//------------------------------// // 416. Naga May Die Pt. 1. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Origin Space, Arceus- It’s been a few hours since things started and then entire continent of Ransei was enflamed in war, at least Illusio was receiving a lot of help from two of their neighboring countries, especially Chrysalia. The Psychics, despite having lost a major asset in Cerebrum and many homes due to civil war, they were still quite formidable force to be reckoned with under Kenshin’s leadership. Also the enemy seems entirely confused in the deserts of Terrera and how most of their fighting forces seem to be swallowed up by the desert itself or their PLANTs seem to be destroyed as if by nothing. Palossands were very sneaky at times, they were nearly invisible in desert regions as much as they were fairly obvious on beaches because they liked forming sand castles out of themselves. Just like Muk were capable of blending into and becoming nearly invisible in or around swamps. Moon Cell had plenty of raw power though and was throwing a lot of that behind its assaults on Ransei and our digital neighbors, which was fairly worrying. -Moon Cell Realm, Midgar Basement Region, Unknown Facility, warehouse, Shanty- “Is that thing still chasing us?” Peppercat be asking while looking attentive and being quite highly spooked given her wide eyed look, her tail was stiff and her ears were straight up. “I think we be managing to lose it.” Now if we could only find our way forward, this place was being extremely convoluted. Pom was likely to not be having it any easier than we were, I am being quite sure the beast be taking it personally that we’ve been evading it. “Yeah, I’m beginning to lose it personally… that thing is terrifying.” Krosserdog be leaning out form the shelf aiming his left rifle in a sweeping motion while propping it up with his right hand. “I don’t see it.” “We can’t be staying up here forever.” We ducked back behind some containers as one of those bipedal walkers shined a light up here and a drone or two be flying by our position. At least we be knowing that the area is somewhat clear if those machines were being around to patrol and not off trying to deal with the large rampaging monsters. “You think you’re losing it Krosser? Aside from throwing a thunder ball special, a middle range attack at the best of times, I’m primarily a close combat digi-bot and I don’t have the same capabilities as Rokusho has going for him when it comes to raw power with being able to deal with large opponents.” Yes, but you be having the ability to stun the bipedal machines Peppercat, that is being a helpful trick. “I also have some problems with reaching those drones.” “At least you can be stunning the larger machines and give us an opportunity to take them down more easily.” Water wasn’t being very helpful against much aside from the ones that spew flames everywhere and my cane scythe was getting a workout today. “Quiet… do you hear that?” Krosser had us listening for our surroundings, it sounded like something be… Krosser be turning and quickly taking out the four legged machine trying to crawl close enough to be attacking me. “That likely gave away our position, let’s move!” We quickly be jumping a gap to another shelf and running as the shelf we were on suddenly had several drones aiming lights on it. -???, Pom- “What do you suppose that stuff is?” Dolly was looking off the side of the walkway to the bluish green liquids far below. “Looks rather gnarly.” “I’m not sure, but it doesn’t smell nice and the air feels magically charged here, I really don’t think it’d be a good idea to fall into it… much less touch too much of it.” I continued along the walkway. “At least it’s not radioactive as far as I can tell, a good thing in this instance. I really don’t want to know what touching that stuff would do to us otherwise, but it seems to have highly anomalous properties.” Stated Dormarch as he looked at the strange liquids below us. “We got incoming enemy signatures from ahead mom.” “Right, Zealot stay in the back and safe, Dolly, Dormarch, let’s start heading forward!” I started forward towards the other end of the walkway bridging the gap over the strange stuff and before we could reach the halfway point, from the other entrance arrive two of those sweeper machines. Fortunately they didn’t seem to be ranged variants, just a Piler and a Cutter... no drones or crawlers to worry about yet. The Cutter charged forward onto the walkway with the Piler right behind it. “I’ve got them, look out for other enemies!” I shouted as I ran forward and made sure my wool was frictionless for what I was about to pull. The Cutter brought back its right saw and swung it for me horizontally and I went into a slide on my right flank underneath it, I had to lean my head back so that the spinning saw passed above my chin. Once close to being underneath the center point of the machines body, I thrust my right hoof forward and up into the machines underbelly and exhaled. My wool spiked its way into the machine as I slid underneath