Scourge in Yoka

"Ach!" recoiled Scourge, as her shoulder was clipped by an energy shell from one of the turrets. The musty wrappings on her shoulder were unfurled messily before it swirled and wrapped in on itself, visually repairing the damage done. The Navi felt a bit of a sting, but didn't pay much mind to it; her focus was on the source of the damage.

Thinking back to her first battle, she figured that the simpler, the better, at least for the moment. "Sofia, could you send me the very first one you sent me on those uh, lizard things?" she requested.

The operator picked up the CornShot chip with its googly eyes, and slotted it in without much thought. "Done and done! I'm getting the hang of this!" exclaimed Sofia, searching through her folder for more things to send to her Navi.

When the familiar data arrived into Scourge's systems, she breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe she could stumble less into battles now, she thought, while a glimmer of light started to emanate from her right hand. Scourge turned towards the backline, at the cannon that had landed a shot on her. Emerald lightning crackled from her index finger, infused with the CornShot data.

Picking up another big-numbered chip, Sofia figured the "Sword" chip would be good to back Scourge up, and she slotted it in posthaste. As a result, the Navi's hand immediately grew a few gleaming blue claws. There wasn't really much for Sofia to tell Scourge as she took the lead and rushed to the nearest target, which happened to be a blue Swordy. She twisted her body to uppercut the armored virus with her claws, and continued on forward, using her momentum to keep herself moving and out of harm's way.

// Summary
_1] Chip: CornShot1, to CannonDumbA/B // Wood 50 + TrickShot 1
_2] Chip: Sword, to Swordy-A // Null 80 + Slashing, Used 1/6
_3] Dodge, keeping self in Onsen terrain
_*] Terrain: Heal from Onsen
Scourge's shot of corn data explodes on the first CannonDumb, deleting it. The secondary corn kernel that shot out from the explosion misses the second CannonDumb however. Though the heat of the coals starts to overheat the turret. It shoots at Scourge, but misses.

Then the blue claw of Scourge and the blue sword of the Swordy meet. Scourge shatters the blade of water and rends the Swordy into ribbons.

The Shrimpy use Bubblebeam.
Scourge uses dodge. It is not very effective (Scourge is hit with both strikes).

And Scourge heals some from the terrain.

-Viruses-
Swordy-A: DELETED
ShrimpyA: 100 HP [Onsen] [Near Scourge]
ShrimpyB: 100 HP [Onsen] [With ShrimpyA]
CannonDumbA: DELETED
CannonDumbB: 45 HP [Coal] [Back and to the Right, on Coal Hill B] [Burn5]

-Terrain-
70% Coal
30% Onsen [Scattered Pools]

-Objects-
Coal Hill A: 50 HP [Back and to the Left]
Coal Hill B: 70 HP [Back and to the Left]
Coal Hole A: -50 HP [Forward and to the Left]
Coal Hole B: -70 HP [Beside Coal Hill B]

-Navi-
Scourge.EXE: 90 HP [Onsen] [Partially Submerged]
"Yeeeah! Take that, you little shit!" yelled Scourge, as she triumphantly pointed her claws at the disintegrating Swordy. At this moment, the Shrimpy chose to release their bubbles, and she let out a scornful huff, believing them to be weak. Unfortunately, the bubbles popping against Scourge's body were more painful than she expected; she likened the force to about a solid punch and a half to her arm. Not exactly cause for alarm, but not balloons popping, either.

"Owww, okay, that wasn't fun," she winced, stopping herself from reaching towards the affected areas with her clawed hand.

"Even bubbles hurt too?"

"Yeah, ow." Scourge found herself humoring Sofia unconsciously, then cleared her throat. "If you could send some more stuff down, that'd be nice."

"Oh! Sorry, sorry!"

A little dizzy with the chip-slotting business, Sofia started to simply slot in chips, most of which were used. The PET spat out error after error, until she happened to slot in one of the unused ones. She breathed a sigh of relief, and glanced at the screen to see what she had put in. "Boomerang... what the heck IS that picture?" she wondered, puzzled at the appearance of the Boomer.

