Lugubrious

World of Light: the Endless Now (The Ultimate Smash Bros Crossover)

The Qliphoth - the Final Hollow

Lvl 14 Ms Fortune (167/140) Lvl 9 Goldlewis (116/90) Lvl 7 Sandalphon (78/70) Lvl 4 Grimm (31/40)
Midna, Junior, & Rika’s @DracoLunaris Blazermate & Roland’s @Archmage MC Geralt, Zenkichi & Edelgard’s @MULTI_MEDIA_MAN Ace Cadet, Pit, Primrose & Therion’s @Yankee Juri’s @Zoey Boey Roxas, Ganondorf, & Captain Falcon’s @Double
Word Count: 3002

Fighting Consul D was always going to be tricky, no matter how many people were up against him. More combatants meant less time any one hero needed to bear the brunt of his fury, but it also increased the risk of friendly fire incidents and generally getting in one another’s way. Confident that greater numbers meant nothing against his wide-ranging magics, D welcomed the Seekers’ five-on-one challenge with open arms and dramatic flair. When Geralt offered his rebuttal and stepped forward to lead the charge, the battle was on.

After the indignity of what happened to her before, Nadia was eager to pay D back, and with interest. This time, though, she knew to keep her head on straight and do this the smart way. Duels might be her specialty, but after all her time with the Seekers, Nadia could tag team with the best of them. She skirted around the edges of the battlefield, neither too close nor too far from the action, to irritate D with shots from her newly-recovered handguns until Geralt or Roland created an opportunity. Then she pounced, leaping into to apply extra pressure or land follow-up attacks for her friends. Her speed and aerial mobility could get her to D reliably, provided he wasn’t casting magic. Her team needed to be careful about being too passive or spending too much time on D’s minions, since the vampiric Consul tended to unleash his magic the moment he got any space.

Fireballs flew, flame pillars erupted, blood rained down, and meteors scorched the earth. Of course, he was no slouch in close quarters either. His challengers quickly found that his scythe was no joke. It could fend off the heavy blade of Geralt’s cleaver, and even turn away Roland’s expert sword strikes despite its ungainly heft. Their clashes, however, brought the Fixer to his Zenith, and as he gained Powder of Life, the sorcerer Consul scowled. “A ward…? How irritating.” He then snorted, his eyes narrowed. “But if that’s as high as you can rise, you’ll find I can fell you as many times as needed!” From his cape he conjured a verminous wave of black rats, and the fight continued.

If one thing could be considered constant about the battle against the Gravemind and its accompanying Consuls, it was the noise, amplified by the almost amphitheater-like shape of the arena within the Final Hollow. The roar of flames, the chorus of undead voices that railed and rebuked, the visceral sounds of organs and limbs as they were made and unmade, the thunderous report of various firearms, the furious clashes of instruments of destruction against shields, armor, and hateful flesh, the frenzied utterances of O’s animals and the metallic screeching of his machines, the voices of the heroes raised in effort, or callout–it all made for quite the din. Tensions were running high, and not just for those traumatized by A’s stresscasting. Any Seeker not hindered by severe tunnel vision could see that their numbers were starting to dwindle.

Through the chaotic clamor, however, there came a ray of hope. Bright blue sigils of holy light appeared by the heads of everyone within Sandalphon’s network, whether actively engaged in battle or momentarily standing back. The archangel’s familiar and welcome voice, deadpan as ever, helped to center and soothe them in the midst of their turmoil, as if even this utilitarian miracle possessed curative properties. “Attention, everyone. I’ll keep this brief. Sectonia and Edward are well, but unable to continue fighting. We have ascertained D’s weakness: light, incantations, and miracles. Pit has also flushed out O’s real body. The team fighting A is experiencing abnormal stress that cannot be allowed to escalate further. In light of this bulletin, please reallocate personnel with all haste. And call me if needed.”

With that, Sandalphon allowed her sigils to dissipate and returned to her silent vigil in the Avenger’s Comm Center, her unblinking eyes fixed on the light screen in front of her. Though Edward and Sectonia were ultimately fine, which she’d confirmed personally via External Information Network when they arrived, the fact that they’d invoked Palico Rescue in the first place was worrying. According to what Ace said, only one more person could expect such salvation. Then the Seekers would start sustaining casualties for real. Sandalphon drummed her fingers on her arm restlessly. Though part of her wanted to stay in the Final Hollow after Pit summoned her and do whatever she could to help, the archangel had managed to be rational about what she could and couldn’t do. Her own fatigue aside, her miracles and especially her shapeshifting needed time to build up via damage. All her expenditure during the Lilith fight meant that she’d bring almost nothing to the table if she did warp in. Better to do her real job and coordinate things from afar to get the Seekers functioning like a team.

After a sharp inward breath, Sandalphon lifted her mic to her lips and reached out again, this time targeting specific Seekers. “Blazermate: Goldlewis, Ganondorf, Falcon, and Ace need medical attention. Midna, Ace, Primrose, Ms Fortune, relieve those fighting A as soon as possible. Pit, your new target is D.” Though the young angel was no doubt eager to make up for his slip-up against O, he did not need to be any more emotionally charged, and his abilities would be better used against D. “Junior, Rika, your target is now in the structure behind you. Juri…” Sandalphon could see the martial artist already peeling away from the D fight to speed toward O’s new base. Whatever the archangel was going to say, she thought better of it. “Play well.”

Sandalphon switched off her mic, then breathed deep. Nineteen Seekers remained on the field. Grimm, Zenkichi, and Edelgard still opposed the Gravemind, while Roxas and Geralt would hold down the fort against D as the four against A rotated out. She suspected that Captain Falcon and Therion would naturally gravitate toward D alongside Pit, while Ganondorf and Goldlewis joined the others against the Gravemind. That left just Juri, Junior, and Rika to hunt down O, and Blazermate on general support. Sandalphon believed that this was a good breakdown, but against foes like these nothing was for certain.

Down in the thick of it, some things were easier said than done. For a few moments, the fight against D seemed to favor the five Seekers. They could attack in quick succession, and from a variety of angles. When tipped off about O, though, Juri up and left, and D quickly started to find his footing. He gave Geralt and Roxas a murderous stare, incensed by their taunts. “I am nobody’s prey. Wield light against me, and you’ll soon see the folly in your selfsure provocations.” D threw up his off hand to cast Dominus Hatred, and as his opponents’ eyes turned skyward to trace the green ray’s path, he made a move of his own.

