(Shin PoV)
I only have a couple years before the 'World's End Arc' so I have to prepare everyone... Unfortunately, I'm nowhere near strong enough for stuff like that. I guess it's time to rob another of Atlas' achievements, off to another dungeon!
I take Hikari and Blaze to the mouth of a dungeon.
Blaze- "Wait, why are we here?"
Hikari- "I'm sure he has a good reason." She quickly shuts him up.
Shin- "Meh, important enough. Just some combat experience and other stuff like that." I snap and wrap myself in my Hollow attire.
"Well? Ready?" Hikari nods and wraps herself in shadows revealing her Mimic attire. Blaze does the same.
The moment we enter, we get jumped. I wasn't expecting this, but I react quickly. One of the monsters is thrown to the ground, my foot placed upon it's head as I crush it's skull.
Hikari quickly responds to her aggressor, melting it's face off with her version of Blaze's Flames. Blaze meanwhile decides to finish his with a punching combo, hitting the head, kidneys and a final punch that shatters the monster's ribs.
We crush monster after monster, and I make sure to give Hikari a few tips. When the room is cleared I consume the monsters and their cores.
A few rooms down and the monsters are actually getting a bit difficult to defeat. Unfortunately for them, I grow stronger after every encounter of these monsters.
We are now 5 floors down, Hikari and Blaze are struggling against their own monsters. It's good that these things are strong enough to provide a challenge, but why are they this strong right now?
They were going to be released in a few years, and they weren't this powerful...
The 8th floor is very hard. Hikari and Blaze can barely keep up. I would have struggled if I hadn't consumed every monster previously, and I have a crap ton of Flairs!
Floor 9 was hard to clear, but we did it.
Mimic- "Can we take a break? I don't have nearly as much stamina as you guys."
Blaze sighs, seemingly shaking his head in disappointment.
Hollow- "Sure, why not? We've been here for a couple hours. And this is going to be the last floor, so we'd better be in top shape!"
This floor has a boss that's immune to physical damage, and a high resistance to Flairs. This is going to be a huge challenge, but also a huge boon.
After waiting for about an hour, we go inside. I carefully open the door and look around the inside. Tons of monitoring equipment is everywhere. Huge computers and glass tubes filled with liquid every few feet.
Mimic- "Woah, look at all this science stuff!"
Ifrit- "Be careful, we have no clue what any of this can do."
I approach the huge middle glass container, it's dark enough on the inside that nothing can be seen. I gently place my hand on the glass and close my eyes.
Hollow- "Get ready, I'm going to do something dangerous." My companions take a few steps back, leaving me alone with the glass container.
I draw my fist back and slam it into the glass, shattering it. The liquid starts to fall, but I freeze it the moment it gets free. A moment goes by, and the ice shatters.
???- "RAAAH!!" The beast roars with enough force to cause me to stumble, but I catch myself. I quickly jump back to the entrance, meeting Mimic and Ifrit.
Ifrit- "What the hell is that!?"
Hollow- "Our hardest enemy yet."
Mimic- "Can you beat it?" I don't answer, as I'm not entirely sure.
Hollow- "Prepare yourself, here it comes."
Out from the ice emerges this huge wingless dragon looking thing, it's body glowing bright orange and blue. The sheer force that this monster is radiating is immense.
Hikari is struggling to stand in it's presence, and Blaze seems to be sweating.
The monster takes a step, and the pressure multiplies.
Hollow- "Leave, Hikari!" She looks up to me and starts protesting.
Mimic- "No! What about you? If I'm leaving you should t-" I immediately teleport her to my house, I can't let her die here.
The dragon-like figure approaches us, exhaling a breath of flames.
Ifrit- "Can we do this?" I force a smile.
Hollow- "We're going to try."
I immediately teleport above the enemy, stabbing my shadow blade into it's skull... Or at least tried to. The blade didn't pierce it, instead it looks like I just stabbed a wall in boneworks.
