Scene #7648: Eight District: Old Donk Bridge

Owner	Pose
Operator	The bridge to Old Donk is a very classical one. All old brick, with support pillars extending all the way down to the seabed below. An architectural marvel, built in the days before suspension bridges. It's even still lit with gas lamps, as opposed to the hanging electric street lights you see everywhere else. But no traffic crosses this bridge. Rather, hordes of Enfarcerbots mill about on it, spinning in circles, bumping against the railing. They never stopped being a thing or anything, but they've been laughably ineffectual ever since their systems got compromised at the police station. "Look at these buckets of bolts," Cranky says dismissively, smashing one to bits with his cane from atop DK's back. "Back in my day, mooks had pizazz! A unique, memorable design! This lot just slides off the brain the moment you're not looking at them." DK just grunts in that way all Gen Xers and millennials eventually learn to do when dealing with baby boomers. Actual engagement is death. As you all walk along the bridge, more and more of the Enfarcers begin slamming against the railing, over and over, harder and harder. Until some of them begin toppling off the edge. More and more of them go tumbling off. Even Cranky seems perturbed at this. And then a big hand smashes through the bridge behind you. "WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA! Fools! Now you have nowhere to run!" the familiar voice of Wario booms from below. A massive structure made of Enfarcerbots put together to create the vague shape of Wario's own head floats up, with Wario himself sitting atop it in that floating chair of his. "BEHOLD! The true power of the Enfarcerbots! To come together to create the ultimate (personal) defence system!" Two more structures come up. A pair of hands, also made from Enfarcers. It's a big head that controls two floating hands, as is mandatory. "I shall now squish you, like the bugs you are!" One of said hands comes down, palm first, to try and squash the group!
Tina Natsumi	"I dunno. these are pretty archetypical.. Archetypal? They pretty much nail the 'evil robot' shtick, I think." Tina disagrees with Cranky as she rides atop her Persona (a bipedal mechanical lizard), taking carefully aimed shots at Enfarcerbots with a revolver and less-aimed shots with a submachine gun to just blast them down. "Of course... Yeah, can't disagree with forgetting them after they're out of my sight. Pretty weird, right?" Unfortunately, Tina's audience hasn't given her enough practice in not engaging with the boomers. If anything, having to answer all those chat messages probably just makes it worse. At least the bots going nuts on the railing and the back of the bridge being smashed gives her something else to focus on. Godzilla crouches in place to maintain its balance while Tina rolls off, turning around in mid-roll to train her guns on... Wario's head in robot-legion form. "Uh. That's... That's somethin' alright." She wrinkles her nose at the big Wario head, tilting her head and shrugging after a few moments. "I mean, it's not bad-lookin', but it's... Kind of uninspired, ain't it?" A beat. "Better than a gross angel devil thing, at least." When the hands come down, Tina just goes right in. As Godzilla gets forced down by the palm, it buckles under the larger force, but not without roaring and blasting a white stream of fire into that same palm to try and do more damage to it than the Persona and Tina are taking. Tina herself, meanwhile stays underneath the relative safety of Godzilla to just keep firing at the giant Wario head with small arms fire to try rattling the whole thing.
Gawain	Gawain has learned to tune out Cranky Kong, as they walk across the bridge. Just smile and nod, Gawain. As the Enfarcerbots are knocked off and form Wario's mecha, however, Gawain is moving. The palm comes down to squash him. It barely doesn't get him flattened, but he's sent flying backwards from the shockwave, dinging his suit and causing him to roll. Once he's on his feet, he's otherwise fine, though. "Wario! You're under arrest!" Grabbing his sword and armor, Gawain flicks a wrist, igniting the sword aflame. Then, running forward, he leaps upwards, and moves to slash the sword through the connecting Enfarcerbots of one of the hands, making it ineffective and hopefully breaking it apart!
Alexis	Alexis has for the most part just been watching the robots toddle around ineffectively, wishing she had some popcorn, while the Porygon-Z floating over her shoulder emits irritated bleeps and blips. > These walking trash cans almost make me embarassed to be an artifical intelligence construct. < "Don't waste your bits." Alexis watchs one toppled over the railing. "They're not worth the disk space to hold anger against them..." Then another. Then another. "I'm starting to think this is a bit more that bad pathing programmi--" She's interrupted by Warior's obnoxious voice as the giant head made of robot mooks rises out of the water, followed by matching hands. "Ooookay, that's mildly disturbing." Then the hand slams down! And against something briefly as Glitch projects a Reflect screen around the two of them. Which then pops out from between the giant metal fingers like a stray marble in an attempt at grabbing the whole cluster, sending TRainer and Pokemoin alike tumbling across the bridge a bit before stopping. "Thanks, Glitch. Keep more of that support ready," Alexis mutters as she gets to her feet, dusts herself off, and plucks a pokeball from her belt. "Fortunately I brought something suitable for dealing with wayward machines. Go, Polarity!" She throws the ball, which pops midair to release a surge of energy that manifests itself into the same of a large stag beetle like creature, with long angular pinchers forward and electrical static reverbing in the buzz of his wings as they spread from beneath the blue outer shell. "Vikakakakakaaaaaa" Alexis smirks as she points. "Charge Beam!" Sparks crackle back and forth between the two pinches like a a jacob's ladder, and then it looks more like a futuristic laser as the electrical blast erupts from between them while it's buzzing towards the floating mechanical head!
