Disclaimer: The views and opinions in this story are not intended to be viewed as those of the author. The following is a fan-written fiction. Gravity Falls, Star vs. The Forces of Evil, Kim Possible, and Big Bad Beetleborgs are property of their respective owners, creators, and publishers. Please support the official releases.
TW: This story will contain references to physical and psychological abuse, murder, and torture. Furthermore, several chapters of Volume 8 (and for the next several volumes) are set during a time period of extreme racial prejudice and traditionally sexist views towards both men and women. Reader discretion is advised.
|Offensive|
At Britta's Tacos, Brittney Wong tore into an overly stuffed burrito as she watched her best friend Sabrina Backintosh meekly stare at her smartphone. The phone sat on the picnic table in front of the restaurant, Sabrina swallowing heavily as she tapped her fingers on either side of it.
Brittney took another bite and chewed, her eyes narrowing as Sabrina's fingers inched towards the screen before retreating back to their starting position. The mousy, clumsy cheerleader was sweating profusely, and trembling like a chihuahua in the midst of a panic attack.
Chewing and swallowing, Brittney set down the burrito in its cardboard container, before she lashed out for the phone. "For fuck's sake, Sabrina!"
Sabrina was faster, snatching up the phone in both her hands and shrieking at her friend. "I CAN DO IT, BRITTNEY!"
Backing off, Brittney rolled her eyes. "Are you going to do it before the Heat Death of the Universe?"
"I'm gonna!" She assured her best friend. "It's just…" She sighed. "I had so much fun with him Saturday, but that was the biggest dance, that was YOUR dance. I don't know if he'll say yes if it's not for something big and important like that."
Brittney gave her a probing look. "Sabrina Backintosh. The fact that Andrew McCormick had fun with you and wasn't a sniveling simp the entire time like some kind of dweeb means that if you asked him out… he'd probably say yes." She rolled her eyes. "I mean, come on! You spent the entire dance attached at the hip and you were chugging whipped cream at the end of the night like nobody was watching you two be the most adorable goobers alive!"
She slapped the table. "You have chemistry! You get along! Ask the boy out already before Heather Summers or Janna Ordonia do!"
Sabrina did a double take. "Wait, Janna's into him, too?"
"I've heard rumors," Brittney said before pivoting back to her point. "But that just means you need to square up, get your pom-poms out your purse, and STAKE YOUR CLAIM!"
A fire burning in her eyes, Sabrina lunged for her phone and held it up to her face. "I… I'll do it!"
With great determination Sabrina began texting out a message.
Sabrina said:
Hello Andrew! I hope this text message sees you well. I wanted to tell you again that I had a very good time at the dance and I hope you did too! :slight_smile:
I was hoping that since we had so much fun, that you would like to hang out again. We could go see a movie, grab some food, or even take a walk down Santa Monica Pier! Or all three! Actually, all three sounds really good, it could be an entire afternoon and it'll be super fun! :slight_smile:
I'm sorry I'm rambling, but I'm super nervous, I've never asked a boy out on my own before. And you're like the coolest boy I've ever met. So anyway text me back! Thank you for taking the time to read! :slight_smile:
"And… SEND!" Sabrina said like she was pushing through the last rep in a set of fifty. Sagging in relief, she then threw up her hands in victory. "I DID IT! I ASKED A BOY OUT!"
Brittney finished her burrito in the time it took Sabrina to write out that text. "What did you send him, Tolkien, a manuscript?"
"I'm nervous! I rambled!" Sabrina snapped back at her. Her eyes then flew wider, and she let out a frightened squeak before she shrank back.
Her reaction alerted Brittney, who looked behind her and jumped when she found a young man walking up to her from her blind spot. He had brown, unkempt sandy brown hair underneath a black baseball cap with a deer skull in its center. He wore a pair of baggy black jeans and a white t-shirt with the picture of a scowling, fair-skinned, glasses-wearing man with short black hair and matching dark eyes.
"Hey, ladies," the young man greeted.
Brittney stared at the face on the shirt and felt a strange sense of déjà vu as she tried to recollect where she saw his face before. Her eyes then widened before she looked up at the young man's face, his eyes hidden by his hat and hair not unlike Oskar Greason's.
"Hey…" She said with a suspicious tone before asking. "… You wouldn't be TC Darnell, would you?"
"That depends," the young man used his thumb to tip his hat up, revealing gentle-looking eyes that were an unusual shade of violet. "Are you Brittney Wong and not the kind of girl who'd blow up a man's spot?"
Sabrina was less nervous. "Ah… TC Darnell… the artist?"
Brittney nodded, recognizing him. "Yeah, it's him."
"In the flesh," he confirmed.
She looked at his shirt. "Is that a new shirt design?"
"Mmhm!" He replied. "Just finished it like an hour ago. I actually just had a dozen made." He gestured to a duffel bag that he had set at his feet. "When I thought I saw the daughter of one of LA's better known patrons of the arts and thought… 'maybe I should hit her up, see if she wants a shirt.'"
