Don't Yeet the Chicks

You are being sent to a costal dune ecosystem, where a species known as Burrower Penguin nests in underground dwellings. When raising chicks, the species undergoes a month long period of fasting, during which they eat nearly nothing except the occasional sand-dwelling invertebrate. Now as the fasting ends, the penguins, both adults and young chicks, must migrate to the sea. This however seems to be an impossible task for them now, as while they were fasting, a high-tech multi-lane shipping highway was constructed through their habitat, cutting straight through the shore, separating the species from their destination. Paved with a strange slippery material, this highway is able to carry unmanned drones for hundreds of miles, without them losing any momentum as they gracefully skate along the road. Any obstructions on the highway never last too long, as the highway is closely monitored by demolition drones in flying ships, ready to take apart any debris and to clear the way in just a couple of seconds.

Your task is to get most of the penguin population safely to the sea.

(Summary by Reece)

Suzie Mackenzie, a Hotshot, Christina Denton, a Foreman, Talon (Greyson Draik), a Freerunner, and Sanura Katzenberg, an Aspiring Catwoman, are transported to a sandy coastline, intersected by a multi-lane highway with a slick surface and an endless stream of vehicle-like drones skating past on extendable legs, controlled by some sort of automated system which prevents collisions despite the sheer quantity of machines racing along. There’s also a colony of approximately one hundred penguins waiting to cross the road. These penguins are oddly top-heavy, very short, and have surprisingly mobile necks, though their chicks are even stranger, being completely incompetent balls of fluff, which the adults casually roll down sand dunes and toss over obstacles.

Talon takes the lead, attempting to interact with the birds, though he quickly learns that despite their non-threatening appearance, they possess surprisingly strong bites. As the squad assesses the highway, they notice demolition drones hovering above, ready to clear any debris that makes its way onto any of the lanes. So Talon grabs a penguin and deploys some hover platforms to create stepping stones above the highway, which he can hop across. Unfortunately, he’s not able to throw the platforms high enough to completely avoid the traffic, with some of the drones reaching ten metres tall when their legs are extended to their fullest extent. As such, he ends up almost being hit and has to resort to using a passing vehicle as a springboard, flinging himself into the sea on the far side of the highway.

He does safely deliver that one penguin to its destination, but his supply of hover platforms is far from unlimited, so it immediately becomes clear that this isn’t a practical solution. Also, he then has to expend a few more platforms getting back across the highway to rejoin the others. Whilst he’s doing that, Christina and her muskrat assistant, James, unload some construction materials from her kei van and use sandy cement from her cement mixer to construct a ramp, aiming to build an overpass, but the moment their construction crosses into the space above the highway, a flying vehicle resembling a large helicopter descends from above, landing in a central lane devoid of traffic and disgorging a crew of maintenance bots, which nimbly weave through speeding drones until reaching her position, at which point they swiftly tear down any part which enters the lane, leaving Christina with just a ramp rather than a bridge.

Seeing this, Suzie conjures an incredibly specialized vehicle called a “pingwing”—a small plane with ice-skate feet, a cargo hold designed explicitly for the transportation of penguins, and a penguin-like prow which can mimic penguin calls to put the birds at ease… though this last feature seems completely ineffective with this species of penguins. After loading up a dozen birds with Sanura’s help, Suzie takes to the sky! Sort of. She uses Christina’s ramp to take off, but doing so means that she’s flying directly into the oncoming vehicles’ path, so she’s forced to swerve wildly in a desperate effort to avoid a collision. She manages to eventually make her way through all six of the highway’s lanes, but not before clipping a drone tears off the pingwing’s ice-skate feet. Like Talon before her, Suzie splashes down into the sea, unloading her penguin passengers before circling around to attempt a somewhat ungainly water takeoff.