Hollow- "Uh oh." I get bucked up in the air, and a huge wave of blue fire is spat at me. I fly out of the way as soon as possible, barely dodging the flames.
Blaze is currently using his strongest attack toward the monster, and it doesn't seem affected. I see this and contemplate teleporting him to safety as well.
Luckily he seems to realize this, so he immediately starts evading instead of attacking. He may be thinking up a plan, which is why he's staying instead of leaving.
I have the monster distracted, but I can't do much because I'm barely avoiding it's flames. Wait, can't I control the flames?
While flying I try to control the flames, and only a minimal movement is seen. Crap.
I basically try to use every Flair I've obtained on this thing, most do nothing, while others do barely anything.
The worst part is, I'm draining my stamina quickly. I'm at 80%, which doesn't seem to bad, right? Wrong! It's only been a couple minutes, and I've lost 20% of my stamina. And I haven't been this tired even after going through the whole dungeon without rest.
It's immune to physical attacks too, so I think I'm stuck here...
Okay! Strategy switch, aim for only the vulnerable parts. Spot one! The eyes!
I blast a concentrated shadow needle at the monster's eye, which connects. The only issue, is it didn't penetrate.
"Great, ALL of it is Flair-proof... I really should have brought Phoenix" I thought I could do it without her help, shows me.
She originally stepped in and dealt with it in the Weight of a Tempest, but I got cocky.
Wait, this is fine. Hikari is at home, maybe she'll bring Phoenix to help me.
I can't believe I got arrogant... I'm pretty sure the one thing Zero told me not to do was get cocky, and also deal with my problems. The only thing I can do now is stall this creature until reinforcements arrive though.
A few more minutes go by, and I just lose my stamina. In the middle of a dodge and counterattack, I catch a glimpse of B laze thinking up a plan.
"HEY! Go get Phoenix, or call Hikari and tell her to get- ah!" I barely dodge a swipe of humongous claws.
"Get Phoenix, She's the only one wh-WHOA! Who can help!"
He nods and runs off, not long after, the door opens again.
"Hikari!?" She walks into the room with confidence, multiple Flairs blazing at her hands. I also notice that she's not in her Mimic outfit.
She teleports in front of me and stops an attack from the monster, catching the tail. My eyes widen as she then cuts it off with a weird silver blade.
"WHAT!?" She turns to me and smiles.
Hikari- "Sorry for being late." I am left in a stunned silence.
She surprises me next by teleporting to the head of the creature and punching it, sending it's head to the ground. Unfortunately to be expected, it didn't take any damage.
But what I didn't expect was for the door to open again and see Hikari, Phoenix, and Blaze walk through it. Wait, Hikari?
I look back to the Hikari that was above the monster, and she seems to have realized that the other Hikari is here.
Both Hikaris- "Is that me?" The one that is with the others then scowls.
Hikari(1): "It's you! You're from the mall!" Just as she says that the monster stands back up and roars.
Phoenix steps forward.
Phoenix- "Don't worry, I got this." A fiery set of wings appear behind her, and she flies at a rapid pace. She shoots a very powerful flame that engulfs the monster, but at best it looks annoyed.
I see the look of shock on her face, before a battle hungry smile replaces it. She hold out her hand and a highly concentrated blast of fire is shot out of it.
The monster just swats it away with minor difficulty. Meanwhile, Hikari(2) is gone. She disappeared inn the midst of the chaos.
The monster jumps into the air and lands where Phoenix was previously, she barely moved out of the way.
"[Limit Break]!" A golden aura shoots out around her, even when the Aura color is red. Huh, weird.
She fires only what I can define as a SuperNova, or maybe Cruel Sun. Unfortunately, the monster seems relatively unharmed.
What's happening? She easily defeated the monster in the original, what's the difference?
My eyes widen in realization. She's not as strong! This originally is supposed to happen years in the future, so maybe Phoenix isn't as strong as she would have been then! I have to help her somehow, what can I do?
Suddenly, my stomach growls. And I think I realize what I should do. Hopefully this works! [Gluttony]!