attack of the killer tomatoes! Who: Drake, Juliette, Pyr, Conan What: The monthly squires outing! Where: Outside of Malboro Meadow When: This morning/afternoon Rating: PG Status: Complete!
The monthly outings had been going well. At least, Drake thought so. None of the squires seemed to complain, and while the group he took out varied from month to month, there were a few mainstays who really seemed to enjoy the opportunities. It was something that he was glad for; he remembered his training, where his mentor had tossed him into the desert and said, ever so helpfully, survive. He understood keeping the kids out of the attacks plaguing the city, and he knew that training was left up to the ones mentoring the squires, but he hadn’t heard of any of them taking any initiative and actually letting them fight things.
Since they had been doing so well, he’d decided that this month’s outing would be in the vicinity of Malboro Meadow. He’d never seen a Malboro outside of the shaded groves, but the area was rife with wolves and mandragoras. The wolves wouldn’t pose a problem - at least, not on their own; maybe in packs, but even then he doubted it - but the mandragoras would be annoying. And tricky. He didn’t really expect them to be able to take them down - he’d let them go at it for as long as they were learning something, and then he’d finish them off - but he was willing to be surprised.
After all, the squires were resourceful. And skilled. It was nice to know that they had a good lot on their hands.
Once they got to the area, Drake clapped his hands. “All right. You guys know the routine. Grab me if you need me for tips or if there’s something you want to work on. Stay in sight.” He grinned. “Have fun.” Drake had to admit: this had been a good idea. Just watching the squires get more comfortable in battle, watching as they grew and started to take stabs at tactics - it was amazing to watch. It almost made him wish he had a squire of his own, but with his workload, even finding one day a month to take them out was difficult. There was no way he’d be able to handle a squire on top of everything else.
It was good enough to be able to do this, though, and he was glad that they seemed to enjoy it.
It had been a few hours since they’d gotten there, and things were starting to settle down. There were less monsters appearing, at the very least. “All right,” he called out. “Let’s start to pack it --”
One of the blades of grass twitched, and Drake frowned, moving forward to get a closer look. There wasn’t any wind, and the squires weren’t in this area. As soon as he got close enough, something burst from the ground.
Mandragora.
“Well, looks like you’ve got one more.” Something moved. Spoke too soon. A quick glance around showed five enemies: a Mandragora, a Deadly Nightshade, a Wild Onion, a Pumpkin Head, and an Alraune. Since when did these things hang out here? “Five more.”
Juliette, who had been in the process of wiping her new claws of sap (the mandragoras oozed it like blood; it was rather disconcerting) looked up, then stared. The enemies were all of a type, but most of these were subtly different in a way that made her think she might never have seen them before…
Still, if Councilor Liu wasn’t concerned, she refused to be; and with him watching their backs she could not imagine this task to be impossible.
In any case, she thought (hoped) that they were like the mandragoras -- a nuisance, but not critically dangerous.
Or so she thought, until the one with a head like a tomato rushed her. It ploughed into her stomach with such unexpected force that she saw stars as she flew back, managing at the last minute to land in such a way that nothing broke, even if bruises would be another matter. As the thing bore down on her, she kicked out, and although it was not the most effective attack she had in her arsenal, at least the tomato was pushed back while she fixed her stance and prepared to go on the offensive.
When Pyr saw the weird little creature tackle Juliette, he moved to help her, but before he could get to it she had already kicked it off. He slashed down with one of his knives. It wouldn’t put the tomato thing down, but it’d do something, right? He thought of that first day at the docks, and the seemingly effortless way Alecta had found the weak points in the crabs’ armor and skewered them. If he could channel some of that, he thought, they’d be okay.
The attack connected, but the tomato barely flinched. It remained standing, and opened its mouth to let out a deafening Screech that had Pyr wincing instead.
And four more enemies on top of that—which he should have been paying better attention to. One of its friends, with a head like a weird onion rammed into him, pushing him on his back. He tried to push it off, like Juliette had, and managed it on the second attempt. Knives raised to a guard position, he launched into an attack.
No way was he going to get his ass kicked by a bunch of vegetables.
Conan swore under his breath as he entered the fray to assist his fellow squires. His mother often reminded him to eat his vegetables (This he heard in his mother’s shrill reprimands.) and the boy wondered whether this was the result listening to her or not listening to her. Either way, this seemed like Faram’s strange idea of a prank on their behalf.
