[center][img]https://www.mariowiki.com/images/thumb/b/b2/Koopa_Troop_artwork.png/658px-Koopa_Troop_artwork.png[/img]
[h2][color=FD0000]The Koopa Troop[/color][/h2]
[b][color=FD0000]wordcount:[/color][/b] 3,489 (+3)
[b][color=FD0000]Bowser: Level 7 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=FD0000]///////////////[/color]//////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (15/70)
[b][color=SpringGreen]Bowser Jr: Level 6 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=SpringGreen]////////////[/color]/////////////////////////////////////////////////// (12/60)
[b][color=DeepSkyBlue]Kamek: Level 6 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=DeepSkyBlue]////////////////[/color]///////////////////////////////////////////// (16/60)
[b][color=salmon]Ace Cadet: Level 5[/color][/b] EXP: [color=salmon]////////[/color]////////////////////////////////////////// (8/50)
[b][color=lightblue]Donnie : Level 5[/color][/b] EXP: [color=lightblue]/////////////////////////////////////////////[/color]///// (45/50)
[b][color=FD0000]Location:[/color][/b] the Land of Adventure
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Awareness flared back to Bowser while he was flying up in the air from Banjo’s throw. He awoke right in time for the explosive reckoning of the End’s, well, end to rock the tower. Naturally, Bowser took credit, assuming it was his own ploy that had caused the devastation, [color=FD0000]”GAHAHAHAHA, I’M A GENIUS!”[/color] only for him to then realize it was raining down on him, [color=FD0000]”OH NO!”[/color]

Mortar and brickwork pummeled the king as he reached the arch of Banjo’s throw. He vanished into a cloud of dust, only to burst out of it once more riding Carrie the Trowlon like a hoverboard. Together the king, hatless and catless, and his flying steed rapidly ascended the outside of the tower despite the fact that all but one of its occupants vacated the lofty vantagepoint.

Down below, the toadies, free of trophified heroes to retrieve and with their master still hunkered down in the branches of a giant tree that Peach was using for cover, were left to follow whatever instructions they felt like, even their own. To that end, one heeded the Ace’s command and flew to snatch the slowly drifting spirit of Quiet from the air, bringing it back down to the tree as instructed (though if desired a hero could call it over to claim the spirit from elsewhere on the battlefield).

The other two went and grabbed the Bowser’s trophified hat and raced skywards to return the Koopa King’s property to him.

Finally, Jr, who had been sneaking with Geralt inside the zombie horde with his nose wrinkled the whole time, watched as the Witcher dropped any pretence of stealth and made a mad dash the rest of the way up the hill in response to the explosion Donnie’s wizard looking striker had set off with their lightning bolt. He also watched as his father got revived and began to soar up the tower unmolested on the back of the towel looking striker he’d captured from the subspace army. 

Stealth being 100% not Jr’s style he was more than happy to follow both of their leads, the propeller on his clown car deploying and carrying him up and away from the spiral ramp and gross zombies, as well as using the chaos created by the explosion to call out [color=SpringGreen]”Mimikyu, where are you?”[/color] without fear of being titan arrowed

“Kyu Kyu Kyu!” came a call from inside the entrance of the tower, which had rapidly filled up with people since Jr had last seen it during his falid accent. Most were friendly with the only expedition being the red eyed Link who jr vaguely knew was quite the fighter (he was considered tough enough to be on the cliff face along with the mushroom kingdom’s toughest after all). Not that calculations over whether the blue clad hero was sufficiently outnumbered really had any impact on Jr’s decision making process. His pappa was going up, so Jr was going up. If Jr was going up, so was Mimikyu.

Jr grabbed the creature's pokeball from the bandolier on his chest, pointed it her way and called out, [color=SpringGreen]”Mimikyu, return!”[/color] causing a beam of translucent red light to lance out and strike her. The pokemon instantly converted into that same translucent red energy, which then raced back to the pokeball to be stored inside it, with all of this taking only a few seconds. With her safely back with him, Jr cracked open the ball again, causing the small robotic mouse ghost fairy to appear on his shoulder in a flash of light. She quickly nuzzled his cheek, the experience equal parts soft and uncomfortable thanks to the metal jaw her fake head now sported, as the pair ascended after Bowser.

Meanwhile, Donnie woke up with a start. One second he was fishing for a gunpowder charge, next he was at the bottom of the mountain, staring a concerned Linkle in the face. Did he get petrified? Looked like it. And Gough tossed him down the mountain to boot! He flexed his arm experimentally, making sure nothing was broken and testing his range of movement in case his Trophy was damaged in the fall.