He hurled his scythe at Roland as a blazing wheel that the Fixer clashed with, the air filled with the clangs of steel against steel. Roland won out and sent the scythe flipping into the air, only for D to teleport up, seize the scythe, then drop on him with a meteoric guillotine impact. When the Hateful Flesh soared in D sidestepped it, then hooked the cleaver with his scythe. He yanked the blade down into the ground, planted his foot on it to keep it in place, then severed its connective tendon. “Knife knowin’ ya!” Nadia arrived the next second, ready to sink Athame into D’s unprotected back, only to get jabbed in the gut by the butt of D’s scythe. The counterhit made her stumble, and D whirled around with a horizontal slice. Nadia hadn’t stopped believing, though, and she stopped the Consul short with her extended knee to finally land her Blue Monday counter. “Hah! Don’t ‘count’ me out!” She grabbed D, hoisted him off his feet, and threw him over her shoulder to the ground. When she went to elbow drop him, however, he transformed into mist and streamed away, meaning the feral’s elbow hit the ground instead. “Yowch!” Grimacing, Nadia got up just in time to crouch-block another wave of rats, which pushed the four Seekers back to neutral.

Beep, boop, beep. Sombra’s hacking skills made quick work of the antiquated firewall pre-installed in the doors at the base of O’s Command Center. With the lockdown lifted, Juri could waltz right inside, taking the chance to cast an impatient side-eye glance back at Junior and Rika as they hustled over from the ruined Polar Bear exhibit. As they rushed toward the Command Center, however, O himself stepped in to impede them. “Little brats!” His voice resounded from the pair of disembodied red eyes descending toward them. “My poor bears…don’t you know they’re endangered!?” Angry that they’d survived so long, and more than a little rattled by his own close shave, O got down to business. First, he created the Scorpions around them, trapping them inside a desert-themed arena where giant mechanical arachnids played the role of highly-overtuned bumper cards. Then he constructed a Drop in the Ocean ride on top of it, putting a pit of freezing water right in front of his Command Center. Once built, the crane immediately went haywire, swinging around its submersible pod like a wrecking ball. “I’ll just have to endanger you, too!”

With all that chaos outside, Juri could be forgiven for rolling her eyes, hacking into the elevator, and riding up to the top floor all on her lonesome. The moment she arrived, though, she found herself greeted by an unexpected sight inside the futuristic dome: a miniature tropical rainforest, surrounded by tall electric fences, with no sign of O anywhere. Instead she spotted an animal she hadn’t bargained for: a Tyrannosaurus Rex, a sixteen-foot monstrosity of cruel claws, massive fangs, olive-green scales, and primeval ferocity.

By now, the Gravemind was definitely suffering from all the Seekers’ attention. After Sectonia parted one of its tentacles, her allies picked up her mantle, starting with Zenkichi and Midna. The detective struck first to take a big bite out of one tentacle with One-shot Kill, leading to the deployment of Floodfested reinforcements. After the Twilight Princess turned the tables on an eximus-led Mutalist raid, she used the frosty Osprey and her Beast Legion to pull off a high-flying stunt with the Dead End Express. Thanks to the extra wind power, its absurd cutting ability was more than enough to sever the tentacle and leave the Gravemind at two. Ace wasn't quite as lucky when he went for a third and took some punishment in the Gravemind's grasp, but he'd still done a lot of damage. Add to that Primrose’s magic and Edelgard’s unrelenting offense, and the Guardian was hurting.

Once Primrose kindled his flame, Grimm took center stage. He first stretched the strands of his cape into the ground, adding insult to injury after the dancer’s splendid Moonlight Waltz with a bed of spikes from below. Of course, it was a fine line between the Qliphoth ended and the Gravemind began, so most of his spikes popped out of the flesh heap itself. After that, Grimm around between the mob of Floodfested being demolished by Zenkichi and leaped above the fray to put the Peacock Strut to good use. He hung in the air like a paper lantern, then belted out a torrent of scarlet fireballs that fell upon the Gravemind like rain.

The Guardian did not like all this one bit. Having realized that its current strategy wasn’t working very well, and having lost a great deal of biomass in the process, it set about making a change. A cacophony of rumbling and snapping resounded through the hollow as it retracted its remaining limbs and began to consolidate its bulk. Extraneous tissues were broken down and emitted as toxic gasses that shrouded the Gravemind’s body as it transformed. ”KILL ME? A RIDICULOUS NOTION. YOU MIGHT AS WELL TRY TO KILL THE EARTH, THE SKY, THE STARS. THE UNIVERSE IS, AND WE ARE!” It became stronger, denser, less a sprawling heap and more a reinforced pillar. Then the upper and lower parts of the Gravemind both violently split into three, and a ambulatory colossus was born. With three enormous heads, one wielding a gruesome infested scythe, the Gravemind declared itself anew. ”I AM A MONUMENT TO ALL YOUR SINS!” It reared up, then slammed two of its newly-formed legs against the ground to unleash a knockdown-inducing shockwave.

Those tremors helped drive Ace, pushed back by the toxic miasma, even further away. With Blazermate only able to heal one person at a time, and the rest of her prospective patients grouped up, the hunter had yet to be healed, which meant that he couldn’t risk racking up environmental damage. With all the magic flying around thanks to Consuls and Seekers alike, Ace was more than a little queasy, and not fully cognizant of his surroundings. The Gravemind’s transformation had disturbed the other fights nearby, the brawl against Consul D most of all. Still under attack by Roland, Roxas, Geralt, and Nadia, D used the distraction to veil himself in another bat tornado, then charge an unknown spell. By the time his opponents realized he was up to something, it was too late to stop him. “Demonic…” the Consul called, surrounded by dark magic. “Meggido!”

A huge explosion of collapsing stars amidst pitch-black magic went off at his position, big enough to threaten not just his opponents, but the Gravemind’s as well. Even if blocked it would still chip off a third of its victims’ life, but those unprepared for it -like Ace- had only one saving grace: Roland’s Powder of Life. In the wake of D’s destructive blast, Ace found himself partially restored, but only for a moment. Seeing the hunter separated from his allies, D rushed to make an example of him, and despite the health granted by Powder of Life Ace still happened to be below the Death Scythe’s threshold. With a single lunging slash, the monster hunter fell.

“ACE!” Nadia wailed, running forward with one arm extended. Instead of the ground, however, her companion plopped down on a cart manned by a crew of phantom palicos, much to D’s stunned bemusement. The felynes disappeared with their cargo the next moment, leaving Nadia with flattened ears and reddening cheeks. “Oh, uh, yeah. Right. Ahem…” After clearing her throat, she turned her nasty grin on D, her grip tight around the handle of Athame. Forget Sandalphon’s orders–Nadia wasn’t going anywhere now. “Alright, D-lister. You’ve officially raised my vamp-ire. Better say your purr-ayers, ‘cause this is gonna hurt a clawful lot!”

D spun his scythe in his hands and planted its butt in the ground. “Enough talk!” He warped forward, weapon raised for a scything blow. “Have at you!”

