The Giant Grunty Gauntlet

Several years ago, in a different world entirely, Josh Syx had been taken to a steakhouse in Tokyo, and as the 'young boy' of the group, Josh had to pay. Everyone had ordered wagyu beef, and while the meal was expensive as all hell, it was worth it for the flavors. This world had the potential to have something similar. It wouldn't be the same, but if he could get it right, perhaps it could even surpass the original.

"AT LEAST IT WOULD IF THESE GODDAMN GRUNTIES WOULD HAVE SEX!"

Syx, in this world, and in this present, has been trying to find the perfect traits to breed a grunty that will taste better. A lot of his attempts so far have not been met with success. In his frustration, he has put together a pair each with maxed out strength stats, not considering the consequences of that.

They do finally breed, and then a countdown timer appears above the pen. That was a week ago, and in the time since Syx has done the math and realized that he screwed up. So now he's gathered together some trusted allies, "Okay so here's the deal. This thing critted on it's size stat for the random breeding rolls. So it has completely maxed out strength and size stats. BUT in theory most of it's other stats shoouuuuuld be low." The way he stretched out that last word doesn't sound so re-assuring. It'll probably be fine.

Either way that timer is rapidly ticking down, only about a minute left.

    If you say better tasting meat, you can safely bet on The Flash being interested. So interested, in fact, that she pretty much drags Klein to go with her. Or would, if she had to! Did she? We'll have to wait for Klein's pose to find out!

    ... anyway...

    As soon as word got out about grunty breeding leading to better ingredients, she sent a chim to Syx to sign herself the hell up! This is food, people! It is a drop everything kind of moment!

    "I hope this thing drops enough steak to keep the party fed for a month or more!"

    Asuna dreams big! She feeds hungry people and they want MEAT!!

Klein is many things when it comes down to it, one of them is dependable. He's always there when you need a hand, for someone to run a distraction, or tank a tough monster with a smile on his lips. He's also very dependable when it comes to matters of food.

Having anything close to wagyu beef here would be worth all the effort.

But...hearing that Syx might have managed to make a war grunty instead of a wagyu grunty is certainly cause to give people pause. Klein is readjusting his headband before resting a hand on his sheathed katana. Something this important? The scruffy samurai is treating this as seriously as a floor boss. "Syx, if there's anything I learned from being here..."

"...Fate loves it when you jinx it."

"Should be." Vertina echos. She had been spending a lot of time on the Ranch lately helping Syx with his Strange Mood while also learning other plant related farming skills from him, echos the sentiment. "Depends on how effective the special feed we put together for them was." She shrugs a bit. "What? That's part of breeding real wagyu beef." It might of schewed the odds? Who knows. It was harder when you couldn't see all the statistics in some game menu readout.

Of course she also has a stake (steak?) in the matter because better grunty meat means better options for the Tavern. So much the same reason they were able to pull Asuna into this, and whoever she drags along with her.

As the timer nears the end she gives her gloves a tug into place, light briefly gleaming across the claw-like protrusions from the knuckles. "I could use a workout after all the time digging around in dirt and roots, anyways."

    "I think there was something I heard once. Something about 'Miller's' law, or something like that," Arashi muses as she wanders up from ... somewhere. She had gotten word of Syx's little problem somehow, and it sounded interesting. A Grunty with max strength? That should be an interesting thing to see. Certainly something she hadn't seen before.

    So here's the dire-shire, weapon at her back, looking around and at the proverbial timer if she can see it herself. A few of the others are regarded politely with a nod or a wave, Vert most warmly, then back to Syx. "If it ends up tasting like you want it, that'll make it worth it." She hopes? She never really had the chance to try something so fancy back home.

    Merek takes a look to the grunties and listens, while he nods a bit, "You know, the other day I saw a motorcycle grunty. Like from Mad Max," he says. At the moment, he's waiting to see what comes from the countdown.