Liza Grier	Liza, being some Generation-who-gives-a-fuck-by-this-point, has not learned about baby boomers. She does, also, have opinions on mooks. "Depends on who's designing the uniforms. It's not like you ever remember the faces, but I can draw an ERT or death squad outfit from memory. Can't say the same about security goons out in the ass end of nowhere." She herself is attempting to conserve ammo for the sheer number of them, and already knowing they'd been e-magged back at the station, simply using her energy sword to kind of wade through them near Donkey Kong. "You bullshitting?" she replies to Tina. "They don't even have a skull design on them. What kind of classic evil robot doesn't have a metal skull, or at least a skull print? The crotchety old bastard is totally right. They cut corners even on the visuals to save money." It's an incredibly asinine debate, but the robots are barely even fighting back, and the bridge is really long. "Don't mind the bridge though. Kind of classic. Before it's all outsourced to the lowest cost buyer and slathered in shitty prefab concrete before it starts breaking down in five years and costs a fortune to maintain. Built by people who expected to use the damn thing." And then, Liza finds out something new about herself: That she has an inexplicable, near instinctive dislike for any configuration of a big floating head and two floating hands boss battle. Especially one that opens with an evil laugh. It's like it's in her blood. She pulls up her e-shield (because everything in space needs to start with an e-) and holds it over herself to diffuse the impact, bracing her arms into it and widening her stance to absorb and distribute the shock. There's an instant where her arms give a few inches, and then suddenly her stance becomes rock solid and incredibly hard to budge, like trying to slap the surface of a pool way too fast. Her EVA boosters light up just after, propelling her sideways out from under the giant hand, sparks flying from the shield contact and her boots against the bricks. The moment she's free, she dials in one of the big guns that she never has any reason to use; a big, beefy, ominous black and menacingly crackling blue ion gun. Specifically designed to ruin the day of anyone trying to pilot a mech around a space station. It fires big, scary blue beams with discharge immense amounts of electricity and radiation, on top of melting holes through things. It's not fun.
Staren	Staren kind of missed this whole thing, but... a tyrant locking innocent people up doesn't really need more reason for her to fight! Also... "Well that's just shoddy worksmanship!" Staren opines at the enforcers. "Even if they're made of junk, imagine how much more effective they'd be if they actually coordinated! And... didn't walk off bridges..." Staren adds, almost unable to believe the mecha-mooks are THAT bad. She isn't even bothering to shoot them, since they aren't attacking and that just makes junk that has to clear off the bridge. She's got a plan for that, it's on its way... And then... Nowhere to run?! Staren whirls at the... hand? And stares at the absurdity of this construct. The giant hand raises to crush her, and there's a distant sonic boom, and then a crash of metal on asphalt... And when the dust clears, a giant mecha is standing over Staren, beam shield flickering and sparking to hold off the hand. The cockpit opens and Staren rides a zipline up to it, climbing in before it closes up. The mecha shoves itself free of the hand, sweeping railgun fire and a salvo of minimissiles across the giant Wario head, just trying to spread damage to lots of the bots making it up. "Not only are your robots junk, but you can't even use 'em right! Quantity could make up for quality, but look how having to be made up of small units means none of them can have the armor, power, or weapon carrying capacity this... giant YOU would have if you'd used the materials to make one BIG robot! Don't worry, I'll show you how it's done before the Paladins take y6ou away!"
Operator	"It is not uninspired!" Wario insists to Liza. "It's a CLASSIC! Would you say a cool sports car is 'uninspired?'" The decidedly unsportscarlike robot has its hand blasted by nuclear flame, severing the ring finger and opening an ever-widening gap in the palm. "Under arrest?! WAHAHAHA! Good joke, Sir LOSERlot! No jail cell could ever hold WARIO!" Whether that's him commenting on his ability to break out, or his size, is unclear. Either way, Gawain melts through the cheap armor on the hands like butter, severing the thumb and spattering liquid metal like blood. "Look at this little girl, bringing actual bugs against me! Go back to wrestling beetles with your little friends girlie!" the fat Senator jeers at Alexis, right before Polarity gives his robot a shave by trimming off the zigzagging moustache evocative of Wario's own. "WAAAH! Oh, I see. You're one of those obnoxious Pokemon trainers. Can't even pick one of the popular ones huh?! Gotta be quirky and different?!" Liza's own laser bores through the metal Wario's other moustache, leaving it clean-shaven. It doesn't really do much to improve its features. If anything, they look worse. "WAAH! Oh, it's you. You like the bridge huh? Well good, I can use it as your burial mound!" Staren's salvo of missiles and sweeping fire opens up many pockmarks in the great metal face, somehow making it look even uglier than its pilot. "Oh, what do you know?! You talk like someone who doesn't know the true value of junk! Just you watch, as I-" "Oh shut up you fat tub of lard," Cranky says. DK is leaping at the giant face with Cranky riding his back. As the big ape slams his fist against the robot's nose, Cranky rams his cane deep into it's eye, both being rewarded by a shower of sparks. "WAAAAAAAAH! Now my handsome nose is crooked! But... not for long. BEHOLD!" All across New Donk City, Enfarcerbots take flight. Drawn by functioning systems and by magnetic power when functioning systems no longer exist, they fly into the giant robotic Wario head and reform the damage parts. The moustache reforms with a gleam, the hand gets its finger and thumb back, the pockmarks reform. It's like its taken no damage at all. "WAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Cheap Enfarcers mean many Enfarcers! Many Enfarcers mean many materials to repair any damage you can do! Let's see who lasts longer; my glorious WINNINGSMILE, or the bridge you all stand on!" The hands curl into fists, and begin slamming down again and again, cracking the supports directly below, and making this part of the bridge begin to sink dangerously. This is going to have to be a running battle, or a long drop awaits everyone!
