[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/6W7bqko.png[/img]
[h2][color=FD0000]The Koopa Troop[/color][/h2]
[b][color=FD0000]wordcount:[/color][/b] 1,408  (+3) 
[b][color=FD0000]Bowser: Level 12 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=FD0000]//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color] (133/120)
[b][color=SpringGreen]Bowser Jr: Level 12 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=SpringGreen]////////////////////////[/color]//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (23/120)
[b][color=DeepSkyBlue]Kamek: Level 12 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=DeepSkyBlue]//////////////////////[/color]////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (22/120)
[b][color=Aqua]Rika: Level 7 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=Aqua]/////[/color]///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (5/70)
[b][color=FD0000]Location:[/color][/b] The Under - The Ruins - Dripstone Cave
[/center]

[hider=levelup: Rika ]
Grappleshot (deserter spartan): Rika gains a [url=https://halo.wiki.gallery/images/c/c8/HINF_Grappleshot_Concept.png]clip on device[/url] known as a grapple shot, which can be attached to and integrate with her own systems, specifically the inside of her right gauntlet’s ‘mouth’. The device can fire a grappling hook with an 8 meter range, which is capable of latching onto most surfaces, foes and items. Heavier grapple targets (such as the ground, and large foes) will pull Rika towards them, while smaller targets (like items and small foes) will be pulled to her.  Has a short cooldown after use.
[/hider]

Everyone made it down to the bottom of the tree more or less in one piece, and once they had grouped up Jr used his magic to fill in any pieces they had lost on the way down. Then they trooped out onto the impossible beach, as even Bowser agreed there was no benefit in tangling with the giant crab for no good reason. 

Once out of the tree the group tensed for a moment, as emerging out into an underground seaside was a familiar experience, one that had led to a great deal of pain the last time they had done it. Fortunately there was no orphan here to greet them this time: Kamek sent his wisps up ahead to double check.

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”Nothing anywhere as dangerous looking as the last time. Well, on the land anyway. I do not like the looks of whatever’s in the deeper waters”[/color] Kamek noted, before considering Teemo’s suggestion and noting that [color=DeepSkyBlue]”We could probably fly across the water to one of the distant pillars if we wanted too, though it’d take up a lot of my mana to make that many steeds and minions to carry everyone. It would also be a slightly risky endeavor, what with most of you not being used to aerial combat, or so I assume”[/color] 

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”That one, however, looks like we could walk over to it across these dunes”[/color] he suggested, pointing over to the one that looked like it might have a clearing at its base, before glancing at Rika to see if she would confirm that to be so via a report from her scout plane.

Instead he found her holding an odd device that looked a bit like the world’s dinkiest knife in her hand. When he inquired where she had gotten it she told him that [color=Aqua]”The hanger with the broken plane just spat it out for some reason. I think it’s meant to attach to something?”[/color]

She showed him the underside that seemed to have futuristic magnets and adhesives on it, and then gave it a go, haphazardly sticking it to her gauntlet.

[color=Aqua]”Oh uh yeah I think I’m feeling something let me just”[/color] she flexed her arm muscles which caused the point of the addon to fire out … at the right angle she had attacked it too, at which point it smacked into Bowser

[color=Aqua]”Woops sorry -argh!”[/color] Rika’s apology was interrupted when the cord joining spike and device together suddenly reeled her in and caused her to be pulled to the side and to smack into him.

A bit more apologizing later, though given that Bowser had barely felt a thing while Rika had to have some bruises cured it was hardly necessary, and she started experimenting to put it somewhere actually useful.

[color=Aqua]”Hmmm, no. no. noooo. Ah ha!”[/color] she intoned triumphantly as she popped it inside her Brachydios’s gauntlet’s ‘mouth’, setting it above the rifle barrel, and thus also just above her chainsaw bayonet. 

[color=SpringGreen]”Oh that is going to be nasty”[/color] Jr commented, drifting closer to inspect her new engagement tool

[color=Aqua]”Mmm hmmm. Now I can get close without running about, which’ll be handy”[/color] she said, while firing off the hook in the air a few times as a test for its reach and flight path. She also gave it a fire at the sand too, but it being loose she didn’t get any real grip, which was a bit disappointing. At least it meant she wasn’t slammed face first into it either.

Then she inevitably got into trouble with her new toy. After grappling up a weird mushroom plant and a shellder out of the water (and giving it a chainsaw to the face) she picked a bigger target for her third test.

