crouched down with a cheeky grin, one arm bent with the elbow upward and the hand on the back of her head in a faux-glamorous pose. “Just make sure to get my good side!”

The arrow careened toward her, but the feral had a plan. She used Charge, transformed into a bolt of lightning that shot through the incoming conga line of wasps, blowing through the entire procession in scarcely more than a second. When she rematerialized, yellow sparks dancing across her body as her jacket and hair whipped in the wind, she dove downward with Athame extended in a spectacular Feral Edge. Her dagger’s point punctured the bandaged metal plating on the wasp queen’s midsection, and when Nadia wrenched it upward it left quite the gash. “Just kiddin’,” she quipped as she performed an El Gato axe kick to dent the weakened weak point. “They’re all good sides!” Laughing, she kicked off and rocketed back toward solid ground.

As she landed Nadia got a brief chance to look around, and things looked pretty good. The impostor’s swarms packed a punch, but the Seekers were dishing out way more damage than they were taking. Entire platoons went down to the team’s barrage of elemental and magical attacks, and nothing scattered the swarms quite like Bowser and Ganondorf’s fiery and shadowy explosions, though the Koopa King’s supersonic waves helped ruin the wasps’ cohesion, too. Sectonia could make them easier targets with Slow, then sit back and wait for her endless torrent of random projectiles to work their magic. Rubick and Jesse shot their shots. Everyone seemed to be dealing with the wasps well enough, but no matter how many they killed, more crawled out of the woodwork to join the fight. Nadia realized that targeting the wasps just meant buying oneself safety; only by attacking the queen could the Seekers make real progress.

Luckily, her teammates had been working on that too. When the feral made her initial attack, Artorias quickly followed in her footsteps. Not the most agile knight around, he risked falling into the pit in order to strike the back of the queen’s abdomen, but thanks to their combined efforts the impostor’s rear-bottom section fell away. Not long after the Koopa Troop plus some antlions demolished the front-bottom section, and a Tonberry inserted into the construct’s undercarriage dealt that part of the machine a whopping blow. When Ganondorf used his blades to climb up the part of the thorax Nadia weakened a moment ago, he paved the way for Rubick to finish the front-middle section off with a well-placed counter-shot. That just left the rear-middle section, but Barnabee was on the case. He could warp-strike from the rail to the queen’s back and saw into the sensitive machinery with his blazing Yato blade, which cut through the yellow-painted scrap metal like butter. Before too long, only a head atop a huge, threadbare metal support skeleton remained dangling on that chain.

Still, it took Jesse and Ganondorf to force the issue. With everyone else more or less blocked now that the swarms were exclusively forming floating shields to protect their queen, the FBC director and the warlock were the only ones already in a good position to attack the head. When they did, the impostor gave up her first cries of pain. Jesse’s hypothesis that this giant machine had a pilot was right on the money.

But it wasn’t just any pilot.

“Waaaaaaaagh!” After spinning around in comedic fashion from the damage, the metal wasp’s head swelled up and abruptly exploded, revealing the occupant as she burst from the wreckage midair to stretch her legs–and her wings. Hovering in the air was the true form of the impostor, not a wasp at all, but a giant bee with a coppery crown and heavy scepter: Rumor Honeybottoms. “Urk!” she groaned, glaring down at the Seekers. “You’ve done it now, sugars. This honey is off…” As she raised her scepter, magical pink power surrounded it. “....LIMITS!”

She hurled the scepter down like a giant throwing axe. When it hit the throne room platform, its arcane might sent a heavy shockwave through it, knocking everyone still standing on it off their feet as the interlocked hexes broke apart. Nadia yowled in panic as she fell along with the crumbling platform, plummeting down into the pit. Her eyes widened as the fog parted to reveal a lake of pure honey, glittering gold and as sticky as a tar pit. Before she or anyone else could fall in, however, the shower of Seekers and debris approached a multi-layer stack of yellow hex sheets, half a dozen in total. Nadia jumped and landed on top of one, only for the hexagonal plate to begin to dissolve beneath her feet. “Oh, come on!” she griped, her heart pumping like crazy. It looked like she’d need to keep moving in order to not fall, but as if that wasn’t bad enough, the lake of honey appeared to be rising. The chunks of the platform floated on its surface, so she could stand there if all else failed, but the feral quickly realized that she and the others would need every foothold they could get, because Rumor wasn’t done with them just yet.

“Mwahaha, have fun down there!” the usurper called gleefully, descending toward the hex stack for a better view. For once, though, she came along; after realizing that their ‘queen’ had been a bee pretending to be a wasp all along, the rest of the wasps had quickly made themselves scarce. “Oh, but I can’t let you have all the fun, now can I? After all, why settle for just one pain in the bee-hind when I can…bee…fifty-two.”

Pulling out her spellbook, Rumor performed a quick hex, then began to transform. In grotesque fashion her body morphed into the shape of a striped bomber plane, and she began to fly in circles above the stack of platforms dropping bombs every few seconds to make things as hard as possible for the interlopers who’d dared to intrude on her domain.

World of Light

Midgar Zone 09 - Through the Dragnet

Level 5 Goldlewis (98/50) Level 4 Sandalphon (10/40)
Karin’s @Zoey Boey, Blazermate, Roland, and Susie’s @Archmage MC, Geralt and Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man
Word Count: 2181

Within the span of about five minutes, the Seekers managed to coalesce on roughly the same area of the Sector 08 undercity, where the brink of the troubled but tenacious dystopian sprawl called Detroit overlooked a sequestered cityscape long since given over to isolation and redshift corruption. This unofficial ninth sector went ignored and unacknowledged, a blight on the city’s history and a remnant of its darkest hour, and with its very existence too painful to embrace it lay here, hiding in plain sight like a homeless veteran. This was Quarantine Valley, a realm even lower on the rungs of Midgar’s sociopolitical ladder than the undercities, yet safeguarded against intrusion with the fierceness of the City of Glass. As Goldlewis took it all in from the sidewalk behind the metal railing, he couldn’t help but feel a profound melancholy borne of his sense of responsibility. Even if it wasn’t his call that left this place -these people- desolate, it saddened him to them abandoned to this terrible fate

Guided by an expert at high speed, Goldlewis and Karin seemed to arrive first, and once they turned up the fliers could zero in on the position and join them. Susie, Blazermate, and H’s drone had navigated over the tumultuous streets with little to no issue; even if people down below spotted them, they probably had more pressing matters to worry about. Roland turned up soon after, drifting to a stop on a slick black motorcycle inexplicably come into his possession. He knew he had little to fear from his wanton theft; the law of the Administration seldom lifted a finger to save anyone down here, least of all from itself. Geralt had taken advantage of Detroit’s sky-lines, using them as intended with his sky-hook to make good time weaving around and in some cases through the various buildings. Though Sandalphon used the same means of transportation, her method of sliding atop the sky-lines (while an impressive feat in its own right) took her long enough that Zenkichi joined Geralt, courtesy of a former colleague’s good-natured assistance, before she did. With 2B and 9S still in Sector 07, probably for the best considering the fugitive status of DespoRHado’s android corps in Sector 08, that left only two conspicuous absences: Benedict and Partitio. Goldlewis didn’t know where they’d gotten lost along the way, or even if they’d set out along with the rest at the start, come to think of it. Maybe Partitio had decided to stay behind to help the poor people of the slums, leaving the Seekers right where he first joined them. Benedict, as a former Turk, posed more of a problem. Goldlewis had a hard time imagining that the old tactician would run off and turn his coat now of all times, but who could say what seemed wise to a traitorous mind.

With everyone more or less here, Goldlewis set down his coffin with a thunk and crossed his arms. “Alrighty then. How do we get in?”

As he hoped, Mr. H had an answer for them. “Well, there’s a couple options, but none of them good. There are cameras positioned all around the valley to catch anyone trying to fly in, whether they’re using vehicles or even parachutes. All official routes in and out have been closed down or blocked off except one, and while it’s closely guarded, it’s probably our best bet. This way.”

H led the team about half a block to the north of the interplate subway station, where the remains of a sky-tram station stood on the edge of the valley. It had been shuttered long ago, and the coiled steel tram lines that once connected it to a matching rooftop station down in the valley, severed. In the vicinity, however, stood an unassuming reinforced door in the yellow glare of a single light, plastered with holographic restriction warnings. A Dandelion Security CCTV Camera hung over it, turning the fan of metal petals that surrounded its lens left and right as it scanned for unwelcome visitors. The Seekers stopped up the street a short ways, standing outside a run-down laundromat. “That’s our ticket in,” H told the others. With the recent reduction of personnel, eight wasn’t a huge group, but it was enough to be conspicuous. “I can hack the camera to freeze its intake just long enough to get us inside. The bigger issue…well, I’m sure you’ve already noticed.”

