After a quick Osmose, Beuce reverted from his black mage form because that got boring fast when just about all the commands one could attain were physical in nature. They seemed to be carving through this bloticle much faster than the others. In fact, it was almost like everything they did was doing exactly twice the amount of damage. Funny how that worked. If they kept this up, it'd be at its desperation move soon. That had the potential to be really bad for them unless they just gained the ability to not need to breathe. Not need to breathe...Huh...Hm...Yes that's good. Beuce nodded and grinned as he wished there were an idea to go along with these gestures. The bloticle seemed more or less completely preoccupied with Stratos for the moment. Maybe it sensed its impending doom from him, as Stratos was the madman who destroyed a thousand behemoths with nothing but a toothpick and a bag of funions, or so the legend went. He looked at Stratos and his epic showdown with the bloticle and came to a sudden realization. He could not be weak for all the life that try so hard to live. He was giving all his best so that's what he should give. Even if his whole entire body breaks to bits while both h- His hand carries the blade of dreams. Face the setting sun with a steely heart, just close your eyes. Let the winds of courage touch on every soldier here! ENGRAVE IT! Write all the causes you're fighting for! WE GOTTA FIRE! However fire was weak to water, so he instead decided to cast a thunder spell at it. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 57% Left blotlings: 700/1000 Bloticle: 7/10 Bloticle 4 - Walter, Will of the Ocean: 435/1000
A little ways away, a loud snoring was heard from the white haired keyblade wielder. This was tiring, and what's the worst that could happen by sleeping in the middle of combat? i mean it was a status ailment in most things. One arm was bent to put his hand underneath his head, and the other was just a stump raised slightly as though the would-be arm were still attached to it and in the same position. Noticing his vulnerable state, the bloticle detached two of the tendrils and sent them flying through the air. They connected with one another, forming a halo above him, and a massive sphere of water formed above him, in the center. From it, a massive stream of water poured down onto the unsuspecting keyblade wielder. Instantly sitting up and spitting out inky water, Beuce attempted to roll out of the waterfall, but it followed his every move. That was going to get annoying quickly. It also made it pretty hard to breathe. Being unable to escape it through normal means, a black fire enveloped him, and a pair of dragonic wings spread out from his back. His attire had changed to that of the long, fur rimmed robes of his black mage form. Straightening his arm, he made a grasping motion with his fingers, and a purple aura of magic spread from beneath him. As he raised his hand, the water ceased to hit the ground, and was levitated in the air as soon as it hit the point in the air his arm was equal with. With the water now collecting into something of a mass, he touched a finger to it. Nearly instantly, it began to turn to a sickly purple color, dyed with poison. "Lets see how you like it!" Using the gravity magic as propulsion, he shot the rather large sphere of poisonous water toward the bloticle. Spoiler: Count blotlings: 700/1000 Bloticle: 7/10 Bloticle 4 - Walter, Will of the Ocean: 639/1000
Now that the flaming bloticle had gone through some kind of upgrade by combining with the remains of the earth bloticle, it made things a bit complicated. Since it was now a dual element, did that mean it now had a dual weakness? Either way, they had to defend themselves against the meteor shower before they could even think about going on the offensive. Beuce began dodging the attacks from the tentacle. It wasn't long before it would go mild and flaccid, but for now it was still very animate. Beuce knocked a few of the meteorites aside, and they seemed to be collecting into a small pile. Whether that was deliberate or not, and on who's part was anyone's guess. In any case, they'd been gathered into a fairly large pile, which was ablaze due to its fiery properties. While the wielder was evading the meteor shower, axes from the unusually long lasting Mad World continued to assault the creature, causing it to grow ever weaker. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 70% Left Living: Blotlings: 795/1000 Bloticle: 8/10 Injured: Bloticle 3, Conflagration of the Stake - Joan: 130/1000
