[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/6W7bqko.png[/img]
[h2][color=FD0000]The Koopa Troop[/color][/h2]
[b][color=FD0000]wordcount:[/color][/b] 2,407  (+3)
[b][color=FD0000]Bowser: Level 12 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=FD0000]//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color] (238/120)
[b][color=SpringGreen]Bowser Jr: Level 12 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=SpringGreen]////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color] (123/120)
[b][color=DeepSkyBlue]Kamek: Level 12 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=DeepSkyBlue]////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color]////// (115/120)
[b][color=Aqua]Rika: Level 8 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=Aqua]////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color]//////////////////////////////// (49/80)
[b][color=FD0000]Location:[/color][/b] The Under - Home of Tears
[hider=warp locations]
[s]
Central hub: Smash City Alcamoth
Accessible locations:
Peach’s castle
Limsa Lominscuttle Town
Lumbridge
Twilight Town
Kosm’s Beach
[/s]
[/hider]
[/center]

[color=FD0000]”Gotcha!”[/color] Bowser reassured his daughter as he caught the shipgirl after she pulled off her two times fly by of pizza face.

[color=Aqua]”Did you see that! I stabbed that pizza face in his face pizza!”[/color] Rika cheered, trying and failing to join in on the pun-ishment being inflicted on their absurd foe.

[color=SpringGreen]”that’s not how puns work!”[/color] Jr called out as he swept in with a squad of strikers, which crashed into the food based mooks who were trying to swarm the pair. 

[color=Aqua]”Awww”[/color] Rika sighed only a little disappointed as she started casually lancing and grizco blasting mooks upon being set down onto her own two feet again by the king.

[color=FD0000]”Good effort though”[/color] Bowser encouraged her as he joined in with the carnage.

As they sliced, diced, and blasted mooks, the rest of the crew followed up with yet more strikes on the pizza face. They were so effective that in only a few more moments the boss was descending from the sky, looking ever so defeated 

[color=FD0000]”Well, that was a cake walk”[/color] Bowser declared prematurely as he dusted off his claws, jinxing them to world -1 and back in the process, while Jr and Kamek both wondered why the fall looked less like a thing dying and more like a thing crashing. 

Then the machine of bread and cheese popped open its face, and revealed the true form of their foe.

[color=SpringGreen]”Wait, so, the pizza face was secretly a different guy who also has pizza for a face? What?”[/color] Jr called out as he threw his hands up in confusion that was matched by the other koopas, but not Rika, who savantly pointed out that [color=Aqua]”Well I mean it’s more like he has a pizza head instead of a pizza face seeing as he has a body and stuff”[/color]

Then things got weird, and what had been silly … well it kept being silly, but more of a killer clown silly instead of a regular clown silly. The sky turned orange and filled with pizza toppings, and then they all got what Jr was pretty sure were healthbars, the Koopas getting images of shells, while Rika got a weird warbling mishmash of symbols that after a few heartbeats seemed to give up and just turned into another spiky shell. 

Rika declared this supernatural acknowledgment of her new family status as [color=Aqua]”Neat”[/color] while a much more spooked Jr retorted that [color=SpringGreen]”No, not neat! we’ve all only got 8 hit points or something!”[/color]

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”What do you mean by that young master”[/color] Kamek enquired to which the prince replied that [color=SpringGreen]”That we can only get hurt 8 times and then that’s it, game over!”[/color]

[color=Aqua]”Well doesn’t that mean he also only has 8 of these points of hitting?”[/color] Rika pointed out, which got Bowser onboard, declaring [color=FD0000]”Yeah, then let's go pulp that pizza face back into dough!”[/color] just in time for the foe in question to summon up some reinforcements to stop them from doing so.

Bigger, nastier reinforcements this time. 

[center][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQXnhYcNz6w&t=223s[/youtube][/center]

While four of the monsters emitted bestial roars of one kind or another, while the fifth among them simply gazed at them with the gaping hole in its masked face. Then it reached up behind its back, and pulled the lid off a pot that it had strapped there, unleashing a steady stream of burning mask like [url=https://i.imgur.com/Ucj7nof.png]whisps[/url] that acted like homing missiles, arching up into the air and then flying straight towards a target before exploding violently on contact.

This latter effect was discovered when one smashed head long into Bowser and, well exploded. At which point they found out exactly how right Jr had been about what the little floating icons had meant, as the ones that had attached themselves next to Bowser reappear, only for one to ‘pop off’ of its row and fall away into nothingness. 

As the king grunted in pain he flashed white several times, during which more homing wisps slammed down into him, yet none of these seemed to do any additional damage till after a few seconds when the flashing ended and a second shell token got knocked off.

