Thus far the Mizar Ants have been very supportive of seeing this through and have fought off a metric ton of enemies on their own. Sure the Body Harvest enemy fleet has been hounding them from the start, but now they had the Cerebrate Zergs, Protoss Separatists, Terran Dominion, Star Wars Empire, Tyhrranoids, Terminators and several other gaming realms worth of stuff coming down on their heads.
Honey B. was standing next to Mr. Bumble; they were watching the space behind us on radar because goodness knows we didn’t lose fifteen or more space bound armies that easily. It was around the time I had an idea.
“Oh, oh… can I suggest something!” Derpy finally had an idea after all the crazy stuff that’s been attacking them and now they were actually nearing Planet Clancer, she had finally thought of something.
All the Mizar Ants that had pledged themselves as being under the rule of Derpy turned to give her their undivided attention. She has done some amazing stuff to keep the S.S. Anubis entirely intact, not to mention they so far lacked any real casualties because of her. Despite the silly manner in which she presented herself they saw her as their leader and it was starting to slowly turn into a cult.
“Well go on, you’ve yet convinced the entire ship of your brilliance.” Honey just couldn’t believe the manner in which Derpy could manage to get them out situations as much as she got them there in the first place, especially when it came to asking for directions. Even when it wasn’t her fault she strived to keep up her bubbly happiness and optimism that they’d survive whatever the hell they’d meet up with next. The entire ship had yet to pledge loyalty to the pony and were almost on the verge of doing so much to Honey’s everlasting amusement.
“Well… can’t you, I don’t know, send out a signal for help from only good people to hear to help cover us as we go to this Planet Clancer place? I mean once we get there we’re going to have to go through all those things as we leave if they’re still following us or managed to find out where we went. So we might as well have someone helping us out with that.” It was around this moment that all the Mizar Ants slapped their foreheads at Derpy’s question. Since they were usually ant-agonistic enemies they tended to sit on channels that attracted the worst kind of attention when it came to calling for help. Well now it was mostly known that it was half their faults they kept running into trouble.
The captain Mizar Beetle simply rolled his eyes and pointed to one of the Mizar Ants who opened communications to a hero related channel but didn’t say anything as it just had a thought. It vocalized that thought in a dialogue box to Derpy that heroes might not be willing to listen to them given that enemies usually don’t have good histories with any heroes.
“I’ll take care of that.” Vela said moving up to communications, a hero would most likely get the attention of other gaming heroes especially when you have a running truce with your enemies. Vela figured she might even invite some of the Mizar Ants to some Mario golf later. “This is Vela, anybody out there? This is Vela on the S.S. Anubis we are in need of some help out here, I repeat this is Vela, is there anybody out there? We are in need of some assistance.”
“Assistance you say, this is Fox McCloud of Star Fox in the Great Fox, what’s the problem? You Jet Force Gemini guys are one man er… sorry, ‘one person’ armies. Can you now please stop staring at me like that Krystal? Anyway what’s the problem?” Fox was sipping some coffee. So far the transport and combat gig was intriguing as nothing of vague interest happened, until now that is as there had been no violent runs through entire enemy fleets or anything. This may very well make his trip more interesting and he was willing to aid someone if it’d get him off of his duff.
“We kind of need help getting to Planet Clancer and leaving it mister Fox, we kind of made a huge mess… I just don’t know how things could go so wrong, even my interesting times curse isn’t usually this bad.” Derpy had suddenly taken Vela’s place much to the annoyance of the video game hero, but she let it slide as the pony had the most pull around the entire cargo ship and did not want to start a fire fight in a room full of pony loyal ants with itchy trigger claws. “We’re just here to help my friend’s rescue our other friends and we’ve been kind of picking up a lot of enemies along the way.”
“Do tell, who are your friends exactly that you’re here to rescue and help?” Fox was interested because the S.S. Anubis was an enemy character cargo vessel, yet it sounded like they had a childlike character that he’s never heard on board before.