Aias was a tad confused as to the point of the competition and wasn't entirely sure why they, two clean shaven men, had been selected to participate in the competition between barbers. Evidently, they were getting their hair cut. Now, supposedly, his head was half shaved when the competition ended. However, that's stupid. So, his hair had been merely shortened to a normal length that was not his knees. After leaving the competition, there was little to no actual reason they would've participated in it, he realized. In any case, the deed was done, and he didn't have much interest in what he looked like, the was a bit baffled by the change in wardrobe and glasses that apparated onto his face. Didn't seem to be the work of satan, otherwise his magic would've told him such, so he supposed it was okay. Now that that fornicationfest was over and done with, they needed to continue searching for information. Since they suddenly knew every in and out of the town because reasons, Aias searched through logical conclusions as to places they could be. "Rho. While Trevor deals with the beadle, why don't you and i go and search somewhere else? I believe the church would be a good place. The people of this town seem relatively focused on religion, so if she were born here, It's quite possible she'd have been baptized. The church may know something about her." And so, Aias headed to the church to ask questions and stuff Spoiler: OVA Intermission side story thing MEANWHILE IN THE BACK ALLEY OF RACISM, there were a few black children who sounded vaguely engrish australian playin' some sick B-ball up in the hood yo, ya dig? And so, even though they were already playing, they looked to a few random passerbys and called out to them. "Oi! You wanna join us for a game, mate?" Now, Aias had never actually played basketball before, and he had no reason to indulge them, but then again, he didn't have any reason to participate in the hair cutting competition either. This mission had been full of things that didn't really make sense why they were doing it. So, he accepted their offer. The teams had been set, and Aias, being shooting guard, made it rather difficult for them to score. And by rather difficult, i mean it was a while before they actually scored a singular point. The score being 13 to 2 in their favor so far, They seemed to be winning by a considerable margin. That was when the ball passed into Aias' hands while he was standing at slightly behind the half-court line, and it was time to go on the offensive. Rather than run closer to the hoop, he decided it would be better to simply take the shot. Placing the ball in his left hand, he threw it in an extremely high arc, going far about the heads of their opponents. Aias turned his back while the ball hung in the air for an abnormally long time, walking back to their side of the court. A pleasing sound of the ball passing through the net was soon heard behind him, followed by engrish filled accents exclaiming in awe at what he'd just done. Also Ra used Arise again and had one soldier perform blitz and the other use binding strike.
Sweat was pouring down Beuce's face from the heat. The fire hadn't directly touched him, but he was still feeling the effects of it. They needed to end this fight quick so they could get onto the next element. Maybe it would be wind. Wind wasn't that bad. Wind was like the sucky scrublord element comparatively. Man, maybe they'd just kill the wind bloticle and get it over with. What exactly was stopping them from just moving onward to the next bloticle to cool off, then coming back to this one? They seemed pretty stationary. It wasn't like they could follow them or anything, and the heat was starting to get to them. He doubted it would regenerate or anything. Honestly there was no point in continuing to attack the fire bloticle. Continuing to attack the fire bloticle, Beuce coated his keyblade in ice, before throwing it at their opponent in a Vorpal Blitz-Strike Raid combo. This time, when it came back to him, it was only fairly warm due to its low starting temperature, and so he wasn't burned by it. Come to think of it, it wouldn't be long before it hit the point the other ones did when they used their desperation moves. He hoped that the firaga burst was all this thing had and it had just used it early. However, that would be good luck, and they didn't have that around here. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 76% Left Living: Blotlings: 795/1000 Bloticle: 8/10 Injured: Bloticle 3, Conflagration of the Stake - Joan: 382/1000
Their combination attack had been successful, and they'd done a fair bit of damage between the two of them. It seemed like it was beginning to counterattack Stratos with an attack from beneath the ground. He seemed to have dodging that covered, but not with the thing also launching fireballs at him along with it. His best bet to help him was to draw the attention away from stratos and onto himself. Launching a jet of water from his keyblade, the bloticle seemed to be slightly irritated by it, but wasn't overly hurt by it. So, Beuce simply kept up the assault by throwing various elements of magic it it. Finally, The bloticle turned its attention toward Beuce and fired a singular stream of fire. Narrowly avoiding being incinerated, Beuce dropped the altitude of his keyblade glider. When it followed him, he decided that a higher speed transportation would be better, so he returned his keyblade to its ordinary form and mounted the powerline. Because just like it can't beat faith, fire can't catch power. Preach it. Spoiler: count Wasteland 77% Left Living: Blotlings: 795/1000 Bloticle: 8/10 Injured: Bloticle 3, Conflagration of the Stake - Joan: 486/1000
