Lugubrious

World of Light

Deep Ground - the Source

Level 6 Goldlewis (162/60) Level 5 Sandalphon (91/50)
Blazermate, Susie, and Roland’s @Archmage MC, Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Geralt and Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man, Sakura and Karin’s @Zoey Boey, Pit’s @Yankee, Roxas’ @Double, Giovanna
Word Count: 1323

At the periphery of the desperate struggle, on the bridge that connected Tycoon’s platform to the rest of the structure, Giovanna hesitated. She knew that her allies needed help, and she wanted to help them. But when she stared at the battle that embroiled them, she couldn’t force herself to move. It was overwhelming. Various unknown powers went off constantly all over the arena, courtesy of both Karen and Tycoon, and the chaos created a profound visual overload for someone poised to join mid-fight. As bad as all that was, the sound rattled her much more. Over the racket of weapons and abilities Giovanna heard the Seekers’ howls of pain and roars of anger. Worst of all were the last words, barely audible over the raucous din, but far more deleterious for morale.

It was all happening so fast. Karin disappeared, taken somewhere by Karen, and after he returned alone Sakura mounted a final desperate assault, doomed to fail. Zenkichi got eliminated, empowering Pit with his last breath, and even Geralt went down for a moment. That left the spotlight on Pit against Nox, while Roland challenged Karen. Susie seemed to be persevering against Tycoon, but before Gio could so much as issue a warning, Sam had assassinated her. “Dammit,” she breathed. Where was everyone else?!

Of course, Giovanna wasn’t naive enough to ask that. They were gone. Those who hadn’t already disappeared, like Blazermate, Sakura, and Sandalphon, would join them thanks to Tycoon’s spells sooner or later.

More than anything, the secret agent wondered what all these extra enemies were doing here to begin with. Having waited outside, she’d spotted the Consul’s car as it sped through the Cornice, but she’d seen nobody in it but C himself. Giovanna only knew Mephisto from last night and Nox from Xatow’s briefing this morning, but she’d definitely heard about Jetstream Sam. If she and Pit struggled against his much less infamous associate Mistral yesterday, the swaggering swordsman would be a problem. That issue paled in comparison to Karen Travers, though. Everyone in Midgar knew about the OSF’s top player, best in class. This had been a trap, Gio realized, and after getting caught, the Seekers had been gutted.

That was why Gio hesitated. They’d outnumbered their foes more than two to one, but now, only three Seekers remained. They couldn’t win. Not anymore. There was no point in trying. Spurred on by Rei’s whining, Giovanna began to step backward. This was a foregone conclusion. Nox was going to succeed. Just what that meant for them, Midgar, or the world, Giovanna had no idea. There might be nowhere she could run. But at least she wouldn’t die here. Charging in now would be suicide. “I’m sorry,” she muttered, her anguish writ strikingly plain on a face that seldom betrayed anything.

As she turned to run, however, Gio hesitated once more. Against all odds, a certain angel seemed to be holding his own. Amped up by Heat Riser, Pit moved and struck like lightning. Again and again he descended on Nox, and though the Xelor strove to regain control of the fight, he couldn’t teleport fast enough to keep up with his opponent. Even his time shield failed to halt Pit’s offense, though ultimately its threat swung the momentum back in Nox’s favor as Mephisto interfered. Even so, just as it seemed like his foes’ jaws were about to close, the angel turned the tables. Knocking Nox away gave Pit the opening he needed to dispatch the enemy medic, finally allowing the Seekers to make definitive progress. But Giovanna knew it was too little, too late.

Meanwhile, Roland made a mess. To fight these monsters, he became a monster himself, horrifically half-melted into a mass of twisted meat. In that form he launched a vicious attack that dealt Karen Travers grievous injury, overpowering his defensive abilities to leave the Septentrion hemorrhaging blood. “Urgh…” he gasped, immediately grasping the severity of his wound. “I’ll…be back.” With that he activated Teleportation and immediately vanished, but the threat he left behind hung ominously in the air.

After recovering, Nox left Mephisto to die and warped over to challenge Tycoon itself, alleviating the aggro on Jetstream Sam. For a few seconds the two fought together, their peerless blades carving into the giant machine like a Thanksgiving turkey. When Karen made his announcement, however, Nox turned to look at the Fixer, mildly impressed. Roland, Geralt, and Pit were all coming, fatigued and wounded but not yet broken, and even Giovanna finally found it in herself to join their charge. “Not bad,” Nox admitted, banishing his sword as Sam took aggro. Around him, noxins full of wakfu had begun to accumulate. His eyes slid closed. “Looks like I’m forced to call you.”

I’ll always be here for you, Noximilien…

A handful of noxins zoomed out, divebombing the approaching Seekers in explosions powered by stolen life energy. The others injected their wakfu into Nox, and when the Watchmaker spread his arms wide, two enormous mallets of pure energy formed. “I pray that this drainage of wakfu is worth it!”

He lifted the hammers and descended, smashing the arena with such strength that it instantly snapped off the bridge and hurtled down into the depths of the mako reactor. In an instant, none of his foes had ground to stand on. Whirling around, Nox brought the hammers around in the mother of all baseball swings. They struck Tycoon, and the machine god hurtled into the wall behind it, where it stuck fast in a crater of its own making.

Meanwhile, Nox’s last teammate was falling. “Nooooooox!” he yelled, his voice trailing off as he plummeted down.

Sandalphon was falling too, though she barely felt it. Somehow, though her body begged her to give in, she’d managed to stay conscious. Tycoon’s spells hadn’t hit her as she lay on the floor, perilously low on blood. Was that a blessing, or a curse? It didn’t feel right to ask Illia for more, after everything she’d done already, but Sandalphon couldn’t help but pray as she slid toward oblivion. Goddess, she thought, unable to so much as speak. Deliver us…

“Do not worry!” the Watchmaker called. He flew over toward the Guardian, mallets extended to either side. “It’ll be undone. It’ll all be undone! All the harm I’ve ever caused. All the suffering we’ve endured!” With one final motion he brought his hammers together, crushing Tycoon’s torso and head between them. The energy wave of their impact split the rest of its body -and the wall behind it- vertically, and as the crumbling scrap turned to ash, Nox seized the Guardian’s spirit. His mallets vanished, and from inside his chest he withdrew a glowing cube. “With this final offering, I’ll finally be able to do what no Xelor has done before!” Eyes wide, he fed the spirit to the Eliacube, and the sides of the artifact began to open. Light poured out from within, engulfing Nox, the Cornice, Deep Ground, Midgar, the Dystopiascape, and everything. “I win!”

---

Goldlewis held his tongue for a moment, absorbing what he’d been told. This was an insane revelation to receive seconds before a climactic boss battle, but the arrival of Nox’s team threw a huge wrench in the Seekers’ plan. Of course, this wasn’t really up for debate, and he felt pretty sure that the others felt the same way. Whether or not Nox spoke the truth, his team couldn’t afford to lose one of the thirteen spirits they needed to defeat Galeem. That much was an immutable fact.

“Hate to break it to you,” the veteran began. “Bad shit happens to everyone. Happens to loads o’ good folks who don’t rightly deserve, every goddamn day. It ain’t fair.” His expression hardened. “So how many good folks did you happen to? How many got their lives unfairly cut short, just so that you could someday go back and right your wrongs? What makes you so worthy?””

Sandalphon stared at Nox, trying to parse the man beneath the mask. “It’s clear that any amount of sacrifice is justified if you cannot achieve your goal. At the same time, it seems like there’s a tiny part of you that isn’t completely gone. I understand your conviction; you must undo the evil you’ve wrought, so you must succeed. But even if you did manage to go back and save whoever it was you mentioned needing to save, could that person live with what you’ve done to make that happen?” She narrowed her eyes, her gaze questioning. “Could you?”

For a moment, Nox’s eyes were closed. When he opened them, however, they were as wide as saucers. In an instant, every ounce of resolve seemed to have drained from his body. He staggered drunkenly, almost falling to the ground. Karen stepped forward and grabbed the Watchmaker’s shoulder, trying to steady him, but Nox still dropped to his knees. Sandalphon watched, eyebrows slightly raised. Not believing for a moment that anyone could convince him, she only intended to use this conversation to buy time, but had she and the others actually gotten through to this madman, somehow? Or could this be some sort of ploy? Regardless, she kept her guard up, and after a moment, Nox lifted his gaze.

“Ten minutes!?” he cried, his tone utterly distraught. The intensity of it took Goldlewis aback. “All that wakfu spent for a jump of ten minutes in time?” Nox doubled over, holding his head in his hands as his voice grew more and more manic. “Two hundred years of researching and collecting wakfu for just ten measly minutes!? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

His shriek was harrowing–the cry of a broken man. Karen wrenched away from him, perturbed, and even Sam looked baffled, while Mephisto cowed like he’d been physically struck. Consul C, looking on, just tilted his head. All around, the noxins lying in wait lost power, going dark and falling apart. Shaking, Nox removed a dim cube from his chest, staring at it in helpless anger. “You accursed thing! Why lie to me!?” he choked out, delirious with despair. “You were supposed to help me go back in time! To rejoin my family! Answer me!” He lifted the cube and smashed it against the ground. “ANSWER ME!”

In reply, the cube just electrocuted him, and the Watchmaker sagged to the ground, gasping in pain.

Sandalphon stared at the cube, her pupils turning back from exclamation marks to power symbols. Then she looked at Nox. Not an ounce of fight remained in him. Some sort of revelation had defeated him. Was this artifact the source of his power? “As far as I can tell, this is no more than a magical battery. You say it spoke to you?”

Slowly, Nox dragged himself up onto his hands and knees. “The cube…” he practically sobbed. “It really was talking to me. I was supposed to succeed…”

Frowning, Goldlewis stepped forward. “Sounds like you’re off your goddamn rocker to me. Surely you ain't tellin’ me all those poor folks bit the dust just ‘cause you were hearin’ things?” Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, the veteran might have stepped forward to end things then and there, if not for noticing one thing. As Nox stared at him, at a loss for words, Goldlewis could see dark stains spreading among the bandages on his face. Were those…tears?

After a moment Nox stood, staring off into the distance. He took a gasping breath, and said, “I’m sorry.” Then he blinked away, never to be seen again.

In the silence that followed, wherein the Seekers wondered about the import of Nox’s words, Mephisto was the first to speak. “W-what is this!?” the boy gasped, white-knuckling his staff. “He just…we were supposed to…” He looked over at all the Seekers, then fell on his rear, trembling. “Why!? Can’t I have anything? Is my life just a…just a goddamn joke?”

Even Jetstream Sam grit his teeth, clearly dispirited by the team leader’s abrupt and inexplicable disappearance. “What a letdown.”

“...There’s still a way,” Karen muttered after a moment, his voice low and deadly serious. “The Red Strings. Even without Nox, we can still go back in time.” He scowled at Sam and Mephisto. “Lost your nerve, have you? No matter.” He stepped forward toward the Seekers, cracking his knuckles. “I’ll see this mission through.”

Goldlewis snorted in derision. “Hmph. You got some guts to take us on alone, partner. I’ll give ya that.” Emboldened by the dramatic reduction in enemies, he hefted his coffin, ready to fight. “Alrighty then. Come and give us all you’ve got.”

Just before the fight could begin, however, a shot rang out. Goldlewis flinched, assuming a defensive stance, but the bullet struck Tycoon instead. The machine god stirred, and when Goldlewis looked over at the source, he saw C with a smoking gun. Holstering his huge black pistol, the Consul sauntered forward toward the arena. “Quite a turn this has taken. Just the kind of drama I was hoping to see.” He stopped next to Mephisto, crossing his arms. “Still, we don’t want this to be too easy for ya, right? With Nox outta the picture, someone’s gotta sub in to take his place. Won’t be a full party otherwise.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “Plus, I’ll get yelled at if I sit back and let you guys squash the guardian. The others take this stuff so seriously…” He glanced down at Mephisto. “Doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun. Right, kid?”

The medic had clearly given up. “I…”

C reached down and touched his face. His magic worked in an instant, rewriting reality. Mephisto transformed, becoming an avian monstrosity with a black halo, a little like the Consul’s own. The sudden escalation took Sandalphon by surprise, her pupils turning into crosshairs as she jumped back and crouched into a firing stance, her Eye of Sol at the ready. The monster let out a warped cry that shook the arena, a hideous song that seemed to buff Karen and Sam a little. “What did you do?” the archangel demanded.

