As Straots had continued to use his barrage of attacks, it seemed that the whatever strangeness was going on at the moment was not wearing off anytime soon. As the bloticle continued to fire lightning at him, it seemed that blades made from this pink light started to form. At first, this seemed like a complete blessing. Guillotine blades formed in almost a ring like fashion, converging on the bloticle with intention to kill. While the bloticle tried to fire lightning at the blades to stop them, the blades seemed to be completely unaffected by the attack, and with an unimpeded movement, struck the bloticle. As the bladed objects passed along the surface of the blotices inky skin, it seemed to be in some form of pain, as wounds started opening up across it. Well, it was good to see that they were already making good progress. After the blades had done their attack on the bloticle, vanishing into a sort of pink mist that slowly dissipated, that was where things took a turn for the worse. Soldiers made of the pink light sort of just appeared around Stratos, large axes in hand, and swung with extreme prejudice towards the boy. Freaking out at the sight of it to begin with, Stratos panicked and rolled out of the way of the first axe. As he rolled away, more axe wielding knights appeared, and with their arrival heralded more swinging. Continuing to run away, Stratos continued to try and dodge all of the axe blades in any manner that he could, until he realized that they had only been attacking at a certain height and only horizontally. That height seemed to be exactly where his neck was at all times, and so Stratos evolved his strategy into just ducking and running, which apparently seemed to works wonders. This whole escapade was ended as one final light knight appeared, jumping straight at him. The knight seemed to be wielding some kind of flaming ball, screaming "WONDERLAND!" while bringing down the ball with extreme force. Letting out a panicked scream, Stratos narrowly managed to roll out of the way as the ball smashed into the ground, and not Stratos. His eyes wide with uncertainty towards everything, Stratos was hoping that whatever was going on in this place would end soon enough. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 92% Left Living -Blotlings: 900/1000 -Bloticle: 9/10 Injured: Bloticle 2, Decree of the Thunderlord - Larry: 880/1000
As Stratos stood by the giant blotice, it started firing more lightning at him, as per the norm. And so of course, the only way Stratos was able to counteract this certain kind of attack was to just nicely time his jumps so that it wouldn't strike him. Of course, he had to do this with precision, and not just hop about willy nilly. If he had done something like that he would most certainly be instantly shot down and then he'd have to start dodging all the lightning bolts all over again. He hadn't really understood why that was a big deal, more so than just getting hit by lightning in general that is, but figured that he had to continue onward if he wanted to get something. And so, more dodging it would be. However, as Stratos had continued to dodge, a pink light sort of filled the room and everything seemed to get really weird after that. He recognized this feeling, but wasn't entirely sure what it was. Regardless, it appeared to him that everything was now moving unbelievably fast. Beuce with his attacks against the creature had seemed to just sort of appear there in an instant. And then there was the bloticle itself which seemed to be thrashing about at impossible speeds as well. How the two managed to become so fast, Stratos couldn't really understand at the moment, but regardless, he was going to go on the offensive now as well. It was at that point he realized that they weren't actually all that fast, but rather, he was just moving at the pace that would make a snail beat him in a race. After firing a few bolts at Beuce, it then seemed to quickly swivel over to face Stratos, firing a bolt towards him. The young boy could barely lift his feet off the ground in time, jumping to avoid the attack, and his entire body seemed to be moving in slow motion through the air. As his feet touched down, he seemed to return to normal speed, which he then used to dodge the next few bolts directed at him. Going back on the offensive, Stratos simply threw his keyblade in a strike raid at the creature, only to continue running from the thing. After the keyblade slashed through it, while on the run, Stratos cast numerous amount of blizzard spells at the thing, trying to damage it further. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 92% Left Living -Blotlings: 900/1000 -Bloticle: 9/10 Injured: Bloticle 2, Decree of the Thunderlord - Larry: 932/1000
