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[img]https://i.postimg.cc/d1m9cwtC/Kid-s-Hat-3.png[/img] [img]https://i.postimg.cc/G2xPk9Gk/Jiggy-2.png[/img] [img]https://i.postimg.cc/vTD8rQzY/Star-Fox-Faded.png[/img]

[b]Level:[/b] [color=8258fa]5 (24 -> 27/50)[/color] | [color=fed428]4 (16 -> 19/40)[/color] | [color=darkgray]1 (3 -> 6 -> 9/10)[/color]
[b]Location:[/b] Lumbridge, Guild Hall -> [color=8258fa]Peach’s Castle - Hat Kid’s Ship[/color]/[color=fed428]Great Ton Pu Inn[/color] -> Lumbridge Stockyard -> Land of Adventure; en route to The End
[b]Word Count:[/b] 3924 (+3 EXP)

[color=8258fa]Item:[/color] Time Piece (3 -> 1/4/40-56*)

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So… now what? Hat Kid had hopped from her barstool, stood to attention and saluted Peach along with Linkle and the Cadet, playing along as she liked to do. Though, she wasn’t one hundred percent clear on what they were all doing. The Princess had a point; there were too many things being discussed at once, and she was hardly paying attention to begin with until it was loudly demanded. No sooner than everyone could focus enough to lay out their tasks more clearly did they begin dispersing to tend to them, which still didn’t leave the child much of her own to do. Mention of teleporting back to the castle, however, stood out to her, for she was due for a return trip.

She patiently idled in wait for the Magikoopa’s return, performing tossing/balancing tricks with her umbrella until he arrived. She didn't wait for anything he had to say after [color=deepskyblue]"done"[/color] to break her self-pacified composure in a sudden rush for the teleporter. When she reappeared on the other side, she made straight for her waterbound ship, wherein she deposited all but one of her Time Pieces, restoring more of the ship's power and… wow. She knew she had left the place a mess, but having the lights on [i]really[/i] put it in perspective for her. She had a lot of work to do here… aaannd a whole lot of nothing else to do with the still young day. Yeah, this seemed like a (near) perfect opportunity to tidy up, since she had the rest of the day until close to dusk to do it.

A short cleaning montage later, everything on the floor (that shouldn’t have been) had been picked up and put away or discarded, the furniture and relic displays rearranged and put back in their proper places, and everything was good as new. Well… good as [i]normal[/i] anyway; back to the way she had it before. The engine room still needed repairs she couldn’t afford right now, unopened envelopes were left to pile up and circulate in a whirlwind in the mail room, a PBJ tower taller than her was clumsily stacked on a plate in the kitchen (meaning she purposely either picked it up and reassembled the previous one, or built a new one from scratch with salvaged ingredients). So… yeah, not exactly pristine, but it at least home away from looked and felt more like itself now. The hardest part was periodically rerouting the limited power supply to each room individually to access and tend to them one at a time. Her chores were an otherwise smooth and oddly therapeutic affair. It always felt good to get something accomplished, no matter how basic the task, instead of leaving them to pile up; to focus on something in the moment rather than leaving it to dwell on later.

Her productive time killing exercise concluded, she checked the time and realized she had been at it for… [i][b]less than an hour?![/b][/i] Man, she was fast! Too fast for her own good. She still had a few hours left before departure, and not nearly enough activity to fill the remaining hours with. She [i]could[/i] have gone shopping to restock her overly expensive milk or browse for something else useful, but she had to go and do the [i]honorable[/i] thing by splitting the monetary reward from two quests ago. Now she had no money. That’s what she gets for doing the right thing. Well, this was sure to be a boring intermission, but she couldn’t sit and think about it for much longer. Who knew when the wizard would move the teleporter again. Maybe… she could just have the satisfaction of planting a proverbial flag at their rendezvous area and call [color=8258fa]"first!"[/color]

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Kid rushed through the teleporter back to Lumbridge well ahead of Kamek and made her way to where she last remembered Brother Grimm being parked… only to not find it there. This prompted a quick, hat assisted search for the titanic, already hard to miss vehicle, which she would find at the stackyard ready to depart… along with half a dozen adventurers in waiting. So much for beating everyone there…

Among the gathered was the anthropomorphic vulpine from the meeting, sitting arms crossed with his feet up in the front passenger's seat, patiently waiting to set off. While Fox could competently operate just about any vehicle if given a minute to learn it, he was content to leave the driving to someone else this time. Besides, it was a converted personnel carrier, and he was generally more accustomed to light one-man craft.

