Precarious Poaching

Mach's vision lit up with target returns, with small readouts of the enemy's identities and HP. All but one of the viruses were ones he'd often encountered, but while the Bandcoon was one he'd yet to see in battle, it wasn't unknown to his NetOp. Mazer had heard of these Viruses and knew of their capabilities, thanks to the strategy used by Sylk and her NetOp in the lucrative OBS business in which they're unofficial "co-owners"; they could steal battlechip data, and do so with alarming efficiency. ["There's a Bancoon on the field, avoid and delete at all costs; it'll steal your chips and use them against you!"] Mazer warned and hoped his Navi was still open to heed his advice.

" FirePlusStatus: Fire Element UP x2, Not Stackable
Accuracy: S
Description: Adds +100% Source damage to all hits of a Fire Element attack chip, before any external environment-related or target-related damage modifiers apply. Not compatible with any other source modifiers, except innate elemental bonus. Rare
Duration: Once
Element: Fire
Trader Rank: A, Invis2Effect: Invisibility
Accuracy: S
Description: Grants the user invisibility. This reduces the chance of being hit by non-Seeking attacks by 50%, but the user will also be susceptible to Area of Effect attacks.
Duration: 2 turns
Element: Null
Trader Rank: C, and GrabRevengeDamage: Trap(80 + Stun + To-All-Clause (Enemies)): Teleport
Accuracy: S
Description: Upon activation, remains dormant until an opponent uses a teleportation ability, at which time it triggers and deals all enemies damage and stun. This trap does not prevent successful teleportation.
Duration: Once
Element: Null
Special: (Trap(Effect): Trigger): Trap effects are sprung when Trigger conditions are met. Traps do not trigger and cannot be triggered by other Traps. Traps are negated on contact by the Nullify effect, and do not trigger against attacks that include the Nullify effect. Traps do not trigger against Allies. Only one Trap may be set by an individual at a time, and setting a second will overwrite the first regardless of type. Traps remain in place until triggered, overwritten, or destroyed.
Trader Rank: B" the Navi ordered in response. Mazer was even more engaged in the battle at hand than the skirmishes that occurred previously, but moved equally as fast as any experienced netbattler would to equip his Navi. MachMan attempted to shake off enemy targeting or avoid inbound fire as he cartwheeled to the right and jettisoned his small orb-like decoy drones, which hurtled out from his body before they activated their holoprojectors and hid behind their perfect MachMan disguises.

The decoy to Mach's right charged forward and attempted to seek out the elusive Bandcoon like a hawk diving at prey, while the other moved to take "lead" in a two-ship formation with Shrike as its wingman. Though the SP was the one actually controlling the direction of their small formation, the decoy maintained its position out in front as if Shrike was following its commands.

Mach received the first of his requested chips; one he hadn't yet used. While Shrike's Magnum chip preset packed quite the punch, it was obvious it wouldn't make the cut even in Mach's severely limited point of view; the FirePlus should remedy that shortfall nicely. Mach targeted his SP just as it "summoned" the three-tube launcher over its right shoulder, then activated the chip. Suddenly the already-formed launcher began to change and reformat for a couple seconds. The tubes became larger in diameter and significantly longer, likely to effectively house the much bigger munitions inside. Seemingly unfazed by the change to its weaponry, Shrike's eye scanned the field and identified its three targets: the Pulsebat, Doomer, and Kabutank.

As soon as it locked on to its targets, the beefed-up launcher began to spew plumes of flame and smoke as it ripple-fired all three rockets from their respective launch tubes in rapid succession. The larger rockets had equally-enlarged motors to propel their increased bulk at sufficient speed, so much that the tubes, and part of Shrike, were left with dark scorch marks after launch. The rockets streaked towards their respective targets before exploding in a trio of much louder and vibrantly-fiery explosions than before; the brightness of the explosions made everything else on the field briefly cast long shadows across the ground as they were splashed with light.

The bright flash disappeared quickly, and so did MachMan. He had activated the second uploaded chip, which caused him to quickly fade into the background and completely disappear without a trace while he waited for the third chip to be uploaded. [" StepCrossDamage: 120 + Slashing + X-Range Attack + Teleport
Accuracy: S for primary target, B for additional targets.
Description: The user warps in front of an enemy, then quickly performs two sword slashes to create an X shape. Can hit up to 5 targets with good RP. Rare
Duration: Once.
Element: Null
Special: Teleport: When RP Quality is excellent, this attack also counts as a free dodge.
Trader Rank: B, AirShot3Damage: 120 + Microburst
Accuracy: A
Description: A buster-like gun that shoots a bullet of compressed air, sending whatever it hits flying.
Duration: Once
Element: Null
Special: Wind Type: This chip counts as Wind Type for the purposes of Wind triggered effects, such as traps and terrain.
Trader Rank: B, and Sunshine80 + Blind + Beam Attack +80 damage to Non-Elemental targets
Accuracy: A
Description: A sphere resembling the sun appears high above the user, then releases a ray of sun light at a target designated by the user. The beam passes through everything in its path, causing great damage and blinding all it hits as it smashes through everything in a straight line. Rare
Duration: Once
Element: Null
Trader Rank: C next,"] Mach ordered through his comm line direct to Mazer, to avoid giving away his position.

While Mazer acknowledged with a nod and continued uploading, Shrike kept up its assault while next to its decoy flight lead. The dark soot marks from the rocket launches didn't reach and obscure its eye, so the SP had no problem following up its attack on the PulseBat with a mechanically still glare. If the flying virus avoided a fiery deletion from the Magnum, it would then have a searing, blinding beam of heat sent blasting its direction. The crimson laser shot out in a perfectly straight line from Shrike's glowing pupil, and remained still for only a second or so before losing power and flickering out of sight.

Once the 3rd through 5th requested chips were uploaded, Mach focused on the Bandcoon and moved to initiate an assault of his own. Prior to teleporting away himself, he activated the GrabRevenge chip to create a mysterious battlefield-wide trap that would punish any of the viruses from doing the same. While still theoretically invisible, Mach blipped from his position in the air and quickly re-materialized behind the Bandcoon, equally-invisible beam blade in hand. Without a peep of warning, the cloaked Navi swung the blade in a wide arc with incredible speed, then made an immediate follow-up swing perpendicular to the first, tracing an invisible X path hopefully through the virus and any rock or virus nearby.

After making the second swing, Mach literally tossed the blade to the side, leaving it to rapidly dissolve into data fragments and leave his right hand free to transform into the compression tank-lined AirShot buster. He punched the buster towards the Bandcoon and fired with a sharp, heavily-percussive *POW!* If he managed to connect, the Bandcoon would be launched from its feet as if it got hit by a wrecking ball, and sent careening towards its own cover.

While the chaos (possibly perceived by others as the work of some unseen poltergeist) below continued, Shrike and its decoy flight lead corkscrewed down several feet in an attempt to avoid the myriad of available viral AAA being shot their direction. The SP also diverted some unused energy towards recharging its main weapon, in case anything else needed to be simultaneously melted and blinded.

Mach began to evade as well, but as he was likely then down near the ground, he launched himself backwards a couple feet using his spindly legs and thrust reversers. Once he perched himself back and a foot or so above the ground, a spark of light flickered several feet above the Navi, which then intensified and grew into a beachball-sized sphere of intense light. The miniature star shined for a second or so before bright ray of light burst forth from its surface and lanced through the air towards the Hard Rock and the twin gunner Metools. Though both the rock and the viruses were rugged and solid, the blinding light also had enough power to bore through the toughest armor like a drill through sand. The star and its beam quickly ran out of power and disappeared, but hopefully after it had wiped its targets off the battlefield, leaving nothing but seared earth behind.

Spotting the dangerous Bandcoon variant through his readout, Mazer called out to his charges to be wary of it, while they prepared themselves for battle. Shrike's incendiary launcher was reformatted via Mach's assistance to become a monster worthy of designation as a weapon of mass destruction; it rained death on the three viruses that were marked. The Racburglar, outed by the power of operator oversight, took the first initiative through the fiery hell and leapt up into the air past the decoy charging it, attempting to sabotage its enemies via some sticky fingers.

Unfortunately for the furry thief, its fingers grasped nothing but air, as it had not accounted for a second Mach decoy next to Shrike. The Doomer tried to launch out its boomerang-head in retaliation, with afterimages chasing after it—it managed to land a solid triple hit on Shrike (-25x3)—but was destroyed for its efforts. One of the NeoMetools spat out a bullet towards Mach, but hit air as well, as Mach was too fast for its aim.

MachMan then vanished from sight entirely, while Shrike double-tapped the already-dead PulseBat for good measure. The NeoMetools banded together to shoot out more bullets towards Mach and Shrike, which the latter was unfortunately unable to avoid, being damaged quite critically. (-70, Second Chance!) Mach activated his GrabRevenge to prepare for any enemy warps, before doing the same himself towards the Racburglar, exposed under Shrike's position. Unable to anticipate the attack with any evasive maneuvers, it was slashed across its back and screeched angrily.

In response, the raccoon virus tried to snag something on the invisible enemy attacking it, but was predictably unsuccessful, before a high-powered airburst ended its life as a splat of junk data on a rock. Realizing that they were hopelessly outmatched, the two NeoMetools tried to hide underneath their helmets, but the Sunshine chip made sure that it would be the last thing they did as they were engulfed by the power of a miniature star.

-=Viruses=-
NeoMetool3NeoMetool3 (NeoMetool)

NeoMetool not currently attacking will guard. Entering guard mode requires an action. Exiting guard mode does not require an action.

Area: ACDC, Electown, Okuden Valley, Kotobuki Town, Dentech, Beach

HP: 160
Attack Damage/Effect: 70 Null + Spread 2
Attack Accuracy: B
Attack Description: Spits out a bullet that penetrates an enemy to hit an enemy on each side of it, as if forming a line shape.
Element: Null
Possible Rewards (Per Virus): SideGun, Reflector, Zenny
Special: Can hide in its helmet to negate damage and negative statuses.
Special: If hit while hiding with a non-Break attack, it will counter with a 20 damage ray as a free action. This attack also has any statuses that the blocked attack had.
Special: Can use Recover120 on self once. A: DELETED
NeoMetool3NeoMetool3 (NeoMetool)

NeoMetool not currently attacking will guard. Entering guard mode requires an action. Exiting guard mode does not require an action.

