Flora knew she’d be at a disadvantage against Gilgamarsh and his minions. Her move set wasn’t exactly the most combat oriented and even then only one attack did neutral damage to these marshoids.
That wasn’t to say she was completely helpless. She was able to keep the enemy at bay with her Ancient Power, which occasionally increased her power. Not that she felt it was necessary given how easily they grumbled under a pile of rocks. Anything that got in close was immediately slashed by the spears she had made with Jezebel. Despite having gone through a couple of them she still had plenty in reserves.
While her methods of hit and run weren’t ideal, her role in this battlefield were different than most. Her role as in the medical team was to attempt and retrieve a wounded ally. If there was anyone within distance she would use her Heal Pulse to get them back in fighting shape. Despite this she prioritized finding those that were critically injured first and taking them to safety.
It was a taxing job and one that became more stressful as the fight prolonged. She was unable to shake the growing sense of fear. She didn’t know if it was just a protective instinct or something else, but she was worried about Soleil. They had done alright so far, but the loud crashes from up ahead reminded Flora how serious this fight was.
Her eyes tracked around, looking for threats and keeping her eye on the battlefield. Within seconds of the battle starting they were on the defensive. Somehow they managed to hold. Flora sees Saki hurling berries that froze the enemies upon impact as fast as she could. Jezebel using the spears they made along with her speed to cover and protect the others from the growing enemy army.
Flora spots a Luxio surrounded by a couple of the marshoids had ganged up on him and managed to land a hit on him. He was suddenly crackling with electricity that surged all around him, damaging or downright destroying the witch’s minions. He grabbed one that escaped his Discharge and tossed it like a stack of hay onto the others as a swoops in to freeze them with their Ice Beam. Rushing over, Flora uses her Heal Pulse to heal the wound and the Luxio nods his thanks before resuming his defiant charge into the enemy marshoids.
She was distracted for a moment when one of the witch’s minions managed to sneak up on her. Cursing herself for not preparing an attack, she attempts to pull out a spear but isn’t sure she’ll make it in time.
Suddenly a spear shot through the creation, making it collapse on itself. “Watch yourself lass!” Keaton said to her before firing another barrage of Pin Missiles at a group of enemies in the distance. He had stayed relatively close to her whenever she made it back to the battlefield. She could regularly hear him taunting the enemies as he continued to strike them down.
From what she’s seen he worked as a dual decoy and suppression unit. He’d tank any incoming hits for others when he could and would strike them down with his spear shortly afterwards. He would fire a barrage of Pin Missiles to prevent the hordes from gaining any small advantage to the group. Despite his boasting cries of triumph and the cocky grin on his face, she could occasionally hear his pained grunts and subtle winces as the fight continued. He denied being in pain and was adamant that he did not need any help, insisting they help others instead.
She catches the sight of Soleil in the distance, moving so swiftly through the ground and air as if she’s one with the wind itself. She’s the target of every marshoid around her vicinity – she had mentioned that this would be her intention. However, her deft movements leave their attacks wildly off mark. Flora realizes that they’re being led away from the direction from the main body of their groups fighting Gilgamarsh. As Flora watches she – almost impossibly – moves even faster, head down, impaling several of the marshoids with the spear fashioned for her and moving away again almost too fast for the eye to follow.
Up ahead a group of marshoids were suddenly bombarded with salt that disintegrated them, fired from a catapult launched by a Pangoro. She had seen a Fennekin – who somehow had managed to earn the power of flight – destroy one of Gilgamarsh’s arms. Shortly after a Weavile fired a torrent of Ice Shards into one of his eyes, effectively blinding it. Many other members of the combat team are pitching in, some only leaving dents on the dragon’s rubbery skin while others are able to deal more severe damage to him.
Slowly but surely Flora begins to see sees that the tide is slowly turning.
‘This is good isn’t it?’ Flora frowns. If they can hold out a bit linger they might have a chance to win.
And suddenly she stumbles when a piercing roar echoes around the battlefield.
“I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!” Gilgamarsh roared. He begins by grabbing any fliers he can and tossing them hard on the ground. Using Muddy Water he is able to effectively catch any nearby members off guard. She sees her friend Chip get blasted with bolt of lightning before she could make her escape. With a chance to catch his breath, slime that covered his body began to drip as more of his minions began to emerge. “DESTROY THEM. DESTROY THEM ALL!” He commanded them.
