[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=SpringGreen]wordcount:[/color][/b] 836 (+2) 
[b][color=FD0000]Bowser: Level 9 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=FD0000]//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color]////////  (81/90)
[b][color=SpringGreen]Bowser Jr: Level 7 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=SpringGreen]////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color] (77/70)
[b][color=DeepSkyBlue]Kamek: Level 7 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=DeepSkyBlue]//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color](74/70)
[b][color=FD0000]Location:[/color][/b] Edge of the Blue – Bottomless Ocean
Feat: Rika
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Bowser groaned as the little terror of the deep repaired his offer of friendship with a renewed assault, something that had been entirely predictable to anyone who wasn't Bowser. In fact even the king only really groaned knowingly where he lay on the deck as the tentacles swarmed the ship and began to sink it through sheer mass alone. 

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”You will leave at once or else”[/color] Kamek demanded shakily as he tried to muster the focus to summon up a spell, only to be shoved aside as a steam of minions of all shapes and sizes stormed out from inside the ship where Jr was summoning them from. The myriad of goombas, koopas and subspace troops throw themselves at the tendrils, buying them all a few moments mainly because the eels were too distracted by snapping them up to go after the living targets. 

It wound up being enough, as aid came from an unexpected source when the tentacled titan slammed a fist into the girl, her heightened position atop her tendrils from which she was lording over them being the only reason the smack did not take anyone else or the ship with her.

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”Young Master! Get us out of here!”[/color] Kamek called out after a moment of stunned silence, but the prince was already one step ahead, gunning the engine and blazing the courier airship after Shippy, who was finding out that, just like the little monster, being friend hearted had not made the big tentacled baddy a friend of theirs. Not being the only one to make that mistake was a consolation of sorts to the downed king, but considering it was Sakura who had done the deed it wasn't much of one.

[hider=for Rika]
[b][url=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/kidicarus/images/5/57/Poisoncardart.png]Poison Card[/url][/b] - [i]When applies to a weapon, allows the weapon to build up and then inflict poison on struck targets[/i]
[/hider]

Tentacles front the titan assailed Shippy and the immobile Geralt. Even if they were weaker than the eels, there were a lot of them. Worse, they kept coming back. Alongside the others Rika laid into them as soon as they appeared, her one loaded rigging turret slamming shells into one as she bayonet charged another, driving the spike of her rifle (to which she had applied the weird tag she’d gotten and caused the bayonet to briefly poison the tentacle) into it and then bringing the two hull blades across in a scissor cross chop, severing through the pinned tendril from its source. Both wiggly threats fell, only for them to be replaced in short order by additional tendrils. The question of where it was getting them from wasn’t anyone's focus as they played the world's worst game of whack a mole

“No. no. bad. Stay dead things are supposed to stay dead!” she demanded and she, in a roundabout way, got her wish when another monster got involved.A shark, bigger than any ship the girl had ever seen arose from the bottomless depths, drawn perhaps like so many of its lesser kin by the split blood. With titanic jaws it chomped into the back of the tentacle titan  before pulling it and, presumably, the little one down with it into oblivion, finally freeing the pair of ships from the threat of their collective tendrils. 

“Told you so. Learn this time” Marie the striker who had also been a monstrous child, briefly appeared to tell Bowser as he watched the fish girl get dragged down into the depths, before leaving him to the administrations of his old mage. The koopa hobbled over to his king and gently bopped him on the forehead with the end of his broom.

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”That was very foolish of you sire”[/color] he told the king before pulling out Cadet’s pack of life powder that he had derived after it had been chucked at the ship and sprinkled its contents over the king. Blazermate likely had her hands full downstairs, or so the old mage assumed, so it would be best to see to this themselves. Aided by an appearance from Heel the rabbid healer striker, the king gradually recovered from his ordeal as they flew their way away from the encounter, before silently hauling himself up from the deck, dusting himself off and moving his way back inside the airship with his advisor following after.

If nothing else, the encounter had been an informative one. The monsters out here were big and deadly and 100% not friend material. Now, as the waves below became choppier, they were approaching the beacon. Rika, having scooted out to help the other ladies rescue Geralt, joined Miss Fortune at the dispenser, clipping off her guns and finally getting a quiet moment to restock them. 

“So. Do you think there's more of those monsters out there?” she asked casually as she worked at it. Up above the troop were quietly asking themselves the same question. This was only the edge of the bottomless sea. How much worse could it get if they tried to approach the center.