"Murphy's." Syx corrects Arashi, as he glances back her way, hmming a little bit, "I don't think this one'll taste right, but Asuna you can have as much as you want to experiment with and tell me what works. Please, please tell me what works it'll help me narrow down on the perfect balance." He has been seeking out the advice of any cooks he could, and Asuna is one of the best he knows.

Vertina is doing her thing too, Syx has been having her help out on his farm while he was out here working on the Scale ranch. It's been actually kind of effective for both of them, "Anywho!" He claps his hands together and turns around to the pen. The timer reaches zero, and there's a loud rumbling sound. Both of the max-strength grunty parents flee. Don't try to explain that. Then the new grunty appears, the pen bursting around it as it reaches its full size. It's about four times the size of a normal grunty, it's going to be like trying to fight a literal tank.

The group has the advantage though, because the massive thing hasn't been able to start it's rampage yet! If they strike now, they can push it back from the rest of the ranch and into an open field to mitigate the damage.

    Merek looks to the grunty when it comes from the spawn, and he draws his weapon. The black blade is adjusted while he swings it with an adjustment to draw iron and use that to sweep the thing back to guide it away.

"Hey Arashi!" Vertina waves to the dire-shire. "Saw some of your tournament fighting! Good job out there, even if the last one was cut kinda short. But a lot of people don't know when to back off," herself included, "so that still counters for somethi--"

She's cut off by the sound of grunties fleeing, turning back to the pen fast enough that you can almost hear a whipcrack sound effect. Scaled brows raise as the breeding results literally burst out of the pen. "That... is a -really- big grunty." It's followed by a grin, bearing cute little dragon girl fangs. "Don't worry Syx, between the two of us we can do something with it I'm sure!"

With that she takes off, kicking up a bit of dirt in her wake. "You know what every good meat needs before cooking?"

She uses her momentum to make a lunging grab, going for the gigantic grunty's neck, and despite it's size she proves to be strong enough to not so much lift it as use leverage to heave it over her shoulder and throw it down into the ground out in the open for the others to get clear shots at it -away- from the barn or the other grunty pens.

"Tenderizing!"

    Arashi's previous trainer gets a shrug, "Got rusty while I was out and about finding more shards. Will update you on that later," she notes as she pulls out Not-Starshadow. A loaner blade from the looks of it, but with a tell-tale style that probably says 'Kaydon-made-this' somehow.

    Then grunties run off and ... ".. oh. Oh that's big," she admits, looking up at the beast. "Who wants steaks?" she asks rather plainly before launching her assault on the creature.

    Before the timer ticks down farther, Asuna raises a hand to her lips and whistles. It's a piercing sound, shocking perhaps coming from her. At first, it seems that nothing happens, but as the grunty suddenly appears, a dire red panda races into view.

    Asuna vaults onto her steed mid-charge. "Let's get it, Tomoe!"

    The monster gets close. Really close. And at the last moment rears up, giving the Flash the reach it takes to attack the creatures flanks with her rapier.

    "Vertina, I think there are some seriously choice cuts over here!"

Klein has been keeping a careful eye on the timer as it slowly ticks down, fingers tapping on top of his blade's hilt. This giant porker is still cooking in the oven, but any second now, things can turn south...

It's not a ding of a kitchen bell that heralds the 'oven' opening, but a shaking of the ground, and Klein draws his katana with both of hands and starts jogging forward. He had to feel bad for the grunty parents; they knew what sort of horror they just unleashed.

While Tomoe and Asuna are charging forward, Klein is not too far behind the dire red panda, dashing forward. Still, he lets out an impressived whistle as the grunty just keeps getting bigger and bigger. "Geeze, what have you guys been feeding his parents?!"

Pulling his blade high overhead, the scruffy samurai slams his blade downwards in a mighty swing alongside it's rear quarters. "Sooooeeeeee! Here piggy piggy!" Making a lot of noise for himself, Klein tries to make sure he has aggro before running off away from the ranch and to a much more open area.

