ctrlsaltdel
op2024
Ariamis
Double
Lord Zee
Goldeagle1221
wintersoldier
Snowdrops
LG
wordcount: 3,111 (+4)
Bowser Jr: Level 14 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////(215/140)
Rika: Level 10 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////(134/100)
Location: The Dead Zone
Under the Unsigned’s command, his undead troops spilled into the tomb the koopa kids had drilled into, very much intending to make it into the kids own tomb. Unfortunately for them, said kids had other plans, starting with putting these boneheads to rest.
Bonenoids with shields went first, forming a shield wall beneath the entrance to the tomb, while their rifle wielding compatriots lined up behind it, using the shoulders of the shield bearers as supports for their long guns.
It was quite the impressive little formation, which was, before it could be put to any kind of use, blown apart by Rikas white whale as it breached out of the ground, having taken a bit longer to get up than the flying kids. Its massive double jawed mouth snapped shut, swallowing several boneoids like a swarm of krill, before it slammed down atop several more, and smashed yet another pile with a flick of its anchor tipped tail.
A second later, Jr and Rika both charged the remaining bonenoids on either side of the whale, gauntlets and clown car boxing arms plumbing the skeletons, smashing them apart in a series of swift and brutal punches.
”Now give me back my gem-” Rika called up at the Unsigned amidst the hashes of his minions, only to see the tail of his cloak swishing away as he abandoned the entrance to the tomb
”Hey, get back here!” Rika demanded, tapping her feather fall rune to launch up to the entrance, only to yelp and drop back down when a barrage of machinegun fire came flying her way in response to her attempted chase.
A few moments later, Rika and Jr (standing/hovering on the back of the whale) both took a much more cautious peek outside of the tomb to find out what was out there. As it turned out, it seemed to be the remains of a mausoleum. Other tombs lay scattered around, some half buried in the tree’s walls, others shattered apart either by the act of being risen up out of the depths, or by the Unsigned’s excavating of them.
As for how it had been excavating, well, that seemed to be via combination of stick grenades tossed by grenadires and the raw lifting power of supersoldiers
The final new undead they could see where a number of skeleton riding sidecar sporting moterbikes which were patrolling around the still intact brick pathways of the mausoleum, and who had been the source of the gunfire that had driven Rika to dive back down into cover.
Naturally, there were also bonenoids to spare out there too, all of them taking similar degrees of strategic cover as their fellows inside the tomb had attempted. Concerningly, the Unsighned was in the process of producing more of these grunts, holding open its cloak till a dozen more had popped out, before doing an odd little head shoogaling dance for a few seconds, seemingly to recharge in the process, and then summoning a dozen more.
”Yeesh, that’s a lot of bone heads”
”and he’s making even more. So we have to stop him soon”
”With a plan”
”A quick plan”
Observations made, they ducked back down out of sight before they could lose their heads and, swift as they could, formulated exactly that.
A few moments later, a sheet of metal with a pair of eye slits was put up into the doorway. Rounds immediately pinged off of this, but the shooters were then distracted when Rika’s white whale came bursting out of the ground next to the shooters, though it sadly missed a shark attack level strike this time due to the lack of vision of the target.
It was distraction enough however, and so as bullets began slamming into the poor beast’s blubber, the rest of their plan burst into action. Literally.
Another part of the wall to their tomb exploded (outwards this time) as Jr’s clown car drilled through it, and then hit the path outside, go kart wheels deploying and engine revving as he burned rubber towards the enemy defensive position.
Rifles pivoted back to try and take them down, only for Rika’s giant wasp queen of a striker to finish her incantation from behind the metal face protector they’d popped in the doorway. Her titanic sword slammed tip first into the ground, prompting a 25 meter squared area of the ground beneath the bonenoids to reach up in the shape of hundreds of hands and to then drag them back into it, reburying the undead creatures.
Most of them, anyway. The supersoldiers and the Unsigned himself managed to wrestle free from the earth, but the chaff were by and large simply gone. Unfortunately, the Unsigned began immediately replacing them, declaring this merely a “minor setback” as the troops that had not been reburied fought to cover their creator from the incoming clowncar.
And the whale, which Jr healed to full hp using a manaless cast of Benediction, taking it from close to dead right back up to to a massive distraction in the blink of an eye. It promptly lunged at the closest supersolider, big enough to swallow even those whole, while trading cannon for machiengun fire with the rest.
With the footsoldiers being respawned, and the super soldiers busy with the whale, motorcycle skeletons were the bulk of the force of undeath still in the fight. With their patrolling beyond the barricades, and high powered motor vehicles, they had avoided the fate of the footsloggers more or less entirely.
”Alright bring it! Battle mode time!” Jr challenged the botany bikers as he and they started racing towards each other, only to then have to immediately duck when the bikes’ sidegunners opened up, sending a blaze of gunfire his way, though it was fortunately incredibly inaccurate due to the bad roads and bad driving.