The child, having left her scooter in the truck bed, seated herself upon it and calmly watched the sunset for the duration of the intermission. A serene view was a simple pleasure she could never get tired of, and assuming whatever darkness (ironically light-borne) they were due face, it would surely do her nerves (and anyone else’s) some good to set their eyes and minds on anything of beauty the world had to offer; to remind themselves what they were fighting for. 

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What little daylight was left crept through the crack in the curtains at a gentler, more horizontal angle, warmer now in color as the day neared its end. Kazooie woke to it first, having somehow slept through the sound of Brother Grimm’s engine, and leaned in slightly out of her bag space to draw them open. After realizing the time, and that they were about to be late for a mission they missed the meeting for, she attempted to wake her partner, who remained sound asleep snoring away. She tried first with words, then nudging pecks, but Banjo dismissively waved off her prodding and rolled over to face away from the light.

Annoyed by her partner's reluctance, she tugged on the sheets and blanket to relieve the lazy ursine of them, but overextended in her attempt, causing her to fall frantically cawing and flapping to the floor as she failed to stabilize herself. She pulled the sheets with her on the way down, yanking them off of and out from under Banjo hard enough to turn him onto his other side. Alerted, he tried and failed to catch the covers and stop himself from rolling over off of the bed, landing on his backpack (and Kazooie) in such a way that the straps ended up contrivedly slung around his shoulders. He leaned up groaning in protest as to how Kazooie knew about the quest without attending the meeting for it, despite realizing himself that it was what he was being woken up for. She exercised cheater’s brevity in her response, telling him that they could [color=f60000]“just read back through it later.”[/color] To that, and in general, he conceded and made his way to the stockyard in half a hurry (on his own feet instead of Kazooie’s faster pair).

They arrived just ahead of Peach’s address, behind most of the party that had been trickling in. [color=0aaaff]“Sorry we’re late.”[/color] They weren’t. [color=0aaaff]“We, erm… had a lot of stuff to take care of.”[/color] Kazooie simply shook her head disappointedly at Banjo’s shamefully obvious fib.

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Expectedly, the first half of their drive was marked by a period of uninterrupted peace for the intrepid troupe spent taking in the scenic landscape, seemingly untouched anything else. The abundance of plain greenery and pockets of mountain ranges had the bear and bird offhandedly wondering if they wouldn’t stumble into (part of) their home on their way to… wherever it was they were going to conquer and banish some nameless, faceless, nebulous evil that waited for them at what was supposedly one of the edges of the world. Signs for it started to show the farther they went as the lush and verdant gave way to lands most twisted, malicious, and unnatural. It wasn’t until this point that any of the heroes (or villains) had to raise their guard, for no sooner or later than crossing this threshold for environmental transition did its inhabitant monster-kind begin to descend upon them.

Fox and Hat Kid lent what they could to the repulsing efforts with disparately sized laser fire from both of them, with Kid moving about the bed’s perimeter to cover each side as needed, and Fox leaning out to hang from the monster truck’s passenger side doorway for a better angle to pick off any of the smaller enemies that assailed them from the right. Banjo and Kazooie were sadly unable to lend their assistance in providing suppressive fire, but they were bone dry on ammo with which to do so. The most they could do in the moment was keep their eyes up, heads down, balance steady, and grip tight to keep themselves aboard amidst the chaos and turbulence.

