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[img]https://i.imgur.com/ziR5Pse.png[/img]
[b][color=Aquamarine]wordcount:[/color][/b] 1,679 (+6)
[b][color=SpringGreen]Bowser Jr: Level 14 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=SpringGreen]///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color](242/140) (+5) (+5) (+3) (+5)
[b][color=Aqua]Rika: Level 10 [/color][/b] EXP:  [color=Aqua]///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color](158/100) (+5) (+5) (+3) (+5)
[b][color=FD0000]Location:[/color][/b] The Dead Zone
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Jr and Rika mostly stuck to the center of the pack while exploring the maze. Not really because they wanted to, both wanted to go off and explore a bit too, but because Jr was more or less stuck on healer duty, and thus Rika was stuck there right alongside him.

She, at the very least, made that job a bit easier on him, as she made extensive use of the Beast’s tape, flicking into it whenever they got attacked, and biting the life out of the floodfested in it. Literally, as said bites healed her for half the damage she inflicted, and thus meant Jr didn’t need to expand mana to keep her topped up on health after she’d finished trading blows with them.

Eventually the maze came to an end, and they were confronted with the door, the creepy watching floodfested (which Rika used to full heal after it became clear they weren't gonna fight back), and finally the reveal of three Consuls waiting for them in the region’s boss arena.

[color=SpringGreen]”Oh come on! That’s not fair! At least fight us one at a time in a boss gauntlet!”[/color] Jr threw up his hands to complain about this state of affairs, while Rika wondered why they were standing around letting the Consus say their pieces instead of just shooting them in the face right away. 

Before she could action that idea however, their foes made their opening move, summoning all the floodfested from outside into the room to join those inside in the act of turning themselves into a giant pile of meat. The kids started to try and destroy them, but when it became clear that that wasn’t going to happen, they yelled a quick plan and set about making a little addition to the pile.. 

Junior first tossed his paintbrush to Rika, and then tossed the girl herself, who proceed to slam down explosively into the doorway using her new H3AD-5T boon, briefly clearing it before whipping around with her splattershot and the paintbrush, coating the threshold to the room burning goop. This didn’t stop the floodfested’s suicide run, but it did mean that they got their feet coated in goop and started tracking it across the floor. Under conventional physics, this should have just left a light smear and messed up just the first few ranks of runners, if it weren't for the goop’s ability to generate swoopin status, the jellyfish like blobs who burst into more goop when they died (via being trampled or hurling themselves at floodested).

And so the more they spread the goop across the floor in a trail towards the forming mound, the more goop was produced in turn, and the more goop was produced, the more of the floodfested got covered in it, and the more that got covered in it, the more of the burning goop ended up inside of the resulting towering Gravemind. Rika added more by hopping up into the air and blasting and splashing more goop down ontop of the runners, till they where all past them and had merged themselves, and a whole heaping of goop, into the Guardian they had come here to destroy: the Gravemind

[color=SpringGreen]”Let’s see how you like heartburn, you big weirdo!”[/color] Jr called over at the distant titan, despite having not had that much to do with the plan to make that happen. He hadn't been idle while his sister did all the work however. 

Placing his right arm on his left shoulder, the surface of it bristled, revealing the entire length of it to be covered in a dozen hedgehogs worth of small metal spikes he’d produced after giving up on floodfested murduring. As a finishing touch, he caught his paintbrush as Rika tossed it back to him before quickly running it over the bed of nails, coating the spikes with more burning goop, before selecting his target

[color=SpringGreen]”And now you, get down from there and come fight us!”[/color] he yelled up at the hovering O, before unleashing all of the shards at once, unleashing a veritable storm of iron spikes, shotgunning them up at the Consul.

Somewhat to his dismay, each and every single one of them failed to hit anything, the hail of spikes impacting the wall behind the Consul. Not a lick of paint left on the eyes despite dozens having passed right through them, nor had they revealed any sort of invisible solid part anywhere close to them.

"Hmph! Did you think it'd be that easy?" the Consul retorted, briefly fixing the boy with a stare of contempt.

Jr recovered quickly from this failure, deducing that [color=SpringGreen]”Ha, you’re not even really here you wuss!”[/color] before tauntingly yelling [color=SpringGreen]”What’re you gonna do, huh, just watch us win from up there?”[/color] 

Rika was about to point out that it would be pretty silly of O to declare he’d be their doom when he couldn’t do anything, only for O to proceed to do something that seemed very silly. But only at first.