"Of course I want a shirt," Brittney said without hesitating, before she added. "But what are you doing here in Echo Creek? Weren't you in Paris just like a month ago?"
"Paris, Tel Aviv, Dubai, Shanghai… I went to a lot of places a month ago, selling shirts like crazy." TC reached down into the bag and pulled out a pair of white t-shirts that he then handed to Brittney before tossing one in front of Sabrina. "I've done so much traveling it's actually pissed off a few of my sponsors, so I'm laying low for a bit."
Sabrina stared at the face on the shirt, not experiencing the strange sense Brittney had. "Excuse me, um… my friend's told me about you. Where do you get the ideas for your shirts?"
"The faces? Well, I do a lot of traveling, and I see a lot of faces. So many faces that after a while they blend together, and I can barely remember any save for specific features that just grab me." He gestured to the shirt. "So, I draw the faces from memory and use the features that stand out or strike me. The result is a face that doesn't exist… but is familiar to someone in some way."
He smiled at the girls. "You might've seen someone with glasses like these, or eyes, or haircut… maybe even been frowned at by a particularly mean teacher. You don't remember where you've seen this face, but it sticks out and it creates that feeling that this person who doesn't exist might have been someone you knew."
Sabrina held up the shirt given to her, and saw the face of the bespectacled man glaring at her. Now that she saw it up close, she got what he was trying to say. That scowl sent a chill through her, like she'd seen it before. "… I see what you mean, it's kind of creepy."
TC shrugged his shoulders. "And that's why I draw them, so people can feel something."
"Well," Brittney said, "Are you planning on making anymore while you're here?"
"A few more," TC said as he watched Sabrina fold her shirt up. "I have an idea for one that I'll get started after dinner tonight."
At that moment a familiar and unsettling sound filled the air. Soon as she heard it, Brittney's left eye twitched and she shot to her feet, scanning the sky. "… Are you kidding me?!"
Sabrina, TC, and everyone else dining in front of or waiting in line at Britta's Tacos looked up as the shadows of the vespoid-shaped Magnavore Jet Fighters passed overhead. There were two flights of four of them, flying high and circling wide over Echo Creek like vultures searching for a meal.
"They… they're attacking again?!" Sabrina asked, in disbelief. "They just attacked yesterday!"
Brittney already had her phone to her ear, calling Star. "I guess they got tired of acting like Power Rangers villains with that monster of the week crap."
TC looked down the street and frowned. "Uh… girls? We should run."
Both followed where he was looking, and Brittney almost dropped her phone when she saw that what was once an empty street was now crowded with dozens of those Scab monsters from last week. They stood in square formation, their bodies twitching and jerking in anticipation, moving in an inhuman fashion.
At the very front of this formation, Barla stood with her black dragon armor gleaming in the sun and the eyes of the dragon head on her chest alight with malice. Raising her hand above her head, her sword materialized in it with a burst of flame. Looking at the otherwise peaceful neighborhood and gawking pedestrians and drivers stopped and staring at them, she pointed her sword forward and shouted.
"ATTACK!"
"Flabber, can you explain any of this?!" Marco demanded as he and Drew cornered the phasm in Wolfy's room. Behind them, Jackie and Star were examining the still glowing armoire, while Janna laid on the bed and stared at the ceiling of the four-post bed.
"I honestly can't!" Flabber said. "It was so long ago; I can't remember anything. My memory before… oh… 1920 is really fuzzy, guys!"
"Come on, is there anything at all you remember?" Marco pressed. "This is important. What is this place to me and Star?!"
Drew was wrestling with the implications of this room. "This random abandoned house in the hills outside of Echo Creek is connected to a magical princess from another dimension, the guy she was chosen to live with… and only became relevant to us on the day we all met… what the actual hell?"
"Huh," Mums said from the doorway. "When you think about it like that. It almost sounds like you brats were meant to be here."
Marco and Drew turned to him, shouting together in exasperation. "That's the screwed-up part!"
Flabber knocked on his own head with both hands. "I'm sorry! I really am, I just can't remember anything too far back. Wolfy would probably know!"
Star confronted the monsters. "What do you remember?!" She demanded.
Fangula shrugged his shoulders. "Nothing? We didn't wake from our slumber here until the Doctor passed in the 1930s. And some of us weren't keen on getting up even then."
Mums discreetly pointed at Fangula without looking at him. "This guy."
"If I'm going to wake up, I will wake up beautifully," Fangula declared.
"You must be sleepwalking champion of the Vampire Dimension," Mums muttered.
"I'll end you, mummy."
"Well, do you remember how you got here?" Jackie asked.
All three monsters shook their heads. "All we know is that one day we were here. There's a bit of a blank for me from about… 3500 years ago to 1939 AD."
