Stratos, somewhat confused that he wasn't getting hit by the dark rat's metal pipe attacks, just decided to use cure on Kaida because she was looking a bit unhealthy.
As the fight had dragged on long enough, it seemed Beuce had finally managed to get what he needed from the spamming of fires, he called out, "so you're finally ready to end this right? Good, because I feel like we've been here for like a whole year. I don't think I remember what it was like to have actual skin and not...ink." After that, Stratos was about to go back to spellcasting, when he suddenly realized something. He was dangerously low on mana here, and were he to run out, that would be absolutely terrible for him. So there was only one thing to do...wait there was no bookcase here. Okay, different thing to do. Calling out to Kaida, with a confident look on his face and a resolute air about him he said, "Kaida! If you ever wanted a boost to your self esteem about how much damage you're doing, watch this." With that, Stratos gripped his keyblade tightly and went to combo the rat.
Stratos used an aerora that had a bit of class to it, on himself.
aerora. On Beuce. That is all. Have a swankin' day.
Stratos used the glorious ability of cover on Kaida, blocking all that damage that may or may not come their way.
As whatever it was that the whole beat thing was that Glen was doing ended, or did it even start? Regardless, Stratos gave a thumbs up and a "thanks" to Kaida as she healed him back up. Then there was Beuce. He seemed to be out of MP, which was odd to Stratos. Not so much that he didn't think it was possible for him to do so, but only because he had seen him shooting Firas out this whole time...wait a second. He couldn't have possibly been..."Are you seriously doing that now?" Stratos was fully aware of what was going on here now, and didn't quite appreciate the fact that he was using the time that Stratos and he were basically just dark keyblade magnets to do it. "Fine," he said in a bit of a huff as he pulled out a hi-ether. Looking at it, it seemed to have the same kind of labeling that the hi-potion from earlier did....Stratos then realized that people should probably never lend him things ever again. Stratos used a hi-ether on Beuce.
After Stratos had healed up Beuce, he of course, took another dark combo straight on. This rat certainly did not like him, that was for sure. After getting healed by Kaida, though, he felt pretty alright to be getting back into the action. Before he did anything else, though, he noticed something odd about Beuce. He wasn't sure, but he was pretty certain that the white haired man had done nothing but cast fire non-stop. This entire fight. Well that couldn't be right. It wasn't exactly his strongest attack, and there would be no way he would just use it five times in a row. Right? Shaking the thought off, Stratos decided to set up defenses against this rat's onslaught of combos by casting Mine Shield.
After getting smacked around by a rat wielding a giant black pipe again, Stratos used cure on himself, keeping it classy.
As everyone was attacking with as minimal detail as possible, Stratos had felt the need to go into just slight more depth. Because here he was, presented with the option of what to heal Beuce with. He could use cure, but as the rat seemed bent on giving Beuce an awkward story to tell future generations about how he got killed by a rat once, he would probably have to use a hi potion. Thankfully, the young ward came prepared, with pot in hand. Yes, he was going to be able to heal Beuce right up with this pot. He then looked at the potion in his hand and realized something about it. There was writing on it. Looking more closely at it, Stratos gulped a bit. Spoiler: Property of.... Right, this was a thing he had gotten. Stratos thought he had already returned it to him. Yeah, he must have at some point, because why would he just horde his friend's potion otherwise? Besides, based on the chicken scratch writing on it, it was probably done after Beuce only had one arm, so clearly that meant he had to have returned it to him at some point... So why did he have it now? Details, details. Those didn't matter. All that mattered now was that he had it and could use it far more effectively then Beuce could have. So it must have been fate that it found its way back to him. That had to be it. Stratos used Beuce's Hi-Potion on Beuce.
