Chapter 6: Convergence
A day had passed since the exploration party went through Volcanic Tower and discovered what seems to be Mary's burning body at the end. Despite great progress being made through the surface Jails, there was now also an air of uncertainty. The only clue Mary left behind as to who may have burned her up was her using the word 'they' to describe whatever it was that was chasing her. The party had informed the base of what they found and after a few hours of clean up, what's left of Mary's belongings were brought back, but even then there was very little left behind to tell of what happened.
"I really can't believe it, all this time that Mary has been living here she was always careful of where she went and even had her powers to help conceal herself. How did she end up like this?" Guillotine said, unable to find answer that Mary of all people, had been somehow killed.
"And the last thing she said to us, almost implied as if she was being chased somehow, so are we to take it that there's actually someone or something out there intending to harm us still?" Gallows added.
"Unfortunately we don't know for sure. From what we know, Mary may have been followed somehow. Now, I want to avoid everybody from suspecting one another and causing a divide within our community here, so if I may ask you all to keep this matter a secret for now. Of course, at the same time do be careful yourselves from anything that might happen," Jabberwock suggested.
As frightening it is to continue onward with the journey, everybody knew it was their only option. The only people aware of what happened with Mary were the main party, Jabberwock, the other Blood Maidens, and Hikari's group. Even though the people who knew were aware of something out there, nobody had felt any sense of danger while in town. For Red Riding Hood though, she was at a complete loss of what's going on. Surely she knew that this world was different from hers, but all she knew was Gato being the main threat, but with him dead and what seems to be a malevolent force lurking around, it was a scary thought.
Knowing that sitting around was not going to do any good, Red Riding Hood decided to take a walk outside, but as she approached the door of her room, it swung open and hit her right in the face... again.
"Ugh! Not again..." Red Riding Hood moaned in pain as she stepped back while in pain.
"Oh, so you are here," said Gretel, who stood at the entrance completely unfazed by the fact that she just opened the door on Red Riding Hood's face.
"Hey Gretel, did you ever thought about knocking before coming in?"
"Well, I tried the door and it was unlocked, so I just took that as you're open for walk ins."
"That's not-ah nevermind, did you need something?"
"Yes, I actually came to ask you about Mary, and the last few times you have seen her. What exactly happened?"
"Well, I think days before when she started to act strange, she did come back with some minor injuries, but she said she didn't need help and just walked away. Then the next time we saw her was when she reported Gato being dead. After that, I didn't really see her much, and the only time we spoke to her was when she requested for help, something about 'they' getting to her."
"Oh, I see. So that's what's going on..."
"Do you know something?"
"Perhaps. There was a time when I tried to talk to her, but I noticed that she instantly was on guard and found every excuse to leave. From then on, whenever I get a chance to observe her, she would always notice and then quickly leave."
"Uh, are you sure you are not just creeping her out by your stalking?"
"No, not at all. I just wanted to talk to her like a normal person, so why would she avoid me like that. Due to that, I had to ask other people when they saw her and what she did. From the looks of it, she always had acted suspiciously from the beginning. Only that she probably found something out and whoever was in charge didn't like it and killed her off."
"So you're saying there's something she knew but was hiding?"
"Very likely, I am not sure what exactly, but it had to be important if she died for it. If you don't mind me asking, what was the Mary from your world capable of?"
"I don't recall everything since she was not in my group, but I think I was told that she had matches that she threw into the Cores."
"Hm, all right. That's good to know. It should be the same thing for Mary over here too, so I will see if I can get access to her room and look for anything she may have left behind," Gretel concluded as she left to do just that.
"Hey Gretel, you can't just... ah, she's gone..." Red Riding Hood trailed off as she knew there was no stopping Gretel from doing something when she wanted to.
There was still nothing much to do as the rest of the party had not decided to head out yet, so as Red Riding Hood wandered around she went by Clara's store and remembered something and dropped in. Once inside though, instead of seeing Clara minding the shop, she only saw Takumi filling up the shelves.
"Hey there! How are we doing today!" Takumi greeted, as if there was nothing out of the ordinary, though with the multiple renovations done by Clara on the store, there were much more than just the usual general supplies.
"Takumi, what are you doing here?" Red Riding Hood responded.
"Oh, I am just helping out the boss hold down the fort a little bit. She really does prefer wandering outside to sell her stuff, no idea who she's selling it to though. Anyway, I have control over this place in the meantime if there is something you need."
"Hm, yeah. Actually, I have this that we recovered the other day, think you can just fix it up?" Red Riding Hood said as she presented the radio that was left near Mary's burning body.
"Oh yeah, piece of cake for me, I'll have it fixed up in no time. Anything else you need?"
"Yes, if you see Clara again, ask her if she has seen Mary while she is out there in the Jail, we're trying to find out what happened."
"Oh right, I heard about the poor girl. Yeah will do, I'll ask the boss if she has picked up or noticed anything."
Once the visit to the shop was done, Red Riding Hood continued onwards the other part of the city when she ran right into Iron Maiden at the corner. Of course, the other girl was more than glad seeing her.
"Red! Fancy seeing you out here! What are you up to today?" Iron Maiden asked, dancing around Red Riding Hood with sparkles in her eyes.
"Hello Iron Maiden, I was just thinking of what else we need for our next trip."
"Well, if you got some time, why don't we go back to Grave Dungeon?"
"Hm, is there a reason you need to be there?"
"Yeah, I heard you along with Gallows and Guillotine rode on that roller coaster thing, I wanna try it out too!"
"Uh, no. Let's not do that, last time we only took it out of necessity, and it is not as fun as you make it out to be."
"Aww, I so wanted to go too. Well, if we can't do that why don't we take a peek at the next place we're gonna explore?"
