Stratos had continued to go on his onslaught against the blotling species. As it was, there wasn't all that much that stood between him and the next of the bloticles, and for whatever reason Stratos was feeling like he could keep going on for more then he usually could, without the aid of taking turns with the others fighting here. Which was overall a good thing, because he could see that the world around them was starting to get sucked dry of its life and ink, and though there was still a good deal of time left on the clock for them to stop the bloticles, the faster they did this the better it would be. And so, Stratos turned his attention back to the blotlings to carve a swath into them. As the blotlings came at him, he went to go strike three of the neutral elemental ones first. Spinning his keyblade, he tossed it at one of them, striking through it and then calling back his keyblade to slice straight through the other two. The three exploded into a puddle of ink, only for them to swiftly be replaced by three fire blotlings. These were just as easily dispatched of by the three hit ice combo that was Vorpal Blitz. As the were being cut through, he was then struck by something akin to a boulder, in the form of an earth blotling. As three more started to roll at him, Stratos put his guard up as the boulder like blotlings rolled into it, being sent into the air. Reacting in time to when they fell down, Stratos struck the boulder blotlings back at other enemies, causing those struck and those sent to explode into a puddle of ink. With that left, there was only three left in the immediate area, and so Stratos decided to just cast Thunder, causing the lightning to fall down onto the blotlings and destroy them. With that done, Stratos got ready to go through the next squad of blotlings. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 63% Left Blotlings: 729/1000 Bloticle: 7/10
After having destroyed the bloticle, there was a suprisingly noticeable period of time between him doing that and anyone else doing anything else. Or at least it felt that way. Really, barely anytime had passed at all, and Stratos was probably just imaging things, but nevertheless, he was able to go and fight once again. As the blotlings started to gather around, Stratos had felt a surge of power rush through him as he felt as though he could take on way more of these little creeps then he could before. Sure, he was just one person and there was definitely around sixteen of these creatures that started walking towards him, but Stratos felt confident that he could take these creatures on, one at a time, slowly but surely, and everything would work out just fine. And so, Stratos bent down to take his stance against the blotlings, holding his keyblade with both hands as his grip tightened. As the all too familiar cherry blossoms started to flutter through the air, Stratos let out a deep breath as he looked at all of the creatures coming towards him. The sixteen blotling's advances seemed to come to a halt, as time came to a standstill. In a single instant, Stratos was no longer standing where he was, but was beyond the blotlings that were attacking him, holding his blade out as if he had just cut something. A large slash mark appeared across all sixteen of the creatures, as they seemed to just explode into a puddle of ink. Looking a bit surprised, Stratos wasn't entirely expecting his Zantetsuken to kill that much, but hey, if it worked it worked. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 63% Left Blotlings: 746/1000 Bloticle: 7/10
Cracking his knuckles, Stratos knew that he had to go in and deliver the final blow to this large ink based creature. While Stratos was wondering what kind of attack he'd have to use to go against this creature, it didn't seem to want to give him the kind of leisure in thinking out how to doom it. With its life basically coming to an end, it attempted to end the fight here and now, as the magma seemed to blaze ever hotter and brighter than before. Creating a large orb of molten flame in its hand, instead of sending it to the sky like it did last time, it instead crushed it in its hand, creating a large glowing aura of flame in its hand. Winding back, it didn't take an emperor's eye to see what was coming next, and so Stratos was able to get out of the way in time. Out of the way of what? Well, a giant molten fist coming straight to punch him that's what. While the fist had missed the boy completely, as it crashed into the ground, the ground around it completely melted and it sent out a large wave of heat and magma that seemed very not good to get hit by. Quickly mounting his keyglider, Stratos shot himself into the air to avoid the final attack. Being high above the creature, he knew exactly how he was going to finish this off. Jumping off of his keyglider, a light streamed from his chest as he gathered it into his hand. The light formed into a small orb of fire, which was very familiar to all at this point, including the blotice. As such, it pulled its fist out of the ground and went to go punch Stratos out of the air, but by this point it was already too late. If Zantetsuken was a skill of absolute stillness then this was unstoppable skill was one of intense power. The Falling Star Limit, Trip Around the Sun. Stratos spiked the sun at the bloticle, colliding with its fist and causing it to explode into one of immense solar and volcanic power, even incinerating some of the nearby blotlings. When Stratos made his, not so graceful, landing, he picked himself up and noticed something strange about the fight. Waving to the strangeness he flatly said, "oh hey Glen, nice to see you're still alive." Spoiler: Count Living: Blotlings: 772/1000 Bloticle: 7/10
