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[img]https://i.postimg.cc/Zn05qZPF/Jiggy-Final.png[/img]

[color=fed428]Level:[/color] 6 (22 -> 25 (-4) -> 21/60)
[color=fed428]Location:[/color] Dead Zone - Final Atrium
[color=fed428]Word Count:[/color] 1600 (+3 EXP)

[color=59e6ff]Blue Eggs:[/color] 30/100
[color=e01410]Red Feathers:[/color] 36 -> 30/50
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[color=0aaaff]“*sigh* Do we really have to do this?”[/color] Banjo bemoaned, standing before their opponent in recognition of who they were; a loosely familiar character from before, and a kindred spirit to the duo (in the more traditional sense).

“Believe me, I don’t like it either,” Mr. Bones sympathized. “The last time this happened, I had a little more say in it--took it up with the man responsible--but it just ain’t up to me this time. For what it’s worth, I’d have done things differently.”

[color=f60000]“Right,”[/color] Kazooie interjected almost dismissively. [color=f60000]“So… no hard feelings then?”[/color]

“None whatsoever,” he replied sincerely with a headshake, a long blink, and a shrug, “and sorry in advance for whatever happens next.” By then, Banjo had already strolled up within arms reach of Bones and abruptly pulled his off while he wasn’t looking, prompting a wide-eyed take from him as he looked at both now empty sockets.

[color=0aaaff]“Me too,”[/color] he replied with a soft smile before swatting Bones’ head off with a single heavy paw swing. The duo watched his skull tumble to a stop in what appeared to be an anticlimactic conclusion to their encounter.

[color=f60000]“Eh… I’m not,”[/color] Kazooie commented bluntly. [color=f60000]“Well, that was easy. What now?”[/color] They’d not, however, have a moment to idly ponder their next move, and not simply because there was enough going on around them already. Their attention moved to the crumpled skeletal mass at Banjo’s feet as they witnessed the remains reanimate and rise to reassembly before them, little worse for wear.

“Woah!” Bones exclaimed mock shaking off dizziness while he manually adjusted his reattached head. “It’s a good thing I couldn’t feel that.” Banjo looked at the loose arm still in his other hand then back to Bones as Kazooie opened her mouth to say something. Before she could get a word out, Bones continued. “Oh… yeah. Funny thing, right? I’m one’a the only guys here who can do that. Sadly, you’ll hurt to see how.” With that, Bones’ loose arm magnetized back into place, pulled to buy a tether of blue electricity, and touched a jolting index finger arcing with plasmatic energy to Banjo’s chest to begin zapping him as a demonstration.

Banjo howled a painful vibrato as he was shocked to his bones, literally, with Bones’ unique power of ‘Skeletism’ that had been, up to now, untested on an organic, mammalian being. Seeing as it managed to freeze up the burly ursine, it seemed to work no worse than usual. Kazooie took over to knock Bones loose with a heavy, rearing peck (more akin to a sharp headbutt) to detach the skeleton’s head once more, ending his sustained attack while he put himself back together. Bones, being just that and a soul, was fragile and easy enough to pick and break apart with a single direct hit from either of them. The problem was with keeping him down without knowing how, as he could simply keep reforming as long as he held a (positive) charge. Even anchoring one of his loose arms down underfoot didn’t stop him from grabbing an errant spare limb from any one of the other scattered skeletons around.

That reminded the duo that there was still a bigger fight going on around them. They figured their efforts would be better spent everywhere else before coming back to Bones, who would be no issue by then, if they didn’t learn how he ticked first. Until then, he posed as little more than a distraction for them, so with that in mind they took off into the air to get a lay of the field before moving in on it, putting them out of Bones’ way.

“See, now that just ain’t good sport. It’s already two against one, [i]and[/i] they can fly?” he said to no one in particular, raising a brow he no longer had before shaking his head disapprovingly. “Let’s see if we can do somethin’ about that.” A guitar then materialized in his hands with a sweep of generative pink sparks, and he began improvising an electrical, leading melody. In a stretch of possibility, the red energy that brought the bear and bird airborne faded to blue, bringing them to a gradual, but hastening descent. Kazooie did a panic take upon noticing this, and burned two more Red Feathers to counteract the effect only to watch them futily wilt to blue still, dropping them even faster in doing so. Banjo did his best bracing them for impact by tucking into their crash landing, rolling and skidding to a stop that left him face down with his chin to the floor.