On the arena’s right side, A didn’t stay down for long. He saw how the fights were going against O and D, as well as the state of the Gravemind, and made his choice. Though vulnerable to attack for a few moments, his core quickly began to accelerate, glowing bright and brighter to the sound of a rapidly beating heart. Finally, the Consul’s body melted away in a burst of virulent purple light, and Moebius A came to be. It stood before them, easily twelve feet tall, a being somewhere between mechanical monstrosity and ancient abomination, an armored biped of demonic aspect adorned with bulbous black eyes, a spiky crown, and a heart-shaped protrusion on his back.

”Behold, the heart of this World of Light!” Moebius A proclaimed, its arms held wide in welcome embrace. ”Father and mother, alpha and omega! Moebius, incarnate! And you…” On one side of its face, a cluster of three black pearls bulged, while on the other a single red eye peered down. A glowing crimson lemniscate shone within it. ”You still don’t know what you’re up against. You are but figments, who flatter and delude yourselves. Can the nail go against the finger? The finger, against the hand? You are born of Moebius, same as I!” It lifted its arms up, claws turned toward the outside. The Gravemind obeyed, pulling its terrible puppet strings, and the demon tree infested by its flesh bent to its will. A dreadful crackling and groaning filled the Qliphoth as the ceiling far above the arena began to tear. When A drew his arms apart, as if ripping into some cosmic corpse, the canopy of the Qliphoth split apart. Fragments of twisted, fleshy wood rained down but not timefall, for the Qliphoth towered above over the clouds. Instead the Seekers could see the pale blue sky, and above that the moon, pitted and scarred in a fundamentally unwholesome manner.

”Behold, the body,” A pronounced, drawing its clawed hands downward. ”Of which the Gravemind is but the head. Behold, the infinite malignity of the stars!”

Far above the Qliphoth, the sky appeared to warp, distort, and darken. Horror gnawed at the frayed edges of the Seekers’ sanity as the day seemed to turn to night, and yet the moon still shone, aglow with some inner radiance. Then, in a scene conjured from feverish nightmare, the moon burst from its celestial eggshell, and slowly stretched out its execrable limbs to smite the battlefield below.

Three cycles until the Brother Moon’s impact

World of Light: the Endless Now (The Ultimate Smash Bros Crossover)

Dead Zone Hinterlands - Martira, Old Castle Town

Harry’s @Eviledd1984

Far from the parasitized demon tree and its smorgasbord of horrors, where the Seekers of Light struggled against an amalgamate alien mass and three of the Endless Now’s despotic architects, a sleepy little town lay in among the foothills of the borderline mountain range. To the southwest lay arid, rocky scrublands, a lawless wilderness ruled by racers, biker gangs and motor-clans, a place of asphalt, gasoline, and sandworms. To the west Curien Mansion peered down, opulent and imperial, from its mountainous, pine-shrouded perch above the moor. And to the northwest lay the muddy, mossy wastes pounded by perpetual timefall, its solitary tower safeguarded by the wandering spirits of the damned.

For a long time the people of that lonesome hamlet had cowered in the shadow of the not-so-distant necropolis known as Redgraccoon City, home to unspeakable nightmares that could at any moment march forth in their thousands and bring doom to the old castle town. A good night’s sleep was a rare treasure in a town where disappearances were woefully commonplace, and just about anything could go bump in the night. That all changed, however, when one fateful night the necropolis disappeared in a blaze of ungodly light, reduced to the rainy, tar-covered crater that it is today.

In the weeks since then, some semblance of normalcy had crept back into the lives of the townsfolk–a testament to the residents’ tenacious will to live. Though muted in color, strings of pennants flutter in the wind over the varied market stalls and visiting merchant caravans of the town’s fountain plaza, ringed by ivy-walled townhouses, and aged stone fortifications. Most of Martira branched out from that hub, including Cattleracket Road, where children advertized their insects and seeds over the sounds of cows and sheep, and locals clamored for the honey of Dudbear beekeepers. Those in need of healing would need to disregard the worrisome rumors, make their way to Blind Well Alley, and choose between Iosefka’s Clinic or the Kissers of Wounds who dwelled in Order of the True Shrine Church. The town’s best-known establishments, meanwhile, could be found back at the plaza, like the ice cream parlor Dimwit & Duke’s, Sanza’s Map Emporium, and the Friendly Arm, the inn that cornered Martira’s market. Crossing the bridge over the neighboring ravine -where the daring could tempt fate by bungee jumping- would take one up the long, winding path up the mountainside, surrounded on both sides by humble homes and shops of all kinds, until one finally reached Indels Castle, where the governess of Martira, Lady Johanna, dwelt with her aides.

Not all was well in the wake of Redgraccoon City’s obliteration, though. The townsfolk still look over their shoulders, and the guards clutch tightly at their partizans as they patrol the worn-down ramparts. Though sandworms do threaten parties dispatched to the Paved Wilderness to collect the local delicacies -sandworm larvae and cheese from Cheese Land- it’s the disturbing continuation of disappearances that keep the people on edge. Children continue to disappear overnight, and the militia -led by the formidable and well-meaning but maladroit Roussainte, Bardon- seems powerless to stop it. All signs point to Heismay, the reclusive and disgraced former knight said to inhabit the abandoned Curien Mansion, but without enough men to mount expeditions to that cursed place, Bardon and Johanna have looked beyond Martira’s borders for anyone able to bring this crisis to an end.

World of Light: the Endless Now (The Ultimate Smash Bros Crossover)

@Lugubrious

Okay where would be a good zone to place Harry while the others are fighting the Gravemind? He could for the time being get his bearings and try to figure out what is going on. And sure can you DM me the discord server link thanks.

@Eviledd1984

We'll talk about it! Until he's freed from Galeem, he'll be acting as he normally would and unable to register what's wrong with this reality. Since there's probably going to be a quick break after the fight before we start the next mission, we can spitball ideas about a neutral area that suits Harry that we can visit in the interim. Maybe solve a little mystery.

World of Light: the Endless Now (The Ultimate Smash Bros Crossover)

@Lugubrious

The abilities are based on the thought cabinets (Perks) that you can get in the game. I just adapted and tweaked them a little. Okay I've switched the abilities to the skills and removed the spirits.

@Eviledd1984

Alright, looks good! Harry is accepted. Now we just need to spin up a little setting to start him in. I was thinking of one earlier today that I remember being solid, but I've since completely forgotten about it, I'll get back to you the moment I remember.

So, as I mentioned before, right now the entire crew is fighting the Dead Zone boss, the Gravemind. I'd say we're about 40% of the way through, maybe a little less, so it's going to be a good couple weeks before we move on. After that though, we'll probably split into 2 teams as usual and head toward different zones. It would be a good idea to put Harry in some sort of settlement that will be the first place a team stops in one of those zones. We can start the discussion in earnest about where we're headed after this opening act and that will help inform where you can start, if that makes sense. Would you like an invite to the Discord server to join in on the conversation?