Sandalphon narrowed her eyes. While a casual observer might not notice anything, she spotted something curious after a moment. Next to the doorway stood a trash can, and every few moments its lid cracked open to admit a pair of binocular lenses with a slight red glow from within, betraying the presence of Gleaming eyes. Furthermore, at the closed pawn shop across the street, the blinds parted slightly to let red eyes take a peek of the area. “G-men,” she answered. “At least two on stakeout.” When she looked again, however, she noticed a strange abundance of small trash cans on a road where the alleys already featured dumpsters, all concentrated within a hundred feet or so of the entrance. As well as two simultaneous blind-pulls. “Make that six.”

“All of them probably equipped with walkie-talkies,” H added, his voice grim. “We need to take them all out at once if we’re going to get inside. I can’t help since I’ll already be performing the hack.”

Sandalphon thought for a brief moment. “A coordinated strike may do the trick. Even if we’re unable to exploit their disguised forms’ low health in order to kill them instantly, they’ll be forced to transform and fight us once damaged. If we time it right we can end it before it even begins.” Immediately she turned her gaze upward, searching for a vantage point in the vicinity. “I can snipe one of them.”

Goldlewis stroked his whiskers, considering his options. “Hmm…what if the UMA floated a Thunderbird way above one o’ them trash cans, then dropped it? Doggone G-man wouldn’t know what hit it. And if I got close enough somehow, I could smush another one with my coffin, and that’s all she wrote.” That left three hidden G-men to take care of: two more in trash cans, and one in the pawn shop. Luckily, that establishment featured a second story with a balcony, no doubt due to being a living space at some point in the past. While the fire escape was locked up tight, one of the second-story windows had been smashed, and someone could get in.

Everyone quickly made their choices and got into position. Goldlewis strode down the street alone, aware of all the eyes sticking to him like glue, past the pawn shop, and stopped at the small, weed-infested parking lot opposite the sky-tram station with one of the trash cans right behind him. “I’m an undertaker, and this here’s my coffin I put dead folks in,” he declared loudly so that the G-men could hear, trying to get their attention. “Boy, there sure are a whole lotta dandelions ‘round this parkin’ lot. As a coroner, I need flowers for my funerals. Guess I’ll grab some!” He crouched down to pretend to pick dandelions, keeping one hand on the chain of his coffin.

Down the street, Sandalphon used her new power Vault to leap up onto the roof of the laundromat, where she could crouch down behind a noisy AC unit and take aim at the pawn shop’s storefront window. H piloted his drone close enough to connect to the security camera. Once everyone gave the signal that they were ready, Sandalphon spun up her rifle and waited until both G-men in the pawn shop were peeking at the exact same time. “Now.”

As H froze the camera, Sandalphon’s rifle shot blazed down into the street, through the window, and into the head of one of the faceless goons. Goldlewis whirled around and smashed his coffin into the trash can behind him with a mighty Behemoth Typhoon, crushing it and its occupant against the brick wall behind it. A split second later, his Thunderbird grenade dropped down on another can, blowing it up. The three other members of the group did their thing, and the G-men were taken care of. H opened up the door, and everyone hurried inside. Less than thirty seconds after the operation began, the reinforced door slid shut again, and the valley-side street was quiet.

After a moment, a woman standing on a higher rooftop breathed a long, slow sigh, and snapped her notebook shut. Her pale yellow eyes, as sharp as a predator’s fangs, and her long lupine ears had taken in just about everything. First Benedict, then Zenkichi, and now Roland, who’d been by her side as recently as last night. Three disappearances in three days, only to turn up alongside the same strange group across different sectors, from the debate to the Vandelay raid to Detroit. And now a member of DespoRHado, formerly affiliated with the Lateran church. Had all three really betrayed General Affairs? Why? What brought them all together, and what were their goals? It just didn’t make sense. A dozen questions ran through her head. Nevertheless, she had a duty to figure this out. Having been on the trail of these renegades for a little while now, she felt close to a discovery of vital importance. On the cusp of some revelation.

“Looks like you had the right idea.” Behind her, rather than any fellow official peacekeepers, a young Lupo man in a dark pinstripe suit and a purple overcoat stood with his arms crossed. “They’re the ones all right,” Vigil remarked. “What d’you suppose they’re up to now?”

As the former judge rose, the pale golden chains of her hammerhead flail jingled softly, their thorns shining softly in the strange day’s halflight. “I intend to find out.”

“What, not gonna call it in?” Vigil put on a mischievous smile. “Going off on your own with a schmuck like me instead of your police squad? You’re a bad cop, Lavinia.”

The woman gave her old friend a withering glance, then frowned at the street below. “If that’s the case, Leontuzzo, it’s because I care about one thing only.” She stepped to the edge, pausing to utter one more word before she jumped down to pick up the trail. “Justice.” Hoping to close this bizarre case for once and all, Penance was on the hunt once more.

---

After climbing down a ladder, H and the Seekers reached a large enclosed area. Ahead of them lay a maze of corrugated metal walkways and platforms suspended over a deep, dark intersected by large pipes and other such Detroit utilities, spanning multiple levels connected by stairs. They appeared to be anchored around the huge concrete supports littered the open space, and the ladders that rose up into the higher reaches of the restricted area alongside them granted access to a dangerous alternate path along unsecured, elevated struts. On the other side of the labyrinth, lower down, lay another door like the one the Seekers just came through: the point at which Sector 08 stopped and Zone 09 began.

“That door back there is the only way to the exclusion zone,” H explained. Between the team and their goal patrolled a handful of guards, not G-men this time, but armed troopers. “As you can see, we’ll have to sneak past a few guards to get to it. And the door itself won’t open without a security keycard. The guard captain should have one on him we can use.” In front of the door stood a mustached soldier in camo fatigues and a gray longcoat, his manner impatient and bored but his eyes alert. “Of course, we can’t just ask him to lend it to us. We’ll have to take it from him somehow.”

Sandalphon queried her internal database, searching through her memory for the familiar face. “I know of him. He predated my time in DespoRHado, one of the few to ever actually leave the organization. His name is Charles, but most know him as the Closer. An expert fighter.” Her eyes drifted upward. “That high ground doesn’t grant much access, but I can vault up there and provide overwatch, directing everyone from above.”

“Sounds good. We gotta be fast, and we gotta be careful. This could get real hairy real fast if you guys don’t take the stealthy approach, so if you end up going loud, make sure you’re good and ready.” H’s drone transmitted a deep, somewhat shake breath. “Alright! Nothing to it but to do it!”

Suoh - Beacon Mental Hospital Medical Ward

Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Sakura’s @Zoey Boey, Gemma

Unfortunately for Midna, it turned out that Sandalphon had terminated their magical connection when the previous mission came to a close. Anyone who knew the value of information also knew the value of privacy, and since the archangel had no further need nor desire to perceive or listen to everything the Twilight Princess encountered, she hung up to better focus on the handful of perspectives she’d be directly working with in Midgar’s undercities. Furthermore, while Sandalphon -as the source of the power- could reach out to anyone she’d previously connected to, that didn’t work in reverse. Midna was on her own, and the fate of the still-breathing patient was in her hands.

Back by the operating room, Gemma was beginning to get antsy. He knew he wasn’t well-suited to subtlety and didn’t want to jeopardize anyone or anything due to impatience, but as a senior Psych-OSF member he couldn’t help but worry for his companions. After a few more tense moments, listening to the Doctor at work, Gemma reached out to Sakura via Brain Talk. ”Hey. Everything alright?”

At that moment though, Sakura was in the midst of another conversation. Brain Drain stared at the girl, unblinking, as she tried to steady herself and work her way through a response. She ended up babbling somewhat, repeating herself a couple times, all the while quailing under the psionic’s mental pressure. Brain Drain let her go on, his nerves of steel as calm and collected as ever. It was only natural that an inferior mind -let alone one trapped in a prison of fleshy impotence- would shrivel in his presence, caught as she was in the headlights of his sheer intellect and metal majesty. Though Sakura wore the colors of Psych-OSF, meaning she had to possess at least a modicum of combat ability, Brain Drain wasn’t flustered in the slightest even by the sudden, unannounced appearance of such a suspect individual. After all, what had he to fear?

“Peach, yes, I get the picture,” he responded at length, when the girl was quite finished. ”I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you. I don’t know of anyone by that name, and I haven’t dealt with any transfigured unfortunates. We do keep some monsters on the premises to help deter intruders… As he floated over the floor toward a clipboard to double-check, he gave Sakura the side-eye. ...But evidently they’re all old hat. I trust you’re at least passingly familiar with my colleague, the Doctor? I’d wager you’re too composed to have run into Anima, though.” He glanced over at a dark-haired man in a faded green vest and red tie, lying unconscious in a tub previously obscured to Sakura’s point of view, muttering hopelessly as he slept. ”A little fickle, that one, but quite unstoppable so long as the host remains.”

