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[img]https://i.imgur.com/C7nwoGY.png[/img]
[b]Words:[/b] 817 (+2)
[b][color=ea590c]Edward Portsmith: Level 10 (28 cells)[/color] [/b][color=ea590c]/////////////////////////////////////[/color]/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (40/100)
[b]Location[/b] Frozen highlands - The Midnight Walk - Moon Mountain
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Exactly ten seconds after being frozen, Edward’s cat Scrumpy thawed out and, coincidently, also regained his senses from his self-inflicted madness. He thus aborted the throw he’d been in the middle of, and, after a moment reassessing the situation, turned the hunting rifle he’d built on the Man in the Moon’s face with pin point accuracy.

Which was rather absurd, given he was operating the gun with cat paws. It was also very absurd how, when he hurled the then empty rifle at the same target, it looked like it dealt as much damage as the bullets had.

[color=ea590c]”Incredible, can you do that again?”[/color] Edward asked, only to be somewhat disappointed when the cat gave a negative meow and produced only a small bomb with his next craft. Still, it gave him an idea, even if it was a little fiddly to implement while dodging.

By the time the man in the moon’s face cracked, he’d managed to flick through armory menus well enough to drop the Steel Diver handheld torpedo launcher into his cat’s paws, which the feline got to work using with relish, letting lose the seven shots the weapon held in a slow but steady bombardment before hurling it at the man for a final burst of damage.

It did somewhat raise the question if the cats could be expected to be able to reload weapons, but they certainly seemed able to use equipment which could be a real boon if they got the time to equip them properly before the next fight.

In this one, Edward had the issue of burning through his ammo reserves and his minion dying off, reducing his output during the battle. Personal firepower wise, he fully ran out of ammo for his Rune Pistol despite it chewing through his reserves slower than odin’s pinky would, forcing him to switch instead to just alternating his magelocks. In between shots, however, he had plenty of time to focus on keeping his troops alive. Or, rather, coordinating Loona’s efforts to do so.

Her newly lured cryofreeze was a godsend in this regard, the ghostly wolf able to render his troops incurable when about to be hit, while also restoring them.

WHile this certainly helped the floating Cold-Flame Antonarchs, the main beneficiary of this was the Ironclad. It was, after all, unable to dodge much of anything, and so needed near constant healing, but when frozen it was a good platform to fight from as it could keep them above the spikes, and thus focused on dodging just the projectiles. 

By the time the stone hands rose up, it had also had time to reload in between freezings, at which point it unleashed a barrage of three armor sundering explosives whose blasts ignored half the man in the moon’s defences.

Unfortunately, while doing these shots, it was vulnerable, and especially unfortunately, this was when one of the floating hands decided to take issue with it

With a cry of [color=ea590c]”Abandon ship!”[/color] Edward leapt from the back of the vessel as the fist came slamming down into it, Scrumpy and Loona just barely managing to follow his lead before being squashed flat. For the ironclad there was no escape, as the vessel crumpled beneath the mighty fist, Loona being unable to freeze it in time due to having to save her own skin.

She and Edward immediately leaped back into the fray however. The Lunarwulf formed a Amber Starlight Blade in her jaw which she used to cleave into the hand, while Edward drew his Arche's Guardian Blade and hacked at the stone form with its heavy blade. The SomnaDrix even charged in to help, slamming its freezing antlers into the stone.

They had to back off as it rose up again, but the action had refilled Edward’s mana fuel cells as well as dealing damage, giving him a chance to spellcast.

He first cast Designated Target on the hand, and ordered Scrumpy to [color=ea590c]”Unleash everything!”[/color] prompting the cat to unload all of his unused mana into a hail of firecrackers. Drawn by the target painted on the hand by its marked debuffs, the explosives homed in just a little, focusing the explosions onto it rather than spreading them out.

Then he pivoted and pointed at the man in the moon himself, casting Designate Target once more while focusing fire with the remaining Cold-Flame Antonarchs, their spell-frost barrage striking the briefly vulnerable target even as they were cut down to the last in turn. 

The Dreadnought joined in by charging the last two mana fuel cells into the Arche's Guardian Blade and then thrust it forwards, unleashing a powerful bolt of lighting that joined the other spellfire. Even as he did, a wave of spikes rolled towards him across the floor, approaching too quickly for him to pivot from the bolt to a jump. Just as they were about to hit, however, the Loona froze the man solid, before she, Scrumpy and the SomnaDrix pushed him back from the center of the action, leaving the others to finish the fight.