[center][h3]Dethroning the King of Rock[/h3]
[color=crimson]Edelgard von Hresvelg[/color] & Roland
[b]Word count:[/b] 2,282 words (+3) [/center]

[color=crimson]”Would that be a stroke of fortune, or merely our demise? I mean no offense to your skill, but I doubt the two of us alone would be sufficient to take on a Guardian, if the threat they pose has not been overstated by the others.[/color] Edelgard replied casually to Roland, trying to size up the utterly massive zombie before them. Given that they could only see the upper third or so of it, their enemy's scale was unprecedented for her. Even Absalom was not this large.

[color=d7d7d7]”Probably not with these abnormalities, no.”[/color] Roland said, giving his own banter, still, it didn’t help you in a fight to lose your nerve upon seeing an enemy like this. Granted, this thing was HUGE, usually things in the City didn’t get this bad or big.. Usually. [color=d7d7d7]”But we should probably be careful with this thing, let's just hope his size makes him slow.”[/color]

[color=crimson]”Indeed.[/color] Edelgard hefted her shield and began approaching, as Killabilly began launching zombies their way. [color=crimson]”Great. He means to slow us with mere fodder. Let us dispatch these distractions and make haste.”[/color] Edelgard sighed, stepping forward to crush a zombie beneath her axe as the arena slowly filled with easily-slain zombies.

Roland meanwhile really didn’t have much time to deal with these small things and let this giant charge up some kind of super attack or something and pulled out Gold Rush, equipping the EGO of a giant spiked golden gauntlet. This turned Roland into a [url=http://static.wikia.nocookie.net/library-of-ruina/images/c/c3/BossRolandF1P4EnemySprite.png/revision/latest?cb=20201128234720] caped warrior king[/url] while turning the whole area into an opulent throne room of golden pillars. Portals appeared in front and behind every zombie as well as Killabilly and Roland reared back and punched forward, zooming through each portal as if it was a straight line and smacking every zombie that couldn’t defend itself with his mighty gauntlet the size of his torso and gaining strength for every successful zombie hit. This ended with a punch on Killabilly who just took the punch in the stomach and didn’t seem all that phased, Roland clashing but failing and getting knocked away from a retaliatory hit from the big guy.

Edelgard gaped at Roland's attack, but quickly shook off her shock and ran forward towards Killabilly, who was quick to react to his successful defense against the Fixer. He laughed and swiped his hand at the pair, a trio of cadillacs appearing from nowhere and launching forward, threatening to bowl them over and crush them with sheer momentum.

Edelgard planted her feet in defiance, hefting her shield and roaring angrily. She pivoted stance slightly as the cadillac struck, and the bone-tingling shriek of metal on metal sounded out as the projectile vehicle deflected off of her shield, though not without having pushed her back a solid five feet. Bones aching and breath heavy, Edelgard cast a Heal spell to revitalize herself before advancing once more.

[color=d7d7d7]”Phew, thanks!”[/color] Roland said. Having done a large amount of damage to Roland’s current fighting partner, a mark that looked like a serpentine eye appeared over Killabilly making him the “villain”. All attacks from this point forward would be doing a bit of extra damage to him and healing whoever was lowest a bit upon successful landing of the attack. And with how big he is and how he was throwing CARS now, that would probably be necessary. 

Speaking of attacks, Roland went in for a few more, using his giant two handed sword to cut a car in half before successfully striking Hillabilly with it. Although his followups of single swordplay didn’t play out as well as his sword was blocked or deflected and the exchange would end up with Roland riding on top of a car towards Edelgard, shooting a farewell shotgun blast before hopping off and doing a tumble to the ground.

Getting up from the ground, Roland decided to use a few ranged attacks to see what Edelgard could do. He did have something in his back pocket, but he doubted it’d finish this thing in one go.


Having been forced to leap to the side to avoid the second car, Edelgard stood up and shook her head before rushing forward again. This monster was a nuisance! The sheer weight behind the cars he was throwing could not simply be ignored, and if she tried to deflect them all like the first one, she'd wind up being ground down before too long. Even her prodigious durability couldn’t stand up to several thousand-pound vehicles being flung into her. 

