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DisturbedSpec
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Shin Ghost NoteArahabaki - Zenkichi and Sakura
Zenkichi’s @MULTI_MEDIA_MAN / Sakura’s @Zoey Boey vs Sigma / Dr. Muto / Caustic / Colress
Word Count: 4709 +5
As Zenkichi ran through the teleporter, he frowned when he noticed that the other Seekers weren’t present. ”Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding…” He groaned, looking around. At least Sakura got through the teleporter with him, but nobody else he was familiar with was anywhere to be seen. Moments later, though, Sandalphon came through their intercoms and requested a head count.
”Hasegawa here, I’m with Kasugano. Uh, Zenkichi and Sakura. We’re okay.” He reported back, before turning to Sakura. ”So, uh…apparently Japan is a giant hole in the ground here? But uh…this place is definitely Japanese.” He awkwardly commented.
”Hole in the gr-...” Sakura just shook the weird comment off and glanced around. ”Y-yeah. Um. Oops. We gotta find the others?” Sakura said, nervous. If there was any consolation, it was probably that this wasn’t her fault in particular. That entire infiltration mission went off the rails towards the end there. Platforms and towers and conveyor belt bridges all around.
Sakura smiled a bit at Zenkichi, and then began to speak in japanese. Assuming that he spoke it as well. She toed her boot into the dirt. ”It’s a dry garden.” She said. They were in a wide courtyard, and had been dropped next to a flat plain of gravel-like rocks with a few knee high boulders sticking out. ”No time to stick around though. We gotta go.”
When Sakura started speaking Japanese, Zenkichi switched over to the language as well. ”Yeah, we just gotta keep going, we’ll meet up with the others in the center area, I’m sure.”
But it wouldn’t be that easy. A drop pod descended from the foggy cavernous expanse above and dropped into a nearby building. ”What’s a trap without ambushers?” Sakura said, nervously amping herself up for a fight. ”Whoever they are I’m sure we can take ‘em, Hasegawa-san.”
Getting through the first section wasn’t terribly difficult, though there was one area where the ground moved almost like an elliptical machine, and Zenkichi’s knees were not happy about that one bit. Still, soon they came upon a group of four defenders, much like the others were.
Once the pod landed and lifted its doors, an unusual quarter stepped out to form up opposite the two Seekers. Most striking was the old man in strange, high-tech protective gear, with a chiseled face and strong brow, who floated about a foot (not to mention barefoot) off the ground. His eyes were on the intruders immediately, hard, suspicious, but smoldering with a barely-contained manic light. Less intimidating but far stranger was the wiry little scientist with wild hair, a checkered tie, green-rimmed glasses, and an unsettling grin. Compared to those two, the man in yellow looked almost normal, yet his composure belied the malice that radiated from him as strongly as an acrid chemical smell. Finally, the last man on the job turned out to be a familiar face, at least for Sakura: Dr. Colress, who she met the night before.
“Can’t believe Hojo let me get roped into this,” Colress was saying as he stepped from the pod. “I’m not exactly dumb muscle. Do those dolts really think I’m expendable?” When he saw who he was up against, that really took the went from his sails. “Oh, no.”
Sakura waved awkwardly at Dr. Colress, grinning sheepishly.
Caustic shot Colress a look, clearly as unhappy with the arrangement as his colleague. “What, don’t have the stomach for a little pest control, doctor? Hmph.” He tossed a gas grenade in his hand. “Well, just do your job and keep us alive. Leave the extermination to us.”
Sigma cracked his neck, first to one side, then the other. “Ik sta te popelen.”
Colress crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow at Zenkichi and Sakura. “How about a deal? My healing isn’t all that great, and I can only do it ten times. I won’t attack, and if you get through the others, you’re free to go. No strings attached.” He gave them an apologetic smile. “I should warn you, though. I’m not much of a fighter, but I can do something very annoying, so if you trigger me, this may end poorly for you.”
The proposed ‘deal’ seemed to annoy Caustic. “Whose side are you on?”
“Oh, just think of it as a little experiment. You’re a man of science, aren’t you?” Colress gave his teammate an inquisitive look. “Surely you’re not afraid.”