Unable to think of anything better to do, Sanura occupies herself—and her two black cats, Kaala & Kuro—with shooing away any penguins dumb enough to attempt crossing the road without assistance… or worse, to try flinging their chicks onto the road. As she’s doing this, some automated panels assemble themselves on the highway, closing one of the six lanes so that the little demolition drones can safely disassemble Christina’s impromptu construction site without being run over. Christina attempts to stop them from doing their jobs by shooting cement at them from a specialised gun, but this proves rather ineffective, as they deploy tools ranging from jackhammers to vacuum cleaners, swiftly ridding themselves of any cement that makes contact with them.

Then Sanura gets bored of waiting on the sidelines and uses a magical hardhat provided by Christina to conjure a giant traffic cone, with which she slides across the closed lane before the demolition bots can stop her, then leaps off, directly into the traffic, being immediately struck by a passing vehicle. Talon spots this and dramatically shouts “Nooo!” at the apparent death of a fellow agent. Meanwhile, Sanura appears in the safe, central lane and slips unnoticed into the parked helicopter, which the little maintenance bots have left completely unoccupied. Alas, the machine’s AI is smarter than she anticipates, so her attempt at seizing control of the vehicle is stymied when it rejects her instruction to disregard all its previous prompts.

After his dramatic moment, Talon does some more acrobatics, managing to land on another of the demolition helicopters, shattering its propeller mechanism and sending it crashing down onto the highway, giving the drones more cleanup work to do. His subsequent landing on the road then creates a shockwave which sends a few of the bots sliding away, though they’re undamaged, and he slips on the slick surface, so is unable to prevent them from sliding right back over to him and unceremoniously shoving him off the highway, back onto the sand. At the same time, Christina finishes duct-taping Suzie’s pingwing to hold it together, then conjures an automated crane to help her work, soon causing numerous traffic accidents by assembling her construction site as fast as the bots can take it apart, flooding the highway with junk.

Talon realises that the penguins will be in danger if the increasingly perilous situation persists, so rushes around the colony, tagging as many of them as he can, encouraging them to follow him away from the pile-up just in time, as soon many of the ungainly vehicles start toppling off the road and crashing down into the sand. This massive pile-up does result in the remaining lanes having to be briefly closed, so Christina takes the opportunity to load up her kei van with penguins, attempting to drive across with them. Unfortunately, the van is not the most reliable vehicle and its wheels are poorly suited to such a slick surface, so it soon topples over, sliding as far as the centre of the highway before coming to a stop. Suzie also ends up around there, after an attempt at commandeering one of the long-legged drones ends with it losing a leg, spinning around out of control, then toppling over, breaking a few of her bones.

By this point, Sanura has managed to threaten the AI into compliance by hinting that she could tear out some important wiring if it doesn’t act helpful, so the large helicopter flies off the highway and lands, allowing her to load up the remaining penguins (and her two cats) before taking off again, heading for the sea… only to come to a stop above the highway and begin tilting, attempting to dump all its passengers out onto the road, whilst at the same time it is swarmed by flying repair bots which begin fixing it up faster than Sanura can damage it. Fortunately, her feline friends are surprisingly deadly for animals their size, so manage to ward off the drones whilst she tears open a compartment and grabs a handful of wires, which she threatens to tear out, once again convincing the AI to cooperate.

At the same time, more and more demolition bots begin closing in on Christina and her cargo, as well as Suzie in her wrecked walker, but Talon is quick to come to their aid, tagging many of the drones and leading them away, which buys Christina the time she needs to evacuate her penguins, helping them reach the beach just as the helicopter AI dumps its own passengers overboard, letting Sanura, her cats, and her penguin passengers splash down into the sea. The agents’ badges begin pinging, and Suzie is the first to depart, what with her pressing need for immediate medical attention. Talon & Sanura briefly converse, with the former being both shocked and relieved to find that the latter is still alive, then they pingout next. This leaves Christina as the last agent on the scene, and she takes her time enjoying a bubblegum-flavoured soda as she relishes in the carnage that she was able to unleash before finally tapping her own badge and teleporting away.

• Suzie Mackenzie (aka Madam Driver)

• Talon unregistered
• Sanura Katzenberg unregistered
• Christina Denton unregistered