It seemed that even the innately absurd heat resistance that belonged to Raisor had its limits. Despite actively and constantly forcing himself into melee range against the creature, even he had to back off in the face of the magma force of the bloticle. If this was going to go on any longer, this war of attrition would certainly end in the favor of the giant earth fire bloticle. However, the fight seemed to be nearing its end. Even if they were on the defensive, and couldn't really fight back, with what little attacks they could get in, it seemed to be doing its job and causing the bloticle to slowly dwindle down. Even if its combination seemed to give it a massive spike in power, its vitality seemed to still be the same, and the bloticle was still on its last legs. So, having waited a good amount of time, Stratos finally called the keyblade back to his hand. Even if he had waited an entire post to get it back, the thing was still pretty damn hot, and he was glad he didn't just immediately recall it to himself. Regardless, he had to think of an attack to use that would actually deal damage to the creature and not just fizzle out upon contact. He then realized that of course he had an attack like that. Well, probably. Because if Faith could beat the fire, then hopefully it could also beat the magma. And so, Stratos summoned four pillars of light that all shot out at the creature, exploding in light upon contact and dealing significant damage, causing the bloticle to look as though it was pretty much just about done. Nevertheless, its fire still burned as it got ready to unleash hell upon everyone. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 69% Left Living: Blotlings: 795/1000 Bloticle: 8/10 Injured: Bloticle 3, Conflagration of the Stake - Joan: 80/1000
As the meteor storm started happening it was soon met with resistance. Not by Stratos, not by Raisor and not by Beuce. But instead, it was met by resistance from Base and Mickey. The duo had charged straight at the hellfire magma bloticle thing and they...attacked it. Stratos wasn't entirely sure what they did to it, but boy did they do something. Yep. After the two executed their attack of attackingness, the bloticle seemed to be reeling in pain, clearly showing signs of it starting to get on its last legs. Though, the whole combining thing was probably a give away of that as well, but regardless, Stratos knew that in order to bring this creature down he needed to just bring in one last push of effort. With that in mind, Stratos started up a stance to attack the creature, having cherry blossoms flutter in the air. Though this time things were a bit different. Rather than attack the giant mass of flaming, molten ink with a regular zantetsuken, he instead seemed to just stand exactly where he was, not moving at all. His keyblade, however, was spinning far away from him and had seemed to already pass through the creature's body. That's right, Stratos had combined Zantetsuken and Strike Raid into a single attack. What did that do? Well...pretty much nothing because it was pretty much just a super powered Strike Raid. But damn did it look incredibly average. Anyway, that's all there was to this post because I'm tired. The end. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 70% Left Living: Blotlings: 795/1000 Bloticle: 8/10 Injured: Bloticle 3, Conflagration of the Stake - Joan: 232/1000
As the duo continued to fight this creature, it seemed to be getting worse for wear. It seemed to be getting somewhat tired as the combination attacks and the combination commands of the duo had yet to let up on it. Furthermore, while it didn't really have any sort of face to speak of, Stratos could tell that it was getting frustrated at the repeated attacks and was getting annoyed that none of its attacks were actually doing any lasting damage. Sure, they were getting exhausted by the heat of this bloticle, but other than that, they had managed to keep most of its attacks in check. Going to attack it once more, Stratos summoned a bubble at the tip of his keyblade only for the water to crystallize in one large chunk of ice. Stratos then fired the four ice bubbles straight at the bloticle, dealing damage and causing the agitation of the bloticle to rise only more. Now while that attacked seemed like just a regular blizzara spell fired four times, it was actually a complex combination of frozen water that made it not melt upon impact and don't question it any further. Anyway, the bloticle seemed to be having enough of their antics and did something that no one could have possibly seen coming. As it let out a roar, nothing seemed to happen at first, but