Level 1: All the Single Ladies

The villains are surprised to see their biggest target dodging easily! They make a tight formation, as if ready to talk things out—but as Kurumi gracefully dances out the flames on her shoes, the nunchuck guy takes a swing.

"Not cool, Mikey! I had a whole monologue ready to go. Now I gotta save it for when we send these ladies TO THE ALLIGATOR PIT…"

Sheng Long’s men give him a horrified stare.

"…where you will feed heads of cabbage to the vegan alligators," he groans. "Alligators these days." He raises his fist and commands his minions: "KNOCK THEIR SOCKS OFF!!"

Thundra KO’s both of her foes with a single CRACK of her ‘bat!’ Kurumi dances past her own opponents—and both heroines are closing in on Sheng Long!

The elderly master assesses the threats, and decides that the larger woman has the mightiest blows, but the dancer has uncanny defensive skills. She is not to be underestimated!

Sheng Long unleashes a flurry of hadoukens!!!Pira takes out one foe. The other attempts a combo attack!Pix is still keeping two of the ninjas at bay! They aren’t used to opponents who can fly!

Flowers grow all about Pix’s opponents! The guy in the cage shakes his head and at the men trapled with him behind the aromatic barrier.

As the last few petals fall from the wand, rather than wither, it starts to glow. Like a phoenix, the seemingly expended Flower Wand blazes with renewed life—as a Fire Flower!

Pira clobbers her remaining opponent! Thundra unleashes barbarian heck on Sheng Long! He’s about to retaliate with his famous Cheap Punch, Cheap Punch, Turbo Uppercut combo—

—but Kurumi and two back-up-dancing ninjas are more than the boss can bear! Like his minions, Sheng Long is spiral-eyed from hypnosis!

Warrior princess that she is, Thundra wastes no time leading the party to the chamber of Aka Nishin. There’s a boom-boom-boom sounding off as our heroines ascend the steps to the top floor.

The sound is not a drum. It’s coming from outside.

At the top of the steps, you see more men in black. Dozens of them. But before you can do more than adjust your stances, they step aside, kneel in seiza position, and bow—hands on the floor, foreheads lowered to their hands.

The men are lined in columns, leaving you a wide path to the one man still standing. He is dressed in red, costume fish-themed similarly to Pira’s.

As you walk past the men, to either side of you are stone gardens with tiny waterfalls. One might expect calico koi swimming between the pools, but the only fish are aka nishin. Red herrings.

Aka Nishin bows as masters bow to equals, deftly—hands by his side, thirty degree angle, eyes meeting yours.

"It is said that one must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance. You defeated him easily, and in a way that bruised his ego more than his body. There is no further need to test you."

When he stops speaking, you notice the boom-boom-boom comes and goes. You hear other sounds accompanying it. A cracking sound. Something distant, high-pitched… birds? A whole flock in a panic?

"Pira. These friends of yours are not the only outsiders that have mysteriously invaded our world. When the machines overtook Australia, you were whisked away by their… portal.

"M. Kangaroo remained behind and, as one might predict, he aligned with them. He embraced the change."

Pix, Kurumi and Thundra are very familiar with Questgivers. They tend to be very capable of solving any problem on their own or have an army at their command, yet they always ask a young warrior to solve everything on her own, or with a teammate or three.

Pira knows this Aka Nishin guy has her same move set that she had in her earlier days, yet somehow, she recognizes him as being legitimately a master. Maybe it’s because he’s old. In any case, she can sense there won’t be a fight in here. If she wants to know what’s happening to her world (or the tournament), this guy might actually have answers.