When the vehicle came to a halt, all three stopped what they were doing for a second and directed their attention forward at the ravine ahead of them. Euden assured them they would be unable to make it back across short of flying, which left the duo in particular less to worry about. Fox and Kid resumed fire on a few stranglers that were catching up as the prince and Peach deliberated for a word on a potential return method before she put Grimm back in gear. On her word, she stomped the gas pedal to the floor, and everyone else prepared in their own ways to make the jump.

Hat Kid mounted her scooter, which had been riding idle in the back with them the entire time, believing it would better her odds with the impending landing on the other side. Fox, rather than cabbing up for safety, continued to hang from the vehicle’s side in anticipation to bail off after they went airborne. The duo simply did as they were already doing, only tighter, and with considerably greater difficulty.

All four tires left the ground at top speed as the truck soared over the canyon. The sudden backlift on the jump catapulted the child from the truck bed overhead to figure out her own landing wherever she may, but would be able to manage it unharmed thanks to having her own set of tires on a familiar vehicle under her. The duo were tossed from the truck with the bounce of impact, sending Banjo flailing overhead to run two clumsy steps across the roof before going aerial again. Kazooie started flapping to ease them both down, bringing Banjo to a rolling stop that left him momentarily prone. Fox did much of the same, but on purpose, more gracefully, and with fewer steps. He simply lept from the truck just before it hit the ground and landed firmly in front of it after it stopped. He had fallen harder from greater heights before, so it posed no issue for him.

Before the adventurers, between them and the great umbral sphere that marked their destination, masses of dark matter coalesced to form hollow, dead-eyed facsimiles of living things; enemies familiar to less than a handful of the present party: the Subspace Army. In acknowledgement of this, Bowser dictated the obvious to Peach and Fox (conveniently failing to recall the part he played in those past events), but Fox did not verbally return the Koopa King’s address. He kept whatever thoughts he had to himself as he calmly drew his sidearm and held it at his side in preparation for the coming engagement. They couldn’t stop him and his allies before, and that wouldn’t change today. At his silent command, his eyepiece unfolded, whereupon activating, and he went straight to work.

Fox dove clear of the incoming cannon fire, deftly, lightly hitting the ground on his toes seamlessly into a dead sprint for the enemy line whilst rapidly firing on them. He drove the flat of a flying heel into the chest of the nearest Primid before spinning to follow it with the other foot to its chin, surfing the downed shadowling for a few feet deeper into the thick of its kind. With an applied, forceful [url=https://66.media.tumblr.com/6e3a3b20f8edd8ab9ed198832547100c/tumblr_nyko8aOAWY1sis8guo7_500.gif]aerial[/url], the Primid beneath his feet was thrown forward headways at more of its own, and Fox was beset on an impacted pair before their backs could hit the ground, carrying them and himself upward with an ascending flurry of spinning kicks that he followed with a drill drop onto the survivor of them. The next closest foe to him was lifted from its feet with a rising tornado kicked and caught by the chest with a turning mule kick directed into a toss with a front flip to carry it over Fox’s head. Still airborne, he then caught the hapless minion above him with both hands while turning around, throwing it to ground onto another and riddling them with a spray of blaster fire.

Banjo and Kazooie were busy fending off an encirclement of Primids little by little as they encroached on the pair, employing a series of punches, kicks, wing slices, and other less conventional attacks as ceaseless as the enemy onslaught to meet it in kind. A trio of Feyesh swarmed them with tentacles lashing out, the first two of which Banjo narrowly ducked back, but the third he caught a hold of, much to his own detriment. The electrified tendrils sent a surge through him that caused the pained throes of his voice to rattle and his muscles to spasm, preventing him from releasing his regretted grasp. He was lucky to have Kazooie (as always) to lend her beak to the creature’s eye to force it away. Having learned his lesson, Banjo changed his approach to put Kazooie up for damage duty, starting by bounding at the repelled Feyesh with a Rata-Rap. With a second jump, he faced his back to the next one for Kazooie to hit it with the same attack, and with a third jump, he whipped her out of his pack to repeatedly jab at the last one as he fell.