soon enough, this mass of brown ink started floating towards it. As it got closer, it gradually increased in speed until the ink was completely absorbed into the body of the bloticle, causing its appearance to change somewhat. The once purely fire bloticle now seemed to have more of a liquid kind of texture to it, almost akin to that of magma and rocks started to form across the entire body. However, the most surprising change about it was that an arm of magma and rock seemed to form out of the main body. As the hand opened up an orb of molten fire started to gather in it, only for the creature to then throw the flame orb into the sky. While the attack seemed to do nothing at first, the orb soon exploded in the air, creating a large cloud smoke and fire. As the cloud had fully formed, the true nature of the attack revealed itself. From the cloud, orb of molten fire formed and started raining down on the party in a large flaming meteor storm fashion. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 75% Left Living: Blotlings: 795/1000 Bloticle: 8/10 Injured: Bloticle 3, Conflagration of the Stake - Joan: 332/1000
As the creature kept unleashing fireball after fireball at him, Stratos could hardly keep up with the pressure it was generating. It wasn't so much that the attacks themselves were powerful, though they certainly weren't weak. It was more so the fatigue caused from the immense heat of the fire. It was something that Stratos had dealt with earlier, almost entirely identical to the heat fatigue caused by the demon behemoth back in Central Haven. It was difficult to deal with then, but he had managed it and continued to fight hundreds of heartless after anyway, so there was no reason that being stronger than he was before would mean he couldn't pull of the same thing again. As such, Stratos continued to brace himself and dodge all the attacks that would be sent his way until he found an opportunity to counterattack. And as Beuce started receiving some of the attention of the bloticle which left it open for Stratos to strike back at it. Thinking up an attack, Stratos figured that if he could unite Splattercombo and Zantetsuken into one attack, there was no reason that he couldn't do it with other attacks. And so, taking his stance, light blue flower petals seemed to fall around Stratos, granting a chill in the air as they passed. His keyblade seemed to glisten with ice as well as time started to come to a stand still. As it did, Stratos struck forward with a combination command at the bloticle, appearing on the other side of the massive creature. As the attack passed, a large slash of ice was left on the body of the beast, as the Vorpal Blitz and Zantetsuken combo had seemed to be pulled off. The creature roared in pain, though the flames around it still burned brightly, showing it was not ready to give up just yet. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 77% Left Living: Blotlings: 795/1000 Bloticle: 8/10 Injured: Bloticle 3, Conflagration of the Stake - Joan: 436/1000
Yo all you peeps and peepers and marshallows and any other group I've left out. As you are all surely aware of there's a battle of one thousand blotlings going on and boy does it cost a lot of BP to end. Thankfully, our great and almighty RP Host has granted us the ability to spend double the amount of BP on this fight then we normally would be able to. That's right, all your damage that you would normally be doing is now doubled so all posts are now worth even more for exactly the same amount of effort. This has been another Skyheart forumarketing broadcast.
Stratos was getting ready to counterattack the bloticle, but each time he was almost ready to do so it would unleash another salvo. The fireballs were unrelenting in pressure, unyielding in destructive and some other word beginning with un that just was bad for them. As it unleashed one more salvo though, Stratos could feel the heat starting to overwhelm him, even just passively from having and unending stream of explosions happen around him. However, Beuce seemed ready to take on the offensive, and the bloticle hadn't seemed to notice quite yet. As such, Stratos grasped a light from his chest once more. Drawing away his hand, the light seemed to gather in his palm as it transmogrified into a small ball of golden flames. As his grip tightened around the ball, it glowed brighter, and the bloticle, unable to counterattack as its orb gathered more flame, seemed to finally notice. However, it was too little too late as the two keyblade wielders unleashed their strongest limit on it. As the two balls of flames rocketed towards the orb of fire, the both of them exploded into a massive solar flare on contact, causing the orb to explode as well. The entire bloticle seemed to be encased in one giant ball of fire, writhing in pain. While it seemed like they had finally taken a good foot hold against this creature, the blotilce wasn't done just quite yet. Letting out a large burst of fire, the damage from the Trip Around The Sun seemed to be over and the bloticle seemed none too happy at the keyblade wielders. As such, it started up another attack that seemed to be quite powerful. Sending a pulse of flame through the ground, other than becoming a bit hotter on his feet, nothing seemed to really change. However, the ground underneath Stratos seemed to open up as a jet of flame shot out from underneath him threatening to incinerate all that touched it. Thankfully, Stratos managed to dodge out of the way in time, only to then be caught flat footed by a fireball launched from the bloticle. Getting back up, the fight against this thing seemed to still be far from over. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 77% Left Living: Blotlings: 795/1000 Bloticle: 8/10 Injured: Bloticle 3, Conflagration of the Stake - Joan: 546/1000
