Unclever Topic Title

Even as she overcame the CactoCongo's mind games, Shuri could feel her body rejecting the truth a bit. ...What did that even mean? Perhaps she hadn't broken 100% free yet..."This is starting to get on my nerves...get out of my head, and back to hell where you belong!" She pointed her blade at the worm for emphasis, even though it might well not even be paying attention. She did at least feel a little better afterwards.

Meanwhile, Naomi was more concerned with everything showing up on her screen. "How much stuff does this thing have? That party hat's a defense, and right now it's got boosted offense and defense! And that's on top of all the weird hypnosis stuff!"

"Yeah, it's..." The ninja trailed off, an idea starting to form in her head. "Hold on. Exactly how is it buffed?"

"Um, let's see...offense is boosted with Strength, and defense via something called Damage Reduction. I think I can guess what that does, but...Shuri? Are you paying attention?"

"I heard every word." She smirked beneath her mask; it took a while, but her foe had finally slipped up. "I know how to bypass it, but we need to make these next shots count. I don't need to move, though, so send over PanelGrab."

"Okay...here. BattleChip, PanelGrab! Slot in!"

The ground below Shuri's feet glowed, enhancing her senses, and granting her better knowledge of exactly how everything in the area was positioned. Very simple, yet possibly very invaluable. "Step one, complete. Now, Damage Reduction is vulnerable to Impact, like barriers. We already blew FireHit, but we've got other ways of utilizing Impact, don't we?"

"W-We do!" Oh, she knew there was something with that effect somewhere...aha! Impact found! "Let's crush that defensive power! BattleChip, Quake! Slot in!"

A round light spark formed in the ninja's hand, and she flung it high up. Thanks to where she was, it was more vertical than anything, though it was a safe assumption she hadn't tossed it above herself. As it reached its apex, it suddenly grew in size, until it was a very large, very heavy Powie in crush mode. From there, its path went from being in an arc, to simply going straight down, not caring about a thing until it hit pavement...possibly going through the malware in the process. But it didn't care; it just wanted to crush, and even if it didn't connect, it'd crush the space where it landed, causing deep cracks to run through the vicinity. Satisfied at the local destruction, it vanished without a trace, which would be problematic if it'd landed on any loose papers.

"Er, don't we have something else...? ...Oh, right!" How'd she miss that one? It was even near the front so she'd be able to see it, since Shuri seemed to approve of it. "Here, you can use this to get away from the unstable area, too! BattleChip, DashAttack! Slot in!"

Instead of the default appearance of 'a Fishy appears on the body and the user flies forward', Shuri simply let her boots glow green. She eyed the not-exactly-a-virus, crouched slightly...and performed a jump kick a few feet in the air. But mid-kick, she suddenly froze, and was flung forward by an unknown force. She rocketed ahead, ideally giving the CactoCongo a very close look at her foot as it went through its head, and continued on for a bit. Eventually, it ran out of juice, and she gracefully landed with a small skid. That should also have the benefit of her being on safer ground, and not having to worry about the earth swallowing her up. But things were never completely certain in a battle, as proven by the fact that...thing was still there.

This was normally when she prepared to avoid whatever was thrown at her, but not this time. Here, she wanted to strike once again while the iron was hot. Literally, as she raised her kunai, reared back, and flung it at the worm. It was about out of juice, anyway; why not get rid of it now, and show it the true might of a ninja before it could fully adjust to her sudden change in location?

Any displays of ninja-quick sidestepping would instead be covered by her SP, as Shurimpy warily eyed the enemy in preparation of evading. That last attack hurt, and he didn't want to get smacked by it again.