Stratos and the blotling he had just swatted away were now having a face off. The two stared each other down as they were both trying to anticipate the other's moves. One wrong move could spell disaster for either combatant, and there was no telling just how terrible something like this blotling would be if it actually landed a hit on Stratos. As the two continued to size each other up, three more blotlings decided to join the fray. As they did, the injured blotling did something interest. As it struck out at the other blotlings with ink like tendrils, connecting to them and starting to pull them in towards itself. The blotlings, while surprised at first had apparently come to an understanding as to what their compatriot was trying to do, and thus willingly went towards it. Stratos was a bit confused at first by the whole thing and just watched the whole happen. As the blotlings finally collided with each other, they coalesced into one giant inky that - the inky mass sadly never took form as the power of the sun struck it before it could do anything. Turning away with a slightly annoyed expression on his face, Stratos simply said, "I'm not dealing with that again." Turning to face the bloticle, it seemed that it was now changing its attention back to Stratos, and as such, tried to explode the boy with lightning bolts. Light on his feet, Stratos was basically hopping around every time his feet hit the ground, dodging each and every lightning bolt that came his way. For whatever reason, he just heard the number, "17" in his head as he continued to dodge the bolts. Despite being somewhat confused by that, Stratos didn't attempt to make sense of the number and instead kept running around, dodging and attempting to get close towards the creature. When he realized that it would be pretty hard to actually hit it once he got there, what with its high rate of fire, Stratos instead took the easy method of transportation. Leaping backwards, a bolt of lightning seemed to stop right by his face as time came to a stand still. Once the bolt actually went in motion again, Stratos was no longer standing there, and instead on the other side of the bloticle, having completely slashed through it. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 93% Left Living -Blotlings: 900/1000 -Bloticle: 9/10 Injured: Decree of the Thunderlord - Larry: 984/1000
As Startos had cut through a small swarm of blotlings that had been following him, he then looked at what it was the bloticle was firing at. Judging by the white hair, one arm and literally every other trait that defined that it was Beuce, Stratos was able to figure out that it was Beuce who was dodging lightning now. Stratos then realized the emphasis that should have been put on the "was" dodging, as the man seemed to take a bolt straight to the everywhere. However, despite this thing being stupid powerful under these circumstances, Beuce seemed to be completely fine; like he had completely shrugged off the fact that he just got by a singul- that he just hit by two lightning bolts. Shrugging at the display Stratos figured that Beuce was made of some sort of earthen material or something, and that's why he was basically the least conductive material in the planet at the moment. Granted that didn't save Billy the Bloticle from repeated lightning assaults, but Stratos figured it was better to not think about that at all. Turning his attention to nine more blotlings that were now gathering around him, Stratos sighed at the sight as they charged him. Spinning his keyblade around, pillars of light seemed to form around him and started spinning only shoot out towards the blotlings. While eight of them seemed to be completely enveloped by the light, thus turning back into just inky puddles, there had been a sole blotling that had managed to avoid it all. One that had managed to just completely evade getting destroyed by the awe striking glory that was Faith, (and Stratos wasn't just talking religion here.) As the black inky blotling that had managed to survive the barrage made his way over to the young keyblade wielder, Stratos just smacked it away with his keyblade and awaited the next swarm of blotlings that would try to stop him on his way to the bloticle. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 93% Left Living -Blotlings: 912/1000 -Bloticle: 9/10 Injured: -Blotling: 2/3
As Stratos continued to run along, dodging lightning bolts every which way they went , and trying not to be completely consumed by the horde of blotlings chasing him. However, the bloticle's attention seemed to divert itself in a different direction, looking towards what looked to be another force that was trying to make headway into trying to kill it as well. While its attention, and thus lightning bolts, were no longer on Stratos, that meant the keyblade wielder was free to crack down on kicking some blotling rumps. Calling his keyblade to his side, Stratos went from a steady run to a full sprint as he tried to create more distance between himself and the blotlings. After creating a large enough gap between them, he then immediately pivoted on one of his feet, turning to face the group, keyblade spinning in hand. Letting it loose, he threw it at the injured blotling with the power of strike raid. As the keyblade cut straight through the blotling, it just became a puddle of ink and Stratos recalled his weapon back to his hand ready to dish out some more pain. With two lightning blotlings zipping at him at faster speed then the rest, Stratos decided to try out his new spell that he had gotten from his gremlin friend. Directing his keyblade to sky, an auburn light formed at the tip as circular disks appeared on the