Mercenary Mission 3: Scout the 1-1 Scrapyard

(moments in the past, but not many)

Princess Daisy raced out of Peach’s castle, an excited expression on her lips. Following her were Wario and Waluigi, who sauntered out with her, and finally, bringing up the rear, was the ever-nervous Luigi, sporting a quick fix medigun strapped to his back in place of the poltergust 9000 he’d been using the previous day. Moments ago they’d all been tasked by Bowser Jr in scouting out the area south of Peach’s castle to work out what had happened since the original party had passed through there and to find the source of the robot menace that had assailed the castle only a few hours prior. 

“Oh this is so exciting! Hey, hey Holly! Guess who’s going on a mission!” Daisy cheered excitedly before calling out to the leader of a group of goblins who were finalizing an impromptu defensive wall protecting the arrival spot of Jr’s warp Graffiti. Where the drawbridge to the castle met the cart junkyard beyond there now existed a small barricade. It was made primarily of the torn down stone arch the engineer and bastion had used as a fortification, along with a few bits of scrap that had been easy to aquire. One of these was immediately recognisable to the Wario bros.

“Waaaaah! My ride. Whaat have you done to it!” came a cry from Wario .

“What?” Hollythorn, the goblin warchief who’d escorted Daisy out of the dark woods to the west and then taken it upon herself to fortify the, in her opinion worthless,  castle watched in bemusement as the wario bros booths sprinted up the the butchered remains of the [url=https://i.imgur.com/HOdSI2Z.png]wario car[/url] “Oh that’s yours? That was like that when we got here. Hey. No stop. You’re going to break the barricade you weird elves!”

“You haven't even used that thing for ages” Daisy reminded them as they fought of a number of perturbed goblins and tried to pry the vehicle, which had been tossed on a scrap heap, riddled with bullets while being used as a shield by bowser and finally hacked into pieces by the goblins, out of barricade.

“Well. Yeeeeeah.” Wario said, pausing his anguish to disagree but clearly feeling a bit silly about the display now that he’d stopped it, “But still. It’s mine” 

“Yeah! And you thieving little green things best give it back,” Waluigi added in support.

“Not thieves, stupid elf!” retorted one of the goblin watchwomen, who was joined by several others in heckling the pair from their barricade. The incredibly heavily armed nature of the goblins, who’d acquired the majority of the run-of-the-mill weapons gained from the spirits of the invading robots, got the bros to back off, while a brief conversation between Hollythorn and her troops in their native tongue got the goblins themselves to back down.  

“Right. So. Peace? Peace? Good. You’re not getting that wreck back, sorry. Trust me, you wouldn't have wanted it in the state we found it in either,” Hollythorn said, the capstone the whole affair, “Now. What’s this about a mission Daisy?”

The goblin woman was clearly sceptical about the prospects, and got even more so as Daisy quickly explained that they were heading out to go explore the land beyond the goblin’s barricade. 

“You lot? Scouts? No offense, but you lot do not look like you could handle that,” she looked over the fancily clad princess and her crew of 3 brightly colored plumbers with a critical eye before concluding that, “You lot look about as sneaky as a human artillery regiment in a swamp.”

“Hey” “Wah!” 

“Look, Holly. I knoooow I didn’t give the best impression getting here, but that’s because this whole Galeem thing caught me off guard, but I’m prepared this time!” Daisy told her, before pulling up the hem of her skirt a bit to show the half dozen aluminum baseball bats she'd somehow concealed under there.

“Hey, that's where those went! You can't just hoard them!” Waluigi, who had a similarly unconventional taste in armaments, complained.

“Hey, you’ve got your racket, and it’d be bad form to borrow Peach’s gear so a girl has to take what she can get”, Daisy retorted, shoving him away.

“Wario’s got plenty of experience for everyone,” the massively overweight man added, flexing a muscular arm. He might not have been too interested in the mission at first, but he was not about to have some slip of a girl tell him he wasn't up to the challenge. 

“Plus Luigi’s saved the mushroom kingdom a dozen times, right Luigi?” Daisy added, bringing attention to the smallest and quietest member of their party.

“W-well, I mean that was mostly my bro. Maybe she’s a right and a we should call this’a whole thing off.”  

“He’s just modest,” Daisy insisted.

“Sigh, you’re really set on this?” Holly said, palming her brow.

