>>34211209
HA HA! TIME FOR VIOLENCE!
... and nightmares, I guess

Ha ha time for THE END!

Oh boy, here we go.

So the time has come

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXhXBm2ASik

Just finished reading the archives OP. You do good work.

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You're lying on your back in the rain, and listening to the giddy, happy laugh of someone who's regained something they thought lost forever.

“You look like a drowned rat,” Madotsuki is giggling, poking your head gently as the cool, cleansing rain pours over you. “You're lucky I was willing to touch you, it was – oh man it was nasty!” She breaks into laughter again, fast little giggles of pure joyous shock.

You sigh weakly, content to just lie on the cold white sand and be rained on. The last few hours have been shock after shock, revelation after revelation, but now that you're reunited with Madotsuki it feels sufficient to just *be* here, safe and unmolested, listening to her happy voice. You tug at your jacket, throwing it wide open to let the rain clean out the horrid sludge that soaked you through.

You feel a small, ovoid lump in the jacket pocket, clear and distinct against the heavy, gradual curve of the Insulator. Slipping your hand in, you find it between thumb and forefinger. Could it be...?

The instant the thought crosses your mind, you feel it grow warm, ready to respond. You remember what Mado told you at your first meeting; the four effects she had to gather. “The triangle kerchief. The Faceless Ghost. The Severed Head."

Yes. Yes it is. You never collected it... but you did touch it. Is that all it takes? Apparently.

Now, what's required to use it?

Only one way to find out.

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>>34211635

Glad to hear it!

>>34211654
TRIPCODE PLS

>>34211654
I'm confused. Did we pick up the Nopperabou?

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“Hey,” you croak. “Mado...”

“Eh?” she asks.

You turn your head away and whisper, hoarsely: “water melon dog rat pigboy roofalots.”

“... huh?” she says. White sand crunches as she shifts, leaning a bit closer. “What did you say?”

Nothing, you think. You didn't say anything... because you don't have a mouth. You rub the little egg in your pocket gently, and it heats up, the Effect taking over. You don't feel anything, but when Mado gently takes your head and turns it her way-

“-EEHAAH!” she wails, scrambling away. Your private laughter is soon dispelled by her umberella, which descends upon you like a gigantic, waterlogged, and very angry bat, smacking into you with wet flapping folds over and over and over. You bring your arms up to defend yourself, which just makes Mado start thrusting, poking you in your sensitive spots with the little ball-protected tip.

“ASSHOLE!” she screams, her eyes afire and mouth set in a grim line, handling the umbrella in a professional two-handed grip, like a lance. She keeps poking at you as you struggle to dispel the Effect. “NOT FUNNY NOT FUNNY NOT FUNNY NOT FUNNY!”

“Yeah, well,” you gasp at last, the egg in your hand again, “you were freaking me out with all that laughing. I had to check, make sure it was really you.”

She gives you a sour look, then smacks you in the head with the umbrella before grabbing at your wrist. “The Faceless Ghost,” she says. “You found it.”

“I did, at that.”

“Then we're almost done,” she says, relief and excitement in her voice. “We can do this, Stark. All we need now is-”

“-the medamaude,” you finish, and you both fall silent, remembering who has it currently.

>>34211851
Man, screw the Dancer, we just killed the Bloody Touching Monster. That thing was the size of the sky and we still killed it. And we've already shown that the Dancer's fire doesn't work effectively against us. I think we can take him.

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>>34211720
yep!

>>34211987
I guess frantically reaching out to Mado's faceless doppelganger counts as collecting the effect. Or maybe it was the ghost we interacted with, that's how you get it in the game. Whatever, point is we just have to collect the Medamaude and we're home free. Which might be hard, given that the Medamaude allows for teleportation. Actually, thinking about it, it's very fitting for the Dancer to have the Medamaude, given that it likes to rearrange how spaces connect in the dream world. Might even be linked, that it's using it to empower itself or something like that.

>>34212123
Now I'm wondering if there might be some symbolism to all the effects taken from Mado. The Triangle Kerchief, Severed Head and Faceless Ghost all invoke aspects of death. Meanwhile the Medamaude is a means of escape that takes the form of a grasping hand. Feels like there could be some significance to that. Probably nothing that would help us, though.

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“What happened to you?” Mado asks after a moment.

You rub your head awkwardly, unsure how to answer. The images from the ghostly city still lurk in your mind, as foreboding and grim as the smokejumper's parting words. Madotsuki is within sight of the end, excited, eager, happy to have braved the gauntlet – but the greatest part of your fight is about to begin. You don't want her smile to fade, and its your burden to bear anyways.

“I got lost in a dark city-”

“-the ghost world,” she fills in immediately.

“Yeah. And I found my way back up, somehow.”

“Good,” she says, not wanting to question providence. “You just came out of nowhere, and – and you-”

“What happened to you?” you ask, putting more weight into the words then you'd intended. She looks away from you, her expression growing distant once more.

“Nothing that hasn't happened before.”

She stands up, offering you her hand. She's got to lean back, digging her heels into the sand to help hoist you up, but she manages, then hands you your axe, using both hands to heft it. She jerks a thumb over her shoulder at the desiccated remains of the monster, a gesture of casual contempt that doesn't require she look at it.

“It was amazing, Stark,” she says. “It was thrashing about like a lunatic, and then the eyes just... *empited,* she says. “Like a balloon someone punched a hole into.” You look over her shoulder at the ruined corpse; the gargantuan thing's massive body seeping bloody sludge from every inch of its dark, blubbery flesh. You eyeball your handiwork for a few moments more, then dismiss it with a curt nod. Resting your axe on your shoulder, you turn back to your companion. “Where to now, boss?”

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>>34212320
>aspects of death
>symbol of escape
>"You'll never tell him what you're planning,” it whispers in slick tones, every syllable seeming to slide out on slimy undertones.


r u a wizard m8

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Madotsuki grimaces and shrugs. “I don't know,” she says. “All we need now is the Medamaude, and...”

“Then take us anywhere,” you tell her. “The next logical exit. A path back to the Nexus. And that miserable fucker will probably find us.”
Madotsuki nods at that. “And when he does, we shank the hell out of him.”

You squint at her. “Where did you learn a word like that?”

“The TV gets a *few* channels,” she says.

“Like what?”

“Bad boys bad boys~” she sings in surprisingly clear tones. “Whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do-”

“Jesus Christ, Mado, next you're gonna sing Have Gun Will Travel-”

“Paladin, Paladin, where do you roam?” she sing-songs on cue.

“Oh god,” you moan. “Does it pick up daytime soaps, too?”

“... My Lord?” she prompts.

“M'Lady?” you reply immediately, and you both break out in mad little giggles. At last, the gap between you closed by death-defying heroics and bad daytime TV. What a wonderful world it is.

>>34212450

Mado be suicidal then? Wonder if we will be visiting certain candles soon.

>>34212450
Wait, Mado's planning the canon end? We can't let that happen! Okay, fuck. Well, we might be able to turn this around before the end. I hope.

>>34212603
It's what she does in canon. But I had thought...I don't know, that things were going to be different. I missed the signs. Damn it.

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>>34212603
>>34212608
>>34212643

That. Ending. Oh my god, I can't WAIT

>>34212643

Intrestingly she also tried to kill herself when she encountered that girl.
Since the hand is a symbol of escape, obtaining it might mean obtaining the escape for this end.

>>34212668
STAP IT

>>34212688
I hope so. God I hope so. It could make sense. The Dancer makes her collect reminders of her death, while keeping for himself the symbol of escape. Maybe we can get a good end. But Dougie did say that our capacity for love is going to hurt us...

