[center][h3]Montoj - The Hostility of NORA MA-05 ‘Kuebiko’[/h3]
The Koopa Troop’s [@DracoLunaris], Sectonia’s [@Archmage MC], Cyclops the Driller, Overhard the Engineer
[b]Word Count:[/b] 4094 (+5)[/center]

Eventually, the wave petered out, leaving the cavern filled with ash, smoke, and innumerable spirits of fallen insects, which Jr only got a look at once he stepped out from behind his spiky barricade.

[color=SpringGreen]”Woooow, would you look at all that stuff”[/color] he marveled, as if he was looking at bountiful fields and not a field of death.

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”Stuff?”[/color] Kamek asked, before understanding [color=DeepSkyBlue]”Ah you mean potential items. I suppose, though it might be difficult to pick out anything of value”[/color]

His words very much rang true, for it turned out to be rather difficult to pick the spirits of the bigger, stronger bugs out of the swaths of grunts, and they didn’t exactly have time to find the needles in the haystacks. Efficiency, as the dwarves would tell them, was the name of the game, because apparently it was only a matter of time till another swarm came a-crawling.

Still, that didn’t mean that there was no time, and so while the dwarves called down and then grouped around some kind of pod like squirrels round a bird feeder, the troop took a moment to do some much more adhock resupplying via spirit crushing.

Or rather Rika did, borrowin the mimic hat with Sectonia’s approval on her head, Jr at the ready to top up her HP.

[center][hider=For the Troop]Items obtained:
[b]Geo[/b] x912
[b]Chitin[/b] x8
[i]A polymer and characteristic component of exoskeletons, radulae, beaks, shells and various other physical structures in organisms throughout history. It’s firm, flexible, and useful for making various things like armor, saddles, cementing paste, and so forth[/i]
[b]Batnip[/b] x3
[i]A weed with a black-to-orange gradient. It’s irresistible to small insects and can be used to attract any that get within a few dozen feet of it, even if they’d normally be flighty. It degrades after a couple days[/i]
[b][url=https://i.imgur.com/nTtSTfV.png]A keg of Glyphid Slammer[/url][/b]
[i]An adventurous mix of a cheap, powerful ale with an equally cheap, powerful energy drink. The result is almost, but not quite, entirely undrinkable. But it sure does put a spring in your step[/i]
[b][url=https://i.imgur.com/gbFmXH0.png]Glyphid Trophy Hunter Experimental Plasma Charger[/url][/b]
[i]Bullets are so last year. Instead, why not incinerate your enemies from the inside out with a highly experimental anti-matter-powered gun firing supercharged plasma bolts? What's the worst that could happen? (If you find out, please report to R&D). Not upgraded[/i]
[b][url=https://i.imgur.com/Vx2Z1oU.png]Glyphid Trophy Hunter Deepcore GK2[/url][/b]
[i]A dependable, hefty weapon. Usually not the first choice of proper Dwarves, but the combination of heft, weight, and satisfying boom makes it worthwhile all the same. Not upgraded[/i]
[b][url=https://static.miraheze.org/rainworldwiki/0/09/Grapple_movement.gif]Grapple Worm[/url][/b]
[i]A small, tubular creature, dull dark blue in color with coarse, high-friction black stripes, roughly the size of a long can. It can be held in one hand and squeezed, and depending on the part squeezed, it will extend a sticky pink tentacle from one or both ends. These tubes have mouths on the ends with extremely hard teeth which can latch onto most surfaces. This allows it to function as a grappling hook or, if both ends are out, a zip line. If it’s not fed plant matter every day, it will die, and it cannot function as a grappling hook when dead[/i][/hider][/center]

The pile of gear rapidly amassed, until one part of it (the grapple worm) started eating another part (the Batnip) which prompted them to stop and be confused as to what in the world the first object was. 

They found out when Rika poked it too hard with the butt of her spear, causing it to shoot out its tentacle, latch onto a nearby rock, and reel itself over there.

[color=Aqua]”Ohhh. It's like a grappling hook. A really meaty grappling hook. Neat”[/color] She commented, before noting that [color=Aqua]”I mean I’ve already got one of those, but I can say for sure they’re good”[/color] 

[color=92278f]”I know I’m an insect, but I have class. That is just… ick.”[/color] Sectonia said upon Rika describing the grappling worm in such a way and seeing it move. 

It took a bit of convincing, but Jr ended up taking said hook, a decision that Rika immediately got vindicated for suggesting as he started grappling around the caves alongside her. He also took the plasma pistol, while Rika emptied the rifle of its rounds to use them in her own rifle. Said empty rifle and the other items not seeing immediate use were shrunken and stashed, except for the barrel of very unpleasant smelling fluid. 

