X-Squad: Luigi's Mansion

by garshishoe

Well fuck, the Metal Gear memes are gonna roll in so fast that Raiden might not be able to see them! Hope you called your therapist cause this saga’s gonna fuck with your head! Viewer discretion was eaten by Blade Wolf. Side effects include wondering why the X-Squad's crossing over with Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Symphogear, Highschool DXD, and Luigi's Mansion.

2. Sinking Into Hell

E. Gadd was busy typing away on his computer, barely hearing the captured ghosts fumbling inside the nearby container. At one point, he inspected the ghosts the squad captured earlier. He wasn't surprised to see a few Greenies or Goobs, but the Gold Ghosts left him intrigued. Albeit, E. Gadd was aware that Hellen ordered her hotel staff to head over to his lab and all the other spirits there, which included Shivers and the other Portrait Ghosts. Because of this, he suspected that the ghosts from the first mansion were roaming around the hotel, too.

Soon, he heard the lab door open automatically. He rotated his highchair to see the X-Squad and Occult Research Club had returned.

"Ah, what impeccable timing! Hand me my briefcase! Chop-chop!"

"Sheesh. You couldn't even say 'please'?" Furina complained as she brought it to the professor.

"GAH!" Gadd jumped back, falling hard on his rump. Dodongo just chuckled deep in his throat.

"It's okay, I'm not evil anymore. I just woke up inside the caves. Ever since dad ate me for not being "genocidal enough", I didn't expect to come back."

"Ohhh, that explains the huge mounted Dodongo head…" Gohma trotted up.

"Well, I'm the only Dodongo alive, and I don't really have any interest in staying in a pit where I was swallowed whole and digested, let alone remain in this hotel." Dodongo rolled his eyes. "So yeah. I'm helpin' get rid of the feathery psycho running this joint."

"Heh heh heh! This! This is what I wanted! The time has come to use it in battle!"

"And of course, you still didn't say it."

"Just let it go," Neo whispered.

"I'm too old to be out catching ghosts by myself, sadly. In this day and age, I'm more of a researcher on paranormal studies. Rather than give up on my ghostly pursuits, I thought I'd create a helper to take my place," E. Gadd smirked as he opened the suitcase. A green and golden glow shined in front of his face. "Are you ready for this, fellers?"

"Ready for what?" Luigi lowered one of his eyebrows.

The short scientist lifted out two things, one was a vial filled with a swirling green mist inside, as he opened it. "Behold! The latest invention from the brilliant mind of Professor E. Gadd! I give you... the Reawakened!"

At that moment, a large, quadrupedal wyvern flew out of the vial, its massive head and jaws striking awe in the squad, its body having a striking yellow/blue striped coloration. The top of its head was tipped with a pair of horn-like ears, and its segmented tail ended with a spiny protrusion. Then, a large ape-like beast leapt out, with broad muscles, large horns, and a hairy tail, the fur was black in color, while its eyes were a crimson color, and its horns were gold. Then, a quadrupedal monster with lupine features leapt out. It had highly developed limbs, sharp fangs and claws. Its body was covered in turquoise scales, whitish fur, and tan bony spikes, and it had two prominent horns. Closer observation of its horns and the spikes on its back reveal that they are porous, as bugs enveloped in multiple lights were flying into it. Then, a giant dinosaur-like beast with a glowing, green slime-covered horn and "fists" stomped out, its shiny, obsidian armored hide shining in the light, with a pair of long, highly developed forelimbs. Then, a Lagiacrus crawled out, same with a Dodogama. Finally, a very large, bipedal beast with forest green scales and muscular upper body walked out of the vial. Its thick hide was littered with short, jagged spines that reach a maximum height along the back and tail. It had a narrow snout with a large lower jaw, covered in multiple rows of teeth spreading outwards from the mouth. It had massive, powerful hind limbs, but tiny, poorly developed forelimbs.

"Reawakened?" The squad repeated. Biscuit tilted his head as well.

"Indeed! These little helpers here were part of an accidental discovery when I was working at the Gloomy Manor."

"Helpers? Professor, these are literal monsters. Are you sure you're not insane or something?" Tenko asked, kinda horrified at the fact that E. Gadd basically made Monster Hunter real.

"Hohoho, if I was insane, I would've called someone who actually hunts ghosts for a profession. But that's silly! I ended up asking for Luigi's help to restore the Dark Moon!"

"So, how were...the Reawakened...created?" Serif questioned.

"Glad you asked! I was going through some of my research until a stealthy Hider spooked me from behind. While carrying a cup of my famous joe, it spilled with a concoction of Lunoman Greenie blend. Now I bet you're wondering what that stuff is, but that's not as important. Anyway, the coffee and the Greenie blend started to react, and it fell onto the skeletons of seven ancient beasts, melting the skeletons, and then it somehow reassembled them, alive and well, reawakened them, so to speak! Believe me, I'm going to earn a patent for this wondrous yet unexpected creation!"

"Is there anything more to it?"

"Why, yes! I tested out the characteristics of them for a while. Turns out that they have the same abilities as their species, but they can augment themselves if they eat specific things."

"And what exactly is the other thing?" Mystle wondered.

"There it is! Once I inject it into one of their veins, our glorious Emperor will be capable of having a younger and potentially stronger body..." Suddenly, a man in golden armor rushed into the lab, grabbed the briefcase, pulled a needle full of golden bile out of said briefcase, and injected it into Drakus, as he started flailing and yelling in pain.

"Please Lord. Speak to us!"

"WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO, BANANA BRAIN?!" Drakus said, his voice almost like a text to speech device, mixed with his normal voice, his eyes having become a deep blue.

"AT LAST! Our glorious lord can lead us into battle once agai-" The man in golden armor said.

"I have so many things to complain about this new body!" Drakus, or rather, the Emperor, yelled. "First of all, why am I part-dragon, and what's with this hairstyle? Is that really necessary?"

Soon, Drakus took over again. "Okay, what the fuck is with these Ultrasmurfs that I'm hearing about?"

The reactions of the squad could best be summed up in three little letters. "WTF?!"

"O-oh. Um. w- Wait, are you referring to the Ultramarines? They are some of the greatest warriors aside from me and the other Custodes!" The Custodian sputtered.

"Well, that certainly fucking explains it. It seems that their baby blue heraldry has earned them a fitting nickname." Drakus remarked. "For that matter, I think they look terrible. Do they need to have a fucking toilet seat as their insignia?"

"Well, yes they do. They keep it to honor their Primarch, Roboute Guilliman."

"And that would be?"

Lyre snorted at the fact that the latest being to possess Drakus was a bit of a moron.

"The greatest little derivative pile of blueberry puddingpop fuckery that has ever glazed the surface of this shitty little galaxy." the Emperor said.

Now Lyre's eyes widened, and slight chuckles began to build in the squad.

"O-oh..."

"Is he alive?" Drakus asked.

"Barely. He was almost killed. He's currently in stasis back on the Ultramarine's homeworld of Macragge."

"Well then, do him a favor and cut the life support, oh, and disband that stupid fucking smurf village." Drakus ordered. "Their chanting is drilling into my skull like a chainsaw!"

There was now definitely laughter from the squad. The Custodian, meanwhile, was burying his face in his hands.

"The pain of a million ripped out nose hairs is still a tender massage to this inexpressible Ultratorture!" The Emperor yelled.

"Ouuuuu... well... I'll see what I can... do...this time... But at least we still have our mighty Grey Knights!" The Custodian said.

"And those are?" Drakus asked.

"They are some of our greatest warriors! They are all psykers, and are the greatest at purging Daemons in the Imperium!"

Mystle rolled her eyes at this madness.

Everyone stared at her.

"What the FUCK?!" Drakus yelled.

"Bring in the Dreadknight!"

The sound of footsteps came from the left of the lab, and the ugliest thing that any of the squad had ever seen peaked inside.

"Oh greetings, my Emperor. It is an hono-"

"What in the sweet Virginia fuck is that thing?!?!?" Drakus yelled, as everyone immediately lost it. It was so stupid-looking!

"It is the mighty Dreadknight!"

The Summerween Trickster facepalmed. "That's an oversized action figure for heaven's sake!" he yelled.

"It looks like someone strapped guns to a baby carriage!" Weiss managed to choke out between laughs.

"I'm with Sugarplums and Snowflake. WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND DESIGNED THIS HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE THING?!" Drakus yelled.

"The arcane technology of this marvelous machine was discovered by the Grey Knights, and is held secretly from other inferior Astartes Chapters." The Custodian explained.

"Oh it's a marvel alright!" Yang laughed. "A marvel in 'how the hell did the guy who designed that thing not get fired?!!'"

"WE ARE THE HAMMER!!" The...abomination...yelled.

"The exterior design I believe to be personally designed by the Grand Master of the Grey Knights himself, Kaldor Draigo. He is the mightiest of the Grey Knights. He is currently stuck in the warp killing Daemons daily, pillaging Daemonic villages and vandalizing the Chaos God's property like some kind of glorious rascal, he even wrote his name into a Daemon Primarch's heart!"

"For the love of all stop signs in the galaxy. Cease. And. Fucking. DESIST!" The Emperor yelled.

"Okay, that sounds a bit much." Ruby said. "And this is coming from us here!"

Soon, something else walked forward. A suit of powered armor with short legs and a set of grav weapons on its arms. On the whole, the squad found it rather endearing.

"What in the fuck? That is actually very adorable! Look at its stumpy legs and oversized body! Too cute! Come to dada, big guy!" Drakus said.

"What? Wait. No! DON'T-!"

Yang let out an amused snort when the creature in yellow jumped up and landed on top of the Dreadknight horror. Apparently, the hyper-advanced power-assisted stroller was barely strong enough to hold up the yellow dude as it was visibly straining under the weight.

"It's definitely cuter than the Dreadknight." Blake agreed.

"Well, my Lord. I don't know about you but, I think this is the start of something absolutely GLORIOUS!" The Custodian cheered.

"Shut up, banana brain." Drakus said.

"Yesmylord." The Custodian quickly said.

On the couch, the Shadows were watching Alice on TV as she gave another interview.

"Yes, Aira Otohime was the leader of the bullies who tormented me in high school. I tried my best to handle it, but nearly broke down. It wasn't until Jackie stood up for me that I realized I did have people who believe in me."

"Apparently, Otohime was ranting about how supposedly 'fake' you are," the anchorwoman noted, "But frankly it came off as the ramblings of a villain who never learned the meaning of consequences for one's actions."

"To me that just makes her worse than a villain," Alice said, "Some of the best villains work to maintain the world in spite of their crimes, knowing that going too far will ultimately leave them with nothing. As for my fans, I'm glad to hear that they're returning to normal. My goal has only ever to inspire them to change themselves as they feel they need. To be a ray of light that can cut through the worst darkness. That's just the sort of hero I strive to be."

"I'm happy for her," Ann said, "Looks like things will work out."

"Alice has been working with all the stores and her agency to reimburse all the fans who overspent on her merch," Futaba noted, "It's going to take a while to sort through it all. Fortunately the loan sharks that picked up several fans' debts are willing to cooperate, since it means they do get back their money, even if they have to forego the usual interest rates."

Zenkichi entered the agency bullpen.

"Still waiting on my turn to interrogate Otohime, but I did get something interesting. Reggie mentioned that Otohime was ranting about a 'savior'. And from the context, it's clear she wasn't referring to Scrapyard."

They heard her muffled screams in the trunk of the car that Reggie brought.

"That, my friend, is what she deserves, she'll probably be sacrificed to the Ancient Ones for her transactions." Reggie cheerfully said.

"That's odd," Yusuke said, "Who else but Scrapyard would the Church of the Broken God refer to as a savior?"

"How about someone willing to spring him out of Tartarus prison?" Zenkichi suggested, "Since that's what Otohime implied this savior was willing to do for her in return for trying to ruin Alice."

"The only person I could think of capable of causing a breakout in Tartarus prison is dad," Drakus noted, "But he would rather not let uncle Scrapyard deal with that nutty cult again."

"Actually, there is one other villain I can think of that might be able to pull it off," Zenkichi said, "But he hasn't been seen in almost fifteen years. Some think he might even be dead. That said, if anyone could create an Altered World Event like what we just saw... It'd be him. His name was Reaper, and his Quirk Mindscape allowed him to absorb spirit energy from the minds of people to generate constructs. The process is harmless, since it's no different from absorbing thoughts, and with enough energy built up over time, Reaper could possibly create an entire pocket dimension."

"What happened to him?" Haru asked.

"He disappeared off a cliff following a fight against me and All Might," Zenkichi explained, "We heard an impact at the bottom, but we never found his body. But right now we need more information. And I just got a report that says this incident doesn't end with Otohime."

"Dude, for real?" Ryuji asked.

"Several hero teams have reported hot spots in this hotel," Zenkichi explained, "Each of which has been the center of bizarre psychotic breakdowns. We have confirmations in floors 12, 4, and 9. And it's possible there are other regions we don't yet know about. We've been asked by the O5 Council to work with these other agencies in locating each Underworld, finding the ones behind them, and dealing with them to liberate the people from these mental shackles."

"And as it just so happens, I have a solution to the Wattles situation!" Ombra said, giving her thumbs up.

Chris groaned. "Of course. So, what MacGuffin do we need to alter our Symphogears this time?"

"Oh, no MacGuffin. The solution is…simple," Ombra said. "We'll need to fight our way to the machine and punch in the failsafe, Carol and you shall do the honors of punching it in."

Chris stared at him. She blinked. "…Excuse me?!"

Ombra chuckled. "Right, sorry, that came out weirder than I meant it to … But seriously, that is the solution, and I'll let you do the honors of shutting it down."

Chris preened. "You're not wrong, Shady, I've been on the top of my game every mission! I'm fully self-actualized and don't have any lingering hangups from my shady past which might be interfering with my performance, unlike poor Tsubasa, who's probably internally wallowing in despair and angst since Wattles unleashed an army of Aero-Noise at her most recent concert and killed almost everyone there..."

"Okay, seriously, why do people even go to her concerts if it probably almost always ends in a horrific disaster?!" King snapped.

Tsubasa flinched.

"Staaaaaaaaaaaare."

"Yes, Shirabe, he has a point, but that doesn't mean it wasn't rude," Maria lectured her.

"She has fans so devoted they don't care if they die so long as they get to see her singing live at least once," Garie said. "Some of them are actually hoping to die, as it turns out, or enjoy living their life on the edge."

"Plus, they all signed waivers when they bought the tickets, they knew perfectly well they were taking their lives into their own hands when they went!" Chris added.