The Giga Grunty rears back in surprise when Merek immediately rushes in and attacks it with the blade. This opens it up to attacks from everyone, as the its HP bar starts to rapidly drop. The group was clearly prepared for it, as Syx rushes in and strikes the beast as well, working in tandem with Vertina when she slams it away, forcing it to rear back and open itself up for Klein's aggro grab to pull it.

That's left them in a nice open field away from the ranch proper, with plenty of room to quite literally carve it up as Arashi and Asuna go to town on it. Then Syx comes out from behind, hefts it over his head and then slams it straight into the ground with a picture perfect bridging german suplex.

Once back on its feet, it rears back and then slams its front hooves into the ground sending out a shockwave at the party of all melee fighters! They better defend!

    Looks like the fight has really started up in earnest. A lot of them have laid into, or laid out, the massive beast, but when it gets up to strike back, Arashi is on the move with the help of a thin sheen of water she starts running, and even sliding, along. Not today, Giga Grunty.

    As they come around, and the borrowed blade is brought to bear, Arashi moves to strike the weapon but .. misses. Oh right, this isn't starshadow at all. Kind of hard to use the technique from the weapon when she doesn't have it! Damn muscle memory. "Hell."

    Under attack, Asuna does her level best to stay out of the way. But she still gets hit. Tomoe, though, she protects. She glares angrily at the enemy. Lambent Light lashes out with numerous little counter attacks, making the creature pay for its hit.

    Guiding Tomoe with her feet and knees, Asuna is able to get the monster to leap back, buying her plenty of space. Mid-leap, Lambent Light is sheathed.

    And in a blur, Asuna is suddenly holding a dark scythe, crackling with negative energy. In a mind-boggling swing, the haft extends and extends, so that the Flash can strike the beast from a safe distance, raining down attacks.

    "I won't even PRETEND to be nice to you anymore, you walking sausage stuffing!" A most cruel insult, that.

Being a Godhand who also has strong ties to earthly elements Vertina can sense the vibrations even as the Giga Grunty is making them. In response she utters something under her breath, form shimmering as she breaks back into motion. Both Arashi and Syx should recognize the technique from training with her, her speedy movements warping light in a way that makes afterimages run off in different directions to confuse the foe while she's evading their attacks.

While the real Vertina uses her evasive maneuvers to get into position somewhere behind the giant pigcow. She digs her heels in, strengthing her bond with the earth, and lifts up her arms while making a clenching gesture with her hands.

The earthen field responds, bending upward from the soil to form two large hands, knuckles studden with gemstones, that grab onto the grunty's back legs to hold it in place for the others! If there is one thing she has learned from helping Syx on this project, is that while gruntys may not be inclined to move much, when they do a stampede is a pain in the ass. And this one is big enough to be a stampede on it's own!

    Merek moves with the party, until they reach the point that they need to defend. He pulls up the power of his shield to defend himself, then he comes about with a blast of fireball, trying his best to keep the grunty distracted while the party works on the boss.

With Klein leading the charge away from any buildings, he feels rather proud that he's preventing any structual damage. As much strength as it has, it's as slow as a boulder, causing him to grin behind him. "At the very least we can make bacon out of-OHCRAP!" His taunt may have come at a rather unfortunate time as Klein gets sent flying from the shockwave, trumbling a few times as he lands once more on the earth.

Seriously, what's with him getting his butt handed to him by pigs?! There needs to be an pigslaying weapon of some kind.

Tossed about but still raring to go, Klein climbs back to his feet and closes the distance once more, katana a shimmer of reflected light as he swings it rapidly. Little narrow red cuts forms on the Giga Grunty, and while the damage may be small, it's building up quickly.

    Merek looks to the grunty and takes a hit from it when it comes around. He then takes his time to charge the power of fire into his hands, swiftly moving forward to swing his fists along into the grunty. He does a few combos while he prepares, then he sweeps along with his fist.