“Oh, well there’s Banjo and Screwball, we’re here to rescue a kazoo! Honey could tell you more about that, it’s about time for me to eat a muffin anyway. If I don’t eat one I get really cranky and things start catching on fire, then I’ll end up scaring all my new friends and I don’t want that.” Derpy got off the communication station and allowed Honey to take a seat to relay some more pertinent information, while the pony sat off to the side enjoying a blueberry muffin.
It was quickly found out that, Canadian stereotype Banjo Two-eh was onboard the Great Fox and has yet to get a call from his sister Khronozooie Two-eh planet side. Now they had a full scale assault and not just an aerial backup force waiting for Khronozooie’s call and as usual it was only a matter of ‘time’ for the file two bird.
In the midst of the chaos of Clancer Empire City, Banjo looked around the pillar he took cover behind and saw the berserk roaring Cerberus Alpha rip a Clancer in half with its jaws turning it to dust.
“Well it’s certainly doing a lot of destroying, but it’s not exactly destroying that energy field generator thing. What does that thing do exactly?” Not that the commentary from the pony in the backpack was bland, but Banjo admitted Lyra had a point. Banjo needed to figure out a way to further the Cerberus Alpha’s attention to the energy field generator which was the size of a building.
“Well Ms. Heartstrings it main function is creating energy barriers around the city as well as powering quite a few facilities. We need to bring it down so my sister can get out of where she’s being kept. Once she’s free I bet she’ll be all kinds of angry. I think I have an idea, guh oh… whoa close one.” A missile flew by Banjo’s face, the fact that Cerberus Alpha was still even using its weapons systems gave him an idea as to how much Khronozooie tampered with it. In its game it tended to stop using its weapons system after it did its transformation and Lunar would usually have his infinite ammo machine gun bouncing around the boss battlefield.
Banjo studied the large cylindrical building the intricacies of its structure for a brief moment staring over the angles, ledges and the way it was constructed to basically be a large heavily armored battery shaped building. A spark flashed in Banjo’s eyes, he smiled and had a good plan that he knew Kazooie would be proud of as he turned to the Cerberus Alpha chewing on ride armor that no longer had a pilot.
“Hey what are you doing? This doesn’t seem like a good idea, I mean who walks towards a giant killer metal thing.” If she wasn’t panicking, Lyra would have noticed a faint wisp of a smile on Banjo’s face as he walked out from the pillar looking towards the large robotic dog.
“Lyra, please be quiet, I’ll introduce you to some real humans after this is all said and done. I also might need your help with some stuff soon so get ready to use your telekinetic ability, but only when I ask for it.” Banjo noted that Lyra instantly shut up and even made a squealing noise of joy, he could even feel her nodding her head from the red backpack on his back.
Banjo started slowly walking towards the Cerberus Alpha and he started to pick up speed and was soon running straight at the mechanical beast that suddenly took notice of his presence. Three rapid beeps were heard and Cerberus Alpha found its face slammed to the left and then a second later to the right as Banjo threw another punch then followed it with an uppercut to the machine dogs’ chin.
Cerberus Alpha was dazed and knocked into a standing position on its hind legs as Banjo went to squat down, Lyra felt something strange overtake her body in the next moment. Soon she found her horn alongside Banjo’s shoulder ramming itself into Cerberus’s belly knocking it onto its back. Lyra went to say something only for Banjo to place a paw over her mouth as he turned and started to run around to another side of the energy field generator.
“Don’t worry we’ll be fine.” Banjo stated gently without hesitance even as Cerberus Alpha roared and gave chase to them around the corner its relatively large size filling Lyra’s vision. Banjo kept running as the machine was two gallops away, then one and then… Banjo tucked and rolled off to the side causing Cerberus’s head to follow him to the right as it slammed straight through a pillar.