Alexis	Alexis frowns as everyone opens up on Wario Head... and much like the fat man at the controls the contraption just tanks through the majority of it. "Gonna need to do something about those defenses. Glitch, can you scan the thing?" > Yes but it's hodgepodge construction makes it difficult to delineate any potential weak points. < "Hmph." Polarity is buzzing around the giant head, and it almost sounds angry at the remarks too. Alexis on the other hand, she's been at this for too long, the taunting and insults just slide off her back like mud off a Quagsire. Instead she smirks a little, and shoots back. "What's wrong? Afraid of how humiliating it will be to get beat up by something -other- than a Pikachu?" > Warning! Warning! Incoming units! < Glitch interupts her, though thankfully the Porgon-Z holds off on any obnoxious siren soundclips. Though rather than attack, the new arrivals are being pulled into the Warior Head to repair the damage being done. "Okay that is going to be annoying." Then it starts smashing the bridge. As it's buzzing around in the air Vikavolt is unphased, but the cracks forming as support structure is shaken loose does not inspire Alexis to sit still. She grabs Glitch, turns, and takes a hop-step to deploy the collapsable rollerblades from her boots, and starts skating in the other direction as the flying beetle follows. It works to escape the initial collapsing street, but the cracking and crumbling is catching up fast. Then a booming roar can be heard, and something briefly glimpsed leaping across the support pillars of the bridge. But it's not clear what it is until the large lion-bear of a pokemon leaps to the street, grabs Alexis by the back of her hoodie with his jaws, and flicks his head to toss her onto his back between the rock-like ridges even as he takes off again with surprising speed. Despite his bulky appearance Entei is quite fast and agile, easily outpacing the crumbling bridgework for the time being. The Legendary Beasts are known for their ability to run, after all, only catching a few bits of flying rubbing in the flanks as he does. "I don't know how you know when to show up, but I'm glad you did Wildfire." Alexis digs her hands into the great beast's mane to hold on, then looks over her shoulder. "We need to force that thing back before it destroy the entire landmark." ~Very Well~ Broad paws dig in to brace himself as Wildfire skids to a stop now that they've got some lead distance, turning as he does. Flames lick from the corners of his mouth, followed by another roar as he expells a huge ball of glowing golden flame hurtling towards Wario's contraption like a flaming cannonball!
Tina Natsumi	Tina and Godzilla get up as the hand relents however briefly, and she takes a moment to recollect herself while shaking the her arms off to get some of that fight-rust off. "Afraid I ain't really a fan of sports cars, either. All they got is speed and then what? A little scrape and the door comes right off. Nah, I'd rather have something bigger and sturdier like this here." She slaps the side of her Persona lightly. "This bad boy can fit so much fire in him. Why don'tcha take a closer look?" Laughing as her allies get to work tearing the machine apart, she squints at the first signs of the incoming Enfarcerbots. Tina takes a few potshots at the approaching robots, but there's far too many of them for her to reasonably shoot them all down in time. ".. Ah, crap. Your thing takes all that metal in, huh? Alright.. Plan B!" Despite shouting her intent, the banging of the bridge and its subsequent sinking has Tina scrambling to not just fall right off. Noticing that the maneuver would just tire her out, however, she sends Godzilla over to try catching a hand again to try and slow the giant head with hands down! ... Except that just means getting beat up by proxy of her Persona. It's not a pleasant feeling by any means, and Tina coughs and hacks a few times while Godzilla itself shows signs of bruising and cracking on its metallic parts. "Okay... not my best plan. Time for Plan C!" Instead of running again, she jumps right onto Godzilla, and the Persona starts spewing a foggier breath beneath it at an angle rather than straight at Wario's machine. The force of the breath propels the pair backwards in a rather stupid looking display of 'flight', largely to avoid falling right off that bridge. As Godzilla keeps circling around Wario, however, it keeps going higher and higher, eventually going high enough that the steaming breath shifts back into steel-meltingly hot plasma to try and melt all that metal together into an agonizingly hot ball around Wario.
