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Seifer Almasy	ONE HOUR AGO                                     Seifer Almasy went out to Grand Dorado to get groceries. If he was the kind of guy to let a headache stop him from doing his basic day-to-day, he would never have gotten where he was. And since he wanted to get out of the Moon Cell anyway, he decided he'd do the shopping this week.                              FORTY MINUTES AGO                                   A bag containing a lot of sushi, vegetables, and breads of the sort Caster really liked came tumbling down onto the sidewalk of Grand Dorado. Seifer Almasy went down with it, a bag of cement in human form, hitting the ground, boom, boom. The only visible injury when the paramedics arrived two minutes later was the head wound from hitting the pavement.                              TWENTY MINUTES AGO                                 Grand Dorado medics determined that there was nothing physically wrong with Seifer. Grand Dorado spiritualists determined that there were no curses or spells targetting him, nor any form of long-range attack by any magic they could understand. The medical operators thus concluded that this was a psychic phenomenon, and called in the experts.                                ONE MINUTE AGO                                   Seifer Almasy is laid out on a medical bed. Hyperion sits against a chair on the other side of the room. His coat is hung across it. If that's not a sign of the severity, nothing else can be. So Flamel is called upon to open the door into Seifer Almasy's mind.                    AN INDETERMINATE AMOUNT OF SECONDS AGO                       Falling through the void is not as comfortable or as pleasant as falling through a normal mind. There is the uncomfortable sense that something is watching the party tumble, that something is paying close attention to the entry. It's a sense of ambient unease that ramps up as they get closer and closer to what can be described as 'the end of the tunnel'.                                  RIGHT NOW                                       Seifer's mindscape opens, and the feeling of unease goes away immediately.     The sky is grey.     It's a light grey, in fact. There's three large lines, like...canyons?...divoted in the gray. No sunlight, but a strange sense of light nonetheless. It's just an ambient, everywhere sort of light, the kind that doesn't really cast shadows, the kind that lends an odd single-texture feel to the place. It's the sort of texture you'd see in an old game, maybe one with too much ambition to fit on one disc - light everywhere, the background like a picture people are superimposed onto, no shadows, no sense of distance. It's disorienting as hell, too. Unsettling. A movie screen, sort of, in front of which the party is placed, watching it go by.
Seifer Almasy	After a few minutes, the world stabilizes. It gains depth. It gains a sense of proximity, of...placement. The feeling of being pushed against a movie screen fades as the landscape stretches out into a wasteland. There are ruins scattered about it, scattered like grains, scattered like sand on a beach. Broken domes lie shoved up against crumbling monoliths. Leaning skyscrapers tilt above medieval castles. Paint peels everywhere. There are statues laying about in the dust with faces worn away by time and tide.     Also, there is a twelve-foot-tall grey man sitting behind a counter full of coffee mugs and donut boxes. He is dressed in a red cloak, with pure-white pupiless eyes peeking out beyond his otherwise-concealed face. Polka-dot pants become samurai greaves. He has four arms on one side; the other side has three cardboard arms attached at the shoulder, though he clearly has real arms, as they're obviously pulling the cloak shut.     In one of his visible hands, he is holding a coffee mug that says FOR GILGAMESH, IT IS COFFEE TIME. Two of the others are clasped shut together, as if holding on to something precious. The last one has a donut, which, inexplicably, has bites taken out of it, despite there being no visible way for him to eat through the cloak.     Next to him is a green wolfhound about five feet tall and ten feet long, made entirely of rock and gold. Scattered around him are green chickens that cluck and peck at the dust.     The grey man holds up his mug. "Hey."      His voice is pink-and-yellow polkadots, and it is *obnoxious* for all of five seconds before it normalizes. "Gilgamesh. King of....ehn, it doesn't matter. You've never heard of it. Proper nouns are boring without context, right? Just...dropping pointless details nobody cares about that are Important because they're Capitalized." The coffee goes to the cloak. Somehow it drains. "Honestly, who does that?"     The wolfhound barks. Gilgamesh waves the coffee at him. "I'm getting to it! Jeez. This is my buddy, Enkidu."     The wolfhound barks again and bows its head gracefully. Between the two, Enkidu definitely seems the more, uh, regal, royal, and graceful of the pair. Also probably the smarter.     "These are also my buddies, Enkitwo through Enkiseven."     The chickens look up and cluck, then go back to scratching in the dust.     "You can call me Greg if it's gonna get confusing. I know how Multiverse stuff works. I've done a lot of travelling." Gilgamesh leans forward. "Like, a lot. Only a little of it is my fault. Stupid Butz."     "Wait, no. It's Bartz now, right? Ugh, who even remembers. Proper Nouns!"
Seifer Almasy	Greg kicks his feet up on the counter. "You should have some coffee. Take a donut. Seriously." He gestures with the coffee. "I insist. Muh hospitality, et cetera, yadda yadda blah blah blah."     The mugs seem to have a single sentence written on them. IT IS TOO EARLY FOR BOSS BATTLES, OR BONUS BATTLES, OR ANY KIND OF BATTLES!     Gilgamesh's own mug completes the sentence, obviously.     Gilgamesh sits there for a few minutes before he says, "OK, so."     "We need to go down."     "Like, way down. Like, Seifer's connection to the Collective Unconscious down. There's an infection in his brain that I can't deal with myself. I dunno where it came from, I dunno how it got here, I dunno what caused it. For all I know it's something the Seeker of Darkness left behind out of spite, or some crawling darkness in his heart we never took care of. He's got a lot of that. Darkness. In the heart."     Sip.     "There's two really simple routes to get to the next level of his brain. There's the Garden route, and there's the Galbadia route. There's a less simple route that's a heck of a lot more dangerous but a heck of a lot faster, and that's the Graduation route. I know, I know. G-G-G, what is this, a super robot show, ha ha, funny jokes, I'm very funny."     Sip.     "You can laugh. It's okay. I know I'm hilarious."     The rock hound rolls its eyes and makes a noise vaguely like a groan. Gilgamesh leans over and pops it on the head lightly. "I'm funny and you know it."     "So anyway," Gilgamesh continues, "The Galbadia route is gonna take you straight through his childhood. The Garden route is gonna take you straight through his school days. And Graduation..."     Sip.     "That's gonna take you through the most active war zone."     "So you guys should probably decide how far you wanna push your luck. And also ask me questions, y'know, preamble, useful things."     Sip.     "Seriously though have some coffee and a donut. I made them just for you."
Majima Goro	Majima Goro, President of Majima Construction, Hand of the Concord If It Comes Up, has been through some crazy things. This is up there. This is absolutely up there. The opportunity to help Seifer out? Yeah, obviously you take that. That's not a question. It involves Flamel Parsons' wild antics, and you double-sign up for that. And then it actually happens, and he...shows no outward change. He's got a coffee. He's got a donut. He's happily dipping the donut in the coffee and he's found a chair to sit over backwards and listen while Gilgamesh does all of his explanations. Is it inwardly bothering him? That's a fantastic question. But it's hard to read the facial expression of a man with one eye who's busily chewing the hell out of a rice ball^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H jelly donut. Once he has a moment, he stretches out. The coffee mug goes somewhere. It might come up later. Who knows? "Nehehe. Okay. Fastest is one fuckin' thing, sure. I ain't in a rush, seein' as though Nishida and the boys got shit on lockdown back home." Majima cracks his head one side to the other. The donut is waved in a circle, vaguely, as if it is some sort of crescent-shaped floury charm against evil. "But if y'got some kinda brain infection shit, which one of those three path's got the most of whatever that is? Shouldn't we be clearin' that shit out on the way in? Obviously I wanna get into the crazy fuckin' battleground, but if somethin's gonna help him more, that seems like a bigger deal." He closes his eye. " ... and is he gonna remember we did this shit?"
