Video Game: Kingdom Hearts SOS: The Road To Light

Luna had taken back her barrette as Stratos returns it back to her. "Thank You for holding on to it for me! I'm sorry for throwing it to you. It's just that this barrette is really important to me and I didn't want anything to happen to it." Luna proceeded to placing back the barrette back into her hair. "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." Luna turned to Stratos as he spoke. Luna looked up for a fragment of a moment as she reminisced the events leading up to this moment in time. "To be honest, I thought I was dead after those blots captured me. I don't know why but I heard a familiar voice call out to me and before I knew it, I was in the Mad Doctor's lab. I'm a little glad that I'm still alive. I still have things that need to be dealt with before my time arrives but until then I want to make sure everything is dealt with. So for now, I'm going to keep on breathing and live to see a new sunrise." Luna ran off toward more blotlings, keyblade in hand. Was it your voice that called out to me.........brother? I'll set things right. That's a promise.... A small glimmer on her barrette and bracelet shined for a small moment as Luna ran.

A group of 5 blotlings had surrounded Luna simultaneously at once. Luna stopped in her tracks as she looked at the enemies surrounding her. With her keyblade in hand, Luna began to cut down each one individually. As she eradicated the last one in that group, she stumbled upon the bloticle, Joan. "And here I thought the small fry were enough, now this thing?!" Luna began to advance toward the enemy. She slashed at the enemy and as she turned around, the enemy was still standing, if not fazed. "Just what in the name of Artemis are these things?" With no time to escape, Joan had swatted Luna away as if she was a fly and sent her flying through the air.

Bloticles: 795/1000
Bloticle: 8/10
Bloticle 3- Joan: 675/1000

 

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

 

"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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

"Time to get serious, Base! I need your help, pal!" Mickey called out to Sebastian.

"On the way!" Base dashed passed Blotlings to conserve his energy for the command he anticipated from the on-ground commander. Once he'd reached the Mouse, his attention was directed to the fiery Bloticle everyone else was taking on. "Don't tell me."

"Yep. We could do a lot of damage to it in one go, but I need to know if you're up for it."

"You lead. I'll follow."

Mickey smiled. "I'm sure glad t' hear that."

The two ran, side-by-side, to meet the foe. By the end of it, as much damaged had been done as Mickey had hoped. It was a devastating hit for the Bloticle to take at once, making it recoil long enough for the two to escape any immediate retaliation. It unleashed a Hellish, fiery fury, but the duo were out of harm's way by the time it stopped wriggling like a spastic nerve.

"A couple more times like that, and it doesn't stand a chance! C'mon, everybody. Let's do this. Together," Mickey rallied the others back to battle. Everyone had moved fast and left him a bit behind, but Mickey wasn't the type to give up so quick.

"Hit it hard enough at one time, and you won't have to worry about it catching you. Looks like it really has to stay hot and on its game to keep its inner-flame lit. Look for any way in you can find. Stay together. We're a team, after all."

Base kept looking the great vine up and down for any more possible weaknesses. The strike had taken quite a bit out of him, but Mickey seemed ready to dash in again. Base made a mental note to match that determination. He'd be ready too.

Spoiler: Count

Wasteland 71% Left
Living:
Blotlings: 795/1000
Bloticle: 8/10

Injured:
Bloticle 3, Conflagration of the Stake - Joan: 282/1000

 

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

 

Raisor followed up on Base and Stratos' attacks on the bloticle by attacking himself. He had been unbearably absent in this fight, and he knew he should take a more active role. Though looking at the bloticle, it was kind of hard to figure out how to do so. Before it was just a giant ink blot that had heat, but now it looked like it had molten lava around it. Yes, it was only ink, but considering the last two, Raisor had a good feeling it was pretty darn close to the same thing. Even he wasn't crazy enough to storm into something that hot, no matter what kind of heat he could deal with.

Thinking on what to do, he figured the only way to hit it was from a distance. There was strike raid, or his blizzard spell, both of which probably wouldn't do all that much. Well, blizzard was out of the question, so Raisor just chucked his keyblade at the enemy and continued his attack. The Bloticle didn't seem to enjoy being attack, since it send molten rocks flying at Raisor, but he just dodged out of the way. The annoying part was when they hit the ground and exploded into bits of fiery blobs. He ran, jumped, ducked, weaved, and dodged out of the attacks while sending his keyblade flying at the enemy multiple times, just trying to rack of the damage.

Spoiler: count

blotling: 785/1000
Bloticle: 184/1000

Yes, I know, I've been absent. School sucks

 

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

 

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

 

Raisor continued throwing his keyblade at the bloticle, dodging the annoying magma-bombs that were tossed at him. While doing so, he noticed Stratos launch his own attack using Faith, and the beams of light hit their target dead on, damaging the creature. Raisor figured he'd get one last attack in, so it might as well be a good one, if not a completely stupid one.