Up close, Conan was of little help to Pyr and Juliette. Besides today, it had been some time since he had a proper spar and the action at this range was too much for him to keep on eye on. The funny-looking onion that Conan meant to attack was flailing and kicked him aside. “Shit,” he swore again, louder this time, as he landed on his bottom. With a gulp, he scrambled back to aid the pair. Taking advantage of the distracted monster, he charged in to flank Pyr’s right and slash at the onion’s side.
Though not enough to slay it, the creature’s attention now shifted.
Well, Drake thought, dashing forward and kicking the Alraune back, this is unexpected. He was going to have to step in and help out, otherwise everything would just go downhill from there. And here he’d thought that this would be a nice, quiet outing.
But, really. What were these things doing out here? He hadn’t seen these types of enemies out this way before - they usually prefered dry or secluded places, not plains. It was something he’d have to ask about - he hadn’t seen anything from the reports from the Rangers about this kind of thing.
The Pumpkin Head turned its attention on Drake and charged. Quickly, he rolled out of the way and hit it with Fire Dance from behind. Fortunately, the attack caught and the enemy shrieked.
The fact that Councilor Liu had entered the fray was, to Juliette, a red flag. If he felt the need to engage these enemies, not to mention his use of rather high-powered chi attacks (it was very hard not to turn and admire the technique), then these must be creatures more powerful than the others they’d fought so far.
And they were once again beginning to clump together, which couldn’t be good for any of them -- there was a sort of glow around them (healing? who knew?) as they bounced in place, hopping out of the way of their attacks. Juliette’s eyes narrowed.
“Separate them!” she suggested to the boys; she had to hope Councilor Liu knew which enemies were the most powerful. The onion head… she had seen this one before, hadn’t she? She thought it might be the most manageable to cull from the proverbial herd.
She attempted to do so, coming in from the side, striking at it with her claws as she attempted to get it to engage with her. If the three of them took this one out, and Councilor Liu the other, that would leave them with three, a far more reasonable number than five.
Juliette’s plan was better than no plan at all, and so Pyr moved to obey at once. The onion had turned its attention to her now, which gave him the perfect chance to strike it from behind. He dug his knives into it before it could engage him instead. Between the two of them, they would put it down fast enough that they could get it out of the way and deal with the others.
He was trying to watch the other four out of the corner of his eye while he and Juliette fought this one, without much success. Still, he decided it would be okay. Conan had more than his fair share of experience playing lookout—he’d shout a warning if they were about to get flanked. Never let it be said that the long hours they had devoted to pranking over the course of their lives had been a waste of time.
“On it!” Conan cried and followed Pyr in obeying Juliettte’s plan. The archer apprentice was no strategist; the best path to take would have to be someone else’s. As Pyr and Juliette struggled with the onion, he acted as a guard, able to get in one strike but mostly keeping an eye out for the other creatures.
“Pyr,” he called out to the fellow prankster, “from behind.” This was not unlike a warning, he thought, for a snowball ambush (except this battle had greater risks). On cue, Pyr turned to see the one that looked like a pumpkin stagger towards them. He raised his knives in a defensive stance, but before he could engage it, Drake stepped in.
The problem with a divide and conquer tactic - which was, Drake had to admit, the best one in this case - was that he had to keep his attention solely on his enemy and leave the squires to their own devices. Difficult, but as long as they called out to each other, he could make sure that they were okay.
The Pumpkin Head, however, was not. It was glaring at him, the orange veneer of its head dripping in slowly oozing goo. He was going to be avoiding orange colored things for a while, it seemed. He’d have to tell Rene pumpkin was off the menu for him. “Let’s finish this,” he muttered, launching into a quick attack, fists blurring as he alternated his punches.
The thing staggered back again, and again, and finally fell on its butt. Drake grabbed it and Suplexed it, and the thing died. “One down, four to go,” he muttered, turning back to the group.
One of them - it looked like an Alraune but different - hung in the background, as though surveying. If it wasn’t attacking yet - and he was sure that it would - it wasn’t a threat. The squires were taking care of the onion one, so Drake turned to the Alraune. “Looks like it’s you and me,” he told it, before calling out to the squires: “Attack from behind when possible. Conan, if you have your slingshot, keep its attention on you by hitting it with rocks. Juliette, Pyr, take advantage when it’s distracted.”