"I'd rather not do that when there's only two of us."
"Ehh, com'on, we should do something fun in times like these, to get our minds off the serious business you know. Why don't we just revisit an old place? There won't be any Nightmares there~"
"No, I think I'll pass, I just don't want to move outside with just us right now,"
"...Awww, I guess you aren't comfortable with me because I look like Iron Maiden from your world huh, even though I try so hard to be friendly..."
"Hey wait, I didn't mean it like that."
"That's all right, I understand..." Iron Maiden said, as there was a visible pout on her face as she slowly but swiftly went away.
"(Ugh, I feel more horrible now. I guess I may have been a little too distant with her)" Red Riding Hood reflected as she could not call back Iron Maiden now.
Later
Red Riding Hood had looked through most of the areas that Mary was seen in town, but there was nothing of interest relating to Mary at any of the areas. In the end, she found herself in near the Cathedral where the Order of the Sun had set up shop. As she approached the building though, there was a visible group of people just outside hanging around. Upon closer inspection, it was Gallows along with Hameln, Kaguya, and the three sisters, as they all seemed to be crowded around something Gallows was showing.
"So as you can see, if you move the lever on this thing, the car moves," Gallows explained as she had a controller in her hand and remotely moved a small sized car on the ground.
"Why, this would make life so easier if I could use it to transport my things," Kaguya commented, already thinking of ways to take advantage of technology
"Such an amazing magical creation, how do you create such a thing? I must have this power!" Hameln asked, amazed at what she was seeing.
"This is not magic or anything, I just found some old toys from an abandoned store and fixed them up and got some power to them," Gallows explained.
"Hmm, what's this one?" Sleeping Beauty asked as she picked up another model, this one having wings on the side.
"That one is an Aeroplane, supposed to be one that can fly. There's also another version called the Helicopter there if you want to check it out," Gallows replied as she pointed out the rest of her pile.
"This is rather cool, I never knew such things existed," Thumbelina said as she and Snow White inspected the various models of electric powered toys
"One day we should get everybody one of these and plan a race, it'll be fun," Snow White suggested.
"(Huh, Gallows and everybody sure is having some fun without a care... Maybe I am just too paranoid)" Red Riding Hood thought it seemed like she was too preoccupied with what was going on.
The next day
Red Riding Hood had loosened up, as there really had been no immediate danger within the home base. Though what was more important was to get to Iron Maiden and apologise to her about yesterday, as yesterday's conversation ended pretty sourly. After a small trip to the cafeteria, Red Riding Hood made her way to in front of Iron Maiden's room. Just as she was about to knock on the door, the door opened itself and it seemed like Iron Maiden was going outside anyway.
"Red! You came looking for me!" Iron Maiden said as she leapt into Red Riding Hood.
"Ahh! Yeah, I did. I came to apologise for yesterday, I did not want to be so dismissive of you."
"Oh, that's just fine. After all, I thought about it and since you're not from our world you may have doubts about some of us here. Well, I thought that its best to just prove it to you that I am your friend! Buuut! Since you came to apologise, why don't you do one thing for me?"
"Umm, what's that?"
"Since we're friends, you can call me Mei~!"
"Oh... uh, sure... Mei?"
"Yaaay! You call me by my much cuter name!" Iron Maiden said with glee as she clung onto Red Riding Hood again.
"Ok, I said it, you don't have to cling on so hard. Besides, I do have to drop by somewhere, how about coming along with me?" Red Riding Hood responded.
"Oh, absolutely!"
Red Riding Hood and Iron Maiden travelled to the area where Hikari and her friends were all situated in, and finding Takumi's room, she knocked on the door. There was no response, but shortly after Mamoru's room opened and he saw the two of them.
"Hey you guys, if you're looking for Takumi he's out at the workshop," Mamoru said.
"Oh, guess he's busy lately huh."
"Well, from what I heard, Gretel went to ransack Mary's room and had found something of interest for Takumi to look at."
"I guess that makes sense, I was just thinking if he'd have the radio I left for him yesterday."
"Oh yeah, he had it fixed yesterday and left it with Hikari, let's see if she has it," Mamoru said as she went towards Hikari's room, where there was an immediate response.
"Hey, the door's open," Hikari said from inside, as the three went inside.
Once inside, they saw Hikari tending to the Nightmare again, who is slouched down on the mat on one side of the room and more or less unresponsive.
"Hey, what happened? Is the Nightmare dead?" Iron Maiden asked.
"No, it's just sleeping. It has actually been recovering very well and could speak a little better. But yesterday it seemed to get really worked up."
"That's good news I guess, if anything happens maybe it can help us out. Oh yeah, its right here Red Riding Hood," Mamoru said as he picked up and handed her the radio.
"Thanks. Seems like you guys are doing well in here."
"Yeah, this here is not quite what we expected from the surface, but everybody was happy to welcome us in here."
"Anyway, good luck with your trip wherever you go next, I know it's not easy," Mamoru said.
"You guys should be fine, but be sure to stay safe so we can all get out of this alive," Hikari encouraged.
"Yeah thanks, we'll do our best," Red Riding Hood responded.
Later on, Red Riding Hood and Iron Maiden dropped by the cafeteria area for some lunch, and there they saw Guillotine at a table with Rapunzel and Cinderella again.
"Hey, isn't that Guillotine?" Red Riding Hood asked.
"Yeah, didn't you say last time she got into a little bit of trouble with those two?" Iron Maiden responded as they both looked over.
"Mmm, thanks. Can I get pudding now?" Rapunzel asked, as she actually finished her plate of cabbage.
"Certainly, I have made all the preparations with the finest ingredients," Guillotine said as she produced pudding for both Rapunzel and Cinderella, though the pudding had an obviously hint of green.