"No remember," Frankenbeans said. "Only remember doctor make Frankie… then wakey wakey in house."
Fangula huffed. "I remember everything from my turning in my home dimension, coming to this dimension in 1730, and everything from then to about 1898."
Drew stopped overthinking the idea of destiny. "What happened in 1898?"
Fangula shrugged his shoulders. "I had a bite to eat, tucked into bed, and then woke up in 1948."
"None of this makes sense," Drew said.
"Wait, you're from another dimension?" Janna asked and went unheard.
"No, we just don't have all the facts," Marco said as he went for his phone. "Welp, time to call Dipper and have him do his mystery stuff."
Star's phone abruptly rang.
Worship the queen and you might could pass! Keep it real, these bitches couldn't wipe my ass!
"Wait, Brittney?" Star said as she pulled out her magic mirror compact. "Hey, Brittney this is a bad time–"
"Yeah, it's a bad time!" Brittney shouted. "Those Magnavore guys are attacking downtown! They've got jets and everything! People are running around trying to not get blasted or beaten up!"
Star looked around at the others. "The Magnavores are attacking Echo Creek."
Drew grew alarmed. "Wait, they're actually attacking the town, now?!"
At that moment, the house's PA clicked on and Misao called out. "Everyone, come down to the Beetle Battle Base right now! The Magnavores are attacking the town with Jet Fighters and a lot of Scabs! We're getting the AVs ready!"
Star turned her attention to the Magic Mirror. "Brittney, we'll be there as quick as we can!"
Without a moment's hesitation, she ended the call and used the Scissors to slash open a portal to the Beetle Battle Base, the teenagers all pouring into the command center where Roland and Jo were already transforming into the Hunterborg and Strikerborg. Dipper was already at the main console with Misao, both watching the computer screen as transcripts of police and EMS reports poured in and a map of Echo Creek's downtown, specifically the vicinity of Britta's Taco's, radiated red.
"How many are there?" Drew asked as he summoned his Beetle Bonder.
"At least a few dozen scabs and eight jet fighters," Dipper said.
Marco didn't like that. "A few dozen?! Where'd they get that many?!"
Drew sneered. "Today is just non-stop question after question." He held up his Beetle Bonder. "Beetle Blast!"
In a flash he transformed and turned to his fellow Beetleborgs. "Let's get to work!"
"We were waiting for you, m'boy," Hunterborg said.
Strikerborg pumped her fists in excitement. "I get to take to the air again." She looked at Misao. "And I'll definitely be mindful of what's happening on the ground."
Misao called back to Strikerborg. "I trust you!"
As the Beetleborgs turned and raced to their AVs, Dipper looked to their less armored friends. "Are you guys going out there, too?"
Marco looked at Star and Jackie, then at Dipper. "Well, we have to."
"Armor or not," Jackie said, "There's a lot of those Scab guys, right? We need everybody who can fight over there."
Star held up her wand. "I have a temporary solution. I don't know how long it'll last, though."
Mabel stepped up. "Then count me in, too!" There was no question from anyone. After Mabel's performance last week and yesterday, her joining was welcomed. "So, magic us up, girl! We have a town to save!"
Nodding, Star held her wand aloft. "RAINBOW SENTAI BATTLE ARMOR!"
With Star's command, the wand flashed to life and sprayed rainbow-colored energy that swirled out around herself, Marco, Mabel, and Jackie. The light spread over the four of them, becoming a bodysuit-like forcefield that was at its thickest a half-inch. It covered them from head to toe, sporting devil horns on Star's "helmet", a karate-belt shaped addition around Marco's waist, a whole shark tail sticking from the back of Jackie's suit, and the top of Mabel's suit shaped like the sweater she wore.
"I dub us… the MewRangers!" Star declared.
Marco turned and looked at her. "… We're not calling ourselves that."
Star stopped. "Right, got a little carried away." She focused and held up her Dimensional Scissors. "Let's get going!"
It was chaos. People were running for their lives as they were chased by weapon-brandishing Scabs. Tires were screeching as townsfolk driving into the chaos abruptly turned around and drove away–only to abandon their vehicles and dive for cover as the Magnavore Jet Fighters dove low and strafed the streets.
Amidst the chaos, Brittney, Sabrina, and TC ran around the corner from the mob of Scabs and sprinted up a side street. Dudley was standing beside Brittney's G-Wagen while enjoying a bowl of pozole purchased from the restaurant for his lunch break. He'd barely noticed the chaos that was beginning, until he saw his brand-new employer and her companion approaching with another young man he did not recognize.
"Dudley! Get us out of here, before we get jumped!" Brittney shouted at her butler.
Despite the alarm in his charge's voice, Dudley could not help but feel elated to be called by his real name. "Is everything well, Master Brittney?"
"DOES IT LOOK LIKE IT?!" Brittney yelled at him before a quartet of Scabs fell from the sky and landed around her, Sabrina, and TC, blocking their route to Dudley while several more charged up behind them.