That one of the dwarves inquired about, mainly because of the distinct container, and though he was not particularly pleased when he found out what specifically was inside, he was still interested enough to take it off their hands and stash it in their walking cargo hauler. There was vague talk of paying them back, but neither side really valued the drink highly enough to bother in depth negotiation over it, especially with the looming threat of another swarm breathing down their necks.

After they’d used up plenty of precious time on looting, it was time to split into pairs and take down a pair of generators.


The way the royals (and Kamek) ended up going ended up being rather a dirt blocked way, necessitating they take small pauses to wait for it to be excavated by Cyclops’s pair of arm mounted drills. Unfortunately for him, two of the people accompanying them were rather large compared to the dwarves, which meant a lot more digging needed to be done. Fortunately, his drills could tear through dirt like tissue paper, meaning that Cyclops could clear the way in a matter of seconds–were he so inclined.

On the first time they did this, they had the additional issue of Rika’s massive whale, who was not going to be able to fit inside the small tunnel. They intitaly ended up abandoning it, only for Jr to have an idea a few moments later, and running back to toss the spinner he’d gotten a few hours earlier. The gold 3 pronged frisbee spun through the air, landed beneath the monster and then proceeded to capture the willing beast inside of it in exactly the same way a pokeball would, allowing Rika to carry it around in a pocket. 

On the second camping out and waiting for this, Kamek suddenly snapped his fingers as he remembered [color=DeepSkyBlue]”Ah, you know, I think I can help with this”[/color] before requesting [color=DeepSkyBlue]”One moment. Or ten”[/color] as he conjured up a Big Beetle steed for someone to ride.

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”This big beastie will be able to tunnel through that soil with ease, or so I understand it”[/color] Kamek explained, before suggesting the Cyclops give it a go and combine magic and technology to make holes suitably large for the king and queen.

At that, the dwarf raised an eyebrow, not that the others could see it beneath his distinctive helmet. “Oi, you think I need ‘elp makin’ ‘oles? What kind o’ dwarf you take me for?” His double drills roared to life, and before the Troop could object, the way was open.

That left the Kamek rather disappointed it had to be said, the mage demising the construct with a wave of his hand and figuratively sulking atop his broom for much of the rest of the trip towards the power station. Sectonia gave a bit of a laugh at seeing that, saying. [color=92278f]”A person from the underground knows it best I suppose.”[/color]

After incinerating the crops the dwarves were trying to steal when dealing with its Kirikuri guardian the Bowser (and by extension his family) decided to leave the rabbit food nabbing to them, and focused on pushing forwards and dealing with the odd stray bug or seven. He then had to be dissuaded from picking a fight with the giant pig, Kamek once again refusing his King’s request to enlarge him so he could take on a large foe in an unnecessary manner. Instead he summoned some toadies to transport the stomping king in a more sneaky manner.



[color=FD0000]”Ok but this, this we’re smashing, right?”[/color] Bowser asked when they arrived at their destination, namely a big computer machine thing that was apparently one half of the inverted pyramid’s shield power supply.

Overhard glanced his way, considering the idea. “Usually, we call down Hack-C to take it offline for us nice an’ easy-like. These things’re tough as nails, our weapons don’t even scratch the thing. Who knows, they might even be rigged to call for backup if someone tried shuttin’ ‘em off manually. With a hazard level like this we don’t wanna bite off any more than we can chew, but who knows. Maybe you’d ‘ave better luck bustin’ it.”

[color=92278f]”I could shatter reality around it… but that takes time to charge and if you have a faster way of dealing with it by ‘hacking it’, perhaps that would be the best way to handle it. If.”[/color] Sectonia said, nonchalantly telling the dwarves her most powerful spell at the moment but letting them ultimately decide on what should be done, deferring to their expertise in the matter.

Before the conversation about how to handle the Power Station could proceed any further, however, a strange noise issued from the bushy bamboo thicket. It was a mechanical tone, but distorted, almost angry. Then the foliage began to rustle, vibrating with the gaspy roar of an unhealthy engine, and through the underground forest crashed a hefty [url=https://i.imgur.com/dtDXQed.png]four-wheeled tank[/url]. Boxy and heavily armored, with wheels that could rival a monster truck’s, the all-purpose, all-terrain Metal Attacker featured a laser chaingun with three barrels stylized like bamboo stalks. Those barrels had already spun up, and after a brief moment it released a spray of green laser bolts with a lurching motion, prompting the surprised dwarves to start moving. While the others might wonder just who was attacking them in this mean green machine, Cyclops and Overhard could see that the problem wasn’t inside the cockpit as much as outside. “Xynach Charge-suckers!” the engineer yelled, his voice shrill. Lifting his Warthog auto shotgun, he began to fire at one of the two heinous-looking [url=https://i.imgur.com/iJ4ImXD.png]organic growths[/url] adhering to the Metal Attacker’s sides. One had glommed onto the left-side hub just over the wheels, and the other stuck to the right side of the cannon battery. “Shoot ‘em off, quick! Then we can use that thing for ourselves!”