[color=FD0000]”Gah, make them stop!”[/color] the king demanded, unable to really take any kind of cover up on the towertop battlefield, or move fast enough to duke the shots into missing like Rika (with her projectile slowing gaze) was doing just to the right of him.

[color=SpringGreen]”Don’t worry papa! I can heal you”[/color] jr called out (he and Kamek apparently being further back from the grovetender saving them from being targeted) before raising up his paintbrush staff and calling out [color=SpringGreen]”Cure!”[/color] and pulsing healing magics through his father’s body.

The two lost shells, however, did not come back.

[color=SpringGreen]”Uh oh.”[/color] 

The prince tried two more times, even burning away the long cooldown Benediction in a hope it would somehow heal enough, but it was no use, and he was forced to conclude that [color=SpringGreen]”I can’t heal us any more!”[/color] 

As the prince discovered the greatest malus of this curse, the other two Troop members had moved to lend aid in their own way.

[color=SpringGreen]”Toadies, go! Intercept those masks!”[/color]Kamek commanded, summoning and sending forth magical minions to physically intercept the grovetender’s own. This not being their intended purpose however, it was a battle he rapidly started to lose a war of magical attention.

Rika’s solution was much more straightforward, one she spelled out rather simply with [color=Aqua]”The best defense is a good offense!”[/color] while leaping to the side to avoid a whips, and then yelling [color=Aqua]”Die thingy!”[/color] as she unleashed her nautical firepower upon it.

Rigging turret launched shells soared across the tower, crashing into the grovetender that had been advancing towards them, staggering the monster for a moment, and cutting off the stream of whisps. It also caused its own health bar to appear, and for one of the masks representing its life force to pop off of it.

It looked like everyone was playing by the same rules.

[color=Aqua]”What’s wrong, cat steal your pot lid?”[/color] Rika attempted to taunt it as she struck this first blow, tried being the operative word there.

[color=FD0000]”Try ‘serves you right for putting your hand in the cookie jar’ instead”[/color] Bowser suggested, very thankful that the wisp hail had ended, but perhaps not so concerned as he should be about being down 3 masks after the opening engagement.

[color=Aqua]”I don’t get it but ok!”[/color] Rika replied, but her reiteration of the taunt was interrupted by a warning call of  [color=SpringGreen]”It’s charging something!”[/color] right before the grovetender finished doing so, and unleashed another attack.

Having closed in while raining down wisps, the masked monster unleashed its other skill, a shotgun blast of 13 scorching hot chains. These lanced out, one right at Rika, nailing her in one of the arms and thereby bypassing her energy shield, while another of the stray shots hit Bowser. 

Both troop members lost a shell container, and then suffered the secondary effect of the chains, namely being dragged closer to the grovetender. This would have made its rapid succession of follow up shots devastatingly effective had the invulnerability frames of the pair not been flashing. 

As it was it mainly dragged them in nice and close for Bowser to drive home a rocket propelled punch into it. 

[color=FD0000]”How do you like that fuzzy!”[/color] he taunted, as Rika followed up with her own punch, only for the invulnerability to be on their foe’s side now, giving it plenty of time to charge up another shotgun blast of chains while they wailed on it ineffectually. 

[color=SpringGreen]”Dad, get back! You can’t win by just touching it out this time!”[/color] Jr cried out in warning, a statement to which Kamek added his own agreement.

Right on cue the chains slammed into the close range pair, putting him down to a measly 3, and Rika to 6, while their blows knocked it down to 5. 

Even Bowser could do that math, though his son’s warning had been what actually made him actually stop to do said math.

[color=FD0000]”Time to go!”[/color] he announced grabbing Rika and then leaping backwards, cannons on his shell deploying and firing to blast him back with additional recoil like Rika often did. 

[color=Aqua]”Hey, I could have toughed it out!”[/color] the ship girl, who had also done the math, complained, but her papa retorted  [color=FD0000]”And leave you with one hit left? Not a chance. We’ll still have plenty to do after this shmucks’ done!”[/color] 

Of course, the grovetender wasn’t going to let them get away that easily, the masked monster firing off another chain of chainshots at them. Rika saw it coming this time, and as the first once lanced close, she summoned her cloyster to use protection, nullifying the attack. Then her Knight to do the same for the next with his shield, but the final striker she had at her disposal had no shield, and so the war cleric was dragged in, sparing them from being grappled, but not her from harm.

Then they were skidding along the ground as Bowser made a landing.

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”Your woundednesses, please stay back, we shall take it from here”[/color] Kamek told the pair, as the two smaller uninjured troop members took to the fore.

