While this horrifying amalgamation of a creature was still changing and changing, it seemed in no mood to stop anytime soon. It probably figured that if it was still taking damage, which Stratos was still able to deal out, change was still probably a necessity. Since Stratos had no intention of stopping any time soon, it seemed that neither did any of the clock hands on this ridiculous bloticle's body. Turning once more, this time the big clock on the body seemed to spawn a second hand with which to turn. With that, it spun until the first of the hands land on ten and the second of the hands landed on five. The second clock spun until it had its hand strike the eleven. The third clock seemed to keep moving until one of its hands just landed on a six. The final clock moved until the large hand was on the six number and the smaller hand landed on the seven minute mark. As this happened, the bloticle shined once again, and ink seemed to start growing out of the metal body of the creature. The ink continued going until it took a serpentine shape with a head at the top of it, and two teeth sticking out of the creature's mouth. Well, that certainly looked horrendous. Stratos still had no idea what it was doing for its powers, as the just seemed to be whatever it felt like doing. Regardless, he would not be deterred by the randomness of it and gripped his keyblade tighter as he charged forward at the creature. It seemed to just do all the things it had been doing before, starting with, of course, throwing the poisoned apples at him. Dodge rolling out of the way, Stratos avoided the attack, only to then be stopped the harsh sound of instruments as the flaming batons came at him. Not being able to react properly in time, Stratos braced himself, taking the attack and skidding across the ground. Still not stopped, he went to attack once more as the body seemed to be winding up to do its spinning move. Stratos charged the creature, only to quickly back off in order to fake out the creature into using its attack before he was even in range of it. After doing that, Stratos struck the creature multiple times, with a mix of flaming and freezing keyblade strikes. Spoiler: Count Wasteland at 45% blotlings: 600/1000 Bloticle: 6/10 Injured: Bloticle 5, Timothy - Halter of Eternity: 844/1294
As the time bloticle continued onward with its swarm of seemingly random attacks, the clocks kept on spinning. It seemed that every time Stratos was thinking about how to dodge the new attacks in tandem with the old ones, it just kept adding on to itself. Always changing and adapting, it was becoming a pretty deadly foe with what it already had, and anymore would turn into one of the most deadly foes he had even fought. And Stratos had fought his fair share of deadly enemies. However, while the clocks would normally start spinning round and round, the first two on this stood still. Odd. The next two, however, continued as normal. The third clock had the first hand move from the nine to the eleven mark, while the second hand remained stationary. The fourth clock spun around more freely then the others this time around so that the big hand was at a 1 and the smaller hand was at the sixteen minute mark. As it did this, this time it grew vines off the body that didn't seem to do all that much. Regardless, Stratos wasn't waiting around to get assailed by all of the attacks again. So, with keyblade in hand, he charged at the creature. First came the poison apples, to which he was able to dodge out of the way easily enough, only to then flinch a bit at the sharp noise produced from the instruments. Seeing as he couldn't really stop sound, he just had to take it and brace himself for the flaming batons. Guarding against them, they just sort of bounced off his keyblade, doing not so much damage save for the residual heat left behind. With all of the obstacles cleared, Stratos jumped at the thing with a flaming keyblade, ready to hit it. Then the vines seemed to twist around the body of the bloticle. As Stratos struck the creature, he was sent back flying from the bloticle suddenly spinning and lashing at him with its vines. Spoiler: Count Wasteland at 50% blotlings: 600/1000 Bloticle: 6/10 Injured: Bloticle 5, Timothy - Halter of Eternity: 894/1294
