[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/6W7bqko.png[/img] [h2][color=FD0000]The Koopa Troop[/color][/h2] [b][color=FD0000]wordcount:[/color][/b] 2,322 (+3) [b][color=FD0000]Bowser: Level 12 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=FD0000]//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color] (264/120) [b][color=SpringGreen]Bowser Jr: Level 12 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=SpringGreen]////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color] (149/120) [b][color=DeepSkyBlue]Kamek: Level 12 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=DeepSkyBlue]//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color] (141/120) [b][color=Aqua]Rika: Level 8 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=Aqua]//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color]////// (75/80) [b][color=FD0000]Location:[/color][/b] The Under - Termite Kingdom Ruins [hider=warp locations] [s] Central hub: Smash City Alcamoth Accessible locations: Peach’s castle Limsa Lominscuttle Town Lumbridge Twilight Town Kosm’s Beach [/s] [/hider] [/center] [color=FD0000]”Alright, let's get this party started!”[/color] Bowser declared as Barnabee leapt forwards to take care of the first patrol that ran across them. Rather than do the same and get stuck right, the King leapt up onto one of the nearby buildings, before roaring at the top of his lungs to announce his presence. Stealthy he was most certainly not being. If the roar didn’t give that away, then the king proceeded to belt out a challenge of [color=FD0000]”Listen up chumps! I’m going to tell you this, and tell you this once! The Koopa king has come to town, so you better run away wasps, or you're going down!”[/color] too the occupying army certainly did, followed up by him giving the command [color=FD0000]”Koopa troop, attack!”[/color] Attack they did, joining in with queen Sectonia and opening fire on the various bee-bop drones hovering around the hive. Magical blasts from Kamek, gunfire from Rika and pink sound waves from Jr (who was using Dazzle as a hand cannon) all lashed out and knocked the robotic drones from the sky. While a wasp on camera drone watching duty some ways away ran to find someone in charge, the troop entered the fray properly, just in time to back up Barnabee as the additional squads came in. The troop opened up with a gust of icy wind launched by Dazzle, the pokemon’s frosty gust hampering the flying foes as they were pushed back, and frost formed on their wings. Then magic blasts and water cannon shots, followed by explosive bursts of goop, and that was all before they got into melee where spears, claws and rocket powered punches awaited them. Suffice to say that, if the seekers stayed grouped up, the individual wasp patrols were no match for them when the numbers were remotely even. They were meant to keep the various bee workers in check after all, not see off a concentrated invasion force. Worse for them, in seeing their oppressors fall, and the return of a hero of their people, some of the bees abandoned their indentured tasks to race to his side. Not all, not even many, but some. They picked up tools, raided now undefended weapon stockpiles, or went to battle with only stinger and bear fists to their name, fighting for the hive and for freedom. [color=FD0000]”Ha ha! This is going to be a cake walk! We’re building our own army and everything, and what have they got? Nothing!”[/color] Bowser laughed, right on cue for his earlier aggrandizing to come around to bite them in the thorax. The thrum of heavier wings, much, much heavier wings was heard, and then two titans, twice as tall as their lesser kin and far more bulky, entered the battlefield, or rather, by their very presence, truly made it one. The first of the pair brought the swarm. Adorned in crimson robes and with red ribbons trailing from her antenna, the ichor queen carried with her in her four arms a single cleaver as tall as she was. Accompanying her where lesser pretenders to her own image, also carrying great cleavers and dressed in red, as well as a very small cadre of male drones, their faces veiled, every hand carrying a weapon, and something stirred in their blood that made them far more dangerouse than mere mortals. [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/ETaw0pO.png[/img][/center] The second arrived with a smaller contingent, but neither it nor she were any less dangerous because of this. Her brown hued chitin had a metallic sheen to it, and spikes radiated off of it. She carried with her a small rune covered hammer that was no weapon, but instead a tool she had been using to craft artifacts, many of which she now carried: she was armed a sword who’s reflections shone like sunlight and which could summon vines, and a large poisonous thistle shaped like a mace, while being