[center][h3]VS the Engineer[/h3]
[b]Location:[/b] Scrapyard Endzone, right side[/center]

The Engineer's worries proved themselves well-founded with startling immediacy. When his gambit sent the junk-tower careening toward the heroes, they burst into action, and not all of them chose 'flight'. While Bowser, the more visible threat, paused to help his allies, a previously-unseen man sprinted through the chaos unscathed to mount his assault. Agoston, far more physically fit than his adversary, astonished the Engineer with how deftly he made his way up, and by the time he could get his gun into position the Centurion had its barrel in his grip. A tremendous blast exploded from the barrel, but its buckshot ricocheted against the scrap instead of ripping Agoston apart. Before the Engineer could do anything else, his foe's hefty shoulder bash struck him dead-on, staggering him. 

“Gah!” He grunted before he stumbled back a few steps, realized he might fall off the arch, and struggled to keep himself steady. With his focus split, however, he could only throw up a desperate hand to try and intercept Agoston's gladius before it reached his body. The steel slid through his glove's rubber and caught halfway through the Engineer's robotic hand. A wild grin broke out on his face; all he had to do would be to yank his hand away, and the Centurion would be disarmed.

Agoston yanked first. With his blade caught in the Engineer's prosthetic, that meant yanking the southerner forward as well, straight into the Centurion's heavy left cross. Short range and the Engineer's lack of hand-to-hand experience meant little trouble in Agoston directing that punch right into his goggle-clad face. When his fist landed, pieces of the Engineer's eyewear flew in every direction and a growl of pain tore itself from his throat. For a moment it seemed like he might fall over backward, but the southerner clenched his jaw and kept standing. Who did this brute think he was? Dell Conagher wasn't some [i]goon[/i] playing with toys, going down at the first sign of a challenge. He was [i]mercenary[/i].

With a bellow the Engineer wrenched his arm away from Agoston, pulling out his other hand from behind his back is he did. Clutched in his white-knuckled fist was a heavy-looking [url=https://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/thumb/7/7d/Item_icon_Wrench.png/150px-Item_icon_Wrench.png]wrench.[/url] While a blade would barely scratch the Centurion's armor, this tool could pulverize his plate and any bones beneath it. Strengthened by anger and pain, the Engineer started to swing.

[i]CLANG![/i]

A few chips flew from the Engineer's hard hat where Ratchet's wrench struck it. “Uuuughh...dammit,” he groaned, and his own wrench his the wooden block beneath him with a [i]thunk[/i]. Its owner fell a moment later, tumbling off the archway onto the bridge a few meters below.

To Agoston's right, the sentry turret spun about, its two barrels and rocket launch leveled straight at the nearest target. However, the Centurion proved as lucky as he was impetuous; another ally came to his aid from afar. Michael's bullet slammed into the machine, its impact - thoughless effective on the nonliving, armored sentry- strong enough to put its hardware out of commission even before the thing fell over on its side. It lay there for a moment, sparking, giving Agoston and Ratchet a split second to celebrate their victory before self-destructing, blowing up in a small burst of fire and shrapnel.

[center][h3]VS Bastion[/h3]
[b]Location:[/b] Scrapyard Endzone, left side[/center]

In no time at all, Bastion's enemies converged on him. Crawling from the river not too far from where the green-clothed Rabbid went up in smoke, a gruff-looking man scaled the arch's side to swing a pickaxe at him. The Omnic failed to react before the weaponized tool struck him, but its results suggested his inaction o be intentional rather than accidental. Even propelled by an empowered Courier 6, the Equalizer was just a twentieth-century pickaxe at the end of the day, and Bastion was made of sterner stuff. 

A moment later, three shots echoed from afar, though none of them as robust as ones fired from Michael's rifle. The Courier could be forgiven for thinking the culprit Michael at first, though, given the shooter's lack of regard for allies in melee range, which constituted an even more lethal hazard now than before. Zer0 based his aim on the knowledge about Bastion's weak point imparted to him by Blazermate and his hope to pierce it through his body, not knowing that Configuration:Tank rearranged the Omnic's interior along with his exterior. His bullets did not strike Bastion's core. But penetrate him they did, their damage reduced by a fifth thanks to their target's passive Strength, Ironclad—and after exiting his chassis, the rounds proceeded to exit right into where the gunslinger stood, on Bastion's other side.