"Hey, look at that pudding, its definitely made with cabbages," Red Riding Hood said, pointing at the unnatural colour.
"Yeah you're right, poor Rappy~" Iron Maiden said as they watched Rapunzel and Cinderella happily gobble up the cabbage invested pudding.
Much to their surprise though, Rapunzel and Cinderella actually seemed to enjoy the unholy flavoured pudding for whatever reason, and they even seemed satisfied with it.
"Thank you for the treat Guillotine, it was really good. I have to go now, I'll be back," Cinderella said as she excused herself politely.
Red Riding Hood and Iron Maiden could only observe with a little awe and wonder, at least recalling that last time the two were a little picky with what they wanted to eat, but now they are completely all up for Guillotine's famous cabbage dish.
"Wow, what did Guillotine do to convince them to like cabbages? Did she threaten them or use force? Those poor little girls," Iron Maiden imagined out loud, exaggerating every thought.
"Hey, I heard that, how rude to think I am coercing them into eating cabbages. I merely educated them on the good benefits of eating cabbages, and how it helps them with their everyday lives, so anything I can get for you guys today?" Guillotine explained.
"Umm, just the usual cabbage dishes. We'll skip the pudding though," Red Riding Hood specified.
"Fine, it'll be ready for you guys soon."
"Hm, Guillotine seems to be happy. I wonder if its because she found others that like her cabbages."
"Maybe its just because she feels safe in this space."
"Safe? For all we know, whoever killed Mary could be nearby though..."
"Oh Red, there is one thing that I think you should know. That is, before the Professor provided this safe haven for us, Guillotine used to be much more stubborn and also unwilling to trust anybody, especially with what happened with her bro there. I think after all this time, she is able to move on from all that after making a few friends, and believe me, as big as our city is, everybody more or less know each other, so if there's anybody acting suspicious, we'll know."
"Huh, I see. Looks like she really went through a lot but still received enough kindness to actually change for the better."
After a time with eating, Red Riding Hood and Iron Maiden went their separate ways. Though Red Riding Hood had realised she forgotten the radio back at the table earlier, but when she back to retrieve it, it had been gone already. Unfortunately, nobody had seen who or what passed by, so she couldn't do much about it, especially when Guillotine already left the kitchen area as well. It did not take long before Red Riding Hood found out who had it though, as she heard something from her own radio and listened in.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Red Riding Hood, is that you over there?" Said a familiar voice.
"Yeah it's me. Is that you, Rachel?"
"Yep, it's me. I thought you may have left it on the table, but I couldn't find you."
"Ah yeah. Anyway, I was going to give that to you anyway, since it'll be useful to communicate with you when we're out there in case if anything happened. So if it's not too much trouble, you can keep it with you."
"No problem, I'll keep you posted if anything happens so you guys can go out without worries," Rachel replied, and afterwards she turned her attention to her guest across the table. It had been quite a surprise to her, but given how things have progressed lately, it was welcome. Across the table sat Guillotine, who had for many years avoided her, but have now willingly open to conversation. "Well, this is unusual."
"I know, it has been so many years that... I really don't know what to say," Guillotine admitted, though she did resolve to stop avoiding Rachel and actually try to reach out.
"But, I am glad you decided to finally talk to me. After all those years that you probably kept the guilt to yourself, it probably wore you down quite a bit right?"
"...it was that obvious huh."
"Of course, it's actually written all over your face. But enough of that, let me ask you this now: If we were to talk about that day in Licard Island, how do you actually feel about it?"
"Well... I guess thinking back to then right now, it's... both regret and sorrow."
"And why do you feel that?"
"I think... it's because, things have changed since then, and... I did something that caused pain for many people. Sometimes I thought about how it would be if it was the other way around, if I had to make such a difficult choice, then what would I do. It's really hard to put into words, but the point is that I've done something terrible back then and I cannot reverse it."
"And so you choose to run away, even if I am right here."
"Yes, I guess that's what it comes down to."
"Well Guillotine, I think you should know, that even as things turned out the way they did, I never hated you. Though the event was horrible, I was still able to live here all these years, even got to know everybody too."
"Rachel, you..."
"At the end of the day, I think you should learn to forgive yourself. What's done in the past is done. Back then you never had the kindness and relationships you do now, so of course you only acted upon what you thought was the correct action. Let me assure you that it's all right now. You have both Iron Maiden and Gallows, along with everybody who know what you are, nobody is going to judge you for your past anymore."
"...You're right. Well, even if it means little I would still like to apologise for that time."
"Heh, you don't have to make that face, I know you."
Next morning
Gathered near the entrance of the city were all the party members, all geared up and ready to go. By now, everybody knows that moving forward is the only way to go, and that while some things are uncertain, they have to push on and uncover the truth for themselves. The first destination the party would take is through the left side door on the last floor of Volcanic Tower, where it leads to Judgement Tower. Since there were only so many known places, the other door that was locked had to lead to Licard Island, but they could not access that path for now.
"All right, we ready to do this?" Red Riding Hood said, as they began to journey into Judgement Tower.
"Of course, we're made for this," Guillotine confidently replied as Iron Maiden and Gallows followed as well.
Having only heard about the place from the stories, Red Riding Hood finally had her first look at Judgement Tower, and it was truly a bizarre of a place that words would not describe. There were open flames in some places as well as brazen bulls present, but of course none this heat compared to the harsher conditions in Volcanic Tower. The floor was made of gold coins melded together, which made a sort of optical illusion as the floor was flat but looked to be uneven. Along with the numerous pillars around the area, there were also trumpets sticking out of walls and other things all around the dungeon, making it a truly weird place.
