Commander on the Run!:
Chrissy kicked up the speed of her Spear bike and flew away from the Kruna Yura's pursuit at a quicker pace. Big Brother and Little Sister also adjusted the velocity of their backwards flight to keep pace with Chrissy. In response, the Kruna upped their speed to sustain their chase before Chrissy and the two sibling androids flew out of sight in the dense trees and foliage of MAE Somnom Woods.
"I really hope they don't go any faster!" Athelstan panted, struggling to keep up.
"Me too," Ramona said, even more out of breath.
"You guys just chill out then!" Daisy said. "Neva, Marut, and I can take charge of this!"
"Are you sure?" Bowser asked.
"Well, like it or not, you're probably gonna get dropped anyways," said Daisy. "I don't think Chrissy is going as fast as she could be."
"Okay – then we'll stay in touch through our communicators," said Bowser. "Just let us know when you've trashed the androids. We'll see you when we see you."
Daisy looked back and gave a thumbs up to Bowser, Ramona, and Athelstan, who all cut their speed down to a manageable jog and let the faster three of the group kick into the next gear to continue the chase. Chrissy looked on her HUD at her Spear's rear camera view and smiled when she noticed that only half of the Kruna still tailed her. Big Brother and Little Sister slowed their flight just enough to move away from Chrissy and ease closer to Daisy, Neva, and Marut.
"Here they come!" said Marut.
Big Brother transformed his arms into fat drill heads and thrust them at the Kruna, though the moderate speed of his swipes did not present too much of a challenge for them to evade. The real challenge came after the android had done several swipes and pulled away, for he then struck his drill-arms into the ground and tore into the terrain. All three of the Kruna got tripped up from the sudden uprising and contortion of the ground that they ran into, allowing Chrissy and the sibling androids to lengthen their gap between them.
"Whoa!" Marut gasped, activating his Furaito before completing his flop. While he sped ahead through the air, Daisy and Neva hurried back to their feet as fast as they could and used him as a beacon they would follow and catch up to. They rejoined the chase just as Little Sister opened her mouth and blew out a heavy gust of wind. Not only did Daisy and Neva get pushed back, but Marut did too. And again, the Kruna lost ground on Chrissy.
"Damn it!" Neva grunted out. "Get back here!"
Right at the conclusion of that exclamation, a bouncing bomb that Chrissy had left behind for the Kruna exploded. Marut pulled to his left in a roll, and Neva bumped Daisy out of the way before the Kruna of Earth ran right into the burst. Both of the girls stumbled out of their twist, but they maintained enough momentum to keep running. Once more, the androids and Chrissy appeared even further away. This time, they had all but left the Kruna's range of vision.
"They keep doing this cheap crap and flying away!" Neva groaned.
"I'll catch up to 'em!" Marut declared, increasing his speed as they came around a corner. Not long after that, another bomb went off and almost engulfed him. If not for a swift somersault upward, he would have been blasted out of the air.
"You were saying?" Daisy called up.
"Okay – now, I'm gonna catch up!" Marut said. He put forth another acceleration effort and burst up the winding path towards their escaping foes.
"Great, now we're gonna get left behind!" cried Neva. "I don't have the stamina to keep this up..."
"What do you mean you don't?" Daisy asked. "We haven't even run that long-"
"I've done almost nothing but sit around for the past eight months!" Neva yelled. "This whole past week has tired me out! Everything went from zero to sixty for me in a heartbeat, and you always want to go around saying that stuff like this is easy! It's not automatically easy for everybody else! Some of us have to try harder, okay?! Some of us weren't born as physically gifted, alright? Or mentally gifted, for that matter! Some of us just aren't good enough and never will be! And every day in that reality sucks, and we can't do anything about it because we're just lame! Limited and lame."
Daisy grabbed hold of one of Neva's wrists. "Try talented and limitless! Just stay with me and don't falter! We can do this together! There's no possible way you're limited or lame if you're truly trying!"
"Wha-wh-what?" Neva sputtered. "What're ya trying to hold my hand for?!"
"I've got your wrist, not your hand!" said Daisy. "Geez, is that really important? Now let's go!"