it towards the Piler, my wool ripped free with my forward sliding momentum and the machine I was almost behind would soon explode. All the Sweeper type machines tended to do that when damaged enough, also they were unusual EPs in the fact that they were built and not actually generated from PLANTs. They were quite dangerous for their weapons, but they thankfully didn’t have enough armor to prevent me from spiking my wool into their inner workings. The Piler moved both its arms to angle inwards at where I was going to be, preparing to skewer me. I lift my left hind leg high up in front of the rest of my body and stomped it down against the walkways grating. Using the stomp I lifted my entire body upwards using my forward momentum and then hopped with my hind legs over the two quickly extending spikes of metal that blasted forth from the Pilers arms, with the left crossing over the right. Would never want to hit with those, instant death was not something I wanted to deal with as those things were big enough to pulp my head. I landed between the Pilers spikes directly in front of it and crouched with my left hoof pressing against the ground. “Grand Upper!” A threw powerful leaping left uppercut boosted by my wool springing me upwards and even put my hips into the upwards swing to add some rotational force. The attack added a combination of my magic wolf claw ability, having wool shaped claw over my hoof, the energy pillar eruption from my Buster Wolf and my general combat skill increasing the force of my meager physical component of the attack exponentially. I landed on my hind hooves facing away from the machine to start immediately prepping my right hoof with rapidly twisting and coiling wool. “Are you okay?” The grill on the front of the Piler had been rocked upwards from my uppercut, the energy tearing into the metal with a screech. This knocked it back, forced it to retract its spikes and threatened to topple it as it tried to keep its balanced after being staggered. Following up the attack with a Buster Wolf made for a good combo since the uppercut spun me into having my back to the opponent naturally. If I was just doing regular physical attacks the damage I was doing would be entirely negligible, I needed magic to make up for the difference in capability. It’s times like this that I wished I had super strength, at most I could get boosted strength with my wool acting as an exoskeleton. “Buster Wolf!” Spinning around, I launched forward hitting the middle bottom section of the long odd body of the machine. Once it was done being staggered it could just lean forward to avoid falling over, which would only happen if my right hoof hadn’t connected with my wool at the ready. “Drill!” My wool stabbed into the body on impact, spiraling forward and inwards like it does for a Thousand Spears shot and pierced a hole into the machine. I spiked it like how it tried to spike me and the wool expanded spiraling outwards in its innards after puncturing through the machine’s underbelly. Like a spring my wool came back just as quickly by spiraling in reverse and back to normal, the Piler was fully toppled by the subsequent angled pillar blast of the buster wolf that Dolly saw leaping and clawing wolves in. The hole in the bottom of the machine knocked on its back started sparking, I leapt forward and kicked off the machine to get behind it… I did not want to be caught between two explosions at the same time. Inhaling I quickly pulled out the paralance and turned around, bracing the butt of it against the grating and locked myself in position with my wool. I returned myself to breathing normally and two explosions almost sounded to happen at the same time, yet I was completely safe from them behind the paralance’s canopy. “Pom behind you!” At Dolly’s voice and a quick glance through her eyes using our bond, I swung the blade edged canopy around to the left to smash a drone out of the air as several had quietly showed up. The one behind me had been flying forward and trying to bring its gun to bear against me or hit me with its spiraling blade, I focused on blocking several shots from the other three drones coming at me. Dormarch soon took those out with a series of quick Search Hunters to pop into range to start blasting them with Wild Barks before they could do too much more. “You’re doing awesome at showing your skills off Pom. That refinement training stuff you did is paying off.” Kind of upset that it was even needed Dolly. “Really don’t want to be good at fighting Dolly…” I sighed audibly. -Dolly- Yeah, I could feel Pom being upset with being able to kill with a small bit of her wool that easily. I just thought it was cool that she’s gotten somewhat better since I met her. Dormarch teleported ahead and I casually started forward after them when I saw something sparkly, it drew my attention inexorably for some reason given it was in one of the exploded machines on the walkway. Huh, a marble? I made my way over to the wreckage of the jackhammer arms thing, must get road work done really fast with those things when