[Order of Turn:
1-PanelGrab chip on Shuri (S, raises accuracy by 1 rank for one turn)
2-Quake1 chip attack on CactoCongo (100, C, Impact, Medium Cracked Terrain)
3-DashAttack1 chip attack on CactoCongo (90, C, Impact, Line Attack(5), Movement)]
4-FireKnife chip thrown at CactoCongo (60, Fire, B, Slashing)]

Shurimpy Order of Turn:
1-Dodge]
If Shuri thought she was free of her target's head-games, the bouncing head of her target had other ideas. Even as the ninja prepared to capitalise on the worm's exploitable defence system, an undulating ripple passed through the virus and all the different cactus bodies went from bending inwards on each other, to swaying outwards again in all directions as the steady thump of the music increased. With the motion came another cloud of technicolour, glitter-sparkle pollen. Shuri had felt the disorientation of its confusion, and fought off the wiles of it's perception-warping illusions, now they washed over her both together.

Perhaps, because she was already hardening her mind against such intrusions, or perhaps because the worm itself was weakened, even though the confusion began to work its way into her system, and the illusion stuck its hold firmly, chances were Shuri wasn't going to fall under its sway this time anyway. That didn't mean she wasn't still seeing things, though... The dance party was back, more lively, sweaty and close-bodied than ever... and if anything, with even less excuse for clothing than before. The dance music had taken on a pulsing, primal beat that hammered out through the street; the kind that isn't terribly loud, so much as being physically felt through the body. A pair of rainbow disco balls presided over the centre of the party, spinning in a mad display of swirling colour. Once again, Shuri felt herself drawn irresistibly towards the dance party, this time until she was pressed directly up to a buff male chest that smelled... tempting. The dancer put a hand out to reach around Shuri's waist and attempt to squeeze her bum, but even this would not stop her from launching her attack. As Shuri made the best of her defence-crushing quake, though, she might probably feel her efforts being weakened by the multi-hued lights of the disco balls, before it could even connect.

Get off the ground it did, however, and up, and then down again with destructive force. The weight got lost somewhere in the crowded party of dancers, but by the sound of the short, ear-hurting shriek that followed, it definitely connected with something (-120). A moment later, Shuri would feel herself getting jostled and shoved roughly from all sides, though in her altered state she might have a hard time telling from what. Naomi and Shurimpy, however, would have seen the worm arch all of its bodies upwards at once, before sending a volley of cactus segments shooting outwards in rapid succession. In all, two of the wild segments actually managed to connect with Shuri, her slowed reflexes not helping in avoiding the projectiles (Well, that and her lack of dodging... -20 x 2). If she wasn't already feeling that way, the ninja girl might be starting to feel a little bit over-heated and reckless, too... but there was a good chance that Shuri, in her current state, wouldn't notice. If Naomia was paying attention to the PET though, she would read the resulting corruption as a minor glitch coming from the worm's physical attack.

Speaking of attacking, Shuri wasn't quite done yet, and she was ready to strike out with even more juicy defence-breaking assaults. Just as she wound up for it, however, the shuffling and dancing of the worm/party was over-borne by an ominous creaking, groaning sound. A crash sounded and, as the purple wonder flew forward, her target seemed to vanish. Shuri herself landed safely on what turned out now to be the far side of a moderately large pit, the cracked ground collapsing under the weight of the larger virus. The dance party had become a mosh pit of epic proportions now, and in her affected state, Shuri could see a packed pit of dancers jumping and raving energetically to the hammering music and colourful lights. If she was looking very closely, she might even notice that, in the tight pack of writhing bodies, a few of them seemed to have started getting involved in 'dances' with each other that were normally more horizontal in nature, but none of the other dancers seemed to mind, even as the press of bodies seemed to grow increasingly more packed by the minute (+30).

Shurimpy, unaffected, could see that the worm was now in the pit, and the worm was, despite this, still growing. Maybe not quite unaffected. The head of the worm glanced up in his direction, eyes spinning above its insane and, apparently unfaltering, grin, and the little SP would feel its strength draining away. While this was happening, Shuri threw away her FireKnife, scoring a still-potent strike on...someone in the crowd (-108).

