Part 5
"Yeah-hah! Show them what you can do!" Spinning his tails and lifting off to avoid a chucked hockey stick from Enby, Tails hollers with gusto as a wave of meandering clay critters closes in on his robotic amalgamation. "Technique Shift, go!"
Bits flip in the adaptive processors taken from Metal Knuckles, and the remoldable nanomachines of Scaran lengthen the amalgamation's limbs, spikes modeled after Metal Knuckles' fists emerging where once Scaran had its claws. Motors whir as the spikes spin like drills. Borrowing Metal Knuckles' knowledge, and striking its leg upon the ground, the amalgamation charges forward.
Like an explosive bowling ball through pins, the robot plows through the little clay creations, its spinning drills and sheer size allowing it to shatter them and trample right over the fragments into which they collapse. As the robot steps over the mess of clay, its feet pass over a playing card, tearing it in half, but the shopping basket that emerges proves too small to trip it up and gets batted away, Hekki forced to slink into the shadows as Scaran Knuckles barrels towards her in a bid to open a path to Satoru and Wexlyn.
With the Magiblot out of the way, the robot picks up speed, its drilling spikes sparking as it pushes its nanomachines to their limits. It closes the gap rapidly, Satoru even clenching his eyes shut as he braces for Revival to activate so he can get them both out of dodge. But Wexlyn keeps his eyes locked on the robot, his gaze steely as he faces potential death with dignity…
A thundering crash forces Satoru to fling open his eyes, the young man spotting Scaran Knuckles just feet away… face slamming into the ground as it completes its fall. A woozy Michele lands beside him after being kicked away, with Enby going down with the robot, caught by its leg and pinned underneath it.
"Not perfect, but it worked," Wexlyn comments, pleased to see that the combo of Michele materializing underfoot and Enby leaping in to kick a leg had indeed successfully tripped the robot. Vector, having circled around, now leaps into action, hurling himself towards Scaran-Knuckles. He wraps his hands around the leg pinning down Enby, grunting as he wrests the leg's connecting plugs free of their sockets against the resistance of nanomachines. With one mighty heave, he rips the whole appendage off and hurls it away.
While Enby flips into a handstand and chucks the ground to launch himself away, Hekki reemerges and shoves Vector down flat on the ground. The crocodile looks at her with some mixture of confusion and annoyance… until the guns sound off, two bullets whizzing over Vector's head as he realizes he's caught in crossfire. To 4 o'clock, Fearless Fosdick, and to 10 o'clock… also
Fearless Fosdick?
Before he can puzzle out the mystery of Fearless Fosdick and
Fearlesser Fosdick, a resurgent Metal Scaran propels itself using its remaining leg, crashing into the crocodile as he tries to stand up. Hekki moves to intervene, slamming a fist into the robot and completely crushing its metal-nanomachine-blended arm with her metal punching powers, but before she can whale on the robot, a gust of wind blows her away, picking up her beret with it.
"Gadzooks! My old ally, you've returned?" The Fosdick at 4 o'clock looks pleased as
Klonoa walks up beside him, pausing his shooting for a moment even as a bullet whizzes past his ear.
Klonoa lowers his outstretched arm as Fosdick inspects him, the whirlwind pouring out from his wind ring dying down. Fosdick strokes his chin, mulling over this turn of events. Klonoa had fallen long ago… but who was to say the young lad hadn't simply sprung back up? After all, he often did! "You should consider joining the force, young… animal… thing… Tenacity goes a long way!"
Across the battlefield, though, the other
Fosdick looks none too pleased by this new development, glowering at the newly-arrived
Klonoa. Instinct tells him that it isn't the real Klonoa, too-long out of the fight to have returned. There are only two people in this fight with that kind of mastery of disguises, he reasons out…and only one of those two could have possibly realized his method here. That fake
Klonoa must be…
Klonoa joins Fosdick in repositioning, the pieces all falling into place as he watches the other
Fosdick perfectly mirror their movements across the battlefield. The two Fosdicks take a shot at Enby as the rabbit tries to leap up and kick Tails, but their bullets go long, and
Agent 47's bullet cuts right between Fosdick and
Agent 30.
So that's why 47 had joined up with these two, 30 reasons to himself as he blows Enby away with a whirlwind.