Suddenly, he found himself having to dodge backwards (re-sheathing Kazooie as he did) to avoid being dropped on by a Ticken from out of nowhere. Another like it came charging in from behind its brethren in a bull rush at the duo, knocking the ursine back some ways with force to surprise. He landed skidding on his bare feet, digging them further in as he braced to grapple the armored avian-like on the latter end of its charge. At which point he picked up on it just enough to gain advantageous leverage as he forced it back in a run, intent on ramming the two Ticken into one another. When they collided, the duo drove into them even further with a Beak Barge and a follow through right hook to bust through the frontmost set of armor, forcing a defenceless round yellow bird to vacate its metal husk. This caught the pair off-guard for a second, which was just enough of an opening to cost them a hit of stray [url=https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/halo/images/7/73/H2A_Render_CampaignBruteShot.png/revision/latest?cb=20150613014201]grenade[/url] fire from a distant Primid. Luckily, they were able to shield themselves behind the other Ticken to mitigate some of the blast damage, but it was still enough for the concussive force to knock them off.

While dispatching an Armight with a leaping step off its downswung blades into a signature backflip kick, Fox saw to the grenadier problem second it made the mistake of firing on him while he was exposed in midair--or at all, for that matter. With a single swift motion, he unclipped and drew forth a hexagonal device from his belt and threw it out in front of him, where it held suspended as it produced a translucent shield of cyan energy to redirect the hostile artillery back toward its source, dealing slight collateral as a bonus. He deactivated and slung the reflector back onto his belt just as quickly as he used it and dropped back down to ground level to re-engage the enemy. Relentless in his assault, his carelessness started to show a little when he got caught in a crowd of Primids passing him to and fro for a moment with their undisciplined strikes, but it was nothing he couldn’t correct just as quickly with a few broken arms, dislocated knees, quick, stunning jabs, chained kicks, and rapid bursts of laser fire for good measure.

He charged bodily into yet another Primid, grabbing it by the shoulder, shoving the muzzle of his blaster into its gut, and shooting repeatedly into--and shortly, through--it as he ran carrying it forward toward a Scope Primid for use as a human shield. The puppet’s thrown carcass slammed into a Sword Primid, knocking it down and clearing the way for Fox to tackle the Scope wielder to the ground with the flat of his flying knee. Stubbornly, the shooter held onto his weapon only to be jerked halfway back to its feet by the vulpine who used the shadowlings own weapon against its kin. He managed to shoot down one or two runners and fliers before being assailed by another sword wielder, prompting him to reflexively block its sword arm with the shaft of the borrowed Super Scope. In the same move, he turned around in such a manner that he was able to manipulatively leverage its arm with the gun’s grips to bring its blade down into the knelt gunner’s clavicle whilst also thrusting the ‘hot’ end of the firearm into the swordsman’s torso. He then released the shot he had charged during the maneuver as he let the weapon go, leaving it at the mercy of recoil to send it rocketing into the head of its already fallen (now overkilled) wielder. As well as respectively knocking and blasting away the gunner and swordsman, the diverting impacts loosed the embedded Beam Sword for Fox to grab twirling from the air and turn around to bisect another charging swordsman with in one heavy swing.

An errant lot of Borboras danced onto the battlefield, positioning themselves at various points to project disrupting howls of repelling wind, possibly intent on blowing the combatants from the cliff. The gusts threw Fox from his feet toward Brother Grimm, where a failed attempt to grab a hold of the door resulted in him having to stab into its side with the blade he just picked up, dragging a hideous gash partway across the truck’s body like a ripped sail. Banjo being heavier meant that he fared better, but was still being made to move despite his on-foot resistance. Kazooie couldn’t hazard emerging from her backpack to try aiding him, lest she be blown loose from it. This forced him to compensate by driving the angelic lance into the ground behind him at an angle to brake himself against. Though his reverse movement ceased, he could move no closer until the horn-headed Sub-borne relented.