Much like the previous Tower though, this one is not nearly as expansive, which makes exploration a bit easier but much more difficult to escape the Nightmare through its cramped halls. Nevertheless, the party continued to push on, first exploring the first few rooms connected through mere doors and found nothing significant before moving out to the hallway and heading around the corner to find stream of fire coming out from the other end of the hall as well as several periodic spike traps. Thanks to Iron Maiden's solid defences, the hallways was trivial as the party forced their way to the end and turned left to another hallway that led to a switch. After pulling the switch down though, there seemed to be no reaction, but undeterred, the party backtracked and went through the trap again to another path and entered another room.
There they saw a mechanism with two switches on the ground and two giant blocks across the other end of the room. Due to the sheer weight of the blocks, it was not possible to push it around normally, so Gallows and Iron Maiden combined their powers and had Gallows hoist herself up to the ceiling first and weave certain parts of Iron Maiden's armour around to slightly lift the block up then move them into position. Having both switches pressed down, the traps at the earlier hall was shut off, as well as a door opening from somewhere.
Now that the earlier hallway no longer had any traps active, the party could see that there was a branching hallway that they missed, and going through there they went straight until they hit the end with a switch and a door that they could see lead up to the second floor. Unfortunately, pressing down the switch did not open the door, and so the party began to backtrack and wander around to see if there was something they missed, but nothing could be found. When it seemed like they were stuck and unable to move on, there was a signal from the radio and Red Riding Hood turn it up to listen.
"Hello? Are you there Rachel?" Red Riding Hood asked.
"Yes, can you hear me?" Rachel said on the other end.
"Hey, what's up?"
"Are you by any chance stuck in place waiting for a door to open?"
"Yes, how do you know this?"
"Listen, I am actually over at Licard Island with the other Blood Maidens right now."
"What? Aren't you guys supposed to be guarding the base?"
"Initially, yes. However, we found out that anything that could breach into town was because of a small opening in the side of wall outside in a very secluded place. It also looked like somebody intentionally dug open the hole there."
"What? Who could do such a thing?"
"We don't know. For now, we've sealed off that hole and have Mamoru watch over it. If whoever is responsible for everything is from town, they would probably go there. In any case, there is no need to worry about anything back in the base for now. We're over here and will try to help you out."
"Well, alright. So can you actually open the door here?"
"Yes, just wait a second, I just want to confirm it."
There was a few seconds of silence, but there appeared to be the sound of a switch being pulled on the other end of the radio. Sure enough, the door in front of Red Riding Hood's party, unlocked and flew open.
"Hey, the door opened on our side here," Red Riding Hood said as she confirmed the door opening.
"Yes, that's what I thought. Earlier, we were here also in the same problem as you guys, then a door just opened on its own, which I think was your doing," Rachel explained as she recounted the events on her side.
"Alright then, we'll keep in contact, just be careful of the Nightmare."
"Will do."
Having been granted access, the party went up to the next floor and explored three branching rooms from their initial position and found power cords in each room that Red Riding Hood cut, which deactivated a lightning barrier on one side of the wall in the initial room. They then went through the hall and found themselves going through several rooms in straight succession and ran into a dead end room.
Sure enough, after just waiting a short moment, one of the doors had opened on its own again, which signalled to them that the other party was also on their through Licard Island. Going through the left side door, Gallows set up a swing rope to skip across a large pit, then the party saw a couple of hall ways from where they were, all littered with laser traps. Easily enough, Iron Maiden encased herself and made her way to the end of the hall and pulled a switch to disable the trap. Backtracking to room earlier, the right side door was now opened and after going through a near identical trap set up as the left side, the party arrives at the end where Guillotine used her sword to turn a special lever. They only heard something go off, but knew it probably helped the other party, so they moved on and up the stairs to the third floor.
Once up on the third floor, they could immediately see where the Core was through a mesh on the side, but could not physically force their way through. Having no choice but to go the other way, they went through a small hall way up to the next room, where they saw some of the staggering Undead wandering around. Not taking any chances of being overwhelmed, the party assassinated them and took their blood then moved left through another short hallway into the next room. In the next room, it was also similar to the last, a few Undead walking aimlessly that were easy to pick off. Going left again into a third room there was nothing there but a switch, so they pulled it downwards and unlocked the door at the south side of the room.
Going through the door and into the next room, the party comes across several pits in a checker pattern, so Gallows got to work again with swing ropes to safely cross the room and onto the next one south. In this next room, there was a Marchen blocking the way to the right side, which the party was easily able to fight their way through, and going to the next room from there was a few fire pits, but nothing special except another lever that was easily operable. Travelling one more room to the east side, there was an empty room, perfect for a brief stop.
The northern part of the room had a small hallway that led straight back into the first room of the floor, where the Core was. Once the party readied themselves, the ventured into the room, already knowing what to expect.
"All right, we know how this goes now, everybody ready?" Guillotine said, as she slowly approached the Core.
"Yep, time to beat up another ugly ol monster~" Iron Maiden responded, as the Core guardian emerged from the side to confront them.
Iron Maiden was completely right about one thing: The Core guardian was an ugly monster, and a really ugly one at that. It had a large frame while standing on four giant legs with an equal huge upper body along with a head that had two small horns. Its imposing size meant that there would be no easy way to trip it up as the battle began. Still, Iron Maiden put up a defensive wall with protruding spikes that proved to be an effective against the beast's charging. At the same time, Red Riding Hood and Guillotine ran out from the wall and began hacking away at one of its legs, causing it to react in pain. Meanwhile, Gallows had already hoisted herself up to near the ceiling, and let down another secured rope that began to lift up Iron Maiden as well. Once up there, Iron Maiden positioned her armour pieces to take up an offensive formation and began to rain needles on the Marchen from above.