“Mmm hmmm” “yeah” “well uh” “yeah-heh”

“Fine then, we’ll let you though. On one condition: I’m coming with you,”  Hollythorn asserted.

“Yeah!” Daisy cheered before processing the condition “Wait what? Oh no that’s okay you really don’t need to...”

“Oh no, I really do. You lot have one chance to prove to me you can handle this. Slip up and I’m bringing you all back, at bow point if I need to,” she insisted “Got it?”

The plumbers’ reactions ranged from nervousness to “you can try” but Daisy was happy to have her friend along, “Okay then, let’s go!”

“Before we do, you lot might want to take some extra firepower” Hollythorn told them, before calling out to her goblins in their own tongue and getting them to present an assortment of lethal looking firearms to the squad. “We’ve been figuring these out, and some of this gear is really advanced.” The goblin told them, and considering that her crew’s most advanced weapon before now was a couple of carefully maintained flintlocks, she really meant it, “Wouldn't last a month in the jungle mind, but here and now it’ll level the playing field against those bots.”

“Wario doesn't need anything but these guns!” The brute insisted, flexing again before stomping past the proferred arms

“Oh, uh, no thanks, this thing’s enough,” Luigi piped up, already overwhelmed by the Quick Fix on his back, skirting around the proffered guns and following after the dismissive Wario.

“Hm. These don't seem very lady-like. And they look pretty heavy,” Daisy complained, looking them all over, especially put off by the hulkling rocket launchers and miniguns that the goblins were having to carry two apiece.

“Hmmmm. What gives Waluigi the biggest advantage?” The lanky scoundrel asked, always up for anything that could give him a leg up on the competition.

“These things doesn't fit my women’s wrists, but its powerful and I think it might work perfectly for you” Hollythorn told him, handing him a wrist mounted plasma pistol built to fit on an [url=https://i.imgur.com/qf4M3Sb.png]equally lanky creature’s[/url] wrist. As Waluwigi tried out his new weapon and blasted random bits of dirt and water with tight beams of superheated plasma Hollython turned her attention back to Daisy, having second thoughts about giving the woman a gun.

“You know, maybe it’s not the best idea for a human of your, ah, standing, to be using one of these. I imagine you’ve never had an expense with-”

“Oh no I’ve used one of these before,” she informed the goblin as she picked up a pump action [url=https://i.imgur.com/SqmQiIR.png]shotgun[/url] “We did skeet shooting at the Olympics, remember Waluigi?”

“Waht?”

“So don’t worry about it. I know the rules. Treat it like it’s always loaded, don't point it at anything but a target, keep your finger off the trigger when not firing it, that kind of thing,” she explained, before seeing the surprise and touch of confusion on Hollythorn’s face and explaining. “Skeet shooting is like archery, but the targets are frisbees... discuses? It’s a sport, and I’ve played basically every sport that exists. We all have.”

“Tennis is the best one!”

“You only say that because you’re not good at anything else.”

“...Weh.”

“I see...” Hollythorn replied, surprised but not entirely taken aback by this revelation. She’d vaguely heard of human nobles doing that kind of thing back on their home continent after all. 

The princess stored away her new gun alongside the bats and put some spare ammo for it in one of Peach’s handbags (that apparently she didn't have any concern about borrowing) and with that they were ready to go. 

“You’re not taking anything?” she asked Hollythorn as the three of them moved out through the gateway of the barricade, (which was made of the Wario car’s doors among other things). 

“No. There wasn't anything that fit my style. I’ve got one of the pistols as a backup, but I do my best work at a distance with my bow” Hollythorn replied after bidding farewell to her troops and assuring them she’d be back soon, safe and sound.

“There you are, wah, Wario was getting bored. Nice bracelet you got there” Wario said, hauling his ass up from the grass while Luigi gave them a polite wave.

“Yeah, it is. With this, Waluigi’s gonna win big time!” 

“So, Holly, seeing as you’re the expert, where do we start?” Daisy asked the goblin warchieftain.

“I suggest we get some high ground. That scrap heap looks stable enough. Plus, it’ll be good to know if it’s safe, so we can scavenge from it later” 

“You heard the lady, let’s go.”

