Junior, Rika, & Geralt of Rivia
Mafia Town, Assaulting Consul I’s Ship
Word Count:3,061 word (+4)
The commentator cried out in alarm and pain as he was slashed by glass shrapnel and then crushed by a vending machine, which threatened to be the seeker's fate as well if they didn’t get out of the way (The surly walrus captain was fine though thanks to his blubber and chair).
Seeing this incoming, Rika grabbed her brother with a gauntlet, and then fired her maneuvering thrusters, launching him and her towards the side of the room and away from the incoming projectiles. With her aura slowing the shrapnel, the pair managed to evade mostly unharmed other than some scratches, and certainly weren't crushed by any vending machines.
Geralt, meanwhile, flung himself to the opposite side of the bridge, glass shattering against the shield Quen provided, and ducked for cover from the incoming vending machines.
Dave, on the other hand, was caught by surprise as a vending machine flew right past him, and he finally reacted, diving for the side of the bridge that Geralt was hiding by. “Oh jeeze, that thing’s throwing
vending machines?! How are we gonna get out of here?”
Geralt grunted, ducking again as another vending machine was launched through the bridge, before poking his head up again and sighing. “Not sure. Might be able to blind it with a good arrow, though.” Dismissing his hydro twinblade, Geralt pulled out Odysseus’s bow and looked across the bridge to Junior and Rika. “Go for the eyes!” He called, waiting for another vending machine to fly by before standing and letting loose a few arrows. Even with its immense size, the hermit crab’s eyes weren’t exactly the easiest targets.
”Should we use the-” Rika began to ask jr, regarding the tapes, but he shook his head
”We definitely don’t wanna go down there” before after a few moments, also adding a
”thanks for the save”Rika gave him a thumbs up as she jogged past the walrus captain, who was flopping his way across the floor towards the way they’d come in, and stepped up to the partially smashed window. She punched out another one of them to make more room for firing, and then raised a palm to fire her palm mounted rotary riffle, only for it to start clicking almost as soon as she’d started.
She had been making a lot of use of it after all.
She instead opened up with her SP stores, shooting a volley of power sapping disruption globs from her rigging, before unleashing a swarm of electrical fireflies from her hangers, which swooped down to try and blind the crab with strobing flashes.
Jr joined in with the eye skeet shooting contest, forming several blue glowing knives from his metal inscribed arms which. These floated beside him for a few seconds, before launching down at the giant crustation, the shorts flying in a spread that suddenly switched angles, turning sharply and all homed in on one of the eyes.
The hermit crab attempted to hurl another volley of vending machines at them, but with all the eye pain the shot flew wide. In response to this, it instead grabbed the entire container crate it had been pulling the vending machines from, hoisting it up above it, preparing to hurl the hollow rectangle at them. With such a big projectile, there was no way it wasn’t hitting, and taking out most of the bridge in the process.
Seeing this, Rika grabbed JR again, and prepared to jump.
“Dave,
MOVE Geralt shouted, grabbing the Diver and hauling him, half-carried and half-dragged, out the window, rolling under him to cushion their landing. Quen shattered as he hit the deck, then Dave landed on him with a few hundred pounds of bodyweight, multiplied by the drop from the bridge. Groaning, he pushed Dave off him, slowly clambering to his feet. His head was swimming a bit from the impact, so he leaned against the side of the wall below the bridge, catching his breath.
Geralt pushed off it slightly, pausing for a few seconds to cast First Aid on himself. Dave stood guard in front of Geralt as he did, a frown on his face. He felt bad that the warrior had to help get him out of there, but he was also immensely grateful for the save. Aiming his harpoon gun at the hermit crab’s leg joint, Dave let loose, hoping to at least damage its shell for the others.
Above them the bridge was annihilated by the container crate, while beside them Rika floated down with her brother in arms, hull soled shoes hitting the deck. She set the prince down, who gave a cough and a thumbs up of thanks, before he looked up at the big mad crab.
”Welp. We’re down here now so, fish-bug-knight strat it is” the prince decided, getting a nod from his sis, before both of them clicked the play button on a set of tape player they were wearing, starting the
musicl.
In a flash, the prince and princess were replaced by the armored captain of the royal guard, Undyne, and the centipede monster known only as the Beast. The latter immediately leapt onto the back of the former, and then the pair charged forwards like very strange knight and steed. Undyne raised her spear above her with a self empowering warcry, before thrusting it forwards and causing water spears to shoot up and strike the crab, aiming them for the same spot as Dave was shooting.
In response to having gotten them down here, the hermit crab slammed its claws into the ship’s deck, setting the ship shaking, testing the seeker’s sea legs and busting open container crates, and sending vending machines tumbling out to make quite the mess. Then it grabbed more of the vending machines and whipped them around, its blind scatter shots more dangerous now that it didn't need to judge altitude.
