HOTREDD

Was looking out a balcony and changed the scenery to be the swamp, and I was now sitting in one of the homes in the trees. I was with one of the leaders of the village and he explained how the strength and abilities I gained have come from defeating enemies and absorbing their strengths. This explained how we grew in strength so quickly after overcoming difficult enemies and how I’ve been able to control water after hunting so many fish. When I questioned about controlling ground, the leader answered with snakes controlling the ground as they slithered through it and explaining that Passenger killed creatures I haven’t during his personal training.

They had me and Passenger head out to practice fighting against huge creatures before the King Gator. We fought against the huge alligators as before, but also faced huge catfish like the one that killed our first huge alligator and a snake that covered the forest in all directions when we fought it. After a few of those fights, I told the leaders that we were ready to fight the King Gator and they eventually agreed but since I was the one pushing for it they decided that I should face him alone first. I then went over to the plane and turned on the electronics to grab the King’s attention as Passenger hid at the side along with the village leaders.

We heard the noises in the distance again and finally understood it as trees being pulled from the ground. We then heard what sounded like an explosion and a sharpened log made from a tree shot at me from across the swamp. Jumping out of the plane right as it hit, the log blew up what was left of the wreck. Having seen the arc the log took to get thrown here, I shot myself towards the king in a similar arc using water to propel myself. Landing right in front of King Gator, he was in the middle of tearing all the branches off a tree by sliding his hand over it. That showed how he quickly got spear-like logs out of trees.

Seeing that I was already there, he swung the tree around like a bat and knocked down the other trees around us. I kept dodging the attacks as they came, and eventually cut through the tree in his hand when he got too fast to dodge. With his tree cut in half, King Gator swung his claw at me and I was able to block with my sword. This continued with us swinging at each other until Passenger arrived and joined the fight. Although I expected us to overwhelm him with my sword and Passenger’s spear, we still weren’t able to land a hit beyond his claws.

Seeing our lack of progress, Passenger began including his control over the ground to land extra hits in. I was not able to use water since we were not near any, but I was able to control the ground as well by this point. The blunt hits from the ground were pushing him back, so I threw the sword down and began punching and kicking at him. With us now handling the fight well, Passenger told me to hold King Gator off as he prepared something. To somewhat match his size in our 1v1, I attached some of the ground to my arms and legs.

In training with the village leaders I learned how to manipulate the energy gained by defeating monsters somewhat, and my physical body was able to grow a bit to make the earth extensions on my limbs not appear comically large. Now standing at half the height of King Gator, the fight started to feel almost like a boxing match with us trading blows. In these punches I was able to hit him square in the jaw along with every other attack aimed at his face. When I heard Passenger coming over I uppercut King Gator to make him stumble back and stepped aside.

Passenger was in the air and coming down with him was what appeared to be a massive meteor. Burning up, it crashed into King Gator and as it cracked under its own weight water gushed out. Understanding, I controlled all the water spilling out to strike into the King Gator like lasers. Out of all the mist and dust Gator counterattacked and threw me back, and Passenger stepped in to fill my place. Water and rock was now being thrown everywhere, covering the sky as it was flown in circles. As I was still in the distance, I helped with throwing some of the floating rocks down at King Gator.

Returning to the fight, I let the earth attached to me crumble and I used water to fly and accelerate my hits. Passenger also propelled himself with the ground and turned his body larger as I did earlier in the fight. Seeing how well we were pushing him back, we went in for a final punch. Both of us pushed our bodies further to form scales like the large crocodiles’ on our fists and used our element manipulation to propel and slam our fists into King Gator’s face. After the hit he stood in silence for a moment before crashing down into the ground.

He was defeated. Although the village leaders were not strong enough to defeat King Gator themselves, they were able to carry his body away. Going back to the village, we celebrated again. This time it was for the freedom of the people of the swamp and to thank us before we continued our journey to leave the swamp. When we asked about getting food and materials from him, the people were shocked. They told us we couldn’t, as he was a person that happened to get out of control. They assured us that he was taken somewhere that he could not cause trouble, so we continued the party without worrying. Knowing the direction to go from Passenger’s communication, we took this as our last day at the village before journeying out of the swamp. After the party we spent time with Kappa since we would leave him as well.