Chapter 1055: Ragnarockers v. Grafted
Meanwhile, inside Undertow proper…
[Hey, I don’t mean to be rude, but can you guys end this fight quicker?! My springs are starting to get sore over from having to rescue so many people one after the other!]
[We’re trying, Spring Brawler!]
[These Grafted weirdos are hitting higher notes than anticipated.]
[And are surprisingly coordinated.]
[Hmm… y’all think now is a good time to try out that theory of mine?]
[Maybe.]*2
…Several Moments Earlier…
When the kaijin first made contact with the Grafted warriors, they were semi-isolated one-on-one matches.
However, as their battles went on and became more and more chaotic, these duels spilled into each other before turning into a team fight.
It first started when in an earlier moment of the fighting, Sophita was about to pierce Nepherage’s dome with an attack in the shape of a triangular cut gem. However, before it could make contact, Hurricroak’s fight with Gao Su reached a moment where they both tried to blow out the other’s eardrums via a empowered screams, and had forced themselves to be in position right in between both Nepherage and Sophita.
The colliding aether screams ended up shattering that crystal attack and knocked both the Grafted and the kaijin away from each other and into some recently collapsed buildings.
[Oof!]
[Watch it!]
Needless to say, this is when things turned into a two on two. Well, this is when Nepherage and Hurricroak decided to turn this into a two on two…after extracting themselves from the piles of rubble they were knocked into.
….
[Do you want to trade dance partners?]
[Nah.]
[Do you want to coordinate taking them down, together?]
[Alright.]
[Bueno!]
[Magma Cannon!]
[Thunder Volley!]
…
The kaijin managed to recover first, and once they did, they fired a coordinated attack that threatened to turn Sophita and Gao Su into a pile of deafend ashes.
But once again, outside interference occurred.
Thoom
[Heavy bastard!]*2
FWOOSH
[Ow! What the fuck?!]*2
[Gao Kan?!]
[Frosttusk!]
The battle between Gao Kan and ‘Frosttusk was significantly more physical in comparison to any other other fights occurring across the city.
Which, honestly, was to be expected when one side was a literal size changing giant, while the other’s main method of attacking was using chunks of ice created by absorbing heat.
Regardless, during their brawl, Gao Kan had opted to try and kick Frosttusk away like a soccer ball multiple times, but the mammoth viking kaijin proved himself to be significantly heavier and stronger than anticipated. This meant that Gao Kan could only knock Frosttusk away as opposed to being sent flying.
It was during this constant kicking though that the two ended up in the aformentioned two-on-two fight, and had intercepted Hurricroak and Nepherage’s coordinated assault.
Gao Kan almost got tripped up due to the concussive force of Hurricroak’s attack, while Frottusk took a blast of magma to the face.
Both were technically fine, just shocked at the sudden attacks.
…
[Sorry, Frosttusk!]
[It’s cool, I needed the heat infusion anyways.]
…
However, once both sides recovered from the initial shocks, Gao Kan and Frosttusk went to their respective sides in mutual understanding in what was to come.
They all knew that trying to fight independent of one another was essentially going to be more hassle than it was worth. So now the time had come for this fighting to be a proper team match, three-on-three!
Which they decided to confirm by performing combined attacks against each other.
…
[Magma Ram!]
[Magnetic Charge!]
[Arctic Road!]
…
The kaijin released a triplet of elemental attacks of magma, ice and thunder against the Grafted warriors, with Nepherage’s attack being the main focus.
A ram made of molten rock became wreathed in electrical energy, as a tunnel made of ice surrounded it. However, it wasn’t a simple ice tunnel and the electrical energy wasn’t just meant to empower the attack.
Frosttusk had made sure to create the tunnel while picking up whatever bits of metallic debris he could pick up from the surrounding rubble. As for the electrical energy, Hurricroak was actively manipulating it in such a way that it would magnetize the entire tunnel in a very specific sequence.
To put it bluntly, the kaijin had essentially made the aether empowered equivalent of a rail cannon.
As for the Grafted, they opted to go for a more…physical approach.
[Crystal Pillar!]
[Giant’s Kick!]