"… That is incredibly fucked up," Mera said, horrified.

"We'd love to give the bird the bird, really, but the censors won't allow it!" Yakko remarked.

"What?"

"Um, one question, are any of you straight?" Chris asked.

And then the entire squad burst into laughter. After struggling to maintain a straight (hah) face herself, Chris eventually joined them.

"Straight!" Drakus wheezed. "Straight, she says! Edgy Red, you know as well as I do that heterosexuality is dead in the gutter!" His expression turned grim. "Ever since the war."

"Okay, yeah, but how do you know she's not bi or ace or whatever?" Roman asked, wiping away a tear.

"Mr. Torchwick, every single wielder is incredibly gay," Genjuro said bluntly, as the squad looked confused. "Dr. Sakurai designed the Symphogears so only lesbians can use them for reasons beyond our understanding."

"Because Finé was probably a crazy bitch?" Kanade suggested.

"That's one possibility," Martin admitted.

"As a matter of fact, we have scientifically proven a way we can defeat Wattles," Genjuro said seriously. "Elfnein?"

"I wasn't asleep!" Elfnein, who had just been starting to nod off, yelled suddenly. Yawning loudly, she pointed at the screen, hexagons flickering to life around her fingertips as she brought up a line graph. She gestured again, and images of every Symphogear (and Faust Robe) wielder in SONG appeared on the left side of the graph, colored lines stretching out across the graph and rising to the top of the screen.

"As we discovered during our battles with the Bavarian Illuminati, when two Symphogear wielders sing the same song at the same time it creates a massive phonic gain and increased sync rate between the wielders, which we called Unison," Elfnein started, the green and black lines lighting up and abruptly rising much higher on the graph.

"Which… Should've actually been pretty obvious in hindsight since we'd already been doing stuff like that in a lot of our previous fights, especially Kirika and Shirabe," Chris pointed out. "I mean, that's also basically how we stopped the moon from falling?"

Elfnein ignored her. "As such, the more wielders singing at the same time, the higher the phonic gain gets overall," she said as all the lines on the graph lit up and sharply ascended. "However, there's another, even more powerful form the Unison effect can take," she continued as the lines returned to normal. "The key, as Doctor Ver himself said, is love."

The zombie of Doctor Ver, completely Nephilimized, wearing a cowboy hat, and chained up in a corner as he gnawed on old action movie cassette boxes, moaned, "Hhhhhhhhheeeeeeeerrrrrrrrroooooooooo."

"That's right, Ver, the part of the brain responsible for love is what allows a person to use a Symphogear," Elfnein went on. "This means that when two or more wielders who are completely, utterly, deeply in love with each other sing together…"

Once again, the green and black lines shot up.

"Then the phonic gain and power boost are even higher! Which is why when every member of the team who is in a relationship with each other sings together, they become devastatingly powerful!" Elfnein explained happily as footage of several of Kirika and Shirabe's past battles started playing on the screen, specifically when they were pulling off awe-inspiring combination moves. "It's been staring us in the face all along! That's why Kirika and Shirabe have always been most effective when working together and are capable of such amazing combination attacks, because their love allows them to work in perfect sync! We just never noticed it because we were so used to it being their baseline it never occurred to us the same effect could be applied to anyone else."

"According to Elfnein's calculations, if every wielder in a relationship sings a song from the heart about their feelings for each other, which we are dubbing a 'Heartsong,' the resultant phonic gain will be beyond imagining!" Genjuro exclaimed as every line on the chart lit up and skyrocketed.

"You'd think so, and while yes, there'd be a similar effect, it seems that Heartsongs resonate with each other, so even though not everyone is in love with everyone else, the strength of the love between those who are together will work fine and only enhance the strength of everyone else!" Elfnein explained.

"Even the X-Squad," Ombra said. "For, whether through sheer will or their insanity, the Heartsongs can somehow be kicked into overdrive by the Valkyries being in their presence, and apparently, the chaotic energy radiating from them somehow can even make a new type of Heartsong, a Deviltune."

Chris's eye twitched. "So… What, you're saying the solution is that we'll have to get the X-Squad to make whatever this Deviltune is, or else, even with everyone else, there still won't be enough phonic gain to defeat Wattles?"

"While one single sour note can help boost a beautiful melody, many sour notes can boost it to heights unprecedented, like a trombone!" Elfnein explained. "I've chosen to call this effect the X-Squad Trombone Convergence!" Elfnein soon began laughing hysterically for several minutes as if it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard while everyone stared at her awkwardly. "Hahahaha, I'm so tired."

"I don't believe this…" Chris groaned, putting her face in her hands.

"Which is why we need to find a way for the squad to do so before the tidal alignment begins," Ombra said.

"Wait, why us?!" Drakus exclaimed, surprised by this.

Shirabe smiled fondly at them. "Staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeee."

"Shirabe's right, Drakus, you may not have fought, sang, worked, showered, attended school, saved the world, and squished breasts a surprising number of times while wearing oddly revealing armor with us. But deep down, you have the heart of a good man, even if it is twisted and outright psychotic." Chris said.

"And considering how strangely compatible the X-Squad are with the others, if you were to join in singing with them, the phonic gain from the resulting Heartsongs would be more than enough to push you all over the minimum you need to overwhelm the Shroud of Turin," Elfnein explained.

"Deceive me not, Hydrax," replied the thing Drakus summoned in a cold, hollow sort of voice. Dressed in a tattered crimson robe, he was slightly smaller than Ombra, but his decaying features and the pronged horns that grew from his skull rendered him quite imposing as well. "The price of treason in the court of the Horned King, you'll find, is quite heavy."

"Oh I know, King Horns." Drakus said, rolling his eyes. "But let's just hope you know how to carry a tune, no matter how awkward it is."

Despite Asia's trust in Ryuko to keep her safe, she'd decided to go spend the night with Issei instead.

Ryuko… well. She couldn't really blame the girl for that. Asia seemed to be of the fragile sort, and plus Issei needed the healing anyway so… whatever. It wasn't any skin off of her back, plus it gave her more time to actually plan things out, think about things… okay, it mostly meant that she didn't have to emergency clean her apartment because she really didn't want to explain to her potential kouhai or whatever why she'd left her panties draped over the railing on the stairs to her lofted bedroom area. Or why the floor had foot shaped dents in it because her daily routine was just literally throwing herself out of bed and down to the kitchen area half a floor below.

Or-

A lot of things, honestly. Ryuko may or may not be a bit of a slob now that she didn't have Satsūki riding her ass or the Mankanshokus actually keeping the house and her apartment was just too big for her to feel like keeping all of it clean and spick and span and all those other fancy words.

Anyway.

Ahem.

"So… how's Asia?" Mystle asked, leaning against the back of the couch in the lab as she tried very hard to ignore the fact that Rias was just showering again with the door open. Honestly, she may not have had any body shame but would it kill the other girl to actually have a little propriety. She had a girlfriend already, dammit.

Hm. Then again, Weiss would tell her to go for it, but at the same time… Mystle wasn't about to just… do that unless Weiss actually told her to.

"She's… fine," Issei answered after a moment, looking down at his hands and making a discontented noise deep in his throat. "She's… not handling that bastard's death well, even if she says she's okay. I'm not handling it well. How do you kill a man so… so easily? I-I can understand a monster like a Stray Devil, but… a human person?"

"That's the thing- he was already a monster," Lyre shrugged, floating down onto a beanbag. "Anyone who acts like that? Definitely the kinda person who's done it before. Slicing open a girl's clothes, trying to rape her in front of his murder victims? We heard him gloating, Issei. I know he's done it before. Human, Devil, Angel, whatever. A monster is a monster, and we don't stop if we kill a piece of shit in the middle of a fight."

"... I- I guess you're right. Still leaves a bad taste in my mouth, though… I just… I was so weak! I couldn't do anything to him! He- He toyed with me like it was nothing, and it was all I could do to try and keep fighting after he shot me… I couldn't land a single hit," Issei whispered that last part, clenching his fist as his Sacred Gear appeared on his left arm. "Even this Sacred Gear… it didn't do anything. I really am just a Pawn. A footsoldier… I'm not even a good soldier either, am I?"

"Yeah. That's the thing that happens," Drakus sighed, leaning back and threading his fingers behind his head. "You think you're strong enough to hang out with the big names and maybe you've got something to hype you up. A few victories, the high of a power up or whatever… doesn't really change the fact that there's always someone stronger. The thing you gotta remember is that you gotta commit to being stronger, Critboy. You wanna be stronger, right? Act like it. Don't just sit there hating yourself for not being able to save Asia by yourself. Be happy that I was there to do it for you, and make sure that next time there's some poor damsel in distress giving you puppy eyes, that you're strong enough to save her yourself."

Issei clenched his fist again, glaring down at his shoes. "That's easy for you to say… you're so strong! And I'm just… me…"

"Yeah, and the first time I got to Honnouji I got the shit beat outta me by some loser in boxing shorts," Ryuko deadpanned. "Just because I'm strong now doesn't mean I wasn't weak too. Hell, I was just a normal fucking girl until my dad died and I picked up my scissor blade. Fuck, man. You wanna get stronger? At least do some pushups. Situps. Squats? People do squats, right?"

Issei blinked at Ryuko, a rather disbelieving and flat expression on his face. "... Shouldn't you know…?"

Ryuko shrugged. "Nah. I'm an alien, remember? I'm like… mostly made of really angry silly string right now, not flesh and blood. Fuck, man. I don't even know if I've got flesh anymore. Loooootta blood, though. You have no idea how much blood is in me."

Lyre shrugged, standing up and pacing a few times. "Anyway. Pushups, situps, squats… do a good run?"

"... Are you just quoting One Punch Man at me?" Issei asked incredulously.

"..." Lyre scratched her cheek, blushing and looking away awkwardly. "... Maybe."

"... You might as well just tell me to workout like Son Goku."

"As long as you work out at all, you're a fuckin' twig, dude." Drakus said.

"How come you don't work out, then?"

"One, special exemption because big sis doesn't want us sending someone to Jesus with a softball through the ribs. Two, some of us are fuckin' paranormal and before that I got my exercise beating the piss outta bullies, thugs, gangsters, yakuza, and anyone else who got in my way while I was rampaging around a bunch of random Kanto schools. Three… you're just asking because you wanted to perv on me wearing bloomers aren't you?" Ryuko finished, ticking her eyebrow up irritably at Issei and stuffing her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket with an annoyed huff.

Good thing she'd finally figured out how to quick-swap outfits last night. Finally got that working, at least.

"... Guilty as charged," Issei admitted without shame, shrugging and grinning with a bit of a self deprecating laugh.

"... You or whatever pals you have try and see her bare body in the shower, let's just say they'll never find the bodies," The Horned King rolled his eyes, clenching his fist for emphasis and letting the knuckles pop from the force with the sound of simultaneous gunshots through the room.

"...So, can I eat this guy if he peeps on you in the shower?" Dodongo asked Chris, who shrugged.

"Now, now, let's calm down," Rias interjected, stepping out of the shower and toweling off without an ounce of shame as she walked over to the couch. "I take exception to people who damage my property. Handle Motohama-san and Matsuda-san as you please, but Issei-kun is mine. I won't let you touch him."

His Majesty and the Dodongo groaned. "...Very well."

Ryuko huffed. "Tch. Yeah yeah, alright. Still not gonna let him perv on me. Anyway. What're we even gonna do with the whole Asia situation anyway? Doesn't sit right with me, letting her go back to the church like that. If they paired her with a shithole like that… who knows what's going on behind the scenes?"

"Likely nothing good at all- that church was supposed to have been abandoned for years now," Rias answered, hand on her hip as she stood there naked, eyes narrowing slightly as she stared out of the window and into the distance. "That Asia seems to want to go back there- as coerced and fearful as that statement seems to have been- means that there's something to go back to. And if that exorcist was any indication… it's likely that Fallen Angels are involved."

She tsked lightly, shaking her head as she strutted over to the side table and began getting dressed. "If you'd left him alive, we might have been able to get answers from him. Instead, all we had was a blood stain."

"... And a pile of dust," Roman mumbled, shrugging a little. He wasn't about to apologize for helping tear a murderer into shreds.

"... No, just blood. I thought you'd pulped him so finely that-" Rias paused, her expression changing to a realization at the same time as the squad grinned.

"Yep," Akko stated. "The King of Death got his ass dead to rights."

"No. Absolutely not. There's no way you met Lord Grimourn! Not a single damn person on this planet could survive witnessing the King of Death himself, not even you! Probably!" Rias sputtered, gesticulating as she stared at the X-Squad. "There's absolutely no way that you could have lived and saw him. Someone must have cleaned up after you got there! Either way, the lack of remains where there should have been some remnant of his body means that someone took them. And that means we have no idea what kind of playing field our enemies are setting up for us. Even in an abandoned church, us Devils have a hard time entering if there's enough of a holy presence inside. That said…" Rias turned to the squad, leveling a hard, serious stare at them. "I cannot order you to help. I cannot say that we truly need your help either. You aren't part of my Peerage, nor are you part of my household. That you chose to ally with us is a boon that I'd be remiss to not use… but if you would rather sit this out and let us Devils do our deadly dance with our natural enemies…"

"You are not going to make anything out of this unfortunate circumstance if you don't meet let us aid your conquest," declared the Horned King. "As little as I am looking forward to the task, I don't want to wait any longer for my promised reward than I must."

"Nah. We're coming with. Makes it easier on us all if you've got a force multiplier, and I ain't the kinda gal who'd just sit outta things when there's monsters like that around. Besides, slaying monsters or criminals is kinda a thing here, y'know?" Ryuko shrugged, pulling her completed scissor blades from her pocket and unfolding them to their full size with a flick of the wrist, settling the massive weapon on her shoulder with a cocky grin.

"So long as they are irredeemably evil and a clear threat to society," Griffin quickly added.

"And if they're trying to do something nasty, let 'em try it." Lyre added.

"We have no proof of that yet, though…" Rias shook her head, tapping her fist against her chin with a pensive expression. "... We may need to draw them out, see what they're planning. Then, we strike. X-Squad… please, allow us to do that for now. If we need your help, Issei-kun will call you."

"Eh- us?"

"You're the only one who knows Matoi-san's phone number, Issei-kun," Rias deadpanned. "I do not own a smartphone, nor do any of the rest of us."

"... Oh. Right."

"Please keep her apprised of the situation," Rias nodded, almost as if bowing her head.

"Ah… yeah… sure."

