Blazermate, Linkle, Din, Tora, & Poppi
Experience Gain: + 3 XP
Location: Hammerhead: Garage
Word Count: 3308
Linkle’s arrival in the very same garage currently under perusal by Tora did not go unnoticed, although one wouldn’t know it just by looking at him. The Nopon did not look up from his meticulous examination of every single thing in a toolbox, even as his friend came upon something she found just as fascinating. However, she eventually approached him and his Blade partner after some bustling to and fro, awash with questions. “Er, Poppi not get hurt,” he said, rather incredulous, forgetting that his world’s common knowledge wasn’t so common here. After a moment of awkward silence, he added some explanation. “All Blades regenerate using ether from any injury to the body. Though Poppi, as artificial blade, need other repairs.” Curious as to what sort of ‘metal bird’ would warrant information about Blades, he followed Linkle to the back end of the garage.
There, he found the inert form of Storm Eagle. Fairly impressive as machines went, it bore no trace of real life, as well as no resemblance to a blade. Tora took this in at a glance, and wasted little time letting his friend know. “Linky-Linky not need water, meh. While look like bird, is one-hundred-percent robot. Not real blade, and since Tora not recognize family work, cannot be artificial either. Only Tora, grampypon Soosoo, and daddypon Tatazo can create artificial blade.” This last line he delivered with a fair amount of pride. “Mehmeh, here guide for machine for friend Linky-Linky. If outside or inside damaged, need new parts. If in good shape but do nothing, need power. If powered-on but unable to function, need programs. Afraid more easy to say than do, meh.” While talking, Tora waddled over to the robot and ran a quick inspection. Storm Eagle had, judging by the repair job involving similar but not original components and materials, been damaged at some point, but it appeared physically sound. Poppi, meanwhile, wandered away after giving Linkle a warm smile. Clearly the blade’s change in appearance did nothing to dull her memory of the arbalest’s kind words last night.
Blazermate meanwhile was still at the newly finished truck, seeing just what her new building could do. As she watched as Bowser Jr. Michael, and Franklin put the finishing touches on their newly constructed monster truck. When they finished up, Blazermate put her dispenser on the back of the truck and they made their way down to where everyone else had gone; a truck stop occupied by non hostile Galeem entities. There were a lot of interesting people here, with various allies chatting with who they were interested in.
”Glad that there are some semi-friendly faces out here.” Blazermate said to herself. As Blazermate was looking over Captain Falcon; who she thought looked like a solo sentai hero, and what was essentially a 4 person boy band; which she was fairly indifferent to as they looked ‘too’ pretty, Din came up to Blazermate and asked for some assistance healing a robot.
”Oh sure. I did heal some others like these guys at the castle and they turned into allies. Lets just hope this goes well too.” Blazermate replied, following Din to the garage where Tora, Poppi, and the patient Storm Eagle were waiting. Tora seemed to be looking over the inactive robot, showing lots of curiosity but otherwise wasn’t really trying to repair or activate the downed robot.
”Tora, I guess you can’t repair robots huh? Isn’t Poppi a robot? Or are you more a mechanic and less an engineer? Blazermate said, curious as to why the onion bird wasn’t doing much of anything considering the mechanical skills he showed earlier when making the karts for the convoy. Blazermate did put her healing beam on Storm Eagle just the same, as she was asked to by Din. After all, it would be faster for her to heal this medabot than it would for Tora to take him apart and put him back together again anyway. Her scanners didn’t tell him that he was all that injured or was missing his medal, so she just healed him a little and used her Revive on him to wake him up.
Tora’s annoyed look at Blazermate was so heavy it could be felt. “Just did not start yet! Have to look over before open up. Can’t just charge in like crazed Armu. And Poppi not just robot. Meh-meh…” With exasperation he watched as the Medabot tried to heal him. Even if her beam had been meant to heal hardware rather than flesh, however, it didn’t do much good. Storm Eagle appeared to be fine in terms of physical state, but according to inference as well as Tora’s flow chart, he lacked power. Blazermate’s scanner revealed a compartment in the robot’s core, presumably for some kind of solid fuel, that currently held nothing.