Stratos wasn't really sure what to expect from this bloticle. The two things he had seen so far seemed almost completely unrelated to the point of it just looking like it was picking things at random to do. As the clocks started moving once again, Stratos could only feel that it wasn't going to relent in getting more and more random **** to do either. This time biggest clock had the singular hand move all the way to the eleven. After that had happened the three smaller clocks all started moving as well. The first of the small ones had its singular hand strike the number six; the second of the had its first hand move to the nine and its second move to the twelve; the third and final clock had its big hand strike the twelve and its smallest hand strike the eighteen minute mark. As it did this, the clocks all started to glow once again and even more got added onto this overloaded looking body of a bloticle. First , a drum set seemed to appear on the body, followed by a trumpet, followed by a violin that just sort of placed itself on there. Stratos had zero idea what to make of these instruments, but they could only be bad news bears given everything else that had been going on. With it lobbing more poisoned apples at the boy, Stratos immediately dodged out of the way knowing that there was no way he could take them head on. As they exploded into a puddle of poison nearby him, he saw that the bloticles fire batons were being swung at him again and went to go put up his guard. Only this time, before he could, a sharp noise was produced from the instruments, causing Stratos to flinch and not be able to get his guard up in time. As such, he was struck by the flaming batons and sent skidding across the ground. Seeing his torso now on fire, Stratos quickly went to blow it out with a blizzard spell directed on himself, and then let out a sigh of relief when ti went out. Seeing the creature still poised to attack more, Stratos simply countered it by doing the one thing he did best. Disappearing in an instant, Stratos was now on the other side of the bloticle as a slash mark appeared across the torso of the creature. As he did this, the creature still didn't seem to be in any significant pain, and was still raring to go. Spoiler: Count Wasteland at 50% blotlings: 600/1000 Bloticle: 6/10 Injured: Bloticle 5, Timothy - Halter of Eternity: 944/1294
If Beuce were a betting man, he'd have won a bet right now. Sadly, no one wins because they're still fighting this creature hahahahaha. haaaah. Anyway, the clockwork tree bloticle thing seemed to have some more tricks up itself, oh yes siree. The big clock on its body started to turn once again, now with the only visible hand on it moving to the giant number ten. The smaller clocks on the body started to move, with one having its hand strike the five, the smaller clock having one hand hit the eight and the second hand hitting the 5, and the smallest clock having the hand that was on the 1 minute mark move all the way to the 39th minute mark. When all of this was said and done, the clocks shined once again and the body seemed to undergo another change. This time, it had some really odd arms, almost as if they were made of papery squares, extend out of the body and hold batons. Stratos still had zero idea what to make of this, but as it started juggling the two batons, they ignited. Well, that was probably a bad sign. Putting his keyblade up, Stratos blocked the flaming baton strikes, getting pushed back, only to have a poisoned apple fly at him from the tree branch. Casting fire almost immediately, Stratos intercepted the attack, only for it to explode right in his face. Getting covered in the poison sludge, he started to feel a burning sensation on his skin, as the purple goop just seemed to be trying to eat away at him. Casting aerora, it seemed to all just be pushed off of him by the wind, and just left a slight burn mark where it had. Now going on his own offensive, Stratos decided to attack it by firing the four bubbles of aqua splash, and having them burst on contact with the bronze plating of the clockwork bloticle. Spoiler: Count Wasteland at 51% blotlings: 600/1000 Bloticle: 6/10 Injured: Bloticle 5, Timothy - Halter of Eternity: 994/1294
Getting his fight underway with this hellish ink based creature, Stratos wondered just what kind of attack this thing would do. After all, it's power was easily the most blatantly stupid of them all, and if it was just something like constantly freezing time, Stratos had zero idea how he was going to fight against it. And it wasn't as if he could actually just kill it before it did literally anything of consequence, especially with the fact that it seemed to be kind of more bulky when compared to the others. Nevertheless, as he was thinking of all this, another keyblade wielder joined the fray in assisting his take down of this creature. As Kaida had wondered about whether or not this creature was going to be weird like the others, Stratos just nodded and with an exasperated voice said, "trust me, they always do." As if on cue, the creature started to act out its gimmick. The biggest clock on the body, which oddly only had one hand on it, started turning until it hit the number five. Soon, other clocks started spinning as well. One clock landed on a twelve, another had one hand on the twelve and one hand on the seven, and then a final clock had its hour hand on the seven with its minute hand on the one minute mark. Stratos had zero idea why it all stopped there, but as it did, the clocks seemed to