[color=f60000]“Oh… because he plays [i][b]the blues[/b][/i]. I get it,”[/color] Kazooie uttered unamusedly, cluing into the metacommentary behind Bones’ ability and nature. Bones strolled up in front of the downed pair, guitar still in hand, and clarified…

“To be honest wit’cha, I wasn’t sure that’d work, but I guess that’s what they call [i]’facin’ the music’[/i], huh?” Bones jested rhetorically with a light chuckle, prompting an eyeroll from Kazooie and a groaning sigh from Banjo. “Look, I know we’re all just bein’ talked into this, but don’tcha think we ought to see our parts through? I think it’s only fair we finish what we started.” Evidently, the duo disagreed, opting instead to roll sideways over the edge, dropping themselves from the platform out of sight.

“Ain’t that a shame,” Bones sighed, lowering and shaking his head in disappointment. “If only things had been different when we met. Maybe we could’a been friends in another life. Probably the last,” he pondered, failing to notice the encroaching heat death of Bowser’s empowered fireball behind him until its brightening glow could no longer be ignored. He turned around to face it, realizing too late what the bear and bird were really avoiding. “Oh…” he said wide-eyed before the inferno bowled over and scattered him.

Banjo managed to catch a hold of the landmass of cyan coils in their evasive tumble. Shortly to follow was Mr. Bones’ unconscious head soaring in a steep arc and falling past them. Banjo freed a hand to catch what was left of the amiable revenant, leaving himself to hang precariously by one in doing so. The duo exchanged a look of understanding before Kazooie took over where Banjo had his hands full, tapping her partner’s chest to bring out a Friend Heart and slapping it onto Bones’ head to wash away one half of the influence over him. When he woke, the red glints in the blacks of his blue eyes would be gone.

“Thanks for the pick me up,” said Bones with a soft whistle, “I wasn’t all myself back there. Still not, technically, but, uh… well, y’know…” he continued referring to his current physical state of being.

[color=f60000]“I’m guessing that’s not just a skeleton joke...”[/color] Kazooie said in doubt about him regaining autonomy, realizing that he acted for someone other than Galeem.

“I’m afraid not,” Bones replied.

[color=0aaaff]“Figures you might say that,”[/color] Banjo remarked, mild disappointment clear in his tone.

“Y’see, the little girl up there’s still callin’ the shots, and I can’t explain it, but me and her are… sort of on [b]similar wavelengths[/b], if y’know what I mean,” he explained, hinting that him and Marie both utilized some manner of necromantic energy that might rationalize a connection between them, as well as his continued survival in proximity to her.

[color=0aaaff]“Not really,”[/color] Banjo retorted.

“Well… anyway, if y’all wouldn’t mind, I’d like to be free of this as soon as y’all could make that happen. I’ve seen this before, and I don’t wish it on anybody.”

[color=f60000]“Try not to interrupt us while we’re at it then,”[/color] Kazooie demanded.

“I’ll try not to, but I can’t promise anything.” Even now, his Skeletism charged body attempted to reform itself with the first stray arm to fall overboard near them, which Kazooie promptly yanked off with her beak and threw away into the abyss. “Worst comes to worst, just keep me out of reach. Shouldn’t be hard for ya.”

[color=0aaaff]“Will do.”[/color] With that, Banjo hauled all two and a quarter of them up to safety, but no sooner than they reached solid ground were they lifted right back off of it. Whether by telekinesis, an inversion of gravity, or some combination of both, Sans brought everyone within range up to his level, putting [i]most[/i] of them at a momentary disadvantage. Fortunatly, Banjo and Kazooie (mostly her) were just as capable airborne as they were anywhere else. During their moment of weightlessness, Banjo punted away Bones’ head and rolled back into Kazooie’s windup for a Beak Bomb before shooting off. A direct impact appeared to be certain with Sans’ patient refusal to move, but when they reached him, they hit nothing.

With utmost casualty, Sans blinked himself (or them) out of the way at the last decisecond before contact. Kazooie braked and spun them in a u-turn, but failed to return or re-engage before Sans forcibly dropped everyone back down to the floor. In Banjo and Kazooie’s case, that was on the next level below, for they were suspended over nothing else by the time Sans reintroduced them to gravity. The pair were smote onto a floating islet beneath the main platform some ways, still alive, but generally worse off for the moment. Little did they know this would incidentally spare them the harmful chaos of the goings on above. They’d not sit out more than their predicament forced them to, however, as the pair picked themselves up and began their ascent back to the battlefield proper.