Seifer Almasy	"He's not gonna *know* you did this stuff," Gilgamesh says, "This is the subconscious. Three layers! Ego, Personal, Collective. We're not dipping all the way down because HA HA we did that to help Riku and *boy* are we not doing that again. Just...cutting the problem at the root, right?"     Majima's coffee tastes like blood and iron. It tastes like asphalt and bad cologne, but the familiar kind of bad cologne, the kind a man might wear if he doesn't care about anything but his own entertainment. The donut tastes like sugar and hot sauce, fire and flash and substance all at once. There's a bizarre sense of...*home* about the coffee and the donut. Like it just sort of belongs. The taste is odd but pleasant. It really was made for Majima.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel Parsons is here! He strides forward with a wide grin and a cheerful look behind those sunglasses. "Greg! Nice meeting you in person! Wait a minute! Wait a minute." He grabs one up and takes a sip. "Damn good coffee! And *hot*." This context-free moment drifts into the narrative void. He also gives a friendly, bright laugh at the joke. He's never heard of G-G-G! But the delivery was just pleasant and nice, and Greg's nature is positive, so the laugh comes freely anyway. He grabs up a donut.     "Should we keep an eye out for any gaps? I know you've been, he said, you've been eating his memories? Bits and pieces, I mean." He siiips, and regards Greg's clasped hands, tilting his head for a moment... He smacks his lips a little. "I know you won't have put any structural gaps in there, but still, best to stock up on hazard info on what's between us and this psychohazard!"     "My good pal Goro here has a good take! We should drop in through whatever has the most seeping out from there." He says, nodding at few times at Majima Goro, before looking around at the ruins and ancient structures. "But if that isn't a lead, Childhood is usually softened-up memory-wise to be the fastest way to travel! In terms of cognitive narrative, it's an easy spot to start with, and it's usually ambiguous enough that moving through it won't have the worst psychic defenses."
Tamamo no Mae	An hour ago, Tamamo waves to Seifer as he leaves. Though it was strange for him to do the shopping this week, this meant Tamamo could spend more time in the Moon Cell plotting and planning... and making sure her Husband was taken care of when he got back as that is what a good wife does.     Twenty minutes ago, Tamamo got the news and made her way to the Grand Dorado medical facility, the fox had a worried look on her face. She knew something was bugging Seifer but she didn't know what and how serious it was.     At least until a minute ago when his beloved sword and coat are away from him. Tamamo's face goes into a really worried look, saying nothing, not wanting to interrupt Flamel's work.     And right now...     That grey sky is in view, the canyons in the sky, the unease of the situation makes the fox's tail frizz up in nervousness. Something was happening to her Husband and out of everything in the world, that was the one thing she wanted to protect. "Seifer... I'm here for you." she mutters to herself. The disorientation continues while the world stabilizes, the fox's geta making taps on the ground as she moves forward, eyeing the new landscape.     A wasteland? Is this what's in his mind? The skyscrapers and castles fade from her vision as her focus goes directly to the new imposing figure...     Enkidu.     ... And Greg, she guesses.     And the chickens.     "I could hear the polkadots... now I can see them. You're the Guardian Force inside his head. So I don't think you need my introduction." her head turns towards Enkidu, "Good dog." and ENkidu gets a curtsey back. Proper to proper, right? Tamamo does, however, move to take a cup, 'FOR BOSS BATTLES' is sipped... and a donut is taken. It's probably really good.     Tamamo turns to Majima, "Perhaps we should start from the beginning, knowing where to start and where to attack would be key to dealing with this 'infection.'" beat "Where did most of the troubles start though, you've been with him longer than I have, Gilgamesh."
Guzma	Guzma stopped what he was doing the second he learned Seifer was in trouble, rushed over to the hospital, and then tried to act tough and say he wasn't doing anything anyways. Seifer's his friend. He owes him for giving him support. Once inside, Guzma's eyes try to adjust to the weird landscape, so he focuses on the least weird thing to him - a multi-armed dude and his Pokemon team. "Nice to meet ya." He grabs some coffee and a donut, taking a drink and a bite. "You'd probably know - which of the three paths is the least likely to *pry into his business*? A man doesn't dig into another man's mind without permission if they're friends. Yeah, we need to help him, but surely one of these paths isn't gonna have a deep dark secret, right?"
Seifer Almasy	Flamel's coffee tastes like aluminum foil. It tastes like a clean-pressed suit. The reflection in it is immaculate. The donut tastes like sharp air in a well-kept, government building. It tastes like air conditioning - comfortable, distant, present.      "Most of the gaps are gonna be up here," Greg says, waving his hand outwards, "There's gonna be missing memories. Faces of people he won't recall. Most of them are unimportant. Some of them were important, once, but had to be consumed for power. It's not gonna be holes but it's *definitely* gonna be hazardous."      Gilgamesh tilts his head. "The highest infection rate? Probably either the Garden or Childhood. Graduation's...rough for anything. It's where all the defenses are. It's where all the rough stuff happens, after all! Lots of people there. Lots of fighting there, lots of memory fragments all sorta congealed. It's a good place to store fragments, Graduation. Lots of faceless people to transpose other faceless people onto."      Tamamo's coffee tastes warm. It tastes like sweet perfume and warm baths. It tastes like home-cooked meals. The donut tastes like love and sugar, with a little bit of sharp walnut that Tamamo recognizes as the taste of (but not the presence of) poison.      "Most of them? Hmmmm. Probably Childhood. It's the haziest part, after all."      Guzma's coffee is rough. It's tumble. It's rocky road and an attitude. But it's strong, the kind of strong that'll keep you up through the rough hours, the kind of sharp that keeps you alert and awake. The donut tastes of reliability and strength. It tastes a little like bug, but the sort of bug you'd actually eat, like a chocolate-covered locust, with a pleasant bit of crunch instead of the gagging of too many legs.      Enkidu shakes its head at Guzma (it responds well to Tamamo's petting). Gilgamesh jerks a thumb at Enkidu. "You're going down into his memories, man. All of it is his business. None of it's gonna be fun or pleasant and you're gonna *have* to see some of his past, the things he holds dear, and everything. It's not gonna be a smooth ride."
Xion	Xion, Fourteenth of Organization XIII and sore about it, sits in her all white room with her all white bed and her all white sheets, reclining and messing with her phone. The door to the room was locked, because otherwise Demyx had a constant chance to burst in and demand she fix the ice cream machine. Still, it was pleasant. Home always felt good. A space all her own. Deep in her chest, though, an odd pang lingers. Itches. Far, far, far away, in the Grand Dorado, Seifer falls over, and does not get up. Back at Castle Oblivion, Xion's finger pause against her phone screen. A keychain, left on her (white) desk, makes a sound like cracking ice and settling wood. The golden metal of the medallion begins tarnishing black. "Woah. That's not good!" Xion gasps, bouncing off her bed to lay her hand on the medallion, and-- IN SEIFER'S MINDSCAPE: Xion, in a black t-shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms and flip-flops, simply appears, blank-faced and confused. She claps both hands over her mouth. "Oh no! It's Seifer! They put bugs in him!"
Majima Goro	Majima has some discussion to do with Gilgamesh. Mostly about the value of the coffee and donuts and their meaning. "Alright. Fuck it. I'm thinkin' we should go for the childhood, then." He finishes off his donut, slamming back the rest of the coffee. "Seems like everyone else's up for that, and less time fightin' random shit means more time possibly gettin' to fight Ideal Majima." He taps his head. It's a genius plan. "Less anyone's got--what? Bugs? Xion, what're ya fuckin' talkin' bout?" He turns his head to the--huh. Alright. He's gotta respect showing up to this in pajamas and flip-flops. It's a level he cannot hope to match. "Anyway, I ain't got anythin' else to ask."