While the Marchen beast tried to retaliate by trying to jump up and counterattack, Red Riding Hood and Guillotine got to work again and went behind the beast to cut right into the flesh of its hind legs, causing it to stumble and fall to the ground. Seeing the chance, Red Riding Hood quickly ran around it and plunged her scissors into its chest area. However, the beast did not die immediately and began to furiously thrash and flail, which then caused one of its giant legs to make contact with Red Riding Hood and she flew half way across the room. Seeing as how dangerous it was with the beast, Gallows let down a rope to hoist Guillotine up as well, and from there she positioned herself until she got herself in place and waited for an opportunity. When the Marchen slowed down even just a little bit from the excessive blood loss, Guillotine let herself down from the rope, and carefully planning her downwards fall, she swung her sword and cut the head off, and thus killing the ugly creature.
"Red! Are you all right!?" Iron Maiden asked as she ran over to Red Riding Hood, who has picked herself up from the floor by now.
"Yes, I am not seriously hurt thankfully," Red Riding Hood responded, her mysterious suit still saving her from serious injuries.
Meanwhile, Gallows and Guillotine has smashed the Core into pieces. As the Tower was a smaller size, the party wondered if there would be another Core or if that was it, but of course, there was only one way forward, and that is to the left side of the room from where they were there is a small cage that easily easily cut apart to gain access. Moving forward, the party finally arrives in a fairly large central room, where they indeed saw the second Core there.
"Hey look, there's the other Core, we just have to-" Red Riding Hood said, then she realised the area beginning to light up in a blinding white.
"What, the Nightmare is here already but we haven't destroyed the Core yet!" Iron Maiden noted, as the situation began to look bad.
"We've got to destroy that quickly," Guillotine mentioned as she took one step forward, but was interrupted when the Nightmare appeared right in front of her in its full size with a giant head and two scales on both its sides.
Gallows immediately threw out her noose from her gallows and caught Guillotine to pull her back as the Nightmare dropped one of its scales right to where Guillotine was. Seeing it was inevitable that the party splits up with this task, Iron Maiden volunteers to slip past and destroy the Core while the others hold off the Nightmare.
The combined force of Red Riding Hood, Gallows, and Guillotine were able to deal a hard blow that just momentarily stun the Nightmare as its head part broke. Iron Maiden finally slipped through, but as she neared the Core, she felt her feet being restrained, as the usual two disembodied heads that accompany the Nightmare had excreted a sticky slimy substance that immobilised Iron Maiden and her armour pieces. The Nightmare, now having recovered from its piece being broken raged and released a shock wave that knocked away the other party members and turned its attention towards Iron Maiden now.
Knowing the Nightmare was approaching Iron Maiden, Gallows had no time to set up a rope to swing across, so she reached out with her hangers and surprisingly was able to latch onto parts of the Nightmare's back. This action slowed down the Nightmare just enough so that both Guillotine and Red Riding Hood were able to catch up and jump onto the Nightmare's back as it moved forward. Once it was right in front of Iron Maiden, Red Riding Hood and Guillotine interfered on both sides to prevent its scales from crushing Iron Maiden. After a bit of a struggle, the Nightmare swung and threw Red Riding Hood next to Iron Maiden on the floor. This was what Red Riding Hood intended though, as she immediately applied some of the stored blood in her suit to dissolve the slime immobilising Iron Maiden.
With Iron Maiden free, she was able to erect a shield to fend for herself and Red Riding Hood. Meanwhile, Gallows was able to sneak around unnoticed and easily destroy the Core with no problem. Guillotine had also gotten off the Nightmare and rejoined the party as now it was apparent the Nightmare is vulnerable,
"Finally, I thought I was going to die back there!" Iron Maiden exclaimed in relief.
"No worries, we won't let that happen," Red Riding Hood assured.
"Aww, Red~"
"Keep your guard up, the Nightmare is still formidable on its own," Guillotine warned as the party gathered to fight it for real now.
The Nightmare faced the party head on and while it was able to rain some fire down, everybody was easily able to dodge the incoming attacks. Guillotine aimed for the first disembodied head on the right of the Nightmare, and just begun to attack, as Iron Maiden support fire from behind.
At the same time, Red Riding Hood began to exchange hits with the Nightmare head on, not intending to over power it, but to distract it as Gallows does some set up. After a couple minutes of struggle, Red Riding Hood was knocked down on the floor and stayed there as Gallows swung in from behind in mid and struck the Nightmare right across the face. Seeing a slight opening, Red Riding Hood ran up and instead of striking the Nightmare, went for the disembodied head on the left, cutting its face apart.
Naturally, this drew the attention of the Nightmare to her, but she held her ground in a defensive pose while Guillotine and Iron Maiden not only took care of the other disembodied head but began to attacking away at the two scales on the side of the Nightmare. When the Nightmare realised what was going on, it tried a counterattack, but that is when Gallows swung by again and struck it right in the face again, and seeing the opportunity, with attacks from both sides, the scales, and the face pieces of the Nightmare broke.
Still trying to put up a fight, the Nightmare began to swing in a circle to repel attacks from all sides, but then Iron Maiden carefully positioned herself from afar and after aiming carefully, shot out several rounds of her largest spike projectiles straight into the Nightmare's exposed brain part. The unintentional lobotomy performed by Iron Maiden left the Nightmare in pain with blood spewing out from its brain, and with its full body vulnerable to attack, the rest of the party descended upon the helpless Nightmare to utterly cut and dismember it. After numerous decisive strikes, the Nightmare was finally defeated.
"Finally did it, what a handful that was," Gallows remarked, as having to fight the Nightmare before all Cores were destroyed was not a fun thing to do.
"Yeah, but we made it out alive, thanks to everybody doing their part," Red Riding Hood said as they all played their part in this victory.