>>34212643
>>34212603
>>34212608
Now now, remember what form the symbol of escape takes. A hand, reaching out for someone to grasp it.

>>34212757

>Get all death themed effects
>Automatic Bad End

We thought we were collecting the effects to fight the enemy. But we were manipulated the whole time to collect only the effects the enemy wanted us to.

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>Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR3ccmWmLhk
>Click “embed,” the video fits.

Madotsuki leads, and you follow, your strides long and confident. The once-foreboding landscape fades to dull background as you focus on the bobbing braids of Mado ahead. You let your axe dangle in one hand, parallel to the ground as you use this respite to slow down and *think,* for the first time. You line up everything you know about you and Madotsuki. You've had plenty of clues, glimpsed momentarily in the terror and chaos of survival, but the picture they paint is depressingly fuzzy. A depressing little cell of a room with technology decades out of date, and a feeling of watchful eyes. A dying world where a doomed man met a fallen angel in a dream; and tried to catch her. Groping, molesting hands everywhere you look. The noir-style cop in the squad car and his strange advice. And above all, the Dancer – an alien enemy come from without.

and in the dream he found me

You shudder. The Windmill World feels like the strangest part of this; your own journey, in a mirror darkly. But what linked them, the pilot, he must be and the fallen angel? What links you to Madotsuki Up There, in the waking world, that led you both into this shared dream?

Maybe everything will be clear after you wake up and your memories can give you context - enough to find her, make sure she's okay.

And maybe they won't.

>Ask Mado something? (specify)
>Let it ride?

>>34213079
>>Ask Mado something? (specify)
"So Mado, what you plan to do once we're out of here?"

>>34213149
Voting for this

>>34213079
>Ask Mado something? (specify)
Where is she from? She speaks English and knows American idiom and cultural references. But the names of everything related to her dream world are in Japanese. Does she just live in a predominantly-Japanese part of the States? We were a smokejumper, so it seems likely we live on the West Coast, home of many Asian-dominated communities. Could be proximity has a part in this.

>>34213079

Links huh? Probably has something to do with the situation you both face in the waking world. Mado herself stated that she thought this was the last time she could come to this dream in the first thread probably because of her planned suicide.I also remember that she wanted to prevent something from happening most likelly this suicide attempt Thus I assume what links the two of you is the need to avoid your demise.

What the hell am I talking about anyway, I don't understand shit about this thing.

>>34213079
>>Ask Mado something? (specify)
>"So Mado, what you plan to do once we're out of here?"
Yeah, going with this.

>>34213196

This

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>>34213196
>smokejumper
>west coast

You're on the right track there!

>>34213196
Actually, are we sure we're speaking english? We could as Mado what language she thinks we both are speaking, but that would go little too meta aswe have no obvious cause to ask.

>>34213079
Can we combine the two?
>>34213149
>>34213196

>>34213325
She just quoted lines from American daytime television so...

>>34213287
Hawaii, then?

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You turn the questions over in your mind for a good while. Its impossible to know if you'll be able to find Madotsuki in the waking world – if you're even going to wake up, yourself, or live long after you do. So anything you want to do or say, you'd best do now – while you still have the chance. So you clear your throat and ask the question that bothers you the most – about what that black-white bitch sneered just before Mado silenced her permanently.

“Mado,” you ask, “where are you from, anyways?”

She grunts, and shrugs. “Dunno, where are you from-”

“Don't gimme that bullshit,” you snap. “You remember a hell of a lot more about the waking world than I do; you've had practice.”

“Why do you want to know?” she asks.

“Whoooo killed the bloody touching monster?” you retort.

She sighs. “It hardly makes a difference-”

“Whoooooooooo killed the blooody touching monster?”

“Stark-”

“Whooooooooooooooo-”

“Washington,” she says. “The state.”

“So why did you nickname all the beasties down here in Korean?”

*That* stops her dead in her tracks. She turns to give you a fish-eyed stare over one shoulder. “Korean?”

You shrug. “Hey, when I visit Chinatown I just point at the menu with chopsticks, I don't know a Korean from a Kraut.”

She squints at you a little huffily. “Do I *look* Asian?” she says with a little bitterness.

“When you're soaked with blood and waving the knife, a little,” you say.

She tries to suppress her smirk under a frown as she kicks some sand at you. “Japan, you gigantic dweeb. I lived in Japan till I was ten. Then we moved.”

“Ah,” you say. “So!” You make a show of stroking your chin thoughtfully. “Soooo how about those Sailor Scouts, huh?”

She rolls her eyes as she turns away and continues leading. “Retarded.”

“Says you,” you reply. “When I was a young lad, the relaunch of that series made an ~impression.~”

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>>34213780

She half-turns to regard you with one hoisted eyebrow. “*Really,*” she says sardonically. “Really good 'voice actors,' huh?”

“Yeah, the dub was amazi-” you shy away, shielding your face as she spins and kicks a goodly shower of sand at you. “Okay, funny guy, that's enough blasphemy!” she cries, her smirk now struggling mightily to overthrow the perpetual frown. You raise your hands in mock surrender till she relents and leads on.

You've got her talking now, really talking, for the first time since you've met. This is the best chance you're liable to get. “So what's the first thing you're gonna do when you wake up?” you ask her.

“Probably write all this stuff down,” she says. “Like usual. The only way to make it stick. What about you?” She glances over her shoulder at you, repressed worry evident in her features.

“I'll deal with that when I get to it,” you say reassuringly. “I keep hearing radio messages in the static, down here – don't have a damn clue what they mean, but at least someone knows I'm in trouble, Up There. Once I'm awake I'm sure I'll make out fine.”

“Mmm,” she says, unconvinced. “Well, lets not waste any time, anyways.”

You wonder if you should press her further on what's going on Up There, in that nasty-feeling room of hers, but that'd be pushing your luck. You've got something to work with, now, scant as is. But you can still set a hook, just in case. “Mado... am I going to remember you after I wake up?”

She tilts her head for a moment, thinking. “Yeah. I think so. Especially if you write it down.”

“Okay,” you tell her. “After everything we've gone through... well...” you rub your head awkwardly. “Take care of yourself, kid. You're all right.”

“Thanks, dad,” she says dourly, but you can hear the warmth in her voice – and the catch.

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>>34213801

At last you reach another portal. Madotsuki stops outside of it, frowning with distaste. The doorway between worlds resides in a dome like one might find on an elementary school playground for the students to caper in and over and through, but this one's sporting arms and legs and stupid, googly eyes.

You're not going to miss this place. Not one god damned bit. Mado steps inside, and you hasten to follow.

"Where does this go?" you ask her.

"Block world," she says absently. "A lot like the teleport maze. Always thought they were...." Her voice trails off sharply as she stares at the ground, and looks around. "This path isn't right. It's different."

"Big surprise there," you mutter, swinging your axe off your shoulder and into a two-handed grip. Your eyes begin roaming through (yet another) dark void, searching for an attack coming from either side as you follow Mado down the narrow path of old, worn floorboards that leads into the distance. At length, the path turns into a staircase. Mado grips the lone bannister and takes the risers two at a time, with you hot on her heels, eager to reach more defensible ground before your Enemy manifests once more.

You keep scanning, left-right-"what the FUCK!?"

>>34213935
Did we finally meet Kyuukyuu-kun?

>>34214069
Seems so

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>>34213935

Something tall, thin, rainbow-hued and disturbing is looming next to the staircase, one blobby, indistinct arm reaching out for the bannister. Its rubbing the bannister with a smooth, steady rhythm, staring off into space with its simple face; dark voids for mouth and eyes, and little red dots as pupils. Its nothing special compared to the horrors you've seen deeper in the Dream, but something about the cartoonish visage TIME FOR TELLITU- offends you in ways you can't quite name; as if its too fucked up to deserve such an innocent masquerade.