Tamamo no Mae	Tamamo continues to pet Enkidu, this is a good *coughcough* here. The coffee was actually strange but delicious... the donut though...     Though when Majima goes along with the idea, she gives a nod, finishing her drink and food and giving Enkidu one more headpat before straightening up. "Alright, shall we go then?"     A nod is given to Guzma, "Ah, hey Guzma, nice to see you here." its true that she hasn't worked with him much, but its hard to ignore someone really vocal. "Hope you've been doing well." and then Xion.     This brazen guy showing up in pajamas and flipflops earns a odd gaze from the fox, but when Majima addresses him, she relaxes just a bit, "Well, I don't think we met, but if Majima here knows you, it shouldn't be too bad.."
Tamamo no Mae	Tamamo continues to pet Enkidu, this is a good *coughcough* here. The coffee was actually strange but delicious... the donut though...     Though when Majima goes along with the idea, she gives a nod, finishing her drink and food and giving Enkidu one more headpat before straightening up. "Alright, shall we go then?"     A nod is given to Guzma, "Ah, hey Guzma, nice to see you here." its true that she hasn't worked with him much, but its hard to ignore someone really vocal. "Hope you've been doing well." and then Xion.     This brazen gal showing up in pajamas and flipflops earns a odd gaze from the fox, but when Majima addresses her, she relaxes just a bit, "Well, I don't think we met, but if Majima here knows you, it shouldn't be too bad.."
Xion	Xion picks up a doughnut and starts chewing. She does not take any coffee, because coffee tastes bad and makes her jittery! She doesn't get that it is the Long Dark Caffination of the Soul. "You can be whole of body, and whole of mind, and still have all sorts of problems in your heart, you know? Sometimes people just have problems or snags or snarls inside of them that we just accept as 'them'. But look:" Xion holds up her closed left fist while munching on her doughnut in quarters. White frosting powders her digits and the corners of her mouth as she talks. From her fist dangles the keychain in question - a tarnished gunmetal chain that ends in a blackened, empty-faced medallion. Barely visible in flecks and peeling foil, is a rendition of Seifer's face. "I can borrow the powers of other people's hearts! This is Seifer's. See? It's got bugs in it!" She still hasn't explained bugs. Tamamo interrogates her presence. "I'm the hero of everyone's hearts, X!" She pronounces it 'key'. Of course she does.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel regards Xion blankly. "Oh, did we pick up an astral hitchhiker? Huh! You're an awful long way from wherever it was you projected from. You sound pretty knowledgable about psychic projection though. I guess you're familiar with psychonautry?" He gestures at the coffe. "Have some! It's also an ID card. Did you make one for her?" He glances to Greg.     An aside is offered to Guzma. "Most times, stuff like this won't reveal the worst secrets. Keeping something buried is pretty easy because it's *passive*, so even while the mind's in fight-off-infection mode, it can usually keep the passive defenses on. Just don't go breaking open vaults, and you'll probably be okay!"     Sounds like they're ready to pack up and hit the road, with Tamamo and Majima agreed so far. "Let's get going! Just gotta wait a quick moment for one more, then we can set out for Childhood!" Which is what he'll do, once Priscilla completes her leg of his shared astral projection!
Seifer Almasy	"Nope!" Greg says cheerfully before he pours a cup of coffee for Xion. It tastes like mint and happiness, a little bittersweet, and something lost. "Now I did! It's pretty easy to have coffee ready when it's most of my day. Imagine getting to just sit around drinking coffee all day?"
Flamel Parsons	"Oh, I don't have to imagine! Part of my memories come from working for the FBI." Flamel pipes up, cheerfully.
Seifer Almasy	"Oh, well then! It's pretty great, right?" Sip. "I mean, granted, it's skimming off the top of his memories, but it's better than the real thing, right? You're just drinking your names, after all. Names are easy. You refresh names every day. The little mundane day-to-day stuff is most of my meal. Gotta tell you, it gets kinda boring sometimes, but I'm cool. I wouldn't mess with my best friend by taking a bite out of, like, a happy domestic moment or something like that."
Majima Goro	"...Wait. Shit. Are we eatin' his memories of us?" Majima holds the coffee mug out to Gilgamesh, eye narrowed a little bit. "I'm gettin' they ain't the super important ones, but..."
Seifer Almasy	"What'd you think it was?" Greg asks, staring at Majima. "I'm a Guardian Force. I eat memories. It's how I sustain myself. It's how you're sustaining yourself while you're in here!"
Priscilla	This is, somehow, not the first, second, nor even mere third of Flamel's psychonaut adventures Priscilla has been on herself. This fact, more than anything else, tells her that recruiting Flamel had definitely been one of her best personnel decisions, and she isn't afraid of saying so early in, if more than 'somewhat' wryly.     It also takes her precisely zero seconds to identify Gilgamesh upon entry. Possibly ahead of when she should be noticing him. There is a singular, almost dramatic, pause upon locking eyes, where what exactly comes next could still be one of three things. It is *decisively* settled a moment after in favour of "Well met, Sir Greg. Enkidu. I am pleased to see that Sir Almasy yet remaineth in good companies, though his complaints may hath lead one to surmise otherwise." This isn't even an issue. She actually picks up a coffee mug. It's the one that says 'BONUS BATTLE'.     I believeth the detritus of memory lost is well evident whence we stand already." she half-surmises, staring out at the field of ruins. "Though mine suspicions art that Sir Almasy wouldst not alloweth his companion here to linger overlong in any three of such places. I admit that I am ill-considered towards surveying Sir Almasy's memories before even yet becoming a man, for the sake of convenience. However I must ask of thee, Sir Greg, how extensive, how threatening, in thine estimation is this danger? Thou knoweth this place better than ourselves. What is our scale of time?"
Tamamo no Mae	... "So in technicality, we're all Guardian Forces here at the moment..." beat "Well, not as weird as I think it'd be... being a Servant myself."
Seifer Almasy	Enkidu nods solemnly at Xion, as if to say, yes, bugs in the heart.     Priscilla gets a wink and a finger-gun from Gilgamesh. "Hey sexy." OK, that's probably more than a little surreal, considering...well, Gilgamesh. "Can't get you out of my mind."      It's a joke.      It's a *pick-up line*, but it's also a joke.      Still, he immediately pushes the coffee at her. The coffee tastes of a pleasant winter's chill, the tickle on the end of the nose before entering the fire. It's a pleasant winter at home - something you enjoy before you kick off your shoes. The donut tastes of obligation, of ice, of powdered snow and hard-eyed determination.      Greg sips from his own cup. "Seifer's had...a rough life. Even going down Childhood is gonna be rough. You're gonna be seeing some things you don't wanna see, some memories you don't wanna know about. Fragments are still gonna hurt to look at, and...well, it won't be fun."      There's a beat. He produces a pocketwatch dramatically. It has his own face on it, and six hands. He stares at it for a bit, then looks up at Priscilla. "Well, beautiful, time passes differently in here. Out there? Probably like...I dunno, an hour? In here? Probably a day or two."      "You're sort of Guardian Force-adjacent. There's only room for one of me. Like I said, the coffee makes it think you're me. The brain, that is."      "Childhood. OK." Greg waves his coffee down to the left. "That way, then."