With that, the quintet set off on their scouting expedition, quickly jogging across the open ground between the barricade and the nearest scrap pile. When it came to climbing it, the quartet of kingdom goers quickly demonstrated why they were actually quite a good choice for this kind of thing, for all it had been an impulse on Jr’s part and how much Hollythorn had doubted them, as their platforming skills let them bound their way up the pile of scrap with relative ease. By contrast, the goblin had to scramble up the side of it, and while her movements were swift and efficient she couldn't complete with the unnatural abilities of the princess and her plumbers.

“Hurry it up Holly, hehehe!” “Yeah, move it or lose it!” the Wario bros, who’d had time to sit down and relax while they waited for her to catch up, heckled the goblin as she reached the summit of the scrapheap.

“That’s Hollythorn to you, elf.”

“Well that's what she called you, weh” Waluigi replied.

The goblin merely stared down the lanky man till he dropped the issue 

“What’s an elf anyway?” he asked instead.

“You are. Aren't you?”

“Uh, no.”

“Then what are you?”

The Wario bros looked at eachother and collectively shrugged. “What kind-a question is that? We’re the Wario Bros!”

The goblin stared at them for a moment, baffled by this lack of species self identity before moving on “Forget it. Daisy, Luigi. Seen anything interesting?” she quietly called up the last bit of the slope to where Luigi and Daisy were crouched behind a few pieces of scrap and peaking out at the land beyond. Luigi’s experience with rabbids having taught him the value of cover against the kinds of foes the Rabbids themselves had been fighting not too long ago, which, again, surprised Hollythorn.

The plumber in green pointed shakily across the scrapyard. From atop a strategic bluff, exactly as it had a few days before during the first real battle of the free, loomed an enormous [url=https://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/thumb/8/8b/Carrier_tank.png/300px-Carrier_tank.png]armored vehicle[/url] clad in thick slate-blue plating and crammed with communications arrays. Robots milled around its base, ever watchful.

Wario grunted. “Bah, it’s a whole stinkin’ army of the suckers. It’s gotta be their base, but no way we’re gettin’ near that thing.”

A spindly finger pointed out the Carrier Tank’s roof. “Weheheh, but nobody up there! We can jump off junk heaps straight on roof and bust inside!”

A moment of silence passed as the others stared. Waluigi glanced furtively between them. “...Waht?”

“That’s actually not a bad idea,” Daisy forced herself to admit, loath as she was to give the beanpole any encouragement.

“Hah! Course it is,” Waluigi leered, crossing his arms in a self-satisfied way and instantly affirming Daisy’s doubts. “Waluigi actually good at what I do. People just don’t give me a chance.”

In another moment the four were on the way, their less-spry goblin companion in tow.

[hr]

Hollythorn followed after the brightly-clad bouncing mercenaries, her heart lurching into her throat every time it looked like the band looked was going to be spotted by the robots below. The land they were passing through took them away from the route traversed by the original team, taking them from cart graveyard to a more general junkyard, filled with mundane refuse of all kinds, a few vehicle skeletons and, bizarrely, giant toys. These lead to once very tense encounter with a huge jack in the box but mostly the odder bits junk were just a curiosity, one more thing to hide behind out of sight of the robots mustered in the valley housing their [url=https://i.imgur.com/oUiqNNg.png]giant mobile base[/url].

Thanks to luck and some actual sneaking skills from various minigames the squad of mushroom kingdomers's weren't swarmed by bots and instead reached the roof of the giant machine in good time and without incident though, not without a few close calls. Hollythorn once again brought up the rear, but if there were awards for most sneaky the goblin woodswoman would have won every one. There weren’t however, so instead all she got were some snarky looks from the Wario bros and a long-lasting gap between the top of the junk pile and the roof of the massive robot carrying machine.

“I’ya can give you a boost? If you’a want?” Luigi offered quietly, cupping his hands together to offer up a team jump, having seemingly waited while the others hopped onboard. She looked at him, then at the wario bros and then silently took out her bow and an arrow, tied a rope to the arrow and pinged it across, narrowly missing Wario’s hat with it before it tangled itself around one of the strange dishes sat atop the machine. Then she secured the other end to a secure looking piece of junk and then nimbly tightrope walked, or rather ran, across her improvised bridge before pulling it back down in another swift motion.

Lugi sketched the back of his head awkwardly, a bit embarrassed to have had his help turned down and then hopped up to join the rest of the team. 

“Found anything informative up here?” Hollythorn asked Daisy, who was the only person who had waited up top whose opinions she actually cared about.