As Rias left, Ryuko turned to Issei, who held up his hands awkwardly and backed away ever so slightly at her expression.

"Don't get me wrong. I still think you're a loser for being a perv like that… but as long as you step up when shit gets bad, I'll respect that," Ryuko snorted, rolling her eyes again. "And before you fantasize about me or any of the squad… we're definitely not interested in you and are either dating someone or are in a harem."

"Ah… uh… alright then…"

"Okay, I was able to figure out a few things," Zenkichi said, "First, it seems someone made a bootleg version of EMMA. Not sure who, but the coding is close enough that EMMA can connect to the fake version."

"How many copies are there of this bootleg?" Futaba asked.

"Hard to say for sure," Zenkichi admitted, "But it's not very widespread. Otohime did admit that only a select few individuals got the bootleg."

He handed Otohime's phone to Futaba and she got to work.

"Did you find out how we were able to access the Underworld?" Mystle asked.

"That was the easy part," Zenkichi said, "It's because Alice recognized a fellow hero. It seems she at least suspected something was happening to her fans whenever she added them as a friend on EMMA. But the Underworld had some sort of security measure that kept her from accessing it. At least... She couldn't do so directly."

"She needed the help of a fellow hero," Ren realized, "EMMA noted that it recognized our hero licenses, and then sent us to the Underworld."

Drakus nodded. "And once we got in, we could get Alice in, bypassing the security lock that kept her from investigating the situation." Drakus remarked.

"Otohime's plan to ruin Alice would have fallen flat if she could prove someone else was behind this," Morgana reasoned, "It would make sense that the Underworld would come with a feature that could lock direct access to certain individuals."

"Check this out," Futaba said, "The connection between EMMA and the bootleg is two-way. That's how Otohime managed to use the Shibuya Underworld to turn Alice's EMMA friends into a psychotic frenzy of fanatics."

Meanwhile, a girl with black hair, red eyes, and dressed in a black coat, white blouse, black pants, and black knee-high boots was watching the squad, snacking on a lollipop before turning to what appeared to be a man clad in a pale bedsheet and a ghost mask, with the mask being transparent, revealing the small blue Transponder Snail and the large red Transponder Snail beneath, piloting it through several machines.

"You sure this is the new hero team that's been making waves around the omniverse?"

"Absolutely!" The smaller snail said. "They're definitely in this area or you can dip me and Harvey in salt!"

"I doubt the two of you'd taste good anyway, Gottfried."

"Oh, come on, Brianna! Me and Harvey are world-class dishes, I'll have you know!"

"Please don't tempt Brianna," the larger snail, Harvey, replied, "I hate salt. Any snail or slug worth their salt, pun not intended, would be the same."

---

Soon, the X-Squad got into the elevator, as a man with a decent goatee and glasses walked in, dressed in a black jacket, white t-shirt, burgundy tie and black pants.

"This seems like a very colorful group of characters to randomly be on an elevator with." The Nostalgia Critic remarked.

Yang rolled her eyes. "All the colors of the rainbow, gentlemen." She added.

---

The elevator dial rose to the fifth tick mark from the left, approaching the third floor of The Last Resort. Sneaking a peek at the layout, Drakus noticed that they were going to explore a mall, to which he was excited about.

"Hmm... I wonder if I can get a new dress to replace the one Veruca torn."

"You mean you haven't packed any extras in your luggage?" Neo asked Veruca.

"It's a little thing I prepared for. My dress was only for the so-called meeting I was supposed to attend. But look how that turned out."

"Touché. Unlike you, we actually packed our clothes. But seriously, Luigi, you and Mario need to be more selective with your attire," Neo mocked.

"Well, Mario technically got to try out some new outfits when he and Cappy went around the world and shopped at the kingdoms, even if it did cause havoc."

"Yeah, I think I recall him mentioning that. Ooh, we're getting closer to the shops! I can't wait!"

Everyone could easily sense Drakus' enthusiasm, same as Biscuit who was panting beside him. For Raiden, he took a deep breath and held his flashlight tightly with both hands. As the bell rang, the doors flew open for the three to walk into the lobby. To their right was a map and the entrance to the Hotel Shops. Drakus headed there first and pulled on the handle. To his surprise, the door was locked.

"Fuck! I was so eager to head in there."

"I guess we have to find a key," Luigi assumed.

Biscuit barked at them when he ran over to the other hallway where the bathrooms were located. The women's lavatory was blocked by a stanchion barrier. On the door was a sign that indicated that the toilets were dysfunctional. Because of this, Biscuit headed through the men's room instead.

"So, let me get this straight, Hydrax. A anime ninja's in here, an old man's in here too, and a demon and robot are in here too?" The Emperor asked.

"Kinda?" Drakus remarked. "Also, how the fuck did this Imperium survive once you became paraplegic?"

"Well, my Lord, the Imperium has safely preserved your teachings for all these years, always submitting to your superior will." The Custodian said.

"That's a relief. For a second, I thought you guys would have turned into some cult running around killing things in the name of Big E over here."

"Oh no, of course not, my Lord. We would never stoop so low. We would only worship the one true god of all that is you of course! Everything else is heresy!" The Custodian said.

"They already did." Satsuki said.

"Are you fucking serious?" Drakus asked.

"W-w-what is upsetting you, oh mighty vessel of the God-Emperor of Mankind?" The Custodian sputtered.

"You know that awful pain you feel when you stub your toe on a wall? It's like that, but amplified about 500 times and all over everything...know my misery, dragon boy." The Emperor groaned.

"Oh my lord, you don't have to worry about anything. The Ecclesiarchy and Imperial Inquisition both make sure that the people of the Imperium maintain their faith in you and you alone, by making sure that no one knows about the corrupting powers of Chaos. And if they somehow manage to figure it out, we'll just exterminatus the planet and it's all safe again!"

Drakus soon began slapping himself repeatedly. Kirika could only laugh. "Death death death death!" To which, Drakus could only shake his head.

"Okay, we're calm now." The Emperor said. "Hydrax, do you know the Age of Strife? If not, let me tell you." The Emperor said. "It was when psykers first started appearing, and all of mankind started fighting each other over stupid reasons. And that is when I first emerged. I destroyed all religions on Terra. Do you want to know why?"

"Because you want to be an only god?" Drakus asked.

"I get the feeling that this impromptu theology debate is going to be handled with all the grace, nuance, and subtlety of a sledgehammer." Weiss deadpanned. "...duct-taped to the front of a speeding semi."

"Maybe it's because religion is stupid superstitious brainwashing crap that makes you into an asshole." Momoko added, a self-deprecating chuckle soon emerged from her.

"Let's not throw every religious person under the bus there, Momo." Yang stated. "Mrs. Johnson was always nice!"

"Exactly, purple child, that is why I specifically said when designing the imperial truth that equality, science, and galactic conquest is the way to go, and religion needs to be thrown out a window." The Emperor said.

"And the Letitio Divinatatus is a wreck made by people who got too zealous." Hajime said.

"No, young one, that was written by my whiny bitch of a son, Lorgar." The Emperor said.

"You had KIDS?!" Lyre yelled.

"Calm down, featherbrain." The Emperor demanded. "He later decided to dress up in spikes, wear scarlet red armor, worship some dark gods and be really fucking edgy like a rebellious teen."

"Ah. Your family's a wreck, Big E." Roman said.

"So, what is this Age of Apostasy Satsuki mentioned when we were going into the basement?" Lyre asked.

"Um... Well... how do I put this delicately..." The Custodian said.

"Essentially, the Custodes let one of those nutty cults gain a hold of mankind and grow to become a STATE RELIGION of the Imperium, becoming this fucking Ecclisiarchy thing. And then, people started to cut their own fucking spleens out, waving it around and throwing it at people all in a pool of their own jizz and blood to profess their love for me." The Emperor explained.

"Oh... wow." Ruby gasped in disgust.

"Please don't ask!" the Custodian added.

"And then, they let some power-hungry motherfucking bureaucrat become the master of both the Administratum and that overly dominant Ecclesiarchy groxshit, effectively controlling all of our hot, leathery assassins from the Officio Assassinorum and all the psykers in the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. Oh, and our flashlight people as well." the Emperor ranted.

"I can see how that could go horribly." Blake began. "Hopefully they just-."

"And then, this balls-to-the-walls paramount of Imperial incompetence that has become the leader started to kill and torture anyone and everyone he feels like because it makes his balls tingle with delight, initiating a massive, totally pointless purge of all mankind." the Emperor added.

"Yeesh." Yang said. "Hard to see how this could get any worse than that."

"AND IN ADDITION -"

"Oh, for-..." Weiss grumbled, face-palming.

"He did all this with the most evil fucking name i've ever heard. Goge Vandire."

There was a collective cringing-slash-frustrated sighing at that name among the members of the X-Squad, because how did anyone follow someone with that name thinking he was on the up-and-up?

"Okay seriously, how could anyone ever trust a guy with THAT name? GOGE VANDIRE?! That name is just screaming 'I'm gonna take your eyesockets, and fuck them'! I mean, fuck!" Drakus snapped.

"Look, Emperor Hydrax... the events of the Age of Apostasy is all a great shame upon the Imperium -" the Custodian said.

"Goes a bit far past that, my dude." Yang stated.

"- but he was brought to justice in the end! Why, I was even there when it happened! Several Astartes Chapter Masters and the Mechanicus Fabricator-General came around and told us what Vandire had been up to all this time, and then we helped out by conveying the truth of the matter to the leader of Vandire's bodyguards, the Brides of the Emperor, by directing her straight to the Emperor! I even heard Vandire say his last words, 'I don't have time to die, I'M TOO BUSY!', which were quite fitting."

Neo and Starscream nodded at this. The man may have the person with the most evil name in the history of the omniverse, but those were some fine last words.

Ridley chose this moment to speak. "Decent last words for a glorified pencil pusher." And the others had to admit, they were acceptable.

"He died as he lived." Yang quipped with faux gravitas. "...behind a desk."

"Some girl came into the throne room and stared at me with depraved, flustered eyes. If I had the proper bodily functions left, I would probably have gotten a fairly insecure boner." the Emperor added.

"Don't stick your dick in crazy, Emps!" Ruby yelled. "It's not worth it!"

"Guess he was left out dry." Stocking snarked

"STOCKY!!" Roman yelped.

"Mostly cause I have four lovers already, and I don't want any of those brides near my ass." Drakus said.

"That's the Adepta Sororitas for ya!" The Custodes chirpily said.

"...Did you make female Space Marines?" Satsuki asked.

"Huh? Oh no, that isn't even possible. Only lewd and deviant artists of pen and parchment would ever come up with something like that... even then if we do catch one of them in the middle of the process, we end up throwing them into the firing squads." The Custodian clarified.

"You fixin' for a butt-kickin' there, Conehead?" Yang growled, cracking her knuckles. The rest of the squad were in varying states of livid at the implication that girls weren't allowed into the Imperium's elite units for no apparently good reason.

"The Adeptus Astartes can only contain males. No girls allowed, they are yucky." the Emperor said.

The squad each gave the Emperor a disapproving look, and the Emperor responded by facepalming. "It's not only because I was trying to write in how much I could fool around with the Custodes. Things were rather hot at the time with regards to the female gender, and certain movements related to it, in my reality. They had a bad habit of overreacting to the least slights to women, or perceived slights. So I did it partly for the first reason, and also to see the extreme feminists fall over themselves to decry this as an act of the "patriarchy" and make utter fools of themselves."

Lyre and Doom simply rolled their eyes. Trust whatever's possessing Drakus to do something like that just to see people's reactions, but Aranea actually had to stifle a few chuckles.

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Glad to see that decisions of strategic importance are being handled by a psychopath..."

"Blackheart did some digging about that creepy Exorcist, by the way," Drakus mentioned lightly. "Apparently, the man we turned into mincemeat and was dragged into Tartarus was named Freed Sellzen. There were precious few records about him in any public archive, but with some digging, he compiled a list."

Drakus slid over a manila folder, having retrieved it from his bag a moment ago, and opened it for Ryuko to peruse through the contents within. Inside were, as expected, a number of documents that seemed to be nothing but heavy, dense, redacted text as well as several charts, figures, tables, and experiment logs. There were precious few photos, but those that were there all matched up exactly with what Ryuko remembered of the horrid bastard before the squad turned his face into blobs of meat and bone.

And…

Oh.

Hm.

Shit.

"... the Catholic Church does bioweapon experiments?" Chris mumbled, scratching her head in a mix of muted shock and confusion.

"Hai." Yumi said.

"He was a fucking clone of the actual, literal mythological Siegfried?! What the hell?!" Ryuko exclaimed.

"There's a reason we keep the experiments in the "Don't Fuck With This" armory." Heinkel added.

"Hai." Yumi said.

"Wait, do they keep the Ark of the Covenant, the Dead Sea scrolls, and the Body of Christ in there?" Momoko asked.

"Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaai!" Yumi said.

"...You know about Siegfried? I wasn't aware you were a student of old Germanic mythology," Chris raised an eyebrow, looking at Ryuko in almost awe.

"Huh? Nah. I just recognized the name from some of the games and anime I started binging in between everything," Ryuko waved off Chris's words, awkwardly shaking her head and knocking on her skull twice for emphasis. "Y'know me, not much of a big fan of studying."

"Ah. That explains a few things."

"The fuck!?" Lila yelped. "The Ark of the Covenant?! That exists?!"

"Not to mention the Dead Sea scrolls, and the actual body of JESUS CHRIST?!" Kanade exclaimed.

Drakus noticed Blackheart was shaking. "You okay, buddy?"

Blackheart spun around, a haunted look on his face. "No, I'm not alright! Nadohs told me that Helena's Nail is missing from the Vatican, along with the Ark of the Covenant and Jesus' corpse, and they're right at the top of the Last Resort!"

Drakus was taken back. "Wasn't that a nail that stuck Jesus to the cross? Wait, how the fuck do you know about it? How bad was it?"

"History books won't tell you this, but prior to Constatine's birth, Saint Helena wielded the Ladybug Earrings, and was known as the Red Virgo. However, back then, it was darker times, so her weapon of choice was the Lance of Longinus, yes, that Lance of Longinus. There was no Black Cat Ring wielder at the time, and she needed help, so, using one of the nails that stuck Jesus to the cross, she infused it with some of Tikki's magic. However, it ended horribly, so, until recently, it was locked at the Vatican. As for how bad it is," Blackheart gulped. "Let's just say there's a reason why I fear it falling into the wrong hands."

Drakus soon composed himself and turned around to the Custodian, breathing in.