Meanwhile, Scourge had regained her bearings, and gritted her teeth. With the new chip data coming in, she let herself go and leapt through the shallow water. A huge splash followed her as she leapt towards one with a swipe. Heels turning, her leap was reversed towards the other, mirroring the swipe in the opposite direction.

Rolling into a small tumble, her bandages whipped around her free arm and wound around an invisible arc, creating a bandaged-up boomerang shape. She tossed at towards her back, hoping that the boomerang's path would follow her own.

>> Summary
1// Chip: Sword, to ShrimpyA >> Null 80 + Slashing, Used 2/6, B
2// Chip: Sword, to ShrimpyB >> Null 80 + Slashing, Used 3/6, B
3// Chip: Boomerang1, to ShrimpyA/B + CannondumbB >> Wood 60 + Arc Attack, B
*// Terrain: Onsen >> Regen3
[Targeting Sword strikes to ShrimpyA/B instead of Swordy-A, who is deleted.]

Both Sword swipes hit their marks, causing massive damage to the Shrimpy. However, the Boomerang misses the first Shrimpy, but hits the second and the remaining CannonDumb. Deleting both of the viruses.

The Shrimpy uses Bubblebeam again...
The attack missed.

And the Navi regained some HP from Onsen.

-Viruses-
Swordy-A: DELETED
ShrimpyA: 20 HP [Onsen] [Near Scourge]
ShrimpyB: DELETED
CannonDumbA: DELETED
CannonDumbB: DELETED

-Terrain-
70% Coal
30% Onsen [Scattered Pools]

-Objects-
Coal Hill A: 50 HP [Back and to the Left]
Coal Hill B: 70 HP [Back and to the Left]
Coal Hole A: -50 HP [Forward and to the Left]
Coal Hole B: -70 HP [Beside Coal Hill B]

-Navi-
Scourge.EXE: 99 HP [Onsen] [Partially Submerged]
"Yeah! Two more dead! Woo!" cheered Sofia, bouncing on the futon and making an even bigger mess out of the scattered chips and things on it. Scourge's grin grew even wider from the encouragement given by her operator, and she taunted the remaining Shrimpy by shaking her rear end at the crustacean virus.

"What'sa matter, can't aim your prissy bubbles right now?" she laughed.

"Aww, wait, that's not nice, Scourge."

"Huh? Kick 'em while they're down, Sofia! That's how things're done when you're dealing with weaker viruses! S'not like he's gonna live more than five seconds, anyway!"

"Well, I guess, but..."

Even as her taunting and laughing continued, Scourge wasn't sitting idle; she took the moment to prepare herself. Her free hand's bandages had started to unfurl, and took a life of their own. She then flung them out, and they sought out the Shrimpy's data to absorb it into her core. Should the bandages fail to take hold, she still had her Sword-imbued claws out for a contingency.

>> Summary
1// Take Aim >> +1 Accuracy to next
2// Sig: Charged Scourge, to ShrimpyA >> Null 30 + Life Drain, Acc B+
3// Chip: Sword, to ShrimpyA >> Null 80 + Slashing, Used 4/6, Acc B
*// Terrain: Onsen >> Regen3
Scourge absorbed the Shrimpy's energy into deletion and healed from the Onsen.

-Viruses-
Swordy-A: DELETED
ShrimpyA: DELETED
ShrimpyB: DELETED
CannonDumbA: DELETED
CannonDumbB: DELETED

-Terrain-
70% Coal
30% Onsen [Scattered Pools]

-Objects-
Coal Hill A: 50 HP [Back and to the Left]
Coal Hill B: 70 HP [Back and to the Left]
Coal Hole A: -50 HP [Forward and to the Left]
Coal Hole B: -70 HP [Beside Coal Hill B]

-Navi-
Scourge.EXE: 138 HP [Onsen] [Partially Submerged]

~Battle 3: Victory!!~
Rewards: 600z, AquaKnife
The viral data twisted its way into Scourge's bandages, with a soothing coolness washing over her. Yet at the back of her head, something like a tiny crackle sent her into a stupor, and she began to lapse into--

--- auty of a partially recovered sentience, struggling to piece together its existence. Scourge's thumb pressed slowly into a crack on the NormalNavi's disembodied helmet, into the flickering light of its eye. The circular yellow light became distorted, and showed various indecipherable states of static. The cracked mouthpiece continued to rattle off its horrible shriek as her sadistic gri-

-- a much longer vision, which slowly dissipated this time. The calming warmth of the hot spring waters allowed her to segue back into reality without much interruption. She let herself drop down into the water with a groan.