TC looked at the monsters, then at the two girls in his company and their elderly, doddering butler who began walking towards them. He hefted his bag. "Okay, we're getting jumped. How do we not die?"
"Pardon me," Dudley said as he approached them. "But disperse so that I may escort Master Brittney and her companions to safety–"
The Scab nearest to him turned and immediately brandished its flame-shaped blade, while making a sound between a screech and a swarm of metal wasps buzzing angrily in warning.
Still walking up to the Scab, Dudley lowered his right arm and then in a much faster motion reached up and plunged a stiletto knife into the dead center of the Scab's head.
"I was not making a request," he said as the Scab crumpled, dissolving into a pile of dying metal wasps.
The other Scabs immediately took more interest in Dudley, swarming towards him. But the seemingly innocuous old man calmly and efficiently dispatched each as they approached in the same manner, stabbing them clean through their heads as soon as they entered his range of attack.
Brittney, Sabrina, and TC watched, mouths agape, as the butler calmly walked around them and used his methodic violence to clear remaining the Scabs before stopping behind them and slipping the stiletto into his jacket.
"… Could you always do that?" Brittney asked as the last of the offending Scabs began to decay.
"Yes," Dudley replied.
"… Did your former employers know that?"
"Master Brittney, they couldn't be bothered to know my name."
Brittney and Sabrina looked at each other, then back at Dudley.
He clearly had the patience of a Saint for not murdering them himself.
"Now then, please get to the vehicle so that we may depart safely," Dudley ordered.
The girls quickly complied, TC not so much. "Hey, I'm not heading the same way you are. So I'm going to abscond elsewhere. You guys be safe."
Sabrina looked at the chaos down the street. "Are you sure?"
TC flashed her a smile. "I'll be fine, don't worry! I'll see you around… enjoy the shirts!"
With that he crossed the street and ran up it before ducking to his left into an alleyway. Shrugging her shoulders, Brittney took Sabrina's hand and led her off to the G-Wagen.
"Let's go, Star will be here any minute now and we don't want to be in the splash zone!"
The very moment they reached the car, Brittney's words rang true as the Green Hunter AV came around the corner in front of them and thundered past towards the corner and Britta's Tacos. Looking across the street in front of him, behind his helmet Roland scanned across the street at the Scabs causing havoc, target markers appearing over each of them. The blaster turrets atop the hull of the Hunter AV opened fire, the beams pummeling the Scabs without striking any of the fleeing pedestrians they were chasing around.
"God damn there's a lot of them!" Hunterborg said before his AV was rocked by several laser bolts from four strafing Magnavore Jet Fighters.
As the four crafts pulled out of their dive, bursts of laser fire from in front and below caused the fighters to spread out. Climbing to meet the ascending Jet Fighters, the Red Striker AV committed on the leading Jet Fighter, Jo ripple firing blasters that ripped through the fighter.
The exploding fighter came apart, becoming a cloud of dying and decomposing metal wasps that the fan-driven beetle-shaped fighter blasted through.
"And a bunch of fighters!" Strikerborg said as she chased after the lead Jet Fighter's wingmate, while keeping clear of bolts fired by the other two Jet Fighters that had quickly come around to pounce on her.
As the aircraft cut across the sky, down the street from the Hunter AV, the Stinger AV arrived on the scene and with the same machine precision opened fire on another group of Scabs. "How many of these things are they able to summon at once, now?"
A group of Scabs charged towards the Stinger AV racing towards them, brandishing their weapons. After making sure the path was clear of innocent people on the ground, Stingerborg lowered the horn of his AV and floored it, crashing through the crowd and scattering them away or running them under its wheels.
When he passed through the crowd, however, he came upon Barla, who brandished her sword and swung it down to meet the horn of the AV. With a clang, the Stinger AV came to an abrupt halt, and Drew lurched forward in his seat. "Ah… what the…!?"
Seeing Barla's face, his eyes widened in alarm. "Ah, crap, they got Barla?!"
Looked it, but the strength she used to proceed to flip the Blue Stinger AV into the air was anything but. Rather than flail, Drew recovered and worked the controls, firing off emergency thrusters that righted the AV and brought down on its wheels.
"Hunterborg, be careful!" He shouted out. "She's strong!"
"Man, I just saw her do that!" Roland called back as he fired blaster bolts at Barla.
Under the hail of fire, Barla spun her sword to cut down two bolts before swinging the blade twice to smack aside follow up shots. "Get out of those machines and fight me properly!"
The mouth of the dragon chestplate opened and fired a continuous beam that smashed into the Green Hunter AV, pushing it backward and damaging it.
"Hey, are you all right?!" Drew asked.
Roland nodded. "I'm good, it should be able to make it back."
Drew released the controls. "I'm going in."
Roland nodded. "You got this, cuh!"
