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>>2670323

You teleport down into primordial darkness. There’s no light source whatsoever, so you make one; tiny infrared lamps at the corners of your eyes gently flare, painting the world off-color. You find yourself on bare stone at the edge of a subterranean pond. Spatial sensors fill in the rest. You’re alone in a bubble of humid rock.

“Showa to Fifth?”

There’s no reply for a moment.

“This is Fifth Communications,” an unfamiliar male voice eventually says, pleasantly customer-service. “I’m afraid your preferred operator is tasked to capacity. My name’s Largo, how may I assist?”

“Just wondering why I got a hot beamdown. Was First not able to get a pad in?”

“Let me see…” Largo makes some busywork humming noises. “While I look, please understand your communication is very important to us. Are you in danger?”

“Not a bit. You reading something to the contrary, Largo?”

“No ma’am. The energen density is making some things fuzzy, but I see you’re in a safe area… ah! It seems that with most forces now tasked to Repliforce activity, only a pair of Ninth operatives from Manaus could be spared to breach a main hatchway into an open area ahead of you. Unfortunately they had to fall back by sheer enemy presence.”

You slip into the water. “What presence do you mean, exactly?”

“Numerous heavy excavation and collection mechaniloids, and, hm-hmm~… some territorial defense units… oh dear.”

“Oh dear?”

“It looks like Repliforce breached a different entrance. It must have been within the last hour. They’re occupying the lab proper and trickling in, probably to harvest. The cavern is extensive, so you could probably avoid… mmm, some of them if you take the water as far as it goes. The thing is, I’m… tsk, yeah… getting some light mechaniloid pings in there, and you’d probably be easy to ambush.”

You swim along, avoiding scraping the pointy stalagmites and stalactites of the flooded passage. Your infrared lamps are cone-area, so it’s not unlikely that something could snap out at you where you aren’t looking.

“How far is this navigable?” You ask.

The line goes dead.

“Largo?” No reply. “Fifth Comms, this is Meteor Showa, do you copy?”

Static. The angles of the water passage get more claustrophobic. You snap tips off sunken stalagmites for lack of room to avoid them.

“You are coming for me too,” says a new voice over an open comm line. It’s deep and old and resonant with the terror of dementia. “They all come. I know your plans, Sigma. You turned them into Mavericks and I had to kill them. Now more Mavericks come to plunder my stones for you. And you, oozing in like an assassin? You come to take my life, Sigma! I knew it all along!”


>There are no Mavericks, just calm down.
>I’m not Sigma, I’m a Maverick Hunter here to help.
>… That’s right, we the invaders are definitely Mavericks.
>… That’s right, I am definitely Sigma.

Evenin', folks.

Enjoy your first A-class mission. Mind your heads.

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>>2670327
>I’m not Sigma, I’m a Maverick Hunter here to help.


He's absolutely not going to believe us, but we do the right thing for both the camera, should it be down here, and ourselves.

Though hopefully we can warn him about Repliforce.

>>2670327
>I’m not Sigma, I’m a Maverick Hunter here to help.
I'm temped to say we're sigma and then tell him how we look in the most sarcastic voice we can but though that would please my inner smart ass I don't think it would help us to much at the moment.

>>2670398
Orangutank knows Repliforce is there. "Now more Mavericks come to plunder my stones for you." His reaction will vary depending on your response.

>>2670415
As far as "helping" you, I can't say, but each response will elicit a different reaction. Vote as your heart tells you!

>>2670327
>>2670436
>I’m not Sigma, I’m a Maverick Hunter here to help.
"We hate Repliforce!"

>>2670436
Well yeah, but my thought is to make sure he knows Repliforce ain't with us. Or at least try.

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>>2670398
>>2670415
>>2670463

That’s surely your target. You decide it’s best to assuage his worries.

“Professor Orangutank,” you comm back, kindly, “I need you to listen.”

“Listening. Listening. The music of the sphere carries far, far indeed…” Deepwell Orangutank has definitely gone off the deep end.

You keep your lamps ahead and watch for movement. “Professor, I’m a Maverick Hunter. I’m not Sigma. Repliforce has—”

“Hunter?”

“Yes, I’m a Hunter, and the other people here are Repliforce. I’ll make them go away, but I need you to do something for me, okay?”

“Hunter. Maverick Hunter.”

“Yes, Professor,” you agree as gently as you can, “that’s who I am.”

“Sigma was a Hunter.”

The ceiling rises on an incline over your head as you swim along. “That’s… technically—”

“I knew it I knew it I KNEW IT!”

“Professor, listen!”

He doesn’t. An earthquake reverberates through the earth and water. Stalactites crack. You dart ahead, ducking and weaving around heavy stone spikes crashing down. The threat is less impalement than burial, but the further you go the sharper and glassier the spikes become. Fortunately you’re nimbler in the water than on land.

Not that the cracked crystal guillotine seems to care.

>[Flex +1]

You jerk back in time to kick off the crystalline sheet and swim around. Either Orangutank just tried to collapse the whole cavern on you or he has some degree of quake control, and neither option makes you happy.

The underground river goes up to a heavily disturbed surface with light on the other side. It also continues down into the abyssal dark. It’s not immediately clear where you can resurface again, but it’s definitely another way deeper into the cavern.

On closer inspection, you spy movement down the water tunnel: a Wall Cancer scuttling around a stalagmite, probably indicative of more.

Choose your path:

>Cave
>Water

>Bold Approach: Prioritize swift defeat of hostiles.
>Cautious Approach: Prioritize watching for ambush.

>Offensive Advance: Prioritize attacking your foes.
>Defensive Advance: Prioritize evading hazards.

>Power Assault: Charged shots, big hits.
>Rapid Assault: Low-power shots, multiple hits.

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>>2670677
>Water
>Bold Approach: Prioritize swift defeat of hostiles.
>Defensive Advance: Prioritize evading hazards.
>Rapid Assault

Wall Cancers exist to make chokepoints a nightmare. We definitely want to look for crossups and tricky navigation that they can chew us up on. Even still, this approach gives us better odds on playing to our strength more and most likely the more overt hazards are by cave.

>>2670677
>Water
>Bold Approach: Prioritize swift defeat of hostiles.
>Defensive Advance: Prioritize evading hazards.
>Rapid Assault: Low-power shots, multiple hits.
mechaniloids might take damage from the quakes too.

i wonder if claiming we are sigma would have actually been the best option. It's not like sigma ever stops with the bald head and tatoo eyes.

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>>2670677
>Water
>Bold Approach
>Defensive Advance
>Rapid Assault

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>>2670733
>>2670901
>>2670997

https://youtu.be/vpAO2kG6lKM?list=PL0-zhz5oaS0bmWu7edyJ60LC_MXRn2IAr

You’re in your element and decide to stay there. You dive deeper as the earth quakes again, the rumble carrying well through the water. Stones break free, but your Flex parts laugh at them.

That helps, as the first energy balls from the Wall Cancers start bouncing off every available surface. There’s more than one, like you thought, and your less than superaggressive posture prevents them from scaling up the size of their balls.

You’re in no mood to dance forever, so you pop out your newest toy.

DRONE ACTIVE, says your HUD, twice. Hi Utsuri koi drones spawn from your buster and eagerly take on the crabs, flashing metal-cutting lasers out their little mouths. That and a little buster work keeps you from having to play a game of “dodge the energy billiards.”

You’re almost having fun when the Kill Fishers jet into range of your IR lamps.

>[Flex +1]

You open fire at the same time as your drones and cut down the first wave, but the tunnel quakes and shakes loose more stones. Your already-upgraded pets are twitchy enough to evade them, and so are you, but Wall Cancer balls rebound toward you between a second screening wave.

“You’ve gotta be kidding!”

You try your best. Your fish try their best. But between the falling crystal-laden rocks, the collision fish, and the energy ricochets in narrow quarters, it’s only a matter of time before you take your licks. You catch a ball in the small of your back, which sets your shields alight long enough for a Kill Fisher to break itself against the flash in a head-on kiss. Your battery labors a little harder than usual.

DRONE LOST
DRONE LOST

Bubbles boil off your low-phase saber as you swimdash ahead and give the last wave your regards. Wreckage of fins and tails settles into the tunnel.

You make it out of that gauntlet and pass under a shiny stretch of surface. The subterranean river continues, or you could hop out and progress through the cave, but you’re irritated on principle. You literally got outfished.

Continue your path:

>Cave
>Water

>Bold Approach: Prioritize swift defeat of hostiles.
>Cautious Approach: Prioritize watching for ambush.

>Offensive Advance: Prioritize fighting your foes.
>Defensive Advance: Prioritize evading environmental hazards.

>Power Assault: Charge shots, big hits.
>Rapid Assault: Low-power shots, multiple hits.

VWES:
>Arbor Wall: 12/12
>Fluid Lockdown: 6/6
>Remote Koi: 10/12

>>2670677

>Water
>Bold
>Offensive
>Rapid

Wall Cancers need to charge their shots, if memory serves. Said charged shots ricochet. Letting them charge their shots is bad. I say taking them out before they can fire is the best bet.

Admittedly, this course of action only accounts for what we already know is there, and leaves us open to what we don't yet know about.

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>>2671254
>Water
>Cautious
>Offensive
>Rapid

>>2671264
Prescient!

>>2671254
>>Water
>Bold Approach: Prioritize swift defeat of hostiles.
>Offensive Advance: Prioritize fighting your foes.
>Rapid Assault: Low-power shots, multiple hits.

Gotta swim fast. We can save the charge melters and arbor walls for when there's something in particular we don't want to cave-in

>>2671254
>Water
>Bold
>Defensive
>Rapid
We can kind of leave the enemies alone unless we see any that are going to start mining or caving in or something.

>>2671324
Hey, my ID is all capital letters, that's pretty rare!

>>2671254
>Water
>Cautious
>Offensive
>Rapid

>>2671254
>Water
>Cautious
>Defensive
>Rapid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dI7OchJIfw

>>2671254
>Water
>Bold
>Defensive
>Rapid

>>2671254
>Water
>Bold Approach: Prioritize swift defeat of hostiles.
>Defensive Advance: Prioritize evading environmental hazards.
>Rapid Assault: Low-power shots, multiple hits.

Got a path locked in. Close but decisive! Writing now.

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>>2671274
>>2671284
>>2671324
>>2671354
>>2671629
>>2671978
>>2672047

No sense switching streams, so to speak. You feel a groove building up, so you proceed further into the dark and spawn another pair of Remote Koi to keep you company.

The crystals here are better-formed. The sharp, irregularly regular geometry almost makes you forget energen isn’t natural. Treating the local geology to produce them must have taken years of work by Orangutank and his staff… only for it to come to this. You briefly entertain thoughts of live capture, but that’s a no-go at your rank and his class. Stupid war. Stupid goshdarn Repliforce…

Twinkles of light in the dark are all the cues you get for the next wave of Kill Fishers. The weak flying fish jet straight ahead, collision their only weapon – but your buster and the drones’ lasers light up the night and litter the crystals with broken parts.

Another earthquake hits, and you could swear the rumbling is after you personally. Crystal spikes rain down, but you weave through and lobeam-swat the bigger ones while your drones dart here and there. Choosing Asagi’s as a base and then upgrading them immediately after acquisition was immensely handy.

The universe seems to dislike how easily you’re getting by now. Another handful of Kill Fishers screens the way for two King Poseidons. But now? Now you’re ready for them.

You sic your Hi Utsuris on one and rapid-fire the other as another freaking tremor drops more of the ceiling. Your target parries with a trident spin and uses a falling crystal slab as cover to dash for you. You might have gotten speared if not for your attitude. You parry the trident with your lobeam, the light of it pure white in infrared, and blast a mouthful of thermite over him. The water shimmers and boils, but so does he, and a double-tap with your buster takes him out.

It seems your fish had similar luck. The second King Poseidon successfully tags one with a fin spike but falls to regicide by laser, and the three of you move on through the collapsing tunnel. The injured fish takes a rock to the head and expires, but you still have one left.

“Showa to Fifth? I’m cruisin’ now.”

There’s no reply but static. But it’s a familiar kind of static; Repliforce must have set up another jammer. Great.

Another surface appears overhead, but your tunnel seems to end – at least in any form your big frame can navigate. You breach into the drier part of the cave system and click off your lamps, as more effective lights are already set up on tripods. A few Batton Bones greet you, but your remaining koi makes short work of them.

“Good girl.”

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>>2672072

You look uphill where the lights point. The crystals are fully thick here, lining a slick cut ramp to another area. Two Drimole-Ws crest the hill and rumble toward you.

As if that weren’t enough, three solid lumps of green-gray rock drop from the ceiling and hit the ramp hard, ablating pieces as they bounce-roll for you much faster than the twin drilldozers. They seem oddly springy for boulders…


>Break the suspicious rocks.
>Dodge the suspicious rocks.

>Engage the Drimoles at range.
>Engage the Drimoles close-up.

>Favor a weapon.

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>>2672074
Oh boy, those are Iwan de Voux, I wager. They hit HARD. The good news is the thermite ought to make short work of them once we bust them open.

Drimoles are surprisingly tricky to get around because they're so wide and can turn quickly, and their drills make shots tink.

>Break the suspicious rocks.
>Engage the Drimoles at range.

>Meteor Melter (charged rockets), buster (uncharged).

>>2672074
>Break the suspicious rocks.
>Engage the Drimoles at range.

>Meteor Melter (charged rockets), buster (uncharged).
fire and lemons, the best way to start the day.

>>2672079
Voting for this, sounds sensible.

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>>2672079
>>2672088
>>2672097

First obstacles first. While your remote koi zips ahead to ablate the second rock, you ready a Melter rocket grenade, time your shot and strike the first.

You thought it might have been debris, or at worst an unusually speedy Iwan de Voux, but as the thermite payload hits the rock unfolds into a body on its way down. The Crag Man bounces again, but without grace, slamming into the ramp and rolling past you, exploding as it goes. The second one unfolds, hits the ramp and tries to swat at your fish drone, but the Hi Utsuri is far too mobile.

You focus buster fire uphill at the Drimoles and mail them another rocket when it’s ready. The slow drill-missiles they fire absorb your weak shots, but the Melter eats the one it hits. The Drimoles pause to lob their own small shots, but it’s child’s play to avoid them. With your distance and your handy fish, it’s just a matter of time before the drilltanks go down. Their last two drill missiles come for you as a formality which you promptly ignore.

“A-class mission, huh?” You sniff at your drone, proudly. “No sweat.”

The drone offers no opinion about that.

You crest the ramp and find yourself inside a geode. Energen crystals stud the walls and pillars and ceiling of a huge vaulted cavern space like basalt columns in reverse. The crystals shine from the bright lamps of Ladder Yadders patrolling and scanning. The crop is as ready as energen gets…

And a swarm of Iwan de Vouxes bounce placidly around the room. The rockballs are covered in not merely stone but shards of unprocessed energen, an armor of glassy multicolored translucence. Crystal de Voux, huh? Still no sweat.