World of Light: the Endless Now (The Ultimate Smash Bros Crossover)

@Lugubrious

Harrier "Harry" Du Bois

Name: Harrier "Harry" Du Bois. Also known as Raphaël Ambrosius Costeau, Firewalker, and Tequila Sunset.

Origin: Disco Elysium

Appearance:



Harry is a tall man with a greasy, unkempt mullet and mutton chops. His face is red and swollen from years of alcohol consumption. His jaw is somewhat crooked with a deep dimple on his chin. Harry’s arms are pretty muscular, but he has a relatively large beer gut. Along with long chicken legs. His hands are heavily discoloured, and his hands have deep cuts and gashes from various bar fights. His face seemed to be stuck into a permanent smile. Also known as "The Expression."

Harry wears a green sports jacket and matching green alligator shoes. A white dress shirt with a horrible multi-coloured looking necktie. Brown slacks with a belt keeping them from falling.

Personality: Harry is usually quite erratic and wild cards. His behaviour is generally quite violent and without reason. His deep imagination causes him to daydream a lot and imagine multiple voices speaking to him. Being a cop, Harry is very detail-oriented and persistent when solving a case. Being an emotional mess, saying and doing things that are harmful to the people around him.

Harry thinks of himself as a lady’s man and a superstar. Making lascivious and lewd comments towards women. And putting up a front of being a macho tough guy. His mood can change rather quickly, going from happy to deeply depressed. Harry is overall very friendly and outgoing to other people.

Background:

Harrier Du Bois was born in Revachol. During a snowstorm, he was born on the ground floor of Revachol's Old Military Hospital. As a child, he suffered a bout of partial infantile paralysis caused by polio. Though he would, for the most part, physically recover from this condition, it gave him a permanent twinge in his jaw that affected the pronunciation of certain words. In his adolescence, Harry was a member of a street gang comprised of eight delinquents from Faubourg and North Jamrock, calling themselves The Fifteenth Indotribe. Harry is the only one who still lives among all the former members.

Harry's twenties coincided with "the New," a time of excess and opulence. This led to a new music genre, disco, of which Harry became a fan. He became especially fond of the Revacholian Disco superstar Guillaume Le Million, whose stage persona and mannerisms he would try to emulate, leading to him adopting The Expression.

Before joining the RCM, Harry was a high school gym teacher. While the two waited at a bus stop, he met Dora Ingerlund, his future fiancée. She inspired him to join the Revachol Citizens Militia at 26. Over his 18 years of service, Harry solved 216 cases. During a recent case titled "THE UNSOLVABLE CASE.” Harry had a drunken outburst where he rendered a man unable to walk after beating him with his ledger, and sometime before this, he missed a shot aimed at a fleeing suspect, who he hit in the pelvis, and physically held a woman in his apartment against her will. He is also generally known, feared and even suspected to be one of La Puta Madre's peones by the public. Harry's erratic behaviour drove off many former members of Precinct 41, including Guillaume Bevy. Still, he was not disciplined due to his otherwise exceptional work and was even offered a promotion (which he declined) during this period.

Approximately six years later, Dora left Harry and moved to Mirova. Sometime later, Harry purchased the horrific necktie, which he gradually started to project a hyperactive and self-destructive personality. Forgetting his problems by drinking heavily and heavy drug use. Before his investigation into a hanging, he had gotten blackout drunk the night before. His heavy drinking had caused Harry to have temporary amnesia.

On the third day of the investigation, he and Kim were confronted by a group of mercenaries. Harry and Kim, a bright light started to envelop them. Harry panicked, but his body couldn’t do anything but stand and watch the light consume him. At first, he thought he was dead, but as the light disappeared, he noticed he was alive but was in a strange place that wasn’t Revachol.

Job: (Detective) Tank

Specialty: An intense hobo detective.

Inventory:

Chain cutters

Flashlight

Prybar

Yellow Plastic Bag

Commodore Red Wine Bottle

Smokes Astra (cigarettes)

Lv: 6

EXP: 3/60

Abilities:

Anti-Object Task Force- Harry’s strength is increased against inanimate objects. However, he does not gain this buff against living beings. When activated, he also can heal whenever he hits an inanimate object. And extra endurance against any incoming damage.

Cop of the Apocalypse- This ability allows Harry to gain further insight into the world around him. Gaining an almost ethereal sight of the world around him.

Coach Physical Instrument- Gives Harry enhanced endurance whenever he is shirtless.

Finger Pistols (9mm)- This ability lets Harry have a chance to charm enemies.

Hobocop- This allows Harry to find more items and money while searching loot containers or killing enemies.

Opioid Receptor Antagonist- This ability allows Harry to have no negative effects from consuming alcohol or drug items. It also doubles these items' effects.

Skills: N/A

Weaknesses: Alcoholic- Harry is an extreme case of an alcoholic. He needs to consume alcohol to help with the withdrawl effects.

Low Stamina- Harry does not have alot of stamina, so he can easily tire himself out when in combat.

Erratic- Harry is a wild card of sorts acting irrationally. Making it difficult to know what he will do next.

Spirits: Kiryu Kazama (Active)- When activated Kiryu will rush at the enemy and give them a barrage of punches.

Ryu (Active)- He will charge up and fire a fireball at the enemy.

Medic (Passive)- Will shoot some needles that will slowly heal Harry.

Rapport: N/A

Let me know if I need to change Harry's character sheet.

@Eviledd1984

In terms of abilities, are those all grounded in what he can do in-game? I don't know much about Disco Elysium but I know that the skill that gives him more insight into the city around him is called Whispers. Anything that's a passive or bonus is a Skill, Abilities are only actively usable powers. Your character cannot start with Spirits.

World of Light: the Endless Now (The Ultimate Smash Bros Crossover)

Sorry to ask, but what level would I be when I first start?

@Eviledd1984

That's actually up to you. You can start your chosen character with as many abilities and skills as you want, and your starting level is the total number of abilities and skills you pick. The trade-off for starting off with more is that it will take longer to level up so your kit will be less flexible.

World of Light: the Endless Now (The Ultimate Smash Bros Crossover)

@Lugubrious

I'd probably go with a new character. Probably either Harry Dubois from Disco Elysium or The Postal Dude from Postal. I honestly might go with Harry. Would that be okay with you?

@Eviledd1984

Sure. Just so you know, we're currently in the middle of the Dead Zone boss battle and you probably couldn't join into that, but we could lay some groundwork to get you set up in our upcoming path. I (and anyone else with extra time on their hands) could puppet temporary characters in Harry's location once we decide it in order to star off your RP experience. Sort of like the Doom Slayer's group in the Dead Zone back in the day? Then once we're done with the boss battle we can pull you into the group proper.

World of Light: the Endless Now (The Ultimate Smash Bros Crossover)

@Lugubrious

I'd love to join back in this RP, if you don't mind having me join of course.

@Eviledd1984

Hey there Ed, long time no see! I'd be happy to have you back. Do you think you'd want to rejoin as the Doom Slayer, or pick another character?