The sphere of fire that the bloticle had seemed to be reigniting and was now at full blaze. Stratos needed to do something about that or else it would just be like last time. That is to say, he would be absolutely helpless to actually fight and instead would just be pelted by a series of explosions. The problem was that the orb became harder to destroy the longer time went on, because its size and heat kept increasing. But attacking it close range was pretty much out of the question and he had a feeling that blizzara and aqua splash would evaporate before even getting close to hitting it. So there was only one thing he could do. And it wasn't using faith. Because even though faith can beat the fire (PREACH IT) it alone would not be enough to take on the whole flames of the inferno. However, doing what he had done earlier, Stratos figured out what something that he could do to get out of this situation was. However, first he'd have to deal with the attack itself. The orb blazed to life as it reached critical mass, only to then fire off the entire swarm of fireballs at the group once again. Going on the defensive, Stratos, instead of just blocking it, decided to cast Aerora on himself first. He then took to trying to dodge the fireballs rather than actually taking them head on with guard, as they would just explode against his blade and deal a amount of damage to him regardless of the defense. And so, Stratos began to dodge around, though this only proved to be effective for a few of the fireballs, with the rest of the attacks just sort of bombarding him and causing him some great pain yet again. Thankfully, he had Aerora up, so he didn't just combust or anything like that. After having been hit by the barrage again, though, Stratos could start to feel the fatigue. While he knew this would be the best chance to attack, he needed to make some preparations first so that he could actually make it work, and if he started up now he'd most likely hit the orb at the apex of its strength. As such, he bided his time and waited for the right moment. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 80% Left Living: Blotlings: 795/1000 Bloticle: 8/10 Injured: Bloticle 3, Conflagration of the Stake - Joan: 650/1000
Rho wasn't entirely sure what the point of this competition was and why it was suddenly a thing that demanded their immediate attention while looking at ways to make hair grow rather than remove it, nor was he entirely sure why he was obligated to partake in it. Nor was it even a fair competition to begin with. After all, Rho had about half the hair that Aias did, so it was only obvious that the person working on him would be the one to win first. But such were scripted events and such was the world that he lived in. After the man had shaved his head completely, Rho couldn't help but feel that there was a bit of a draft overhead. Perhaps investing in a wig or cap would be a good idea towards the future, but nevertheless that was then and this was now. For now, though, he'd need to continue onward and help the others find out more about Johanna's past. Though, if there was thing he was sure of, it was that Rho was never going on a mission lead by Dale again. Walking over to the beadle, still rubbing his head to overcome the now present draft, he said, "now then Mr. Beadle. We have indulged you in your whimsy and whatnot," his voice slightly going flatter at the word "whimsy." "So, would you be so kind as to assist my associates an I in one of ours?" Pointing over to Trevor he said, "I believe you have already met him and I believe he has a question to ask of you, so, would you assist us?"
The once rather uncaring bloticle seemed to start getting frustrated with the antics of the three keyblade wielders. Having been constantly pelted by magic attacks, a miniature sun, an exploding keyblade and someone just straight punching it, the bloticle seemed to be pretty much fed up with that attacks that were going down so far. As such, ti seemed to be starting up something big. Pointing itself straight to the sky, Stratos recognized its posture as the same kind that was used by the other two bloticles thus far after they had taken a serious pummeling. Which could only mean that this was going to be some sort of gigantic attack that would be pretty devestating to take. However, this seemed really earlier, and Stratos couldn't understand why it was actually doing something so powerful from the get go, but nevertheless, he steeled himself for the oncoming attack. The creature created an orb of fire at the