A stream of fire gushed from Cyclops’ flamethrower. “Two licked suckers, comin’ up!”

[color=92278f]”I’ve got the one on the left.”[/color] Sectonia said, taking this time to go after what she assumed was the ‘safer’ of the two disgusting growths. From the ‘meat hook’ to this, things were somewhat unpleasant weren’t they. Well, she’d take the ‘expertise’ of these dwarves into consideration once more as she blinked to that side to zap the thing with her dark lightning from her staff.

The troop meanwhile initially focused on not getting blasted by that laser sprayer, with Bowser summoning Marie Korbel to form bone walls, Jr planting a hand to the ground to form a him sized metal shield, and Kamek tossing out a few dopplegangers to draw fire.

Rika meanwhile just grappling hooked away, relying on her ability to slow the incoming shots by looking at them to avoid most, and her knight and cloyster strikers to block what she couldn’t dodge.

Survival secured, or at least given consideration, the troop returned fire, focusing the opposite side from the queen. A glowing fist appeared next to the machine to punch the growth courtesy of Kamek, while Bowser showered it with a spray of toxin from his cannons so he didn’t need to worry about damaging the machine with his poor aim. Meanwhile Rika nailed the infestation with her disruptor cannons, and finally jr arced a spiked iron discus around his cover to nail the growth without even worrying about exposing himself to fire.

Sticking to a single side quickly proved to be a needlessly difficult task, and the dwarves (not to mention Overhard’s turrets as he built them) just shot whatever side they could hit. Their shields and bone walls proved ineffective though, because this Metal Attacker could move. It rolled around on those huge tires at high speed, plowing and drifting across the cavern’s fields in huge sprays of mangled crops and rich loam to get around the Troops’ barricades and gun them down. It was agile enough that when Cyclops threw a sachel charge, he only managed to catch it in the edge of the blast, though the dwarf quickly chalked that up to poor light in this cave. Out-maneuvering this thing seemed to be the only truly viable option. Still, the damage that the dwarves and the Seekers racked up together quickly reduced the charge-suckers’ overall vitality by about a third.

At that point though, the parasitized tank did something new. It activated its suspension and jumped over a dozen feet into the air, at which point its tired pivoted to face downward, their hubs becoming green rockets whose blazing power kept the Metal Attacker aloft in the air. With both charge-suckers partially obscured, the tank began flying directly above its ground-bound opponents, scattering them with repeated bolts of lightning from its undercarriage. Its main gun, meanwhile, could still be angled to fire on Sectonia and any other fliers. 


[color=SpringGreen]”Ow ow ow”[/color] Jr smarted as his shield got bypassed and he got sprayed with bolts, which got him to rapidly come up with a solution [color=SpringGreen]”OK, new plan, a mobile shield!”[/color]  

The prince ran over to his similarly flanked father, and quickly put his new scheme to work, the prince using both metal and healing magic, in conjunction with his dad’s vine growing from overheal power, to form an interlocking towershield of iron and ivy for his father to carry. 

With this in hand the pair could shield themselves from the incoming fire, be it from the side or raining down from above, and then repair it when it got damaged. This, admittedly, left both royal Koopas mostly on the defensive, but their tanking and drawing of fire did leave the others more free to operate, and if the weren't being targeted, then they would be free to lower their shield and shoot back at their foe. 

Said shooting back got a fair bit more difficult when the machine flew up in the air, hiding its weakspots. When it did so Bowser and Jr both switched to sonic attacks, Bowser trying to confuse the plants using supersonic sound waves, while Jr deployed Dazzle and had the Brionne let loose his disarming voice, sending pink soundwaves pulsing up into the air.

Kamek didn’t have much trouble getting into a shooting position, but he did have the issue that he was rather frail. So instead of taking the machine head on he stood back, tossing doppelgangers at it. He also used the power station they’d come to destroy as a platform atop which to summon his sniper strikers, if a good angle presented itself.