And suddenly, tearing her eyes away from the witch, Flora realizes they’re even more badly outnumbered than before. And now surrounded from all sides. She feels an icy grip of panic clawing at her gut as the witch begins to gain the upper hand.
She gasps as one of the marshoids begins to grow right in front of her. Before it can get big enough to do any damage she jabs it with her spear, rendering it useless.
‘Focus.’ Flora turns around and lets her gaze sweep the battlefield. What had once been their group’s attempt to maintain a defensive formation against the witch had degenerated into a chaotic brawl. The witch had summoned more of his minions from all over the battlefield and threw the lines into disarray. Everyone had to anticipate an attack from all sides.
She spots Keaton out of the corner of her eye. His weapon has been lost in the chaos, and now he’s relying on nothing more than his brute strength to fight. As she watches, he throws a marshoid onto the ground and before the creature could recover, he’s picked up a rock and smashed down onto the creature.
She’s doing everything she can to help. While getting the injured out of here is a priority she couldn’t just abandon those that were fighting. As she ran around the battlefield she used her Heal Pulse on anyone that had injures. It might not be much but every bit of strength helped. All the while she’s looking desperately for Soleil, having lost her in the chaos. She didn’t like this. Not one bit.
And then she sees her
Soleil, isolated from the rest of the group. She’s trying to break free from the army of the creatures are blocking their path. The witch notices her and plunges down and begins to swim forward. Soleil hasn’t noticed him coming her way.
An icy grip claws at Flora as the memory of the vision she saw flashes before her eyes. She immediately begins to run towards her. “Soleil! Look out!” Flora shouts.
Soleil takes notice of Flora but her focus is quickly changed towards Gilgamarsh heading right towards her. He emerges with his jaws wide opened, his intentions clear as day.
Flora’s legs are burning but she doesn’t care. She had to get to her quick! But she didn’t know if she can male it.
Suddenly, Keaton seemed to appear from nowhere. He had tucked down into a ball and began to roll towards the dragon. Using his own momentum, he launches himself into the air towards the dragon. He uncurls and smashes both of his arms into the side of his head. Flora had seen his needle arm crack rocks before. Unfortunately the witch just barely rocked under the blow but it wasn’t the damage Keaton had hoped. Keaton seemed stunned. Flora shivers as the witch’s pupils narrow into slits as he looked at them.
“IS THAT YOU’RE BEST? PATHETHIC!”
“Keaton, get out of there!” Soleil shouted.
Keaton grits his teeth and brings his arms up to block as the witch begins to charge his Dragon Breath. Just before he could fire, a brilliant blue and green light illuminated above his head, temporarily blinding him. Flora had wrapped her vines around Keaton and pulled him out of the way as the dragon fired blindly.
“Thanks Lass, I owe you one.” Keaton said as they put some distance between themselves and the dragon. He yelped when Soleil kicked his foot.
“Idiot,” Soleil grumbled. As grateful as she was for saving her, that was a risky move to make. She has a fresh cut on her cheek from an earlier attack but she otherwise seems to ignore it.
“I’LL MAKE YOU PAY FOR THAT!” Gilgamarsh roared as he swung his tail wildly, missing his mark completely.
Keaton’s expression was tense but he was chuckling under his breath all the same. “I don’t suppose you have an incredibly brilliant plan for how we’re going to deal with this one.
Flora gulped as the dragon shook off his daze and with a deep guttural growl focused his attention on them. She was terrified by its mere presence.
“Um, no. And that Mushroom Lantern I just threw was a one-time thing.” Soleil grimaced.
“Oh well,” Keaton said, cupping one of his paws and baling the other into a fist, connecting them together with a threatening smack. “We’ll just have to hit it fast and hard.”
“Wow, that plan’s both simple and crazy.” Soleil said. “Let’s do this.”
Flora gulped but her eyes narrowed in concentration. She couldn’t afford to back down. Not this time.
~~
Keaton rolled to the left, narrowly avoiding the flailing, whip-like tail of the dragon.
“HOLD STILL!”
