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Starbound Flotilla     Welcome back to Daggum, however brief the stay may be today. The Linerunner is refueling and readying up to receive modifications while it remains docked at the little lashed-together flotilla of sorts, with trains and landships that carve their way through the high-speed horizon made up of the lane of shifting glass that zips by at hundreds of miles per hour, broken up only by small, flickery streaks of hyperglass deposits. Daggum's ships and trains, and the town built atop and among them, glide over with hover systems and other suchlike, making for a surprisingly smooth ride; those who have chosen to stay the night as offered by the Hylotl Moonscale, Kaito, have found it easy to do so, but the local artificial warpgate situated atop the little settlement well suffices for their needs if people needed to leave and return, or arrive only just now.

    Today's issue is tracking down feral turbofauna and war racers that make the Southern Reaches of the Line's south Second Gear lane so dangerous that it's not more populated. Surely that's the only reason why more people don't live their lives at hundreds, likely thousands of miles per hour. The wind conditions are good; the meteorological conditions surrounding Second Gear mean that aircraft and solo flight folks can move a fair clip faster than usual, letting them maneuver around a little more freely. The freeway of glass and a few free mods compatible with it boosts the topspeed of many vehicles. And the Flotilla has provided sets of hover equipment to both vehicles and on-foot fighters, letting them keep pace... Until their momentum runs out, anyway, which is what the grappling hooks are for. For those comfortable with it, Flotilla hoverbikes are offered as well. Such gear appears to be common out here in Second Gear; it's the only way to get around. Sadly, you won't get to keep them. They're rentals! Adventure rentals.

    There's a number of different targets to take on, at one's leisure. Only one main target needs to be brought down to the glass, and the Flotilla and their hoverbikes will make sure it gets recovered and brought back to the docks of Daggum. On today's menu: A, errant rogue guided war racer, an armored land mecha called the Gerrida. A hostile enchanted mutant drift boar called Erymanthos is also a local menace. And Dracone the Baleful, a massive ancient dragon skeleton, is a frequent threat. Today's issue is simple: Which to target? While things get sorted out, the Flotilla offer the choice and the vote on the radio.
Riva Banari What do you know, the Flotilla hanging out with a flotilla. HOW APPROPRIATE. Riva can appreciate this.

She also appreciates the unique nature of the Line and the society that has arisen around it. And everything is so /fast/. Crazy, huh? Still, things have adapted to the environment, and the environment is no less dangerous for being high-speed pseudonomadic life.

Riva's at the docks on a Flotilla hoverbike, preparing to GO FAST and SMASH HARD on a drift boar. Or at least, that's her vote. People looking at her might notice her quietly saying 'drift boaaaaaaaaaaar' and giggling.
Leyanne Leyanne steps out of the inn and saunters over to the dock area, swishing her tail, listening to the radio. She hasn't had a chance to modify Skrat up to Line speeds yet... and she really doesn't fancy bailing off a bike at this speed.

She's also interested in Plan Drift Boar, but for her own reasons. Leyanne, the crazy mouse that she is, wants to try and tame it.
Kotone Yamakawa It was time to get out and contiune on this quest, she was curious to se where this tripe went but now? they have some hunting to do, and it was time to get going. still she wondered how things would turn out in the end if they did reach the prize? Well there was only one way to find out right? She'd been enjoying her time here on the town though. She also tried to not think about the speed either really. She did like to go fast but this was getting a bit nuts, the drift boar was the target ansd she was ready to hunt. Well that's what she wnated to fdo but the group may end up doing something erlse and well? She was okay with that really.
Corona Arclite They may of stayed for a night or two, but as usual the overly curious and hard working Corona hasn't slept more than a minimum necessary. There was saloon-hopping with the local Novakids to pick up some information. Mostly on managing the increased speeds of the Second Gear, and some other tidbits over how she's been using one of their train-starships, and trading some of her space-western 'punk-engineering knowhow in return.

Then went to apply it. Things were a bit fast for the Foxtrotter to move on its own and keep up with just her jury-rigging from before. But now that she had time, information, and some access to supplies, Corona was able to do some needed work on the Boom Buggy instead. And now with the roar of a suped up engine and squealing of wheels the vehicle launches itself out of the work bay, hitting the glassy surface and quickly veering away to avoid getting run over from the getgo by Daggum's momentum.