World of Light: the Endless Now (The Ultimate Smash Bros Crossover)

The Qliphoth - the Final Hollow

Lvl 14 Ms Fortune (159/140) Lvl 9 Goldlewis (100/90) Lvl 4 Grimm (23/40)
Midna, Junior, Rika & Edward’s @DracoLunaris Blazermate, Sectonia & Roland’s @Archmage MC Geralt, Zenkichi & Edelgard’s @MULTI_MEDIA_MAN Ace Cadet, Pit, Primrose & Therion’s @Yankee Juri’s @Zoey Boey Roxas, Ganondorf, & Captain Falcon’s @Double
Word Count: 2203 (+3x2)

In a show of primeval, reptilian savagery, the Nile Crocodiles seized, then pulled both Junior and Blazermate beneath the stagnant water of O’s newly-constructed swamp. While the limited number of predators spared Rika from the creatures’ deadly jaws, she was forced to immerse herself anyway in order to save her brother from a grisly fate in the muck. Confident in his killing machines’ fearsome natural abilities, and in the complete inability of Pit’s light arrows to harm him, O contented himself with watching the Seekers struggle. With the more theatrical persona that he assumed prior the start of the battle long since replaced by a more stoic, taciturn one, he allowed himself only an invisible smirk, but even that evaporated when he saw Junior bob to the dirty water’s surface. He couldn’t guess what happened down there in the murk, but if one of them could break free from his crocodilian deathtrap, their collective odds of survival might be better than O had hoped.

Worse still, Blazermate dragged herself out of the swamp at about the same time, her mangled leg by no means a death sentence. Her uncannily quick return alongside a man that O could only assume was her striker meant that she could defend her zombie hippo from the flood, at least long enough to mutate the blasted thing into a makeshift bomb and send it flying toward D’s throne. O wasn’t terribly concerned about his fellow Consul, but after a quick look over at the Observation Tower confirmed that none of his other targets had been fatally crushed or lacerated, O realized that he needed to redouble his efforts.

Growling beneath his breath, O turned his attention back to his exhibit with new schemes in mind, only to find both Koopa Kids alive and plotting against him. His disembodied eyes widened as he realized that his earlier comment had given the two a vital clue. “Oh, no you don’t!” he snarled as the two started to wreak havoc on his wetlands, only to be taken aback when the Gravemind interceded with a massive tentacle slam. He detested the damage done to his exhibit, of course, but the idea of that overgrown mass butting in his business appalled him even more. “Stay in your lane, parasite!” he barked. O was not distracted for long, but by the time he went to try and counteract the Seekers’ vandalism, he found himself beset by flashy fireflies and a very bothersome Flutter Mane. “Gah!” He spat, squinting. “Out of my way!”

His eyes took flight, rotating around his exhibit until they floated opposite the Gravemind, a good distance from that interfering Pokemon. “Right. Let’s try this again.” As quickly as he could, O began to sell his previous creations. They disappeared in quick succession, accompanied by the repeated ring of a cash register. While damaged stuff sold for a lot less, especially the felled Observation Tower, he still managed to recoup some of his losses. “Waste not, want not.” After that, O started anew. His targets had proved unexpectedly capable around water, but what about ice? A new, larger enclosure with solid concrete walls. Wetlands terrain and Qliphoth floor alike gave way to snow, gray boulders, and huge slabs of ice. Camouflaged cooling machines appeared around the enclosure, and the ambient temperature plummeted. After a moment, three polar bears popped into existence, the enormous and powerful creatures ready to make mincemeat of Pit, Junior, and Rika. If that brat thought he could rely on his paint gimmick in temperatures like these, he’d have another think coming!

O’s next course of action was less immediately obvious. With Zenkichi, Geralt, Edelgard, Primrose, and Midna all gravitating toward other fights, he could not target anyone else without endangering the Gravemind or his fellow Consuls, which he knew would have dire repercussions for himself. As he looked around, though, the sight of an unwary target allowed him to hatch a plan. He just needed to wait for the right moment…

Over at the Gravemind’s base, Consul D had his hands full. After dispatching Ms Fortune, he went toe-to-toe with several Seekers in quick succession. Even with Blazermate’s interference the Consul managed to keep Roland at bay, but Geralt stepped in the moment D pushed the Fixer back. Their furious but brief exchange proved inconclusive, since an unexpected lightning surge interrupted D’s attempt to capitalize on his fire barrage. Rather than rush back in for more, Geralt passed the baton to Roxas, covering him with arrows from Odysseus’s Bow. The cyclone of bats helped throw off the Witcher’s fire support, but between the arrows and the strange virtual cubes conjured by Roxas they wouldn’t last forever. With other Seekers on either side attacking the Gravemind and Roland about to return, things were certainly heating up. He held up his cape to mitigate Kayano’s geyser, then curled his lip. “Fools. You haven’t seen anything yet!”

His double meaning became clear as the sorcerous beam he cast upward bore its foul fruit. His Dominus Hatred descended in seven rays of dark magic, all a vivid and odious green. Two each fell from the sky atop Roland and Roxas, and three for Geralt, each one a mere split second after the last. D snapped his fingers and the rest of his bats flew forth to mob his opponents, weak but persistent, and while they dealt with those nuisances he got to work. First, he summoned two black wolves to stand guard by him and lunge for Roxas should he teleport in again. Then the Consul brought down a rain of meteors to bombard the whole area before him with the three Seekers inside. The fiery fusillade left the ground pitted and burning, each crater filled with boiling blood from his moat. This was D’s dominion, and he would not allow his challengers to forget it.

With his arsenal of pyromancy, hemomancy, summons, and shapeshifting, D quickly proved himself capable of fending off all three at once. His magic could come from just about any angle, while D himself remained frustratingly elusive, never allowing himself to be backed into a corner. He took his fair share of blows, but managed to withstand them, while it took only a couple blows from him to suppress a fighter for a few moments. After about thirty seconds of back-and-forth, though, the arrival of reinforcements prompted D to return to his throne. He scowled at Juri and Ms Fortune, putting together what must have happened to his newest thrall while he’d been otherwise engaged. His retreat gave the boys a chance to regroup, and Nadia slid to a stop between Geralt and Roland with a smile. If D had reached a stalemate with three Seekers, he might be in for a bad time against five. “Why the long face, Consul? Thought I’d be your damsel in D-stress?”

The vampire wrinkled his nose. “More lambs to the slaughter. Shall I rise to the occasion, then?” He lifted up his hand, and red infinity symbols shone in his eyes as an aura of dark magic surrounded him. “Death! Where is your sting!?” At his command, the darkness within his cape seemed to flow out, coalescing in his hand in the shape of an elaborate scythe. D rested it on his shoulder, as the blade ignited, he beckoned the five Seekers toward him. “Come then, ashes! I shall snuff you out for good!”