Keaton wasn’t all that agile or fast, but it was pretty clear Gilgamarsh wasn’t used to dealing with someone who could roll around unexpectedly. So far he’d focused on trying to keep the dragon’s attention on him, not letting him aim at his teammates. Which meant he had to stay alert and move around a lot.
“Don’t let him get to you!” Soleil shouted, who’d charged up to smack into one of the dragon’s legs. “You’re good as dead if he so much grabs you.”
“Sure, no problem!” Keaton shouted back, too much adrenaline pumping through him to put much sarcasm into his words.
So far they’d managed to get the dragon away from the injured but not much else. The dragon easily towered over all the fighters and had to have weighed several tons and even the combined strength of Keaton and Soleil was doing little more than causing him to get angrier at them. Flora was keeping her distance, using Ancient Power to send rocks and keep the witch from landing a few hits.
He was glad to see her keeping back, not doing anything risky. But it was a problem that the witch wasn’t being hurt by their attacks. Not as much as he would have liked at least. His spear was lost in the battlefield and none of his moves were ideal against this thing. His Invasive Seeds would only feed him and he wasn’t going to risk being the one to make this thing stronger. He doubted one of Flora’s infamous exploding potions would do the trick either. Not unless it was in an injured area which Gilgamarsh was doing a good job protecting.
Suddenly Gilgamarsh rose his head up as he began to take a deep breath. His stomach rumbled and glowed as the blue flames began to build up in his body. He wasn’t aiming at either of the two, instead focusing on Flora.
Keaton rushed in to protect her, looking to smack the dragon on the back of the head while he was distracted. Suddenly he snapped his head around at him. Caught off guard, he didn’t have time to block as he fired a Dragon Breath point blank at him.
Keaton!” He heard Soleil shout, and then the world around him turned dark.
~~
Flora was in shock after witnessing Keaton blasted by the dragon’s attack. He had tried to get up but collapsed shortly afterwards. She shuddered as she heard Gilgamarsh’s booming laugh.
“YOU SEE? THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO WEAKLINGS WHO OPPOSE ME!” He sneered as he approached. This one would restore his energy and then he’ll take the rest of them out.
“Not a chance bub!” Soleil sprang and ran up Gilgamarsh’s back. She fired a Fire Spin attack along the witch’s back. Gilgamarsh screamed in pain, having been afflicted by a Forest Curse not long ago. He roared as he twisted and turned to throw her off of him.
Once in the air Soleil began to fire a barrage of Flame Bursts at him. She was aiming towards his face and was attempting to blind his other eye.
“I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!” He declared as the sky crackled with electricity before a bolt of lightning came down.
“Look out!” Flora shouted.
Her warning came too slow. She watched as Soleil was struck by the Thunder attack and her screams were heard. She landed on the ground with enough force that Flora worried she’d break through into the acidic lake. Luckily she hadn’t but Gilgamarsh hadn’t given them a chance to recover as he moved in and grabbed Soleil with his gooey hand and lifted her up in the air.
“L-Let me go!” Soleil struggled in his grip. She winced and cried out as Gilgamarsh began to squeeze.
“THIS IS WHAT YOU DESERVE FOR DEFYING ME!” Gilgamarsh said as he squeezed some more.
Panic began to grip Flora as she realized that this was the vision she saw. This was the moment she saw that Soleil would be hurt, if not killed.
No.
This can’t happen.
She can’t let this happen.
“Put her down!” Flora demanded. She was shaking, but not out of fear this time. Not completely at least. She was still afraid but she was also angry. At who exactly? It could be towards Gilgamarsh, towards her weak self, she didn’t know. It didn’t matter, one thing was for certain: she wouldn’t let him hurt her friend any longer.
Gilgamarsh gave her an unimpressed glance. “OR WHAT? ARE YOU GOING TO STOP ME GIRL?” He scuffed at the thought. Who did she think she was? She was beneath him after all.
“F-Flora… ack…! G-Get out of here…” Soleil said weakly.
“… I SEE NOW? IS THIS YOUR FRIEND? ARE YOU HERE TO SAVE HER?” Gilgamarsh had a vile grin on her face. “PATHETIC! I WILL SQUEEZE THE LIFE OUT OF HER AND THEN YOU’LL BE NEXT!” He proclaimed as he squeezed Soleil even more.