After casting Aerora on Beuce, it seemed that the wind barrier had come up just in time to save the white haired man from death by rat. That'd certainly be an awkward story to tell to future generations. 'Now kids, let me tell you about the time I fought a rat who was using a giant black metal pipe, and he killed me.' That just didn't sound like a very flattering tale no matter what. Really, even if he won, it was still only beating a giant rat. So really, not a good story to tell no matter which way it went. What was he supposed to be doing again? Right, fighting a giant rat. Well, given the guy nearly wrecked him before, Stratos figured that the best thing to do would be to cast Aerora on himself as well, so that he wouldn't die and could keep casting spells to the rest of the party. He also didn't want to tell people of the story of the time he got killed by a rat. Stratos used Aerora on himself.
After having dealt with the crazy powerful time bloticle, Stratos would've enjoyed a bit of a break. Of course, such things didn't exist when it came to such large scale battles. Nevertheless, he and a few others had seen their chance to take on the second in command of these blots, the rat thing with the dark keyblade. With all of them catching up to him, Stratos braced himself immediately as the foe struck him with a few powerful swings of his keyblade. Stratos had to admit, this guy was already plenty strong, and he could tell from just a few regular attacks. While he was wondering about what the full extent of his power was, he felt a wave of healing light wash over him. Shaking away any nerves about this enemy, he simply gave a thumbs up to Kaida to show his thanks. Knowing he had to do something, Stratos figured that the best way to go would be to cast an Aerora over someone. After all, their team wasn't exactly made up of the most durable people in the world. But there was one amongst them who stood out as particularly paper thin on defensive prowess. Letting wind flow out of his keyblade, Stratos cast Aerora over Beuce.
As the bloticle was basically approaching its end, all the clocks started to whir again. Of course, they were going much slower then before and the thing seemed to be pretty much on its last legs, but it figured if it could get one last power out, it still had a chance. As all the clocks aligned, they gave one last glow before allowing the new appendage to reveal itself. Out from the metallic body of the creature, a puddle of black sludge could be seen being formed with a claw arm of similar material coming out of it. As the arm fully extended out, Stratos finally understood why the arms looked so familiar, and why this one was the most terrifying of all. To think, that he'd have to face that final behemoth all over again, it was a bit of frightening thought. But it was only its arm and attached to a much weaker being, so it wasn't going to be nearly as threatening this time around. However, before Stratos could even react to the thing, the bloticle seemed to be the first one to do so. It let out a shriek, not out of anger or intimidation as they normally did. This one, was out of nothing but raw fear. The area around where the arm had formed had seemed to start reverting back to ink, and that ink was slowly being pulled into the black mass. The other arms seemed to have some sort of terror in them as well, as they tried to move themselves out of the way of the arm, but it was all for naught. One by one, the black behemoth's arm tore the other arms off, absorbing them into itself, and becoming a much more frightening arm than any of the others. With light streaming out of his chest, Stratos grabbed at it and had it coalesce into a ball of solar fire as he threw it at the beast to end things once and for all. The behemoth arm simply clenched itself into a fist and extended forward. It punch straight through the sun limit and struck Stratos square in the chest, sending him hurtling away from the creature. Spoiler: Count Wasteland at 42% blotlings: 600/1000 Bloticle: 6/10 Injured: Bloticle 5, Timothy - Halter of Eternity: 10/1294
The fight was starting to wind down, and it could be seen in the expression of the bloticle...if it had a face at least, he was sure it would have a tired expression. Its arms seemed to be getting somewhat tired and were having a hard time keeping on weapons they might have had. Furthermore, the entire body seemed to start sagging a bit, acting as if it were a person who was panting, trying to catch their breath. Regardless, the fight was almost over, and Stratos was going to make sure that this creature was put down once and for all. Gripping his keyblade tight, he slashed with it to parry the sickle blade of the bloticle's, and then quickly threw his keyblade in front of him, turning it into a keyglider. Leaping onto it, Stratos immediately boosted with it to avoid getting shot down by the myriad of projectiles the creature had, only to then accidentally crash into the creature and tumble backwards from impact. Thankfully, it seemed to do a bit of damage to the creature, and he could see it was only a steps away from being dead. Spoiler: Count Wasteland at 42% blotlings: 600/1000 Bloticle: 6/10 Injured: Bloticle 5, Timothy - Halter of Eternity: 108/1294
