Video Game: Kingdom Hearts SOS: The Road To Light

It seemed the others had followed up his breaking of the meteor into six pieces by nullifying three of them. Though they were about to hit the ground, Beuce mounted his keyblade glider and raced over toward one of the remaining shards. From beneath it, he began to glow red. Placing his hand over his chest, he poured energy into his fist, and struck the meteor, sending it veering off course and into the bloticle.

Though four of them had been stopped, that was all the time they had. The remaining two collided with the ground and caused an earth-shattering shockwave that blew the wielder off his glider. Tumbling to the ground, Beuce groaned and coughed through the thick cloud of dust and ashes in the air. He'd be feeling the impact for a while, but he was, all in all, alive. He'd managed to survive the impact. Rising to his feet, though unsteady, he quickly looked around to ensure that all of his other friends were alright. "Stratos! Raisor! Uh...damn no one else has really done anything...Base you were here for a bit! Base! You alright?" The bloticle seemed to be on its last legs, and now that its strongest move had failed, the pitch in its screeches changed. It was afraid. Flourishing his blade, Beuce went to go and try to finish it.

Spoiler: count

Wasteland: 95% Left

Living
-Blotlings: 967/1000
-Bloticle: 10/10

Injured:
Bloticle 1, Ruler of the Ever Shifting Sand - Billy: 205/1000

 

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 Raisor was gearing up for his next attack, he watched as the last two meteors came crashing into the earth. Raisor quickly plunged his keyblade into the ground as the shockwave blew everything away. Holding on for dear life, Raisor was blowing in the wind like a flag, flying every which way. His keyblade starting shaking and began to come lose, which Raisor hoped would not happen. As the keyblade began to pull out of the ground, the wind died down and Raisor dropped on the ground. He was glad he wasn't blown away yet again, but he was getting a little tired of being blown away at all. He heard the ink blot making a crying noise and figured it was in a lot of pain. Good, that meant they were close to beating it.

Raisor got up as he watched Stratos become a nail being attacked by a makshift hammer. He managed to dodge out of the way Raisor noticed that the second rock wasn't coming down at Stratos. Wondering where it was going, he noticed the tendrils get longer and watched as the rock began to plummet - right at him. Getting the heck out of dodge, Raisor began to pick his feet up and ran straight at the bloticle. If it was going to extend its reach, that meant that it wouldn't be able to decrease the reach quickly enough the closer Raisor got in to the enemy.

As he got closer, he was right about the rock not being able to hit him. The tentacle tried to shorten its arm length, but it was already too far and missed Raisor by a good meter or so. Taking this chance to attack again, Raisor threw his keyblade at the tendril holding the boulder and sliced it off. Calling back his keyblade, he threw it again at the other boulder arm. The second boulder fell to the ground, and Raisor figured it was probably done with that attack for now.

Spoiler: count

Blotlings: 967/1000
Bloticle: 10/10

Bloticle 1: 156/1000

 

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

 

Raisor watched as the Bloticle raised up the earth and started grabbing clumps of it and throwing it all over the place. Watching this scene made the saying "A wounded animal is the most dangerous" come to mind. This creature was certainly trying its hardest to beat them down at this point. If nothing else, Raisor would tell it that there were nine others that they had to deal with that were going to be just as annoying, if not more annoying, than this obnoxious thing.

Raisor put up his guard with his keyblade, covered more of his body with his other arm, and knelt down on one knee, trying to keep his defense up while waiting out the attack. Stones and dirt were thrown with incredible force against the keybladers, and the only thing Raisor could think of was wait it out. He was not going to go into this storm of earth and take any more dangerous hits. The most he could do was defend and lower the amount of damage he was going to take. Stones knocked all across his body, and caused small amounts of damage. Still, it was better than getting knocked in the gut.

As the attack started to subside, Raisor got back up and took the chance to hit the enemy. Unlike most storms, this one didn't really have an eyes, since the tendrils were attacked to the "center", and Raisor couldn't really stand in the middle and attack carelessly. Although there was one thing he could do. Raisor took to the air and jumped on the tenticles one by one, eventually getting above the Bloticle's head and fell back down to earth. In this case, the earth on the Bloticle. He fell with his full weight and at the last second threw his keyblade onto the creature's head, stunning it and causing the spinning to stop for a second, giving the others a chance to attack themselves.

Now Raisor just needed to figure out how to get out of the danger zone while falling or else he was going to end up on the ground...again.