The Consul shrugged again. “Just keeping things interesting, like I said. Don’t worry though, I’ll play by the rules from here. My script has no room for accidents, got it?” On the other side of the Seekers, Tycoon unfolded its wings and slammed the ground like a war drum with its arms. Thanks to his helmet, C was already grinning. “Let’s rock.”

“That’s my line,” Goldlewis scoffed, but he was more than happy to oblige.

Breathing in, Sandalphon relaxed and stood to her full height. Though she didn’t understand what was happening, and her trigger finger itched, there was too much riding on the Seekers to get impatient now. It fell to her allies to make sure these leftover villains got their just resorts, and to her to keep the Seekers alive.

The Under - Dreams of Light

Level 13 Ms Fortune (90/130)
The Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Primrose and Therion’s @Yankee, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Ganondorf’s @Double, Jesse’s @Zoey Boey
Word Count: 1479

Though every one of the Seekers went into this final fight familiar with the overall game plan, the face-paced scramble against the Hollow Knight demanded that everyone live in the moment if they wanted to stay alive, pushing the team’s endgame to the back of Nadia’s mind. When the time finally came, courtesy of Organization XIII’s emissary, to dive to the heart of the matter, the memory of what lay in store for her forced the feral to steel herself. Then, with astonishing swiftness, she was plunged into the vessel’s dreams. The surreal final stage of the Seekers’ slugfest against Robin Goodfellow meant that this immersion didn’t come as a total shock, but Nadia didn’t know if she could ever get used to this sort of thing. Actually dreaming was one thing, but this was another. The clouds billowed with no breeze to stir them, and a strange sense of weightlessness meant that every motion took a concerted effort; just existing here was a fight to assert herself in a place where she fundamentally didn’t belong.

Then of course, there was the Radiance. She didn’t fly so much as float, staring down with unblinking, almost astonished eyes at the intruders who’d penetrated her real. The invader had become the invaded, and she was not happy, insofar as the almost celestial entity could express emotion. Her very presence scorched the minds of her challengers, threatening to slowly boil them from the inside out. Nadia knew she’d better get used to this dreamscape fast, and focus on the task at hand. The moment she turned her attention to more practical concerns, a sense of aggravation helped center her. If the Radiance planned to stay airborne, after all, hitting it would be a major hassle. Not even her bait launcher would help, since it materialized tigers wherever its steaks came to rest. That rather begged the question as to why she would get this close at all, but maybe the Seekers felt as wrong to her as she did to them. Well, if annihilation was a foregone conclusion, then Nadia meant to win. “Hey there! If you’re not happy to see us, don’t worry! You’ll be de-lighted real soon!”

Right away, blazing beams of light scoured the arena, several at once, flowing forth from the eyes of the Radiance. Like many of the others, Nadia moved to evade them. Her own eyes couldn’t shoot out lasers, but they were keen enough to perceive the barely-visible threads that preceded the actual rays, betraying her enemy’s aim. She saw Ganondorf try to return fire, but his summons’ projectiles’ slow arcs made them ineffective. In reply, the Radiance called down a thick pillar of light that traveled across the arena. It looked deadly, and if the battlefield were smaller it would have been a major issue, but Nadia was quick and the wall didn’t last long. A much more prominent threat appeared right after: an abundance of ivory blades that rained down from above, as lethal and linear as icicles. As the Radiance herself warped around, Nadia turned her attention skyward with gritted teeth. “This is sworda annoying.” Her frame was more than slender enough to thread the needle between these falling blades, but they provided a potent distraction. As she strove to stay dry in the pouring rain, an idea struck her instead of a blade.

While Ganondorf broke away from the group to jump at the Radiance, Primrose’s Makami and Rika in tow, Nadia tucked her hands beneath her arms and pulled off her hands. When she tensed her muscles, blood sprayed out across the polished stone around her like water from two hoses. Stepping onto the blood allowed her rigging to activate, and as the mechanical arms folded out from her backpack, their cannons took aim at the Radiance. “Ready to rocket!” She opened fire, and homing missiles of Hydro energy corkscrewed through the air. They hunted their target down, but their fire rate -only two every three seconds- left a lot to be desired. If nothing else, her intermittent barrage gave Primrose some covering fire as the dancer got close enough to follow up Ganondorf’s trident flurry with Ravaging Confession. More sun rays blasted the warlord back, however, and Primrose descended again soon after.

Rika and Kamek could get more airtime, allowing them to batter the Radiance with muck and magic. Nadia supported them while still skating, and the others quickly joined in their efforts, Primrose with her golden beads and Ganondorf with Blast Hornet’s drones. For a moment the projectiles pounded the Radiance, though the boss quickly returned fire with a flurry of swordblades like giant flechettes followed by homing light orbs. “Wow, this thing really has it out for you,” she teased Ganondorf, curious if his affinity for darkness was to blame. Therion took the chance to springboard off him, then left the big brute to deal with the orbs as he leaped up to administer a tremendous gout of flame. Eyes narrowed, Nadia let off two more watery drills, and on contact they reacted with Therion’s fire to proc Vaporize, adding insult to injury. “Hah! We make a good s-team!”

Her dedication to puns cost her, however, as silvery spikes suddenly burst up from the ground. “Agh!” she yelped, using the blood from her new stab wounds to help her spring away. When she landed, it was on dry ground, and her shipgirl equipment promptly folded up again. “Bull-ship! You’re s’posed to be rigged in my favor!” Her strategy hadn’t profited her, though, so while Bowser took up the mantle with his own cannons, the feral charged forward. Kamek’s kaleidoscopic elements joined the bombardment against the Radiance as she approached, blazing a colorful trail. The boss continued to teleport around, forcing her opponents to retarget her as she summoned arrays of gleaming nails that traveled horizontally.

Even so, Nadia pushed forward. This would be tight, but her agility and instincts would see her through. She sidestepped, hopped, airdashed, and fell through the razor waves, repeating each motion with equal parts speed and precision. Others got pushed back or pinned down, but she pushed through the patterns, until finally she got close enough to launch a Fiber Upper and snap up into the air to get her first taste of the Radiance. “Nyaow we’re talking!” In quick succession she landed Claws for Concern, Footloose, and El Gato, before finishing with Feral Edge, both boxcutters drawn and extended. New Moon gave the ensuing impact a silvery splash, complimenting Sectonia’s dark lightning. The next moment the boss teleported again, but drawing blood had fired Nadia up. She landed ready for round two.

By now, the Seekers had really spread out. Nadia noticed that the Radiance couldn’t really teleport anywhere without ending up near someone. That meant that the feral could wear herself out in pursuit, risking an approach through the dream invader’s relentless projectiles, or wait like a cat at a mouse hole for the Radiance to come to her. She waited for a moment in Sven’s Healing Waters, watching as the celestial thing replied to Sectonia’s void globules with light orbs. Her plan wasn’t intermittent cannon fire from her rigging, though. Sure enough, the Radiance ended up near her after a couple warps, and Nadia unleashed her plan.

As the Guardian unleashed a bursting blossom of twelve swordblades, the catgirl transformed into a bolt of lightning, blasting into and through the Radiance to materialize behind her back. When Nadia materialized, however, she reappeared with one of the flechettes jammed beneath her collarbone and out through her back. She yelped in pain, seeing stars. While her numbness lowered her pain sensitivity by a lot, this wasn’t something she could shrug off. Nevertheless, the feral shook her head to clear it, and pushed through the pain to complete her attack. Boxcutters outstretched, she began to spin vertically, slicing into the boss’s back again and again as she descended. It was too soon for New Moon, but Battery activated to add some extra electric punch to the first two slashes, so while the Radiance teleported again before Nadia finished she felt confident that she left it hurting.

Of course, the feral was really hurting herself, so after landing she dropped her boxcutters and pulled out the Ripened Heart. After a night’s rest the magical organ seemed fully charged, and once a jolt from it jumpstarted Nadia’s healing, she could get back to dodging projectiles–and coming up with better plans. She got moving just in time not to get stabbed as the Radiance summoned more floor spikes, covering fifty percent of the arena, before more beams of light blazed forth.

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

Lewa

Considering that the beast could have very easily panicked and attacked the instant Lewa made himself known, the toa saw his potential friend's somewhat ambivalent response as extremely positive. No progress had been made, of course, but at least further progress could be made. Newfound hope brightened his eyes as he prepared to take the next few crucial steps. He did not get ahead of himself, however, or let his enthusiasm blind him. As positive as things seemed to be going so far, something was definitely wrong. Maybe the boar should have responded more vehemently. Just as Lewa was beginning to notice the irregularities in its appearance, the fur matted and blackened with dried blood, Remilia hovered over to bring him up to speed.

Lewa listened in a state of intense focus, though her explanation was brief. As he suspected, the boar was in bad shape, enough so that Remilia judged its days to be numbered. Although he'd be sad to see such a majestic beast go, its kind were evidently not rare around here at the moment, and death was an inescapable part of nature. If the boar's life was his only concern, Lewa wouldn't be inclined to disappear. The problem lay in what the animal could do to the struggling villagers nearby, whether in a rage driven by pain or disease, or just as a result of its everyday activities. He paused, his eyes narrowing as the Scarlet Devil made her suggestion. Given the boar's enormity, a nonlethal takedown would be very difficult. Lewa doubted he harbored the strength to stun it, should that opportunity even arise. Maybe Onua could, but not the Toa of Air. It seemed just as unlikely that his weapon of choice could be used to inflict nonlethal damage. Axes were made for felling things, be they they trees or foes. And could his elemental power even budge a beast of this size? His only option would be some sort of trap. The trees around here featured, a distinctive lack of vines, though. A pitfall, maybe...?

Even with a mask on, Lewa couldn't hide his uneasiness. "That would be...difficult," he told Remilia, succinctly summarizing his thoughts. Not for the first time, he found himself wishing that his sister Gali was here. Water could cleanse and soothe, and it sounded like this poor creature needed both. Living things might need air to breathe, but wind couldn't enliven or rejuvenate.

Or could it?

Rather than continuing to speak, Lewa diverted his attention and looked around the forest-ringed clearing. Everything here, from the smallest insect to the biggest tree, needed air. The flow of carbon dioxide from animals and oxygen from plants created a sustained cycle, uniting all forms of life. Everything moved to a certain natural rhythm, a beat like the drums of Le-koro...no, like the rhythmic rise and fall of lungs. Lewa could hear it--the boar's breath that came in strained, irregular heaves. Its rhythms had been damaged, destabilized. By what, he could not guess, but anything that was broken could be fixed again. Life would find a way, but sometimes it needed a little help.

Lewa stepped away from Remilia, and began to breathe. He took deep breaths, in and out, and he repeated this action, the air around him began to move. In, and out. In, and out. Bit by bit, it got louder. Stronger. It was a pulse, like the heartbeat of life itself. Not a threat, like a gathering storm, but a symphony with an open invitation, inviting all to join. Like music, it could be irrepressible, but calming and comfortable. Lewa believed that a natural harmony united all living things. The boar was hurt, agitated, distracted, out of sync with nature, but it could still recover. It could rest, still its addled mind, and kickstart its regeneration, all systems go...if it just got back on beat.

"Breathe, my friend," Lewa said softly, getting closer. If he could approach, he would lay his hands on the beast's body and stroke it, slow and gentle. "Breathe..." Around him, the forest itself seemed to breathe with him, begging all to join in the choir, consciously or unconsciously. Hopefully, this would allow the boar to relax.

World of Light

<Snipped quote by Lugubrious>

True, that's fair.

Aaaah, alright, gotcha. Then a slight change of plans, I'll participate in the IC after the current boss fight event is over, but before the relaunch.

@Izurich

Great, sounds like a plan. I'll look forward to your applications, and I hope you enjoy reading through our stuff. Unfortunately not all the resources are up to date.

World of Light

I don't particularly think that grinding levels is necessary or is even really viable. The amount of extra work you have to put in per post to get above 3 exp is pretty prohibitive.

You could wait until the relaunch, but it's not like everything's going to be wiped out or undone, it's essentially just going to be a new thread that picks up close to where we left off with this one. It would be fine to wait through the next two and a half weeks or so until the boss fights conclude, but I'd say to join the fun after that. Plus, there will be some extra changes with the relaunch that makes application a little less lucrative than the current offer.

World of Light

@Lugubrious Pssst, is this still accepting new applicants?

If yes, I also have a followup question, do you have any systems that can help a fresh new Lvl 1 PC to contribute to the party without being uselessly insignificant?