Realizing he was rambling, Brain Drain snapped his attention back to Sakura. ”Regardless, while what we do here is of utmost importance and demands privacy, I assure you this is no ‘evil hospital’. This is where people come to be fixed.” He crossed his arms. ”Oh, don’t bother asking. I don't have to read your mind to know what you're thinking: what does he mean, ‘fixed’? Well, I don’t see the harm in telling you. We’re not open to the public, but our clientele is guided here through certain channels. When they have nowhere else to turn. When they are broken beyond repair, or hate what they see in the mirror, and yearn to be made whole. When they need a medical solution to an ailment without a cure, be that boredom, depression, who they are, or even death itself. I tend to their minds, and the Doctor, their bodies. It is far too complicated for a layman like you to possibly grasp, but if you’re still curious, I invite you to ponder the paradox of the Grandfather’s Axe.”

Brain Drain turned to gaze up at the giant, glowing tank. “Yes, we have quite the collection here. ‘Donated’, yes…you could say that. Surrendered. To the Brainframe, for scientific study and experimentation, to learn more about the mysteries of the mind. They are networked, not just with one another, but to psynet. Extra servers to bolster the psychic pool of the populace. A rising tide raises all ships, as they say.”

He ran his hand along the side of the apparatus, almost lovingly.”Of course, I…could not do this without Psych-OSF. We have something of an arrangement, you see. They help keep the lights on, and in return I provide some services to them. The rehabilitation of certain criminal elements, who would otherwise be subject to execution. They’re brought here, and I help make them better. But that is the extent of our affiliation. My true allegiance is, as ever, to the Greater Good. And that requires that I bend all my efforts to the eradication of the single greatest threat to mankind: not the Ever Crisis, but the Skullgirls.” He huffed, his mental tone irate. ”And I would be all the closer if not for the rash of recent thefts. Someone has been stealing brains. MY brains. The sheer nerve it takes to steal from ME…it’s enough to make a man sick.”

Brain Drain turned to glare at Sakura. ”You, my uninvited guest, wouldn’t happen to know anything…would you?”

World of Light

Suoh - Beacon Mental Hospital, Medical Ward

Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Sakura’s @Zoey Boey, Gemma

Though rather unsettling, both in terms of appearance and the way he crawled around on the hospital’s ceiling, the Doctor didn’t really intimidate Gemma. Sure, he seemed inhumanly large -inhuman in general, in fact- but the Scarlet Guardians regularly beat larger foes, and while holding that ungainly bloated mass aloft probably took some serious strength, the Doctor looked ill-suited for combat. Still, given the inexplicable invulnerability possessed by the patients it sounded reasonable to abide by Midna’s suggestion and not get tangled up in another fight needlessly. Although, the Seekers ought to know as well as Gemma did that investigations like this tended to culminate in the act of beating answers out of somebody. If this uncanny physician didn’t strike him as incapable of human speech, he might have objected, but for now he allowed the smaller, more agile members of the team to take initiative and sneak around.

Behind door number one: a surprise death drop. Midna actually fell in, much to Gemma’s dismay, but thanks to the special talents of the Twilight Princess she managed to save her skin. Soon she returned with the bad news, and though Gemma was relieved to hear it her cautionary tale was cause for concern. “I didn’t think we were that far down,” he murmured in a low tone. “This area of the plate may be heavily undermined. We’ll need to tread carefully.”

Sakura wisely chose a different exit. After taking pains not to disturb the Doctor as he worked, she reached the doorway silhouetted against a pink-green glow and made her way inside. On the opposite side lay a circular room in the same style as much of the hospital, with faded green tiles and splotchy off-white concrete. A strange machine stood in the middle, visually somewhere between a hot water heater and a lighthouse, with a spider’s web of cables stemming outward from the top and a ring of glorified bathtubs around it, all standing in a depression filled with ankle-deep murky water. Medical stands with monitoring devices could be found parked along the walls, and cables lay everywhere on the floor. However, this apparatus appeared to be offline, and judging by the dusting of cobwebs, not used for some time. Moreover, this wasn’t the source of the green light; that lay deeper in, beyond another set of doors, where it got much stronger. When Sakura ventured in there, she quickly realized that the squat, neglected chamber she’d just left had been nothing more than a prototype.

Though also circular, this room was much larger and high-tech, its better-kept machines connected not just via insulated industrial cables but holographic orange vision cables. Gone was the standing water; each tub had its own dedicated machinery with it on a checkered platform. There was a set of elevator doors on the room’s right side, and a stairwell on the left that led up to the second-story observation deck. Over the central hub a much larger nexus of oblong pods connected to the inverted glass dome of an enormous, oval-shaped tank that formed much of the room’s ceiling, and inside the tank were thousands of brains.

Those aside, the room wasn’t empty. In one of the tubs, unconnected to any machinery, slept a gaunt, wiry young woman with a stitched mask, brown hair in a bun, a scant beige dress, and nails protruding from the black veins in her skin. On one side of the tub, four enormous blades dangled from the cord that extended from the small of her back. Next to the central hub floated a figure in a dark brown trench coat lined with cream-colored fur. At first glance he appeared to be wearing a white metal helmet and gauntlets, both laden with spiky points, but in truth he was a robot. Or a robotic body encasing a glowing pink brain inside his head, bent as if asleep or meditating, deep in thought. Psychic pulses emanated from the mystery man at short, rhythmic intervals. When Sakura entered, however, he awoke after a few moments, his red eyes blinking on as he slowly straightened up. His glowing white irises turned the Street Fighter’s way, and she could feel a faint psychic pressure. ”What have we here?” A deep voice intoned directly to her mind. ”Not another surprise visit, surely? Hmm…interesting. I think not. You’re not here on business.” Brain Drain adopted an upright posture as he descended, his feet not quite touching the ground. “I’ll make this simple, then. Tell me who you really are and why you’re here, before I pry your mind.”

The Under - The Hive

Level 11 Nadia (147/110)
The Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Primrose and Therion’s @Yankee, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Jesse’s @Zoey Boey, Ganondorf’s @Double, Rubick’s @Scarifar, Artorias’ @Dark Cloud, Barnabee
Word Count: 1340

Nadia moved through the remainder of the underground marsh quickly. Now that she'd gotten wet and dirty she didn’t play around jumping between the trees, instead skating across the surface of the rust-colored muck with the speed and lightness of a water strider. She would have preferred to put what just happened out of her mind and focus on the mission, if only she could. Instead the unfortunate event pursued her doggedly. While she hadn’t known this Ah Muzen Cab whatsoever, and the exact circumstances meant she didn’t get the chance to see or hear his morbid fate, the whole thing left her in a sour mood with a bad taste in her mouth. As she wound her way through the fridge of the bug-riddled bog, close enough to the edge that she could gauge her progress, she passed everything else right by. Not even the sight of an infested settlement amongst the trees, home to the malignant insectoid cleric known as The Thrall, gave her paws.

Soon enough the feral ran out of swamp. Though it provided good cover for bypassing the wasp legions in the end, she was glad to leave the fetid mire behind. Toward the back of the great Hive cavern, where the honeycombs were richest and the hexagon-based architecture the most grand, a tiered series of cliffs about a dozen feet high led like gigantic stairs up to a magnificently archway, opulent with gold and amber, that led to an immense hallway. Nowhere in the Hive seemed fancier or more important than that, meaning that nowhere was more likely for the usurper of Vespa’s queendom to be. After thinking about making her way up with a series of blood-pressure rocket jumps, Nadia realized that the hollow hexagonal cells in the cliff faces formed perfect handholds and pawholds, while the filled-in ones yielded readily to her claws. The climb up to the entrance turned out to be a breeze, especially since the wasps that would’ve normally been guarding this area had abandoned their posts to join the fight against the Seekers. As she ascended, cresting ledge after ledge out in the open after all the pains she’d taken to be stealthy, the feral couldn’t help but feel small and exposed after. Like a mouse scurrying around a storeroom for morsels of cheese. By now, with so many slain by the intruders, the wasps’ leader had to be getting desperate to hunt down and squash every last Seeker. Once they pushed through and regrouped, however, the hunter would become the hunted.

