Home Ground

Feeling the heat of the lava beneath her feet, Terra quickly froze the searing fire to a more mellow soil. "Good work, Terra," said Scarlet, checking the reward data procured for the time. "You all right?" she asked. Terra looked at Scarlet with a slightly mocking eyeroll, barely visible to the operator. "Yes, I would like to continue," she replied, walking by herself without confirmation of her operator.

[Battle 2 - Ready]
SUDDENLY GIANT RADIOACTIVE SPIDERS FLANKED TERRA FROM THE LEFT AND RIGHT! WHAT DO?

SpideyA: 80 HP [left]
SpideyB: 80 HP [left]
SpideyC: 80 HP [right]
SpideyD: 80 HP



Terrain: 100% Mud

Terra: 90 HP

[Battle 2 - Begin!]

"Hmm, interesting," said Scarlet, as she examined the new chip. Browsing some bulletin boards, she had found a battlechip comparison guide, and was currently reading through it. Apparently, the chip she had just obtained was pretty sought out. "ElementalRage1. 60 points worth, pierces line formations up to 3. Takes on elemental properties of terrain nearest to user." Scarlet was pleased; the chip's terrain-siphoning feature fit Terra's function to a T.

Meanwhile, Terra had found herself tracking through a soggy mud flat. Due to her affinity with the terrain type, however, she had no problem traversing it without any ill effects, skating through the wet soil effortlessly. She even seemed to be enjoying herself, smiling as she splashed about. Her operator's musings were left alone.

Suddenly, she found herself straying too far, as four Spidey viruses flanked her on both sides, two on either. Tensing up, she lightly assumed a defensive stance on the mud, being careful not to sink her boots too much into it. She knew these couldn't be handled by herself, unlike last time. "Scarlet, viruses," said Terra to alert her operator, seeing Scarlet was clearly distracted by her BBS reading. Scarlet jumped, and went straight for observation. Her eyes spotted opportunity.

Tapping a single icon on her holoscreen, she smirked in confidence. "Terra, I'm sending you the new chip. Make good use of it," she said.

Terra nodded, checking the statistics on the chip, and was sufficiently satisfied. Good use would definitely come from it. Sneaking a glance both of the enemies about to flank her, she reached into her inventory-space, and materialized the Bronze Mattock from it. Admiring its lustre, she twirled it about before raising her boot and stomping hard on the mud. Instead of splashing, however, the mud began to solidify, spreading out in a conical shape towards her enemies.

Then, turning towards her right, she wielded the mattock with a firm stance, gathering her energy from the ground. Then, a solid whack landed on the solidifed mud. At first, it didn't seem like it did anything worth noticing. Then, a rumble came from underneath the Spideys, and erupted with a powerful force of nature.

She then turned towards the other group, and held her mattock lengthwise towards them. Fueling the ElementalRage data into the mattock, the pickaxe appeared to trace a line through her hand, down her body, and through her feet, siphoning its power from the ground. Terra held it close to her body as a string and a nocked arrow appeared on the mattock. Pulling back the string, the mattock-turned-crossbow released the arrow.

Immediately, the arrow transformed its shape from a spindly piece of wood to a monstrous carved log, which would probably pierce through anything it had its sights on. Terra let out a shallow whistle as she assumed her usual evasion-ready stance, should any of the Spider viruses survive her attack.

---

[1] Terraform: Fertile Soil / Cone-shaped, radiating outwards from Terra to enemies [Large Soil Terrain]
-- Geomancer @ Shock Pulse 1 [Soil: Wood]
[2] Terraforce: Shock Pulse 1 @ SpideyC/D [Wood 40 + Blast2 + Ground] [x2 Soil] {B}
[3] ElementalRage1 @ SpideyA/B [Wood 60 + Line3 + Terrain-Element] [x2 Soil] {A}
[4] Dodge [Soil Movement Bonus]
(("Conical" is 3D. Terrain changes are limited to 2D shapes. I will assume you meant a circle.))

The ground dried up a bit the Spideys continued to creep in from both sides. Terra set off a quake below two of the Spideys but only one of them was caught by it (40 x 2). She aimed her new ElementalRage log arrow at the other set and let the projectile fly, piercing and pinning one Spidey to a nearby tree (60 x 2) but missing the other that was right beside it. The surviving viruses began to spin webs around Terra to limit her mobility. One of them charged into her, but she evaded the attack with ease.

SpideyA: DELETED
SpideyB: 80 HP [soil]
SpideyC: DELETED
SpideyD: 80 HP [soil]

Terrain: 60% Mud, 20% Soil, 20% Grass, 10% Web

Terra: 90 HP [soil]
"Tch," snapped Terra, clicking her tongue in annoyance. They were apparently still alive, as Terra hadn't aligned her attacks all that well. They were still flanking her, and she disliked having to turn around again in case they attacked her. She didn't see them do much of anything at the moment, but the webs might hold something she wouldn't like.

"CornShot, Scarlet."

Her operator obliged, transferring the chip with a nod of approval. Terra loaded up the data into her offensive queue, watching both of the Spiders on either side spin their webbing around her. She figured she shouldn't step in it, as it looked like it would hamper her movements. She would be better off sitting in the middle and not taking any chances.

Quickly pointing her imaginary finger-gun at the Spidey next to her, she fired an earthen bullet, loaded with the CornShot's data. Should it hit, the CornShot's auto-seeking function should ricochet it back and to the other side. Normally, it would have to be a ridiculously recoil-heavy shot for that to happen feasibly, but hey, Net-physics. When did it make sense?