"There's an outer god called Karkas, and a cassowary who was apparently Hitler is—"

"I know! The bird is trying to free an Eldritch knight Satan to blow up the omniverse to force everyone into making a toy deal for him to be a feathery Walt Disney. But whaddya gonna do to stop it?" the Emperor interrupted.

"Right now, we're essentially an army of chaos, but what can that do?"

"WHAT?!" The Custodian yelled.

"Ah-ah. That will only get you so far," the Emperor enunciated his words with a psychic wag of a finger. "Yeah, it'll give you the numbers, but it ain't gonna roll the dice with what you must do. Which means if he escapes, go inside him."

"Go inside him?" Satsuki was confused.

"Ha! That's what she said!" Hajime interjected.

The Emperor's head rotated a full 360 degrees towards Hajime's direction, and shot him a mom look filled with an otherworldly mix of exasperation and confusion. Hajime gulped and quickly took refuge behind Leo.

The Emperor's head snapped back in place, as he cleared his throat.

"In order to defeat Karkas, you must destroy his consciousness, core, soul, mojo, libidio, life force, essence, right stuff, what the French call a certain...I don't know what, whatever floats the boat. It will be hidden within layers and layers of dreams and all that multiverse crack a doodle. Like that Oscar movie I always dropped acid while watching. Do that and this omniverse won't end for at least another 50 minecraftplex years if we ain't underwater."

"So does that mean we have to kill him?" Keiichiro was horrified by the implication.

"Uh, duh. How else would we defeat him? A big hug a la Steven Universe?" Hajime sarcastically said.

"Keiichirou, we're not actually killing him. His soul is just going to vanish. He might end up a husk, and probably will have possble brain damage, but he'll no longer be a danger to anyone," Ombra clarified.

"But what kinda message would we be sending to the kids? That it's ok to probably unindividualize a person?" Satsuki asked.

"Since when did you care about morals? You would hop at the chance to slice and dice Momoko over here," Amanojaku said.

"That was then, but now I'm—" Satsuki mentally did the math. "It's 2024, I'm still a kid, and that's a whole heck of a lotta responsibility that'll fill our plate, and I don't want that guilt on me."

"Then drop the high and mighty act and take responsibility for killing him!" Amanojaku exclaimed. "Most of us know ourselves better than you know yourselves. At our core, we're a bunch of bloodthirsty animals, that includes you too. And we're overdue to feed the beast, so if we see Karkas, let's go all Purge on him."

"But looking at the bigger picture beyond all this, stories gotta have a moral right?" Keiichiro looked over at the readers.

"I think don't be a dick and start the apocalypse is a good enough moral for me, so moving on!" Lyre remarked.

Then, a portal opened up, and a man in a black and orange hazmat suit was sent flying out. "What the fuck was... What?! What was that? Okay, so, there were three people, I have to- Oh, man, my head! There were three people in here. I can't remember- What was the bald dude's name, the guy who was in the computer. There was the fucking cop. I didn't even ask for his name. Jesus. Oh my God, the test chamber."

"Hey!" Someone yelled, as a middle-aged man in a labcoat walked out of the portal. "Are you that motherfucker that FUCKED up this whole experiment?"

"You think I fucked it up? You think I fucked it up?!" The man in the hazmat suit snapped.

"I think you fucked it up." The scientist said, smirking.

"Did you, you- Listen. Were you the one that jumped in there? You, shou- I thought you DIED. I thought you died on impact." The man clarified.

"Who the hell are you talking about?" The scientist asked.

"Alright, so listen, we need I need- We need to go over a report for like the insurance reasons. What went down in there? And also, for fucking-"

"Biscuit, don't you think about it!" Luigi yelled.

"Hey, Luigi? Do you hear rushing water?"

"Hmm?" he put a hand behind his ear. "I think you're right. I do hear something from the other bathroom."

"There's a vent in the wall. Do you think we can slip through?"

"It's worth a shot."

"Watch out!!" A Mexican man in a labcoat yelled.

"Oh, there he is." The middle-aged scientist remarked.

"Tommy, TOMMY!" The man in the HEV suit yelled.

"Watch out, there's creatures!" The Mexican, apparently Tommy, yelled.

"And for potential girlfriends of Chris if Hibikii and Miku agree to her getting another girlfriend, Serena Cadenzavna Eve-" Drakus said as the image of the girl in question, a version of Maria's younger sister SONG had recruited from a parallel universe where Maria had killed herself disabling the Nephilim instead of Serena, appeared on the screen.

"Is mine."

They paused to look at Elfnein, or rather, her creator, Carol Malus Dienheim, whose body Elfnein was essentially renting, who was currently glomping onto Serena from the side. "Serena is mine," the ancient alchemist and murderer of miracles snarled, her tone reminding the X-Squad that while she was legally considered on their side now, she had nearly dissected an entire fucking planet once and would be perfectly happy to do the same to any of them if they got in her way.

"Which is exactly what I was about to say," Drakus quickly said as Serena's image was crossed out. "Which also rules out you, I suppose," he added, calling up and crossing out Carol's picture as well.

"It does," Carol said haughtily.

"Elfnein, though-"

"Is mine," former Illuminati werewolf Elsa Bête, who, like her sisters in Noble Red, had been brought back from clone bodies made by the alchemists who'd turned them into monsters because they been deemed far too valuable as test subjects to simply die which were later acquired and utilized by the Australian Illuminati, which had the side effect of giving them Australian accents, a penchant for jewelry made from fangs, and a persistent urge to wrestle crocodiles, snarled as she glomped Carol and Elfnein's shared body from behind.

"Is also clearly off the table," Drakus said, calling up and crossing out pictures of Elfnein and Elsa.

"In all fairness, I wasn't planning on dating any of them anyway? I mean, one of them is a lot younger than me," Chris pointed out.

"I'm hundreds of years old," Carol pointed out, completely ignoring Elsa sniffing her hair as she sniffed Serena's hair.

"Yeah, but you don't look it," Chris retorted. "So, that's basically everyone on the team-"

"Oh, but I am not done yet!" Ombra said eagerly. "It was around this point, I started getting into pairing you with others, which is why the next options are the Autoscorers."

"WHAT?!" Chris shrieked as the pictures of the four Homonculi appeared on the screen. "No! HELL no!" She then blushed, and put her fingers together. "Well...maybe I like them a little...okay, maybe a lot!"

Garie puffed her chest out in pride. "You have good taste…"

"So, my Autoscorers are good enough for you." Carol said, beaming with pride.

"Well, the fact that they tried to kill us multiple times and broke our Symphogears aside, I've had a crippling phobia of mannequins that somehow evolved into a weird fetish ever since that one time Finé threw me in a huge pit full of broken dolls and left me to dig my way out, which took several hours," Chris recalled, a shy look in her eyes and her face looking more like a tomato. "And then she asked me if I'd learned my lesson. And then because she didn't feel like being subtle, she told me the lesson was I was just another doll for her to use and discard at her leisure. Then after getting my ass beat by the Autoscorers, the phobia mixed with some pretty weird stuff, started having dreams about having sex with Hibikii, Miku and the Autoscorers. First it was just Garie, then Micha and Phara, and before I knew it, I was dreaming about being in a gangbang with Miku, Hibikii and all four Autoscorers."

An awkward silence filled the room. Garie quietly put a check mark near the Autoscorer photos.

"So if I sprayed you in the face with a squirt flower, what'd happen?" Micha added.

"It'd probably be soak city down here." Chris said, pointing at her groin.

"I need to remember that." Micha said, writing it down for later reference.

"Wait, if you were terrified and horny for my Autoscorers, why didn't you act like it?" Carol demanded.

"Why do you think I shot them?" Chris replied.

"You shoot everything all the time!"

"Well, I shot them more than usual!"

"No, I'm fairly sure you shot us almost exactly as often as you shoot everything you fight-" Micha remarked, only for her to bump into someone; a black haired girl.

"Oh, hey!" The girl laughed as she got up, pulling Micha off her. "Sorry about that. Folks call me Brianna Greyson, nice to meet you."

"Uh, yeah, I'm Micha..." The doll muttered.

"Communication is down all across the network, Gordon!" A Hawaiian man in a labcoat yelled, as he ran towards the squad.

"Are you sure that pressing any button is not going to cause another fucking- What was that called, a Resonance Cascade?! They didn't even tell me what that was." The HEV man, Gordon Freeman, yelled.

"I've never seen anything like it, Dr. Freeman!" Dr. Harold Coomer said.

"You need to MOVE! We are like, an inch away from some kind of radioactive being. We need to MOVE over here." Gordon yelled, pointing at Ridley.

"I've got my passport!" Dr. Coomer said, flashing a passport.

"And some of us are dead already." Drakus pointed out.

"YOU'RE NOT-" Gordon sputtered, before bridging his nose. "A passport or being dead isn't gonna- An HEV suit is not gonna save me from that!"

"Hey! That's them!" A man in a ghost costume said, his voice sounding like Steve Harvey.

"Whoa! Did that guy dress like a ghost?!" Absalom gawked.

"That's right! Gottfried's the name and talking is my game!" The ghost mech said, now sounding like Gilbert Gottfried.

"Name's Harvey," the larger snail said.

"Never thought Transponder Snails could learn to talk." Gecko said in intrigue. "What's your deal, pint-sizes?"

"Don't worry about me pulling my weight," Harvey said, "Me and Gottfried both ate the Noise-Noise Fruit, so we can carry the crew's voices across the entire hotel, even through walls, plus, this whole ghost get up's a mech we got from one of Brianna's many contacts on the black market."

"Much to my ears' pain," Brianna smirked. "But yeah, we've been looking to join you guys if that's cool. I'd be happy as a partner and Harvey and Gottfried are natural communications officers."

"It's cause we can talk, isn't it?" Gottfried asked.

"And your species, yes," Brianna remarked. "And also because I have a pet too, come out, Marigold!" she said as she let her partner, a fluffy little Mareep, out. With a way too wide smile on her face.

"I love my name. Because Brianna is my master and she picked it. I love her because she is my master and anything she does."

"Do I sound like that, Lord Hydrax?" Lugnut asked, as Drakus could only nod.

"She is floofy!" Zinx the Zubat said as she landed on the Mareep and plopped down on her woolly body.

"Don't you mind that my pet is using you as a pillow now?" Ombra asked Marigold.

"I don't mind if my master does not mind." Marigold said.

Maurice blinked. "Ok then. Now that Marigold is officially on the team, let's get hunting for Berries for the probable hellfire that is us catching ghosts…"

Marigold sped off with speed you normally don't see from a Mareep, before she returned in a second, a whole truck of Berries of all sorts in front of her. "Berries for the friends of the master!"

"That was fast…wait, some of those Berries don't grow around here, where did you get those?" Nikki asked.

"Someone was nice enough to give up their Berries when I told them it was for the Master." Marigold said with a grin that was way too wide.

---

Silver picked up a package that was left at the indoors PokéMart. "Luckily some of Dad's old contacts owe me a few favors, these Berries will give me an easier time early in the journey…"

Suddenly Marigold rushed in, reeled back her hind legs and bucked Silver in the balls. Then she took the package and rushed off again.

Silver was on the ground, curled up in a ball, nursing his 'future heirs'. "My apricorns…"

"Don't be silly, it would be generous to call those Cherri Berries." Zinx the Zubat said, having flown towards Silver just to make a joke about his masculinity, before leaving the scene.

---

"She's eager to get the job done…" Maurice noted.

"Us Mareep love being told what to do." Marigold said.

Gordon facepalmed. "I'm, I'm a LITTLE stressed, buddy. Okay, so a guard. A guard, there was a guard insisting that I had my passport. Do you have your passport?"

"You do have it though, right? Yes?" The middle-aged scientist, Bubby, asked.

Everyone made a confused face, Maurice turned to his starter, Morrigan the Totodile, who just kept shaking her maracas, and shrugged at him. "Well, I won't complain about this much good berries. It allows us to stretch the medicine budget, some of these would make for an awesome pasta sauce and we can get some money from the Apricorns since they have no use to us…"

"Apricorns are never useless!" the Apricorn guy said as he jumped out of some bushes.

"Gah!" Mozenrath jumped back as the guy invoking 'stranger, danger' had jumped out. "Somebody get this...creature...away from me!"

"Ten-four!" Marigold said as she rushed at the guy, did the same thing she did to Silver, but harder…so hard she sent the fat insane man flying down the elevator shaft.

"My apricooooooooooooorns!" he said before he crashed in the basement.

"Now Marigold, you may have taken an innocent life, but it's important to stay calm!" Coomer said.

"Brianna, your sheep's a murderer!" Bubby cheerfully said.

Maurice sighed. "Everyone I meet besides the X-Squad is either stupid or crazy!" he groaned in frustration.

"Yeah, not everyone can be sane like me." Zinx noted. "Isn't that right Mr. Roper?" Zinx said as she pulled out a bundle of rope with a pair of googly eyes stuck to it. "Mr. Roper says 'yes'."

"Where did that rope come from?" King Boo asked, confused.

"When Papa Roper and Mama Roper loved each other very much, there was bondage…" Zinx started to explain.

"Never mind, I don't think you want to know anymore, Your Majesty. Let's just go get some ghosts." Ombra sighed.

Luigi fired a plunger and pulled on it to break the vent cover, and the X-Squad squished through the wall drain and reached the women's bathroom, and saw something glowing in one of the toilets.

So much for not going in there.

Neo shined the ultraviolet light down on the spot where the grating should be. After some Spirit Balls popped out, Furina quickly sucked them inside her Poltergust to fully reveal it, as Ombra casually pulled it out.

"Nice! Now let's go back up and get to the other side."

This time, Drakus was ahead of everyone as she inserted the key into the hole. After watching it disappear, the walls split apart to reveal a revolving door. Pushing the partition, she made her way to the other side. When it was the Custodian's turn, the door somehow spun around quickly, causing him to be stuck for a few seconds before falling flat on his face.

"Oh! Are you okay?" Hibiki pulled him off the floor.

"Ah... by the Emperor," he moaned as stars spun around his head. Biscuit couldn't help but laugh happily at his dizzy face.

"You look funny, Mr. Banana!" Biscuit giggled, only to stop in realization that he can speak. "I CAN TALK?!"

"Correction," Harvey said, "Me and Gottfried can translate. Which I have been. Sorry about the fact you sound like Asmodeus himself, but for some reason, this is the inner voice I heard you speaking."

"Well thanks for the bad weed, jackass," Biscuit quipped, "But I am grateful to be able to speak with Luigi."

