[center][h3]Tora, Poppi, and Big Band[/h3]
[b]Location:[/b] Sandswept Sky - Apex of the World
Level 9 Tora (162/90) Level 9 Poppi (162/90) Level 5 Big Band (100/50)
Midna’s [@DracoLunaris], Sectonia’s [@Archmage MC], Primrose and Therion’s [@Yankee], Jesse's [@Zoey Boey], Raz’s [@TruthHurts22], Raiden’s [@XoXKieroBombXoX], the Phantom Thieves, Braum, the Scout, Peacock, Mao, Robin, Tharja, Ciella
[b]Word Count:[/b] 2034

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LX1Ae8G3gE&ab_channel=BlackGhost13[/youtube][/center]

The sudden expectoration of Akrid swarms worked wonders to make the Seekers realize they were on an even tighter schedule than Red Eye first made it seem, and like eggs the whole crew scrambled to their stations. The undisputed ruler of flying insects, Sectonia took to the sky to cover her teammates while on the move, rebuffing the incoming Trilid horde with a veritable fireworks display of sorcery. Given the velocity of the train below and the rather more worrisome speed of the Guardian in pursuit, Sectonia needed to work her poor wings overtime just to keep up while also raining down magical mayhem on the Trilid, but if there was anyone who could accomplish such a feat of aerial acrobatics, it was her.

Under her protection, Raz reached the charging station in a matter of seconds. Midna and her new impromptu bodyguard Raiden were making tracks to the train’s caboose to plunder the onboard armory for heavy ammunition, but until they returned with ordnance, the psychonaut cadet had nothing to do. Rather than just stand around, he lent his psi-bolts to the fusillade of projectiles that Sectonia, the rear turret gunners, the Scout, and Peacock had brought to bear. As he shouted at the Akrid a shadow fell over him, and when Raz glanced sideways he realized it belonged to Ciella as she adopted a firing stance. Standing beside one other really put the size difference between the pair into perspective, with Ciella at six foot ten and Raz at just four foot four, but the Agito did not deign to look the boy’s way. Instead she pulled taut her bowstring, her hair streaming beside her, and unleashed four water arrows in a spread formation. Each tore through any Trilid in their path before disappearing into Red Eye’s cavernous maw. Whether or not they dealt much damage in there Ciella couldn’t really say, but without delay she drew her bow once more.

Compared to Raz, Primrose and Therion had even less distance to travel before they reached the stations they’d volunteered for, but once there they couldn’t exactly stand idle. Despite the ranged fighters’ efforts, some Akrid nevertheless managed to slip through. That remainder fell to the rest to deal with, be they strictly melee fighters like Braum and Big Band, or mages who couldn’t afford to waste mana on single-hit small fry, like Robin and Tharja. Trying to slap dive-bombing Trilid out of the sky, however, was like trying to hit an entire baseball game’s worth of fastballs, and Big Band wasn’t doing so hot. “Ow, gah!” he grunted, reeling from the explosion of one monster that struck him square in the middle. He recovered just in time to duck out of the way of a second Trilid, which promptly blew up against the surface of the cannon behind him. The blast dislodged his hat, but before it could fly away on the wind the brazen detecting snatched it out of the air. With another Akrid already on its way down, he hurriedly popped his hat on and pulled off a well-timed Beat Extend. Two halves of a giant tambourine deployed from his torso and slammed together like pincers, catching the Trilid before it could hit him. The noise of the jingles inflicted sound stun, allowing Band to catch the dazed creature and hurl it back into the Trilid cloud like a stick grenade.

“These things got me all kinds of funked up,” Band complained, looking over his shoulder at the cannon. To his dismay he found that the Trilid he dodged had gone on to detonate on the main cannon’s turning track, warping the metal enough to pose an issue. “Hey, we got a hit over here! Who we got on fixin’s?”

A little panicked and very distracted by everything going on, Tora looked over with wide eyes. Nobody had claimed repair duty, not that anyone was much of an engineer except, of course, Tora himself. “Meh, me, I guess!” Using Poppi’s stored ether he released a parting volley of missiles from his Mech Arms at the trilid swarm, then took one final look around. Before he could say anything about the main cannon, Jesse volunteered to take control, which meant that every position was accounted for. Or did it?

“We need someone up front!” Tora suddenly realized. “If enemies get yellowpon, we all doomed!”

Taking potshots at Trilid nearby, Joker narrowed his eyes. “Hey, you guys good without me?” he called down to the Phantom Thieves in their turrets, shouting above the wind.

“All good here!” Skull shouted back. “It’s basically one big arcade game!”


“Except the ducks are trying to kill us!” Panther added, her pigtails flapping in the wind.

Joker gave a parting salute and dashed off toward the front of the train, where his varied skillset would be invaluable keeping the Conductor safe.

Meanwhile, Poppi switched to QT Pi mode and jumped up on top of the cannon. “Poppi run defense up here for Jesse!”

“Oh…” Tora looked uneasy at the prospect of separating from his treasured companion, but at the same time he knew it had to be done. The team couldn’t afford to lose either the critical weapon or the woman controlling it. “Okay! Stay safe and kick monster butt!”

“Roger, roger!”

In a jiffy Tora reached the repair panel, where he started redirecting T-ENG for repairs. “Friend Therion and Primrose!” he called as he worked. “We need cannon face backwards, right away! Can load normal rounds at any time!” Once Tora made the requisite connections, a little button mashing would push the T-ENG where it needed to be to make turning the big gun possible.