In response, his own side gunner opened fire, Dazzle the Brionne blowing a trio of water bubbles and batting them out over the clown car’s windscreen. One slapped into the side of a bike, knocking it over, another knocked a skeleton gunners head off, and a third hit the road infront of a bike, fowling its traction as it drove over it and sending it careening off the road island into a tomb.
He then however barked in pain as a bullet clipped his tail, prompting the mon to hunker down for fear of further damage. Still, thanks to his mon thinning out specifically the gunners, they were close enough that Jr could execute his plan:
In the air above him, the titanic mechanical fist of Blodia appeared and then slammed forward into the pack of bikers, clearing a path through them, into which the prince wizzed. Then, he unleashed the spell he’d been challenging, a blast of holy magic ripping through the pack of bone bikers, either wrecking them alright, or stunning them when they were moving at high speed which had predictable results, causing a pileup behind him.
The prince cackled with glee at this carnage, only to ”Ach!” as rifle rounds started flying his way, the Unsigned having gotten another round of bonenoid out, and who was now in the midst of his head shaking recharge dance once more.
The prince swerved and dodged as best he could, shots pining off the clown car’s hull. The volley of stick grenades tossed by the grenadiers however was far more of an issue, the explosives littering the road leading towards the new sheildwall, fuses fizzing.
”Uh oh, up up up!” Jr cried out in alarm as he bunnyhopped the car into the air, deployed the propeller, and tried to fly up and over the bombs, only for them to detonate while he was above them. The blast sent him flying far higher up into the air with a ”Wawawawaaaaa!” followed by a thunk and shower of dust as he slammed into the ceiling.
”Owww”
Below, the Unsigned finished his latest recharge and took in the battlefield situation.
Whale: almost torn apart.
Turtle in ridiculous vehicle: Taking shots to the undercarriage
Girl overlanded with gizmos: …
“Where-” he began to ask, only for a quartet of black globules to slam into him from above, dark magic pulsing through his frame.
”Give it back!” Rika shouted from the high ground she’d gotten to via platforming from tomb to tomb, relying on all the carnage to get into a spot where the Unsighned’s shield totting bonenoids would be no help in covering him.
“You will pay for-” he began to say, only to receive a hail of gunfire to the face for good measure and command “-take her down!” before retreating towards one of the tombs he’d previously cracked open.
”Get back here!” she shouted at him, bullet jumping from atop thumb for a burst of speed, flaring her maneuvering thrusters for even more speed, and then launching her grapple at the retreating Unsighned and starting to reel herself in towards him.
Her Black Lance appeared in her hand, and she started charging up a vault breaker, looking set to impale the foe in one swift blow, only for a supersoldier to grab the grapple cable and wrench it free from its master’s body, it and its kindred having just in that moment successfully put down the whale.
Its reward for this loyal service was receiving the blow that had been meant for its master, Rika blasting forwards, black lance punching through its armor at the place its belly button would have been. It did not have one of those, however, nor any organs to perforate, and so even while impaled it attempted to bring up its double barreled machine gun to fill her full of holes.
She summoned Maria the dark knight to chop at the weapon arm twice, taking it off, but not actually taking down the soldier fully. So she instead wrenched him around, and put him in the way of the others, blocking machinegun fire with his body and the shield that was the twin of the lance she still had stabbed through him.
This didn’t help her from being shot in the back by the bonenoids however, rifle rounds pinging into her spartan energy shield, the skeletons fortunately going for her protected center of mass instead of limb shots. The grenades that got tossed at her feet, however, were a bit more of a problem.
She got back control of the gauntlet that had vault breakered just in time, however, letting go of the lance and shield combo, and tapping her feather fall rune to go flying upwards. Both weapons then shifted to the lighter helbard form and teleported into her back just in time to avoid being annihilated by the grenades. The supersoldier was not so lucky, being vaporized on the spot by the friendly fire.
That left several more however, and up in the air, Rika was a bit of a sitting duck. It was fortunate for her, then, that her brother had just managed to free himself from the cave ceiling, cured himself of confusion, and then came swooping in to the rescue. He swept under her, prompting her to grab the back of the car with her gauntlet, and then deployed a massive wrecking ball that smashed into one of the super soldiers, shattering every bone in its body.
The rest raised their guns to fire up at the kids, but Dazzle, who had worked up his nerve again, offered fire support via water bubbles knocking their aim askew, letting Rika make a safe leap down among them. The little lady then squared off against the towering power armored skeletons, fists flying, delivering denting blows to break their armor that buffed her attack speed on the third strike.
She stayed mobile, ducking dodging and weaving, disarming skeletons, using them as cover for gunfire coming from the others, and then when her strikers came of cooldown used them both, the queen and knight of blood’s massive/empowered blades cleaving the armored skeletons in half despite their armor.