Daisy slowed up just for the second it took for her to transform into Nova Form. As soon as her power-up completed, she accelerated and put her speed boost to use. Almost immediately, Neva could feel the pull of Daisy's amplified speed dragging her along. Though they closed some of the distance between them and the others ahead, Neva's scrambling feet struggled stepping with their momentum.
"Daisy! Stop!" Neva screamed.
"For what?" Daisy asked.
"I'm gonna fall flat on my face, and you're gonna drag my teeth on the ground! You're going too fast! I can't keep up!"
"Looks like you're keeping up just fine to me. I'm barely pulling on you!"
Neva's terror shifted into quieted shock. At this point, Daisy now only tugged on Neva to guide her. Even though it had started off as Daisy pulling Neva along, Neva realized that she had unconsciously assumed control of her own momentum. In awe and disbelief, Neva stared at her churning legs and then glanced back at the fading world behind them.
"But, but...I've never run this fast before," mumbled Neva.
Daisy smiled. "Well, if you couldn't do it before, you can now!"
A feeling of revitalization then overcame Neva, which helped her sustain her speed. Sure enough, as soon as Daisy let go, Neva stayed with her, stride for stride. Even after cutting around several trees, she still matched Daisy's speed.
"What...what did you just do to me?" Neva asked.
"Maybe I just showed you how to do something you already could have done on your own," said Daisy. "That's what friends are for, right?"
Neva blushed. "Oh, shut up before you start spouting off some power of friendship crap."
Daisy laughed and shook her head; and though Neva scowled at her at first, her expression then softened into a smile. Together, they rushed ahead up the timbered path to catch up with Marut, who was busy dodging Little Sister's thrusts with her transformed javelin arms. Neither of the two of them noticed Daisy's Alkemei Vranzer's faint glow, nor did Marut or, much further up, Chrissy.
"I thought we were about to lose them," Chrissy grumbled, pulling out another bouncing bomb. "Persistence won't get you anywhere, Kruna Yura! A 'no' from your dreamy crush will still be a 'no' thirty tries later."
"Couldn't you have picked a better comparison to make?" said Daisy. Less than two seconds later, the Bounce Bomb flew right at her. By way of a swift sidestep, Daisy avoided the explosive altogether. The bomb bounced several times before exploding far behind the group.
Little Sister reached into one of her sleeves and ripped loose a rapidly-revolving spin top, one equipped with sharp teeth and extended blades that cut through the wind and made a distinct shearing sound with the air as it tracked on the ground. While Daisy and Neva had to pivot their run and sidestep around the spinning top, Big Brother shot multiple rounds of eye lasers at Marut. Both android attacks became difficult to maneuver past when the chase went into a more winding portion of Somnom Woods, with Big Brother shooting his lasers at angles tight to the curves and Little Sister's spinning top cutting back and forth among Daisy and Neva. It seemed as though every time either Daisy or Neva evaded, the top shot at the other.
Little Sister's spinning top eventually lost steam and slowed its revolutions and its movement speed to the point where it fell behind and stalled, only for two replacements to come flying out. So while Marut floundered about in the air avoiding Big Brother's lasers and drill swings, Daisy and Neva had their hands full with dodging the two spinning tops battling it out in front of and around them. Marut got clipped a few times, which egged him into descending back to the ground to run alongside the other two Kruna again. But as soon as Marut did that, Big Brother stuck his drill arms onto the terrain and ripped into it. Again, the uprising of earthen and metal jungle floor tripped up and slowed the Kruna; but at least it also sent the spinning tops careening away from them.
As the fastest one there, Marut sprinted forward and caught up to Chrissy and the androids quick. Daisy stayed behind to get Neva going again, and they got the chance to catch up once they passed over the last portion of ground that Big Brother had ripped free. Big Brother and Little Sister repeatedly shuffled their flight around each other before returning to their steady backward glide, though this time on different sides of the path.
"This running battle thing is getting real annoying real fast," said Neva. "Have we even put out an attack yet?"