Just then, they heard something move on the upper floor of the mall. Ridley glanced over and saw someone floating near the escalators, and held a hand over Luigi's mouth to prevent the man from screaming. He quickly pulled everyone against the outer wall of the Boutique, hoping that the strange entity wouldn't catch them.

Searching the second level was a portly ghost wearing a police officer's uniform and holding a flashlight in his left hand. From the name tag pinned onto his pocket, his name was Officer Kruller. He was the security guard who looked over the shops to make sure all of them were closed. Kruller was also responsible to make sure there weren't any intruders sneaking inside to steal anything. But more importantly, Hellen made him aware that the X-Squad was still in the hotel, and could be anywhere, including the Hotel Shops – exactly where the squad was hiding right now.

"What's wrong?" Violet asked.

"Shh!"

"The feds are here, and they're on our asshole!" Biscuit ignored the message.

"Huh?! I-I heard something! Who's there?!" the cop jumped as he looked around.

Roman narrowed his eyes at the Polterpup and covered his mouth so he wouldn't blow their cover. As they remained quiet and hidden, Kruller started talking to himself.

"Ugh, I'm probably hearing things. Either way, everything's clear here. The Gift Shop is secured, and I already checked the lower levels. No sign of any burglars. Still, I always have this inkling that someone is going to jump out of nowhere and cause a disturbance! The last time that happened, I wanted to get a snack from the fridge and some Golden Goob made me spill my coffee everywhere! And mice... Oh, I hate mice so much. I almost lost the elevator button because of those rodents!" Kruller shuddered as he jingled his keychain, as the X-Squad gazed at each other with wide eyes. Biscuit had to refrain from yapping.

"Not only that, why do I have to look after the place for the midnight shift?! I don't see the point, especially since there's no one in the hotel. Well, except for that Raiden guy, those Symphogear wielders and those X-Squad creeps Mr. Wattles and Ms. Gravely talked about. I highly doubt they'd be here- YIPE!" he juggled the flashlight after losing his grip. "What was that?!"

Kruller heard a clanking sound of metal near his office. He leaned against the wall, shaking his flashlight nervously.

"H-Hello? Anyone there? Man, I wish I wasn't the only officer here. I would kill to call Code Eight for some backup. The disadvantages of being the only cop around here..."

The mall cop noticed something odd about the vending machine. Trying to regain his composure, he floated down the hall as the sound got louder. Worst case scenario, a Goob or some other ghost was trying to buy a snack.

"I may not have a firearm, but I have a flashlight! I know how to use this thing, so show yourself!"

Kruller shined the light over the machine's take-out port. As he got closer to inspect, someone popped out.

"SURPRISE BITCH!"

"YEEK!" he leaned back, as he felt the white-haired man with cybernetic wings and a cybernetic eye drive a sword right through the fucking chest. Kruller took off his hat for a moment, wiping his forehead. "Phew, it's okay. This wasn't so scary. At least you didn't steal the button. Also, this feels a lot more awkward than anything."

"Tadaaaa~! Guess who's learned a few tricks from that Matoi brat!?" the clone of Freed, dubbed Blitz-Freed, said, currently in what's called 'Crazy' mode, complete with his eyes turning jet black, laughing maniacally, only to stop when he saw that Kruller wasn't bleeding, and looked more confused than anything, as his face went cold and stoic and his eyes returned to normal. "Too bad you're an inhuman like the rest, otherwise I'd take the time to enjoy your suff-"

Kruller bonked him on the head and Blitz-Freed looked dazed as he fled into a portal.

"Now that my work is done, I should go for a Code Seven, but at night."

Kruller eagerly squeezed through the locked door of his office. He had trouble getting his entire body past the wall. However, once he got in, a red diamond key flew off of his chain.

Meanwhile, the squad took a moment to finally breathe. They made their way in front of the escalators.

"Is the coast clear?" the Custodian checked.

"I think so," Luigi nodded. "If I heard correctly, that policeman should be in his office."

"Seriously?" Tsubasa demanded, a pitying look on her face. "Truly, this must be the most pathetic villain we have ever faced-"

"Doctor Ver," Maria said.

"I stand corrected. The second most-"

"Wait, did you face Kim Jong Un? Was he pretty bad at fighting?" Hibiki brought up.

"No, in fact, his unicorn was pretty strong," Hibikii clarified.

"Death death death!" Kirika said excitedly.

"Indeed, it was a worthy adversary," Tsubasa admitted, recalling her duel with the 'sword horse' fondly.

"I think that cyborg pulled some fourth-degree-inter-dimensional-warp-fuckery." The Emperor said, a shocked look on his face.

"Wait, how the fuck did Wattles find the tech needed to do that?!" Chris asked.

"Well, Yukine, to understand that, we must first understand something. What is, technology?" Suddenly, background music started up, as everybody was suddenly transported to some sort of massive classroom, as Martin stood at the front of the class. "Class is in session, so buckle your fuckles, we're gonna learn about TECHNOLOGY." Everyone was currently confused as fuck, wondering how they even ended up here in the first place, with some quickly getting their notepads out.

"Now, what is, technology? Well, technology is a concept created by all sentient beings, used to assist the process of evolution. From the wheel, to the steam engine, to electricity, to the gun." Cue the sound of a gun shot being played as he dropped to the ground and screamed "AHHH FUCK-" Cue everyone dropping to the ground, as Lazuli quickly got back up with a gun drawn.

"ALRIGHT FUCKERS, I'M ARMED, COME AT ME!" She yelled, as everyone got their weapons or powerful spells out as Skulker played a chainsaw effect while Maurice slowly loaded a shotgun with malicious intent.

"Wait, I think it's a false alarm." Rem realized, as everyone slowly got back to their seats. Martin quickly stood back up, as he got back to teaching.

"AHEM, anyways, as you can see, technology, is important for life and evolution, so as such, it must constantly evolve. If a nation's technology stagnates, it will eventually fall behind and become primitive, being seen as a prime target by the enemy nations. This is why one must improve their technology, to get ahead, and stay ahead. Now, class is dismissed." He said as the classroom faded away, as they all found themselves back on the mall, as the Horned King and the Valkyries simply were flabbergasted, but made sure to take quick notes.

"Wait, the ghost has an elevator button!" Neo realized.

In his experience, Luigi has never loitered in a mall or any sort of building after closing time. The experience of sneaking around without getting caught was so daring and risky that he couldn't last thirty seconds without feeling his stomach drop. Every time he tried to stay quiet, something came to a head, and Luigi was always in the middle of a scary situation. Adding ghosts to the equation only made things more stressful. He wished he didn't have to deal with it, but at this point, he didn't have a choice.

Biscuit reached the office door first and sniffed at the glowing key. He picked it up with his mouth and carried it over to the squad.

"A key? We don't need no fucking key!" Spiny exclaimed.

"You can talk?!" The Custodian sputtered.

"Yeah, side effect of the thing that made us cards." Ace replied.

---

Kruller was mesmerized by his book that he didn't hear the office door creaking. "Out of nowhere, a masked man jumped on the alien, startling the heroes behind him. The mysterious man in green lightly chuckled to himself. While the princess and Koopa King checked on poor Squirps, Mario scowled at the intruder. 'Wh-Who are you?!' Tippi shuddered. The man turned around to face the heroes of the Light Prognosticus. 'Oh, me? I'm just one of Count Bleck's more promising minions. I'm the Green Thunder, otherwise known as...' He paused before he twirled around and made an L-shaped gesture with his arms. 'MR. L!' he introduced his identity."

With Kruller was a pale blue ghost with tiny, yellow eyes, plump cheeks, and a brown jacket. He was staring at his reflection, unaware of Gooigi and Colombo standing near him.

Before he could continue reading, Kruller noticed something moving out of the corner of his eye. For a split second, he froze when he saw the squad barge inside. Immediately though, he gasped and fell off his chair in fright.

"Officer Kruller!" Neo read the name tag on his desk. "You're under arrest for possession of that elevator button!"

"Neo, are you serious?" Roman asked.

"What? I've always wanted to confront a cop like that. It's not like he's going to actually arrest me!"

"And this is why I'm not in the stock market." Critic remarked.

"Huh? Who's there?" the spirit turned to his left. "Bah! Excuse me! Can't a man have some privacy here?!" he shook a fist in the air.

"Why, that's Uncle Grimmly!" Dove acknowledged. "I know he's a fan of mirrors and rooms with a variety of clothing, but even I didn't expect him to be here!"

"I recognize that voice from anywhere. It's that nutty Bloody Dove!" Grimmly's pupils narrowed.

"Did he just call me, 'nutty'?"

Kruller peeked over the top of his desk as he glanced at the ghostbusters. His glasses fell off of his face. "Wh-What are you doing here?! How did you get in here?!"

"It was simple to barge down your door, considering our sheer numbers." Ombra remarked.

"You d-dare talk b-back at a certified cop like me?" he tried to sound intimidating. "Well, y-you'll never take me alive, even though I should be the one enforcing the law!"

After putting his glasses back on, the cop rolled onto the floor and through the bars to reach the Lost and Found. Kruller searched through an open cardboard box, digging for a weapon. He pulled out a jack-in-the-box and got spooked by the clown that popped from inside. He found a sea urchin toy, but the spikes felt like they punctured the palm of his hand. Then, the officer took out a sniper rifle in the form of a red vacuum. The problem was that it didn't fire a laser. It was a toy model without any ammunition. Just when he was completely desperate, he was delighted to find a water pistol that was hidden under a scrunched-up 'Wanted' poster of Luigi.

"Alright. At least I'm equipped. Don't even bother trying to fight me!" he taunted with a hint of anxiety. "After all, there's no way you can get in here!"

Chris...just blasted the bars with her missiles, and the X-Squad got their weapons out, ready to pummel Kruller and Grimmly.

"Oh...right." Kruller groaned, as the squad bum rushed towards him, as he screamed in fear.

"HAAAA! COWER BEFORE ME, SPIRIT!" Coomer yelled in a deep tone as his eyes glowed red, rushing to kick Grimmly in the face.

"What did I even do to disturb you?!"

"You fucked with the science team!" Coomer said.

"By gum, you have no manners!"

"Oh, have mercy! At least let me finish my novel! I was getting to a crucial part of the story!" Kruller yelled.

His wish was sadly unfulfilled.

Furina stuffed the mall cop and Uncle Grimmly into the vacuum before the elevator button burst out of the hose. Biscuit cheered and did a backflip in celebration, as Luigi grabbed the button off the floor, which had the number '12' on it.

"Take that, you damnable bitches!" Bubby laughed.

"We're gonna be going up and down a lot, aren't we?" Ombra remarked, as Chris could only nod.

---

As the anchor marker moved up to the fourteenth tick mark, the elevator bell rang before the doors opened. Luigi wasn't enthralled by the chandelier of lit candles, providing a dim light in the lobby. He and the others stepped on the green rug in front of them, gazing around the room. Aside from a few palm plants by their sides, there was a miniature pool of water placed as an embellishment. To their left was a sitting area with a purple couch. On their right was a long, blue carpet that led to a check-in desk.

Biscuit ran up to the small pool, admiring the island decoration in the middle. However, he noticed some strange ripples in the water, despite the fact there was nothing in sight.

"The One-Eyed Dragon statue can be found in Mount Aoba Park," Yusuke noted, "I've always wanted to pay my respects, so this seems like the best chance to do so."

The team headed over to the statue. While the statue itself was unmarred, the base of it was covered with the aforementioned posters, all of them advertising a new reissue of a light novel called "Prince of Nightmares".

"Well, this is far from legal," Makoto noted.

"Indeed," Yusuke said, "If they hope to advertise this book, there are better places to hang them up. We passed at least ten information signs on the way here, and people do stop to read those."

The group quickly took the posters down and had them trashed. That's when Ryuji's stomach started grumbling.

"Well, now that we've fed our intellect... It's time to feed our actual stomachs. And this place is popular for its beef tongue."

"Oh, that sounds perfect," Morgana said, "I just hope the restaurant doesn't discriminate against Quirked animals."

"No worries," Futaba said, "Since you're sentient, you fall under an exception to the restaurant's 'no pets' rule. I mean, you're not actually a pet, for starters."

---

At the gyutan restaurant, Ryuji felt like he had reached heaven.

"Man, this meat is so thick, yet so tender!"

Morgana meowed in delight as he placed another piece into his mouth.

"So delicious! This is perfect for my sophisticated pallet... It just melts in your mouth."

"No worries, lord of chaos and patron of crime. I will make sure our quest up this tower of spirits continues. I can't do this without you." Nougat softly said to Drakus, but she was still frightening.

Nearby, a woman in a lab coat looked around in confusion.

"Did I just hear a cat?"

Morgana looked over at her, causing her to gasp.

"No way! Is this one of those 'uplifted animals'? I haven't seen one in years!"

She suddenly went into a long spiel about various things, starting from her work with animals to the flavor of beef tongue to food's affect on health to the placebo affect, all in rabid succession with cartoonish levels of emotion. Even the Custodian felt his head start spinning.

"Is this what it's like for other people?"

"Nerd alert," Futaba quipped.

"Whoops, sorry," the woman said, "Sometimes I completely forget that other people are around when I get to talking. I should introduce myself. I'm Kuon Ichinose, a researcher over at Toho University. If you get the chance, you should stop by and see the campus. Well, enjoy your beef tongue."

And with that, she walked out. Zenkichi was curious.

"Now where have I heard her name before..."

---

"What the fuck's going on with this?"

"What is it, buddy?" Roman asked.

Biscuit pointed his paw at the anomaly, causing Luigi to squint his eyes in confusion. He took a moment to look back at the elevator mirror since the doors didn't close yet. From the reflection, he spotted a boat circling around the island. After snapping her fingers, Furina turned on her Dark-Light Device. Moments later, the boat emerged in a shadowy figure.

"Yeah…I sense a bunch of people that way…must be nearby. Samehada says there isn't anyone too strong there."

Kanade eyed the white 'blade', assuming that it was this 'Samehada'. "How about we find some answers from someone here then?"

Soon, they overheard a young man talking before a crowd.

"Yes, my next book signing will be soon," the man said, "And please, people. I have my own advertising staff. There's no need to keep placing posters of my work where they shouldn't be."

Yang immediately lost it, cackling like a hyena and holding onto her stomach. Weiss' jaw dropped in shock, too stunned to say anything. Ruby covered her eyes, and Blake went scarlet in a matter of seconds, slowly trying to bury herself in the blanket she had wrapped around her shoulders because holy shit them muscles.