Rika actually had the least issues, because after giving up on trying to jump/grapple up to it, she realized she could just launch her electro swarms at it, the firefly-like bugs able to simply fly up too and electrocute the growths on the machine directly. Even if individual motes could be blasted, by having them fan out before striking Rika made it near impossible to take them all down (although this did also result in a lot of them being friendly fired).

Sectonia, not wanting to be the target of the chain gun, activated her pipe of insight to absorb the occasional lighting bolt that headed her way as she blinked away from the gun aimed at her. She’d first try to get around it, but the machine would spin quickly to lock onto her and fire, so seeing as she really didn’t have that many options due to her size until this attack was over and realizing she’d just be blinking around, she decided to instead blink behind the generator they were going to shut off itself. The Dwarves did say it was extremely sturdy, and it sure was as it took the tank’s gunfire and didn’t even care. 

Although this left Sectonia herself in a bit of a pickle until the attack died down, as her long ranged attacks really didn’t do too much to the machine’s very small weak points either with how bad her accuracy was at these longer ranges, so she was stuck just charging her Spacial Shatter move to use if she got the opportunity. 

Though the hard-hitting, defense-piercing deluge of lightning bolts put the ground fighters on the back foot, it was by no means a perfect strategy. Overhard was forced to abandon his position, not to mention his turrets, but when he and the others fanned out the tank naturally couldn’t hover over all of them. Only those who barely moved or stayed still, like the snipers, took the storm’s full fury. Even, the machine’s ungainly flight pattern meant that it wheeled around through the air above the explorers, never bombarding the same place for long. Meanwhile, the ground fighters shot up at the charge-suckers through various means, either damaging the parasites or debuffing them, even if their own debuffs didn’t transfer to the Metal Attacker. The fliers got their chance to shine as well, provided they didn’t run afoul of the tank’s bamboo chaingun as it cut through the air with a stream of deadly gunfire.

Pretty soon, the Metal Attacker exhausted its supply of lightning charges, and its hover fuel was by no means infinite, either. It fell back to the ground with a mighty slam, allowing Cyclops and the others to get some free shots in for a second or two. As pilots went, these charge-suckers weren’t the most skilled or intelligent by any means; it beggared belief that they could control the Metal Attacker to this extent in the first place. Still, with just about one third life left collectively, the parasites had one more trick up their proverbial sleeves. The Metal Attacker began jumping around, over and over again, aiming to crush its foes beneath its weight. At the same time, its missile rack came online, and in addition to spurts of chaingun fire it started shooting out tracking rockets to chase the Seekers down, three at a time. “Gah!” Cyclops roared as he stumbled backward, a salvo of missiles blowing up the soil around him and putting his heavy armor to its limit. “Where’s Paintbrush when you need ‘im?!”

Gritting his teeth as the Metal Attacker jumped at him, Overhard used his Platform Gun to create a sloped wall of plascrete in front of him as a shield, which absorbed the tank’s fall damage on impact. “We got shields of our own, dipstick! Use ‘em!” He started firing around the area, creating emergency shelters of thick, spongy, yellow material.

Dropping a partially charged Spacial shatter, only cracking the air but not shattering it, Sectonia had to swap to a bit of a defensive maneuver to protect the others. While Overhard used his platform gun to make some defenses for the stomping machine, Sectonia, having her own cover by the generator, summoned a large crystal to use as some additional cover for the others. 

Bowser and Jr had to again switch strategy, the King tearing apart their improvised shield and hurling it to the side inorder to lose weight and Jr recalling Dazzle, before they legged it for one of the shelters Overhard and Sectonia had created. As they did this, Rika grappled over to cover them, latching onto the king and pulling herself close, before using her grizco blaster as a flak cannon to try and blow up the incoming missile barrage. It worked out well, detonating the rockets prematurely, but there were plenty more where those came from.

In doing so she reminded Jr he had his own hook, and a moment later the prince was reeled over to one of the cover pads by his grapple worm. One beneath it he tossed out Mimi, who did her best to nail the bouncing machine with electroballs, while jr splashed goop about to try and further bog down the Metal Attacker next time it crashed down on them.

Rika finished escorting Bowser to cover a few moments later, and then grappled away again inorder to find her own safety from which she could  try and nail the machine with her disruption cannons. The king meanwhile took the moment of comparative respite to catch up and huck a mega fireball into the air, properly lighting up the cavern. 

It was also something the fliers had to operate around unfortunately, and Kamek, having been hit by quite a bit of feedback due to misjudging his sniper striker’s timers, did not want to go anywhere near. Indeed it wasn’t the only friendly bit of fire flying through the air, as the erratic movement of the Attacker resulted in far more stray shots than the first two phases. 

