7: Hopping Along
Through the door, Octavia and Axl found a massive single chamber filled with hostile Mechanaloids and a few scattered civilians, spread out on platforms rising up out of pits of acid. "You'd better stay up here with me," Axl murmured softly to Octavia. "The Ride Armor can take the acid, but if one of us fell in..."
"Or you could get me to that platform with the giant turtle mechanaloid," Octavia suggested, pointing off to the right. "There's another ride armor behind it."
Axl blinked in surprise. "...huh. I guess that makes sense." Dashing over, he made the Ride Armor jump as high as it could, letting Octavia leap off onto the platform so she could activate the red Ride Armor, which was equipped with a massive wrecking ball sized clenched fist and a drill.
She made quick work of the mechanaloid before hopping back down. "Now we each have one," she stated simply. "Let's go."
With two Ride Armors under their control, clearing the chamber - and rescuing the civilians - proved exceptionally simple. By inputting 'friendly fire' codes into the two Ride Armors, the shots fired from Axl's blue Armor steered around Octavia's red one, allowing her to take point to smash while Axl backed her up, shooting at the enemies over her metaphorical shoulders.
This proved especially effective through the next chamber, when they were confronted by enemy green Ride Armors which had hard knuckles and a regular cannon to fight with, a poor balance between the specialization of the red and blue Ride Armors. This led to another large, wide open chamber, this one with a solid ground underneath the Mechanaloids patrolling it, with pillars in a circle around the outside of the chamber.
"There might be things at the top of the pillars," Octavia pointed out cautiously. "Either items we could use, or civilians in need of rescue. But we'd need to leave the Ride Armors below..."
"We'll take turns," Axl offered. "When we get to each pillar, we'll see what hostilities are in the area and determine which Ride Armor will stand guard better, and the other one will climb up the pillar."
Octavia smiled widely. "Very clever strategy," she murmured. "But I can add another one. Mechanaloids can't control Ride Armors, and the pillars are spaced evenly so a dash jump could easily clear the distance between, especially mine. How about I climb up and you guard the Ride Armors, switching between as situation requires, while I explore the pillars?"
Axl nodded. "Alright. Lead the way."
The strategy proved successful, and once the pillars were checked and the civilians rescued, the pair were able to deal with all the Mechanaloids that came into the chamber. Eventually, the flow of enemy Mechanaloids stopped coming. What followed, however, was more than enough of a concern.
A child sized Reploid built like a boxing kangaroo - armor colored pink and bronze with red boxing gloves - arrived in a pink Ride Armor shaped like a giant kangaroo. The Reploid cackled like mad as he arrived.
"Who's that?" Octavia asked curiously.
"Vanishing Gungaroo," Axl explained quietly. "He's actually a relatively young Reploid, and his being named Maverick was more due to his disdain for any sort of authority and tendency to lash out in fits of temper than any actual innate hostility or tendencies towards truly Maverick behavior."
Gungaroo, having not heard the discussion over his laughter, turned to taunt Axl. "How do you figure, Axl? Who would've thought I'd turn out stronger than you? I'm not the kid you used to know!"
Axl hesitated, but noticed Octavia jerking her head towards Gungaroo and winking. Smirking, Axl made his Ride Armor strut. "But you're acting like a kid right now!" he called out tauntingly.
"Don't call me a kid!" Gungaroo raged, making his Ride Armor hop up and down in a furious dance. "I ain't no kid no more!"
"Aww, is somebody cwanky cause they didn't get their nappy-poo?" Octavia called up, deliberately exaggerating the tone of her baby talk. Reaching into a pouch, she pulled out what looked like a dog biscuit. "How about you put your big toy away so I can tuck you in? A biscuit, some milk, and maybe even a bed time story if you're good?"
Gungarooa became almost inarticulate in rage as his Ride Armor seized a massive crate and hurled it across the room. "Stop treating me like a kid!" he screamed out. "Why I oughta-"
"Here's a biscuit boy!" Octavia called out, throwing the dog biscuit so it bounced off Gungaroo's head to land in the Ride Armor's cockpit. "Go get it!"
"That's it!" Gungaroo snarled. "You're dead-"
A sparking explosion ripped through the cockpit of the kangaroo shaped Ride Armor, causing it to collapse in on itself. "Huh?" Gungaroo demanded, confused as he jerked the controls. "Move already!"