Aside from taking potent but sustainable damage, Bastion himself didn't notice, since another attack was inbound. Blazermate, emboldened by the lesser damage dealt by his shells after being Weakened, moved in to take a more active roll in bettering her team's position. She began to intercept his shells, which, combined with a surprise laser attack from the sky that scraped by his barrel, roused his fury once again. He aimed a shot at her feet, hoping it would get around that new weapon of hers, but with a cheeky laugh she dashed over his barrel and behind him. There, she prepared to continue the melee attack where the Courier left off. Bastion would be having none of it. [i]Who does this tin doll think she is?[/i] his CPU screamed. [i]I'll teach her not to underestimate me.[/i] The next second a girl in a rabbit hood with a live bomb appeared, but that was all for the better. He couldn't shoot them, but he could do far more than fire mindlessly.

Kicking his servos into overdrive, Bastion swung his upper half around. His barrel span around at force, clubbing the Courier in the side before rising to catch Blazermate and Linkle as well. After spinning a full circle, and sending the interlopers -and Linkle's bomb- flying down onto the bridge near the fallen Engineer, he pointed the barrel as low as he could and used his adjustable treads to jump before firing. The ensuing blast launched him into the air, spinning lazily until he started firing without cease. [i]Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom![/i] echoed his cannon, each blast causing him to spin more wildly in midair and sending him higher. His technique littered the battlefield with explosions, forcing those who'd shown up to gleefully take advantage of his moment of distraction to think twice or suffer the consequences.

Yet, after only a couple seconds, his onslaught came to an end. The eight-second timer on Configuration:Tank ran out, forcing him to return to Recon mode mid-air. Bastion struggled to straighten himself as he fell, hoping to land on his feet and shift back to Configuration:Sentry as soon as possible.

[center][h3]Tora, Minako, and the Master of Masters[/h3]
[b]Location:[/b] Scrapyard Endzone, backline[/center]

“Whoa!” The Master of Masters balked as the tower of junk began to fall and, more prominently to him, some chunks blown loose by the sentry's rockets plummeted his way. He could see and hear Bowser not far away, no doubt poised to rush up and spirit him away to safety from the toppling pillar, but for this one moment the Master was alone with his peril. “Stop!” he cried, pointing his keyblade upward, and a wave of black energy burst forth. The debris stopped in its tracks as it hit the spell, giving the Master of Masters the precious moment he needed for Bowser to swoop in for the rescue. Coolly accepting the less-than-dignified position, he played it off with a laugh. “Hahah! If I didn't know better, I'd say you were the hero of this story!”

A few seconds later he found himself deposited on the left side of the battlefield, behind the sizable pile of scrap by which a few other allies loitered. Tora, Minako, and Linkle were nearby, far enough away from the tower of junk that only the dust troubled them when it slammed into the ground.  Bowser's strikers joined the group not long after, having managed to get away from the hazard with a little luck and a little ingenuity. Another moment, and a duo of strangers appeared: Geno and Mario, the latter of which appeared to astound the King Koopa. “Heck of a time for a reunion.” Peering around his cover, the Master of Masters spotted the Engineer taking a tumble onto the bridge, with his sentry joining him in defeat in short order. “Hehey, one down!” he noted, and for a moment it looked as though Bastion would be following them. However, the Omnic turned the tables, throwing off his nearest attackers before executing a crazy maneuver. “Sheesh. Overkill much?” He ducked back as one shell struck the ground nearby in a burst of flame. When he looked again, Tora was on the move. “Hey, where are you going?”

The Nopon blocked an incoming shell and continued forward. “Tora cannot stand back and let allies get beat! If cannot stand in front to protect, will help in other ways!”

Trying to coordinate this many allies at once was not a skill Minako possessed, as she handled smaller squads rather than larger, more populated teams. Not that she could, in any case - she wasn't exactly in the right state of mind, hyperventilating and stressed out as she was. The feeling of summoning a Persona for the first time in awhile invoked a familiar feeling, though. It helped remind her of the time when she first summoned a Persona over a year ago, and what came of it. [color=darkred][i]'Eurydice.'[/i][/color] She thought to herself with clarity, a welcome surprise amidst her fractured mental state. However, that name would begin to blur as Thanatos' abused this lack of control, using it to charge ahead in a slow, powerful run. 

Weird. Personas usually flew. It was pointless thinking on it, however, for Bastion's relent in his assault meant her Persona was free to close the gap. His lack of speed truly brought him down a peg, severely impeding his progress, and if he were to be shot it would surely mean a restart. Yet surprisingly, the God of Death had nothing to fear from the turrets, as they weren't intent on targeting him at all. The change in tactics put many near the Omnic in immediate danger, yet being a summoner meant Minako's danger came in the form of overexertion. It was difficult sustaining Thanatos while so far away, though certainly not impossible, and so long as nothing hit him he would be alright. At her command, death incarnate let out a mighty roar, his coffins opening at will. Glaring up at the flying tank, a different kind of blue wind flowed from the coffins and drifted towards their target, able to freeze the very air around him. 