"Let's start!" said Marut. Yet another Bounce Bomb skipped its way at the Kruna, only for Marut to blow it away with a burst of wind that knocked it into a tree. Daisy formed a Crystal Fist while Neva shot off ice bullets out of her rifle at the androids. The bullets themselves did minimal harm, but they served as enough of a distraction to give Daisy enough time to ready her move.
"Eeny, meeny, miny – that one!" Daisy hollered with a boost of speed. She rocketed ahead at Big Brother and slammed her crystallized fist into him for a downward-angled connection that sent the android into a haphazard, out-of-control roll. Big Brother fell behind everyone in mere seconds, which Little Sister did not seem to take too kindly to.
When Daisy cut her speed back to even out with Neva and Marut, they drifted around a long turn and met a flurry of javelin arm stabs from Little Sister out of the curve. All three Kruna slowed down just for the duration of Little Sister's attack, which Marut then responded to at its conclusion with a jump and a Drill Dash using his Energized Air Saber. Her Crystal Fist still holding shape, Daisy chained off of Marut's hard hit on Little Sister with a rushing crystal uppercut. At around the same time the two Kruna's attacks launched Little Sister up into the tree foliage, Big Brother flew back and returned to the front of the group.
In the time that Big Brother spent occupying the Kruna with rockets he fired out of hatches in his limbs, Little Sister caught back up and rejoined her counterpart. Chrissy showed visible frustration upon seeing the Kruna avoid all of Big Brother's rockets. The MAE commander flipped out a few of her Bounce Bombs at once before curving her Spear through a chicane. But because of the chicane, the Kruna did not have to stick to the path. Instead, Neva pulled Daisy through a gap off-path and made a shortcut between tree trunks. Marut simply flew to a high point above the path.
"So they're not as stupid and primal-minded as their practices would indicate," Chrissy commented, watching her bombs catch nothing but trees and bush. "But then that means they're too clever. Even more incentive to kill them."
Daisy and Neva reentered the path ahead of Big Brother and Little Sister, which left Marut at the rear of the whole chase chain. The positioning meant that Marut was now behind Big Brother and Little Sister, who chased Daisy and Neva, who trailed Chrissy. Both androids intended to rectify the switch when they rushed past Daisy and Neva with their respective drill and javelin arms leading them. Even after passing the two Kruna, the androids turned and dove at them again. They executed their Dual Sweep with quickness, but not enough quickness to get Daisy or Neva. When the androids tried their aerial rush a third time, Daisy's reactive Iaido swing of her drill staff walloped Big Brother. Little Sister leaned her flight away and turned defensive the very instant Big Brother took Daisy's hard blow.
"Think you guys can do that chain-magnetism thing on the run?" Daisy asked her teammates. "You do that, I bet I can Crystal Smash 'em apart."
"Yeah, if we can get enough time," said Marut. "Are they gonna stay like that?"
"Doesn't look like it," said Daisy. "Slow down to stay behind me, but work fast. I'll keep their attention away from you."
Marut and Neva did as Daisy instructed. Big Brother and Little Sister had transformed their arms back to normal; and in much the same way Marut and Neva prepared an attack of theirs, the two androids each got busy charging one of their fists with crackling electric power. As both parties readied their moves, the chase exited Somnom Woods and entered a wide-open, upward sloping field southeast of Pi'illo Castle.
Big Brother and Little Sister then split to either side of Daisy, the sole Kruna closest to them, and punched at her. Though Daisy darted ahead a little, the two androids met their punches in a fist bump that discharged electrical forces all around them in a radius long enough to jolt Daisy and put her in a crashing tumble. But before she lost too much speed, Daisy rebounded and flipped back to her feet. She had not regained all of her balance before the androids repeated the technique, but she had enough of it to stretch her arms out to her sides and catch both of their punches.
As soon as Daisy had caught Big Brother's and Little Sister's fists, she skidded to a stop. The two androids also slowed to a still hover, trying to overpower Daisy's hold on them. Marut and Neva saw the cease in movement and curved to a stop themselves, which meant that Chrissy had the freedom to finally get away from the group. The MAE commander flew her bike in the direction of Pi'illo Castle.
"Aw man – she's getting away!" shouted Marut.
"But, Daisy!" Neva said.
