[center][h3]Valley of Ruin[/h3]
Level 11 Tora (150/110) Level 12 Poppi (50/120)
Giovanna, Roxas’ [@Double], Pit’s [@Yankee], Susie’s [@Archmage MC], Zenkichi’s [@Multi_Media_Man], Partitio’s [@Dark Cloud]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1751[/center]

With a strategy in mind, the Seekers began the battle with the Spider in earnest. The Nopon and maid-robot, standing together before the giant war machine, might have seemed feeble and insignificant in comparison, but as long as they had one another they were never alone. In very short order their eight-legged opponent set the pace for the fight: pinning Tora and Poppi down on defense. While they could either avoid or outright tank the robot’s gunfire and laser-guided missiles, that ended up being about all they could do. The Spider alternated between long-ranged barrages and attempts to smash Tora beneath one of its legs, but despite the engineer’s best attempts to take turns of his own, his enemy effectively prevented counterattacks through a combination of massive size and proactive withdrawal. Unable to build up ether to use his all-important arts without physically hitting the machine, the pair couldn’t even begin to build up any momentum. Even if Poppi could do some damage by flying off on her own, she knew if she stopped channeling ether into them her Masterpon’s weapons would depower and he’d be a sitting duck with no barriers to protect him.

That put all the offense against the Spider in the hands of the Rust Crew. Though the borrowed salvage truck offered only poor acceleration and handling, Cain deftly wove between and around both the scenery and the Spider’s legs, giving his teammates as much time as they could to pound their enemy’s joints and underbelly with bullets. “Wish Rachel was here right about now!” Big Bo griped as he replaced his empty magazine, noting as he did the dwindling stockpile of ammunition in his hardcase. “A couple rockets to the gut would fix this bad boy right up!”

“We need backup,” Marshall agreed. His well-aimed shots sent sparks flying from the drive system on the Spider’s underside, but it just wasn’t enough, and after a moment Cain’s swerve around the wrecked remains of a gas station broke Marshall’s line of sight. “Steer us toward those two!” Risking a strafing run into the Spider’s line of fire, the Rust Crew drew close enough to Tora and Poppi to call out to them. “Hey! We’ve gotta lure this thing south to alert the others!”

“Roger!” Poppi called back. She pulled Tora up onto her back, where by clinging to her shoulders with his nub-arms he could still use his wings -and the Mech Arms they wielded- to protect them. With this method the duo began to lead the Spider on a dangerous chase back the way their truck originally came. The Rust Crew followed alongside the machine or in pursuit, wearing it down as best they could. When Big Bo’s ammo ran out, he swapped with Cain in the driver’s seat. A couple minutes after passing back by the crashed plane, which the Spider put a foot through with a callous stomp, a sudden blip rang out from a device on Poppi’s person. She reached down and pulled out the walkie-talkie Sakura had given her the day before. Someone was trying to reach her.

[hr]

Perhaps unsurprisingly, not all the Seekers chose to back Giovanna up on her side mission. The secret agent felt as if she understood Susie’s behavior, as brashness often came hand-in-hand with self-motivation, but she didn’t quite get the nature of Partitio’s grievance. Was the team’s goal not to help the poor people of Midgar’s undercities survive in the hopes of reaching a better tomorrow, by eliminating the foes that threatened their lives today? Well, neither case really mattered to Giovanna. She was neither the Seekers’ team leader nor their public relations rep–just someone who got things done. Big groups weren’t her style, anyway.

Still, with neither a hacker to access the Prospector’s data deposit nor the numbers to assault it directly, she needed to come up with a different approach. Zenkichi offered to bait as many machines as he could away, with special emphasis on the Simians using the crane as their personal jungle gym. “Refreshingly professional,” she told him, and the simple plan was afoot. As the rain continued to pound the dilapidated neighborhood, Giovanna made her way to the crane and waited until the gunslinger got the Machines’ attention to climb. It was a long and arduous ascent, made all the more treacherous by the rain-slick rungs on the ladder, but minute by minute she neared the top. Not far from the crane’s base she spied massive pipes of steel beams encased in concrete probably meant at one point to be buried in the ground as sewer pipes, but which now lay stacked like fireplace logs by a half-excavated pit. If she could drop one on the data deposit, she reasoned, it would deal some serious damage and hopefully bring whatever these bots were planning to a grinding halt.