It notices your notice, turning those stupid googly eyes in your direction. The mouth quavers a bit, and the hand speeds up.

"Squeak-squeak-squeak-squeak-squeak-"

>That squeaking is really, really really fucking annoying.
>Mado, uh, what the actual fuck?

>>34214177
>>That squeaking is really, really really fucking annoying.

>>34214177

>Mado, uh, what the actual fuck?

Personally, I'm of the opinion that Mado's building is on fire, and Stark was sent in after her, or any other residents.

>>34214177
>Mado, uh, what the actual fuck?

>>34214177
>Mado, uh, what the actual fuck?

>>34214177
>That squeaking is really, really really fucking annoying.
You know what, no. We're past the point of questioning the disturbing psycho-sexual imagery. We're just going to note its presence, make a blithe comment about it, and move on.

>>34214219
I think that was proposed a while back. I'm not sure that works, though, given that the fire is fully involved.

>>34214177
>Mado, uh, what the actual fuck?

>>34214219
I've been having that sneaking suspicion, too. It's at least one idea.

>>34214177
>>That squeaking is really, really really fucking annoying.

>>34214177
>That squeaking is really, really really fucking annoying.

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You eyeball the queer thing, growing more irritated by its mere existence the longer it looks at you. The cheerful rainbow hues clash with the vacant eyes; and the big goofy grin's a little too wide, a little too simple - almost salacious in its gaping, open-mouthed eagerness. It makes you think of a flasher in a clown outfit; something primitive and offensive cloaked in livery it doesn't deserve.

In short, a visible, leering insult.

"Mado," you grind out through gritted teeth. "What the actual fuck is that?"

Nobody answers. After a minute you turn to look at her. "Mado-"

She's staring up at the creature with blank eyes, all animation gone from her face. Her usually tense, squared shoulders are slack, and she seems to be staring through the thing.

"Mado?" you say, snapping your fingers in front of her nose. "Earth to Mado. The hell is that? Can I axe it a question?"

She slowly turns her blank gaze to you. "Don't bother. It doesn't work."

You wait for more, but she says nothing, a terrible, placid expression cloaking her features. You finally take her hand in yours and lead her up the stairs, towards the rainbow bastard.

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>>34214466
As you draw closer, the beast's attention switches to Madotsuki, its rubbing increasing even more. You feel Mado's hand crushing yours as you draw closer. You grit your teeth, fingers flexing on the hickory axeshaft, but yuu do nothing – you're so close, so goddamn close to the exit, it'd be stupid to tarry a moment longer than you need to. That just suits the purpose of the enemy, so you're going to stick it out, guide Mado past, and get the fuck out of here.

Right up until you step past the creature, and the big rainbow arm reaches out for the girl.

>>34214562
Oh hell no. We killed one giant rape monster, we can do it again.

>>34214562
What were the rules again with Mado? Do not touch?

>>34214562
Goddamn goofy penis monster. Quit being so unreasonably creepy.

That picture will haunt my nightmares.

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The creature keeps reaching, taking a good long second to recognize its arm has been halved. It's mouth warps and twists right about when you take off the rest, the axe flashing around in a one-handed, half-shaft grip, the hard hickory end smashing into its eye. The monster reels, a strange, keening sound coming from it. With two more swift blows, you sever a four-foot section of the bannister and knock it into the darkness.

“Never, ever, ever touch her,” you whisper with quiet malice, barely restraining an urge to leap off the staircase and slam your weapon as deep into that fucking clown as possible. You just continue climbing instead, Madotsuki wrapping both arms around yours, leaning on you heavily.

Well, doesn't this particular road lead to one place only?

>>34214797
Well, in the game, yeah. Who knows what the Dancer's done to this place.

>>34214815
Yeah, we shouldn't have even come here in the first place if the worlds were still linked up right. But they're not. We could wind up anywhere.

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Above, the staircase finally ends at a landing, bare save for a single portal – a door. A simple wooden-paneled door, no glowing runes or magic stones or eyeballs in evidence; identical to Mado's room. The warm weight on your arm suddenly redoubles as the girl's legs lose all their strength, sliding down your sleeve to kneel absently on the steps. Mado stares up at the door, her face draining pale with numb helplessness.

“Why?” she whimpers plaintively. “Why? Haven't I done enough? Why this? Why me?” She clutches at her hair and yanks on it, hard, her eyes slamming shut. “WHY ME? WHY? WHY IS IT ALWAYS ME? WHY WHY WHY WHY WON'T YOU LEAVE ME ALONE? I DON'T DESERVE THIS!” She keels over till her forehead bumps the risers, keening dreadfully.

You kneel beside her, still studying the doorway. Nothing seems remarkable, but Mado seems to think otherwise.

>Mado, its time to tell me what the hell happened to you.
>Mado, we're going through, one way or the other.

>>34215042
>>Mado, its time to tell me what the hell happened to you.

>>34215042
>>Mado, its time to tell me what the hell happened to you.
Time to learn the truth

>>34215042
>Mado, its time to tell me what the hell happened to you.

>>34215042
>Mado, its time to tell me what the hell happened to you.

>>34215042
>Mado, its time to tell me what the hell happened to you.

>>34215042
>Mado, its time to tell me what the hell happened to you.
Let's say it a bit nicer than that, though. More sympathetic, less demanding. She's about to FACE her fears, we don't need to make it any worse.

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>>34215042
>Mado, its time to tell me what the hell happened to you.
Here it comes

>>34215042
>>Mado, its time to tell me what the hell happened to you.

>>34215042
>Mado, its time to tell me what the hell happened to you.
Yeah - nice would be good - she's lookin' fragile right now.

>>34215042
>Mado, its time to tell me what the hell happened to you.

Whatever happens, whatever has happened, we're here for her.

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>>34215042

>>34215277
Yeah, sure, NOW it starts. Okay.

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>>34215383

>>34215542
Oh shit, Ron Paul is the dancing devil!

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>>34215640

I can't stop posting

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>theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPbj3xEZDFI

You reach out and wrap an arm around her shoulder, pulling her against your side, never taking your eyes off the door nor your hand off the axe. “Mado,” you say gently, “I need to know what's on the other side of that door.”

She shudders and buries her face in your jacket, beginning to sob.

“Mado, I need to know,” you tell her, squeezing her shoulders gently. “Or we're never getting out of here.”

“I couldn't stop them,” she confesses, her voice breaking as she wails into your jacket, arms wrapped around her midsection. “I couldn't stop them, Stark, I couldn't, I couldn't stop them but I tried and tried and tried and nothing ever worked...” she sniffles miserably, a bitter, defeated sigh slipping from her. “I told you,” she says, almost accusatory. “I told you. That's my door, Stark. I can't open it. I can never open it.” She presses a hand over her eyes, steadying her sobs with deep, deliberate breaths. “Stark, you've got to go. You've got to. You're running out of time.”

You look up at the door, the unassuming portal that defines and controls so much of Madotsuki's life. You rise, pulling her up with you. You take a step upwards. Mado goes limp in your arm, trying to drop on the spot, but you lift her like a feather, advancing up the dark stair with your charge in one hand and the axe, sharp and ready, in the other.

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>>34216057

“Stark, I can't,” she wails, hiding her face in your jacket. She's not resisting, or threatening you at knifepoint, or doing anything. Even when facing down Poniko, even before the gigantic, towering monster, she was never this utterly hopeless, curling up and giving up at the very thought of advancing. This is her heart of darkness, you realize – but there's no army of dead firefighters to aid her.