tip of the tentacle that didn't seemed too different then the other so far. However, the orb gradually seem to grow larger and larger until it hit a sort of critical mass. Once this point was hit, the bloticle sent a wave of fire from its entire body straight into the orb, causing it blaze brighter then before and the attack to follow. From the giant orb, an entire salvo of attacks was launched at the group, a salvo of nothing but fireball after fireball. Getting ready to dodge it, Stratos realized that these things were also homing on to him, and thus figured that blocking would be the best way to go about dealing with the attack. And so, as he put his guard, he defended against the onslaught of fire, only to be completely overwhelmed by explosion after explosion. After getting blown back, Stratos picked himself up from the attack, and saw that the orb was back its original size, but was gradually growing larger and larger. Well, this was going to be annoying to fight. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 81% Left Living: Blotlings: 800/1000 Bloticle: 8/10 Injured: Bloticle 3, Conflagration of the Stake - Joan: 684/1000
Stratos had continued to avoid getting struck by lasers, all while shouting back to Beuce, "no not really. I'm fine." Well, fine being a bit relative in this situation, as he wasn't melted yet. So that was good. Nevertheless, they needed to continue trying to figure out just how they were going to deal with this thing, not just with its lasers but with its inane body heat. As the lasers continued to melt the area around them, Stratos eventually figured that dealing with the lasers first would be the best course of action, as these things were probably one of the deadliest attacks that existed so far. So, Stratos charged up ice on his keyblade and fired the blizzara spell straight at the orb of fire. Unfortunately, these orbs were shooting heat death rays, and took no time at all to deviate from the keyblade wielders and instead go straight for the ice chunks. Well, that was a bit disappointing, if not a bit on the predictable side. So, Stratos instead thought of a different magic to use. Obviously, using Aqua Splash would just end up not doing anything as the last spell had for similar reasons. So he needed an attack that could approach the orbs without fear of being death rayed. The guillotine blades were probably one such attack, but their apperance was completely up to chance, so gambling on them to appear and be helpful was asking a bit too much. And so, Stratos instead decided to try and use his most powerful magic command to combat this attack. Summoning up four pillars of light, he sent them forward straight towards the orbs of fire, which in turn responded to the pillars by firing heat death at them. However, because fire can't beat the faith (PREACH IT!) the pillars ended up surpassing these death rays and exploded in a flash of light once they hit their mark. When the resulting explosion had finished, the orbs had been dealt with and the death rays had subsided, at least for now. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 81% Left Living: Blotlings: 800/1000 Bloticle: 8/10 Injured: Bloticle 3, Conflagration of the Stake - Joan: 736/1000
As Stratos continued to attempt to put out his flaming coat, it was eventually taken care of by the aid of Raisor. After the fires had been stomped out, Stratos got back on his feat and said, "thanks for that." After that, Raisor went to go attack him with minimal effort, even punching the thing, to which Stratos could only continue to be envious at the boy's flame resistance. Nevertheless, just stopping and staring would get him no where. But before he could attack the beast, it seemed to take note of the actually effort being done by the people here, and wanted to correct the fact that they existed. So, orbs of fire appeared around the bloticle but rather than actually launching in exploding fireballs or anything like that, they just stayed there in the air. The orbs then started to fire death lasers of fire, that seemed to start melting the ground that they touched, to which Stratos realized that running at this point would probably be a good idea. As he started running away from the beams, he went on the offensive, pointing his keyblade at the creature. As the ice gathered on the tip of Stratos's keyblade, he fired it out towards the bloticle, causing the chunk to spear right into the creature. While it seemed to be in pain for a brief moment, the ice chunk melted on the body almost instantly and the bloticle seemed to start directing more heat death rays at the keyblade wielder. Continuing to run away from the attack, Stratos then went to finish the job off by creating four bubble of water and firing the aqua splash attack at the bloticle. The bubbles seemed to weave their way around the laser and came on point with the body of the beast, causing it to explode instantly into steam, but still dealing considerable damage to the bloticle. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 81% Left Living: Blotlings: 800/1000 Bloticle: 8/10 Injured: Bloticle 3, Conflagration of the Stake - Joan: 788/1000 No I didn't Raisor...no I didn't.