ground in front of him. As the two blotlings continued to charge him, the mines exploded once passed, completely obliterating the two blotlings and causing the rest to slow down, though not stop. One pair, which looked to be one that almost looked to be a pitch black with white lights glistening here and there on it, grabbed one that had a clear earth aspect to it at Stratos. While Stratos wasn't confident in his strength to stop the attack normally, he was in luck as a green symbol, in that of a triangular shape, appeared over the rock and from there Stratos's body took care of the rest. Knocking the rock blot back the black one, it completely destroyed both of them in one swoop. The next four seemed to just be ones made up of regular ink, and so Stratos figured he'd take them out with relative ease in a singular skill command. As the four came close, he rushed through them all, slashing around eight times with the power of his combo augmented Splattercombo, thus causing the blotlings to lose form and become a puddle of ink, and Stratos to regain his mana back. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 93% Left Living -Blotlings: 929/1000 -Bloticle: 9/10 Injured
Starting to run like a madman, Stratos was now in a much more awful situation then before. The collection of blots that were chasing him now were coming in all sort of forms. There was the good old regular blots made of just black ink that were just trying to ram into him. Then there were the ones who seemed to be charged with elements quite like the bloticles. As such, Stratos started running as fast he could away from them. But not so much because he was scared of the blotlings. No. It was more so because he was trying to not to get blown up by the lightning that was being continually firing at him. Stratos each time Stratos tried to board his keyblade as keyglider, it continually got blown out of the sky before he could actually get on it. Each time Stratos tried to approach the thing, he was stopped by the blotling army that was chasing him. So Stratos did the only thing he could do. Which was continually run. Thankfully, this plan was working out better than any other kind of plan he could have had. The lightning that the bloticle was shooting had turned into his greatest ally. As the tip of the tentacle continued to charge up with lightning, Stratos would continually dodge roll out of the way as the bolt hit where he was. Thankfully, whenever it struck, Stratos was no longer in that spot, and was instead replaced by a blotling. Whenever the blotling was in his spot, it was then vaporized by said lightning. All in all, it was a pretty good system, minus the part where if Stratos slipped up at all he'd be struck by an empowered lightning bolt that would probably vaporize him. But other than that, it was working out well. He just needed to dodge this lightning two hundred times and then he'd be good to go on the offensive with the ultimate weapon. Spoiler: Count Wasteland 93% Left Living -Blotlings: 947/1000 -Bloticle: 9/10 Injured -Blotling: 1/3
Rolling. Stratos was doing a lot of that at the moment. He was getting pretty familiar with the ground as his entire body kept going across it, trying to avoid the earthen spikes. Continuous rolling also came with the added difficulty of losing any sort of balance one might have had to begin with. Eventually, though, Stratos was hoisted away from the spikes by something, though he couldn't entirely tell what at the moment. As Stratos stood back up, the world seemed to be spinning for a second, before Stratos looked back at the bloticle, only to see that it was basically over and done with. He then looked over to see that his rescuer was none other than Mickey the Mouse. Giving the small being a pat on the back he said, "phew, thanks there buddy." Stratos's attention was then drawn back all the way to Base, who had managed to fell the bloticle. Giving a thumbs up to the man, he said, "well, I'm always up for some giant killing." With that, Stratos's attention was turned to the next bloticle. The creature seemed to be radiating with a blue sort of light, and seemed to have electrical energy just sort of coursing around it. Of course, as all enemies seem to have some sort of 6th sense for when someone is attempting to attack them, its attention was, in turn, directed towards Stratos. As the two faced off for a bit, Stratos suddenly realized that it was still raining, and took note that it April Showers had been going on for an abnormally long time. Disregarding that though, Stratos decided to go and attack the bloticle. Of course, because he had been doing nothing but fighting a bloticle up to this point, he had completely disregarded the fact that the blotlings even existed to begin with. As they started to bar his path towards the next bloticle, Stratos got his keyblade at the ready and charged at the creatures. With his blade coated in ice, he struck three time followed by a swift string into a six hit attack. After plowing through the blotlings with the two skill commands, he then saw that the bloticle that he was trying to attack, started charging up power at the tip of the tentacle. After finishing its charge, it fired a bolt of lightning, which Stratos had just barely managed to dodge, and the blotling behind him just narrowly did as well. Stratos sighed at what was probably going to be a bit of a problematic approach now. Spoiler: Count Wasteland: 94% Left Living -Blotlings: 959/1000 -Bloticle: 9/10 Injured -Blotling: 2/3 [//spoiler]
