EVENTS:

Molly nods her nonexistent head at Eigla, in an almost radiant manner.

Molly: "Oh, I'd be delighted to! It's so rare for me to have an audience... Please, do bring whoever you desire! I'll entertain them with the finest displays of SCIENCE!

And oh! Yes, yes, I'd almost forgotten. Rosa, was it? Yes, I'll have you hosed down in a moment. Meanwhile, what did you have to say?"



________________________


Sally smiles satisfiedly, then rings a rusty iron bell. In response to her signal, another portcullis on the opposite side of the arena is raised, and three challengers walk in.

Sally: "Meet the reignin' champions o' this pit. Oh, yer gonna wish I'da thrown ye to the sharks!"


A bloody, ragggee, pink-haired doll covered in hundreds of horn-like growths, including a pair that jut out from her forehead and pierce deep into her eyesockets.

Ram: "Point me towards them! The bastards! They'll pay! I'll feed them their own kidneys! I'll grind them into dust!"


A tall, pale doll wearing a cloak and overcoat. Icicles grow from her back, and she holds a pickaxe in each hand.

Frostbite: "New blood? Hm. You smell interesting. Maybe you'll last more than a round."


A human-sized, vaguely egg-shaped lump of flesh, lined with a thousand toothed sphincters. It balances precariously on two delicate, ballerina-like legs.

Cocoon: *glorpfs*



You and your opponents stare each other down for a moment, until Sally takes a swig from her bottle and rings the bell again.

Sally: "Get to it, ye scurvy dogs! Fight!"

> Malia: Support Klimt, remove his madness, Thread Snake the same target he does if I have the leftover AP.
There, action for MLC since MLC is kill.

BATTLE!





Curie quickly steps back, trying her best to avoid being caught in the combat. Klimt, Malia and Emilia begin to approach the center of the arena, and their opponents do the same.

Frostbite's coat flutters in the wind, letting out a dazzling mist of water and ice particles. Within seconds, it envelops the battlefield, and your enemies disappear amid the haze. Suddenly, the fog dissipates, and Klimt sees Ram trying to flank him!

The boy is too experienced a warrior to be caught unaware by such a simple tactic. Uncoiling his meatsnakes, he lashes out at the Doll, and -

PLORTS

With unimaginable speed, Cocoon positions herself between Klimt and his target, receiving a faceful of tentacles instead. Her outer shell ruptures, acid blood sizzling as it squirts out onto the sand. She falls down on her back(?), unmoving. Klimt sidesteps the sudden obstruction, whipping at Ram again, and -

SQUARTCH

Cocoon is back on her feet, and jumps in the path of his attack once again. The meatsnakes wrap around her oval body, and Klimt feels something within her crack as he squeezes. Gastric fluid and semidigested carrion leak from her many mouths, and she crumples down once again. Okay, now time to actually hit Ram -

SKWUCH

Somehow, Cocoon is back on her feet, despite the bruises and cuts all over her pustulent flesh. She shields Ram one last time, before being swatted aside by a tentacle, knees bending the wrong way from the sheer force of the blow.


Ram: "What was that? Who's there? Oh. You! YOU FIENDS! KNAVES! ABOMINATIONS! YOU WILL PAY! DIEEEEEE!"

The pinkhaired doll leaps at Klimt, unsheathing a pair of long bony blades from within her arms. The attack is clumsy and rabid, and easy to sidestep-

Wait. Klimt feels a sudden pain on his back, and with surprise realises his spine is severed, a shard of bone embedded deep between his vertebrae. Looking around, he sees Malia and Emilia clutching at their stomachs instinctively, blood streaming from pairs of deep gashes. H-how could she hit the three of you at once?!

Ram: "DID I HIT YOU? DID I? SAY SOMETHING! AAAAAAAAAAAH!"

She turns back, unleashing a flurry of maddened blows at the boy, lashing out with horns and spikes, and when those fail, broken teeth and dirty fingernails. Within a few moments, she's resorted to smashing her own face against his knee, bleeding profusely from her nose but forcing him to expend all his energy to withstand the ceaseless barrage. Unable to physically help Klimt, Malia does the second best thing and absorbs some of his Madness, so he may better focus on the battle at hand.


Frostbite appears from within the fog, training a pair of large, pitch-black pistols on Klimt's head, while he's busy trying to fend off the angry ram. Thinking on his feet, he spins around in place, shielding himself behind the enemy Doll, so she is hit instead-

KHROSHPLT

Or, she WOULD have been hit instead, if Cocoon hadn't jumped between them and Frostbite, absorbing the gunfire with her own body. Now covered in bullet holes, the creature tumbles down onto the ground. At least now, she won't be able to defend Ram anymore! Malia prepares her own threadsnakes, attacking with wild abandon -

PHLEBLT

Cocoon's battered, bleeding corpse clumsily pushes Malia away, causing her threads to hit Klimt instead! The boy screams as the monofilament wires wrap around his calf and all but sever it.