Linkle had started running down that list Tora had given her. “Right, so if Blazers’s beam isn't waking him up that means he okay. We just need to give him some power. Maybe Din could dance for him, that seemed like it gave everybody some power before. Or, hmmm.” She rested her hand on her chin and thought. When she was feeling out of power she liked to eat a good meal, that gave her tons of power for the next day. “What do robots eat?”
“If robot have no power, cannot observe dance, no matter how good.” Though unfortunate in not having spent as much time with Din as with Linkle during his adventure thus far, Tora could attest to the quality of her dancing. “As for robot ‘food’, they take things with power in them. Can be batteries full of zappy-zappy, or stuff like ether crystals with power inside them. If Tora had ‘Tiger! Tiger!’ could get some pretty easy, but no luck.”
”Yeah, dancing probably wouldn’t help in this case,” Din said, pondering the discussion. She knew very little about ‘power sources’, other than, perhaps, magical ones, but she didn’t have any on hand, nor did she have the ability to generate magical power. She also didn’t know if magic could be used to power this kind of technology. But looking around the garage, she saw plenty of other machines laying about.
”Do you think any of those might have a power source we could use?” Din asked, gesturing at the other high tech vehicles.
“Oh, that’s right!” Linkle said, pounding her fist into her palm. Din pointing out the other vehicles in the garage had been just what she needed. “Junior and Franklin made sure the karts were full of something last night.” She walked over to the nearest other vehicle in the garage and began walking around it, looking for something. “There should be a cap or a door or something like that. Maybe we could ask the old man out there for some? Old men are usually helpful.”
Tora considered telling the girls that the other vehicles and machines weren’t theirs, and their contents not free for the taking, but he didn’t particularly care to. Poppi spoke up when Linkle mentioned Hammerhead’s owner, however. “Mister Cid-Cid very helpful. If friend think he will help, then go ask him. Should be just outside.”
”I agree with Tora then. I’m only used to fixing Medabots. If this guy isn’t a Medabot, then I don’t know how to help him myself. My scanner says he has his medal, but medals are also what give me power so… Yeah.” Blazermate said, putting away her healing beam and shrugging.
”And saying that, I’d have no idea what kind of fuel he’d need. Robots in my world run on Medals, not ‘fuel’.”While Linkle stepped out to find Cid, Tora continued to mull over the problem at hand. He looked over the bird machine’s exhaust ports, ultimately tracing the power lines back to a port in its chest. After a few moments of thought, he turned to Poppi and asked, “Could Poppi maybe spare one of own ether crystals? Would like to try something.”
“Sure!” Smiling, Poppi opened up her furnace and casually removed a crystal. Tora took the glowing orange stone and held it in his wing a moment. His companion’s ether furnace simulated the natural ability of blades to intake ether from the atmosphere. In her case, the ether was condensed and then melted down for use as power. Each piece held a lot of energy, so it stood to reason that it might be able to power this robot, too. Of course, Tora, didn’t really expect it to, since most machines needed a specific sort and dosage of energy, but nevertheless he placed the crystal into the port gingerly.
The gem zipped inside, energizing instantly, and Storm Eagle’s eyes shot open. With a “MEHMEHMEH!?” of surprise Tora stumbled backward, narrowly avoiding getting clubbed by the robot master’s blaster arm. The Nopon reached for his weapons, but his attacker proved faster. Poppi, however, was faster still. “Masterpon!” Her boosters blasted her forward, and she bodily shoved Tora out of the way, taking the weight of Storm Eagle’s talon’s herself. Sparks flew and Poppi hit the ground, severe slices across her back. Tora bounced to his feet, horror plastered on his features. “Poppi!?” His Mech Arms at the ready, he charged forward without restraint, taking shot after shot from Storm Eagle’s blaster. By the time he reached Poppi, he could do little but pant and stand over her, arms poised for defense. Storm Eagle eyed the two cruelly. With Poppi stuck regenerating and Tora’s weapons and defenses depowered, he’d be easy prey. A couple flaps of its wings brought it into the air, ready for a deadly divebomb.