Spoiler: count

Blotlings: 967/1000
Bloticle: 10/10

Bloticle 1: 107/1000

 

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

 

It seemed that the bloticle was now performing some kind of spinning attack. Beuce, being unable to get in close without being assaulted by an onslaught of rocky death, decided that unrivaled physical strength may not have been the most advantageous thing to have. So, a soft grey light enveloped his body, and eventually faded, revealing him to be in his base form. Now that he had regained the ability to use magic, he raised his keyblade into the air, causing enormous beams of light to rain down from the sky and assault their enemy.

Being on its last leg, the bloticle was getting desperate. From beneath Beuce, the earth rumbled, and a spike shot up which he narrowly avoided. Quickly enough, the same thing happened again and again, with increasing frequency. Beuce was in full sprint, trying to avoid being impaled. After a few minutes of this, it occurred to Beuce that he had the ability to fly. Hindsight is 20/20. Mounting his keyblade glider, he raised himself high enough to avoid the range of the spikes.

Spoiler: count

Wasteland: 94% Left

Living
-Blotlings: 967/1000
-Bloticle: 10/10

Injured:
Bloticle 1, Ruler of the Ever Shifting Sand - Billy: 55/1000

 

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

 

'Take on groups of eight at a time. You've got this,' Base told himself, working through the Anxiety to reach the end goal. The blotlings seemed to be catching on that they were no longer impervious to attack, so they dashed and dodged away from him. They were thinning themselves out in their numbers, but that just made it all the easier for him to cut between their flanks. They were hard to catch though...

"Base you were here for a bit! Base! You alright?"

"Huh? Well..." he looked to the Blotlings he was taking care of, and then to the Bloticle everyone else was tackling. "I'm doing just fine. You guys take care of that one for now, and I'll try to clear the field of these little guys before I help you out."

Meanwhile,

Mickey was having a rocky time with the Earth Bloticle. Strong-willed as he was, Mickey realized all too well that there were nine more of the giant leeches to deal with after this one, and each would be its own, lengthy challenge. It was taking a toll on everyone else too. He'd lost track of where the SOS Keybladers had gone, but spotted Stratos rolling along when he thought to take a look.

"Oh my gosh!" he exclaimed, running to the rescue. Dodging the spikes with each second being a close call, Mickey reached with all his might for Stratos' hand and pulled the ally to his feet and away from the spikes. When the spikes made an effort to continue tracking him, Mickey blocked with his own Keyblade and sent the hazards reeling back to their origin. Judging by the quake that erupted within the Bloticle as they made impact, giving it a taste of its own medicine had nearly crippled the heinous tentacle.

"Clear out! That thing's bound't collapse!"

"Not yet it's not. One more strike-" Base launched in and struck the final blow to the Bloticle, forcing it to rupture, collapse, and dissipate into blobs of paint and paint thinner. "There. Who's up for the next one?"

Spoiler: Count

Wasteland: 94% Left

Living
-Blotlings: 967/1000
-Bloticle: 9/10

Injured:

Defeated:
Bloticle 1, Ruler of the Ever Shifting Sand - Billy: 0/1000

 

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]

 

Kross was having his own struggles. An angry mind clouds the senses and all he could do was defend and deflect. He breathed heavily, eyes set in a determined glare."I can't lose here, this is not where it ends." He steadied his breathing, dug his feet into the ground and summoned his strength from his keyblade."Master Yen Sid is counting on us."

Those words from his own seemed to be his boost. Honey eyes blazing, glare set and key in hand, he flashed away. Ripping, slicing and tearing resounded in his ear. Still he steadied himself. He gave a grin and reached out, giving a thumbs up as four blotlings vanished.

Blotlings: 955/1000

Bloticle: 9/10

Blotling: 2/3

 

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

 

Now that their long battle with the rocky bloticle had passed, it was time to move onto the next one. Looking over at it, the element it possessed was abundantly clear. A massive electrical storm was crackling all around the thing. Stratos was trying to get through a massive horde of blotlings all while being constantly assaulted by bolts of lightning. There didn't really seem to be much he could do about the lightning, but he could carve a path for him. Funnily enough, Stratos just seemed to be a complete aggro magnet. Things always just seemed to be completely intent on killing him. Maybe he'd gotten notorious among big enemies as the giant slayer.