Reaching one of Killabilly’s hands laid upon the platform they were standing upon, Edelgard brought Aymr down on his finger, feeling and hearing the crack of bone as her ax shattered the joint it hit. Tearing free the blade, she swung again, this hit slicing clear through the flesh and severing the digit. In retaliation, Killabilly roared in pain, lifting his hand from the platform and slamming his incredibly long tongue down like a whip, attempting to slam into Edelgard and sending her to her knees. However Roland dashed up and clashed with the tongue using his daggers, able to parry it and cancel the attack out thanks to Intemperance making it so Roland couldn't’ fail the clash protecting his ally.

[color=d7d7d7]”So whats the plan?”[/color] Roland said to Edelgard, still figuring out what they could do and how they could work together to take this giant zombie down.

[color=crimson]”I had been planning to carve his hands to pieces so we could render him unable to attack, but he appears to be regenerating his finger as we speak.”[/color] Edelgard reported and, true to her words, Killabilly’s finger was already regrowing. [color=crimson]”We will need to make an opportunity to deal damage so severe that it leaves him vulnerable until it is regenerated. Perhaps his head?”[/color]

[color=d7d7d7]”Alright, I’ll try to get an opening for you to do some serious damage. You’ll know the signal when you see it.”[/color] Roland said. Now, getting the attention of something wasn’t really something he did, but even Killabilly would see this. Starting first with a shot from his rifle to make sure Killlabilly was paying attention, Roland used his other EGO page, In the Name of Love and Hate, and adorned himself in a [url=http://static.wikia.nocookie.net/library-of-ruina/images/f/fa/BossRolandF1P1EnemySprite.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20201128234701]strange pink winged snake humanoid[/url] outfit, while behind him appeared a giant heart shaped portal and the arena temporarily changed to a cityscape with a bright purple fog rolling in. Although getting Killabilly’s attention like this lead to a situation Roland wasn’t expecting as Killabilly fired a laser from his mouth at Roland as Roland unleashed his EGO attack, which was also a massive laser from said heart portal causing both lasers to clash and struggle against each other keeping the attention of both participants for a short time.

Edelgard had to force herself not to think on just how strange this man and his powers were, instead attacking Killabilly’s arm with Flickering Flower to distract and stun him for a few moments. Her axe carved into his palm as the crest of Seiros flared, boosting the Ability’s power further. With a few seconds to act, she climbed onto the titanic zombie’s arm and pointed at his face, casting Fire to launch a ball of flames at his face.

Roland meanwhile didn’t have anything flashy left, at least not yet. Although once he hit the zombie with his hammer, he finally had something useful. Much like Edelgard, he went for the head, and after having used 9 different weapons from his attacks, he used Furioso. With Edelgard having his attention, Roland was able to strike the zombie with a long, flashy combo involving all 9 of his used weapons dealing a hefty chunk of damage and keeping the zombie stunned for a moment for Edelgard to followup with something that should hopefully help put this thing down.

Edelgard, unfortunately, did not have much left to fire off. Instead, she used the time he was stunned to further scale his body until she reached his shoulder, where she embedded Aymr into his collarbone, the sound of bone breaking filling the arena. She roared and hefted her axe again, this time slamming her shield into the wound left by her weapon, pushing against it like a prybar. Killabilly roared as he started to regain his senses, and brought his other arm up to grab Edelgard from his shoulder, squeezing onto her roughly. For now, her armor held, but it wouldn’t last forever.

Roland himself was mostly out of big tricks, so all he could do was build himself up again. A couple tricks he did have though were some of his new powers. First, pulling out the ink brush he got from absorbing one spirit, he threw a glob of ink at Edelgard which would soon explode in an eruption of ink tentacles to free her from Killabilly’s grip, then summoned another ink glob which turned into a vengeful spirit familiar to Roland which went after Killabilly’s throat and made him unable to use his laser. The other thing he had to help was an attempt to possibly cut off his arm with an enhanced massive two hander buffed by his other spirit right at the shoulder. Unlike Edelgard, Roland was much more agile and able to move around Killabilly, which was probably why he went after his companion. And with Killabilly having a bit of trouble dealing with Roland, he started to build up his Furioso again by using his lance, daggers, and sword on Killabilly’s head to rip his eyes out and make the fight much easier. 