At that, Caustic turned back toward his enemies. "We only fear what we do not understand. And I fear nothing."
With the fight imminent, Sigma raised his right hand, releasing two hyperspheres that floated above his palm. “Dit wordt leuk!”
Sakura wondered about Colress’s deal, but, if he wasn’t going to fight them, she’d feel bad about punching him. And she didn’t want to find out what annoying thing he could do. ”Works for me!”
”Okay, I don’t know what the German guy is saying, but if all you’re gonna do is give em a bit of healing, I guess that’s better for us, huh?”
“Dutch!” Sigma interjected irately, switching to English.
Zenkichi shrugged as he drew the Closing Statement. ”Don’t like the look of those grenades, though…” He muttered, shrugging. The little scientist-looking guy was almost, by virtue of how out-of-place he looked, more intimidating. Between him and a super-powered street fighter, though, Zenkichi wasn’t all that worried. He started by running right at Caustic, boosting his speed with Sukukaja to try and catch him off guard and get in a few hits before things really popped off. Miniboss fights like this always required a little more care.
”Let’s go!” Sakura shouted, looking to dish out some damage as she followed behind Zenkichi. But their opponents were more than ready for a fight. Immediately getting a sense that their opponents were close-ranged fighters, Sigma acted quickly, using Accretion. In a matter of moments he had used gravity to gather a large orb of debris, and flung them at Zenkichi. The damage was decent but the main advantage here was the kinetic force of the rocks that would Knock Down anyone hit by it, and send anyone caught in the radius flying away. ”Watch out!” Sakura cried out.
”Nice try!” Zenkichi taunted as he evaded the attack, the boost given by Sukukaja enough to dodge the projectile, though it gave Caustic enough time to react himself. He took Zenkichi’s mutterings as an invitation, throwing a Nova gas trap directly at where Zenkichi’s dodge took him. The trap burst as soon as it detected an enemy in proximity, namely Zenkichi, and the sudden field of noxious fumes caused him to cough violently, stumbling to his knees rather than standing. Meanwhile, Dr. Muto had begun his transformation, turning into a strange gorilla-human hybrid, possessing all the strength of the former, with the head (and brain) of his normal human form.
”Oh no!” Sakura had dodged the other direction, and she was reluctant to enter the toxic fumes lest she succumb as well. She reached out with her psychic powers and offered a lifeline to Zenkichi, using Mental Connection to pull him out of the cloud and over to her. Probably latching onto thoughts like ‘wow this really sucks!’ Or something like that.
Smirking, Sigma began to launch small orbs that did a small damage explosive after a short delay, in pairs. Caustic was faster than he looked and strafed around the side, firing his assault rifle. Sakura deflected the ranged attacks with her forearms, but it was just to distract her so the massive man-gorilla that barreled at her could sock her on the mouth, which it did. Sakura spun and then ducked under a follow up punch, kicking the gorilla in its chest. Dr Muto figured she would have strength, so it wasn’t surprising when he had to stumble back from the kick. Off to a bad start, Sakura thought! They’d have to turn it around.
Climbing to his feet outside the poison gas, Zenkichi waved a thanks to Sakura as he stood, looking between the opponents ahead of him. Sigma and Caustic had harassment for days, but Muto was a literal gorilla. Sakura seemed to be at a similar strength level, though, which was a good sign for them. Zenkichi decided to target Sigma first, because as bad as that gas was, those explosive little balls were probably more of a hassle.
Sukukaja was still up, so Zenkichi charged at the Dutchman, Closing Statement ready to tear into him. Caustic turned to fire on him, but Zenkichi grit his teeth and ran at Sigma, dodging to the side to avoid a pair of hyperspheres that the flying man launched while backpedaling. With the speed boost, dodging and closing the distance was a simple affair, and Sigma knew that his projected barrier would be useless against a melee weapon. “Caustic, they’ve sent hard counters!” He bellowed, kicking at Zenkichi rather uselessly as his shields were being ruthlessly cut down.