Stingerborg launched himself from his AV and landed in a crouch in the middle of the chaotic street. Hearing him land, and his AV retreat, Barla turned and brandished her sword at him.
"The blue one who defeated Saberizer."
Stingerborg pulled out the Input Magnum into his left hand, then deployed the Stinger Blade over his right arm. "Yeah, I did."
Barla nodded. "That's a shame. I never got to measure myself against him after I received this armor." With that she prepared to attack. "Show me the determination you had that allowed you to defeat him!"
At once the two attacked one another, Stingerborg opening fire with the Input Magnum in Beam Mode. Barla raced straight in, the energy shots glancing harmlessly off her armor before she got close enough and slashed him across his armor chest with a downward diagonal stroke.
Sparks flying from his armor, Stingerborg tried to recover and strike back, but Barla was faster and swung upward vertically, cutting upwards over Drew's armor and knocking him off his footing completely.
Inside the armor, Drew was even more alarmed. She hits harder than Saberizer!
"I'm not done yet!" Barla shouted as she struck Stingerborg with a flurry of slashes, her arm and the blade she wielded a blur as sparks flew from the armor with each hit.
The barrage of attacks came to an abrupt halt when the Green Hunterborg caught her arm in the Hunter Claw. When Barla looked to her right, Hunterborg was aiming the Input Magnum at her face.
As soon as Roland fired, Barla turned her head, the Beam Bolts deflecting off the side of her helmet to hit the staggered Stingerborg in the chest and arm.
"Shit–!" Hunterborg yelled out before Barla pulled him in and punched him in the head. As he stepped back, she used her sword to pull him in front of her, then yanked her blade out from the grip of the claw. She then struck Hunterborg with a rising diagonal cut, disappeared, and reappeared behind him to strike Stingerborg with a descending strike in the opposite direction.
Turning around as Stingerborg toppled, she lunged to stab Hunterborg in the back but passed through his after image. His attempt at a super speed attack was foiled when she effortlessly parried the Hunter Claw from closing around her neck, then brutalized him with six quick, heavy hits that knocked him off his feet.
Landing on his back, Hunterborg looked at Stingerborg, who was getting up. "Hey, twin? I'm kinda mad that Strikerborg got to fight Hammer Kong but we're out the gate with this shit."
"Me too," Stingerborg said before Barla came at him again. When she swung her sword this time, however, Stingerborg successfully blocked and then parried the blade aside.
I have to go straight to using telekinesis to move myself! Drew thought as Barla recovered from the parry and countered his riposte. To her surprise, her next quick blows were either stopped out right or countered.
"There it is!" Barla said. "So you can fight!"
"It doesn't matter if I can or can't, I have to!" Stingerborg shouted back.
Sparks flew as their blades clashed again and again. "I have to protect people from creeps like you! So, don't make this out like it's something I'm doing for fun!"
Once more Barla was parried, and Drew winced from the pain of moving his arm with such violence. "The last guy who talked that kind of shit, I cut him and that sword of his in half!"
Rather than moving himself with his Telekinesis, he moved Barla, grabbing her and throwing her with all his might into the side of one of the cars abandoned and burning since the start of the attack. She went into it with such force that she went through the frame, rending it in half before hitting one of the picnic tables in front of Britta's tacos and reducing it to splinters.
Shaking her head, Barla sat up. "What did he hit me with? Telekinesis?"
That wasn't what actually bothered her, though as she watched Stingerborg enter a combination on his Input Magnum and open fire upon her with a blue ray of frosty energy. Quickly her cloak transformed into a set of wings, and she launched herself into the air above the freezing beam.
Stingerborg watched her race into the sky, high above him. "She can fly, too?!"
At the Beetle Battle Base, Dipper watched the battle unfold with chagrin. "She's not in any of our databases, I don't think we've gotten to her comic yet."
Misao turned to Janna. "Janna? Go take Gargantis out, so you can support them. They're going to need more firepower."
Janna perked up. "Wait, really?"
"Yes!" Misao said. "Schnell!"
As Barla rose above the battlefield, she looked down and found a sight she didn't expect. Her Scabs were under attack, not by the Beetleborgs but what appeared to be the others Jara described.
On the ground, Marco high-kicked a Scab in the head with such force that its head disintegrated, before he switched and kicked with his other leg to strike another Scab in the chest, throwing it onto its back. Behind him Jackie, armed with another spear, slapped another Scab terrorizing some civilians across the head before she quickly brought her weapon back and stabbed it where a human's nose would be.
Twisting the spear, she wrenched the weapon out of the Scab's head and spun the weapon around before using the razor-sharp head of the weapon to cut deeply into two more Scabs and then stab a third.
Marco dipped his body while sidestepping the wild swing of a Scab's short sword, before he back handed it with his right fist and then delivered a left cross that wrenched its head at a bad angle. He then turned and swung the back of his right heel into its neck, snapping the head off completely. As it dissolved, yet another Scab jumped in, succeeding in stabbing Marco in the chest and causing him to stumble back.
