[center][h3]Paved Wilderness - Scorched Gorge[/h3]
Lvl 15 Ms Fortune (66/150) and Chucho the Polterpup
Roland’s [@Archmage MC] Therion’s [@Yankee]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1257[/center]

Following the somewhat ominous moment spent staring at the refinery, Nadia continued to chill out with her new friends in the Steeltusk’s shade. It turned out that Piper, Caesar, and Lighter -alongside their friends Burnice and Lucy, for whom this trio was waiting- were all part of a biker gang called the Sons of Calydon, which Nadia thought odd considering that all but one of them were female. They based their operations in a cliffside town called Blazewood northeast of Hammerhead, and unlike the cutthroat vagabonds and crazed psychos common to other gangs in the Paved Wilderness, the Sons of Calydon seemed to be dedicated do-gooders. Though primarily concerned with the wellbeing of various shantytown communities and homesteads around the central yellow-grass plain, they roved all over the Wilderness performing odd jobs and competing in high-octane races. The way they spoke about one another gave Nadia a strong ‘found family’ vibe, reminding her a little of the Fishbone Gang. While being part of a big organization had its perks, she couldn’t deny that she missed having a small, tight-knit gang to run with, back when things weren’t so terribly complicated. 

Eventually, the conversation turned back toward today’s trending topic: the Ficsit scavenger hunt. Still no closer to cashing in her salvage sphere than before, Nadia bemoaned the loss of her dune buggy. Her goal was to angle the others into offering to let her use their truck to haul the cargo, but to her surprise Piper had another idea. “So, you didn’t find your ride in the water down there?” she drawled, leaning sleepily atop her elbow on the Steeltusk’s bar counter.

Nadia shook her head. “Nah. Last I saw it, my buggy went over the waterfall. Darn thing could be anywhere. I guess I could wander around tryin’ to find where it went, but I don’t really know what I’m ‘dune’ out here, heh…”

Yawning, Piper shrugged. “I mean, there’s only the one river ‘round these parts, but suit yourself…”

“Huh?” Nadia blinked. “D’you know where it lets out?”

“Sure. See that bridge over there?” The little girl pointed toward a part of the highway about a mile away, past the refinery.

Nadia squinted. Through the heatwaves she could barely see what looked like a bridge. “It’s over there?” She perked up suddenly.

“Well, what’re we waitin’ for!?” Caesar chugged the last of her cola, then jumped down to the ground. “Let’s go find your ride!” She swung her leg over her bike, then beckoned for Nadia to join her. “C’mon, get on!”

With a grin Nadia leaped down after her and joined Caesar on her bike. Lighter followed them, pushing up his sunglasses. “As the boss’s bodyguard, I’ll be going, too.” Caesar protested, pointing out that she could handle herself, but Lighter ignored her with a smile and threw a questioning glance at Piper. The truck driver shook her head. He shrugged and revved up his own bike. “Alright, let’s go.”

"Don't go drinking and driving!" Nadia waved at Piper. "It's whiskey business!"

The souped-up motorcycles of the Sons of Calydon made short work of the short ride. It was empty and uneventful, even as they rode by the refinery. Nadia checked it out as the trio passed it, but she spotted neither Therion nor Roland. Only the sight of an open garage door suggested anyone had been there at all. She shrugged, trusting in the guys to deal with whatever trouble they might run into, and settled in for the rest of the ride. After another couple minutes, the three reached a shallow chasm with a river running through the bottom. There were no signs of Nadia’s buggy, so Caesar took her bike offroad to head downstream with Lighter right behind her. Another minute of rougher driving brought them to a steep crater in the red rock, home to a [url=https://i.imgur.com/8vJVrDz.png]small lake[/url] and an overgrown, abandoned hydroelectric power plant. There, half-submerged but right side up, they found Nadia’s lost dune buggy, washed all the way down here by the current. A curved slope around the basin’s edge, meant no doubt for plant workers, provided access to the waterside.

Unfortunately, as an oasis, this spot had attracted some wildlife. Atop the central control point sat a big [url=https://i.imgur.com/xdBxc6h.png]watermelon bugsnak[/url] shaped like a huge, bloated tick. Much smaller [url=https://i.imgur.com/aQxjaMx.png]snax[/url] that looked like scooped melon balls roamed the area, but none looked remotely as threatening as the big one. With the buggy in the water close by, there was no chance of getting it out without the giant Mewon noticing. Nadia groaned. “Ah, crap. I don’t wanna fight, I’m way too tired for this…”

“In that case, watch and learn!” Caesar lowered her kickstand and set off at a jog, eager for a brawl. “C’mon, Lighter!”