After the bloticle swung its earthen hammers once again, it seemed to be reeling in pain once again as another attack had struck him. The attack in question was faith, and the caster was Beuce. Looking towards the one armed man, he was apparently no longer radiating with raw physical power, and just...regular physical and magical power. Well, that was probably as good a sign as any that Stratos should probably get out of the form he was in as well. As a sort of gray light enveloped him, Stratos was no longer in his black mage form and felt...well no stronger physically, but at the very least, he was able to do the one thing he could normally do in any situation. That one thing was, of course, Zantetsuken. As cherry blossoms started to fall in the area, flowing in the wind of April Showers, as time seemed to come to an absolute stand still. Stratos stared the earthen bloticle down, as he was no longer in the same spot that he was in before. A slash mark appeared across many of the tendrils, severing the grip it had on a numerous amount of the rocks they held. As the creature was profusely spewing out ink, it then started to use the remaining rocks to take vengeance on Stratos. Instead of all of them as one giant hammer, it started to pull them from two separate directions, converging on Stratos's position. Stratos hopped on his keyglider trying to avoid the attack, but as the rocks collided, they shattered on impact, with themselves, and sent out a large shockwave that knocked Stratos out of the air, and knocking him onto the ground. As Stratos was lying on the ground, he realized that he had to start rolling out of the way, as spikes started to shoot out from the ground, following Stratos everywhere he went. All that Stratos could really do at this point was continuously roll, as he couldn't really get his footing back long enough to actually run from the spikes. Spoiler: Count Wasteland: 94% Left Living -Blotlings: 967/1000 -Bloticle: 10/10 Injured: Bloticle 1, Ruler of the Ever Shifting Sand - Billy: 30/1000
As the creature's maelstrom of earthy death was occurring, Stratos could only really hold up his guard in an attempt to block the attacks. As one of the rocks slammed into his keyblade, he started to lose his balance, only for a few more rocks to both knock the keyblade out of his hand, and knock straight into Stratos. The young boy was sent flying a bit of distance as was busy continuing to get hit by rocks in a continuous chain of rock bludgeoning, that continued until the creature just seemed to stop. As it seemed to be going down in a bit of a daze, Stratos couldn't help but feel glad that he had recast Aerora on himself, or else he'd be in quite the worse situation right now. Shaking his head, he looked at the creature who seemed to have something just stuck to the top of it. Stratos couldn't tell quite what it was at the moment, but he figured it probably didn't matter just yet. And so instead, he went on the offensive. Pointing his keyblade at the thing, Stratos gathered ice at the tip of his blade, only to then fire it out as a chunk of ice towards the creature. As he fired off the empowered blizzara spell, he followed up with firing more and more chunks of ice that seemed to impale themselves into the creature, causing the bloticle to writhe in pain once more. The ice chunks were slowly melted as the ink seemed to just seep out of the wound and the creature roared once more. All the rock tendrils seemed to slide to one side of the bloticle's body. It then bent its body backward, in the direction of the rocks, only to whip forward and attempt to crush Stratos with all of the rocks at once. Getting on his keyglider, Stratos flew away, narrowly dodging the attack, but was blown away by the force of the attack striking the ground. Spoiler: Count Wasteland: 95% Left Living -Blotlings: 967/1000 -Bloticle: 10/10 Injured: Bloticle 1, Ruler of the Ever Shifting Sand - Billy: 82/1000
As Stratos was getting ready to attack the creature once again, it seemed that their problems were slowly decreasing with the giant bloticle. As it tried to pull its tendril back, it was soon met with some form of resistance, as Raisor managed to close the distance between himself and it, and severed the two tendrils that held up the boulders. The creature seemed to thrash in pain as it lost its weapons, and became little more than helpless. So, Stratos took this as the opportune moment to go right back on the offensive. Spinning his keyblade, water channeled on the tip of it once again, as Stratos launched off a stream of four bubbles all directed at the bloticle that exploded on impact, knocking the creature back. As it was trying to get itself back upright, Stratos then summoned a bolt of lightning, augmented by April Showers, that knocked the bloticle back down. As the bloticle was now profusely spewing out ink from its wounds, its body seemed to start to lose any