Area: ACDC, Electown, Okuden Valley, Kotobuki Town, Dentech, Beach

HP: 160
Attack Damage/Effect: 70 Null + Spread 2
Attack Accuracy: B
Attack Description: Spits out a bullet that penetrates an enemy to hit an enemy on each side of it, as if forming a line shape.
Element: Null
Possible Rewards (Per Virus): SideGun, Reflector, Zenny
Special: Can hide in its helmet to negate damage and negative statuses.
Special: If hit while hiding with a non-Break attack, it will counter with a 20 damage ray as a free action. This attack also has any statuses that the blocked attack had.
Special: Can use Recover120 on self once. B: DELETED
RacburglarRacburglar (Bandcoon)

Bandcoons are gray raccoon-like creatures, around 30 inches in height. They possess black stripes around their body, aside from their short, almost stub-like legs. Their faces are usually unseen, as they're covered in a red mask with string decorations. Their tails are twice as long as their actual bodies, and are usually curved into a question mark shape. At first this may seem like a simple design choice, but the tail is actually prehensile, and Bandcoon cleverly use it to steal chip data from Navis. Bandcoons' speed and small size combine to make them surprisingly difficult to hit while moving, and are even agile enough to turn sharply with little problem. However, if caught standing still, they're practically sitting ducks. However, when they're not using chips, they always prefer to move when possible. Their main tactic is to roll around and confound the enemy with their speed, then move in and swipe them with their tail, using it like a hook to grab data not directly tied to them, namely Battlechips. They can then use it themselves, at reduced power, as a free action. All other effects of the chips still apply, including pre-requisites to use the chip (i.e. Spice still needs Grass terrain, MachineSword still requires that the enemy be stunned). Higher level Bandcoon are aware of such conditions, and will try to satisfy the requirements if at all possible. If the enemy has no Battlechips, Bandcoons get extremely aggravated, and will ram an enemy in anger and desperation. However, they severely dislike doing this, and will only use this attack as a last resort for when they have no chips.

Area: Yoka, Okuden Valley, Netopia, Yumland

HP: 200
Primary Attack Damage/Effect: Chip Steal + 2/3 Chip Use
Primary Attack Accuracy: B
Primary Attack Description: Racburglar steals a single random chip the opponent has selected this turn. They then use the chip at 2/3 of its normal power, rounded down to the nearest 5. Recovery chips still work at full power.
Secondary Attack Damage/Effect: 50 Null + Impact
Secondary Attack Accuracy: A
Secondary Attack Description: If Racburglar cannot steal an attacking chip for any reason, they will instead roll into an enemy.
Element: Null
Possible Rewards (Per Virus): Pickpocket (Rare), Zenny
Special: Haste while moving (+10%). Double Slow while standing still (-20%).
Special: Can use AreaGrab once, to ensure the success of its stealing.: DELETED
Kabutank3Kabutank3 (Kabutank)

While closely related to Beetank, Kabutank are a bit smarter and faster. They will use terrain and objects to their advantage if possible, and prefer to not allow Navis clean shots at them. They have one passive movement per turn, which can be used as either a movement or dodge.

Area: ACDC, SciLab, Okuden Valley, Beach, NetVegas

HP: 210
Primary Attack Damage/Effect: 20 Null + Blast 2 x 4 bombs
Primary Attack Accuracy: C
Primary Attack Description: Launches a quartet of bombs that explode in a small radius.
Secondary Attack Damage/Effect: 80 Null + Blast 1 + Seeking
Secondary Attack Accuracy: C
Secondary Attack Description: Launches a bomb that ignores invisibility.
Element: None
Possible Rewards (Per Virus): QuadBomb, SeekerBomb3, Zenny: DELETED
DoomerDoomer (Boomer)

Boomers cannot be damaged from any direction in the forward hemisphere so long as they carry their boomerang. Any attacks from the rear hemisphere or Break attacks hit normally. Boomers launch their boomerang when they attack, leaving themselves open to counter attacks. Boomers move by floating through the air, and are immune to the effects of Anchor. They are, however, still subject to the effects of terrain. They cannot be forced to submerge into liquid terrain, nor can they be buried in solid terrain. Boomers are horrible at dodging, as they generally rely on their Rang-Guard ability.

Area: SciLab, Okuden Valley, Dentech

HP: 220
Primary Attack Damage/Effect: 75 Wood + Piercing(Arc) + Group Attack
Primary Attack Accuracy: C
Primary Attack Description: Fires a wooden boomerang that travels in a wide arc, striking all who stand in its path. The boomerang passes through everything it hits.
Secondary Attack Damage/Effect: 25 Wood + Slashing x3 Hits
Secondary Attack Accuracy: B
Secondary Attack Description: Fires a boomerang directly ahead at high speed, creating a pair of damaging afterimages that fly in its wake. The attack is such that if the first hit connects, the second and third will connect as well.
Element: Wood
Possible Rewards (Per Virus): Boomerang3, QuickBoomerang3 (Rare), Zenny
Special: AirShoes, ShadowShoes.
Special: Rang-Guard: Blocks frontal attacks when not attacking.
- Can use PanelGrab as a free action each time another virus is deleted.: DELETED
PulseBat3PulseBat3 (PulseBat)

Area: ACDC, Okuden Valley, Kotobuki Town, Sharo, NetVegas

HP: 240
Attack Damage/Effect: 120 + Seeking
Attack Accuracy: A
Attack Description: Uses a sonic screech to damage its opponents.
Secondary Attack Effect: EchoLocation
Secondary Attack Description: Launches a sonic pulse to reveal hidden or illusory targets.
Element: None
Possible Rewards (Per Virus): Pulsar3, EchoLocation, Zenny.
Special: Airshoes. If PulseBat hits an object, its attack spreads to up to 8 other targets at half damage while dealing full damage to that object. Every other turn, this virus enters High Altitude (dropdown) status and does not attack. Can use Rockcube chip once per battle.: DELETED

-=Navis=-
MachMan.Exe: 640Hp [Flying over Soil]
Shrike.SP: 1Hp [Flying over Soil]

-=Terrain=-
50% Soil

• Wood Elementals get +10% Evasion.
• Wood attacks: +100% Source Damage, change terrain hit to Grass.
• 100 Damage Aqua attacks: Change terrain hit to Mud.
• 100 Damage Fire attacks: change terrain hit to Coal.
• PanelShot: Imbue Wood.

[Most of the nearby area]
30% Mud

• Non-Wood Elementals get -10% Evasion penalty and reduced movement speed, 25% (+/-25% RP) chance to fall or get stuck (1 action to get free).
• Automatically triggers Aqua Boost for appropriate chip attacks.
• Wood attacks: Change terrain hit to Soil.
• PanelShot: Imbue Wood + Slow1.

[Sinkhole, forward and right]
10% Grass

• Wood Elementals get +5 HP/action.
• Fire attacks: +100% Source Damage, change terrain hit to Soil.
• PanelShot: Imbue Wood.

[Edges of the sink hole]
5% Normal

• No effects.

[Singular patch of hard ground]
10% Broken

• Not bottomless.
• Reverts to Normal after a time, if no one is inside.
• Doubles dodge penalties for bad RP.
• 1-4 Movements actions to climb back out depending on method.

[Broken patches of ground where Doomer and Kabutank3 were]

-=Objects=-
Hard Rock: 120Hp [Near Right][Hardbody]
Soft Rock: 20Hp [Back left]
Classic Rock: 40Hp [Mid field]
Prog. Rock: 180Hp [Far side of the sink hole]

-=Chaos Battle 4, Victory!!=-
Rewards: QuadBombDamage: 30 + Blast 2 x 4 Bombs
Accuracy: C
Description: Throws four bombs with a wide range blast at an enemy.
Duration: Once
Element: Null
Trader Rank: B Battlechip, 6600z, 60 BugFrags, +1 Doomer Bounty

In a flurry of fire, blades, and beams, the battle ended with Mach and Shrike victorious. Mach had nary a scratch when he reverted to his default opaqueness, but Shrike; however, didn't come out as unscathed. The SP managed to keep itself airborne and steady enough to make an only slightly clumsy landing at MachMan's feet. Its stubby arms and legs were dented and gouged by the small boomerangs, while its central eye had deep trenches bored out of its hull by the NeoMetool's bullets.

"Low p-power, repairs required" the SP chirped in its mechanical, monotone voice. Besides the minor skip in its voice, one couldn't pick up distress in its tone, and its eye continued to occasionally pan around as if undeterred by the severe damage. Though Mach could simply heal it later, he didn't want to waste his regenerative energies mid-battle when he had remedies that could only be used during these brief periods of peace.

Mach reached down towards Shrike, his right hand clutching the freshly-formed LargeEnergyPack. He didn't even need to lean down to touch the SP and activate the energy pack, thanks to his unnaturally long and spindly arms. The subchip burst into a vibrantly glowing green splash of data, which almost completely covered the SP and quickly went to work. In only a second or so, the energy seemed to disappear/seep into the SP, revealing a freshly repaired and almost polished outer frame, just like new. The SP's large eye panned to Mach and briefly stared, as if out of thanks, though what it said didn't confirm that emotion. "Power restored, all systems green."

With that, Mach spooled up his engines, which prompted the freshly rejeuvinated SP to do the same. A brief moment later, the two programs took to the sky and resumed their course deeper into the wilds.

((LargeEnergyPack: Shrike.SP))
((Ready for Battle #5))
((Doomer Bounty: 4 kills))

Repairing Shrike's damage in an instant with an energy pack, Mach then led the way through the Okuden Chaos area, looking for more viral hostiles to test his arsenal on. His flight led him to a more forested area, where the greenery started to obscure more of the ground, though somewhat sparsely. Every now and again, Mach would spot a few plant-type viruses or two, moving through the area, but oddly enough, as soon as he flew near them, they disintegrated at the mere wind kicked up by his thrusters. The trees around them also did the same, and rotted into junk data at the slightest breeze. The trail of rot began to grow more distinctive, making up a pathway through the forest.

Eventually, he came towards the end of the trail, where the rot had made a sizable circular clearing. A low orchestral tune could be heard from the distance as he approached, spotting two figures in the clearing. A cream white humanoid-shaped robot hovered above the wilted grass in the clearing, its very skeletal frame looking extremely barebones, rather like a stick figure. Atop its neck, however, where a head should be, an oversized video camera tilted itself down at a cluster of Mushy viruses, huddled up together. Their movements were extremely sluggish, and their exterior was growing browner by the second.

From behind, Mach would be able to see a holoscreen hovering over the robot's camera head, depicting an old man in a dull blue shirt, his thinning grey hair combed back neatly. From far away, despite the distance between them, Mach could hear a deep voice speak from the screen, slowly and deliberately, as if narrating to an audience. "And so, this majestic fungus, begins to rot away, into the earth. Time is a constant, and this virus, is no exception. More will come after them, ushering in a new generation, to proliferate through the forests once more."