The differences are almost immeadiately notable. The broken auger is gone from the front, replaces with a scoop that can double as a ramming device for collecting the salvage that seems to break of things around here fairly common. The boosters have been reattached, but now in a locked position under a reinforced spoiler to help produce the downdraft to keep the vehicle's rear wheels on the ground and under control. The larger minigun has also been swapped out for smaller, faster weaponry that'll be more suitable for their equally quick quarry.

As the buggy speeds away from the flotilla Corona opens her analyzer and plugs it into the scanner hookup in the dash. Then sat back into the seat and harness, pulling her goggles down. Everyone else seemed interested in the boar, but eh. She's seen plenty of mutant pigs back home. Not really her thing.

"Welp, shall we see if we can rustle up a rogue mecha?" Better application of her skills in her opinion.
Hopalong click-clacks something in response, though he just sounds content to have his 'sidekick' seat back for the time being. Riding in the back sucks.
Starbound Flotilla     Alright, it looks like today's target is the DRIFT BOAR, by vote of three! That one has a linear territory somewhat northward and a little anti-lineward, which is to say, west; the Drift Boar has a habit of speeding up and ramming those who're on their way northward. This isn't too hard to view, though navigating will be a bit odd. Huge valleys form and suddenly close up as the plasma-brushed lane of glass speeds by, meaning that it's sort of like navigating a geologically complex zone while the geology itself changes before their eyes in a one-dimensionally linear way.

    Those seeking to keep up, who don't have a vehicle or mods of their own, will certainly want to get aboard the buggy, or take one of the bikes like Riva's chosen to do, or at least grab a hover kit to make sure they stay at pace over the ground. It's like skating! Kind of. How this thing keeps running so long is a mystery that won't be solved tonight, or perhaps any night. The idea of "tracking" is obviously an absurdity, but luckily they don't need to.

    The Drift Boar, Erymanthos, can be sighted after not too long of a ride. This lad is an absolute unit, bulging with muscles in peak condition. Mutations have brought the boar's size up to well above the size of a car, and past that to something that could give a trucker's vehicle a run for its money. Its motion is erratic in its high speed; cohesive, efficient movements surge it forward in a mix between dashing and leaping. Its huge tusks are caked with blood and carved in incredibly valuable speed-enhancement enchantments. Its eyes gleam like fire, and it has the scarred, violent look of a feral animal. Tiny magical "thrusters" of floating spellcircles at its flanks provide a constant boost. A small pack of other drift boars keep almost as tight a formation near it. Its tusks conduct arcs of magical lightning between them.

    The moment it sees them, the boar's likely to charge them and try to flip them out of Second Gear and into a swift death with a brutal tusk goring and lift.
Leyanne Leyanne waits for Corona to loop back around before hopping aboard. She brings her own guns to the equation - her favourite Bushmaster cannon, for today at least, along with her pistol and a shotgun. She settles herself in the back, behind its already built-in gun, adjusting her steadicam rig to hold it higher, above the buggy's bodywork.

Once she, and anyone else who wants to board is safely secure, the mouse bangs twice on the buggy's roof. "We're all in, let's rock!"
Corona Arclite Guess everyone else really is more interested in that mutant pig.

At first Corona does consider going off on her own in search of the rogue mech anyways. Would hardly be the first time she's run the rodeo solo against a miniboss type thing...

But then the paranoia kicks in. What if the Drift Boar is more than her friends are prepared for? What if a problem comes up that she could of handled but wasn't there? And then Tiny asks for a lift which snaps her out of her thoughts.

Hopalong shakes his head a few times, enough for his rabbit ears to rattle around. "Sure thing Tiny, lemme loop back 'round... Was just testin' out the mods before we dive headlong into trouble." Corona makes up an excuse for why she started to stray away at first, cranks the wheel to do a high speed drift and resync with the rest of the group to pick the martian mouse up. Hopalong scowls at her a bit, but emits a sigh-like vent of steam of relent. Though picks back up when Leyanne decides to stay up top with the weapons instead.

Corona leans partway out the driver side window a moment. "Just make sure to find somethin to hook yerself down to, there ain't much for seat belts up there." Pause. "Had to prioritize other mods, y'know."

