[center][img]https://i.postimg.cc/MKK5m0sX/Kid-s-Hat-2.png[/img]

[b]Level:[/b] [color=8258fa]4 (21 -> 22/40)[/color]
[b]Location:[/b] [color=8258fa]Ancestral Farmstead[/color]
[b]Word Count:[/b] [color=8258fa]604 (+1 EXP)[/color]

[color=8258fa]Stress Level:[/color] 30
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Night had fallen on the land by the time the hunting party arrived at the ‘[i]color[/i]’-blighted grounds that quickly became their battlefield. The once fertile farmland was left now grey and petrified, its hollowed-out inhabitants wandering about it, both rendered lifeless by some unknown, unspeakable phenomenon, and a beacon of otherworldly color polluted the night sky through the gaping cracks in the barn that sat at the hill’s crest. The scene was aptly set for [b]a horrible encounter[/b]. From the barn broke forth a twisted Eldritch mockery of life and form, its horrifying wail stabbing at the nerves of everyone who heard it and stirring the slumbering drake at the foot of the hill into a furious wake. Their chance at getting the drop on their target was now gone, and their problem, doubled.

The Cadet, the Witcher, and the Koopa King set upon the dragon, being the three most qualified and capable of the group for the job, while most everyone else broke off to deal with the abomination and its surrounding mob. Hat Kid was left with a choice: quantity or difficulty? Throw her lot in with the larger group to take care of the scarier, more numberable threat, or get between the larger ally and the quantifiably bigger threat while it was busy clobbering him with massive, missile-shaped fists that covered everything they hit in explosively volatile mucus? When put like that, her decision was made obvious.

She Sprinted her way up the hill some ways behind her team, bounding over the first line of husks and executed a series of consecutive Homing dives into those that followed, using them as proverbial stepping stones to keep her going forward until she was past the horde. Once she was, she used her spare jump to keep herself airborne while turning around to fire a large blue laser from her umbrella at the crowd of them to see that they didn’t follow her or the rest of her allies uphill. By then, Tora and co. were already on top of the Thing, and he was presently paying for his zeal. Seeing this, Kid dove toward Linkle, cancelling directly above her before landing to use her as a trampoline, giving her an extra boosted jump to make it to Tora.

As she arced through the air, her perception of time slightly dilated for a moment while she cycled through her headwear to select Terry’s Cap. She then landed with a gentle hopping step off of the Nopon’s head as she channeled her hat’s rightful owner’s power, thrusting her fist forward at a downward angle to throw a midair Power Wave right in the Thing’s face. Though her’s was but an imperfect facsimile of psychometrically borrowed technique, thus weaker, it would hopefully still phase the creature enough to cause it to dislodge its tubular maw. The same power was able to tip Sweet Tooth, after all. Assuming it didn’t, however, she still followed up her attack by kicking off of the monster's forehead into a retreating backflip, incidentally avoiding getting hacked in half by Franklin, Jr., or the Centurion.

She landed on three points, exaggerating her pose slightly, before standing and adjusting her cap with a smile. As stressful and unnerving as the situation was, she was still trying to act halfway cool, chipper and smug about it, doing her best to maintain her characteristically positive and playful demeanor in the face of the maddening terror they were faced with. Still, she took things seriously enough to fall back in with the rest of her teammates in preparation for the next round of combat.