@Izurich

Hey there! We're always accepting, and would be very glad to have you. Level isn't the end-all be-all, since it's very possible to choose a character with some sort of ability or utility that's always useful at every stage of the game. We're lacking in abilities that don't relate to combat, for instance.

Right now we're at an interesting point in the story, though. We're smack dab in the middle of two of the big boss fights that wrap up our current arcs. After that, we're essentially going to do some fun minigames. We're also probably going to do a relaunch in order to shake things up a bit. So in the spirit of said relaunch, I'd be willing to grant you entry at Level 5 rather than Level 1. Would that help?

Caravan: An Episodic Fantasy with Worldbuilding! [Always Accepting]

Gruyere Emmentaler Caerphilly Yarg

Once the laborious process of hauling the work-in-progress cheeses to their shelves to dry and age finally concluded, Gru and his crews of rats could finally take a well-earned break. Despite the masterful engineering of the Chuck Wagon, designed to maintain a consistent internal climate however extreme the conditions outside might be, there was only so much that insulation and heat shielding could do to mitigate the cruel alliance of scorching hot day without and arresting humidity within. Though his darlings could be reasonably comfortable up in the dry darkness of their attic, Gru found himself utterly unable to relax even in the Chuck Wagon’s dry compartment, even after a change of clothes to try and freshen up. A number of rats tried to help by fanning him, which was lovely and earned them some extra pellets, but the biggest source of discomfort was his own mind.

After needing to spend his bottom dollar to kickstart his business, he could now do nothing but wait and trust in his craft, which all things considered made the man rather anxious. As much as the secure confines of his vehicle comforted the cheesemonger in the face of an unknown and potentially hazardous culture, he knew that he desperately needed a change of scene. Somewhere shady and cool, with a strong drink to perk him up, would work wonders. Appetite was beginning to gnaw at his stomach as well. Having worked through the whole morning, Gru realized that lunchtime must be nigh. With Gadri long gone, however, he lacked any sort of guide who could make a foray into Buraq’s Clanhold less intimidating. To make matters worse, a profuse singing now echoed through the vast citadel. What was a man to do?

So Gru sat there in his chair for a while, listening to the unknown song. Before long it concluded, replaced by more typical goings-on outside his wagon, but still he continued to sweat and psych himself up for an adventure. In the course of his hesitation, however, he received a surprise in the form of three loud squeaks from the sentry rat on lookout duty by the door. He’d seen somebody coming through his peephole and sounded the alarm; two squeaks meant ‘friend’, but three meant ‘stranger’. The cheesemonger jumped to his feet, surrounded by scurrying rats. Gru scurried alongside them. “Just a moment!” His darlings vanished into their holes to hide in the walls, closing the little hatches behind him. Some piled into drawers or climbed into chests, while others just hid behind books and things. With nowhere else to go, thirty-two of them threw on little capes of white or black and went for the empty chess set on Gru’s desk, where they hurriedly adopted poses appropriate for bishops, rooks, and pawns. Gru dabbed at his face with a handkerchief, adjusted his hat, and stepped toward the door. By the time he opened it, there were no traces of any rats at all.

“Good morning, noble visitors,” he greeted his visitors, bowing deferentially, perhaps excessively. Better to be safe than sorry. Three Dinnin-dwarves stood before him. They were squat, broad, clad in loose clothing of evident quality and rich coloration, and their voluminous beards featured styles that looked similarly audacious but braided and bejeweled by different conventions. Not soldiers, as one might expect given the proximity of the nearby military encampment, but decently well-to-do citizens, perhaps of a merchant caste. Though their manner seemed stiffly formal, much like Gru’s own, their guarded expressions still betrayed the curiosity in their eyes, and a little amusement. The cheesemonger’s unusual appearance and clear eccentricities tended to provoke such a reaction, making him difficult to forget or dismiss offhand. First impressions, after all, were everything. “What can I do for you?”

For the briefest moment the dwarf in the center looked past him, taking in the Chuck Wagon’s interior at a glance, but he found nothing more than the furnishings of a wealthy tradesman. Not wanting to be impolite, he did not allow his gaze to linger, and quickly fixed it on Gru himself. Of the three strangers, this one appeared to be the broadest, endowed with the more impressive turban and a double-decker mustache that inspired a sense of unflappable authority. Maybe he saw some kinship in Gru’s triple-decker mustache, despite its comparative thinness.

“Please forgive our intrusion,” he began. “Welcome to Clanhold Buraq, newcomer. I am Argun, and these are Dilar and Ufuk. We represent the Dawnlight Opportunities Firm. Our business is the discovery and promotion of worthy ventures that otherwise wouldn’t be able to penetrate the tight-knit Clanhold market. This morning, we happened to receive reports of a great many rats running rampant around this area, and you yourself featured in these reports invariably. Naturally such sightings invite worries of pestilence and whatnot. We merely wanted to meet you and make sure that all is well.”

Gru barely heard the dwarves’ concerns about rats. Naturally, his rather unique entourage tended to spark such trepidations everywhere he went, and by now he possessed a wealth of experience when it came to defusing such situations. While most everyone harbored prejudices against his darlings, he never tired of extolling their virtues, and the cheesemonger could convince the average rodent-fearing skeptic in his sleep. What interested him more was these dwarves’ trade. Marketers, he realized immediately. That could be just what he needed to get his business off the ground in this market. Of course, there was no such thing as a free lunch, and his pessimism told him to expect a steep cut. That might just be the price of doing business, though. Realistically speaking, Gru knew he ought to be grateful that he got a visit from marketers instead of soldiers, here to arrest him for operating without some sort of license. He needed to act fast, get the preamble over with, and start forging this connection.

The cheesemonger clasped his hands and put on his most disarming smile. That wasn’t to say he wielded the good looks to inspire a sense of trustworthiness through the halo effect, but with a smile like this he could inspire a sense of pity through the implication that this inquiry was just the latest chapter of a long-suffering epic. “I see, of course. Please, allow me to reassure you. You’re hardly the first to bring such understandable concerns to my doorstep. In a sense, the reports you received were true. But the magnificent creatures your eyewitnesses beheld were no mere rats. They are not just my pets, but my employees and associates, bred of the finest stock imaginable and surpassingly intelligent. They can pour your tea, butter your bread, and perform tricks of such stupendous caliber that you’ll scarcely believe they’re not magic. And they’re not just brainy, but also unfailingly hygienic, and wonderfully affectionate.” Gru stepped aside from the doorway, sweeping a hand toward his wagon’s interior. “Perhaps you’d like a demonstration?”

The dwarves seemed impressed with the craft and speed of his speech. “You’re clearly no stranger to such inquiries,” Argun said, laughing through his nose. He clearly knew a sales pitch when he heard it, but if these rats were workers rather than commodities, he couldn’t help but wonder about their trade. He climbed the stairs somewhat ponderously and stepped inside. It might be warm in here, but at least it was out of the sun. His associates followed him, and by the time Ufuk closed the door behind them, Gru had already poured them tea. He kept his tea set in a padded chest just for occasions like this, never using it himself. Bought at a high price from maritime traders over a year ago, its soapstone featured an intriguing texture and gray-rust coloration.

“I must apologize for my meager accommodations,” Gru told his visitors. “My humble mobile home is woefully unsuited for entertaining guests.”

For the moment, Argun seemed more interested in the aromatic new cheeses on the shelves. He had no idea how many tiny, beady eyes were watching him at any given moment. “Not at all. In fact, this is quite exquisite for a mere wagon. Is this your product, here?”

Gru nodded enthusiastically, sweeping over to shower his cheeses with gesticulation and showmanship. “Correct, sir. Made fresh this morning, these high-quality cheeses must age before they can be eaten, but very soon they will be ready for consumption. Though the wealth of the Clanhold is vast indeed, I daresay that its venerable people have never tasted the like.”

Dilar nodded sagaciously, clearly interested. “I’ve never smelled anything like it myself.”

“And that is but a shadow of what is to come, once time had worked its magic,” Gru smiled. “And I do believe we may be able to make some magic happen together. As you might expect, I’m rather new here, and though I’m confident that my cheeses’ quality speaks for itself, that means little if nobody’s around to hear it. But before we talk business, I believe a demonstration is in order. Not just of my product, but of its producers.” He brought his guests over to his table, where he pulled out a chair before seating himself in the other. On the table lay his chess board, each piece already set up for a game. “I’m sure you know how to play?”

Argun plopped down, bushy brow raised at the suggestion that he might not. “Of course.” His eyes lay on the curious pieces, clearly not yet sure what he was looking at.

“Ah, but my house rules are slightly different. Observe.” Gru tapped the head of the white-cloaked pawn in front of his king, then tapped the square two spaces ahead. To his guests’ surprise, the pawn seemed to come to life, marching to the designated spot to stand with unflinching stillness, her tail coiled around her little feet. “See what I mean?”

Though taken aback for a moment by the realization that he’d been invited to play chess with live rats, Argun’s surprise turned to amusement. “Surpassingly intelligent, hmm? You weren’t joking, hohoho!” With an almost childlike eagerness he reached out, gently tapping one of the black-cloaked rats between his ears. Once directed, he marched forward to face Gru’s pawn, where they stared one another down with mock fierceness. “Clever. Well then, mister…?”

“Yarg,” Gru supplied.

“Mr. Yarg. You should know that even though this is not a Dinnin game, I have yet to be defeated. Rats or no rats, I have no intention of losing.”

The cheesemonger tipped his head in respect. “I expect nothing less. I’ll try not to make this too easy for you.”

Argun chuckled, adjusting his glasses. “Then let us begin.”

World of Light

Deep Ground - the Source

Level 6 Goldlewis (159/60) Level 5 Sandalphon (88/50)
Blazermate, Susie, and Roland’s @Archmage MC, Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Geralt and Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man, Sakura and Karin’s @Zoey Boey, Pit’s @Yankee, Roxas’ @Double, Giovanna
Word Count: 1329

When Sandalphon shapeshifted into Heavenly Wings, Sam assumed some kind of explosion and cleared out in a hurry. When her brief moment of blindness concluded, Sandalphon realized that her opponent had erred on the side of caution and ceased his assault. To his credit, he’d made the right decision; her draconic form boasted impressive damage and flinch resistance. But the archangel couldn’t afford to just stand tall and survey the battlefield. She was on the clock, and needed to make this transformation count.

So Sandalphon took in everything at a glance. She glanced toward Roxas, who had called out her name. He lay on the floor at the base of Tycoon’s body as Susie fought to regain the gigantic machine’s attention and Pit assisted her. Since Sandalphon knew that her skills could heal him, she spared him no more than a split second. Much to her relief, Geralt was still standing, her raging flames ablaze as Midna and her minions backed her up against Nox. Sandalphon saw that the street fighters had moved in for round two against Karen, even managing to pin him down. That left Mephisto unattended to, but the duplicates would complicate any attempts to dispose of him. If Karin and Sakura had Karen in a bind, that was where Heavenly Wings’ strength was needed. Though prioritizing the enemy medic made sense in general, the chance to eliminate the enemy powerhouse could not be ignored.

Golden light radiated from Sandalphon’s outstretched wings as she cast Celestial Skewer. An eruption of holy water went off around her, splashing up six divine droplets that hovered in the air for a brief moment, then launched toward Karen in the form of javelin-like rays of light. While their damage got spread over a large area, it helped break the Septentrion’s Blastokinesis and rack up some damage. It also healed her allies by forty-two percent. When Sandalphon glanced back toward Roxas to see if he needed more attention, however, a heart-wrenching revelation awaited her: that she was too late once more. In the moment she’d taken her eyes off him, Sam had executed him, disabling him with a slash to the spine that soon extinguished his light through a lethal combination of blood loss and shock. Without a word, Sandalphon turned on his killer and attacked, creating divine screens that she launched at the nobody’s killer like weaponized walls of light in an effort to stamp him out.

While she fought, Pit turned his attention on Mephisto with a relentless barrage of prismatic palm strikes. He pragmatically targeted and eliminated all of the duplicates, battering the real medic repeatedly in the process. Mephisto switched between healing and returning fire, pushing through the pain to knit his injured flesh back together. Pit boasted much greater output and mobility, however, and after a moment the medic’s pistol clicked empty. But before Pit could finish the job, two things happened. First, Tycoon -with only one of its three original challengers still holding it down- threatened the entire battlefield with Artificial Gravity. A number of small, swirling dark spots appeared scattered across the battlefield. After exactly three seconds, they would swell to a much larger size, overlapping to such an extent that only a few small slivers of the arena remained uncovered. A scant second later, Tycoon dropped magical mortar strikes on all the targets, consuming almost the whole arena in spacetime-displacing vortexes capable of ripping almost anyone apart.