You can even see a few tunnels. One is off to the left, flanked by floodlights and heading up another smooth ramp, which you guess is the conventional way into the cave complex. Others around the rim of the room are roughly square-mouthed, surely mechaniloid access tunnels to other parts of the cave. A natural tunnel, however, is wider and crystal-studded. That’ll be your way forward. You move on, keeping your fish hovering over your shoulder for now. You keep close to the crystal-studded support columns and stalagmites; the patrolling balls don’t seem to notice you yet.

In spite of your mission, you take a moment to admire the sights. It’s humid and pretty and surprisingly cozy for being such a big place. The crystals make you think of candy.

“Cool, huh?” You ask your fish. You can’t tell whether it cares.

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>>2672252

Your reverie is rudely interrupted when a wall near the tunnel collapses under the high-velocity spinning spike drum of a Mole Borer.

This is no zombie, no thrall of rat drones, no broken husk piloted remotely. It veers directly for a pair of Crystal de Vouxes and annihilates them with a single downward swing of its merciless drum. The precision suggests that the Borer was ordered to pulverize more than just rock.

Triggered by the local seismic event, an array of Drill Waying spikes shoot up in sequence, barring both the natural tunnel and the exit topside. You’re locked in.

Orangutank gives a mad breathless titter over open comms. “Ooh hoo hoo ha ha HA HAH! This is the end for you, Sigma! Your reign of terror is OVER!”

The Mole Borer pauses, then trundles in your direction.

Significant damage is possible.


>Act.

VWES:
>Arbor Wall: 12/12
>Fluid Lockdown: 6/6
>Remote Koi: 8/12 (One currently active)

>Gaia Sword: 6/6

>>2672263
Hanabi into one of the joints moving the spike drum. We don't aim to destroy it, just make it a bit clunkier to give new koi time to dodge it.

Those treads don't look like they'd be bothered much by frozen ground, but fire 1 Fluid Lockdown at the Drill Waying going into the tunnel. May as well leave breaking through as an option.

As for the actual plan:
>Send 2 kois behind it and just keep shooting. If the spike drum hits behind, they should be able to dodge.
>Alternate charge shots and gaia swords to the face, playing chicken with the spike drum

>>2672292
It's not just one Drill Waying, it's a series of them, like jail bars.

Still, focusing on breaking through is one of many options you can do. Daytime /qst/ being slow, I'll leave the vote up for a while yet.

>>2672686
Then make a hole in the waying wall and get out of there.
>Borer + Waying = ???

>>2672263
High damage burndown on a few of the Wayings to get out, Hanabi them as needed. Fluid Lockdown the Borer. If we can get it to turn away from us, Fluid Lockdown the floor to friction-slide it further to stall for time. Emergency Arbor Wall for it to chew through if we need to buy a few more seconds.

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>>2672292
>>2673236
>>2673297

The cave room is big, but so is the Borer, and you know from having deployed one before that they can soak a ton of damage before breaking down. Especially from the front.

You decide your best bet is to not even try to fill that particular sponge. You send your koi on a kamikaze run for the Drill Wayings and book it away from the Borer, putting as much rock mass between you and it as possible. The ominous brrum-brrum of the tunnelmaker chews through stone and crystal, slowing less than you’d like it to.

You send out another pair of koi as you lead it on a merry chase around the cave; each fish fireballs into the Drill Wayings, breaking a wider and wider path for your intended escape. Two more ought to do it, so you deploy them as soon as their sisters kamikaze. You dash after them, but they’re much faster than you.

Crystal de Vouxes bounce into the widening gap you try to make up even as the Borer rips through columns behind you. Their timing is the worst; slow roadblocks in a fast vector, varying heights to thwart easy evasion. You plow through one with a charged shot and a saber swing, then rocket another descending in your way, but even your thermite doesn’t bite fast enough. The stupid glassball just hangs in midair, forcing you to saberdash through it – which sends you facefirst into another one.

The flinch costs you, and not just in terms of health. The Mole Borer draws closer. Too close. Your exit hole is just ahead, but you need time, you need space!

You’re not getting away without exchanging fire after all. You switch to Fluid Lockdown and fire the liquid cryomer jet high over your shoulder, sparing only a glance to get the timing right.

The blue-white stream scores a direct hit on the side of the Borer’s drum and leaks down its left arm. The drum itself slows tempo – brrrrrum, brrrrrum – and you dash through the gap into the next tunnel.

The Mole Borer follows you. The drum keeps swinging, now mostly through open air, though the peak of its reach grinds crystals off the ceiling. You glance back and spend a few more milliseconds to time another Lockdown; this one splashes the drum on the same side as before, then continues on to coat its small shoulder and sprinkle its treads. The whirr decreases further and smoke wisps out into the tunnel; damage aside, you’re clearly overworking its engine.

“Slow down already!”

Two more Crystal de Vouxes bounce around just ahead. A Crag Man joins them, hitting bottom and unfolding.


>Keep slowing the Borer.
>Whack the mechaniloids and outrun.
>?

VWES:
>Arbor Wall: 12/12
>Fluid Lockdown: 4/6
>Remote Koi: 4/12

>>2673743
>Keep slowing the Borer
Take the time to buster/koi down 1 Crystal de Voux, but dash towards the Crag Man up close. Use it as a shield for the other Crystal's explosion, then throw the Crag Man at the Borer.

>>2673743
>Whack the mechaniloids and outrun.
Dash under the de vouxes
>>2673946
Does Showa have enough strength to do that?

>>2674098
I....think so? She's at least 1 weight class bigger than a normal hunter, and mass-produced are generally lighter.

I'm just not clear on the weight of these Crag Men, since they can bounce despite being rock.

>>2673743
We want to keep the koi ready for actually engaging Orangutank, I feel.

Let's try some arbor walls--maybe we can fire one into the part of the Borer's augur that we already hit.

Other than that, switch to the hibeam for deterring the De Vouxeseses. We don't need to bust them, just scrap their armor. That makes them pause and regather it from local materials, leaving us plenty of time to scoot by.

Definitely thermite charge or hibeam the Crag Man, he won't deal well with that.

>>2674098
>>2674113
They bounced because they were falling from a height onto a ramp. In terms of weight, Showa could throw one, but not very far... which is good, because "not very far" is about the distance between you and the Borer right now.

could we use and arbor seed to try and gum up the Borer by throwing it at the joints it uses to raise and slam it's drum?

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>>2673946
>>2674098
>>2674117
>>2674314

“Hnnng…” you irritably groan. You do have a technically-Maverick to fight, so you’re loathe to spend more of your specials, but if it’s between that or dying? No question.

You glanceback-fire a couple Arbor Wall seeds and don’t bother seeing whether they land. You snap up your Gaia Sword in your left hand – reploids, thankfully, are ambidextrous by default – and denude a deVoux with a petal-trailing swing. You dash on by before it grows more. The Crag Man rips a crystal chunk out of the ground, but you sever him at the shoulders before he can throw it.

The sound of the Borer grows more labored. You spare a look back; the roots cling like octopi. You shoot two more, then face forward –

At a shard-covered hoverball –

>[Flex +1]

Which you introduce to your Gaia Sword and dash underneath as it halts in midair. As you stow the blade, this time you watch the result over your shoulder; as the Crystal de Voux tries to gather another armor layer, the Borer hammers it down. Your roots cling hard to the tunneler’s right side, not completely arresting its motion but greatly limiting the arc of its arm-swings. Smoke pours from its joints, but it still powers ahead.

You exit the tunnel with your foe hot on your heels. A wide subterranean lake stretches underneath the immense cavern. On the far side you see the two-story laboratory that made all the energen possible, nestled in a corner across the water. Its floodlights make the whole area visible, if a little dim at your end.

You’re about to run out of ground. So is the Borer. There’s a path around the rim of the lake, and you don’t doubt it would try to follow you… so in a flash of inspiration, you stay put at the edge of the dropoff.

You remember a historically inaccurate movie about William Wallace that Skittle once showed you.

“Hold… hold…”

The Borer draws near, laboring in vain to swing its arms.

You bolt out of there at the last second and lob an Arbor Wall seed at its treads. The massive Mole Borer tries to turn, but with only one side complying, the arc goes wide and it tips over the edge. Rock and crystal crumble under its weight as it rolls side over side, splashing into the depths, the killdrum’s noise fading out.

Brrrum… buuurrrrruuuummm…

“Dig through that,” You pop a clap.

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>>2674402
You’ve bought some breathing room at the cost of nearly half your Walls. As you scan the new area, three routes to the lab come easily to mind.

You can dive in and follow the lake floor, swim near or at the surface on a shallower path, or skirt the water entirely and take the rim… which, on further inspection, has a few Repliforce units. You spot a Giga Death, a handful of Knots, and a Mad Bull… is that a 101? A flatbed kind? Makes sense. The team seems to be harvesting crystals off the walls.

There will likely be others in the water, of course.

“Showa to Fifth?”

Static. Heckin’ Repliforce.

Nothing for it but to proceed.


>Cross on land.
>Swim across (shallow).
>Swim across (deep).

>Bold Approach: Prioritize swift defeat of hostiles.
>Cautious Approach: Prioritize watching for ambush.

>Offensive Advance: Prioritize fighting your foes.
>Defensive Advance: Prioritize evading environmental hazards.

>Power Assault: Charge shots, big hits.
>Rapid Assault: Low-power shots, multiple hits.


VWES:
>Arbor Wall: 7/12
>Fluid Lockdown: 4/6
>Remote Koi: 4/12

>Gaia Sword: 4/6

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>>2674419
>Swim across (shallow).
>Bold Approach: Prioritize swift defeat of hostiles.
>Offensive Advance: Prioritize fighting your foes.
>Power Assault: Charge shots, big hits.

Time for a full on gatecrashing alpha strike on these clowns.

>>2674419
>Cross on land.
There's a chance that orangutan will help out the repliforce miners, but I'd rather stop that harvesting dead now rather than later.

>Bold Approach: Prioritize swift defeat of hostiles.
>Offensive Advance: Prioritize fighting your foes.

>Power Assault

>>2674419
>Swim across (shallow)
>Bold Approach
>Offensive Advance
>Power Assault

>>2674419
>Swim across (shallow).
>Bold Approach: Prioritize swift defeat of hostiles.
>Offensive Advance: Prioritize fighting your foes.
>Power Assault: Charge shots, big hits.

>>2674419
>Land
>Cautious
>Offensive
>Power

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>>2674436
>>2674463
>>2674473
>>2674653
>>2674692

You take to the water but stay near the surface in case the Mole Borer is still kicking. You start charging up in cast something nasty comes up to bite, but the only thing disturbing the water is an attentive Amenhopper skating over to investigate you.

“Shoo.”

It jets faster on a collision course. You release your stored buster charge and eliminate it.

The shot keeps going and going. It expires against a wall within sight of Repliforce. The Giga Death turns toward the water.

“Oh fffff… flip.”

You speed ahead for the lab. Potshots come from shore, but they’re safely distant and you can easily see them coming.

Fate adds another wrinkle, however. The cavern rumbles.

“Mavericks Mavericks Mavericks MAVERICKS!” Orangutank broad-comms. “I’ll bury you ALL! You won’t es—”

You mute him to focus on outswimming the falling rocks. But with your eyes up, you don’t register the missiles until it’s too late. The shockwaves from a too-familiar pair of explosions splash over you as your shields flash. What was that?!

You dip under and see it: a Sea Lion ride armor coming up fast from the bottom. Because you can’t have nice things.

Well neither can this guy, you decide.

You dive for him just as he fires,

>[Flex+1]

but actually seeing the missiles coming is a huge benefit. You don’t have the patience right now to play around, so you open with a Melter rocket. The Standard Beret pilot has the wherewithal to block with the ride armor’s non-weapon arm, but that just gives you the time to close distance and plunge your Gaia Sword straight through.

The pierce stabs the pilot, who valiantly tries to turn the Sea Lion’s missile hand on the cockpit, but the hibeam forms its fatal stake before he can fire another shot. You swimdash out and leave the attacker to rupture.

It’s dark down there where he came from. The lake must go deep; one of your sensors indicates Atlantic salinity. You rise back to the surface…


>Continue on your present course.
>Change appraoch/strategy. (specify)

>>2675029
Continue waterborne, switch to cautious approach. Remain on offensive/power assault.

The element of surprise is gone, so we need to be defensive while still covering ground swiftly.

>>2675029
i figured there was going to be some interplay between shallow and land

>Continue on your present course.
Lob an arbor root at the giga death if it's still in range.

>>2675029
Did the Sea Lion destruct as well? Could we commandeer it?

>>2675445

I'm in favor of grand theft ride armor.

Unless ... can we put two of our fish drones in a trenchcoat and have THEM drive it?

>>2675801
No, but im imagining some sort of yinyang upgrade to Hanabi that lets you combine 2 koi for an even bigger boom.

>>2675029
>Continue on your present course.

>>2675445
It's damaged, but currently sinking to the bottom.

Time enough to add it to the post before I have to run out to work.

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>>2675053
>>2675063
>>2675445
>>2675801

There went your element of surprise. Stupid Amenhopper. You’re in for a pound now, but if you can hit the lab hard enough you can take out whatever jamming equipment they have set up and get a lock on Orangutank’s location. It’ll be a pain, you guess. If only you had some bigger guns…

A brilliant idea dawns on you.

You dive after the Sea Lion as it settles on the bottom. Wall Cancers scuttle over to investigate, but you ignore them as you pull out the remains of the pilot and wedge into the seat. These things weren’t designed for somebody of your body type, but by bending your tail at a sharp angle you can fit in and work the famously durable controls. It feels a little like driving a clown car, but you manage.

A King Poseidon swims your way. You raise the Sea Lion’s missile arm and bombard it hello. It tries to parry-spin, but the fire you open breaks through and ends him.

“Ohhh wow,” you grin. “Wait’ll I take you home.”

You cram and reach your arm further in and activate the armor’s swimjets. You breach the surface at speed, jetting a giant wake behind you.

Kill Fishers leap out of the water and try to ram, but you’re a good driver and a better jetskier. You tilt and weave, but the best they can do is smash into your ride’s left arm, already dangling broken.

You snatch a glance to the sides, to Repliforce. Knot Beret pistol shots splash way off the mark. Giga Death missiles miss you by yards. You don’t even bother firing back.

And then the Giga Deaths start dashing.

The speedy R-Series models with the racing stripes propel themselves so fast they skate the water. Three are on your case, converging fire. You haul up on the controls and swing the missile arm to the one coming in straight ahead. Missiles streak past each other, each finding their mark. Fortunately for you, the slower incoming ones were aiming at the water level. The Sea Lion takes two hits like a champ, but the targeted Giga Death takes all of yours and dies on the water.

You’re pretty sure you look really cool as you speed the injured ride armor through the explosion.

The lab comes up fast. The flanking Giga Deaths catch your mount in the crossfire, slamming its legs and body. You keep the missile arm up and out of the way to launch a string of knocks on the door.