"Man, that sure looks comfortable..."

A sudden human interruption, caused her to jolt up from the hot spring and look around in alarm. "W-What? What happened?" asked Sofia, wondering why Scourge had abruptly ended her soak in the water. The Navi pressed at her head with her hand absent-mindedly, feeling it empty all of a sudden. She didn't recall anything being there to make her feel like it was empty...

"Scourge...?"

Scourge inhaled sharply. "Head cleared up a bit. I think I'll go on some more."

"Oh, that's good! Don't push yourself too hard, okay? Lotsa other Navis like BakerMan battle viruses too!"

The bandaged Navi turned herself away from the comlink and cracked a tiny smile.

>> Battle 04, Ready!
This time there was no water as Scourge came upon a vast stretch of dry land. And viruses. Viruses that wanted to eat her.

-Viruses-
SkeeterA: 30HP
SkeeterB: 30HP
SkeeterC: 30HP
SkeeterD: 30HP
SkeeterE: 30HP

-Terrain-
100% Normal

-Navi-
Scourge.EXE: 138 HP

~Battle 4: Start!!~
Oddly enough, after wading through a large amount of water, Scourge found herself in completely barren territory; the default off-white paneling spread out as far as she could see. "Weird, I thought there'd be at least water everywhere around this place," commented Sofia.

"Maybe it's under construction," said Scourge, off-hand.

"Who's constructing it, I wonder?"

"You--" Scourge started, before stopping herself. Who was doing all the scenery? She doubted that there were any huge sources of water panels, so it had to be planned and constructed. "Uh..." As she kept walking, her face contorted into several expressions, all of them as puzzling as the last. She brought her hand to her chin, contemplating the idea of network-wide irrigation.

"Maybe it just, like, shows up, like, bang! Like everything else on the internet!" suggested Sofia, making an explosive gesture with her hands.

"That sounds weird."

"You're barely wrapped in bandages with screws stuck in your shoulders and hips," the operator replied, to which Scourge looked down, examining herself proper for a bit. Come to think of it, she was definitely in the "weird" category. It didn't feel weird to her, though. She tried touching the screw on her shoulder, and it almost felt like a part of her body instead of an intrusion. It even almost tickled.

However, as Scourge was busy touching herself, some viruses decided to crash her party. The buzzing of the Skeeters from afar caused her to snap to attention. "You wouldn't happen to have some mosquito repellant, would you, Sofia?" she said, keeping her eye on the viral swarm.

"Eh? Mosquito repellant? I can ask Aunt Judy if we've got any," the operator said, getting up from the futon.

Scourge's face nearly turned white, as if it wasn't pale enough already. "Wait, what? No! I mean these mosquito viruses, you dunce!"

"Ohhh, why didn't you just say so?" Sofia sat back down, and her Navi sighed in relief. "Hmmm, well, let's see what this one does."

The sound of a chip being slotted in reached Scourge's ears, and she felt her battlechip queue add up by one. Her eyebrow raised as she processed the chip information, and raised her arm to activate it. The ground underneath her shone, and cracked open, letting through a wall of ice. Scourge whistled, and took the opportunity to hide behind it for a bit. "Okay, this is pretty good, but it doesn't DO anything to them," explained Scourge.

"That looks cold," commented Sofia.

"... Yes, it's cold," Scourge rolled her eyes. "Next one, please?"

"Coming right up!" exclaimed Sofia enthusiastically. As she looked through her unused chips, she picked up the one with the scary-looking Martian on it. "Hmm, might as well."

With the buzzing getting louder, Scourge hazarded a peek around her ice wall, and the Synapse chip chose that moment to arrive in her processes. She yelped in pain as the chip activated without her consent. A spark of green appeared from her forehead, and arced through the air, seeking out the enemies that threatened her. Though the attack was almost perfectly aimed, Scourge wasn't consciously controlling it, as her mental processes were overloaded with a threatening line of words.