Seifer Almasy	The asphalt road is full of holes. It winds away from Greg's Coffee Counter, through leaning skyscrapers that drop pieces of themselves periodically. In the distance there is the sound of something burning, and the smell of smoke and gunpowder.     The way is treacherous. For all Gilgamesh said that he didn't take many chunks, the asphalt road is torn to pieces, bits missing here and there. But underneath the asphalt is another grey sky, with visible divots below. There is the sense that falling will not be terminal - it may not be pleasant, but it won't be terminal. The road is paved with wiped-out chalk lines and scratches in the sand. There are faces, here, in the road, but they're as indistinct as they get - the shape of faces rather than anything more, and little dumps. They're the unimportant people, the nobodies, the people Seifer never knew and never cared about who probably existed but no longer do in his mind.     Once they pass the buildings, the sound of screaming bombs tears through the sky. Clouds block sight of the comforting grey. Planes fly overhead, dropping bombs upon the skyscrapers, and the skyscrapers tremble and shake. Safety may be a wise priority, amidst the shatterglass cars and gunpowder roars. There are buildings with flickering neon signs and broken windows still standing. The signs are illegible gibberish, just like a dream. Only one of them seems solid - not decrepit, not run-down, though the sign is faded and the windows boarded up like every other. It might be a bar.      On the other hand, there are soldiers. And there are bodies. Oh, there are a *lot* of bodies. Most of the soldiers look like normal people - clad in face-concealing armor, carrying swords and guns - but some of them have a distinctly unpleasant aura to them. Their armor isn't right, not quite; it's off-kilter, off-key. Where most of them have no shading, these have subtle shade that makes them look more real than the rest of the area. Where most of them have no faces, these have glowing, ominous yellow eyes that peer from their mirrored masks. Their flashlights, held over their arms in traditional tactical stance, cast eerie pallid spots that roil with the same deep yellow light.      Well, there's no doubt that that's the infection's work. And there are a *lot* of them. And they have some very big guns.
Majima Goro	Majima is full-ready to find out about Seifer's childhood, up until he actually sees it. "...Greg, ya fuckin' with us or did Seifer grow up in a fuckin' war zone." As it turns out, Greg is not, in fact, fucking /or/ messing with us. The correct thing to do is, quite clearly and obviously, to move from cover to cover, carefully keeping out of sight of the Weird Infection Guys with the big guns. Unequivocally, inarguably, the best thing to do. Which is why he takes two broad steps out, swaggering, one hand on his coat ready to dramatically pull it off...before he stops. The breath he'd been puffing himself up with is let out. His head hangs a little, and he grits his teeth. "...Shit. We actually gotta be careful with this one, don't we." He looks to everyone else. There is the visible frustration of a dog straining at a chain contorting his face. "...Arright. Who's got a plan to get us through all that without riskin' blowin' up all of Seifer's memories, eh?"
Xion	"Astral hitchwhat? Psychonort? No, sorry, Luxord made sure to tell me to not take strange drugs from people." Xion holds up her doughnut-powdered palm in a classic Just Say No gesture. "But if it's Seifer, maybe our connection brought us here. Maybe I'm just the Xion-" Pronounced 'Shion' "-that was in his heart already. But, real or fake, if I'm me, I want to help out. That's what people do!" She licks clean her fingers as she accepts a cup of coffee, and then gives Flamel a big thumbs up. "Help each other. And if you're the expert, I'm glad you're here too!" Gregamesh hits on Priscilla in a very specific way. "You can't get her out of your head, either? Oh no! There's bugs in you too!" She gasps, but only has one hand free to clap over her mouth. It makes the next tiny sip of coffee *very complicated*. And then: Childhood! It does not take Xion long at all to gasp-and-clap-hand-to-mouth a third time at the slightly-off creatures and the yellow eyes. An accusatory finger is pointed at the darkened soldiers. "Heartless! He's got... Heartless *in his heart*? That's really bad! Like, super duper awful! Like a virus -- the bugsters!"
Tamamo no Mae	Tamamo gives a bit of a wave to the big boss Priscilla, "It's good to see the First here." and then... Tamamo turns towards the left to head off. This was unfamiliar territory for the Caster, keeping herself behind Majima since he looked like he could take a few hits. He definitely wasn't Seifer, but he'll do.     The chunks of asphalt missing, the sky below it divoted like a golfball almost. Even the road, now that she got a good look at it, was a bit unsettling... literally using people's faces to get to their destination. "Seifer... did you really just.. use people to get to where you are?" she mutters to herself quietly, "No, I know you're better than that. I hope."     Tamamo's ears perk up, hearing the planes... the explosions of bombs... the shaking skyscrapers and rubble. What in the hell did he grow up from... this isn't a normal childhood at all!     Then again, Seifer wasn't exactly normal himself. Xion words are interesting as well, "Heartless? LIke those things we fought a long time ago?" she does, however, move to a more secure, hidden place. "An infection has some sort of start point..." the more normal looking neon sign catches the fox's attention. "Maybe we start by trying to go there. If we need, I can try to summon my automata as guards and distractions, should you need a way to get there... but if I'm in Seifer's head, I'm not sure how our mana will work."
Flamel Parsons	Aww, thanks Priscilla! Flamel's humble but upheat gratitude surely shines through in response to the First of the Concord's compliments. Success in a success-centric group like this is high praise!     Parsons doesn't like the look of those flashlights. Well, he doesn't like the look of the entire childhood, of course, but that's how this goes! Seifer's long stabilized area anyway, so best not to start disrupting things. Snapping his fingers, he vanishes completely in flicker of mysterious psychic smoke, turning invisible! Those big guns are best left un-tested, at least Flamel thinks so.     Trying to start sneaking through the CHILDHOOD, he tries to slip behind the dangerous patrols, sliding just close enough to plant two figners on his palms and scan them extensively with his CLAIRVOYANCE! If he can find the associated local memories of where they came from, he can hopefully guide the others to the place this infection is originating from. Purging the infected psychic material is important, but the greater the concentration, the better the study and the better the cure; finding the origin and source will be the fastest way to solve this.     He suspects that the way forward -- or one way forward, at least -- is somewhere around that Bar. Any way to get in, and any sign of tools or psychic structures they can use to push deeper?
Priscilla	Despite the sights and sounds of Seifer's evident childhood, it's preferential to lingering overlong on that road. It makes her think of how many people she might have forgotten, whom she shouldn't have. How many she didn't get to know until they were gone. As for the names she remembers, are the memories attached to those as sharp as she still believes? She puts the coffee down. The donut is what she needs to finish right now.     "I assumeth thou hast little considered how one finds themselves attending a boarding school for both children and soldiers." Priscilla says to Majima. "Examine thine memories, if thou wouldst, for how often he hath spoken of his parents; even in context of whether he wouldst hath allowed Sir Greg." It still sounds a little weird for her to append such a nickname like 'Greg' to the formal 'Sir' equivalent of her language, but that's what Seifer calls him, and also Gilgamesh is someone else. It's a little bit weirder that she sounds beyond merely academically ready for this particular eventuality; more than someone could be even from reading Seifer's personnel file. "If I am not here for when those of the Concord art in such need, then what good is a promise from mineself?" she replies to Tamamo. "So it was before, so it is now."     "Pray tell of these Heartless, in this situation and upon this field, Lady Xion, as it seems thine own knowledge is the greatest at this moment." Priscilla says. With barely more than a flick of her wrist, the blue-white moonglow of the longsword Moonlight flashes into existence in her hand, as if it were conjured from energy. Where the glow would usually be soft and reassuring, it is instead fiercely cyan and unstill, like the liquid rippling glow of a theatrically lit aquarium. It makes a faint sound like a resonating glass rim.     "I doubt we shalt hath much time to speaketh with one another over such clamour and cacophony as lies within. The building still legible; thou all see it as well, yes? Maketh such thine destination. I shalt join thee shortly. Draw little attention." Priscilla then disappears.     Her goal from there is to take down a couple of the Heartless soldier-surrogates in an intentionally 'unprofessional' fashion, allowing their squad to see it, and then the location of the next one to go down, so that they can close in and give chase in her direction, drawing them away from the bar. She doesn't dare use the Scythe inside Seifer's head like this, but, though not strictly designed for it, Moonlight and its unexplained quality of Revelation has aided her in afflicted minds in past.