When the narration ended, the Mushy viruses stopped moving entirely, just as he had seen prior. The robotic frame then turned itself around, pointing its camera skywards, in his direction, as did the old man. The music coming from the robot began to slowly quiet down, and the old man smiled slightly, before beginning to narrate once more. "Far from the ground. High in the air, where the birds run free, flying Navigators can sometimes be seen, making their way through the networks. It's a marvel to behold, dominating the skies with their all-seeing eyes. These fantastical fliers, are often the apex predators of their areas, having little to fear from ground-bound viruses."

The robot then began to rise up into the air, as the a different orchestral score started up from the robot. At the same time, from between the trees, identical-looking robots rose into the skies as well, their camera heads surrounding him in an unexpected full-range filming. The holoscreen that was above the first robot was replicated across all of them, and he was able to hear the voice and the music from each one, as well. "At the same time, these too, must succumb to the tune of time, as all will do. Perhaps we will see this one withstand its unwavering approach."

Suddenly, Mach felt his engines start to slow down, as each of the robots' lenses mechanically began to zoom in on their specimen.

-- Paparazzi Posse --
Broadcast Bot Collective A: 400 HP (Flying over Grass) [High Altitude, to the right]
Broadcast Bot Collective B: 400 HP (Flying over Grass) [On the rear, to the left]
Broadcast Bot Collective C: 400 HP (Flying over Soil) [Directly ahead]
Broadcast Bot Collective D: 400 HP (Flying over Grass) [Directly to the left]
Broadcast Bot Collective E: 400 HP (Flying over Soil) [Slightly below, on the rear to the left]
Broadcast Bot Collective F: 400 HP (Flying over Soil) [Ahead, to the right]
Broadcast Bot Collective G: 400 HP (Flying over Grass) [Directly behind]

-- Focused Fliers --
MachMan.EXE: 640 HP (Flying over Soil)
Shrike.SP: 100 HP (Flying over Soil)

-- Surrounding Stage --
40% Soil (Clearing)
60% Grass (Surrounding forested area)

-- Chaos Battle 5, Ready? Start!!

To Shrike and Mazer, it appeared the programs had happened upon a mildly-ominous nature documentary covering some odd sort of decay. To Mach; however, all he 'saw' was he was quickly surrounded, and something was causing an uncommanded sluggishness in his engines. Regardless of their intentions, Mach was having none of it. " Barrier200Protection: Combined Damage of 200 HP
Accuracy: S
Description: Defensive field that prevents damage up to 200HP.
Duration: Until Destroyed
Element: Null
Special: Status Guard: This chip blocks debuffs.
Trader Rank: B, DashAttack3Damage: 150 + Impact + LineAttack(5) + Movement
Accuracy: C
Description: The user charges forward at a great speed to ram a line of enemies. Hits a maximum of 5 enemies before the momentum is lost.
Duration: Once
Element: Null
Special: Direction of travel may be altered with chip, terrain, and sig use.
Trader Rank: B, Sunshine80 + Blind + Beam Attack +80 damage to Non-Elemental targets
Accuracy: A
Description: A sphere resembling the sun appears high above the user, then releases a ray of sun light at a target designated by the user. The beam passes through everything in its path, causing great damage and blinding all it hits as it smashes through everything in a straight line. Rare
Duration: Once
Element: Null
Trader Rank: C, & Synapse2Damage: 120 + Piercing + Chain 2
Accuracy: B
Description: Produces a powerful ray through sheer force of thought, which arcs towards nearby enemies when it hits a target.
Duration: Once
Element: Elec
Special: Chain 2: This attack, upon striking a target, may change directions towards a new target. This may be done up to 2 times in one attack.
Trader Rank: C!" the Navi demanded, while Shrike immediately became combative in response to Mach's unheard commands, summoning its launcher array. Mazer worked quickly to slot in the first couple chips, resisting the urge to distract himself from loading the chips by curiously watching how the new chip would manifest. Waves of white light bounced over the Navi's armor and limbs as his debug subroutine kicked off in response to the unexplained engine slowdown.

As soon as the first chip was successfully uploaded, a perfect sphere of cyan light enveloped the entire Navi, though it was dim enough to see Mach's angular outline inside as he tried to quickly boost forward and to the right in an attempt to shake himself from the camera array's multi-eyed gaze. Twin cones of flame burst forth from his engines and lanced through the cyan barrier with seemingly no ill effect, but they disappeared quickly as Mach only briefly "tapped the throttles."

Meanwhile, Shrike's eye met the stares of two skeletal camera bots, placing targeting locks on both thanks to its ability to gimbal its large mechanical eye in nearly any direction without rotating its body. After picking out its two targets, its stumpy body rotated to bring its launcher to bear on the camera bot directly behind Mach. In a flash of smoke and flame accompanied by a shrill roar of vaporizing rocket fuel, a single incendiary explosive-carrying rocket streaked out from its launcher and bee-lined towards the camera program. The white exhaust trail was eventually punctuated with a bright orange fireball and a deep boom now all-to-familiar to this little corner of the network.

As soon as the rocket left its launcher, Shrike's eye rolled back in its housing before staring out of its own back to its second target. The rest of its body pivoted into place a second later, followed by an immediate, simultaneous launch of the second and third rockets. One streaked straight ahead in an attempt to peg the camera bot straight in the lens, but the third almost immediately angled downwards and dove into the ground with a panel-shattering explosion.

The trio of explosions were Mach's cue to utilize the freshly-uploaded second chip, causing Mach to disappear entirely with a mere blip of cyan light, only to instantly re-appear directly behind the first cam bot targeted by Shrike's rockets. Though he'd re-positioned in the blink of an eye, he somehow 'firewalled' his engines on the way, so he appeared with nearly twenty-foot, shock diamond-lined cones of purple and cyan flame and a throaty, frenzied roar.

Not only did he throttle up, he also multiplied; three MachMen appeared instead of just one. He careened forward and ripped through the sound barrier in an attempt to deliver a supersonic shoulder ram into the back of the cam bot, then shred through his previous position not 10 seconds ago to deliver an equally-fast attack on the Broadcast Bot at his 12 o'clock. The other two Machs, his decoys, shot off at equally fast speeds in different directions; one slightly off to the right to charge the bot forward and to the right, with the second dove down and to the left.

Shrike was told of Mach's intentions by the Navi himself, so as soon as he disappeared, the SP dove down and to the right to not only attempt to shake off attacks by any peering cameras, but also to avoid getting hit by Mach's charge. Since it also knew its master's flight path, it managed to lock its free-'floating' eye on Mach as he tore past, shooting a light-speed beam of energy to help restore some of the energy expended by his SCRAM boost.

As soon as Mach ripped through the second Broadcast Bot's position, he disappeared a second time, only to reappear next to the broadcast bot up and to the right with an ear-piercing, percussive boom. He didn't appear to lose any momentum during his teleport, but his new vector was nearly perpendicular to his first as he dove right-to-left across the sky in an attempt to bash two more camera bots before his chip-fueled boost ran dry. After blasting hopefully blasting through the fourth cam bot's position, Mach banked hard right and hooked around to use his built-up momentum to put himself in an advantageous position for his next, and freshly-uploaded battlechip.

Meanwhile, Shrike locked its cycloptic gaze on one of the camera bots that hadn't yet been subject to their attacks, attempting to get their mechanical eyes to meet even for just a brief moment. As soon as it happened, the camera bot would've likely gotten a very good (albeit brief) shot of Shrike's shutter-like pupil change from a vibrant green to deep red. If Shrike's aim was true, that would be all the camera would be able to pick up, as the shot of the SP's eye would've then been replaced by a blinding ray of heat. The crimson beam seared through the air like a laser pointer through smoke for a couple seconds, then flickered out to avoid overheating/overloading the SP's primary means of vision and weaponry.

When the laser beam flickered away, it was immediately upstaged by a perfectly-straight torrent of photonic energy, traced back to a miniature star that had materialized several feet over Mach's opaque cyan canopy. The ray lanced through the air with the aim of bathing two of the camera array bots in a beam of blindingly brilliant light. Though packing much more power, it too didn't last long; the ray thinned and eventually disappeared with little more than flickering embers in its wake. Mach then cartwheeled to the right, especially if his Barrier was no longer there to protect him, in an attempt to get himself briefly out of the line of fire before sending another attack their way. With little more than a brief buzz of electricity as a warning, a white-hot bolt of electricity lept forth from the pointed aircraft fuselage-inspired tip of his chest armor and careened towards one of the targets he previously attempted to drown in sunlight.

The thunderbolt zipped through the air in a jagged path towards the broadcast bot, with full intent to deliver a damaging jolt of electrical power before "bouncing" off to streak through the sky to blast the north-most camera-headed program with an equally powerful shock. If the bolt managed to strike true, it still had enough juice to arc one last time; its last target was the program furthest to the right on the battlefield (in reference to Mach's initial start point at the beginning of the battle).

While the bolt possibly pinballed amongst the bot collective, Shrike's burst and blackened launch tubes were refreshed in a brief swarm of data and were again loaded with another trio of rockets. Now all he needed were targets.

"Feeling threatened by an unknown invader in its inviolable territory, the aerial ace warily regards the newcomer, shaking off its arrogance in exchange for vigilance," announced the old man, as Mach's engines began to recover from the unexplained slowdown, and put up a barrier to prevent any further interruptions. The cyan sphere that enveloped him rippled repeatedly as soon as it went up, intercepting the malicious signals that seemed to be coming from the crowd of robots around him. Each of the skeletal frames' cameras retracted slightly at this development, with all of them beginning to slowly hover outwards from him to increase the radius of their encirclement.

"Its efforts are repaid twofold, as the newcomers were unable to stare down the foe that was, moments earlier, far outnumbered by their ranks." Mach's partner proceeded to lock its sights on two of the bots with a pair of incendiary Magnum rounds. Both of them were unable to avoid the shot in time and sustained a decent amount of damage. As the smoke cleared, it appeared that the first of Shrike's targets had entirely vanished--the other receiver still stood, albeit somewhat injured. The last shell found its way screeching down towards the ground, erupting in a brilliant explosion that resulted in a small crater.

"The predator tests its claws, and they indeed prove to be quite sharp," the old man continued to comment, in the same slow, unchanging tone. It seemed like he was unaware of Shrike acting separately from its master, who immediately repositioned himself towards one of the cambots with a fearsome war cry. As the bots rapidly swiveled their camera heads in his direction, his ramming attacks crashed into the ones that had lined up before him, replicated by the two decoys that matched his appearance. "And then, a dive!"

"Such speed proves to be vital in the fight for air superiority."

Being on the receiving end of both Shrike and MachMan's attacks, the cambot was left with only half of its lower body now, with the rest ripped into shreds. The others tried to move away from his replicas' attacks, but when they dissipated into the air, their evasive maneuvers immediately halted.

