
wordcount: 2686 (+3 exp)
Bowser Jr: Level 14 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////(281/140)
Rika: Level 10 EXP: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////(197/100)
Lvl 14 Geralt (114/140) -> (117/140)
Lvl 10 Roxas (7/100) -> (10/100)
”Oh hey, it's those banana tree lizards from the land of adventure” Jr called over to the whale riders as they sailed through the sands, pointing skywards to a small herd of Tropius soaring above them, before asking ”wonder what they’re doing out here?”
”My Pokedex says it’s called a… Tropius.” Roxas said, looking at the screen of his Rotom Phone.
“Could be migrating.” Geralt guessed, though he could do more than that, having little knowledge of Pokemon habits and biology.
Having been staring up at the flying plant dinos as well, Rika didn’t notice when they went over the rim of a perfectly circular pit with steep slopes of sand till it was too late. Initially, however, everything was fine, just an unexpected little dip, but then when the whale started to climb back up, it found the loose grains offered no grip to its supernatural sand swimming, causing it to start sliding backwards deeper into the pit and towards the center, where a faint glow could be seen.
”Huh? What’s going on?” Rika asked, as they slid down what Jr, who had halted at the edge of the pit, identified loudly as a ”Sand trap!”
“Dammit!” Geralt cursed, holding tightly to the whale even as he tried to see what it was that had laid the trap. It was well-hidden, though, so he gave that up in favor of keeping a grip on their summoned mount.
The whale sunk and sunk, and then when it got close, the glow in the center suddenly burst up as the Balahara that had dug the pit burst from the sand, lunging for the whale, prompting a shriek of alarm from Rika as she panic tapped her featherfall rune, launching her straight up into the air. The Balahara just barely missed her, but it had not been aiming for her, and instead plunged down onto the back of the whale, smashing its spine in the process and then crushing it beneath its weight.
”Again!” was Rika’s complaint as she double jumped, and then used her grapple to latch onto a nearby tree, and reel herself to it and, thus, to safety.
Knocked off the whale by the Balahara's impact, Geralt scrambled up the edge of the sand pit they'd tumbled into, only looking back to make sure the others had escaped as he escaped the trap.
As for Roxas, when they started to fall he generated a platform of virtual cubes that he could land on to avoid falling toward the waiting Balahara. ”What even is that thing?” He asked.
Below, the beast started to rip chunks out of the crippled whale while it was still alive. It seemed content to simply do so, till Jr launched a hail of iron knives and his Brionne a bubble beam at it in retaliation for the attack on his sister.
Unfortunately, the hastily forged knives simply shattered against its scales, and the beam of water failed to leave any lasting harm. Double unfortunately, the beast took issue with this, raising its head opening its maw, revealing its glowing interior, and promptly spitting a massive glob of water (large enough to engulf the Ace Cadet) at the prince and his mon, prompting both to duck into the car, and then to be blasted back as the water splashed into them, drenching them with a stamina regen reducing waterblight debuff.
The Balahara then turned this attack on Roxas and Geralt in turn, aiming, it seemed, to shoo off these morsels from its prize.
The glob of water was simple enough to dodge, though Geralt had trouble regaining solid footing in the sand when he landed hard. Assistant Manager would be too slow to fight here, so he transformed again into Ardor Blossom, hurling a fireball in retaliation at the monster.
”Reflect!” Roxas cried out, instinctively managing to recall and cast a protective Reflectga spell on himself. It conjured an omnidirectional shield around him that was only up for a second. But in that second the water glob collided with it and as a result the intended damage was reflected back at the Balahara instead.
While the first projectile got the Balahara’s attention as it scorched the tough armor notably but not significantly, the second reflected one very much caught the monster by surprise. Receiving a mouthful of its own spit was not something it could have ever expected, and though it was more confusing than it was damaging, the beast having to swallow gave the seekers a moment to act against it.
Rika did so by deploying her many drones. Two scout planes launched from her gauntlet’s hangers, the red baron drones from her back, all of them forming an arch of machines hovering over her head and arms. Col. Droneman joined them, floating up to the top of the formation, and deploying his solar panels, drinking in the sun, and activating his boon.
