A Day Out in the Rain:

Daisy got herself ready in her room to head back to the training grounds late the next morning. Rain had developed overnight and left much of Rainbow City in a wet and slick state. A steady downpour would last all day from what Warra had said in the Rainbow Suite's diner earlier during breakfast. But she had a prime opportunity to work on developing her new move, so she wouldn't let some nasty weather get in her way. She just got on the rain cloak that Toadette had made for her and flipped up its hood, though not before making a quick switch to Nova Form.

The faster I can figure this out, the better, Daisy thought, peering out her room window. For it almost being noon, the sky looked surprisingly dark. It's just gonna be one of those days... Well, now that I think about it, I wouldn't mind staying out all day if I have to. I mean, I had to do it while playing soccer. It does feel kind of cool being out there in inclement weather. It's different and exciting. Yeah, there's a bright side even to gloomy winter rain like this.

She left her room and went to go get Warra, Bowser, Marut, and Ramona. Athelstan would be booked all day with Rosalina, Polari, and other Comet Observatory officials trying to translate the documents, tablets, and scriptures retrieved from the Light Shrine. Daisy hadn't heard from Neva or Andrew since returning yesterday. The Kruna she rounded up followed her example and got their rain cloaks on too.

A short while later, Andrew walked out the door to his room. He left without his armor or his Umbra Bladestaff and went across the hall to knock on Neva's door. She answered and came out without any of her equipment with her either, instead holding a light blue umbrella.

"It's supposed to be wet all day," said Neva. "So I thought it would be a good idea to bring this... Do I look okay?"

"Don't worry about how you look," Andrew replied, holding out his hand. "You look lovely."

Neva twinkled and surprised him by not only grabbing his hand, but his arm altogether. After she interlocked her left arm with his right, she asked, "So what should we do today?"

"I was going to ask where you wanted to go," said Andrew. "I personally just don't want to go to a food place."

"Actually, neither do I. Does your stomach feel as weird as mine does?"

"Probably."

"We don't have to go anywhere special. I don't mind, really. Do you?"

"No, I don't mind. I mean, it's not like this is a date or anything like that, right?"

"Right, it's not a date. Maybe we could just stay in like last night. I think I left my stuff in your room, and it's pretty nasty out anyways."

"Yeah, but it's still great winter air," said Andrew. "There's only a couple more months of this left before it starts warming up and I end up hating everything until the fall comes back. Luckily, when we return to our time, it'll be fall then; and then I won't have to suffer and melt while everyone is delighting in pools and baking themselves in the sun at the beach."

Neva laughed. "You really don't tolerate heat well, do you? Is it because you're so warm all the time?"

"I think so," said Andrew. "That's why you never see me in long sleeves, let alone a jacket."

"Let's go walk around then," said Neva.

"Where to?"

"Nowhere, really. Just around Rainbow City. Then we can come back here later."

"That sounds really nice. I'll hold your umbrella."

The lack of brightness at one of the brightest parts of the day made Rainbow City keep on its streetlights and a fair amount of its multicolored ambient glows. Rain glossed over the rainbow streets and muddied the grassy areas of the islands. Today's storm fell heavy and without much rest. It undulated in intensity from time to time, though no wind or lightning mixed in. The conditions kept most of the Rainbow City residents inside; but for Daisy, Bowser, Warra, Marut, and Ramona, they stayed out and worked on their elemental craft at South Island's training grounds.

When Warra used a Focus Palm on the space in front of him, the points around his hand created a shaking disturbance in the nearby rain as it fell. By now, he felt proficient enough in both water and sonic skills to have them interact together. So when he added longitudinal waves to his Focus Palm, a loud crashing noise accompanied the next rain displacement and amplified the effect.

Marut wanted to try and better mimic Luigi's combination of air with lightning, so he had been working with chaining together small gusts of wind with lightning shocks. He had in mind to progress to letting lightning streaks travel along currents. With each runthrough, he started to wonder if he had been going about his elemental wielding all wrong in isolating air from lightning. Considering the rain, he did not generate lightning directly from his body and instead worked on generating it around him in a disconnected manner to not shock himself like he did in the Monsoon Jungle.