The machine quickly stood back up on its four legs and with a twist saw Banjo running towards another pillar. It charged straight for him when he stopped and crouched in front of it.
“What are you doing, it’s coming right at us!” Turning her neck around Lyra saw it open its triangular headed maw as it lunged at them, then her entire world flipped and slowed down.
In the middle of Banjo’s back flip Lyra watched as the Cerberus Alpha’s eyes widened comically as it slammed through another pillar. Banjo landed on his feet throwing his arms up with a flourish.
“I wish Rainbow Dash was here, because that was awesome.” With a sigh Lyra was getting homesick again, she came back to the present noticing Banjo was heading towards another pillar. It took a moment for the pony to notice all these pillars were partially supporting the large battery shape structure with random catwalks, doorways and other indents leading around and through the glowing building. “Your world is really weird, who builds buildings like this?”
“Yeah well, I think the enemies designed this based on Super Mario Galaxy, either that or something in a Metroid Prime vibe.” He was pretty sure Lyra wouldn’t know what any of that was and he could see the confusion on Lyra’s face when he looked back at her as he ran to the next pillar and stopped a short distance from it. He was waiting for Cerberus Alpha as it stopped to rip up a Reploid.
After a moment it started after Banjo again, who turn and jogged to the pillar and didn’t squat down and there was no way he’d be able to pick up speed to roll out of the way in time. As such Cerberus Alpha thought it had him this time. Only to be proven wrong when Banjo jumped at the pillar and wall jumped off it to grab a ledge on the side of the building.
“I doubt the bears Fluttershy knows can do this kind of stuff, they only do juggling and riding unicycles... then again they really did need that day job to feed their cubs.” The pony riding backseat to Banjo was clearly impressed with the incredible feat of acrobatics he was doing.
“I’m so glad you’re amused.” Banjo said somewhat sarcastically pulling himself up onto the ledge, he quickly ran along it and jumped up to another indent between two walls leading a fourth of the way up the building. “Quick duck into the backpack and get me a badonkadonk!”
“What in the world is a… forget what I was about to ask, I’ll see for myself.” The minty green and white colored pony ducked into the backpack as the Cerberus Alpha glared up at Banjo who gave it a sheepish smile. “Is this it?”
Lyra had never seen something so strange, a plush of a frowning white rabbit that reminded her of Angel tied into a long metallic device well whatever the case she floated it out for the bear to grab onto.
“Yep, thanks for the help Ms. Heartstrings.” Banjo grabbed the missile with the rabbit tied to it, the Kazooie’s think alike when it comes to a penchant for collecting explosives. He knew she had to at least have one after seeing her Outrunner.
“Please, just call me Lyra.” The pony whined as she watched Banjo start shaking the missile. “What are you doing?”
“You’ll see.” The missile started to expand in Banjo’s grip and after it got large enough he stopped and looked back to Lyra. “Could you hold onto…?”
A large thud sounds interrupted Banjo and looking behind him Cerberus Alpha had jumped and clung to the side of the building and clumsily tried to swipe at Banjo just falling short, it’s eyes lit up and fired a barrage of plasma blasts. Banjo ducked back and made sure the missile didn’t get struck.
“Levitate the badonkadonk and make sure to keep up with me, I’ll tell you what I need you to do with it when we get there. I need my paws free for all the stuff I’m going to be doing.” Banjo ran to his left and carelessly threw the missile up into the air.
Lyra focused her magic on the missile holding it aloft and then she felt them moving up, it was hard to keep concentration on the missile with how fast they were moving up. Banjo was jumping between the two walls ascending the building and the Cerberus Alpha lunged at them again. In the lunge it took a vertical swipe at Banjo and fell back to the ground having missed Banjo’s hit box by a single pixel.
Elsewhere in Clancer Empire City, a pony was trapped in a room with a large, green sumo wrestler sized robot with a small round head that just dropped into the room from opening in the ceiling and started twirling its two large metallic clamps before snapping them twice. Screwball stood her ground and wondered if she could take it, Strike Man was hard enough to fight as it was.