On the way up, however, the distant, echoed sounds of warfare reached her ears. Giovanna turned and, hanging by one hand as she shielded her eyes from the rain, spied chaos toward the north. The muzzle flares and sounds of gunfire, punctuated by the percussion of missiles, drew her attention to a massive mechanical arachnid a ways to the north. While she couldn’t make out its targets, she could make a pretty good guess. “Oh, brother,” she groaned, turning back to the ladder to pick up the pace. Once she reached the top of the crane, she slipped her walkie-talkie from her belt and dialed it in. “Tora? Poppi? Come in, this is Giovanna. What’s going on, over?”

After a moment she heard a reply. “Oh! I forgot we had this. Well, this is perfect! We’re fighting a huge robot spider. Us and the three soldier guys. We’re trying to lead it toward the rest of you. Can you give us a hand? Uh, over.”

Giovanna sighed. “Yeah, uh, we’ll do our best. I found a-!” She jumped as a smattering of bullets whizzed by her, crouching down behind the crane’s operation cabin. Way down below, the glow of a dozen pairs of red eyes confirmed that the machines had somehow sussed her out. [i]Did they intercept my signal?[/i] she wondered, gritting her teeth. More worryingly, she could see that the Prospector had returned. It floated in front of the data deposit trying to access it. Giovanna’s eyes widened. [i]Trying to cut and run?[/i] Forced to ignore the bullets sent up by the gunners on the ground, she jumped in the cabin and began working the controls. It took some trial and error, but she managed to send the hooks down to seize one of the heavy pipes.

Once again, however, noise from the north grabbed her attention. Tora, Poppi, and the Spider were getting close; she could clearly see them even with the rain. “Needing help soon!” Poppi’s voice came over the radio. “The robot stepped on the guy’s truck and sent it flying way farther than it should have! Tora and I have taken…ugh! …A lot of damage…!”

Giovanna glanced down at the Spider, then back at the data deposit. “Man,” she groaned. “It’s always something.” Turning on the walkie talkie, she yelled, “Bring it to the crane!” She then slammed down on the controls and raced out of the cabin. As the crane’s arm began to move down its corrugated metal catwalk through the rain and bullets. She leaped from its end to grab the metal cable with both hands, sliding down it as the elephantine contraption picked up speed. “This has got to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” she told Rei, to which the wolf spirit nodded, until finally the revolution of the crane’s swinging payload rammed the sewer pipe directly into the Spider’s left side like a runaway freight train. Giovanna jumped at the last second, and as she sailed through the deluge she watched the robot topple over, two of its left-side legs and half its abdomen totaled by the terrific impact.

Time seemed to slow down as energy built inside her. Her skin glowed green, her hair orange, and her eyes pure white. “Fear on the wind…!” she murmured as air built around her. “Tempestade!” Like cannonball she fired downward at a diagonal angle, screaming through the air to plow into the Spider’s drive system with a majestic divekick. It left a big dent, surrounded in crackling arcs of electricity, but it wasn’t enough. Giovanna bounced off, unharmed by any fall damage, and slid through the grass a short way only to hear the honk of a horn. She turned to see the Rust Crew’s truck barreling toward the Spider’s belly, with Poppi amping up its only redeeming characteristic (max speed) even further by pushing from the back with her thrusters. As its horn blared Giovanna cleared the way, and once Bo threw himself from the driver’s cab a final rocket-powered punch slammed the truck head-first onto the giant robot’s weak spot. [i]KABOOOOOOOM![/i] The ensuing explosion sent everyone within a thousand feet flying away, stunned by the shockwave, and when they finally looked back the Spider was no more.