Ramona had been working on her telekinesis powers on a metal bench and a few boulders. The amount of concentration and effort needed strained her immensely. That had always been the case, and that had been the sole reason she kept from using the ability much at all, in battle or not. In her current state, using telekinesis had become marginally easier; but she wouldn't get better at it without direct practice with it. All the while, she kept wondering how light wielders could have developed a dormant ability with such potential. To advance light wielding to the point of being able to move physical objects with light seemed so surreal, even for as long as she had the ability herself. She just never considered the possible implications of it before.

Daisy held up a seismic orb and then compressed it to an absurd degree when she crushed it in her hands. She then slung it at the ground, creating a concussive explosion effect. Though impressive from an aesthetic standpoint, it wasn't what she wanted. No move had been this hard to try and perfect – not even the Geovado, the long-ranged burst of continuous seismic energy she couldn't master and had to downgrade to what was now her medium-range Seismic Wave. To be fair, she was creating a move entirely from scratch in this case. Only elemental masters did that, and lesser elemental wielders just learned what the masters had created. Maybe a few of the more elite wielders created variants of the already known techniques. So the odds were stacked against her since the start – even with Nova Form's help – but odds haven't stopped her before.

Bowser had started with practicing fire moves earlier, but he had been meditating as of late. That changed when the Black Mages Naraka and Solovar came and woke him from his inner trance. The two gestured for the Kruna of Fire to stand up.

"Come," said Naraka. "We are ready."

Bowser nodded and said his byes to the other Kruna before he followed the Black Mages out of the Elemental Training Grounds. They all had a good idea as to what Bowser would be attempting with the Black Mages, so they didn't hold them up and they kept their efforts on their elemental work.

Neva and Andrew walked arm in arm through the streets of Central Island under the increasing downpour of rain. The two kept close together, shielded with the wide light blue umbrella Andrew held to prevent from getting soaked. They hadn't done anything special other than enjoy each others' company on their tranquil stroll. Neva glanced all around at the sky citadel, the rain inspiring a magical feeling in her. Despite that, something bothered her.

"Hey," said Neva. "Do you miss home?"

Andrew shrugged. "I don't know. I mean, Christmas Village is a nice place, but it's not so bad away from it either."

"I don't miss Twilight City," said Neva. "Not at all."

"You really didn't like it there, huh?" he asked.

"I'm still surprised I'm even where I am with you guys," she said. "In fact, the whole team has been so accepting. Where I'm from, I got picked on for stupid stuff like my height, and my high voice, and being skinny and weak, and not being able to use ice without a tool...pretty much whatever people wanted to pick out and criticize me for... Heh...I really don't expect much out of people other than hateful attitudes, so I just figured I'd turn around and throw it right back at them. Then I just really actually started hating everyone after that."

"Surely your family wasn't like that," said Andrew.

"My parents, my older sister, my younger brother; they didn't really care about me much," said Neva. "They did enough to keep me going, but they were pretty careless and apathetic. Made it easy to deal with them all dying during our town's invasion. But, I do feel guilty about slipping away and fleeing before they did. I wonder if maybe I should've stayed with them and tried to help fight the attackers off, or if I should've tried to get them to follow me to the hidden route out of the area I used. But it never seemed like anything I did or said mattered to how they wanted to do things, so..."

"I get it," said Andrew. He pulled Neva in closer, adding, "And I care. But it is fun wondering how you made a tape measure give you negative numbers for height."

Neva grinned and nudged him some. "I'm tall enough to headbutt you in the chin, so don't tempt me!"

"Seriously though, I do get where you're coming from," Andrew said. "I don't remember what my mom looks like. I barely even remember her being around at all when I was little. And then my dad...he never was supportive of me. He thought I'd never be a great shadow wielder. He always said that I didn't have what it takes to be one, and that I never would. But really, he was just angry with me. He wanted me to be a light wielder. In his eyes, if I had ever gotten into elemental wielding at all, it had to be as a light wielder! But...I couldn't do a thing to any light...not without using my shadow power. Maybe I'm the crazy one, but that's like telling a water wielder to wield stone. That's like telling an earth wielder to wield air. If I told you to go try fire, do you think you could pull it off?"