“No such thing,” The grenadier replied, preparing another gas trap in a line with Zenkichi and Sigma. “Just send ‘em my way!” He prompted, causing Sigma to grunt and push himself and the Phantom Thief back with a hypersphere shot, then follow up with Accretion. Zenkichi managed to dodge the main boulder, but the splash was wider than he expected, sending him to the side and away from the gas trap. “Truly cannot trust any of you to help!” The legend shouted, hefting his rifle and peppering Zenkichi’s back with rifle shots.
Unfortunately, Sakura was battling a gorilla, and for the moment wasn’t in much position to help. He was fast and strong, but Dr. Muto was no street fighter and raw power wasn’t much against refined skill. His fists slammed into concrete but not into Sakura herself, who fired back with vicious cross punches and chin kicks. Colress stood at the back, and cast a heal at the gorilla. Sakura deflated a bit as she saw the gorilla heal up in front of her eyes. She just had to do that nine more times? She jumped over a grab and brought her head down on his forehead, before transferring into a combo that ended with a shouoken to send the gorilla flying. Into another heal, but one that wasn’t enough to totally mitigate the damage.
Sakura charged up a fireball and smashed her hadoken into the gorilla’s guard before he could even get up. ”How you holdin’ up?!” She called over to her ally.
Grunting, Zenkichi found himself between a rock and a hard place. Whichever target he went after, the other would just pelt him from afar. Caustic’s rifle shots were a bit less damaging on their own, but headshots hurt a hell of a lot more. Sigma’s hyperspheres possessed a bit of knockback, though, which made them rather dangerous as well if he wasn’t paying attention to dodge them.
”Hangin’ in there!” Zenkichi called as he stabbed Closing Statement into the floor, drawing one of his revolvers and taking a few shots at Caustic, causing the Legend to lower his rifle and dodge after the first two shots landed center-mass. Sigma took the opportunity to fire another pair of hyperspheres, but Zenkichi was already stowing his revolver and dodging, sword back in hand. Pointing aggressively at Sigma, he called for his Persona. ”Valjean! Hit him with Deathbound!” Given how low Sigma was floating off the ground, the spectral hands shouldn’t have had any trouble grabbing hold of the Dutch man and dealing some damage, while Zenkichi ran back in to attack him. They had to burn through Colress’s heals before they took too much damage on their own. Even Zenkichi’s self-heals would only go so far. At least he had that protective vest to mitigate some of the damage he was taking.
”Okay, just lemme know!”Sakura was slowly getting the hang of her one on one with the gorilla. Dr. Muto was no match for Sakura in fisticuffs. She was really beating him up, and it was clear he was on his last legs. After smacking the man-gorilla in the nogging, she jumped up in the air to swipe across his face with a spin kick. There was a flash of blue energy, and the man-gorilla turned into a man-mouse! He went right under her kick and onto the other side, squeaking. Dr. Colress took the opportunity to heal up his geneticist companion.
There was another flash of blue energy and the man-mouse turned into a man-scientist, holding his remote-control / gun thing. “Hrmmph! I might need to borrow some of that DNA of yours!”
”Uh, what? No way! I’m sick of you mad scientists.”
“Mad? Not mad! I just need enough power to power a device that can rebuild an entire planet!” He explained, flicked a switch, and shot a crackling stream of electricity at Sakura. She crossed her arms and slid backwards, grunting. She walked backwards, leaving the range of the zapper, and fired an ex-hadoken at Dr. Muto- and anyone behind him. He scampered out of the way but the blazing blue fireball caused a grenade-prepping Caustic to sidestep back into cover.
“Close one!” Dr Muto said, doing a little dance.
”Why are you even fighting for these jerks, anyway?” Sakura asked.
“I’ve no lab, no money, no home, no nothing! It’s the only way!” Dr. Muto said, clicked a button on his gun, and turned into a revolting man-spider hybrid. And not a little spider, he was man-sized.
”Ew!” Sakura said. Dr. Muto fired some web out of his hands that Sakura blocked. But he just zipped towards her using the connection and span, sticking all his legs out and smacking Sakura seven times across the face in rapid succession. ”Ow ow ow ow ow ow!” Sakura spun away from the impact, squeezing one eye shut.
