The Grand Battle S2G1! [Round Six: Eddelin City]

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

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The monster was agile, but Kracht soon had a good sense of its movements. As it dodged a blow from Kath, and then a cannonball from the ship, Kracht ran towards it and gave it a solid punch. The creature was thrown backwards into a wall of the heart.

The hydra shrieked; the impact had hurt it badly. Its body started to tremble in pain.

And as it did, the pirate ship rocked back and forth heavily, much to the dismay of its passengers - at least, for those who couldn't simply float above the disarray. Although Xadrez didn't particularly appreciate Maxwell clinging to his obsidian disc for stability.

Arkal was flung towards the side of the ship, and gripped the railing in desperation. When the shaking calmed, he picked himself up and looked over the side to see if he could figure out what the hell was going on.

He noticed an imprint in the wall, and Kracht and... somebody else... fighting a... something.

A moment later, Kracht landed another fortunate strike on his foe, and the shaking began again. Arkal was smart enough to put two and two together.

Besides which... from this vantage point, Kracht was starting to look very unlucky.

The second tremor was worse. Fortunately, the first had put the crew on guard. Arkal shouted to them at the top of his lungs.

"WE'VE GOT TO BREAK UP THAT FIGHT OR THE SHIP WILL BE SMASHED!"

A tan, round platform suddenly materialized next to him. It seemed to be waiting expectantly.

"A ride, huh? Well, I guess I could use it. It'd be tough to swim with this anvil, after all."

The smith hopped on, and the Ovoid floated him down towards the battle.

More platforms appeared; the crew looked at them hesitantly, until Crossbones spoke up.

"What are ye waitin' for, ya scurvy bilge rats? Help that feller out!" He paused. "And get me hat while yer down there! Whoever brings it back is me new first mate!"

For a moment, First Mate Bartleby looked like he had something to say about the captain's offer. The urge soon vanished as he saw Crossbones glaring at him.

Bartleby was a smart enough man to realize that his best chance at keeping his current job was to retrieve the hat himself. He hopped onto the nearest tan platform as it floated downward.

Kath was the first to notice the oncoming forces, largely due to the fact that she was neither enchanted nor feral; Kracht and the monster were too focused on each other. For the briefest moment, Kath considered shouting a warning to her partner, but the thought was quickly pushed aside when she realized that she could take advantage of the situation.

And so, as an aging blacksmith and a few dozen pirates jumped down and tried to stand between Kath's enchanted "boyfriend" and the monster protecting the heart, the mermaid simply slipped away. The monster was really just a diversion for her, after all. If it was kept busy, she could work uninterrupted.

"I'll handle Kracht!" Arkal shouted as he hopped off his platform. "The rest of you, hold off that monster!"

This strategy was ignored by First Mate Bartleby, driven as he was by the need for job security. He leapt from his Ovoid mount directly at Kracht's head; he received a green fist directly in his face as the crystalline man spun around to see what all the commotion was about.

The blow caved his skull in. Kracht then flung Bartleby's corpse at a pair of pirates and prepared to turn his attention back to the leviathan.

At least, until Arkal hit him in the back of the head with a log. Kracht turned to deal with the latest nuisance.

"Kracht, what the hell are you doing?" Arkal shouted. "You're going to kill us all if you fight that thing that way! Are you that desperate to get rid of Xadrez?"

"Who are you, and who is this Xadrez?" Kracht replied, annoyed. "Never mind. It is irrelevant. All that matters is that you are in the way. I must slay this fiend for my lady Kath."

He lunged towards Arkal. The smith dodged, and flung his log-flail towards Kracht's feet. His legs were caught on the thick wire connecting the logs, and he fell to the ground.

But it was a minor nuisance; he was made from a much stronger material than the wire, after all. He carefully picked himself up as best he could, and snapped the wire in two to free his legs.

The effort had, however, given Arkal ample time to ready his crossbow, now loaded with a flagpole from the ship. He launched it at Kracht, and the force of the shot knocked the green man backwards towards a pair of pirates.

Kracht grabbed one of them. The other took the opportunity to snatch the hat from Kracht's head, and then fled in hopes of living to see his promotion.

Kracht ignored the fleeing pirate, and threw the other back towards Arkal. The old man was interfering with his task for Kath, and that had turned him into a priority target.

The fact that Kath had apparently vanished didn't even cross his mind. Not that it would have mattered; he wanted her to be safe, after all.

Arkal ducked, and the pirate flew over his head, colliding with another pirate who had been just standing around wondering how the heck he was supposed to fight a dragon-thing which sometimes seemed only a little bigger than him, and sometimes seemed a lot bigger.

It didn't matter to Kracht. He ran towards the smith, ignoring everything else. Arkal pulled out his flamethrower mace, but he had no time to fire it before Kracht was upon him.

The crystalline man grabbed the smith by the neck.

"You have interfered. I will destroy you, and then club that monster to death with your corpse," Kracht said. "For Kath."

Then a small piece of Ovoid appeared between the two. It exploded.

Startled, Kracht's grip loosened as he was blown backwards. Arkal was also flung away, and dropped his mace in surprise.

The mace struck the ground with great force. Its internal systems were badly damaged.

If the former scrubots vocal circuits hadn't been severely damaged when Arkal had repurposed it, it would now be saying "WARNING: SYSTEM OVERLOAD."