After having avoided getting decapitated by blades that continuely seemed to spawn out of nowhere, it had seemed that Raisor had decided to join in on the fray against the giant flaming bloticle. While Stratos was a bit thankful to see someone else attack the thing, it seemed Raisor had some kind of immunity to the heat that it generated, or at the very least an extremely high tolerance to it. Well, that was certainly helpful to have on hand against such a foe. However, Straots didn't have the kind of luxury that Raisor had in this situation and so would have to approach this from an entirely different angle if he wanted to have any shot at killing it at the moment. Perhaps using Zantetsuken would be something that would assist him, as it was less of him actually getting close and more so just having everything happen in an instant. But the problem lied in that Zantetusken itself was not a good way in generating MP for later use, and using the attack within rapid succession, more so than he already was, would be something that he would rather not have happen. Then a thought donned on him. Perhaps he could try modifiying the commands and using them in unison rather than just one at a time might be a thing he could do. And so, with the idea in his head, Stratos decided to test it out. As cherry blossoms seemed to rain down from the sky, Stratos took his familiar stance before unleashing Zantetsuken. However, as he blinked forward, there was something a bit different about it. Clear movements could be seen as he came in to slash the blotice, unlike the usual instaneous blink of the command. Six slash marks appeared over the blotice as it seemed to be injured by the attack. Appearing on the other side, Stratos seemed confident in what he had just done, the combination of Splattercombo and Zantetsuken, until he realized that his body felt just a tad hot at the moment. Realizing that he had been too close for too long, his hoodie had apparently caught fire, which immediately caused Stratos to stop, drop and roll across the ground to get rid of it. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 82% Left Living: Blotlings: 800/1000 Bloticle: 8/10 Injured: Bloticle 3, Conflagration of the Stake - Joan: 861/1000
After having thrown a mini nuke at the bloticle, it seemed to be alive and well, not really reacting all that much to anything around it. Even as Beuce had charged at with his full combo, it really seemed pretty passive. As if it figured that its own body heat would be enough to deal with the keyblade wielders before any more harm came to it. However, it seemed to start realizing that this was no longer the case. As Stratos charged the keyblade with magic, creating a small ice block at the tip of his blade, the bloticle seemed to notice that he was about to strike at him with magic. And so, as Stratos fired off his ice spell, the bloticle easily countered it with its own large fireball, completely negating the attack altogether. Well, it seemed that this one actually knew how to counterattack. That would be a bit annoying. Furthermore, Stratos seemed to be running out of MP here, and so he needed to go and fix that problem right away. The only problem being that there was no way he would be able to get in and get out with no problem. Beuce only seemed able to do it because of some sort of weird defensive power up he received, and by his own merit Stratos did not nearly have the innate bulk to match that. The bloticle didn't really seemed to mind that Stratos was pondering what to do in this situation, and almost seemed to be taunting him with the fact that he couldn't do anything. Well, it seemed that this one had a bit of an attitude. As he was thinking on this, bad turned to worse as the guillotine blades started raining from the sky and trying to decapitate Stratos. The bloticle didn't have a face to make facial expressions, but if it did, Stratos could only assume it was amused. However, its amusement soon went away as blades fell on top of its own unsuspecting body, slashing into it. As the creature was wounded, its fires seemed to blaze more for a moment in response to the attack. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 83% Left Living: Blotlings: 800/1000 Bloticle: 8/10 Injured: Bloticle 3, Conflagration of the Stake - Joan: 886/1000
As the bloticle seemed to be radiating with heat, making it incredibly unapproachable due to the massive heat wave that existed as one approached it, Stratos tried to think of his options in this situation. Well, obviously, magic was the way to approach it, or rather not. Keeping his distance would be key here, and it would work in the short term, but it didn't solve the long term problem once he ran out of MP. Then there was Dumbo who he could rely on, but he wasn't exactly sure how long the elephant would last here. Regardless, he knew what he had to do now, so it was just a matter of what he wanted to do. Examining the element of this creature, it was quite obviously fire. Fire was usually weak to things like earth, ice and water, of which Stratos had reliable means of hitting it with two of those elements. However, there was another such element that might prove to be equally if not more effective. And so, with light flowing from his heart, Stratos grabbed the light. Pulling it away from his chest, he held the light as it shifted into the form of small ball of fire. Of course, the element that would help in this situation was fire. Because after all, the saying "fight fire with fire" didn't come from nowhere, right? So obviously, an idiom such as that held truth when dealing with unexplainable arcane phenomena such as fire magic vs a giant pillar of fire made of ink. Granted there was a flaw in this idea, that being that Trip Around the Sun didn't even have an element. And it always did the same amount of damage no matter what. Hm. Well that was a bit of a bummer. However, he was hoping the universe would look the other way on these small discrepencies as he tossed the ball of solar fire (that wasn't actually fire,) at the bloticle of fire, (that was actually ink.) Spoiler: Count Wasteland 84% Left Living: Blotlings: 800/1000 Bloticle: 8/10 Injured: Bloticle 3, Conflagration of the Stake - Joan: 938/1000