Daisy put out all the strength she and her Nova Form-enhanced body could muster. And for a short while, it seemed that her strength would be more than enough...until Big Brother and Little Sister turned on their thrusters. Then, Daisy's arms started bending and giving. In an uprising of elemental power that rippled through the ground under her and rumbled up around her in silvery seismic shocks, Daisy pressed the two androids back out.
The thundering echo of her roar stunned Marut and Neva, but they kept as much focus as they could on finishing their technique. They had a straight display of man versus machine unfolding before them. Her body turning red with pressure, Daisy actually put out enough force through both of her arms to outperform that of either android. In that struggle, organic seemed to exhibit supremacy over inorganic; but then inorganic showed why it would win. Adding onto the accumulating fatigue building up in Daisy, Big Brother and Little Sister fired up their thrusters to an even higher rate of output. And with that, Daisy started fading fast.
"Daisy! Get out of there so we can do this!" Marut yelled.
Daisy could not do a thing to break from Big Brother's and Little Sister's combined compressing forces in any direction. Not in any way that used her arms, could she. Some quick thinking and strengthened elemental control her Nova Form gave led to a unique solution, one that involved using her legs instead. With a swift stomp under her, Daisy collapsed the ground beneath her and fell into the earthen terrain. When she fell, she pulled her arms down and out of the way at an angle of the two androids' fists. That move made Big Brother and Little Sister collide into each other and miss their fist bump altogether, while Daisy had escaped into a hole in the ground under them.
"Good enough!" Neva said. Marut thrust his saber, and Neva pushed ahead her rifle. Their lightning and magnetic ice combined into a magnetized stream of blue-white power that bounced to Little Sister after striking Big Brother. A few extra pulses of lightning and frost through their chain racked up copious amounts of damage on Big Brother and Little Sister. The burst of power that pumped out upon the repulsion release flung the two androids in opposite directions of one another, the machines skidding and ricocheting multiple times off of the ground. Though not in pieces, Big Brother and Little Sister came to rest far away from one another as smoking piles of malfunctioning metal.
"Yo, Neva – we got an OP move over here!" Marut hollered, high-fiving with her.
Nova Daisy climbed out of her pit, panting and trying to catch her breath. "Okay...those guys...no. Between the running and that that just happened, I feel like I've been in the gym for four hours straight...which I actually did one time when I had a day when I was really, really mad. But this...this was just stupid."
"I don't know why you thought that was a good idea," said Neva. "You're just too overconfident. You're not a superhero, you know. Are you about to try stopping a train next?"
"If I get to use Athelstan's Odina, maybe," Daisy replied with a grin, returning to her normal state.
Neva smirked and looked away. "You're a total moron."
"Are we waiting for the other guys?" asked Marut.
"May as well," said Daisy, taking out her KY Communicator. "Chrissy already got away, but I think we have a good idea of where she went."
Bowser, Athelstan, and Ramona made it out of Somnom Woods and into the bright, surprisingly natural fields where Daisy, Marut, and Neva waited. The amount of mechanization in the area was minimal, but the layout of the land ahead of them told them that their current location existed as one of the exceptions to MAE's general handling of their territories. A lack of MAE presence there at the moment gave Daisy, Marut, and Neva a chance to rest after a harrowing battle on the run, though not much time had elapsed between Big Brother's and Little Sister's destruction and the six Kruna Yura regrouping.
"Wow, we didn't have to wait that long at all!" exclaimed Marut.
"I'm surprised you found us so quickly," said Daisy. "That path branched a few times."
"It wasn't too hard to get here," said Bowser. "We just followed the trail of upset and disturbed ground."
"And the charred and downed trees," said Athelstan. "Those androids were no joke, huh?"
"For a while, they weren't," said Marut.
"Looks like the next stop is over there," said Daisy, pointing at Pi'illo Castle. "So let's get moving – and fast, before she tries to make a move off of the island."
Sure enough, Chrissy was busy rushing through the Pi'illo Castle halls and loading a backpack and a thick suitcase. As she hurried filling her bags up with important MAE items and documents, she could hear rumbling and explosions going off throughout the mechanized but elegant castle's main floor. Alarms ushered in the stampede of MAE guards and robots through the halls to meet who Chrissy already knew had arrived.