From the dismembered parts of the Nightmare, Guillotine noticed a purple diamond frame object and picked it up to inspect it. Though it seemed insignificant, the party decided to keep it anyway, since the Nightmare was holding onto it for whatever reason. Looking around the room, the party found another weak link in the wall and snipped the wall apart to find the teleportation orb on the other side.
Meanwhile, over at Licard Island
Rachel and the rest of the Blood Maidens were able to infiltrate Licard Island after an unusual request from Michiru. It was very abnormal for Michiru to speak out or make such a request, but this time she had cryptically warned of some 'storm' approaching. That alone was not good enough reason for a second party to come out, but after an extensive search around the surrounding areas, the base was completely secured, and even having Mamoru keep watch there was nothing to fear, so the party of Blood Maiden were glad to go on an expedition for once.
It just so happened that while the party wondered how they were going to get into the orb leading to Licard Island, the door opened on its own. Of course, it was not a matter of luck or anything, since it was easy to deduce that the other party had to do something with it. For now though, the party has scouted out the area and roughly knew where they were heading.
For Rachel though, this place was already very familiar to her, from the overarching building with syringes sticking out and the grated flooring that was next to several small bodies of water.
"This is spooky," Rapunzel remarked, the whole area was relatively quiet, but there were several clear grunts of the Undead nearby.
"There is no need to fear, I am here," Hameln assured as she took the vanguard.
"Remember Hammy, don't stray too far from the rest of us," Rachel advised as they began their exploration.
Meanwhile, Gretel already felt something was a bit off while they stepped foot into Licard. She was not one to believe the weird prophecies of Michiru, but the deployment of two parties for speeding up the progress was something she found agreeable. Having thought up a simple contingency plan, Gretel had a few smoke bombs ready as well, while they have strength in numbers, a Nightmare is still a threat not to be taken lightly.
In the first room the party found themselves in, there were a few cracks in the walls on three different spots, Snow White was able to break them open with her bombs, and from there they could actually locate one of the Cores from a distance. Though the larger body of water separating them meant they could not reach it. Continuing on north through one of the openings, they saw a circular switch on the wall at the end, where Sleeping Beauty shot an arrow to activate the switch. The sound of a door being forced open was heard, and so the party continued their journey through the third opening and followed the path that went through a bend and a small island with spike traps and poison patches.
When they travelled upwards, there were spike plates on both sides of the wall that pushed together periodically, to which Kaguya was able to deflect with her bamboo guard. After finding their way through another bend and avoiding more traps, they encountered a small group of Marchens, and fighting through them they arrived at a walkway to the next area.
In the second area, the recognised the blinding white haze shifting around and could barely make out the vague shape of the Nightmare, a big bulky chair with mushrooms as its legs. Knowing that the Nightmare is invulnerable before Core destruction, the party carefully evaded its realm of influence and proceeded forward through some more traps before reaching a dead end with a locked door. They had tried the switch nearby, but nothing was happening so they retreated a bit to avoid the Nightmare and wait a little bit. After a short time, the door opened on its own.
"What, the door opened on its own," Thumbelina observed, seeing that it seemed completely random.
"Hm, I think I may know what's going on," Rachel responded.
"Really?"
"Yeah, let's move in deeper to confirm."
From the new pathway, the party travelled around the area, carefully evading the Nightmare until they reached another door that had been opened already, but there was also a switch to the side. It was here that Rachel begun to try contacting Red Riding Hood's party and tried it out with pulling the switch down that opened the door on the other side. Having confirmed her theory, the party marches on to next section and encounter a few of the Undead wandering around. Ever since the news of Gato's death came out, the Undead had seemed to lack any organisation. Not wanting to have loose ends unaccounted for, the party made short work of the unsuspecting humanoid zombies.
Finally, reaching the third area of the island the party first scanned the area to look for where they were headed to, and in the furthest corner away they saw what looked like the Core. Cautiously approaching south from where they began, there was a Cart guarded by a Marchen group. After slaying the Marchens, the party took the cart across eastward and found themselves in a section that had numerous patches of poison or lightning strike areas. Navigating through the tiny maze and using Bamboo guard as necessary, the party safely made it to the wall on the side and noticed another circular switch there. After shooting one of Sleeping Beauty's arrows on the mark, the door southward was opened. At last, after venturing through the door and getting safely across to the third corner of the area, they found the Core.
"Over there, the Core," Sleeping Beauty remarked as she saw the distinct shape of the core in the middle of the room.
"We can expect a guardian to come out any moment right?" Rachel asked.
"Of course, we should prepare ourselves," Gretel warned, while she did not have the feeling of dread from the first area of the island, she was still vigilant.
As expected, the guardian crawled out into full view, and it was a very familiar Marchen but with a bigger size. The Marchen had two legs and a stick-like body, with many arms protruding out from the body.
With a large party of Blood Maidens, the battle was not too much to handle. Hameln took vanguard and was able to easily suppress the many punch attacks from the arms, while everybody else acted from behind. Kaguya and Sleeping Beauty shot arrows that quickly immobilised and tripped up the Marchen and then both Gretel with Hameln went forwards to hack off several arms from the body. When the Marchen wanted to launch a counterattack, Thumbelina blasted it with a fire spell then followed up with another frontal assault by Rapunzel and Cinderella. Finally, Snow White came up and threw a giant bomb that completely melted off whatever remained of the Marchen.
"Victory for Hameln's party! You may all share in the loot my dear friends!" Hameln declared, proud as ever to 'lead' a party to victory.
Everybody of course, was welled used to Hameln, though they can see how much Hameln has improved her combat and defensive stance. Like everybody else, although they had mainly stayed behind in the base for most of the time, they had not neglected to keep in shape and was more than ready for any battle.
"Anyway, let's do what we came here to do," Thumbelina said as she swiped and threw a single card straight into the core, which then ignited and melted the Core from inside.