Her grapple whipped out into the sea and prepared to reel in another aquatic creature, only for the grapple to go taught and then pull her towards the water instead, and then dragged down into it with a splash.

With bubbles trailing from her lips, the ship girl came face to face with what she had hooked: a cloyster. Unlike its lesser shellder kin, Rika’s fist and chainsaw smashing into its diamond hard shell had almost no effect, other than prompting it to retaliate with a [url=https://i.pinimg.com/originals/12/85/fd/1285fdcda7ad3e9bad80c7bbca314aaf.jpg]barrage of spikes[/url].

Rika scrambled backwards, dated sunglasses flashing and slowed the barrage of 5 spikes enough that she blocked or dodged all but one, which splintered against her shields.

The waterlogged ship girl pulled herself back on top of the surface of the water, only for the now angered clyster to come after her, propelling itself with jets of water, breaching the surface and, with its shell shut, spinning rapidly. She met it with a massive punch from her left hand gauntlet, deflecting the shells spin attack yet also jarring her arm in the process.

The two flew apart, and then immediately after recovering opened fire on each other, Rika launching one of her few remaining torpedoes while the cloyster blasted her with a freezing aurora hued beam attack. Rika covered herself in a one gauntleted guard that left her arm numb, while the cloyster clamped shut just in time to shrug off the ship sinking explosive.

[color=FD0000]”Hey, Rika, get back to land so I can help!”[/color] came a yell from Bowser, heralding his arrival along with the two flying troop members who swooped over the waves to assist.

[color=Aqua]”Then catch me!”[/color] the ship girl called back, confusing the king until she fired off her grappleshot again and hit the only solid enough thing on the beach to grapple to: him.

The ship girl [color=Aqua]”Weeee”[/color]ed through the air and into his arms, before immediately re-aiming and telling him to [color=Aqua]”Keep holding on!”[/color] before firing off the hook again.

It lashed out into the waves where the cloyster was ducking under the water to avoid the attacks of the flying koopas, this time catching the edge of its shell. The line went taught, and the two part ship folk began some father daughter bonding via the medium of fishing, only with Rika’s sore arm as the rod and with the its own name yelling cloister as a fish that could fight back via aurora beam blasts.

Claws and boots dug into the sand as the ~130kg bivalve was hauled first onto the beach, and then towards them. Closer, closer, and then right before they collide Bowser shouted [color=FD0000]”Eat this!”[/color] as he fired up his kinetic strike module and blasted it square in the shell, launching it up into the air.

The selfish spun wildly in the air and then crashed down in the sand … somehow still mostly unhurt. It rested there for a moment, and then started to try to bounce and wobble back to the water.

It didn’t make it

A single super effective electro ball spiked down into it, Mimi’s attack scything though the other pokemon’s poor special defense with ease and reducing it, a bit anticlimactically, to ash.

[color=Aqua]”Oh. Huh. Well I guess that’s over”[/color] Rika said as she slipped out of Bowser’s supporting grip and called up her thanks to the two fliers. Then she had a thought, pointed her gauntlet at the fallen spirt of the Cloyster and shot it out, the spike flying fourth and then returning a moment later with the spirit in tow.

[color=Aqua]”Useful”[/color] she commented, before thinking for a moment and calling over to their newest companion: [color=Aqua]”Hey, Teemo, wanna see something neat we can do with spirits?”[/color] before giving him a little demo on how making strikers worked.

[hider=For Rika]New Striker spiritbound:
[b][url=https://i.pinimg.com/originals/12/85/fd/1285fdcda7ad3e9bad80c7bbca314aaf.jpg]Cloyster[/url][/b]
The Bivalve Pokemon. It has pretty good physical defense and decent physical attack, but unimpressive stats otherwise. Its moves are Icicle Spear, a short range 5 shot burst damaging ice-type move, Whirlpool, which creates a water hazard in an area for a little while, Protect, a potent block that can't be used in quick succession, and Razor Shell, a mostly dependable damaging water-type move. Medium cooldown[/hider]

After that little adventure, the troop got back on track, sticking together properly now that Rika had worked out most of her excitement over the grappling hook. Instead she got to be excited about her new minion, which she liberally tested out on the walking clam things, finding it to be a very handing instant shield as well as fairly dangerous in close combat, as well as reusing her new team up fishing attack with Bowser to grapple and topple over the spindly legged things to make them an easier target for the others.