Star's spell held, with only a few sparks flying from the contact. "Is this what it feels like for the Beetleborgs? I felt that!" He crossed his arms to block a vertical swing from the Scab, before Mabel intervened with a flying drop kick that sent the Scab crashing to the ground.
Marco capitalized, running up to and bringing his foot down on the robot's head, crushing it and cracking the pavement underneath.
"I'd be having a lot more fun if they weren't messing with people who've got nothing to do with this, and my tacos!" He shouted out.
"Yeah, we have a lot on our minds!" Star, further behind the others, shouted as she raised her wand. "Rainbow Avalanche!"
The stream of rainbows crashed into multiple Scabs, battering and then tearing them apart while also avoiding nearby civilians scrambling for cover. Turning towards a Scab, Star swung the wand at it as she shouted another spell. "Super Heart Slap!"
A light in the shape of a heart appeared around her wand as it connected with the Scab, both blowing its head off and sending its body flying. "I am so happy for this distraction!"
"And so many things to break!" Mabel cheered as she grabbed a Scab that cut across her magically armored body, doing no damage, and picked it up to slam onto another Scab that joined in the first's attack.
As soon as they were down Jackie fell on them both, stabbing one and then the other each in the head. She then turned and swung the weapon like a golf club, bodily bisecting another Scab's head. "So many things! I don't like that there's so many, dude!"
Barla observed the brawl with interest as she noticed most of the civilians caught up in her attack either open the distance from the brawl or film it with their phones. Another thing she noticed from on high was the universal flashes of red and blue as police established a perimeter around the area rather than barging straight in.
"… They're not moving in themselves," she said aloud.
A cascade of energy bolts danced off her armor and she looked down to see the Stingerborg and Hunterborg shooting up at her with their Input Magnums. Unharmed by the weapons, she merely sniffed in derision–before much heavier bolts slammed into her back, causing an explosion that propelled her forward.
Stopping herself, she turned around to see the Red Striker AV hovering there, its beam cannons swiveling slightly to focus on her before firing another barrage.
"You didn't forget about me, did you?!" Strikerborg asked as Barla swiftly evaded the next attack. "Well, of course she'd evade now."
As Barla turned and attacked, Jo redlined the throttle and evaded the lunge before pivoting the fans and accelerating away. "Hey, Misao!"
"Ja?" She asked.
"I'm going to need to focus on flying, can you shoot for me from the Battle Base?"
After a brief moment, Misao answered. "As a matter of fact, I can! I'm connected to the Red Striker AV, now!"
"I figured you'd be able to." With that, the Red Strikerborg pulled her AV into a high-speed climb.
Barla gave pursuit, scanning the sky for the Jet Fighters she came with. To her surprise there were none. "Did the red one shoot them all down that quickly?!"
Above her, the Red Strike AV's body flipped over while the fans kept driving it upward. Seeing the barrels, Barla stopped and boosted back. Turning completely over upside down, Jo flipped the fans to match the body's orientation and plummeted straight down. As the Red Striker AV fell, Misao locked the beam cannons onto Barla and fired with a precision that surprised both the Dragonslayer and Strikerborg. Almost every bolt from the short burst hit, engulfing Barla in smoke.
"Whoa, nice shooting!" Strikerborg said as she adjusted the throttles to flip her AV over, then oriented them to race away from the cloud.
"Nice flying!" Misao complimented back. "How do you do it so well?"
"Please, I've played every Reddle-centric flight shooter since I was eight! Sure, they were buggy and some of them triggered epileptic seizures for some weird reason, but they taught me a bunch about how this thing moves!"
Dipper, overhearing that, said aloud. "It may have to do with the fact that anything Beetleborgs related comes from the Nightmare Realm and adaptations are some kind of cognitive hazard. I mean… look at the movie."
Misao nodded. "That makes sense."
As the smoke cleared, Barla was taking aim at the Red Striker AV with her Dragon Chestplate. As the dragon's mouth began to glow, however, she was bombarded again from the ground by Stingerborg and Hunterborg. Once more, the weapons did nothing to phase her.
"Useless!" Barla declared before opening fire. The beam shot across the sky, and she was certain the attack would hit, but the Red Striker AV narrowly rolled clear and used said roll to come back around at high speed.
"Holy crap!" Strikerborg said as she closed in, Misao targeting and striking Barla a few more times. "Barla is freaking crazy!"
Drew followed the Dragonslayer's movements across the sky. "That armor is too tough for the Input Magnums, and Strikerborg is literally just annoying her."
Star, fortunately, had a solution to that immediate crisis. "Honeybee Tornado Swarm!"
A beam of yellow light from Star's wand struck Barla, and quickly manifested in a swarm of extremely angry honeybees that began stinging her everywhere they could reach to no effect.