In the form of the Beast, Rika had dozens of sea legs to spare, had little trouble keeping upright, though Jr as Undyne had to grab one of the Beast’s horns to avoid falling off. A good thing too, because the Beast whipped to one side to take cover behind a container in response to the vending machines. Then she periscoped her head behind it, legs braced against the container to hold her up, and spat a spray of poisonous globules at the hermit, hitting its wounded eyes and getting the toxins in the wounds.
Now healed, Geralt summoned his Hydro Twinblade again, though he had to stumble to regain his footing when the Hermit Crab slammed the deck of the ship. Between his strength and his experience with Skelligers, it wasn’t a difficult feat, but it certainly slowed him down a bit. He was on the approach by the time the shotgun spray of vending machines was launched, and Geralt managed to avoid harm by simply dropping to the deck and flattening himself out as much as he could.
Dave, on the other hand, was having a lot more trouble. His sea legs weren’t quite as developed as Geralt’s despite his profession, and he was forced to pitch himself sideways to the side of the ship’s deck to avoid being flattened by vending machines, leaving him out of range to attack. While the Witcher resumed his advance, Dave had to just begin his, though his harpoon gun had much more range than Geralt’s elemental construct weapon, at least.
Once Geralt reached the hermit crab, he swung at the damaged limb, but a swipe from the monster caught him on the backstep, knocking him away again. “Thing’s faster than I expected.” He grumbled, pushing himself back up as the Beast spit a globule of poison into the hermit crab’s eyes, blinding it somewhat and distracting it.
Dave took advantage of the monster’s reeling to line up another shot, his harpoon catching one of the eyes and bloodying it even further, opening up an opportunity for the assembled Seekers to strike while it reeled and tried to protect its most vulnerable part. Geralt launched forward in a burst of speed, twinblade flashing as he cut at the thing’s wounded leg, though the elemental weapon didn’t seem to be dealing terrible damage, owing to the crab’s water affinity.
The Beast pulled itself up onto the top of the container and then launched itself forward with Undyne clinging to a horn. Fortunately she let go of it and found her feet just in time for the beat to slam those smart horns into the wounded leg, cracking the armor with the impact.
Then it started to pull back, giving Undyne just enough time to deliver a quick slice with her spear to the more exposed spot.
The crab, in response, roared, and then did a slow but momentum filled spin attack, threatening to roadkill them with the cab of the truck on its back. Then it started grabbing clawfulls of vending machines and just tossing them over its back, causing them and their contents to rain down, weapons and books joining the big metal machines in the deluge.
Geralt had to back up to avoid being crushed by the spinning hermit crab’s dumpster truck, but as he did he decided that Hydro wasn’t doing much good here, so he transformed into his Ardor Blossom Identity. “Wait, all of you guys can transform? I feel kinda lame now…” Dave sighed, sprinting away from the deluge of vending machines and products to find another opportunity to attack.
Geralt launched a flurry of fireballs at the Hermit crab, being careful to dodge each of the vending machines coming his way. This Identity was, without a doubt, the most fragile of all three, and avoiding hits was most important, especially when those hits were things made out of metal and about his size. One thing he did not was that the fireballs that hit the crab reacted with the Hydro element he’d left with his Twinblade, triggering a Vaporize reaction and dealing a big burst of damage, and causing a small steam explosion.
“Interesting…” Geralt muttered, diving past another flying vending machine and tossing more fireballs, these ones leaving behind the normal burn. “Junior! We can take this thing down quick if we hit it with our magic attacks! I only have twenty more seconds like this, though!” He hurled another set of fireballs, again scorching the massive target, and felt that his Shuriken Shower was ready. Taking careful aim, he unleashed the charge attack, which both did pretty hefty non-elemental damage, but energized the entire party, revitalizing their stamina as well as giving them a boost to their stamina recharge.
”Whaa already? Aw I wanted to start up the truck!” Jr replied from where he, or rather Undyne, was trying to pull one of the doors open. The fact that it had been underwater for who knew how long would probably get in the way of any plan that required the electrics to still work apparently wasn’t a concern to him.
Funnily enough, both of the royal kids had to switch out of their transformed states to use their own magic, but they didn’t switch out of the piggybacking strategy they had. Instead when the tapes were paused, Jr was riding on Rika’s shoulders (because the Beast was all shoulders in a way after all), ready to use their team attack on something more important to hit than a door.
The prince raised his paintbrush staff above both of them, channeling holy magic as Rika jogged around the side of the crab, dodging a claw swipe by leaping over it and then landing in front of their foe. It prepared to try and smash both of them with its other claw, but at that point the ship girl’s weapons were fully filled with glowing power. She unleashed a punch, sending a shockwave of bright white magic intront of the blow, and then followed it up with another punch, then another and another, each one delivering a stunning Holy blow to the mighty crab, till her gauntlets gave out, both sparking and overloaded from the power they’d had to channel.