Despite her delay at the ruined temple, Nadia actually arrived first. Maybe the others had really kicked the hornets’ nest by going loud right off the bat. At one point a platoon of reinforcements buzzed down the hall to go join the battle, forcing Nadia to make herself scarce. There wasn’t anything in this big, empty corridor to duck behind, but by going to pieces she could easily fit herself into an empty hex cell on the wall and avoid their gaze. She hid there until the others arrived, then rolled out the welcome wagon by dragging herself out of the cubby like a mummy from a catacomb. “What took you guys so long?” She asked, working harder than usual to force a cheerful smile. “I thought you’d bee here ages ago.”

The Hive Knight was breathing heavily. His fuzz was stained with the gunk of dozens of wasps, and the teeth of his Yato blade moved slowly, chewing through the caked-on remains that had yet to turn to ash. “Justice,” he told her flatly.

“...Right.”

Together the team proceeded through the gilded hall, its waxen walls and hexagonal tiling polished to a mirror sheen. At the other side they found yet another cavern, this one with walls of scintillating royal blue and a honeycomb platform leaning out over a yawning abyss, with a minecart track looping around the circumference of the cave between the platforms' opposite sides. In the center of the great hollow hung the usurper, a colossal wasp in appearance, but not quite in truth. Though no expert on either bugs nor engineering, even Nadia could tell that this six-legged titan was no more than a robot. A stupidly huge robot, maybe even comparable to that leviathan that surprised the Seekers back in the Bottomless Sea, but still. She could easily picture herself sliding down that tube protruding from the mega-bug’s middle, which on second thought looked rather like a giant yellow teapot. Regardless, the Wasp Queen’s glowing red eyes fixated on the Seekers the moment they set foot in her throne room. No backing down now.

“Intruders!” The queen cried, her fake wings flapping back and forth furiously as she dangled from the ceiling on an immense chain. Her resounding voice sounded like it was being projected by a megaphone. “How dare you challenge the Queen?”

On either side of her, more wasps began to swarm, forming a couple enormous clouds of them. “Don’t challenge our queen!” they called out in chorus.

“Exactly! Attack!”

The Queen herself did not attack, however. Instead her wasps fought for her, attacking not as individuals, but as a cohesive swarm. They packed themselves together into huge, floating shapes, like swords that span through the air, hammers that came down hard on large areas, and pairs of scissors that chased the Seekers down, snipping ominously. Not sure what to do, Nadia took off running, dodging hammer after mighty hammer. “Bahahaaa! Run, you pests!” her foe sang. Those ‘weapons’ struck with serious force, the hammers in particular sending out ‘shockwaves’ of wasps that spread out in all directions on impact before wheeling around to rejoin the swarm. With a smirk the feral leaped over the ‘blades’ of a giant pair of scissors as the swarm tried to snap shut on her, then ran for the platform’s edge. When she jumped onto the minecart track, she slid along the metal rail with improbable ease, away from the assault swarms and around the hanging Wasp Queen. That gave her time to think about how exactly she’d go about attacking this distant metal monstrosity.

As she circled around, her ears, hair, and tails streaming behind her, she noticed the big orange bandages on the robot’s hull, one pair each crossed in an ‘x’ on the front and back of both her thorax and abdomen. Seeing no other possible weak spot except maybe the eyes, Nadia put together a plan and leaped from the track. She airdashed toward the Queen on jets of blood, then flung Athame directly into the bandages on the back of the abdomen to weaken it. Then she blitzed into the spot with Charge like a living lightning bolt and dished out a handful of air-to-airs, culminating in a dropkick that acted as Battery, triggering a pair of electric crits. She yanked out Athame and kicked off, flying back toward the rail to continue her grind. Her sneaking suspicions proved to be correct, as the Queen was not happy about that. “Managed to tickle me, did you?” she asked as Nadia’s slide came to an end. To either side of her, wasp swarms formed into giant mitts that flew toward her to try and squash her flat. “Let me give you a hand!”

The Wasp Queen would continue to ‘attack’ with swarms in a variety of shapes, covering different angles but not all angles. To defend her weak spots she would call upon her underlings to form shields and block with their clustered bodies, but if enough wasps got minced, burned, or blown up, she’d be vulnerable until reinforcements arrived. When each bandaged spot took enough damage, the yellow shell covering the corresponding front or back of the Queen’s abdomen or thorax would break off and fall away, revealing the metal skeleton and parts beneath. But only when all four parts were destroyed, leaving more or less just the wasp bot’s head, would the fight progress to the second phase.

World of Light

Midgar - Sector 07 Slums

Level 5 Goldlewis (92/50) Level 4 Sandalphon (3/40)
Karin’s @Zoey Boey, Blazermate, Roland, and Susie’s @Archmage MC, Geralt and Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man, Benedict and Partitio’s @Dark Cloud, Giovanna
Word Count: 1844

Once Karin consented to bring her up to speed, Sandalphon sat facing her at rapt attention. She neither broke eye contact nor so much as blinked for the duration of the martial artist’s explanation, her only signs of life the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest and the occasional split-second outage of her glowing green pupils. Of course, while her body might be nigh-motionless, her mind moved with astonishing speed, cataloging and cross-referencing every tidbit of intelligence she received. The Consuls, the Guardians, Galeem… The archangel possessed perfect recall when it came to information, and in light of some of the new details flooding in since her chance meeting with the Seekers, some things were beginning to make an awful lot of sense. While Karin’s mention of leads on the Dystopiascape Guardian’s location made her curious, she assumed a purpose in her new acquaintance’s omission and did not pry further.

Sandalphon tabled her inferences and extrapolations for now, and when Karin concluded her speech, the statuesque supervisor bowed her head in gratitude. “Thank you. You’ve helped me paint a clearer picture of your organization’s goals and status.” With that, she turned away and projected a variety of screens around her. Sandalphon had some calls to make. While the men around her took a load off, finding common ground and drinking together, the ladies sipped water in silence, and the robot girls wandered, the archangel opened a dozen lines of communication at once with the remnants of DespoRHado’s android faction. While the PMC took a huge gamble with their attack on Vandelay, risking their top brass, loads of Unmanned Gears, and tons of cyborg soldiers, they hadn’t seen fit to blow every last resource on the raid. Perhaps due to underlying feelings of distrust, most of DespoRHado’s android forces had stayed home, including all of the Type H, Type D, Type S, and Type O units. The Winds of Destruction had kept their friends close, but they failed to keep their enemies closer, and now the android corps -YoRHa- stood to inherit everything their predecessors left behind.

Of course, this was by no means the android revolution Sandalphon had been hoping to achieve. By staging its rebellion DespoRHado had earned itself a death sentence, and it was already going the way of the dinosaurs. Though the Bunker still stood it would be only a matter of time before the forces of the Administration arrived to finish the job.In the course of juggling the various conversations, Sandalphon became aware of the complete breakdown of DespoRHado’s command structure. Upon catching wind of DespoRHado’s defeat, the cyborgs that remained had deserted en masse, some of them going on rampages. A few even attacked the androids, claiming what happened was their fault, or that Sandalphon had betrayed them. While technically true, that fact did not help them, and when the dust cleared from the infighting the androids remained, awaiting orders. Once properly connected, Sandalphon obliged. She ordered the androids to eliminate all records of themselves, Sandalphon, and generally ‘YoRHa’ from the company databases (including the androids’ own backups, meaning that if they were destroyed now, they’d be gone for good) then escape, leaving the building and everything ‘Desperado’ for the authorities to find. “Split into small squads and navigate around Quarantine Valley and into the Sector 01 undercity, Zaun. Use rooftops, sky-lines, and byways; try not to be seen and stay off the comm lines. Once in Zaun, make your way up to Piltover and find the Lateran Church. Speak my name, and they should offer you refuge. Even if DespoRHado burns to the ground, we will rise from the ashes, and continue to fight. For the goddess Illia, and the glory of mankind.” Her androids echoed the salute, and the network went silent.

Not long after Sandalphon’s business concluded, someone else in the group got a call: Giovanna. She answered the magic glyph and went paced over in one corner by the pool table, alternately listening and talking, succinctly and in low tones. After a few moments she hung up and headed back toward the others. “That was Vernon,” she announced, talking mostly to Goldlewis. “Something’s come up and he needs my help. I’ll be heading topside, so…buh-bye. Wish I could say it’s been fun.”

“Vernon?” Goldlewis furrowed his brow. “Everythin’ alright, G?”

She shrugged nonchalantly. “Oh yeah, I mean, pretty much? No big deal, I got it handled. Oh, but, something else is coming your way. After I told him where we are, he said Mr. H will be with us soon. Should be here any minute. Needs your help with something. Good luck out there.” At a snap of her fingers, Rei jumped up from where she’d been curled up to float behind Giovanna, and with a wave the secret agent was on her way.