--- FILE LINKAGE TO UNIT: PSYCHE UNAVAILABLE. EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN OF FIRST PERSONA PROTOCOL.

>> Summary
1// Chip: SnowFort1, in front of Scourge >> Stand-Alone 1-Hit Shield, Activation + 1 Turn, Status Guard
2// Take Aim >> Increase next attack accuracy
3// Chip: Synapse1, to any Skeeters >> Elec 80 + Piercing + Chain(3), Acc: B+
The swarms of Skeeter viruses descended upon Scourge and her quickly packed SnowFort. Scourge took careful aim at the approaching swarms and released a powerful beam of energy. The lead swarm is engulfed in the beam and disintegrates into raw data. Unfortunately the powerful beam does not strike the second target, stopping it there.

Two of the Skeeter swarms are swayed away by the icy fort. One swarm breaks the wall. And the last swarm moves through the hole and swarms around Scourge, draining her previous Navi fluids through her bandages.

The wall reforms, blocking out the other three swarms for the moment.

-Viruses-
SkeeterA: DELETED
SkeeterB: 30HP [Outside SnowFort1]
SkeeterC: 30HP [Outside SnowFort1]
SkeeterD: 30HP [Outside SnowFort1]
SkeeterE: 30HP [Swarming Scourge]

-Objects-
SnowFort1: 1-Hit [1 Turn]

-Terrain-
100% Normal

-Navi-
Scourge.EXE: 108 HP [SnowFort1]
"Gaaaahhhh!" exclaimed Scourge, as she clutched her head. At the same time, the wall broke to let a Skeeter swarm through, and added to her grief by sapping away some of her vitality. She started swatting at them in a panic, with one hand pressed to her left temple, trying to suppress her throbbing headache.

Her hand began to disintegrate, fingers coming off at odd angles, as her bandages unfurled around in the small space that Scourge had for herself. A purple glow took over the loosened wraps, and they sought out the enemy that had stolen from them hungrily.

"What do I do what do I do?!"

Meanwhile, Sofia was watching the scene with distress, picking up all the scattered chips around her futon. She saw the glowing blue Sword chip peeping out from behind the used SnowFort, and got right to slotting it in. After the chip is barely received, the operator noticed her panic, and pondered it for a moment. There has to be some way I could do this better, she thought, as she picked up the chips, and started examining them more closely.

With Scourge panicking as it is, she never noticed the Sword chip being received into her queue, and activated it without any thought. Her purple bandages began to shimmer with a blue light instead, and she heard the sounds of something akin to a steel edge being sharpened against a stone. Of course, this did nothing towards her wrecked nerves, as she started flailing with her razor-sharp bandages even more.

>> Summary
1// Sig: Charged Scourge, at SkeeterE >> Null 30 + Life Drain, Acc B
2// Chip: Sword, any nearby Skeeter >> Null 80 + Slashing, Used 1/6
3// Chip: Sword, any nearby Skeeter >> Null 80 + Slashing, Used 2/6
Scourge swatted at the swarm with glowy purple bandages, smacking the swarm down and regaining the drained energy. Then as the wall crumbled again and two swarms came through the gap, she started smacking at the swarms with glowy blue bandages. The first strike killed the oncoming swarm, but she missed the second swarm before it surrounded her and began draining her delicious data fluids.

And then the SnowFort collapsed around her.

-Viruses-
SkeeterA: DELETED
SkeeterB: 30HP
SkeeterC: DELETED
SkeeterD: 30HP [Swarming Scourge]
SkeeterE: DELETED

-Objects-
SnowFort1: ENDED

-Terrain-
100% Normal

-Navi-
Scourge.EXE: 108 HP
"Nnnnngh, I don't know anything about this! Can't I just put this thing back in?" groaned Sofia, trying to re-insert the used up Sword chip. However, it only ejected back out of the slot, with a red X on the screen denying her efforts. She resorted to opening up random menus and buttons, though that only resulted in locking herself out of actually helping.

-- FIRST PERSONA PROTOCOL UNABLE TO BE TERMINATED. FORCE CLOSING REFERENCES TO PROTOCOL. SHUTTING DOWN TRANSFER CHANNELS...