MachMan himself wasn't quite done yet, however, and teleported yet again to extend his attack, while the bots began to pepper him with some attacks. Only one of them managed to bounce off of his strong barrier, and even then it only barely scratched it.

The second charge blasted through two more of the bots, but this time, the first of them was able to barely scoot out of the way of his strikes, while the second he collided into didn't feel quite as solid as his first attack; it reacted with a strange electrostatic response. It was when he ended his blitz that he could see the robot's figure crackle in and out of vision, before disappearing into thin air. The part of the old man's voice that had come from it also faded out, yet the others continued to project his commentary.

"In the midst of its frantic charges, the predator notices something odd about its pursuers. Perhaps they were more than what meets the eye."

As Shrike had detached itself from its master, it was free to contribute an attack of its own power; its one-eyed Optic Blast ripped through the air with its red-hot gaze. Unfortunately, its target swerved away from the attack just in the nick of time, unaffected by the laser. MachMan's attack was far more impressive, with the Sunshine attack immediately following tearing through the bots' ranks. Oddly enough, the path of the Sunshine beam immediately shifted away from his original target to one on the opposite end of the bot group, punching through its torso. His original target flickered out of existence again, as would a holographic image that had lost its projection source.

"Nevertheless, the pursuers carry on, with a newcomer to assist them."

With the last of the attacks charging, MachMan heard the sound of a helicopter propeller somewhere above him. Another one of the cambots had appeared, though distinctly different from the others. It had a propeller and wings attached to its back, along with a large minigun strapped to its arm. Raising the minigun up, the bullets started to fly, and MachMan was unfortunately not quite prepared to avoid the hailstorm. Thankfully, the minigun wasn't all that accurate, so the barrier he had up absorbed all of the damage quite easily, but it was definitely slightly worse for wear. The Synapse he charged up was a good counter to the damage, hitting true on one of the bots--the one that had been receiving the most damage so far. It hung on by a thread, but it was clear that it was on its last throes.

"They are undeterred in their chase, as indomitable as their foe may be, calling upon more of their comrades."

Three of the bots began to flicker slightly, before splitting into two identical-looking copies of themselves, damage and all, replacing the three that had been outed as projections earlier. No doubt, these new additions were also projections, but would Mach and Shrike be able to differentiate them now?

-- Paparazzi Posse --
Broadcast Bot Collective A: 400 HP (Flying over Grass) [High Altitude, to the right of the center of the clearing] [Stun1]
Broadcast Bot Collective B: 400 HP (Flying over Grass) [On the rear, to the left]
Broadcast Bot Collective C: 10 HP (Flying over Soil) [Middle of the clearing]
Broadcast Bot Collective D: 10 HP (Flying over Soil) [Middle of the clearing]
Broadcast Bot Collective E: 320 HP (Flying over Soil) [Ahead, to the right]
Broadcast Bot Collective F: 320 HP (Flying over Soil) [Ahead, to the right]
Broadcast Bot Collective G: 400 HP (Flying over Grass) [High Altitude, to the right of the center of the clearing]
Broadcast Bot Collective H ( AirRaid3HP: 100
Properties: Normal, Omnishoes, Mobile
Object Damage: 50 + Impact
Damage Method: Telekinesis
Gun Attack Damage: 10 x 20 Shots
Accuracy: A
Description: Summons a fighter plane to strafe your enemies.
Duration: 3 turns or Until destroyed
Element: Null
Trader Rank: B): 100 HP (Flying over Grass) [Directly to the rear]

-- Focused Fliers --
MachMan.EXE: 640 HP (Flying over Soil, near Bot C/D) ( Barrier200Protection: Combined Damage of 200 HP
Accuracy: S
Description: Defensive field that prevents damage up to 200HP.
Duration: Until Destroyed
Element: Null
Special: Status Guard: This chip blocks debuffs.
Trader Rank: B: 140/200) (Scramble: 1 Movement, 1 Feint)
Shrike.SP: 100 HP (Flying over Soil, near bot E/F) (Reloaded: Magnum1Damage: 120 + Break + Panel Break x 3 Targets
Accuracy: A
Description: A triple barreled gun that blasts through defenses and terrain alike. Rare
Duration: Once
Element: Fire
Trader Rank: C)

-- Surrounding Stage --
35% Soil

• Wood Elementals get +10% Evasion.
• Wood attacks: +100% Source Damage, change terrain hit to Grass.
• 100 Damage Aqua attacks: Change terrain hit to Mud.
• 100 Damage Fire attacks: change terrain hit to Coal.
• PanelShot: Imbue Wood.

(Clearing)
5% Broken

• Not bottomless.
• Reverts to Normal after a time, if no one is inside.
• Doubles dodge penalties for bad RP.
• 1-4 Movements actions to climb back out depending on method.

(Single panel in the middle of the clearing)
60% Grass

• Wood Elementals get +5 HP/action.
• Fire attacks: +100% Source Damage, change terrain hit to Soil.
• PanelShot: Imbue Wood.

(Surrounding forested area)

While Mazer was more cognizant of the strange documentary-esque narration, both Mach and Shrike seemed deaf to the old man's ominously smooth play-by-play of the battle. It didn't take long for Mach to realize the camera bots were using a similar strategy to his own; though unable to physically observe the decoys/illusions flicker and disappear, HP numbers were one of the few tidbits of information he could 'see,' and he knew his chips well enough to know none of them could drop these targets in one hit. That combined with the lack of a jolt from his supersonic tackle as he passed through one of his target's positions made it clear he was up against a significant number of decoys.

Unlike the last major opponent he faced, he had a counter in ready supply in addition to some of his battle chips: his buster. [Decoys,] he declared over his voice-only link with Mazer, followed by a list of chips. [ CrossGunDamage: 140 + Spread 4
Accuracy: A
Description: A gun whose shot penetrates enemies to hit up to four enemies diagonally from it, as if forming a X shape.
Duration: Once
Element: Null
Trader Rank: A, AirShot3Damage: 120 + Microburst
Accuracy: A
Description: A buster-like gun that shoots a bullet of compressed air, sending whatever it hits flying.
Duration: Once
Element: Null
Special: Wind Type: This chip counts as Wind Type for the purposes of Wind triggered effects, such as traps and terrain.
Trader Rank: B, ElecPulse1Damage: 100 + Seeking + Glitch + Cone Attack
Accuracy: C
Description: Blast up to 4 enemies with a cone of electromagnetic waves that disrupts invisibility and causes glitches.
Duration: Once
Element: Elec
Special: Close range only.
Trader Rank: D, FirePlusStatus: Fire Element UP x2, Not Stackable
Accuracy: S
Description: Adds +100% Source damage to all hits of a Fire Element attack chip, before any external environment-related or target-related damage modifiers apply. Not compatible with any other source modifiers, except innate elemental bonus. Rare
Duration: Once
Element: Fire
Trader Rank: A, and WindDragon2Damage: 220 + Confusion + Homing x 3 Targets
Accuracy: B
Description: Summons a Greengon from broken or missing terrain to breathe whirlwinds on up to three enemies, knocking them for a loop. Rare
Duration: Once
Element: Wood
Special: Wind Type: This chip counts as Wind Type for the purposes of Wind triggered effects, such as traps and terrain.
Trader Rank: B]

The mechanical fingers of his right hand folded away from his palm at his major knuckles, then slid back so his fingertips rested against the back of his own hand and left the rectangular buster barrel unobstructed. In addition, a rectangular targeting optic slid up from his forearm. Normally this would prompt a slightly zoomed "gunsight" reticle to appear in his vision, but with his recent blindness, it was replaced with a more rudimentary square grid that would theoretically erase any enemy signals that aren't legitimate programs, and reveal any hidden targets.

While it wasn't easy to track due to the speed and chaos of the fight, he had an idea of which of his targets were real, and which had revealed themselves to be decoys. Like the predator the voice proclaimed him to be, Mach focused first on the weakest of the pack. He swung the buster towards the twin heavily-damaged bots, hopefully their relatively close proximity to one another would make it easy to pick out the fake. Assuming at least one of the two had to be the real one, he initially targeted the one he guessed to be the real deal, but would easily shift to the other if revealed to be fake by his buster sight. Said buster went off with a subdued pop and a faint flicker of muzzle flash as it sent a solid dart-like flechette towards his target.

While Mazer worked to upload the requested chips, Shrike moved to engage another bot MachMan guessed to be real. Its large mechanical eye smoothly and silently moved in its housing to point its pupil directly towards one of the two the camera-headed programs ahead and to the right. Once it locked on to its target, its gaze turned to a superheated glare; its viridian pupil rapidly changed to a vibrant crimson and sent an equally crimson beam of heat towards the program. Said beam lasted for less than a second, but it was aimed directly towards the bot's own eye-like lens, in an attempt to disable its weaponry.

With the first two chips loaded, Mach followed up with a much more explosive volley towards that same pair of programs. His buster changed slightly to sport a more reinforced, circular barrel, and was quickly maneuvered to point towards his targets. Once he picked out his target, he fired off the weapon with a much louder bang and brighter muzzle flash. The high-explosive round careened through the air before eventually hitting something, whether it be one of the bots or the ground below, and detonated a significant outwards in four cardinal directions in an outlandishly specialized explosion. Anything caught in the "+" of fire and shrapnel was in for a difficult time.

Mach believed he had been in one place for far too long, even though it was likely only for handful of seconds, and briefly put his engines to idle cycled his antigrav drive to cause him to suddenly plummet downwards several feet as if the invisible floor upon which he stood suddenly dropped out beneath him. His drive kicked back on and fairly roughly stopped his fall, while his left forearm and hand transformed into a compressor tank-lined cannon barrel. The bulbous and poorly fitted weapon to his overall angular design contained an odd set of compressors and valves to fire a tightly-packed projectile made entirely of compressed air and concussive force instead of a solid or plasma-based projectile. This weapon was quickly trained on camera bot sporting a propeller and minigun. The weapon went off with a sharp *POW* and sent the barely-visible projectile rocketing towards the target, packing enough kinetic force to scatter anything in its path like leaves in the wind.

While he engaged with his left, his right forearm and hand more-or-less reverted to its default form, but his fingers were left unnaturally splayed outwards. Seemingly undeterred, Mach pushed his throttles forward and tried to rapidly close the gap between him and the two programs ahead and to his right with a howling, rumbling roar from his twin jet engines. Meanwhile, Shrike used its much smaller engines in its stumpy legs to carve a climbing spiral path in the sky in an attempt to even briefly shake off the gaze of the cameras. Thanks to its "floating" frame design, while Shrike's limbs twisted around, the large, mechanical eye that made up the majority of its bulk shifted its gaze towards the myriad of targets around it, unhindered by the rest of its body twisting around its core.