Setting up Fosdick for death in "accidental" friendly crossfire, huh? He was always quite skilled at arranging accidents. But if he thinks he was going to pull ahead in their competition so easily, he has another thing coming…
As Vector pins Metal Scaran to the ground, a returning Hekki resumes her punching, joined by Satoru while an exhausted Michele recovers beside Wexlyn. Enby manages to ground Tails, the inventor suddenly finding himself having to twirl out of the way of a flurry of chucked golf balls. Spotting an opportunity to fire away at Wexlyn, the Fosdick and
Fosdick both take aim, but Wexlyn drops to the ground, having anticipated the attack. No wind follows these shots,
Agent 30 slipping away as both Fosdicks take the time to reload.
A new set of bullets in his gun, Fosdick raises it and takes aim at Enby, a bullet tearing through the rabbit's ears - but only one. The other bullet, from the opposite direction, instead soars past Enby, continuing on until…
"Return fire!?" Fosdick looks over his shoulder as
47's bullet passes through his chest, putting another hole into his body. Despite the direct hit,
47 doesn't lower his gun.
He can tell that the unusually-hardy Fosdick isn't dead. He curls his finger around the trigger, waiting for Fosdick to train his gun on someone again… until the remains of an utterly scrapped Metal Scaran are hucked into the path of his shot by Vector, forcing
47 to reposition.
As he does, Fosdick begins take aim once again, ready to continue with the case. He feels someone tap his shoulder, whipping his head around in anticipation of
Klonoa coming to his aid, but when he sees the figure that is actually behind him, he can't mask his shock.
"Ch-CHIEF!?"
Extending a hand to help Fosdick up,
Agent 30, disguised as the
chief of police, walks around to put himself in front of Fosdick. Across the way,
47 grumbles as
30 gets in the way of his shot.
"Chief, what are you doing here? This is the most dangerous mission I have ever faced. With all due respect, sir, if I am to continue to protect civilians l cannot guarantee your safety."
"Never you mind that, Fosdick,"
Agent 30 answers. "We've discovered that this entire operation is a feint. As this fight distracts the best officer in the precinct, the masterminds are preparing to launch an assault on their real target."
"A feint? What crime could possibly be more vile and far-reaching in its consequences than organizing an underground fighting ring of this scale, chief?"
"They're knocking over a library, Fosdick, and we need
you on the case!"
"A library?" Fosdick sounds skeptical at first, but he muses on the thought, speaking aloud to himself. "Hmm… Yes, they say knowledge is power… and I did find it suspect that the mysterious robot whose participation hadn't been announced had such unusual books on his person… Wait! That's it, chief! They're preparing an army of book-powered robots! This tournament was the testing grounds for the prototype and a diversion so the dastardly ne'er-do-wells could abscond with the books from the library!"
"My god, Fosdick, you've broken the case wide open! We need you to depart for the library right this minute! I'm reassigning you to preventing the theft."
"Yes, chief, you can count on me! I'll make sure those villains don't make off with the property purchased with the tax dollars of our upstanding citiz...ens… But, hold it. Chief, what about protecting citizens here?"
"That's what I'm here for, Fosdick, to free you up for your new mission."
"Chief, this is dangerous. I cannot abandon you here!"
"Fosdick, only you have the skills to apprehend those thieves! Now go, I say! I'm reassigning you and issuing you the pay raise you requested, so move out!"
"A R-R-R-R-Raise, sir?" Fosdick stammers out.
"That's right, Fosdick, a whole 50 cents an hour raise if you complete this assignment,"
Agent 30 responds with feigned urgency.
A bit shocked, trying to hide his joy and keep a straight face, Fearless Fosdick salutes the disguised
Agent 30 and raises his voice to the sky. "I, Officer Fearless Fosdick, resign from battle!"
A snap resounds through the sky as Corey accepts the resignation, and a glow descends upon Fosdick as magic protects him from causing or receiving any further harm. With a skip in his step as he finally, finally gets that coveted raise, Fosdick walks off a happy man, heading in the direction of the library without taking into account that he'll need help getting out of the arena.
As Fosdick walks away,
Agent 30 shoots a look across the battlefield - where Wexlyn's alliance has circled a defenseless Tails - and nods at
the Fosdick across the way. Rivalry sparks between the two agents as they regard each other with a begrudging respect. "Good try,"
30 mutters, earnest though knowing he can't be heard.
"You always did excel at tricking them,"
47 concedes in much the same way, frustrated at having his opportunity to kill thwarted. He bows his head, collecting his thoughts…
Thoughts on how he'll still pull ahead in their competition.