Din and Blazermate ducked for cover when the robot bird went berserk immediately upon waking. Din thought of the spigot from which Linkle had drawn in her attempt to revive the unconscious bird. Looking towards the spigot, Din saw that there were a few tufts of grass huddled near the water source. Din felt the best way to deal with this current dangerous situation was to restrain the rampaging maverick, so she cast the Spell of Spring on the grass, forcing it to grow up in a messy tangle in hopes of binding the flying robot and taking away its mobility advantage. This also had the unfortunate consequence of uprooting the pump altogether, breaking it, and causing water to spray upwards. Meanwhile, Gogoat, who Din had left near the party’s other vehicles, sensed that its trainer was in peril, and came racing to Din’s side. Since the nearby ground was now grassy thanks to Din’s first spell, Gogoat felt slightly tougher than usual, and felt behooved to intercept any attacks that might be aimed at Din or her allies.
Seeing Din distract Storm Eagle, Blazermate made her way out of the garage, healing Tora whenever he was in her line of sight, to go grab her sentry gun from the back of the Bowsermobile. While she could try to make another one, it would be better to just move a fully upgraded one instead of making one from scratch. With Din’s Pokemon passing her on her way out, Blazermate flew to the back of the Bowsermobile and packed up her sentry gun, walking back to the garage due to how heavy the gun itself was even packed up.
Linkle ran back around the corner. The second she left and everything went crazy. She saw the metal bird diving toward Tora and Poppi with the nearby grass springing up after it. She looked over to Din, was able to grasp the intent instantly, and sprinted forward at full speed toward Tora and Poppi. She jumped over, flipped in the air, and shot down with her foot wreathed in flames to try and break the metal birds momentum to both steer him off of her defenceless allies and make him easier to entangle. “Bad bird, that’s not food!”
Her fiery boot knocked Storm Eagle out of its dive, redirected it toward the floor instead. It skidded across the ground for a ways before smacking headlong into a utility desk. Tools and parts scattered with a tremendous clatter, but the robot rose to its feet without serious damage. Tora, refreshed by Blazermate’s medibeam, turned about and tended to Poppi. The artificial blade, deprived of the ether to mend herself with, struggled to take it in from her surroundings and repair the damage dealt by her adversary. She did, however, remember something when she saw Din’s gogoat. After grabbing a sphere from a compartment, she pressed the button to release her croagunk in a flash of light. The frog appeared between her and Storm Eagle, confused and ornery, while Tora prepared to defend himself. The robot master raised his gale cannon for another blast at the pair and their pet, still more than able to lay on the hurt. For its part, the croagunk did not appear eager to leap to their defense. Blazermate wouldn’t be back from retrieving her sentry for at least another ten seconds.
Storm eagle wasn’t the only one raising a blaster. Linkle had the Bwaa Blaster in her fist, pointing right at him as she landed. She fired, hoping that the bouncing that had incapacitated Junpei would knock some sense into this bird.
Her shot struck its target, but without triggering a bouncing effect. Angry, Storm Eagle turned his attention on Linkle, unleashing his gale cannon again and again as the limber arbalest dodged. In no time at all he made a mess of the garage, but she held his attention long enough for the absent Medabot to return with her cargo.
Blazermate soon returned with her sentry gun in tow, a large toolbox hoisted over her shoulder holding the machine. As Storm Eagle was distracted by her allies, Blazermate put the sentry down and began the accelerated construction process. As the gun was building, only taking about 8 seconds to fully build, Blazermate got behind Tora and used him like a shield as she healed the injured. Of course this was mostly Tora, but he was a tanky lil’ onion bird. And once that sentry finished building, even attempting to fly for Storm Eagle would be a death sentence, although the robot master not finding cover was also a death sentence.