glow and the creature underwent some sort of change. The bronze clockwork body started to grow branches that extended outward, each branch growing some sort of vile looking apple. After they had finished growing, the creature shook the branches in the keyblade wielders's general direction, launching the apples at them. Stratos had managed to dodge roll out of the way in time, but looked in utter confusion as the apple exploded into a pool of poison that just sort of stayed there on the ground. Standing there, it took a few seconds, and while Stratos came to no actual reasoning behind why this happened, he just sort of accepted it and went on the offensive himself this time. Coating his keyblade in fire, Stratos leaped at the creature with a fire strike, following it up with the ice imbued three hit assault of Vorpal Blitz. While the creature seemed none too happy about the assault, it certainly didn't seem all that deterred in its ongoing fight against them. Spoiler: Count Wasteland at 51% blotlings: 600/1000 Bloticle: 6/10 Injured: Bloticle 5, Timothy - Halter of Eternity: 1146/1294
After having dealt with the fourth bloticle, Stratos now moved onto the next of the bloticles. Wait. That seemed a bit wrong. Wasn't there supposed to be a huge army of blotlings barring his path? But, there weren't anymore. It was just the bloticle, a straight shot between him and it. Which could only mean one thing. There was a catch. Stratos had only done this once before, but the last time something like this happened, they had to fight a behemoth that was way stronger than the average one. Nevertheless, it wasn't like Stratos could actually do anything about it at present. So instead, he only got his keyblade at the ready and walked over to meet this new bloticle head on. The bloticle was definitely an odd one. The creature seemed to be made of some sort of antique looking metal, with a sort of bronze and gold coloration to it. All across the metal plating of the body of the creature clocks could be seen, ticking away, all asynchronously and all with a sort of different aesthetic to them. In all honesty, the clockwork body of this creature was fairly reminiscent of the head section of Spectrum, the Elemoth. And if it was the same as that one, than thing represented time. Stratos had no idea what could possibly be here in the time bloticle, but he didn't really want this fight to go on long enough for him to fight. And so, Stratos went on the offensive right away as he seemed to strike the creature with full force of a Zantetsuken right from the get go. As he did, the slash mark appeared across the bloticle's body, and he was sure that it felt at least something from that. But, something seemed way off here. It not only didn't seemed phased by the attack, but it looked to be way healthier than any of the other blotilces he had fought thus far. Letting out a sigh, Stratos could already tell that this was going to be a pain. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 54% Left blotlings: 600/1000 Bloticle: 6/10 Injured: Bloticle 5, Timothy - Halter of Eternity: 1244/1294
As the bloticle continued to struggle and thrash around, creating tidal wave after tidal wave, it was clear that it was finally ready to be taken down. The thing had sustained far too much damage to continue fighting any longer, but nevertheless it continued to create more and more water. It seemed pretty intent on just flooding the entire area, and Stratos knew that even if it was going to die soon, if it continued to live, the damage it would cause would still be a massive problem. And so, with heart light ablaze with a green sort of light, and Stratos gripped at it. After squeezing down on the light, his body was enveloped with a green sort of lightning and Stratos was ready to take on the giant wave that was now flying towards him once again. While normally it would have knocked him off of his feet, this time Stratos managed to rush through it, effectively parting the wave and leaving Stratos unimpeded on his next attack. Almost immediately after his charge through the wave ended, Stratos seemed to combine his attacks once more. With a cherry blossom storm being ever more violent in this torrential downpour of rain, Stratos seemed to suddenly no longer be where he was prior.The rain seemed to part in a line for seemingly no reason, as Stratos appeared behind the bloticle. A slash appaered over the creature, coated in green lightning, and the bloticle seemed to just stop moving altogether. The lightning pulsed across the entire body of the creature, only for it seem to be split in two, and fall apart in two halves. With all said and done, the bloticle had turned into just another puddle of ink, the clouds parted, the rain had stopped and the creature was felled. Also some blotlings died but no one cared. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 55% Left blotlings: 698/1000 Bloticle: 6/10