Mach closed the distance with a quickness appropriate to his name, but needed to slow down or risk simply zooming past his targets. Twin rings of thrust-reverser vents opened near the intakes of his engines, then erupted with heat and flame when his thrust vectoring paddles at the exhaust sections clamped shut. This caused the Navi to proverbially screech to a halt as he punched his right arm and hand forward. As soon as he did so, a torrent of electricity and plasma erupted out from his hand, his unnaturally splayed fingers acted like a cone to direct the rings of plasma towards his two targets to bathe the area in volatile electrical power.

The light display didn't flicker much over his dark, matte-finished armor, though it did briefly help to highlight the memorial insignias painted/etched into his ruddervators. The geyser of energy was short lived, it fizzled out to a few electrical arcs among his fingers, then disappeared completely; Mach hoped the one-two punch of artillery and mass electrocution would also make both of his targets (permanently) disappear as well. Since his thrust reversers were still active, he kicked his throttles up again and angled his ruddervators downwards to send him back and skyward in an attempt to gain much-desired altitude and possibly avoid incoming fire. If his surprisingly useful barrier failed and he began to feel the entropic effects of the cameras' gaze, he activated his debug program to at least briefly stave off the inevitable.

The last of his chips were uploaded thanks to Mazer's well-practiced technique, and activated one of his newer chips, but with his own SP as the target. The SP didn't respond, but the triple launcher over its shoulder became abuzz with bits of data before reformatting into a much heavier, larger weapon array. With much larger launch tubes, the rockets inside carried double the standard-weight warhead. With its heavy ordinance loaded, the ocular SP selected its targets. It had its own idea of which targets were legitimate and which were spoofed, and its comparison with Mach's commanded targeting priority matched.

It brought its launcher to bear and targeted the two high-altitude programs up and to the right. As soon as it did so, two rockets burst from their launchers in a half-second staggered launch, sending both heavy rockets streaking across the sky. Its much larger, billowing white trails of smoke denoted its larger motors to propel the heavier warheads at the same speed as their standard variants, which briefly connected the launcher with the point of impact, which was declared with a large fireball followed by a pillar of black smoke, much larger than those seen mere minutes ago. After launching the first two rockets, Shrike's engine-laden legs twisted its frame nearly 180 degrees to lock on to its third target. With another flash of fire and billowing smoke, the third and final rocket was sent streaking towards the camera bot, in an attempt to give it a heavy dose of firepower.

Unseen by those focused on the battle above, a brief flash of green flickered in crater in the soil clearing, followed by what looked to be a wide, stunted dust devil that announced the arrival of a never before seen ally of MachMan: a GreenGon. The virus's snake-like spine was topped with a simplistic dragon-shaped head, with a single white spear-like horn protruding from its skull. Further down was a roughly cylindrical chest, which sprouted two large green wings, and two smaller three-fingered claws with no arms to speak of. One could assume another set of claws were further down, but its serpentine body extended down into the hole from which it emerged, obscuring the rest of its body.

The loyal virus appeared ambivalent to its relatively familiar surroundings, but it was all-too-happy to declare this little clearing in the forest as its territory, and would purge all trespassers with a righteous cyclone of fury. It threw open its jagged maw and let loose a roar like that of a howling gale; the leaves of the surrounding trees shuddered and dust lept into the air as a trio of green-tinged mini tornadoes materialized in the air and began to rip their way towards the members of the Broadcast Bot Collective previously targeted by Shrike's heavy rockets.

Mach didn't think the bots would be distracted enough by the GreenGon to not continue firing his direction, so he closed his thrust reversers and opened his vectoring paddles to send himself in a climbing spiral similar to the one Shrike performed seconds earlier.

With two of the bots appearing to be closest to destruction, it was easy enough for Mach to level his buster at one of them. Just as it paused briefly in place to extract some tool from its thin body, he was able to confirm the hit, assisted by his targeting grid. The robot erupted into a somewhat clichéd explosion, upon which all of the others swiveled their camera heads towards it, capturing the moment of destruction. All save for one; as expected, the one closest to the destroyed bot flickered in and out like a broken projection before vanishing entirely. The omnipresent audio, which had been projecting the old man's voice, suddenly emitted a brief moment of static, as it suddenly experienced a hole in its surround sound setup. However, the robots all gently drifted closer towards Mach, closing up the audio gap, while the old man resumed his narration.

"The first of many is sho--t--- down, as the others take stock in what could be their final hunt. It was now or never."

Shrike was also up to assist its charge, and fired its eyebeam towards one of the bots that Mach had guessed at to be real. Unfortunately, without direct support from Mach, Shrike's eyebeam only phased through its target--the bot that he had fired at was a fake. Still, it wasn't all for naught, as the beam cancelled out the projection briefly. With one less target to choose from, MachMan was now able to fire upon its real counterpart with a much more explosive round. Its attempt to evade was unsuccessful, and Mach's high energy shaped charge engulfed it, as well as another one of the bots, off to the side, in its wake. Strangely enough, however, when the explosion cleared, the second bot did not seem to have sustained any damage at all, but another one high above its comrade exhibited clear burn marks and damage instead.

To his rear, the bot with propellers and minigun whirred to life as it began its second round of heavy gunfire, right as MachMan swooped down to the ground by way of his antigrav engine. Four of the bullets grazed his barrier, while he himself escaped to ground level unscathed. With his engines kicking back into gear to halt his descent, he fired upon the minigun-toting bot with a lethal dose of compressed air. The bot's head was blown clear off and sent flying into the distance, leaving the now headless machine to plummet down to the ground. He then kicked back into gear, blasting towards the first bot he had targeted earlier, and blasted it with a high-voltage swathe of plasma. Its frame shuddered from the attack, but it didn't stop it and another bot from high above from firing a simultaneous retaliatory energy blast towards both him and Shrike. He was able to evade it cleanly by gaining altitude, but Shrike sustained a small amount of damage to his frame. (-20)

Soon after, the cycloptic support program would have its revenge, receiving another round of the Magnum chip from their operator, while the Navi himself summoned a powerful ally of his own from the crater that he had just blown up some few seconds ago, in the form of a green dragon. With the combined firepower of the heavy warhead and the gale winds from the serpentine dragon, three of his targets were now sufficiently barraged to destruction--or so it seemed. The last target, though it managed to avoid Shrike's Magnum fire, appeared to take little to no damage from the mini tornado that the Greengon spat in its direction. Instead, the bot that he had hit with the ElecPulse earlier suddenly cracked and burst into pieces, as if it had been the one in the line of fire instead.

With the destruction of these bots, the audio feed that MachMan had been hearing not too long ago suddenly cut out, along with the holoscreen that had been atop each of the robots. Replacing them, the robot that had somehow avoided all the damage thus far spoke up in a crackling monotone. "BROADCAST FALLBACK NOT FOUND... CANCELLING PROJECTION." At that moment, his sensors would reveal the cream white coloring of the robot wash away into a darker blue, with his sensors reporting a much higher HP count than before. Its camera head twitched erratically as its lens twisted and extended towards him.

His last burst of evasive action was quite prudent, as he swerved away from a powerful lightning bolt that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere; a closer look would reveal a tiny Remote Bit high in the sky. Another one of the winged, minigun-toting bots hovered next to it, this time with a much larger barrel width. Further below, he could see another one of the bots hiding in the crater where the Greengon had been, with a small antenna poking out of its head. Unfortunately, his luck with avoiding attacks ran out at that moment, and his ascending burst to avoid the Remote Bit's attack sent him into the path of the minigun, ripping apart his barrier and finally reaching its damage threshold.

-- Paparazzi Posse --
Broadcast Bot Collective A: DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective B [True]: 1000 HP [Directly in front of MachMan] [HP Cloaking/Redirection: Disabled]
Broadcast Bot Collective C: DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective D: DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective E: DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective F: DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective G: DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective H ( AirRaid3HP: 100
Properties: Normal, Omnishoes, Mobile
Object Damage: 50 + Impact
Damage Method: Telekinesis
Gun Attack Damage: 10 x 20 Shots
Accuracy: A
Description: Summons a fighter plane to strafe your enemies.
Duration: 3 turns or Until destroyed
Element: Null
Trader Rank: B): DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective I ( RemoteBit3HP: 100
Properties: Anchored
Object Damage: 100 + Impact
Damage Method: Telekinesis
Attack Damage: 160 + Panel Break + Drop Attack
Accuracy: B
Description: Summons a Control Tower in your area and a Remote Bit to rain down lightning upon the enemy.
Duration: 3 turns or Until destroyed
Element: Elec
Special: Drop Attack: This attack originates above the battlefield, and falls to the ground. It gains one rank of accuracy against High Altitude targets.
Trader Rank: B): 100 HP (Inside Broken panel)
Broadcast Bot Collective J ( Lock-On3HP: 80
Properties: Omnishoes, Mobile
Object Damage: Not Applicable
Damage Method: Not Applicable
Attack Damage: 20 Null + Lock-On x 6 shots
Accuracy: A
Description: Summons an auto-targeting satellite cannon that fires a volley of 6 shots.
Duration: Until destroyed.
Element: Null
Special: RP quality does not boost or reduce this chip's accuracy. - This chip's accuracy cannot be boosted or reduced by any means.
Trader Rank: B): 80 HP (Flying over Grass) [Directly to the rear]

-- Focused Fliers --
MachMan.EXE: 640 HP (Flying over Soil, towards the right of the clearing) ( Barrier200Protection: Combined Damage of 200 HP
Accuracy: S
Description: Defensive field that prevents damage up to 200HP.
Duration: Until Destroyed
Element: Null
Special: Status Guard: This chip blocks debuffs.
Trader Rank: B: 0/200) (Scramble: 2 Movements)
Shrike.SP: 80 HP (Flying over Soil, near MachMan)

-- Surrounding Stage --
35% Soil

• Wood Elementals get +10% Evasion.
• Wood attacks: +100% Source Damage, change terrain hit to Grass.
• 100 Damage Aqua attacks: Change terrain hit to Mud.
• 100 Damage Fire attacks: change terrain hit to Coal.
• PanelShot: Imbue Wood.

(Clearing)
5% Broken

• Not bottomless.
• Reverts to Normal after a time, if no one is inside.
• Doubles dodge penalties for bad RP.
• 1-4 Movements actions to climb back out depending on method.

(Single panel in the middle of the clearing)
60% Grass

• Wood Elementals get +5 HP/action.
• Fire attacks: +100% Source Damage, change terrain hit to Soil.
• PanelShot: Imbue Wood.

