[OmniPale and ExpertofExperts have opened a new memo].
OP: Alright, it seems we all survived our denizen encounters, that's good. So look alive everyone, we're in the home stretch here people.
EE: As it stands, aside from the final boss, we've got four primary tasks left: disrupting the Derse soldiers, retrieving the rings from the Black and White queens, and most importantly, the completion of the Genesis Frog. I'm sorry Furlok, but no, you are not actually done.
OP: From our research, the best job for battling the Derse at the moment would be a team of Brendon, Risura, and Dustine; our three heaviest brawlers. Any objections here?
FS: Not from me.
LS: I need a bit of time to sleep that fucking fight off, but I'm good with it.
CD: I'll stay with you for it, but yeah I'm fine with that to.
EE: We haven't got time for that I'm afraid, we're on a time sensitive mission here. The Black King's Reckoning ability could destroy all of Skaia if we take too long, and if it wasn't clear we kind of need Skaia.
LS: Well FML, alright, once more into the breach I guess.
SI: Don't worry, me and Dustine will both stay with you after the fighting and help you calm down alright? Speaking of, where am I?
OP: You're heading to the White Queen with me and Arvis. Between your luck, his charisma, and my soul sight, we're the best team for convincing.
PP: Who's helping me with the frogs?
EE: That'll be Java and Jeff. Her Rogue abilities will work well with your Thief powers, and Jeff's time abilities will make it a cake walk. That leaves me, Mutosi, and Valtina on duty for the Black Queen; me for strategy,
Mutosi for altering our target's beliefs, and Valtina for making sure none of us die (or stay dead) in the process.
PN: Makes sense to me.
MW: Seems a bit cruel, but I guess it has to be done. I'll change her back once she doesn't have the ring anymore and can't hurt us.
EE: Wasn't expecting that from you.. But whatever, fucking take her out dancing for all it matters just so long as it's after we have the ring.
OP: What an elegant analogy.
EE: What an original response.
PN: Wow, I take it you two found your way back into a certain dark corner~
OP: I'm sure I don't know what you're on about.
PN: XP
EE: In any event, if everyone is clear on the plan going forward, then let's cut the shit and get down to it.
Ecto-biology was boring as shit, Furlok concluded.
It was slightly more interesting now that frogs wasn't the only thing she was working with. While Jeff and Java collected the remaining ingredient-some extremely powerful cosmic frog that evidently would absolutely require time travel to capture-Furlok was tasked with creating a stable timeloop.
She couldn't help but think this had to be the time player's job, but Furlok was the only one familiar with the machinery, and even with Jeff's time fuckery they didn't have any time for him to learn. Apparently Furlok would need to create timeclones of herself and the other players in the session.
Why they needed timeclones of themselves, she wasn't sure. That is, until the screen connected to the machines flickered on, showing her the targets she was capturing the paradox goo of. It started with Brendon, showing her little baby Brendon in his father's arms.
From the besuited look he had, the man looked like a mafioso; which she supposed explained his fascination on them. She wondered why he had never mentioned him before; until she saw the dark car roll up behind them.
Three other men in suits stepped out, all three opening fire with guns. The man never stood a chance, nor did Brendon; the bullets ripping them both to pieces. They collapsed to the ground, the men getting back in the car and driving off.
The machine switched next to Patior, showing the incident that had killed his lusus and resulted in him needing a robotic one.
It turned out, Patior had not survived the incident like he thought. He to was killed by the cave in at the Mothergrub brooding cavern. Her eyes widened more and more with each new member of the session. All of them had died, every single one.
Mutosi was flattened as a grub by a demented purple blood. Arvis was left in an orphanage that burned to the ground. Jeff's home was hit by a meteor. Furlok herself had accidentally gotten into human paint and started drinking it.
And so on, and so on.
None of them had survived. With each new invent from the past, the machine copied the baby versions of the session members and produced timeclone goo with a few pushes of a button from Furlok. A little more working with the machine turned the goo into clones of themselves as babies/grubs.
Finally, the machine sent them all back in time to replace the dead versions of themselves. Time clone baby Brendon was found by the authorities, having taken his father's hat and placed it on his head.
Time clone grub Patior was found by a tall man with blonde hair and wicked sharp shades; one who evidently was good with robots, and returned with a robotic lusus to take care of him. And so on and so on.
Furlok had turned the machine off by the time Java and Jeff returned with the magic looking multi-colored glowing frog. When they asked her why she looked so in shock and was sweating so much, she told them nothing.
Derse was not prepared for the surprise attack. Not at all.
They were busy getting all their weaponry loaded up onto a ship to be sent to Skaia. If said supplies was allowed to be brought to Skaia, it would make the final battle even more of a fuckign slog than it was already going to be.
The solution? Wreck the shit while it was still on in containment crates. The fact that so much of it was easy to detonate made the job much easier.
One Doom Bringer fired at one ship caused a chain reaction of explosions that took out nearly a fifth of the supplies they were trying to stop and coincidentally all the Derse warriors that would have been defending them.
The others began charging in that direction to fight, not seeming to process that it had been a distance attack and could have come from anywhere.