She leaves her own scanner running though. Just in case. Wouldn't want a second miniboss to suddenly blindside them after all, right? PAranoia is useful sometimes!
Riva Banari Riva roars along on her hover bike with a whoop, enjoying the absurd speeds that the unique environment of the Line provides.

Less enjoyable is the wild environmental geometry, the land zipping up and rippling closed as forces she can't properly see or comprehend roar by. No wonder why even getting close to Third Gear has its dangers. This weird churning must also be part of what creates the hyperglass that they harvest and sell, the kind of physics involved in the shifting must be something that would drive a scientist into a fugue state.

Riva, nevertheless, outrides along Second Gear, working her way over to the engagement area. The sight of the DRIFT BOAAAAAAAAR is impressive enough. Boars are infamously dangerous even when encountered in normal circumstances. This huge porcine murder machine is a deadly affair, the pack behind it just as much if not handled properly. This is a beast that must be respected.

Which is why Riva brings out her Ajoran Cross and gives a mighty whoop as she spins out, carefully feathering the brakes to put her drifting in an unexpected direction before she sideswipes against the beast, crashing into it.

Not without incident, however. You can't collide that fast without something happening. Riva takes a powerful impact, the machine shuddering as the beast slashes her with those tusks. Even her protections only blunt the damage, not prevent it, putting a long wound on her side instead of punching through entirely.

But she gives back, the Ajoran Cross hammering down to try to grip onto it and hold fast, keeping the pair locked together as they struggle back and forth.
Starbound Flotilla     Corona manages to get in range pretty quickly, which leaves her and Leyanne being one of the first to get assaulted. The boar has become a violently territorial creature on the Line now that it's gone feral and is leading a pack, it seems; it doesn't wait when Leyanne and Corona get close, letting out a gutteral suidael cry; its massive tusks spark and gush magical lightning, emitting a huge blast of an explosive fireball swiftly streaking their way, while its groupmates begin trying to move in on a flanking position. It looks like it's about to smash its way towards her, but it doesn't manage that before a sudden, harsh interruption to its own efforts!
Starbound Flotilla     Riva is the one to interrupt it, slamming into the beast's side, provoking a porcine roar and sending one of its smaller groupmates flying into the air and crashing brutally into the glass, which blasts up into the air like a bomb had gone off and then suddenly zips back to the east as the impact is static. The boar suffers wounding to its flank, tough hide revealing bruises but a surprising degree of resilience. It's not long before it shows off its name though. Its swift movements turn into a small hop, one that slams harshly onto the ground... And begins to kick up a huge trail of freshly melted glass, heated up to melting by the friction at this speed, as the boar turns on her! The advantage of a Drift Boar, it seems, is being able to redirect the full force of the majority of its danger towards its foe directly! It doesn't lose much speed as it turns to face Riva, halting the Ajoran Cross in its tracks with a sort of locking parry, trying to slam it between those two huge tusks before trying to gore her with another roar!
Corona Arclite This is where it proves to be beneficial that others tagged along with her. With them to handle shooting Corona can focus on her driving. She cranks hard to the side as the electrical fireball is released, veering sideways to avoid it. Though they can still feel the heat in the expanding hot air when it detonates in what had been their path meer moments before.

"Ah'll handle drivin'," Corona shouts at her passangers, "Ya do the gunnin'!"

As for the lesser pack trying to flank in while they're chasing the head of the herd, Corona's got a surprise for them too. "Hit the deterent, Hopalong!" The construct nods and ducks under the front console to stomp on a lever with his mechanical foot. Pronged apparatus extend from the center of each of the four wheels and open outward, locking down against the internal hubs to deploy serrated edges and spikes. At the speed they're going to travel Second Gear that's like having four high velocity blenders as a defense mechanism against damaging the wheels.
Kotone Yamakawa Leyanne and Corona are not alone, nope there's a cyborg girl tagging along with them and she making it her task, to focus on the shooting as well.

"I'll trust you to it and got it Corona! Lyanne shall we?"

With that she's got some large rail gun out, and if one took a look closely? One could read X-COM in fading paint on the long barrel of the heavy weapon. She'll make sure to fire in tandem with her allies as she goes.