Guzma	Once they're on the way to Childhood, Guzma having accepted they'll See Some Shit, he nods to the other's stealth approach, and Priscilla's direct order to keep quiet. "Got it, boss." For the moment, Guzma pushes ahead, sticking close to Majima, ducking behind cover and keeping one hand near a Pokeball at all times. His reflexes are decently fast, as he clutches that gold necklace to keep it from rattling, and try and get towards that bar without drawing attention. He's not the stealthiest, but he knows the basics of 'not getting seen when you're doing something bad'. "Hopefully, we don't blow anything up, yeah."
Seifer Almasy	Fortunately, as Majima starts to stagger out, the glowing-eyed creatures turn away, sweeping their lights along the wall. That's probably for the best. Xion calls them Heartless - and, indeed, as they move this way and that, their unnatural gait more pronounced as they become part of the crowd, the party can get a glimpse of their chests. Where the heart should be is a heart-shaped hole driven clean through.      The Bar is something important. It's not *safe*, per se, but it's...less dangerous? The walls are strong, there. It could be pried open with ease; there's broken cars all around, plenty of pieces to pry. There's lots of little traumas here that Flamel can feel - hunger and fear pour out of every car, the kind of hunger that goes past just wanting food into the deep and agonizing pain of starvation. They're vehicles, of course, and they're vehicles for memories and emotions. Emotions linger better than memories. Memories that are eaten may go away, but the emotions linger, ghosts of thoughts long-since cast out. In short order, as they get near the cars, that hunger pierces outwards, too. It pushes. It pushes at the stomach. Even with the donuts and coffee it feels as if they haven't eaten in *weeks*. As if the water in their mouths is tinged with oil.      Priscilla disappears. The Heartless(?) are easily-dispatched. One blow to the head is all it takes for the Moonlight to pierce through them and turn them to light. No hearts emerge from them, Xion. Not a single one.      The Heartless squad is also talking to itself. As are the soldiers. The soldiers turn to where one of them was killed and start barking orders. The orders echo a rippling terror that peels through the streets, an uncomfortable, horrible feeling of powerlessness. They're distorted, but clear.      "Fan out! Find them!"      With a little work, the party gets inside the bar.      It's been destroyed, utterly. The place is a wreck. Tables overturned. Glass scattered. Bottles broken. A pair of bodies lying up against the windows with guns in hands - one a man, one a woman, both with holes where faces should be.      And crying.      It's a quiet crying, the crying you don't do when you're afraid someone will find you. It's a little boy, maybe four years old, legs tucked against his chest under the bar, clutching tight to a toy gunblade. He's skinny, thin. Uncomfortably thin. Uncomfortably skinny. He doesn't look up as the party enters.      There's a stairwell down. It radiates unpleasantness.      There's a stairwell up. It radiates unpleasantness.
Majima Goro	Majima lets a breath out. It's easier, at least, when 'The Chairman' gives an order. Then you don't have to care if it's a stupid idea. You just do it. "...Alright. Find Seifer's parents. Sure." He can work with Guzma, sure. The fact is, Majima is not stealthy, but given that it's *incredibly loud* around here, and that he can, in fact, carefully bend his body and slide through small cracks and the like. He's good at maneuvering around. So, eventually, he and Ya Boy, Guzma can make their way to the bar. Good times. He likes bars. Except this one. There is nothing good about this bar, and the man and woman both completely lacking actual faces--which he'll assume has to do with Greg eating those memories, not some horrible thing that actually happened, cause, wow, he doesn't want to think about that-- probably aren't going to offer any sort of help. "Okay. I'm not gonna think about that shit. I'm goin' to the basement, cause there's no way anyone fuckin' hides in the attic when shit like this is goin' down." He draws his knife, casually discarding the sheathe off to the side as he leads forward. Maybe he can glint some light to help him see on the way down. Who knows.
Xion	Multiple questions are asked of heartless. "Heartless are..." She scrunches her nose, an odd disgust as she tries to explain. "... beings of pure darkness. They crawl up from the Deeper Darkness because they want to consume hearts, and any hearts they consume become the seeds of more Heartless." Xion snaps her fingers and the tension leaves her face. "It's like a zombie, but... heart zombies. Yeah, perfect. That explains everything." She sounds very proud of this. Then Priscilla just up and annihilates them with the power of her scythe and-- nothing comes out of them. "Wait, no, that's not right. For some reason, Heartless drop these shiny lights, and some Munny, and if they were holding someone's heart, that'd fly away. But none of that happened!" Jogging over to the devastation, she paws around in the debris and ashes. "But not a coin to be found. I guess... they're not real?" Dissatisfied, Xion rises to move towards the bar and stops, clutching at her chest and looking deeply sick. "Ooooogh, this is..." She gasps, staggering backwards and grinding her teeth. "Gotta be strong." A purple light sparks into existance and orbits around her body once before her free hand grips the sphere, a 'shink!' of inventorying occuring in her closed palm. After a moment she looks visibly better, if a bit stonefaced. "Alright. Majima-san, I'll come with you!" She hurries down with Majima to the basement of the bar.
Tamamo no Mae	"Such devastation..." Tamamo mutters, "Remind me not to make her mad. Guess my automata won't be needed for now..." and of to the bar. Definitely not anything good with this bar but it was 'safer' than being out there for now even if it was a wreck. Tables turned, glass broken, bottles shattered... bodies up against the window... and holes in the face..     That may be the worst thing Tamamo has ever seen in her life...     With Majima and Xion going down, Tamamo moves towards the little boy. Kneeling down, she offers a soft smile and a comforting voice, "It's okay, little boy, no one will hurt you here." she offers a hand, "What's your name? I'm Tamamo." a look at the toy gunblade, "Gonna grow up into a gunblade knight, aren't you? I'm sure you will do great at it."     Soon, Tamamo just sits on her knees, "What's a little boy doing out in this place?" a look at the two holed up people against the window, "And what happened that started this?"
Guzma	Guzma, once they're inside the bar, frowns at the situation. All this devastation...but, he also frowns at Tamamo, whispering in her direction. "Are you sure that's a good idea?" But when Majima and Xion go down, Guzma moves to join them. He's most at-ease around Majima, and that sheer discomfort could probably use backup. The others can go the other direction.
Seifer Almasy	THE BAR                                       The boy looks up at Tamamo. "Seifer," he says, his voice barely above a whisper, "M-my name is Seifer..."     She asks what happened. He shakes his head. "I-I dunno. I-I've been here for...a long time." He ducks his head down. "It was my b-birthday yesterday. I think." He doesn't know what day it is. The calendar on the wall is blank. The TV screen up above the bar is cracked and static.     "...I live here." He ducks his head back down as Tamamo offers a hand. "M-my mom and dad are over there."      ...oh.      "Th-they used to be soldiers. So when the w-war started with Esthar they helped...helped people get to safety. And..."      She can feel him trembling under her hand. He doesn't say anything else. He just pulls his own knees up against his chest.
Tamamo no Mae	Tamamo blinks. This is Seifer? Kinda of adorable. Though not saying this to his face.     "Happy late birthday, Seifer. I'm sure they were very honorable soldiers with what you're saying. They did well, they did very well." she tries to give some comfort to the small 'knight', "Seifer, I want you to wait here okay? I know it's scary but I'll be back, I want to check out some of the rest of this place okay? Do you know what's upstairs or downstairs?"     She pauses a moment, "It'll be okay, Seifer. You'll grow up to be a strong knight, I believe it."
Seifer Almasy	Seifer shakes his head. He doesn't know what's upstairs or downstairs. He just covers his ears at the question.