“Thanks, for the save, Linkle.” he said. “Now, I’ve got a giant to slay. Good luck on the rest of them.”

With that, he tried to perform the summon spell to recall the Luggage, but nothing happened. “Wait, no, this isn’t--[i]oh, the Disc’s atop the tower, isn’t it?[/i]” He facepalmed, got up, and began walking towards the tower. This hadn’t exactly happened before, maybe if he desummoned it first? He tried to reach his mind outwards, focusing on the enchantment on the Madman’s Luggage. He should be able to detect its magic even from here, it had some potent spells woven into it. He reached, reached, reached...and it was out of range. He put his hands on his hips and looked up at the tower, wondering if he should brave its interior. He’d have to invest in a good backpack and a set of pouches next time. This just wouldn’t do.

An ally’s voice called out from behind.

[color=salmon]”Hey!”[/color] The Ace Cadet had made it up the mountain path easily - thanks to the explosion at the top of the tower rocking the snipers out of their perch and throwing the enemies into disarray. It seemed like he wasn’t the only one just arriving either. Blazermate making an extended maneuver to dodge the debris, not wanting to waste her uber on it, was with him - as well as a smaller passenger in Cuphead. Cadet set the little guy down and approached the tower’s base. The pieces of the structure that were knocked loose made for holes perfect for catching his slinger on. 

[color=salmon]”You going up? Need a lift?”[/color] he asked Donnie, getting the grappling hook on his arm ready for an ascent. Three of them might be heavy, but he hoped it was nothing the slinger couldn’t haul up. 

“Yeah. My stuff’s up there and I’m out of range to summon it back.” Donnie replied in an annoyed tone. Not to indicate that he was annoyed at Ace Cadet, just annoyed at life in general, really. Something the hunter could understand. [color=salmon]”Welp, hold on and I’ll get us up there quick!”[/color]

While he ascended atop Carrie, the Trowlon’s flight perhaps the quietest form of movement Bowser had ever used, Bowser took advantage of the ability it provided for him to stand still while also moving, allowing him to charge up a breath attack without vulnerably sitting still in front of his foe. The king cleared the lip of the tower’s battlements, bent down and unleashed a gout of flame while at the same time as he grabbed the side of the Trowlon and pulled it up, tilting the flying carpet slightly so that it veered to the side slightly in an evasive action.

Fire washed over the tower’s top, which would have been very effective if there had been anyone left other than Gough. As it was the king’s flames washed forth as he continued to climb atop his towley steed, fire blasting out and licking at the giant’s body, thach looking decorated armor and wooden weapon. Bowser made his presence known in grandiose style, and likewise a grand arrow caught him almost immediately. Still, even as his trophy fell from Carrie, his flames ignited Gough’s gear. Silent, the giant began to burn, but he knew that Bowser’s friends would be right on his heels, an assessment that held true as jr finished his climb just in time to see Carrie dissipate and Bowser’s trophy clink to the floor. The prince and pokemon both growled at the titan, ready to brawl.

Even though the Cadet’s slinger wasn’t long enough to get to the top of the tower in one shot, the ascent wasn’t slow going by any means. As soon as the claw gripped stone, the cable was reeled in and it hoisted the trio up… and up and up until the device caught the edge of the tower’s top level. The Medabot and two armored men, one ornate and one scaled, climbed over the side and were met with the prince and his father’s trophy - and the giant archer. He was intimidating, but it also seemed like he wasn’t in top shape. 

Gough fired, aiming between his assailants. While it wouldn’t take an extensive dodge from either to escape it, the giant banked on the intimidation factor of the lance-sized arrow to scatter his opponents, maybe to the extent that one or both tangled with a nearby precipice. 

Cadet evaded to his right, hopping out of the giant arrow's path with much more gusto than caution. He wasn't worried about a fall; as long as he had the slinger, getting back up wouldn't be much of a problem, though it [i]would[/i] be pretty annoying - and probably painful - to be flung all the way back down. Perhaps it was his lack of fear that kept him moving even as loose stones fell away under his feet at the tower's edge. Below, he'd been playing support, but now the hunter was on the move toward the sniper. Cadet brandished not his sword but the spirit of the greap from the canyon, crushing the glowing object in his fist. [i]The best defense is a good offense![/i] 

The spirit resonated with him, and from its gleam manifested a [url=https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/monsterhunter/images/6/6c/Weapon446.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/340?cb=20120512093406]long sword in the shape of a scythe[/url]. The young man's eyes lit up in delight. Getting new equipment was so exciting, even in a situation like this. As the weapon's weight settled in his hands he judged it to be a longsword, and after a brief moment to adjust to a proper grip Cadet continued his charge.