"Been a while since I had a use for this!"
Leyanne Leyanne yelps as the thing slams home into the side of the buggy, her tail wrapping around something substantial to keep her in place. She grins, swinging her gun around to start peppering the Drift-Boar. She opens fire as soon as she's got a shot, taking care not to hit Riva. She aims for the area of the beast's head, knowing that the Flotilla want to harvest and trade its hide.

When Kotone opens up, gives her a nod. "Sup."
Zwei     Zwei, since the last time involving changing their mind from raiding to escorting a 'fuel ark', has spent a little while productively rolling with good old Hyotl racism. With two bodies, it has actually been hilariously easy for it to pretend that Asche is a battlesuit piloted by the valiant Hyotl war pilot that Weiss has fabricted the identity of, finally having a use for all that Hyotl culture Moonfin made sure to tell Zwei about at all given opportunities. It's a good way to build up a lot of social capital really fast, and-

    Well, everyone will know eventually. No need to spoil it.

<<Lot of new faces.>>
||Most of them are in fact quite old, by Unification standards.||
<<Yeah well I haven't heard from them since getting back to Sector Zero and they weren't here the first time.>>
||That counts.||
<<I'm almost sortakinda jealous of the utterly insane slapdash lego rocket cars people are getting up to here.>>
||But I prefer r-drive thrust by a dramatic margin.||
<<Yeah less likely to explode that way, which is funny considering the amount of antimatter I'm still sitting on.>>
||The lowered air resistance is ideal. Simply in this region of wake space, I detect a nearly half decrease in atmospheric density.||    <<Soooo>>
||Go twice as fast, yes.||

    <<"Okay guys, fess up. You just went after the giant boar because of the funny name.">> ||"The term Drift Boar. Not the homage to the demon of antiquity."|| <<"Yeah that. Predictable.">> The twin shells present are actually being . . . really lazy about this one. Instead of engaging in real-ass combat speed and arming munitions stockpiled from the little speed fiefdom, Asche cruises at at matched speed off to the side of, and slightly ahead of, the apparently batshit crazy giant boar. Since there's no hope in hell that any drones Zwei has on hand wouldn't just fly off into the slipstream like candy wrappers at this speed, Weiss has to pretty much sit on his shoulder to start doing her business.

    This includes recording and modeling the speed enchantments to an extreme degree of fidelity, getting invasive tissue scans of the boar's skeletal, muscular, cardiac, and respiratory structures, spectrum reading the magical circle boosters, and sequencing the blood on its tusks just for the fun of it -more or less a full breakdown of how the thing is so damn fast and how it could be reused more efficiently than just butchering it for one time parts. She is multi-tasking this with an actual brain scan of the beast, looking to pick on what instinct or primitive motivation could possibly be compelling this thing to actually stay here in the hyperglass lane, instead of going somewhere it doesn't have to keep running at quad digit kph.
Riva Banari Of course taking the direct approach is hilariously dangerous and painful. But that's what Riva does best. She holds no illusions about her capabilities, especially with how often she's had to be the person between some slavering horror and innocents.

The people she's with might not count as 'innocent' but they sure are allies. And she's not going to back down. Erymanthos, however, has a compelling argument otherwise. That intense capability to redirect its force slams causes her to yell as she works to grapple with the thing, desperately trying to keep a hold. The tusks crash into her over and over, leaving more long, dangerous cuts. Every time it tries to punch right through her, something blunts the impact, the energy around her dampening the strikes from something that would immediately kill a normal person into something that is... only /moderately/ lethal.

"KEEP FIRING!" she yells back. "I'M NOT SURE HOW LONG I CAN HOLD THIS THING!" Despite her words, she's giving it her all, grimacing as Anima pulses around her, working to keep the deadly force from crushing her (and her bike). Inexplicably, she's pulling leverage from /somewhere/, grimacing as she pushes back to try to keep the beast /relatively/ in one place. Sparks and sizzling flares of energy shift back and forth as she contends with the beast.