With a turn on the balls of his feet, he whirls around from facing
Agent 30 to facing the surrounded Tails. Every route of the fox's escape has been cut off by Wexlyn's team, he observes, looking over the entire group as he searches for the weakest link.
A gunshot rings out as
47 presses the trigger, his bullet flying true now that he's not intentionally throwing his aim. It finds his mark, and Tails drops to the ground as
47 dashes away, putting a point on the board in his contest. It wasn't personal, merely strategic. Had he shot at anyone in Wexlyn's group, he would have had the rest of the alliance converge on him.
As is, with Tails down and
Agent 30 retreating too, Wexlyn's group takes the moment to regroup, Satoru even grabbing the torn-off remains of Enby's ears.
While they regroup, elsewhere, an unholy neigh echoes…
"Cover your ears!" Koohitsu shouts at her allies as she grabs Kooshigo and leaps out from under the shadow of the looming Stallion. Kay Faraday and Polly Geist comply without hesitation, both of them backing away and slapping their hands over their ears as a chorus of a thousand damned equines cries out.
As the Stallion rears, its forelegs kicking wildly, its rot and wretched tentacles lash out, deflecting many of the cubes flung at it. A few manage to slip through and find their mark, smacking into the creature's head, but it endures the blows unfazed even as its ribs fracture. A great shadow falls over the pinned-down anomalous horse, Koohitsu looking up to see MBKube in a compact, rectangular form.
Thwomp-ing this thing won't work, she thinks to herself even as MBKube comes crashing down. The Stallion whinnies as it gazes skywards, its mighty opponent completely filling its vision, and when MBKube collides with the ground, rattling nearby buildings and causing crashes to resound down the street as water mains burst and traffic lights fall, the horse vanishes beneath the assemblage of cubes.
Koohitsu thrusts a hand out to the side, her silent signal stopping her allies from approaching as
MBKube soaks up the warm and gooey ectoplasmic ooze splattered beneath it. She scans the area, her allies getting the memo and following suit, but not a soul in the area can see the Stallion.
Which is precisely what lets it materialize behind Kooshigo, charging through the air at a full gallop, its hooves
clomping against the asphalt despite tit floating meters above the road. Picking up on the disparity of sight and sound, Kooshigo retreats into his shell as the Stallion runs over him, even his sturdy shell laboring beneath the creature's hooves with worrisome cracking. A glancing blow from the Stallion's hindlegs sends the withdrawn Koopa careening away, Koohitsu instinctively leaping to try and intercept but only succeeding in crashing into the ground as he spins off. Kay glances down at her tracking watch, working out Kooshigo's trajectory, and the Stallion, not even slightly slowed, barrels forward. It brings its hooves down on top of a bewildered Polly Geist, sending her crashing into the ground. Upon impact, she simply poofs away, exploding and leaving meager ghostly vapors rising up from where she falls, and so too does the Stallion.
Their ally and their opponent vanished, Koohitsu and Kay exchange a glance, Kay pointing to her watch and then to the spot Polly had landed. The Koopa nods, and the thief then points her down a sidestreet. An understanding reached, the pair break apart, Koohitsu chasing after Kooshigo, and Kay going off to find Polly, the ghost still showing up as a blip on her watch despite her apparent demise…
Down in the subsoil, two things are apparent to Polly Geist. One, the darkness. It's all-consuming, the earth above filtering out even the tiniest scraps of light. Two, the crushing weight of the Stallion, dragging her through the earth underfoot, easily bypassing her intangibility. Maybe this was how the Stallion escaped from MBKube, going under the earth - or maybe not. In her position, it's even harder than usual to tell whether or not the equine is truly there.
As the stench of a leaking sewer begins to tickle her nose, suddenly and mercifully she feels herself shooting up, grabbing onto her opponent and getting yanked up into a disorienting display of dazzling lights and signs.
"There it is, Pyro!" Before she can get her bearings, a voice calls out, and she spins around just in time to see another alliance descending upon the ethereal beast. A peppering of fireballs from the source of the voice - a flaming Dry Bones skull - seemingly pins the Stallion in place. From one side, a shot of pacifying energy from Boo1282's Darkmoon Sceptre strikes the horse, and from the other, a poison-coated Timothy crashes into it.
"I say! Unhand me, rapscallion!" The Stallion, uncowed by the joint attack, simply launches its tendrils at the Fancy Phantom and the Spiny alike, trying to pry open the curled-up Timothy and holding the slippery Boo in place.