Your missiles arrive shortly before you do. The poor Sea Lion starts exploding, but you let it go and dashjump clear, your momentum sending you sailing over the heads of a couple nonplussed Knots and right into the hole you blasted.

You land rolling, but you spring back up, high on the pride of a dynamic entry.

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>>2676144

You’ve landed in a mechaniloid garage near a service elevator. You spot a stairwell at the far end of the room. A deactivated Mole Borer sits beside rows of housings for drilltank Drimole-Ws and drilldozer Mad Bull 97s – several of the spaces are empty. They aren’t your main problem.

Four Knots are loading secure crates onto the flatbeds of a pair of Mad Bull 101s. A gang of Mettaurs are pallbearing more crates over to them. They aren’t your main problem either.

Two pink Victoroid Customs with blue racing stripes guard the looting.

They turn around to face you.


>Head to the elevator.
>Head to the stairs.

>Bold Approach: Attack attack attack.
>Cautious Approach: Run run run.

>Offensive Advance: Hit whatever’s in your way.
>Defensive Advance: Try to dodge whatever’s in your way.

>Power Assault: Hit hard.
>Rapid Assault: Hit fast.

>Favor a weapon.

>>2676147
Arbor root one and Prominence the other, we have a lot of HP to punch through. Running's much less useful if they can dash too. Jesus, I thought dashing was EXPENSIVE.

>Head to the stairs.
stairs are more secure against earthquakes

>Bold Approach: Attack attack attack.
>Defensive Advance: Try to dodge whatever’s in your way.

>Power Assault: Hit hard.

>>2676147
>Stairs
>Offensive
>Bold
>Rapid
>Favored Weapon: the one that makes enemies real dead real fast

>>2676147
>Head to the stairs.
>Cautious Approach: Run run run.
>Offensive Advance: Hit whatever’s in your way.
>Rapid Assault: Hit fast.

>Favor raw thermite and lobeam.

Victoroids hit stupidly hard, as a rule, these are the fast ones. They're going to get close, the only question is what we let them do.

I'd caveat that we use a gaia saber swing-and-stake if we need to, but if possible we want to save our weapons for the boss.

That said, maybe also launch another two fish and don't Hanabi them? They're evasive and can help burn down the Victoroids with their ablative armor, or stall for time against other threats. In the multifloor warehouse they'll be harder to hit still.

>>2676152
Dashing kind of is. It's not common for heavy mechaniloids to have that capability.

But there's a certain former racetrack on your roster that has been doubling as a factory...

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>>2676152
>>2676154
>>2676156

You don’t trust that elevator to be speedy enough. There are too many ways it could go wrong. You’re in for a fight, so you lead with a Melter rocket and barrel straight in, popping out two more koi of your four remaining.

This team of looters weren’t expecting an alpha strike. The lead Vic loses its bomb-lobber face to your rocket and a scrape of your first fish’s laser, then loses its cannon arm to a flash of your lobeam. You strike up across its chest, carving a sparking rent, but before you can finish it off its partner goes in for a tackle.

>[Armor +1]

The clang of its shoulder against your mass is louder than the actual hurt it deals. You dig your heels in and halt it before you’re pushed more than a meter. At such close range it’s no problem to carve off its lobbers and fill its face with thermite spit. Its partner explodes under fishlaser fire. You slash again, your fish come to help, watch the cannon watch the cannon, thrust –

The Victoroid’s arm explodes from your saber stabbing into its cannon mouth. The rest of it goes up under laser fire.

It’s actually a good thing that the one Knot Beret with combat sense opened with a grenade. Your shields flash, covering you from a hailstorm of weak plasma from its partners and the Mets.

You capitalize on it, descending on the looters, saber in one hand and buster as the other. A couple try to shoot your fish down, but they dart like minnows and return fire.

Swings, shots, beams, a jump over ducking Mets, and you’ve carved your path forward. You dash for the stairs, your trusty koi hover-swimming behind your shoulders.

You hear some medium treads moving behind you. The drillers are activating. Well too late, suckers.

You send your koi ahead as you race up the stairs. Their little windows in your HUD show Knots on the move on the next floor – and bracing themselves as another earthquake hits. You feel it too; ceiling panels come down. Your fish open fire and you follow them in, spraying the hall with buster shots, navigating by the volume of static in your ears.

A pair of blue Jammingers fly in from a room down the hall, yelling in Major Primus’s voice.

“FIGHT ON! FIGHT ON! FOR THE REPLOID WORLD! FOR THE REPLOID WORLD!”

The ceiling collapses on one of them and you rocket the other one into melting pieces. Dumb things. The shaken and lasered Knots are no match for you running by and paying them a final slash each.

The comm jammer has been crammed in a room with spectrometer devices and a bunch of rocks under individual glass cases. You stick your saber in and wiggle it around. Sparks and small explosions pop.

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>>2676418

“—ease respond, this is Fifth Communications, we’re reading a—”

“Largo, Largo, it’s me, I knocked out the jammer,” you cut in.

“Good! Whew. Good. Okay. Now I think you should probably really get out of there, there are directional tremors coming from – ah, well, hm, now I can actually see, thanks – frommmm… okay! Back out in the hall on your floor – er, I think your floor, gosh, um…”

You brace yourself on the door frame as the walls shake. “Largo just take a deep breath and point me at Orangutank!”

“Okay sorry! Look for a room labeled Control Bores, then go right in.”

You comply, dodging falling ceiling tiles while guessing that this Largo is new to the job. You’ll have to suggest he dither less in your post-op report.

Control Bores is a room with only three walls. The fourth goes into bare rock tunnel. The quaking has subsided for the moment.

“Okay, go right in, there should be a spiral stairwell…”

You proceed. There’s only a gaping shaft into darkness. “Should be but isn’t. There’s just a hole.”

“Well good, that proves what I’m reading! Orangutank’s at the end of the lowest tunnel the place uses for experiments, he must’ve taken out the stairs on his way in. And the quakes are coming from that point specifically.”

“Anything else down there?”

“Mmnnnno. It’s fuzzy, but the pings I’m getting are stationary and too small to be super dangerous.”

“That’s not nothing, Largo.”

“Sorry. Nothing real big, I meant. You can probably just jump right in.”


>Jump right in.
>Wall-cling to drop slowly.
>Take a moment to send your koi to scout.

>Status:
HP: Just over half.
Shields: Just under half.

>>2676427
>Wall-cling
'Jump right in'. Yeah, right.

>>2676427
>Take a moment to send your koi to scout.

>Wall-cling to drop slowly

I'm wagering a quake to drop us in abruptly. Have an Arbor Wall ready.

>>2676427
>Send koi to scout

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>>2676481
>>2676488
>>2676511
>>2676685

“… Largo, do you take constructive criticism?”

“Yes ma’am?”

“Telling whoever you’re navigating to ‘jump right in’ is a recipe for disaster.”

“Yes ma’am. Understood ma’am.”

“For example,” you order your drones down the hole, “you could’ve checked my loadout and suggested I do what I’m doing right now.”

“Of course, ma’am. Sorry, first day.”

“It’s fine,” you reassure him, “we all had first days.”

Your fish swim the air down and down and down. They reach maximum range near the bottom, where you see a messy pile of curving stair platforms through their eyes. The lowest tunnel is blocked, so you set them on carving through the debris as you step off into the shaft.

Wall-sliding is more art than science. It depends on mass distribution and positioning and not holding so hard you push yourself off. It’s tough for a body type like yours, but you’ve had practice. Fortunately the grade of the shaft is closer to 85 degrees than 90, so there’s at least some geometrical advantage to slow your fall.

You drop the last length and crash onto former stairs. The footing is wobbly as another quake. Your landing tips a long section off debris underneath, which is where you find the body.

The corpse is a research-type reploid from the look of her, though you don’t need the lab coat to tell. The injury is unusual; parts of the torso are bent out as if from a great internal pressure, but there’s no scorching or scoring that you can see. Whoever this was didn’t die from a drill or a mere explosion. She popped. You shudder internally.

Your fish have carved the fallen stairs enough to proceed. You pet one under the fins. Sane or not, Orangutank has lives to answer for.

“Ma’am?” Largo comms in.

“Yeah?”

“I think there might be something approaching you, but it’s not mapping to the known tunnels…”

… rrm, rrrm, rrrrm…

You look around. You can’t pinpoint the direction. “Direction?”

“Northeast? But there’s no tunnel—”

A Mole Borer makes a new one.

You think you have a new least favorite mechaniloid.

You dash down the existing tunnel only to see Drill Waying spikes shoot up at irregular intervals. Smaller drills – are those from Drimoles? – pierce through the walls to try and catch you in the sides. You order your koi ahead and they report back a Mad Bull 97 impeding further progress.

The Borer cares little for impediments. It expands the tunnel behind you.


>Just. Keep. Running.
>Destroy every drill that gets in your way.
>Try to slow the Borer directly.

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>>2677121
>Destroy every drill that gets in your way.

>>2677121
>Seduce the Mole Borer!
Alternatively
>Destroy every drill

>>2677151
>Mole Borer denies your advances, isn't into animal-type chassis

Also, anybody else looking forward to the Megaman block on GDQ tomorrow? I haven't seen them run 9 before.

>>2677121
I think with buster, thermite, and the koi focus firing, we can burn through the bar wayings. Too much ammo to slow the borer.

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>>2677140
>>2677151
>>2677456

These drills picked the wrong fish to try and skewer.

Weaving around the rising drills would cost you valuable fractions of a second, so you dash with both sabers ready to break through. Two pop up dead center and you pop them back down with a scissor slash, activating the blades just long enough for the hit to conserve the Gaia Sword’s time.

While your fish whittle down the Mad Bull further ahead, you wonder how those Drimole drills are finding you. It’s like slow crossfire, but you can’t stop now to wonder, so you burn them down with fast actual-fire spit. Drills fall, Wayings fall, your fish finish off the drilldozer obstruction, and you strike your way through with a comfortable lead on the Borer.

You need it, as it turns out. You come to a vertical shaft studded with short platforms like individual stairs all the way up and you don’t care here comes the Borer! You run and jump – who spaced these things apart like this?! It’s a jumping climb, surely easy for an ape but not so much for a fish with legs. With the space bonus you won by charging through, however, you get enough height fast enough that the Mole Borer fails to reach you.

You pause to collect yourself as the Borer orbits the shaft floor, angrily waving its spike drum at nothing. That could’ve been closer, but you’re well content to take it.

Crag Men rocks fall on the remaining platforms up. You sic your fish on the nearest one. Pebbles plink off your head—

>[Flex +1]

which is all the cue you need to jump and slash the Crag Man off where you need to land before a new one crashes into where you were. The one ahead of you pulls a crystal chunk out of the shaft, but your fish laser it out of his hands – as an earthquake hits, shaking your perch dangerously loose.

“Oh this isn’t fair!” You complain even as you jumpdash off the dropping platform—

>[Armor +1]

and knock the Crag Man clear off the next one. He plummets and gets chewed to nothing by the waiting Borer.

If you were a more patient reploid you’d continue the pattern and hope for the best, but what good is a set of instant platforms if not this?

“Sorry, sorry!” You apologize to your fish as you send them to fiery ends against the Crag Man below you. On impact you switch to Arbor Wall, and three much sturdier and risk-free platforms later, you come to the final stretch.

“Ma’am?” Largo asks.

“Yeah?” You plod ahead.

“Just. Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

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>>2677559

If the previous caves were studded, the final cave is sequined. Purest, highest-quality energen crystals, sharp and luminous, sparkle across the ceiling. The walls are divided into segments, each with crystals of a different shape and hue, but all on the cool half of the color wheel. Poles of some sort are wedged between them in a regular pattern; armor-plated cables run from each to a… strange device. It looks like a cross between a pipe organ and a library shelf. Some sort of steel-gray and safety-orange equipment attaches it to the floor.

Equipment which turns its head.

“Largo, he’s…”

The optical illusion changes your perception. Sitting on his butt, he’s head and shoulders taller than you and almost as wide. Most of what you took to be the device is just him: translucent tubes and caution armor. Pale blue fluid bubbles inside the broad transparent flanges on his face.

“Heh heh, hoo hoo heh heh… you’re too late, Sigma.” A drill shaft as thick as your thigh retracts out of the floor and into his blocky backpack. It takes a moment to reel back in. “Too late with your weapon in the stars, too late with your ghosts and nightmares. The only safe place is the embrace of the earth, and even then it is none too safe.” He raises his arm. Unfolds his arm. There’s a trigger device in his hand. “But it still yields as my weapon against you.”

“Professor, look at me. I’m not Sigma.”

“The devil can take many forms…”

“Whatever you’re holding, please put it down.”

“No.”

He brings his thumb down on the button.

The rods connected to his terminal vibrate into a blur. Energen sand, not whole crystals, sprinkles from the ceiling. Your head fills with a low vibration that makes your joints buzz.

"Ma'am!" Largo sounds panicked. "Major seismic disturbance!"

“What are you doing?!” You demand.

“I have done what I have done. Your armies will fall, the surface will fall!” Otangutank laughs, planting his huge hands on the ground. “And Mother Earth shall hold the survivors!” He hauls himself up on his stubby legs and – you gasp – leaps straight up to grasp the buzzing rods. He turns around and swings from one; you can’t begin to guess what it’s made of, but it’s in there deep.

“I will save this world from you, Sigma!” He rolls back his gray lips and eyelids, brandishing yellow nightmare fangs and glazed-over eyes. “I am the savior of the Earth!”

He swings toward you and lets go.


>Act.

>>2677121
>>Just. Keep. Running.
This is not a place to go slow - dash and clear and tyr and get ahread of the trap

>>2677568
or that was a latepost

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>>2677581
All's well that ends undrilled. Take comfort in retaining some HP! You'll probably need it...

By the way.

VWES:
>Arbor Wall: 4/12
>Fluid Lockdown: 4/6
>Remote Koi: 4/12

>Gaia Sword: 2/6

>>2677567
>>Act.
Thermite vs handholds seems like a decent move here; limit his mobility and options. Maybe a well placed Arbor Wall can block off those handholds for them too.
Play defensive and pace him, feeling out his ranges and moves while poking with yours safely.

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>>2677585
Darn it. Meant 2/12 on the koi.

My prep accuracy was affected by the Shantae GDQ run.

>>2677589
>Favor dodging out of the way
>Attempt to jam his complicated looking joints with Fluid Lockdown or burn through them with the Melter if FL is ineffective. Arbor Wall could also limit his movement, so it might be worth a shot.

We do NOT want to go toe-to-toe with this guy, he's huge!

>>2677585
>Tag a couple handholds with rapid-fire thermite. Not all of them, but enough to make a more predictable path
>Try to Fluid Lockdown his arms and hands, getting him to slip on his own
>If he tries to warm them back up with the thermite, Arbor Root him and switch completely to setting him on fire with Prominence. Otherwise, where him down with charged buster as we slowly melt the handholds
I prefer Mother Cyber-Nature's embrace over Mother Earth's.

