[center][h3]Paved Wilderness - Scorched Gorge[/h3]
Lvl 15 Ms Fortune (63/150) and Chucho the Polterpup
Roland’s [@Archmage MC] Therion’s [@Yankee]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 967[/center]

Although very annoyed at herself for forgetting all about her Harbor Demon striker and doing all that hard labor by herself instead, Nadia managed to get over it pretty fast. What’s done is done, after all, and if nothing else it might make for a funny story later. Plus, how mad could she be when she’d pulled off that ingenious Bunger wrangling idea so perfectly? Rather than bemoan her silliness, Nadia set her mind to her next task: getting the salvage sphere she’d extracted from Scorched Gorge to the people that’d pay her for it. This time, unfortunately, no bright ideas or forgotten abilities would bail her out. Without a vehicle to her name, much less one capable of hauling cargo, the task of transporting her salvage to a Ficsit depot made her previous Sisyphean struggle look like child’s play. This time, Ms Fortune would need help.

Hoping that nobody else would come along and spot her hard-earned loot, Nadia and Chucho left the sphere, retracing their earlier steps. Steeltusk was still sitting right where she last saw it by the road but this time the flashy red-and-black eighteen wheeler wasn’t alone. At some point while Nadia had been exploring the canyons, two bikers had pulled up next to the truck on their custom hogs and seemed to be lounging around, enjoying a late lunch. Both were darkly-dressed and sported desaturated green hair, but the solidly-built [url=https://i.imgur.com/pe1KVIV.png]girl[/url] featured flashy gold ornaments all over her outfit and bike, while everything about the lean [url=https://i.imgur.com/teoHB5p.png]guy[/url] from his scarf to his shades to his leather jacket screamed ‘cool dude’. The newcomers had just been given cold drinks from the Steeltusk’s onboard bar by Piper, and as Nadia approached, her ear twitched at the familiar sound of crack and hiss from a frosty can in the truck driver’s hand.

Nadia hid her right arm behind her and waved with her left. “Hey!”

“Hey yourself!” The girl with the ‘king’ necklace grinned good-naturedly, her voice naturally somewhat booming. “You must be the cat thiren Piper told me about! Find any treasure?”

[i]Cat thiren?[/i] Nadia could only assume that must be these folks’ version of a feral. “A little! Dunno how I’m gonna get it home, though!”

That seemed to make the girl crack up. “Ahahaha! You’re the act now, questions later type too, huh? Kitty after my own heart! The name’s Caesar, nice to meetcha! And this is Lighter!” She gestured at her companion. “Say hi, Lighter!”

“Hi, Lighter,” the guy replied with a smirk, giving Nadia a little two-finger salute.

“Nice to meetcha guys! You can call me Ms. Fortune.” Nadia couldn’t help but smile at Caesar’s earnestness. Coming to a stop, she crossed her arms to admire her reflection in the shiny gold hubcap on Caesar’s bike. “Wow, this is ‘wheelie’ cool! I’d love to ride a motorcycle someday, but I bet it’d make me ‘two tired’!”

The puns left Caesar cackling, but she seemed distracted by something on Nadia’s person. “Dude, what happened to your arm?”

Realizing what she’d done, Nadia’s brows shot up as she uncrossed her arms and hid her right behind her. “Oh, uh…”

“Probably ate some bugsnax,” Piper drawled from her barstool, sounding tired.

With the cat out of the bag, Nadia brought out her reconstituted arm reluctantly. “Oh, was that what that was? Eheh…” She grimaced. “Don’t suppose, uh, you guys know if there’s any cure for this? I’ve got plenty of meat on my bones as-is!”

Lighter inhaled through his teeth, shaking his head. “Fraid not. In fact, the infection slowly spreads, bit by bit, changing you inside and out, ‘til all that’s left of you is one big burger.” He held up his own half-eaten [url=https://i.imgur.com/iVzuUFZ.png]double decker[/url]. “Like this guy. Poor Jeffrey…”

Nadia’s jaw dropped, her eyes as wide as saucers.