[DAAAAMMMMNNN]

[YOU COULD GRATE CHEESE ON THOSE ABS]

[sweat_drops]

"This shit is so surreal. Is your Twitch chat on drugs?" The Emperor asked, as he frisked Drakus' clothes for any form of drugs.

"I'm honestly asking myself the same question..." Weiss muttered, still too dumbfounded to say much else.

"Hey, I recognize him," Tenko said, "Ango Natsume, notable writer and pro hero. He's the Overlord Hero, Tempest."

"He looks rather annoyed at all the praise people are giving him," Ann noted.

"I am overhearing some of them saying they bought multiple copies of the same book," Yusuke noted, "I'd feel the same if someone had multiple copies of one of my art pieces."

"If the people are acting like this just because of his literary works..." Morgana noted, "Perhaps the Underworld here is focused on him. We'll need to find a way to enter it, and that means finding his EMMA keyword. But first we'll need to do some investigating."

Five Spirit Balls floated around the pool before the ghost hunters sucked them all up. Suddenly, the squad heard a yell, startling the crap out of them.

The newcomer crashed into her outright, knocking her over.

"Ah, sorry, miss!" The man, dressed in pirate garb, blurted, turning around and jogging backward, heel-first, to keep an eye on Furina and make sure she was relatively all right.

The Archon quickly leapt to her feet and dusted off her clothes. "I'm okay, but who – "

"No time!" The pirate turned to face forward, racing off again. As he passed Donald a salute; "Hail, Donald, Goofy!"

"Hey!" Donald cried, beaming. "It's you!"

"He's a friend of yours?" Ombra asked.

"Yes!" Goofy confirmed. "We know him from when–"

"Belay the introductions!" The pirate yelled, outpacing the group. "Ship absconding!" He pointed toward the door, which probably indicated a ship sailing off.

"Want some help catching up to it?" Sora asked.

"I should think it would only be the polite thing to do after slowing a man down," The pirate groaned.

"That wasn't OUR fault!" Donald argued as Vexen scowled. "But we'll still help you catch – is that the Pearl?"

"The one and only!" He confirmed.

"Okay!" Sora cried. "We're on it!"

"You might be rude," Ombra told him, "but if that ship belongs to you, then we can't let it get away."

Soon, Futaba did some digging online.

"Ah, here we are. Ango Natsume is well known for his light novel 'Prince of Nightmares', about a man who is reincarnated as a demon lord, but chooses to end the evil legacy of his kingdom and bring about peace. He faces a number of hardships, including fanatical heroes trying to kill him, but slowly starts to build peace between the human and demon realms. Apparently it was so popular it won the grand prize in the Soukaisha Awards. But back then it was only selling in the tens of thousands. Now it's somehow selling in the millions."

"Seems Natsume's fans are as crazy as Alice's," Zenkichi said, "They've even beaten up people just because they were dressed like characters in Natsume's story. Naturally he's had to step in as Tempest, using his Rune Circle Quirk to bring those fanatics to heel."

The Rune Circle Quirk created circles made of ancient drawings, which could be used to bind foes or launch energy bursts.

"I read about that," Makoto said, "Others were confused at Natsume's actions, thinking the attackers were in the right and wondering why he'd want to protect the villains of his own story. They lack any self-restraint."

"All of the positive reviews for Natsume have their IP addresses in Sendai," Futaba said, "Not that people outside Sendai don't like his work, but out there the praise is more normal. All the violence and cult-like action is limited to Sendai alone."

"We should check out his work for ourselves," Sumire suggested, "We don't yet know if Natsume is that good a writer or not."

"He has a book signing soon if I recall," Drakus said, "We'll check it out and see how good his body of work is.

Soon, the squad rushed forward.

"Just from the looks of it, do you think Hellen created this floor as some sort of nautical-themed restaurant?" Mystle wondered as she inspected the rest of the floor's layout.

"Possibly. I mean, she probably wanted to add some variety," Neo shrugged.

"Master, we found something!" Marigold ran ahead past the check-in desk and stopped when he approached the bow of a ship in the way. The squad followed her and gazed at the large structure.

"Coddamn," Inkerton nutter. "This is some decoration."

"How exactly are we supposed to go towards that ship if this ship is in the way?" Chris asked.

"So, let's try this." Furina said, and she soon felt like she was in the middle of a tornado. Gusty winds flew into the Poltergust Z-00's nozzle as everything tumbled, fell, and broke apart. Tons of wooden planks, nets, and wallpaper were sucked up into the vacuum as fast as a kid trying to finish their dinner until the plate was completely bare. The boat and walls were shipwrecked, revealing the door to the next area.

---

Natsume maintained a strict "one autograph per person" rule, and seemed a little upset that people were buying more than one book for themselves. He also sighed at people who were gossiping about rumors regarding why he was writing in the first place.

"Good grief," Lyre said, "It's like everyone's regarding him as the next Adam."

Yusuke had been reading a copy of Natsume's novel.

"Well, I'm not as versed in the literary arts, but I can tell a lot of heart and soul was poured into this. And it certainly sounds award-worthy. But the story has a structure that has been seen before, so I wouldn't say it's worth all the zealous adulation those fans seem to praising it with."

"Let me take a look," Futaba said.

She read through the book.

"Yeah, this is all original. But it has a ton of anime cliches. Especially from some popular ones back three-hundred years ago. Heck, the structure itself brings to mind 'That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime'."

"This book could certainly be considered exceptional," Yusuke admitted, "But hardly a masterpiece. Certainly not worth all of Natsume's fans driving themselves to debt just buying up more and more copies."

"We need to access the Underworld," Midoriya decided, "And that means speaking with Natsume personally."

---

During the party, Natsume finally got a chance to get away from his so-called entourage and get a moment's peace.

"Two-faced, the lot of them. First promoting me as the grandson of the late Sogo Natsume. My grandfather certainly had literary talent, but my skill is my own. And then suggesting obviously plagiarized ideas. Who do I look like, Atelier?"

"I see my former art teacher's reputation precedes him," Yusuke said as he approached.

"Oh, you're the Kabuki Hero, Goemon, correct?" Natsume said, "Sorry, I'm just getting sick of this fame. I wanted recognition for my work, but nothing like this. The only solace I've found is in my regular patrols, and even then..."

"Yes," Yusuke said, "I already heard about the altercations started by your more... Zealous fans. That said, I think my team and I can help."

He slipped Natsume a piece of paper. Once Natsume read what was on it, he understood.

"Incidentally, Yusuke, perhaps you wouldn't mind becoming friends on EMMA. I assume you have it."

"But of course," Yusuke said, getting out his phone.

"Wonderful," Natsume said, "My EMMA keyword is 'Prince of Nightmares'. And by the way... I'm glad you were able to retrieve your mother's original work, the Sayuri. A splendid piece, if I may say."

Yusuke nodded in agreement.

"So, what's with you?" Natsume asked. "Your name is…Jack?"

"Not just any old Jack," Goofy corrected. "He's Jack Sparrow!"

"CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow," Captain Sparrow said proudly.

Furina recoiled; "So YOU'RE the pirate Donald was talking about." She remarked, surprised.

"Please don't be like Aqua, please don't be like Aqua, please don't be like Aqua…" Donald muttered, praying to whatever lord could hear him that this doesn't go badly.

Natsume bridged his nose. "Apparently, Pirates of the Carribean became real...I really need something strong after this."

"I should hope he was talking about me," Sparrow replied. "I make a point of being infamous, you know."

Furina recoiled as soon as they went into the next room. After feeling less disoriented, the squad and Jack entered the skull cave before pushing through the double doors from within. The first four were amazed yet perplexed at what stood in front of them. It was the Beach – a massive expanse with sand all over the place, a dock, and a humongous body of water underneath a dark blue sky with a familiar-looking, crescent moon.

To reiterate, it was a beach. In a hotel. No further explanation was needed.

"This is too good to be real. Like you said, Veruca, this would be fantastic to explore if The Last Resort wasn't a literal ghost town," Mystle marveled, as she couldn't believe her eyes.

"I still can't tell if this is an illusion or not. But the smell of the fresh saltwater is convincing me otherwise," Mike muttered.

Just down in the station was another of the Twisted villains. This time it was Tower Tooth, bonded to a Slime spirit. This time it was Carmin and Zorro who detained the villain for arrest. The group then approached a large gate to encounter another Twisted villain, Juggernaut, bonded to a Jack-o'-Lantern spirit. Surprisingly, the spirit spoke.

"So you have arrived, oh chosen heroes. I am Doma of the Fearsome Four, servant of the Prince of Nightmares!"

"Oh shit, a melting ass animatronic from Ninja Turtles 3's here!" Critic moaned in terror.

"What's with this generic anime setup?" Preme asked.

"Ugh, I can't believe this is happening," Necronomicon said.

"All those who wish to approach my master, must first take on a series of trials. Prepare yourselves, heroes. I pray you lose your way!"

There was a sudden flash, and suddenly the group was in front of the castle.

"Whoa!" Zorro said, "Was that a warp Quirk? No, more like a magic spell made possible by the Underworld."

"Yeah, typical generic attitude," Necronomicon said with a sigh, "Seriously... 'I pray you lose your way'? Who even says that?"

"Seems this Underworld is designed to mimic the first volume of Prince of Nightmares," Goemon noted.

"How so?" Daruizen asked.

"Natsume wrote out the first volume as a clever subversion," Goemon explained, "Setting up a team of heroes to try infiltrating the palace to defeat a demon lord. All the typical cliches were there, but it was all a farce. The heroes were fanatics of a corrupt church, and while they were busy being slowed down by the machinations of the servants' traps, the titular character was in trade negotiations with more open-minded countries. The story is about an ordinary young man who died in his world, but reincarnated as a demon lord in a fantasy world. Rather than suffer the same fate as the villains of his favorite manga, he strives to turn his fate around by acting as a benevolent leader."

"So basically we're playing through the first novel in the series," Zap realized, "Except I'm betting it's not the prince himself waiting at the end."

The castle itself was locked from the front and guarded by searchlights, and the back entrance was sealed by a special door.

"This is the first obstacle the heroes had to go through," Goemon noted, "Doma sealed them within a winding labyrinth, with his defeat being the only thing to release them. In the meantime they had to find three proofs of victory over the other three members of the Fearsome Four. Once they are obtained, the door will open."

"Why not just seal the door permanently?" Milady asked.

"Because the prince doesn't want to shut people out of his kingdom," Necronomicon explained, "He had to risk letting so-called 'chosen ones' get close to his castle so he could maintain trade relations. Otherwise he'd fall into misanthropy."

"Fair enough," Brax said, "So where do we find this proof?"

"The three members of the Fearsome Four tasked with guarding each proof can be found in three separate towers," Goemon explained, "Each is guarded by its own trials. The first tower stands near a 'Great River'."

"This is coming from me, but it feels like we're inside some sort of geodesic dome. The background is fitting to make it look like we're at the shore late at night. However, everything is authentic when you visit it. Plus, the galleon over there looks real to me." Kanade remarked.

Although it was far away in the middle of the sea, the pirate ship was beckoning the ghost hunters to set sail on it. There was a solid chance the next Boss Ghost was on board the vessel. How to reach it seemed impossible unless they had the motivation to swim for an entire league. Luigi and the others were smart enough to not try that tactic or else they'd be fatigued halfway into the ocean.

"Hmm, there's a silver bell on the dock," Neo indicated. "You think you can give it a big, ol' ring, babe?"

"Why do I have to do it?" Furina asked. "It's got one of those tassels to pull on. You're an expert on those, right, Dove?"

"Well, I've tugged on them before. But you can do it, too! I'm not the only one wielding a Poltergust!" Dove remarked.

The Archon groaned but walked over to it. She turned on the suction with the Poltergust Z-00 and pulled the rope, striking the bell. The clapper clanged against the metal, the sounds reverberating throughout the Beach. By then, the galleon garnered the heroes' attention before disappearing into a thick cloud of fog.

"Huh?" Luigi lifted a hand over his eyes and underneath the brim of his cap. Squinting his eyes, he couldn't find the boat. "Where did it go?"

Suddenly, the ship emerged out of the fog and slowly made its way to the ghost catchers, parking parallel with the wooden dock.

"Yo, you gotta check this out!" Biscuit spotted a significant object.

"What is it? Did you find the next elevator button?" Mystle asked.

The Polterpup shook his head and pointed at the upper deck near the ship's stern, which was brightly lit, but the lights went out once Roman took the orb. That's when a puppet guard, this one looking like a mechanical dog appeared.

"Intruders! Retrieve the orb and destroy them!"

More puppet guards appeared, but they were quickly dispatched.

"These guards don't seem that durable," Lyre noted, "Probably came off an assembly line."

Valjean was frowning.

"They look just like the puppet constructs Reaper would use... I wonder..."

As the team moved forward, they encountered Juggernaut again.

"I'm ready to unload some HOT DEATH!" Coomer yelled, as he suplexed Juggernaut, knocking him out.

"Looks like we got 'em this time," Chargebolt said.

"Yeah, don't celebrate just yet," Captain Kidd said, "If this is anything like those anime cliches, then I'm betting 'Doma' was the weakest of the Fearsome Four."

"Though interestingly this wasn't the end of Doma in the novel," Goemon noted, "In fact, the Fearsome Four all faked their deaths to give the heroes a false sense of accomplishment. Each of them had prominent roles in the story going forward. In fact the second member, Ante, was a prominent love-interest for the Prince of Nightmares."

The area past the stern had a constant rainstorm.

"This would be the Land of Rain from the novel," Dabi noted, "The shrine up ahead is locked from the front, but I think there is a broken window near the back we can enter."

Arsene spotted a way up and around.

"This way, guys. We're talking the long route."

The brig revealed just how fake the scenery was, being just largely backdrop. Along the roofs the team encountered Grasshopper of the Twisted villains, bonded to a High Pixie spirit. Robin Hood and Johanna quickly dealt with the nuisance before detaining her. Once inside the cathedral, Arsene picked up the second orb before the group dealt with the puppet guards. With both orbs in hand, the group returned to the tower keep to open the door. Beyond it was another Twisted villain, Micro Blast, attached to a Lamia spirit.

"Well met, chosen heroes. I am Ante of the Fearsome Four! You've done well to make it this far, but allow me to let you in on a little secret. Doma was but the weakest of us. My power far exceeds his, so this is where--"

Drakus cleared his throat. He was now in Rising Hopper form, and had the key in hand.

"I hope you'll forgive me for breaking formula, but I really wanted to test this out."