There's only you.

“I can't,” Mado pleads with you, desperate to make you see. “I can't open that door, Stark – I can't do it. I can't do it awake and I can't do it asleep, I just *can't!*”

“I know,” you say, your voice low and rough as you climb.

“No,” she says hastily. “No, Stark, every time you try that it blows up in your face. It's a trap, Stark!” She begins drumming her small fists against you frantically, trying to get your attention, like slapping a man in a daze. “There's nobody to save, it's a trap, you can't open that door, Stark!”

You draw near enough the door to study it carefully. The door seems to breathe like a living thing, bulging outward and withdrawing with a faint, almost inaudible creaking of wood. Little wisps of dark black smoke slip under the jamb only to be sucked back in again, like the nostrils of a sleeping dragon.

“That's where you're wrong, Mado,” you say with confidence, setting her down upon the step gently. “I still don't think I'm a hero. But I am good at my job, Mado. I'm the irons man – and I open the fucking doors.”

You hoist the axe in both hands and advance towards the landing above, ready to strike.

>You've got his number now. Ventilate, breach and decapitate that son of a bitch.
>He likes traps? We'll show him a fucking trap.

>>34216095
>You've got his number now. Ventilate, breach and decapitate that son of a bitch.

>>34216095
>You've got his number now. Ventilate, breach and decapitate that son of a bitch.

>>34216095
>You've got his number now. Ventilate, breach and decapitate that son of a bitch.

>>34216095
>You've got his number now. Ventilate, breach and decapitate that son of a bitch.

>>34216095
>He likes traps? We'll show him a fucking trap.
... I'm curious

>>34216095
>He likes traps? We'll show him a fucking trap.

>>34216095
>>You've got his number now. Ventilate, breach and decapitate that son of a bitch.

>>34216095
>You've got his number now. Ventilate, breach and decapitate that son of a bitch.
Don't drag this out. We can't do that to Mado. Let's just kill the fucker.

>>34216245

I'm worried this won't work though. If we charge recklessly and it backfires we'd be fucked.

>>34216291
I don't think it's a reckless charge. We're going to do this breach the proper way. We just won't try to ambush him.

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Called for ventilate and breach - the old-fashioned knock-down drag-out fight.

Every time irons man gets mentioned, Black Sabbath starts playing in my head.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LjbMVXj0F8

>>34216441
See, I keep thinking of Sounds of Silence and American Pie whenever we face the Dancer, due to what the detective said way back when. What was with him, anyway? Was that Dougie the Smokejumper? Or is there a third intruder in the dream space?

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>theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxdXhZbrdp8

The axe spins in your hand as you draw it back, the spiked end turning to the fore. You drive it into the black void ten inches above the door's top jamb, yanking it out with a splinter of wood. The darkness reveals a small, ragged hole with splinters emerging from nowhere; the six inches of invisible wall between doortop and ceiling. The air wavers and warps around it as superheated gasses come flooding out, the thick black smoke following after. The spike strikes again and again and again, riddling the sealed, superheated bomb of a room with holes, leeching its heat and siphoning its power up and away into the darkness. The door stops its buckling and breathing, the huffing and puffing of smoke vanishing with it. You gently try the handle – its warm, but not hot to the touch – and try turning it. Locked. You smile grimly – you've applied proper forced entry techniques enough times that the Dancer will be waiting for it.

Its time for something more dynamic.

You rear back and kick the door in with all your might, the two shattered halves flying across the room beyond, through the double-glass doors and out over the balcony beyond. You charge into the room, the Axe braced in both hands, your heart signing and eyes afire.

Rising from the darkness beyond the balcony is the Dancer, come to meet you.

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>>34216596

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>>34216596

Tendrils of smoke and licking tongues of flame fan out from its back like tentacles as it cavorts through the air, twisting and somersaulting off the balcony's edge to land at the shattered glass doorway. The room around you is a scorched and burnt remnant of Mado's little cell; the TV a ruined hulk of scorched ray tubes and the NES a still-bubbling puddle of plastic. The Dancer screeches at you, its mocking, wicked laughter quite gone now, then charges across the room, all its limbs lashing out violently.

You dive into a roll, under the first attack and springing over the second, swinging your axe in a vicious diagonal arc, giving the beast little room to dodge. It shies aside, the scratched red-painted axehead severing a few limbs neatly as it does. It screams in rage and drives a fist at your face, flashing in almost too quick to see.

>Block
>Grapple
>Counter

>>34216711
>Counter

>>34216711
>Counter

>>34216711
>Violate

But really,
>Counter

>>34216711
>>Counter
May I AXE you a question!

>>34216711
>Counter

>>34216711
>Counter

No matter what happens, we've got fun times ahead!

>>34216711
>Counter

Time for a showdown.

>>34216711
I wonder if it's okay for us to do all the work here.

I mean if she wakes up and we're not there, she's gonna have to learn how to carry on else...

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Almost.

He, however, never sees your counter swinging in from the side, and you've got a slightly longer reach. Your jaw goes numb as the bastard connects, but your left cross snaps his head 'round with a gunshot report, sending his too-light body smashing through the jagged remains of the glass doorway and denting one of the rusted, scorched AC units on the roof outside. You're close behind, the axe in one hand, crowbar in another as you charge. The tentacles smash into you from all sides, slapping at your eyes and catching your heels but your sheer momentum can't be denied, carrying you through the blows and into the awful bastard, his thin, bony body burning you through your jacket. The crowbar comes around, the hooked end aiming for his neck, but his feet come flying up, the knees bending the wrong way as he kicks you up, sending you slamming into the wall over the doorwall. He's gone by the time you crash back to the rooftop, shooting under your legs and back into the room.

Back towards Mado.

>Wow, sucks to be him.
>Nope.png.avi.jpg.gif

>>34216940
>Wow, sucks to be him.
Blood and thunder, Mado. Blood and thunder.

>>34216940
>>Wow, sucks to be him.

>>34216940
>Wow, sucks to be him.

>>34216940
>Wow, sucks to be him.

>>34216940
>>Nope.png.avi.jpg.gif
Fuck you dude, you are gonna die.

>>34216940
>Wow, sucks to be him.

Bad decision.

>>34216940
>>Wow, sucks to be him.
And then the Dancer realizes he's between a hammer and an anvil.

Bring some of those nasty effects to bear, Mado. Knife him. Use snow magic. Turn your hair into poop and rub it on him, even. You are not powerless.

>>34216940
>Wow, sucks to be him.
Yep. This is gonna end well for him.

>>34216940
Give her a thumbs up and a wink to indicate we believe in her.

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You drop into a kneeling stance, sturdily braced but ready to spring as the Dancer flees out the doorway to the staircase.

You wait.

A second later, it comes flying back in when Mado hits the bastard like a missile in her characteristic two-handed lunge. She can't weigh more than ninety pounds, but the Dancer weighs even less – they actually arc slightly as they traverse the doorway and slam into the floor, charred remnants of that ugly rug crunching beneath the Dancer as Mado heaves up over the blade, trying to bury it in the burnt floorboards and pin the bastard down. Several smoke tendrils whip towards her, slamming into her midsection and flinging her across the room like a rag-doll.

You're already charging, the axe swinging down upon it when the smoke tendrils *explode,* the blast smashing you into the ceiling so hard you hear timbers cracking – or maybe your spine. You come around on the floor a moment later, minus your axe. The room is completely filled with choking, impenetrable black smoke, stinging your eyes and burning in your lungs. Somewhere in the room you feel the heat of the fire tongues lashing and thrashing, but you can't see an inch before your eyes.