"It's a little early for that..." Beuce said as the bloticle unleashed what appeared to be its desperation move. Ordinarily, they'd have to be almost dead for them to resort to something like that, but this one...It wasn't even halfway there. They'd still have to lay into it a bit more before it reached that point, and given what it was doing, that was going to be a bit difficult. A giant orb of fire began to coalesce above it, before it rained down a hailstorm of fire onto them. Beuce's initial reaction was to dodge it, but these seemed like they were having none of that. A few made contact, but he managed to barrier surge and deflect the remainder before they finished him off. Beuce clutched his side, where he had been burned. "These things are just full of surprises, aren't they..." He looked up at the enormous sphere of flames which seemed to be growing larger again. They needed to think of some way to stop that from happening. As of yet, nothing came to mind. The fact they couldn't get into melee range was a bit troublesome, but stopping the salvos of fire was top priority. Suddenly, he noticed a feeling inside of him. They were down, against the wall. There was a horde of enemies surrounding them, and victory was far from sight. There was something that awoke inside of him, just the same way it had once before during the battle of a thousand heartless. Adrenaline was flowing through his body, and the desperation gave him strength. "If it wants to go at us like that, then i say we return the favor." Beuce said with a slight smirk. "The orb gathers fire in order to launch the salvo, and gets bigger from doing it, but it's still the same orb. If we can destroy it, it may solve our problem." Beuce mounted his motorcyle-like keyblade glider, and took to the sky. "Lets give it back everything it throws." A golden aura began to envelop Beuce as he circled around to the opposite side of the bloticle. He place his hand on his chest, and was lit ablaze with a golden flame. The wielder extended his hand toward the sky as the fire coalesced into an enormous sphere. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 77% Left Living: Blotlings: 795/1000 Bloticle: 8/10 Injured: Bloticle 3, Conflagration of the Stake - Joan: 596/1000
99,999,999,999,995,864
Stratos had successfully dealt with the death rays through the power of religion. Man, who'd have thought. Having to dodge one less thing was always nice, though. Hm...If light trumped fire...then maybe so did darkness that wasn't actually darkness but was a totally different element which was poison but was still labeled as darkness on the wiki even though its actually poison which is a different element but its darkness they're apparently the same element and not different. Poison edge. Its a darkness command. Coating his keyblade in a thick purple liquid, Beuce held his weapon backhand. He couldn't get in close himself, but his keyblade could. He hurled it like a javelin into the bloticle. As soon as it touched the flames which coated it, the poison in it ignited into a rather flashy and potent explosion. After having successfully turned his keyblade into a makeshift grenade, he had the brilliant idea of summoning it back into his hand then immediately dropping it. Somehow, he it didn't occur to him that a metal object just in the center of a large explosion may be hot. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 81% Left Living: Blotlings: 800/1000 Bloticle: 8/10 Injured: Bloticle 3, Conflagration of the Stake - Joan: 709/1000
Huh. Well that was different. This one seemed by far the most threatening bloticle they'd faced yet. "Whoa you almost got hit by a laser. Are you alright? Do you want to talk about it?" He called out to the black haired boy. Leaping out of the way of a laser himself, he looked toward the ground. It had been completely immolated. Wow. Those things were pretty deadly. Getting hit by one would certainly prove to be no bueno. So, he made a point to evade all the ones he could. The heat certainly made it difficult to combat this bloticle. They could keep using Blizzard and Water magic, but they could only go so far with that strategy. They needed a way to permanently put out the fire so they could go into melee range and perform physical combos. For now, though, magic was really all they could do, so they just had to keep up the offensive. Ice crystals began to form at the tip of Beuce's keyblade as he fired a blizzara spell in the direction of their foe. The ice crystal began to melt nearly the instant it approached the bloticle, but it still hit its mark and dealt a bit of damage. Sweat was pouring down Beuce's face from the heat. Though he was used to temperature shifts. Hell, in one are of asmodae, there was a tropical forest right next to a desert right next to an arctic mountain range right next to an active volcano. Man was that world's topography fucked up and nonsensical. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 81% Left Living: Blotlings: 800/1000 Bloticle: 8/10 Injured: Bloticle 3, Conflagration of the Stake - Joan: 761/1000
