[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/6W7bqko.png[/img] [h2][color=FD0000]The Koopa Troop[/color][/h2] [b][color=FD0000]wordcount:[/color][/b] 1,852 (+3) [b][color=FD0000]Bowser: Level 12 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=FD0000]//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color] (267/120) [b][color=SpringGreen]Bowser Jr: Level 12 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=SpringGreen]////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color] (152/120) [b][color=DeepSkyBlue]Kamek: Level 12 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=DeepSkyBlue]//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color] (144/120) [b][color=Aqua]Rika: Level 8 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=Aqua]//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color]// (78/80) [b][color=FD0000]Location:[/color][/b] The Under - Termite Kingdom Ruins [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] In the battle for the hive’s streets, the rubble of a destroyed building suddenly began to be pushed up, forming a brief dome of paper and wax. Rubble tumbled down, revealing the odd bone, before the top of the dome opened up, pushing all the debris to the side to tumble away, revealing the floating form of the (former) skull girl Marie Korbel, and the legions of skeletons she had summoned to form the walls that had cleared away the debris. Then the striker turned to a mote, which returned to its owner, causing the skeletal walls to dissipate, and reveal him to the world once again. Bowser was in the midst of wrestling with a battered heavy drone who’s charge had brought the building down on top of both of them, but now that he was free, he grabbed a tight hold of it, and spun around quickly before hurling it into the air. [color=FD0000]”So long ya posser!”[/color] he yelled as the machine was launched skywards where it smashed into another building, stunning it long enough for Bowser to take in the state of the battlefield (and also long enough for Sectonia to later finish it off). Said queen had abandoned her floating artillery role, and moved in to take the Iron Queen in melee, tying up the wasp’s mage core leader, while the chaos Rubick was spreading with his imitation magics was tying up the mage core itself. In the distance, gunfire sounded as Jesse used her object of power to tear through the wasps, making short work of even the metal armored ones with her array of powers and weapon modes. Ganondorf was busy dueling another, more humanoid, robot of the wasp forces, while the bees had rallied an array of bee-type pokemon which turned their desperate struggle into something far more even and, with the aid of the seekers, something they were actively winning. The only people really struggling on the seekers side turned out to be the rest of Troop, who were facing down the self empowered Ichor queen, who was very much pulling a Sectonia by charging into the seeker’s own mage line. Kamek and his clones swooped past the king as he looked for them, only for the queen to come slamming down with her titanic blade to cleave one of the doppelgangers in half, while her own refracted around her in a mesmerizing haze. Rika, who had returned to the fold, fired her rigging guns at the queen in retaliation, only for her shots to be blow off course by a swirling barrier of wind surrounding the queen. The queen turned on the princess, buzzing towards her, hauling her sword over her shoulder again as she flew, before bringing it down in another overhead swipe. Rika used her maneuvering thrusters to boost out of the way, and then just barely brought her cloyster striker out in time to block the queen’s stinger as she swung its poison dripping tip forwards in a combo attack. She tried to jab her spear in in retaliation, but hit only air as it passed through one of the illusions, and then grappling hooked away as the queen reached out with one of her hands to try and touch her, which she correctly assumed would not end well. A ball of electricity flashed through one of the illusions, prompting the queen to turn again and focus now on the final member of the Troop she had not yet tried to take down. [color=SpringGreen]”Uh oh”[/color] Presently lacking his clown car, the prince was not the most agile, and given that he was carrying two pokemon, that agility was even more limited. So, as the queen charged once more, he saw only one choice [color=SpringGreen]”fire everything!”[/color] he yelled, summoning superscope wielding Primids and pan hurling chef bros to his side to add to his firepower. Kitchen utensils flew, energy bolts flared, electroballs zapped and fireballs from the princes’ own maw sizzled, but all their efforts flew off course or hit falsehoods, all except for Dazzles. Held under his trainer’s arm, the popplio opened his mouth and unleashed a beam of pink soundwaves which could not be blown away, and as he swept them over the whole illusionary ensemble, he struck true. In an instant, all the illusions vanished, and the queen became visible. Somewhat. It was as if her body was writhed in a veil of mist, one that made it appear hazy and unclear. Where the sound beam hit her, that haziness lessened somewhat, but it by no means became clear. What was clear was that the pokemon was doing no harm. Neither did Rika as she hit the queen with a burst of rifle fire, the bullets that were not blow off course unable to bring the queen’s body into clarity to properly harm it. Which meant she kept coming. The prince turned to run, but burdened as he was, there was no chance of escape. The queen’s blade rose up, and then swung down- and cleaved into the king’s shell, as Bowser hurled himself forwards to shield his son. It would have cost him greatly, had his son not immediately called out [color=SpringGreen]”Benediction!”[/color] and used his long cooldown full heal to restore his father to peak condition in an instant. It still cost him, for as he spun around the queen’s massive stinger, came to meet him, striking him in the chest and injecting venom. The king roared in pain but soldiered on, claws ripping forwards, yet the queen buzzed back, using her great blade to repel his attempted attack. Behind him, his son backed up to get clear of the royal rumble, and lent his father his aid, using [color=SpringGreen]”Esuna!”