Taking his chance, Raisor cast three blizzard spells in a row to hit a magma-bomb coming at him. Yes, his magic itself was weak, but he didn't need the magic to be strong, per se. All Raisor was looking for with his attack was hitting that ball of heat with enough cold to cool it into a nice solid chunk of rock. The "ball of heat", as he put it, was beginning to turn solid, and Raisor smashed the thing with all his might. The stone, about the size of someone's head, began flying at the bloticle with enough force that you could see the dust clear out of the way in its flying wake. Raisor wasn't sure he hit it that hard, but maybe it had something to do with them being in a story book. Either way, the stone flew straight into the Bloticle, actually causing a giant hole to rip through the thing, and the bloticle stopped moving, except for a few twitches here and there.

"Well, that's my home run for the day. No idea how the heck that even happened, but I'll take it." He looked proudly at his hole-of-an-accomplishment, and walked on to more enemies. "You guys can clean the rest up."

Spoiler: count

Blotlings: 795/1000
Bloticle: 8/10

Bloticle 3: 32/1000

 

At long last, Glen was making some progress. He'd been on the defensive for a while, going literally 16 vs just him. Granted with the tremendous odds against them all, there was no way that any of them were going to have a better situation than that. Using barrier surge a short amount of time before had given him an opening of confusion as the blotlings had realised that their attacks were having no effect for that short time. Taking advantage of this, Glen had followed up with a strike raid, taking out eight of the blotlings instantaneously.

Parrying an attack from one of the other blotlings, he reacted by swatting it with a powerful vertical cut and dispatching that one too. The remaining seven blotlings converged on him, and Glen quickly cast gravity on them, causing them to float in the air just as the chinese had done in the land of dragons. Compared to that vast amount of people, this was nothing, but it wouldn't last for long. He held his keyblade up above his head and called upon his miniscule magical might, releasing a mystical mine square mess of death and malevolence, making the malicious blotlings melt from the heat before simply exploding, creating a mass of ink that rained upon the keyblade wielder.

With those blotlings defeated, the young keyslinger turned his attention to the magma blotling. It had consumed its ally, but that was nothing Glen hadn't seen before after facing Arma. However, its lack of mercy meant that if he asked it to look into its harddrive to find the mercy file, it would likely return with 'file not found' before shooting him with a blast of magma, so there went that option. Dashing straight towards it with a roar, the male slammed into the bloticle with a powerful sliding dash. However, he couldn't help but feel that the attack had done a smaller amount of damage than it should've...

Spoiler: Results

Glen has slain 16 Blotlings and injured Joan for 3BP in this post.
Living:
Blotlings: 779/1000
Bloticle: 8/10

Injured:
Bloticle 3, Conflagration of the Stake - Joan: 29/1000

 

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

 

This battle was going on annoyingly long and Kross couldn't help but feel frustration bubble up inside of him. Of course he had been a little moody lately but being this ticked off for no reason started to make even him wary. Maybe it was his master, maybe it was the large numbers of blotlings but regardless of reason, he was not happy.

There were still hundreds more to go, this was their second one thousand battle(Seriously Krowley, do you like doing this?). At least he had allies. Stratos, Luna, Raisor, Glen and Deadpool..I mean Beucepool, whatever. He shook his head and focused on his attack.. Once again, his magical energy flared to life as a brief flash of light surrounded him, freezing all enemies in the immediate area. Like lightning he moved, slash, blink, slash and so on. He had gotten a good number of them before his spell wore off, the blotlings popped one by one.

Blotlings: 762/1000
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

 

Steel silently listened to Hikaru and the Blot speak to each other; It seems the two had clashed previously; the details honestly escaped him, sad to say. The last few trips had been quite hectic, and considering that their last two HQ's had been invaded, he wasn't really sure where the almanac could be. With so much mental interference, he couldn't really tell if the S.E.E.D. he had planted in it was still transmitting either. He might be getting something, but for all he knew it could just be static.

Not knowing more about the Shadow Blot made Steel uncomfortable; the winged phantom was a bit too similar in appearance to someone else from his past. Just thinking about the Black 'god' made Steel's skin crawl and his anger rise. However, there was no more time for idle speculation and comparison, as the Shadow Blot sent out a roar, a few final words, and a massive tidal wave of ink.

Reacting with finely honed speed, Steel ran straight for the attack and made an equally massive jump. He flipped right over the wave, barely managing to avoid what would have been a dangerous hit. He landed on his feet, preparing to begin his assualt. The Blot's last words were considered.

"Best to perish with as little pain as possible..."

Steel actually smiled at that. As far as his involvement; a death like that wouldn't even be a small mercy. Looking around at the others, he saw that Hikaru had taken massive damage and Karina was already down. Kel, who seemed to have also managed to dodge the attack, was nearby.

"Looks like we've got our work cut out for us, huh?" Steel addressed Kel as he summoned the keyblades that he had chosen specifically for this confrontation: Elementary and Oathkeeper. His active abilities took hold and was briefly engulfed in black smoke. After a moment, most of it dissipated, revealing that he had transmogrified into his ninja form. However, there were several differences between now and the last time he had used this form. Rather than be concerned about the fact that one of his arms seemed to be made of bone, only annoyance pulsed in his oozing eye. The costume changes for jobs were understandable, but the constant cosmetic changes in each of his outfits served no purposes and were getting a little ridiculous.

"How many costume changes am I gonna go through? I mean what is this, Vegas?" Ignoring it for now, Steel hurled his two keyblades towards the Blot.

OOC: Steel used Ninja Raid.
@CrownMoksha