---

[1] CornShot1 @ SpideyB/D [Wood 50 + TrickShot1] [x2 Soil] {A}
-- TURNSPLICE --
The Cornshot missed the first Spidey as it crawled past Terra and the impact-activated warhead missed the other Spidey. You just can't make this kind of bad luck up. As the viruses continued to circle around her, the webs continued to build and constrict her movements.

SpideyA: DELETED
SpideyB: 80 HP [soil]
SpideyC: DELETED
SpideyD: 80 HP [soil]

Terrain: 60% Mud, 20% Soil, 20% Grass, 15% Web

Terra: 90 HP [soil] [-1 action]
Terra was getting irritated. Her marksmanship was going down the drain, that was for sure. She needed something to aim for her, as she saw the great results she had with the earthen turrets from earlier. An attack that aimed itself... it couldn't be more obvious. "Scarlet, MarkCannons," she requested. The operator nodded, sending the two chips in and leaving the rest to her Navi, as she knew what Terra was going to do.

The Navi received the chips, and immediately got to work, seeing as the Spiders were already spinning their webbing as fast as they could. Pointing both of her open palms down towards the ground, Terra began to fuel her terrain-changing energy into the ground, rapidly accelerating plant growth around her area. Then, she stomped hard on the ground, causing a rumble to ensue. Two small sprouts came up from the ground, growing at an abnormally swift rate and wrapping themselves around her arms.

The vines quickly formed two barrels around her hands, aligning themselves towards the Spidey. Cannonballs of earth formed themselves inside the barrels, locking into place. It took less than a few moments for Terra to open fire towards the Spiders, hopefully ending their lives without much more hassle. She was starting to get tired of hassle.

----

[2] Terraskill: Nature Force 1 @ MarkCannon1/2 [Imbue Wood 2]
[3] MarkCannon1 @ SpideyB [Wood 70 + Lock-On + Seeking] [x2 Soil]
[4] MarkCannon2 @ SpideyD [Wood 100 + Lock-On + Seeking] [x2 Soil]
One of the Spideys was blown apart by Terra's earthen MarkCannon (70 x 2) but misfortune struck as the other Spidey was just barely agile enough to evade the close range gunshot of the second MarkCannon. What was worse, it completed its web, successfully ensnaring Terra in a mess of abrasive silken threads.

SpideyA: DELETED
SpideyB: DELETED
SpideyC: DELETED
SpideyD: 80 HP [soil]

Terrain: 60% Mud, 20% Soil, 20% Grass, 20% Web

Terra: 70 HP [soil] [web: 5 damage per dodge] [slow: dodge rank -1]
Terra's eye twitched as the Spidey continued to be a particularly enraging foe. What was worse, the webbing was ensnaring her in a sticky mess. She was getting irritated. Very, very irritated. How she came to be this incompetent, she didn't know. She knew the Spider couldn't possibly dodge her auto-aimed attack without a spurious burst of luck.

"That's it," she said, gritting her teeth. "Scarlet, do me a favor. Just this once. Send me the four remaining highest-damage output ranged attacks."

Scarlet tapped the icons on her holoscreen, sighing as she did so. Terra was being stubborn, she knew, but she asked anyway. "What do you have in mind, Terra?"

Loading up the battlechip data transferred to her, Terra growled. "Bombardment."

Releasing the vines around her arm on the other side, which had already hit, she focused on her right side, where the Spidey crawled mockingly in an affront to her competency. The singular barrel of the vine cannon Terra had formed around her hand disappeared, and she let her usual material- soil- take over for the moment. Chunks of earth began to revolve around her hand, interlocking into small modules that gradually grew larger.

The modules formed one barrel as before, but the formation kept on continuing its build, adding one more, two more... and finally three. Four gaping cannon barrels stared at the arachnid virus in front of Terra as the insides began to glow with a white light. Supporting the massive cannon with her other hand, she didn't bother to aim. Why aim? She had sheer firepower, overwhelming force, complete domination. Everything that punched accuracy issues in the face, and then some.

"Fire."

The bombardment started then, as the four battlechips were released in a rapid discharge of firepower. The recoil forced Terra to dig her boots into the soil, but she didn't care. All she wanted was some instant self-gratification of seeing a tiny insignificant insect arachnid get its face hammered in.

----

[1] ZapRing1 @ SpideyB [Elec 40 + Stun1] {A}
[2] Shotgun @ SpideyB [Null 50 + Spread1] {A}
[3] Pulsar1 @ SpideyB [Null 70 + Object-Activated Blast2] {A}
[4] LilBomb @ SpideyB [Null 50 + Blast2] {C}
The Zapring struck the virus head-on (40 + stun), slowing it enough for the following Shotgun blast to shred it to bits (50). However, Terra wasn't done and further annihilated the Spidey's remains with a sound wave before lobbing a bomb at the site where the virus had just been crawling, completely erasing any evidence of there ever being a fourth Spidey in the area.

At least the zenny survived the onslaught.

SpideyA: DELETED
SpideyB: DELETED
SpideyC: DELETED
SpideyD: DELETED

Terrain: 60% Mud, 20% Soil, 20% Grass, 20% Web

Terra: 70 HP [soil] [web: 5 damage per dodge] [slow: dodge rank -1]

[Battle 2 - Victory!]

Get: 800z
Watching the Spider become nothing but ground and dust, Terra let go of the cannon in her hand, letting it dissolve into the ground. Breathing heavily, she realized that she really was pretty tired. "Terra..." her operator sighed. Finally, Scarlet thought. "Do you want to go on, or are you tired out yet?" she asked, hoping it wasn't the former.

"... I suppose I am a bit tired," said Terra, smiling at her operator, who still had that worried look on her face. Scarlet exhaled, and returned the smile. Tapping the small "Jack Out" button in the corner of her holoscreen, she watched Terra disappear from the display output, and out of the network.

[Jack Out]