not using them as weapons. I reached down and picked up the colorful marble with a paw and looked it over curiously. I gazed at the pretty light energy swirling within it, was this the power source for those machines? That’d be pretty weird if so, who’d power something with marbles? They’d probably lost theirs if they thought that something so small could power such a large machine… then again I’ve seen some pretty weird stuff being with Pom, this doesn’t even rate my top twenty. I chuckled and shoved it into a small spot within my skating helmet, something felt very strange when I did that… I would have to tell Pom and Dormarch about what I just found and see what they think. We were just about on the other side of the large bridge and I was calmly coming up behind them with Zool, opening my mouth to do just that when something roared behind us made us all freeze up. Immediately going into my high speed baseball slide, I got to the other end in record time to turn around and see one of those lions on performance enhancers. “Zealot, toss the supplies to me and slice a small gap in part of the walkway then come over here!” Pom caught the box and then moved to be next to the entrance I was at just as the monster showed up on the far side of the walkway from us. “Who will be the next to fall?” Religious tall guy stated humorously, that’s some macabre humor dude. He created two blades of energy from his wrists and slashed up a section of the walkway leaving a small gap in it, which would barely an inconvenience to the horned lion thing coming at us, and made his way over to us. “Cut the walkway here a bit, but not all the way.” Pom ordered and the cultist nodded and sliced the outer halves of the walkway, he stayed in a crouched position as the monster barreled at us thunderously. The guy looked to Pom and waited expectantly with his glowing energy blades, as if he knew exactly what he was about to do. Said energy blades were rather cool looking like what that energy knight guy back in Flan Frozen Kiosk city had. In fact, the gauntlets looked kind of like they shared many similarities, I wonder if the guy had patented his weapons? “Uh… Pom… big thing, dangerous, can easily kill us, getting much closer!” I yelped and backed away while Pom didn’t do anything and stared the beast down as it was at most two lunges from getting at us. “I think mom knows that Dolly.” Dormarch stated worriedly and with his three fluffy fish tails between his hind legs. “Now!” The second Pom said that, the Saint slashed the floor as the big beast slammed down on it. This caused an entire section of the walkway to start falling and that beast still tried to leap for us. Only to end up flailing its front paws at us as it failed to grabbed the sliced off section of walkway and fell towards the liquids below. I’m pretty sure it was mostly out of morbid curiosity, but we all watched as the monster made a splash in that toxic looking stuff below to see what would happen. It seemed like the monsters muscles started bulging and it started growing stronger, then Dormarch just had to offer a commentary on what was happening to it and what he was seeing. “Apparently the substance has some extremely negative properties to it, it appears that it is poisoning the creature and is quickly shutting down its brain functions for some reason and it’s slowly doing that while both improving and compacting it’s musculature, turning it’s fur into spines like that of a hedgehog and it’s skin is becoming tougher before destroying all of that stuff altogether entirely… likely starting with the internal organs. At certain levels this stuff looks like it could enhance someone without killing them… if it doesn’t kill them outright and provided you’re strong enough to survive the process and are not in a ton of this stuff to start off with.” There was a concerned look on Dormarch’s face as he looked up to Pom and then me, as the creature started charging up for one of those blasts as it was turning into a skeleton and a bunch of mashed potatoes. “We should probably move, because somehow the liquids have set off the Behemoth’s ability to explode magic everywhere violently and it’s building up fast, absurdly so. I have no idea how reactive that substance down there is going to be, but I would estimate that...” “No time, run!” I shouted on instinct. With Pom around, the chance of an incredibly massive explosion were high and I let her know my feelings on the matter through our bond. Dormarch even stopped when Pom shared it down the line to him, as she rightfully agreed that we were currently in the wrong place at the moment and should really be getting elsewhere. Dormarch and Pom didn’t need to be told twice as I entered a sliding kick away from here and back into the metallic hallways of this place we were absolutely going to get lost in again. We needed to put some distance between us and whatever is about to happen. “Turn the corner, turn the corner!” Pom shouted and indicated to the right at an intersection ahead, I lashed out my board and hooked a pipe to swing