All at once all the drones and planes had a small gimbal turret mounted minigun spawn under their nose, except for one of the red baron drones which had an entire robot arm holding a handgun sprout from one side. With these, the ship girl immediately opened fire, resulting in an onslaught of 81 rounds being fired every single second at the Balahara.
Unfortunately, just like her brother’s knives, these small projectiles shattered or were deflected by the beast’s tough armor that seemed to have no real weak spots. The volley of mini-missiles fired from every drone in response to every 1/10 bullet impacts certainly had more of an impact however, though the damage to the armor was rather spread out.
Geralt took advantage of the Balahara's confusion to lob a few more fireballs at it, but he noticed that they didn't seem to be having much of an effect in its tough hide. “Hide’s too tough for weaker attacks! We need to hit it with something big!” He yelled to the others.
Roxas wasn’t faring much better with his Firaga spells. They didn’t appear to be doing much more damage than Geralt’s fireballs were. He switched it up and tried a Blizzaga instead that appeared to garner the same result. Then he switched up again and fired a couple of charged shots from his RockGun for the self-same result.
All this incoming fire very much convinced the Balahara that the smallfry were very much a threat, prompting it to lunge forwards into the sand, corkscrewing its body as it did so to drill into the sand of its own pit. Then the ground beneath Geralt began to suddenly stink down into a minute sand trap before the beast burst up from below. It rose up half its length, and then arched its form down towards Roxas’ floating platform, before burying back into the sand at a shallower arc, the land bulging as it passed beneath the Seekers and emerged atop a dune behind them.
There it lunged at Jr, who’d only just emptied his clown car, forcing the prince to deploy his clown car’s wheels and race back towards the rest of the seekers to avoid the attack, dashing between them as the Balahara bore down on them.
Geralt had too little time to react, and was tossed into the air by the Balahara's emergence, landing roughly in the sand with a grunt. He forced himself to his feet slowly, turning to find the Balahara atop the dune, preparing for them to attack. He transformed back to his normal Identity and quickly cast Quen on himself to protect from further attack.
Roxas ditched his platform just before the Balahara crashed into it. And while the cubes obviously did their touch damage, that too didn’t appear to phase the creature much. Roxas landed on the sand just outside of the pit and hurled his Keyblades down toward where the Balahara was. He was starting to wish he had his Fortune summon, thinking maybe her railgun shot would actually hurt this thing. But unfortunately she was still in storage and Roxas still only had Kayano and Poltergeist to work with. So he summoned Kayano and had her blast the beast from below with a geyser of dark water.
The water blast threw off the Balahara’s charge, causing it to stumble off course, and then to roll the side to get the spectral water off of it. The actual impact of the water seemed to have had little impact, but the darkness within it had caused some of the already damaged scales to blacken as it seeped into small gaps.
The striker also shuffled the seekers around, mainly by putting Roxas up in the tree Rika had grappled too, and shoving both royal children into the frontlines. It was only thanks to Balahara taking a sand bath that this didn’t have dire consequences, but a moment later it reared up, jaw opening up, preparing to deliver a face slam down on the pair.
Before it could however, Jr recovered from the confusion of his relocation just enough to panic summon Blodia, or rather its massive fist, which slammed into the side of the Balahara’s head, knocking the blow it had been attempting to deliver off course, and briefly leaving it stunned, face first in the sand. While Dazzle hit it with a blast of his disarming voice Rika took this opportunity to dash in (the accompanying tidal burst also doing little to the monster) and to then deliver one, two, and then a third (Kayano empowered) punch into the spot the giant robot’s fist had impacted with. As she struck gauntlet’s Denting Blows stacking up and then on the third blow triggered it, cracking some of the armor on the beast’s face on the final hit she delivered before backing off.