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>>34217426

THE FLEEEEEESSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH a voice screeches, a vibration come from every smoke particle in the vile cloud choking the room; a slithering sibilance that infests the fabric of space itself. GIIIIIVVVE MEEEE THEEEE FLEEEEEESSSSSSHHHH

You grope for your crowbar, only to find it gone. Gaining your feet, you lunge out to find a wall, only to feel a painful burning ache as a flame-tendril whips into your shins and sends you sprawling, leaving you again clueless to your position in the room.

FLEEEEEEESH YOU STUBBERON CUNT, THE FLEEEESH, GIVE ME YOUR FUCKING FLEEEEEEAAAAAHAAAH~ its voice coalesces from the smoke like a poison dew only to climb away in a maddened, pained screech.

“LIKE YOUR FRIEND, LIKE THAT CUNT, YOU CUUUUUNT YOU'RE EVERYONE'S CUUUUNT GIVE ME THE FLEEEEESH, YOU'VE FALLLLEN LIKE THE REEEEST GIVE ME THE FUCKING FLEEEEEEE-” the screech of madness vibrates in every timber of the room and fiber of your soul, a screech of awful, hungry wrath.

In a blinding flash of light, the darkness is dispelled.

>>34217453
Yeah, no way that was anything other than its first form. We were promised three bosses and we've only fought two.

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>>34217506

THAT. FUCKING. ENDING, MAN.

>bievers nam

WELCOME TO 'NAM

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>>34217506

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A nimbus of pure-white radiance, piercing and beautiful flares furiously, bright rays slicing through the thick smoke and outlining the walls in hazy brilliance. In one corner you see the bright outline of Madotsuki's body, prone, her knife braced against the torso of a dark silhouette – the Dancer, who's sitting atop her, yanking something in twain over Madotsuki's chest.

You can't find your axe. You can't find your crowbar.

You don't need them.

As soon as you think it, you do it, the shock of impact vibrating with wonderful pain up your arm and through your spine. The Dancer's ugly skull embeds itself in the wall – until you rip it out by the leg and smash it into the floor. Flinging yourself atop it, you start slamming your fists into its awful, horrid face over and over, the wooden floor splintering and cracking under your mighty blows, embedding the Dancer's head too deep for it to escape. You faintly feel welts rising on your back as the flame-tongues latch on, wrapping around your torso in a death-grip, trying to slowly cook you to death through the protection of your Patch. You accept the invitation, the straight-up endurance test, and keep slamming away.

The light source shifts, and in a flash of brilliant light off clean steel, Mado's knife drives clean through the beast's head, pinning it down. You leap off it, reaching up to find your axe by instinct, its spike embedded in the ceiling where the blast flung you. It tears free as your hands catch the hickory shaft, and as you fall you swing it down onto the monster's wrist with all your might.

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The world vanishes as the blade bites home, a mortal, maddening bellow vibrating in your sternum as your vision goes black. And then the darkness explodes in light, a vision beamed straight to your brain, a presence that bypasses the senses – a God, a Demon, an entity not of this realm. The swirling symmetry of cosmic order, of magnetic fields and gravity waves and galactic expansion shimmering and shining before you, an awful, mighty face emerging from them, staring at you, its palpable, maddened rage blasting you like a blowtorch, scouring away the soft bits of your brain till only your defiance remains.

THE FLESH
the flesh THE angELS flesh THE flesh FleSHangeLSf
flheshtehhltehflethelieattheflesh eatheflesh I eat ialwaysEat
falltheyfallIeathefleshtheyfall
falltheyeatfleshangelsIflesheat

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And then it's over.

You and Madotsuki lie, exhausted, on the scorched floor of the destroyed chamber, gasping for air. Between you lies the severed hand of the Dancer, a rolling eyeball in the center of its palm. The Medamaude.

Mado sits up when you do, her face bruised and soot-smudged, her pink sweatshirt torn apart below the collar, revealing the still-shining medal of St. Florian resting between her modest brassiere-clad bust. She reaches out for the Medamaude with one hand, grasps yours with the other – and you *move.*

A moment later you're both standing in the Nexus once more, centered in the ring of doors, the heart of the Dreamworld. Ahead of you stands the door to Mado's bedroom – intact, untrapped, and waiting.

“We did it,” Mado says with disbelief. “We... we actually did it.” The Medamaude makes an odd squishing sound as it hits the floor, and then she turns out her skirt pocket, a rain of little miniatures and small round eggs bouncing about as they land. “We did it,” she repeats, still trying to grasp the fact. “We... we did it.”

She stares at the floor, now littered with the Effects – more than you knew she had, a veritable armory of odd things still bouncing and rolling. She looks up at you, an inscrutable expression in her brown eyes – and then she leaps at you, wrapping her arms around your neck.

“Stark,” she whispers, and kisses you on the cheek. “Thank you. For everything.”

>Parting words: what say?

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POST FASTER OH MY GOD CAN'T CONTAIN THE HYPE

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>>34218291
>Y-you too.

>>34218448
Because posting like that doesn't mean something awful isn't gonna happen.

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>>34218487
>mfw that image

>>34218291
I'd say it was fun, but we both know that's a lie. Still, I don't think I could have done it without you.
>>34218487
Last thread he said triple boss battle, and I count two bosses.

>>34218291
"Yeah its been a long and dangerous journey, but it was fun going through it with you... lets share our stories with each other if we happen to cross paths in the real world Madotsuki"

>>34218291
"Mado, I've wanted to tell you something for a while now, but we've had more pressing things to focus on, but now, I just want you to know...

... That you were absolutely adorable when you were tiny in the sewer, seriously, you do not know how hard I was trying to keep myself quiet."

>>34218291
>Parting words: what say?
"It was my pleas...no, that's a lie. This was not a pleasant experience at all, if I'm being honest. But I'm still glad I had you with me all the way through it. You're so much stronger than you give yourself credit for, Mado."

>>34218655
That seems good.

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You wrap your arms around the slender girl, lifting her heels clear off the floor in a bear hug. “You too, Mado. You were strong, when I needed it the most. I'll never forget you, ever."

You release each other and step apart, taking one last look at each other. She's a cute little thing when she smiles, even banged up, soot-stained and half-dressed. You can't say as much for yourself, but she beams at you like you're a Renaissance painting anyways.

“Ready to wake up?”

“Hours ago,” you say earnestly. She slips her dainty hand in yours, and you walk/limp together out of the ring of doors, advancing to the plain wood-paneled portal that leads to her room.

You grasp the knob together.

"One more thing, Mado..."

She glances at you, her eyes open and expectant.

"... you were frikkin adorable when you went all mini, like, you don't even know," you blurt out, and yank the door open to the blinding bright light of-

Awakening.

THE ENOPE

>>34218504
We get it, everything was, is, and will be on fire.

>>34218291
"Don't do anything stupid out there... but then again if you do, I'll be sure to be on the otherside to catch you, "kiss her on the forhead" stay save madotsuki"

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>>34218691

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>>34218691

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>>34218691
THE HAPPENING IS NOW

Maybe the fire we're trapped in is going to be our final boss? It would make sense.

Don't forget about the turbocharger

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BEEP BEEP BEEP

… please go away.

EEEE-OOOOH! EEEE-OOOH!

mother-FUCKER that is loud, piercing your poor goddamn aching dome like nobo-

You surface through the thundering, aching headache, your eyelids fluttering open. A steady, billowing stream of fast, gray smoke is streaming through a hole over your head. You're lying on concrete in a dark place, but bright neon words hover over your vision, clear and crisp.