“Mostly a roof,” the princess admitted. Certainly there were a load of radar dishes and other devices up top to look at and be baffled by, but being up there didn't make seeing inside all that much easier. There was still one more step they needed to take.

“Heyyy. There's these spiny things and windows and things down the sides we could look into if you went so chicken,”

“You do it then!”

“No. Waluigi likes his head attached to his body, where it belongs.”

The goblin shook her and then asked, “Do any of you have a mirror? Or something reflective?”

“Oh sure, here,” Daisy replied, rummaging around in her borrowed purse and retrieving a small makeup kit, bright pink and with Peach’s brown emblazoned on the back, which she flipped open to reveal it had a mirror inside along with the various beauty products.

“That works,” the warchief replied, forcing herself not to ask why she had that on her during a scouting mission after that decision had revealed itself to be useful. Then she quietly moved over to one side of the ship that was most shielded from view by junk, There she slipped a rope around the base of a radar dish again, and then the other end she tied around her waist. 

“Oh, I get it. We’ll lower you,” Daisy said as she followed her over.

“I can… yes. That would be easier,” Holly admitted.

The team made their preparations, pausing a cautious moment as a contingent of machines marched by below and into the belly of the beast. Then the kingdom denizens began to lower their goblin friend. It wasn't far, only a few feet, but with Daisy and Luigi’s help (and the Wario Bros keeping watch) the rappeling went smoothly. Hollythorn carefully inched closer to the chosen window and then, after listening to make sure no one was right next to it, poked the mirror out so she could use it to spy inside, the small makeup kit more inconspicuous than her whole head would have been.

Within, she beheld the carrier tank’s spacious interior. The large central area, accessible by the main ramp and where the robot legions waited for deployment, contained a number of the machines idling. A level up on the side closest to the vehicle’s front lay the spacious command center, with an elevator connecting the two  a wide walkway stretching either direction along the interior walls. Those same walls featured racks of equipment, fueling stations, and hi-tech pods for the secure transport and tuning of troops a step above the rank-and-file. In the sea of dull, mechanical blues and grays, Holly’s eyes were instantly drawn to a splash of red, and the bizarre man who wore it.

Standing in front of an extremely elaborate workstation on the upper deck and facing the vehicle’s rear was a bald, mustached man hard at work. His red coat, with its golden buttons and four coattails, failed to disguise his portliness, but in sharp contrast to his sizeable midsection were long, spindly limbs. With goggles, circular spectacles, and strange shoes, the [url=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sonic/images/c/c9/TSR_Dr_Eggman.png]disproportionate man[/url] cut an almost comedic figure, but the look on his face was one of intense concentration as his hands moved like lightning over the keyboard of a plug-in control pad before him. It attached to a [url=https://i.imgur.com/hZ0FTjf.png]mine on legs[/url], which lay alongside the whole or partial remains of a number of other robot mercenaries. He looked about as far from pleased as one could possibly conceive.

As Holly watched, the squad she and the others spotted earlier made its way up the ramp and into the carrier. Most of them peeled off to stand at attention in an empty corner of the bay, but the leader entered the elevator to reach the upper deck. Holly took note of its greenish-blue material and blue-trimmed outfit, strangely topped by a head of yellow hair. Its belt buckle bore a single word -ennui- etched into its surface, which the goblin assumed to be its name. “Any luck, sir?” The [url=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/guilty-gear/images/5/56/Robo-Ky.png]robot swordsman[/url] asked, prompting the engineer to shake his head. “These hunks of junk are so [i]frustratingly[/i] archaic,” he growled. “Infants could scratch out better code. And stick together sturdier chassis too, with their play-doh! The idea that I of all people should have to put up with this garbage is just...unconscionable!” He angrily pressed another few keys in quick succession, then ‘enter’. The Sentry Buster in front of him immediately started slamming its legs on the table like a child throwing a tantrum, noisily jostling tools and spare parts around. With a snarl the engineer brought his fist down, then yanked the cable from the Sentry Buster.

The swordsman watched the machine go limp, its face blank, as his superior picked up the control pad in disgust. “Sounds pretty miserable, considering all you’ve told me. A genius shouldn’t have to flounder in a dump.”

“Damn straight!”

Brushing his metal chin with his fingers, the swordsman continued. “IIf you’ve hit a dead end, you should take a break.” He produced a small bundle and laid it on the worktable. “Here. Picked it up near the forest.”