protected by both a shield and a helmet made of lead. A thick layer of soil clung to her feet and lower legs, giving her the appearance of wearing boots made from the earth itself. Accompanying her were several wasps carrying staves and wands decorated with ribbons, these blue and green instead of the blood red of the cult. [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/mIBmqUJ.png[/img][/center] These immediately demonstrated what exactly they were by taking up defensive positions, whereupon those with green banners engaged in some kind of ritual to draw strength from the earth, before they began barrages of launching spinning blades from out of thin air, while those with blue banners immediately began hurling lightning bolts. The brown hued iron queen meanwhile began casting spells that empowered small groups of wasps, turning chitin to iron much like her own was, and conjuring spectral beast hides atop that same defense to further increase the resilience of the swarm. When combined with the missile onslaught of the Heavy Drone B-33 and the odd javelin wielding wasp, the arrival of the mages meant that the heroes no longer had an overwhelming ranged advantage, forcing the troop, at least, to back off and take cover. Rather than surge forwards into this space, the cultist wasps took the moment to pray … and to sacrifice. A number of bees adorned in white robes of purity and bound in chains had been brought with them, and in the moment they were given, the cultists turned their blades on these captives first, spilling blood from which a swarm of bloodflies erupted. The flies, like redfured mimicries of the bee’s own hivings, surged forwards as an expendable vanguard which the blessed cultists then followed. All but their ichor queen. She instead channeled her magic, empowering herself, readying to enter the fray at a decisive moment and deliver the executioner's blow. The charge was met by sporadic firepower that mainly managed to cut down the swarm of flies, and then crashed into the seeker’s minion frontline. Man sized cleavers were swung overhead, crushing dry-bones and antlions in a single swing, while the wasp drones utilized their four smaller weapons to overwhelm with flurries of blows, cutting down nimble hivlings that avoided their sisters’ singular strikes. They did not do this without taking blows, of course, but this seemed to only make them more furious, the wasp cultists devolving into a frothing berserker rage when hurt that rendered them even more dangerous, their blows keener and heavier than ever, though in that fury the became far less focused on protecting their remaining vitality. The enraged drones were even worse than their sisters, for on top of being empowered by harm, their wounds also knit shut shortly after they received them. As they broke through the expendable summon line in places, or simply flew over it, they entered into a street fight with whatever seekers were on the ground, and the bees fighting for their freedom alongside them. While fights with the latter were rather one sided in the cult’s favor, the former was anything but. For the troop’s part, Bowser and Rika were their frontline. The ship girl's first cultist kill came easily, a hail of lead from her rifle gunning down one of the massive cleaver wielders before she could get close. The second she splatted with her grizzco blaster, covering it in goop that caused it to drop to the ground, where she blew it apart with a barrage of shells from her rigging guns. The third got close enough that she had to bring her lance out, skewering it upon the needle thin point thanks to the element of surprise. It was the fourth that caused issues: a drone, his hide turned to iron and a phantom cloak of some beast’s hide draped across his shoulders, all thanks to the iron queen’s magic. Bullets pinged off his enhanced chitin as she tried to gun him down, he recovered too quickly from the goop blast for her to nail him with her ship guns, and the point of her spear was parried away by two of his many blades. With a wordless cry the ship girl princess met him with gauntlet and hull blades. She slammed an armored fist forwards, only for the drone to buzz to the side and only be grazed by the blow, after which it struck back. Cleavers smacked against guardian hull blades, energy shielding and armor, doing more harm from their bludgeoning weight than any cutting. Her chainsaw bayonet squealed against steel as she tried to cut though his armored skin as he continued to hack away at her, one of the blades finding her narrowly missing her unarmored neck. In a half tactical, half panicked move, she fired her maneuvering thrusters, slamming herself forward into him, and then him into a wall, his magically metal hide doing little to increase his weight it seemed. She kicked off the wall while the drone was