“Coming.” Looking very unsurprised, her bodyguard went after her.

Their commitment made Nadia feel bad, and with a sigh she got off her butt to follow them. The Mewon spotted the intruders right away and let out a rumbling bellow of challenge. Nadia readied her daggers, Lighter hefted a modified brass knuckle with an engine fixture, and Caesar unsheathed her short sword. With the afternoon sun glinting off her shield’s golden spikes, she clanged her weapons together. “That’s right! Gimme the best you got!”

“Allow me!” Lighter charged forward, his weapon aflame. He dipped and dodged around the Mewon as he applied a barrage of punches and kicks to hammer the striped rind and soften the big snak up. Caesar slashed away at its face and legs to get its attention, soaking its bashes and charges with well-timed parries. Nadia lent a hand from farther back by throwing her daggers to reduce the beast’s defense, so it wasn’t long before Lighter powered up with a Morale Burst. “Now we’re cooking!” His fists became blazing blurs in a lightning-fast barrage of punches. Nadia watched, impressed, as he finished with a fiery uppercut.

The Mewon bellowed in rage, glinted gold, and pulled in its legs to throw itself forward in a corkscrew charge. Caesar threw herself in harm’s way, shield up. Even as Nadia flinched away, she held firm and tanked the blow, then struck her own shield from behind to launch a reverberating shockwave. That jolt stunned the beast, so Lighter jumped in for a chain attack, first launching up and then crashing down like a meteor. Sensing her moment, Nadia tagged in. “Fur-serker Purr-age!” she cried, laying on the hurt with seven quick lunging slashes.

Finally, Caesar finished the chain. She flipped over the others to bring her spinning shield down on the Mewon’s noggin. “Courage is POWER!” The cleaving blow scattered the watermelon snak into giant, sweet-smelling pieces, and when the echo faded the crater lake was quiet. 

Nadia sheathed her knives with a sigh. “Sweet moves, you guys! All for little ol’ me, too! I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Haha, don’t thank us yet!” Caesar jumped down into the water, which came up to her thighs, to fish out the three-foot salvage cube she’d seen earlier. “Once we get your dune buggy outta the drink, you’re hauling this thing back to the Steeltusk!”

The catgirl chuckled and splashed down alongside her, followed by Lighter. “Alright, alright, that’s fair. Guess I’ll cube my enthusiasm for now.” After stuffing the cube into the buggy’s trunk, the three got busy pushing the car to the lakeshore.

[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]

After Zenkichi, Blazermate, Edward and the giant archer brought the firefight to a close, the Seekers were left in relative peace. Now, the wreckage of several vehicles on the route to Celica’s foxhole stood as a warning to other combatants, effectively warding them off by virtue of both physical obstruction and the intimidation factor. Messing with something -or someone- that could leave such heavy ordnance in such a sorry state was beyond every faction’s pay grade, at least for now. It wouldn’t be long before the turn of the Flame Clock brought around new generations of soldiers with no idea how destructive Celica’s Skell could be, eager to try their luck.

Still, despite the lull in the Seekers’ battle, the other factions’ fight around Highertower raged on in its ceaseless ebb and flow, and with their actions the newcomers sent out ripples that quickly became waves. With the New Conglomerate’s Vanguard-class Titan and accompanying platoon demolished, the blue-and-yellow faction had no choice but to pull back and consolidate its remaining forces around the Fuel Depot. With the mercenaries Hightertower thrown into flux by the payload detonation earlier as well, the psychos -led by Junkrat and Roadhog- had managed to assume complete control over the battlefield’s central facility. Once they got their own payloads to safety, the bandit legion set its eyes on the weakened NC soldiers as they retreated to stem the bleeding. The Fuel Depot’s defenders quickly found themselves pincered between a frontal assault from the psychos and an ambush by the marauding Kroad from behind, each alien gunslinger packing custom Blutonium weapons. While it would be even harder to push into that area for a while, it was safe to say that the NC wouldn’t be troubling the Seekers any time soon.