"I TOTALLY WANTED TO GO AFTER IT BECAUSE OF THE FUNNY NAME." Riva yells back to Zwei, not hiding her motivations at all. "NOW SHOOT IT!"
Starbound Flotilla     Corona deftly averts getting blasted with the heavy fireball, and the flanking foes find themselves shredded away from the wheels, emitting deep, throaty whines of pain, one of them stumbling enough to trip -- something that's lethal out here in Second Gear, turning it into a rolling blast of glass. But Erymanthos' minions demonstrate that their leader isn't the only one that can drift! Several of them take a short hop, and begin sliding to the side, slipping deftly between the dangerous shredding weapons and trying to slam their tusks directly through the gaps in the Boom Buggy itself, and gore the driver therein! It's a PRECARIOUS maneuver, but it's one they seem quite willing to engage to take down this territorial invader!
Starbound Flotilla     Leyanne, meanwhile, is unharmed by the flankers since she's at the top. She's getting a clear shot at Ery, and she takes it, unloading on the thing and dotting the ultra-tough hide with awful splotches of damage. That SKULL is super tough, which bodes well for the formation of those tusks. Even blasting it square on the skull, at this distance, isn't bringing it down; rather, it's stunned by the impacts that build up against the dense braincase, and concussed badly. A good opportunity for a harsh, intense strike! That is, if the buggy's jostling beneath her doesn't interrupt it.
Starbound Flotilla     The turbofauna here, both the boar and its kin, all show an incredible degree of mutation. It looks "natural", but it statistically seems too unnatural. Plasma-generating atomic friction processes that occur when the Treasure passes by produce bursts of varying types of high-energy radiation regularly, which has caused accumulated genetic "damage" in the drift boar; it shows the classic signs of hyper-post-scarcity "shell shock" that emerges from being too close to plasma weapon discharge too often, and suffering a gradual decay of genetic composition as a result.

    But something is different. It's like that happened under an influence of probability manipulation; every change that has accumulated has been in service to creating more speed and more durability. In fact, all aspects of change have been in service to two things: Reducing the risk of being impacted and forced to move, and increasing one's speed, preventing stopping. This extends to the mutations and erratic enchantments that have invaded the creature's brain. Its brain fires at blistering speeds that make it hard to "read its mind", but a core impulse has clearly colonized the neurology of the thing over years of radiation exposure: "DON'T STOP. DON'T BE MOVED."
Corona Arclite The wheel shredders work! ... Maybe a little too well, as one of the wounded becomes an entirely different hazard as it stumbles and sends glass blasting away. At these speeds even a tiny bit of shrapnel could be lethal! Corona has to deftly adjust at high speed to avoid both that hazard and getting ramrodded into the side by charging monsters.

"And people think road rage is bad 'nuff!", she yelps to no one in particular.

It seems she was wrong and the Boar wasn't boring at all, even as they're nearly bored by the boars boring down on them.

"Hang on y'all, this is gonna be a little rough." Corona warns her companions as she reachs down with one hand to grab the lever between the front seats and push it. Forward. All the way.
To the point where the normal gear label has been scratched out and replaced with a sticky note that reads '11 Ain't High Enough'.
And that's when the additional boosters scream to life, spewing out hot blue-green plasma exhaust from the vehicle's pulsarium core, blazing away from the boars trying to regoup and crash them from the sides.

At the same time Hopalong jumps up on the console and hits one of the various switchs, which deploys the front scoop-ram to knock more of the stumbling wounded out of their way.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa Says "You know little high speed action, like out of a post nuclear driving movie." She notes to Lyeanne though it's clear sye's making a ref to something back home." Still she seems to be doing well of it as Corona is driving hard Kotone will be tkaing shots where she can and when she can and she takes a moment to brace herself for her friend's latest stund. "WOOO!"
Leyanne Leyanne nods at Corona's words, wrapping her tail tighter. "Yeah sooner or later we're gonna have to rename ourselves Max." She agrees, laughing as the speed-boost kicks in. It jerks her aim off a little - possibly causing a few rounds to fly in Riva's direction - before the mouse gets her aim back under control. She shifts her aim it ots front legs; if she can take one of them out...