Second, Nox took note of what Pit was doing. He felt confident that he could take on these enemies, but having Mephisto around provided a comfortable margin for error. In his moment of distraction, Geralt landed a direct hit with a fireball, setting Nox alight. “Agh. So warm-hearted….” The next moment, he disappeared in a shower of purple dragon fire from above. Midna’s flygon swooped down as its master charged in behind him, while Geralt hurled two flares turned infernal by her outpour of wrath. Exhaling sharply, Nox released both sword and shield, then joined his hands in an interlocked sign. “...Stop.”

All around him, the battle froze in time, every combatant and projectile slowing to a complete standstill. He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in deeply. “Who will it be, then?” He extended his hand toward Geralt, resummoning his pendulum sword. “You’ve certainly been bugging me, my hot-blooded friend…” He adjusted his arm in increments like the hand of a clock, ticking around from three o’ clock to Midna, and when it ticked into place at eight o’ clock his sword’s tip lay inches from her nose. “Beastmaster. Cut off the head, and the body dies. Looks like we have our answer.” He pulled his arm back and flung the sword, which slowed down the instant it left his grip and stopped an inch from her stomach. “So sorry. Looks like you’re number’s come up.”

He looked over at Sandalphon, then at all of the Artificial Gravity indicators on the floor. He then teleported, warped directly in front of Pit, and time resumed. Suddenly, the angel found himself face to face with the man who’d slain Goldlewis, his hand extended. Nox released a blast of blue energy, and as Pit flew back, he used his perspective to pantomime crushing Pit in his fist. At that moment, Tycoon’s attack completed, and one of the bolts dropped down on the angel. By that time Nox had warped Mephisto to safety, and after the blasts went off the Watchmaker resummoned sword and shield. “Je vous en prie.”

The boy slid a new magazine into his place and expressed his gratitude with a tap of his cane rather than a smile. “Don’t expect any thanks.”

Karen, Karin, and Sakura had all competed for a tiny safe space before Artificial Gravity went off, and as a result, all of them got hit. Sam would have made it if Sandalphon didn’t push him back into the blast zone with a divine wave, though Tycoon’s attack also struck her as a result. Zenkichi and Roland, who’d stepped back from their fights and been healed by Celestial Skewer, both escaped Artificial Gravity, while even if she made it to a safe zone Susie’s business suit was too big to not get clipped. Zenkichi and Roland converged on Karen, but bolstered by Mephisto’s healing, the Septentrion took them both on. After hurling explosive sparks at the detective with Pyrokinesis, Karen faked Roland out, knowing that the Fixer wanted to clash. He swerved out of the way of his attack, then made him see stars with a burning hammerfist to the jaw. The next second his other palm connected for an explosive blast that sent Roland head-first into the floor. Zenkichi struck him from behind, but to his surprise a Guardian Vision of a strangely-dressed woman appeared in a defensive stance to negate the blow. Even now, SAS seemed to be protecting him. He turned and faced off against Zenkichi, ultimately using Sclerokinesis to grab his foe’s greatsword in his hand, then melt through it with a pyrokinetic squeeze.

At the same time, Sam continued to fight Heavenly Wings, but the archangel seemed to shrug off his attacks. Gathering her divine power, Sandalphon lifted her hand and created a holy star above her. Her Celestial Castling rained down rays of light across the arena, inflicting Frostbite and Scorchrend on Sam, Karen, and Typhoon. Nox took aim and let fly a volley of energy blades. Though the projectiles didn’t damage Heavenly Wings, they did deplete the rest of her draconic energy, abruptly returning Sandalphon to human form. The next second the last couple blades sliced through her, severing two of the archangel’s limbs. She fell, her final Frost Lock going wide and bursting into icy mist near the Watchmaker. Then she lay on the ground as the battle continued, alive but catatonic, helpless, and losing too much blood.

Just then, Giovanna arrived to find herself in a hellscape, but there was no time to stand there gaping. The secret agent dashed in to assist as best she could.

The Under - the Black Egg

Level 13 Ms Fortune (87/130)
The Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Primrose and Therion’s @Yankee, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Ganondorf’s @Double, Jesse’s @Zoey Boey
Word Count: 1426 (+3)

If she’d been expecting some sort of enormous monstrosity, Nadia might have been disappointed, but after her encounter with the nightmarish Orphan of Kos on that impossible underground beach the feral knew just how little size mattered. The Guardian of the underground kingdom appeared to be a bug, very similar to the little knight she fought alongside in the Basement looks-wise, but much larger and utterly enthralled by the Infection. The way her instincts screamed when that pulsing orange light confronted her convinced her that this wasn’t just some diseased dreg, either. “Patient zero,” she muttered. Maybe even the source of the Infection, sealed away, but not nearly well enough. She couldn’t hazard a guess about much else, but the environmental storytelling painted a vivid picture. Up close the Hollow Knight’s unnatural howl made her flinch yet again, but with her claws at the ready after the warm-up against F’s infected minions, Nadia wasn’t about to back down.

Of course, mustering up determination was easy. There were few things that Nadia couldn’t psych herself up into mindlessly running toward. Fighting this wretched warrior was another matter. While it still towered over two feet above her, and probably couldn’t be combo’d, the Hollow Knight posed an altogether different problem thanks to its relative size. Though the Seekers could easily surround it, there was a very real possibility of them hitting -or just obstructing- one another. Meanwhile, the Hollow Knight could barely swing its nail without striking a would-be hero. Everyone would need to be careful in this frenetic dance of death. Still, at the end of the day, this was nothing new to Nadia. Within seconds, the cat burglar charged in to take the stage.

Employing much the same strategy that she did against the likes of Ten Piedad, Robin Goodfellow, and all the other oversized threats that she couldn’t scrap with properly, Nadia darted in and out, waiting for -and in some cases baiting- attacks so that she could whiff punish the Hollow Knight as it recovered from its massive attacks. Of course, her target didn’t just stand there and let the others whale on it; it launched around the room with surprising agility, punctuating every burst of speed with a skewering nail thrust or enormous slice. Its warp slash, grimly similar to Barnabee’s, was a nasty surprise. Nadia kept on her toes, evading when possible and blocking otherwise. The chip damage and blockstun the Hollow Knight could dish out was no joke, but being excessively safe with her dodge rolls and blood-propelled dashes meant that she’d end up too far away to deliver punishment.

Of course, fighting as a Seeker meant sharing the stage with the likes of Bowser and his gung-ho entourage. The Koopa Troop bombarded the Hollow Knight with the elements, which Nadia tried to turn into elemental reactions like Electrocharged and Overloaded, and Bowser himself used his prodigious side and strength to actually push the boss around. Sectonia kept her spells to herself for once but contributed through the use of enormous minions that could control space with their bulk and implicit threat. After boosting her allies through the magic of dance, Primrose bathed the Hollow Knight in darkness and flame, while Therion’s steel cut through sorcery and sickened flesh alike. He also tasted the warrior’s sword skills, which Nadia naturally proceeded to trigger herself. The Hollow Knight’s riposte hurt like hell, stinging more in one blow than anything Rumor Honeybottoms spat out, but Nadia had seen worse. Her agility and regeneration allowed her to weather the worst of the vessel’s fury, and she boosted her damage output with her Bait Launcher from a safe distance.

Before long it revealed more up its proverbial sleeves than swordfighting. “Yugh!” Nadia groaned when the Hollow Knight unveiled its weeping lesions, running for the hills as infected globules began to fill the air. Whether sprayed out or rained down, they fell in abundance, and even the feral couldn’t avoid them all before reaching Jesse’s shelter. Luckily for the Seekers, the diseased deluge mostly acted like a scaled-up variety of acid rain. Though a caustic shower would be horrible enough, the infection couldn’t worm its way into those possessed of higher minds that easily. Sectonia’s golden antlers, however, were not so fortunate. They proved highly susceptible to the Infection. When the infected rain stopped, both Jesse and Primrose bashed the vessel with the rocks they used as shields, and the fight continued.

Once Kamek did some research, he came to the conclusion that the Seekers had been misled. Dangerous as it was, the Hollow Knight that they now faced seemed to be no more than a front. Nadia threw the magikoopa look of disbelief after he announced that everyone would need to keep their opponent alive. “You’ve gotta be kitten me.” By now, the fight had already escalated. The Hollow Knight fought in a berserk rage, weaponizing the plague that eked ceaselessly from the core of its very being, and before long the Infection worked its dark magic on the golden antlers. “The hell!?” Nadia yowled, leaping away from a stone-cracking mace slam. “Toni, get your buggies under control! This is getting g-old fast!”

At least Sectonia’s Slow, combined with Primrose’s buffs, tipped the scales in the Seekers’ favor. Ganondorf attacked alongside his Phantom, and the two gave a lot better than they got. At the end of their exchange, the vessel pushed the warlord back, and Nadia moved in. “Nyaow it’s my turn!” She slid beneath its follow-up slash with Cat Slide, then transformed her legs with Fluffy Soft to extend them for a double tiger kick into the Hollow Knight’s torso. Her legs snapped back into place, and after getting into a handstand, the feral sprang with her arms to fly into the air. Drawing a boxcutter, she grabbed onto one of the monster’s horns as she fell, her amplified weight bending its head sideways as she dangled. “Steel your heart!” Nadia swiped at the pustule on the Hollow Knight’s mask for a moment, but it quickly grabbed her and tossed her into the air. “Whoa-oa-oa!” She narrowly split herself in half to avoid an overhead nail slam, but picking up the pieces would take a minute.

Moments later, the battle reached a fever pitch. After the Hollow Knight stabbed itself with its own nail repeatedly, it threw itself at the Seekers with everything it had, but their counteroffensive bore fruit. The vessel slumped down onto its knees, bent forward. “Now!” a familiar, young-sounding, high-pitched voice called out. From the direction of the Black Egg’s entrance, a bright blue lash flew out and struck the Hollow Knight, wrapping around its body. A dark shape shot toward it, which turned out to be the short Organization member from before. She whipped around the vessel’s horns and landed on its head, tugging on the evil-looking keyblade in her hands to wrench the vessel’s head upwards. A brilliant light shone from its forehead, radiant as the light of day. “What’re ya flippin’ waitin’ for?! Get in there, you mugs!”

Kamek had the Dreamcatcher ready. After he extended it toward the Hollow Knight’s head and waved it around, a crystalline substance quickly collected into a globe inside its crescent. Within a moment it was large enough, and once Kamek plucked the globe from the staff, he hurled it against the ground. It shattered, releasing a flash of unreal light, and the world around the Seekers disappeared.

When the light died down, they found themselves back in the dream world on a circular pillar, much like they had during the fight with Robin Goodfellow. Except this time, the peach-colored sea of clouds lay beneath them, interspersed with hornlike spires, and around them stretched a vast, twilight-orange sky. On the horizon shone the sun–except that wasn’t the sun, brilliant and baleful as it was. The incandescent beacon approached with astonishing speed, then resolved into an incredible shape. It was dazzling, but unmistakably alien. Just staring at it burned Nadia’s brain, much worse than the sensation she got from the eyes of the Hollow Knight. There could be no mistaking it: this almost angelic thing must be behind it all. The Seekers had found it, the light of madness that seeped out through dreams, consuming the reason, the consciousness, and finally the very self of bug and beast alike. It was beautiful, but deadly. Not just to the Seekers, but to civilization, to sentience itself.

Warning! Boss discovered!

Thought-terminating Beatitude

The Radiance

It had to be stopped. And as the first rays of light blazed toward the Seekers, Nadia Fortune was ready.

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

Lewa

Once the team of otherworlders split into smaller groups, they began to make more progress on their investigation through the forest. In an environment where all sorts of creatures kept a constant ear out for predators just to survive day to day, a large, noisy group tended to make more of a disturbance, and the wildlife shied away in response. Peace and quiet gave Lewa's powers of perception a chance to shine, allowing him better attune himself to the wilderness around him. It certainly helped that he'd gotten lucky with his assignment of teammate; Remilia, after all, moved by floating through the air. Her unique method of travel made no noise and left no trail, turning the Scarlet Devil into a whisper on the wind who could provide the experienced woodsman with an extra set of eyes but no accompanying drawbacks. Together the companions breezed through the trees, following the traces left by their quarry until their path reached its conclusion.