She was facing the Capsule Guardian RT-55J; its special mission was to stop intruders from taking Kazooie’s backpack.
A strange tingle started throughout Screwballs body and she suddenly tasted everything going purple for a moment, a slow wild smile built up on her face. This was a sign that things were going to be okay in the end, however sudden the itch and knee jerk had her rolling out of the way of the large metallic clamp attached to a chain launched by the robots right arm.
Everything was going to be okay in the end, but that didn’t mean she was fine right now. The clamp reeled back and the robot leapt at her and stomped down with its feet as Screwball got out of the way when she jumped upwards. The thing was deceptively fast for something of its size.
It immediately turned around and saw… nothing? The robot scanned the room and twisted its head around really fast one time, since the room was in lockdown as long as the robot was activate it knew that Screwball couldn’t have escaped that easily.
Directly above the guardian robot standing on the ceiling with a silly grin on her face was Screwball, she had miraculously discovered how to make gravity flip upside down at a moment’s notice… only she didn’t exactly remember how she did it now, though it apparently didn’t use part of the chaos magic bar on her HUD which was still showing full power. As long as she didn’t look down it didn’t matter, she was a cartoon character and looking down was paramount to realizing that the laws of physics existed so she refuse to look down.
Screwball looked down at her hooves and didn’t fall, but why was that? Oh right, looking towards the ground was what was supposed to make her fall so she shouldn’t look up since currently, up was down!
It’s a good thing she didn’t… oh crud, the urge to look up was now filling Screwballs brain, cartoon characters had to obey really silly laws and one of them was the law of funny. That didn’t make the urge to look towards the ground any less dangerous as it was right now. She really didn’t want to fight the super sumo robot; her HUD scanned it as being a really dangerous thing and her special sensory ability called out painful danger before the things clamp could grab her.
After a moment the robot took a loud noisy step towards the center of the room while still scanning the area around it and Screwball felt a twitch in her tail as she looked up. She fell right on top of the large robots back behind its small round head. The robots head suddenly spun around to meet Screwballs sheepish grin, it then smashed its own head with its right arm as Screwball quickly rolled off of it to avoid getting hit.
The robot spun around and following its combat programming it immediately spun around and launch its pincer on a chain at Screwball. Instead of dodging the scary clamp, she grabbed upon hearing three rapid beeping noises and then chucked it back at the robots tiny head for some damage.
The robot seemed to get exceedingly angry with Screwball as it lunged at her again and then lost sight of her, it slowly turned around and looked towards the ceiling and floor. It even rotated it’s head once rapidly, but nowhere did it see the pony and with good reason as Screwball was performing a classic cartoon shadowing technique of staying completely out of visual range of the target without be heard by being directly behind its eye at all times.
Speaking of shadows, in the skies above Clancer Empire City the posh accented shadow stood watching the fireworks in one of his battleships and was receiving information of so many hero type characters attacking. The most concerning was that one of the heroes had managed to take down the jamming array, but they had her corner and while they hadn’t identified the culprit they knew it was wearing a Met related disguise and the model number the being in question was wearing.
Surveying the situations in other parts of the city revealed that large portions of the defense grids were going down and Overdrive Ostrich has failed to survive one of the heroes currently attacking them. ‘A pity that’, the shadow thought blankly not caring that one of its four cohorts has died in battle. So far it has lost seventeen percent of its fleet to that star faced child and it was of not much consequence, the Clancer forces were utterly pointless, the ride armors were in the middle of a light struggle with a hero piloting some stolen ride armor and the base had two heroes alone going after Kazooie and her accoutrements with varying degrees of success.
“Ironic… eight spearheads into the city, it’s like they were planning a horrid pun about us masters hoo.” The shadow then surveyed their personal ground forces; they were doing about as well as the ride armors in putting up a relatively good struggle. Suddenly one of his monitors came to life grabbing the Reploid’s attention.