A thought occurs to her, and she thumbs her radio. "You know, Riva. You probably want to be ready to juke back as soon as it starts to go down.. at these speeds it's going to wreck *hard* when it stumbles."
Starbound Flotilla     Kotone's railgun is a bit of a heavier option, which works out very, very well when Leyanne's built up a crushing concussing blast of stunning shots. The heavy impact punches entirely through one section of the skull, in fact, managing to loosen a tusk by taking out a chunk of the head. Riva will want to snag that when she has the chance! Unfortunately, this provokes a screaming roar that seems to be the signal from Ery to its kin, demanding assistance, which results in Kotone -- even while Corona is pulling away -- getting a drift boar leaping onto the window she's firing out of, roaring and trying to gore her, or at least keep her from firing any more!
Starbound Flotilla     Hey, speaking of Riva, she's gotten things a little loosened up. The heavy fire from Kotone has broken up a bit of the creature's skull, yet somehow it's STILL going. Fortunately, one of those tusks has come slightly loose; if Riva can rip it right off, targeting the breakable monster-hunter style, she might be able to grab one of the important things they're there for! Unfortunately, that seems to have driven the boar into a maximum fight-or-flight response, and its twin magical tusks begin making a noise like a flywheel spinning up, and forming a sphere of heat between them. It looks like it's going to set off some kind of point blank explosion to force Riva off of it!
Starbound Flotilla     Corona's boost is a good idea. Because the drift boars trying to sneak between the wheel defenses shortly encounter the one difficulty of drift maneuvers like that: You can't accelerate during them. It's a speed-preserving thing, not a speed-increasing thing. That means she manages to yank them forward -- and their bodies relatively backwards -- and shred them badly, while tearing away from them to avoid the subsequent glassy explosions! This means getting closer to Erymanthos, though, who's about to try to get away from Riva and assault the relatively slightly more vulnerable, much-abused Boom Buggy.
Corona Arclite Corona has most of her focus on trying to get closer to the big boss Drift Boar and away from the lesser ones, so almost doesn't register one of those said lesser ones jumps on the side of the buggy trying to get at Kotone. The vehicle rocks back and forth violently, it's suspension rattling and squealing from the strain of weight now heaving to one side but managing to keep the buggy upright. Though Corona has to kill the boosters before they throw them into a tailspin from the uneven weight distribution.

As much as she'd love to pull her scattergun and help, she's got to keep both hands on the wheel so they don't wipe out. "Hop! Give Koto's new friend a warm welcome!"

The mecha-jackalope turns and hops from his spot on the dash to land on Kotone's shoulder (she's a cyborg, she can handle his weight!), leaning over her shoulder and opening his mouth wide. The chippers inside are clearly visible.

But that's not what's dangerous at the moment. It's that he vents from his internal furnance through the magitech conductors in his chassic to let loose a blast of superhot exhaust fumes, aimed at the boarding bore's face to try and blind/burn it.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone has mad a friend at the moment in the worst possible way. She scores a hell of a hit but she also knows well normal boars can keep going sometimes after apparent death. Given how boar lances are made. She will try to get another shot off but it may go wide as it charging the buffy. Kotone can handle the weight of the Mecha-Jackalope as it perches on her shoulder she'll hang on and say. "Keep it up I think we got it!"

She will take one hand and grip the buggy so hard she might mangle the mettle while she tires for a tricky one-handed shot on the boar!
Riva Banari The amount of punishment this thing can take is phenomenal. But then, if it would go down easily it certainly wouldn't be the notorious threat it is now, requiring a coordinated team of murder hobos to challenge it! Still, the beast is taking heavy damage, even loosening up one of the tusks! BINGO! Just what they needed!

However, there's the matter of that growing fireblast. Were they stationary, she might be able to handle it, but the problem is they're NOT stationary, even in a relative sense, which means she can't properly deploy an Anima barrier to take a shot that will likely completely overwhelm her personal defenses. "THIS IS NOT GOOD!" She cries, and calls for some assistance from the others to help interrupt the growing threat.

Leyanne begins giving advice, and it's good advice. Isaac Newton is the meanest son of a bitch on the Line. Being glued to a falling massive Drift Boar is not her idea of a good time.

So she comes up with another idea: Don't be there when the thing blows. With a wrenching motion, Riva gives up on trying to keep the clash going with the beast's tusks, instead gripping hard on that loose tusk while she braces and looks back away, hanging off the thing's face while she twists around and glares at one of passing minor Drift Boars. "HEY WILBUR!" She yells at it, and hurls the Cross at /it/, trying to hook onto it with the thing as a golden light tether attaches to her from the weapon.