"Is this some kind of joke?!" Barla said before a portal opened directly above her, revealing Star aiming her wand at her on the other side.
"SUPER RAINBOW FIST PUNCH!"
A massive rainbow-fist connected with and smashed Barla down into the street below before dissipating into a festive colorful cloud.
In the fist-shaped crater made by the impact, Barla stood up. "… How…?"
The Dragon chest plate's eyes lit up, and Barla quickly brought her sword up to parry Stingerborg up and away as he attacked from her front. As he was knocked off his footing, her whole body flickered to block Hunterborg swinging the Hunter Claw like a sword.
"You should stay down!" She snapped at him.
"Stop your yapping and box!" Hunterborg shouted back.
As if teleporting, both switched places, their weapons meeting again, before Hunterborg abruptly vanished and then appeared on Stingerborg's other side, slammed into the ground by a haymaker from Barla's free hand as she appeared above him.
Before she could move with her own super speed again, Stingerborg grabbed her with his telekinesis while entering Crash Mode into the Input Magnum. He jammed the barrel of the weapon into her face and opened fire, performing the equivalent of a mag-dump until an alarm warned him of overheating.
When he pulled the weapon back, he was surprised to see a demon-like mask over Barla's face, before it opened to reveal her own unarmed visage and the dragon's mouth opened to blast Drew in the chest with another beam.
Freed from his telekinetic grasp, Barla raised the sword over her head with both hands and plunged the blade down from overhead to impale Stingerborg through the chest.
Using his telekinesis, Stingerborg threw himself out of the way of Barla's blade. As the weapon slipped deep into the ground, almost to the hilt, Barla looked to her right at him, before movement to her left prompted her to rip her blade up out of the ground to strike Hunterborg in the gut with the pommel.
As Hunterborg was doubled over by the attack, Strikerborg dropped from her AV and landed in a crouch behind her, the Striker Plasmar already spinning at max RPM.
"TORNADO SPARK!" Strikerborg yelled, the large bolt of energy generated from the weapon slamming into Barla and throwing her down the street, towards Britta's Tacos.
Before she could smash into and destroy the restaurant, she was struck by another Rainbow Fist Punch that knocked her into the street next to the restaurant.
Barla shook her head, surprised again by the force of the blow, before Marco fell on her with a flying kick she blocked with the flat of her sword. Putting both feet on the blade, Marco jumped off it, avoiding Barla's parrying slash.
Star slid under Marco, wand aimed for her chestplate. "Winterstorm Hyperblow!"
And then Barla was blasted with a beam of ice that completely encased her. As her chestplate's eyes flashed and the thick ice began to crack, Mabel came running in from her left, jumped, and performed a flying roundhouse kick that shattered the ice and sent Barla stumbling towards the center of the intersection.
"All together now!" She shouted out. "JUMP THIS LOSER!"
Barla raised her sword and swung before Hunterborg intervened with super speed and blocked her strike. As soon as their blades met, Jackie used her spear to catch the sword between itself and the Hunter Claw.
Barla broke the lock and slashed both Jackie and Roland. Star's protection barely held for her, but the wind was still knocked out of her as she caught herself. Roland, having taken the brunt of the hit, outright tumbled along the ground away from her.
Just as quickly as those two were discarded, Marco slammed a right hook into the side of the Dragonslayer's head, surprising her with the force of the strike. She performed a sweeping strike with her sword, but Marco ducked under it to bring up his right heel to connect with the other side of her head.
Barla felt that one, too.
These children…! She thought in disbelief as she recovered and swung her sword down. They're not fighting like children at all!
Jackie interrupted her slash even as Marco jumped clear, stabbing her just above the chestplate with the spear. "Dude, go down already!"
Both she and Marco turned and connected roundhouse kicks to Barla's chest, actually knocking her off her footing before Stingerborg grabbed her with telekinesis again. As Marco and Jackie jumped back, Strikerborg stepped in and punched Barla in the stomach with all her might, lifting the Dragonslayer off her feet.
Stingerborg then slammed her into the ground, and Strikerborg raised her left foot to stomp Barla down and create a hole in the street with her and Barla at the bottom of it.
Lying at the bottom of the hole, Barla stared up in surprise at the Red Strikerborg. "… Such ferocity!"
Strikerborg raised her foot again. "Yeah, we're not playing around!"
There was a blast of light and Jo was sent flying from the hole by an energy blast from the chestplate's mouth. As Strikerborg left the hole, Star leaped over it, aiming her wand straight down at Barla. "THERMONUCLEAR BUTTERFLY BLAST!"
Barla's eyes grew wide. "Thermo–WHAT?!"
A column of rainbow colored light soon rose from the hole in the street, which then became a localized explosion that shot skyward above Echo Creek. Out of the very small mushroom cloud that rose from the street, Star came flipping out and landed with Marco, Jackie, Mabel, and the Beetleborgs.