my slide around the corner to pop up and continue to follow Pom and Dormarch riding on my board. This is about when that beast finally decided to blow up violently. Like, I know I’ve been next to an erupting volcano following Pom around, but this explosion felt fairly humongous compared to the volcano collapsing into itself given the shockwave traveled through the walls as if unimpeded. -???, Snake- The facility shook violently for the next thirty seconds and we saw a massive, corridor filling, wall of flames shoot by underneath us. Apparently some sort of massive explosion happened somewhere and seconds later the lights in the facility flickered out, this better not be a nuclear incident… then again we’d already be dead if it was. What kind of energy does this facility use? “My goodness, what is Pom getting up to this time?” Shine stated as her eyes and belly started glowing brightly to give me sight of our surroundings, I wasn’t exactly equipped with one of the visors like she was so it was a bit dark when the lights went out throughout the facility. “Sabotaging the enemy’s resources by accident, because that definitely felt like an accident at the very least.” I know that nobody would make an explosion like that on purpose. “I’ve been in several such incidents myself.” “Whoa, that was being too close to be comfortable!” That drew our attention the goat and the two digital robots. “Guys!” Shine slipped into the shadows and out of the scorched floor to wave at them. “Shine!” Shanty ran up and hugged the gourd, first part of the mission is complete, now to find Pom and the others and blow this facility. “Do you be knowing where Pom is being?” “Probably within lethal distance of that explosion before what caused it started.” I commented dryly, knowing how things tend to go. She seemed like the type for it. “Yeah, that be checking.” Shanty nodded to herself. Felt quite sorry for the ewe if that was the case, I ready a rope dart and we started scouting ahead for Shanty and the digi-bots. -???, Pom- “Okay… a part of the corridors collapsed, there’s no power in this place and… is that light coming from your digivice Dormarch?” A second light source showed up from Dolly and the zealot’s eyes made kind of a third. I looked to Dolly’s helmet and saw a small bit of glowing coming from it, well okay then… not like the visors wouldn’t have helped us in the dark already. Speaking of visors, these things a really more sturdy than I’d thought they be, I was expecting it to have been destroyed by the shockwave at this point. “Come on, let’s keep moving, maybe with the lights being out we’ll be able to sneak around easier?” The looks on Dormarch, Dolly and even the Zealot’s faces were all flat. “Any injuries?” “Yeah, I could go for a Sitrus Berry right about now Pom.” Dolly did get hit with a powerful concussive force, as did I and Dormarch to… so yeah a small snack break wouldn’t hurt. The Zealot seemed perfectly fine, but his shield likely got exhausted by the shockwave. -Control Center, Cruel- “Can someone explain to me how they managed to blow up the miniature mako reactor?!” I was livid, absolutely livid, I might just kill Crazy for that happening! How many times have I killed her today already? Need to cut back on that and find targets that don’t enjoy torture…. it’s probably not causing Crazy any brain damage or anything to be revived so many times anyway. Crazy would need to have a brain to damage in the first place, also I needed her healthy for any upcoming battles so I couldn’t torture her anymore today. “Keeheehee, explosions are instant art, emphasis on instant!” If only a glare could kill Crazy… and not just encase her in stone she can easily break out of. You know what… “So much happy boom and all the power just goes bye-bye, do you think it caused a wonderful glorious death! Maybe we can even…” She was encased in stone in an instant as a widening cone of light hit her coming directly from my eyes. The stone started creaking and shaking as Crazy started working to break herself free. “As if there were actually people in Midgar worth caring about you imbecile, none of the NPCs scream hard enough to even get me excited about any pain they could feasibly simulating.” At least with my stoning of crazy, we’d have some peace for a few seconds and a time to think about the living being invading the facility that weren’t Coward. “Those living ones might give me some good screams.” “I still don’t even know what a mako reactor is, does it have to do with those flying sharks?” Ugh, Coward was such an idiot, then again she didn’t have Moon Cell’s downloaded information inside of her… which might actually be a ‘positive’ thing… for her at the very least. It was kind of a headache for me to have to be under someone’s control. “No, it’s a reactor that has to do with some crap about souls sucked from the planet and blah blah blah lives of the dead powering everything, just be glad that that’s not us in that was in the caustic stuff Coward! We got a job to do so get the knives out of your butts ladies, we need to be alert