“Woohoooooo!” Tora yelled, bouncing up and down. His bullet wounds were quickly fading away thanks to his out-of-combat healing, but he threw himself into Poppi’s arms for a massive hug anyway. “That so incredibly amazing! Tora and friends can do anything!”

With a weary laugh Giovanna crossed her arms. “I didn’t think that would work, honestly,” she admitted. “We just got lucky.” She narrowed her eyes at what remained of the Spider. “Also, using the truck for that? Not the best move. Now there’s just one for all eleven of us.”

“Way to rain on our parade,” Marshall joked. “We can just say the Spider destroyed it, which is pretty much true when you think about it.” After a series of high-fives and fistbumps all around. “I hate to be the one to say it, but as crazy as that was, I don’t think we’re any closer to stopping the Machine invasion.”

Cain shrugged. “One less giant war machine sounds like a win to me, monsieur.”

“Meh-meh-meh!” Tora piped up. “While up on building, Tora see long-neck steelypon near flooded spot with head like big radar dish! It might be way to tap into Machine communications, meh?”

“Worth a shot,” Giovanna told him, remembering the Prospector that by now had surely gotten away with all the data. “I have a feeling we don’t have a lot of time.

[hr]

When Susie descended on the partially-collapsed flooded district of the ruined cityscape in single-minded pursuit of the Shellwalkers that trundled along the water’s edge, her approach did not go unnoticed. A nearby troop of Clamberjaws spotted her and set up a racket of raucous hollering like the baboons their designs aped. The disturbance alerted the Shellwalkers, which turned to see Susie flying in for a melee attack. As she homed in on one, the only one of the three with antennae, the machine she targeted turned to face her with its bell-shaped left claw upheld, and with a surge of electricity a hardlight wall sprang to life. When the Business Suit slammed into the energy shield it held, at least for a moment, during which the claw-shaped Lighting Gun on the Shellwalker’s right clew blasted Susie again and again. After a few seconds though, the shield shattered, and as it bulled through the machine got bowled over. The clamps holding its crate on its back shattered, and it fell to the ground.

A moment later though, the Shellwalker rose up. First it reached out to pick up its crate with its Lightning Gun claw, which it placed and held on its back. Then, as Susie came back around for another charge, its antennae lit up and the Shellwalker emitted a loud, angry metallic warble. Every machine lifeform in the vicinity received the command, and the battle began. Susie’s return charge came to a sudden stop against the hardlight shields of both other Shellwalkers, which grouped together to defend the first, and this time she lost momentum before the shields lost power. The two fanned out, swinging both claws in massive electrified hooks, slams, and explosions.

With a fearsome roar a Snapmaw burst from the nearby water and lunged toward Susie, clamping its jaw down on the Business Suit’s left arm. Chillwater began to pour from the sac on its throat, freezing the metal and making it more brittle, increasing damage dealt by up to 300%, before the chainsaw teeth in its maw began to rip and tear. Susie’s rockets took to the sky and even felled a couple Clamberjaws, but the machines returned fire with a vengeance. Another Snapmaw hauled itself from the water behind Susie a ways off and began to rain down arced shots of Chillwater from afar, and if forced out of melee range the Shellwalkers would add to the mix with electric shots, potentially paralyzing if too many of them hit. Worse still, the bloat of Widemaws then joined the fray. One spewed out a barrage of sludge coated in Purgewater, capable of increasing susceptibility to elemental attacks while disabling the sufferer’s own. Another sucked up a bunch of rocks with its vacuum to hurl a much larger, more damaging sludge bomb that bounced, leaving Purgewater puddles, before exploding on contact with its target. The last charged into melee range, its quad-jaw unhinged to clamp down and drill into whatever it could. Badly underestimated and very angry, these deranged machines posed a real threat individually; together, their durability, damage, and elemental onslaught spelled disaster.