Sensing that his powerline was about to run out, Beuce set a full collision course for the bloticle. Once he was headed directly towards it, Beuce leaped from the line and sent it crashing into the beast. A current of electricity ran along its body as it cried out in pain. Without getting close to it, there was a limit as to what they were actually able to do against it. No sooner than he'd thought that, a window of opportunity presented itself to the man. The purple light coalesced around him, forming a black and red aura. Full deck. With this, not even the flames that coated the bloticle would be more than a slight warm sensation. Charging in with a battle cry, Beuce immediately slashed through the bloticle with Zantetsuken. As he'd suspected, the flames posed no threat to him. So, he turned around and unleashed a string of combos for as long as he could, before he sensed that the effect was about to wear away. So, With a final Vorpal Blitz to Joan, he retreated just in time to avoid some fairly major burns. Now that his MP had been adequately recharged, he decided it would be a good idea to blow it all by launching a long ranged assault with the Faith spell. And so, at his command, four blinding pillars of light shot down from the sky at the apparently female bloticle. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 84% Left Living: Blotlings: 800/1000 Bloticle: 8/10 Injured: Bloticle 3, Conflagration of the Stake - Joan: 911/1000
Holy crap. Didn't see that one coming. This was the FIRE bloticle! Man, this was a completely unforeseeable turn of events. In any case, the heat radiating from the bloticle was making it too hot to approach with melee attacks at the moment, without some kind of protection. So, for the moment it was out of the question unless they could get rid of the heat, if only temporarily. Beuce kept on the move to avoid the balls of fire spawning all around him. They'd stall for a moment, and then detonate, so remaining in motion would theoretically be enough to nullify damage from them. Leaping into the air, Beuce pressed his feet against a small orb of light that had manifested, and began the powerline command to remain in a constant state of "gotta go fast". With his keyblade in hand, he launched a jet of water from the tip of his weapon. Sweat had already started to run down his face from the heat. "This one might actually prove to be a bit of trouble...." He noted. Though, without the ability to do much at the moment, he simply continued to fire off cold and wet spells at the tentacle. Spoiler: count Wasteland 84% Left Living: Blotlings: 800/1000 Bloticle: 8/10 Injured: Bloticle 3, Conflagration of the Stake - Joan: 963/1000
While Stratos was lucking out all over the place with basically his enemies killing themselves at him, Beuce faced down a separate cluster of blotlings. These seemed to be a bit more competent. And by that i mean he didn't literally stand there while they just kind of died without him doing anything. They seemed to be of what was considered the most powerful two elements, Light and Darkness. As well as the two most godmoddy elements, Time and Space. The light ones were a bright gold, with an angelic theme. The dark ones about what you'd expect. They looked pretty similar to shadow heartless, only more inky. The space ones were like the universe in a blotling, and the time ones had a gear-like theme to it. Man this was like fighting a much less threatening version of spectrum. Luckily Beuce had a basic understanding of elemental weaknesses. And so, he raised his keyblade into the air and called down a series of enormous light pillars to decimate the things before him. Now, they attempted to stop him, but all but the two light blotlings were completely decimated by the attack. Turns out, faith was basically all he needed for most of them as it was just kind of absurdly overpowered magic. Now, the light blotlings had survived, and appeared to be a bit more powerful than before from the spell, but they didn't get much of a chance to use that power. In addition to magic, he was the only mage to also be physically adept. Or was he the only warrior to be magically adept...Breaking this train of thought, they were immediately dispatched by a Zantetsuken. They were nearly at the next bloticle. All that was left was for stratos to exist at a few more. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 84% Left Living: Blotlings: 804/1000 Bloticle: 8/10