The attacks continue to pile in from all sides, the grunt forced backwards as the attacks rain in, keeping it from being a one-grunty stampede. The HP bar is dropping rapidly, and it doesn't seem like this thing has a lot of mechanics. It's not exactly a raid boss, after all! Still it hurts when it hits, and it's changed to flailing and flopping around on the ground, quite literally throwing its weight around and trying to flatten anyone that's unfortunate enough to still be in the way when it lands.

Syx, who's been hitting the thing with repeated flaming strikes, motions for folks to get clear, "Everybody back, wait until it finishes the attack before you try to go in, or else you're risking getting crushed!" Hopefully he can heed his own advice, as the thing is coming straight for him.

Vertina bolts from her position when the Giga Grunty starts to act up again, unleashing a discharge of fire as a sort of nitro boost behind her. This results in a wake of fire being left behind her steps, even as she runs literal circles around the huge creature to avoid it's thrashing and getting squashed. While at the same time kicking up bits of dirt and rock from the field with her feet, letting it mingle with the flames. Until she finally skids to a stop, putting one foot on the smoldering ball she's formed during the process.

She rolls it back and forth a little, then hooks it with her foot to flip it into the air. Her other foot plants, tail whipping for balance as she pivots, bringing up her left to smash her foot hard into the spheroid as it falls. Flames erupt in a blinding backwash as the now ignited ball rockets through the air like a comet at the Giga Grunty!

    It's a little too late by the time Syx sends out his warning! The thrashing, rolling, rumbling Grunty applies its weight to Arashi rather viciously, despite her best attempt to Blink away from the damn thing. Ouf.

A little frustrated by that, the warhorse -vanishes- again, just after, instead coming down from above to try and plunge that borrowed blade right into the things vulnerable belly. Its rolling around! Its open! STAB.

    So little known fact: Asuna has a temper. An icy one. Klein knows! Not for /that/ reason. He's never the target. Enemies, though. They are frequently the target.

    When Asuna is furious, she's not loud. She's silent. Emotionless. Focused. Like she is in a duel. Only harsher. And so it is now. She is locked on the grunty and it must pay.

    She relies on a technique that Soujiro taught her to deal with the incoming attack. It helps that she has Tomoe to give her yet more options. Despite the side of the dire beast, it moves fast and seems to always know what Asuna wants it to do.

    Weave right, jump left, lunge ahead. Lunge again. And then barrel down on the grunty so Asuna can absolutely let loose a showcase of elegant violence. Lambent light doesn't draw blood, of course. It just stabs into the enemy again and again, leaving brilliant dots of light with each wound.

There are many sides to Asuna as well, one that the public and her enemies know quite well is her icy demenor. Even if he's not the target, it still reminds him that he could be the target in the future sometime. And that's something that can be terrifying.

So to banish those chills, he lights himself on fire. Literally. Klein's body is engulfed in a burst of sudden crimson flames, billowing outwards from the samurai. But before he can launch the burst of magic, one of the tree-trunk limbs of the Giga Grunty is flying right at him! With no other option, he holds up his katana and braces both hands on the blade to keep it steady.

In the real world, there's no way a simple katana would have blocked such a powerful attack. But for Klein's quick reflexes, his HP barely drops and he only goes sliding back a few feet, digging furrows in the soil with his feet. "Argh, yeah, my bad!"

Sheathing his katana for a moment, Klein cups his hands together in an iconic pose known to many an anime fan. There's no charge of blue ki or thrum of gathering power, but the roar of flames intensifying as it gathers. "Always wanted to do this...haaaa!" Thrusting his hands forward, Klein unleashes an narrow 'beam' of crimson flames, roasting the Grunty's hide.

The grunty appears to be on its last legs. It's attempting to chase around Klein, getting scorched by the flaming beam, and as a result the group is finding themselves winning, continuing to push the creature back. Vertina's ball of flame blasts it back, sending it stumbling over. Arashi's blade digs in, sending it stumbling and it seems to be trying to launch one last attack, unleashing a bellowing roar that's trying to use sonic waves to knock the group away from it so it can flee!