Immediately, Caesar burst out laughing, and even Lighter couldn’t keep himself from chuckling. “You’re such a jerk!” She punched Lighter’s shoulder with more force than one might expect, but he seemed to brush it off. Then Caesar held up placating hands toward Nadia. “Relax, he’s just joking. It’ll wear off in, like, an hour.”

“Ask her how she knows,” Piper muttered, to which Caesar just shrugged.

Nadia emptied her lungs in a huge sigh of relief, her ears drooping. “Sheesh! And here I thought my jokes were bad.” She looked up at Piper, eying Steeltusk’s bar. “I could use a drink, if you guys don’t mind. Been dyin’ out here in the heat. 

“Yeah, whatever you want, Fortune! My treat!” Caesar clapped a hand around Nadia’s shoulder with a big smile, very chummy already. “You tipped us off about the scavenger hunt, after all! Soon as Burnice and Lucy get here, we’re off. Gonna be livin’ like kings before the night is over!”

Quite powerless to resist Caesar’s strength or charm, Nadia allowed herself to be steered toward the bar. “Thanks! A rum and coke would be purr-fect!” She started rooting around for the ingredients, her tail swishing back and forth above the counter. “So, you’ve got more friends comin’?”

“Uh huh.” Piper narrowed her eyes as she looked up and down the nearby highway. “They’re running late, in fact. Should’ve been here already.” 

Lighter pushed up his sunglasses. “Maybe Burnice started another fire, and Lucy’s having to bail her out.”

“Maybe.” Caesar plopped down on a barstool with a sigh, looking unconvinced. “No word from ‘em is strange though. I got a bad feeling.”

Nadia sat down a moment later with her drink, sipping it as she looked out across the wilderness. Nothing in the area seemed suspect, other than that refinery, maybe. “Hmm…”

[center][h3]Paved Wilderness - Highertower[/h3]
Edward’s [@DracoLunaris] Blazermate and Sectonia’s [@Archmage MC] Zenkichi’s [@MULTI_MEDIA_MAN] Juri’s [@Zoey Boey][/center]

High above the battlefield, at the top of Highertower, the simple but identifiable nod of Edward’s drone was taken as confirmation by the giant archer. In the midst of all the chaos unfolding down below, he seemed pleased to have found a friend, no matter how small and mute. “I help anytime,” he rumbled, taking hold of his longbow. From that point forward, as long as the drone remained within the giant’s lofty line of sight, it would shoot down piercing shafts the size of spears to skewer any foes foolish enough to attack the friendly drone.

While Zenkichi fought his way toward Celica to make contact, the ever-dutiful Blazermate in tow, word got back to the commanding officer of the New Conglomerate squad he’d slaughtered about the detective’s intercession. Within the fuel depot, a [url=https://i.imgur.com/Ab8ahot.png]sharp-eyed sergeant[/url] pursed his lips in bitter annoyance. “That emplacement has been a thorn in our side since we’ve gotten here, and the moment we’re finally about to wear it down, reinforcements arrive? Tsk, tsk, tsk.” He turned to a subordinate. “Time to send in some backup of our own. Deploy the [i]other[/i] Vanguard.” The woman saluted and scurried away, leaving the captain to monitor the map overview.

Less than a minute after Zenkichi reached Celica and her Skell, a booming noise resounded above their position. The next moment, a huge object crashed down nearby, narrowly missing Bunker 4. Before the dust even cleared, the fallen object began to move. Through the haze stomped a huge [url=https://i.imgur.com/00Spt3h.png]Vanguard-class Titan[/url], over two stories tall and decked out in New Conglomerate colors. Its hatch popped open just long enough for [url=https://i.imgur.com/PV9YvQV.png]Corporal LaRue[/url] to make visual contact. “There you are.” The hatch snapped shut, and the Vanguard lifted its immense Predator Cannon, big enough to make a nearby Heavy stare down at his Sasha in disappointment. As the minigun spun up, the mech’s loudspeakers made sure the Corporal was heard. “Time to flush you out, mon amie!”