"No, not at all," said Neva. "Not unless I had some sort of divine power or something like that."

"I kept telling him I had an affinity for shadow," said Andrew. "Not for light...but he insisted that I had to be with the light. Yeah, right. Lying straight to my face, man; he just didn't want me handling darkness. He always thought I was too soft and weak-minded. But you know what? He's just biased. Unaccepting. He deals in stereotypes... He didn't think anything good could come out of using shadow. But what was I supposed to do – just deny my affinity? Deny who I am? Deny a large part of my being? I swear, he acts like I had a say in what element I would be good with!"

"I say just screw whatever a parent says," stated Neva. "You've proved him wrong already. If he doesn't accept you as you are now, that's on him."

"And then there's King Boo," said Andrew. "And by extension, those like him, who corrupt and use impure forms of shadow for malicious intent. They infuriate me to no end, not only because they use a beautiful and pure element in such a way and to do bad things, but because their actions give a bad name to all other shadow wielders. You know, whenever we've gone to some highly populated area, I never know whether I'm gonna get a good or a bad reaction from whoever's there. So far, I've had favorable responses from people; but I wonder if it's only because they see me with non-shadow wielders."

"I think it's just who you are as a person that makes people feel comfortable with you around," said Neva.

"I don't know," said Andrew. "Sometimes, I fear I might turn into King Boo. I fear that if I let myself slip at the wrong time, the wrong way, I will become no better than him."

"That'd never happen," said Neva. "You're way too nice to ever be compared to him. Especially now. When we saw him at the Light Shrine, he looked like he had gone insane twice over."

Andrew's gaze became intense as he stared ahead. "Then that means when I see him again, I can beat him this time. I will beat him this time."

"Daisy, I swear I wouldn't be complying to this if I didn't trust you," said Warra.

The Kruna of Water stood just a handful of yards away from his earth counterpart, set up in a defensive stance. Ramona and Marut watched Daisy hold together one seismic orb per hand in preparation to try a version of her move on Warra. But even with Warra's consent, Daisy had been reluctant and held off.

"Are you absolutely sure you can handle this, if this works?" asked Daisy.

"Yes, if it's the low-power attack you're saying it is," said Warra. "You'll never know if you had caught on to something unless you try it out, and inanimate objects and debris don't match up with a living, breathing being."

Daisy nodded and crouched down to spring at him. Out of a lunge, she thrust one orb forward at Warra and brought the second one immediately behind. Warra had his Tidal Swordstaff held in his strongest blocking position; and though Daisy's move busted through, she scored no second hit. She stood in disappointment as Warra spun into a recovery from his stumble.

"Did I space those together too close?" Daisy wondered aloud.

"You might have," said Warra. "But I don't think it matters in the end. I recommend a different technique, because the way you're forced to move with this one leaves you too wide open if someone dodges instead of blocks, mainly because your line of sight is too small. You don't have a lot of wiggle room to make a split-second adjustment if your opponent moves at all. That poor accuracy is going to make you very punishable."

"Ah, man," said Daisy. "I had a feeling that one would be bad. It felt awkward last night, but it was the closest thing I had!"

"The good thing is that you have a step up in this particular situation," said Warra. "I can't think of a way to come up with an unblockable attack that doesn't utilize the disruptive seismic force that earth provides. Not one that would be better, at least."

"It's not a question of 'if' then," murmured Daisy. "It's a question of 'how.' "

"Maybe you could research some of the historical earth wielders and their techniques," said Ramona. "I'm sure you could figure out something if you read up on what they did!"

"I'm not reading a book!" exclaimed Daisy. "I'll save that for when I'm trying to go to sleep!"

"Oh well," Ramona replied in a chuckle. "It was a thought."