Should it hit, Riva will get /yanked/ off as she propells herself towards the minor boar, wrenching and yanking on the tusk as she bails! "Sorry Ery, I'm not into the flash-broil." She comments, hoping her crazy scheme works...
Zwei <<This is basically the most bullshit I've ever seen.>>
||Qualify that.||
<<Concentrated into a pig.>>
||Still dubious.||
<<Lovell wasn't /that/ crazy!>>

    So, there is absolutely no way that Zwei is just going to jump into the fray and start blowing that thing up, even as deranged as it is, slowly stripped of even its primitive sense of 'self' by the tremendously accelerated evolutionary pressure of being stuck in the fast lane. Pig parts full of speed juice are one thing, but the holy grail here to anyone with a mind for scientific ambition is the source of the incredibly abnormal probably influence, which is massively skewing such genetic drift in a way so unlikely it'd require new metric prefixes to describe its odds.

    <<"Hey, can you neanderthals-">> ||"-and most recent evolutionary ancestors of mice and foxes-"|| <<"-quit stroking your giant guns for like, five seconds? 'kay thanks!">> Focusing all of her bandwidth on likely sources, starting from 'Erchius signature' down the list of suspects to 'weird implant or magical doodad that she can't make heads or tails of', Weiss zeroes out a target from the badly flagging and physically mangled drift boar. Asche modulates his thrusters to converge smoothly into a pursuit point, blending into the crowd of much higher aggro scores and approaching to make physical contact with the thing at matched speeds. This is a situation where getting in front and stonewalling it to a stop would be a heinously bad idea for him as well, and so the aim is to basically cut and run with the most abnormal part of the animal they can confirm.
Starbound Flotilla     Kotone's foe is blasted painfully, with ammo and heat dumped on it, blinding it and painfully mulching its skeletal structure in that trick one-handed-shot moving through superheated bone. Kotone blasts the thing clear, meaning that Corona's Boom Buggy is finally free of those minor boars! Thank goodness. And speaking of boars...

    The damaged, wounded body of Erymanthos goes stumbling when shot in the legs by Leyanne's steadied blast, slamming hard into the ground and turning over, provoking a tremendous spray of molten glass behind it. This is right when its massive explosion goes off, creating a mobile burst of glass dust in the air -- holy shit don't fucking breathe it -- and leaving the tumbling creature obscured by the motion. That is, until it lands square on its forelegs and, with a burst of energy, surges forward out of the dust.

    Riva managed to yank that loose tusk clean out of the thing's skull, wrenching the etched thing out of the body with a brutal snapping noise. It's covered with dried blood and its end is jagged, but at least it's safe, if not entirely hygienic, to hold. What may be less safe to hold is a minor drift boar, while squeals as Riva narrowly avoids disintegration and instead finds herself grappling with a tremendous monster. It immediately begins trying to flail and throw her off, even while keeping pace with Second Gear's speed.

    This just leaves the Boom Buggy in the sights of the still-somehow-living Erymanthos. Despite the hole punched in its skull and the brutalized hide that has been torn up by glass dust, ground impact, and who knows what else, it's still running at Second Gear speed. Not for long though: Zwei manages to swoop low and strike hard; there's no erchius, no implant, nothing of that sort here, but there is one centralized part of the body that has been most deeply affected by the odd phenomenon, and with a carefully calculated reach, Weiss might be able to slip her smaller hand right through the hole Kotone and Leyanne punched with their weapons and deftly yank out Brodmann Area 4 of the boar's brain: The /primary motor cortex/, where the mutations and changes have occurred most frequently and aggressively. The moment they do, the thing slams to the ground, pulverizing most of its remaining bones and its remaining tusk -- and slipping soon into a sort of harpoon-based catching system the Flotilla have as they zip by farther behind on their own hoverbikes. Everything besides half of the hide in the boar's body has likely been mulched by the fall, but the pair of looting efforts have been successful!
Corona Arclite "Shit shit sunnova--" And the rest of Corona's cussing is drowned out by the Boom Buggy's various mechanical systems complaining when she wrenches the steering hard to the side, pumping the brake a few times rather than slamming down and arresting their entire momentum. The buggy kicks and careens into a sideways drift, shaking all three passangers around a little and giving them a little too close of a look at the wave of molten and dust glass being showered up by Drift Boar's wipeout.

Before Corona finally lets up and hits the throttle again and fires the boosters back up. Wheels screech as they struggle for a few microns to find traction of the glassy surface, then catch and with a clatter the vehicle peels away from the impending glasspocalypes.

