All the plushies were going towards Vane, who currently was the bait. In fact, while he baited the enemies, Liro and Lily worked in perfect synchronization with their powers, once the enemies were scared of getting hit by the illusions and jumped away, Vane smashed his claws against them, or Lily would grab them with her roots and crush them.
"C'mon, we're doing it!" shouted Vane, as his human body had started to bleed. Behind him, Liro was currently on his knees, while Lily was breathing heavily. "They never stop…" whispered Liro as he saw that the plushies kept coming nonstop.
"If that thing is an Altered like us, it means that its power will end like ours!" shouted Lily as she was able to encourage Liro next to her, who nodded his head. "Right… we just need to resist," he answered as he got back on his feet and looked behind towards Darian, who was fighting against that huge plushie.
"Don't get too distracted!" called out Vane as he couldn't defend himself and one of the plushies started to bite into his skin. "Sorry, right!" called out Liro as he created another illusion to make the other plushie go away in fear.
Vane's skin was slowly being ripped off by this plushie. 'If I return to human form, he might still be able to bite my skin… I won't free myself, he thought.' Vane knew that the polar bear's body couldn't reach someone on his back, so in constant pain, he waited for his friends to take care of the monster.
"I'll do it!" yelled Lily as two roots emerged from the ground and grabbed the plushie. The bite left a lot of blood dripping from Vane's skin. "Argh!!" shouted Vane madly as he turned around and slashed his claws towards the plushie stuck in the roots.
'They really aren't stopping…' thought Vane as he was feeling his body in more and more pain. 'These plushies are so damn dangerous… I even endured my skin.' Right before the plushie was about to bite into his skin, Vane endured it, thinking about the actual damage that would have been dealt if he hadn't hardened his body.
"We must resist…" whispered Lily, worried that these plushies would actually come nonstop.
"We just need to take care of the smallest… Darian and Catripple are probably having it worse…" answered Liro. He didn't look behind towards his friends anymore, but a shiver was sent down his spine.
"Better be fast, guys!!" shouted Vane as loud as he could.
"I can't pierce into his body! It's just too hard!" shouted Darian, answering Vane. Right now, he was only dodging the attacks of the plushie, it didn't matter if he shot a shard, the enemy would tank the hit like it was nothing.
'How much resistance do you even have…' Darian shot a small shard towards one of the plushies, which got destroyed in half by the attack, but Darian knew well that the real problem wasn't the smaller ones, but rather the huge one.
Seeing another plushie being destroyed, the huge chick created a strong roar that could be heard from across the battlefield. Darian, scared, had to cover his ears. 'Dammit!' Darian saw the chick rolling at extreme speed on the ground towards him.
Darian removed his hands from his ears and pointed them at the ground. "Radial freeze!" While he shouted, a wall erupted from the ground. 'Please let this be resistant enough…' Darian's hope was useless, in fact, the moment the plushie's body crashed against the wall, it was completely smashed, and Darian was about to fall down.
"I'll take you now!" While falling, Darian rotated mid-air and shot a powerful shard towards the plushie. 'I'll resist this fall…' thought Darian as he decided to charge up the shard for as much as he could, it didn't matter to him that he was currently falling toward the ground.
Once his body was about to hit the ground, Darian shouted and created a powerful shard that created a small recoil. Darian couldn't see the shard hit, as the moment he fell on the ground, his face was in the sand.
"Puff… puff…" Darian coughed up some sand which ended up inside his mouth. 'Was it able to hit?' Darian lifted his head and noticed that the plushie, unharmed, was rolling again towards him.
"Dammit!" Darian tried to put his hand over his chest to create the ice armor. "Ice arm—" Darian wasn't fast enough; the moment the armor was about to be created, the chick had already started to roll over his body.
Darian couldn't help but feel the huge pressure of the plushie on top of him, crushing him without giving Darian the chance to do anything. "Cough, cough…" Darian coughed up some blood as his whole body was being crushed by the enemy. The moment the plushie was no longer on top of Darian, the human could barely stand on his feet.
His whole body had started to bleed and was full of scratches. Darian tried to get back on his feet, but he felt his legs shaking; he could no longer stand.
'Snowy… can't you do that thing?' Darian tried to speak directly with Snowy, hoping that the creature would create the projection of its tail on his arm. The more Darian waited for an answer, the more dangerous it was becoming for him.
The chick was about to charge up another attack, knowing that Darian wasn't able to dodge on the ground like the other times, it was about to go even faster.