On the other hand, the five who’d gathered to take on A had achieved some sort of victory. Mounting stress made their heads pound, their skin crawl, and their vision swim as their bodies began to rebel against their circumstances, but with the defeat of five Imperfect Reflections total, the Consul’s replication seemed to come to an end. His amorphous remains lay in heaps on the floor before Ganondorf, Captain Falcon, Therion, Goldlewis, and Edward, long enough for the veteran to recover from his stun, but no longer. The meat abruptly knit itself together into the shape of the Consul, half again as large as before, doubled over and on his knees. ”...Great adversity has a beauty - it is the fire that tempers.” He smacked a closed fist against the ground, then rose to his feet in an instant. Red lemniscates blazed in his eyes. ”The flesh is fluid, it can be changed, reshaped, remade!”

Three concentric rings of Absolute Nothingness, each five feet in across, expanded outward from A for a total of fifteen feet. No matter how the Seekers or their minions tried, they could not enter the Nothingness to attack their target; only A could move -or be moved- into and displace Nothingness, with the ring he just left becoming Nothingness in turn. Before his opponents could quite wrap their heads around the new phenomenon, the armored overlord cast Embrace Futility. In addition to doing a little damage, shuffling his challengers’ positions, and debuffing their damage, it piled on even more stress (+18) as the darkness seemed to close in. ”The abyss returns even the boldest gaze!”

Compared to the Consuls, the colossal Gravemind was getting the worst of it. Those who shirked the struggle against O converged on the easier target instead, and the awesome Twilight Rites of Termination pulled off by Midna and Primrose was their call to arms. Narrowly missing Grimm on the way, the giant dark magic spear impaled the mountain of undead biomass and granted everyone in range extra crit rate. Ace, Grimm, and Sectonia renewed their efforts despite the extra hazards coughed up by the Gravemind. When Edelgard and Zenkichi arrived, they joined the pitched battle with gusto. Primrose and Midna ran in soon after, and together the seven piled on the damage. The alien amalgamate had a literal mountain of HP to chew through, but together the seven could put out a huge amount of damage per second, especially with the Gravemind perpetually on fire thanks to Edward’s enchantment and Grimm’s passive. With Edelgard and Primrose’s flames in the mix as well, whether or not they inflicted damage over time, the Gravemind was enough of an inferno to bathe the whole arena in firelight. A thousand voices seethed as it burned. ”YOU WILL BE SILENT IN MY GRAVE!”

The Gravemind did not suffer such transgressions idly, however. It did its utmost to crush the Seekers with its great tentacles, smashing and slamming around its base. ”STRIP THE BONES, BEGIN MY FEAST!” Floodfested continuously detached from the whole to grapple and injure its foes, while normal-sized limbs sprouted or stretched out from the body to strike back. When attacked, its body would sometimes develop jagged fangs, explosive cysts, or other such defensive measures to make the offenders hurt themselves. An easy target the Gravemind might be, but there was no such thing as a free lunch, and the Seekers would have to fight for every inch of progress carved into the gargantuan corpse. ”I WILL ASK, AND YOU WILL ANSWER”

After seeing what Primrose and Midna managed to pull off together, Sectonia would not be outdone. Leveraging the power of the Radiance, she’d already been quite the thorn in the Gravemind’s side so far, drawing its ire but staying one step ahead with elusive hit-and-run tactics. Once the others joined in, though, she decided to pull off an even bigger show-stopper to demonstrate the Queen of Floralia’s supremacy. Even after a rogue Deimos Drone blindsided her and disrupted her Chaos Shield, she darted in close enough to unleash her Reaper’s Scythe, then warped to safety. Ghostly chains surrounded the Gravemind, and a second and a half later, the scythe descended like a deathly guillotine. The Gravemind howled as one of its four tentacles was severed and fell to the floor, necrotizing much faster than normal. Desperate for catharsis after her horrid time this morning, Sectonia relished the moment.

There. While Sectonia admired her handiwork, O hastened to build off the careful foundations he’d laid. Sectonia would only hear a metallic screech, then turn to see a burgundy roller coaster track assembling itself section by section with impossible speed, the coaster itself not far behind. The track itself zoomed past her, but the coaster slammed into her the next instant, sending the big bug flying. Guided by O, the track snaked back around through the air to intercept Sectonia’s path so that the coaster would smash her once more. Again and again the coaster careened into her, knocked her away, then caught her again, until finally the track arced up in a loop and plowed downward into Sectonia from above. It carried her straight down with it until she slammed into the floor, and when the coaster descended the next moment, the impact was enough to trigger Ace’s Palico Rescue. Sectonia would reappear aboard the Avenger, restored but out of the fight.

O cackled as he sold his twisted coaster, ready to do some more damage. “Ignore me, will you?” he taunted the Seekers. “It’ll be your last mistake!”

World of Light: the Endless Now (The Ultimate Smash Bros Crossover)

The Qliphoth - Vs the Gravemind

Lvl 14 Ms Fortune (139/140) Lvl 9 Goldlewis (88/90) Lvl 4 Grimm (11/40)
Midna, Junior, Rika & Edward’s @DracoLunaris Blazermate, Sectonia & Roland’s @Archmage MC Geralt, Zenkichi & Edelgard’s @MULTI_MEDIA_MAN Ace Cadet, Pit, Primrose & Therion’s @Yankee Juri’s @Zoey Boey Roxas, Ganondorf, & Captain Falcon’s @Double
Word Count: 2993 (+3x2)

For a moment after the Gravemind’s prophetic cry reverberated through the arena, the twenty-one remaining Seekers stood by in battle-ready formation. Confronted by not one but three Consuls, with A in particular of especially ill repute, and dwarfed by the newly-assembled undead colossus that loomed at the Consuls’ back, they had precious little time to put together a strategy. Still, while some members of the team could be trusted to courageously push forward and take on these serious threats, others could be relied on to enact a speedy opening gambit.

Blazermate started out on overheal duty, of course, but keeping so many allies topped up would be a full-time job by itself, so once the action began her bonus HP would quickly decay. The same couldn’t be said for the support coming from Goldlewis, who hung back alongside Roxas, Midna, and Primrose to buff up the whole team. His buffs came out much faster than the ladies’ Sealticge-spread Dragon Dance, though. With a slam of his coffin he unleashed his Shield Burst, which enshrouded every Seeker in a thin energy barrier atop their health pools that would offer better protection to his flimsier friends than his heartier ones. Thanks to Hypereutectoid, it also gave them a short-lived damage boost. In return Goldlewis gratefully received Tailwind from Roxas. In a fight like this, speed would be everything.