Wait a minute, Daisy said in her mind. She thought back to earlier when she took a seismic orb and crushed it in her fist prior to slamming it onto the ground. It was hard to tell, but some of the power had leaked and escaped as a result of the extreme energy compression just before she threw it.

Daisy held out her hand for yet another seismic orb and shuttled extra power into this one. She then used her great strength again to crush it in her palm, though with no intention to do anything else with it. Her closed fist compressed the power into a highly-dense state that was initially too much for her to maintain. As a result, some of the rumbling seismic force escaped out of the closure of her hand. Daisy perked up when she noticed these reactions.

"What's wrong?" asked Marut. "Did you figure something out?"

A sly grin crept on Daisy's face when she replied, "Maybe something."

"I get why you don't like King Boo," Neva said as they sauntered through South Island. "But what I don't get is why you're so set on having to fight him by yourself. Ramona and you are a great tag team. You two could team up and beat him. Or, you could team up with me and we'd beat him. Why does it have to be you by yourself?"

"It's about pride," Andrew replied. "He insists that his way is better, that his use of shadow is the best and the right way. I want to prove that his way is the wrong way, and I have to do that by pitting my real shadow against his tainted, corrupt shadow. It's supposed to be a calming, free-flowing inverse of light, but shadow wielders like him take it and exaggerate its traits at the expense of the ones that keep it stable. As a result, they have a sickly, impure variant of darkness that elicits energy drain and other ill-effects in whoever they use it on – maybe even in themselves to a degree too."

"But there's immoral uses for all elements, right?" said Neva. "I heard of water wielders who actually try and take control over the water in people's bodies. And I'm sure there's fire wielders who try to ignite their opponents. I bet that if Marissa was still a dedicated fire wielder, she would've tried that on one of us."

"And there's air wielders who attempt to suck the air out of people's lungs," added Andrew. "I guess I'm more bothered by the bad shadow wielders because my element tends to get abused more often. Never mind the stigma it seems to carry that society still hasn't entirely moved past. So how many chips do I have on my shoulder now?"

"Hmm...how about 48,296?"

"That's all? I think I need a recount."

"I'm not counting all the way up to forty-eight thousand again!"

As Neva and Andrew laughed and giggled, they walked by the entrance to the Elemental Training Grounds and saw four cloaked figures they could barely recognize with the rainfall. Ramona, Warra, and Marut watched Daisy fiddle around with shaky, silvery balls and crush them. They didn't appear to notice Neva and Andrew go by.

Those guys are looking pretty busy, Andrew thought. Maybe I should be out there too...

"Is she still trying to make that unblockable attack?" asked Neva.

"She has got to be tired of that by now," Andrew said. "Just how long is she going to hammer away at that move? I mean, she has beaten that technique into the ground, and it has just been strangled and asphyxiated and thrown in front of a car and eaten alive by Buzzars as roadkill."

Neva started cracking up. "Why did you have to put it like that?!"

"Colorful dialogue gets my point across," replied Andrew. "Don't ask me how I come up with any of it, because I have no idea. That's just how my mind works."

"You think she'll pull it off?"

"I feel like I need to try coming up with one if she does. And I got a strong feeling she will."

Within a vacant baseball field in the Rainbow City Sportsplex, Bowser sat in the center of a pentagon formed by the five Black Mages. Lubba hovered nearby and watched Naraka, Tamara, Machula, Maki, and Solovar strike a series of hand signs. The last sign they struck, they pointed at the koopa sitting at the center of their formation in meditation.

Naraka initiated a mantra as a neon teal link formed a star among all five Black Mages that connected each of their posed hands together. The star closed and imploded, fazing through Bowser's form and pulling from his body a navy blue cloud. A pair of red, beaming balls floated around in the opaque haze.

It looked like the Black Mages were making progress until they reached a sticking point. The blue cloud refused to spill out of Bowser any more than it already had. The Black Mages called upon more power and focus to increase their pull, but they made no ground.

The Giga Soul's holding on, Lubba said in thought. They're not making it budge...