He hit the switch to trigger a purple scorpion-themed armor.

"POISON!"

Before the spirit could react, Drakus dashed in and stung Micro Blast with a poison-tipped tail from his back. That left him wide open for Goemon and Johanna to capture him with their powers.

"That's the first core retrieved," Goemon said, "The novel states that the remaining two proofs are beyond the Land of Rain. And having the first proof will open the gate to the next trial to obtain the second proof."

---

The gate in question turned out to be the security gate for the shopping arcade, which immediately opened in a flash of light as the team got close.

"So what's next?" Valjean asked.

"The second tower is sealed by a series of doors," Goemon noted, "To open each the heroes would need to collect the tri-color orbs of red, blue, and yellow, in that order. The first orb should be just ahead."

"Ah, don't go charging in so quick," Necronomicon said, "That hallway's littered with aerial spy eyes."

"I've already detected them," Daruizen said, "Can someone try disrupting their signal?"

Lune plugged a car battery into her gloves before slamming her fists into the ground.

"Karnage Blitz!"

The vibrating shock waves shut down the spy eyes, letting the team forge on ahead. Finding the colored orbs proved a lot easier, barring a few heavy guards protecting the areas where they were. However, the keep itself was blocked by a terminal wall that Necronomicon needed to hack open. Inside the keep was a shock. Instead of another member of the Twisted villains, it was Bobbles from the Shie Hassaikai.

"What the heck are you doing here?" Kanade asked.

"I was asked to fill in for a member of the Twisted Metal team," Bobbles explained, "The guy in question offered me a pass into another Underworld if I faced off against you. Even gave me a way to escape if necessary. Then he hooked me up with this Orthrus spirit."

"And just who is 'he'?" Valjean asked.

Bobbles gave a laugh worthy of the clown he looked like.

"Tell you what. If you can capture me here and now, I'll tell you. I've been wanting to test out the full extent of my Clown Around Quirk!"

As he pulled out juggling pins from seemingly nowhere, Drakus took action as the others held off the demented ex-yakuza.

Leaping to the top of the tower, Drakus found the next Progrise Key.

"Let's see what this one can do."

The key activated to cover him in a gold armor based off a Caucasus beetle.

"BREAKHORN!"

Bobbles looked up in shock as Drakus came down, slamming into the Orthrus spirit with extending horns from his arms.

"Hey! Aren't you supposed to beat me first!?"

"We may be heroes," Goemon said, "But we don't conform to the fantasy genre! Diamond Dust!"

Bobbles spotted the attack and smirked.

"Sorry, but it looks like we'll have to dance another time. Now if you'll excuse me..."

He cut himself off from his spirit and tried to leap into a portal, only for Bubby to grab him.

"I think I need a fresh pair of clown shoes."

"Parry this, casual!" Bubby yelled, as he chokeslammed Bobbles into the ship, knocking the gangster out.

Captain Kidd stomped the ground.

"Damn clown! He had us the whole time!"

"But which member of the Twisted Metal group was he replacing?" Johanna wondered.

"I think I may have a good idea..." Valjean muttered, "Regardless, we have the second core. Now we need to find the third."

"There should be another locked gate on the other side of the arcade," Sophia said, "We should find the third tower keep through there."

---

The last keep was found on the poop deck. Goemon spotted it first.

"There it is. The final trial is one of courage, with the heroes having to navigate an invisible floor hovering in the air. Compounding the matter is that the floor is not over some bottomless abyss, but rather the bottom of a looping path. One misstep and the heroes would be forced to work their back to the top."

"Most likely the path is close to the top," Draxulac noted, "Allow me to take point."

With the vampire's help, the team went over the heads of a number of drone puppets and into the tower keep. Inside, they found another Twisted villain, this one being Drag Queen. She was bonded to an Eligor spirit. As the spirit started yammering, Arsene motioned for Drakus to grab the last core. Activating this one added red armor pieces modeled after a buffalo.

"BLOW!"

Drakus leapt down and landed before charging right into Drag Queen with energy horns, leaving her open as Captain Kidd launched an electrical attack alongside Chargebolt.

"The spirit was acting like Betero from the novel," Necronomicon noted, "Only without the silver fox swagger."

"We should leave for now," Goemon warned, "According to the novel, once all three proofs are collected, the outside of the castle becomes covered with a thick miasma."

"He's right," Foresight said, "If we don't leave, the thick fog will choke us all to death."

Drakus noted the items that came out of the keys, a copy of Prince of Nightmares, a Soukaisha Award, and what looked like Natsume's fountain pen.

"All of them are items that are important to the people being affected by this..." he muttered before following the others out.

---

Meanwhile, in the darkness of the throne room, a man cloaked in darkness spoke with an attendant.

"So the squad and Shadow Strikers have defeated the Fearsome Four. This world is just as much of a hack as the first issue of that light novel... Well, no matter. The miasma should take care of them. Bring their bodies out when it clears. Make sure they are properly disposed of. I can't have anyone exposing the reality of what's going on here. Not like what happened in Shibuya..."

---

Later, the X-Squad learned that Twisted villain Hammerhead was spotted roaming the Underworlds, attached to a Hua Po spirit, and was quickly dispatched by Robin Hood and Goemon. Several Lamia spirits were encroaching on the Sendai Underworld, necessitating elimination. A rising of Succubus spirits had to be culled in the Shibuya Underworld, as well as a phantom of Queen of Hearts. Finally, Ann wanted to try a few local sweets, and even found a rare parfait only available to true connoisseurs. As the team returned to the Underworld to deal with the castle, Natsume offered to join them.

"I need to find out just who's responsible for all this," he explained, "Who's making a mockery of my writing career?"

---

The team returned to the door, which opened with the Progrise Keys removed from the keeps.

"There's one final issue to deal with," Goemon noted, "The Overlord's retainer should be standing at the back entrance for those heroes who made it this far."

"Ah, you mean Doramu the Loyal," Tempest said, "Or at least, loyal to the throne. He was meant to die to the heroes so that he couldn't pull a coup and find a new Overlord that was more eager to conquer the human realm. He shouldn't be that difficult."

The area around the castle was now marked with sniper guards. Dealing with them wasn't an issue. Just outside the castle's backdoor was the Twisted villain Road Boat, attached to a Pisaca spirit. Cendrillon and Carmyn dealt with him easily. Once inside the castle, Tempest was able to guide the team through the remaining traps inside the castle.

"By this point the heroes were shocked to learn that dignitaries from other countries were meeting with the Overlord they intended to kill," he explained, "It left them in an awkward position, since they couldn't just go around killing or else it would cause an international incident. They were forced to leave the castle."

Soon enough, they were right in front of the throne room. The symbol of the Serpent's Hand was visible on the large door.

"If this is anything like what happened in Shibuya," Robin Hood noted, "Touching the barrier should give us some clues regarding who the master of this Underworld is."

"Allow me," Ridley suggested, "I'm the toughest one here."

He placed his hand on the barrier.

'You'd think someone of his lineage would have some talent... This first work is nothing we haven't seen before... We had to rig the award in order to make some money off him...'

"I know that voice," Tempest said, "It's my chief editor. He only read halfway through my first novel before declaring it garbage. The egg was on his face in the end, though. His attempts to rig the Soukaisha Awards were moot. More avid readers poured through it and allowed me to win the award fairly."

"Do you know the guy's name?" Lyre asked.

"I've never exchanged more than five words with him," Tempest admitted, "But he is a regular at a cafe in Sendai specializing in Gatorre Coffee. I'm sure the staff there have heard his name more than a few times."

---

At the cafe, Nadohs and Zenkichi were talking.

"I was able to confirm with the award staff that Natsume earned his Soukaisha Award legitimately," Zenkichi said, "They weren't about to accept a bribe to just give one to someone aspiring to be a hero, since that would imply dishonesty."

"I wonder if the chief editor knows that," Nadohs said.

He spoke with some of the staff at the cafe, and they confirmed the name of the chief editor was Kiyomasa Niwatori.

"Isn't that man wanted in connection with the Serpent's Hand?" Zenkichi noted, "Fine Print, if I recall correctly. His Quirk can only correct spelling and grammatical errors on any written media, but he's still a notable villain who does dangerous deals for more money. Someone like him had to have known that his plan to turn Natsume into his money tree fell through."

The two heroes returned to their sidekicks.

"Looks like the cage got opened," Drakus said, "All that's left is to expose the real villain."

"We've already scheduled a press conference," Zenkichi assured him, "Tomorrow morning, we'll have Niwatori on full notice."

---

Niwatori smirked as he entered another book signing event for Natsume.

'It won't be long before the pressure gets to him. He'll slip up, make some real garbage, and then we can start to negotiate.'

Just then, his subordinate rushed over.

"Sir, we have a problem. The internet is buzzing with an official hero agency report. Check your news feed."

Curious, Niwatori got out his smartphone. What he saw chilled him.

"And so the OmniVerse Defense Force is putting out an alert that Kiyomasa Niwatori is officially a suspect in the creation of psychotic episodes in the people. We will be working with local heroes in order to get into the Last Resort hotel to bring the suspect, alongside wanted criminal Aira 'Queen of Hearts' Otohime, notorious arms dealer Hellen Gravely, the Winds of Destruction of Desperado Enforcement, and Wattles the Cassowary, in."

Niwatori gulped.

"I need to go get some coffee. I get the feeling it's going to be a long day."

In reality, he was moving to enter his Underworld. Something had gone wrong.

---

From their viewpoints, the squad gasped when they noticed Chet's painting.

"Found a hostage." Raiden said.

"Not to mention, he's high up on the deck. The wall next to you doesn't look scalable in the slightest," mumbled E. Gadd.

"How are you going to get up there?"

"Lemme try!" Biscuit decided to simply float his way to the higher level and nab the portrait with his teeth. However, neither he nor the humans noticed the pair of creatures lurking nearby. One was hiding directly near Chet. The other was in the ocean, lurking his way towards the galleon. As soon as the Polterpup was about to snatch the painting, he froze when he heard an ominous growl behind the barrels. Whining softly to himself, he was unsure if he should proceed or back away as a precaution.

"Biscuit! Are you okay?" Luigi was getting worried.

He turned his head around to peek at the green plumber and everyone else on the ship. But as the ghost pup was about to reface the captive Toad...

"Yeah, but an asshole's near the painting!" Biscuit said, jumping off the quarterdeck and into Luigi's arms. The plumber's heart skipped a beat as he realized who nearly attacked his pet. The entity revealed himself from their hiding spot. It was a lavender animal with turquoise eyes, four sharp fangs, and a red, spiked chain around its neck.

"Who the heavens is that?!" Sparrow yelled, as his jaw dropped.

"It's Spooky," Dove answered. "He's a bulldog who tried to bite my legs off in the first mansion. He once guarded the doghouse near a graveyard to prevent me from advancing any further!"

"He looks rather prickly." Raiden remarked, but none of them noticed the other stranger in the water.

"Oh!" Zap yelped, nearly losing his balance. "Is it just me or did the boat rock a bit?"

"I felt it, too," Drakus shuddered, as he set the Polterpup down.

Furina caught a glimpse of a dorsal fin that was completely stationary for a few seconds. As it submerged underwater, she let out a panicked shriek.

"What is it, Furi- OH MY ZARZOKA!" Drakus cut himself off mid-sentence, as everyone leaped in total shock when the figure egressed from the ocean. Running over to the starboard, the ghost hunters freaked out as a shark plopped onto the deck.

Thar she blows.

"This is the Boss Ghost of the twelfth floor?!" Neo exclaimed.

"Aye, indeed I am..." the fierce ghost spoke vehemently with a large, creepy grin. The great white shark had a sickle in the shape of a hook in place of his right fin. He also had a golden ring wrapped around the dorsal fin and some sharp teeth, including a golden tooth. His right eye was red and pupil-less while the left was concealed by an eyepatch.

"Um... Did I just hear that shark talk?!" Brianna did a double take.

"I assure you, not me this time." Harvey said, shocked by this.

"So, I'm not the only one who's dreaming," Luigi affirmed.

"I was wondering when you'd come... X-Squadron." They heard someone say, as Mistral walked onto the ship.

"It's X-Squad, ya fuck!" Drakus snapped. "What's with fish face over here?"

"Ahoy, sailors. The name is Fishook; Captain Fishook, to be exact." He said, before pointing to Sparrow and laughing. "PARLEY!"

"What's parley?" Inkerton asked.

"Pirate's Code," Cronus realized. "It's a declaration that we have to hear him out."

"What are ye scurvy dogs doing on me pirate ship?" The shark pirate said.

"I think the more important question is, how can you talk while Biscuit can't without Harvey and Gottfried?!" Weiss asked, wanting a lucid explanation.

"That is none of your business, lassie," Fishook pointed his scythe towards her.

"Um, excuse me, Mr. Fishook-" Ruby started.

"Me name is Captain Fishook, Red Hood!" the shark angrily countered.

"S-Sorry, Captain," she apologized. "We don't mean to trespass on your ship, but we're looking for the next elevator button."

"Aye, it's quite obvious why you're here. Well, landlubbers, the treasure ye seek is closer than ye think!"

"What does that mean?" Luigi trembled.

The shark temporarily lifted his eyepatch, causing the plumber to flinch and look away. He assumed there was a missing eye or stitches, but instead...

"It's the elevator button!" Raiden yelled.

Luigi snuck a peek to see if he was telling the truth. It was confirmed. The '2' button was where his left eye used to be. Fishhook covered it with his eyepatch and sneered.

"I was entrusted by Ms. Hellen Gravely to guard this treasure from ye scoundrels. Now I finally get the chance to devour some shark bait! And if ye think about trying to hornswoggle the prize or free the little inmate up above, good luck avoiding ol' Spooky, he's also voracious for some bones!"

"You ain't wrong, Fishy, they do be lookin' tasty..." the bulldog growled, his voice sounding like that of Crazy K from Tales from The Hood.

When Fine Print got there, now dressed in his mob boss-themed suit, he was shocked to see Tempest sitting on the throne.

"What are you doing there!?" he demanded.

"Buddy, have you never heard of being extra as hell?" Drakus remarked.

"Shouldn't a demon lord sit upon his own throne?" Tempest taunted, "You did craft this world after my own novel, after all, so technically this is my castle. Though I must admit... All these years of investigating the Serpent's Hand, I never imagined you really had connections to them. Then again, I suppose that's my fault for not communicating with you more. Or you me."

He conjured a rune circle to block an axe strike from Fine Print.

"You made a fool of me when you legitimately won that award, you brat! Throwing a twist like that in last minute! Isn't that against the rules!?"