Maker's acres, even dyin' he's livin' up to the 'Drift' part of the name!"
Leyanne Leyanne stops firing as she spots the legs buckling. For a long moment, as the Drift-boar crashes, she thinks she's got it. And without too much damage. She blinks in surprise as the beast gets back up, lowering its head in preparation to charge. She cusses and brings the gun around... only for Zwei to arrive, and rip out a part of its brain that she herself is missing. Well, at least, she's missing her original one; in its place, she has a little sliver of impure silicon.

As it goes down, and Carna pulls the neccessary crazy maneuvers, the mouse holds on tight with one hand. "And he's down... looks like the Flotilla have what's left too."
Riva Banari Riva's still alive!

That's a nice change of pace. Dying /sucks/. The Templar narrowly avoids a dire fate by taking the sensible option of getting the hell away from the convergence of murder, and she ends up atop a much more mortal but no less feisty Drift Boar. With a cry, Riva hooks the Cross under it's neck and tries to use it as a makeshift bridle, pulling back and clenching with her legs in an attempt to not only avoid getting hurled off, but to not end up flailing right into that cataclysmic impact ahead of them! With a yell, Riva leans, trying to force the boar to drift to the side so she can get close enough to the Flotilla to disembark back onto the Linerunner all while holding onto both the tusk and the boar for dear life. "WHAT A RUSH!" She yells half-maniacally, trying to keep it together long enough to get back to relatively stable ground. As soon as one of the Flotilla's grapples are in range, she's out. The boars are cool, but she's not interested in keeping one as a pet or anything.

If she wants some quick pulled pork, she knows a good place.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa is watching how much punnishment the boar takes, she watches it go down and the Boom Buggy is certainly having a time of it and it's a lucky thing for them they re not dead yet. Also h ow is it not down? How the hell is it not down? Then it finally goes down and Kotone lowers her rail rifle and finally lets go of the buggy and she looks a bit sheepish. "Well that was quite the life experiance..."
Zwei ||Hypothesis reinforced. Brains are exponentially more useful when removed from their skulls.||
<<That's a super edgy way to say it, but I like it anyways.>>
||I am more relieved to be holding brain tissue than glowing violet crystal.||
<<C'mon now. I already know it's fake purple. No need to self-describe.>>
||Then I am appreciative of the fact that I cannot get cancer.||

    Plucking out a massive chunk of gross, squishy, hideously mutated and turbocancerous accidentally-functional-brain-tumour is something that'd put off someone with a biological squick reflex. Not so much robot hands, mostly just looking for the least amount of battle damage while extended sideways from a partially upside-down rocket going at 'yes' speeds. A distortion in the locally intensified personal interdiction field that manages to appropriate look as if the brain chunk is coated in glass is necessary to prevent it from being swept away and pulverized by simple air drag.

<<Sooooo, do any of them realize how important this is orrrr?>>
||They would have attempted to seize it before me if so, if for no other reason than simply so I would not have it.||
Starbound Flotilla     Riva can soon find a way aboard; though the Linerunner isn't here, Seft surges forward and waves Riva on to share her hoverbike! She's just nice like that, and her hoverbike is quite spaceous at least. "Inviting. Ms. Banari! Come aboard!" The others, thankfully, have less they need of those sorts of services. Leyanne and Kotone and Corona have a safe ride, and with the group's leader downed, the rest are beginning to disperse (so thank goodness Riva got off hers).

    The Flotilla, mostly Pavo and Biteblade, are hoisting the mangled corpse on a pair of spears, and are bringing it in for loading onto the huge Linerunner elsewhere. The rest, primarily George and Seft, work on offering medical aid on the way back.

"Think we can use these to tune up our parts!"
"Indeed, such a creature's hide is quite valuable for its material properties."
"Floran isss gonna make big accelerator with tusssk!"
"Think we can get one of the locals to help us out with tech for doing this."
"Hopeful. If you need any tune-ups for your own vehicles for operations in The Line, I'm sure you can use this to bargain for them too!"
"We're returning to base. We'll need to merge soon, before we draw attention."

    Something notable to Zwei: The chunk of brain is showing no signs of brain-death. It will continue to function on all key neurological levels seemingly indefinitely, despite the lack of blood oxygenating it.