>>2677585
I think we can safely spend the koi on kamikaze hanabi attacks, if need be. I'm interested to see if Fluid Lockdown has any interaction with the fluids running through his systems.

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>>2677586
>>2677744
>>2677770
>>2678059

You’re in no mood to get flattened tonight. The dash decision is easy, but the counter? Well, he’s full of water or water-like substance, isn’t he? You switch to Fluid Lockdown as you come to a stop.

His landing drops crystal chunks out of the ceiling, aborting your aim as you dodge. He holds his hands just above the ground and long harpooning drills shoot from his wrists to pierce the ground. He balls his fists and the earth under you ruptures into boulders and water. Your shields flash as you dash out. That fracking fluid’s got to go.

He reels in his drills, but not quick enough to de-anchor himself. Your Lockdown stream splashes over his face and chest as he leaps back up, earning a grunt – then a louder grunt – then a surprisingly shrill shriek as his cheeks crack and leak under his protesting shields. Holy crap you hurt him!

He swings himself at you like a wrecking ball and you dash out, this time jumping at the moment of impact. You land with better footing away from falling crystals and try melting a rod. The thermite eats straight through. Nice, but you’ve got other priorities. You turn and fire again, missing his face, but you do manage to coat most of the arm he extends your way.

>[Flex +1]

The harpoon drill shoots out faster than it has any right to, but you saw it coming, and as you jerk to one side you realize it was aiming above you and to your right. It spears something behind you with a high-pitched vreet.

In the time his attack takes, the Lockdown hit progressively freezes his arm tubing and cracks it wide open.

You enjoy a nanosecond of triumph at his mad wounded bellow as his shields put on a light show with the crystals in the room. You aim to fire again, but Orangutank reels himself in down the length of his arm drill. With his size, the unfair length of his armspan, and his totally cheating pull-in, you can’t escape his grasp, not even with a dash.

He crushes your left arm like so much stone in a wellbore and ragdolls you against the spiky crystals of the opposite wall.

The wall punctures you in a dozen places. It hurts. It hurts bad. You don’t need your internal alarms to tell you that through the shield strobe, but they’re ever so helpful in recommending you not let that happen again.

Fortunately Orangutank already looks like heck too. He unscrews his drill from the upper wall rod he’d struck… so that’s how! They’re anchors! He can zip around cheating-fast if he hits one, huh? God, and to think his profile said he wasn’t a fighter… he would’ve flattened you if you hadn’t cut the lower one.

Without his fluid, he switches up his strategy. He climbs the rods with both hands and both feet and parks himself at the apex. He seems to be aiming his back at you. Lockdown has two more shots.


>Prioritize attacking him.
>Prioritize cutting more anchor rods.

>Run, save the dash for emergencies.
>Dash at every opportunity.

>?

>>2678188
>Prioritize cutting more anchor rods.
>Run, save the dash for emergencies.

>Fluid Lockdown on anything that looks like it might contain more of that fracking fluid, be it him or an installation.
>Prioritize vision and free movement lanes to minimize damage.

For all we know the entire area is full of those zip-anchors.

>>2678188
damn, the frost hit him hard
>Prioritize cutting more anchor rods.
>Run, save the dash for emergencies.
If he goes for another grapple tackle, we should let him smash straight into an arbor Wall

After we've decreased his mobility, that'll be the time to pull out the last 2 koi and just hose him down at range.

>>2678213
>For all we know the entire area is full of those zip-anchors.

It is. They're the buzzy rods he used for his earthquake device, spaced regularly around the boss room.

There are maybe a couple tens of them.

>>2678188
>Prioritize cutting more anchor rods.
>Run, save the dash for emergencies.

Maybe a well-timed Arbor Wall could interfere with that wall smash, but hopefully it won't come to that. Now that we know where he has to fire to pull that off, we can be ready for it. Maybe even bait it, if we're feeling confident or desperate.

>>2678228
Definitely declaw those, then.

>>2678188
>Prioritize cutting more anchor rods.
>Run, save the dash for emergencies.

>>2678188
>prioritize anchor rods
>dash in emergencies

Stay watchful for him to show those tubes, but goal 1 should be avoiding becoming 2D.

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>>2678213
>>2678223
>>2678232
>>2678265
>>2678294

Not a chance you’re staying to see what that backpack does. You switch to your last two Remote Kois and task them with a laser haircut on the rods as you book it away, building power in your throat. A triple-grinder bit on an extending shaft spears where you stood, kicking up high-speed debris that you’re already too far away to take. Two rods fall and clank, your fish move on, and you spitmelt two with a Prominence streak.

A whirring clank up high signals the return of the backpack drill. You run out on a zigzag path—

>[Flex +1]

only to get sandblasted by close-proximity rock debris. That stupid drill is omnidirectional. But trying to spearfish you with it keeps him in place, which makes the anchors he’s holding prime targets for your drones.

They cut through the ones under his hands, and you think for an instant he’ll drop, but he only hangs on with his feet and flings the rods at your poor fish. Only one dodges the right way; the other takes a spinning rod and explodes.

You task the remaining one to Hanabi itself into his clinging foot, but all that seems to do is tick him off. Clinging upside-down like a bat, he reaches up and rips whole crystals out of the ceiling to hurl at you. They’re fast, dangerously fast, but his windup is a great telegraph. After missing three, he angrily drops down and shoots both arm drills as crystals hail around.

One is headed for you, center-mass. The other aims up at an angle. Conserving your dash was wise; all he gets of you is cosmetic damage to your dorsal fin, with no anchor to bite. The angled drill definitely connects to a rod, however, and he flies out to it with the help of a jump.

He’s in transit. So are you. You think you’ve seen what tricks he has left, but he hasn’t seen all of yours.


>Turn and fire (specify).
>Keep your distance.

>Conserve dash.
>Spend dash as it comes.

VWES:
>Arbor Wall: 4/12
>Fluid Lockdown: 2/6
>Remote Koi: 0/12

>Gaia Sword: 2/6

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>>2678373
Turn and fire Meteor Melter. Or maybe Fluid Lockdown. He might be expecting the latter, but that seems to be his weakness, or at least one of them.

>>2678373
>Turn and fire Fluid Lockdown, but keep to hit and run tactics. Conserve your dash to get out of range quick after he approaches.

Force him to approach, punish with FL. Save those dashes to dodge. If we want some long range pepper, go with Melter Missiles.

>>2678373
Let him smack into an arbor wall. While he's disoriented tag him with both Fluid lockdowns, and try to gaia sword an arm or two off of him.

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>>2678387
>>2678441
>>2678862

Time to surprise him.

The ape swings into place just in time for an Arbor Wall seed to bind his hand in place.

“What?!” He barks. He gloms a few available crystals with his other three hands and pulls hard. On the second tug he’s free, but staying put to do it was a bad idea on his part. Fluid Lockdown splashes over his back and side, hardening into frost and pulling pained shouts from him.

“Maverick! Maverick! Spawn of evil!” He bellows between labored shield flashes.

He hits the ground fists-first, but you’re already moving on a hot dash. You expect more melee, and here he comes with it, mad as heck.

He bores into the floor, stabs his hands in after the drills and rips out a boulder the size of your torso. You seed the ground in your escape – no sense not to – but the rock cracks through two whole Arbor Walls. And keeps rolling.

>[Armor +1]

It slams into you and only knocks you to the floor. With the last of its intended-lethal momentum it rolls over your tail and pins you down.

You can hear him charging. Your psychological equivalent of a stomach sinks. If he were more in control of himself, if he were more of a fighter, you’d probably be dead to rights. In the position you’re pinned, with your busted arm, he could smear you into the floor if he knew what he was doing.

If.

Instead he leaps for the ceiling again, that same old trick. He swings forward, back—

“Victory is mine, SIGMAAAA!”

But your buster is already trained high. One more jet coats his chest and belly. That’s all it takes.

“Ghurrrg…”

His body slow-blinks under his failsafing shield battery. His belly cracks somewhat gruesomely, but there’s nothing more to spill.

He lets go as his core fails. The crash and rupture hit at about the same volume.

You wedge one foot under your tail and the other under the rock, and fire a dash. That gets you out with a graceless headbutt into the wall.

“Sh… Showa to Fifth.”

“Right here, ma’am.”

“Repliforce is still present in strength There’s an active Mole Borer between me and the way I came in. I don’t… I don’t think I can get out.”

“Copy. I’ll inform Command, but it… hm, yeah, looks like Repliforce at least is packing up to go. Looks like they’re minus about half strength, though. Good job.” Largo pauses. “Is that right? ‘Good job?’ It sounds so weak. ‘Fine hunt?’ Is that better?”

You take a seat by the earthquake machine. Lacking Orangutank, it stops buzzing.

“Works for me.”

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>>2679193

You rest with the wreckage of the wise ape stricken with madness. What in the world got to him? After all his work, one day he just up and goes crazy… pity isn’t the word you’re looking for. It’s just wrong. You try to take comfort in having made it right by keeping him from hurting anyone ever again.

Plus, all this energy resource could do a lot of good. There’s probably millions of zenny worth, just in this one room.

You kind of wish you had pockets.

It’s an hour and a half before you hear a light drilling noise. It’s less aggressive than the Drimoles, less ominous than the Borer.

A purple mid-sized Hunter punches through, literally, with a grinder bit not unlike Orangutank’s. The bit disappears into her arm and she kicks some crystals free.

“There you are!” The stranger beams.

“Here I am,” you whoop-de-doo your finger around in the air.

She snaps a salute and helps you to your feet. “Name’s Amethyst, Ninth Unit out of Manaus. Let’s get you out of here, yeah?”

“Let’s,” you grunt, letting your broken arm hang. “I’ve got another mission waiting.”

“Hah! You sound like one of ours.”

“Thanks. I just hope whatever’s up at ground level wasn’t too rattled by the quakes.”

Amethyst cringes a little.

“They didn’t tell you?”

----

They didn’t tell you, you learn, because Atajo and most of Fifth were busy chasing metaphorical rabbits with the spike of enemy activity after Primus’s declaration.

A 7.0 quake rippled through northern Venezuela when Orangutank hit that button. Maracaibo got the worst of it; early estimates count the death toll there as over a thousand with substantial infrastructure loss.

“A pretty spit-shiny silver lining, actually,” Skittle observes, reading a datapad while reclining in midair. “The scorpion fella on your roster’s gotta be feeling that, like. Good job on Repliforce for nicking some energen when their shit’s so shaken they’ll spend it all on repairs, isn’t it?”

“At least a thousand people are dead, Skittle,” you scold them as Vitamin remounts your arm.

“And don’t think for a second I don’t know it,” they scold you right back. “I’m just weighing hearts and feathers, here. The new guy, Larry wossname, he heard your whole exchange with Doctor Buttpicker. You’re not at fault, you hear me? That quake was Maverick action, and you stopped more of it, and it just did a bunch of work for us vee-savvies Repliforce.”

“Vis-à-vis, possibly,” Vitamin mutters.

“You know what I meant. She did too, yeah?”

“Yeah,” you noncommit.

“You’re good to go, Lieutenant,” Vitamin puts down a wrench. “Commander Turtle wanted to see you as soon as possible.”

“Sorry, Vite,” Skittle boops him on the nose, “but our favorite fishstick's got a date with some upgrades before her big bad bug-swatting mission.”


>Upgrades now.
>Debrief in person now.

>>2679193
Bah, unbelievable. I copy/pasted everything but the boss battle music link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej0YeHWPh1E

>>2679205
>>Upgrades now.
Wonder if we can get that flex

>>2679205
I guess Emerald got a younger sister somewhere down the line.

>Upgrades now
We need to act fast before the next mission. Maybe we can video debrief? That said, upgrades usually take a while to sort out.

>>2679205
>Amethyst
...
Em's new sibling? Baby pics when?

And for the vote
>>Uprade now

>>2679229
>land based
>when em was land based
Sounds like Em got replaced, really. Does not bode well for his chances in mhq

>>2679237
Amethyst seems like a mining/drilling bot as opposed to GPS oriented like Em.

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>>2679205
>Debrief in person now.

As much as I'd like to see what Skittle can do with Orangutank's DNA (I don't think he even got to show whatever trick he did that popped that researcher, did he?), as soon as possible means as soon as possible.

>>2679205
Switch >>2679222
To debrief. Something might have changed with the bug

>>2679205
>Upgrades

Come to think of it, that repliforce 'live' broadcast *should* have been on a 10 second delay so they could cut it off, like real live TV. We should ask Seelie to find out whoever was in charge of that, because I bet they're a mole.

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>>2679229
>>2679232
>>2679301

“Sorry, Vitamin,” you agree, “but the whole reason I put Spectrod on delay was to get one more upgrade in.”

“It wasn’t mutually exclusive, ma’am, but as you wish.”

“Capital!” Skittle frisbees you the datapad and buzzes off, wings twinkling. “You know where I’ll be!”

You catch the pad with a little fumbling.

MISSION
C O M P L E T E

- A-Rank Mission Parameters Complete: 35,000z
- Outclassed: 10,000z
- Acquisition of Energy Resource: 15,000z
- Repliforce Cell Neutralization: 5,000z

TOTAL: 65,000z

Well that makes your day. You haven’t beaten a Maverick of higher class than your rank in quite a while. If you didn’t have his weakness, things might have gone quite differently…

“Ma’am?” Vitamin broaches.

“Huh?”

“For reference, you came back to us worse than you might have felt. Your frame saved your life. You’ve made good investments. That’s all.”

“I try to,” you smile. “Gives good guys like you less to worry about.”

“We’re Lifesavers, ma’am. The best of us never stop worrying.”

You resolve to make him not need to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxPIWVHYX80

Skittle’s upgrade lab seems to have more action figures than you recall. X and Zero, in tiny multiple, are arrayed in many dramatic poses on available surfaces. You spot other high-name Hunters too, some deceased.

“What’s all this?”

“Care package from my sib,” Skittle rolls a wrist at it all while fitting a pair of tech goggles.

Your jaw drops. “You have a sibling? You.”

“Yeah, but they lack the disposition for this line’a work. You know how it is, you do.”

You do, at that. “Still. Toys?”

“Wanted to cheer me up,” they shrug. “They guessed, and right on the money too, that I’d be a little uppercase-yu Upset from Major Arsepain’s farewell.”

You nod, slowly. “Weird that we saw it at all, now that I think of it. You’d think there would be a broadcast delay.”

“There was.” They snap on a toolbelt. “Seems somebody hacked the signal on the quiet and gave us the true live feed, though.”

You close your eyes. Signals, huh... you divert the subject. “You doing okay? Reacting to it, I mean.”

Skittle heaves a sigh, snowing glitter off their wings. They snap their fingers and the door snaps shut.

“Right then,” they begin, wheeling in the air to point accusingly. “If you breathe a word that I said any of this to anyone, annnyone at all, I will do things to you that you will buy endo for just to weep over. Okay? Okay.”

“Um.”