“Hmm?” Raising an eyebrow, the engineer deposited the control pad and unwrapped the bundle. After removing the last layer of brown paper he inhaled deeply, relishing what must be a pleasant small. “Oho, what do we have here?”

“Steak and Kidney Pie,” his assistant recited. “From a shop called Exotic Foods. The owner, a Mr. Bang Ersenmash, recommended it highly.”
“Well...I suppose I could take a short break.” The engineer paid a visit to the onboard lavatory, taking only a few moments. While he was gone, the swordsman glanced in the direction of the window, forcing Holly to withdraw her hand quickly. If he noticed anything amiss, however, he gave no sign, and casually turned back to the workbench. Soon the mustached man returned, digging into the pie with a sterilized tool in place of a fork. “Not bad!” After satisfying himself, he resumed complaining. “Really reminds me what I’m missing out on! It’s really such a farce, having to scrounge in the wilderness like this. Making do with the bare minimum. And just when I’m finally getting somewhere, that meddling scum comes along and trashes the only decent machines I had! Why would they turn to dust in this world, leaving no spare parts?! It boggles the mind!”

The swordsman reassured him idly, speaking so clearly that Holly didn’t need to strain to hear. “Still, you’ve done a lot for what little you have, Dr. Eggman. Getting this army working, figuring out a way to manufacture them in your base to the east.”

“Of course. I am a genius, after all! The greatest mind to grace this brave new world!” The engineer called Eggman rose to his feet. He looked out through the carrier’s bay doors across the junkyard to the parapets of Peach’s Castle beyond, rubbing his hands together. “And tomorrow, after I’ve finished rigging the command modules, I’ll finally be able to overrun that oh-so-cheery citadel. No more token forces and data gathering for me, oh no! Think they saw the end of the robot hordes, did they? By this time tomorrow, the sun will be shining on the new Eggman Empire!”

That was, she felt, enough. Holly pulled her long ear away from the cold metal and tugged at the rope to get herself pulled up. Once up she put a finger to her lips and indicated that now would be a good time to leave. No point standing around on top of the enemy base while talking. Together the quintet rushed away from the mobile fortress before finding a safer, more secluded spot in the junkyard to listen to what Hollythorn had seen and overheard.

“Ohhhh. Eggman. Yeah I thought it sounded like him.” Daisy mused once Hollythorn got to the part where the blond-haired robot mentioned the bad doctor’s name.

“You know this megalomaniac?” Holly asked.

“Yeah. We play olympic sports with him and Sonic’s pals something like twice a year.”

Hollythorn was silent for a few moments and threw her hands up in the air with exasperation when the others all confirmed this.

“Well I guess he’s like Sonic’s Bowser. He’s a bad guy, but not so much that they can’t play sports or team up when the going gets tough you know. If we talk to him I’m sure we can figure things out.” Daisy tried.

“That bastard's robots killed some of my people!” the warchief was seething, yet she maintained noise discipline all the same. 

No one had an answer for that.

“He’s got a base to the east and he’s going to attack the castle again before this time tomorrow and that place isn’t even close to being defensible.” She said, breaking the silence, “We’ve wasted enough time here. You need to report back, I need to prepare.” Hollythorn told them, before turning away and practically vanishing into the junk field.

“Holly!” Daisy called after her, to no avail.

“You really screwed that one up, weh.” Waluwigi began to snark before the princess punched him in the long, pink nose. “Owww, what was that for!?”

“She’a does have a point. We’a should head back and tell Vandham and the others” Luigi suggested carefully “They’ll know what’a to do”

Daisy sighed before agreeing. “Let’s go”

With that the four set off back through the junk field, heading for home.

Standing in front of the Carrier Tank’s ramp, Robo-ky watched the blips on his scanner disappear. If not for his rigid, metallic features, he might have been smiling as he gave a slight chuckle. He retracted the device into his body and stared off into the creeping pinks and oranges of a sky pierced by toy-block towers, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Message received--loud and clear.”

[hider=Results]
[b]New mission:[/b] STRIKE - Assault the base of the nefarious Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik in the area east of the 1-1 junkyard to put a stopper in his plans to invade Peach’s Castle. Forces unknown, presumed robotic but fairly primitive. Unique robot swordsman identified as potential threat. Structure unknown. Rewards unknown[/hider]