The Knot That Binds

Twenty-Four: Struggles With Nature

Montes quickly adjusts the buckler to take the attack, but it comes at such an astonishing force that it sends him straight onto his ass. Taking some recoil damage as well, Montes is quickly in a pretty rough shape. Gambit should be in there dealing some chip damage, but he's still hanging by the girls.

"So you're fans, right?"

"Shouldn't you be helping the others?"

One asks, concerned and looking past him.

"Nah, I have bigger priorities. You lovely ladies."

As I focus on the boss fight, I can hear the girls talk amongst themselves right in front of him.

"See? I told you Gambit wasn't like you thought he was."

"But he always looked so cool, I just thought-"

"I assure you! I'm cooler than hell. Watch this."

Then I see him sprint past me and head straight at the Pumpkin Pantheist, no plan of attack whatsoever. Frustratingly, it actually sort of works as the boss jabs at the ground in a slow attack that he easily dodges. Now under its legs, Gambit gives an upward slash to the crotch while sliding to safety on the other side. The monstrous beast turns about to face him, so Gambit just performs the slide and slash again. However, unlike Gambit, the pumpkin-toting boss has basic pattern recognition, so it drops onto its ass to sit on him. Just by the peach fuzz on his chin, he's able to leap out of the way and avoid becoming a human pancake. However, he's right in front of the seated boss and so it tosses aside a weathervane and scoops him up. The boss isn't so big as to not need both hands, but he does manage to lift Gambit a good five feet off the ground. I run up and deliver a hearty jab into its elbow, forcing both arms to the side as a reaction. Jostling Gambit around, Thena follows up and does the same thing. We don't seem to be dealing nearly as much damage as earlier, barely dwindling a quarter of its health bar. Two full green lines behind the current red bar means we have lots more work to do.

"You freakshow! Not anyone can just grab the Scarlet Swordsman!"

Gambit suddenly makes an attack at its wrist, and to my genuine surprise, manages to slice off the entire hand, setting him free.

"Montes! Cover his retreat!"

Thena commands as the Scarlet Swordsman quickly attempts to gain some distance. Thankfully, Montes doesn't have to take any hits as the Pumpkin Pantheist spends the duration getting back to its feet. It only has three health bars and between those three girls and us, we only managed to remove the one. The trend continues as we try various strategies that just don't quite work as well as the initial hit we landed. About twenty minutes later and we haven't even chipped off half of the second bar, but the mini-boss has us all pretty weak. Montes is constantly dipping in and out of the red, Gambit lives in the yellow, while Thena and I have floated just at the threshold before reaching red ourselves.

Suddenly, the Pumpkin Pantheist performs a roll that, thanks to its massive size, nearly crushes us all. From the earth-shaking and rumbling, we took residual damage of some kind that got us all into dangerous territory. Before we can even retaliate, it pops up and stomps right next to Montes, nearly killing him for the millionth time. As he stumbles away, Thena gives him cover, but gets smacked twenty feet to the right in the process. With Gambit and I being the only ones left, I try to think of what we could do. My brain stings as everything I think of just won't work. Driving myself insane, I let out a frustrated grunt.

"We gotta do something, man!"

Gambit shouts at me, as if I don't already know that.

"Yeah, I got it, I just need a second to think."