"Yaaaaaaaaaaah!" Cosmo Neko leaps right into the tendril holding Timothy, swiping his claws at it but only managing to slice the tail of the implacable entity. His surprise attack faltering, he tries to send a surge of electricity through the tendril that wraps around him, but if it even enters the Stallion, it does nothing to keep it from putting the squeeze on the cat.
With three of his allies caught in the grasp of the Stallion, Wheezlie springs into action, rushing over to… the recently-emergent Polly Geist, striking up a conversation with the ghost. "My oh my! Not since the
Kremlington Katalogue ceased publication have I laid my eyes upon so exquisite a cane!"
While they converse, Specture Striker makes an actual move to save his allies, hurling a bone at Cosmo. The femur conks the feline square on the head, leaving Cosmo with a nasty bruise - but also imparting enough force to push him through the tendril's grasp.
As Cosmo lands in a befuddled heap, Pyro burns through ingredients plucked from his cap, reversing the horse's ability to ignore gravity and sending it crashing to the earth. A creature whose true nature they do not know, they cannot know that the horse is truly unaffected by gravity, which necessarily means that they do not not know it is affected by gravity, and thus now it is.
"Bear witness to the power of antilogic in action!" Pyro exclaims as the horse hits the ground, but the Stallion seems none too bothered by its change of state, power surging through its hooves as they make contact with the earth.
"Explainer, now would be a good time to get explaining," Pyro calls out as the Stallion begins to charge their way, still holding two of their allies hostage!
"Oh, yes, of course!" The disembodied voice cuts in over the striking of hooves on asphalt. "Let me explain. The truth about the Stallion is that, despite what it may appear to be, it isn't really-" A horrified whinny drowns out the Explainer, and the Stallion releases its captive opponents as six horses spring out of the ground, encircling the entire group.
Specture Striker takes a concerned step back, summoning his scythe and glancing between the newly-arisen equines and the Stallion in their midst, equally wary of both. His allies, on the other hand…
"Fancy seeing you here, Fancy Phantom," one of the horses says to Boo1268 as he recovers. "Do tell, have you had any adventures recently?"
"Indeed I have, my good sir. Not so long ago, I paid call to the Dark Bloo Inn, and…" Boo1268 begins, launching into a tale.
"Excuse me," another horse interjects, appearing between Wheezlie and Polly as a disgruntled Timothy glowers at it, "but I overheard your discussion of that gorgeous cane. You must tell me where you obtained it."
"It's a long story, boo. How much time do you have, and what does the name DeMorge mean to you?" Polly responds jovially, unaware that on a nearby rooftop, Kay Faraday has just arrived to check on her.
"What's going on here? What are these things?" Kroop demands, watching with utter confusion as Cosmo jumps atop one of the new horses - or tries, anyway, the horse backing away and leaving him to fall on his face.
"Let me explain," chimes in the Explainer. "This is a distraction. If you examine these six horses more closely, you'll find that they lack a backside. I believe the Stallion did this to preven-"
Again the Stallion interrupts the Explainer, but not by way of a vocalization, this time. No, this time, the horse's tendrils converge above Pyro, one grabbing his hat while the others reach into empty space, tugging and pulling across the boundaries of logic and space-time as they wrest free the Explainer. Now cottoned on to the trick of the horses, as glitches in reality reveal a screaming mouth, the others leap into action.
Wheezlie rushes through the mass of tendrils, only to pass through them entirely harmlessly. Boo1268 slings a magic spell that slams into the side of the Stallion, managing to singe its head in the process, and Specture Striker slashes at its neck with his scythe, severing one of the beast's legs. Polly, deciding she knows who to cast her lot with, whips up a knuckleduster for herself and charges in with a punch. Cosmo Neko concentrates and murmurs, quite successfully ripping bones out of the horse with his telekinesis.
It's Cosmo's addition that makes the horse buck, something finally properly rattling the unflappable entity. It desperately tries to kick away its assailants, nailing Cosmo and sending the cat flying into a tree. Polly ducks into a combat roll and slips underneath its leg, the three-legged Stallion nearly stumbling as it fails to remember it's under the effects of gravity. Specture Striker keeps slashing at it, riddling it with gashes, but he fails to silence the scream of the Explainer, his physical presence in this world ripped apart by the tendrils of the panicked Stallion.