Gawain	Gawain impacts, but the hands practically regenerate. He grunts at 'Sir Loserlot'. "At least riff it off Gawain!" But as the fists come slamming down, Gawain leaps backwards, rolling, and avoids every hit. A running battle...he's not good at that. He could use Sol Dragon, but he's not ready to unveil it fully to the Watch. So... GInstead, Gawain leaps on top of one of the fists, and uses it as a platform to leap again towards the main body. He moves to plunge his sword into it, trying to mountain-climb Wario's massive Enfarcer mecha! With a sword. Which starts carving its way through. Still on fire. Hopefully he doesn't fall.
Liza Grier	"Of course a goddamn sports car is uninspired. It's what every rich dickhead drives to show everyone what a rich dickhead they are. It's just conformity plus money." Liza replies, even if that hook isn't really meant for her. "Not that I can say I've ever seen anything like whatever the hell that is supposed to be." she admits, without chagrin. Trying to take subsequent blows Captain America style proves to be a mistake. Though the layered protection that Liza uses to deal with theoretically worse can stand up to the task for a while, the bridge can't. One particularly hard blow causes the bricks to give beneath her feet, causing her footing to collapse, her defensive stance to wobble, and the following blow to send her flying, her personal shield visibly crackling around her body as it gets close to failing. Of course, she hasn't lived this long by letting anyone follow up on her openings, so she maintains the automatic, unconscious presence of mind to engage her back and waist microthrusters in alternating directions, backflipping her over so that her gravity soles can catch the intact road and stop her. But now she needs to let her gear recharge. She disengages the nearly overheated e-shield, turns around, and begins running. Like actually kind of stupid fast. Probably just Gawain or mecha-piloting Staren are going to get ahead of them if they feel like retreating at full tilt. This seems a little out of character, until she double taps the detonator app in her wrist comp. Plastic explosives go off somewhere on that hand. Cue: "Nani?! When did she--?!" and a flashback of being punched a lot, followed by "--Back then!" "Sir Loserlot has a ring to it though." she admits through the radio.
Staren	Staren scoffs. "YOU don't know the full value of junk! You could use it much more efficiently..." But despite her opinion on Wario's inefficiencies, she still looks a bit alarmed at the realization that the meta-construct's true endurance is far beyond what she expected. Her mecha is equipped with flight thrusters and deftly moves back as the bridge collapses -- external cameras and drones feed into a computer that simulates a 3rd-person view so she can see hazards behind her. As Alexis is unperturbed by the insults, Staren wonders, "A pikachu is a cute little electric rat, right? Wouldn't that be more embarassing to be beat up by than a giant bug that shoots energy beams?" She focuses on the Wario-bot once more. "Well... still... it would be even tougher and stronger if you'd just built one big robot!" Staren comments, still slightly rattled. She keeps up the fire from the arm-mounted railgun just to pile on attrition damage while she tries to think... Shoot down the incoming robots? No, that's HARDER than destroying them once they're part of Wario's machine, and a waste of ammo besides, since heavy weapons can easily go through a lone enforcerbot. Interfere with the remote controls? But her sensors show it's using magnetism when those fail, anyway. How can she interfere with magnetism? Back at Grand Dorado, the rapid prototyper goes to work. Cables roll up. Thrusters are welded into place. Plates are fixed together. "Aaaand reposition the target to sync up with the Star Hawk..." Staren mutters to herself. The mecha holds out its left hand, and... ...Honestly? It looks underwhelming. It's a mecha-scale taser. "Okay, 'Senator', that was a pretty slick trick! But I've got tricks too... it doesn't take a scientific genius to figure out how to counter you... I just make it look more impressive!" Staren holds her hand beside her face and winks in what she hopes is a cool pose. Several rocket-propelled metal spikes fire out, trailing cables and trying to attach to various parts of Wario's construct-of-constructs. The mecha's movement stutters slightly and the cockpit lights dim as the vast majority of the reactor's power is channeled through the cables in rapidly-shifting sequence, pre-programmed to shift electric current through the meta-construct in a pattern Staren hopes will disrupt the magnetic field pulling in enfarcers!