Dave, meanwhile, had found another safe spot to aim from while Junior, Rika, and Geralt took the heat from the hermit crab, lining up a good shot yet again and spearing the crab’s damaged leg joint with his harpoon gun, breaking through the crustacean’s shell and severely damaging the joint, forcing the oversized critter to spread its weight over fewer limbs, damaging both its defensive and offensive capabilities.
With the crab’s leg broken and Junior and Rika upfront taking all of the hermit crab’s attention, Geralt had time to channel a Holy Lance from afar. Seconds after Rika’s flurry of punches, and mere moments after Dave crippled their foe, a half-dozen lances of holy energy materialized, running through the hermit crab in quick succession before the final lance struck like divine judgment itself.
The colossal crustacean staggered, swayed, and seemed to be mere moments from keeling over as its life blood drained from it.
Which left a certain someone with a few moments to get some extra juicy spoils out of this whole debacle.
Dave hurried up, breathing heavily, and aimed his harpoon gun at the broken leg, firing and catching it on the flesh underneath. He pulled hard, digging his heels into the haul, and the leg popped off in a spray of blood, nearly knocking Dave over as he caught it. “Oh man, Bancho would love to get his hands on this!”
He got it off just in time, as a moment later the big foe turned to ash, and its spirit dropped to the ground. As it did, Jr dropped to it again, hopping off of Rika’s shoulders commenting
”Nice, that worked” before asking Geralt
”How’d you figure that would work?” regarding the effectiveness of magic.
Rika meanwhile just went ahead and started to help Dave with the absolutely massive prize he’d just won, grabbing it with her gauntlets and giving hauling it up a go.
Geralt watched as Dave finished the hermit crab off, scoring himself one hell of a crab leg in the process. Emyhr himself would be jealous of that one. At Junior’s question, he nodded softly. “Noticed it burned fairly easily, and once my fire reacted with the water you and I had hit with it, damn thing nearly cooked alive then and there. Figured it was sturdier against physical hits from there, and that its shell didn’t actually offer any protection from magical harm. Where I come from, monsters are often immune or highly resistant to more mundane methods of attack, but crumple at the touch of magic. Specters and ghosts chief among them.”
”wooow, cool” the prince replied, seemingly genuinely impressed by this, while Rika simply said it was
”Neat” but her slightly tilted nodding helmet seemed to indicate she was taking this information in.
Meanwhile, Dave was giving Rika a big thumbs up as she picked up his haul, laughing happily. “Wow, you guys fight stuff like this all the time? I mean, there’s a lot of freaky stuff in the Blue Hole, but I usually just end up hurting it enough to scare it off. I don’t think I could’ve taken that thing by myself.”
”Yeah! We’re real tough” Jr replied with a flex that didn’t show off much muscle due to him being a kid. Rika however mentioned how
”We’ve fought them together though. It's better that way” as a response specifically to the diver’s last comment.
The other reason they were so strong was sitting down on the ground in the ash, ripe for the picking, but although she glanced at it, Rika had her hands full of crab at the moment.
Geralt eyed the Spirit, looking to the Koopa Troop and Dave. “I’ve already got a seaborne abomination in my Striker crew. If neither of you want it, might get some more ingredients for Bancho Sushi if we crush it once we get back there.” The Witcher shrugged. It was no skin off his back if somebody else grabbed it.
“I think Bancho will have his hands full with just this leg.” Dave admitted, laughing.
”Maybe we’ll get a truck from it?” Jr pondered as he picked it up, and with that, it was high time they headed back to sea. But before that, there was one question, which Rika pointed out as she asked
”So what do we do about all those?” pointing a hull blade at the clock, cannon, and half buried respawn pads. The ship might not be going anywhere without a bridge or its captain, but that just meant the wrestlers' spawn point and the clock they were feeding would be sitting permanently next to Maffia town.
“Could scuttle it.” Geralt casually mentioned, before his face screwed up. “Though that would make coming back to destroy it once we figure out how to difficult, especially with the Blue Hole messing things up.” Pausing for a few moments, he shrugged. “We can ask Sandalphon and the others when they get back here.” He decided, not being willing to make that decision all on his own.
”But it's Unsinkable?” Rika replied, quoting the ship’s name, while Jr just replied with
”Yeah I guess so.” Before thinking that
”Maybe they’ll want a look at a pad as well after Papa got them a clock?”At any rate, that would have to wait till pick up. Which would hopefully be soon, given the Consuls now knew they were here. At any rate, first things first, getting Bansho sushi its rebuilding funding back to shore.
That and Geralt back too, but a quick trade over of the leg and a summoning of Rika’s white whale would see to that.