"That twist was always in the novel," Tempest pointed out, "You just didn't know about it because you didn't read through the entire novel all at once, calling it nothing more than cliched garbage. You've spent all that time editing my work, yet you've never taken the time to actually read it?"

"I can show you a better time than this crusty old sushi." Mistral remarked.

"Well now, who's that?" Sparrow asked.

"That's Mistral, the Cold Wind of France." Raiden remarked. "And a crazy fucker."

"And you... your reputation precedes you. Natural-born killers, some even doing it since they were kids..." Mistral remarked.

"Wait, is Raiden Liberian?" Drakus asked, as Raiden looked at him with a dead look in his eyes, as if to signify that yes, he actually is Liberian, and yes, he is white as snow.

"I was born in Algeria myself, you know. I'm only half French." Mistral continued. "We had our own civil war in the 90s. So you see? Cut from the same cloth, you and I. I lost my whole family, everything...but I butchered my family's killers like dogs, at that point, I realized I am a killer, too. And a good one at that. I'd found my calling. I slaughtered dozens in Iraq, in Afghanistan..."

"Proud of that, are you?" Mozenrath snarked.

"To be honest, I found it quite dull." Mistral said, throwing her coat aside. "My enemies fell like dominoes, one after another. At times, I envied my prey, at least they had a cause to die for. And then, I met Senator Armstrong, his ideals gave my life meaning. So, what are yours?"

Drakus just coldly stared at Mistral. "It's simple really: We don't care about ideals, we just wanna live to see tomorrow, and live with no regrets, doing whatever we want, and if that means we have to bring you down, so be it!"

Mistral chuckled, as Mini-Gekkos crawled onto the ship, some prying their arms off for her to put in the slots. "If you would kill for your ideals, then surely you are ready to die for them!" One of the Mini-Gekkos pulled two of its arms off to form a polearm, with Mistral lodging a dagger onto one of the hands. "Come, mon gars!"

"Oh, and to add another incentive to not fight me...say hello to me new toy!" Fishhook laughed.

BGM: Ruthlessness (Epic: The Musical)

Then, Fishhook snapped his fin, as Goons, Greenies, Golden Ghosts, Mini-Gekkos, Fanglars, Feargulls, Clurkrahnnas, Elfwolves, Stooges, Wildclaws, Medicinals, Smashers, Scopers, Dough-Goos, Uchuhages, Soldier Heartless, Dragoon Nobodies, Scrapper Unversed, Beowolves, Zakennas, Uzainas, Kowainas, Hoshiinas, Nakewamekes, Desertrians, Negatones, Buffoons, Distains, Saiarks, Zetsuborgs, Yokubaaru, Nendos, Oshimaidas, Nottoreis, Epidems, Yaraneedas, Ubauzos, Ranborgs, Garugarus, Scorpbots, Zolders, Crimers, Cutmen, Dustlers, Machinemen, Spotmen, Tail Soldiers, Mechaclones, Hidrer Soldiers, Zolohs, Ungler Soldiers, Jimmers, Ular Soldiers, Batzler Soldiers, Grinam Soldiers, Putties, Tenga Warriors, Cotpotros, Dorodoros, Cogs, Chromites, Pirahnatrons, Craterites, Quantrons, Stingwingers, Swabbies, Tyrannodrones, Triptoids, Batlings, Cyclobots, Putrids, Kelzaks, Krybots, Hidiacs, Chillers, Lava Lizards, Rinshis, Marauders, Spitfangs, Zombatants, Treshers, Trenters, Vivix, Vigorx, Kudabots, Tronics, Hengemen, Valaks, Groonies, Indavers, Viroids, Marskmins, Plugins, Anonis, Sanagims, Nutbolters, Droans, Ohneeders, Stormtroopers, B1-series battle droids, Tactical droids, Droidekas, Moth Drones, Hanbungers, Cyber Raptors, Links, Formica Pedes, Raydragoons, Rat Imagin, Fanghouls, Riotroopers, Darkroachis, Salis Worms, Byakkos, Masquerade Dopants, Kuzu Yummies, Ghouls, Plain Roidmudes, Leo Dustards, Gamma Commandos, Kurokage Troopers, Bugster Viruses, Elementary Inves, Guardian Bots, Kasshines, Dodo Magia Chicks, Shimis, Phistoids, Jyamaoto Riders, Dreadtroopers, and Bikrows appeared on many smaller boats.

"Armaga!" The voices of countless ghosts shouted in unison!

"Armaga!" They rang out from each throat as the squad tensed up.

"Armaga!" From the parting of the army in the middle, enormous robotic tentacles rose from the depths.

"Armaga!" Even the most disorganized sang along as everyone stood their ground, to show no fear to the enemy.

"Armaga!" The stomping and shouting only got harder as more tentacles rose.

"Armaga!" The stomping and shouting only got harder as more tentacles rose.

"Armaga!" They shouted before they all fell silent, having already imposed the effect they sought on them...terror.

"Armaga?" Sparrow asked, confused as to what happened to the Kraken.

"Intruders…" The voice was thick and burbling as the creature twisted. It was covered in Bari and metal, acting as shields. From between them, smaller tendrils poked out, threateningly, electrical pulses rushing through its body. "Leave this place!"

Bioelectric Anemone

Barinade

"Give a hearty avast to me Armaga-Barinade, a beast brought back from Davy Jones' locker, now in me grasp!" Fishhook laughed, and started to sing. "In all me years of undeath, it isn't very often that I get pissed off. I try to chill with the waves, but damn, ye crossed the line."

"What line?!" Raiden asked.

"I've been so gracious," Fishhook continued to sing. "And yet, you brought down me best lad. That's right, the man you previously captured, is me friend!"

Mozenrath's eyes widened in shock and disbelief. "Ah..."

"So…yeah, I mean, never mind the fact that there's a shark singing a song that was developed several decades after he died, but…what motivated you to do such a thing, anyway?" Critic sniped.

Fishhook spread his arms, and the wind picked up and a storm began to swirl. "I'm left without a choice and without a doubt. Guess the pack of wolves is swimming with the shark now!"

In the water behind him, a silhouette of a wolf pack being eaten one by one by a shark appeared.

"I've gotta make ye bleed, I need to see ye drown! But before ye go, I need to make ye learn how ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves!" Fishhook cackled, floating right in front of the squad, as Jalter was looking right into his burning eye. And she steeled herself from feeling any emotion at this moment.

"Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves!" the rest of the army echoed behind him as they circled the boat, shooting cannonballs to the beat as the squad ducked and weaved, occasionally getting close enough to flash Fishhook and slam him into the ship, as Sparrow sword fought Mistral, getting some hits in.

"Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves! Ourselves!" Fishhook roared on as he looked for a moment back to his army, before he turned back to Furina.

"Ye are the worst kind of good 'cuz yer not even great," Fishhook taunted. "A geek who reeks of false righteousness, that's what I HATE!" He tried to slash her in the stomach, as the Archon leapt away, kicking Mistral into the wall.

"'Cuz ye fight to save lives, but won't kill, and don't get the job done," Fishhook said as he tapped his hook against the floor.

"I mean, ye totally could have avoided all this had ye just killed Kruller," Fishhook declared, "but nooooo."

Fishhook stood behind the Armaga-Barinade.

"Ye are far too nice, mercy has a price," he said as he stalked closer to the squad. "It's the final crack, we're bound to break the ice now. Ye broke into his home, then locked him away. Unlike ye, I've got no mercy left in me 'cuz ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves!"

The army roared. "Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves."

"Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves," Fishhook repeated as he swung at Sparrow, his hook parried by Sparrow's sword, as Raiden dropkicked Mistral back through a portal. "OURSELVES!"

"And now it is finally time to say goodbye, today ye die. Unless, of course, ye apologize... For me chum's pain and all his cries..."

He… he wanted an apology. Drakus almost mumbled those thoughts out loud. It was unbelievable.

"Captain, we meant no harm...we only hurt him to get something from him...we took no pleasure in his pain...we only want to leave this hotel..."

Fishhook scoffed loudly. "The line between naïveté and hopefulness is almost invisible. So close yer heart, the world is dark and..."

The army began to chant. "Ruthlessness is mercy."

Fishhook's expression turned dark, and he leapt into the Armaga-Barinade, as its eyes glowed red, and it grew shark teeth.

Kisame could only smirk and laugh. "...Die." Before getting started, he did some Hand Signs and bit his thumb. "Summoning Jutsu!" he exclaimed as he slammed a palm down.

Three large hammerhead sharks appeared in a puff of smoke, all grinning at the approaching horde.

"Shu, Mo, Ku…Sic 'em."

"Gladly," the three girls said before taking deep breaths. "Water Style: Water Gun Jutsu!"

And all hell broke loose.

The first to be hit by the blunt of the combined attack were the ships that some of Fishhook's minions were on, with the hammerheads eagerly rushing in and ripping apart stragglers.

But it was the cries of the damned from the left that caught Furina's ear.

"Ruthlessness is mercy upon our-" they heard the warriors roar out as the tentacles rammed into the ships.

"Captain, Captain!" Ombra heard them scream, as he narrowly dodged a tentacle trying to squish him.

"Ruthlessness is mercy upon our-" Neo heard the roaring of monsters, trying to leap onto the ship to kill them.

"Captain, Captain!" she heard them cry out as she leapt out of the way of a tentacle.

"Ruthlessness is mercy upon our-" Dust and debris came down from the walls.

"Captain, Captain!" The squad heard the screaming echoing in their ears, louder and ringing fully.

"Ruthlessness is -" There was a sudden silence as Drakus shot a blast of lightning, sending Fishhook flying out of the Armaga-Barinade as it sank back into the depths, as Fine Print was kicked into a pile of life preservers.

"Are we sure you ain't on demon timing?" Drakus muttered towards Kisame.

"When does a ripple become a tidal wave?" the remaining soldiers sang.

Fishhook pointed to the lone ship to escape the destruction as he leaned down next to the Drakonian. "Forty-three left after the slaughter."

"When does a man become a monster?" the soldiers asked.

Fishhook rose back to his full height and menacingly began to taunt his adversaries. "This is yer darkest moment. The monster that always draws near!"

The squad shook their heads and stared at Fishhook. They saw his hook pointed directly at them, and sparks of lightning were jumping off the tip. His evil smile was practically demonic.

"Any last words?" Fishhook asked.

Furina steeled herself before singing in a different tune. "All I've gotta do is trap your sorry tail!"

"DON'T FUCK WITH THE SCIENCE TEAM!" Coomer yelled, as he pulled out his own Poltergust Z-00, painted red and gold with various flasks drawn on it.

"WHAT?"

Furina quickly grabbed ahold of her Poltergust Z-00, and flipped Super Suction on. She aimed the hose directly for Fishhook and Spooky, and held steady as Fishhook and the bulldog ghost were sent flying into the air, desperately clawing at the ship. Spooky was sucked in first, as Fishhook was finally sucked into the vacuum, but not before growling two, simple words. "Remember me."

END BGM

"In the end," Tempest said as he saw the gem of the Underworld break apart and shatter, "You only ever focused on appearance. Unlike my true fans... You never saw past my lineage as Sogo Natsume's grandson. My only mistake... Was trusting that you could."

Then, Barinade rose slowly, straightening itself.

"Ah… that was… What… happened?" It hummed, slowly spinning, apparently observing its surroundings. "I was… drifting in the sea when… something strange overcame me."

"You got turned into a cyborg-parasite abomination by the evil wizard, Wattles, also known as Adolf Hitler, and were used to try and kill us, or to make us sign a toy contract." Mystle chirped helpfully. Barinade twisted, tilting to one side. Perhaps a bit like tilting one's head.

"I see, and I have heard of his evil before, as such, Wattles must be brought to justice!" Barinade withdrew a massive grimoire from… somewhere. "He has violated numerous legal codes. Dangerous magic use, use of heretical technology without a license, creation of bioweapons, use of bioweapons, genocide, attempted murder, murder, faking his death, hate crimes, war crimes, mass murder, numerous counts of homicide, biological and ecological warfare, necromancy, vandalism, arson, general smarm, dictatorship, abuse of all stripes except sexual, disturbing the peace, terrorism, attempted world domination, propaganda, larceny, grand theft auto, theft, harassment, attempted genocide, littering, torture, false imprisonment, child endangerment, crimes against humanity, blackmail and extortion, and this is only what I am aware of!"

"Uh… Excuse me, Mx. Barinade…" Dove timidly raised her hand. "He also took hostages and probably enslaved all these ghosts, and also colluded with an arms dealer named Hellen Gravely, Desperado Enforcement, and a gangster known as Reaper."

"Oh dear. I suppose since I was brainwashed into this, I can also add kidnapping, hostage taking, collusion with terrorists, slavery, defilement of the dead, and enslavement to this list of Wattles' crimes." Barinade shook himself in dismay. "My deepest apologies for being an accomplice to such heinous activities!"

The vacuum shook rapidly, and the '2' button flew out of the nozzle.

"Now, how exactly do we reach Chet from here?" Mystle wondered.

"I got an idea!" Biscuit flew up to the quarterdeck again and grabbed the portrait with his mouth. He carefully landed on the main deck and set the painting down for the squad. Thanking the ghost with a rub on his head, Furina turned on her Dark-Light Device to extricate the first Toad.

"Whoa! Ouch!" Chet fell forward onto the floor. "Huh? Oh, hey, everyone! What are you doing here? And who're the newbies?"

"It's a long story, Chet," Drakus told him. "But don't worry, we're all okay."

"But what about the other Toads who joined us? And Peach? And Luigi? And Mario?"

"Don't worry, youngster. They're both with me in my lab located down in the hotel's Basement. You can gladly reunite with them and stay here for safety," E. Gadd explained.

"Oh, Professor! I'm surprised to hear you, too. But I'll spare the questions for later. It's great to see all of you again!"

---

"Furina, thank you so much for your help again," the Toad hugged the Archon's leg, after they got to the basement.

In return, she chuckled. "You're welcome, pint size. But of course, I couldn't have made it far without some extra help."

"Exactly!" Biscuit laughed, wagging his tail.

"Yeah, that's right. But can I now ask the question – what did I miss?"

Soon, the squad and Professor E. Gadd explained everything from the very beginning, making sure they didn't miss any details.

"Geez, I didn't think it would be this convoluted. But now I understand. And I honestly don't know how I didn't see this hotel vacation as a hoax."

"Neither did we," Neo remarked. "But we aren't stopping from here. We have more floors to survey."