>REMOTE UPLINK FAILED

You eyeball the strange message as you struggle to a sitting position with a whine and whirr of aching joints, your dizziness slowly fading. You cough weakly as you scan the instruments: oxygen good, power low, and the radio links sketchy at best.

>REMOTE UPLINK RESOLVING...

The little fan-like radio icon blinks for a few seconds, then turns red.

>REMOTE UPLINK FAILED

“ello?” you croak.

“Starky!” someone shouts. “HE'S AWAKE! Starky, get out, get out now, we're losing the building!”

You stagger to your feet as you engage emergency medical, the stims clearing the lingering ache from your mind. You glance at the ceiling above, and see where you fell through – the floor joists on either side of the hole have been neatly sawn into, creating... another trap.

“GET YOUR FUCKING ASS IN GEAR!” someone's screaming into your radio, the sheer, brunt rage and authority powering right over any static, on the comms or in your head. “FAST TEAM IS COMING IN, YOU GET YOUR ASS MOVING PROBIE!”

You call up the blueprints by reflex, obeying the command. The diagram flashes onto your HUD, turning around for a 3D view of the structure.

A long, slender five-story redstone.

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>>34219476

You zoom in on the penthouse suite – the one with the balcony provided by the roof of the fourth-floor below. Notes flash into existence, noting the presence of a swamp and a drainage pond near that edge, preventing access by ladder trucks. With another button press, you get a faint overlay of the actual fire, fed from thermal cams and drones outside; the information fuzzing and fitzing about as your radio connection struggles to maintain uplink.

The building is fully involved. The master streams can't reach you in the basement; you must find your own way out.

You feel the laugh bubble up from deep within you, flat and rough sounding inside your face-mask. Five stories of flaming compartments, smoke-obscured hallways, fire-weakened structure and probably more traps. The building's close to structural failure; and the ladder trucks can't reach Alpha-Delta for extraction. Not even the irons man, first in and last out, can brave that gauntlet and expect to live.

But you're Ryan Renyold Starkweather, probationary firefighter of the SFD, and you're not just the irons man.

You are the fucking Iron Man, and you're fully equipped.

“Emergency Override,” you rasp through a dry throat. “Alpha, Baker, Delta, Delta, Romeo, Seven Five Foh-war-Five.”

There's a hum and a chirp, and you hear a faint electric whine whistle through your earphones.

“Override Acknowledged,”a smooth artificial voice replies. “Emergency power initializing... online. Voltage limiters disengaged. Haptic safety systems disengaged.” It pauses for a moment as the diagnostics finish.

“Turbocharger online,” it confirms.

No man can reach Madotsuki's room in time to save her.

But a Cyberdyne Systems ER-17K rescue exoskeleton will work just fine.

>>34219526
FUCK. YES.

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>>34219201

attaboy

also sorry that took so long, the spam filter is a prick

>>34219563
POST FASTER DAMN YOU MY BODY HAS BEEN READY FOR THIS ALL DAMN DAY

>>34219526
Oh hey, we were right, we are in her building. Fun.

Okay, we need some epic music for this. I hope you've got a good soundtrack picked out. Because if you don't I'm just going to start posting the theme songs for the Tomica Hero Rescue series, in all its weeaboo glory.

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>>34219526

You size up the situation on your HUD. You're located in the center of the rather long, thin structure (almost a spite house, every firefighter's nightmare,) and the quickest way to the penthouse is up the elevator shaft. But your thermal imager is detecting hot, strong-burning rooms all around, and the quick fast smoke flow through the hole above you tells you that this room has ventilation - any doors you open moving through the basement will feed any flames you leave behind, and the building's engineering equipment is all down here. You could jump back to the first-floor and head for the shaft that way, but you risk falling through more burnt - or sabotaged - floor joists, possibly into something very nasty.

You heft your axe in both augmented, power-gloved hands. It's time to move.

>Go through the basement.
>Go through the first story.

>>34219665
>Go through the first story.

>>34219661

Coming up next post toot toot~

Feel free to post music anyways, though!

>>34219665
>Go through the first story.

It's so fucking happening right now.

>>34219665
>Go through the first story.

>>34219665
>Go through the basement.

>>34219665
>Go through the first story.
What kind of power armor doesn't come with a jetpack? Even one designed for rescue and not warfare? Shameful. Still, we're going up.

>>34219665
>>Go through the first story.

>>34219665
>Go through the first story.
Rather risk falling than risk burning all the equipment.

>>34219704
https://youtube.com/watch?v=OBwS66EBUcY
This is playing in my head right now.

>>34219764

Good taste!

>theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP3oZu0Eo5s

You crouch down, the servos in your legs whining as their voltages wind up, preparing to deliver the torque you'll need. With a single, massive leap you spring up through the hole and land with both feet near the doorway your FAST team was trying to walk you towards on remote-control when the floor gave way. You burst through, running through the hallway towards the source of the thin, fast-moving smoke streaming away overhead. The LADAR and thermals overlaid guide you through the choking smoke, already banking down towards the floor. You take a flying leap and soar over a hotspot in the floor, picking up speed and momentum as you barrel down the length of the building.

The crackle-snap of weakened wood is the only warning you get as the floor gives way underneath you, within sight of the elevator doors. You swing wildly with the axe, embedding the spike in the floor ahead as you plummet downwards. Heat sensors spike as flames dance up all around you, and your blueprint overlay shows, to your horror, that you're directly above the heating/cooling room. You haul yourself out of the gap in a moment, the incredible strength of the exosuit powering you along. You rip the nearest apartment door off the wall and fling it at the hole, than another and another and finish with a smoldering dresser, burning brassieres flying everywhere as you seal the hole – and the air supply – as best you can. This fire's air-controlled now; god knows it's got enough fuel.

You make for the elevator.

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The metal doors screech and cry as you slam your axe's spike home and pry them open in one powerful move, the exoskeleton seeming to flow like water. The turbocharger is an overboost system; a backup hydrogen power cell coupled with over-volted servomotors and complete disabling of the haptic feedback safeties. The suit is no clumsy master-slave system, with the robotic limbs slowly following your movements – you control it directly, like a second body through a MMI brain-wave reading helmet. Usually the haptic safeties prevent it from moving faster than you can, physically; which also prevent the suit from dislocating hips or ripping arms right out of the socket.

But with that disabled, you are truly superhuman, your flesh-and-bone body simply along for the ride – and down in dreamland, you grew quite comfortable with that enhanced ability.

The elevator's half-sagged into the basement, so you crawl over the roof to get inside the shaft. Looking upwards into the dark, smoke-filled chimney, you see drifting specks and embers from higher floors drifting and falling and rising a towering, slow-motion cyclone of fire embers dancing in the dark.

Stowing your axe, you seize the hot, greasy elevator cables in both hands, and you CLIMB.

Wouldn't our best bet be to wait directly underneath her near a window, to grab her when she inevitably jumps off the balcony?

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Your legs sway side-to-side beneath you as you fly up through the darkness hand-over-hand, carrying Mado's future upwards on your back for a third time. Your HUD tracks your upward progress as you pass the first floor, the second, then the third. The thick concrete walls of the shaft block all external links; you've got no idea how the fire's developing, or what you'll find when you exit on the fourth floor, where the shaft ends.

You're just approaching the last floor, its metal doors sealed shut, when a thunderous explosion slams into the building from below. You sway on the cables as the shock rips through the building – something in the basement's let go, probably a BLEVE from the water heater. You keep climbing, fast as possible, your joints aching distantly as the exoskeleton presses past the limits of flesh.