“Tell me they’re here, please, one intruder has already reached the room with the backpack and the other is trying to destroy the security shutters into the sealed off sectors and I think it is succeeding no matter how slow it’s going.” The squat diminutive form was squawking in a panic to the posh upper crust shadow.
“They are indeed on their way, reinforcements are thirty minutes out. We simple need to hold the heroes off a little longer and make sure that Kazooie or any of the heroes for that matter can’t leave the planet.” The posh shadow put his hands behind his back and stared at all the carnage befalling his troops, was this all really worth the headache? It better darn well be. “First units of eagle and hawk squadrons converge on the blonde android; she must not be allowed to reconvene with any of the other heroes. Pantheon hunter squad gamma go to the destroyed jamming array building, don’t let the saboteur leave that building alive, it’s a Met with the markings six-zero-zero-W-P-V. Hmm… which king will come into play first I wonder?”
“We’re not going to last the next ten minutes if the energy field generator goes up!” The shortest squawky shadow stated.
“Hmm… yes, that is a problem. Hawk and eagle squadrons two through four divert from attacking the star child, stop that insufferable beast and bear currently climbing the generator before they destroy it, but don’t damage it any further if you can help it.” After that the posh accented shadow went silent.
They were enemies and they were always pitted against the heroes they would never be able defeat. As is their lot in life, the video game heroes would never give up.
The shadow clenched its hands behind its back as more of its unit was destroyed in the fires of the juggernauts they fought.
“This is Khronozooie Two-eh, if you’re listening to this we’ve at least got the jamming device down. Be warned the energy field generator is still active so the airspace is kind of dangerous to enter. If you wouldn’t mind sending Canjo down here in a Landmaster to help us out, we’d appreciate the overkill in firepower.” Khronozooie was standing on top of one of the buildings staring into the distance from her high up perch; she used her Amaze-o-gaze glasses to watch as Banjo and Lyra avoid a beam cannon blast from Cerberus Alpha’s tail as they worked their way up and around the generator.
“We’ll do you one better, we have an entire invasion force that is itching to blow stuff up. I don’t really know how she convinced them to do it, but did you call for some help from Mizar forces of Jet Force Gemini? They are certainly willing and able to storm the city for you; they are coming in on the cargo ship the S.S. Anubis.” The joviality in Fox’s voice was not lost on the time twisting gimmick loving bird.
“Yeah, we could use a few hundred of them. What did they come to the planet with and are they ready to take on extra passengers upon our exit? Excuse me I got some emergencies on the other lines.” Khronozooie turned her goggles to the two distress signals that popped up. Goombella and Curly Brace were apparently in danger of losing a life. “Hey, Goombella what’s the problem?”
“I’ve sent my Met squad ahead to the safety zone; unfortunately as soon as I set off the explosives they were immediately on me even with my disguise. While they still don’t know what I am under it, they most likely don’t care and are putting some pressure on me, thank goodness for Met hats and their indestructibility.” The sounds of blaster bullets plinking off of the Goomba’s second helmet could be heard. “Just get me some help please; I’m getting tired of all the sound effects of my helmet being struck.”
“Hold position and try to move when you can, we all need you out of there like yesterday. I think Curly is in bigger trouble the aerial fleet seems to have painted a large target on her and are dropping some flying ride armors onto her position. She’s already taken care of the Clancer's.” Khronozooie leapt and spread her wings as she took off to help Curly fight off the heavy aerial forces. “Fox get that ground support down here right now! Once the energy field generator is down you can begin an attack run on the air forces. We’re pulling the heroes out of the city and back towards the S.S. Anubis once it makes planet fall. Tell them to set it down on the main road leading into the city and I'll see about getting everyone there, oh and tell them to pick up some of the Mets waiting there, they’re friendly.”