Her estimation turned out to be correct. Shortly after her departure, an odd customer pushed in through the saloon doors of Seventh Heaven. It was a small yellow drone, with an articulate drum-shaped rotor holding up a central unit with a pointy antenna and big, round eyes like a pair of goggles. Those eyes roved around the room, flitting between the different members of the team. “So you’re the Seekers! It’s an honor to meet you all face-to-face. Or face-to-drone, as it happens. Follow me, please!”

Goldlewis stood and followed the drone outside, and Sandalphon followed his example without complaint. With the lunch rush just about to kick off, Seventh Heaven wouldn’t be a private place much longer. He paused only to glance at Clara. “You gonna be alright, missie?”

“Yep!” The little girl looked happy. “Once Miss Tifa closes up after lunch, she’s gonna show Mr. Svarog and me the militia! I think we’ll really be able to help around here!”

The veteran nodded, offering a rare smile in return. “Right on.” He looked around for a moment, wondering where Svarog was, before settling on Tifa. “Take good care of her now. We ain’t really acquainted, but I get the feelin’ she’s something special.”

Tifa smiled. “You can count on it.”

Once the team gathered outside the building on the right in a huddle, the drone addressed them. “So how’s it going? Heard you got into some hot water up in the City of Glass.”

“Not too bad, all things considered,” Goldlewis replied. Realizing that the others might not be as familiar with the newcomer as himself, he added an explanation. “This is our tech guy. Used to be in the Neuron tech division, handlin’ all their programs and stuff. Real miracle worker, and he does it all remotely. Never even came into the doggone office once. He’s the one that helped get y’all the fake IDs”

So this is H? Sandalphon thought. Was this one of the Consuls that Karin mentioned, or just a coincidence?”

The drone wiggled, then did a flip. “Ah, that was nothing. I know a guy in Night City, is all. You can find just about anything there if you know the right people. Right now though, I’m not as interested in Sector 04 as Sector 08. Anyone here at all familiar with Quarantine Valley?”

“I’m well aware,” Sandalphon replied. “Also known as Zone 09, it’s the enormous canyon separating Sectors 08 and 01. A perennial hotspot for Astral Plane contamination, sealed off from the rest of Midgar, with entry -and exit- strictly prohibited.”

“That’s right! Except, as they say, rules are meant to be broken.” Using a hologram projector the drone displayed a symbol that anyone present at the grand mission briefing in the SOU headquarters might remember: a beady eye above a slavering grin. “If you’re familiar with the place, you’ve probably heard of the Hermits. A gang of near-superhuman hackers who style themselves as protectors of the people. They’re based off-the-grid down there in Quarantine Valley, away from prying eyes, though their operations often take them through all the undercities. Just recently I came across something pretty interesting that I thought Vernon’s friends ought to know.”

H switched to a display of a wanted poster, showing them the image of a disheveled woman with blonde hair in a dirty lab coat, a purple skirt, and torn stockings. “This is Jena Anderson, the leader of the Reunion movement. The other day, a couple new hotshots in Neuron tangled with her, and she ended up giving them a data card before making her escape. It included lab documents about an anti-redshift drug from years back given out at around the time of the Pandemic, news links about the Hermits, and some really detailed maps of Quarantine Valley, one area in particular. I also heard about some sort of big deal going down between Reunion and the Hermits. Rumor has it they knew DespoRHado’s goose was cooked even before they began the raid today. Some sort of setup.”

Sandalphon’s pupils turned into question marks, and she tilted her head slightly. “Perhaps my servers weren’t as secure as I believed.”

“Hm?” Mr. H turned his drone toward her. “Uh, a-anyways, the point is, if everything lines up, Jena’s gonna be there today. In Quarantine Valley, at some point within the next few hours. If you can get in and catch them in the act, you can figure out everything they know about what’s going on. And…if need be, put a stop to them.”

“Hmm,” Sandalphon mused. “I would be in favor. As a former ARI researcher, Jena would have intimate knowledge of secret Administration activities, and if the Hermits really did tap into DespoRHado, there’s no telling what sorts of critical information they might possess on what’s going on behind the scenes in Midgar.”

“I believe so. As for navigating into Quarantine Valley, I can be of assistance. This drone comes equipped with an IRIS scanner that can detect red matter and perform corruption readings, so you’re safe as long as you’re with me,” Mr. H added.

Goldlewis hefted his coffin over his shoulder, relieved to hear Mr. H’s assurance. “Sounds like a plan to me. Reunion and the Hermits, huh? Looks like we’re tickin’ off all the boxes today. Two at a time!”

Before entering Quarantine Valley, however, the Seekers would have to reach it. That meant crossing through two undercities, including the Sector 07 Slums and Detroit. While the former might not present more of a challenge than somewhat winding, unstructured paths, Detroit was in quite the state. Of the YoRHa androids there was no sign, which was a comfort, but the rogue DespoRHado cyborgs had caused quite a ruckus, and the arrival of Administration forces -even more quickly than expected- fanned the flames. Peace Preservation troopers and G-men from General Affairs were out on the prowl, and even a few Turks put in an appearance. Going on foot would take too long and create too many opportunities to be discovered, but the Seekers needed to choose their modes of conveyance and their routes wisely, or they’d be right out of the frying pan that was the Vandelay Campus and into the fire.

Suoh - Beacon Mental Hospital Medical Ward

Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Sakura’s @Zoey Boey, Gemma

For a brief moment, Gemma thought it might just be a trick of the light, or even a product of his imagination. Not likely, of course, but not impossible. There were few OSF soldiers more seasoned than himself, but with the power of a psionic mind to make thoughts reality, one could never know for certain, especially in a place like this. Though long abandoned, the cluttered and confined halls and rooms of this medical ward weighed down on the intruders with an ominous gravitas, its atmosphere an odd, off-putting blend between prison and mortuary thanks in particular to those eerie mannequins. It was hard not to mistake them for people, or Others for that matter given how Rummies looked, but Gemma tried not to let them spook him. He was made of sterner stuff than that, he knew. But after another moment and the lights went out, the patient that seemingly twitched before began to move for real, and it was go time. “They’re alive,” he said aloud, his low voice urgent but not panicked. “We’re under attack.”

Like Midna he attempted to fight back. In a way, actually getting to hit these things came as a relief. No more beating about the bush wondering if and when they’d make their move. However, also like Midna the bruiser quickly realized that these things weren’t going down so easily. When he slugged one right in the chest as it reached out to grab him, it stumbled backward, but his armored fist didn’t so much as leave a dent. “What?” The patient lurched toward him for round two, and he wound up a much stronger hook punch that he let fly with explosive force, slamming the thing into the wall hard enough to leave a web of cracks, but still it showed no signs of damage. He’d encountered Others with hard metal shells that resisted damage until the shells shattered, but these seemed different. They also lacked the expected compositional diversity. “I don’t think these are Others.” By that time another had activated, tottering toward the team past its non-moving kin down the hall and through the now-open gateway.

He attempted to fight them off, his movements a little more hasty. Midna had gotten the attention of a few as well, but with all the darkness around she was in her element, able to slip through the patients’ fingers like smoke and lead them on a wild goose chase. Gemma possessed no such advantage. It was difficult to see the patients in the dark, let alone fight them, for all the effect fighting them had. He ended up relying on his Sclerokinesis to protect himself when one managed to grab hold so he could wrench out of its grip. By the time an unseen crawler grabbed his ankle and refused to be dislodged, he knew this situation wasn’t tenable. “We’ve got to move,” he told the others. “I’ll light the way.”

He reached out through SAS, and a Vision of Hanabi appeared snapping her fingers. ”Need a light?” Borrowing her Pyrokinesis, Gemma covered his arms in psychic flame. He intended it to find a way through the darkness of the medical ward and maybe boost his attack, but the light yielded an unexpected effect. Once illuminated the patients stopped moving, halting mid-attack in some cases, and stood still as statues. Gemma stared for a moment. “It’s the light.” He grabbed the patient from his ankle, turned its head sideways to put it through the barred gate, then turned its head back to trap it. At the same time he also noticed other patients twitching thanks to the fitful firelight and anything that happened to block it. “We’re on a timer. Let’s move.”

Together the three booked it through the medical wing. For every half-dozen patients they found sitting or standing around, one began to move toward them, at least until the light of Gemma’s Pyrokinesis stopped them. They smashed through doors, vaulted over obstacles, and pulled open gates for about fifteen seconds. Then, just as they entered a door-lined hall with an open elevator at the far end, the Pyrokinesis timed out. Instantly mannequin arms burst out of the windows and bean slots of the doors on either side, reaching, clawing, and trying to grab the trio as they passed. Gemma swerved around the clusters of arms, running down the hall toward the exit. Behind him the doors began to slam open, multiple patients pouring out of each one. Some crawled out beneath hospital beds that partially blocked the hallway, or leaned out from behind dressers. His heart pounded, but his feet pounded the floor harder, and after a tense moment Gemma and the Seekers made it to the elevator. The overhead bulb lit up, freezing the mob right in front of the door as the doors gently slid closed and the team began to descend. Gemma leaned against the back wall, catching his breath with furrowed brows, until the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened once more. Ding!