Grabbing Raisor's hand to heft himself up, he sighed. "I don't think I want to go near water for awhile after this." As the next wave came at them, it seemed Raisor had a plan to dodge water. Which was dig...so that the water wouldn't follow him? Stratos was both confused by the plan itself and how it actually managed to work, but much stranger things had happened so he didn't really brood on that too much. Instead, after completely ignoring the fact that there was even a wave to begin with, Stratos thought about what to do in order to bring down this creature. Spinning his keyblade around, he decided to just try and throw a strike at the creature, test the waters so to speak. The blade didn't go very far due to the force of the rain, and was just sort of whacked away with a water tendril upon getting close to the bloticle. Well that didn't seem to work. So instead, Stratos decided to go and attack the creature with his strongest magic. As the tidal wave came towards him again, Stratos simply summoned up four pillars of light around and sent them onward. The pillars crashed against the wave and seemingly managed to come into a stalemate with it. However even they looked, though, ti was clear who the winner was going to be. Because after all, water can't beat the Faith (preach it!) As the pillars overcame the wave, they crashed into the bloticle's body, exploding with a radiant light and causing the creature to reel in pain. With that over with, it seemed to be like it was on its last legs, but certainly not over and done with just yet. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 55% Left blotlings: 700/1000 Bloticle: 7/10 Bloticle 4 - Walter, Will of the Ocean: 91/1000
Being on the ground, Stratos tried to get the water that had gotten into his mouth before getting back up, only for it to be forcibly ejected out when something much heavier landed on top of him. Being completely winded from the surprise attack, he just lifted his hand and gave a thumbs up as he struggled to get out, "n-no problem Raisor," in a slightly breathless voice. Once he caught his breath back, he picked himself up off the ground and saw that Raisor had managed to deal a quite devestating blow to the bloticle creature. There wasn't much of it left, and if things kept going on as they were, it wouldn't be long before the creature wouldn't be able to fight any longer. And so, Stratos called his keyblade to his hand in trying to figure out what he needed to do against this bloticle. As the wave came out of it once again, Stratos knew what to expect, and thus got his keyglider out in an attempt to fly over it. Unfortunately, the rain had made his ascent much harder than what would normally happen. And so, his keyglider was hit by the wave, causing Stratos to fall into it and get swept up by the current. Being pulled back to the bloticle, he was fired away from it once again, and slammed against the ground. Man this thing was a pain to deal with. Unforuntately for it, it had summoned up quite the rainstorm, and so Stratos could use this to his advantage. Casting Thunder, bolts of lightning fell from the sky and shocked the creature for quite a deal of damage. That'll learn it. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 55% Left blotlings: 700/1000 Bloticle: 7/10 Bloticle 4 - Walter, Will of the Ocean: 189/1000
The bloticle, having taken enough a beating, finally seemed to do something about it. No longer was it just water tendrils, water bubbles or even water geysers. No. It seemed to have hit the threshold that would cause it to go absolutely berserk. Now, Stratos was expecting to be completely underwhelmed by whatever this thing's desperation move was going to be, as he had been with all other attacks thus far. The bloticle, also, had no idea what the hell it was going to do, but it knew it was going to do something amazing. Gathering all the strength it could muster into one super mega hyper awesome amazing attack that had many more adjectives behind it that I'm just too lazy to write, the water bloticle began the final stage of its fight. Standing completely straight, as all others had, it fired off a blue light from its body in the sky. From this light, the area seemed to suddenly be cloud and immediately after, blanketed in a torrential downpour. Not being done quite yet though, the light pulsed out from its body and in its wake a tidal wave type creation flowed out and towards everybody. Standing his ground, Stratos took the brunt of the tidal force, but managed to hold his ground. While he managed to stave off that attack, he was then sent forward as the wave seemed to come back, taking him by surprise and knocking him off his feet. Now being pulled inward toward the bloticle, Stratos was just sort of helpless in the water until finally the wave merged back with the bloticle. As Stratos came into contact with the bloticle's body, a geyser was fired off immediately, sending Stratos hurtling through the air and crashing hard into the ground. What an annoying creature this bloticle was turning out to be. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 56% Left blotlings: 700/1000 Bloticle: 7/10 Bloticle 4 - Walter, Will of the Ocean: 287/1000