Jigging and swaying, the head of the worm seemed like it had been taking extra long to bring back its party hat this time, but apparently it had been working on something: those still seeing straight would see the irrepressible hat return now with a pair of small rocket boosters on either side, spewing trails of rainbow-hued sparks. Between them, a neon sign with the word 'PARTY!' in squiggly font flashed its letters one at a time, then all together in pattern. The rocket boosters were apparently supporting the extra weight of all the additional sparklers, streamers and pin-wheels that accompanied this improvement, and it now also came with a chin-strap secured firmly underneath the mobile head, for extra support.


-=Moves to the Beat=-

CactoCongo.Worm: 102Hp [In a hole: Mosh Pit!!][1-Hit Fabulous Party Hat, Now With Extra Sparklers and Pin-Wheels and Jets and Neons!!][DR: 12 (1 turn)]

-=Light On Her Feet=-

Shuri: 110Hp [Melee range to CatcoCongo][Slowed! (1 turn)][Confused!][Illusion: Dance Party!][Glitch: Hot-Blooded (2 turns)]
Shurimpy: 40Hp [Glitch: Hand Lock, plus cosmetic effects][Debuff (20)][Opposite side of the pit to Shuri]

-=Well Blocked-up Street=-

20% Broken: Pit taking up middle of street (completely blocks passage). Full of Party Worm.
5% Cracked: Edge on the far side of the pit to Shuri.
75% Normal: Rest of terrain is Normal, but the street is fairly narrow.

Effects:

Hand Lock: Targets with this glitch can only use one 'hand' slot. This also prevents the use of chips requiring both hands. Lasts until cured or battle ends.

Hot-Blooded: Damage that the victim both deals and receives is increased by five points after all other calculations (This does not pierce undershirt). Lasts two turns.
As Shuri found herself fighting off things inside her head once again, it fell on her SP to react to the...whatever one would call that thing on CactoCongo's head. And react it did, via the extreme motion of...tilting its head and staring at it confusedly. That thing had to be getting heavy. And possibly dangerous, with those rockets. At least his ninja outfit was safe, if not a bit gaudy at the moment.

"..." Despite having to deal with everything within her mind, the ninja managed to get off a stare at where the malware would be, and what it was trying to make her think was going on in there. At this point, it only annoyed her, since she already knew it could do that. "...Again? Everything's spinning and I can hardly tell which way is up, and you STILL have the gall to try that cheap trick? That's it...I know exactly how to punish you. Shurimpy! I need you to do something for me. Attack that stupid hat on its head! I'll provide backup fire!" Several throwing knives formed in her hand, each one gently grasped near their tip.

The crustacean looked at his Navi, slightly hesitant...but decided it was fine. Even if an errant knife smacked him, it wouldn't exactly be fatal. Once more, he formed a large, watery bubble in front of him, and gently smacked it with his tail fin. Instead of going sky high, however, it only made a small hop, before trying to fall down and knock off the giant, fire marshall disapproved hat. ...Although, it did have a strap this time, and he was definitely not feeling especially strong right now...too late now, though. At least Shuri would be pleased.

As she heard the bubble bounce, the ninja closed her eyes, trying to minimize the number of her currently questionable senses she was using. Instead, she focused entirely on trying to hear where the bubble explosion happened...pop! All right, if she heard it right, that was, if not the exact location, in the vicinity of where she needed to strike. And so, she flung her tiny blades forward, with the sole intent of rendering the cactus worm's head devoid of its beloved hat. That'd teach it to mess with her like that.

Naomi was content to just stare at the action, a little confused herself. Why was Shuri so bent on getting that hat off all of a sudden? Was her confusion manifesting itself in that way now? She really, really didn't get it...