As Stratos continued attacking the bloticle, it kept fighting back with all of its variety of arms and weapons. He was almost positive all of these new arms he had seen before, though he quite place where the familiarity was from. After all, it felt like he hadn't seen this kind of stuff in years. Regardless of whether or not he remembered what they were, the fact of the matter was that they were still here and that they were still completely able to kill him. Stratos had to dodge out of the way of one of the giant hooks that the ghost arm swung, only to put up his keyblade in guard to the variety of projectiles that this thing was able to launch. In spite of his best effort, he couldn't really fend off the attacks forever, and given that seven out of the nine had some kind of projectile spamming ability, it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened. Having his guard broken, Stratos was sent backward and blown away by the barrage of attacks. However, the moment he couldn't keep guarding, all that attacks convereged solely on his position. And when they had hit, there was nothing left but a smoking crater where the boy used to be. While the bloticle was satisfied with its work, its satisfaction was short lived as a giant slash appeared across its body, and the boy was on the other side of it, relatively unharmed. Spoiler: Count Wasteland at 42% blotlings: 600/1000 Bloticle: 6/10 Injured: Bloticle 5, Timothy - Halter of Eternity: 206/294
As Stratos and Kaida continued to fight this thing, he was definitely surprised at the thing's evolution. They had all seemed pretty much completely random before, but now, there was definitely something eerily familiar about these new ones. He couldn't quite place where they were from, but he was almost positive he had fought something with pretty much identical powers. Nevertheless, it didn't change the fact that he had to go and defeat the enemy before him. After all, this bloticle didn't like ice cream! What was up with that? Everyone likes ice cream. Except for people who don't. And we have a name for those kinds of people. Lactose Intorelent that's what. Or weird. One of the two. The two probably aren't mutually exclusive either. But that didn't matter, what mattered was that this bloticle needed to go down, if not for his own pride and the sake of the Wasteland, then also to get back for all the ice cream he insulted. And so, with keyblade in hand, Stratos charged the creature. As the clocks spun again, the creature created another two arms out from its body, each holding a different kind of weapon. The first one of the two was one that seemed to be made of some ghastly green flame, and wrapped around the arm was a chain that had a sickle attached to it at the end. The second of the arms was one that seemed to be dark skinned, and it was just holding some sort of rectangular pistol. Stratos wasn't going to be deterred by this, though, and continued his advance on the bloticle. Dodging missiles, lasers and hellfire, he seemed pretty confident in his stride. The new ghastly arm swung the sickle at him, which Stratos managed to react to in time, ducking underneath it and causing it to pass harmlessly above him. He then threw his keyblade forward, as the second arm fired pulses of light from the gun, having the keyblade intercept the attacks before they made it close to Stratos. Running forward once more, the boy summoned his blade back and used the full six hits of the splattercombo command on the body of this creature. Spoiler: Count Wasteland at 43% blotlings: 600/1000 Bloticle: 6/10 Injured: Bloticle 5, Timothy - Halter of Eternity: 256/1294