(Surrounding forested area)

After the chaos wrought by the angular Navi, the veil had lifted, and all pretense dropped. Mach's enemy became clear, even amongst two minor wingmen. The Navi felt a fleeting, sick pleasure in permanently disrupting the broadcast of this hostile collective, with an equally strong desire to cut the entire feed for good. Upon completing is upward spiral, he demanded a "full house" of battlechips; " Counter2Damage: (1-Hit I-Field) + (Counter(110 + Impact + Break): On-Hit)
Accuracy: S Block, A Return
Description: Defends against one attack, teleports to enemy, and strikes with Gutpunch. Impacting. Breaking.
Duration: Once
Element: Null
Special: I-Field is pierced by Impact, Counter is negated by Impact.
Special: Status Guard: This chip blocks debuffs.
Trader Rank: C, MoonRay1Damage: 80 + Lunar Drain
Accuracy: A
Description: Fires a ray of lunar energy at an enemy.
Duration: Once
Element: Null
Special: Lunar Drain: Removes the target's outermost defense layer, even if it wouldn't normally be removed by this attack. Nullifies any counterattacks from that defense. Still triggers other defenses' counterattacks, if applicable.
Trader Rank: D, DashAttack2Damage: 120 + Impact + LineAttack(5) + Movement
Accuracy: C
Description: The user charges forward at a great speed to ram a line of enemies. Hits a maximum of 5 enemies before the momentum is lost.
Duration: Once
Element: Null
Special: Direction of travel may be altered with chip, terrain, and sig use.
Trader Rank: C, BigHammer2Damage: 220 + Impact + Break
Accuracy: B
Description: Summons a giant metal hammer to utterly crush one enemy that stands before you.
Duration: Once
Element: Null
Trader Rank: C, DashAttack1Damage: 90 + Impact + LineAttack(5) + Movement
Accuracy: C
Description: The user charges forward at a great speed to ram a line of enemies. Hits a maximum of 5 enemies before the momentum is lost.
Duration: Once
Element: Null
Special: Direction of travel may be altered with chip, terrain, and sig use.
Trader Rank: D, RageClaw3Damage: 100 + Slashing (Attack) OR 50 + Impacting (Throw)
Accuracy: B / B then B
Description: Creates an impressive bear claw. Can be used to slash or throw enemies or objects.
Duration: Until Overridden/Broken. Breaks automatically after 6 uses.
Element: Null
Special: Throw: The wielder must first grab the target to be thrown, then the target is thrown in the direction/area indicated. A second check is made if against another object/enemy. Throw deals damage to both thrown object/enemy and the second object/enemy. Damage occurs at point of collision with the ground/wall/ceiling/etc. or an object/enemy, not during initial grab attempt. Objects deal their max HP in damage (instead of the chip's damage) if they hit an object/enemy, then break. If they miss, the object just takes the chip's damage. This chip has a variety of uses.
Trader Rank: B."

As soon as the first chip was frantically uploaded by the moderately fatigued Mazer, Mazer's left arm briefly became a storm of data; its flurries eventually formed into a highly bulked-up arm to an even larger forearm and fist. Said fist was cocked and ready to deliver a crushing haymaker at the enemy, and remained at the ready position throughout the assault to come.

The dulled yellow limb was in stark contrast to the rest of his dark, angular frame, but it appeared its bulk did little to hinder the aerobatic Navi's nimbleness in the air; in fact, Mach used the weight to his advantage. He hurled the limb up and over his body as he rolled hard to the right. Normally the Navi would simply rotate around his roll axis, an imaginary line piercing through his chest from the tip of his fuselage-shaped chest armor to the midpoint between his massive engine nacelle, performing a quick "aileron roll." Instead, the heavy left arm caused his entire body be slightly dragged behind; as he rolled, the centerpoint of his body traced a near perfect circle in the air: a true "barrel roll."

While its master maneuvered to avoid fire from any of the three remaining hostiles on the field, Shrike moved to even the teams. The SP's large eye smoothly and silently gimballed back and stopped with a direct, cycloptic glare towards the small satellite behind. Shrike's mechanical iris tightened and its then pin-point pupil changed from a vibrant green to a foreboding red. Less than a moment later, a single ray of air started to ripple from the extreme heat, then actually begin to slowly combust, tracing a perfectly straight beam across the field. The heat laser continued to burn for several seconds, much longer than normal, as Shrike attempted to keep the Satellite's own optic and cannon in its proverbial crosshairs throughout the attack. A few seconds later, the beam finally dissipated into a thin, fleeting trail of embers. Shrike's pupil changed back to green, and the camera shutter-esque iris, now trimmed in red from the heat, eased open.

With the second chip uploaded, Mach moved to unleash a beam of his own. However, instead of a crimson beam of heat, Mach's entire frame seemed to flicker as if reflecting off an unseen moon. The pale reflection seemed to move across his frame from back to front, till it eventually concentrated itself at the tip of his nosecone-inspired chest armor. A split second later, a pale white beam blasted forth from his fuselage without making so much as a sound. The ghastly, powerful beam sliced through the air towards the lone Broadcast Bot, with the aim to deliver a surprisingly harsh moonlight treatment that pierces barrier or armor as if it were made only of shadow.

The eerily quiet beam didn't last long, but its existence was punctuated by the shrill whine of turbines spinning up, followed by the deep, frenzied roar of afterburners lighting up. The beam barely had the chance to dissipate before Mach barreled behind, "riding" twin twenty-foot cones of orange and bright indigo flame. Though the bone-white beam would even briefly white out a normal navi's vision, his handicap temporarily became a gift; he could still plainly perceive the enemy ahead, though he couldn't tell what shape or even how many limbs the program had, let alone the color.

Regardless, Mach moved to brutalize his enemy with a rapidly super-sonic tackle. The air over his leading edges struggled to get out of the way in time, forming a very thin but almost steel-durable veil of hyper-compressed air like an impossibly light and flexible battering ram. If he somehow got aimed in a wrong direction, his broad ruddervators and even his legs twisted and contorted in the air to slam his vector to an intercept course. Previously unseen unless focused on, two dark objects that seemed to have shorn off his frame began to take shape, specifically into a pair of perfect copies of the Navi that left them behind.

The holographic clones careened forward, twisting and crossing paths as they made a beeline towards the beam-crashing Broadcast Bot. Upon reaching the foe, they swarmed around the progam like a pair of wasps looking and prodding for a weakness to exploit. Meanwhile, just as Mach believed he was about to reach his target, a long, handle-like cylinder started to form against the palm of his mechanical right hand. This flurry of rapidly-forming data remained anchored to his hand even as he passed through the bot's position, and the thoroughly violent maneuver to follow.

Without warning, his left engine nacelle slammed into full thrust reversers, causing the ring of vents to open and produce small spines of flame akin to a gas stove spiked with nitrous oxide. This sudden reversal on one side caused his frame to whip around just as the massive head of the hammer began to form, and its full weight came to bear. His right arm strained to remain attached to his body as it maintained its deathgrip on the warhammer while Mach's body twisted in the air to again face the enemy at close range. The thrust vectoring paddles of his right engine frenetically tilted the large flame cone to push his right shoulder down, making his body's spin to whip the hammer up and over in the hopes of bringing the hammer directly down upon the bot's camera-laden head.

The swing was so fast, the flattened edges of the hammer's face caused vapor trails to trace its near-perfect semi-circular path in the air, and so violent that after the swing, the hammer broke free and hurtled to the ground, with his mechanical hand still gripping the blunt weapon's long handle. The hammer impacted the ground with an explosion of rapidly fragmenting data before disappearing without a trace. Undeterred by his own hand being wrenched off by the attack, the Navi jetted backwards for half a second at full power, full thrust reversers to avoid a possible melee counter, then closed the reversers to send the Navi careening towards the bot for a second time. A cone of white vapor flashed in the air around him just prior to the Navi breaking the sound barrier, and continued to barrel towards the program in his relentless assault.

After hopefully delivering a second, albeit less powerful tackle due to a lack of room to accelerate, Mach again changed his course to put his crosshairs back on his target. Thankfully for his limbs, he had no more warhammers to produce, and instead threw himself into a hair-pin turn to reverse course. The Navi audibly groaned from the rapid increase in positive G, but now he couldn't even perceive the "tunnel vision" one would see when beginning to black out.

If his left arm hadn't yet delivered a crushing counter by this point, the bulky limb rapidly began to fragment and reformat; the data fragments swarmed over and around his fingers for a second or two, then disappeared to reveal the curved, sharpened talons that took their place. He opened his hand and let it trail slightly behind with claws splayed outwards, so he could attempt to rake said claws over the program's hull with one quick, savage swipe.

With the real perpetrator revealed among the masses of fakes, six chips found their way into Mach's queue, activated all in quick succession to each other, with the first being the Counter chip. His arm was covered in a hazy storm of data, obscuring the incredibly bulky transformation that immediately followed. While he set up his first defense to replace the Barrier that had just been destroyed, The tiny Remote Bit in the sky swerved towards him to fire on his location, but it hit slightly off the mark. Meanwhile, the Lock-On equipped bot hovering behind him started up its large minigun once more, and the roaring sound of gunpowder exploding filled the skies.

In a stroke of luck, he managed to evade the majority of the attack by using his weighted fist as a turning point, rolling around five of the bullet barrages. The final one ricocheted off of his bulked-up fist, triggering its defensive counterattack. The teleportation started up instantly, causing him to appear directly in front of the bot to smash it into pieces, while Shrike assisted with some heat rays that tore through the air. His next attack caused his figure to flicker about slightly, before a bright, yet silent moonlight beam fired out from his chest armor--right as another bot appeared in front of his target, wielding another one of the smaller caliber miniguns from the first one that had come earlier. The MoonRay's attack managed to heavily damage it, but not enough to stop its functions; as the propeller on its back buffeted its master with wind, its gun barrels started to revolve rapidly, showering Mach in a hail of bullets.

Mach wasn't one to stand around waiting for attacks, however, as his turbines spun up quickly, and his thrusters began to light up. His unexpectedly fast charge caused him to barrel directly into the path of the bullets, grazing a few of them along the way (-10x3) but escaping relatively unscathed for the most part through the attack. Unfortunately, the attack caused him to veer slightly off course of impacting the AirRaid bot itself, but the master bot directly behind it received the full impact of the attack. A muted thump from the veil of compressed air revealed that the bot was deceptively sturdy despite its appearances; this didn't compare to the more fragile bots he had destroyed just a minute ago.

In the meantime, the decoy MachMen made their appearance as well, seeking out the Remote Bit controller bot further down on the ground, which had expended its charge for the moment and essentially was as harmless as a sitting duck. Regardless, it did seem to be distracted by the decoys for the most part, swiveling its head to and fro from the decoys. Further up in the air, MachMan's assault continued, producing the BigHammer into his hands and straining with its weight. Unfortunately, the slight delay as he changed his thrust direction for the attack allowed the bot to swerve slightly out of the way, causing the warhammer to swing against thin air. The bot then suddenly split its body in half briefly, revealing a spherical core in the middle of its chest with a black camera lens on it. The lens glowed crimson for a moment, before unleashing a massive red laser beam directly into his path.