"Errrgahhh..." The Jail murmured weakly.
"Umm, that cry was rather weak wasn't it?" Snow White commented.
"Hm, is it supposed to be louder than that?" Rachel asked.
"Yeah, usually it sounds like as if the Jail is in some sort of pain. We don't know what's going on, but let's move on for now. According to what we've been told, there should be one more Core before we can fight the Nightmare," Gretel said as she still looked off to the side, having that small feeling of being watched.
"I found a way over here," Cinderella said as she uncovered another path way that looped around.
Taking that walkway, the party soon looped back through the second and first sections of the island. From here, they saw the Core in a small enclosure that was visible from when they first entered the island. As the party began to make their way into the small space, they all felt like something was terribly wrong, and they only barely stopped when it was already too late.
Several objects seemed to appear out of nowhere rolling on the floor and near the party. In only a few moments, Hameln recognised there was something like a grenade, while Gretel clearly saw that it was a Flash Bang specifically. Even without anybody telling her, Hameln out of instinct managed to knock away one of the flash bang away a little bit before they all went off.
While everything went white from the flash bang, Gretel was able to take Hameln and leaped away to the side on the floor to relatively safety. Gretel then extended her scythe from where she was on the ground, hoping the improvised trap would catch something. To her luck, it worked as she felt somebody trip over her scythe and fall down. Both Gretel and Hameln pounced and held down whoever it was that tripped, and while this caught the assailant by surprise, Gretel could faintly see that there was another person who ambushed them, and both of them had a mask on, allowing them to move effectively during the flash bang.
With just a small push, Hameln leapt up from where they were and began to confront the other figure while Gretel continued to hold down the first person and held her scythe close to their neck. There was a brief struggle as the other person furiously struggled and resisted Hameln, but being a Blood Maiden she had much more strength over the other party. When she had enough of struggling, with one single punch Hameln knocked off the mask and held down the now defenceless person.
After everybody else came to and recovered from the shock from the ambush, Gretel and Hameln had already tied up the two would be assassins with improvised restraints and removed their masks. Naturally, the party were less than happy with the ambush by two actual humans, and almost began to harshly interrogate them. Even so, neither of them would say anything defiantly. Meanwhile, Snow White stayed behind to help Rachel up, who did not recover as fast as the Blood Maidens. When she finally came to, she went ahead and observed who had attacked them.
"We're not talking, no matter you do," Said the voice from one of the two, both clearly identifiable as teen girls.
"We'll see about that," Gretel responded as she brandished her scythe around the two, almost smiling sadistically.
"Wait Gretel, I think I know who they are," Rachel interrupted as she took a closer look. From here, the unmistakable blond hair and blue eyes made it obvious to Rachel that it was indeed Riley and Ellie. At the same time, Riley and Ellie also began to recognise that Rachel is in front of them, grown up and about the same height as they were.
"You... are you actually...?" Riley said in disbelief, it had been so many years.
"Indeed, it has been awhile hasn't it, both my sisters," Rachel said as she smiled at the reunion.
"Your sisters? But they look nothing like you, and they even tried to kill us," Hameln commented.
"Rachel, you are alive," Ellie said, finally realising that Rachel had in fact lived from the day they were separated.
"Yes. I know there is much we need to catch up on, but for now-" Rachel began, but was momentarily interrupted when there was a fuss erupting from behind her.
"Hey, it's here!" Rapunzel shouted as the whiteness around the area did not clear from the flash bang, and it was because the Nightmare's field had enveloped the party. Worst of all, while the party was preoccupied with Riley and Ellie, the Nightmare had the perfect opportunity for ambush and was already right behind Rachel.
Having no time to react at all, the Nightmare leaps up and causes a quake that knocked everybody off balance. With most people down and separated, the Nightmare was almost ready to stomp on Rachel.
Naturally, seeing what would be a horrific scene unfold, Riley immediately began to act, even though she was tied up she managed to get up on her feet and rush towards where Rachel was.
"Rachel!" She yelled out as she pushed Rachel out of the way and took the heavy blow of the Nightmare herself. The sickening crunching sound seemed to echo throughout the area loud and clear as everybody processed what had just happened.
"Riley!" Rachel and Ellie called as they just saw Riley take that hit.
By this time, everybody else had clued in as to what was happening, and began a fast counterattack. Of course, the Nightmare was unable to be defeated at this time with the Core still alive, so there was a concentrated attack on the mushroom leg stool holding Riley down. Once the stool was hit hard enough and the Nightmare lost its balance, Rapunzel used to her hair to quickly extract Riley. Rachel and Ellie immediately checked on Riley, who seemed to be breathing, though injured quite a bit.
"Riley! Are you right?" Rachel spoke, hoping to get a response from her as she untied the restraints on both her and Ellie.
"...yeah. More importantly, are you all right Rachel?" Riley said as she looked up to Rachel.
"I am. But why did you do that?"
"I don't know... I just... did it without thinking."
"Don't speak Riley, we need to get you some help right now," Ellie said as she tried to ease Riley's pain with the basic first aid equipment she had.
"It's all right, I am probably not going to make it..." Riley responded.
"What are you saying? We just met after all these years and you're just gonna leave again?" Rachel said, desperately trying to get Riley to hold onto life.
"The truth is, ever since that day with three of us, all I've felt is regret that I couldn't do anything and... and..." Riley managed to say, but Rachel put a stop to it, knowing what was up already.
"All right, I think I understand. Please, save your strength right now. Ellie, please take care of her for now, we have that thing to take care of," Rachel said, while preparing her Mary Gun to get back into the battle.