Seifer Almasy	DOWNSTAIRS                                     The light glints off Majima's knife. Xion hurries down after him. Guzma follows.     Part of the basement is just *missing*. Not just part, but *chunks*. It's an uneasy monochrome that clashes with the color Xion and Majima and Guzma bring, an uncomfortable greyscale that doesn't feel like it belongs. Missing pieces of barrels, as if bites have been taken out of the world (they have). The barrels are too big, too big. A maze. All mazes have monsters in a childhood memory, and this one is no exception.      But the monster is not a childish nightmare given birth from bad dreams. The monster is a sound. It is a sound given shape. It has awful yellow eyes, and it moves through the barrels, a stalking roar of gunfire and gunpowder, of blood and bodies hitting the ground. It has no face. It has no form. It is only the fear of the outside world, suppressed and locked in this maze, held down by the psyche. It's not fear of war, either - Seifer has no fear of war. No, this is fear of this moment. This is fear of the nightmare that is this moment, the repeating idea of this...*this*. It is not fear of gunfire and gunpowder and the war that he welcomes, that he chose on his own. It is the fear of powerlessness in the face of loss.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel thinks for a minute, regarding the situation. He decides he's not going to interfere with the child, and the basement is down -- conceptually, he feels like that's not going to show him what he needs. Maybe. It wouldn't have come through a safe place, least of all underground... but upstairs provides information! And he hungers to know more about what's afoot here. Heartless? Hmmm...     He invisibly flits away up the stairs, to check out what's above. "Might be able to get a better view of things from up here! If I can see a spread of these guys, I might be able to pulse my clairvoyance wide and find out where they're coming from!" He lets the others know, on his way up, levitating on the staircase in a cautious but quick kind of pace.
Majima Goro	"Okay, for real, does *anything ever* faze you anymore?" Majima recalls those words, as he steps into a basement made entirely out of childhood fears. Half-devoured childhood fears. He's spinning his knife in his hand, thoughtfully, even whistling a little. Maze full of giant-ass barrels, and this thing's got the ability to move through things. That limits his ability to ambush the weird amorphous blob of Fear Of This Moment. He takes a breath, looking to Xion and Guzma. "Shit." He says, usefully. "I'm thinkin' we gotta make that coalesce somehow. I can't break its arm if it don't got one." He takes a breath. "Ain't sure how that's gonna work, of course, but.." He grits his teeth. "Xion, this is kinda your department, ain't it?"
Xion	Being subjected entirely to the fear of the place, the desire to run away, the urge to leave and cower and flee pounds away at Xion's will. She feels it keenly, like the floor isn't broken, and the bite marks are just clear glass and negative space. The stalking-doom of victimization. A terrible memory. "If this is his mind, and not his heart, then maybe what we need to do is confront it for him. Reset it. Like turning something off and on again, maybe what we need to do is re-originate this place." She frowns. "I think I can do that with this:" She reveals to Guzma and Majima the purple medallion she holds tightly in her right fist. The face of Chase is emblazoned on the visible front. "The power of the Grim Reaper who doesn't kill, Mashin Chaser. If I make it real, though..." She looks up into Majima's eyes, her own blues oddly flat and dispassionate. "... do you really want to fight it with a knife?"
Seifer Almasy	UPSTAIRS                                        Oh this is not safe at *all*.      If the basement is a maze of barrels then the upstairs is a mess of debris. It's not debris from the war, either; it's the debris of life, the detritus of half-remembered things. Here, a little-boy Seifer playing with a ball is a frozen ghost, a bite taken out of his face. There, a little-boy Seifer is playing with some toy that was undoubtedly treasured before it was bitten through. Images of other children with holes for faces are frozen in time. The rooms go on and on, a sense of familiar hiding-places, childish, innocent hiding places for small children playing hide-and-go-seek, children who still think girls are icky and play with little army men scattered across the floor. But those hiding-places are filled with a sickness, a terror, the terror of having safety blown away by the broken glass and the raging fires outside. The yellow-eyed soldiers stalk the streets outside, sweeping guns this way and that, looking for whoever killed their comrade. From up here, Flamel can probably figure out where they're coming from - but he may have to move fast. Up here is also the sound of something knock-knock-knocking on the wall, something foreign and alien tap-tap-tapping.      It's definitely an invasive intrusion. It is not a fear, not a natural thing. It is a monster assembled from many parts. It is a quilt of trauma, stitched together from a skull, a gunshot wound, a soldier's uniform shredded on the ground without anyone inside. It would almost be funny - it moves like the Heartless, it looks like the Heartless, it has no heart like the Heartless, and it's shadowed like the Heartless - were it not for the yellow eye burning out of the cartoonish skull, or the long and wicked claw on one hand, or the heavy machine-gun arm going knock-knock-knock as it walks, tapping against the wall. Its yellow glowing eye whirls around to focus on Tamamo and Flamel. It has no mouth, but it has the suggestion of one beneath the mask.      Its machine-gun arm swings up and opens fire. The sound is awful. There are no bullets, only lasers, but the lasers sweep and home, dancing around obstacles, and they burn like the fires outside sprayed across the skin. It advances with its menacing claws, dragging them along the walls.
Guzma	This is horrible. Guzma doesn't know Seifer the best, but he can tell his friend is suffering. As the sound monster moves through the maze of fears and barrels... "What if we blow up those barrels? I imagine they're gunpowder. We can detonate the monster sky high." With a click of a pokeball, the flying lightning bug Vikavolt is sent out. It doesn't fire, yet, but it's keeping up guard for the three, tracking the sound.
Priscilla	For probably a lot of people's good fortune, Priscilla doesn't arrive right back at the bar immediately. She has to lead the soldiers outside on a sufficiently elaborate chase to prevent them from coming right back to the scene. Little boy Seifer, his faceless parents, the terror in the basement --those are problems the others can deal with at their own pace.     The thing upstairs, at least, is hers too. Routing back to the bar from outside, rooftop to rooftop, crumbling walls to stoved in ceiling to toppled beam, strung over fires and jagged rubble, like the all-too-familiar only way forward over a deadly fall, Priscilla arrives at upper half of the building as a means of expediency and staying off of the streets. Under the sound of all that gunfire, the shrieking and blasting of bombs, the stomp of boots and roaring of fires outside, she is able to take the whole route at full speed without worry, coming back just in time to glimpse through the broken bits of exterior.     So at an opportune moment, one of the blocked windows bursts inwards, into hundreds more pieces of half-remembered splinters and shards of broken glass, and a significant weight at a much more significant speed collides with the yellow-eyed thing, taking its gun arm straight to ground, like a jaguar from a tree, seizing the spine in its jaws.
Tamamo no Mae	Oh this isn't safe at /ALL/... Worse than trying to invade a certain Red Saber's area.     There's many small Seifer's around, one with a ball and another toy ANd places for children to hide and seek but the general air of the place is nerve wracking, upsetting and terrifying. Tamamo does /not/ like this at all, not one bit. Doesn't help her tail is frizzed with how ... strange this place is. Her mirror appears and starts to float around her, a modicum of protection should she need it.     "Flamel, what in the world...?" The gun arm goes up and fires and Tamamo moves her mirror in front of her to try and deflect the lasers that come hers and Flamel's way. At least until one of those windows bursts in. "Mikon?!" comes a surprised Tamamo's voice, as she peeks back from behind her mirror, dropping some talismans down from her sleeve into her hands.     She hands one of them to Flamel, "Just stick it on something and it'll light on fire. I'm sure you'll use it well." as Tamamo moves to toss the flame imbued talismans at the yellow-eyed thing, letting them self-immolate to try and catch this strange being on fire.