Dustine, his purple rage Fortitude aura around himself and his mace, slammed down onto a Derise warship.
The impact alone cratored the machine around him, and the following strikes of the mace against the ship broke through it and dropped him into the ship, where he proceeded to rip apart the soldiers inside before they could fill him with bullets or burn through him with lasers.
Risura drove his fist into the center of the building with Rip, creating a void hole that began to draw things in towards it suck them in.
A large Dersite soldier in thick armor carrying a halberd approached Risura from behind, getting his head blown off by Brendon's Super Shotty; his Spade Sparker whirling through the air and hitting a missile stockpile; its blackrom fueled flames set off the explosives and they began triggering the explosives around them and so on and so on.
Dustine leapt across the machines that were active, crushing them with his mace before landing next to Brendon and Risura, all three keeping their powers active.
Destructionx2 + Rage*Doom(Void) + Exploit = Onslaught.
Prospit wasn't looking as good as Aspico remembered as she, Arvis, and Lurabo walked through the golden streets.
The spires and walls of the light kingdom had been busted up and broken in several places; directly fired bombs and attacks from Derse. There likely wouldn't be any further attacks coming out this far anymore, all the resources going to Skaia for the real battle.
The same was true here on Prospit, all of Prospitans sending themselves and their resources off to Skaia to aid the White King is his battle against the Black King in the most impressive and shockingly destructive game of three dimensional chess in the multiverse. Aspico sighed unhappily at the knowledge that no matter what happened, no matter how fast they were or how strong they became, they wouldn't be able to save the White King.
He was fated to fail, to fall in battle as he used all of his power to hold off the Black King's Reckoning ability for as long as possible. Aspico had known it was inevitable even before reading the confirmation of such do to her soul predictions.
She'd scanned the future with her powers, and she'd seen the White King's soul waning more and more until it was finally snuffed out. It would be a valiant battle, one that no surviving creature would see. The trio came to a halt outside the castle where the White Queen was residing.
They took a deep breath as Lurabo began to create luck, releasing it in a bubble around them. After letting it wash over them for a few minutes, they headed inside of the castle and made a beeline for the throne room.
Even the guards were gone to Skaia now, leaving the queen completely alone. The players eyes widen when they saw the form the ring had given her.
She looked… it was hard to say.
Lurabo searched for a word that combined monstrous and elegant, though with the Light aura coming off around her with several words that could hold some borderline relevance; awesome in its original meaning, awe-inspiring, and perhaps most aptly, overwhelming.
It was only through proximity to Lurabo's aura that Arvis managed to keep his calm and activate his New Link ability, forming a connection between them to the White Queen before Aspico and Lurabo combined their powers, sharing Aspico's ability to see into people's souls to know what exactly to say to them, Arvis' automatic relationship power, Lurabo's luck, and most importantly according to Aspico, Lurabo's speaking skills.
The yellow blood had been shocked to hear that both Patior and Aspico seemed to think she was the best choice to do the actual talking to the queen. She knew her name online was SpeakerofInterest, but it was at least partially ironically and mostly in reference to her tarot readings.
But they seemed intent that it had to be her to convinced the White Queen. She spoke as passionately as she could, explaining why they needed the ring, and promising even to take her and as many carapacians through to the new world as they could if they won.
She was shocked when the White Queen's form shifted from its monstrous body to a the truly beautiful woman with her ring removed. Silently, with an expression on her face as though she'd already agreed before they'd even arrived, she walked over and placed the ring in Lurabo's hand.
She looked down at it, then back up at the queen, then to her two teammates, expecting them to be just as shocked; only to be more shocked when they weren't.
Patior arrived on Derse first, setting up his sniper position in a tower far off from the Black Queen.
To anyone else, it would be a completely worthless position, but using a combination of blue blooded focus and Mage of Mind Process ability, he was able to perfectly plot out where to fire to make this position the best spot to land a headshot on the queen.
Of course, landing a headshot on her in the horrifying form she was in currently would be worthless. She'd just sweep the bullet off her skin and then coldly activate the Red Miles, not just killing but outright destroying Patior in a matter of seconds. This needed to be done with perfect timing.
They had only had a three second margin of error, and if a single second beyond that was spent on anything at all other than Valtina healing Mutosi, they would be doomed.
The two of them together fought their way through the guards protecting the castle and got inside the castle. Mutosi would only have a few moments to use her Test of Faith ability.
She'd only be able to hold it for a few minutes on someone like the Black Queen, which if they really hauled ass should get them far enough away Patior hoped.
His grip on the sniper rifle tightened as he looked through the scope, waiting for the signal. Just as he began to fear he wouldn't ever see it, the light of the Black Queen's hope being redirected into the air like a projectile.
Patior fired, mentally picturing the tail of the bullet as it sailed through the air, bouncing three times off of curved surfaces in about 3/4ths of a second before plowing into the Black Queen's skull precisely the moment she realized she'd been tricked but before she was able to call for the guards help.
Hopefully at least, Patior wouldn't know if it had worked until he met back with the others.
No, you will not be getting a description of the form granted by the prototyping until the King battle XP I wanna keep things dramatic. Even though you can probably already kind of speculate based on the sprites, lol.