Being the weakest version of ice-based elemental attacks, bufu wasn't going to freeze him to death or anything, however it could disrupt his overheating servos with the temporary flash freeze. Only lasting but a couple seconds, bufu kept the pressure on Bastion when his allies could not, and with an impressive display of accuracy on top. Was it enough? No. Would it help? Hopefully.

Minako didn't want to wait for him to fall and recover himself, though - she had heard Roadhog's suggestion and was going to put it to the test. Thankfully Personas were often much better at perception than humans, so with her mental direction he could get near where Bastion would land on his own. What she didn't know was just [i]how[/i] Thanatos would accomplish this, as he couldn't levitate like before. Using his natural strength, the Persona jumped high into the air, reaching a platform to further jump his way up the archway. It was a sight she had never seen before, but welcome considering how quickly he approached the Bastion. 

As planned, her Persona's icy spell struck the unprotected Omnic before he reached the floor. Like Din's ice before it, the bufu surged through his alloy frame, solidifying joints and choking power flow. Though not frozen solid, he was frosted-over, and could not reconfigure midair.

When he finally did land, Thanatos wasted no time at all, slashing at the omnic with his blade. Despite the sharpness, the weapon was more suited to just hitting things really hard, cleaving into them if necessary, which was just what he aimed to do. Each attack had a different degree of power and damage to it, and the heavy slashes in close proximity left their mark. Not content with just mindlessly slashing, Thanatos lunged at Bastion to get a grip on him, sending the blade directly into his face to cut it in half. 

[color=darkred]"Ravage him!"[/color] Ordered the summoner to her Persona, looking visibly quite exhausted from the burst of attacks. Being sent to level 1 was brutal on her stamina. 
She still wasn't looking out for her allies all that much, so Tora and Linkle rushing ahead didn't quite catch her as odd in the moment, especially with Blazermate nearby just before. Thankfully she was perceptive enough to know they had their medic, meaning it was safe to continue her assault and keep Bastion from transforming into his second form. While Thanatos wasn't very fast, his sword had a lot of reach, so the omnic had to be careful of any well-placed strikes and swings. Seeing as Bastion wasn't that fast either, Minako felt comfortable in predicting her advantage, though if she became too cocky he could transform and do a lot of damage.

Thanatos wiped away his master's doubts. His unrelenting flurry of attacks left Bastion's chassis deeply scarred, fatally so were he a living being, but the Persona's punishment didn't end there. The lunging grab left the compromised robot open to a brutal overhead chop. When it fell, it carved through Bastion's head and into his torso, leaving his neural center neatly bifurcated. A weak, high-pitched whine sounded out from him before he crumbled to ash. 

At that moment, Tora reached the archway. Calling out “Big Boost!”, he hurled himself at the left-side stack. Midair, three small boosters deployed from his shield's back around the edges and flared to life. Their thrust propelled his weight into the tree-thick pillar, and the impact dislodged it enough to cause the entire archway to fall. The blocks making up the left stack tumbled into the river, bringing the long block that formed the arch's top with them. One piece, a compressed block of salvage, landed right on the Engineer's chest, dissipating him instantly. While a few bits of junk and blocks of wood lay on the bridge, the way to the castle was clear, and the battle was won.

[hider=Results!]
[b]Active Party:[/b] [@Archmage MC]'s Blazermate, [@DracoLunaris]' Bowser, [@Stekkmen]'s Centurion, [@ProPro]'s Courier 6, [@Gentlemanvaultboy]'s Linkle, [@thedman]'s Michael, [@Delta44]'s Minako, [@LemonZest1337]'s Ratchet, Tora, [@Old Amsterdam]'s Zer0
[b]Reserve Party*[/b]: [@Stern Algorithm]'s Din, [@Lmpkio]'s Geno, [@Star Lord]'s Roadhog
[b]Encounter Reward:[/b] 8 EXP
[b]Standout Bonus:[/b] Blazermate, Linkle, Minako
[b]Standout Reward:[/b] +2 EXP
[b]Least Typos Bonus:[/b] Centurion, Courier 6, Din, Michael, Zer0
[b]Least Typos Reward:[/b] +2 EXP

*Note: appearing in the reserve party indicates a degree of participation in the fight that doesn't warrant the full reward. Therefore, please take only half the Encounter Reward
[/hider]

Of course, Tora's contribution was tenuous at best considering both minibosses were already beaten before he got into the mix. Still, he looked awfully proud as he peered between the two large spirits left behind, taking their presence as confirmation. “Hooray!” He sang, dancing gleefully. “Annoying bullet team beaten at last!” Only after a moment did he notice the condition of some of his teammates and fall into worried silence.

Far above and far away, a bright, fiery glimmer twinkled in the sky, chasing an even more imperceptible dark spot on its downward trajectory.