[hr]

Tracking down the Tallneck Tora spotted took a bit of time, but those fresh out of the fight with the Spider were happy for the chance to take a breather. Once they reached the towering, [url=https://i.imgur.com/7Tw2flu.png]giraffe-shaped machine[/url] in a [url=https://i.imgur.com/FrZ6tMf.jpg]tree-ringed clearing[/url], Tora found that it ignored them, so Poppi flew him up to the top to plug into its neural network. The others waited nearby, but only for a couple minutes. Tora quickly returned to them in a state of panic. “We need go now!” he warned, flapping his wings in terror. “Now, now, now! Tora knows where they are, and all friends need go stop them, now!”

“We might have a problem,” Giovanna said, standing on the edge of a cliff. When Tora, Poppi, and the Rust Crew soldiers joined her, they peered down at the flooded district to see the entire local machine animal population united against Susie and Pit. It looked like chaos down there–a maelstrom of gnashing teeth, grinding gears, and elemental attacks. “I didn’t think she’d actually DO it.”

Poppi grimaced. “We don’t have time for this.” She spotted the other team’s transport on the other side of the collapsed valley. “We need to grab that truck, extract them, and intercept the Machine army before they reach Midgar!”

[center][h3]Abandoned Subway - Chinery Junction[/h3]
Level 4 Goldlewis (31/40)
Karin’s [@Zoey Boey], Midna’s [@DracoLunaris], Blazermate’s [@Archmage MC], Geralt [@Multi_Media_Man], Benedict’s [@Dark Cloud]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1007[/center]

Dangerous as the Slippy Chinery was, engulfed in an inferno and wildly attacking anything it sensed with animalistic savagery, going berserk only prolonged the inevitable. Liking her odds more against fire than lightning, and more than able to stand the heat, Midna fought back against the Other’s wildfire with flame-quenching sand, thrown objects, and her Vibrava’s dragonfire. While the Slippy’s crazed rampage wasn’t exactly predictable, it [i]was[/i] exploitable, and few were better at ruthlessly punishing a foe’s sloppiness than Karin. Ringlets streaming behind her, the street fighter sped around and behind the monstrous thing to land a critical hit on its unprotected hindquarters, leaving a big dent in its metal body and her hand sticky with sand-speckled oil.

Her poise-shattering crush counter did its job, though, and thanks to her efforts a patched-up Geralt could bury his blade into the Slippy Chinery’s tree-like head with a creaking groan. In a stroke of deadly pragmatic genius, the Witcher then blasted his sword with unrelenting force, and in a shower of sparks reduced the thing’s head to kindling. The rest of it quickly followed, burning away to cinders. Its body, only partially organic and bitten by the Suffering Shield in its metal back anyway, failed to resurrect as an undead. Geralt might still be hurting, but he and the others were victorious. One down, one to go.

When Blazermate left him to go pile onto the other Other for easy pickings, Goldlewis couldn’t help but click his tongue in disappointment. The Winery Chinery stood firm in its pool of electrified water, shamelessly staring the Secretary of Absolute Defense down as it hurled bolt after bolt of lightning. This was quite the conundrum he found himself in. While no shrinking violet, he didn’t fancy his odds if he took a dive in that water, not after feeling an Other-induced electrocution firsthand yesterday afternoon. But even if he could reach his foe with an airdash he couldn’t go anywhere from there, and that assumed the Other wouldn’t just backpedal if it saw him flying his way regardless. On the other hand, he couldn’t stand still long enough to bring his minigun or heligrenades to bear, either. So what was a man to do?

Goldlewis thought for a few seconds, then turned and ran away. He kept going, ambivalent toward the stray bolts that hit his back, until he disappeared inside the long-dormant subway train poking out of a dark tunnel.