Roxas was momentarily taken aback by his sudden relocation, having forgotten about this aspect of Kayano. And so he saw his places had been switched with Rika, and that she and her brother had been forced into close range against the Balahara. ”Uh oh, forgot about that, uh…” His mind raced on what to do about this and an idea popped in his head, ”Wind!” He chanted, successfully recalling how to cast the Aeroga spell. A shielding whirlwind swirled around Jr’s body which would halve all incoming damage against him for the next 18 seconds. And then he cast the spell again, targeting Rika. She would benefit from the same shield of wind as well as the shield itself dealing minor wind-elemental touch damage to the Balahara while she was striking it.
Geralt was standing on the ridge, steel sword in hand as he recited the chant for one of his spells: “Oh divine spear, run mine enemy through! Holy Lance!” As he finished the chant, the telltale five spears of light appeared around the Balahara, the sixth hanging overhead like a sword of Damocles. Each launched itself into the monster, taking advantage of its stunning to inflict its massive damage.
Five of the spears punched into the beast’s dark water weakened armor, getting about half way in and then leaving bleeding holes after they dissipated. The sixth struck right into the patch of armor Rika had softened up, skewering all the way through one of the beast’s two lower jaws. It roared in pain as it staggered to its feet, but the skewered mouth part didn’t manage to close, leaving a third of the fleshy interior of its maw permanently weak and exposed.
”Yeah! We got it on the ropes now!” Jr cheered, only to make a panicked shout as it whipped around, slapping both him and his sister with its tail, and sending both tumbling backwards into the sand. Fortunately Roxas’ wind barriers softened this blow considerably, causing it to only pop Rika’s energy shield, and smash jr’s clown car’s ablative armor. It still left them concussed however, but rather than follow up on this, the beast kept facing away from them and began to hustle away on foot, now unable to burrow through sand thanks to its broken jaw, leaving six trails of blood as it did so.
“Go after it, or let it be?” Geralt asked, starting to slide down the sand to the others. “Your trip, your call.” He added, looking at Junior and Rika.
The answer which Rika at least had already decided on before being asked came in the form of the sand beside the Balahara before her white whale burst from it, having escaped the sandpit now that the beast that had dug it was no longer maintaining it. It was also in a terrible state, and yet by the will of its creator it still fell upon the monster that had tried to eat it with all the might it had left. A volley of three bombs was spat out of its mouth, colliding with the beast and tossing it to the side, before cannons roared, punching shells into its underbelly.
This was not quite enough to fell the beast, and so the whale fell upon it, biting at it while being clawed at and bit in inturn, two great monsters wrestling in the sand as the lifeblood rapidly drained out.
Well, until Jr picked himself up and cast ”Benediction!” upon the wounded whale, fully healing it and giving it the edge. After that it was all over, and with a last crushing bite the Balahara’s armor finally buckled and broke, allowing the whale to crush the life out of it, causing it to burst into ash in its maw.
”Finally” Rika sighed, as she called the whale back to them, delivering the spirit to them in the process, balanced atop the whale’s snout.
”Glad that’s over.” Roxas murmured, dispelling his Keyblades and using Flow Motion to parkour his way back onto the whale’s back. ”I feel a little bad taking down something that was just trying to eat, but… Self-defense, I guess.” He concluded with a shrug.
”Shouldn’t have messed with us!” Jr replied, the prince having hopped out to repair his clown car. Thanks to the new ablative armor tech, all this involved was him forging new armor plates out of his magic iron, before slapping them onto the outside of his vehicle, and then with a swipe of his paintbrush applying the machine’s ‘makeup’ at which point he was ready to go.
Rika merely nodded to the sentiment as she stepped up and retrieved the spoil of her vengeful whale attack, before asking ”Anyone? Or store it to make stuff with?”
“Store it. Ace might know the best way to use that thing. His folk make weapons and armor out of monsters I'd never dream of fighting.” Geralt advised once he climbed back atop the whale. “Any healing needed?” He followed up.
”Not me.” Roxas confirmed. ”I think the whale was the one who took most of the punishment here.”
”I’m good” Jr replied from his car (which had taken most of the beating and mostly rattled him and Dazzle around inside of it while it was knocked about) to which Rika added a ”Same” as she got them underway again, sailing deeper into the desert, and now keeping a closer eye on where they were avoiding to avoid any more sand traps.