The blotlings around him had been defeated. Though, the next ones guarding his path seemed more demonic in appearance, coated in fire. Fire? What the hell were those doing here? Their bloticle was miles away. Man, they must've been lost. They were probably scared to death...Poor things...Welp time to kill 'em! Beuce fired a large amount of water from his keyblade due to the effects of Aqua splash, but it wasn't used as it ordinarily would. Instead, it coated Beuce, creating a stream in front of him as he ran at them. "Scontro Di Rondine!" He called out, for some reason speaking in Italian. As he reached them, Beuce delivered a massive slash which immediately decimated all of them. "Man. That was cool. I just invented a new skill command. Welp time to never use that again." The white haired man continued on his genocidal path of carnage. The bloticles were tough cookies, and i'm not just talking chocolate chip either. But these blotlings? They were easy pickings. They were about the difficulty of a common soldier heartless, which is to say, not very difficult at all. One could say they didn't stand a ghost of a chance. Speaking of which, Beuce, as soon as he thought this, was attacked simultaneously by a lightning and a darkness blotling. Huh. Well that was weird. Good thing we just got over how easily they were killed. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 86% Left Living: Blotlings: 838/1000 Bloticle: 8/10 Injured: Blotling: 1/3
Now that he'd stood from his rock and dusted himself off, Beuce gave a heavy sigh. This was going to be a long fight...At least the others had already started plowing through the path to their next bloticle. He could see it from there. It was coated in a roaring inferno, emitting heat in all directions. The next element of bloticle they were fighting was clearly time. Man, that'd be a rough one to go through. However, they had the power of ice, as time could not stop what was already frozen! Newly invigorated by the knowledge that they had the element to counter their upcoming bloticle, Beuce charged into a cluster of Blotlings. One moved at him in something of a blink, likely of the time attribute, but he dealt with it fairly quickly because if there's one thing Beuce does, it's damage. A few more regular blotlings follow up, but they were quickly defeated with an Aqua splash. They were nearly halfway to the next boss. Funnily enough, there seemed to be exactly one hundred standing in their way. Odd. Spoiler: Count Living: Blotlings: 855/1000 Bloticle: 8/10 Injured: Blotling: 2/3
Beuce sighed from his rock. So it was. So it was...It seemed the storm no longer required their gravitational field as it kind of just disappeared. Man, it had been a while since it wasn't raining. The bloticle directed its attention toward Beuce, in one final last ditch effort. It charged up as much lightning as it could into the tip of its body. Given the lightning was more or less its life force, it would die with this attack either way. Rather than a bolt, it was more like a concentrated beam of raw energy. With this, the true strength of Larry was put forth into the attack. As soon as the beam fired, Larry collapsed, fading away into a massive and lifeless puddle of ink. Time seemed to slow down as the beam headed toward him. It was coming at him too fast for him to simply dodge out of the way, when something miraculous happened that caused a great revelation to dawn on him. With the large tentacle of ink no longer being there to impose itself as the main threat, a blotling jumped at Beuce. A single blotling. As it leaped towards Beuce to...blot at him or whatever it is blotlings do, it happened upon a very convenient path. The beam struck into the blotling and knocked it out of the air, to which the blotling responded by getting up and dusting itself off. "Hey Stratos. You know, rain amplifies lightning damage by like...tons right? I was able to just kind of tank most of that lightning for no real reason. So now that it's not raining...That last hit just failed to kill a blotling. If you think about it, Larry was actually completely piss weak among these things. Probably got made fun of a lot for it too." Spoiler: Count Wasteland 87% Left Living -Blotlings: 889/1000 The survivor (1/3) -Bloticle: 8/10 Injured: Bloticle 2, Decree of the Thunderlord - Larry: gg ez get rekt kid/1000