Operator	"Wah?! What is that dog doing?!" Wario exclaims as an Entei appears to pick up Alexis. With all his attention on it, he can't miss it when they about-turn and begin charging up a pretty big fire blast. The WINNINGSMILE drips, juking the flames by inches before flying under the bridge, and knocking out another support pillar on its way. "WAHAHAHA! I think you should put that thing down, it's eyesight is failing!" But now he is being orbited by Tina riding Godzilla in a very absurd way. "Girlie, I gotta say, I'm embarrassed by association right now. Get a jetpack or something!" His tone changes quickly however as the steam condenses into plasma and begins cooking his seat. Protected by the Elect-O Barrier, he doesn't burn, but he's sweating in there. "Cut it out! The AC is on the fritz!" Gawain leaps onto the robot, boring into the metal with his flaming sword. "Hey! No passengers!" the Senator shouts, raising a hand to swat the knight away, only for said hand to get blown to pieces by Liza. "Wahhhhh... stupid astro-nought," somehow he pronounces it in a way that you can tell he's calling Liza a zero, "doesn't know luxury when she sees it!" As Staren fires a gadget invented on the spot, intended to violate the magnetism that holds the WINNINGSMILE together, bots begin to fall from it, while others being pulled in begin to fall out of the sky. "Hey! Quit it girlie!" His Elect-O barrier is also put on the fritz by this attack, forcing him to climb down and deal with it personally. He leaps from his chair and ground-pounds off of Gawain (it stinks) to get to the darts and grab them. But before he can, DK is on him once again, fist cocked and flying right at his face...! Only for Wario to raise a hand and power sink the punch, blocking it entirely. DK, up until this point, has been a demolishing powerhouse. Once something was in range of his fists, it was destroyed. So why can this fat bureaucrat actually block his strikes?! Cranky takes the chance to smash him across the face with his cane, but the Senator's crooked smile will not be denied. With a shove, he pushes the apes back, and rips Staren's darts out of his machine, shocks incurred be damned. "Now, I think you could all stand to PICK UP THE PACE! WAHAHAHAHA!" The WINNINGSMILE bunches up, reformed hands pulling into the head as it slams onto the bridge and begins rolling after the group. It takes up both lanes as it advances, collapsing the bridge behind it as it advances!
Gawain	Gawain gets groundpounded off of, causing him to fall backwards and onto the bridge from both the horrid scent and from the attack. He lands on his feet, even as the bridge is being crushed, and digs his feet into it. "Alright, you've asked for it, making me deal with that scent!" Gawain leaps one last time, as high as he can. He goes flying into the air. And then, he comes flying down, foot first, straight for Senator Wario's face. The sheer force of the shockwave is enough to damage several of the Enfarcers with the blow, so even if Wario is unaffected, his machine probably won't be. "JUSTICE KICK!" He says, but times it for afterwards, on accident.
Tina Natsumi	"You don't know much about classic movies, huh?" Godzilla keeps belching those flames for a while longer until it runs out of steam and is forced to land with Tina back on the bridge to catch its breath. Or rather, Tina needs to catch her breath. Projecting fire that whole time without taking a single breath is hard! It's just her luck, then, that Wario's WINNINGSMILE turns into a rolling deathball of sorts, forcing her to bear the brunt of getting run over while the Persona builds up energy in its spines. The only small bit of relief Tina gets is the fact that so close to Godzilla means that when they get run over, it's at a slightly less painful angle for herself with Godzilla getting run over a little bit after she does instead of taking the roll entirely on her own. She leaves her Persona to keep charging, however, and instead climbs onto a hand to get hurled up and over at Wario's machine to try catching up with it. Spotting Gawain coming down roughly at the same time, Tina too shouts in unison: "Justice Kick!" Except she's coming down fists-first.
Alexis	Well so much for the fireworks. Though like the experienced Trainer she is Alexis takes the ill effective move in stride. Especially when other people manage to lay on Wario's contraption while he's trying to make fun of her and her Pokemon. "I don't know. He's not the one being constantly blindsided while failing at battle quips." They've already got a good lead on the situation, threatened more by debris and collapsing bridge parts than the actual ball, that forces the quick-pawed Entei to constantly change directions to deal with, while Vikavolt weaves and winds through the air. Though Alexis doesn't really like having to trying and coordinate a fight on the move like this. "Okay guys, I'm open to suggestions, seeing as direct firepower didn't work so well." Glitch pokes his semi-disembodied head out from under her arm. > Then mayhaps it is time for a more subversive approach? What can we all do besides fighting? < "Despite your name, Glitch, you may be onto something." She glances over her shoulder. "Wildfire, I have an idea." She points over at a brick structure. "Polarity, stick the supports for us!" The beetle looks at her oddly for a moment, but then spews out a stream of sticky bug silk from his mouth to snag one support pillar, than the one opposite of it. Alexis ducks down on his back as Wildfire grabs onto suspended strands with his mouth and quickly backs up, pulling it as far as he can with his strength before it starts to resist too much. Which is Alexis' cue to get off his back. "And FIRE!" Wildfire lets go and spins around, just in time for the silk spread to recoil like a giant rubber band, catching him as it does so. Which results in hurtling the Legendary Beast fast into the air, faster than even he could run on his own, like a giant slingshot! At that momentum those big clawed paws are going to leave a mark if and when he forcefully collides with the mechanical monstrousity.