When he spotted the culprit, Lewa let out a low whistle of appreciation. Though he could draw a few parallels with rahi he knew, this beast deserves to be appreciated on its own merits. It features a shaggy, bristly coat of coarse, deep brown hair, a nondescript tuft of a tail, short but sturdy legs that terminated in stony-looking trotters, and an almost conical head tipped with a flat snout, itself flanked by natural weapons in the form of hefty tusks. Most impressive of all was its sheer size, giving the beast an imperial air of combined strength and majesty. Assuming that this beast must be relatively soft to the touch, Lewa couldn't help but imagine how comfortable lounging against the boar's belly would be.

Of course, the toa of air didn't want to disturb the creature, let alone provoke it. When not dealing with rahi made aggressive by the Makuta's infected kanohi, the simplest strategy was the most effective: leave it alone. As a rule, rahi weren't curious, and as long as one didn't impose on their territory one should have nothing to fear. In this case, though the animal's impressive scale and natural weapons suggested that it would be far from helpless in a fight, nothing about it said 'predator' to Lewa. Remilia confirmed as much, calling the 'boar' a herbivore. She then handed the metaphorical reigns over to Lewa, giving him a chance to do things his way, as promised. Lewa nodded in appreciation. His companion's biological knowledge was a welcome surprise, and he was glad to be given the benefit of the doubt. "I will do my best."

For a little while longer, though, Lewa just observed. He listened to the boar's snorts and grunts, watched it rummage around through the underbrush, and considered what he was trying to achieve. Given its size and likely impunity, this creature's proximity to the struggling humans presented an understandable threat. Between the two of them, he and Remilia needed to convince it to leave the area. That would be difficult even if the toa could truly communicate with it. Intimidation would be preferable to disposal if the beast could be intimidated. He would need to learn what it wanted to eat (and convince it that he wasn't a threat) to lure it elsewhere with food. Well, regardless, he couldn't just crouch here forever. It was time to make a move. Standing, Lewa began to approach, obviously but slowly. He made no sudden movements or attempts to hide. "Good morning, amazing rahi," he murmured, his tone low and non-threatening as he tried to get the beast used to his voice. "I am Lewa. I want to get to know you. See eye to eye." Though the boar probably couldn't recognize expressions, he still smiled as he inched closer, his posture natural and calm. "What are you up to? Digging up roots?"

World of Light

Deep Ground - the Source

Level 6 Goldlewis (159/60) Level 5 Sandalphon (88/50)
Blazermate, Susie, and Roland’s @Archmage MC, Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Geralt and Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man, Sakura and Karin’s @Zoey Boey, Pit’s @Yankee, Roxas’ @Double, Giovanna
Word Count: 1722

Though Sandalphon participated in the initial conversation with Nox, she did not for a moment expect to convince the time mage of the error of his ways, nor to really understand where he was coming from. To an extent, she didn’t believe it necessary despite her proclivities for gathering data. In the end, he by his own admission sowed so much death and destruction not even for noble goals, but for selfish ones. Nox understood full well that his actions were evil, and for who knew how long bet everything on his success. Sandalphon was staring at the very embodiment of sunken cost. So she conversed with him just to goad him into trying to explain how his success would justify him, buying the team a little time as they repudiated him. The arrival of Nox’s team had thrown a lot more variables into her calculations, and the Seekers’ coordinator needed to prepare.

If the team had any chance of properly addressing the new threat, however, Goldlewis dashed it as he burst forward to lead the charge. This didn’t surprise Sandalphon inordinately, as she knew that the veteran preferred offense over defense, and that in warfare victory could be achieved by a swift and decisive blow. Unfortunately, his attempt at a blitzkrieg ended in disaster. Turning back all of time might be Nox’s goal, but it turned out that he could stop time here and now. When she saw the Pendulum Sword pierce the vital organs, Sandalphon took immediate action. She lifted her staff, conjuring divine screens that span around her as holy circuits wove themselves into being in a ring around her. This was all happening so fast, but if she could just cast her Angelic Wings miracle fast enough, she could restore enough health to bring Goldlewis back from the brink and cleanse his stopped time. But she was not fast enough. Nox expedited the process by extracting his target’s life, and by the time Angelic Wings radiated outward, Goldlewis was already dead. Sandalphon’s heart sank, horror gnawing at her soul from within. She’d not only failed to save him but also wasted her strongest miracle. It achieved only one thing: charging the remainder of her shapeshift gauge. The archangel’s grip tightened on her gunstaff. This was bad.

The sudden death prompted an immediate response, shifting gears from conversation to combat in an instant. Sakura charged forward, hopefully not to repeat the veteran’s mistake, and Karin followed her. Karen, however, sidetracked their revenge against Nox and kickstarted a fiery, fast-paced melee. At the same time, Geralt ignited herself with wrath, spreading the blazing wings of a new identity. A volley of arcing fireballs hurtled toward Mephisto and Nox like meteors, forcing them to adjust. As the singer backpedaled, the Watchmaker calmly skirted around the fire, then warped to a shielded Geralt to squash her flames with cold steel.

Despite his legendary quick draw, Sam was the last of the four off the mark, squaring up against Roland. Blazermate’s support came in the form of her new Armstrong striker just in the nick of time, backing the Fixer up with a dominating presence. A brief moment later, flashes of yellow lightning portended Karen’s turnabout against Karin and Sakura, forcing Zenkichi to intervene. Sandalphon forced herself to look past the eye-catching brawl toward Mephisto. He hung back, pistol at the ready in one half and his staff at the other. Her allies might not all know, but the archangel did. While the boy lacked the aggression of the others, he was no less dangerous, and perhaps the highest-priority target of all. “The boy is their medic,” she announced for those not present for the Reunion clash last night. Mephisto heard her and turned his icy gaze her way, but he only knew her as a sharpshooter. Once these intelligent opponents realized her role as a healer, Sandalphon would be at the top of their hit list as well. If she could headshot him before getting found out, there might be a path to victory.

That left just one opponent unaccounted for, though Sandalphon -standing with her back to it at the Seekers’ rear- was by no means unaware. Rather than open fire, she executed a dodge roll to evade Tycoon’s colossal swipe. The mountain of metal that was its arm passed within a few feet of her, the air displaced by its passage buffeting her hair and clothes. Tycoon scooted forward to advance, but by the time it geared up for another mechanical crush, Susie had arrived. Though her business suit looked like a toy in comparison, she pitted it against the Guardian bravely, and against all odds her mech actually withstood the punishment well. After a moment, though, Tycoon deployed pieces of itself to fly around the arena and unleash lasers that it froze in time. That was a problem, but Sandalphon hesitated to call it out. Fighting in the path of the lasers was flirting with danger, but any lapse in concentration against the other enemies could mean death.

Susie gave the Seekers a chance to focus on Nox’s team, at least for now. The Watchmaker himself was tackling Geralt, the biggest threat at the moment. As the Ardor Blossom, her ranged attacks couldn’t trigger a time stop, so she was uniquely well-suited for holding him off even as he pushed her back. Mephisto took potshots at Blazermate, and when Sam injured Roland, the Brazilian seized the chance to carve into the medabot’s back. Megido went off around Karen, and as the Septentrion disappeared Zenkichi grinned at his handiwork. When the dust cleared, Valjean’s magic seemed to have worked too well; no trace of Karen remained.

A split second later Karen reappeared, attacking out of Invisibility with a critical hit in the form of a stomp against the side of the detective’s knee. Zenkichi buckled, and Karen planted a fist in his ribs, then lifted both arms for a double hammer fist onto Zenkichi’s head. Sandalphon shot him in the back twice in quick succession, and when Roland charged in, Karen rounded on him for a trade of blows. Within moments the Fixer got pushed back again, and with the last of his Hypervelocity Karen took the chance for a follow-up on Blazermate. His Cryokinesis kept her locked down in exactly the wrong spot, and a moment later the Chekhov’s Gun fired. Once Tycoon’s laser consumed her, Blazermate was down for the count.

By that time, Sandalphon’s attention was elsewhere. Geralt had managed to stall Nox for a moment, burning him several times before a shattered Quen precipitated mounting slash wounds, but it would take more than that. After a moment, Nox switched tactics, banishing his Pendulum Sword to reply to her fireballs in kind. He held out his palm, the blue lens in its core powering up with an intensifying light and hum. Then a barrage of crescent-shaped projectiles shot forth, each about a foot in width, at a rate of three per second. They tracked Geralt as they flew, their absurd cutting power enough to sever limbs after only a couple hits. Sandalphon shot at Nox, causing his head to serve toward her in an unnatural fashion as the light of Tycoon’s Magitek Crossray lit up the battlefield. He turned his shots on her, only for the Archangel to teleport to Geralt’s side so that she could plant a Healing Field at her feet. It wasn’t much, and it limited the Witcher’s mobility if she hoped to heal with it, but with neither of her skills charged Sandalphon could do no better. When Nox’s gaze ratcheted toward the two of them, the archangel warped back to her original position, confounding Nox but leaving Geralt alone against him once more.

In the wake of the withering Magitek Crossray, Karen took drastic action. He activated Sclerokinesis, giving his body an indestructible rocklike texture, then slammed his fists into the ground. With his body impervious, one hundred percent of the amplified force went into the blow, enough to rock and destabilize the whole battlefield and unsteady the Seekers on the ground. Sandalphon used Vault to leap into the air, where she noted Blazermate’s fate, then switched to the Eye of Sol and took aim at Mephisto as she drifted down. Her shot took out his leg, but he gritted his teeth through the pain and brought down his staff for the first time. Immediately he, Nox, Karen, and Sam all healed for 25%, and as the medic rose, he lifted his pistol to return fire. “Can I get some goddamn assistance?” In reply, the last of Karen’s Duplication created four near-exact copies of Mephisto around him, turning the medic into a one-man firing squad who unleashed a barrage of gunshots into the Seekers. They then spread out, making it difficult to tell which Mephisto was real.

Out of the four foes, only Sam knew just how big a problem Sandalphon was. After the shockwave, he disengaged from his opponent and turned on the archangel as she landed, sheathing his sword. Expecting a lethal iaido slash, Sandalphon backed up, only for the cyborg to trigger his scabbard without his hand on his blade. His Murasama shot out like a projectile and struck Sandalphon in the eye. She reeled, seeing stars, unable to stop herself from clapping one hand to her face. After bouncing off her, the crimson katana flew into the air, and after Sam leaped up to catch it he descended in a splitting cleave. Eye squeezed shut, Sandalphon backpedaled, desperately trying to block. Sam’s blade fell just short of her body, but he did cut her gunstaff cleanly in half. “No...” Sandalphon stumbled, and with a shit-eating grin on his face Sam prepared to finish the job. Instead divine radiance welled up within the archangel, and after a moment she transformed in a burst of dazzling light. In order to survive, Sandalphon had become Heavenly Wings, a holy draconic angel that towered over friend and foe alike. Only Typhoon, standing at thirty feet compared to her sixteen, still eclipsed her.

But this was no time for exultation. This was a last resort in order to escape death’s door, but she’d put herself on a timer, and after her transformation expired the Seekers’ healing would end with her.

World of Light

Deep Ground - the Cornice

Level 6 Goldlewis (159/60) Level 5 Sandalphon (85/50)
Blazermate, Susie, and Roland’s @Archmage MC, Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Geralt and Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man, Sakura and Karin’s @Zoey Boey, Pit’s @Yankee, Roxas’ @Double, Giovanna
Word Count: 2525

A long, low groan issued from Y as his head hung down, the chin of his featureless mask resting against his chest. The long, hair-like tentacles that extended from his head, which throughout the fight floated upward like the questing tendrils of an anemone, gently descended to splay out across the floor around him. With Hayato’s x-baton piercing -and protruding from- his chest, he couldn’t slump any farther down, but the Moebius couldn’t imagine getting much lower anyway.

”...Maybe S was right about you all,” he murmured, his voice weak but still resonant enough to be audible to all. ”You’re strong. Of that, there can be no doubt. But what…of the rest? Those not strong enough to seize their fates for themselves? That’s why…” He paused, groaning again. ”...Ah, nevermind. None of that matters now. I’ve lost. After everything, I failed to transcend Moebius. It seems even the Astral Plane is held thrall. I should have known.” A gasping laugh escaped Y as he struggled to raise his head, trying to look the Seekers in the eye. “S thought you might be the ones. But if…if even I couldn’t escape…the Endless Now…what chance have you?”