Instead, something disturbing developed. As the Black Mages continued to try and extract the Giga Soul, it began exhibiting its own pull on Bowser's body. Then, a translucent, reddish-orange cloud started flowing from the koopa's form.

"Everyone, stop!" Naraka suddenly shouted.

The Black Mages immediately cut their flow of power and rescinded their interlocking pentagram. Without anything trying to rip it free, both Bowser's spirit and the Giga Soul returned into the Kruna of Fire's body. Bowser broke from his trance state and felt lightheaded and nauseated.

"This soul got in, it can get out," said Tamara, getting set to try again.

"No, this obviously is not the way," said Naraka. "Either our spell was too weak, we're too weak for the spell, or, as expected, we need to neutralize the Giga Soul first so that it doesn't try and take Bowser's spirit out with it."

"Would the Giga Soul be easier to extract if we neutralized it?" asked Maki.

"Not by much," said Naraka. "But it would keep Bowser's spirit intact. We definitely need more power somehow. Let's rework the spell and try again when Rosalina and Polari are both available."

"And we also need a good soul neutralizer beforehand," added Solovar.

"Sorry, big guy," said Tamara, patting Bowser on his shell. "It didn't work this time. Looks like you have to hold onto it for a little while longer."

"That's alright," Bowser replied. "You caught me by surprise anyways. I can't be too disappointed."

"You should go lay down and get some rest," Lubba said to the koopa. "You're reacting bad to that spell."

"It's only because we stirred up the Giga Soul," said Solovar. "We have to try and avoid provoking it too much next time."

Bowser grabbed at his head and his chest. He felt his eyes take on strain and his legs tighten up as his vision degraded. Lubba and the others noticed his growing difficulties and decided to escort him back to the Rainbow Suite to let him recuperate in his room.

Neva and Andrew had picked out and dried a bench to sit on while they watched their teammates at the Elemental Training Grounds. They had their umbrella standing on its own, hooked onto a part of the back of the bench. By now, Ramona, Warra, and Marut had put a halt to their own training and focused on Nova Daisy's development of a technique she had put many hours into making. Daisy still fiddled with seismic orbs, trying to make it so that she prevented power leakage from the spheroids when she crushed them in her palm.

"It has to be close to evening," said Andrew. "Probably half past four. See how the sky's starting to dim?"

"It's been dark since this morning," said Neva. "Is the day really almost over?"

"Yeah, it is," said Andrew. "I can't believe how quick it went. Where did the time go?"

Neva smiled and replied, "Where it needed to go."

"Sup, guys!" Daisy shouted to Neva and Andrew. "Didn't see ya there! Hope you're all enjoying the show, 'cause I'm sure not!"

"I don't blame ya!" Neva shouted. "That's a tough challenge you've been taking on!"

"Hey, how come you're holding hands?" Marut hollered at the two.

"Wha-what?! We're not!" snapped Andrew. "I just had this thing – I mean, I was doing deadlifts earlier and my fingers are locking up now, so she's..."

"I'm just manually relaxing them!" Neva finished.

"Oh yeah, my hands lock up from time to time when I'm writing," said Ramona. "Mostly my right hand though, but sometimes my left hand from gripping the book."

"I've been feeling my hands locking up all day," Daisy muttered. "Have I been stuck at the same spot for, like, the past hour now?"

"Daisy, I keep trying to tell you that you're using too much energy to make that dense of a compression," said Warra. "Either pack less power, or condense it with less force."

"But either option is going to make it weaker!" exclaimed Daisy. "It won't have enough attacking force if I don't do both!"

"Well then that might mean you'll have to try a different basal technique to work off of," said Warra.

"But this is the one!" said Daisy. "I'm sure I'm onto something with this earth ball smashing stuff!"

"It'll just recoil and explode, and you'll end up flat on your butt! Again!" Neva yelled. She looked at Andrew, saying, "You might think she'll pull off an unblockable move, but I don't... Uh...Andrew?"

The Kruna of Shadow stared at her with a dreamy gaze. In no time at all, Neva lit up red in the head. She completely disregarded Daisy almost as quick.