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>>2679658

They clear their throat. “I hate phrases like ‘enemies of peace.’ Sounds like something Halcyon would say. Enemy, peace, nice and clean, right down the middle in this ugly shades-of-mud war. But there it is, plain and proper. Repliforce lost. They knew they were wronged. We know now too. But any goodwill that might have fostered goes straight out the window with Major Malfunction’s little speech, don’t it?”

“It kind of does, yeah,” you cautiously glance to the door, but it’s sealed red-light tight.

“Repliforce are enemies of the peace, full stop. They will follow his order to the last man, and everybusybody knows it. But what really incendiaries my dander is that they know too. Fella even said so. They know they’ve lost, they know that it’s over. But they’re taking our future with them. All of us – it’s easy, like, innit?”

You open your mouth to speak, but Skittle flits back and forth, hands behind their back, pacing in the air.

“And, you know, it makes sense. Good military action, right? Go down swinging. Take the world with you. But they even took tomorrow, ‘cause with us cleaning them up we’ll get caught out of step again. The world can’t give us the sack, oh no, they need us, they do. So while we can’t respond to something critical, something critical will happen.” They chop the air for emphasis. “Again. And again. And again. Something else, something else, something rickity-tickety-tappety else. There will never not be an else. We are in an else-rich environment. A surplus of elses.”

“We’re doing what we can,” you try to break into their rant.

“Right. We. Us. We’re grandfathered into a world that would never let us exist if they’d known how things would have turned out, but we’re too important now, too load-bearing. All we can do is plug in and square away like good little robots—” they seem to use the R-word very deliberately— “and ride this train to the station.”

You think they’re done, but they just keep rolling, right up to your face.

“Well bollocks to that noise. I am hereby done with boo-hoo and pooh-pooh. I am done feeling sorry for anyone left from that blighted army. My new priority one through six is stamping them out harder than Turtle’s gonna stomp Halcyon. Because the sooner they’re in the ground, the sooner we can set upon the children they’re leaving, their next disaster. If this is the future they left us, no other options? Well, we are going to EXCEL at it.”

You blink. The darkness in their expression washes out.

“Sssso… what’ve I got to pick from?”

“With that fat stack from the Librarian?” They brighten up sweetly, thumbing at a terminal. “More than usual. Take a looksie.”

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>>2679662

UPGRADES:

VWES:

>Fracture Drill
A one-meter-long, rock-cracking drill that trivializes most armor and sticks deep into an enemy body. Designed for a liquid payload which is unavailable to you, synergy with other DNA may give it a payload of a different kind. 12 “shots,” meaning twelve drills, with three seconds of drilling time each. If you take care not to break it on insertion or withdrawal, one drill could spin for 36 seconds.

>Wellbore Drill
A grinding three-bit drill capable of chewing into most armor and shallowly mangling what lies beneath. Usable as a melee weapon, but if fired, the bit splits into three directions. 24 “shots,” meaning twenty-four drills, with three seconds of drilling time each. If you choose not to fire the bit as a projectile, one drill could instead spin for 72 seconds.

Synergy (Fracture Drill only):

>Lava Injector
Removes your adaptation of Corona Sphynx’s DNA to drill into an enemy and inject thermite for truly grievous damage. Prominence, your charged jet of thermite, will no longer be available. 8 shots.

>Cryo Injector
Combines with Freezer Ostenops’s DNA to drill into an enemy and inject a cryomer compound for truly grievous damage. 6 shots.

(Additional synergy options unavailable at this time.)


VWES Upgrades:

>Old Growth:

Inspiration from examining Deepwell Orangutank’s grip on your arm has led to an advance in the density of Arbor Wall. Roots will grip a little harder, walls will stand a little stiffer, and the Gaia Sword stake will pierce a little firmer. 10,000z.

>Ultimate Koi:

Scatter Seelie continues to meddle for your own good. For an additional fee, they will take your Remote Koi and construct the ultimate fish drone from your siblings’ data.

ITAMAE (30,000 zenny):

GINRIN SHOWA: Tancho + Asagi + Kujaku.
>Damage: Mid.
>Defense: Mid.
>Range: Long.
>Agility: Unpredictable; high evasion. Can be switched to “sacrificial defense” mode at will.


GENERAL:

>EAS-B
Your excellent performance has entitled you to access an Emergency Acceleration System Beta. It won’t move you much faster or farther, but it trims the cycle time in half, allowing you to dash more often. 15,000z.

>Hardpoint
Orangutank’s backpack was fitted to a hardpoint, which you may now install anywhere on your frame. It can hold one Hardpoint Device of your choice. 25,000z.


Hardpoint Devices:

>Gear Holster
Doubles your Gear Slots from 2 to 4. A simple device, free of charge.

>RF Buster
Install a second buster, stock two-shot fire with stock upgrade potential. 5,000z.

>Charge Buster
Install a second buster, stock two-stage charge with stock upgrade potential. 5,000z.

>Saber Pack
Install a quick-charge pack for up to two high-phase beam sabers. 15,000z.

>HV Rifle
Corona Sphynx’s high-velocity-ammo rifle could be yours. Stock option punctures armor with solid projectiles. Secondary upgrade could fire VWES entities at greater damage yet higher weapon energy consumption. 15,000z.

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>>2679669
Additional Weapons:

>High-Phase Saber
Uptunes your current lo-beam to a hi-beam. More destructive power per swing, but limited active seconds of use. 5,000 zenny.

>Additional Saber
Because why not? The stock option, low-phase 30cm, is 5,000z.

>Ceratanium Axe
The long-hafted axe of a woodsman, or perhaps a headsman, once carried by Arbor Elk. Though slower to swing than any beam saber, its damage is still equal to a low-phase blade. It can also parry other solid weapons, pierce energy-nulling defenses, and knock back foes of equal or lesser mass than you. Requires two Gear slots to carry and two hands to use. 10,000 zenny.

>Thagomizer Pick
On the logic that “it’d be right baller, like,” Scatter Seelie has offered to craft you a short-hafted pickaxe weapon modeled after Freezer Ostenops’s spiked tail. Though slower to swing than any beam saber, its damage is still equal to a low-phase blade. It can also parry other solid weapons, pierce energy-nulling defenses, and puncture armor with great precision. Requires one Gear slot to carry and one hand to use. 5,000 zenny.


Weapon Upgrades:

>Meteor Melter
(Additional upgrades unavailable at this time.)

>Sakura Saber
Any beam saber takes on a cosmetic katana curve and a harmless light effect: its wake sheds a gradient of cherry blossoms. The hilt is modified with cyberwood to be held two-handed for greater striking speed, and adds a short hammering spike on the pommel, while still fitting in a single Gear slot. 1,000 zenny per saber.

>Fire Element
“Inspired” by Corona Sphynx’s DNA, Scatter Seelie has offered to add high-temperature combustion to any one of your melee weapons for added damage. 10,000 zenny.

>Ice Element
“Inspired” by Freezer Ostenops’s DNA, Scatter Seelie has offered to add an advanced cryomer compound projector – because “fuck the Leidenfrost Effect” – to any one of your melee weapons for added damage. 10,000 zenny.


FRAME:

Your chassis may take three upgrades to your Frame. Each new part increases your survivability in a specific way. Each one costs a flat 50,000 zenny, even if it’s a higher Level of the same part.

>Solid Plating
Level 1 [Purchased]: Reduces incoming damage by one fourth, effectively lengthening your health bar by an extra quarter.
Level 2: Reduces incoming damage by one third of base, effectively lengthening your base health bar by an extra third.

>Flex Architecture
Level 1 [Purchased]: Mildly increases reflexes and guards against breakage of major body parts.
Level 2: Moderately increases reflexes and limits breakage of major body parts.

>Barrier Extender
Level 1: Lengthens shield flare to 1.5 seconds and mildly hastens its refresh rate, making the invincibility cycle more difficult to thwart.

Hunter Command's currently on a banned IP, so he's getting me to post in his stead.

>>2679669
>Fracture Drill
>Cryo Injector
>Flex 2
>EAS-B

"Between the two of those we should be hit much, much, much less often. Which is good, because if we got slapped around on Spectrod like we did here we'd be dead inside half his life bar."

a one meter long fucking drill. Jesus.

>>2679715
Orangutank's drills were much longer.

>>2679720
Will Cryo Injector remove Fluid Lockdown?

>>2679721
Yes, it will. It's a synthesis, not unlike Anode's Wrenades combined two DNA chunks, so you'd get the punch of both in one slot. Tactically speaking, Cryo Injector would prevent Lockdown leakage prior to the cylindrical drill breaking an enemy hull, so the splash would be removed.

But imagine Anode's fight with Winter Wolfspider, if the latter's fangs were a meter long.

The Cryo or Lava or [redacted] Injectors would be your most powerful melee weapon, bar none, but only on a thrust. It's a trade you can take right now, if you wish.

>>2679749
Yeah, right then. I'm not voting for Fracture Drill, but in the case it wins I'm explicitly against any synthesis at the moment. Fluid Lockdown will still have more use against our telefragging bug.

>>2679669
>Wellbore Drill
crowd killing, I'd rather upgrade our main Melter for One Shot One Kill weapons

>EAS-B
>Flex 2

>>2679669
>EAS-B
>Flex 2

I'd love to go for the Hardpoint and Saber Pack with it, but extra dash and Flex 2 is impossible for me to ignore.

>Wellbore Drill
More and longer drill-time seems sound to me.

>>2679670
>Wellbore Drill
>EAS-B
>Flex 2

I don't like the idea of removing one of our VWES weapons at this time.

Found a window in which to post again.

To be clear, VWES symmetry is just an option. You can still get the Fracture Drill without stuffing it full of ice if you like. Wellbore seems popular, though.

>>2679934
"Synergy." Darn phone.

>>2679936
VWES symmetry is also nice
>Your VWES-4 is filled with:
>Fluid Lockdown
>Fluid Lockdown
>Fluid Lockdown
>Fluid Lockdown
Frost Koi go

>>2679934
Finally back home where I can post.

I really, really want the drill that can mount a fluid payload. Look how effective they are uncontained, imagine them delivering full force behind enemy armor.

We can always go and add the third one later, especially since I think we'll outstock our VWES very soon.

>>2680107
I'm still stuck at work yet composing. The vote's been up a while already, and results seem clear, but it is a weekday during GDQ...

How's this: I'll call it in about an hour, see if anybody changes their mind or enough new votes add in.

>>2680107
A meter-long drill with a fluid payload? Meteor'll be a real hit with the ladies.

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>>2679692
>>2679754
>>2679842
>>2679868

“That injector…”

“Mmmyyyyeeeesss?” Skittle gleefully rubs their hands.

“Seems a bit much.”

“A Bit Much is what it’ll take to sew up this post-war. You stick somebody with that drill and flood them with anything, they’ll feel it for weeks, they will!”

“But it’s a thrusting weapon, even if I don’t mix it with another DNA set. I’d just get more mileage out of the grinder bit.”

“Hnnngh,” they sigh like Nouveau, “fine, your choice. What about the zenny pile?”

“Flex and that dash boost. Empty my account again.”

“Now THERE’s a real idea.” They grin and busy their hands in a tool rack faster than you can follow. “You’ll be set to jet, you will. They might even bump you to A just on raw specs.”

“Really?” That ape-grips your interest. “I’ll be back there already?”

“Sure, I’ll even recommend it. You weren’t lacking for experience, just killpower and not-get-killed power. With a full weapon complement and a frame packed to the gills – hah – with modern parts, you’d at least make for a low A on a bad day.”

You smile to yourself. It would definitely be a milestone step back to your old self. Your old self but better!

You hop up on the slab without further preamble. “Then get to it, Skittle!”

They turn with their fists full of tools poking from between each finger. “S’what I like to hear.”

Skittle works their way up, tail first. After a few minutes you take your datapad out and check your Spazer account to fill time.
--404 ERROR--

Perplexed, you try reloading.

--40004 ERROR--

… The heck?

--404040444 R3P71453 ERROR--

“Guess Spazer’s down,” you audibly shrug.

--R3P71453 R3P71453 R3P71453 43V3R--

… You squint.

The error message disintegrates into butterflies and lets you back into the main page. #SpazerHack seems to be trending. Just great.

Your social feed brings up even worse news.

>G.CHAGOI [auto-translate enabled]
WHY DAMN IT
I REALLY LIKED THAT ONE

>S.ASAGI [auto-translate enabled]
Oh noooooo I just saw, I’m so sorry Goldie! (இ﹏இ`｡)

>G.CHAGOI
SORRY FOR LANGUAGE I JUST HATE PIRATES SO MUCH

>S.KOHAKU [auto-translate enabled]
(;へ;)

>A.TANCHO [auto-translate enabled]
they sunk his poor ship
she was just doing her job
he built her so well

>B.KUJAKU [auto-translate enabled]
I’m terribly sorry, my brother. Where was your vessel lost?

>G.CHAGOI
AFRICA COAST
JUST CARRYING ALUMINUM AND IRON THEY DIDN’T HAVE TO DO THAT TO HER
IT’S NOT FAIR


You cringe. Oh no…

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>>2680318

>M.SHOWA [auto-translate enabled]
Hey. Goldie. Don’t you worry, now. Your little sis’ll get those pirates for you soon, I promise.

>G.CHAGOI
THANK YOU I KNOW YOU’RE WORKING HARD
IT’S JUST REALLY ANNOYING TO BUILD SOMETHING
AND SOMEBODY ELSE JUST SINKS IT
THANK YOU FOR CALLING THE OTHER DAY IT MEANT A LOT
:)

>M.SHOWA
Glad to, Big Bro.

>S.ASAGI
How come you never call me, huh? (┛ಠДಠ)┛彡┻━┻

>M.SHOWA
Busy busy. Maybe when my next mission is done.

>M.TURTLE [auto-translate enabled]
Meteor, please tell me you’re only on this platform because you’re indisposed in Seelie’s care.

>S.ASAGI
CHEESE IT, THE FEDS! ヽ(ﾟДﾟ)ﾉ

>B.KUJAKU
Greetings, Commander Turtle.

>S.KOHAKU
(⑉⊙ȏ⊙)

>M.SHOWA
They’re upgrading me right now, won’t be super long.

>M.TURTLE
Tell them to set up a video debrief. We’re short on time.
Odd, though.
I could have sworn I told B-12 to send you my way first.

>M.SHOWA
uH Gotta go Skittle needs my arms now

>S.ASAGI
(ŐωŐ人)

>S.KOHAKU
( ˘ 3˘) ( ˘ 3˘) ( ˘ 3˘)

>M.SHOWA
Shut up love you bye

----

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>>2680325

“About time,” Nouveau mutters.

“Time well spent,” you practically bounce into the Command Room. You’ve never felt so light! “I’m ready.”

“Good.” Turtle regally fills her seat, pulling up a satellite view of Australia. Your target indicator is almost dead center. “The situation has advanced. The Darwin Headquarters was attacked from the sea shortly after you left.”

“Humpback?”

“No,” Nouveau shakes his locks, “she hasn’t moved. Just some naval heavies, known escapees from Operation Rama, but definitely part of the invasion plan.”

Turtle manipulates the map projection, bringing up points of interest.