semblance of color or form as it just slowly seemed to becoming more just like regular ink. While it looked like the group was pretty much sure to win at this point, the bloticle seemed to still have some fight left in it, as it was starting up another attack. Bringing itself back up, it did something resembling a roar, and as this happened the earth started to shake underneath them. Pillars of earth started to rise around the bloticle, and eventually shot out more tendrils of ink to grab at the earth. Pulling against the pillars, they seemed to break into chunks, and all of the chunks were held by a separate tendril. The creature then started to go on an offensive defensive as it started to spin around, creating a whirlwind of earth and death as the chunks of rock were just flying around, daring to hit anything that came close. Spoiler: Count Wasteland: 95% Left Living -Blotlings: 967/1000 -Bloticle: 10/10 Injured: Bloticle 1, Ruler of the Ever Shifting Sand - Billy: 131/1000
Iris was, of course, taken a bit aback by his response. The man clearly seemed to be seasoned in the way of killing others, and he was quite educational when it came to learning the color and smell of blood, or at least human blood. Of course, there were a myriad of reasons that someone could be this used to killing people, some excusable others not so much. But Iris wasn't exactly sure if it was within his culture's social etiquette to share why they had done so, so she was a bit at a loss for words while trying to think. Then he commented on how nice the sun was, to which she could only nod in joyous agreement. "The sun is absolutely wonderful. Such a majestic light giving orb in the sky, it's what makes adventures like this at all possible. Surely without such a gift from the gods we wouldn't be able to casually walk about admiring it's splendor, much less think about hunting fearsome drakes and enjoying a meal of their meat afterwards!" Her face had been one that was beaming with enthusiasm all the while she spoke about it. As she said all of this, she soon realized were she to understand this man's odd culture better, it'd probably be a good idea to know where he was from to begin with. "So Bryce, what city do you come from?"
While Stratos was ready and willing to take down the slow falling rock shards, it had appeared that they reached their time limit and the other two pieces of the shook the ground with an earth shattering force. Stratos was a bit blown back by the force, going from his keyglider to the ground and tumbling across the ground. As he managed to roll himself back into place, he then just replied to Beuce, "well, seeing as all the damage we take is pretty much arbitrary, yeah, I'd say I'm fine." He then looked back towards the bloticle again and went to trying to figure out a way for him to take the creature down. He was running into that whole, "hey I'm a mage but I don't have mana" problem again, which was obviously annoying. While normally he'd just happily use the strongest physical command he knew, obviously with the restrictions placed on him that wasn't really viable either. And with Trip Around the Sun just having been used, using another limit wasn't at all possible either. While deliberating on what to do, it seemed the bloticle had completely figured out what it wanted to do. Firing out two inky sand like tendrils, or rather a collection of tendrils made to look like one, it struck at two things on the ground. Not at two people, rather the two rock fragments that landed on the group. As the tendrils connected with the rocks, the bloticle started to pull against them and slowly lift them in the air. Stratos had a bit of an awestruck expression on his face, as the creature hoisted one of the rocks into the air and then proceeded to bring it down like a hammer towards Stratos. Quickly reacting, the boy started to dodge roll out of the way, only to be blown back by the shockwave as the rock hit the ground. As he slid across the ground, wind barrier taking the brunt of the force, he then saw that the second rock was coming down, thankfully not towards him. After he finished sliding, Stratos realized that his osmose spell was off cooldown, and that having mana would probably be imperative towards bringing the beast down now that it had weapons. So, with the flick of his wrist, Stratos drew the blue energy from the bloticle and absorbed it back into himself, filled with magic power again. Spoiler: Count Wasteland: 95% Left Living -Blotlings: 967/1000 -Bloticle: 10/10 Injured: Bloticle 1, Ruler of the Ever Shifting Sand - Billy: 180/1000