Explainer, KO!
"Nooooo!" Kroop cries out as Pyro backs away, giving up on getting his hat back in favor of dropping back out of range of the horse's kicks. "How can we reveal its true nature now!?"
"You need someone to give you an answer? Got you covered, boo!" Polly waves her hand to grab Kroop's attention (unwittingly getting Boo1268's, as well). With a flick of DeMorge's cane, a light shoots out from its tip, but it spreads outwards and fades away rather than condensing and materializing, Polly tapping into another one of her summons and calling forth the Narrator.
"
Investigate the Stallion," she commands.
"'sup?"
"i'm not doing that," comes the reply, Polly's eyes opening wide as the light of her summon reappears in the sky, flying back into her cane as if someone had set the VHS tape of reality to rewind.
"i'm not letting you do that either, lol" Banana Man says, his voice reaching across the battlefield as he snaps his now-fully charged Mechanical Hands and takes control of the six decoy horses surrounding the group. "see, 'cause i waited forever for these things to charge, i'm not letting anyone solve any mysteries and weaken them"
"whoops. i shouldn't have told you how to weaken them."
"oh well"
"go my horses."
At Banana Man's command, the six decoy horses, resisting all attempts at de-summoning, charge the surrounded group. One crashes into Timothy, knocking the Spiny right through Specture Striker and causing the Dry Bones to collapse. Another tackles Wheezlie, with a third bodying Pyro and knocking Kroop right out of his hands. The fourth takes on Polly, the ghost actually managing to knock it over with a shoulder-check. A fifth gets blasted apart by Boo1268, while the final decoy horse charges right into the Stallion, forcing it back a few steps before the much larger horse brings a hoof down upon it and breaks it apart.
All throughout the battlefield, Banana Man's voice reaches the remaining fighters, and the funky fruit turns the tide of battles…
Kooshigo and Koohitsu, currently trying to fend off a seemingly-traitorous
Kay Faraday while keeping an eye out for a skulking and increasingly erratic Shia LeBeouf, find their battle interrupted by the sudden descent of dancing red numbers from the sky. A three falls and begins grooving as it delivers a roundhouse kick to Koohitsu's chin, the pouring numbers mobbing Kooshigo and
Bunny Ditto to keep them from aiding her.
In the park, Wexlyn, locked in combat with MBKube once again, watches with concern as a giant hand construct squeezes a writhing Vector. With Michele dazed on the ground, he tells Satoru to try punching a dusty Enby, scattering a cloud of dust that manages to wedge its way in-between MBKube's gaps… to no effect. Hekki manages to land a thrown card right in a gap in the wrist, but before movement can grind the card and break it, a false Grande Cavalli drops down, scattering Wexlyn's alliance. Sensing the Chaotic Apparition and the wealth of energy within, MBKube drops the hard-to-squish Vector in favor of snatching up the summoned copy of a fallen foe.
Over by the harbor, Box Guy covers up Mizzlebip's vision by setting her up with a new fashion statement - a cardboard box hat! She had managed to find a way out of the maze of shipping containers she had been trapped in, but discovering Zhen had been eliminated had completely robbed her of morale. Not until Box Guy and his allies had approached had she tried to get back into the fight, the alliance trying to dislodge her from the docks as she struggled in a four-on-one fight.
While the Quantum Five and Bhigwhig work to prepare a boat, Teller keeps
Brock at bay, having cottoned on that there was something suspicious about the Pokémon Trainer packing heat. Bhigwhig calls for his allies to get in the boat while the getting is good, and into the boat they hop…
…just in time for the entire harbor to be immobilized, the water stilling completely and the defeated Big Eelser Generboom V2 even visible through it. Bhigwhig tries to launch the boat, and its motor strains, but even at full power its engine can't push through the stasis-locked water.
Only a few entrants escape Banana Man's meddling - the four Bin Brothers guarding the bridge that he's on. Hidden among them as a second
Red Bin,
Agent 30 keeps a low profile as he searches for other weaknesses of Banana Man, not exactly seeing any mysteries to solve around here. Kay Faraday, the real one, also escapes by virtue of staying in the shadows around the commercial district and watching Polly and company struggle.
"this ultimate power stuff's real cool" Banana Man's boast reaches everywhere at once, every fighter coming to the same horrifying realization that they're at Banana Man's mercy.
yeah I know it's the preshow he literally can't mess stuff up yet but STILL