That made it a very good time to make a break for it, especially with Celica safe and their ill-gotten gains from the cargo container retrieved. The only question was how best the heroes could make their escape. Once contacted by Zenkichi, Sandalphon quickly bent her mind to the task. It didn’t take an engineer to tell that Celica’s once-proud Skell was practically inoperable and wouldn’t be driving -or walking- anywhere anytime soon, especially without attracting unwanted attention. Still, it had demonstrated its worth as a weapon of war and was well worth retrieval alongside its pilot. Zenkichi suggested using fultons. Maybe as a joke? Sandalphon couldn’t quite tell. Those devices could lift impressively large loads when correctly distributed and balanced, but there was one big problem with his plan: the Avenger was not currently airborne, but still at Wind’s Gasp. It wouldn’t be too long a flight to Highertower as the crow flies, but the time it would take the ship to take off and fly there was time that Edward’s contingent didn’t have. There was no telling what could happen to the Skell if fultoned up way ahead of time, either, making that option foolhardy at best.

Sandalphon pursed her lips as she leaned on the Comm Center desk, thinking. “I’ve received confirmation that the items sent by Edward and Juri have arrived. We’re preparing the salvage for delivery to the Hammerhead Ficsit depot via Armadillo. Can the mech be sent to the Avenger through the same method?” That seemed a little too convenient to Sandalphon, so she wasn’t terribly optimistic, but it warranted suggestion regardless. “If not, you may need to use Edward’s portals to transport everyone to a safe -or at least defensible- location to await fulton extraction. It will take a few minutes to make the necessary preparations but I can request Hope to make ready for takeoff.”

By this time, the underground third of the Highertower battlefield was beginning to get noisy. From where they were in the open third the Seekers couldn’t see what was happening, but given how valuable the contents of their payloads had been, the psychos were probably making the most of their newfound resources. The window for escape was closing; if the Seekers and their new acquaintance wanted to ditch this warzone, they’d need to act fast.

[center][h3]Paved Wilderness - Outback Outpost[/h3]
Junior and Rika’s [@DracoLunaris] Geralt’s [@MULTI_MEDIA_MAN] Roxas’ [@Double][/center]

Leaving the untamed (and in some cases, totally alien) wilderness behind brought the kids and their chaperone to a more ordinary stretch of savannah, though plenty of interesting wildlife could still be found here and there. Kangaroos, koalas, dingos, wombats, emus, and platypi were all harder to find than balaharas or tonglegrops, but they were far less dangerous, leading to a wide-open and scenic countryside. To the north the terrain got darker and rockier, with the derricks scattered across the inky oilfields like burned-out trunks after a forest fire, and beyond them lay the high ridges and gorges of Oilwell Basin, but it would take much longer to get there on foot than the team had available.

The distances involved for travel around here led the four Seekers and their critter companions along a dirt road to the only real point of interest in the area: a derelict waypoint that had at some point been a bustling truck stop. Perhaps its builders thought that a location near the region’s primary source of crude oil would make sourcing its fuel easy, but that remote location had helped Hammerhead leave its competitor in the dust. Either way, not even a name remained painted on its faded walls to identify it now. More than likely, it had served as a temporary base for a rotating cast of squatters, bandits, and other miscreants since its downfall. What few vehicles the Seekers could see sat broken down and looted as they baked in the afternoon sun, never to run again.

Today, though, the outpost [i]was[/i] occupied. A squad of five kitted-out [url=https://i.imgur.com/QDJxzso.png]operators[/url] were holed up inside, and when their lookout spotted incoming tangos through the cameras they set up, they quickly began to establish fortifications like metal sheets to reinforce interior walls and wooden barricades to block windows. Alibi set up proximity detectors and deceptive holograms that would ping their attackers, Ela laid down barbed wire and sticky Grzmot concussion mines, Valkyrie stuck a durable Black Eye camera in the compound’s main hall, Jager readied his Active Defense System to destroy incoming projectiles, and Wamai deployed Mag-Nets to attract and then detonate enemy gadgets. All loaded their weapons and hunkered down as Wamai’s voice resounded from the compound’s loudspeaker.

“Attention, unidentified force. If you’re here for our salvage, you should turn back, now. Any attempt to enter the outpost will be met with lethal force.” To show that the operators meant business, a spray of gunfire peppered the ground close by. It was almost impossible to tell which window it came from at a glance.