“We now believe Repliforce meant to wipe out Darwin and establish Alice Springs as a base to muster their remaining forces. Bringing Spectrod, however, turned out to be a liability. As soon as he arrived, we cut Australia off the network, which also left half his accompanying force stranded near Mogadishu. Darwin came under attack simultaneously, part of a planned pincer attack, but without the second claw they were routed. The inland force didn’t assist at all – they automatically proceeded with phase two.”

“Now they’re in a jar and waiting for backup,” Nouveau adds.

“Will they get it?” You ask.

“Possibly,” he frowns. “Between local Hunters and the Aussies, the Northern Approach is locked down, but the ADF is fending off probing attacks at Nullarbor and Eighty Mile Beach by themselves. It’s only a matter of time before one of those fronts cracks. Retire Spectrod before he’s retrieved. That’s your primary objective, Lieutenant Showa.”

“Yes sir.”

“The ranking officer on-site is this gentleman,” Turtle brings up a profile of a mostly-white crocodile reploid, “Grit Assaultie. He and Iron Monitor can direct you once you arrive. Questions?”

“None, ma’am.”

“Then all that remains is for you to pick a partner.” Nouveau opens up more profiles. You know all three of them, of course.

“Who do you recommend?”

“The one that you think will get the job done. They’ll be under your command, whoever it is, so choose carefully.” He gives you a dirty side-eye, “And if you pick my sister, you’d better bring her back alive and unspoiled. That’s all I’ll say about that.”

“Yes sir...”

You look over the profiles – three of your best friends.

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>>2680329

DECO

>FRAME:

True generalist, and designed as such. +1 Flex, +1 Armor, +1 Shield.

>WEAPONRY:

Platonic Suite:
Special weapon. Deco can create simple ceratanium solids, from wall panels to needles, through specialized busters in either arm. The shape of each creation varies, selected at will from a suite of stored templates. A given creation can either be wielded manually or electromagnetically ejected at injurious velocity; the fire rate is greatly affected by the mass of the object created.

Platonic Blade:
Any given blade produced by Platonic Suite and then broken free to use in-hand. Even her very best blades have a lower base damage than a low-phase saber. Being designed for single-use launch like any Platonic Suite item, they will break under continuous melee abuse.

RF Buster:
Deco’s busters also have a two-shot plasma burst setting, without charge.

>ABILITIES:

Ballistics Genius:
Deco is an expert at plotting projectile physics, a trait which lends itself well to deconstructing crime scenes and battlefields. As a side effect, her aim is outstanding… under normal gravity and low-variable wind conditions, at least.

OEAS-G:
Deco’s somewhat expensive Overland-series Emergency Acceleration System Gamma fires at a basic rate for twice the standard duration with a very low cooldown cycle. It’s not the fastest, but it can cover twice the distance that your dash can in one go, and fire repeatedly.

>VWES-4:

Scoville Scorch:
Barely a day old, this weapon from Repliforce Army sergeant Hot Habanero blasts a cylindrical wind vortex, pushing back foes and blasting their armor with small drops of thermite (which have the appearance of burning cinders in the wind). Superficially similar to Storm Tornado. 12 shots.

Bullet Curtain:
Tokyo 15th Unit traitor Eastern Cherry yielded a rapid-fire, seven-angle, expanding-cone spray of pink, sakura-petal-shaped plasma rounds. Though each “bullet” is no stronger than a typical buster round, the damage they deal can accumulate quickly and saturate a wide area. 32 shots, translating to 224 bullets.

Feather Wax:
Feathered darts taken from viral-Maverick witch Pharmakon Pitohui inject small doses of extraordinarily corrosive hydrofluoric acid. 12 shots.

Iron Orbit:
Impact Satellaika, ex-Russian Air Force asset, yielded an orbiting “shield” of three crater-pocked ferrous spheres the size of her head. Magnetic control keeps them surrounding Deco until launched at speed, one by one or in multiple. 15 spheres, three at a time.

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>>2680336

VOLT BATTERAM

>FRAME:

Melee specialist. Intended for 14th Grapple but shuffled into 4th. +1 Flex, +2 Armor.

>WEAPONRY:

Ball Spark:
Forms an electrical sphere between his fists and launches it with a punch, effective out to medium range. Can also deliver the voltage on contact with the flat plating on the backs of his knuckles.

Horn Coil:
Blasts an electromagnetic pulse from his horns, stunning nearby foes for him to close in and finish off in melee.

Thunder Hoof:
A recent acquisition from Repliforce lieutenant Thunderhead Zapricorn. A strong stomp releases directed lightning across the surface of the floor or ground; conductivity affects range.

Charge Buster:
A stock two-stage charge buster, seldom used in favor of his melee specialization.

>ABILITIES:

Assault Battery:
Special ability. A finite electrical reservoir which, when activated, increases mobility while adding a strong electric element to all melee blows and increasing the damage of existing electrical-element attacks. Can only be recharged between missions, is drained with each action, and heavier use drains it faster. Offers 24 seconds of light use, 16 seconds of medium, or 8 of heavy. Spikes of usage can be throttled to one second each; eight consecutive seconds of Heavy makes him a terror to behold.

Mountain Leap:
After many small body modifications to his limbs, Volt has traded the ability to equip an EAS for high base land speed and a powerful jump. With Assault Battery activated, he can outrun all but the very best terrestrial EAS dashes.

>VWES-2:

Bright Fang:
Derived from the slave-running pirate queen Tungsten Angler, this weapon fires a hot tungsten right-angle blade to gouge targets at medium to long range. An important tool to fill a tactical need in his arsenal. 32 shots.

Cable Web:
The remnant of former electrical engineer Cable Orbweaver, a launched disc spreads five counterweighted wires to entangle targets on the run. Though useful for binding, it deals only light damage until broken – usually by follow-up attacks. 24 shots. Will become electrified if Assault Battery is activated.

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>>2680342

SCATTER SEELIE

>FRAME:

Exceedingly light and very fast. Reliant on stealth and deception as a primary defense. +3 Shield.

>WEAPONRY:

Prismatic Lens:
A laser beam fired from either palm, or both in tandem. Once carried additional traits, but they were abandoned for pure damage on the grounds that “Violence is the only thing Mavericks understand.”

Dazzle Diffractor:
Drastically uptuned light diffractor prism array on weaponized wings. Emits a brief disruptive pulse to nullify any guidance on incoming enemy projectiles, overload enemy optics, and leave a ring of Scatter Scrambler sources (see below).

Salvage Stinger:
A hardpoint device made of a low-phase saber and an energy reclamation system, shaped like a scorpion stinger. Those suffering a continuous-contact sting have their shield battery slowly drained to top off Skittle’s own. The device normally stays fully retracted in their moth-wing “backpack,” making for a nasty surprise weapon.

>ABILITIES:

Scatter Scrambler:
An advanced countersig ability utilized by their dash system and Dazzle Diffractor (see above). Leaves lingering holographic “fairy circle” signal sources which produce false positives and trackers for enemy targeting systems, along with holographic doubles. Friendly units within a given Scrambler ring, up to and including themself, are obfuscated and difficult for foes to accurately hit.

Fairy Flit:
An always-on flight system and dash system in one. Dashing leaves behind one Scatter Scrambler circle for every meter dashed. The dash may be charged for longer bursts of distance, zigzagging at will.

Glamer Protocol:
Equal parts glam and glamour, this stealth system (once activated) can be collapsed into a sparkling diffractive burst that negates most other stealth systems in range – and also temporarily boosts power to the Prismatic Lens beam for a nasty “backstab” effect. The power output under that circumstance is comparable to a military force beam.

>VWES:

None. They never equipped one, opting instead for core hardware and software upgrades integrating Maverick DNA where compatible.


----


Select your partner. Be advised that they are not narratively invincible -- nor are you.

>Deco
>Volt Batteram
>Scatter Seelie

>>2680350
>Volt Batteram

>Scatter Seelie
I kinda want to pick Seelie since he's good with computer bullshit and the guy we're going up against likes to hide in cyber space... plus Seelies scatter scrambler circles could make it harder for the bastard to hit us from cyber space. I mean he has to have some way to be able to be able to tell where we are when he's in cyber space since I doubt he just looks around.

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>>2680318
Seems like Morpho and Humpback made their moves.

All things considered.

Volt has some good tricks up his sleeve and will be a melee nightmare. Deco seems like a good all-rounder backup. I think Scatter might be a bit fragile for what we're heading into, but if deployed right could do some damage.

I'd say... Volt. I don't think he'll want to stick in for a battle against Spec, but against anything else he should be good.

>>2680329
Scatter Seelie might be the only way to actually counter the cyberspace jump, but they're a liability with anything involving fire. I don't see stealth being a real option out there, either.

Volt Batteram is probably the only one of the bunch that can go toe-to-toe in an actual fight, but only if we drop that cyberspace antenna first. Otherwise the jumper will get the jump on us and can easily outrun Batteram.

Deco could be good if we got a bead at long range without the jumper being disassembled, but that's as long a shot at happening as one we'd need her assistance to pull off. Her ceratanium abilities are neat, but will get outclassed. Her bulletswarm moves could be good for AOE however, and her ability to plot projectile paths could really assist dodging those blades.

Hold my vote for a bit, I want to make sure that I have an actual handle on friendly capabilities. We don't want our buddies dying out there.

>>2680336
>>2680342
>>2680350

Okay, lemme think about this...

Deco: I like Bullet Curtain. It'll force Spectrod to go on the defensive or else tank it if he can. He'll probably flee to cyberspace if he can't dodge it, and while we won't know where he is, we can guess where he might pop up. Change the game to whack-a-bug. Furthermore, her OEAS-G should keep her from getting pinned down. Scoville Scorch has good synergy with us; we can take the heat, so we can treat her fire as friendly. Iron Orbit should keep him from closing in on her. As a Ballistics Genius, since she's good at deconstructing battlefields, she should do well in predicting where he's going to show up. Finally, Feather Wax *might* be his weakness... but it also might not be.

However, she's not going to outclass him in melee, even if her blades are made of the same ceratanium his are.

Batteram: Batteram can dish it out and take it. He's *arguably* not as tanky as we used to be, though with Flex he'll do better against blades and speed than we did, and which our opponent had in spades, and Mountain Leap only helps. Lack of EAS makes him a tiny bit more predictable, but I trust him to more than make up for that with jukes and experience.

Cable Web sounds like a good weapon, but Spectrod can bypass it by walking into cyberspace. However, it *does* limit the areas where he can pop up, so it's still not a bad weapon.

I wonder, does ceratanium conduct electricity? I mean, it worked against Crush Crawfish...

Scatter:

Scatter seems eager. I kinda wanna vote for him just because I think he'll strangle me through my computer screen if I don't.

That said, Scatter's usefulness depends entirely on whether or not Spectod can counter his abilities with his cyberspace voodoo. I don't know one way or the other. The main strategy with Scatter seems to be to beat Spectrod at his own game... which is often fun, but not always a good idea.

On the one hand, it's possible Scatter could out-stealth Spectrod. On the other hand, if Spectrod *does* get the jump on Scatter, he seems crazy-skilled enough to cut through those +3 Shields.

I dunno. What do you guys think?

>>2680415
I think you're leaning too hard on Spectrod being predictable. We won't have a game of Whack-A-Mole when he can literally
>*teleports behind u*
>*unzips helicopter blade*
>Pssh, nothing personnel, kid.
at any time. Unless we can disable the local cyberspace antenna, he can and will get the jump on us every time, as far as I can tell.

I think the approach is what matters. I would like to take Skittle, but in their own words, Spectrod would reave straight through their shields. On the other hand, Skittles knows their vulnerabilities and isn't stupid. Having built the bugger, Skittle has almost all of their weaknesses covered and can avoid the ones they don't.

Assuming no tricks of Spectrod's to hard counter them. On the same hand, though, Skittle could be of vast use on the approach leading in.

Batteram is more overtly safe, but I'm worried anyone who goes into Spectrod's game and stays there is asking for trouble.

Deco I think might be too much the generalist for this. I'm worried she'd get flattened too hard and too fast with no dramatic survival options. The VWES entities might help with that.

Love the discussion going on.

The mission will allow you to choose an entry vector, so one partner might be more viable on Route A but less viable on Route B. Don't feel that success will pass or fail entirely on who you take with you.

Skittles seems the best for getting rid of Spectrod's main advantages, but is also the most vulnerable If Something Goes Wrong. Were Anode at the reins, I would immediately disqualify Skittles.

Volt looks good if our main goal is getting rid of all his melee blades. He doesn't have Showa's critical weakness to solid blades, so he might be just as tanky if not more against Spectrod with 1 Flex to boot. But I'm really not sure if he can deal with those projectile blades effectively. Cable Web would be cut to shreds, and we'd need to contribute something of our own to crossfire with Bright Fang. Once Assault Battery is used up, he's a sitting duck against ranged game.

Deco looks to be the least likely to screw any one thing up. A proper dash with her own ablative ceratanium should slowly bleed through Spectrod's melee kit, and that VWES set will punish staying at mid-range. However, it looks like any decisive blow will have to come from us, without anything like the Stun to punish mistakes. We're basically hoping that Spectrod is as squishy as Skittles.

>>2680484
quick question, weren't we also going to be deployed with a 3rd guy who is built to take a hit? That was part of the reason I felt like taking our mothy friend because of the other guy. Or am I remembering things wrong?

>>2680415
It'll definitely conduct, the question is more on getting the timing right.

>>2680435
I hope +3 shield is at least good enough that those projectile spinners will trigger shield flash.

>>2680703
It probably would, but Seelie is also squishy. I'd assume they can take 1 hit from the blades and not die. Maybe 2, but that's pushing it.

>>2680697
Back home, saw this question first.

Yes, you are deploying with one "Iron Monitor" from the 8th, but his job is to draw attention while you and your partner take out the cyberspace pylon.

>>2680703
>>2680729
The shield is going to be more than enough to handle most strikes. The problem is if Spectrod combos them into oblivion.

And yeah, we DO have a tanky third, Skittle might honestly round out the skill set.

>>2680350
>Volt Batteram

>>2680336
Deco
Scoville Scorch combos wonderfully with Meteor, they've got the precision to capitalize on the small windows that'll pop up, and have a melee punish with Iron Orbit, and a good hit from Feather Wax with that same precision will land some nasty DoTs that can likely work even when they're cyberphased out.

>>2680795
>Deco
Forgot the greentexting

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>>2680800
Close enough!

I'm not positive whether I'll have the vote called tonight, but at the very latest it'll be set by tomorrow morning. Discussion is good in the meantime.

Meanwhile, I just donated to SGDQ. Feels good! You all should give it a try! They're in the middle of their Mega Man block right now.

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>>2680350
Screw it, I'll officially throw in for Skittle. I just feel like Volt will get hacked to pieces.

>Scatter Seelie

Feeling split on Batterram here. His mobility boost and restriction options aren't so useful against a foe with both flight and teleportation, and I'm not optimistic that we'll take out the cyberspace pylon before we fight him. Deco might be the best choice, her weapon loadout has the highest number of different options and her base weapon appears to be useful as an effective shield in this case.