It wasn’t much longer before Midna and Raiden returned, fending off Trilid all the while. The Twilight Princess deposited the giant shells on the top of the train next to the cannon, and Tora shouted the instructions she needed. “Meh-meh-meh! Put in loader, and charger, quick quick quick!” When she complied, some mashing would plug the round straight into the main gun itself. From there another could be put into the loader for immediate insertion after the loaded shell was fired, and another in the reserve slot to take its place. Meanwhile, the charging station could energize a shell with all the power drummed up by Raz’s mashing, then added to the queue. After Primrose and Therion decided on which of them would be turning the cannon one hundred and eighty degrees, since both mashing their buttons would get them nowhere, the barrel of the Dragonfire cannon swung around. As it span so did its counterweight, which included the charging station, the loader, and everyone on top of it, which took Ciella by surprise and would have resulted in a fall from the train if not for a timely grab by Raz. Another few seconds and the turn was complete, and it was down to Jesse to make the final adjustments.

Poppi was crouching above Jesse when she asked if her targeting looked okay, and after a quick focus of her optics the artificial blade gave her a thumbs-up. Without Blazermate on hand to scan for weaknesses, anything seemed as good as anything else, and Jesse was right to conclude that it would be hard to miss. While Poppi didn’t know what the FBC director meant by graduating high school’, now was a bad time to need reassurance, so Poppi told her, “Poppi not do that either, so it fine!” At Jesse’s warning, everyone in earshot braced themselves, and the next second the roar of the Dragonfire rang out through the desert sky.

Nobody saw the shell actually travel through the air, or what happened inside Red Eye’s gullet. They only staggered from the physical force that shook not just the train, but the very air, and witnessed the monster’s reaction. It let out a terrific roar as it bucked wildly, thrashing from one side to another as it let the whole desert know of its pain. As it fell back, the train tracks began to curve, averting the locomotive from Al Mamoon as per the Conductor’s strategy. Even as the behemoth receded, however, Poppi kept her eyes on it. In no world would one shot, even from a weapon of this ludicrous caliber, be enough to end this fight.

"Pow!" Peacock grinned. "Right in the kisser!"

Big Band whistled through his instruments. "Now that's what I call percussion."

Despite the general elation, Red Eye didn’t stay staggered for long, and after mere seconds began tearing across the sand again. It cut through the arc the train was taking, and with terrifying speed began to pull up alongside the Railway Gun. From there it couldn’t just eat the train if it caught up, but the Dragonfire cannon couldn’t shoot down its mouth, either. Still, its reload was already in progress, and once the Octopath Travelers turned it again Jesse could line up another shot. All along the behemoth’s side were large, meaty red masses situated at intervals among the chitinous plates of armor, which to anyone with even a morsel of genre awareness looked tantalizingly like weak spots. For the rest, Necronomicon spelled it out.

“Shoot those red mounds!” the Persona advised, and the Phantom Thieves on the train’s right side, Mona and Fox, hurried to obey. Their turret rounds pounded the eye-shaped spots, rupturing bloody craters in the exposed flesh. As the Seekers opened fire, however, so did Red Eye. From a blowhole it launched an absolutely massive spiky pod that hurtled almost lazily through the air, and despite any attempts to shoot it down, the sheer mass kept it going until it hit the Railway Gun. The whole train shuddered under the impact, knocking the main cannon -and any heroes without firm footing- askew. To make matters worse, the pod then erupted into a horde of [url=https://i.imgur.com/KzZ9vGV.png]Bolsepia[/url] that landed across the entire train.

Seven landed on top of the cannon section, four on the counterweight around the charging station and loader and three on the barrel. Counting on the others to tend those behind her, Poppi focused on the ones ahead. She morphed the Variable Saber into shotgun mode and unleashed two blasts apiece into the nearest Akrid. Their force dislodged the crab-legged pests and sent them flying from the train, but the third skittered forward toward Jesse’s cockpit. Poppi dashed forward and extended her saber’s laser blade, skewering the Bolsepia through the head. That head, however, began to swell and glow, which in Poppi’s world meant only one thing. In a panic she switched off the saber and burned her thrusters to execute a backflip kick, popping the Bolsepia far enough off the cannon that the ensuing explosion caused no damage. The artificial blade breathed an entirely cosmetic sigh of relief before calling out, “Everyone be careful! These things explode!’

By the time she gave her warning, however, other Seekers had already learned firsthand. Robin cut through a Bolsepia head with an electrified slash from his Levin Sword, but couldn’t get clear before it blew up, slamming him into the metal hard. “Robin!?” Tharja snarled, grabbing hold of the second Bolsepia with hands of darkness as she bent to heal her beloved’s wounds, unaware of the third climbing up behind her.

“Grrah!” Big Band groaned. “I’ve had it up to here on this chattanooga choo choo. He leaped down from the Railway Gun to land with a bang on the roof of the armory car, where Bolsepia were massing to blow the whole thing sky high. “Giant Steps!” he cried, deploying a huge kick pedal to sweep the monsters’ legs out from under them. From there it was a matter of picking them up one or two at a time and tossing them off the train, but if any of the leftover Trilid joined the party, things would get explosive fast.

Down in the Railway Gun’s fuselage, Tora was working on repairs when one explosive Akrid crammed itself into the same cramped passageway he was in. “Meh-meh!?” he exclaimed, realizing that a blast in here would be very, very bad. “Poppi!” he cried. “Need Drill Shield! Copy? Need Poppi Alpha, pronto! Poppi!?” As the Bolsepia crept closer, the Nopon swallowed nervously, struggling to figure out something he could do.