The Winery Chinery stared for a moment. Then, forced to continue the fight until its enemy lay dead by Galeem’s despotic influence, it began to move. Walking carefully on its fingertips, it splashed right out of its sparking pool and climbed onto the tracks. Its prey could run, but it couldn’t hide, and it certainly wouldn’t find any safety inside this rusty metal husk. Before it could lay hands on the train to start tearing into it, however, it heard a deep, bassy uproar echoing from the tunnel behind the vehicle.

“Down the…system!”

With an ear-wrenching metal crash the entire train plowed forward, its wheels screeching along the tracks. The Winery Chinery, weakened from the beatdown it had already received, got splattered like a bug on a windshield. It got carried for a good hundred feet before the runaway train’s ride came to a sudden end against the caboose of a fellow train, reducing the Winery Chinery caught between them into red-black paste.

Two down, none to go. Goldlewis stepped from the darkness of the tunnel into the incandescent flicker of a fickle overhead light, dusting his hands. “Reckon that’s done with,” he announced matter-of-factly. Noticing that between them the other four managed to kill the Slippy Chinery as well, he smoothed his pompadour over coolly before jabbing a thumb backward down the tunnel. “Found a way forward while I was at it. Let’s roll.”

[hider=Team Goldlewis Encounter 2/3 Results]
[b]Party:[/b] Goldlewis, Blazermate, Geralt, Midna, Karin
[b]Encounter Reward:[/b] +10 EXP[/hider]

The tunnel was dark, illuminated only faintly by a dim bluish light. While the Seekers found no enemies, this place presented an issue by itself through its mazelike structure. Its tunnels branched again and again, curving upward and downward, leading to many dead ends. Other than trial and error, only distant noises and faint tremors served to point them on the right path.

At one point, the team became aware of a red glow emanating down one particularly wide branching tunnel. Investigating it turned up a lone [url=https://i.imgur.com/Cdetc65.png]lift[/url] on rails at least twice as wide as the usual subway. The glow came from on top. Once Goldlewis jumped up, he spotted the source: an old [url=https://i.imgur.com/sUnpoyJ.png]video camera[/url] mounted on a tripod. “Hmm,” he murmured, stroking his whiskers. “Hey, y’all. What d’you make o’ this? It ain’t attacked us, and it might be useful, but this whole red aura is mighty threatenin’.” On further inspection, the camera quickly proved anything but normal.

[center][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVBL1c4ZZe8&ab_channel=Battletoads[/youtube][/center]

It suddenly lifted into the air, floating like a marionette. It hovered off towards the tunnel’s dead end, only for the dark wall to split in half and open up, revealing an unfathomably long -and perhaps infinite- tunnel aglow with moody blue light. Music filled the air, and without further ado the L.I.F.T. launched forward, carrying Goldlewis and everyone else with it as it zoomed off down the tunnel. Behind them, the tunnel they came from faded away into an ominous black void. “Gosh…darnit!” the veteran hollered above the rushing air and retrowave beats, his tie and coat flapping in the wind. “Some kinda magic!” He pointed his finger at the camera floating ahead, which the UMA mirrored with a spindly arm extended from the coffin. “We gotta shoot that thing down!”

Of course, the only one in the group with a gun was himself, and his Skyfish had a strict timetable thanks to Goldlewis’ Security Level. The others wouldn’t want for something to do, however, as the tunnel soon opened up to either side. Additional L.I.F.T.s appeared running parallel to the Seekers’, which was good because very sturdy hanging signs soon started showing up in all three sections of the tunnel. Some were at head height, some at knee height, and some were big enough to block almost the entire tunnel. More Session Pounds showed up as well, manifesting from nowhere as if simply written into being by this altered reality, their plan the same as ever: to chase the heroes down and explode. At times one or two of the L.I.F.T.s dropped back into the void, making agile jumps between the swift platforms not just advisable but mandatory. This dramatic episode would only end once the Actionmaxx Camera, flying out a couple hundred feet in front of the L.I.F.T.s but occasionally drifting backward, took enough damage.