Fortunately, the warhammer being too heavy also worked in his favor, as its weight tore off his own hand, the laser beam went clear through the area where his hand was, and he himself was unhurt from the attack. While the hammer fell to the ground with an explosion, MachMan made a tactical retreat from the bot's vicinity, while it reassembled its two halves together, hiding the core from view. He then continued into a second round of his earlier compressed-air tackle, albeit with less oomph than before, before following up with a clawed swipe that dug into the bot's thin-looking carapace. Sparks flew as its body received a sizable tear across its torso, and it vibrated slightly as its camera head shook about, struggling to keep him in view.

The coarse old man's voice resounded once more, though this time without its omnipresence--it was clearly coming from the bot in front of MachMan. The face that had been projected earlier was also missing, making it an audio-only feed. "Hm, well, this bird seems a bit too fast for us. Heh, heh, very nice. What fun," the voice said, in dry amusement. It would have sounded a bit more mocking, as well, if it wasn't for the damage the bot had sustained.

-- Paparazzi Posse --
Broadcast Bot Collective A: DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective B [True]: 690 HP [Directly in front of MachMan] [HP Cloaking/Redirection: Disabled]
Broadcast Bot Collective C: DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective D: DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective E: DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective F: DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective G: DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective H ( AirRaid3HP: 100
Properties: Normal, Omnishoes, Mobile
Object Damage: 50 + Impact
Damage Method: Telekinesis
Gun Attack Damage: 10 x 20 Shots
Accuracy: A
Description: Summons a fighter plane to strafe your enemies.
Duration: 3 turns or Until destroyed
Element: Null
Trader Rank: B): DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective I ( RemoteBit3HP: 100
Properties: Anchored
Object Damage: 100 + Impact
Damage Method: Telekinesis
Attack Damage: 160 + Panel Break + Drop Attack
Accuracy: B
Description: Summons a Control Tower in your area and a Remote Bit to rain down lightning upon the enemy.
Duration: 3 turns or Until destroyed
Element: Elec
Special: Drop Attack: This attack originates above the battlefield, and falls to the ground. It gains one rank of accuracy against High Altitude targets.
Trader Rank: B): 100 HP (Inside Broken panel)
Broadcast Bot Collective J ( Lock-On3HP: 80
Properties: Omnishoes, Mobile
Object Damage: Not Applicable
Damage Method: Not Applicable
Attack Damage: 20 Null + Lock-On x 6 shots
Accuracy: A
Description: Summons an auto-targeting satellite cannon that fires a volley of 6 shots.
Duration: Until destroyed.
Element: Null
Special: RP quality does not boost or reduce this chip's accuracy. - This chip's accuracy cannot be boosted or reduced by any means.
Trader Rank: B): DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective K ( AirRaid3HP: 100
Properties: Normal, Omnishoes, Mobile
Object Damage: 50 + Impact
Damage Method: Telekinesis
Gun Attack Damage: 10 x 20 Shots
Accuracy: A
Description: Summons a fighter plane to strafe your enemies.
Duration: 3 turns or Until destroyed
Element: Null
Trader Rank: B): 20 HP [Directly behind Broadcast Bot Collective B]

-- Focused Fliers --
MachMan.EXE: 610 HP (Flying over Soil, towards the right of the clearing) (Scramble: 2 Movements)
Shrike.SP: 80 HP (Flying over Soil, near MachMan)

-- Surrounding Stage --
35% Soil

• Wood Elementals get +10% Evasion.
• Wood attacks: +100% Source Damage, change terrain hit to Grass.
• 100 Damage Aqua attacks: Change terrain hit to Mud.
• 100 Damage Fire attacks: change terrain hit to Coal.
• PanelShot: Imbue Wood.

(Clearing)
5% Broken

• Not bottomless.
• Reverts to Normal after a time, if no one is inside.
• Doubles dodge penalties for bad RP.
• 1-4 Movements actions to climb back out depending on method.

(Single panel in the middle of the clearing)
60% Grass

• Wood Elementals get +5 HP/action.
• Fire attacks: +100% Source Damage, change terrain hit to Soil.
• PanelShot: Imbue Wood.

(Surrounding forested area)

While the Broadcast Bot commented on the "bird" that faced it, Shrike got to work on further thinning the field of its comrades. Its cycloptic gaze focused on the minigun-wielding program, then shot a searing glare in its direction with a flash of red from its glowing mechanical pupil. The air was briefly lanced with a crimson ray of heat, which lasted little more than a second.

Mach also kept up the assault; he lunged towards the speaking camera bot with his clawed left hand splayed open. Mach's right hand was still laying in a crumpled heap near where the war hammer had exploded against the floor, so he had little more than a torn stump at the end of his right arm. That "disability" seemed to do little to affect his ability as he whipped his left arm and hand forward in a climbing diagonal swipe through the program's position, attempting to cleave into the program's surprisingly stalwart armor a second time.

" FlameLine3Damage: 170 + Ground Attack + Wide Attack
Accuracy: B
Description: A wall of fire erupts from the ground, burning up to 3 targets.
Duration: Once
Element: Fire
Trader Rank: B, StepCrossDamage: 120 + Slashing + X-Range Attack + Teleport
Accuracy: S for primary target, B for additional targets.
Description: The user warps in front of an enemy, then quickly performs two sword slashes to create an X shape. Can hit up to 5 targets with good RP. Rare
Duration: Once.
Element: Null
Special: Teleport: When RP Quality is excellent, this attack also counts as a free dodge.
Trader Rank: B, HawkCut3Damage: 50 + Consecutive Strike + Slashing x 3 hits
Accuracy: B
Description: Performs a flashy 3-hit sword strike. Gets stronger with each hit, but it's very easy for the timing to be thrown off and fail.
Duration: Once
Element: Null
Special: Consecutive Strike: This attack's power increases by 10 with each consecutive successful hit. This stacks with other HawkCut series chips, including DeltaRayEdge. This chip immediately ends upon missing, and the power boost is reset to 0.
Trader Rank: B, and AuraHead3Damage: 150 + Break + Line Attack3 + Aura Boost
Accuracy: B / C / D
Description: Launches a Megallian Aura Head that smashes through up to 3 targets/objects in a straight line. Accuracy decreases with each hit.
Duration: Once
Element: Null
Special: Aura Boost: +20 Attack Damage when user of this chip is protected by a Barrier. +50 Attack Damage when user of this chip is protected by an Aura.
Trader Rank: B" Mach commanded with a grunt after he recovered from the clawed swipe, then tapped his throttles to jet himself near and around the camera-laden program. His movements were slightly erratic in hopes of making himself harder to hit, but had enough force to propel him a significant distance if his foe tried to fall back to a better position or turn tail and run. With the assist of his thrust vectoring paddles, control surfaces, and various vents, he tried his best to keep the Bot within arm's length, at least long enough for him to strike.

He punched his left arm forward and drove his open left hand palm-first towards his foe. Though his prosthetic arms were longer than his original limbs, he'd had plenty of time with them to become used to his extended reach, and had the added bonus of looking almost akin to the long, slender leg and talons of a bird of prey. He continued to use his engines and control surfaces to assist in his own aim, as his strategy was riding on the success of this attack. He tried to clasp his sharpened fingers around any limb he could grab, or dig his claws in like five simplistic can openers. If Mach had a choice, he'd go for the neck.

If he managed to snare the bot in his claw, he wasted no time to give his foe the temporary extra title of "projectile." He 'looked' to his left using his onboard sensors to confirm the bit-user hadn't moved from its impromptu foxhole, then slammed his left throttle forward. The engine roared and spewed a cone of flame before whipping his body, arm, and snared enemy in a clockwise rotation in the air. Mach's goal was to gain enough momentum to only require one full rotation before hurling the broadcast bot towards its huddled ally. He snapped his hand open as quickly as he could to ensure a "clean" throw, but he really just wanted the program to land in the vicinity of its comrade.

Regardless of the foe's status and position, Shrike followed up by engaging as well with its immolating glare. Its large eye had little trouble tracking the target, then tightened its iris as its pupil changed from green to red. A split second later, a perfectly straight line from Shrike (and hopefully ending at the Broadcast Bot) of glowing red light and heat flickered in the air. The beam briefly pulsed as Shrike devoted more time and power into the attack, and attempted to carve into the program with the beam of heat.

Meanwhile, Mach's first chip had been uploaded by Mazer, and his right arm rapidly began to take shape of the manifestation of said chip. A more astute observer would also notice Mach's discarded hand fragmented and disappeared as well, as part of the reformatting of the limb. It quickly took the form of a single, long barrel with four cylindrical fixtures splayed outwards at the "breech" of the weapon. Said cylinders suddenly began to glow a vibrant orange and become hot to the touch, but then seemed to drain into the barrel.

Mach aimed the weapon towards his primary target, whom he hoped was still near its subterranian comrade. He still fired the weapon either way; a single rocket burst forth from the barrel of the weapon and streaked down towards the ground, leaving behind a white trail of smoke from its solid fuel motor. The rocket impacted the ground with an initially anticlimactic *thud*, but immediately afterwards the ground seemed to crack like a pane of glass, but instead of dark fissures or holes, the cracks were glowing in a rapidly intensifying orange light. A split-second later, a vast swath of ground erupted in a jagged wall of flame and heat, bathing a significant portion of the battlefield in fire.

Mach didn't pause to admire his fiery handiwork, he instead abandoned his firing position in the air by cartwheeling to his right. He anticipated the explosion of flame wouldn't keep the enemy from firing back, pun not intended, so he had no intention of being caught unaware. The wall of flame died down and disappeared rather quickly, then Mach himself disappeared even faster.

He reappeared directly behind the main camera program, and his left hand had reformatted to its default manipulator, but was then clutching the rectangular hilt of his energy sword. Though it initially appeared as if his arm just appeared to slightly blur, as if it went out of focus, the sudden appearance of two bright, intersecting cyan crescents in the air through the target's position showed Mach actually delivered an incredibly fast pair of slashes as soon as he appeared.

Though the initial assault was impressive to see, Mach wasn't finished; he continued to press on, using his engines to keep his prey in range. He continued to wield his energy sword and swung the thin cyan blade straight up in a vertical, rising slash aimed up the camera bot's mechanical spine. As soon as his arm brought the weapon pointing directly above his head, he then traced a semi-circle above and to the left of his head to "turn" the blade in the air while keeping as much momentum as possible. With that, was able to smoothly swing his arm down and to the right, whipping a diving diagonal slash with the energy blade. After delivering the second slash, his right engine barked and coughed flame to abruptly stop Mach's upper torso at the end of the swing.