"W-what's wrong?" Neva asked. "Why are you looking at me like that?!"

"Just... This is going to sound really mushy, but whatever," Andrew said. "I know everything's been turbulent for a while now, and we're in far from a perfect situation...but, this moment right now, here with you, feels pretty close to perfect. I don't want it to end." He paused, then added, "And now I want to bang my head through a wall for saying that."

"Oh! You're right! That was mushy!" Neva replied with an anxious laugh. "But thanks for sitting here and sharing it with me. I feel the same way... And, I wish time would just freeze right here...not that I mean anything by saying that. It's just us hanging out, right? As friends, right? Close friends? But it's nothing t-that special, is it? Well, now that sounds like I'm downplaying things, does it? I mean, 'cause we are...um...no I shouldn't say that. Just because we're really close to each other right now doesn't mean we should kiss or – no wait, I didn't mean to say 'kiss!' I mean, hey! Where did that come from?! I totally didn't expect someone to say that! Why would somebody say something like that?! Who's that crazy?!"

"There's nobody around us," muttered Andrew, an odd expression now plastered on his face.

"YES THERE IS!" Neva yelled. "Someone's putting mouth on my mouth! I mean, tongue in my mouth! NO! I mean, WORDS IN my mouth! I bet it was Daisy! She's trying to ruin the moment like some saucy jerk! The non-romantic moment! Or was it Ramona! She's jealous, isn't she? I knew it! I knew it, I knew-"

Andrew pointed at the four other Kruna and said, "They're all over there, and they're not even paying any attention to us. Just calm down."

"Don't tell me to calm down, you idiot!" Neva snapped.

"BROS!" Waluigi screamed from behind. Neva and Andrew both jumped and turned to see Wario, Waluigi, and Koops standing up from behind their bench in rain ponchos.

"What are you doing here?! GET LOST!" Andrew screamed.

"See?!" snapped Neva. "I told you that someone said 'kiss!' Why couldn't you not be such an...m-moron and just listen to me, shadow-spitter?!"

"Who's the moron when you just said an moron?!" Andrew snapped back.

"I'M TOO FLUSTERED FOR GRAMMAR!" screamed Neva.

"Man, you guys are sappy and nauseating!" Wario boomed.

"You're just nauseating!" yelled Andrew.

"WHY are you HERE?!" hollered Neva.

"We just wanted to know if you guys were playing tonsil hockey yet," said Waluigi.

"Crude and unusual verbiage – get out of here, creep!" snapped Andrew.

"Tonsil Pinata?" asked Waluigi.

"GO AWAY!" Neva and Andrew both screamed.

"Yeah, Waluigi, beat it!" Wario hollered. "Don't worry, I got your backs!"

"You too, Wario!" yelled Andrew.

"Yeah, give them some privacy!" said Koops.

"Really? You're doing this too?" grumbled Andrew. "You've been hanging around them too much and you're picking up their habits!"

"Can you guys please just leave us alone right now?" asked Neva.

"Alright, alright; we'll leave you two losers alone," said Waluigi, laughing to himself.

"Losers?" said Andrew. "That's some edgy and provocative language!"

Wario, Waluigi, and Koops walked over to the other Kruna, not offering any retort to try and stir up the ice and shadow wielders any further; that is, until Waluigi bent a hand behind his back to flip Andrew off. The Kruna of Shadow got ready to sidearm a dark burst at Waluigi, but Neva latched onto his raised elbow to stop him. Neva and Andrew stared at each other for a while, both florid-faced and at a loss for words. Though irritated from the rude and awkward disturbance, they soon ended up laughing at all of it. Once Wario, Waluigi, and Koops caught Daisy at a natural break in her work, Wario told her group about Bowser and the failed Giga Soul extraction.

"... So he's resting in his room right now," said Wario. "You've likely seen all you're gonna see out of him today."

"That spell was really harsh on the Giga Soul, and setting it off aggravated it," said Koops. "So he has to take it easy and recover now."

"That's good," said Ramona. "No use trying to come back out here in his condition."

"You dudes need to check out what Daisy's been trying to do here," Marut said to the three newcomers.