[Order of Turn:
1-Buster attack on CactoCongo's fancy hat (10, Slashing)
2-Buster attack on CactoCongo's fancy hat (10, Slashing)
3-Buster attack on CactoCongo's fancy hat (10, Slashing)
4-Buster attack on CactoCongo's fancy hat (10, Slashing)

Shurimpy Order of Turn:
1-Attack on CactoCongo (0, Aqua, Spread 1)]
Confused, deceived by fanciful images she couldn't actually enjoy, and generally delayed and messed around with, Shuri sought to revenge herself upon the obvious perpetrator of these slights; The virus' ever more extravagant party hat, of course. This made perfect sense, to a temporarily addled ninja, apparently.

From Shuri's perspective, she was flinging knives at the source of her suffering. From the perspective of anyone else, she was wildly flinging her weapons all over the place. In one sense, it was probably a good thing that her senses weren't relaying these details to her properly anyway, because Shurimpy's guiding bubble missed its intended target by a mile. In her flurry of weapons, two missed, cutting through the illusory dancers and causing the fictitious image to begin fading away. One ended up hitting her own SP (-10)... and, thankfully, at least one of her wild attacks fluked out and sliced through the supporting chin strap on the worm's hat while it bounced back and forth and watched the ninja. With the strap cut, the hat listed badly to one side, and the cactus head paused to turn its eyes upwards monetarily, bouncing along a few more bodies in the same direction as it tried to stabilise it, but to no avail. The hat slipped off and disintegrated swiftly.

Now, the mad grin did falter, and the head of the worm came back to the body nearest Shuri, looking up at her with its eyes spinning more rapidly than ever. It frowned, seemingly put out, then appeared to concentrate for a moment. There was another second or two where the whirl of its eyes glowed and the whole head seemed to vibrate while it pulled out all the stops. Then, the hat came back.

This hat was far and away the most insanely extravagant rendition of its party hat yet. The chin strap was replaced and reinforced with a double layer of buckles to make sure it wasn't going anywhere. the first tier of the hat spread out broadly about a foot in radius from the virus head, and was a forest of multi-coloured sparklers that sputtered and sparked in an eye-gouging rainbow. rising up from the sparklers, a second tier of rotating pin-wheels stood proud and leaned outwards in three layers, all spinning rapidly and throwing of sparks as they did. In between these, a scattered array of party whistles rose and fell, being blown at random by some mechanism inside the hat. A total of eight rocket engines extended with supported struts from around the hat, each spewing a torrent of rainbow coloured sparks downwards, as well as sending showers of lights out to the sides for show. The centrepiece of the hat was a large spinning disco ball, encircled by a dozen coloured light projectors, each shining onto it and scattering their rays all over the street. Attached to the rocket supports, lacing between them, more neons spelled out the words 'PARTY' and 'TIME' alternating around the hat. Above, the neons traced lines upwards, to a point above the disco ball, forming a glowing rainbow cage around it, before fanning out again into a final sign board that revolved slowly enough to read and phasing through the colour spectrum in neon light. It read, for anyone interested: 'Never Stop Dancing!!'

The cactus grinned again. Its new hat was almost as tall as Shuri herself, in its totality. It bounced again, gleeful, as it moved towards a cactus body further back in the pack, but something peculiar happened. The head didn't come down from its bounce. Rather, it kept going up, and up, and up... the jet trail from the rocket attachments made a blaze of coloured sparks as they carried the head of the virus up and away from its body. In truth, the head didn't seem displeased with this development; it was still grinning madly, eyes dancing as it hammered out its musical rave, securely strapped in to its new hat-turned-party-rocket. It only took a few more seconds before it was out of sight completely, and the music began to fade into the distance.

Down below, the dancing mass of cactus bodies began to slow down, each sway taking longer and moving more slowly than the last. By the time the music had faded away completely, the bodies had begun to fall over, collapsing into a limp pile that then began to break down and disintegrate rapidly. Eventually, the hole in the ground restored itself too, leaving little behind save some junk data, some usable zenny, and a chip for Shuri... once she recovered.