"Good hustle!" Mabel praised them.
Star looked at Jackie. "You okay?"
"I'm fine," Jackie replied. "Thanks for the protection."
Star beamed. "Just imagine how good the real armor will be!"
Marco called over. "Uh, guys? Focus. There's no way she's done."
He was right. Barla immediately leaped from the smoldering crater of Jo and Star's creation, and she landed with enough force to crack the pavement beneath her feet. Slowly, she walked towards the group, her eyes narrowing as she lowered her sword rather than raise it for a new attack.
"It is to my understanding that Vexor wants some of you alive," she said as she reached the middle of the intersection in front of them. She pointed at Star. "You." She then pointed at Stingerborg. "And you. "If you surrender now, then this chaos will cease, and I will allow the rest of you to leave without further harm."
"Yeah, no," Strikerborg snapped back.
"What kind of offer is that?!" Mabel asked. "Sure, we'll give you the keys to conquering the Earth, what's the worst that could happen?!"
"Oh, the worst that will happen is if you refuse," she said before she was engulfed in a black, flame-like aura–both her own eyes and the dragon chest plate's glowing an ominous yellow through the darkness wreathing her.
Dipper did not like that. "Guys, she's ramping up the power!"
Those protected by Star's spell could feel the heat and pressure radiating from her through the protection. Jackie in particular was stunned. "Dude, how is she so strong…?!"
"It's that armor," Jo said.
Something about what Barla said, however, had caught Drew's attention. Stepping forward, he called out to her. "Go ahead. Do your worst."
Barla paused. "Hm?"
Marco looked at Drew. "Hey, maybe not call the scary dragon lady's bluff?"
Drew ignored him. "I said go ahead and try. We're not going to surrender anyone to you, and we're not going down without a fight, either!"
Star agreed with him, raising her wand like a batter anticipating a fast ball. "Yeah! You want the smoke? You're getting it and the fire!"
Marco shrugged his shoulders and got ready to fight. "Yeah, we're just getting started and you're by yourself out here."
Jackie aimed her spear at her. "We're not afraid of you."
Hunterborg prepared the Hunter Claw. "We've beaten enough of you clowns to know we'll beat you, too!"
Strikerborg punched her palm, creating a thunderous sound. "So come on, square up!"
A few moments passed, and the group of warriors watched Barla's grip tighten on the blade and her teeth clench, hints of frustration that gave away her hoping for them to fold rather than call.
Underneath his helmet, Drew almost felt vindicated. She's different from the others.
Out of nowhere, Janna joined the call. "Hey, Sad Kid. Can you link up what you're seeing to Gargantis?"
Drew gave a start. "Gargantis?" He didn't hesitate to comply. "But wait, hold on. It needs the Input Magnums to work, how is it connected?"
Atop the hills that formed the valley Hillhurst Mansion sat in, a massive Hercules Beetle-shaped robot with a black, silver, and yellow body stomped into position, shaking the ground beneath it. Its upper horn, shaped into the mix of a jet fighter with a very, very big cannon, was lowered and aimed into the town.
Inside the cockpit of the machine, Janna sat in the middle of set of five seats that made up the cockpit. "Don't worry about that, just um…" She broke into a grin when Barla as Drew saw her appeared on the panoramic cockpit screen in front of her, and the position data allowed Gargantis to lock onto her with its main weapon, the Beet Cannon. "… Get clear."
Stingerborg looked back at the others. "MOVE!"
Everyone scattered clear, to Barla's confusion, as inside the cockpit Janna received an alert that the Beet Cannon was ready to fire. "Satisfy my destructive urges, Gargantis!" She called out. "Beet Cannon, FIRE!"
The Beet Cannon erupted, the multi-colored beam passing over Echo Creek and reaching Barla as she turned to see it. Her eyes widening, she tried to move but realized she was being held in place by Stingerborg's telekinesis. She closed her eyes tight before her mask slipped over it and extra armor covered her exposed arms and legs.
The beam smashed into her, pushing her up the street and carving a narrow trench into it, the angle of the blast eventually drove her under the street and then under the ground and sewers beneath that before it finally cut out.
Strikerborg looked at the damage done, then at the distant Gargantis. "… Dude."
Jackie was of the exact same thought. "Uh… dude."
Star was in awe. "… That was so cool…!"
Steam hissed from vents along the barrel of the Beet Cannon, as Janna hugged herself in satisfaction.
"Oh yes, that felt good."
There was a small explosion, as Barla erupted from the ground and landed behind the crater she made, parts of her now full armor still glowing red hot and wisping smoke as she glared death at her opponents. She looked around, seeing no signs of her remaining Scabs, and realized that the other four must've destroyed them.
"A fine display," she commended them, "But this is only the start."
With that promise, she raised her sword to her chest in salute and vanished in a burst of black flame.
I think the biggest take away from this chapter, is everything that happened in this chapter.