Then Y’s head dropped once again, and his body dissolved, not into ashes, but into light. And when those faint purple motes disappeared, not even a spirit remained. Hayato straightened up, taking a deep breath. Without another second’s delay he stowed his x-baton and set off on his own while the Seekers looked on, headed back the way he came. He’d evidently gotten what he came here for. The rest was up to them.

Leaning on her staff for support, Sandalphon watched just a moment longer to make sure that the Moebius was really gone. Once that tense moment passed her by, she lifted her staff and cast a long-overdue Angelic Praise. The divine radiance that flowed over her allies, warm and soothing as the waters of a hot spring, washed away their wounds and left them ready for more. After all, despite the extravagant spectacle to which they’d just bore witness, the Seekers knew that an even greater battle lay in wait just ahead. Before confronting it, though, everyone could take a moment to catch their breath, and to ponder what the Moebius meant.

“The Endless Now,” Sandalphon repeated. “I’m afraid those words do not appear anywhere within my memory. Though it would be a reasonable assumption that it simply refers to the Moebius dominion over this world, something tells me that there’s more to it than that. Would that I could discern what.”

“Guess we’ll have to have a nice long chat with the next Consul we see,” a familiar voice called out from up ahead. A rare smile spread over the face of Goldlewis when he looked toward the central structure and spotted Giovanna sitting just above the doorway. The secret agent was a bit beaten-up, but still very much alive.

“There y’are,” Goldlewis hollered. “Where’d the hell’d you go, Gio? When you didn’t show up for rounds two or three I thought you mighta finally bought the farm.”

“Pssh.” Giovanna eased off her seat and landed beside the door, markedly less steady than usual despite her laudable attempt to save face. “Urgh…well, the big freak did just about knock me into next week. Sent me flying on a chunk of debris across the whole reactor. When I stopped seeing stars, I saw you all get sucked inside, but I managed to jump into this thing.” She gestured at the difficult-to-describe building behind her. “After that…well, I’ve had better days. Kinda needed a break.”

Goldlewis gave her a sympathetic look. He hadn’t seen what happened to his friend when she fought Armstrong, but it had obviously rattled her, and after that the blow from the Soul of Ambition had been icing on the cake. “Well, don’t push yourself too hard, Gio. We don’t want you kickin’ the bucket on us. You can hang back for this next fight if you need to.”

At that, Giovanna gave an appreciative nod. “Thanks, pardner.”

If she felt bad about being the only one to sit out, the secret agent certainly didn’t show it. The others were all fighting-fit, and after the multi-faceted battle with Y, thoroughly warmed up again after their hour-long trek through Deep Ground. Finally, after everything they’d been through since their arrival in Midgar, all the losses, all the myriad friends and foes they’d encountered in their three crazy days, they’d made it. Just one last fight -one more enemy- awaited them. The Guardian of Midgar.

Yet even now, after all this time, neither Goldlewis nor Sandalphon had the slightest idea who -or what- it could be. By this point, who -or what- was left?

---

Within minutes, total war had engulfed the scarred borderlands between Midgar’s outskirts and the now-lifeless Valley of Ruin, and for the defenders the outlook was bleak right from the start. Without the backing of the Shinra Administration, whose forces huddled in their stronghold while the populace outside had to fend for itself, the fate of the city lay in the hands of a ramshackle legion assembled hastily and from disparate factions. The Sector 07 militia stood arm in arm with the remnants of the once-proud Hermits, while the androids of YoRHa had risen from the ashes of DespoRHado to fight alongside defectors from General Affairs and the Psych-OSF. Even Seiran, motivated to do what the Administration wouldn’t, lent its aid to the cause with the deployment of its inhumane Other Weapons. Still, despite their last-minute reinforcements, the coalition lacked numbers compared to the Machines. Outgunned and hopelessly outnumbered, but not out of options, the defenders of humanity had no choice but to fight with everything they had, and hope it was enough.

Of course, their enemy was just as determined. The Machines had sloughed most of their fodder during the fight a few days ago; today, they brought only their best. Animal-shaped machine lifeforms fought with bestial ferocity, leveraging the elements to their advantage, while the frightfully advanced Raptures brought terrifying weapons to bear. Blood spilled, sparks flew, and the window panes of Midgar -even the air itself- shuddered with the percussion of constant explosions. One by one the Machines fell, but their successors exacted retribution in kind–a price the defenders could not afford to pay. This wasn’t just a self-sacrificial bid to buy time; without knowing what the Seekers were up to, or what their actions could accomplish, the defenders were fighting for the fate of everyone in Midgar. Yet from the very beginning, the Machines made it clear that this was a lost cause. Any long-range artillery units among the Raptures not actively engaged in combat made it their priority to shell the city itself, firing indiscriminately into the undercities and up at the plates, with special attention paid to the supporting pillars. Filled with horror and anger, the defenders fought all the harder.

Protected by barriers and empowered by righteous fury, Penance let her flail fly again and again, its thorny hammerhead crumpling armor and dismantling machinery. When a gang of Clamberjaws attacked her, she held her own for a few moments with her stunning Last Word lash and Trial of Thorns, but eventually their onslaught proved to be too much and she was forced to activate Stoic Atonement. The damage reduction gave her a chance to chew through her simian assailants with radiating Arts waves, each kill replenishing her barrier, but with fateful solemnity the Judge realized that even this wouldn’t last for long. But as the Clamberjaws crowded around her, all slashing claws and gnashing teeth, help finally came. A half-dozen molotov cocktails exploded around her, getting the beasts’ attention, and a second later a nodachi plunged through a Clamberjaw’s back and pinned it to the ground. Then Kyle landed on his weapon’s hilt, releasing a massive surge of electricity that coursed through the machines, rupturing their purgewater canisters and stunning them. As they reeled, Mudrock charged in and brought her hammer down in a tremendous Crag Splitter, finishing what the Judge had started.

Penance canceled Stoic Atonement, letting out her breath in relief. “I owe you my thanks.”

“Save your thanks ‘til later,” Kyle seemed to smirk as he perched on his blade, his holographic mask ever-grinning. Up ahead, a Sunbather began to charge up red energy within the petals of its metal flower. “We’re not out of the woods just yet.”

Nearby, a squad of YoRHa androids was being destroyed by a deadly duo of futuristic Rapture walkers, Duelring and Halo. While the former plugged away with its heavy cannons, the latter launched energy rings like giant buzz saws to slice the dolls -as well as any mooks in the way- into scrap metal. In moments the squad was nearly wiped out, with just one stunned android left staring at a bright blue ring flying her way. Instead, an energy shield sprang to life around her, projected by an Axe Legion she couldn’t even see. “Don’t worry,” a grizzled, gray-bearded policeman told her. “We’ll take it from here.” Both Raptures focused fire on the shield, which was just what Captain Maximilian’s fellow officer Jin needed to send his Arm Legion forward and wrap its chain around Duelring’s legs from the side, disabling it. Maximilian seized the opportunity. His Axe Legion cast Blue Shield to give its partner three hits of invincibility, and Maximilian used it to charge straight at the Rapture in order to jump and strike its center with his x-baton in gladius form. That heavy blow left a crack in its armor, and the Axe Legion quickly planted an energy blade inside it. Unable to see or strike back against its attacker, the Halo simply leveled its cannons at Maximilian as he landed, but before it could open fire the energy blade exploded, blowing its core in two.

Meanwhile Jin had encased himself in his Arm Legion to deliver a rapid-fire beatdown to the Halo. It broke free of its chains just after the finishing punch and leaped back, hurling energy cutters. Steely as ever, Jin swerved from side to side fast enough to leave afterimages, then sent his Arm Legion forward to stagger the Duel Ring with an uppercut. It then yanked him over, and he grabbed its shoulder as it advanced with a flurry of four overhead smashes. He missed the final sync attack, however, and the Rapture recovered with surprising speed. It brought its halos around, spinning like saws, to carve into him either side, only for a deafening howl to stun it. Jin turned to see Alicia riding her Beast Legion, a grin on her face as she charged into the fray. She struck the Rapture’s legs again and again as she galloped past, and not to be outdone, Jin sent forth his Arm Legion in a barrage of punches and lariats. After a few moments the Halo began to fall, and both officers unleashed their legions with Hit Rush to deliver fierce combos on their own. When the legions disappeared, Halo was on its last legs, allowing the officers to pull off a double gladius cleave that put it down for good.

All over, the Psych-OSF defectors were fighting in tight-knit, well-coordinated groups. Yuito and Kasane’s squads led the charge together, closing the distance on the machines to take the fight to them. Hanabi’s fire and Shiden’s lightning flared up all over the place thanks to the SAS, and with Luka’s Teleportation plus Arashi’s Hypervelocity, everyone could reposition at a moment’s notice–or vanish altogether with Kagero’s invisibility. Critical use of Gemma’s Sclerokinesis and Naomi’s Precognition saved more lives than anyone would care to admit. The sight of Septentrion Second Class Fubuki Spring on the battlefield, Song of Broken Pines in hand, was glorious to behold. His ice encased all sorts of machine lifeforms and Raptures alike, allowing his allies to shatter them. When a handful of Porters put in a surprise appearance, flinging ink-black bombs the size of beach balls, Sasha Nein’s immaculate Marksmanship put a psychic bullet through each and every one to detonate them mid-air.

Still, a firing squad of long-range Raptures was nothing to shake a stick at. As wounds piled up, desperate measures became necessary. Yuito and Kasane joined forces, combining their Psychokinesis to rip up a huge amount of terrain. Milla Vodello lent them a hand, using her Levitation to lighten their load, while Kyoka used her Duplication to fill the air with even more debris. A moment later, the psionics launched their massive barrage of metal, earth, and stone, made even weightier by Fubuki’s ice. The havoc their efforts wrought gave the defenders a much-needed, but all-too-brief reprieve.

Farther forward, though, two YoRHa androids were on their own. Using their flight units, 2B and 9S made a beeline for the three lumbering titans known as Engels. “Kill…kill…kill…kill!” the rusty colossi chorused, their distorted cries echoing through the battlefield. Barely able to hear one another over the roar of battle, the androids opened fire, lighting up the dark, cloudy morning with floods of bright yellow shots. As if their huge saw arms weren’t enough, the Engels could fire volleys of missiles from their smokestacks and even huge red lasers from their heads. 9S and 2B played a dangerous game, kiting around to make the giants bodyblock -and even hit- one another. Sooner rather than later, however, their number came up. While trying to dodge one Engels, a second clipped 9S with its immense earthsaw, which was more than enough to destroy his flight unit and send him plummeting down onto its top.

“9S! Ugh!” Almost immediately, 2B’s flight unit received a punch from the third Engels, sending it flying for over a mile. Once it recovered, the flight unit transformed into flight mode to rush back into the fight at top speed. “Hang on. I’m coming!”

“Don’t worry about me,” 9S gasped falteringly, his tremulous voice reaching her over their sigils. “2B…I found a weakness in the target…hacking in…to provide support.” 2B said nothing, instead rolling her flight unit from side to side to avoid incoming lasers and countless shots from the Raptures. “2B…the control…on the enemy’s upper arm…” 9S piped up after another few seconds. “Use your pod…should be able to take it over…”

“Got it.”

Against all odds, 2B managed to fly in through the projectile storm, switch back to combat mode, and use her momentum to carve through the Engels’ upper arm. The enormous earthsaw fell, but before it could hit the ground, a huge halo of light appeared around it and hauled it back into the air. “Infiltrating enemy sub unit,” her pod reported calmly. “Behavior table adjusted. Balance controls overridden. Enemy unit subjugation complete.” With that, 2B went on the attack. She swung the captured arm again and again, each colossal blow taking a chunk off an Engels’ body, but even then it wasn’t enough. The arm buckled before her enemies did, and finally 2B was forced to jump for her life and land atop the Engels her companion fell onto, where she found 9S in dire straits. His human facade had been shattered, with the metal skeleton inside exposed wherever his limbs had been torn asunder. 2B knelt over him, holding him in her hands even as their enemies closed in.

9S half-laughed, half-coughed to himself. “I don’t imagine that…this is going to end well.” After a moment he held up a small object, a black cube inscribed with lines of flickering golden light. 2B stared at it, her expression vaguely terrified. The fact that her companion held it in his hand could mean only one thing, grim though it was. “The black box,” he groaned. “It’s ready.”

After pursing her lips for a moment as if pained, 2B nodded. “Right.” Immediately she withdrew her own black box, slowly holding it up.

9S breathed in deep, then spoke into his sigil. “Requesting…destruction of enemy hostiles via black-box reaction.”