After they gotta fire, Stratos then went back in to attacking the massive water bloticle. It was epic. It was intense. It was absolutely the exact same thing that had been happening this entire god forsaken fight. The bloticle was trying its best, but it could do literally nothing that Stratos hadn't already been able to see through. Hell, if not for the fact that spawning tendrils would be really weird, Stratos probably would've seen through it so well that he'd be able to copy it. Maybe even perfect copy it. But maybe instead of copying, he could just decide to do a bunch of other things that yield the exact same result. But he would only have five minutes to do that before his engine ran out, and he'd need all the stamina he could muster if he wanted to defeat the rest of the blot monsters. Besides, no matter how much he tried, there'd be no way that Stratos would be able to copy how large a bloticle is and then use that to his blocking advantage. Lost in his own rambling thought, the bloticle seemed to notice that the boy had long since actually stopped paying attention, and so it decided that now was the prime time to attack Stratos. Summoning up more bubbles of water, it launched them straight towards the boy, who didn't even seem to register the fact that they existed. As the bubbles came crashing down to try and defeat the wielder, he seemed to no longer be where he was standing earlier. Instead, he was on the other side of the bloticle, his keyblade extended out and a large slash mark appearing across the bloticle. Dismissing his weapon, and not paying the bloticle a second thought, he went back to thinking about how he could perfectly copy something like these creatures. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 57% Left blotlings: 700/1000 Bloticle: 7/10 Bloticle 4 - Walter, Will of the Ocean: 385/1000
With the water bloticle having just been zapped by a good deal of lightning, it seemed primed to do pretty much everything that it had been doing this whole time, just once again. Man, what a boring blotilce this thing turned out to be. Spinning his keyblade, Stratos wasn't even really paying attention to what this thing was doing anymore, simply because he knew just what was coming. Halfheartedly tossing his keyblade at the creature, the tendrils that were flying at him were soon cut off and turned into water as they splashed onto the ground. Calling his keyblade back, Stratos summoned his own bubbles of water to block against the aqua splash attack of the giant water bloticle. As the bubbles collided, their explosion caused an extremely brief, momentary rain fall on the area. Casually walking away from where he was standing, the jet of water that was forming under him shot upward, not hitting anything. As it turned out, the water jet attack was pretty easily visible when you paid a slight bit of attention to your surroundings. It also turned out to take a great deal of time to actually fire upward when it revealed itself, quite like a trap that took an unreasonably long time to prime before exploding. Stratos looked to the bloticle as he effortlessly thwarted its attacks and took a second to see something off about it. It seemed frustrated, but less like someone gradually getting more annoyed and more like a kid throwing a tantrum. As such, Stratos realized that the reason it was pretty easy to beat back everything of this bloticle was because...this was all it was really capable of doing. Ah well, this fight wasn't going to last much longer anyway, so that wasn't much of a problem. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 57% Left blotlings: 700/1000 Bloticle: 7/10 Bloticle 4 - Walter, Will of the Ocean: 489/1000
After having survived the all too unimpressive onslaught attacks from the water bloticle, Stratos stood at the ready to attack it once more. Spinning his keyblade in his hand, he tossed it at the bloticle, and as the blade seemed to get within range, the bloticle moved itself out of the way of the attack. Right, it knew how to dodge. That was a bit annoying. Calling his blade back to his hand, Stratos started to break into a full sprint at the thing, coating his keyblade in fire as he approached the bloticle. With blade ablaze, Stratos leaped at the bloticle, poised to strike it with his flaming key. Unfortunately, as he jumped into the air, he was soon just smacked away by a water tendril that shot out from the main body. Rolling backwards, Stratos managed to prop himself back up on his feet, clicking his tongue in annoyance at the creature managing to thwart his most