Xion	Xion points up. "That's a good idea, but even if the fear's down here... Seifer is up there. Do you really want to blow this *up*?" <J-IC-Scene> Majima Goro says, "...Xion, obviously I ain't just gonna use a knife on an accumulated monstrosity made outta Seifer's fear of his childhood wartime trauma." <J-IC-Scene> Majima Goro says, "I got a fuckin' bat too." Because Xion is currently using the power of Mashin Chaser, her psyche steadied by the feeling of Absolute Justice, she has not reacted to his swear words. Normally, she would, but this is special circumstances. She turns, bringing her elbow in before thrusting the medal forward - which shines purple. "Then I'll turn the key -- and reset this lost memory." She aims her brightening medallion at the 'sound'-source, the prowling monster of fear, and backs her thrust-out right hand with her left, as if pushing against a force. The purple light floods out like a lantern, before narrowing into a shelf-piercing cone. "Super X--!" (Pronounced 'Super Key') The medallion announces, meanacingly, "EXECUTION", and the simple purple light becomes a 'fshoom!' of narrowly-expressed force. The racks are un-harmed. The Barrels, untouched. There's no way Xion can miss this feeling. The only question is 'How Terrible An Idea Turning This Memory Off And On Again Is'. While she hopes the answer is 'Not terrible at all!', with a sinking dread, Xion bets it's going to be bad.
Seifer Almasy	DOWNSTAIRS                                      The shapeless thing and its horrid yellow eyes bears down on the party below. It is a raging thing, the sound of war assembled into a semi-solid nothing. Only by looking closely can they see the empty heart space, and they probably have more important things to worry about. It doesn't have claws and it doesn't have teeth and it doesn't have arms. It attacks with its shouts - its shouts of the sound of warfare up above. The shouts roll outwards. They punch holes in the barrels, leaking alcohol onto the floor. They punch holes in the already-damaged walls. They are cutting force, piercing force, the force of gunfire's bang-bang-bang, the force of screams that tear the ears. It is pure feeling, pure fear.      Xion transforms. Xion points force at the thing. Xion fires.      The force hits the creature dead-on, such that it is. It crackles. It goes purple for a brief, flickering instant. The eyes blink out of existence. The entity blinks out of existence.      Oh, good. It's gone. That means it's safe down here.      No, wait.      What emerges from the maze - what pushes out of the maze - is a soldier. Like the monster upstairs it's a cobbled-together mess of something wearing fears as a mask. It's long and spindly with swinging arms and an uncomfortable gait and it has a single glowing yellow eye that sweeps out sickly light upon Xion, Guzma, Majima, and the Pokemon. Where the light touches burns with the acrid scent of ammonia and pain. It has no visible weapons. It is the flashlight sweeping through the bar window. It is the silhouette outside walking past in the dark hours of the morning. It is the stranger peering in, looking for motion on patrols.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel can move fast. The high-speed mobility that comes with his levitation allows him to surge down the halls, and his invisibility should let him take the corners blind. The monster sees through it, though: Like many fears, it's impossible to hide from it, only possible to run. And Flamel will shortly choose that, instead. "Woah! It's an amalgam of fears-- I think Greg tried to eat bad memories and left enough fragments they just mashed together into this!" zHe answers Tamamo no Mae. Grabbing the talisman gratefully, he nods. "Gotcha!" It's basically thermite!     He works quickly in tandem with Priscilla. He's gotta hope that, while his invisibility can be pierced, it can still give him a little cover while he moves up fast. That gun is the core issue. Priscilla tries to slam it to the ground, and Flamel tries to strike while it's pinned, slapping the burning talisman on the surface. But this is a heavy fear. A deep phobia -- dozens of them, maybe. "This thing's beefy enough we might not be able to kill it *all the way* dead real quick -- I gotta move, and check the layouts! Can you keep me covered?" He shouts to the First, as he wrestles with the gun and the talisman. Unless she gives a counter-order, he's going to try to flee the beast and start gathering data from up above, among this mental debris... You know, it doesn't look far off from a blended connectome. Just way less material, and way, way more pain.
Seifer Almasy	UPSTAIRS                                       Priscilla busts through the window and pounces on the thing, and touching it *burns*. It burns like the fire outside. Even in Priscilla's chilling embrace it is hot and hellish. More than that, it's *smoky*, and it stinks. When its claws reach up to touch her it's sharp without even cutting, digging into flesh the instant it gets near, a burning, hissing cut that cauterizes on its own as it struggles to free its gun.      Caster's talismans - both the ones she delivers and the one Flamel delivers - help immensely. The gun starts to sizzle as Prisicilla holds it down and the fire burns. The flames on its legs keep it from pushing at Priscilla, from shoving her upwards. The flames on its claw arm hold it down. It's not dying, though - it's not dying at all. It's struggling furiously, and its yellow eye is fixated on the area directly above it.      The suggestion of a mouth opens. It moves to bite the thing on top of it as hard as it can. Which, as it turns out, is pretty hard, with those sharp, horrible little teeth. Its teeth are as hot as the claw, if not hotter.     Flamel books it upstairs. The roof is a clear memory, a safe-enough memory, as safe as anything gets in this childhood nightmare. It gives him a chimney to hide behind (or in) and a place to do his work. Rapidly he gets a sense of the area. There's safety out the back, if they can make it at a dead-ass run through a whole lot of dark woods that just sort of...are there, crammed up against the bar, though they do not belong. Past that point is an oasis of some safety. A breather. A place they can sit and work out more about the infection.
Majima Goro	"...Huh." Majima is...pleasantly surprised when whatever Xion just did with the weird medallion thing utterly obliterates the ghost. He looks to the Nobody, grinning madly as he pumps his fist. Y'know, the knife fist. "Heh. And ya thought I was gonna have to do shit about that! Nice job, Xion!" And then, a moment later, a Monstrosity. His singular eye widens. He stops posing victoriously, slowly turning his head. Something Else has pushed through. Something deeply unfortunate, that he would very much rather had not, in fact, pushed through. He rushes towards it whole heartedly, and then the beam of light lands upon him. He covers his face with his arms, but is still sent stumbling back a little. He spits, as if something is in his mouth. Was it blood? He doesn't know. Everything tastes like ammonia. "Agh. Fuck! Okay! Guzma! Get one of your bugs to distract that thing a second and I'll rip that eye out MYSELF!" He shouts, standing back up all the way. Hand to jacket. The snakeskin jacket flaps off in an non-existant breeze-- but, if he's lucky, in the direction of the Eye. Blinding it for a -second- would buy them some ^time.
Guzma	As the monster goes down, and the booze is revealed, Guzma sighs in relief - until the flashlight monster shows itself. At first, he considers a retreat, but Majima asks for an opening. "...you got it!" Vikavolt is commanded, and fires lightning into the light. If that doesn't work as a distraction, Guzma grimaces, takes a breath, and literally runs into the ammonia searing light, moving to get Majima his angle.
Majima Goro	It's time. Majima is not, honestly, about to let this thing go unassaulted. Not when he hasn't tried murdering the massive one. Guzma's given him an opening--and possibly paid a harsh price for it. He looks to the terrifying Heartless(?). He looks to all the barrels in the room. Deep breath, first, and he flares up with a purple light. The knife's in his right hand. In his left, something else glints with metal. "Neeehahahahah!" He rears up, and slashes right through one of the barrels of booze, coating his tanto in the alcohol. Maybe some of his arm. And then, the thing in his left hand flashes into fire--a lighter, which he casually throws down at the blade. It catches alight. So does his arm, to some degree, but he only slightly cares. Now armed with a blade of flaming justice, he leaps forward. ESSENCE OF FIERY LIQUID COURAGE That monster has one giant eye. Majima's very well trained in dealing with these. While the knife isn't necessarily built for massive strikes, he can absolutely drag along a liquid cornea, hopefully spreading liquid, flaming alcohol all over his foe while cutting its main means of attack into a blob of disgusting theory all over the ground.