"Oh, come on – they're here already?" Chrissy groaned. "That's unacceptable. Big Brother and Little Sister failed me...but...you must not..." She pressed several buttons on one of her gauntlets before speaking into it. "Rookie, come to me. Now. I need cover while I get out of here."
Chrissy tried to stay as calm and efficient as she could in rounding up all she needed to take with her. The gold and blue castle throne room on the top third floor was the last place she went. There, she could exit the castle the same way she had entered; for the throne room had a staircase in the back that led straight to the castle roof, where she had parked her Spear. Once she had gotten every gadget, paper, and portable memory storage device out of the throne room she knew had to go with her, she darted for the stairs.
"FREEZE!" Neva yelled at Chrissy.
The MAE commander flinched and turned around to see the six Kruna that had been chasing her now standing at the throne room entrance. Marut, Ramona, and Bowser finished blasting away in the back at the remaining Pi'illo Castle defenses before marching into the throne room with Neva, Daisy, and Athelstan. Neva advanced with her rifle up and pointed as the closest one to Chrissy, but Daisy was the one that noticed Chrissy's legs trembling.
"We can either do this the easy way, or the fun way," said Neva. "Not like I need any target practice."
"You damn elemental wielders are just so rude!" Chrissy cried. "I can't even stay on this island because you destructive stalkers won't leave me alone!"
"Stalkers?" Neva said. She pointed the laser sight of her rifle dead center on Chrissy's forehead. "You mean 'hunters.' "
Daisy stepped to the front and snatched the rifle out of Neva's hands. "You should've never been allowed to have a gun."
"Awwww, but, Daaaisyyyyyyy!" Neva groaned.
"We're not killing her," said Daisy. "We need to get some information out of her, remember?"
"Hah! You're not getting a thing out of me!" declared Chrissy.
"Well, you're not going anywhere until we get what we want," said Bowser.
"I will not yield to the likes of you," said Chrissy. "I am the commander-in-chief of MAE. If you think I am not prepared for situations like these, you are sorely mistaken."
"Then come on!" demanded Daisy, handing Neva back her sniper. With a cheeky grin, Daisy leaned back into an offset offensive stance and beckoned Chrissy to fight her. "The only thing you've been prepared to do is run away! So quit this scaredy-cat stuff, and let's go! You and me, one-on-one! That sounds fair, doesn't it?"
Chrissy tapped the side of her face, as if thinking the proposition over. "Hmm... Yeah – no. I'm going to try this instead."
MAE's commander-in-chief pulled out a remote with her free hand and pressed a button, opening a slot in the floor near the throne from which several spinning Turtle Defender robots flipped out of. Unfortunately for Chrissy, Bowser and Marut blasted four of the large green and silver bots out of commission before they even landed. Neva sniped one of the remaining two in its vulnerable head, and Athelstan bashed his hammer on the last one with his Odina-doubled strength. The four that got blasted out of the air survived only long enough for Daisy, Athelstan, Bowser, and Marut to run at them and crush them on their softer undersides. Combined, the Turtle Defenders had gotten off barely any charge shots out of their Dual Shell Cannons before their destruction.
Chrissy frowned, anxious as she lifted her suitcase in front of her and clenched her teeth. "Uh..."
"We can do this all day," said Bowser.
Battling robots turned out to be something the Kruna would not have to do all day, for a sudden change in circumstances presented a jarring revelation that they realized once Ramona sustained a heavy slam of pressurized water to her back. When they heard Ramona hit the ground in a wet thud, the other Kruna turned around just in time to evade another water outburst. Prompting Neva to back away from Chrissy, the man responsible for such an attack entered the room equipped with an Energized Ocean Trident, Power Gauntlets, a hoverpack, and a full suit of royal blue, gold, and white stealth armor. The electronic blue helmet with the MAE emblem that he wore on top of his long brown hair did nothing to conceal his face.
"No way..." Daisy murmured.
"That's really him, isn't it?" said Bowser.
"Oh, uh, yeah!" said Athelstan. "Wow! I guess we don't have to look for Warra anymore!"