Meanwhile, Scourge continued to erupt in a frenzy. Flashing red text was filling up her processes; error after error presented themselves to her. She couldn't even feel the Skeeters doing anything to her any longer. The besieged Navi fell to her knees and clutched her head as her bandages continued to whip around her. Still imbued with the Sword battlechip data, her frenzied sword-wraps seemed to take on a life of their own, providing her with the only defense she had left.

"Auntieeeeee! Help!" yelled Sofia, as she barged out of her room, carrying the PET with her. Its screen was filled with miscellaneous unrelated windows, blocking out the screen that was depicting the battle.

>> Summary
1-3// Chip: Sword, any nearby Skeeter >> Null 80 + Slashing, B Accuracy, Used 5/6
With the Snowfort finally collapsed, the remaining swarms crowded in on Scourge with a hungry disregard for their own safety, or the numbers of them that had already been swatted down. The Storm of flashing bandage blades flailing about Scoruge isn't the most controlled or accurate thing in the world, but it proves enough, at least, to cut the remaining Skeeters from the air before they can manage to drain any more of her data.

Perhaps unsurprising, given the amount of data drain that had passed back and forth between the navi and her attackers, one of them collapses into data for that exact process, while the rest convert to small buzzing swarms of zenny instead. After a moment, they realise they're money and not bugs any more, and drop to the ground like proper currency.


-Viruses-
SkeeterA: DELETED
SkeeterB: DELETED
SkeeterC: DELETED
SkeeterD: DELETED
SkeeterE: DELETED

-Terrain-
100% Normal

-Navi-
Scourge.EXE: 108 HP

Battle 4 Victory!

-=Rewards=-

800Z, Drain1

Quote (Drain1)

Drain1
Damage: Drain 50
Accuracy: C
Description: Summons a cloud of Skeeter viruses, and sends them flying at one enemy. They surround the target, proceed to drain HP from it, and send the stolen energy back to their summoner before vanishing. This attack has a slow travel speed.
Duration: Once
Element: Null


-- BATTLE ROUTINE SHUTDOWN. FIRST PERSONA PROTOCOL SUCCESSFULLY TERMINATED. FULL BACKUP RESTART IN T-003:00:00:0000.

"What... Ugh..."

Though the text flashed before Scourge's eyes, she was unable to comprehend them. The headache she had borne finally left her, along with her consciousness, as she collapsed to the ground lifelessly. The reward packets around her just barely managed their automatic transfer to Sofia's PET before it went out of verifiable range, and initiated an Emergency Jack Out. Her purplish body phased in and out for a second before disappearing in a beam of light.

[Jack Out]
"Hm? What's this what's this what's thiiiis?"

A tiny figure of three feet pattered through an oddly empty area of the normally busy Yoka network. It appeared to be a broken skeletal frame of a NormalNavi, covered up slightly with a single scarf, patched up in various places. The scarf was made of a dark purple material, and covered the entirety of the Navi's face, save for a couple of slits for its yellow eyes. From how broken-down the Navi looked, it shouldn't have been able to lift a finger, let alone stroll around.

As for how empty the area was, it could be reasoned that the pile of eerily broken Navi and Mr. Prog shells sticking out of the ground was a part of the problem. They stuck out of the white tiling like some kind of macabre art display, as the lone Navi pitter pattered through.

In the middle of it all, the lone strolling Navi halted at a particularly concentrated area of program shells, and bent down to pick something up. At first, it looked somewhat like a messy pile of bandages. However, as soon as the Navi placed the bandages on its head, it swirled about, forming into a tattered pointy hat. A grim red light appeared from within the tears. The scarfed Navi tilted its head left and right as it chattered.

"Oh, oh. Hm. Oh, okay. All right. You're lost? Lost should be less lost. Lost soul loss so-- Yes, sorry to take your time, bye!"

Thought it looked like the Navi was talking to someone, there didn't appear to be anyone in the vicinity. The Navi took off the bandage hat from its head, whereupon it collapsed into the Navi's hands. It whistled a little tune, carrying off the "hat" off to who knows where.