for…” I pause and stared at Crazy as she had broken free at some point and was currently slowly pulled the knives out of her backside and her tail writhes in agony while she moans… oh… oh ew! “Seriously Crazy, really?! Knives out, heal up and behave yourself!” “I like having my tomato juice all over my tail.” She grins cheerfully. “Also things that commit to die when stabbed die-die-die-die!” I preferred actions involved in making people wish they were dead personally, I like all my targets to know some suffering at the very least. Admittedly that was personal bias from prior living conditions that made me enjoy the pain of others, which was strange for me to mentally admit to so… okay which one of us started getting therapy?! Whatever the case, I blame Coward! “Uh Cruel, Crazy, we’ve got some company…” Coward said weakly as the emergency power brought the monitors back to life and we both looked to see what she was pointing at shyly. “More like company is about to have us!” I grinned and summoned a pair of snakes in my hands and turned them into triangular knives. “Coward you better put up a fight, Crazy… no more killing or hurting yourself or even me doing it. We need our full strength to deal with these intruders. Let’s go prepare... also Coward, hit the emergency lights on your way out you pathetic slacker!” Coward whimpered, but did as I asked and the facility was bathed in a vibrant red lighting, it’s always the little touches that makes things feel homey. We hunted in the dark before and we liked to bite. -Ten minutes later, large jungle gym room, Shanty- I slowly be walking forward, the visors be helping a lot when it is being this dark. There be a lot of poles, pipes and beams in this room, horizontal, vertical, at angles, also scaffolding of what be looking like an unfinished building project. It really just be looking like a huge park… just without trees, grass or anything that can be being described as fun aside from stuff to climb around on. “I think we are about to be being attacked.” A flash of light and then I was blinded… apparently the visor didn’t be protecting me from being encased in stone. -Peppercat- .“Shanty?!” The cone of light crossed my eyes, but I didn’t end up like Shanty had and instead tried to adjust my receptors to the glaring light coming from a pair of eyes on the pipes above us. I think I had an idea as to why this room was full of poles and looked like a battle arena from some kind of game. I light up my claws and held one high to see three large slithering purple serpents with arms that blended into the darkness fairly well. One had a calculating look, one had a crazy grin and the last one was shivering in fright with an upset look on her face. Notably the stone statue started shaking and I could see cracks forming in it. So Shanty hadn’t been turned to stone, she was just instantly encased inside of it. “We can’t encase the machines in stone… too bad… maybe they come with the ability to feel pain?” I didn’t like the grin on the face of the calculating one. “Come on we can…” I turned around and didn’t see Shine or Snake… did they just ditch us? Seriously? Also, what was with the cardboard box… that wasn’t there a minute ago. There was this strong urge to think nothing of it, so I simply didn’t. “Krosser help me with these guys!” “Right, I’m on it Pepper!” Krosserdog held his arms up and he focused on the task at hand, three on two… not favorable odds or its four on three, but that might not matter if these snakes were strong. I moved in front of Shanty and crouched down ready for a brawl. -Elsewhere in the facility, Pom- Dormarch and Dolly looked at the massive metal shutters that kept us in the facility and looked around to see if anything was going to stop us from approaching them. “So the way out is sealed shut… do you think you can cut through the big metal doors eventually zealot?” I asked because I don’t know where else we could go, the facility was crawling with small EPs and the fairly limited large manufactured machine EPs. They’d run out of large ones eventually, the smaller ones “Not tell a duck.” The Zealot put down the supplies and pressed one of his energy blades to the door, it took a while to sink in. It add the other energy blade to try and make a hole faster. The metal doors were thick and the energy blades were not immediately cutting through it at all. “Hello, can you hear me? I can see some of a Zealot’s blades sticking through a door up there from where we are.” It was Canard, good to hear his voice. “Good to hear your voice, is everyone there Canard? I have the supplies and I’m with Dolly, Dormarch and a Zealot. It’s like a maze in here and if I lose this visor for any reason, I’m going to need to rely on Dormarch to find my way back here.” I answered over my visor communicator as I got visual data beyond the shutter showing Canard and the others were by the water side. Kind of wish we had better telemetry on these things, then we wouldn’t have a problem with knowing where everyone else is exactly. I’m sure Welch could make those upgrades. “Also