As another meteor chunk flew through the sky and was repelled back towards the boticle once again. With Raisor's efforts, that made there only 4 more rocks that were falling to the ground, probably going to crush...something. Not to mention that they all seemed to be falling at an incredibly slow rate. Like, both Stratos and Raisor managed to beat one back each and the four were still in mid air, and they didn't really look like they were making really any distance at all. Regardless, Stratos had his mind set on taking down the falling rock and rocketed off on his keyglider towards it. Once he made it to the rock, he kept pace with it, thinking of how he had to go and push it away. Sadly, there was no reaction command at present for him to do it, but he did have another idea. So while earth was normally a much stronger element against lightning, probably because of April showers, lightning seemed to be doing pretty well in this fight. So, Stratos figured that he would just go and continue with this kind of trend. Charging his fist with lightning, Stratos briefly went from Magus to Assault Mage in a manner of seconds as he hit the rock with a palm strike. The lightning pierced the rock, continuing to go towards the bloticle and strike it. From the hole the lightning made, the rock started to break apart and loose momentum as the small chunks hit the ground with far less destructive force then they would have normally. And so, there were only three more falling boulders to deal with. And they were still barely making any progress towards the ground. Spoiler: Count Wasteland: 96% Left Living -Blotlings: 967/1000 -Bloticle: 10/10 Injured: Bloticle 1, Ruler of the Ever Shifting Sand - Billy: 232/1000
Excited to start their journey, Iris listened intently to the words that Sanderson had said. Apparently they were to go hunting drakes because said reptiles were becoming a problem for village folk. Iris had never hunted drakes before, she hadn't actually hunted anything before, so she was getting a bit excited as to get going on the hunt. She was no stranger to walking long distances, as she had traveled from home to this league by foot, and so she was psyched up to get to walking. Though, as the tree man had said that he would try to find a way to not kill the drakes, a wave of confusion washed over her. If they didn't kill the drakes, then how were they going to have Drake Steak? Regardless, as they started to walk, the group had, for the most part, remained silent. That was, until a young man came over to introduce himself and asked a pretty peculiar question. She thought about it long and hard, wondering if she had truly ever killed a man. After sifting through her memories, she confidently shook her head, saying, "no, I haven't kill anyone." After she responded, she wondered why he would ask her such a question. She didn't think she was the type to give off a murderous vibe, and it was hardly something you just asked out of the blue. It was then that it dawned on her. It was probably just his people's way of greeting each other. Even if Tyrrus was one compact country, she never ceased to be amazed at how different everyone within it could be. So, trying only to be polite, with a tone that only seemed to be genuine politeness, Iris introduced herself. "I'm Iris, and have you ever killed a man before, Bryce?"
As the rocks had all but subsided in trying to hit them, it was clear something was up. And as it turned out, this was true both figuratively and literally. Stratos watched in awe as the creature managed to gather all the earth around itself into one gigantic earthen meteor type thing, and then hurled it at the group. Seeing the attack come at them, Stratos didn't really have much in the way of meteor killing, and couldn't really do anything other than stare at it in awe. Thankfully, Beuce was in his soldier state, and even more thankfully, having one arm didn't seem to impede his strength in anyway shape or form. Really it was like the other arm was just decoration or something. But as the meteor was struck by the power of Brave Shot, it seemed to give way to the raw physical force and split into six smaller, more manageable pieces. And so, Stratos got to work in dealing with at least one the attacks. Pointing his keyblade at one of the pieces of earth, his cast a different kind of magic from his blade, which consisted of a dark beam that, once it struck the meteor covered it in black chains and shackles. As the meteor was bound by these restraints, it seemed to stop its movement through the air and just hung there. Stratos then hopped on his keyglider and flew up to the stationary boulder so that was on the same height level as it. Releasing a white light from his heart, Stratos grabbed at it, turning the light into the fires of the sun. As he threw the solar orb at the rock, he released it from the bind spell, and the collision between the Trip Around The Sun explosion and the meteor chunk forced the rock straight towards the bloticle. The bloticle, taking notice of this, used its body to strike at the rock, completely destroying it in a counter attack. However, it was obvious that that was not the most painless thing in the world, as ink continued to run from new wounds that covered that the bloticle. Spoiler: Count Wasteland: 96% Left Living -Blotlings: 967/1000 -Bloticle: 10/10 Injured: Bloticle 1, Ruler of the Ever Shifting Sand - Billy: 281/1000