"I hate to break it to you, Daisy, but this next attempt might turn out fruitless again," said Warra. "You've got to be running low on energy."

Daisy crushed another seismic orb, still mystified by the energy leakage that resulted. "I'm doing something right here and I'm doing something wrong here. And I've been using the inner eye ability from Geno to try and modulate this too, but that has only helped so much..."

"She's trying to create an unblockable technique," Ramona said to Wario, Waluigi, and Koops.

"Look, freaky-eyed punk-hair Daisy; if you want an unblockable attack, you need lots and lots of bombs!" said Waluigi. "Nobody's blocking those bad boys!"

"Nice try, but I've seen it happen plenty of times before," said Warra.

"Well thank you for your input, Mr. Pretty Boy," grumbled Waluigi. "You wanna show me how blockable bob-ombs are?"

"Guys, shut up!" Daisy yelled, her concentration fierce. Everyone around her quieted down as Daisy raised her charged arm skyward. She and the others stared at her overhead seismic spheroid as it rumbled and tremored in a hover over her palm. A flashback to all of her closest attempts at forming some semblance of the attack she sought to create ran through her mind; and from there, she then decided on what next to do with her compressed ball.

Don't restrain, Daisy thought. I have to crush and then let explode!

Daisy smashed the ball of earth power in her palm with enough force sufficient to elicit a quaking mini-explosion out of it, but she quickly directed the burst out and away from herself. Looking at her closed fist, a realization then developed. She tried the exact same thing again, and again, and again; directing more of the explosion away from her and ahead of her hand. Where the energy burst, it shook and rattled the air.

If I can get this exploding ahead of me with a crush... Daisy thought, now positioning herself to let an explosion go off in front of her. When she smashed the next seismic orb, it went out in a spread a good two or three yards ahead. …I can just attack right out of that explosion! All I have to do is stay behind it! In fact...

Daisy then got set to throw a Smash Punch with a seismic orb charged and ready; but when she moved, she went into an overhead punching maneuver with her charged hand open. In this manner, she threw her arm down in an arc from above. As she did so, she crunched her swinging hand closed to create the seismic explosion that flew out from her now clenched fist. Her punch followed just behind the volatile earth energy.

Combine the strength of Smash Punch, the technique of an overhead punch, and earthly seismic energy together, Daisy thought, repeating the process she just completed. She did the maneuver again, over and over, stringing it together into a better chain with smoother flow on each attempt. This seismic orb crush sacrifices a lot of the overall strength, but in exchange, it'll bust through defenses... It's dependable enough to change the angle if need be... And there's no chance of reacting if this lands because the punch will come through as the defense gets blown apart...

After one final attempt that made the largest crunching sound out of all the tries, Daisy turned to face the others and said, "This is it."

"You mean you figured it out?" asked Ramona. "That's so cool! I'm so happy for you!"

"I just need to adjust and make a few tweaks," said Daisy. "But I feel like this is exactly the move I've been looking for."

"Are you sure?" asked Warra. "It seems a little bit on the simpler side."

"But it requires timing," said Daisy. "And besides, it doesn't have to be flashy. It just has to do the job it's supposed to do, and I'm all but certain that that's what it'll do." She demonstrated the move again, a moderately-quick technique with a focus on disruption over brute force. "And I got the idea because Waluigi wouldn't shut his trap about bombs."

"Yeah, how about that?" said Waluigi. "I come up with the best ideas!"

"Sure you do," said Daisy. "You guys wanna help me test this out?"

"Alright, well, this was fun! We'll be going now!" Waluigi then said, waving bye as he, Wario, and Koops trotted away. "Later 'loo-sair-zz!' "

"Their loss," Daisy said, trying the move out again.

"That's a nice Breaker Punch!" Marut said.

"Breaker Punch?" Daisy said. "Why'd you call it that?"

"It's a punch that breaks through defenses!" the Kruna of Air replied. "Defense breaker, shield breaker; why wouldn't I call it anything else?"

Daisy grinned and nodded. "I like it."