underwhelming of attacks. If those two wouldn't work, then maybe a combination would. Igniting his keyblade, Stratos tossed the flaming weapon with the power of strike raid at the bloticle. The combination of two extremely weak commands would merge their strength into one of passable damage. Surely the bloticle would be doomed if it was struck head on by this infallible plan of his. The water ink beast moved out of the way. Well, that only made sense really. Letting out a bit of a sigh, Stratos called his keyblade back to his hand. Nonchalantly thrusting it into the air, a ball of electricity formed on the tip of the blade and lightning fell from the sky. The creature seemed to be a bit shocked by the attack and was spasming a bit from the electric element. Recovering itself, though, it seemed ready to attack him once again, though it would probably be equally as underwhelming as last time, so Stratos wasn't all too worried. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 59% Left blotlings: 700/1000 Bloticle: 7/10 Bloticle 4 - Walter, Will of the Ocean: 539/1000
After being struck by the orb of poisonous water, the bloticle seemed to become even more displeased with the group's antics. As it let out a roar, Stratos was a bit cautious as to what it would do. So far it only seemed to be taking opportunistic attacks when they were distracted from it, in quite the same a way a certain monologue interrupting behemoth might have. But if it was going to try and use its desperation moves now, Stratos had no idea what this thing might throw at them. With bubbles forming on the surface of the creature, it fired them off at the keyblade wielders, four for each. Seeing these coming, Stratos just continuously threw his keyblade at the bubbles and called it back, popping the bubbles each time it did so. So enough, the creature then retalitated by shooting water tendrils out at them, to which Stratos just was able to mostly side step. Finally, it shot a jet of a water out from underneath the feet of the wielders, but seeing this attack a few times already, Stratos managed to just roll out of the way of it. Wait a second. Stratos looked a bit confused at the creature as a realization hit him after the barrage. It was just using the same things it had been doing this entire time. Well, that was slightly underwhelming. Sure, he was totally fine with not getting absolutely destroyed by water, but he had a certain set of expectations for these things. They had a sort of befuddling "what" quota that they had to adhere to each time they fought them, and this thing just wasn't really meeting that yet. While he was shaking his head in disappointment, a bubble of water splashed straight into him. Right, he was playing into its strengths now that he was mocking its skills. What a cunning plan this beast had had all along. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 59% Left blotlings: 700/1000 Bloticle: 7/10 Bloticle 4 - Walter, Will of the Ocean: 589/1000
While Stratos was continuing to just sort of dodge around the attacks of the water bloticle, it seemed that Raisor had a comment about how he was popping these bubbles. Almost as an act of divine humor, while he was making an over simplified expression of what he needed to do, a bubble from the water bloticle had struckl him down. Having to stifle a bit of a laugh at the scenario, Stratos was soon met with divine humor of his own, as a jet of water erupted from underneath him, launching him into the air. As he was up there, the bloticle then created a tendril that slapped him back to the ground. Needless to say, it was kind of painful. Picking himself up, Stratos briefly pondered on the idea that laughing at each other's pain was probably only going to get them hit more often, so it was good to take note of. Regardless, the fact still stood that Stratos was just hit by a completely new attack, one that he had zero idea of what its tell was. As if on cue, Stratos looked down to see that the ground underneath him seemed to have a puddle of bubbling water that quickly shot up and knocked him straight into the sky once more. As he was up in the air, now realizing what he had to do to avoid the attack, he was continually just being juggled through the air by jet after jet of water that just continued to push him around. Not really minding it, Stratos just let out a sigh as he seemed to blink away from the next jet of water, and was suddenly on the opposite side of the bloticle. As a slash mark appeared through the creature, Stratos shook his head saying, "man this guy is rude." Spoiler: Count blotlings: 700/1000 Bloticle: 7/10 Bloticle 4 - Walter, Will of the Ocean: 693/1000