-=Moves to the Beat=-

CactoCongo.Worm: DELETED
CactoCongo.Head: TO THE NEXT PARTY!

-=Light On Her Feet=-

Shuri: 110Hp
Shurimpy: 30Hp

-=Battle 5, victory!=-

Rewards: 1500z, Discord, 25 BugFrags

Quote (Discord)


HP: 50
Properties: Heavy
Object Damage: 50 + Impact
Damage Method: Throw, Telekinesis
Status Effect: Confusion + To-All-Clause (Enemies)
Accuracy: S
Description: Causes mass confusion in the enemy ranks.
Duration: 1 turn or until destroyed.
Element: Null
...As her faculties fully returned to her, Shuri managed to look up just in time to see the head journey off to new lands, for new dance opportunities. That...did not go over all that well for her. "...Damn. I couldn't finish it off."

"No, but at least the area isn't clogged up anymore. Look!" Sure enough, without the head, the body ceased to exist, except in the form of reward money. "Go ahead and grab it!"

"Right..." The ninja Navi extended an arm and transferred the remaining data, which included a chip. "Hmm? There's a chip in there. See what it is while I desperately hope I didn't burn too much time there." She raced forward, with Shurimpy right behind her; he'd absorbed the remaining junk data at the same time.

"Right!" Let's see...that was an odd picture. Whatever it was, it was blue, looked kinda like a trumpet, and was wearing headphones. "It's called Discord. Appropriate...it lets you place something called a Tuby, which I guess is what the chip picture is, which in turn confuses all enemies! Kinda fragile, though...it can't take much punishment."

"No, but confusing your enemies...that should have some use. Make some room in the folder for it, if you would."

"Yes, your majesty..."

-------------------

Shuri burst into a small building, with little more than a counter in the only visible room. There was a door in the back, and a well-worn pink NormalNavi was starting to head for it. Upon seeing the other Navi, however, she walked back. "Hello, hello! I was just about to close up when you arrived...what do you need?"

"I'm here to pay Naomi Shimizu's rent for this month."

"Ah, Miss Shimizu! I was starting to worry she wouldn't pay! She's a sweet girl, so I wouldn't want that to happen..."

"Mmm." The ninja formed some money data in her hand, and handed it over. "That should be it."

"Lessee...yes indeedy! No late fees for Miss Naomi!"

"Well, thank goodness for that. I can hardly imagine how much she'd freak out if she had to deal with that..."

"..."

"At any rate, that's all I came here for."

"Nothing wrong with the house? No appliances going haywire or anything?"

"Everything's just fine."

"Wonderful!"

"At any rate, we're both busy women, so I'll be off. Take care." Shuri turned around and exited, taking a quick look at the ElecTown skyline as she went outside. "Well, that's that. Shall I head back?"

"Yeah..."

"...You don't sound all that happy. Something wrong?"

"Not wrong, per se, but something you said during that last battle was odd. While you were under that worm thing's spell, you said something about having never told me something...and that I was blaming you for it, even though I just asked if you were okay. My intuition tells me that wasn't entirely the confusion's fault, so...might I ask what that's about? Does it have something to do with the fact you won't tell me about your past?"

"..." Her quick look at the Net backdrop suddenly turned into a blank stare. "...Yeah, it does."

"I...see."

"..."

"......Aren't you going to jack out?"

".......Tonight."

"What about tonight?"

"...Eat, then find someplace quiet and comfortable to sit or lie down. I've decided. It's time."

"Time? ...Wait, you don't mean-"

"As long as you're in the dark about my past, questions are going to be raised like this. I..."

"If you're not comfortable with it, you don't have to. You know that, right?"

"No, I'm probably never going to be truly comfortable with it, so I might as well. You took a chance with a shady Navi...you deserve to know."

"Okay, so long as it's what you want."

"......I think it is. ...I'll head back now." And with that somewhat ominous note, both Navi and SP exited the Net, via beams of light.

(TO THE REAL WORLD)