By breaching the central building by way of a rooftop extending out from the rock the facility was built into, Edward and Juri were insulated from the firefight and vehicular skirmishes going on outside, but that facility itself was by no means secure. Though the psychos were holding onto it, the structure’s position on the battlefield meant it would be continuously besieged from both sides by mercenaries and soldiers hoping to cross the area on foot without getting sniped or run over outside. As a result the facility was hotly contested, with each close-quarters encounter in these halls unpredictable and explosive in its own way, especially if someone on a Ghost or Misha tried to drive through the central atrium from the open northern warzone to the underground southern warzone or vice versa.

The sudden arrival of Edward and Juri had put a stop to an NC incursion within this facility, but the moment of peace they earned was short-lived. While the tactician focused his attention on his scouts elsewhere, a Demoknight kitted out with the Chargin’ Targe, Claidheamh Mòr, and Broadband Bonnet charged up a flight of stairs on the opposite side of the central atrium. “HAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!” He banked off the top of the stairs and went flying, arcing through the air like a comet. He slammed shield-first into the wall scarcely two feet from Juri with a deafening clang, stunning him for just a moment as he hefted his bloodstained greatsword.

In that moment, though, a metal hook latched around the Demoknight’s waist and yanked him backward. “Ach!”

He flew a good twenty feet straight toward a spot where a [url=https://i.imgur.com/oHabFN6.png]hulking masked psycho and singed maniac[/url] had set up shop. The instant the Demoknight got caught in Junkrat’s bear trap, he set off his landmine and Roadhog fired his shotgun. Together, both were enough to gib the Scotsman despite his innate explosive resistance, and Junkrat cackled wildly. “Hahahahahaha! Forty-four! Or…wuzzat forty-five, mate?” Roadhog just shrugged and crammed another fistful of scrap metal into his shotgun. Shrugging, Junkrat scowled at the newcomers, then shouted over his shoulder at the psychos pushing their payload into the underground zone for extraction. “Oi! Get a move on, you lot! Things just got a lot spicier in here! Heeheehee!” With that, he and Roadhog opened fire again, their deadly combination of traps, crowd control, lobbed grenades, and airburst shrapnel a recipe for disaster if any mercenaries, soldiers, or Seekers tried to push in on them unprepared.

Outside, the battle continued to unfold unpredictably, proving that nobody was totally safe. For the most part Sectonia had little to worry about, though one Scout in particular seemed incapable of leaving her alone. Very fast and agile, he would climb the Highertower and then use his Sandman to smack baseballs at anyone he could see, including Sectonia. Though he missed often, he seemingly found a new baseball every ten seconds, and a successful hit would leave his victim stunned--a dangerous proposition for anyone in the air. If he provoked someone into coming after him, his strategy was to slurp down some Bonk! Atomic Punch to become untouchable, then corner his assailant and wipe him out with a Grand Slam taunt for the one-hit kill.

Still, that Scout was ultimately just an annoyance, and could be ignored. The bigger problem was when a firefight at the outdoor battlefield's central oasis went south for a Heavy-Medic combo skirmishing with a squad of psychos. Just after the Heavy went down due mostly to his usage of the Brass Beast, a [url=https://i.imgur.com/rruLPZI.png]Wasp[/url] appeared out of thin air on the metal helipad that extended out over Empty Space, and the medic jumped in. "Time to practice medicine!" A moment later the highly mobile VTOL aircraft was aloft, its mountain machine guns and missile launchers making mincemeat of the psychos. "The healing is not as good as the hurting!" It wasn't long until the Medic, drunk with power, spotted Sectonia and flew over to fight for dominion over the Highertower's airspace.