As he skittered away, he started dropping explosive eggs to hinder Sakura’s approach. Both with the danger of the explosions, and Sakura’s aversion to even wanting to touch him. She’s seen some really gross things in her time but something about this was really getting under her skin! ”C’mere!” Sakura chased after him, running around the eggs. She cast a look over at Zenkichi’s battle. If pursuing Dr. Muto was too hard, she could always break off and engage one of those other chumps and help her friend.
While Zenkichi was attacking Sigma and Sakura was dealing with Muto, Caustic had spent time placing a number of traps around the battlefield, seeing that Zenkichi and Sakura were both rather close-range fighters, even if they had some potential for fighting from a distance. He and Colress were fairly well protected behind a semi-circular barrier of gas traps, while he took potshots at both Zenkichi and Sakura now. That fireball almost hit him!
Meanwhile, Colress had spent another heal on Sigma, who was launching hyperspheres whenever he managed to backpedal a bit from Zenkichi. Accretion was proving valuable as well, but it was also fairly dodgeable, which was moderately frustrating. When Sukukaja wore off and Zenkichi swapped buffs to Tarukaja, though, the two were trading damage much more. Both were rather tanky fighters, though with the attack buff Zenkichi was starting to melt through Sigma’s shields and into his health pool.
With Dr. Muto trying to lead Sakura on a wild goose chase, Sakura broke off and ran to slam into Sigma from the side! She swung towards him using momentum gathered from Mental Connection and kicked him in the side. Dr. Muto rapidly turned to chase after her, and Caustic popped out from behind cover and started shooting, though he had to be careful to not hit his ally.
For a moment Sigma really was having to Tank, though going up against two heavy hitters close range meant Colress would have to step in. “Get them off me, you fool!” Sigma complained.
The man-spider came up from behind and shot a web at Sakura, sticking her back. Yelling in surprise she was yanked and pulled towards a Nox trap. It popped and Sakura immediately began to sputter and cough. It burned her lungs and eyes! Sakura rolled over and smacked the trap, breaking it, causing the gas to dissipate. But not before Caustic started blasting her side with his gun. The bullets pierced into her side with yellow sparks. Sakura grit her teeth and dove to cover. Dr. Muto fired another thread but this time the crouching Sakura incinerated it with a short ranged blast of ki, having learned her lesson from last time.
Even with Muto helping to pull one of the brawlers off of him, Sigma was having a rough go of things. Colress had to burn yet another heal to keep him up, though the Dutchman seemed much less perturbed by this than Zenkichi might have expected. About the time he realized something was up, Sigma lifted his arms and began charging gravitic energy, singing “Het universum zingt voor mij!” as he started to float above the battlefield. Zenkichi found himself rooted for a moment, then slowly, helplessly lifted into the air.
Sakura couldn’t afford to be pinned down. Her jaw dropped at Sigma’s impressive ability, and she knew it wouldn’t end well. Sakura sprinted forward, and Caustic threw a grenade in her way, preparing to release its deadly poison. Sakura flipped over it and blasted downward with an aerial hadoken, destroying the canister and resulting in a diminutive little burst. Landing on her feet she reached out with Mental Connection. ”Here, again!” She shouted. She plucked him from the air and tugged him out of the anti-gravity radius. It was a rush job so he ended up slamming into her and knocking her over. A few moments later the solid ground dented inward a few inches in the wide radius that Sigma had affected with a tremendous crash of gravitic energy.
”Holy crap!” Sakura shouted in surprise.
Pushing himself up, Zenkichi took a deep breath. ”Yeah, wow, that was close. Thanks for the save, Kasugano.” His thanks given, he offered a hand to Sakura. ”This isn’t working, that scientist guy just keeps healing them. Even if he can only do it ten times, I don’t know how much longer we’re gonna last, we gotta get creative.” Right as he finished, Muto, now back to gorilla form, leapt at the pair, arms swinging wildly. Hefting the Closing Statement awkwardly, Zenkichi managed to just get pushed back a little, retaliating quickly with a heavy overhead slash that Muto made no effort to evade, just punching the Phantom Thief in the chest.
”Yeah. New plan. Get the guy with the gun to shoot their healer.” Zenkichi wheezed, trying to catch his breath. ”Gorilla dude hurts like hell.”