Staren	It works. It works! IT WORKS! Staren's jubilant laugh sounds more like a MAD CACKLE as Wario crawls over the WINNINGSMILE while she fries some of its composite bots and makes others fall out of the sky! "Aaaah HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!" Wario eventually pulls enough spikes out to stop the ongoing effect, but Staren was ready for that! She retracts the cables, spikes whipping about and resetting in place in the launcher. And then the thrusters fire again, embedding the spikes in the WINNINGSMILE once more, as it... Rolls towards them all? Staren's joy drains from her face only an instant before, by the cables, the Star Hawk is YANKED down to the pavement! It lets go, but it's too late, the WINNINGSMILE rolls over the mech and katamaris it before it can stand! Inside the cockpit, Staren grips the armrests with white knuckles as she's spun AROUND and AROUND and AROUND and surrounded by the sound of creaking and crunching metal! Fortunately she's strapped in place so she can't actually be thrown from her chair... Struggling to hold down dinner, Staren is struck by an idea which is probably? good, so she does it. It's hard to think while spinning around like this! 6_9 > [ARM WARHEADS] > [ALL] > [TIMER:05 SEC] > ARE YOU SURE? [YES]/NO Command executed successfully. > [DUMP AMMO] > [ALL MISSILES] Command executed successfully. A whole lot of explosives are dropped really fast, hopefully trapped within the WINNINGSMILE, and then Staren struggles to break free and pushes the throttle to maximum as the Star Hawk breaks free from the giant robot katamari, speeding away before the explosives detonate, silhouetting the mecha in what is hopefully a dramatic freeze frame! Cool Girls Don't Look At Explosions, but Staren's somewhat ruining the effect by looking panicced and gripping the armrests with white knuckles, but no one can see inside the cockpit, so let's just IMAGINE she's wearing sunglasses and looking calm and collected, okay?
Liza Grier	"Weird thing about that. I know luxury when I see it. And I definitely see too much money and too much bullshit with too few people to tell you no." Liza replies, clearly with only half a mind on 'witty repartee' and the other half mostly focused on active combat. "It's because I can see that much 'luxury' that I'm feeling good about blowing it to pieces. Be glad I didn't have anything bigger on me just yet, for as long as that stays true." Reaching a safe enough distance, Liza calls down her anti-materiel rifle --not her favourite, yet somehow consistently relevant-- from orbit(?) with the rapid-fire crunch of spent and ejected telecrystals, puts one hand on the ground to skid around to a stop and drop prone facing the way she'd come. She connects her optics to the scope, switches on the meson vision, and sights Wario's cockpit in the giant floating robot. She fires one, thunderous shock into the flickering electo-o-barrier, cycles the bolt-- and stops dead in abject, gut-dropping confusion-mixed-dread when she sees Wario actually take on Donkey Kong hand to hand. And then the WINNINGSMILE (god damn that name) begins rolling. Liza remains sighting it for a few seconds, intending to time a shot through the Enfarcer bot mass to hit the cockpit during its regular rotation, but even she can see she's not going to make one. Nerves of steel are enough to fire once more, common sense is enough to bolt right after. Dialing her personal teleporter, Liza becomes a bolt of appropriately blood red light and zips down the bridge, leaving behind a big old canister that clinks menacingly on the bricks behind her. It makes a burbly, fizzy sound, and then spews translucent goo all over, before rolling off the bridge and plunking into the water. A dude? Actually much worse. Space lube.
Operator	"Wah?! I'll have you know that I have a pleasant musk, reminiscent of raw onion and garlic!" Wario replies to Gawain, affronted. The JUSTICE KICK collides with the Elect-O shield, causing an arcing cracking that brings the rolling bot to a stop! Combined with Tina's own JUSTICE KICK (actually a punch), the shield goes from tinting yellow to red. This momentary power struggle is the perfect moment to get attacks in. Wildfire is launched like a cannonball, claws rending into the depths of the machine and the impact pushing Wario back. Staren's missle massacre begins slamming into the WINNINGSMILE, again and again, ripping apart its structure. Lost in the smoke and flames, perhaps even Tina and Gawain might miss their feet and fists going through and colliding with soft facemeat. Wario's shield is broken, and his face is sore, but he's not giving up. The bot begins rolling again, only to collide with a puddle of lube and slipping off the side of the bridge. "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa..." the Senator's voice cries out, getting smaller and smaller by the second. "... hmph, was that all he had?" Cranky asks, mostly himself. "Guess he wasn't everything he was cracked up to b-" A massive weight slams through the far end of the bridge, now in sight. Wario now bars the way to Old Donk from within the smoking remains of WINNINGSMILE. "Hah... you may have broken the Elect-O shield, and my WINNINGSMILE... but I'll see to it that you all fall here! Not one of you will live to see the cumulation of my greatest plan!" WINNINGSMILE starts clawing up the bridge, getting closer and closer. Everyone has their back to a long fall now, and Wario is tearing up the only path forward. Safe ground is fast becoming a treasured resource.
Gawain	As the bridge starts being torn apart, Gawain, recoiling back from his Justice Kick, is injured by the debris and clawing. Even so, he keeps fighting. He stomps his feet into the ground again, but this time, he spins the sword around him. A miniature sun begins to rise. "Excalibur...Galatine!" As the sigils finish and the sun fully rises above him, Gawain jabs the blade into the sun. It is replaced with a beam of sunlight. Before the rip and tear can come again... The blade moves to destroy the hands with roaring fire, and then start tearing up the rest of WINNINGSMILE with rapid swings and slashes! The sunfire is intensely hot, and Gawain's on a rampage. "Your WINNINGSMILE...has been turned upside down!"