The onion was starting to flag in energy when she heard Councilor Liu’s command. She fended off another attack, executing a half-decent Flurry and sending the thing flying towards Pyr. Hopefully, the other squire would keep its attention (or, perhaps, a stone might fly by at any moment from Conan to distract it.)
While it picked itself up, she circled behind it, trusting that Pyr would see what she was doing and back her up. In its blind spot (at least, she hoped -- it was hard to imagine vegetables with eyesight), she waited for the right moment to attack it again.
Pyr didn’t need to be told. “Hey, ugly,” he told the creature. “It’s you and me now!”
Perhaps due to the insult, the onion rounded on him. Pyr expected another tackle, but instead a soft light started gathering around the monster. Magicks. That couldn’t be good for them. At once, he began to attack, knives slashing in quick succession, meant not so much to hurt rather than distract the onion before it could finish casting whatever spell it was preparing. And elsewhere, a rock came flying past their view, scattering the enemy’s attention. Thanks to the combined onslaught from him and Juliette, the gathering light splintered into the air, and the onion let out what sounded like a frustrated scream and tackled Pyr.
This time, he was prepared. The impact pushed him back and down on one knee, but he didn’t go all the way down, and in a moment he was up again, attacking and keeping his ears open for Conan’s warnings.
Finally, the onion seemed to be on its last legs, which was when Juliette leaped into the air and came down on it with a jump kick, following this up with several slashes to finally bring the onion down.
Down went the pumpkin, now the onion. Three more, Conan counted and Drake had the Alraune. His dagger now sheathed, the boy loaded larger stone into his slingshot. He had backed away from the other squires to get better distance between himself and the targets. He needed to make sure his distractions—rocks, stones, and once a mushroom he plucked from the ground—attracted the enemy’s attention and did not hit his allies. No friendly fire yet with his budding marksmanship.
“Uh, guys. Watch out!” he called to the others when his released projectile failed to distract the Mandragora. It ambled towards them as though confused or enraged by the violence it witnessed.
Drake shifted his attention momentarily towards the squires and the mandragora. That’s not good, he thought. “Switch,” he called out, moving towards them. The Mandragora would be a tougher opponent than the Alraune, which they’d be able to take down - hopefully, without a lot of problems.
Before the Mandragora could reach them, he kicked it back. The impact was more solid than the Pumpkin Head, and he could feel it travel up his leg. This is going to be fun, he thought with a sigh.
It was not the most elegant scramble out of the way, but Juliette managed to dodge their current opponent’s attack by rolling out of the way. She came up cold and a little wet from the snow still on the ground, but at least she was whole.
The enemy towards which Councilor Liu had directed them seemed to have taken a few hits already; it wobbled on its strange, stubby legs and waved its arms.
It looks like a radish in a leather gorget and pajamas.
The thought would have been funnier if she weren’t so concerned about how hard these things could apparently hit.
“Same as last time?” she offered, this time making a frontal attack, trusting that either Pyr or Conan -- or both -- would flank the creature.
“Sure.” Pyr threw a curious glance at the mandragora Drake was fighting, but moved to stand behind the enemy Juliette had just engaged. He concentrated on that then, making sure to leave a clear line of sight for Conan.
The radish seemed like it didn’t know who to engage; it turned its attention from Juliette to Pyr. Its attempt to engage them both at once led to it receiving hits from both of them. After a moment, it stopped attacking to focus its energy on some kind of growl. Pyr tried to interrupt it, but whatever it had cast, it took less time than the onion’s spell. Before he could warn Juliette or Conan to watch out, the radish rammed into his midsection with unbelievable force, knocking him back onto the ground.
“Hey!” Conan exclaimed, half in surprise at the attack and half to draw it away from Pyr. He stamped down the impulse to run over and help; at a distance he was better able to distract and look out. He had to try to be useful from here. Again, he reached to the ground, picking up and loading a larger rock into his slingshot. Calculations ticked in his mind (made not with the precision of an arithmetician but with gross estimations and experience as a prankster) as he aimed at the radish.