>>2680329
>unspoiled
What, what kind of quest does he think this is?
>>2680336
>Platonic Suite
>Platonic Blade
Look, that's not even going to come up.

>>2679948
No, VWES symmetry would be
>Arbor Wall
>Fluid Lockdown
>Fluid Lockdown
>Arbor Wall

>>2680350
>Volt Batteram

I think Seelie is a good choice too, but as other anons said if there's anyone who can fuck those shields it's this guy.

>>2680991
Look, he knows what Deco's power set is. He wants Showa to keep it platonic.

>>2681294
Exactly the point I'm making, elk plus fate night/stay

>>2680318
>R3P71453 43V3R
Is that supposed to say Repliforce forever in leetspeak

>>2680350
>Volt Batteram
I think we're going to need all the melee help we can get here.

>>2681407
Must be Cyber Peacock's cyber-ghost.

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>>2680358
>>2680371
>>2680750
>>2681255
>>2681423

After careful consideration, “I’m taking Volt. He’s great in a stand-up fight.”

“Yes, we’ve all seen the crowd videos,” Turtle cracks a smile. Nouveau’s smile is more open, but there’s a different kind of relief in it.

You shade your forehead. “Who posted it?”

“Six different spectators, and at last check seventy thousand Spazer users. You represented us well. Please continue that.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“No sense dawdling,” Nouveau concludes. “I’ll call him in.”

Volt arrives inside ten minutes. Most of that was a top-off at the med lab; he had been in the sparring ring for hours, ever since Primus’s declaration.

“Here,” he announces on his way in. “Situation?”

Turtle gives him the brief, including your defense against Soul Format. Ever professional, Volt acknowledges with nods and monosyllable replies until the end.

“Questions?” Turtle prompts.

“One.” He glances at you.

You count on your fingers, ticking in your thumb first, “Because you’re the best melee’r I know, I think you might have type advantage, and most importantly, I trust you.”

He blinks. His serious expression lightens.

“Thanks. Ready?”

“Wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.”

“Good.”

“And good hunting,” Turtle adds. “Spare no quarter.”

----

It’s afternoon in Australia. You beam down at the Alice Springs Golf Club, a golf course and hotel complex partially converted into a base camp. You see at least fifty Hunters without even turning your head, all of them armed and prepping, clearly on-edge.

“Y’must be from Veracruz, roit?” A green Chrysoprase officer strides over to you and Volt. “Right this way, they’re waiting.”

“Looks busy,” you note.

“Couple of scouts just bought it at the convention center. That was our confirmation that Spectrod’s still payin’ us close watch. We’re all ready for some payback, if you catch me drift.”

“I do. Boy do I.”

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>>2681945

If saltwater crocodiles weren’t long-extinct, Grit Assaultie might be life-size. His mobile command center, a ring of monitors and terminals, is set up right on a putting green. With him is your “shield,” the green-armored guy slated for transfer to your unit. You’re still not sure what those wings are for. The escorting officer salutes you and moves on.

“G’day,” the crocodile greets, “call me Saltie. Showa, heard of you. And your second?”

“Volt Batteram,” he salutes.

“Put that hand down, son, you’ll wear it out.” Saltie flaps a claw at the lizardtank, “This fella’ll be your new pal in sunny Meh-hee-ko if he doesn’t frag it out there.”

“Iron Monitor,” Monitor nods, ponderously. “Don’t mind Saltie. He and I go way back.”

“Back up to the wall, that’s where we are. You two been briefed, then?”

“Broadly,” you confirm.

“Then here’s the skinny. Don’t know if you know this, but we’re a pearl of somewhere in a great big oyster of nowhere. The Mavs won’t have a lot of inland resistance if and when they break through the ADF lines.”

“Mavericks?” You ask. “Is that figurative or are they openly supporting Repliforce now?”

Saltie sigh-growls. “Both. Mavs brought some real nasties – stuff to muster S-ranks for, if you ask me – and a lot of bulk to shore up what their new friends in Repliforce have left. It’s honestly taking the whole force of the Australian military to even hold them off on two fronts. We got eight to ten hours, then not only will your ghost bug get away, but we’ll have a nice Maverick-Repliforce foothold jammed in our gut.”

“With all the territory they’ll need to grow,” Monitor adds.

The gravity of it all finally hits you. This might just be where Repliforce starts to rebuild. Maybe if you’d come sooner… no, no, forget that. Openly joining forces with Mavericks shows they were clearly committed. If anything, you gave them a serious stall by letting the Hunters know about Spectrod in the first place. They couldn’t have slammed the door behind him without you, couldn’t have changed his plans without you.

In another world, you suppose, this manicured grass you’re standing on might have been the starting point of another war. But not this world. That’ll have to be enough for now.

“What’s their strength?” Volt asks.

“Middling numbers, but heavily armed,” says Saltie. “I’ll start with where we aren’t, which is where you’re headed.”

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>>2681949
Grit Assaultie cues up a live satellite image of the pylon, a lighthouse at the edge of a lake of solar panels. It’s as tall as a radio tower, but freestanding under sweeping inward-arch geometry.

“The Cyberspace domain pylon is located down here, right between the Arid Zone Research Institute and the Yirara Solar Plant.” The view zooms out a little to indicate where you are in relation to it: the forward camp is just over five kilometers to its north-northeast, on the other side of a hill ridge. “That’s what’s giving the bug all his blink-in blink-out bullshit.”

“How do we shut it down?” You’re not exactly a tech.

“Break it,” Volt suggests.

“Well yes but what’s the fastest way?”

“Easy enough,” Saltie brings up a schematic, “it’s just one room wide. Trash the power conduits one floor up from bottom and the emergency broadcast mode will click off.”

“Or,” Monitor points out, “you could topple the whole thing. The three supports around the base look load-bearing.”

Saltie scratches his chin. “Might take longer, and your ass’ll be hanging out, but it’s an option.”

“Your special is thermite, isn’t it?” Monitor looks you over. “They won’t last long against something that hot.”

His armor covers everything but his eyes. You could swear he just winked. You stare at him longer than you should.

“Um. Yeah. I think I can take it— do it. Them. I mean.”

“What about the defenses?” Volt mercifully takes the attention off you.

“A knot of Knots is busy keeping it running,” says Saltie, “but there’s not much seriously guarding it besides artillery-deniers and anti-air. Couple speedy Vic-Pinks, that’s all. Repliforce spent their heaviest units establishing a perimeter. Evacuees – survivors – from Yirara College reported your cryptid was making sport of them while his buddies watched.”

You tighten your lips. He’ll pay for that. “Entry vectors?”

“Right. Going clockwise, starting at twelve…”

The screen moves north, up to a gap in the mountain ridge.

“We currently have Repliforce blocked off at the Gap – this bit here, where the river and rails and highway pass through. A full third of ‘em are right there, and it’s right at the rim of Spectrod’s effective cyberjump range. He’s been blinkin’ in and out, hitting our backs at random intervals.” Grit gestures to Monitor, who silently nods and crosses his arms, “Monitor’s going to lead his charge there to keep the bug’s attention. You’re welcome to go in at his side and try to punch through, but if Spectrod gets half an eye on you, Showa, he’ll likely break straight for you. He’ll fight at his level best. With a big bunch of backup.”

Nooooo thanks. But then again, you’d have not one but two skilled Hunters and the mass of regulars as backup yourself… but then again again, you’d be putting them at serious risk, keeping Spectrod in their midst.

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>>2681956

“Where will you be?” You ask Saltie.

“Coordinating. If you lot fail, I’ll have to organize funneling the last residents up the highway while protecting the camp’s pads and keeping Repliforce jarred. I’ll be the last man out. If this push frags us, no way can we hold here against what’s coming. But I ramble.”

The screen view moves clockwise to the east. “Next path in is here. Ross Highway’s empty and Todd River’s in no danger of having water in it. You and your partner could take a couple chasers, ride out to Emily Gap, take the highway to the river, cross it, then zip through the solar plant.”

“With no cover,” Monitor adds.

“The panels offer a little, but on the way you’ve got not a whit. Once some random Knot spots you, you’ll have Spectrod on your case in a hurry – so at best, you’re lookin’ at trying to fight him and crack the pylon at the same time, with just two people.”

You nod. Another serious risk, but a different flavor.

The satellite camera moves east-southeast and pauses over a suburban area split by the ephemeral river. “Or if you like, you could try here,” says Saltie. “Ross Highway again, but you turn south through Amoonguna, which isn’t in the bug’s range, then west through Connellan, which is.”

“Is there much presence in Connellan?” Volt asks.

“Not yet. The main wrinkle is this…” The satellite continues clockwise until it stops over Alice Springs Airport, several diagonal airstrips slashing the desert. “A bunch of ‘em are on the airport, sending out flocks of Tubamail-S4s. The birds are their eyes in the sky, but they’re mostly screening the east and southeast. Smart, really – nothing but outback from there to Route 83, so they’re laying a picnic blanket for what we guess is their plan for heavier occupation later on.”

“Repliforce needs defensible territory,” Monitor explains, “and there’s a surplus here.”

“But right now they’re your problem. The airport will have good eyes, and you’ll get a big whack of Repliforce before you arrive.”

You’re confident you can handle such a whack, but… “Will Spectrod break off to join them?”

“From what we’ve seen?” Monitor tilts his head. “Not immediately. He picks off targets of opportunity, and if the airport squads move on you, he’ll probably be content to let them.”

“I see,” you see.

Volt points to the left of the airport. “Are those strips off to the west part of it?”

“No,” Saltie moves the camera, “that’s the dragway and desert racetrack. Repliforce is also sitting pretty there, which cuts us off from Highway 87 and all points south. Heavy vehicle assets will come straight up 87 to help the airport squads if you skirt the suburbs.”

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>>2681958

Saltie closes the screen. "And there you have it."

“That’s all?” You blink hard.

“All that’s advisable.” He re-opens the view to show you a mighty castle-like wall of familiar wood. “Couple hours ago they set up a huge barricade at the Bullen Road gap – mostly cyberwood, swarming with Tentoroids now. If you were to strike there, you’d only give Spectrod more prep time and a chance to rally the southern forces. That’s suicide and I’m not signing off on it.”

You can’t help but agree.

“So,” Saltie points his long rough face at you, “what’ll it be?”


>Join Iron Monitor on the breakthrough.
Meet swift and heavy resistance, but have heavy backup.

>Take the highway and the dry river into the solar plant.
Meet light resistance with only Volt and your vehicles, but keeping unseen as long as possible is vital.

>Skirt the suburbs.
Meet heavy resistance with only Volt and your vehicles, but have less of a chance of drawing Spectrod’s attention early.

>>2681960
hmm, I feel volt would do well in the frontal attack with Iron since he's all about brawling. Seelie would have been perfect for the dry river run, and I get the feeling that Deco with her all rounder specs would have been good for the suburbs.

Still I'm tempted to head for through the suburbs since while it might wear us down a little I still kinda want to fuck over repforce as much as we can and smashing their 6 while the rest of them are busy up north so that even if we fail we can at least cripple them as much as possible.

>Skirt the suburbs.

>>2681960
>Skirt the suburbs.

>>2681960
Suburbs sound best done with Deco. Besides, that's got the biggest bonus from dash McRacer's custom loids.

Highway will leave us open to our biggest weakness in his arsenal: those spinning projectiles.

>Join Iron Monitor on the breakthrough.
This will have the most benefit from getting rid of all of Spectrod's melee blades. I suspect he'll have more than what he can carry on him if he still has teleporting up, but Volt can crunch quite a few of those blades even without our thermite backing him up.

>>2681960
>Skirt the suburbs.

>>2681960
>Skirt the suburbs.

With Volt, I'd suggest the frontal assault, but I get the feeling that the chaos of a full battle line would be mayhem for an at-will teleblinking flanker.

Let's remind Batteram to conserve most of his punch. We can use the koi to harass and harry while on the move, set up crossups, etc.

It'd be gross as hell but Showa CAN swim

>... there's human houses there. Are there any sewers?

>>2682596
I don't know that they'd go in the right direction, even if they were big enough.

>>2682596
This is Alice Springs, I don't know if they even have sewers instead of a system of septic tanks or whatever. The town has a population of less than 25k.

>>2682672
>>2682682
In 21XX it has grown some by virtue of surrounding solar plants large and small, but it's still literally in the middle of Australia. Any sewer lines wouldn't take you where you need to go.

Suburb route is locked, writing now. Might be a bit, though, still at work.

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>>2681965
>>2682062
>>2682526
>>2682577

You’re not afraid of Repliforce regulars. If plowing through a couple dozen is what it’ll take to nail down the ghost-fly, you’ll take it.

“Volt, I’m thinking the suburbs. You?”

“Sounds good,” he shrugs a little. Not the reaction you expected for a dangerous op.

“This isn’t the time to just roll with things, Volt. If you have an opinion, please speak up, I’d like to hear it.”

“My opinion is that you know what you’re doing. I’d grumble if we were going across the river, sure, but crossing into a thicket of enemies suits me just fine.”

“Glad to hear it,” Saltie grins a very long grin. “The chasers are set up by the hotel over thataway. Just pick your favorite and ping me when you’re through Emily Gap, that’s when we’ll move in.”

“When I will, you mean,” Monitor ribs him.

“You know damn well what I meant.” Saltie leans your way with a stage whisper, uselessly covering a fraction of his jaw with the back of his hand. “Good luck dealing with this joker in Fourth, don’t let him use the good silver.”

“It’ll be tough, sir, half our couches aren’t for sitting.”

Saltie barks a few laughs and slaps you on the back. “You’re all right, bluey. Good hunting.”

“See you on the other side, Lieutenant,” Monitor watches you go.

You and Volt head to the hotel on foot. “Bluey?” He chuckles, once the reptiles are out of earshot. “I’m the blue one.”

“It’s Australian slang for any reploid the least bit red. Dunno how or when it got started.”

“Mm. Gonna have to call Rubus that now.”

“Don’t you dare,” you laugh, “she’ll knock your horns off.”

“Whatever you say, Bluey.”

You put up your dukes and slug him a friend-tap in the arm.

Some expensive cars have been moved off the hotel parking lot to make room for a fleet of ride chasers. You immediately rush over and start petting an Adion's pointed hood.

“Ooooh hoo-hoo, Model Eff-Six, top of the line. I like Darwin’s req department already.”

“Don’t drool, you’ll decommission it.” Volt mounts the one next to it, evidently not caring that his F3 is much less classy. “Come on.”

The two of you speed to the highway out of town. The ruggedness of the desert stretches forever, largely unchanged from the environmental abuses of the last century. Only the glitter of different models of solar power plants gives any outward indication of what year it is. Alice Springs was never huge, but it was home to tens of thousands. You aim to keep it that way.

The ridgeline that divides the city follows you until you turn. You have no idea who Emily was, but her eponymous Gap comes up ahead.

“Showa here, about to say hi to Emily,” you comm in.