After getting blasted back by the force of the aqua splash once again, Stratos managed to keep on his feet, simply skidding across the ground. While Stratos still had his balance, the water bloticle seemed to determined to keep on assaulting the young keyblade wielder. However, it had only used two attacks thus far, and neither really seemed too complex or unstoppable, and as such, Stratos had already pretty much gotten used to what he needed to do. As the tendrils or water formed shot out from the body of the creature, they all had seemed to come at him to just whip as per the usual. Side stepping each time one came to hit him, Stratos managed to avoid the tendrils causing them to simply slam straight into the ground instead of his body. Each time the tendril missed, Stratos then countered by slashing at them, severing them from the body and causing them to just splash down into a harmless of puddle of water. At this point, Stratos wasn't actually sure whether or not he was fighting ink or water, but he felt as though it wasn't really all that important. What was important were the bubbles that were now flying at him, poised to blow up in his face again. However, this time Stratos knew that he just needed something that hit four times. And as it turns out, he had just the skill to do so. Creating the four pillars of light, he shot them out once more to intercept the bubbles as they came at him. When the light and water collided, the pillars quickly over took the bubbles, because even though water is often times associated with it, it can't beat the Faith! With that, four pillars struck the bloticle causing it to reel back in pain from the attack. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 60% Left Blotlings: 700/1000 Bloticle: 7/10 Injured: Bloticle 4 - Walter, Will of the Ocean: 791/1000
The water bloticle wasn't all that finished after it shot off its aqua splash-esque attack. Creating its tendrils once again, it lashed out at Stratos who, having just back on his feet from the aforementioned attack, was defenseless against the coming attack. Getting struck by them, he was knocked off his feet and was going to end up falling back onto the ground, if not for the fact that it then grabbed onto one of his feet with its tendril. Being dragged across the ground, Stratos was soon sent sailing through the air as the bloticle let go of him. Tumbling across the ground, Stratos was extremely glad, at times like these, that he had the forethought to put up his aerora shield, or else that might have done actually meaningful damage, (even if all damage here was subjective to begin with.) Picking himself up, Stratos quickly tossed his keyblade at the tendril that was coming to lash at him again, severing it and causing the bloticle to shrink back in momentary pain. In retaliation, it formed the aqua splash bubbles from its body again, and shot them at Stratos in an effort to keep him down. Of course, being able to see this attack coming this time, Stratos was not going to be taken down by it again. Coating his keyblade in ice, Stratos countered the bubbles by striking them with his Vorpal Blitz command. Each slash he made across the bubble caused it to freeze, and each time it hit the ground, it merely shattered rather than exploded, reducing any splash damage that it would normally produce. Unfortunately, Vorpal Blitz only strike thrice, and aqua splash forms four bubbles. As such, Stratos took a bubble straight on and was sent flying back again. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 61% Left Blotlings: 700/1000 Bloticle: 7/10 Injured: Bloticle 4 - Walter, Will of the Ocean: 841/1000
Iris had kept a pretty low profile up until this point. Not really because she was trying to hide or was shy of all the new people or anything. She just really had zero presence the entire time, almost like she might as well have been there. But as if from nowhere, she had reappeared into existence, and was clapping alongside Sanderson after the match between the Night and the Knight, er, the night knight and Bryce. Regardless of how fun a spectacle it may have been to observe, the group had to go on and leave poor Bryce's wallet to whatever the nocturnal fighter had planned. Giving a short wave to the man before they left, Iris had followed alongside the rest of the group on their way to go find some drakes to make steak out of. While they needed to deal with Bryce's wounds, Iris was a bit distressed, simply because she didn't know anything in the forms of healing or medical care, and it hardly looked like him missing mana was the problem, (or even a problem at all.) However, as the group got closer to their destination, Sanderson had also pointed out a large mountain. Giving her an idea, Iris said, "this might get him up." Walking over to Bryce's unconcious body, she started shaking it saying, "look Bryce, it's Dragonclaw. And if it has Dragon in the name, it might have the fabled Fruit of Dragons you've been searching for." Though she tried to do what she could, it appeared as though he was unresponsive to her claims, to which she could only shrug saying, "well, I tried."