If his two swings managed to hit, he then added a bit of flair by switching off the beam emitter in the hilt. The blade disappeared in a whisp of cyan energy as he twirled the hilt in his fingers, then clamped his grip down with the hilt now facing upside down. He then flicked the emitter back on as he drove the bottom of his fist up and forward, aiming towards the underside of the target's chest in one last attempt to skewer the program on his blade.

Mach then let go of the sword, keeping it active and hopefully embedded in the camera program, and "stood" upright to face his target. Then the large, bust statue-like form of a Megalian materialized directly ahead of the angular, armored Navi. The violet and tan virus's eyes and mouth were initially just dark pits of shadow, but a second later they flickered and burned with cyan light as its expression shifted to a silent battle cry. The virus's head launched forward like a cannonball, aimed towards the Broadcast Bot. It attempted to deliver a crushing, ballistic headbutt in the hopes of smashing through its armor, or possibly more.

While Shrike moved to deplete the field of robotic facsimiles of their opponent, the main controller bot spread its spindly arms to its sides, appearing to welcome MachMan to attack it. Shrike took the invitation by sniping the minigun-toting bot behind it with a searing hot laser, while MachMan's response to the taunt was to use his remaining good hand to slash at the bot's apparently very sturdy body. Both attacks struck true, but MachMan couldn't quite dig deep, only managing to score its chest heavily, exposing some of the machinery inside.

One prompt list of requested chips later, his thrusters began to circle about the final bot, which seemed to not be particularly worried about escaping, instead choosing to stay where it was. Then, a bolt of thunder suddenly barely grazed his side, coming from yet another remotely-controlled bit. Next to Shrike, another bot sprang up from the ground with an antenna on its head--the source of the attack.

MachMan then proceeded to grab the hapless-looking bot in his prosthetic clawed hand, following it up with a momentum-building spin and a toss far below. It crashed into one of the antenna-bearing bots, shearing off half of its body into crumpled metal. Shrike followed up with another heat ray, this time aimed at the main body. The bot's body began to glow bright red, but otherwise still remained unbreached.

Suddenly, Shrike's services were nearly cut short as a hail of bullets rained on it from above, courtesy of another freshly-summoned minigun bot flying in the skies. The bullets tore through its body with ease, but Shrike managed to sustain its integrity by a sliver. MachMan's assistance came from above with a missile that he fired down towards the ground, which deceptively landed with little fanfare, before causing the ground to erupt with immolating fire.

Unwilling to let the momentum slow down in any way, MachMan then dashed into the foray with a StepCross chip, a pair of energy sword slashes landing on the bot's back with imperceptible speed. Following up, his energy sword traced a vertical line along its spine and a diagonal one across its torso, before piercing its chest and exposing its glowing core at last, at the tip of the energy sword's blade. A staticky, robotic voice could be heard from the core.

"T-T-Terminating... broadcast..."

The swordplay was capped off as MachMan summoned the enormous head of a Megalian virus and launched it into the bot's back, finally splitting it in two along with destroying the bot's core, ending in a red-tinted explosion as the camera bot finally disintegrated. The remaining two bots then fell to the forest floor into pieces, their master controller having been put out of commission.

-- Paparazzi Posse --
Broadcast Bot Collective A: DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective B [True]: DELETED
Broadcast Bot Collective C: DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective D: DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective E: DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective F: DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective G: DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective H ( AirRaid3HP: 100
Properties: Normal, Omnishoes, Mobile
Object Damage: 50 + Impact
Damage Method: Telekinesis
Gun Attack Damage: 10 x 20 Shots
Accuracy: A
Description: Summons a fighter plane to strafe your enemies.
Duration: 3 turns or Until destroyed
Element: Null
Trader Rank: B): DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective I ( RemoteBit3HP: 100
Properties: Anchored
Object Damage: 100 + Impact
Damage Method: Telekinesis
Attack Damage: 160 + Panel Break + Drop Attack
Accuracy: B
Description: Summons a Control Tower in your area and a Remote Bit to rain down lightning upon the enemy.
Duration: 3 turns or Until destroyed
Element: Elec
Special: Drop Attack: This attack originates above the battlefield, and falls to the ground. It gains one rank of accuracy against High Altitude targets.
Trader Rank: B): DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective J ( Lock-On3HP: 80
Properties: Omnishoes, Mobile
Object Damage: Not Applicable
Damage Method: Not Applicable
Attack Damage: 20 Null + Lock-On x 6 shots
Accuracy: A
Description: Summons an auto-targeting satellite cannon that fires a volley of 6 shots.
Duration: Until destroyed.
Element: Null
Special: RP quality does not boost or reduce this chip's accuracy. - This chip's accuracy cannot be boosted or reduced by any means.
Trader Rank: B): DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective K ( AirRaid3HP: 100
Properties: Normal, Omnishoes, Mobile
Object Damage: 50 + Impact
Damage Method: Telekinesis
Gun Attack Damage: 10 x 20 Shots
Accuracy: A
Description: Summons a fighter plane to strafe your enemies.
Duration: 3 turns or Until destroyed
Element: Null
Trader Rank: B): DESTROYED
Broadcast Bot Collective L ( RemoteBit3HP: 100
Properties: Anchored
Object Damage: 100 + Impact
Damage Method: Telekinesis
Attack Damage: 160 + Panel Break + Drop Attack
Accuracy: B
Description: Summons a Control Tower in your area and a Remote Bit to rain down lightning upon the enemy.
Duration: 3 turns or Until destroyed
Element: Elec
Special: Drop Attack: This attack originates above the battlefield, and falls to the ground. It gains one rank of accuracy against High Altitude targets.
Trader Rank: B): INACTIVE
Broadcast Bot Collective M ( Lock-On3HP: 80
Properties: Omnishoes, Mobile
Object Damage: Not Applicable
Damage Method: Not Applicable
Attack Damage: 20 Null + Lock-On x 6 shots
Accuracy: A
Description: Summons an auto-targeting satellite cannon that fires a volley of 6 shots.
Duration: Until destroyed.
Element: Null
Special: RP quality does not boost or reduce this chip's accuracy. - This chip's accuracy cannot be boosted or reduced by any means.
Trader Rank: B): INACTIVE

-- Focused Fliers --
MachMan.EXE: 610 HP (Flying over Soil, towards the right of the clearing) (Scramble: 2 Movements)
Shrike.SP: 1 HP (Flying over Soil, near MachMan)

-- Surrounding Stage --
35% Soil

• Wood Elementals get +10% Evasion.
• Wood attacks: +100% Source Damage, change terrain hit to Grass.
• 100 Damage Aqua attacks: Change terrain hit to Mud.
• 100 Damage Fire attacks: change terrain hit to Coal.
• PanelShot: Imbue Wood.

(Clearing)
5% Broken

• Not bottomless.
• Reverts to Normal after a time, if no one is inside.
• Doubles dodge penalties for bad RP.
• 1-4 Movements actions to climb back out depending on method.

(Single panel in the middle of the clearing)
60% Grass

• Wood Elementals get +5 HP/action.
• Fire attacks: +100% Source Damage, change terrain hit to Soil.
• PanelShot: Imbue Wood.

(Surrounding forested area)

-- Chaos Battle 5, Victory!! --
Rewards: RemoteBit3HP: 100
Properties: Anchored
Object Damage: 100 + Impact
Damage Method: Telekinesis
Attack Damage: 160 + Panel Break + Drop Attack
Accuracy: B
Description: Summons a Control Tower in your area and a Remote Bit to rain down lightning upon the enemy.
Duration: 3 turns or Until destroyed
Element: Elec
Special: Drop Attack: This attack originates above the battlefield, and falls to the ground. It gains one rank of accuracy against High Altitude targets.
Trader Rank: B Lock-On3HP: 80
Properties: Omnishoes, Mobile
Object Damage: Not Applicable
Damage Method: Not Applicable
Attack Damage: 20 Null + Lock-On x 6 shots
Accuracy: A
Description: Summons an auto-targeting satellite cannon that fires a volley of 6 shots.
Duration: Until destroyed.
Element: Null
Special: RP quality does not boost or reduce this chip's accuracy. - This chip's accuracy cannot be boosted or reduced by any means.
Trader Rank: B Battlechips, 8000z, 141 BugFrags

Mach's furious assault was ultimately successful, with the added bonus of removing the reinforcements as their master laid slain (in two, rapidly derezzing pieces). With the sounds of torn metal, explosions, and searing flames finally gone, the torn battlefield was quiet again, save for the sputtering growl of Shrike's bullet-riddled engines.

The squat SP's wobbling descent was punctuated with a dull thud when the program clattered to the ground. Its large, mechanical eye briefly struggled to move in the soot-dusted ground, then shakily panned to its Navi's much more gradual and controlled landing. "R-Radar Cl-ear. Damage Cri-i-i-i-itical," the SP dutifully reported in its monotone, androgynous voice.

Though Mach couldn't physically see the debris field of scattered zenny, bugfrags, and battlechip data, his sensors allowed him to at least "detect" their presence around him. He could also, from the HP read-out, tell his SP was in no shape to continue, or even help gather up the spoils. ["Good work, Shrike. I'm bringing you back for repairs, stand by,"] Mazer's now rarely-heard voice came in through both Program's internal comms. A second later, the heavily-damaged SP disappeared in a flash of cyan light, leaving Mach alone in the clearing, surrounded by ominous-looking woods.

Seemingly undeterred, the Navi silently got to work. It took a few minutes, but when all was said and done he'd collected a sizeable amount of zenny, bugfrags, and two fairly impressive battlechips; a good haul, and a decent place to call it quits... for now. With his SP out for repairs for a while, Mach decided to utilize a seldom-used subchip. After selecting the subchip, a green wireframe (obviously unseen by Mach) materialized in the air about a meter in front of him. The wireframe eventually formed the shape of a long rectangle, standing vertically, with a slightly curled bit protruding from the top, like a bit of string, then disappeared with a little chime indicating the BookMark subchip had been successfully "placed."

Mazer minimized Shrike's repair window upon hearing the chime, and saw a little message scroll across the top of his screen. ["Good call, let's take a break,"] Mazer remarked, and let Shrike's repair program run on its own, as now he didn't have a tight deadline. ["If you want, I can send you by the shops on your way back,"] he continued with a suggestion. The Navi stood up straight as the last of the collected data disappeared from the download, then replied with a brief "Sure."

A few seconds later, Mach was enveloped in a cyan glow, then rocketed straight up as a beam of light and disappeared.

((Used: BookMark))
((To InternetCity))