Meanwhile, Cinderella had used her speed to rush through and destroy the Core then rejoined the rest of the Blood Maidens in battle. With their concentrated effort, the outer parts of the Nightmare were all broken. However, the Nightmare was still a formidable opponent, with its exposed parts there was electricity leaking out. Since most of the weapons the Blood Maidens have were conductive, they could not safely attack, and so they were left with only ranged attacks being effective. However, the Nightmare would not just stay still to take the ranged attacks but instead aimed at whoever could attack from afar.
After a few unsuccessful attempts to drive back the Nightmare as it advanced unimpeded, the whole party found themselves being pushed back and against the edge on the area. Seeing the hopeless situation, Riley tried to get up and do something, but was too injured to do so.
"Riley, don't try to move in your condition," Ellie advised as she held Riley as she fell backwards.
"Ugh, I know. But Rachel seems to be in trouble again. Here, use this and help them," Riley responded as she passed Ellie a cylinderical object.
"All right, leave it to me."
As the Nightmare seemed to have the Blood Maiden party cornered and about to push them over the edge, Ellie ran to the side of the Nightmare and threw two objects at the Nightmare. The impact of the objects caused the Nightmare to pause as it turned its attention to Ellie, who hoped that what she threw took effect soon enough. As the Nightmare started to creep closer to Ellie, there were a few bursts of electricity from the Nightmare and a small explosion occurred inside the Nightmare, causing it to stumble a bit. Ellie smiled as she knew the two water bottles she threw at the Nightmare spilled into its joints and caused a short circuit.
"Now!" Ellie signalled to the Blood Maidens to attack while the Nightmare had take significant damage.
Without a moment of hesitation, Sleeping Beauty carefully shot in between the joints of the Nightmare, and Snow White prepared a larger bomb that she threw onto the Nightmare. Finally Thumbelina used a fire spell that ignited the bomb and caused an explosion that defeated the Nightmare for good.
Having defeated the Nightmare, there was relief as everybody huddled around to patch themselves from the wounds sustained in the fight. There was also a circular light blue object left behind by where the Nightmare died, so Rachel also picked it up. By now, Riley was unconscious but alive, and so with Rachel's insistence the two would be taken back to town. Luckily, after defeating the Nightmare and pulling down a nearby switch, a bridge appeared that connected the current platform back to the entrance of the island while another door opened with the teleportation orb.
"Very well, I'll make sure that they get back safely," Gretel said as she offered to guide both Riley and Ellie back to base.
"Thank you Gretel, it's a short way back but it should be safe with you around," Rachel replied.
"Of course, we have to keep an eye on our prisoners after all."
"Umm, they are not our prisoners... Don't treat them too harshly."
After being gently warned by Rachel, Gretel did take off with Riley and Ellie back to town while Rachel's remaining party walked through the orb. When they got to the other side, they noticed quite a bit of white and red all over the place, a new yet familiar place for this party as it was obviously Salvation Tower. The party then headed forwards and found themselves in front of a special door. It was at this point that the radio began to buzz and Rachel picked up.
"Hello?"
"Hey Rachel, did you already beat the Nightmare over there?" Red Riding Hood asked from the other side.
"Yes, we went through to the next area, but somehow we're back in Salvation Tower."
"What a coincidence, we're back here too. In fact, we're stuck here because we can't open this door here. It's got a circle shape."
"Ah, I see. We can't open the door here because of a diamond shaped lock. We actually found a key that's shaped in a circle, so I am guessing you must have our key over there."
"Ah yes, we did pick it up after defeating the Nightmare. Should we each send somebody back to exchange the keys?"
"Yes, I think that would be best."
Being in agreement, Rachel's party sent Cinderella and Red Riding Hood's party had Guillotine run back to base. After waiting a little while, both parties finally got their respective keys and was able to unlock the doors at Salvation Tower. Once through the door they turned and saw the other party.
"Well look at that, we all ended up in the same place," Iron Maiden said, as both parties converged at the middle point from where they went through the door.
"That's great and all, but we're back at Salvation Tower, where do we go from here?" Red Riding Hood asked, as ultimately this was a dead end to their respective paths.
"Hmm, the walls on both sides here seems a bit hollow, if we can somehow break them open, maybe that would lead us to where we want to go?" Gallows pointed out as the point of converge had cracked walls on both sides.
"Oh, I can help open them, just remember to stand back," Snow White said as she planted a bomb next to each wall. Moments later, the detonated bombs broke through the two sections of the walls.
On the outer side of the broken wall led to the area where the Blood Maidens had found the breach in the wall near the base, and the inner wall revealed another door. This door has slots of both diamond and circle shapes at the centre, so using the previous keys, the party was able to open it up. Through that door, there was another teleportation orb, and after nodding to each other, everybody marched through to the next place.
Once landed, the party observed the area around them, and also felt the air being heavier in this area. For Red Riding Hood, the sight was all too familiar: vines wrapped around the hallways, compact discs sticking out, human brains embedded on the walls, and transparent powered doors. There was no doubt about it, this was the Devouring Armada Tower, only big difference had been instead of beige colours, there were colours of white, matching the exterior of the Tower.
"I sort of recognise this place, it's the Devouring Armada Tower."
"We made it?" Guillotine asked.
"Yeah, look out that window."
"Wow, we're up high!" Rapunzel said as she peeked out the nearby window to see that the party was up high and on the Tower.
"So we finally made it back in here. Guess this is it huh," Thumbelina said as she observed the wide room the party was in with two branching paths.
"Shouldn't we go back and take a break first, my feet are tired after today," Kaguya mentioned, much to everybody's disbelief because she had been in her bamboo ride all along.
"You're right. We should head back to take a break first. At least we have confirmed a path out here now, we'll be able to come here whenever," Rachel agreed as everybody went back to town to get a well deserved break before the long trek up this Tower.