This lower level looked very similar to the medical ward above, albeit a little better lit and lacking the abundance of patients, although some prosthetic parts could still be seen around. After a few moments, the main difference became apparent: the sound. At irregular intervals a rumbling or banging sound could be heard, continuing for a couple seconds before going quiet for anywhere between a half-dozen and a couple dozen. Gemma inched forward, slowly at first, but it became clear that the sound originated at least a couple rooms over. Watchful in the gloom, the team proceeded. They passed hospital beds, gurneys, wheelchairs, and various pieces of equipment, some of them laden with patients -often incomplete ones- that never stirred. A couple times, Gemma spotted red pinecone flowers growing straight out of cracked floor tiles, or even weirder, empty beds. All too soon the trio approached the source of the noise. When a rumble stopped, Gemma could begin to hear other sounds: a clumsy rummaging, a heavy strained breathing, and a slight, distressed moaning. At the threshold of an operating room, Gemma paused, searching. Something jostled two tall shelves full of medical supplies directly ahead, but couldn’t see anyone there. Not until an enormous, bulbous, pale shape swung down from the ceiling to reach a lower shelf.

After a moment, the Doctor found what he was looking for and bent back up. Despite his size, he then began to crawl along the ceiling, slipping his hands and feet between the ceiling panels to find purchase. He positioned himself above an operating table where a patient laid motionless, then leaned down to operate, inserting the joint he’d found in order to attach a peg-leg before bandaging it together. It looked like he hadn’t noticed anyone yet. This square room sported three other exits, one leading to a small, softly-lit room that a steady beep…beep…beep came from, one with a set of closed double doors, and one leading toward a larger room with a pink-green glow.

Suoh - Beacon Mental Hospital Residential Wing

Pit’s @Yankee, Roxas’ @Double, Luka

As the young trio cautiously advanced through the heavy, stifling silence, more and more albedos turned up, and though they lay perfectly still -in some cases very well hidden in the area’s nooks and crannies- and betrayed no signs of life, nobody could shake the feeling of an imminent ambush. And despite their best efforts, disturbing the lurkers turned out to be an inevitability–more of a question of ‘when’ than ‘if’, and the answer was ‘too soon’. When the intruders drew too close, the albedos wrenched themselves from their pallid morass to thrash and stagger around like the living dead, rasping in angry desperation with parched throats as they tried to slake their thirst with blood.

Pit, Roxas, and Luka were well-prepared for this eventuality, however. Stealth might not be their collective strong suit, but all three could hit the albedos hard and fast. Though slathered in sticky psychoplasm, their bodies were hard but brittle, and like ceramic they crumbled when subjected to blunt force. Luka’s Weight Hammer and Pit’s Upperdash Arm proved very effective, but the ungainly monsters had no answer when Roxas combo’d them either. Together the three dispatched the albedos, a lot more ‘quickly’ than ‘quietly’, but the end result was the same. Silence settled over the residential wing once more.

When they reached the second common room, however, things got more complicated. The arrival of the Watcher forced the trio to take cover. Luka crouched down behind a faded green couch covered in psychoplasm. It swung its head around on its serpentine neck, its vile compound eyes wriggling around in their sockets as the nightmare surveyed its milk-white dominion. All the while, it filled the residential wing with the echoes of its horrible gurgling, clicking voice. With that in the background, Pit discreetly posed a question to Luka, but the Scarlet Guardian shook his head.

“I can only teleport one person at a time, and it makes a distinctive noise. Plus, if I were to teleport too hastily, the result of a matter overlap would be comparable to a nuclear bomb.”

But maybe there was another way. Despite all those bloodshot eyes crammed into the Watcher’s sockets, Roxas was on to something. It couldn’t peer everywhere at once. Luka noticed the red glow those eyes cast on all the waxy white puddles, splotches, and smears. That made it possible to gauge where the monster was looking without having to risk a peek. Luka pointed out the crimson spotlight on the wall, tracing its path with his finger as it roved around so that the others would be sure to notice. By moving individually rather than all at once, it would be easier to avoid the glare, but that meant it would be up to their judgment to move quickly.

The Watcher continued to peer around. When it was time, Luka kept a low profile, moving as fast as he could while still crouching. He kept Teleportation as an emergency last resort, but that meant contending with pockets of white ooze that squirmed and pulsated abhorrently, threatening to catch his foot if he took a careless step or snag his hand if he put his hand on the side of some cover without looking. But by moving carefully, and freezing if the Watcher’s gaze so much as veered his way, Luka made it to the far side hallway.

Once out of sight he picked up the pace in a hurry, running down the hall. At the far end, past a couple abandoned gurneys and wheelchairs, a heavy metal security door stood in their way. Its bars seemed slightly bent and clawmarks could be seen on its surface, but it had endured whatever had attempted to force its way through in the past. When Luka grabbed the handle, it refused to budge. “Locked,” he whispered.

Unfortunately, jerking the door prompted the security system to come online, revealing a wide, eye-shaped lens on the console above the handle. Nothing happened at first, but after a second the system got impatient. “Please open your eyes wide and lean close to the scanner,” a robotic voice requested, its tone just a little too loud in the area’s dead silence.

Almost instantly the Watcher leaned over to peer down the hallway, and right away it registered the intruders. It shrieked, its skull practically exploding as all its eyes extended outward on loathsome stalks, like the tentacles of a sea anemone. Enormous goopy arms began to burst up from the psychoplasm pools in the hall, each of their fingers formed from waxen facsimiles of human hands. Luka readied himself for a fight, but before he could, Roxas showed off one of his special talents unprompted; he took aim with his keyblade and unlocked the door. The trio hustled through and slammed the door shut., and though the Watcher beat on the other side, it could not break through. After a few moments the slams stopped, and the three could breathe easy.

Well, they could breathe easier. The room where they now found themselves looked like a cafeteria, situated in the northeastern-most part of the building. It was tall, occupying three stories and featuring large windows, but the bars outside the glass further reduced what little light filtered down from the gloomy sky, making it eerily dark. Mounted in all four corners were large Tvs, but they only played static, filling the room with fitful light against its faded, flaking blue wallpaper, as well as a constant low roar of harsh noise. The long tables lay barren, many of the benches that accommodated each six-person segment fallen over. Most strangely, various objects hung from the ceiling on ropes, from wheelchairs to dead TV sets to large plastic bags filled with something heavy.

“No signs of human activity here either,” Luka murmured, quiet enough to not disturb the silence that hung over this place. “The suspects may not be working on the ground floor at all. Let’s hope there’s something deeper in that might lead us to Supernatural Life.” There was only one other set of doors here, so Luka went that way, wondering why the room felt so cold.

As he reached for a handle, the doors suddenly burst open, and into the room charged Yuito and Hanabi. Both their faces were wide-eyed, slick with sweat, and white with terror. There was no sign of Raz. When she saw Luka and the others, Hanabi didn’t stop to explain. She just yelled one word. “RUN!”

“Run!?” Having avoided a collision with a quick teleport, Luka was instantly on guard. “From what?” As they ran past him, he looked down the dark, flickering hall they came from. All the way at the end stood a woman, gaunt and stooped, with rags and black hair that slowly flowed around her as if she were underwater. Luka stared, stunned for a moment. The woman took a slow, tottering step, then another, then suddenly shot down the hall. As if she were on a film that had been fast-forwarded. Anima reached the cafeteria with a scream that threw both Luka and Hanabi off their feet. The doors slammed shut behind her, and with a click they locked tight.

The former saved himself with a teleport, but as she fell Hanabi hit her head on one of the cafeteria tables and writhed on the ground, clutching her head. The ghost stalked toward Hanabi, ignoring the others, but Yuito wasn’t having any of it. “Hey! Over here!” He yelled, using his psychokinesis to draw and throw his sword. Its blade slashed through Anima several times, but to no effect, other than getting Anima’s attention. Giggling horribly, she fast-forwarded right into him, and after grabbing Yuito’s face in her hands, she began to inhale. The young man’s life force drained into her in a matter of seconds as he yelled, leaving him hollow and lightless–but rather than fall, he continued to stagger around once released, not unlike the albedos from before. Anima, meanwhile, rose into the air, letting out a victory cry. In response the tables and all the furniture in the cafeteria began to levitate. They floated around for a moment, then slammed down, creating a maze of overturned tables and benches. Now blocked from the exit, Luka hid behind one table, stricken by horror. ”Yuito? Hanabi?” In a panic he attempted to reach them both with Brain Talk, but he could hear nothing from one and cries of despair from the other, though at least those were confined to Brain Talk. ”Hanabi!” he tried to tell her. ”You have to be quiet, or it’ll get you too!” Luka couldn’t see anyone except Anima, who slowly walked through the air looking for a new target.