[color=SpringGreen]”Yeah, because I’ve got an idea!”[/color] Jr added as he tossed up a pokeball, and summoned Dazzle the Poppilo to the field (with the mon getting his own 8 pokeball icons upon entering the cursed zone).

[color=SpringGreen]”It’s time to fight fire with water! Dazzle, use your watergun on the flaming masks”[/color] he commanded as the grovetender again unleashed its wisp swarm.

The mon did just this, blowing up a trio of bubbles of water from its nose, tossing them up, and then skillfully swatting them with his tail, sending them sailing fourth to strike home, extinguishing the burning lifeforce of the masks and causing them to drop from the sky.

Those masks were only the vanguard of many coming however, and while Kamek sent a reserve of toadies forth to collide with 4 more, after that he was out of reserves.

[color=SpringGreen]”You gotta shoot faster!”[/color] Jr demanded of his pokemon, but the attempt to follow this commanded mainly caused one of the next three shots to miss as the mon cracked under pressure, allowing a whips to crash home and knock a hitpoint off both of them

[color=SpringGreen]”What;s the matter with you, I could hit those no problem!”[/color] the prince berated the mon as more shots rained down onto their flashing forms as they pulled themselves back to their feet, only to have an idea.

A moment later, out of the smoke cloud caused by the exploding masks shot another water gun shot, nailing the next mask. Then in quick succession another shot, and another and another, as the smoke cleared and revealed Dazzle and Jr working together, the Popilo serving his bubbles to his trainer, who then used his paintbrush to bat them forward, nailing mask after mask with extinguishing strikes.

[color=SpringGreen]”Told you it was easy!”[/color] jr insisted, even as his arms rapidly got tired from the swinging.

[color=FD0000]”I got your back son!”[/color] Bowser declared from behind opened up with his own shoulder cannons, shooting twin dosing streams of water from them.

[color=Aqua]”Me too! Get flak you dumb masks!”[/color] Rika called out as she too joined in, her grizco blaster shooting out large air bursting shots of goop that also did the job. 

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”Well done your extingishingnesses!”[/color] Kamek praised the royals, before turning his attention away from making minions for interception, and instead to launching spells at the grovetender itself, correctly guessing that his weakest ones would do, and saving mana by doing so bit simply tagging it with basic spell blasts.

Four, and then three masks remained, and then the tender switched track again, charging forwards and charging chains. Forewarned however, the troop took this as a cue to back up, retreating well out of shotgun range. Then they switched back to shooting down the whisps when it switched tactics back, and another mask fell as they slowly backed up. Just when they thought they had things down however, they ran out of tower top to run across.

Bowster’s steel boots tethered on the edge of the tower, and though there wasn’t much of a drop, what with 99% of it being buried in the ground, it was just enough to get them to pause, and for the grovetender to get into chain shotgun range.

The chains lashed out, catching and dragging in Kamek, Jr and Dazzle in. All three lashed out as they were pulled in, popping off the next to last mask (as well as plenty of redundant damage), before the grovetender proved itself to have the capacity to learn, as it used its hands to swat at them rather than charging at more, the pathetic strikes still chipping away at their hp reserves.

[color=Aqua]”We got you!”[/color] Rika called out as she, held by Bowser for support, launched her grappling hook and grabbed Jr. The prince in turn grabbed Dazzle, hooking his tail under an arm while his arm was wrapped around his body.

While Kamek simply teleported back, the prince was pulled away, only to be faced with the same peril Bowser and Rika had been, and with no damage blocking strikers to his name. Only a paint brush and an armful of sea lion pokemon 

[color=SpringGreen]”Oh wait”[/color] he said, before commanding [color=SpringGreen]”sing that thing it’s swan song”[/color] as he lifted the pokemon up a little so its snout was pointing right at the grovetender, and lightly squeezing him. From the mouth of the mon shot a beam of pink sound waves, which struck the grovetender right before it finished charging.

The last mask fell, and with it, so did the monster.

Jr skidded to a halt, caught by his dad’s claw to prevent him from backspiking Rika, and then stood up. He was about to put down dazzle again, when he had second thoughts, and instead slipped the paintbrush under his front to act as support, now holding the pokemon like a living cannon.

[color=SpringGreen]”Yeah, that works”[/color] he decided, before the troop formed up, with Bowser uncharacteristically at the back of their formation.

[color=FD0000]”Alright troop, let’s get that pizza head weirdo!”[/color] the king roared, gaining a round of affirmations from the rest as before they went charging back across the tower towards their foe.

[hider=hp status]
Bowser: 3
Rika, Jr, Dazzle and Kamek: 5
[/hider]