Sakura jumped on Muto’s back, wrapping her arm around his head and neck and yelling loudly. ”DAAAAAAAGH!” Muto, strangled, started flailing and grabbing at her and the two went off in a random direction. Looked like Zenkichi might have to execute his plan himself. That was Muto off Zenkichi, but he would have to take cover quick because Caustic and a particularly miffed Sigma were looking to rain bullets and rocks down upon him.
Sighing, Zenkichi made a break for a large rock protruding from the ground, taking a quick breather before clambering up and over, leaping from the rock towards Caustic. If he was going to get this to work, he needed to be fast. Tarukaja was still up, though, so Zenkichi had to work without a speed buff. Tanking a burst of shots before dodging out of the way of a follow-up blast, he was at least far enough away from Sigma that most of the hyperspheres were off-course by the time he moved. Even trying to predict Zenkichi’s movements, the floating scientist had trouble landing his shots on target with the erratic dodging he was doing.
Finally closing in, Zenkichi smirked while Caustic did the same, pulling out a hefty revolver and firing it nearly point-blank into the Phantom Thief’s chest, causing a grimace as he staggered a bit behind the force of the bullet. That complicated things a bit, but all Zenkichi had to do was steal or destroy this gun and force him back to the rifle. From there, get between him and Colress and dodge at just the right time for Caustic to shoot his ally. Easy peasy.
Dodging the follow-up shot, Zenkichi whiffed his first swing as Caustic simply side-stepped, then combo’d into a sweeping slash that caught the Legend in the chest, pushing him back while Zenkichi quickly drew his revolvers, loosing a quickfire burst of shots into him and rolling to evade his opponent’s much heavier revolver shot. ”Not gonna be able to touch me with that thing again, now that I know what you’re up to, man. My sword might be slow, but I can still dodge that thing!” It wasn’t a particularly inspired taunt, and while it didn’t do the trick right away, the seed of doubt was still planted.
In order to get her off, Dr. Muto turned back into a spider, but this time Sakura wasn’t letting him go. She leapt after him and tackled him to the ground. “Bwah!” He shouted, scrabbling his many weird leg-arms, causing Sakura to grimace. As she began to rain punches down upon him, he popped out an egg that threatened to explode. ”Ew! Eep!”” Sakura jumped away, and he just ended up blowing himself up.
Sakura skidded to a stop, glancing over at Zenkichi. Dr. Muto was about to be healed again, anyway. Why not give him a chance? ”No choice, huh? Well how about I give you one!” Sakura pulled a friend heart from her chest and sprinted ahead. She jumped over a bomb and flung it down. It hit Dr. Muto and immediately the clarity struck him. He stopped dead in his tracks and looked and Sakura, who landed and took an expectant fighting stance.
“This requires further evaluation!” He shouted. Sakura blinked. “So long, you uppity blind fools!” He called to his mercenary companions. He pointed at Caustic. “Your poison is amateur,” and looked to Sigma, “And your singing is, too!” Having apparently decided once and for all to be a scientist and not a mercenary, Dr. Muto scuttled along the outside of the walls of the platforms or this strange place and out of sight.
”Oookay! Works for me!” Sakura said, turning her attention to Sigma.
Not taking the convenient escape of Dr Muto for granted, Zenkichi kept the pressure on Caustic. He stowed his revolvers and out came his normal greatsword, its longer range and lighter weight better for harassment than pure damage, which was his current goal. Even if it meant abandoning an attack during the wind-up, Zenkichi was solely focused on getting Colress to aggro instead of heal. It meant carefully dodging every trap, every shot, and trying to dance in and out of point-blank range, where the revolver was more maneuverable, and low-mid range, where his assault rifle’s rate of fire would win out.
While Sakura was working on Sigma, Zenkichi pulled a gambit and called for Valjean. ”Megido!” He yelled, intentionally using a lower-powered attack to rile Caustic up more, rather than deal serious damage.
“Ugh! Take this seriously!” The mad gasser demanded, pulling out another gas grenade and hurling it at Zenkichi before drawing his assault rifle and sending a spray of fire into the gas, to suppress Zenkichi and keep him from moving.