Tamamo no Mae	With that little tag team helping, Priscilla's pounce and her Talismans really get to do a number, but it's still fighting. There's some more talismans coming from her sleeves, the chill eminating from the ordinary looking strips of paper. "Ruler, be careful please!" she shouts towards Priscilla as she launches those ice-imbused talismans towards the monster, trying to freeze it into place, either to let Priscilla kill it or for everyone to get to the safe spot Flamel mentioned.     Speaking of, after she lets loose, she starts towards the roof, dashing as fast as she can to get towards it.
Seifer Almasy	DOWNSTAIRS                                     Vikavolt blasts light with lightning and is met with that hideous stare, peeling away at the Pokemon's body as if it had been dipped in acid. Majima charges in to wrap it in his jacket, to blind it temporarily. The light hisses against the jacket. It's tearing through. He's got less than a second at best.      He puts it to fine use. The alcohol is alcohol - nothing specific, nothing with details like proof or taste, just the knowledge that a child has of alcohol's smell. He lived in a bar. He knows what it smells like.      The blade on fire goes into the eye.      It hurts like a bitch. Stabbing the eye straight through doesn't stop the light - can't stop the light - so Majima's burning blade means that Majima, too, is stricken with the agony of that burning gaze. There's no cornea here, nothing so solid - it's just a light, a wicked flashlight in the shape of an eye. But he keeps stabbing, and stabbing, as the light tears at his flesh, and the thing crumples to the ground, and he keeps stabbing and stabbing and stabbing again.      The thing sputters and dies, melting into black mist.      And...again, there's a sound from around the corner...      Massive hands against the barrels...a dark shape peering around the corner, beady little yellow eyes. Someone looking down over the bar, looking for anyone hiding, looking for the telltale signs of motion, but exaggerated, nightmarish in its proportions.      The thing resleeved again.      And now it is huge, swelling up to fill the space between the barrels. The light of Majima's flame does not reach it. It is a shadow blotting out the greyscale world.
Guzma	Vikavolt is immediately returned to ball as it whines in pain. As Majima slays the monster..."Sick! I thought that'd be harde-" It resleeves. Again. A peering dark shape, the barman. "Screw this, let's go!" Guzma moves to pull Majima back briefly, and then rushes up the stairs, but not leaving him and Xion behind. His goal is to get out to the others, and start looking for that oasis Flamel mentioned, before another monster attacks. This is going to be too exhausting for them if they fight every single one they see, after all.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel spends a while hiding in a chimney, holding his breath and trying to hide out of sight. He's not holding his breath to avoid the monster, he's holding it because he's in a damn chimney! He plants his index and middle fingers in their proper psychic position, and pulses clairvoyance... Aha! A good spot to observe the rest.     He feeds the OBJECTIVE LOCATION to the rest of the team's tactical equipment, or otherwise offers it to them via telepathy! That should get this moving.     He, himself, doesn't at *all* want to stick around here. And running back downstairs risks running right into that monster again! He was nearly shot to death. Can he dive off the roof into the woods, using his psychic levitation-parachute? He shimmies up the chimney and pops his head out to try to gauge it, and then dive if he's able.
Xion	Incapacitated by the recoil of her own shot, and the ensuing searing agony of the emotional light, Xion tumbles through a bite-hole in the bar in defiance of her own previous ability to treat that as solid ground, and hollers while falling. She drops back into mindreality on the staircase out with a bzznt of translocation, face white as a sheet and breathing hard. "If I had Seifer's power, I could maybe confront this fear, but...!" Guzma reaches out, and she grabs his hand, letting herself be carried back up to the bar and away from the fear, a bead of blood from her thumb running down the face of the Chase medallion from how hard she is clutching at it.
Majima Goro	Majima... Has to retreat. Not even in the fun 'this was a great fight, good job' way. Majima has to retreat because his actions are accomplishing nothing, and even though he's still got strength, it won't do anything. He's not happy. "Nn...nggah!" He shouts defiantly at the reforming fear, knife and bat both out. The bat's coated in alcohol, and set alight. He's going to leave. Oh, he's going to leave. But he's going to smash every barrel on the way out. If that monster wants to chase them, it can chase them through a flaming hellfire of alcohol. The constant sting of torturous light on his body is nothing. It's just pain. To feel useless in this moment--to know he *cannot* help Seifer right now... that's far worse. "...soon as I figure out how, I'm gonna rip every last one of ya out of my fuckin' buddy," He says under his breath. He retreats. He does not like it.
Priscilla	Though Priscilla has been through a few of these surreal and twisted mind-dives before now, the nameless thing, still without a true identity, that she attacks here, is quickly made unique amongst them for the sheer hostility of its discomfiting being.     Trying to shoot the others is, to an extent, par for the course for the kinds of hazards and fears and contaminants and nightmares that Flamel has often described. The way this one seethes against her, however, feels different. The way all the sensations of harm run together, such that teeth are fire and flames are toxic fumes. The patchwork suit of malice feels repulsive and unnatural even for something out of a dream; even for one as full of holes and pinched together as Seifer's.     Priscilla isn't a grappler, nor a particularly stompy BONUS BOSS. Shortly after tackling it to the ground, she is already up and off it again, rather than about to be bitten, burned, or shot. Sitting in one very obvious place is exactly how to squander the advantage of invisibility. She tumbles a short way down to the hall, partly to gain space, partly to put out the war-flames starting to smoulder on her clothes, but remains just close enough to then immediately lunge and check it right into Tamamo's freezing talismans, assuming herself far more resilient to, of all things, ice magic, than the yellow-eyed fear-wearer.     When the talismans activate, Priscilla shoves off and unleashes her breath weapon from the other side, using the creature's body and the tight walls to compress the swirling torrent of luminous frost and glittering ice, painting the area for meters around, only to burst on its own. She pauses just short of kicking it out into the street; as much as she'd like to see it freeze solid and shatter, Priscilla would rather not undo her own work and attract the rest here. She settles for flourishing out Moonlight and plunging it through center mass instead, going for the big juicy BACKSTAB MULTIPLIER up to the hilt, before then feeling it safe enough to wave Tamamo forward and after Flamel.
Seifer Almasy	CONVERGENCE                                     Priscilla's instinct is right. The creature freezes under Tamamo's assault, the ice shards wheeling around her in its wake. From there, Priscilla's dragon's-breath weapon sears it to the side, and a stab through with the Moonlight melts it instantly. There's no resleeving - it just dies in a burst of light, melting away with an agonizing, high-pitched, awful scream. And then they're off.     Tamamo, Priscilla, and Flamel are off the roof in no time. They land admist the leaves of the dark, uncomfortable wood as Guzma, Majima, and Xion come up through the basement's open door, a raging inferno behind them.      The wood, thankfully, is a psychohazard much saner and simpler than an infectious alien presence. This is just the sense of being lost, without purpose or home. Flamel can work with *that* easily and direct people through without much effort. It's twice as easy thanks to the psychic ping.      In short order the party emerges on a beach.      There's a small house sitting on a hill. The sky is still grey, but the light is warm and comforting. There are children running around. Most of them have faces slightly eroded, unpleasant to look at. The details have been ground away, sandpapered out, but they still *have* faces, at least. And there's a tall, young woman with a matronly sense watching over them, and a jolly fat young man sitting on the stoop of the house whittling. It's not hard to find Seifer himself - he's taller, now, maybe eight feet tall, a weird foam bat about the length of Hyperion in hand, and he is kicking the shit out of some little blonde kid somewhere the Matron can't see. A big brown-skinned kid and a cute white-haired girl stand watch for anybody coming over to stop him. There's a kid with black hair sitting alone, a girl with twintails playing around, a kid in a cowboy hat playing with a plastic gun, and a blonde girl only slightly older than Seifer reading a book. There's no sign of the infection here. It's a place of quiet peace, where the beating of the waves is gentle and the smell of salt is warm and refreshing.