Enter Hat Kid, flying in on her scooter to bounce off of one Borboras’ head and hooking another by its ‘snout’ with the handle of her umbrella, resultantly dragging its head around in a circle as she swung and redirecting its still blowing horn at the surrounding horde. This included, of course, other Borbora, creating somewhat of a small chain reaction of disruptive, randomly directed tunnel winds that chaotically ragdolled a modest number of hapless minions that were caught in the miniature maelstrom. When she completed a full lap around the wind thrower's head, sounding off with a sickening crack of its vertebrae, she leapt from her vehicle to let it crash tire- or undercarriage-first on top of whatever unfortunate mooks happened to be in its flight path while she started swiping, homing, diving, and even kicking into any light enemies that were in the air with her. Even minus her stunt, there were already flying foes a plenty for her to keep herself suspended.

Free of the forceful gails that pushed him back, Banjo withdrew the lance from the earth and started charging forward back into the thick of the action, jousting through a gaggle of multiplied Bytans, two Primids and a Ticken (bird and all) before hurling the spear-like implement skyward in an arc to pierce a Feyesh and come down tip-first onto the back of a Trowlon. The serpentine being, pinned beneath a pillar of it skewered comrades that prevented it from ascending as it was supposed to, desperately writhed in a vain struggle to free itself in the two seconds it had to do so before Banjo weightily brought his foot down onto what best resembled the creature’s head. He then fell back on Kazooie for a Spring Jump, boosting him high enough to catch an unsuspecting Armight into a bombing suplex straight down onto what was otherwise the smart end of the lance, ramming the pommel through its helmeted crown and collecting all of the spirits from the grounded polearm in one fell swoop.

After the weapon landed (before Banjo dropped an Armight on it), Kid executed three horizontal, centrifugal swings from its hilt to rebuild and keep her momentum going. She shot from the improvised lache bar feet forward fast enough to take a Primid off its feet, followed by a snap hat switch to a light Burn Knuckle. The lesser minion ended up ran through on an Armight’s sword and subsequently used as a footstool for the child to hurdle over and behind the cephalopodic knight. [color=8258fa]“Rokkyu!” (Rock you!)[/color] she shouted as she threw out an aerial Power Wave, then chasing it with, in order: a Homing Attack, a flurry of spinning umbrella strikes, and a modified heavy Burn ‘Brella that wreathed the parasol in the same empowering flame. [color=8258fa]“Burn!” (Burn!)[/color] she vocalized yet again--with no amount of toughness or intimidation factor in her voice to be taken seriously--as she lunged at the creature to finish it off with a fiery jab. Her feet hit the dirt again for the first time since they first arrived, and she turned, smiling gleefully, to fire a sustained first stage (blue) laser blast into the enemy crowd, imbuing it with Power as well.

Momentarily clear of any threats in her immediate proximity, the child took the moment she had to catch her breath--a need most atypical of her that she suddenly found herself having. She had a fairly good idea as to the reason too. It turns out the overuse of borrowed foreign power exceeding one’s natural limits that they’re as of yet ill-acclimated to is its own kind of counterintuitively taxing, and no amount of arbitrarily fashion-based psychometrics in the world could make up for a noticeable physical disparity in such a case. With this in mind, she now thought the better of over-relying the Power Cap, and decided she was going to have to get slightly more creative if she was going to survive the enemy waves that followed. As a start, she took the Primid and Armight spirits in a hand each to crush them for an additional (if potentially meager) item or weapon. Banjo did much of the same with the armful of spirits he had, but took the method an experimental step further by feeding a fistful of them to Kazooie midway through itemizing, loading her like a gun and ‘chambering’ what t/he/y hoped would be new rounds of viable ammunition. Fox, unaware of this process or its nature, forewent it for simplicity’s sake. After disembarking Brother Grimm for the second time, he quickly flourished the Beam Sword and rushed onward back into the fray, ready to take on anything and everything that met him there.