As he struggled with the controls, Octavia moved. Lunging in, she yanked him out of the cockpit with her own Ride Armor, clutching him tight in the massive fist while pointing the drill hand at his head. "All modern Reploids are shielded against EMPs, so they won't suffer total brain collapse just from getting too close to a highly charged magnet or something similar. Ride Armors, however, don't have any personality data to protect, and thus aren't built with such expensive hardened circuits. That's why I felt safe in hiding a remote EMP mine in that biscuit I threw."
Gungaroo flailed madly in her grip. "No fair! That's cheating! Cheater cheater pumpkin eater!"
"I'm rather fond of pumpkin, actually," Octavia observed idly. "Axl, there's a stasis choke in my bag, next to the stasis cuffs. Press the goad to the back of his neck, and it'll lock his circuits while you get the stasis cuffs on him."
"Roger!" Axl confirmed, leaping out of his Ride Armor and grabbing the equipment. It quickly became apparent that it was equipment Red Alert used as well, as he showed no confusion in their functionality. "Why'd you have an EMP mine biscuit, anyway?"
"They're actually for Classic," Octavia explained. "After applying his Adapter to Varia's Ultimate configuration made it so he absorbs electrical energy, and he really likes it when the mines go off inside him. Finds it tingly, apparently."
Axl shook his head in bemusement as they beamed back to HQ, one captured Maverick in tow
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Well... Classic apparently likes the explosion of flavor in his mouth.
Poor Gungaroo, I was hoping he could be a nice adorable Reploid(even though he is) but seriously? The TFS biscuit reference? Seriously?
Yeah, I remember all of those taunts. Didn't hear X's version of him taunting Gungaroo, though, or if he was even taunting
7581669 Have a biscuit!!
7581681 oi vey
On one hand that joke works better if the target resembles an animal, on the other, bait and beat just seems cruel.
Another enjoyable chapter. Good work.
So he's basically Ram, before her character development?
vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/hyperdimensionneptunia/images/1/1f/Ram_Victory_Portrait_(DLC).png/revision/latest?cb=20151120234757
Normally I'd take the time to call out the obvious ploy. Instead, here's a clip from At Wit's End... sorry, it's the best cideo I could find.
Wait a second. Could this be a TFS reference that's actually... SUBTLE?!
7581659 just like me
(pinke) (from flutershy 9 father's story)
7581812
You mean unlike...that other show?
7581827 No, I mean from "... the same exact show". I mean, you used the "Sure-You-Can" joke a month or so after it came out. You did the same with the "As hard as you can" joke with Papyrus at a longer time interval. The next thing you know, Sigma's going to brag about destroying Penguin Village-
{Tatsurou: What?}
That town Arale's from that was seen briefly among the towns Cell visited.
{Tatsurou: Ah.}
-despite the likelihood of getting his ass handed to him far more embarrassingly than Octavia & Pals (TM) ever could.
But here, you managed to use a joke that came long before that and was used in a fitting context, and I can respect that. Kudos.
7581866
...and I was making another joke from the video.
7581871 Yeah, I know. Eggman's an easy character to make fun of in most iterations, after all.
"... Did you just throw a mothaf*ckin' DOG-" *boom*
Is this like a human eating pop rocks and soda????
Nice chapter, glad to see Axl and Octavia are making such a great team and were able to capture the little kangaroo brat. Let's see Cici put the terror of her into him and scare him into behaving.
7581943
...something like that, yes.
Looks like they took care of that walloping wallaby.
Guess this boss really took the biscuit.
I'm betting Gungaroo is hopping mad.
Was that phrase a reference to when Ratchet from the Transformers movie after getting zapped?
7581947 So I guess you can say that Classic eats EMPs for breakfast, then.
7582355
Eeyup.
7582362 In the most literal sense. Also, Do you bet I can eat mentos and soda?
Alternative chapter title: Hopping Mad
Honesty tqo on one really makes this damn easy, but considering the hate sink X7 was, I ain't complaining.
Pumpkin is a pretty good flavor.
EMP? As in E.M.P. or something like that?
7609964
Yeah...
LOL
God damnit Octi! DBZ Abridged Vegeta did that to!
I always found it weird that Axl and Gungaroo had the same voice actor doing nearly the same voice. If you look away from the screen during those taunts it makes the dialogue extremely confusing.
But you're still a Little Joey.
heh, one bratty maverick bested, hopefully more can be stopped non lethally, well hopefully for axl anyways.