“I must say, I didn’t quite expect you to realize this was an option.” Came the stoic voice of Colress, before a bolt of lightning slammed into the Legend, paralyzing him and causing him to stagger, while Zenkichi coughed and stumbled out of the gas cloud.
”That was…marginally…successful.” He groaned, violently coughing while Colress followed up on Caustic with an air slash, which, boosted by Serene Grace, caused him to flinch and whiff his return fire. ”Dude, that’s mean.” Zenkichi wheezed out when he realized what Colress was doing.
“It is the optimal tactic, given my abilities.” Colress simply replied, firing off another air slash. Caustic’s body simply locked up from the paralysis, and he dropped to his knees, while Zenkichi sighed. Part of him wished he could do what Sakura had done, and try to save him, but that would mean fighting Colress himself now, to Heart him and get his aggro off.
But that was the lot that Galeem had forced on them. It was a shame, but…Zenkichi approached Caustic carefully, while Colress launched yet another air slash at Caustic, who flinched yet again, sending a spray of assault rifle fire into the floor. As the Legend grunted in frustration, Zenkichi attacked, launching a devastating combo of attacks, draining a little bit of energy due to his vampiric strikes, and finally, after yet another air slash from Colress, Zenkichi’s greatsword came down in a mighty overhead blow which cleaved through Caustic’s body, killing him and dissolving him into ash.
”Sorry about that…” Zenkichi sighed, to both Colress and the now-deceased Caustic. Feeling a wellspring of motivation inside him, he turned to his Street Fighter ally. ”Sakura! Finish this! Heat Riser!” He cheered, the ultimate Support ability buffing her attack, defense, and speed for the next minute. ”Oh hell yeah, I’m back!!!”
Sakura let out a breath, looking down at her hands. ””W-wow! This is amazing!” She shouted. She turned her gaze upon Sigma, and the scientist grit his teeth.
”You’re mine!” She sprinted forward, bouncing on her feet with incredible speed. Sigma began firing his hyper sphere but they mostly bounced off the ground as Sakura stepped to the sides. And the ones that did hit her, she just grunted, shrugged off, and kept charging.
Gathering a ball of rocks he chucked them at Sakura who jumped clean over them. Sigma was backing up but he was quickly coming to the edge. And once Sakura was upon him, she unloaded a devastating combo, slamming her fists and feet into his body. ”Shouoken!” She ended it with an uppercut that sent him flying. Sigma was made of tough stuff, and quickly got to his fee, but without support there was no where for him to go. His close combat skills were lacking, and any time he blasted Sakura in the body with hypersphere it didn’t seem to slow her down. She just pushed through the pain and kept up the pressure.
”KURAE!” She yelled, lighting up orange and slicing into him with a forward pushing razorblade of a spin kick. ”It’s over!” She slammed her foot into his chest and watched his eyes nearly pop out of his head before he was sent flying away, over the gap in the void and onto the next ‘island’, crashing through the roof of a building.
Breathing heavily, Sakura turned around to face Zenkichi and gave him a peace sign and a big grin.
Colress studied the aftermath with a dour expression, his arms crossed. “Well, that certainly took a turn. Unexpected…yet informative. At the very least, there’s no love lost between us.” He turned toward the Seekers and shrugged. “Either way, that’s more than enough field work for me, and a deal’s a deal. Good luck with whatever it is you’re doing. I’d probably better get out of here and lay low for a while.” He spread his white wings and prepared for takeoff, but paused for a moment. “Oh, here. A show of good faith, let’s say.” With the last of his PP, he used Heal Pulse two more times to patch Sakura and Zenkichi up. Then he beat his wings and flew away, albeit a little clumsily.
”Bye-bye, Colress-san!” She waved after him, feeling especially better now that he healed her. She jogged up to Zenkichi, grabbing his shoulder and shaking him reassuringly. Glancing regretfully upon Caustic’s spirit, Sakura did some mental math. Maybe her time in the World of Light was making her jaded. But she didn’t feel that bad about his death, given that he was a mercenary whose special move was violating the Geneva Convention by deploying deadly home-made poison gas. He also just seemed like a jerk.
”...Come on, let’s go find the others. We’re at the finish line, Zenkichi-san!”