After getting picked up by Raisor, Stratos chuckled and said, "sorry, just felt like taking a bit of a nap." In actuality this was really tiring, but he was in no way going to actually fall to the temptation that was sleeping in combat. So instead, he got himself ready for whatever this water bloticle would throw his way next. Letting out a deep breath, Stratos went to cast spells on himself that he was most definitely needing at the time. With the first surge of magic going through his keyblade, a green light washed over him, being the power of the cure spell. After a good bit of the damage he had taken was gotten rid of, he then needed to improve his defenses to keep him upright and healthy. With the next surge of magic, Stratos enveloped himself in the protective gust that was Aerora. Now that he was all set and ready for some good old combating action, it seemed that Raisor was in a bit of a pickle. Or a tentacle. He'd stick with the former since it didn't sound nearly as gross. Anyway, the tentacle seemed to face the two with the next round of attacks, which wasn't just more tendril lashings. Parts of the bloticle started to swell up a bit, as they soon detached themselves from the main body into what looked like giant bubbles. Stratos looked at it for a second and realized that this looked extremely familiar but couldn't quite place his hand on why it was. Soon enough though, the bubbles were launched at the duo, and this forced Stratos to start dodging out of the way. While he managed to dodge the bubble's impact, the residual water and force from the explosion sent him back a bit. "Aqua Splash!" Stratos shouted out when he realized what it was. Shaking himself off, getting himself dryer, he then called forth lightning from the sky in order to deal some good damage to this bloticle. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 63% Left Blotlings: 700/1000 Bloticle: 7/10 Injured: Bloticle 4 - Walter, Will of the Ocean: 891/1000
As Raisor had joined in on the fray as well, it seemed that there were very few blotlings left between them and their next bloticle. And so with that in mind, Stratos was going to just power his way through these things straight to the next enemy. The only question was how does one go about doing it. He didn't feel quite as confident in his ability to just punt anything and everything out of the area quite like Raisor was, he didn't feel like going all flashy on them again, and he couldn't really use Zantetsuken again because he felt like doing something different. So instead, he just decided to use magical Zantetsuken. Creating four pillars of light around himself, Stratos launched them outward towards the blotlings and used the power of Faith to kill all of the blotlings. After they were dealt with, he finally went onward to the next of the bloticles and noticed that it was a bit more...like ink, then the rest of the ones he had seen so far. More specifically, this one was made of pure, paint like water. Looking at the water bloticle, Stratos wasn't entirely sure what to expect from the thing, but decided that he would go and get the first strike against it. Throwing his keyblade out in a strike raid fashion, the bloticle did something completely unexpected. It moved to the side. After it had avoided the keyblade, it then lashed out with a tendril of water, which struck Stratos straight in the chest and knocked him off his feet and on to the ground. While the bloticle had dodged the intial hit of strike raid, though, it was not expecting it to go back to its owner, and thus was hit on the return trip. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 63% Left Blotlings: 700/1000 Bloticle: 7/10 Injured: Bloticle 4 - Walter, Will of the Ocean: 989