Then it was off to the races. From his aerial vantage point Consul O broke the ice with a barrage of near-instant construction, enclosing and then terraforming a section of the arena with several Seekers inside. Overhead, Sectonia flew forth to unleash her magic and pent-up frustration, with Blazermate at her back to make her rampage one to remember, and Pit joined the fusillade with some light arrows. Therion and Grimm peeled off from the main group to avoid the enemies’ line of fire, while Roland and Nadia charged dead ahead, the former’s stoic frown and the latter’s upbeat smile indelible as their courage propelled them onward.

Tactical as ever, Goldlewis waited just a moment to engage. He quickly observed that Junior and Rika’s could not seem to land any attacks against O’s eyes, so given that plus the nascent hippopotamus exhibit, the veteran veered toward the right–toward Moebius A and his doppelgangers, who stood four abreast with a quietly menacing air about them. Goldlewis knew that there must be a lot more going on with A than met the eye, but the sight of Therion’s Junicorn spearing one of them reinforced his decision. His efforts would be better spent fighting someone he could actually hit. So as Sectonia’s deadly lightshow went off overhead, Goldlewis hustled toward the one-man quartet, keeping his eyes peeled for any interference on the way. Sure enough, the Gravemind took action to put a stop to Midna and Primrose’s buffs, and Goldlewis managed to dive forward just before the amalgamate’s mammoth tentacle slammed down. He landed with a roll and glanced up at the Gravemind, his breathing already heavy, but it had already shifted its focus toward Sectonia, so he set his sights on A once more.

Coffin at the ready, he rose and charged across the last hundred or so feet alongside Falcon and Ganondorf. A and his copies turned their way without acting, which made Goldlewis wary of a trap, but the big man couldn’t afford his foe too much respect just yet. Ganondorf acted first with a throw of his trident that whirled through the whole group, crackling with heavy voltage. Then the Warlord hurtled his weapon forward to impale an unlucky copy and reel him in, just in time to collide with Falcon’s fiery kick.

Goldlewis charged past the scuffle, trusting the Captain to put in the legwork while he went after the other three. Though softened up by the lightning and Moblin arrows, the other copies still weren’t counterattacking. Well, that suited Goldlewis just fine. “Hmph!” He grunted, gripping his coffin with one hand and its chain in the other. “Gimme an inch…!” He wheeled around, his strength and momentum brought to bear in a terrific Behemoth Typhoon. “And I’ll take a mile!” The massive flail smashed through the group. Goldlewis felt as much as he heard the bones breaking and the flesh yielding beneath his weapon’s weight, but even as the huge blow rearranged them, the copies did not falter. They simply stood, eyes dark, limbs bent strangely and cavities caved in, and a note of instinctive horror galvanized Goldlewis into action.

“Rrrrrrragh! Crumble!” He continued his onslaught with two more Behemoth Typhoons, his efforts focused down to just the two nearest copies. The final Typhoon was a mighty overhead, and when it slammed down onto his targets, it reduced them to a pinkish pulp of twisted flesh and armor. Revolted, Goldlewis stepped back, pulling his coffin free from the slurry. “Yuck! Well, whatever they are, at least these things go down easy!” Only then, though, did he notice that the pulp on his coffin was still quivering–still blinking.

He looked back at the last A copy as he pulsed with an uncanny green light. “Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer,” he intoned as Time Heals All knit his bubbling flesh and armor back together, almost perfectly recreating the Consul’s form. At the same time, three more copies sprouted up from the ground. One of the new bodies seemed to fluctuate, however, as if unable to hold itself together, and after a moment it split apart in horrific fashion Two half-heads crowned a mass of pink flesh and beady black eyes that could no longer sustain the illusion. Goldlewis gaped, aghast at the awful sight. “You think to strike me down?” the four chorused, the Imperfect Copy’s voice alarmingly distorted. “Foolish scion…we are the same!”

For a woeful second, the four looked different, appearing as nightmarish masses of eldritch flesh. And in that brief moment, it almost looked to the nearby Seekers as if everything -from the walls to their allies to their very own bodies- were similarly constituted, not themselves as they thought they knew, but what they’d deluded themselves into thinking they weren’t. In an instant the vision passed, but something in Goldlewis and the others had been shaken. Their lungs constricted and their skin crawled as Stress began to mount.

“What in the goddamn hell!?” Goldlewis backdashed on impulse, then dropped his coffin to pull out the Skyfish. After such a horrific vision, a cleansing by fire felt only appropriate. Three of the copies were back to normal, but the imperfect one remained as it was, and the veteran loathed the sight of it, “Shut up and DIE!” he bellowed over the roar of his gun.

In the middle of the arena, Nadia and Roland had their own problems. The feral quickly saw the truth in Midna’s words as D unleashed a barrage of flame from the comfort of his chair. While Roland tried to fend off the fire magic, Nadia focused on evasion. Even if she could suffer Vaporize reactions any more, she wasn’t going to get burned as long as she had anything to say about it. Using Fluffy Soft on her lower half, she wove through the fiery fusillade on digitigrade tiger legs. Her focus was such that she scarcely noticed Sectonia’s magic rebounding off the Gravemind overhead, Roland on the back foot for that matter, or Juri circling around. As D brought down the storm of blood that forced Roland away, Nadia leaped in over the blood moat with only a few fresh crimson streaks sliced into her clothes and skin. “Blood and fire?” she muttered, noting both D’s unusual combination of powers and the fact that she’d been separated from the others by the storm. Faced with D’s nonplussed stare, she flashed him a toothy grin. “To get that blood like that, you must really suck!”

D narrowed his eyes and thrust out his hand. Dozens of bats burst from the shadows within his cape and swarmed Nadia in an instant. For a moment she managed to hold her own with a wild flurry of claw swipes, but the second the feral started blocking it was over for her. The torrent of blockstun pushed her backward and into the blood moat with a splash. Without Massachusetts’ rigging around to buoy her up, she could do little but flounder until the bats subsided.

At that point, Juri rushed in from the side, her already-impressive speed amped way up by her allies. D turned his irate gaze her way, then cast his hand at the incoming assassin dismissively. A second salvo of bats fluttered forth, but Juri’s headlong sprint low-profiled the squeaking vermin as she darted in, her revved-up ghoulsaw practically scraping the ground. With only a second to spare, D flicked his hand upward as if beckoning, and from within his cape a black-furred, red-eyed wolf lunged at Juri. Her sawblade carved it apart in D’s place, but the martial artist followed up just as quickly with a vicious sideswipe at his legs. Edward’s Searing Weapons left the wound ablaze as blood sprayed, adding insult to injury and eliciting an annoyed grunt from D. As Juri rushed along D turned the blood of wolf and Consul alike into a dozen crimson needles that shot after her.

Just as Juri disengaged, Roxas showed up to flank D with a surprise attack. While the Consul possessed a hardy constitution and did not need to fret over every last blow, his ego compelled him to demonstrate that his challengers attacks were futile–especially those from a snot-nosed brat. What followed was a heated but inconclusive exchange as the two evaded one another repeatedly. Though D’s experience and reflexes allowed him to snatch Roxas from the air, the count thought a soak in his blood storm was letting Roxas off lightly, considering that he’d been forced to rise to his feet already..