Liza Grier	Liza peers over the edge of the bridge as Wario vanishes into the deep, dark, blue killfloor distance, falling out of the level forever as is the eventual fate of all ario characters. She shakes her head slowly, and kicks the can of space lube. "Every single time." she mutters to herself. "Every single* time." she repeats. Why the fuck this always works at least once, she will never understand. But the dump truck is back, eliciting a Combine-aggro-noise gasp of explosive exasperation from behind her mask. "Just stay down you obnoxious setpiece bastard! This is phase four already! How many times do I have to teach you this lesson?!" Despite that eminent aggression though, Liza Grier is someone who has such a successful career because she is survival-minded first and vengeance-minded third, and doesn't even try to contest bridge-tilt autofall hell. She respects the final phase boss battle danger by fucking off out of there, engaging that teleporter one more time, this time dropping back down in a flash of red on solid ground, close to the WINNINGSMILE itself. Specifically, now that the Electo-O Barrier is down, Liza has one thing mind. The neck seals on her helmet disengage with a hiss, she tears her helmet free, letting her hair loose, and red lines crawl up her face and towards her eyes as she focuses on Wario's heartbeat and seeks to seize and arrest his circulation with the 'purple' part of her. Being where she is, she's out of view of the rest, and so Liza intends to use this particular trump card while she has the chance. Of course, given Wario's apparent freak strength, she doesn't expect it'll be so easy to choke him out and crush his heart, but if nothing else it'll completely trash his ability to freely pilot the giant robot (made of robots) from cumulative constriction, numbness, and reduced oxygen flow, and cause immense physical stress.
Tina Natsumi	With the punch landed square on the WINNINGSMILE's and even pushing through into Wario's face, Tina's feeling rather energetic about how this is all going! She even manages to leap right off the machine when it slips off the bridge, although there's a brief look of concern when he just keeps on falling into the apparent abyss. For better or for worse, though, he gets right back up with a heavy slam on the other end of the bridge. "Oh, sh...! Thought you were a goner, but you're still up and kicking. I'll give you points for persistence, at least." She sighs, then starts running towards the WINNINGSMILE again as it tears the entire landscape (well, bridge) apart in its wake. Against her better judgment, she takes those slashes and slams head on, gritting her teeth through the mounting blood loss while letting her (Persona's) natural healing and toughness help her weather each impact against her. "But your election campaign is over. Now it's time for the President to take over!" As if on cue, Godzilla finally finishes collecting all that power into itself, its spines burning with white-hot plasma and crackling with electricity while it stomps towards the charging robot. It bellows another mighty roar as it gets nice and close, then fires off a blinding beam of atomic fire breath into the WINNINGSMILE up close!
Alexis	That Staren warned (somewhat panicly) about the missile barrage she's initiating is a good thing. After he's tore up part of the machine Wildfire leaps off and behind it, leaving it's bulk to shield him from the explosions for a moment before her runs... and is back at Alexis' in a matter of moments. Something that chonky shouldn't be able to move that fast, but that's Pokemon for you. "Okay you two, this is getting a bit wild, and one of you isn't even a fighter," Alexis remarks, recalling both her Vikavolt and Porygon-Z back to their balls. Then turns her attention back to... a barely functioning but still quite dangerous machine. "Oh for Arceus' sake, that thing is still up?! Worse yet, he's still talking..." Ponytail sways as she shakes her head. Wario is tearing up the bridge, sending debris clattering down wildly as he closes in. Wildfire protectively steps in front of the less durable (but don't say that to her face) human to take the impacts, growling deeply in annoyance. < We need to put an end to this, now > Alexis smirks. "Yeah. He tries too hard with the trash talk. How about to show him some real sick burns?" The Entei erupts into motion again. Almost literally, as his entire form ignites with a blazing bright aura, even as he's charging towards the frantically rampaging remains of a machine. No clever trickery this time, it's just one big and fast bodily blow. With a body that is living up to that 'Wildfire' name with the intensity of a volcano's force burning through his entire form in an effort to help drive what's left of the WINNINGSMILE away from the group!