Jr jerked the controls of his clown car upwards and ascended yet further with Blazermate, gaining the high ground over their foe and staying out of the way of the two armored warriors that had come to back him up. As soon as he was free of the splash zone he whispered brief instructions to Mimikyu, causing her to jump off his shoulder and out into the open air. The ghost, light as a cloud, drifted through the air and then landed gently atop the golden base of Bowser’s trophy. As soon as she landed, she grabbed one of the king’s outstretched frozen arms with her own long noodle arms and used this to launch herself skywards away from Bowser.

While Mimikyu fell Bowser Jr pushed a button on the clown car’s controle, causing its mouth to pop open and a cannon to slide out of it. From this it launched a balloon, which quickly inflated into the sweet tooth’s flaming clown head attack and raced towards the giant.

Gough could only judge the incoming projectile by its sound, but the roar of fire and haunting scream brought to mind the pyromancies of his world, and he knew that the demon flames raged against whatever stood in their way. He hurled a handful of carved stones in the direction of the floating bomb, but underestimated its blast radius. [i]BOOM![/i] The detonation struck him with blistering force, pushing him a few steps back toward the tower’s edge. Also caught in the blast was the Cadet, eager to test out his new sword he hadn't been paying the closest attention to the actions of his comrades. A rookie mistake, but can't blame a guy when he's still operating outside the realm of his experience, right? The force of the explosion pushed the hunter forward. Once he recovered, shaking his head lightly to clear it, he found himself face to face with the massive archer. Or as face to face as one could be with the difference in their sizes. Ace Cadet's eyes flickered between several points in the giant's body and his great bow, the thought of which would make for a better target crossing his mind before be ultimately made his decision: he took one step back to ground himself before swinging the scythe blade forward in a wide horizontal slash at the giant's legs.

Making no move, Gough allowed the sharp blade to strike his armor. The scythe stopped cold, bouncing off the metal with a [i]ting[/i], its cutting power completely useless against protective gear designed specifically to counter bladed weapons.

Donnie, meanwhile, had expected Gough to attempt an ambush by firing at them the moment they ascended the tower. It was a simple matter dodge to the left, avoiding the projectile entirely. He wisely stayed back when he noticed Jr shooting a fireball attack from his flying machine, and was rewarded for his situational awareness by not getting caught in the blast. Cadet, however, wasn’t so lucky. Donnie was behind both of them at the moment, and he decided to help out by firing a Chi Burst directly at Cadet’s back, which would conveniently not only heal Cadet, but go straight through his body and hurt Gough, who was in front of him.

The blast surged through the Ace Cadet and hit Gough’s leg as he prepared his next arrow, dealing enough damage to make the giant wince.

Behind them Jr. swooped down to catch Mimikyu’s leap off of Bowser, while the king himself flared back to life from the Pokemon touching his trophy base. As he shook his head and took in the situation he flew in to join the human’s assault on the giant, only to glance suddenly to the side when prompted by the wordless call of Kamek’s toadies, who tossed him his trophified hat. He caught it by the base and swiftly put the freed headgear back in its rightful place with a grin.

Hovering back and away from where they’d regrouped Jr ordered Mimikyu to [color=SpringGreen]”Mimikyu, charge up an electro ball, let’s give the big guy a real shock!”[/color] as he struck a button and caused a synapse infested robot arm to deploy from his clown car, prompting the pokemon to charged up another Electro Ball. Thumbing a firing trigger, jr caused the biological lightning weapon to shoot a tight beam of electricity towards the giant’s arrow drawing arm, a shot that was followed moment’s later by Mimikyu’s electro ball aimed towards the target laser pointed by the synapse’s stream of lightning. 

Together corrosive and electricity struck Gough’s bow arm, jolting the muscles and scarring the armor. The bowstring slipped from his hand, and his arrow launched both slow and early. It flew lazily over the edge of the tower, a few feet away from Junior who flinched away from the near miss. Gough grunted and aimed a kick at the Ace Cadet, trying to boot him into the monk behind him. 

Left open after his botched attack, the hunter was easily sent flying backwards. The giant's strength was certainly comparable to a large monster - to be expected, given he was a [i]giant[/i]. Cadet barely had time to think that maybe he should change up his strategy before he collided with the chi slinging man. [color=salmon]"Ouch,"[/color] he grumbled, and after a brief untangling and a curt [i]sorry![/i] directed Donnie’s way, Cadet was back on his feet. Dealing with the enemy's swings was much preferable to dealing with the possibility of getting petrified at range, and now that he was finally in close quarters with one of their assailants Cadet was quick to try and dive right back into the giant's personal space. 