[/color] to clear the venom, and cures to try and keep him topped up, yet the queen was relentless in her attacks, swift in her evasions of the kings heavy blows, and immune to any of his lighter ones. She also called some of her remaining cultists to go after Kamek specifically, while not minding Rika’s attempts to aid her father. Yet from her actions, Jr sussed out how the spell protecting her must work, and in turn what it must be weak too. He stepped closer despite warnings and noises of concern from his minions in order to cast [color=SpringGreen]”Holy!”[/color] causing a pulse of power to blast out from him, striking the queen and searing her body, bypassing the misty defense due to its magical nature. That was why she had distracted Kamek, now as to avoid the heavy hits: [color=SpringGreen]”Hit her with everything you’ve got papa!”[/color] he called out, as the holy magic had briefly stunned her, giving him an opening. The king, trusting his son’s plan, followed up immediately, he jets flaring on his kinetic strike module and sending his rocket empowered fist slamming forwards into the queen. Where it hit, the haze fully dissipated, and then the entire effect shattered, along with a fair portion of the queen’s carapace, though the blow was by no means lethal, the magic having reduced the blow’s damage in its final moments. In the moments that followed it would have been wise for the queen to use her mobility to back off and re-apply to her buffs, or to switch to hurling lightning from afar. Instead the damage enraged her, driving her into a berserker rage like the ones the other cultists had experienced, turning the spellcasting leader into a furious single minded brute. She was by no means harmless like this, and indeed the massive bleeding crack she immediately left in Bowser’s shell with a rage fueled cleave was evidence to that, but any cunning she had was gone. Bowser went on the defensive, and Jr kept him alive with spellcraft, while Rika and Mimi both flanked the queen. The pokemon used her shadow to attack from one side, briefly drawing the queen’s attention and allowing Rika time to flip her spear around, jabbed barrels on its base past the air shield that had been deflecting ranged attacks, and to then pulled the trigger. Two point blank shells blasted into the queen, punching through her chitin and then exploding within, spraying blood and guts everywhere, before Bowser slammed another punch in, this one doing its full harm, and shattering the rest of the ichor queen’s inside, ending her life. They took a moment to breathe, and then started to move to aid Kamek, only to find the mage had just finished dealing with the cultists the dead queen had sent after him. This same thing was true most of everywhere, with the seekers having dealt with the biggest threats, and the free bees having the rest in hand. And thus, the way forwards lay open. They had some taodies gathered up some spirits of the different types of wasps they had killed, including a few mages and of course the Ichor queen, before they kept moving and caught up with Nadia. [hr] [color=DeepSkyBlue]”Which is to say, we dealt with the wasps response force, meaning we won’t have to deal with them now”[/color] Kamek added to the hive knight’s one word response to Nadia’s joky accusations of them being late. As it turned out they probably could have taken all the time in the world that they wanted, because the ‘true’ wasp queen seemed to be something of a fake. She was a machine, and one far less impressive than some of the ones that they had fought outside, a contraption of scrappy looking iron, unworked wood and patchwork canvas. She was also hanging from the ceiling, and couldn't exactly go anywhere, or come to attack them. She herself might be rather defenseless, but her loyal swarm still fought for her, ensuring that there was still a fight to be had. Said wasps lacked any special abilities, but they were also far more coordinated under this grand queen than they had been on their own, or under the lesser ones. The troop were forced to scatter to avoid the first living weapon that came their way, and then started to play their own parts in the battle. Bowser and Jr both took on wasp handling duty. The king’s mega fireballs were his most flashy contribution, creating slow large moving balls of danger that the seekers and wasps could move around individually, but that seriously disrupted the formation of any swarm trying to swing past them. Less flashy was the use of his cannons to blast swarms with supersonic waves to sow confusion among their ranks, or blasts of water, regular cannonfire and fire breath to thin their numbers. Jr meanwhile mostly made use of Dazzle, the mon forming great bubbles of cold air, which when popped blasted forwards in a gust of icy wind that crystallized on the wasps wings and bodies, slowing down their flight speed. With Mimi copy catting this attack, the prince could give himself and others more time to avoid the slowed down swarm strikes. While they did this Rika launched herself up into the air with her feather fall rune, and then used her grappling hook to latch onto the queen and pull herself to one of the bandages, whereupon she set herself to work chainsaw bayonetting though it. Kamek covered her back, granting her a sphere of protection to make her mostly immune to physical damage, and using his and his clones magic to blast nearby wasps with magic bolts, or summon spinning rings of playing card suit symbols using the wand of pocus. Once a pice of the armor fell, he summoned his so far unused [url=https://imgur.com/aolQmEY]tonberry[/url] striker and dropped it directly atop the machine piece below. The little creature slid and bumped down it for a few moments before it caught itself on a bit of the metal skeleton. Once secure it ominously raised its plain chef’s knife, and then stabbed it down, doing a disproportionately immense amount of damage to the component with that single blow.