should we really be breaking communication silence?” “At this point they generally already know where we all are so it probably doesn’t matter at this short a range to use them. They are having some power problems too, so they won’t be able to pinpoint our exact positions… for as long as we’re down here at least. Shine and Snake entered the facility to look for you, Shanty and the digi-bots.” Wait… Shanty was still inside the facility somewhere? Well there goes my need to leave immediately, I will miss it dearly. I saw Canard on my visor and Jeanne wiping a dissolving Water Tiger off of her spear before taking up a defensive position next to the skiff. “My group has personally been under constant assault by bug EPs for a while now and it’s actually good to hear you’re alright after whatever you blew up this time Pom. Sami is still trying to fix the skiff and that’s going to take a bit.” Why did he assume that I’m responsible for… actually I did kind of cause the explosion by ordering Mr. Zealot to set up the trap for that Behemoth in the first place. So it’s actually a valid and fair assumption that that explosion was my fault… I’m never going to live that down am I? “Dormarch stay here and protect the Zealot, Dolly you’re with me! We have to go find the others and get out of here fast.” I was having Dormarch stay here because he was stronger than Dolly and would be able to watch the supplies and the zealots back. I grabbed a reviver seed, I’d probably need it at some point, and made sure I had some Sitrus Berries in my bag. “Canard I’m going to look for the rest, I’m leaving Dormarch near the entrance to find my way back in case something happens to my visor, also he’ll be down to help you with the skiff soon enough.” “Roger that, we’ll try to have the skiff ready by the time you’re done figure out things.” Canard answered with a wave before turned with his hockey stick in hands and slashing a Shrieker completely in half with its blade. “Be careful mom.” I nuzzled the top of Dormarch’s head and gave him a hug before setting off with Dolly. I quickly delved back into the facility with Dolly and sniffed the air trying to catch a whiff of Shanty or at least Shine while trying to avoid the EPs and Behemoths that we know are still running around. Until we got telemetry from the visors anyone else was wearing, we didn’t exactly have a full map of the facility. Mostly since Torneko’s map was more of Midgar in general and doesn’t account for any changes Moon Cell might have made or the specific insides of facilities or buildings therein. At least we knew there was at least a facility down here, but not what it was for exactly. I think we had most of this facilities information at least, given the skiff was crashed on the right side of it and I fell into the front portion from the direction. Sure there were plenty of unexplored floors, but we just need to go toward the middle and we might get information from their visors to tell us where they were, if that wasn’t feasible I could at least continue to smell around for her. I blinked as I finally noticed something off with Dolly. “Uh Dolly, what is that glowing thing in your helmet?” My attention was drawn to the glowing spot on Dolly’s skate helmet. “It’s an odd marble I found, but I found it lying around in one of those destroyed machines that stick around after you take them out and they explode and stuff.” As articulate as ever Dolly, well it didn’t seem to be doing anything off to her from what I could feel through our bond. “Maybe it’s the reason they explode or what’s powering them, it just seemed odd for a marble to be just lying there inside the machine to me and I thought it looked neat.” I couldn’t really concentrate on the odd marble at the moment. We had other things to be focused on, like finding and helping our friends get out of here. If I had to fight Elise and the two other parts of herself with lethal intent… then I would simply just have to get over my apprehension about going full tilt in said fight. -Shanty’s Irregulars vs. Naga Triple Threat, Coward, Cruel and Crazy - The fight started fairly fast with Shanty being an early casualty of her bar shaped pupils, her eyesight caused problems as soon as she saw the cone of light. She barely looked in the general direction of one of the three naga hanging from the surrounding metal infrastructure and got encased in stone. One did not need to look into any of these naga’s eyes to be encased in stone either, you just had to be facing in their general direction while they are using their gorgon gaze ability. It is a fairly dangerous thing to be worried about when there are three of the naga and they could all do it. While Shanty was busy trying to break free and not die of immediate suffocation, Peppercat took to standing defensively in front of Shanty’s trapped form and deflected several thrown knives and cut apart the Search Snakes that the naga were generating. The Search Snakes seemed particularly weak to electric attacks. Krosserdog tried to shoot the serpent ladies and they quickly moved about