By the time Jr had banked back around, she’d taken most of them apart, but in that time, the rest of the bonenoids had rallied/been reinforced by fresh bones popping out of the tomb the Unsigned had retreated into.
Not at all pleased with the pouring of bones out of the pit, Jr demanded ”You quit that!” and then, because obviously the Unsighned wasn’t going to do it just because he was asked, set about actually putting a stop to it. Mainly by slamming a wrecking ball into the already unstable ‘excavated’ tomb, demolishing it entirely and sending its ceiling crashing down atop the Unsigned inside.
That certainly put a stop to any more skelly spawning, though the ones outside did not crumble, or anything of the sort, so presumably their master still lived.
So they set about making sure they where dealt with before he came back
Blodia’s summoned fist crunched one of the remaining super soliders into powder right away, while Jr deployed a flamethrower equipped tank wheel as a more nimble wrecking ball, smashing it into the bonenoid shield wall, the flamers on it whirling and causing grenades to cook off, the grenadiers in the regiment blowing the rest of it apart in the process.
Rika meanwhile kept systematically taking apart super soldiers in a way that was very reminiscent of a certain pint sized boxer, and once they were through, lobbed a torpedo at the remaining bonenoids, blasting them to pieces.
Dazzle, finally, had a field day watergunning skeletons, the bludgeoning blasts blowing them apart ever so satisfyingly.
By the time that the Unsigned managed to claw himself out of the rubble, then, his forces were all gone, and he came skull to helmet with Rika who demanded he ”Give it back” one last time
“Ah. Certainly. Let me just-” he said while reaching down into the rubble he was still half buried in, before quick drawing his revolver and blasting her in the head again with a cry of “never!”.
It promptly bounced off her shield again.
”Then perish” she told him, echoing his own words, before grabbing the gun wielding arm in one hand, snapping it off at the wrist, before unloading her own point blank firepower into his skull, which included, after a clever catch and twirl, the Unsighned’s own oversized revolver that fit rather perfectly in her massive gauntlet hands.
Then the world went dark, and, like the others, for their victory, the pair were offered a choice of boons
The ship girl was one of the few who had any idea what was going on, and that was due to her papa having told them about how he’d run into this exact situation back in Limsa Lominscuttle Town. Based on that tale, she hazarded a guess that the watery boon would come from the same person, and she was indeed correct.
Unfortunately she didn’t get exactly what she wanted with the resulting ‘meeting’
”Where is papa!” she demanded to know, hoping that being that had blessed him might still have a link from which she could get a leed. Unfortunately, it seemed like whatever connection this involved was one way, as the god soldiered on with his spiel regardless of her questioning: “Look how much you’ve grown, little minnow, sailing free from your father’s wake! I’m glad to see that the currents of fate still brought you here to me regardless, because no ship should ever be parted from the sea for so long. Fortunately for you I, Poseidon, god of oceans far and wide, now stand at your side! Metaphorically of course”
And then he was gone
Just like his sister, Jr had also been told the tale of this place, though unlike her he didn’t have a secondary motive for picking any of the boons, and so sat, wracking his brains, for maybe a bit too long. He had all the time in the world, of course, but the latter two boons really confronted him with what he was supposed to be, hitter or healer, which made all that time he spent thinking it through just… agonizing.
Eventually he cried out with a ”Gahhhh I don’t care any more just let me outa here!”, closed his eyes, waved his finger back and forth, and jabbed randomly at one of the two options.
For him there was no god or divine being come to comment on his choice, and instead simply the sound of a magazine clunking home before he was kicked out of his long overdue stay with hew new weapon boosting aura.
Then they were back and had the start of a rapid fire conversation that had just gone down before Rika remembered what this had all been about and asked ”Wait… where’s the treasure?!”
The pair looked down at the spirit of the Unsighned and the pile of rubble he was sat upon that Jr had created by dropping a tomb on top of him, prompting the prince to give an embarrassed ”uhhhhhhhh” before declaring ”I’m gonna go get the cool spirits” and then hurrying off while Rika cried out in alarm and started digging through the rubble by hand.
Or rather by gauntlet.
Even with her oversized mitts this was not fast, at all, and by the time Jr had piled up the useful spirits (the super soldiers, the Unsigned, and a pile of biker and grenadier skeletons), teleported it all to the armory, and then also banged out some of the dents in his clown car with a spanner, she still hadn’t found it.
And then they were all out of time
A roar of floodfested echoed through the chamber, coming from all sides, prompting Jr to more or less koopa handle his sister into the clown car and to once again go drilling through the ceiling to escape, the pair bickered about if jr’s destructive solution to getting the unsigned out of the tomb had been worth it or not as they went.