He shot the stone but missed injuring the vegetable in any dramatic way. The slight impact was enough to catch the radish’s attention. It reared its head.
Meanwhile, Drake had managed to get the Mandragora to back up. His body ached from taking it on - it was considerably stronger than the Pumpkin Head, and he was beginning to dread having to fight the Deadly Nightshade. What they were even doing on this side of the world was beyond him, but he wasn’t happy about it.
While he was thinking about the why behind the fight, the Mandragora had clearly gotten annoyed. Drake frowned as it growled and just managed to yell out “Cover your ears!” to the squires before it started screeching. The scream had him leaning over - even with his ears covered, it still affected him. Hopefully, the kids were far enough away that it wouldn’t have much effect.
He took a shaky step forward, took a deep breath and tackled the thing to the ground. The screeching stopped, and the Mandragora bit him. “Yeowch!” he yelped, shaking his arm, complete with new Mandragora accessory, and shook it back and forth. The Mandragora held on.
“Cantankerous Chocobo,” he muttered, finally managing to dislodge it. “This is getting old.” He leapt back up to his feet and fell into position for Fire Dance. The first one didn’t catch and the Mandragora laughed at him. Well, at least, Drake took the growling chuff to be a laugh.
The second one, though, caught on, and the thing lit up.
Juliette felt momentarily disoriented at the sound of the screech, but fortunately, she was too far away for the full effect. She was probably lucky to get off with a headache, which began pounding at her temples almost immediately, threatening to distract her from the task at hand. Pyr was on the ground, the creature bearing down on him, and it was up to her to do something -- anything -- to turn the situation around.
She was not Councilor Liu. She could neither call fire nor pick up something thrice her size and throw it, but this creature, for all its strength, was not that large. With its attention focused on Pyr, she was able to grab it by its shoulder and yank it aside (heavier than it looked, but she managed), pulling it off balance long enough to deliver a solid punch to the side of its radish head.
Pyr had placed his knives before him, intending to skewer the radish if it jumped him. One instant he was cursing inwardly at how easily he’d been taken down, the next the radish’s body had been replaced by the sight of a patch of clear skies.
He scrambled to his feet in time to see Juliette punch the thing. How she’d yanked it off him, he didn’t know—the thing was heavy—but he had no doubt she’d just saved him a lot of pain.
“Thanks,” he said as he moved to flank the radish. His breath was coming shorter now, due to the impact earlier and how long they had been fighting. Still, he was determined not to leave Juliette alone with this thing, and he continued to slash at the monster despite the growing exhaustion.
From afar, Conan breathed a sigh of relief as Juliette’s (to him, surprising) strength took the radish off of Pyr. He switched tactics: discarding the plan to act merely as a distraction and now turning to the offensive. Though his “weapon” as not as well-adapted to battle as Pyr’s knives, or even Juliette’s fists, he could try his best.
“Incoming!” the marksman-in-training warned his comrades. He reached down for another snow-covered rock and sent it flying at the radish, flecks of white trailing behind the projectile until it made contact with the back of the Alaraune’s head.
It shook its head in pain, wailing as a vegetable might before being cooked.
The Mandragora was still screeching - not the high-pitched, destructive one, but the oh Faram, it burns kind of screeching. The good kind, in Drake’s opinion. It was focused on its own pain, which meant that it wasn’t paying any attention to Drake as he sidled up beside it and lashed out with a vicious kick to its side.
It flew back.
Drake ran after it. A few more well placed kicks and a Suplex was all that was needed to finish it off. As it dropped to the ground dead, Drake turned to the Deadly Nightshade. It regarded him before turning and running off, disappearing into the dense woods that surrounded Malboro Meadow.
A shriek came from behind him, and then quiet. Drake turned around to see the squires gathered around the dead Alraune. “All right,” he said, tired. “Let’s head back. I think that’s enough excitement for today.”
He’d have to make a report about it - fortunately, it didn’t seem like the squires were too badly injured. Three-on-one was a much better plan than letting them each take one of the veggies on their own. The only one that looked like they’d gotten their butts handed to them was him. His forearm throbbed from the Mandragora’s bite and his head pounded from its scream.
A visit to a white mage was in his future.
Drake sighed. Tonight, he was going to have a salad. With tomatoes and radish and maybe pumpkin. And he would eat it with glee.