“Roger,” Saltie immediately replies. “We're go. Hands off the breaks and give ‘em hell.”

“Copy that.” You lean forward and gun the motor. Volt keeps up with you as you pass through.

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>>2682888
You can’t see the action, but you trust it’s there. You and Volt demolish the speed limit through sleepy Amoonguna, dodging the odd wrecks of overturned and buster-blasted cars. Repliforce must have swept through and left, no better than a common gang. The thought of it boils you.

In the privacy of your head you spare some space to hate Repliforce for falling so far in the world. They weren’t always insurrectionists, weren’t always terrorists. They did good work, once. In the foolish early days you even supported them like most other Hunters. A standing anti-Maverick army was a great idea on paper, but now it’s well and truly burned, and the burden went straight back to you and the institution you care about.

You wonder if Volt is thinking the same thing. He did have that insightful complaint the other day about the Hunters taking on too many tasks. What shape will the institution take on as the pressure turns geologic? You just hope you can keep adapting…

Volt derails your train of thought. “Meteor. Above.”

Jet-powered swallows are keeping pace with you high above. Tubamails. You glance back down and throttle up on the thrust to make a right turn. They follow.

“Heck. We’re made.”

“Patrols, not screeners,” Volt comms. “Keeping eyes on where they’ve been.”

You pour on the speed again. “How can you tell?”

“They’re not crashing into us.”

“Fair enough.”

Up ahead is a low causeway. It crosses over a riverbed so dry it has scrub trees in it.

“Bridge,” Volt notes. “Take it?”


>Yes.
>No.

>>2682892
>Yes.

That bridge probably has a troll. Let's be ready for it.

>>2682892
>Yes
This is a terrible idea.

>>2682892
>Yeah, nah.

Something seems fi--er, strange about that bridge. Bridges usually make good chokepoints/ambushes/traps.

Then again, we gotta go fast., and unless we can jump it, the bridge is faster.

Can we jump it?

What do we have to worry about from those birds? Tubamails? If we destroy them here can we pull a misdirection?

>>2682892
>Yes
get your blaster ready

>>2683154

Jumping it would require a high ramp to ramp off of, and none are presently available. Finessing an Arbor Wall shot ahead of you to serve as a makeshift one is impossible at your current velocity.

Tubamails are only dangerous by collision. They're harmless on their own. They are, however, relaying your position to the southern force. You could probably shoot them out of the air, but their damage is done.

Back home, by the way. Post to come after decompression and food.

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>>2682908
>>2682942
>>2683243

“Take it. Match my right, then full ahead.”

“Mm.”

You match velocities, side by side, and speed onto the causeway. Spiky green lumps emerge in the riverbed in your peripheral vision. Good thing you mis—

The bridge heaves under you.

Both you and Volt swerve and spin out away from each other, leaning away from the skid to keep from rolling. You stop on opposite sides of the road ahead of the bridge, look back… and a Worm Seeker sinks its arching body back into the earth, having nearly eaten the two of you.

“Keep moving!” You shout.

“Hate those things,” Volt grumbles.

There’s no way it can keep up with ride chasers, you reassure yourself.

It doesn’t need to, as a second one erupts out of the earth directly in your path. Head-on.

>[Flex +2]

You pull back and fire the chaser’s dash, igniting the beam blade mounted under the hood. You slam into the ugly thing’s face and carve a groove even as it keeps rising. Your ride is bumpy all the way back down.

“Show-off.” You can hear Volt grinning.

“Even on accident!”

You pass into Connellan, your road cutting through more houses than businesses. It’s literally a war zone of broken walls; some are still burning. Any mirth you had left evaporates. You dodge debris; Volt jumps a broken car.

And then over the roars of your engines you hear an entirely different set. Heavy ones. You heard one hours ago, crossing the subterranean lake. They’re fading in, not barreling in, which suggests they’re mostly parallel to your immediate road.

“Giga Deaths inbound,” you advise.

“Engagement?”


Select options for you and also your partner. They need not match.

>Attack primarily with the ride chasers.
>Attack primarily with your own weapons.

>Engage close.
>Engage distant.

>Basic weapons.
>VWES (specify).

VWES (you)
>Arbor Wall: 12/12
>Fluid Lockdown: 6/6
>Remote Koi: 12/12
>Wellbore Drill: 24/24

VWES (Volt)
>Bright Fang: 32/32
>Cable Web: 24/24

>>2683469
Showa
>Attack primarily with your own weapons.

>Engage distant.
Make use of the Flex for some chaser rodeo

>VWES (specify).
Not sure between Remote Koi and Wellbore Drill


Volt
>Attack primarily with the ride chasers+Bright Fang
Gotta keep his cards hidden

>Engage distant.

>Bright Fang
It's simple, has a lot of ammo, and Cable Web is the one we need to tag Spectrod with in an ambush.

>>2683469

Showa
>Attack primarily with your own weapons
>Engage distant
>Basic weapons

Batteram
>Attack primarily with your own weapons
>Engage close
>Cable Web

Meanwhile in a nobler, brighter timeline:

>There's a bright flash in the distance that makes your limbs twitch for a moment.

>There is no thunder.

>A couple of minutes later Commander Anode walks back, the twisted and distorted corpse of Spectrod dragging behind him.

>"Well, that was easy." He pats the SWORDhilt at his waist. "After we drop this guy off at R&D, wanna go hit a repliforce bar? I have a couple old friends to catch up with."

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>>2684027
Not impossible! You'll just need to keep Anode alive in the main quest...

Gonna leave the vote up overnight. Tomorrow I'm off work, so we should move along at a better clip.

>>2684027
Did someone say SWORD

>>2683469
>Engage with own weapons, us distant, Volt close

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>>2683485
>>2683947
>>2684391

You think fast.

“Get close and show ‘em your moves! I’ll cover you!”

“Copy.”

Of course, you say that, but it’s a tense few seconds before you catch a glimpse of them.

You pass a perpendicular road. Three… bumpy-looking Giga Death Rs cross it outpacing you, continuously hoverdashing through the wreckage of a neighborhood. They’re not using a road at all – and with that snatch of visual you can tell they’re not only ahead of you but turning.

“Incoming!”

A screening barrage of missiles makes a path through the remains of a neighborhood. Some of the shots make it through to the other side, but both of you are ready for them. The luckiest missiles on the best trajectory go down with your Melters and his Bright Fangs.

All three smash through a house ahead of you and spread over the road. They’re each covered in five tenaciously clinging Mettaurs – sacrificial armor, clever – and dashing backwards, not just from boot thrusters but their cannon arms, pivoted 180 degrees. That still leaves them with their frontal cannons to fire.

You throttle down and try to turn, but the leftmost Giga Death pivots to keep you on the road. It’s a mobile soft-wall of positioning at chaser velocity – and here come the missiles.

You jump a crossfire; Volt swerves around the third and pushes in. He fires multiple Bright Fangs at #3, puncturing three sacrificial Mets and opening up more armor to hit. You, meanwhile, give #1 a rocket to its left side; by the time it hits, it strikes dead center and splashes two Mets clean off. #2 pivots to aim at Volt with #3 – you calculate fast, select your new weapon and fire to intercept.

The Wellbore Drill barely has time to spin up before you shoot. Three grinder bits shred #2’s missile, leaving Volt to duck #3’s. A stray bit ricochets off one of #2’s clinging defenders.

The Mets rise and get their revenge. The barrage is intense yet over in a blink; there’s simply no way either of you can dodge the hail of what is now ten tiny crossfire shots. You both take a pair of plasma lemons, and so do your rides.

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>>2684545

If that’s how they want it, fine – you spray nine drillbits off three more Wellbores. Giga Death #1 loses two more Mets before the third can duck, but the exposed armor gets loudly chewed by your drills. Missiles crossfire you again –

>[Flex +2]

and you jump both. Volt, however, takes one to the chest. His shields blink, mildly annoyed.

“Meteor. Guard my ride.”

“What?”

Sparks begins dancing over his horns. He keys in something on his Adion’s console.

“You heard me.”

Volt activates Assault Battery. The white elements of his armor glow to shocking yellow as he leaps off his ride and slams into #3’s forehead, hooves first. Lightning cascades over its hull on impact and a spherical burst emanates from his horns; the mechaniloid’s arms flail and it starts spinning out.

An electric aura wreathes your friend and he jumps from the crashing #3 to #2 – which with #1 is aimed at his unmanned, slightly lagging ride chaser.

>[Flex +2]

You catch both missiles, one with a Melter rocket just as it leaves #2’s muzzle and the other with a last-instant Wellbore. Volt’s ride wobbles and starts to veer, but it’s none the worse for wear. Gosh darn it you love your upgraded body.

Volt gets to work. His aura is gone, but he doesn’t seem to need it. One stomp shocks the ride-along Mets clean off – which you swerve to avoid – and he treats the Giga Death’s raised-back arms as punching bags. You leave him to it and focus on #1. Even at speed, one-on-one is simple. Buster rounds, another Wellbore, and one more Melter splat to catch a missile are enough to set it exploding.

Volt finishes with his at the same time. His white goes yellow again as he jumps off and lands hard on his ride. The undercarriage sparks from scraping the road.

“Show-off,” you toss him a thumbs-up.

“Eyes on more,” he points.

The south is moving. Plumes of desert dust rise behind the silhouettes of three Raidens and some smaller unclear enemy shapes riding on a pair of larger… what are those?

“Trucks?”

“Metal Rheas,” Volt confirms. “Like Metal Hawks. Light transports, heavy guns, big—”

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>>2684547
Spiky green lumps burrow out of the road.

>[Flex +1]
>[Armor +1]

“ROAD!” You interrupt.

You hit the anti-vehicle trap head-on. The spikes of some thirty Atareeters, too many too fast to count, ablate the bottoms of your ride chasers. You try to avoid, but you’re going too fast and they’re just too thick. You jump, and so does Volt, as your tickets in explode.

You roll to a safeish stop inside the Yirara Solar Plant, a rather old-fashioned variety that’s just a sea of photovoltaics angled toward the sun.

The swarm of Atareeters digs back into the earth behind you, leaving a big patch of tiny spikes in their wake.

The heavy force is bound to catch you. The pylon stands out at the other end of the solar arrays, maybe two kilometers out. The dust cloud draws closer. You’re well inside Spectrod’s effective range.


>Run to the objective.
>Face the enemies head-on right now.

Select one of each for you and your partner:

>Engage close.
>Engage distant.

>Prioritize the Raidens.
>Prioritize the Metal Rheas.
>Prioritize the Rheas’ passengers.

>Basic weapons.
>VWES (specify).

VWES (you)
>Arbor Wall: 12/12
>Fluid Lockdown: 6/6
>Remote Koi: 12/12
>Wellbore Drill: 18/24

VWES (Volt)
>Bright Fang: 24/32
>Cable Web: 24/24
>Assault Battery: 70/100%

>>2684547
ah damnit, he's going to need as much of that as possible for quick-killing spectrod.

Raidens and Land Metal Hawks, no kidding about the Heavy.

Raidens are only melee and had dash to begin with. I think Volt can take'em. I recall Metal Hawks were waaaaay easier beaten if you GOFAST and kill them first, but I'd really rather not get caught with Spectrod telefraging in. If they still have missiles, I don't think ranged attacks will really punch through into the trucks themselves.

>Run to the objective.

Showa
>Engage Distant
>Prioritize the Rheas’ passengers.
>Arbor Wall for cover against missiles and to stop them from dashing into us.
>Wellbore for grinding through the sea of enemies and missiles

Volt
>Engage close
I'd prefer distant to get to the pylon faster, but he's just much faster at killing things with punches.
>Prioritize the Raidens
>Cable Web
so much for surprising Spectrod. We don't NEED to kill them, keeping them slowed is enough if it gets us to the Pylon earlier.

>>2684564
> seconding

Afternoon things happening soon, but I'll have my phone with me and try to compose on the go. Or at least pre-compose.

You're doing well so far, carved a lot of distance. Losing the ride chasers before the Giga Deaths was possible.

>>2684633
>phoneposting
don't do it man, I've seen like, one dude actually manage lengthy story posts on a phone. You have more threads than him.

>>2684552
>Run to the objective.

Showa
>Engage distant.
>Prioritize the Metal Rheas.
>VWES: Wellbore Drill, Arbor Wall

Batteram
>Engage distant.
>Prioritize the Raidens.
>VWES: Bright Fang

>>2684639
Advice well taken. I wasn't in a good place to write anyway.

But now I am! I'll consider other votes, but writing starts... nnnnow.

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>>2684564
>>2684627
>>2684798

“Thoughts?” Volt asks, lightly enough to count as dry humor.

You turn and start dashing. “Objective. Always objective.”

Volt keeps up with you in long springy strides. “They’ll catch up.”

“We’ll jump that bridge when we come to it!”

The missiles jump you first. Your enormous sight line on their arching approach would make them easy to shoot down if they were aiming for you. Instead they rain far at your backs, blazing a trail for the vehicle assets.

And a firing lane as well, you immediately learn.

>[Flex +2]

Neither of you are prepared for the first hits out of the smoke, but one on each of you is all it takes for you to break off left and weave through the shiny solar panels. You make it into the light cover without another scratch, but you hear the ding of plasma shear against armor from Volt.

“You okay?” You ask.

“Fine,” he grunts. “Closing in. Strat?”

“Same as last. Trucks are mine, Raidens yours, but try not to burn your battery. Zero-five, hard for slow or cripple, then break off.”

“Copy. On your go.”

“Go.”

You both turn on a dime and sweep back to your pursuers. A five-second timer starts in your head.

0:05

You switch Arbor Wall and bring out Gaia Sword as the right Rhea crashes through the solar array. It’s carrying two Victoroid Custom R-series, because of course it freaking would.

Volt opens on the middle Raiden with a pair of Cable Webs at the legs and a quick-switch Bright Fang at shoulder height.

0:04

You lead the way with a Melter rocket, dashjump behind it and lob an Arbor seed. Three collisions happen in a row: the rocket to the front Vic-Pink, the insta-burn of the constricting roots, and you, landing saber-first.

The spinning counterweights wrap Volt’s target tight and the unreturnable boomerang sticks in its shoulder, throwing it off-balance and toppling it to the dirt. Volt moves in.

0:03

Your pile of abuse ends the front passenger. The Gaia Stake spears into the one behind, but only catches it at an angle across its chest. It brings up its cannon arm and blasts nearly point-blank, flashing your shields and catching a seed to the face. The roots constrict and you boot it off the side, leaving you to be sandwiched by two homing missiles –

>[Flex +2]

both of which you dodge with a combat roll clear off.

Volt leaps for the left Raiden. The pilot uppercuts too early and Volt pulls an unbelievable backwards somersault kick, trailing a crescent of bright yellow Thunder Hoof electricity. The impact snaps the Raiden’s arm and stuns the pilot with an electric surge, which is just the start of that Standard Beret’s bad time. Volt completes the somersault, lands in the seat, and summarily punches the pilot’s nose into his ear.