[Harmonic Havoc!]
Sophita injected [Chaos] and aether into the ground to create a massive crystal pillar. The pillar by itself wouldn’t be able to resist the incoming attack, but that wasn’t the point for it’s creation.
Gao Kan then followed up by kicking the pillar into a hail of crystal shards, infusing them with his power in the process and hardening them even further.
Finally Gao Su released an empowered note that resonate with very single crystal shards and caused them to vibrate at a frequency that turned them into sound empowered bullets.
In other words, if the kaijin were releasing a singular projectile that could devastate a mountain in a single blast, the Grafted were releasing a barrage of bullets that could tear apart the landscape per impact.
So now the question became, which attack would win.
Answer: Neither.
[Oh shit.]
[Duck man, duck!]
As the kaijin’s magnet rail empowered magma ram impacted the shards, several chunks of it was torn off on contact while the shards themselves were shattered into pieces.
However, both attacks still managed to maintain enough of their integrity to threaten their respective targets. This situation forced both sides to adopt emergency defensive maneuvers that wouldn’t outright prevent the damage, but at least mitigate it further.
Coordinating with Nepherage, Frosttusk released a blast of ice in order to create an ice wall thick enough to prevent the crystal bullets coming their way from perforating their bodies.
As for the Grafted, Sophita managed to reuse the broken crystal pillar to turn it into a wall for Gao Kan to use as a means to block the incoming magma ram.
Massive clouds of dust and a cacophony of explosions could be heard as both sides weathered the other’s assault.
[Bah! Dammit!]*2
Unfortunately, neither side proved able to fully resist the attacks.
Despite Frosttusk’s best efforts, several of the crystal shards proved to be just energetic enough to dig through his ice wall and slash through not only his body, but the bodies of Nepherage and Hurricroak as well. None of them could really bleed, but they could still feel the stinging pain and the sensation of [Chaos] leaking from their bodies.
As for the Grafted, despite Gao Kan’s best effort to reinforce the crystal wall, the magma ram proved to be too strong for the two of them and managed to eventually destroy the crystal wall.
Chunks of magma and molten rock managed to dig into Gao Kan’s giant flesh, while the smaller bits managed to singe and slash through the flesh of Sophita and Gao Su. Moreso the latter than the former though, as the chunks of rock that impacted her skin had caused cracks to form and bits and pieces to fall off.
Needless to say, neither side was happy at this result.
When the dust and smoke cleared, it became obvious that both sides were injured by the resulting clash…but not for long.
Both sides began to expend energy in patching up their wounds, especially Sophita as she needed to maintain her absolute perfection if she wanted to ensnare her beloved’s heart later.
However, this blatant display of healing abilities made one thing clear to either side.
[Wait a minute…]
[So, attrition is off the table.]
The only way to win this fight was going to be in a decisive, probably violent, manner.
How they were going to achieve such a result…well, the kaijin had a rather absurd idea.
…
[Is this seriously what it’s like fighting us? By the voids of madness, no wonder people get annoyed fighting us.]
[To be fair, I think part of the issue is that these Grafted assholes are like permanently empowered versions of what we do when we hop into people’s head. They got both normal aether power and kaijin power.]
[I honestly keep forgetting you talk faster once you’re warmed up.]
[No shit,]
[Wait, amigos,] Hurricroak interjected. [I just had a thought. Can we empower each other?]
[What?]*2
[Think about it. As kaijin, we can’t make our own Astra, Regalia and whatever, but we can do it for our lord and technically other people. Doesn’t that, technically mean, we could do it for each other?]
[Uh…Logos, Pathos. Can we turn into each other’s Regalia and Astra.]
=What you have suggested is technically possible, but none of the previous kaijin ever thought of doing that.=
[How and why?]*3
<=Power of ego. Nobody could ever agree on who would be taking the lead and who would be acting as the other's equipment.=>
[Well, I don’t think we’re going to have that problem, right guys?]
[Why’s that?]
[Because those mofos didn’t have a surefire of determing who should take the lead! Ready?]
[Aye.]
[Seriously?]
[I am, rock, paper, scissors…go!]