As Roxas sailed over the blood moat, Nadia burst from it, took aim with her newly-drawn pistols, and opened fire. D summoned another black wolf to hound her, but she dodged the beast with a sideways aerial cartwheel, shooting while upside-down. “Nya ha!” On landing, she twisted around to blast D with both guns at once, then dropped them and blitzed forward with an electric Charge. “Dis-zap-pear!” She appeared right in front of him and lashed out with a Fluffy Soft kick at D’s head, only for him to block with a nonchalantly raised arm. Sparks flew, but his guard barely budged. Still, even if it did no damage, a hit was a hit. Knowing his defense must be lowered, Nadia gritted her teeth and went with plan B. “Careful, I’m armed!” Pivoting away, she hyper-extended her arm like a spear straight for D’s face. Thanks to a lucky proc of Edward’s Sundering Strikes, she pierced his helmet’s armor and left his faceplate in shambles.

D’s reaction was explosive. “You worm!” He lunged forward and seized Nadia by the throat. Only now that he stood could the Seekers see just how tall he was; Nadia’s Mantreads dangled several feet above the floor as she writhed in D’s grasp, and when he squeezed, his nails pierced into her neck. With his vision compromised, D wrenched off his helmet to reveal a face as hard and colorless as stone, with a pointy mustache and beard, and long fangs bared in a scowl. He looked every inch the quintessential Transylvanian villain, and even Nadia knew the archetype.

“You…some kinda vampire?” Nadia garbled as she kicked her legs at him. “So…I guess that’s three Consuls, not two…I forgot to Count Dracula!”

With a thrash, she managed to boot D in the groin. His face tightened. “Witless woman,” he sneered. As he cast his magic, his blood rain dwindled. “Surrender yourself to me!”

Nadia’s eyes rolled back into her head, and D threw her down. She bounced off the ground with a sound more of surprise than pain, then rolled to a stop amidst the last of D’s blood storm. When she rose, though, the feral seemed to be in some sort of trance. “Ohhh…what a dreamboat~” she proclaimed drunkenly, turning around to face her team with her claws sharpened for battle.

Indifferent to the skirmish unfolding at the base of its trunk, the Gravemind centered its attention on Sectonia toward the end of her kritz-fueled chaos. ”PALLBEARER. SHALL I RELIEVE YOU OF YOUR LOAD?” It lifted up its two middle tentacles, fresh branches sprouting near their ends like bony fingers. They swiped through the air like nets trawling the sea to swat, snare, and pierce the queen. After a few moments, it stopped to shake off handfuls of Deimos drones that took to the sky, shrieked like wild owls, and threw themselves toward various targets, prioritizing those in the air. After homing in they’d latch on, constrict, and emit a disruptive bioshock that would deactivate any ongoing abilities or buffs. As its drones filled the air, the Gravemind cackled through its countless bodies. ”MY TOMB RUNNETH OVER!”

The next moment, Grimm’s firebats exploded against it, the three projectiles punctuated by a blast from his Grimmchild. Though the Gravemind lacked eyes, the Troupe Master could feel its heavy gaze upon him, and warped away to avoid a Deimos drone divebomb. By that time Ace had been whaling on the Gravemind’s trunk for a good ten or fifteen seconds, and that kind of punishment couldn’t be sustained indefinitely. The Gravemind arched backward until its head hung over the Cadet, then belted out a torrent of stomach acid followed by a fused mass of corpses to tackle the hunter beneath its heavy weight..

O, meanwhile, was appalled at the Seekers’ reception to his latest exhibit. They not only floated above the muddy water, but shot, bit, and even poisoned his hungry hippos! As the bloat began to dwindle, his eyes widened with disbelief at the heroes biting and shooting them. “My hippos! Do you have ANY IDEA how much those cost!?” He groaned, then narrowed his eyes. “No matter. It’s not just hippos who call the wetlands home!” He did something, but it wasn’t clear what until two Nile Crocodiles burst up from the water. Their huge jaws latched down onto two of the nearest Seekers -those being Bowser Jr, Rika, Blazermate, and Pit- with a bite force of almost four thousand pounds per square inch before the crocs dragged them down into the muck for a brutal death roll.

Of course, O was already busy with his next project. At the start of the battle, some of the less hot-headed Seekers had continued to stand their ground away from the brawls with D and A, trying to figure out the best way to assail the massive Gravemind and elusive O. Edelgard, Geralt, and Zenkichi had evaded the hippo and crocodile exhibit, and were fending off the Gravemind’s Deimos drones, but the Consul planned to tie up those loose ends. He speedily walled off an area around them with thorny hedges, then created a pink-striped observation tower in the center, which also happened to be around the center of the whole battlefield. The carriage rose like a piston, then dropped. Even if those in the area inside managed to avoid getting crushed, they would still be endangered by an omnidirectional blast of shattered blue glass.

After releasing its drones, the Gravemind did not stay idle for long. ”THERE IS NO RESPITE IN MY GRAVE,” its forms chorused. Just after the hippo that Blazermate’s infected arose as a hideous undead monster to fight by the medabot’s side, the Guardian brought down its tentacles three times, one after another. The first massive limb fell across the middle of O’s wetland exhibit, separating it into halves. From its pitted flesh wriggled infection forms that scuttled toward the hippo zombie to bury themselves in its rotten hide and induct it into the Gravemind’s fold; if Blazermate wanted to keep hold of her newest minion, she would need to keep it flood-free. A second later, the next tentacle dropped down amidst Edward, Midna, Primrose, and Therion’s formation, the tremendous impact a much greater danger than the thinning mob of floodfested. Finally, the Gravemind aimed a third infested mass at the gang near the observation tower, its withering attack a surefire way to keep the three on their toes.

Before the Gravemind withdrew that third tentacle, though, Grimm leaped aboard. He scuttled down its putrid length at high speed, his fiery claws carving out handfuls of fused flesh on the way to leave a blazing trail in his wake. As the Guardian burned, so did Grimm, but the accompanying bursts of health offset his fresh wounds, and the Gravemind took notice. ”GRAVEROBBER, COME,” half-melted faces amidst the biomass groaned at the Troupe Master as he approached the Gravemind’s body, no matter how many he sliced apart. ”IN DEATH YOU WILL FIND LIFE.” The tentacle thrashed and Grimm flew through the air. A Deimos drone caught him on the fly, then zapped him. As he struggled, the Gravemind itself wheeled toward him for a massive headbutt, but Grimm escaped in a four-way blast of scarlet flame. He reappeared above the head, landed a corkscrew divekick, then leaped away to begin the game of cat and mouse anew. ”ACCEPT WHAT MUST BE.” the thousand voices rumbled.