on the bits of metal and scaffolding around the fairly expansive room with incredible speeds. It was hard for him to get a bead on any one of them, even the one that seem to be shivering in fright was quite fast to dodge his shots. A knife slammed into the nearby cardboard box and it toppled over to reveal… nothing. The knife turned into a Search Snake and started to look around for the other two that were supposedly hiding from the fight, all while the three naga were targeting the other three with a veritable rain of thrown knives, purple snakes and knives that quickly turned into more snakes. While Krosser and Pepper were busy clawing or shooting at the snakes, a snake leapt at a different cardboard box. There were at least thirty in the room by this point and none of them were here before Snake arrived with Shanty’s group, even the naga didn’t know where they were coming from. The Caerbannog’s paw reached out to grasp the snake by the neck, Snake quickly bit off its head and then pulled the remainder of its body under the cardboard box with him. As for some reason the snake didn’t poof away upon defeat. “Snake Eater~.” There was pause in the attacks directed at Pepper and Krosser as the three naga all suddenly chucked a spread of multiple knives around the box that seemingly just sang that. The knives didn’t strike the ground, instead they started to glow bright purple and rapidly rotated to point blade first towards the box and they all stabbed inward from all sides at once. The knives piercing the box turned into snakes that flipped the box over, to reveal there had been nothing under there. Shine and Snake were trying to stay out of the sight of the three naga and not start a direct confrontation, since the Naga had yet to show what they were truly capable of and were just warming up so far with how well they could move around the battlefield that benefited them entirely. The stone encased Shanty finally managed to break free of the stone and quickly spun her scythe around herself in a flourish take out a few search snakes as their numbers were increasing fairly rapidly even if they were easy to take out. “Hmm…” Cruel stayed still for a second and her eyes narrowed as she hung down on a horizontal structure among the jungle gym of poles taking up the room, she suddenly swung out of the way of a knife and started a gorgon gaze. A shadow was seen quickly fleeing from the light of her sight cone under the dim red lighting of the room. “Watch the shadows they’ve got someone swimming them, the cardboard boxes are also suspect!” Shanty tried to climb up to the naga only to get encased in stone again, this time by Crazy. “Keeheehee, made you fat!” Crazy received a sigh from both Cruel and Elise as they shook their heads and tossed more knives down on everyone below them. Some of the knives even took on a purple glow for a split second to change direction and velocity entirely. “I’m so sorry… for all of this…” Elise mumbled as she was well aware that they had only just gotten started and she slithered along a metal beam warily while throwing out more Search Snakes and the occasional poorly aimed brace of knives that maybe Cruel could capitalize on. -???, a robot named Snake Man- “Has anyone seen Dust Man recently? He’s usually the one that cleans up my room… and my pet snakes might be a little bit out of control because he hasn’t taken care of them.” A green robot with a snake motif that fired robotic snake minions out of his arms asked while annoyingly stressing every single ‘S’ in any word that crossed his robotic lips… on purpose. The whole S thing could blamed on the guy named Dr. Wily, Snake Man would rather want to talk like a normal person, but no... hard code to stress every single freaking 'S' for the rest of his life. Dr. Light still hasn’t figured out how to fix that problem after he switched sides as nobody understood what Dr. Wily did to make it almost impossible to remove the program that actively enforces the speech pattern. “Also, why does it feel like someone is infringing heavily on my patented Search Snakes?” Said Search Snakes full names were Search 'and Rescue' Snakes, Snake Man was a repurposed disaster rescue robot. “Don’t know what to tell you, but he disappeared after that weird unicorn beat the oil out of us.” Top Man, the living top robot, was still in the running for lamest robot master ever. Not just for the weapon he gives Mega Man either and the less jokes made about Hard Man’s name the better. “Do you suppose it’s related?” “Maybe, is Dr. Wily going to pull a Quint again? It was lame the last three times he did it to spite an apparently perfect future where we’re all happy and have decent paying jobs.” I looked out the nearby window and saw an ever rising pile of snakes growing. “I actually miss Dust Man…” “So current snake related apocalypse aside, because you’re too lazy to actually want to stop it… want to play Beyblade?” Top Man asked with a grin. “Sure thing bro!” I just needed to get out my Snake Lasher Special Beyblade and see where our motorized top sports fun led us.