Running into the horde, Beuce slid along the ground, his keyblade in front of him. Blotlings seemed to be taken out fairly easily, and as such, several of them were mowed down by the simple command. Continuing his forward charge, Beuce coated himself in a barrier of light and rammed his way through more of them. Maybe if he continued on like this, he'd manage to break through to the other side, at which point they would most likely stop bothering them because reasons.

Spoiler: count

Wasteland 93% Left

Living
-Blotlings: 938/1000
-Bloticle: 9/10

Injured
-Blotling: 1/3

 

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

 

His charge was somewhat impeded by the fact lightning was now actively raining down and trying to kill him. Funny how that works. A bright flash of light appeared a split second before the lightning hit, allowing him to dodge to the side. For some reason, he felt the need to count the number of bolts he'd dodged consecutively. 'One...' Another bolt struck at him, which he promptly avoided. 'Two...' Yet another bolt struck towards him, only this time hitting dead on and exploding at him. 'Dammit.' Beuce cured himself, and got back up to his feet. Man, Stratos wasn't kidding when he said that any damage they took was completely arbitrary.

'One...Two...Dammit!" Beuce, thoroughly fed up with his inability to dodge lightning, decided to take out his frustration on unsuspecting nearby blotlings. Cherry blossoms floated down through the air, as he mentally prepared himself for an incredibly powerful str- "DAMMIT!" He screamed in frustration as lightning once again struck him, and proceeded to make a crude gesture at the bloticle. It now being personal, he cut an inky swath through the blotlings, as he wanted that tentacle dead.

Spoiler: count

Wasteland 93% Left

Living
-Blotlings: 920/1000
-Bloticle: 9/10

 

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

 

Beuce was cutting down blotlings left and right. Thanks to the cure spells, he'd managed to heal away any significant damage, and thanks to the blotlings being abundant and ready to kill, they provided him with plentiful MP. They'd almost reached the thing, and once they did, it'd be a trying fight. Though, Beuce was more than ready for that. He'd been through many trying fights, just the same as all the others here. Plus, he had his right hand man, Stratos, with him. They couldn't possibly lose.

Some of the newer kinds of blotlings, charged with some kind of electrical power, came at him. Their speed was far beyond the normal blotlings, and he only barely managed to avoid being struck dead in the face by one. If he'd been any slower, it would have...Well given he was tanking lightning with virtually no repercussions he wasn't sure what it would have done, exactly. Nevertheless, it needed to die. It circled around to come at him again, but was met with a poison-coated keyblade, which dealt with it fairly quickly.

Spoiler: Counter

Wasteland 93% Left

Living
-Blotlings: 903/1000
-Bloticle: 9/10

Injured:
-Blotling: 2/3

 

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

 

Beuce had finally carved his way through the ranks of the blotlings and made it to Larry. He glared at the bloticle, and thought that it wasn't even bipedal. Now, he was accustom to seemingly random thoughts, as though it were simply referring to something that happened previously for the amusement of some kind of higher beings. He didn't like to question it, and simply went with the flow of things. Raising his keyblade, he put forth mana into it, and unlocked a hole in the lanes between, calling an entity from beyond it.

"Well well, It looks like you're in quite the bind. You managed to work your way into the situations quite often, I find"

Said a disembodied voice. It was like nails on a chalkboard and sent shivers down Beuce's spine. He absolutely hated that thing, but it would help in the fight. The only questions were how and who. "Cut the rhyming crap. We both know why i called you here." The wielder held out his arm. The Cheshire cat appeared and gave a sinister laugh. It placed its claws against that man's forearm, and began to rake down it, causing blood to run down as it took the power of heart Beuce offered.

"You strike a deal with the devil so easily. I suppose we'll see if the gamble proves to be beneficial." The demonic cat began to fade out, leaving only its eyes and mouth, giving a massive grin. Echoic out, the cat gave one last word, before vanishing completely. "It's showtime." From the face had been, a light spread over the area, giving everything a magenta glow to it. The lightning had temporarily stopped. Beuce initially thought that it was due to the wait for what the cheshire cat would do, but realized it wasn't them, but him. His sense of time had been distorted enough so that everything else seemed to be in slow motion, only inching along. It wasn't every day that one was able to see lightning forming from the sky in a frame-by-frame rate. Beuce ran up to the bloticle unimpeded due to his unimaginable speed, and began striking it as many times as he could.

Spoiler: Count

Wasteland 92% Left

Living
-Blotlings: 900/1000
-Bloticle: 9/10

Injured:
Decree of the Thunderlord - Larry: 957/1000

 

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