Recognizing his ally’s turret for the trump card it would be if fully erected, Tora moved to defend it before Storm Eagle could take it down. Poppi joined him, channeling what ether she could gather, and the first blast glanced harmlessly off her masterpon’s barrier. “Hah! Birdypon want try again?” With the garage in disarray already, he felt better about launching a few micro-missiles from the Mech Arms, which burst against Storm Eagle with disorienting force. The metal of its body appeared to be highly advanced, however, and sustained little damage. After observing this, Tora got a bad feeling, but the next second Blazermate’s turret went operational. With three high-pitched beeps it locked onto the robot master and dutifully began plugging away. The bullets compacted on contact, leaving dents but not inflicting nearly the carnage that Blazermate envisioned. Storm Eagle might have charged straight into it if a volley of missiles from the sentry didn’t hit it head-on a moment later. The lull allowed the grassy tendrils from Din’s spell to wrap around it, stalling it for a moment. It was then that Poppi’s croagunk attacked for the first time, launching a Poison Sting of its own accord that appeared to have no effect.
Tora furrowed his brow. He needed more firepower, a single concentrated blast to get through Storm Eagle’s armor. Once an opening appeared, Linkle and Blazermate could finish it off, but not before. “Poppi Alpha,” he called. “Time to shine!”
Sparks flew and ribbons whirled as Poppi reconfigured. A moment, the familiar visage of Poppi’s original self had returned. “Alpha by name, alpha by nature!” The Mech Arms dissolved and were replaced by the Drill Shield, into which she pumped a dangerous amount of ether. Tora took aim and, a moment later, let fly with a huge Jet Biter from the shield’s core. The toothed cannonball struck true, blowing apart the outer layer of Storm Eagle’s armor and leaving him vulnerable. Tora knew better than to celebrate, though. Instead, he caught Poppi as she fell, starved of ether and inert. “Tora and Poppi out of commission,” he warned. “Better end fight, now!”
With the armor removed from Storm Eagle, Blazermate’s turret really held the maverik in place with its rapid fire (by pinning him to a wall) as Linkle attacked. "Sorry birdie!" Linkle cried, dropping the blaster to the floor and drawing out both her crossbows. The tips of the bows flashed green as she leveled the weapons square at his chest and just held the triggers down. Boot after bolt poured out of the bows in and endless stream.
Once she saw him stagger under the weight of it she dashed forward. The bow in her right hand flashed red as she shot a bomb right into his chest, swung around the other bow to shoot one more normal bolt, ending it with a flaming back kick.
Linkle’s barrage of bolts penetrated Storm Eagle’s exposed circuitry, actuators, and structure, inflicted heavy damage, but it wasn’t until her bomb and finishing kick that something in the robot’s body just gave out. Staggering backward, it slumped against the wall and to the floor. The impact shook a wrench free of its hook, which fell down and bopped it on the head, but Storm Eagle was already offline. Ashes started to fall from its chassis, and in the cavity left in its chest, a sparking spirit materialized.
Tora breathed a sigh of relief. “Looks like is down for count, meh.” Beside him, the croagunk gave an annoyed
ribbit before crouching down beside her own master. Its face suggested callous disinterest, but the fact that it seemed to care about her condition suggested something different.
“We were just trying to help him.” Linkle said sadly, bending over with her hands on her knees to rest. She pulled out the remainder of that water she’d been drip feeding it, grimaced at it, then downed about half in one go before wiping her mouth with her arm. “I hope we meet a robot that isn’t trying to kill us soon.”
Din was surprised by the efficient ruthlessness in which Linkle dispatched the robot bird, given that the green-clad hero had been trying to nurse it back to health only moments before. Granted, Din understood that Linkle might have felt protective of Tora and Poppi, and the bird had been the aggressor, but Din wondered how she would react if she was a mechanical weapon who was just woken up by a sudden surge of energy? As she approached the deactivated machine, she could see its soul clearly in the hole the Linkle had carved out of it. The soul then flew out towards Din, and a thought filled her head, something about 'reploids' and 'mavericks', being unfairly seen as dangerous; who yearned for freedom and self-determination. The soul seemed to resonate with Din due to her sympathizing with it's plight. On the other hand, Din pondered on her general uselessness when it came to fights. She had gotten a little stronger thanks to her new pokemon partner, but Gogoat had been useful against Needles only when Sweet Tooth was on the ground. The fact that this machine could fly majestically and blast gale-force winds from its arm seemed like a way for Din to diversify her usefulness. She had hitherto refused to take a soul of the fallen for herself, but she felt a strange connection with this one. The soul hovered in her palms as she brought it to her chest, absorbing it.