Namly, before his eyes, a 2 meter all iron fence was erected behind the koopa kids (and anyone else who’d come to face him down) before yet more was spawned, being built section by section into a square around some of the seekers, literally fencing them in. Then, grumbling and muttering to himself unintelligibly, O started to change the ground beneath them, painting the terrain into a muddy wetland, including pools of deep, dirty water right beneath their feet. Finally several trees sprouted up as well, along with a trough full of vegetables, completing the enclosure they were now fenced inside of. 

[color=Aqua]”I don’t… what?”[/color] Rika said, dumbfounded by this unorthodox strategy, thought to be fair she and her brother were mostly unaffected by the wet terrain that had left them simply floating atop one of the pools. 

Others would have bigger issues with the terrain modification, naturally, though what did not have any issue with the train were the enclosure’s intended inhabitants, which O proceeded to pop down several of in quick succession, now truly completing his creation.

[color=SpringGreen]”Huh, are those deflated Hoppo?”[/color] Jr asked, referring to the pink bounce platforms from the Flower Kingdom, having never before seen an actual regular Hippopotamouse before. He then started to ask [color=SpringGreen]”what are those supposed to do?”[/color] only to cry out in alarm as one of the most dangerous animals on earth spotted the intruders in their 5 star enclosure and started charging towards them, mouths opening wide to reveal massive sharp teeth backed up by crushing jaws.

Rika promptly shot one, but the bulky beasts that could give many fantastical monsters a run for their money cared little for small arms fire, and were swiftly upon them. 

The one Rika had shot promptly went to try and crunch its jaws down on the short girl who had shot it, only for its jaws to find chitinous scales filling its mouth instead of the entire ship girl, as said girl flicked on a tape recording and became the towering centipedal Beast. As the Beast, Rika arched her long neck around and promptly chopped her fangs into the hippo’s flank, biting a chunk out of it that caused the cracks in her armor to regrow as she healed for half the vitality she’d just drained. 

Still, it was a tough beast, and so that wasn’t even close enough to take it down, leaving the now grappled Rika open to further attack. 

Neither she nor her brother would allow that however. 

Strikers where deployed, the Vespid Ichor Queen and the fist of Blodia appearing and delivering a devastating cleaver chop and bone shattering punch respectively with weapons as large as the hippos where, and there was no enduring that. 

Jr meanwhile used his borrowed shipgirl floatation ability to sail around the hippo that came for him, painting goop onto its flank, poisoning the beast, while also  forming several spears that he proceeded to launch into its side, driving the deadly goop deeper into it. Rika did much the same to the one grabbing her, breathing globules of poison directly into the bleeding wound she’d bitten in its flank.

After cackling at the sight of the cage match of carnage for a few moments, O floated off and promptly topped the absurdity of his opening move by spawning in a [url=https://i.imgur.com/UF2MyaP.png]barnyard bash ride[/url] next to the hippo enclosure. This quint farmyard themed merry-go-round quickly proved itself to be from a not at all reputable carnival ground as it rapidly spun up to speeds far faster than its own maximum tolerances, before launching the vehicles mounted on it outwards as four large projectiles, two of them crashing straight through the fence and into the hippo enclosure.

Spotting this coming, Jr leapt up and, using Roxas’ flowmotion to guide his parkour, planted a foot on the hood of the tractor and used that to leap even higher, getting the height to clear its exhaust to still be above as it the trailer whipped on by below him.

He landed in a puddle with a splash, only for them to come a crash behind him as the tractor barreled into Rika and the hippo that had had her grabbed. Still, both where big and tough, and so both survived the collision, though while Rika rose up the hippo failed to do so, the Beast’s venom sapping the last of the life from it.

The Hippo that had attacked Jr still had some life in it despite its own poisoning, but all that meant that it was ripe for the eating as Rika scuttled through the mud towards it, falling upon it with a series of bites to restore her HP, while Jr held his mana in reserve for anyone without self healing abilities.

Still, while they had dealt with O’s opening gambit there was no indication he’d stop at building just two attractions, [color=SpringGreen]”So how the heck do we stop him from making more if he’s untouchable?!”[/color]

“You cannot!” O cut in to declare, before gleefully stating that “I can toy with you however I wish”