After giving Luna her accessory back, Stratos looked towards the remaining blotlings that stood in the way between him and the bloticle. With that there were only a few blotlings that were actually there, around four or so, and so that taking them out wouldn't be much of a challenge at all. And so, Stratos decided to take them all out in one fell swoop. Gripping his keybalde with both hands and putting the blade up, time seemed to completely stop as cherry blossoms seemed to flutter from pretty much nowhere. The four blotlings couldn't see what was coming to them, as the man they saw before was no longer in front of them, but rather behind, as if in a single instant. However, before they could even realize this, a slash mark appeared over all four of them as they were all split in two and eventually just reverted back to their base form of ink, falling into a puddle on the ground. With all of the blotlings taken care of, there was only one thing that needed his attention at the moment; that one thing being blotlcle number 3. A tentacle made of red, orange and yellow ink that all seemed to be roaring to life in a giant blaze of fire. The bloticle seemed to take notice of Stratos and started to get ready as it was going to attack him. Pointing at Stratos, suddenly orbs of fire just sort of seemed to spawn right next to it, only to then be fired at Stratos. Gathering water at the tip of his keyblade, Stratos fired off aqua splash at the orbs of fire having each flame be cancelled out by water. After he finished getting rid of that attack, it seemed to be charging up another burst of flame, only to be hit by a splash of water from Dumbo, thus cancelling its channel. Regardless, the fight against the fire bloticle had certainly begun. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 84% Left Living: Blotlings: 800/1000 Bloticle: 8/10 Injured: Bloticle 3, Conflagration of the Stake - Joan: 990/1000
After Stratos had defeated with absolute skill, (read: absolute luck,) the blotlings that had mobbed him, he could see that there were still a good deal more that needed to be carved through if he were going to have a shot at dealing with this bloticle with no real issues. Well, there'd definitely still be issues, but not with the blotlings. And so, Stratos had decided to continue doing what he had been doing thus far, and just charged head first into the blotlings. As the icicle type ones shot at him, Stratos put up his guard, defending against the first two who just bounced off of his keyblade, and then striking the third one with his fire strike. With the blade slashing through the ice, the blotling was easily dispatched with, and the other two who he had guarded against had flown into two other blotlings, spearing through them and killing them. Well, that was pretty convenient. As Stratos thought about it more, it really just seemed like half of these blotlings were really just detrimental to the existence of all of the other blotlings. With the two ice blotlings having just impaled their comrades, they decided to do something about it. Which was exactly what they had just done before. And so the exact same thing had happened as before and the ice blotlings just sort of died against the rock ones, and the rock ones died against the ice ones. Really, it was just a carnival of Stratos reflecting blotlings back at each other, and having all of them kill each other rather than actually using any commands or magic to accomplish it. And so, with that, there was just eight missing from the blotling count, and that meant there was not many of the blotlings left to deal with. Soon enough, though, Luna had come up to him and asked him if he or Gus had a barrette with them. Stratos thought about it for a moment, and then realized that it was the thing he got from her when she sacrificed herself to the blotlings. Taking it out of his pocket, he held it out to her saying, "is this what you're talking about? Sorry I didn't return it earlier, it kind of feels like it's been like half a year or something since I got it, so I kind of forgot a bit." After giving it to her, he said, "oh right, it's good to see you're still alive and...well not well, since we're in this giant mess of a battle, but good to see you're not dead." Spoiler: Count Wasteland 84% Left Living: Blotlings: 813/1000 Bloticle: 8/10
With there being only a few more posts worth of blotlings left that needed to go down, Stratos looked to the skies, and decided that it was time to get behind enemy lines. "Dumbo!" He shouted out to his flying elephant companions, standing there for roughly two seconds while nothing in particular was happening. After the seconds had passed, the elephant swooped down from the sky, grabbing onto Stratos with its elephant feet or something, picked him up and the two took off at mach speeds. That's right, this elephant was so strong and fast that apparently carrying an entire other person didn't slow it down at all and just made the two exponentially faster than they could ever possibly be on their own. And so, when the flying duo was near a blotling, they immediately dived straight at it at even faster speeds. As the two collided with the creature, Stratos kicked back off of it and jumped back and Dumbo just sort of disappeared altogether. But because of his disappearance giant jets of water rained from the sky, attacking anything within a small area, and exploding as they met their mark. The marks in question were, of course, wandering blotlings who were just mind their own business but then were just immediately exploded because bruiser assassin marksman meta op. Content with his work done, Stratos went on to go and deal with more of these blotlings just so that they didn't have to do this later. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 86% Left Living: Blotlings: 829/1000 Bloticle: 8/10