There was a moment of hesitation before the response. “...Request accepted,” Sandalphon told him.

A moment passed, oddly serene. The call had been made. Their fate was sealed. “2B…it was an honor to fight with you. Truly.”

“The honor was mine.”

The two tapped their black boxes together, and among the army of machines blossomed the radiant light of total annihilation.

As the explosion went off in the distance, annihilating many of the biggest threats and most of the robotic horde alongside them, the two most pivotal fights reached their fever pitch. Unleashing up an immense storm of metal with his magnetic fields, Eve turned his battlefield into a night-impenetrable dust bowl. In that dusty shroud he attacked, his arms coated with masses of serrated scrap. Even in that mayhem, however, Chai managed to find the rhythm. Holding tight to his own scrap-metal guitar, he landed strings of musical hits, each a stylish combination of snappy lights and delayed heavies. His peppy energy even seemed to fight against the doom and gloom, coloring the dust with bright, cartoonish sound effects. Eve attacked him furiously, and Chai did his best to dodge and parry, then tag-team his opponent with attacks from his allies. His three friends supported him without fail, either lending a hand in neutral, punctuating his combos, or performing parry counters. Peppermint rattled off shots from her blasters or delivered acrobatic kicks, while Macaron dealt out punishing punches or pitted his strength against Eve’s heaviest scrap-metal slams. Korsica whipped up miniature cyclones to cut through the dust and make Eve more vulnerable.

When their teamwork finally staggered their opponent, Chai took the stage. As the world’s colors seemed to invert around him, he slid backward, then launched into action. His guitar cut into Eve with such energy that it left a bright blue streak in the air behind it, followed by another to make an X, then three from side to side. Finally, Chai brought his guitar down, yelling, “Overdrive Slash!” The blow threw Eve back, but he planted his foot, sliding to a stop. He growled, metal swirling around him. Peppermint promptly blasted him, which knocked him off balance long enough for Korsica to jump in and launch him with her staff. As he flew up, Macaron met him in the air and punched him down. He rolled to his feet with a yell, gathering a huge amount of scrap to armor himself up and coat his right arm for his biggest swing yet. The others scattered, but Chai charged forward. He slid on his knees beneath the giant limb, leaning back as his scrap became a real guitar with a slow-motion chord. 808 sprang toward their foe and swatted the scrap off Eve’s face with her claws, giving Chai the chance to follow up with a final climactic chop. “You’re TOAST!”

Meanwhile, Eve’s brother Adam took a different tact against Avalanche. At first he fought by conjuring countless pristine white cubes, some as defensive walls that could be launched, others in giant form to crush his foes, and still others as explosive projectiles. All the while pontificating about the nature of humanity. His opponents, seeing what was happening to Midgar and its defenders, had no time for this. Barrett let rip his prosthetic chaingun, tearing into Adam for all he was worth. Aerith pelted him with magic -occasionally magical beams- and provided the others healing. Meanwhile, Cloud and Tifa fought hand in hand, punishing the eldest of the twin machine overlords with an unrelenting assault. It wasn’t long before Adam began to realize what he was up against, which seemed to thrill him. Announcing his intent to risk his life in an effort to experience the purest essence of humanity, he disconnected from the machine network, then changed his fighting style completely. Wielding a sort of golden energy, he unleashed empowered kicks and punches, projectile barrages, and explosive fireballs, sometimes disappearing inside golden bubble shields or pumping out ground explosions.

Quickly, though, the fight began to drag on, and the members of Avalanche knew that this couldn’t continue. With the melee fighters pushed back by the constant projectiles, Barrett and Aerith dialed their output up to eleven to blaze a trail with magic and lead. Plan in mind, Cloud and Tifa fought their way back in, and the minute they worked their way back into Adam’s face they threw caution to the wind.

“No more games!” Tifa called, winding up in a low stance.

“Let’s dance, asshole,” Cloud declared, brandishing his Buster Sword with both hands.

The two unleashed their Limit Breaks, Ascension and Dolphin Flurry, at the same time. While Tifa leaped up and descended with a whirlwind kick, Cloud whipped his blade around in a fiery dance of death. At the last moment, they came together and launched into the air, Cloud with a climhazzard and Tifa with a magical dolphin uppercut. Their combined might launched Adam high into the air, and once he hit the ground hard, he did not rise. “Is this…death?” he choked out, laying in a pool of artificial blood. “So dark…so cold…”

Panting, Cloud looked over toward the other group. Though similarly haggard from his own boss battle, Chai gave a thumbs up. Then the soldier turned to survey the battlefield before him. In the aftermath of the androids’ black-box reaction, the scales had been tipped in the defenders’ favor. Without either of the twins, most of the machines seemed uncertain. Directionless.

But not all of them.

With a bloodcurdling howl, Chatterbox leaped from the dust. The enormous, apelike Rapture charged the two teams of four, eager to pound them into the dirt while weakened from their battles. Before it could reach them, however, a giant red ripped tipped with a golden spike burst from the ground and stabbed into the Rapture’s belly. Chatterbox snarled, scanning the area until it spotted a monstrous creature with many such ribbons, one currently buried in the earth. It was a freakish amalgamation of plant, statuary, mannequin, and insect, its limbs contorted in unnatural ways, yet it seemed determined to stand in the other abomination’s path. ”If you want them,” Peach’s telepathic voice resounded. ”You’ll need to go through me.”

Chatterbox leered at her, and spoke. Its low, scratchy, garbled voice sounded alien, artificial, but not in the manner of a machine–rather, like an alien tongue forced to construe its native sounds to words of a language for which it had never been designed. Not being psychic, it couldn’t have heard Peach’s voice, yet still it directed that loathsome voice her way. ”Fine. You first!”

It fired off Spike Missiles, corrosive Superacid Missiles, and finally its High-output Heavy Particle Cannon. Peach fought back, attacking with massive, contorted swings and bladed ribbons that burrowed through the earth. As its wounds mounted, Chatterbox growled and closed in. The two titans clashed in a tremendous impact, ribbons snaring and stabbing into Chatterbox as its massive mitts grabbed onto Peach’s marble heads. Struggling violently, Peach pounded at the Rapture’s head with a reversed fist, but no matter how grisly the damage to its head became, Chatterbox would not relent. Even if it meant dying here, it seemed determined to take Peach with it. Not even Barrett and Peppermint shooting him as the others rushed over seemed to slacken his grip. Finally, after a few more seconds, Chatterbox shattered the Other’s head in a burst of butterflies and plaster. A moment later the Rapture slumped down, the last of its strength depleted.

Peach slumped down the next moment. ”I’m sorry, everyone,” she groaned, her mind flooded with misery and regret. From the very beginning, back in her castle, she’d been trying to step up and do a good job. Yet no matter where the journey took her, the princess found herself hopelessly out of her depth. Though only too happy to become the figurehead for the campaign against Galeem, she routinely fell short both on the battlefield and as a leader, relying on the others to do all the heavy lifting. It was hubris. Maybe, she thought bitterly, she should have stayed in her lane. She could have waited in her castle, sipping her tea and baking her cakes while the real heroes went out to save the world. Now, she would never have that chance.

There was no cure for metamorphosis. That revelation, delivered by the scientists at the Supernatural Life Research Facility, had shaken her to her core. Then, she’d been told just what secret ingredient went into the medicine that kept her sane. Driven by her hubris to push ever farther and ever harder in an attempt to prove herself, she’d become a bloodthirsty monster forced to consume a serum distilled from human brains just to maintain lucidity. She didn’t want to live like that. So rather than rot away in her cell until the last vestiges of her humanity atrophied completely, she’d chosen to join the fight against the Ever Crisis as an Other Weapon. At least then she could die knowing she achieved something.

The dying Other lay sprawled on the ground, a broken heap of fiberglass, foliage, and clustered butterfly. It didn’t even hurt, not really. Others didn’t have nerves and didn’t feel pain like people did. Still…it was a shame it had to end like this. Peach would’ve wanted her adventure to continue, if only it could. She wanted to see new places and meet new people. To try and make the world a better place, even if she didn’t always succeed. She wanted to go back home, to see the rolling fields, to play soccer, golf, and all the other games with her friends. To throw lavish tea parties and bake magnificent cakes. To see him face to face once more.

Mario…

Chai reached the Other’s side as she crumbled into ash, then exchanged a look with 808. Not being even remotely psychic, he wasn’t sure what compelled him to jog over. As far as he knew, this was just an Other under Seiran’s control. Still, something about the monster’s sacrifice against that enormous machine struck him as oddly heroic, as well as strangely tragic. He pursed his lips. “Rest in peace, big guy.” 808 nodded her approval, and after another quiet moment, they turned to face the others. His friends and Cloud’s team were with him, while the Neuron legios and Psych-OSF defectors were approaching. In another moment, the remaining defenders had regrouped. “Hey gang. What’s up?”

As Hal’s drone finished its descent from its bird’s-eye view, its operator gave his report. “It looks like taking out Adam and Eve left most of the Machines directionless. They could still pose a threat in the future, but it looks like the invasion is over for now.” He paused for a moment. “We took heavy casualties. Even still, this might not be over. The Machines’ aerial weapons platform, Sinister, went straight for the Shinra Building, and Shinra sent out the Alpha to handle it. While they both went down over the Sector 06 bay, Sinister’s still online. But we’ve got a bigger problem. Nox.” He projected a hologram of the supposed Machine leader, who nobody present had seen since the battle began. “He’s nowhere to be found. It’s like he vanished the moment the fighting started. Which begs the question, horrible as it is…” His drone turned toward a battlefield coated in ashes and slag, dominated by the giant crater left over where 2B and 9S gave their lives. “Was this -all of this- just a diversion?”

---

Despite her stolid, almost robotic demeanor, Sandalphon was not quite as emotionless as she appeared. In her centuries of faithful service to the Ilian Church, she’d seen countless mortals come and go, whether on the battlefield against demons and fiends or in the course of their daily lives. Much as it pained her, she’d even witnessed terrible tragedies, the worst of all being the horrific sacrifice of hundreds of innocent villagers during the events surrounding Satan’s revival. After everything, however, she’d never grown numb to the grim reality of death. Though her face never showed it, the archangel’s heart went out to each and every lost soul, filled with sadness that good lives had to come to an end.

Only now, however, could she feel tears welling in her eyes. It was as strange a feeling as the first time, yet Sandalphon found herself oddly grateful. Sometimes, she wondered if she really was a machine, wearing the skin of an angel. But these tears told her that she really did have a heart for humanity–and for the androids who gave their lives to protect it.

Discreetly wiping away her tears, Sandalphon dismissed the screen containing the list of names she’d just received. It would take some time to read and eulogize them all, and time was a luxury she didn’t have. “Everyone good to go?” Goldlewis asked up at the front of the group, turning around to confirm that all of the Seekers were ready for the final battle. Naturally, they were. He gave an approving nod, then turned and mashed the button beside the central drawer. The doors to the Cornice’s central structure slid open, and the team moved in to see what awaited them.

The walkway extended into a giant domed chamber, terminating in a circular disc suspended above a long fall directly into a black abyss. Most of the room was dark, though a huge ring light in the ceiling illuminated the central plate, and spaced around the walls were strange moving images like projections in a movie theater, each surrounded by strange pumps. They appeared to be magic portals with the appearance of concentric gears, and inside them the Seekers could see visions of what looked like other worlds. Mountains, forest, oceans…all seemingly drained and devoid of life. All this was just the backdrop, though. On the disc sat an enormous machine, a bizarre amalgam of fantasy and space-age technology, with angelic wings like helicopter rotors, and arms outfitted with shuttle thrusters. It loomed about thirty feet high, and though it did not react to the newcomers’ presence just yet, it harbored a degree of menace beyond its status as Midgar’s guardian. For this was not some eldritch monstrosity, nor legendary beast. It was just an artificial enigma, forged by the hands of man.

Warning! Boss discovered!

Reverse-engineered Machine God of Spacetime

Tycoon

Within a minute, the Seekers had amassed on the platform with their opponent. Still it did not aggress, and it likely wouldn’t until the newcomers attacked first. Maybe, Sandalphon considered, the machine was busy. To her, it seemed intrinsically linked both with this place and the phenomenon going on around it, and not just in the sense that it all served to keep Midgar’s Guardian under lock and key. Everything here struck the archangel as sharing one singular purpose, but whatever that was, she could not immediately tell. Did it matter, in the end? What could be more important than destroying the Guardian, after all? Putting aside her unease, Sandalphon readied her weapons and prepared to give the Seekers her support.