But Snowy didn't answer. Darian only heard the usual silence of when he was in XERBAB-7, just silence.
'I NEED YOUR POWER, SNOWY!' Darian, scared, tried to call for Snowy, but the creature didn't answer, and the plushie had fully charged itself and started to roll on the ground, rushing towards Darian.
"Dammit!" shouted Darian as he launched himself to the right. "Ice armor!" he shouted, pointing his hands over his legs. Knowing that the chick would be able to smash over his legs, Darian put as much effort as he could into the creation of the armor over his legs.
The armor was extremely strong and resistant, in fact, the moment the plushie rushed over his legs and was about to completely smash them, the armor exploded almost instantly and was able to stop the chick with its pressure.
The plushie kept rolling on the ground, but the pressure of the shards going into its body was strong, and it could barely resist anymore. Once the armor exploded completely, the plushie was pushed away several feet and flew.
'Now, Darian!' said a voice inside Darian's mind. He immediately realized that it was Snowy and got ready with his hand, he started to charge it up, especially now that the plushie was flying in the sky and was about to hit the ground.
The moment Darian was about to shoot the shard towards it, he was sure that he had seen one of the tails coming out of his arm, even if it was only one, the shard was shot at extreme speed. Once the shard shattered against the body of the plushie, the tail was removed immediately, but now the outcome of the attack was totally different.
The shard didn't shatter the moment it crashed against the plushie's body; in fact, it was able to pierce into its body, creating a huge scratch. The plushie cried out in pain; its cry could almost be heard from all across the battlefield. Darian had to cover his ears. 'Nice, Snowy!' said Darian to Snowy, who had finally used his power again.
'I can't use it all,' answered the creature. Darian nodded his head, realizing that Snowy might sleep for too long; he realized that using the power of the tails was out of the question. "I'll take care of it from now on!" shouted Darian, full of confidence, even if his legs were still hurting as he kept running towards the huge plushie.
"Ice shard!!" shouted Darian with all his strength as he started to run in a circular shape around the plushie, which had a huge scratch over its body because of the shard. Darian noticed while going around the enemy that inside the plushie there wasn't anything, just an empty black void.
'I wonder if you're actually a Krukin…' asked Darian in his mind while shooting multiple shards towards the enemy. Now it seemed like the enemy had lost its resistance and was slowly becoming weaker, shards that wouldn't have been able to pierce into its body were currently able to deal some actual damage.
'But you don't seem like a Krukin, you've got a totally different color.' Darian noticed that even if this plushie was black, it wasn't a deep black like that of the Krukins. '…you're definitely something created with magic!' Darian finally noticed that the plushie was about to charge up another attack.
It had become able to follow his movements; even if Darian was still shooting shards, the plushie didn't care anymore. It had its eyes fixed on Darian and only waited for the right moment.
'Let's see how much you'll be able to resist!' thought Darian. The moment he stopped shooting shards, he positioned his right hand on his chest and was about to create a stronger armor. After some seconds, he completely stopped. 'Now!'
"Ice armor!" shouted Darian the moment he noticed the creature rolling towards him. The armor was extremely resistant, now Darian didn't have the problem of dodging the attack. In fact, once the chick rolled towards him, he simply walked forward with a serious face.
"I'm waiting for you!" shouted Darian. The moment their bodies crashed against each other, all the armor broke almost instantly, but Darian didn't feel any recoil. While Darian wasn't having any problems, on the other hand, the plushie was slowly losing strength.
The shards rushing over its body were creating more and more scratches, and the pressure of the ice created by the armor was stronger; it was slowly rolling back. In fact, once the armor broke completely, the chick wasn't thrown away like the last time, but fell to the ground.
Darian walked slowly towards it and pointed his hand over its body. "I wish I could study you… Radial freeze!" A huge spike emerged from the ground, smashing the body of the plushie in half.
"I'm coming, Catripple!" shouted Darian as he rushed towards her, as she was still fighting against the Seamstress. Right now, no more plushies were coming towards Darian, so he was free to reach her.
"Thanks!" shouted Catripple. Seeing Darian arriving to help her, she jumped back and flew next to him. "I… I couldn't even damage it," whispered Catripple. Darian spoke, surprised, "Not even with that explosion of your fire?" he asked. Catripple shook her head.
"We'll try to take care of it… still, I don't know how much we might actually resist…" whispered Darian while gritting his teeth, realizing that his legs were slowly about to lose the strength to hold him up.