The bloticle did not care that it was being rude. In fact, it thought that the group fighting it was pretty rude. After all, it was just chilling around, trying to devour the world when suddenly asshats wielding giant metal pipes come along and start killing them off and being generally not nice people. They weren't even supposed to be able to hit them in the first place! Which meant they had to be cheaters, of course. And what was something that was ruder than all? Cheaters! So obviously, the bloticle would have to reach throughout all of time and space to create the proper punishment in dealing with these individuals. Like the green clothed boy who was next to him and just slashed through him with that weird flowery teleport. The bloticle didn't even see the attack, which could only mean the kid was cheating even more. Well wasn't that just the rudest. So it decided that it needed more power to deal with these rude individuals and whirred its clocks around some more. As it did, eventually they stopped a number of times, and pulled out a few more upgrades from the past. One arms spawned, coated in sand and pulsing with raw energy. Another arm came into fruition, though it was less an arm and more a giant rattling rocket launcher. And so to add the mix of lasers and fire, the thing started firing off more lasers from the one new arm, and a full salvo of rockets from the other. That would teach those rude kids. Spoiler: Count Wasteland at 44% blotlings: 600/1000 Bloticle: 6/10 Injured: Bloticle 5, Timothy - Halter of Eternity: 354/1294
Landing on his feet, Stratos had skidded backwards, leaving a small rut where his feet had been. It was a good thing that he was wearing shoes or that would have been a nasty case of floor burn. As he got ready to go back and attack the creature, he saw something yellowish fly at him, only to then realize that that was probably a person. Doing his best to dodge out of the way of her, she seemed to not crash into him, but feeling bad for not having made her landing any easier, he used a cure spell on her. As she got back up, she mentioned something about throwing him, and Stratos was a bit confused as to what she was talking about...only to realize that she was speaking quite literally. Having been flung by Kaida, Stratos was now, once again, sailing through the air on a direct course with the bloticle. As he approached it at mach speeds, Stratos noticed a few clocks on the side of the beast that needed cleaning. And so imbuing his keyblade with fire strike, Stratos slammed it into the clock, causing it to shatter once again and the bloticle to roar. As the broken clocks started leaking some kind of ink, the massive bloticle started to lose some of its more prior enhancements. The branches with poisoned apples, the flaming batons and the serpent like head all started to fade off of its body as if they hadn't existed in the first place. The three main clocks were still whirring about though, and they kept stopping at times that I no longer care enough to go hunting for. They each seemed to stop at a certain time, only to then immediately continue again and stop for a second time. As the second stop hit, the clocks glowed once again and they seemed to create more augments. This time, it was wings. One of the two was feathery, white and radiating with light. The other, a scaly, crimson and dark wing. There seemed to be something eerily familiar about them to Stratos, but he couldn't quite place his hand on it. However, that hardly mattered as the two wings let loose a barrage of heavenly lasers and hellish fire at the boy, causing him to start running away from it. Spoiler: Count Wasteland at 44% blotlings: 600/1000 Bloticle: 6/10 Injured: Bloticle 5, Timothy - Halter of Eternity: 452/1294
After getting smashed to the ground, Stratos just let out a small grunt of pain as he tried to get himself back up. He was taking a bit of a beating from this creature and was starting to feel the pain of getting smacked around for so long. Thankfully, this worn out feeling was short lived as a wave of green light washed over him and he was revitalized by a cure spell by Kaida. Giving a thumbs up to the girl, as he got back up, he yelled, "thanks." Gripping his keyblade in his hand, he was getting tired of this creature's shenanigans and was going to put an end to it. While the bloticle seemed to content to just keep spinning round and round as it had been, Stratos was not going to let it keep this sort of thing up. And so, light streaming out of his chest, Stratos grabbed at it then enveloped him in a sort of green aura. Running at full speed, Stratos closed in on the largest main clock of the bloticle's body, and leaped at it. With all the force he could muster behind his attack, he struck the clock with Guardian's Rush limit, causing the entire clock to crack under the force of the limit. Letting out an immense roar, the bloticle seemed to have some sort of fury behind it as it attempted to keep the spinning the clock hands, only for the three hands within the giant main one to be stuck. They were all stuck at the numbers four, seven and eleven, just kind of not moving no matter how hard the bloticle tried. While this would have been cause for joy for the group, the bloticle still didn't seem deterred. As the other clocks started moving around, the second had its hand stop at the number eight. The third of the clocks had their hands stop at ten and six. The final clock seemed to have