Blazermate, seeing Cadet getting tossed, put her healing beam on the monster hunter.  Gough looked like he didn’t take all that much damage, so Blazermate took a bit of time to scan him. With this information, Blazermate relayed it to Cadet, telling him Gough’s weak spot as he engaged with the giant sniper.

With a change in tactics, Cadet raised his longsword high and brought it down in a swipe aimed not at Gough, but at the giant's weapon, hoping to catch the bow in the hook of the scythe and drag it downward whether Gough kept his grip on it or not. 

The paradigm shift worked wonders. Hooking the scythe around the bow stopped Gough’s attempt to nock another arrow short and initiated a tug-of-war. If given the chance to do so the giant would have no doubt won it handily, but he did not receive it.

Now free, re-hatted and up to speed, Bowser joined the fray, charging towards the giant, increasing in size back to as he did. He looked to be on a collision course with the Ace until he suddenly leapt up and over him. The King drew his hand back and rather than ball it or bare his claws he held it open and aimed to palm strike the giant, who was still dangerously close to the edge, square in the chest. Following him up came Jr’s clown car. After the synapse’s energy had been drained during his successful shot interruption shot he'd stored it away and in its place deployed the vehicle’s oversized boxing mitt armed arms. As his father aimed for the center of mass jr took a higher road and dived bombed towards the giant’s face, aiming to strafe him with a flurry of boxes on the ears.

Blazermate meanwhile landed instead of flying by Jr, keeping her healing beam on Cadet, Seeing as Bowser and Jr. were going in to attack, Blazermate relayed her scan findings to them as well, making sure to stay out of Bowser’s way as he charged. Still, she saw an opportunity as she saw Gough get damaged, and came from the side to bite him with her Suffering shield. He would make a great zombie for the trials ahead, if he could even be converted.

One, two, and three--the parade of blows struck Gough in quick succession. To avoid overbalancing and falling backward, the giant pitched forward onto his knees after the first hit from Bowser, only for Junior and then Blazermate to follow up. The teeth of the Suffering shield did not penetrate his armor, but they did crumple the metal and leave a couple of painful indentations that rakes Gough’s skin like inward-facing spikes. After the assault, he could not recompose his defenses, instead reaching into his pouch with one hand.

Finally, the monk charged, leapt over everyone involved, moving into a flying kick, dramatically enhanced by dumping a full quarter of his prodigious chi reserves into this meteoric strike. He descended like mighty Xuen from on high, his whole body wreathed in the power of the wind that dumping this much chi at once had created. He was throwing everything he had into this attack, and his armored boot collided with Gough’s face like the stomp of a Titan, driving the resin that filled the eyeholes into Gough’s eye sockets and causing the visor itself to cave in. The force imparted was almost guaranteed to send the giant hurtling off the tower at terminal velocity. Donnie himself had to grab onto the edge of the tower and haul himself back up to safety lest he fall as well.

The blow hit home with tremendous force and a visceral noise, snapping Gough’s head backward. Limply he fell over, sliding off the edge of the tower to drop to the ground far below. A second later, the carved stone he pulled out in his final moment hit the stone by Donnie’s feet and shattered apart, release the giant’s voice into the air. “Thaank youu,” it said, deep but with as much cheer as dignity, the Hawkeye’s last words. His spirit came to rest on the surface of the moat around Spiral Mountain, with the ashes sinking and diffusing into the water.

Donnie put his hands on his knees, huffing and puffing after putting in that much energy at once. Chi was linked to the soul, but also to the body. Spirit and body went hand in hand, in a symbiotic relationship with one another. Chi could empower the body, sure, but the body still had to be capable of acting on that infusion of energy, and dumping lots of chi at once was tiring to both body and soul. Or puppet-body and Spirit, as it were.

“Well, now I just feel sad,” he said between breaths. “I didn’t know he [i]wanted[/i] to die. Though I don’t blame him, honestly.” He stood upright, saying, “Now we’ve just got the others to deal with. Think we can free them? I think that man in red looked similar to the Engineer Blazermate has. He’d appreciate it.”

Bowser grunted while shaking the hand he’d struck the giant with and then shrugged in response to Donnie’s question dismissively [color=FD0000]”IF YOU WANT HIM, THEN GO FOR. DIDN’T SEEM LIKE ANYTHING SPECIAL TO ME THOUGH.”[/color]   

[color=FD0000]”NOW LINK. THERE’S A GUY I COULD USE. CLASSIC MEDDLING HERO MATERIAL”[/color] he added, before wondering to himself how the team facing him was faring.