momentarily stunned and hammered him with her grizzco blaster, first with fiery goop, and then with electricity. That last seemed to do the trick, the electricity coursing through his metal chitin, stunning him just enough that she could line up her rigging guns and open fire. The heavy anti ship shells hammered the drone, punching through armor and detonating inside of him, turning the drone into a shower of gore. In the half second it took her to realize that this itself was odd, the demonic blood that the drone had been filled with formed into a writhing living thing and attacked, tendrils of blood streaking out, tips hardening into crystalline ponts. The princess cried out in pain as these hammered her armor with rapid jabs. She tried to fight back, but being made of blood, the slime-like mass resisted being punched and chopped. So she retreated, grappling hook latching onto a building and pulling her up and away. There she took a half second to breathe, and then, before the demonic blood could flow off and attack nearby bees, she launched herself back at it. Her goop blaster fired, striking the blood, filling it with inky contamination. Again and again she shot, till the blood was to full of ink to remain cohesive and at last her foe fell Yet he had been only one of ever so many, and no sooner had she dealt with the blood than she had to run forwards, bringing up her spear as she rushed to support an embattled team of worker bees. They needed all the help they could get. The princess rammed her spear through one wasp, hammered another with her fist, and then unleashed an all out assault on another drone to stop both him and his cursed blood, and by the end of it found herself leading the remains of the bees in a charge across the street to aid a second group of their kin. Behind this melee, as much as was possible to be behind the messy streetfighting anyway, Kamek and Jr engaged in duel of ranged firepower with the wasp’s mage core and the Heavy Drone B-33, who were quite contrasting in their era, but neither was outdone by the other. Lightning flashed, hammering into buildings and shocking right through armor, while hails of double ended throwing knives rained down, all accompanied by laser blasts and missile strikes. Kamek and his doppelgangers returned fire, poking heads and wands out from out above the tops of buildings to blast at the enemy mages, while Jr wielded Dazzle like a gun, and had Mimi on his shoulder, both pokemon blasting away with lightning and song when the prince ducked out from cover. In the air, queen faced queen, as the iron queen’s ledden shield and helm let her resist a lot of the damage of magical attacks and her transmuted chitin mundane attacks, while a ring of 7 gems and a self empowering spell she had cast caused any wounds she did suffer to regenerate at a frightful rate. She actively placed herself in harm’s way, protecting her team with her own durable form while they continued to trade fire with the seeker’s ranged fighters, as well as healing any who became harmed. Sectonia’ idea to send their pair of brutish kings forwards under magical empowerment then was doubly wise, as it seemed like the best way to break this stalemate, and Kamek joined his own spellcraft to hers, surrounding one or both with a physically resisting barrier. In response, the damage Drone charged forwards to meet them, Bowser and it slamming together, sending a shockwave echoing through the battleground. They pushed at each other for a few moments, before the king grabbed the drone with both his claws, and hurled it to one side, sending it smashing through the wall of a building. He laughed in victory, only to turn in response to a warning call as the ichor queen finally entered the fray on her own. She had not spent the opening moments of battle idle either. A barrier of air surrounded the queen, deflecting projectiles, while her body had turned to mist, protecting her from minor blows while doing nothing to reduce her own deadliness, and she was surrounded by a half dozen illusory reflections of herself. She and her mirrors slammed down their great cleaver, though only the true one struck true, smashing into the king’s shoulder. He grunted in pain but the barrier protected him from the physical harm. It did not protect him when she buzzed back, avoiding his retaliatory punch that would have hit an illusion anyway, and blasted an electrical shockwave from an outstretched hand. Convulsing from the super effective damage, the king was unable to avoid the return of the drone, which slammed out of the ruined building, into the king, and then carried him and it into another one, slamming him through said wall and leaving the empowered ichor queen unchecked on the battlefield, and ready to charge forwards to deliver death whenever she might please unless someone faced her.