As a result he abandoned the skies entirely, instead teleporting down under one of the shelters, and from there, sending out dozens of individual drybones into the open to act as bait. 

All this culminated in the Attacker splashing down onto Jr’s goop, getting its wheels covered in it and slowing down its leaps. Then it got bogged down crushing drybones, allowing Rika to stack up a pile of disruption globs on it, which sapped its attack power, which in turn let Bowser brave the weakened fire.

Utterly fed up with the mobile machine, the king launched himself out from cover and into the path of the debuffed machine and demanded [color=FD0000]”Embiggen me Kamek!”[/color] even as he used his own magic to grow in size. 

In his haste to do this, the mage pulled out the dusty and oft unused sub-power of his enlarging magic, and causing an effect identical to a supermushroom on the king, increasing his size and strength by 50% in a few scant moments. Right after said moments passed, the Metal Attacker slammed into the king, but the enlargement magic absorbed the hit, both persisting and stopping the Attackerin its tracks for just long enough for Bowser to grab it in his claws, and suplex the entire machine over his shoulder, slamming it turret first into the ground. 

Doing that left the Metal Attacker almost completely defenseless. It couldn’t swivel or adjust its turret or fire any missiles, and with no lightning left it couldn’t let loose a thunderstorm from its exposed undercarriage either. “Hell yeah!” Cyclops roared. With that one move from Bowser, the battle was one. Now it was just a matter of sealing the deal. “Clear the way!” he yelled at the others, chucking his last satchel charge. As soon as it landed, the explosive device started beeping dangerously, projecting an indicator of its (large) blast radius. “Eat THIS, you disgustin’-!”

[i]BA-BOOM![/i]

The blast launched the Metal Attacker into the air. It came down on its side next to the crater, the charge-suckers melting away into ash, then tilted over to land on its tires with a slam.

“Nice goin’ lads! The Power Station’s ours” Overhard congratulated everyone, though his face fell when he checked his ammunition stores. “That took everythin’ we ‘ad, though. Let’s order a resupply along with the hackin’ drone.” Before going to scrounge up some more nitra exposed by the damage to the cavern’s foliage, he glanced over at the Metal Attacker. “Reckon we could fix that up and get it workin’ for us. Any o’ you lot know ‘ow to swing a hammer?”

[color=SpringGreen]”I can give it a look yeah”[/color] Jr called over, as he rummaged around in his duffle bag, pulled out a very small engineering suitcase from it, and then had Kamek re-enlarge it for him. Then he strolled over to give it a look. Other than the final massive detonation and Sectonia’s only slightly charged shatter, they’d mostly tried to avoid wrecking the machine itself, and so it did not seem like it would be the worst job.

Everyone got to work getting ready for the next stage. First, the hacking drone arrived a ways from the Power Station, requiring the team to set up a chain of data node stakes to connect it to the target. That was minion work for sure, and Kamek’s toadies were set to the task of ferrying the nodes to and fro under the mage’s direction. Sectonia would summon her antlions as well, but they would act more like security for the toadies, only rarely helping out with placing the nodes. Once the nodes were laid out, with a green data stream flowing between them, the pod opened to reveal the little robot Hack-C with its little keyboard. It wore a tiny mining helmet on the warning light atop its head, and the twin fans in its rear included RGB lighting.

While he did that, Rika borrowed Jr’s gadbrush and painted a nice sea of electric goop around the hacking pod, which would hold off any ground based foes and let her sail around to boot. Overhard lent her a hand by laying down a plascrete slab on top of the [url=https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1f/4e/03/1f4e031e997d7010b15f723ee8ee621e.jpg]pod[/url] to give it and Hack-C some protection from above as well.

Once the dwarves got enough nitra and stowed it in Molly, they called down a supply drop that drilled in through the cave ceiling. Both planned to take half of the total each, filling their stores up to full. Finally, repairs on the Metal Attacker completed, and the tank was operational once more. It wasn’t that roomy inside, allowing at most two individuals of average or below-average human size to sit in single file, but its controls were intuitive. Its official designation seemed to be NORA MA-05 ‘Kuebiko’. Once everyone caught their breath and readied up, the hack could begin.

Jr, naturally, climbed inside the machine he’d just fixed up and took the piloting seat, fiddling around with the controles for a few moments till he felt confident with them. With their main healer piloting the machine, Kamek left a number of white mage clones of himself hovering around the station, ready to keep everyone topped up.

Bowser, finally, had done nothing to prepare, other than take a break and a snack, which in a certain way left him the most prepared of everyone who had been busying themselves in between fights. 

Then all that was let was to begin.