Staren	The Star Hawk hovers in the sky, Staren looking down where the WINNINGSMILE fell. "...So, the individual units can fly when he summons them, but the combined unit CAN'T? Why... couldn't he just disperse the swarm and have it reform up here, then...?" Staren wonders. Oh, he's back. But now that they're at the end of the bridge, that means he's almost out of enfarcers to replenish with... And he's isolated himself too! Since she can fly, finishing off Wario will be a piece of cake, now! Staren grins. Oh wait, not everybody can fly. And she's in a mech. Stories of heroic robot vehicle pilots as the first in and last out, protecting others with their machines, spring unbidden to her mind. The Star Hawk lands in front of the others in a defensive posture, activating its beam shield and holding out a hand to try and grab the WINNINGSMILE. "No! You're the one who'll go no further!" She gets rolled over again, metal screeching and straining and buckling, shards of broken armor falling to the bridge, but instead of getting katamari'd, this time she tries to hang on and turn around, straining to slow the WINNINGSMILE from behind, giant robot feet trailing sparks as they scrape across the bridge. She deploys the pylons, but they just smash through the bridge and get bent up as they're dragged through the concrete. She used all the missiles. She could warp in more explosives, but that might destroy the only place her allies have left to stand. If only she had a closer-range attack... Another memory strikes: The secret of making a certain type of sword was shared with the Union's OTHER premier mechanic, and not her. Staren wanted a mecha scale one. Couldn't she do that much for him? But he never got it. It was stupid, anyway. No better than weapons from her homeworld, but in those earliest days Staren was obsessed with finding solutions from other worlds. But she didn't learn, did she? A pair of sufficiently advanced androids had weapons she thought were better than anything else and practically salivated over. Idiot. IDIOT! No fancy weapon will ever be the be-all end-all. It's about using the right weapon at the right time. And right now, she just needs a ton of damage in melee. The rapid prototyper grabs a mecha-scale blade and makes a slight adjustment. Still trying to cling to the WINNINGSMILE with her left hand, Staren holds her right -- The Star Hawk's right hand, high in the air. There's an instantaneously-brief dimming of light and a CRACK as air is displaced, and the mech is suddenly holding an oversized sword. There's a cross-grip attached to the hilt, turning the hilt into a sort of under-the-arm guard and aligning the blade with the way the arm's weapons are pointing. The edge of the blade blurs with a high-pitched whine, the vibrating edge ALSO shaking an invisible high-frequency energy field running along it tuned to shred robot armor and monster flesh. Staren swings it down, trying to cleave an opening in the WINNINGSMILE's back, while the forearm railgun fires full-auto into it!
Operator	It's a last, desperate gamble. The Star Hawk grabs the WINNINGSMILE from behind and begins stabbing, slashing, and shooting it repeatedly. At the same time, from the front, Gawain begins hacking and slashing with his sunblade, melting down all the remaining metal. Accompanying the sun is atomic fire, Godzilla breathing plasma into the giant face. Liquified metal issues from that eye Cranky stabbed, as if like tears as a whole half of the machine melts. Wildfire bores into the other half, similarly melting it down into slag that burns through the asphalt underfoot. "Rrrgh... MOVE you stupid thing!" Wario snaps, mashing the controls frantically. And it is at this moment that Liza, having hung back, seizes his heart in a psychic grip. "GGHHHK!" The Senator gasps. As she holds it, it beats with a frightening amount of vital force. Somehow, she gets the sense that she could do this for a whole hour and he'd be fine the instant she let go. But in this moment, it's enough to convince him to give up. His chair ejects from the WINNINGSMILE as it collapses into a puddle, sparks flying as the last Enfarcerbot gives up the digital ghost. The Senator begins flying away, as Cranky leaps after him, using his cane as a pogo. "Get back here tubby, and fight like a man! You swung at the last true villain! You don't get to run away now! Get back here and take your licks!" The geriatric ape takes to the air, getting close to grabbing on to Wario's chair. And the hand of WINNINGSMILE, no longer floating, comes down upon Cranky Kong, slamming into him, and spiking him off the bridge. DK gasps, and runs to the edge to look down at the clouds below. No good. Cranky was struck with such force that he's already vanished. No chance to leap after him now. Wario looks over his shoulder and grunts. "Well, I guess my last act as Mayor was his execution! WAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" He zooms off towards that hideous, chrome tower that pollutes the Old Donk skyline.
Gawain	As Excalibur Galatine ceases, and Gawain desummons his blade. He's about to move after the Senator, but the Senator flees and... The last hand of WINNINGSMILE knocks Cranky off the bridge. Gawain drops to his knees, raises his hands in the air, and screams. "CRANKY KOOOOONNNNGGGGGG!" The gorilla spirit within has been fired up. Gawain is now serious.
Staren	Staren's swing follows through as the WINNINGSMILE finally melts, posed dramatically for a second or two. Then the vibro-blade shuts off and the mech, damaged as it is covered in scrapes and dents and with armor plates missing, stands tall and heroic... And Wario runs while spiking the geriatric monkey-man. Staren winces. Her mech walks over to Donkey Kong to peer down at the clouds. "So, as I understand it, your grandfather is a tough old bastard who's been through a lot and survived. You really think he won't find a way to make it out of this?" She tries to sound encouraging, while discreetly sending down some drones to follow up. If they don't find a body, he must be alive! That feels like how this works.
Operator	DK looks over the railing for a long time. He offers a muted nod to Staren as she tries to explain that Cranky could have survived. But his heart's not in it, and that's obvious. His hand comes up and pulls off that cheery red tie that always hung from his neck, and turns to look at the Old Donk skyline. Not at the shining chrome eyesore made by Wario, but the Jumpman Building, where his grandfather attained his notoriety all those years ago. And with a fierce, angry gleam in his eyes, he throws the tie to the ground and strides off on all fours. In this moment, all of New Donk City shivers, but they don't yet know why.