"This is it, last push!" Syx calls out, trying to get the group to drive in and finish it off. This fight is nearly done, one last effort!

The beast bellows. The very air ripples with the force of the soundwaves. It's enough to force Vertina to slow down finally, but not stop her. The opposite in fact, as she stalks towards the Giga Grunty even as it screams, drawing on her earthen bonds to brace herself against the soundwaves trying to push her back. She marches right through it though, hair and jacket being blown back but she marches up, winds back, and swings a sucker punch at the big bemoaner's belly with one of her clawed battle gloves.

    Admittedly, Asuna pauses to admire her boyfriend's attack. Yeah, yeah, whatever. She likes it when he shows what he can do! And yes, the Grunty attacks her, but at this point she's pretty much figured out what this this is going to do and she's ready to ward off attacks not so much by a full parry, but by pushing herself out of the way and minimizing damage with quick uses of magical shields or smaller parrying moves.

    However, defense really isn't her thing. Everyone knows that Asuna is all about the DPS! Which is not a naughty thing.

    She leaps to her feet on top of Tomoe, steadying herself with a hand. "Up!" she commands sternly.

    The order apparently means to make a small jump in the opposite direction, then rear up as violently as possible. Which in the mechanics of it all, throws Asuna up into the air. And that's when she calls upon Lambent Light to throw her at the enemy's head. Which she stabs in a blur before as she twists her body and kicks off the grunt's face into a vault that gets her out of the way of everything else that is targeting the giant wall of hamburger.

    That's a pretty loud roar. Desperation attack time! "Close!" Arashi calls out, agreeing with Syx, before she's on the move again. How the dire-shire has such good evasion despite her size is confusing, but its just the way she specced out! That roar doesn't leave a scratch, mwaha!

    Frustrated by the annoying beast, the warhorse holds her borrowed blade aloft, with two hands, before dropping a titanic slice on the on the Grunty. The blade was even charged with some light energy!

    Merek takes his time to keep evading what he can from the grunty, and swinging his weapon. He doesn't do a lot, having used up most of his mana with the fighting. Still, he does manage to provide a bit of distraction.

Charboiling the Grunty while playing keepaway is certainly a struggle, but he's slowly but surely burning down that health bar like it's a candle. There's a lot of backing up, and making sure he isn't causing a wildfire, but by the time Klein's flames finally burn out, he's laid down quite a bit of hurt. Not bad at all for a guy who doesn't specialize in magic!

But the Giga Grunty isn't going down without a fight, this near to death. Rearing back it's head, it lets out a massive AoE that sends ripples through the grass as the sound echoes outwards. This close to the sound, it might as well be a physical assault. But Klein plays it smart and backs off quite a distance, doing his own small impression of his speedy girlfriend. "Then let's do this with style!"

Closing in again, one of Klein's hands hovers above his katana's hilt in preperation. He takes this time to watch Asuna at work, and grinning at her aerodynamic assault. Hey, he can show off too! Nearing one of it's front legs, eyes narrowing, Klein waits for just the moment for the Grunty to slam it's massive leg back down and--

Shink!

--and suddendly, Klein is jumping back as the limb is cut clean off, flames flowing through the air. Thankfully for some, there will be no bloodshed today.

Asuna can live up to her nickname as she drives in first, her weapon stabbing away relentlessly at the creature, before her flip clears the way. Just in time for Vertina to come in with a massive sucker punch that knocks the beast's head backwards, while Klein's slash comes in and severs the leg, forcing it back and exposing its underside for Arashi to drive the borrowed blade into its underside, with Merek's attack helping to push it further over in a one of a kind cow tipping.

The grunty now up on its hind legs and tipping backwards fast

Syx has moved around behind it, and as it starts to tip over he plants his feet and waits, as the beast falls over onto his shoulders, where the flaming Salamander twists and slams it into the ground, the force sending up a wave of dust, which quickly turns into sparkles and XP, the group getting rewarded with an absolutely massive amount of cooking ingredients from the beast, all of it extremely high quality. Still not quite what Syx wanted, but it should make for some delicious meals when cooked properly, and a strength buff to boot!