Cracking his knuckles, Stratos began to think of what to do with his new found magical prowess. After going through a lit of spells to use, he figured probably using the strongest magic one he knew would be a good way to kick off the gaining of this power. And so, as the creature was distracted by getting gutted by Beuce, with a flick of the wrist, Stratos summoned destructive pillars of light to tear a path through the sandstorm and deal even more damage to the bloticle. Or, it should have. A bit perplexed by the fact that nothing happened as Stratos tried to use Faith, he figured it was probably just another restriction of this whole infinite magical power thing. That and not being able to make barriers or heal...or really exert oneself physically in any way. Man, ultimate cosmic power came at some pretty demanding prices. Regardless, he figured he'd try and do something else while desperately trying not be absolutely shredded by the floating debris. Spinning his keyblade, Stratos decided to use the next most powerful attack he was aware of, at least magically so. Pointing it at the creature, water coalesced on the tip of the keyblade in the form of a bubble. Channeling a surge of magic through the keyblade, the bubble then was fired off at the tentacle, followed by three more bubbles afterward. Of course, normally no one would fear bubbles. But this was a fantasy setting, and bubbles were often one of the most deadly substances known to mankind. Like balloons. As the bubbles exploded on impact with the bloticle, Stratos had the greatest idea in the world. Since the attack was so effective, why not just use it again? Normally, doing this kind of attack in rapid succession would be a no no on the body, but, probably due to the power granted from the black mage form, Stratos was completely confident in his ability to launch another swarm of bubbles. And so he did. Spoiler: Count Wasteland: 96% Left Living -Blotlings: 967/1000 -Bloticle: 10/10 Injured: Bloticle 1, Ruler of the Ever Shifting Sand - Billy: 332/1000
Stratos couldn't help but feel things were starting to get a bit worse. Sure, they were bringing down the bloticle with relative ease here, but the more they fought it, the more dangerous the situation became. As he could feel the sand in the storm becoming more violent, and the chunks of earth within more apparent, he could tell that this thing was really starting to go all out against them. As he thought about what to do, he realized that there wasn't a way that he was going to be able to approach this thing all willy nilly. After all, his speed and strength weren't the greatest around, so forcing his way towards the creature would only end up with him getting tossed around in the storm. So obviously his only option was to use magic. However, he ran into that lack of mana problem once again. Which meant that he was basically stuck being unable to do anything until the option to use Zantetsuken became available again. But he couldn't afford to just stand around and do nothing either. It was at that point that Stratos was struck with a realization. Obviously, if he couldn't attack the thing with his keyblade to get mana back, he'd just use magic to get the job done instead. Reaching into his pocket, Stratos felt a metal chain in there. Gripping onto it tighter, Stratos let out a deep breath as he seemed to try and invoke some sort of power from within his heart. Soon enough, a blue and black light of energy flooded the area around Stratos, encasing him in a sort of energy dome, only to subside and reveal the mage boy. Opening his, now red, eyes, Stratos stood there with his cape, that had replaced his hoodie, flowing in the wind. It was good to be back in this black mage form. Recalling the power he had in it, Stratos pointed two fingers at the bloticle, only to draw them back and seemingly bring a blue light of energy out from the beast and towards the caster. As the blue light reached him, Stratos grabbed it out of the air and absorbed, feeling magical power well up from it. Now that he had some mana back, he could go on the offensive once again. Spoiler: Count Wasteland: 96% Left Living -Blotlings: 967/1000 -Bloticle: 10/10 Injured: Bloticle 1, Ruler of the Ever Shifting Sand - Billy: 384/1000
After Stratos got back his mana, he then knew just what he had to do with all of that. Channeling the magical energy through his keyblade he rose to the sky as a ball of air coalesced on the tip only to soon have the air dissipate. Soon after this whole thing transpired, the air around Stratos had a brief surge in movement, as his Aerora barrier was now fully refreshed. Thinking about it, the sandstorm probably would be pretty easy to get rid of if he were able to cast any sort of wind spell that wasn't just a shield. But Aero was the only kind of wind magic he knew, and something like creating a burst of air with Aero was absolutely impossible. Completely unthinkable. After tossing aside silly delusions, Stratos then went back to thinking about what his next counter attack against the bloticle would be. After watching what Beuce had done, though, it was pretty obvious that Stratos couldn't just be shown up like that. As Stratos saw silhouettes of rocks and rock fists coming towards him, Stratos spun his keyblade in his hand in preparation of what to do. With cherry blossoms fluttering in the wind, sand and rain, as Stratos stopped spinning his blade time seemed to come to a stand still as the rocks were just narrowly closing in on the boy. In a single instant, he was no longer in the path of the attack, and instead was past the bloticle. All that showed that he had done anything to begin with was the large slash mark going opposite the direction of Beuce's that formed on the Bloticle. As the x wound took shape, it started to seemed to be oozing ink, as the rocky form it had once held was starting to come apart. Spoiler: Count Wasteland: 96% Left Living -Blotlings: 967/1000 -Bloticle: 10/10 Injured: Bloticle 1, Ruler of the Ever Shifting Sand - Billy: 436/1000