That's about when the firebox goes up.

Some more music while we wait: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2hRTLdvdnk

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You see the movement below you in the rear-view feed, hurtling up the shaft like a bullet down a gunbarrel as the secondary fuel-air blastwave thunders up the tunnel below you. You think, and the exoskeleton moves, flinging itself towards the closed metal doors, both servogloves already flattened into knife-hands, tearing the doors open and diving through almost in one motion. The shattered elevator car follows a moment afterwards, smashing into the ceiling of the shaft and falling back town in a cacophony of sundered metal.

The hallways are a dim hellscape of smoke and flame; the Stygian nightmare of bright licking combustion shining through the banks of smoke neatly overlaid with the cold, bright surrealism of the FLIR/LADAR. It feels like the dream again; running through an endless hallway filled with strange colors and sounds as you watch the air track above, following the smoke. Your GPS locator's no longer functioning and the inertial backups were proper fucked about ten strong jolts and quick dives ago, but you don't need them.

The Dancer – the *arsonist* - was trying to kill Mado. Still is. Fire climbs. He'd light his pyre as close to the penthouse suite as possible; and flame always follows the smoke.

You follow the smoke.

The stairwell doors have been propped open; with a snarl you kick the stoppers out and seal the shaft again as you ascend to the fifth story. Looking up with dismay, you find the upper half of the long main hall completely stuffed with slow-drifting, thick, dark smoke – the kind that likes to explode, violently. The fire's been here already; all around your FLIR reveals white-hot compartments starved of air, smoldering half-burnt fuels into the air as they wait patiently for some idiot to introduce more oxygen. Your bunker gear's thrice as heavy as normal; courtesy of the exoskeleton, but you still have to move fast.

Because the hydrogen power cell's running low, and its temperatures are rising.

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You go thundering down the length of the hall, retracting your route from the journey in the Ghost World, the dark, smoke-filled hall seeming to stretch out before you once again, impossibly long as your strides turn into loping leaps, clearing ten feet at a time. Every second stretches into an eternity as you push the exoskeleton and your own body to their limit, hurtling down the long, dark tunnel where someone needs you, and needs you now. The suit status monitors are growing from yellow to red as the servomotors begin to overheat, but you ignore them – you'll only need them for a minute or two more.

You skid to a halt, your armored boots gouging the floorboards as you finally come to the last apartment – the penthouse suite. Instead of low-rent cubbyhole apartments, this one's laid out like an old shotgun house, a series of rooms that span the entire width of the building, with a central living room/kitchenette in the center.

At the rear is the master bedroom – Mado's room.

The thermals are glowing like mad as you approach the door – the interior has already flashed over and is patiently smoldering. But there's no sucking, no puffing, for there's scant air behind you to feed it. The hallway and its lethal smoke-gas are colder, but even if you're quick you might release enough heat to detonate it when you breach.

Or you could smash through the floor, find an isolated compartment below, and come up through the floor – but you risk whatever unknown perils wait below.

>Go underneath
>Go through

>>34220819
>Go underneath

>>34220819
>Go through

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>>34220912
>>34220913

ITS HAPPENING AGAIN

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>>34220819
>Go underneath
Oh god, both choices scare me.

>>34220819
Go underneath

>>34220593
>Go underneath

>>34220819
>Go underneath
We can't risk it.

>>34220819
>go through

>>34220819
>>Go underneath
We can't risk blowing Mado up.

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You pause for a heartbeat to size things up – going through might be faster, but if you use your halligan bar to effect a proper forced entry, keeping the door relatively intact and the heat mostly in, you'll lose a lot of time.

And brute force doesn't cost you much time, not now.

Gripping the heavy axe in both hands, you wind up with all your immense strength and slash at the floor, the weapon smashing through floor joists and supports like tissue paper. Three quick, brutal attacks open a ragged triangle in the floor that you kick out with one armored boot, then drop down.

You find yourself in a tiny cubbyhole apartment, the door open to the flaming, debirs-riddin hallway. The floor's uneven; the building's losing strength rapidly, the fire self-ventilating now – things are changing very, very fast. You have to keep moving. You kick your way through the tiny place, picking up an entire refrigerator and hurling it out of your way as you book for a tiny closet nearby. The bookcase behind you is smoldering, pages crisping up to reveal their unmolested neighbors. The dinette set is charred, but the sofa -

- oh the fucking sofas, there were a lot of them, and that's -

Above you, a curtain of flame appears, rolling overhead as it creeps along the ceiling.

>>34221097
Whoops.

>>34221097
Well, shit. Sofas, you ruin everything.

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The moment seems to freeze in time, the terrifying, beautiful sight burnt into your retinas as the servomotors scream to make your thoughts reality. They spread and roll like upside-down waves, churning in and in on themselves even as they move outwards.

You drag the refrigerator upright as you hurl yourself backwards into a little alcove, the heavy appliance wedging firmly against walls and ceiling as the entire room flashes over, every single combustible thing exploding in flame at the same time. In the tiny space you can't swing the axe, so you simply smash your armored gloves through the ceiling till a hole opens, then drag yourself up.

You're in the central living area of the penthouse apartment; and it still seems to have air, according to your sensors. A thin haze of gray smoke skirls around the ceilng, and a smoke alarm is screeching with shrill propriety. FLIR picks up nobody in the neighboring compartments. You advance past the creaky old armchairs, debris-piled coffee table and kitchenette, heading for the living room beyond – the last room between you and Madotsuki.

And who should you find waiting for you but your old friend, the backdraft.

>>34221213
Well shit. Especially because there's no way she's gonna be there when we open that door.

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>>34221213

You approach cautiously, your hammering panic and cold reason trembling in a tense balance of opposing forces. The FLIR shows a hot compartment, and you can see the sucking and puffing of smoke near the bottom - but its faint, and there's only one room worth of air behind you (for now.)

In your first working fire, a backdraft nearly killed you. You've feared them ever since, and some started calling you a dancer for the way you'd shy away from any door emitting smoke. For a moment you feel the old terror, the desire to stand around and examine and second-guess.

And then you remember Madotsuki.

The axe-spike and halligan bar are punching through the sheetrock before you realize you've unlimbered them, high, near the ceiling. Hot smoke and gas come streaming out (dark, unburnt, explodable stuff, of-fucking-course,) as you ventilate the room. You rev up the umbilical prope, the teensy motor whirring diminutive as it drills an airtight hole in the door, and monitor the sensor feedback, waiting for the interior fuel/air/heat conditions to slip below the lower-explosive-limit. You crash through a half-second before it hits "only mildly terrifying," trusting to luck and the need for speed. The room is unrecognizable, a smouldering hellscape, and you feel the intense heat right through your triple-rated bunker gear.

Ahead is the door to Mado's room, the door she could never open. The gateway between life and death, waking and dreaming.

You bring the axe down with all your might and obliterate the jamb from ceiling to floor.

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You find Mado's room as you remember it – the bed, the desk, the TV, the corners as you jerk around frantically, looking for her desperately as your heart thunders in panic. And then, through the glass doorwall, you see her. She's standing with her back to the flaming building, a jet of licking flame already eating through the floor behind her, the big AC units sagging as the supports below give way. She's standing on the balcony, looking out over the free air, her chestnut pigtails blowing in the wind.

It all clicks in that one perfect second – the ghostly effects, Madotsuki's literal and metaphorical deaths in the dreamworld, her traumas, her plans, the Medamaude, the hand and the eye, her enemies, in one neat package; agency – to escape, the only way she knew how. The fluttering parachute canopy, the well, and the straw sandal with no footprint beneath it, the sudden creaking of the glass doorwall as the pressures change, as the fire breathes and sucks and prepares to roar – the dragon and the window and the chute and the fall and it all just *clicks.*

Madotsuki steps off the balcony.