This was very, very bad. Somewhere Hanabi was hiding beneath a table, paralyzed by fear, with only her weeping to clue the Seekers in to where she was. Yuito was here too, clearly not dead, but Luka had no idea how to restore him, and he couldn’t teleport with all this clutter around. Everyone needed to get out of here as soon as possible, hopefully recovering the OSF members while avoiding the ghost’s attention, though that would be tricky with pieces of furniture constantly floating up and coming down elsewhere, rearranging the maze. Next to this, the Watcher looked like a warm-up. Now it was time to sneak for real.

World of Light

The Under - The Hive

Level 11 Nadia (144/110)
The Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Primrose and Therion’s @Yankee, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Jesse’s @Zoey Boey, Ganondorf’s @Double, Rubick’s @Scarifar, Artorias’ @Dark Cloud, Barnabee
Word Count: 3352

For a few moments the team lingered around the mouth of the tunnel they’d entered through, quietly assessing the situation. Though the beauty of this scintillating space, this palatial gallery of gold and amber, wasn’t lost on them, they needed to focus their concern on the invaders who’d set up shop throughout the fallen queendom. The Seekers briefly discussed how to tackle this challenge, but they knew this calm before the storm couldn’t last long, not with their infuriated Hive Knight itching to tear through the wasps’ ill-gotten domain like a fox in a henhouse. Sectonia pointed out that stealth wasn’t really this group’s forte anyway, which Rubick quickly echoed. Between Sectonia, Bowser, Ganondorf, and Artorias, the team had quite a few big, high-profile warriors, and apart from Nadia, Therion, and perhaps Primrose, the rest weren’t exactly well-versed in the art of subtlety.

Of course, that wasn’t necessarily a problem for Nadia. “Well, if I don’t get caught, I don’t need to do any fightin’.” she replied with a sly grin. Off-handedly she wondered if Sectonia might have any second thoughts about killing other wasps.

“Off with thee, then,” Barnabee snapped. “And any others of like mind too. While I welcome thy aid, I will fight, with thee or without! Now that I have returned to reclaim my motherland, nothing will stand between me and my long-awaited vengeance! So make up thy minds with haste, friends. I will not stay my hand for much longer!”

Primrose proposed the idea of a diversion, which sat well with many of the others. With the Hive Knight (and Bowser too it looked like) spoiling for a bloodbath and a fight more or less inevitable, that sounded like a good way to make the most of it. While she honestly didn’t want to fight against a massive swarm of wasps if she could help it, Nadia hadn’t actually been planning to abandon Barnabee at the eleventh hour; she wanted to help. “Sure, yeah. If a couple of ya help keep the wasps busy, the rest of us can honey-comb the place for the boss, and if we find any workers we can turn ‘em loose.”

“Fine.” As a wasp patrol drew close to the Seekers’ position, Barnabee gripped his saw-toothed swordblade. “Then let us begin.”

The team split apart in a hurry, with Nadia darting off behind some buildings to sneak around the Hive’s perimeter while Barnabee stepped out into the open. Almost immediately the wasp patrol spotted him. The sight of an armed bee on the loose would have been enough cause for concern, but the strangers at his back put the insects on high alert instantly. “Intruders! Intruders!” they chorused, their strange voices harsh and buzzy. As they fanned out the five of them brandished their weapons, and at a nod from the squad leader the first wasp dashed at the Hive Knight to skewer him with her halberd. Barnabee waited for a crucial moment, then swung Yato with both hands to knock the poleaxe aside. The next second he slashed upward with the blade, sawing the halberd’s head off fast enough to send it flying upward, then lashed out to carve straight through the wasp’s narrow waist. As it fell apart, neatly bisected, Barnabee grabbed the halberd’s head and hurled it at the squad leader like a throwing axe, which she narrowly blocked with her own polesaw.

Her mandibles ground together in annoyance as she lowered her weapon. “Get him!” she rasped, and the others attacked. The second wasp attacked with dual swords, and the two bugs met in a clanging flurry of blows. As they fought the shieldbearer wasps surrounded the Hive Knight on either side, and his blade got caught on his opponent’s they charged in to crush him between their shields, but instead they smashed together hard enough to throw both off balance–Barnabee had disappeared. Before they could collect themselves, their foe appeared behind one shieldbearer and chopped her into pieces with a single stroke. He warped behind the second, his fiery blade singing, and cleaved through her middle as well. The sword-wielder panicked, turning and looking around in a panic to spot the Hive Knight before his next warp-strike could connect, but she didn’t look up. Her enemy fell upon her from above and mercilessly sawed her in half vertically, leaving her blades to clatter against the ground.

By that time the squad leader reached him, and chainsaw met buzzsaw in a vicious, sparking clash. As the big wasp threatened to push him back, Barnabee let out both a roar and a hiveling, which headbutted his opponent to throw her off. He flashed behind her as her polesaw swung side, and the next second the insect’s decapitated head fell from her shoulders. Barnabee landed and turned to see more squads heading his direction to start the fight for real. He took a deep breath, steeling himself for the fight of his lift, then at the top of his lungs let loose his mighty battle cry that filled the air with a dozen hivelings. “HUZZZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Meanwhile, Nadia skirted around the Hive’s perimeter near the wall. The fighting had already started back near the entrance, but it looked like the somewhat selfish, inattentive, and uncoordinated wasps weren’t inclined to descend upon the intruders all at once. Instead, they’d be engaging them a couple squads at a time as the Seekers moved through the Hive to threaten their papery domiciles or their food supplies. That meant things would be manageable for the others, but it meant enough wasps loitering around to ensure that Nadia’s stealth mission wouldn’t be a walk in the park. She moved quickly and quietly. The floors here were naturally uneven, and the different levels plus honeycomb outcroppings and pillars meant plenty of hiding places she could move between to avoid the wasps’ sightlines. Sprinting on all fours worked well enough, but when things got hairy she found she could resort to a Charge to near-instantly travel between two spots in a straight line. At one point though, near a wasp nest where a couple of the bugs were feasting on ill-gotten honey, she used Charge close enough that both could hear its electric zapping sound.

“Huh? Who’s there?”

“What’s that sound?”

Nadia ducked down, holding her breath. For a tense moment both wasps stared at the hexagonal honey-barrel she’d hidden behind, and she couldn’t risk peeking out. After a couple seconds, though, they turned away again to go back to their meal.

“Eh, probably nothing.”

“Must’ve been my imagination.”

Unfortunately, Nadia moved just a touch too soon, and both wasps caught a glimpse of her head out of the corner of her eyes and whirled back toward her. ”Huh?! Who’s there?!” they exclaimed at the exact same time, their voices so perfectly synced -and doubly loud- that Nadia froze in momentary terror, her ears flattened against her hair just out of sight. Wondering what the heck that was, she waited another couple seconds until both wasps’ alert level bottomed out again, prompting them to turn away saying, “I swear I saw something” and “Must’ve been my imagination” at the same time. Then she waited another second to be sure, and once the wasps resumed their chat exactly where they left off the cat burglar took off running.

She made her way toward a section of the Hive that didn’t look anything like the rest. While most of the underground queendom appeared to be hexagonal and immaculate save for the wasp infestation, one part off to the left side seemed weirdly overgrown. The hexes gave way to moist, dark earth covered with murky, dark-green ferns and thickets, and rusty orange water pooled around the trunks of big, knobby cypress and willow trees draped with curtains of hanging moss. Maybe some hardy specimens from the Arboretum had somehow grown downward into the golden glow of the Hive as well as upward toward the luminous lightroot? Either way, she couldn’t spot many wasps around there, and all that foliage meant low visibility–in short, a perfect short cut to reach the far side of the cavern. Nadia darted over and into the trees. Rather than get her footpaws soaked with dubious liquid, she latched onto the trees themselves with her claws, jumping and airdashing between them. In this manner she made good progress until she happened to cross the edge of a clearing amidst the fetid grove.