"Man, Being a black mage sucks for this kind of fight. Like, it's actually pretty useful and all, but it's really boring to limit your actions like this. **** being asmodian for a while i gotta get me some variation in skill commands." The man said aloud. And so, a grey light enveloped him as he reverted back into his base form. Torn off right sleeve and flowing mantle and all. Alright so now that he was back in his physical-capable form, He decided to start off with a good old fashion Zantetsuken magnify combo. Now that a massive gash had been made in the Bloticle, it seemed like it was more or less running on empty. Just another good hit from each of them, and the fight was over. Then they could move onwards to the next bloticle yay! Briefly contemplating suicide, Beuce sat down on a rock to question his life decisions. Meanwhile, The cheshire cat had been going to work with those axes. Funnily enough, they'd all but stopped hitting the two wielders. Huh. Maybe that's where everyone else went...Did they get killed by giant axes of purple light? Now that the fight was remotely winnable, it didn't really matter as much, but still. That'd kind of suck. It'd also be a personal problem **** them! Spoiler: Count Wasteland 87% Left Living -Blotlings: 889/1000 -Bloticle: 9/10 Injured: Bloticle 2, Decree of the Thunderlord - Larry: 50/1000
So Beuce was just like flyin' through the air like he just don't care and throwing ice and fire and probably some vulgar language around. The bloticle was very offended at his language. And so, Beuce used all his BP in destroying its emotional state. To add insult to other insults, Beuce began laughing as a rather large golden crest assembled itself above his head, before disappearing a few moments later. The bloticle was now fighting from a wall due to being tilted by him. While i'm not entirely sure what wall it would be on, it was there. The whole time. You just didn't notice it. Wow. Unobservant much? So Beuce, now that he had destroyed their opponent's morale, fluttered down onto the ground next to Stratos. "Hah. What a scrublord. A sucky scrublord. Lets point at him and laugh." And so he did! However, since he stopped to BM the bloticle, he was immediately struck by lightning and under most circumstances would have died, but Stratos' expert dodging skills allowed him to evade death itself at the hands of the lightning, similar to Eon tanking being dead. Not something that would have killed him. Being dead. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 87% Left Living -Blotlings: 889/1000 -Bloticle: 9/10 Injured: Bloticle 2, Decree of the Thunderlord - Larry: 102/1000
After seeing Stratos leap around in action, dodging lightning like it was nobody's business, Beuce decided to just leave him to his somewhat odd elation and keep on attacking the bloticle. It was...Kind of creepy honestly but you know what he wasn't one to judge. He called over to him. He was able to tell because of that innocent face "You just...Keep dodging that lightning there bud...I'm sure great rewards will come from it if you get your count high enough." LITTLE DID HE KNOW WHAT TRULY AWAITED HIM. Anyways Beuce was still in his black mage form, so his magic was through the roof despite it not actually increase the magic stat rip So with a wave of his hand, a blizzara spell launched a larger than normal crystal of ice from his hand to impale the bloticle. It stabbed into it, causing it to screech in pain. Weaving in between lightning bolts as he flew, Beuce continually fired off various elements of spells, but was a little bit frustrated he couldn't use faith because nooo that was a light command and black mages can't use holy powers. Gah. What the hell? White mages could use the strongest magic command! But noooo. He sacrificed the guardian so he can't be a white mage. "also what the **** stratos you used strike raid in black mage form rip ****ing tanks" Spoiler: count Wasteland 87% Left Living -Blotlings: 889/1000 -Bloticle: 9/10 Injured: Bloticle 2, Decree of the Thunderlord - Larry: 154/1000
Man, he was teaching Stratos well. That almost sounded like an idea he would have come up with himself. "That sounds...Really stupid." A sphere of black fire engulfed Beuce. Once he emerged, he was in a long black flowing robe with a blood red chest plate, with his hair having grown out significantly which extended into a mane down his back. He wore a sinister looking mask, to complete the appearance. "I like it. Let's do this!" And so they did! Gravity began to alter and warp at their command, inverting itself. The rain ceased to fall altogether, halting under their magic, before floating gradually upward back into the sky. Now that they weren't being pelted by rain, vision became clearer, and the bloticle came back into vision. Stratos well thought out and original idea had worked wonderfully. Since they were in their mage forms, they may as well use their magic for the offensive. Beuce stretched his wings, flying up toward the bloticle. Upon getting close enough, he touched his hand to it, laying five explosive traps of earth on the bloticle's body. Though, they weren't triggered from beneath. If they could set up enough, they could take it out in one fell swoop by causing the mines to trigger one another with the explosion. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 89% Left Living -Blotlings: 900/1000 -Bloticle: 9/10 Injured: Bloticle 2, Decree of the Thunderlord - Larry: 251/1000 (20 BP worth of mines)