“Don’t you dare hurt her!” Flora demanded. She felt an odd tingling sensation spread throughout her body, up through her neck and down through her spine. It grew stronger and stronger as a white energy surged through Flora’s body. Flora didn’t think about it, her focus was on the witch in front of her. So much so that she didn’t notice herself growing, shifting, and being changed into something else. Nothing else mattered but her friend’s safety. Concentrating all her energy, Flora forms a ball of pink, fairy energy. The energy begins to surround her body as she puts everything she has on this attack.
The witch instinctively flinches when he senses that energy build up. His moment of anxiousness was quickly washed away by his burning rage. “Y-YOU DARE CHALLENGE ME!?” He brings a gooey arm down to crush her.
“Flora!”
Flora’s eyes opened a she fires her attack at the witch. The dragon shrills in pain when the attack comes in contact with it. The force was strong enough to bring him down on his knees. He’s breathing heavily as the attack hurt him more than imagined. Not enough to knock him out unfortunately. “NO! I WILL NOT YIELD1” He smacked the ground as he slowly rose again.
Flora took a step back, the powerful sensation she felt is gone and now an odd dizziness remained. She shook her head as her vision grew blurry and her body ached all over.
“Flora! Are you okay?” Soleil asked. Her eyes widened at the sight before her. Flora had grown in more than double her size and her neck had stretched out. Her buds around her neck had grown and sprouted into curled leaves as her leaf had grown as well.
“I-I’m okay… just… tired…” Flora struggled to stay standing. Her legs felt heavy, as if she was being weighed down. Flora looked up unable to properly see through her fading vision. Did she beat it? Did she win? No, she could tell it was still standing. After all that she had failed.
Unable to hold on much longer, she collapsed from exhaustion.
~~
“Flora!” Soleil watches in panic as Flora passes out. This wasn’t good. Her evolution had been too much for her to handle. Not to mention that attack had to have taken a lot out of her.
“I WAS GOING TO SAVE YOU FOR LAST BUT I THINK I’LL KILL YOU NOW!” Gilgamarsh roared.
Soleil’s eyes narrowed as she glared at the dragon. “Let go of me you overgrown lizard!” She said as she began to struggle. She winced and pushed through the pain as her body began to heat up rapidly. To the point that steam was starting to emit around her.
Gilgamarsh winces in pain as Soleil suddenly became engulfed in intense flames. There was barely time to react as a white light enveloped her along with her flames. She grabs his hands with claws she didn’t have before as she began to force his hand open. “I said: Let. Me. GO!” The flames burned even brighter as Soleil pushed against the Goodra’s hands. Soleil managed to pry through and shot forward, kicking him with enough power to tear a nasty gash on his cheek.
“I-INSOLENT BIRD!” He craned his head back to hit Soleil and send her to the ground. He suddenly stopped as he felt a strange energy building up in his belly. He grunted and shook his head as the energy glowed even brighter against his purple stomach. He roared as electricity began to build up and a Phantump burst through.
Soleil took this opportunity to rush over and get to Flora. She frowns as she looks over her before letting a sigh of relief. She’s uninjured it seems but she couldn’t be here any longer. Luckily Gilgamarsh seems distracted by the other fighters.
~~
“Soleil…” Flora call out weakly. She felt exhausted for whatever reason. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone else given what just happened to her.
“Shh… don’t push yourself,” She heard Soleil hushed her. She slowly begins to grow aware that she’s being carried by her. Something she’s trying to understand how that’s even possible. Her vision fades for a moment as she struggles to remain conscious. She glances over to see Jezebel and Saki helping get Keaton to safety. He was breathing, which was good but he had taken quite the hit.
“Take it easy okay. You did amazing today,” Soleil said when she laid her down. She heard the steps of other members of the medical team coming in to help them.
Everything else passed by rather quickly. Her vison was blurry and the voices she heard where like echoes in her ears. Flora concentrates her focus as she looks at Soleil. She was okay, she was safe. Although there was something different about her. For one she was much taller than before. She didn’t have time to think about it as her vision begins to fade again. That last thing she saw before blacking out was Soleil running back into the battlefield.