the larger hand stop at the number four and the smaller hand stop at the fifty three minute mark. With that, they all glowed once again, though nothing physically seemed to change. Figuring that it was just broken, Stratos went to go back off and attack from a range before getting slammed by fists again. However, as he created some distance between the two, the true horror of this augment was revealed. Lifting itself out from the ground, the bloticle jumped at Stratos. Trying to run out of the way, he managed to not be crushed by the creature, but the force of it landing created a large enough shockwave that sent Stratos hurtling away again. Spoiler: Count Wasteland at 44% blotlings: 600/1000 Bloticle: 6/10 Injured: Bloticle 5, Timothy - Halter of Eternity: 550/1294
After striking the bloticle with his attack, it seemed to be none too happy as the clocks started whirring around some more. While it was ready to go and retaliate against the boy with everything it had, its attention was turned elsewhere. Kaida had struck the creature in one of the smaller clocks, causing it to roar out in pain as the thing broke apart. As it turned its attention to her, the clocks around its body had come to their stop, in showcasing its next power up. With the main clock striking the numbers twelve and seven, the second clock staying where it had been previously at five, the third clock's hands going backward to hit the numbers one and two, and the final clock having its bigger hand hit the number seven and the smaller hitting the fifty nine minute mark. As it did, the clocks seemed to glow bright once again, and the creature appeared to be changing. A clawed arm made of ink, seemingly wrapped in chains, shot out from the main body. Regardless, all of this creature's attention was focused on Kaida at the moment, so he didn't really have to worry about dealing with them attacking him just yet. So, using this opening, Stratos ran up to the creature and let loose the strongest of his commands. Four pillars of light appeared around him, as they shot out towards the body of the creature, striking it with an explosion of light. The creature roared in pain as it was hit by the power of the Faith (Preach It!) Using its new found arm, it turned around and swept the claw at Stratos, to which the latter could only half block. As the claw struck him, he was then met with two fists that had spawned prior and knocked away from the creature's body. Spoiler: Count Wasteland at 44% blotlings: 600/1000 Bloticle: 6/10 Injured: Bloticle 5, Timothy - Halter of Eternity: 648/1294
As Kaida struck the bloticle where it hurt, the clocks seemed to be spinning around, and some of the added parts on it seemed to fluctuate between glowing and not so much. Curiously, though, as the clocks seemed to continue spinning around, they picked up speed until they finally landed on the proper numbers for what it was doing next. The biggest clock had one of its two hands strike the large number eleven, with the second of the hands striking the number seven. The second of the clocks had one hand strike the number five. The third of the clocks had one hand strike the number two while the second struck the number four. The final clock had the bigger of the two hands strike the number ten while the smaller struck the number seven. With that done, the clocks started glowing once again, with this new modification being a two hands interlocked on one segment of the body, and on either side of the hands, two larger arms coming out of the beasts body. Unfortunately for Stratos, he was right next to the body as the arms had come into existence. Not having much time to react, he was immediately grabbed by one of the arms and pulled closer towards the body until letting him go and just having him come towards it via inertia. The second arm, however, was clenched into a fist, and punched Stratos square in the chest, sending the boy flying backwards across the ground. Coughing a bit, as he tried to get his wind back, the bloticle didn't seem done yet. The head that had spawned with the previous spin started to screech as it seemed to call upon some sort of magical energy, that ended with lightning falling from the sky towards the keyblade wielders. Picking himself up in time, Stratos managed to block the magic with his keyblade, though still felt a shock come through it. If what Kaida had said had any truth to it, then his counterattack would be best suited to cleaning its clock, (boo, you stink!) Getting himself prepped, in a flurry of cherry blossoms and probably time shenanigans, Stratos used Zantetsuken to create a giant slash mark across one of the clocks of the bloticle. Spoiler: Count Wasteland at 45% blotlings: 600/1000 Bloticle: 6/10 Injured: Bloticle 5, Timothy - Halter of Eternity: 746/1294