As Beuce landed near him, Stratos nodded, responding, "which means we just gotta keep on the pressure." After Beuce had struck him with the last of his own magic, the bloticle then seemed to whip up a sandstorm for them, one of which only really hindered their vision. Well, at least only for Stratos as he had already had his own Aerora spell around him, keeping the sand at bay and away from his face. As Beuce commented that having one up would help, he then realized that he hadn't ever actually cast it on Beuce to begin with. Whoops. "Right," he agreed to the suggestion, slapping his friend's back, using his hand as basically the catalyst for his spell, thus causing an Aerora barrier to flow around the white haired man. As Stratos realized his own had been up for quite some time, it'd probably need refreshing soon, and so he went to cast it again on himself...only nothing actually happened when he did. Sighing at the revelation, he had come to realize that he had basically dried up his mana pool as well. Stratos needed to figure out a way to get his mana back quick, or else he'd end up being in a bit of trouble. Mana was normally generated via hitting things a lot, by a process of which Stratos had zero idea how it worked. However, thinking back on it, he started to recall that Karina had used a skill command that seemed to reach what the outcome Stratos wanted, only way more effectively then just regular hitting. Closing his eyes, he began to think hard to any time he had seen the move used, and when it finally came to him, something else came. A rock. Through the air. At Stratos's head. Being knocked back by the sudden attack, Stratos had been thankful his shield was still up, or that might have actually done some crazy damage. Though rubbing his head he muttered, "that did not give me jollies." As he recalibrated himself, he then looked at the silhouette of the monster he was meant to be fighting and prepped himself to get going. Nodding, he said to himself, "alright, I think I got it." And with that, Stratos rushed off towards the creature, narrowly dodging flying rocks all the while. As he did, he eventually encroached on the position of the bloticle and once in swinging range, he swung. Stratos went straight into using a fast paced six hit string of attacks, followed by his regular combo, slashing through the sand body of the monster and spraying ink every which way. When all was said and done, Stratos certainly felt like he had gotten a fair chunk of MP back. Spoiler: Count Wasteland: 96% Left Living -Blotlings: 967/1000 -Bloticle: 10/10 Injured: Bloticle 1, Ruler of the Ever Shifting Sand - Billy: 488/1000
After Stratos completely rushed down his opponent, he was then immediately followed up by Beuce going on the offensive and using his own path limit against the bloticle. As it was struck by the punch, it lurched back, ink splattering out from the point of impact, and it seemed to be in some form of pain. Even if he didn't own the scan ability, Stratos could still tell that it was definitely starting to feel the pain. The amount of damage they needed wasn't quite halfway yet, but it was almost halfway there. As the tentacle recoiled, it started to grow more rock plates over where its body, only for the plates to soon become spiky. Stratos wasn't entirely sure what this meant, until it shot off the plates along sandy like tendrils towards the boy. Not wanting to actually be in the way of that attack, Stratos immediately dodge rolled out of the way to avoid the rock plate, and all he could hear behind him, where the rock had landed, was a crashing noise. Looking back he saw that the creature had basically just punched a hole in the floor with its rock plate fist like things, as the tendrils reeled back towards their point of origin. Once it had retracted fully back to the main body of the bloticle, it launched the attack out again. Knowing just what to expect this time, though, Stratos had decided to go on the offensive himself. As he dodge rolled out of the way of the spiky punch of earth, he then threw his keyblade with a spin on it towards the tendril. Once the attack had landed, it made a small cut in the sand tendril, causing it to squirm in pain as it tried to pull the rock plate out from the ground, only to then be fully severed as Stratos unleashed a bolt of lightning on the wound. The tendril fell off, squirming on the ground now, as the entire thing just sort of returned to a more liquid state, the only thing left of it behind being an inky puddle. As Stratos looked back towards the main body of Billy the Bloticle, he had no idea if ink monsters felt emotions, but if they did, this one surely looked angry. Spoiler: Count Wasteland: 96% Left Living -Blotlings: 967/1000 -Bloticle: 10/10 Injured: Bloticle 1, Ruler of the Ever Shifting Sand - Billy: 540/1000