It wasn't the most effective of Vertina's moves, but it contributed to the overall objective. Good enough. "Take that you overgrown pig... cow... thing!"

Still not entirely sure what you call a Grunty as an insult.

Also, loot. Meaty loot. "This might not be what you're aiming for Syx, but it's pretty high q. We oughta be able to do something with it, eh Asuna?"

It's a good thing that Klein got back in time, because he was almost in the Suplex Splash Zone! The raw strength that Syx must of have to lift such a massive creature over his body several times during that fight is nothing short of impressive, and he lets out a low whistle. And then he gets the status screen showing all the cooking materials he got, and that whistle grows in pitch. "Whao...I hope Yui doesn't decide to become a vegan anytime soon..."

And now that everyone is looking through the loot they just got, Klein sees a chance to be romantic. And many people would think that is odd, right after slaying a giant cow-pig. Tapping on Asuna's shoulder to draw her attention, he offers a small wooden box made out of mahogany. "I know it's a little late, but...I did get you a birthday present!"

Inside the wooden box is a beautiful pendant. The centerpiece is a ruby in a heart cut, rimmed in pure gold. Above the ruby heart is a silver crown with 7 small diamonds shining in the light. It's finally on a thin golden chain.

Blushing softly, Klein turns his head slightly in embarrasment. "Hopefully you like it..."

    "Aaaaand that's a wrap!"

    Asuna wanders over to stand with Vertina, helping sort through the drops. "You're going to need to have a party at the Larder. Maybe for the festival? A giant costume party might do the trick. I can say this much, this looks like high quality stuff, though. Were you looking for a well-marbled meat like Wagyu or Kobe? Maybe try massaging and pampering next time?"

    She looks up at the sound of Klein's voice, turning to glance over her shoulder. She grins and says, "With us as her parents? Not a chance! The only time we don't have meat on the table is when it's sashimi and sushi!"

    The tap on her shoulder gets her to turn properly and shift her attention from the food to her boyfriend. She laughs softly, "So you did get me something!" She looks at him curiously as she considers the box. There was a moment when that first came into view where she almost completely lost her cool. False alarm!

    "Wow, it's lovely, Klein!" She grins and moves closer. Realllly close. And then hands the necklace back to Klein before turning around. "Can you put it on me, please?" she requests.

    She's such a girl!

    "ORDER UP!" Arashi calls as the beast is beaten down and finally defeated. That last hit was .. very satisfying to say the least. She's just hoping the steaks are worth it. ... That'll require a bit of fire and a bit of culinary expertiese that she just does not have. "... So... who's gonna figure out the next part..?"

"Massaging." Syx says, as he rubs his chin a little bit, "I'll have to give it a try. Thanks Asuna!" He says, as he gives her a thumbs up, looking at the gift that that Klein has given her, "Wow, hot damn man. That's good stuff." He gives Klein a slap on the back.

He hmms a little bit to himself, "Oh don't worry Arashi." He says to the power pwny, "We've still got a ways to go but at least I know that the special feed Vertina and I have been working on has the right effect!"

He glances back over to Vertina, "Speaking of which, I'll have to meet you back at the farm I do have an idea for how we could tweak the feed a little bit." And then he's off, heading back on foot towards his farm. Don't worry, he'll definitely show back up once the food's been cooked. That's Syx's real special power.

Fortunately for Klein, he must have missed any facial reactions Asuna had when she had her false alarm. That could have thrown him for an emotional loop! Grinning softly and making sure to chim the creator of the pendant later, Klein gently loops the chain around Asuna's neck and clasps it close. "There you go! I'm really glad you like it, I just wasn't sure if it would fit you."

Meanwhile, a chibi Klein is doing a 'V' pose in his head for this victory.