Just as the heroes steeled themselves to begin the fight, however, a strange noise reached their ears. It puzzled them not just with what it was, but where it came from–for it was the roar of a car’s engine, and it was coming from behind them. When they turned to look back the way they came, they saw an extravagant six-wheeled convertible, fuchsia in color and strangely familiar to a few of them. It was flying through the air of the mako reactor, and once it slammed down onto the broken bridge a moment later, it raced across the rest of the span and into the central structure. Just before reaching the arena, the driver slammed the breaks to bring the convertible to a halt. Though taken aback for a moment, Goldlewis remembered that car. He knew who it belonged to without even having to look.

“Chaos.”

“Hello, hello!” A familiar figure climbed out of the car, giving the Seekers a cheerful wave before he leaned on the convertible’s hood. Just like before, he was clad from the waist down in the dark suit and cherry-red armor of the Consuls, but showed up shirtless with his turquoise musculature on full display. This time, though, he also wore a helmet: a bulbous affair with protruding rabbit-like ears, a rictus grin, and a crossed-out heart where the eyes should be. It was Midgar’s other Consul, C.

“Y’know, it takes a real sumbitch to hang a comrade out to dry like that,” Goldlewis told him tersely. “You shoulda helped Y out back there, hoss. You mighta stood a chance against us fightin’ together?”

C shook his head, seemingly disappointed. “Aw, c’mon. Even if he did expect me to show up, that was his moment. Hayato’s, too. The culmination of their story. It’s a beautiful thing, you know. Not everyone gets the luxury of a true ending.” Crossing his arms, C tilted his head. “Besides, you got me all wrong. Remember? I don’t care who wins or loses. I’m just here for the drama.” He shrugged. “Of course, the same can’t be said for them.” He reached down and slapped the hood of his car. “Gentlemen?”

The hood immediately popped up. Instead of an engine, it contained an impossible staircase, made possible only by magic. As the Seekers watched, four men emerged from within. The first was one everybody recognized: Karen Travers, masked in silver, his demeanor deadly serious. A handful could claim to have seen the second and third: Jetstream Sam, one of the DespoRHado cyborgs from yesterday morning, and Mephisto, the sickly-looking Reunion subordinate of Jena Anderson. The last, however, nobody could identify. He appeared to be a mummy of some sort, wrapped in bandages and adorned with strange, mystical-looking armor. Once the four spread out, and C dematerialized his car with a snap of his fingers, it was the stranger who began to speak.

“I am Nox.” he told the Seekers, his coldly eloquent tone bearing a light French accent. Sandalphon’s eyes blinked into crosshairs as she recognized the name–it belonged to the ‘enemy’ that Xatow said must never be allowed to lay claim to the Guardian. “I don’t expect you all to know me. But know this. Since the World of Light began, I have been gathering Wakfu. All so that I could accomplish what even Xelor could not, and turn back the hands of time.”

He held his hands out to either side, indicating the others who’d accompanied him. “We have to go back. Mistakes to correct. Wrongs to make right. Not a matter of if, but when. So, Seekers of Light. Let us waste neither lives nor time. There is no need for us to fight; just hand it over to me. That thing, the Guardian. Its power over spacetime is the last piece of the puzzle. Then we will simply leave. Change what needs to be changed. Save what needed to be saved. You’ll never realize what changed. Barely anything, to most. But the world will be a better place. And every evil we’ve wrought…” Nox looked down at his own hands. “Will have never happened.”

Goldlewis held his tongue for a moment, absorbing what he’d been told. This was an insane revelation to receive seconds before a climactic boss battle, but the arrival of Nox’s team threw a huge wrench in the Seekers’ plan. Of course, this wasn’t really up for debate, and he felt pretty sure that the others felt the same way. Whether or not Nox spoke the truth, his team couldn’t afford to lose one of the thirteen spirits they needed to defeat Galeem. That much was an immutable fact.

“Hate to break it to you,” the veteran began. “Bad shit happens to everyone. Happens to loads o’ good folks who don’t rightly deserve, every goddamn day. It ain’t fair.” His expression hardened. “So how many good folks did you happen to? How many got their lives unfairly cut short, just so that you could someday go back and right your wrongs? What makes you so worthy?””

Sandalphon stared at Nox, trying to parse the man beneath the mask. “It’s clear that any amount of sacrifice is justified if you cannot achieve your goal. At the same time, it seems like there’s a tiny part of you that isn’t completely gone. I understand your conviction; you must undo the evil you’ve wrought, so you must succeed. But even if you did manage to go back and save whoever it was you mentioned needing to save, could that person live with what you’ve done to make that happen?” She narrowed her eyes, her gaze questioning. “Could you?”

For a moment, Nox’s eyes were closed. When he opened them, however, they blazed bright. “I didn’t expect you to understand. How could you? You couldn’t imagine it. The weight on my shoulders.” He lifted up his hand and beckoned. “Come, then. Stop me if you can..”

Goldlewis bulled forward with surprising speed. Nox’s allies readied themselves for battle, but he held out a hand to stop them, then lifted his left arm as if holding up a shield. A glyph appeared on his forearm of blue interlinked gears, glowing with magic as they slowly spun. “Try this on!” When the veteran’s crushing blow struck it, it came to an instantaneous stop as Nox’s magic froze both weapon and wielder in time. With mechanical precision, the Watchmaker held up his right hand, summoned summoned a pendulum sword, with its tip against Goldlewis’ forehead, and unceremoniously drove it in.

Putting his palm to the veteran’s chest, Nox drained his Wakfu in only a moment. Then his body fell, crumbling into ash, and with his team at the ready Nox levitated into the air. On the other side of the Seekers Tycoon stirred, roused by the disturbance, and unfolded its wings. “No further questions? Good. There’s no time to lose.”

The Seekers of Light
Vs
Tycoon
Vs
Nox the Watchmaker / Karin Travers, Brain Eater / Jetstream Sam / Mephisto the Singer

A boss fight has begun. For those involved in the fight, and for the entirety of the fight, tensions and stakes are high--but so are the rewards. Post XP is accelerated: <500 words is 2 points, 500-1000 is 4 points, and 1000+ is 6 points. Confer with me to include boss actions in your post

Objective: Defeat the Guardian of the Dystopiascape and claim its spirit

The Under - the Chasm

Level 13 Ms Fortune (87/130)
The Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Primrose and Therion’s @Yankee, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Ganondorf’s @Double, Jesse’s @Zoey Boey
Word Count: 1192

As her jeers before the ambush implied, Nadia did not believe for one moment that Consul F would actually deign to put up a fight. From the moment the Seekers set foot in the Under he’d been a thorn in their side, appearing from thin air to try and get them killed. She couldn’t have failed to notice, however, that each attempt on their lives had been indirect. First he literally cut short the heroes’ ride into the Chasm, hoping they’d fall to their deaths. Then he mind-controlled the whole population of the Home of Tears in an effort to wipe them out. And now he’d gathered together the team’s former members, maybe hoping that the mental blow would soften them up enough for his infected minions to finish the job. And with the death of the thing that had been Artorias, the most enduring of F’s newest lackeys, he’d consummately failed yet again. Even before the infected knight fully dissolved, Nadia turned toward the doorway where the Consul appeared, where she found exactly what she suspected: that the smug little snake was nowhere to be seen.

“Hee…heehee…hee…” His voice reached the Seekers, somewhat faint due to distance, and try as she might Nadia couldn’t pinpoint the source due to the echos. “You guys really get it, huh? In this world, it’s kill or be killed. Too bad you have no idea what you’re up against. Go on, then. The Hollow Knight’s waiting. It’s your funeral. Hee hee hee hee…”

The Hollow Knight? Was that the Guardian? One this was clear: that F had ditched the Seekers yet again. Nadia rolled her eyes. “I knew it,” she muttered. Cupping her hands around her mouth, she raised her voice and shouted around the cavern. “You suck! You’re traaaaaaash! At least your buddy P-brain actually tried killing us himself!” Hearing no reply, the feral gave it up with a sigh and a shrug. “Then again, that’s why he’s dead I guess. Still. Tearing that little clown a new one woulda been nice consul-ation.”

Another look around revealed no sign of Master Hand either. In the nightmarish parasite farms beneath Carcass Isle, the five-fingered enigma had appeared to confound the Seekers with a difficult challenge in the form of timed boss battles. Did this brawl really count as the Hand’s pre-Guardian trial for the Under? Though thoroughly unpleasant, it had been very easy in comparison. Maybe Mast Hand deferred to F for some reason, giving him the spotlight for this penultimate encounter. Nadia snickered. If that was the case, then maybe the Hand wanted to see F embarrass himself as much as she did. With both enemies inexplicably absent, the way into the Temple of the Black Egg was clear. Only one thing kept them from heading straight in, other than a quick breather: the spirits of the fallen. Though their bodies had been twisted by disease, their spirits appeared untainted. That included not just the infected, but also their fusions: Ten Piedad, Silitha, and a Xweetok. Nadia wanted nothing to do with any of them, except for that of the tree demon, which she promptly mashed into the ground beneath her heel. “No way I’m taking the slightest chance you get to Ground me again,” she hissed.

For Nadia

Item obtained:
Tiento to your Thorned Hairs
A prayer that can only be cast by a practitioner of miracles. Summons the help of the thorned dame, who protects the faithful petitioner from all evil for a short while

Once everyone dealt with the spirits however they saw fit, Nadia was more than happy to get a move on and leave this sorry scene behind. None of the poor people brought here by F deserved what happened to them, but she doubted any deserved it less than Omori. He was just a kid. She couldn’t stop herself recalling the piggyback ride she’d given him back in Alcamoth, a warm memory turned painful. Though she’d taken an almost teasing tone earlier, Nadia’s hatred was strong. “You’ll pay,” she muttered venomously to herself. “Soon as I get my claws on you.”

For now, that would evidently have to wait until after the Guardian. Once the Seekers headed into the massive temple, they hurried across the infection-choked interior to the Black Egg. The great obsidian mass, so eerily flawless when Ganondorf, Primrose, and the Troop last saw it, now bore countless hairline fractures. Orange gas wafted from the cracks, and orange ichor oozed out from below. They’d reached the source of the infection. It lay behind the seal. Quickly, those who’d volunteered to carry the assembled mask produced and inserted the oblong keys. Each one fit like a glove, receding slightly into the surface. The Temple began to shake, and after a moment the completed seal pulsed in a flash of white, a web of glowing lines surrounding a shape like an upturned crescent moon–or a mask with enormous horns. It flashed again, stronger this time, and the seal blew apart in a shower of rubble. After a brief moment, a resounding cry echoed from within, a voiceless, mindless howl like nothing the Seekers had ever heard. It expelled a massive amount of fetid vapor, but even without the smell, it would’ve still chilled Nadia to the bone.

Inside the Black Egg, despite all the infection without, it was dark and quiet. Too dark, in fact. The heroes could see nothing but the glowing white patterns of stepping-stones leading them through the darkness, and the dull orange light to which the stones led them. “Heh,” Nadia chuckled to herself, trying to break the tension as she forged ahead. “Talk about build up, eh?”

All too soon, the team reached the other side of the darkness, and together they stepped into the light. There they found a metallic vault, murky with infected fog and strung with thick, intricate chains of almost ceremonial make. The Seekers found what they were looking for hanging several feet above the ground. Its chains had been wound tight, but not tight enough. Whoever had imprisoned this thing must have meant to contain the infection. They had failed.

Warning! Boss discovered!

The Hollow Knight shone from within. Bright. Too bright. So bright that Nadia could scarcely force herself to look into its eyes. There was something horrible about that light. It burned, like staring into the sun. Like someone was prodding her brain with a branding iron. The Orphan had been ghastly, but this was an altogether different beast. Even killing this thing wasn’t a prerequisite for fighting Galeem, Nadia understood instinctually that it needed to be destroyed. As the Seekers approached, the monstrosity struggled against its bonds, and the room began to shake. In quick succession the chains holding the Hollow Knight snapped, and after a moment it tore free. It hit the ground, assumed its full eight feet of height, and tilted its head back to fill the Black Egg with its haunting, ungodly cry.

A boss fight has begun. For those involved in the fight, and for the entirety of the fight, tensions and stakes are high--but so are the rewards. Post XP is accelerated: <500 words is 2 points, 500-1000 is 4 points, and 1000+ is 6 points. Confer with me to include boss actions in your post

Objective: Defeat the Guardian of the Under and claim its spirit