In it stood a set of stone ruins, the remains of a temple from some ancient civilization, complete with a quartet of monoliths. Toward the back, on a dias at the top of a set of stairs, lay an intricately-carved throne. There, trapped in place by constructing roots, sat a strange man. At first glance he appeared to be human, albeit decked out in a set of strange, ceremonial armor, but as Nadia paused to get a better look she realized that wasn’t the case. He might have a human head and silhouette, but four gossamer wings and an extra set of limbs extended from his honey-yellow carapace, and beneath the elbows and knees his arms and legs looked positively insectoid. At Nadia’s arrival, he stirred in his chair, his fetters clinking softly, and though his sunken eyes lacked any light of hope he jerked awake in surprise when his half-lidded gaze settled upon her. “A human? Here?” Moving his arms what little he could, he urgently beckoned her over. “Quickly my child, come here!”

For a moment Nadia didn’t move as she contemplated the situation. While her first instinct was to leave well enough alone, she’d already failed to get out of here undetected, but the stranger didn’t seem inclined to raise the alarm. Those bindings marked him as a captive, same as the poor worker bees forced to toil away for the wasps in their own queendom. Enemy of my enemy and all that. Making her decision, she jumped down from her tree and jogged across the stone bricks toward the throne. “Not human, but purr-etty darn close,” she piped up as she approached. “What’s goin' on here? You with the wasps?”

“Heavens, no!” The bizarre being looked affronted. “You stand before Ah Muzen Cab, god of bees! It was the wasps that trapped me here. Any day now they’re going to burn me alive as sacrifice! You must free me, please! Free me and I’ll grant you my boon!”

That sounded pretty good to Nadia. As she went to respond, however, a shrill voice rang out from behind her. “The intruder! There she is!” The feral whirled around to see a squad of four wasps, two with cleavers, one with a shield, and one -worryingly- with a torch. “She’s trying to free the bee god!” the leader yelled. “Change of plan! Burn him now, and kill her!”

Nadia’s ears and face fell. “Uh oh.”

As Ah Muzen Cab wailed about not wanting to be burned, all four wasps surged forward together. In a flash Nadia pulled out her Bait Launcher and fired a steak into their midst, but the leader knocked it aside with her shield. It plopped down by one of the choppers and a tiger promptly poofed into existence to tear the big bug limb from limb, but the shieldbearer moved a lot faster than Nadia expected. She flew into the feral with a powerful shield bash that knocked her down onto the steps before the bee god’s throne, her Bait Launcher flying from her grip to skitter across the stone and into the orange muck. The shieldbearer turned away, distracted by the surprise tiger attack that had befallen her underling, but the other chopper descended on Nadia as she tried to rise. With a hiss, Nadia detached her right arm to avoid the cleaver, which clanged against the stone steps, then grabbed that arm by the wrist with her other hand. Wielding it like a bludgeon, she smacked the wasp across the mouth. “Careful, I’m armed!” To her surprise the hit let off a blast of blood to give to blow extra explosive oomph, courtesy of the Multitarget buff conferred by the impact from the wasp leader’s shield. More than happy to roll with it, she chained into Flip Flop, then a One-two Pun-isher before whirling around to knock the wasp away with a triple tail lash.

Before she could follow up, a shrill yell from behind her grabbed her attention, and she turned to see the last wasp about to thrust her torch into the root mass that held the squirming, panicked Ah Muzen Cab in place. “Nyat gonna happen!” Gritting her teeth, Nadia hurled her detached arm at the firebrand, and on contact she wrapped her arm around its neck in a tight headlock. The wasp stumbled, her torch forgotten as she scrabbled at the choking arm, but that was all Nadia could do for now. The shieldbearer charged her again, forcing her to dodge roll out of the way. As she stood, Nadia shot blood from the stump of her right arm to form a Copycat limb replacement, then grabbed her head and rolled it across the ground. When the shieldbearer turned her way, the feral charged toward her, and she raised her block. That’s when Nadia sneezed, launching her head up behind the wasp to hit her unprotected back. Successfully opened up, the wasp took three explosive slashes from El Gato before Nadia spun up her left forearm and drilled into her abdomen. A final explosive burst finished the bug off.

Before the cat burglar could so much as catch her breath, a painful burning sensation erupted on her arm. She turned to see the firebrand trying to dislodge her chokehold by pressing her torch against the offending arm, and at the same time the other chopper was back for more. “Ugh. You guys are startin’ to bug me!” Turning her back to the chopper, she hardened her tails and then fired them off with bursts of blood, turning them into pointed javelins. They speared the chopper through the middle, and she dropped like a sack of flour, her blade lodging point-down between the stone bricks. Nadia released her headlock on the last wasp only to dash towards and sweep its legs out from under it. “I hope you bugs like vegetables,” she said, grabbing the fallen leader’s shield and lifting it up over her head. “‘Cause here’s some SQUASH!” Splat!

She let out a sigh of relief, her Multitarget fading away, but yet again Ah Muzen Cab yelled out from behind her. “Watch out! There’s more!”

When she turned she found not just four more wasps, two of which wielded torches, but a hulking Temple Guardian. Instantly Nadia realized she might have bitten off more than she could chew, but she couldn’t back down now. With a deep breath she snapped her head and right arm back on, then sharpened her claws. “Come on, then! I’ll bee here all day!”

The Temple Guardian charged, and Nadia blocked, but she didn’t think to block low. Before the juggernaut reached her, it threw itself on the ground hard enough to cause a tremor. Nadia hit the ground, and as both of them rose, the torch-wasps made a beeline for Ah Muzen Cab. “No fair!” Nadia hissed. Thinking on her feet, she ran for one of them, and as she did she created a Copycat to send after the other. While it went to tackle the wasp out of the air, she used Charge to blitz through her target, then used Athame to strike twice with Battery, leading to two defense-reducing crits. She twisted around and hurled the wasp at the Temple Guardian as it charged at her, and when the monster swatted the projectile aside, the defense cut caused the bug to burst like a rotten pumpkin. It then came down with a tremendous slam, forcing Nadia to jump backward only for her to bounce off a tree trunk. The wasps were nothing if not relentless, and both halberdiers came at her with huge swings. She popped off her head, then separated at the midriff to dodge both axeblades, but by the time she came together the Temple Guardian had arrived to punish her for her tomfoolery. Its gigantic uppercut launched her up into the tree branches with a series of loud cracks, where she hung for a moment, dazed.

From up there, she could blearily see the other firebrand blow up her Copycat by causing a Vaporize reaction with its torch, then turn to go for Ah Muzen Cab. “Ughhhhh.” The two halberdiers flew up to meet her, their pointy ends held at her throat. “Just my luck.” Then a terrific crack rang out from below as the Temple Guardian struck the tree, and it began to fall backward. Nadia took advantage of the distraction to leap forward and catch both wasps with X-scrape Claws, then flip upside down to batter them with Wheel of Fortune like a feline helicopter. The next second she rocketed downward with her super Feral Edge, piercing both wasps with Athame as she sped toward the ground. When she hit the ground, tearing the knife free finished both defense-compromised bugs off. Not wasting any time looking over her shoulder for the Temple Guardian, she rose and ran for the startled firebrand, only for that same monstrosity to erupt from ground in front of her in a blast of rusty water and stone brick.

This was it, the final moment. The torch-wasp was about to burn the bee god. Nadia leaped into the air, lifting her leg as if to stomp on the Temple Guardian’s head. Instead she revved up her lower leg and launched her clawed paw like a drill, straight toward the monster’s exposed brain. “Buzz OFF!” Her makeshift torpedo struck–but the next second, the horror’s enormous arm loomed in front of her, and its hand closed around her head. “Mmmmmf!” As it went to slam her down into the muck, Nadia detached her head, allowing the rest of her to stay free. That was when her luck ran out, however. Once plunged into the opaque, stinging water, she couldn’t see nor hear nor breathe. Her body had no direction save the sense of touch. Her only hope was that her parting shot would kill the monster fast enough to relinquish her head in time. The seconds passed; she held her breath, her eyes and her mouth squeezed shut. She forced her body to attack, swinging and slashing blindly. Her claws hit wood, plants, and masonry, and she could alternatively feel dirt, stone, and water beneath her footpaw. But she never connected with an insect body or limbs. All she could feel until her body finally tripped and fell was the ambient heat on her skin.

By the time the Temple Guardian slumped over and Nadia’s head bobbed to the surface, only the sound of roaring flame remained. The bee god was history, and the swampy copse was starting to burn too. No sign of the firebrand. Nadia grimaced, watching in miserable silence for a moment, then began to puppet her body to put herself back together. Already almost fully regenerated, she gathered up her fallen parts and weapons in silence. She crushed the spirits that now laid around the clearing (keeping the Hivestone from Ah Muzen Cab, the Lumenite Crystal from the Temple Guardian, and the Geo) then hurried off. This ‘shortcut’ had turned into quite the costly detour, and it was past time she made her way to the Hive’s royal palace.