The exploding glob of ink managed to pry Killabilly’s hand open just enough for Edelgard to brace herself against his palm and lop off a pair of fingers, affording her escape. She climbed over his hand and back to his shoulder, slamming Aymr into the titanic zombie’s neck like a lumberjack to a tree. Roland’s attack to the wounded shoulder did not quite remove Killabilly’s arm, but it did deepen the wound even further, exposing part of the zombie’s undead chest cavity, revealing what looked like a hollow within. [color=crimson]”There! We may be able to strike more permanently from inside!”[/color] She called, dragging Aymr through and out Killabilly’s neck. [color=crimson]”While I have his attention, deal the mortal blow!”[/color]

[color=d7d7d7]”Eww, this sucks.”[/color] Roland said, not all that interested in getting inside this bloody thing but if that was the only way to kill it… Roland sighed, got his swords out, and went to town carving up the inside hollow of Killabilly. All while cursing at how disgusting it was. Usually he tried to stay out of the gullet of things, not go into one, but there was some weird glow in here, and a lot of flesh tentacle things. Nothing too big that Roland couldn’t cut through with his swords and various weapons, but it upped the gross factor by quite a lot. A gross factor that caused him to get hit a couple times by said tentacles as he was a bit more apprehensive about them than he should’ve been.

It took a bit, but eventually Roland found his way through the hollow flesh to some kind of corpse tied to a heart. Roland could only guess this was the weak point, and he was done with dealing with this whole thing, so he started carving and shooting up this accursed creature’s heart. In doing so, he gained Emotion level 5 at some point during his trek through the giant zombies innards and gained Acidic Sludge, granted its voice was only heard by Roland. This was probably a poor time to trigger such an effect, but maybe it was a blessing in disguise as the wave of highly corrosive acidic sludge drenched the core of Killabilly and made it much, much easier to hack away. It didn’t take long until Edelgard could see Killabilly starting to glow, and with a poof of page and a wisp of light, Roland was in mid air holding a book of Killabilly.


With a bit of a stumbling landing roll, Roland got back up on his feet and faced Edelgard. [color=d7d7d7]”Funny thing, I got the feeling this isn’t the first time I’ve done something like this. But I can’t remember the first time… It makes me sick thinking about it though.”[/color] He said, not having come out of his little impromptu internal adventure unscathed, covered in weird fluids, a couple tentacle smacks visible, and overall just not in a good mood.

With the defeat of the boss of this area, an additional reward was offered to Roland. A series of 3 items appeared before him. [i]Ares' Aid, Decaying Implosion, Lone Ranger.[/i]. Roland wasn’t sure what did what, nor was he really familiar with the name of the named item, so seeing as they were all the same to him, he grabbed Decaying Implosion. Upon doing so, he was blessed with a power, with the other 2 options disappearing. [color=d7d7d7]”Huh, wonder what that is about.”[/color] Roland said, a bit confused. [color=d7d7d7]”Also, where do we go now?”[/color]

Edelgard, having spent the time Roland was inside Killabilly fending off his feeble attempts at grabbing her again, also saw the three cards appear before her. Carefully considering her options, she chose the one that made her spells more versatile.

[hider=For Edelgard][b]Bouncing Spells:[/b] - causes most spells to bounce twice on impact, allowing them to take effect repeatedly, but unpredictably[/hider]

[color=crimson]”Thank you for finishing that vile…thing…off. From here, I suppose we find another vein to traverse, and head deeper within.”[/color] With Killabilly gone, the pair could see a series of platforms behind and under where his torso had been, leading to a more fleshy section of the Qliphoth, this part less severely impacted by the Floodfestation. [color=crimson]”I believe that will be our means of egress.”[/color]