[h2][center]Geralt of Rivia[/center][/h2]
[center]Carcass Isle- Where All Things Must Come[/center]
[center]Lvl 9 (24/90) -> Lvl 9 (30/90) [/center]
[center]Word Count: 1,062 words[/center]

The Seekers delivered their flurry of blows onto the Orphan, keeping sure to cover each other as they slowly carved away at the Guardian of the Blue. Geralt slashed and sliced, dodged a counterattack, and stepped back to give the others a clear avenue of attack. He hadn't predicted, however, that Sakura of all people would take advantage of it. 

But take advantage she did, rushing back in like a woman possessed, bouncing off the monster high into the air and returning with an impossible amount of momentum, as if she'd been launched from a catapult, and decapitated the damned creature with a kick as she slid along the viscera-splattered sand. 

Geralt watched as it dissolved, only letting out a breath of relief when the ash settled and blew away. He lazily drew a cloth from one of his many pouches, carefully cleaning his bloodied silver sword. Once he was satisfied with the job he did, the tension left his body with a deep breath, and he lowered himself to a sitting position. 

He half-listened to Peach's speech, only focusing when she asked Nadia if anybody had taken the Orphan's Spirit. When nobody answered in the affirmative, catlike eyes narrowed before widening and Geralt exploded upwards, breaths still a little heavy. "Dammit!" He cried, looking around before noticing the floating crab as the others did. Following the supernatural umbilical cord to the water, he noticed the numerous other corpses rising into the air as if gravity had lost its hold on them. 

"Oh. Oh, [i]fuck[/i]." Geralt cursed, before looking down as tar began creeping up, covering his boot. "Move!" He yelled, pulling his foot out of the substance and towards higher ground. His relief lasted barely a moment, as the tar consumed everything around them, and more structures rose out of it to replace the relatively solid ground that the beach had provided. 

As others started picking the smaller members of their crew up and out of the substance, Geralt prioritized his own survival in a return to old instincts. Pulling himself onto a rising building and rolling to his feet, Geralt took in their new surroundings. The battlefield had been replaced by an ocean of tar from which various platforms jutted out seemingly at random, and off in the distance their foe (or at least what Geralt assumed was a final, radical transformation of their enemy) reappeared. 

"Figures." He said simply. It had already slaughtered one of them after nearly killing another, only saved by the timely rescue of Ace's felyne friends, why not make things more interesting?

To say that the largest moving...thing Geralt had ever seen was before them was not an exaggeration. Some castles were taller, but they were quite obviously not living, mobile things. To say the monster before them alive would be a liberal application of the word in his mind. Yes, it moved, but there was something profoundly [i]wrong[/i] about it. 

Resolving to dismiss the philosophical question for later, Geralt did the only thing he could think of in this situation: He summoned the Breaching Bastion. 

Having been unwilling to use it against the Orphan's erratic movement and risk harming his allies, he absently wondered if the others were relieved to see the cannon platform or annoyed he hadn't tried to use it sooner. 

The main gun thundered like it had each time it fired before, oversized shell aimed to hit the eye directly. The smaller guns targeted the eye as well, but Geralt quickly halted them when he saw Nadia flying in on a boulder that he assumed Link had launched at this thing like he did earlier. 

"Dammit, Nadia..." He mumbled, but instead looked around while he waited for her to get clear of the gun's line of fire. The last thing he wanted to do was blow her to smithereens. 

When the strange, jellyfish-like creatures began appearing, Geralt turned the smaller guns on them, still keeping an eye out for Nadia, which proved wise as she burst from the thing in a shower of watery blood, smacking into one of the floating creatures on her way back and being stunned. 

Geralt's large stride length made it simple for him to maneuver himself into Nadia's path, catching the girl like one would a cat and setting her down with an eye roll at her comment. "Yeah, yeah, just be careful next time." He snarked back, returning to a defensive position near the gun. His ears would not be happy with him after this battle, but the damage wouldn't likely be permanent, between the healing he could receive from Blazermate and his own enhanced regeneration. 

The guns continued firing away when Geralt noticed a familiar shape appear in his peripheral vision, though nothing else about the figure was recognizable for a moment, given that it was made out of the same tar that they were all surrounded by. 

He'd recognize that gut anywhere, though. Letting out a wistful laugh, Geralt shook his head. "A ghost, huh? Never thought you'd be tied down enough to leave a specter behind. You trained us well enough, Vesemir." When the specter tossed a package his way, Geralt caught it easily, a small smile on his face.

His free hand lashed out and caught another package that had been thrown from a different angle, and he turned to see the receding outline of an old friend. "Didn't have to die, Djikstra. But Roche was a friend, too. Couldn't let you kill him..." 

Both were gone in moments, though, and when Geralt looked at what his old friends had given him, his eyebrow rose. "Is that...blood?" The thing in his hand was clearly no wine, but he had trouble imagining what blood would do for them. He could toss them at the floating things, sure, but unless this was more acid than blood, he couldn't see it doing much.

Shrugging, Geralt turned back to the battle, targeting the Bastion's smaller guns at the golden humanoids that were being launched at them. He put the containers down and drew his silver sword again, sidestepping and cutting at one of the living projectiles that got a little too close for comfort.

Spinning and pointing his blade back at the colossus, he commanded the Breaching Bastion's main gun to fire once more, ears ringing a little once the shot rang out.