>>34221413
And now we don't save her because she's either already dead or had already jumped off the balcony and landed safely thanks to those stretched out cloth things people use in these situations.

So she's safe, but we're dead because our love for her blinded us to the possibility that she might not need us to save her.

Roll credits.

>>34221623
>>34221605
Nope, guess we're doing the "one second too late" thing, unless our robot suit is a lot faster than one sad little girl.

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>>34221605

>>34221605
Come on. Come on, Starkweather. We are having a happy ending, damn it. Happy. Fucking. Ending. Now go save the girl.

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Time ceases to register. The future, the past – now, then – don't matter. You know each millisecond before it happens; you've seen it before already. You already know how this goes, and if you know it, the suit makes it so. Madotsuki hovers in air, her other foot just beginning to slip from the railing when the glass doorwall crazes and flies away like a slow-motion kaleidoscope. She seems to hover in air as the explosions thunder and roar in the hallways far behind you, the fourth-floor fires finally burning up into the volatile smoke-gas above, blowing every door and barrier asunder.

She hovers in air, one hand reaching out for the clouds hopefully as gravity claims her, her tiny arc reaching apogee and beginning the downward plummet to her death.

>>34221677
We should have stayed underneath and just waited for her to jump, and then intercept her descent.

Though I guess in-character at least it's easy to dismiss that she was totally going to jump off that balcony.

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>>34221765

>>34221769
Though assuming we do catch her, our suit is about to explode so I'm not sure what that's going to gain us.

Did she flied?

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You see her tears hovering in air, floating free with her, one hand clutching a ratty notebook to her chest as her hair just begins to float up about her face, an angel's holy halo. The moment lasts forever, and ever, and ever.

And then you catch her from behind.

She slams into your chest with a wonderful thud, your arms closing around her as your momentum flings your combined arc out and away, just dipping below the roofline when the backdraft finally arrives, a thundering fireball blowing out through the shattered glass doors of Mado's room, its brilliant violence clear on your rear-view feed.

The moment lasts forever.

>>34221875
Well, we got Mado, so that's one more thing prevented.

Now we just have to survive falling five stories, followed by a collapsing, burning, exploding building.

Bring it.

>>34221933
>we
Nah, she does.

I'm pretty sure there's a reason you don't use the turbocharger so much.

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You jacknife violently, starting a slow-motion foreward somersault as you ready your legs, picturing the coming seconds in your mind as vividly as possible, rehearsing the imaginaton your robotic limbs will soon make fact. You tumble through the sky as you plummet, tightening your arms around Mado as best you can, clutching her to the inside of the exoskeleton, against your soft skin and yielding flesh, the last, shock-absorbing line of defense. The tumble was timed perfectly, your smokejumper's experience serving well.

You brace as the ground rushes towards you.

>>34221952
It was mentioned earlier, it drains the fuel cell and overheats the suit. Which means we're probably going to lose functionality soon, weighing us down with our gear.

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Impact.

The energy thunders into the earth, your ankles and knees and arms all giving as one as they absorb multiple Gs of impact force a fraction of a second before your shoulder smashes into a rock as you roll forward, keeping the girl inside the cage of your arms and legs and exoekeleton. You roll again, and again and again down the slope of the retention pond. There's a thunderous splash, then a nimbus of brackish water and slick slimy pond-plants flying through the air above you.

And then, at long last, everything is quite silent. You close your eyes, numb to everything, willing even your heart to still until you can hear -

- the sound of Mado's breathing.

“.... what,” she says weakly.

“A pile of my own shit,” you say with casual authority. “Ten stories high.”

And then you begin to laugh.

>>34222061
3rd bossfight nao pls

>>34222061

And with that, we conclude the main story of Yume Nikki Quest. If you stick around, I'll write up the epilogue after I snag a beer.

>>34222080
The fire was the third boss. It was Bloody Touching Monster, the Dancer, and then we had to brave the fire to save Mado.

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>>34222089
Holy shit. We actually made it.

>>34222089
No worries, I'll wait. This has been an amazing ride, and I want to see it through to the end.

>>34222089
Make sure the bottle doesn't say "Lemon Lime"

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Ladies and gentlemen, the epilogue of YNQ: http://pastebin.com/HdPP3pXX

If you have any unanswered questions, ask them now or ping me on twitter, and I'll make everything known!

>>34223181
>The father was a concert pianist; a cursory look at his financials suggests he wasn't so hot with money management. His track record with investments makes Mars look positively probe-friendly in comparison.
You are a bad man and I love you for it.

Holy shit planefag finished a story.

>>34223181
Not sure if this was asked already, but what inspired you to have the quest take place in the future?

>>34223181
What was up with the chick in the cocoon?

>>34223181
I'm a bit disappointed that we didn't get a chance to see what Mado was like awake, but I guess that just adds to her mystique.

>>34223269
In all seriousness, though, good ending. Very good. You've got talent, man. Thanks for running this, it was excellent throughout, and I enjoyed myself greatly.

>>34223181
Thanks for the thread you beautiful fucker. Take care now.

>>34223324

To be honest, I came up with the ending first - the ending of Yume Nikki always depressed me terribly, and I always wondered how things could have changed, how things could've been different. Then it hit me, all at once - there was really only one way. The more I thought about it, the more poetically fit it seemed, so that determined the entire premise of the quest.

>>34223339

That entire area - and the constant callbacks to it - are all references to Haibane Renmei, a show about a city and countryside surrounded by a gigantic wall, where everyone's forbidden to leave. Boys and girls called "Haibane" are born into this place every now and then, being found in big silken cocoons, full-grown. Strongly implied to be suicides or other people who died with "unfinished business," the only memory they have of their prior lives comes from a "cocoon dream" they have just before "hatching." Typically, they're named after it.

The main character of the show, "Rakka," dreamed of falling, and was strongly implied to be a suicide jumper.

Throw in the wings and the fallen angels bit, and there were simply too many parallels not to exploit... right down to the crow in the well, which was spelled out in the story as being someone she'd known in her prior life that came to save her. Naturally, I put my own spin on that.

>>34223314

Whats a planefag?

>>34223349

Just like she is asleep, just without any "lol dream can't remember" excuses to fall back on when denying her suicidal intentions. So 100% stonewall instead of 90%.

>>34223350
Thanks for reading! YNQ is the best thing I've ever done, I think, and it's been a source of great joy to me to write it.

>>34223181
That epilogue makes wish for more. But all the same great fucking ride faggot.

>>34223181
Guessing stark is going to adopt madotsuki

>>34223475
Any plans on the future writings?

>>34223478

And more you shall have. I'll say it now - YNQ was always meant to be a prologue to some other stories I've wanted to tell. Dunno when I'll have time again, but when I do, I'll tweet it.

>>34223486

Hells to the yes!

>>34223486
She's old enough to be emancipated isn't she?

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>>34223513
>And more you shall have.

>>34223513
this niggah has a twitter?

>>34223570
https://twitter.com/YumeNikkiQuest

He forgot the ending theme, typically planefag.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Irxa6CSTS3A

For the sake of consistency, could we keep this bumped until the archive goes back on line, so it shows up in the archive?

>>34224664
It's already on sup/tg/...

>>34224707
Yes, but now it's here too.

http://archive.moe/tg/thread/34211209/

Archive's back up, by the way.

>>34223513
What a ride. Everything worked out in the end, just like I desperately hoped.

Here's to you, faggot. Eagerly awaiting whatever comes next.