Emilia seems to have realised how precarious their position is, and does her best to even the odds. Jumping forwards, she engages Frostbite in hand-to-hand combat, causing only minor damage but distracting the cloaked figure enough to give the others a breather.


Klimt feels something gnawing at the back of his mind. His body might be built for combat, but it stresses his soul profusely. Looking at the bleachers, he sees Sally's malevolent, ear-to-ear smile.
Unforgivable.


Combat map:
[] - Tartarus
[] - Hades
[Frostbite,Emilia] - Limbo
[Klimt, Malia, Ram] - Elysium
[Cocoon] - Eden


________________________________________________

EVENTS:

Meanwhile, Molly pauses.

Molly: "Hmmm. So, they're not as instinctive as we initially thought! Fascinating! Hmmm... It's a farfetched tale, yes, but imagine if it were true! If, this was a meeting with Mankind's pelagic ancestors! Oh, the possibilities!~

Oh. The brig? Uh. Uhm. Well, we do have a brig, I'm quite certain. It's uh...

...

Ssssssomewhere. I'm sure I had it written down on a notebook or a memo or a- Oh dear, I can't for the life of me remember. Ah well, a bit of forgetfulness is to be expected of the eldest sister, after all! Maybe, you should ask Kelly instead, she's good at remembering things. Can you take note of that, Rosa? 'Remember to remember where I wrote down the brig's location'. Or, is that too long for a note? Just, 'remember brig', maybe? Hm hm.

Where was I again? Oh right, Eigla's cells. Oooh, I can't wait to grow a culture of these!"


She turns her attentions to the microscope, humming contently.

BATTLE!





Klimt pushes Ram away, then attempts to get a solid hit on her, but Cocoon places herself between them once more, intercepting his meat snakes. Attempting to finish her, he doesn't simply hit and let go - Instead, he wraps his barbed tentacles around her bulbous body, and squeezes it like a wet cloth. Bones shatter and organs burst under the power of his grip, and all of the Doll's many mouths flood with brownish, putrid blood. No longer managing to bear the stench, he lets go, and her lacerated corpse falls down one last time, fetid contents spilling every which way.

He hears a maddened warcry, and turns to see Ram charging at him once again, a raging hurricane of claws and horns. Her assault is as brutal as before, and it takes all of his fighting prowess to not get torn to pieces. One of her blades barely touches his wrist, and it explodes in a shower of gore, fingers losing cohesiveness and melting into their natural tentacular form.

Malia decides this has gone on for too long. Unwinding a large length of her thread, she lashes at Ram repeatedly, cutting off fingers then arms then legs, until the girl's squirming torso has to resort to shooting out its ribs like hooked spears to continue its rampage. Klimt manages to block one final headbutt, and secures Ram in a bear hug, breaking her spine in the process and driving her broken horns fully through her eyesockets. She's done.

No, not yet. As long as she can move, or think, or EXIST, she's a risk. To him, to his friends. To Emilia. Without even noticing, he changes his torso to its true shape: A coiled mass of barbs and edges and snakelike muscles. His abs and pectorals begin to twist and vibrate, grinding against Ram like a biological juicer machine. Blood flows down his body as the girl is slowly ground to a pulp, until only her deformed spine and the back of her skull remain in his grip, cerebellum pulsating futilely as it tries to control a body that is no longer there.


Emilia, meanwhile, is doing her best to keep the gelid gunner in check. She's landed a series of good punches, but received her fair share of bullet wounds in return. Dodging and weaving, she hits her enemy with a solid left hook, and you all hear Frostbite's jaw crack as it's dislodged from its seat. Realising she's outnumbered, the cloaked girl releases a huge cloud of vapor from her sleeves, seeming to suddenly disappear amid the fog.

As the mist dissipates, you're alone in the arena. Did you win? Your coffins seem to think so, beeping to indicate they're ready to produce new parts.



Clapping and cheering can be heard from the bleachers, as Sally and her cohorts look at you impressedly.

Sally: "Not half bad! Not at all! Eigla'd warned me about ye, but seein' it in person - Ye'll make for fine crewmen if ye keep this up!"



_________________________



Meanwhile, Rosa takes her notes, then follows Eigla back to the meeting room.
There, they find Kelly meticulously arranging stacks of papers and blueprints, occasionally stopping to press a few buttons on a control panel, then watching a series of gauges go up and down. She notices your arrival, and looks up annoyedly.

Kelly: "...Hm?"