Threshold of Pain:
Daisy left the pile of Cractus's dismantled body and marched over to the others. Warra and Athelstan had all but recovered from Cractus's toxic saliva when Bowser and Marut helped the two recovering Kruna up and back to their feet. Arka Knight offered no greetings or pleasantries to Daisy when she got near, but he did say, "Impressive showing, Kruna of Earth."
"I noticed your presence when I was fighting that monster plant," said Daisy. "Should I ask why you're here of all places?"
"Would it be a stretch to say that you came here to help us look for Crystal Tears?" asked Bowser.
"I am here to eliminate a terrible monster of Marissa's doing," said Arka Knight. "So no, I am not here to help you look for Crystal Tears; but I do have one in my possession."
"Can we have it?" Marut flatly asked.
"I will give you the Crystal Tear I have," said Arka Knight, taking it out of his pocket to show as proof. "But only if you help me destroy The Suffering."
"What's The Suffering?" asked Marut.
"It is a nameless, wicked entity that assimilates and tortures souls to sustain its sentience," said Arka Knight. "It is called 'The Suffering' because of its nature. The souls captured endure copious sorrows and torment within, becoming more hateful and malicious; wanting the rest of the world to know their suffering as well. This ghoul feeds off of their hatred and grows stronger through their contorted, malevolent intentions."
"And you're sure that that fiend is here?" asked Daisy.
"It is here," said Arka Knight. "Marissa has had The Suffering feed off of many different kinds of souls, but she has led the most dangerous, treacherous, and vile of souls into the Monsoon Jungle with the false illusion that wealth and riches lie locked away somewhere within."
Athelstan raised an eyebrow. "Are there wealth and riches here?"
"Besides that Alkemei Inpei, the Crystal Tears, and whatever lay behind with the bodies from which The Suffering pulled souls, no," Arka Knight replied. "But because no one who ventures through the Monsoon Jungle long enough to find out for themselves ever walks out of it again, no one can disprove the possibility of there being some hidden treasure."
"Alright, let's go round up the others and find The Suffering!" Daisy said.
Ramona hopped and leapt from tree limb to tree limb, descending to lower branches as they came up until she got to a limb just overhead of where Neva and Andrew were. The two sat together on the same rock as before and got up the moment Ramona landed on the ground near them.
"There you are!" Neva exclaimed. "What took ya?"
"I got one tear," said Ramona. "And I was on my way to get another one, but this wailing started going off somewhere deeper into the jungle. I couldn't tell where it originated from, so I came back to get you guys before doing anything else."
"That's excellent work, Ramona," said Andrew, high-fiving with her. "You did great! Now let's go see what that disruption is all about!"
"No, wait, let's not," said Ramona. "I don't think we can handle it with just us three."
"Huh? Why not?" asked Neva.
"I sensed King Boo," said Ramona. "I think I did, at least."
In an instant, Andrew's expression went dark. "In that case, I'll go deal with him myself."
Ramona rushed in front of the Kruna of Shadow and grabbed his arms to keep him from moving forward. "No. No. I get that you really don't like him, but no. Can you be a little rational for once?"
"But he..." Andrew started to say before he changed his mind. "Fine..."
"Let's go back now and rejoin the others," said Ramona. She turned to run down the narrow path. Andrew and Neva followed close behind her.
Since Ramona, Andrew, and Neva had a shorter distance to return as opposed to the others, they were the first ones back in the original clearing that diverged into the many branching paths. More Tobawani Alligators came out from the trees just moments after the three Kruna arrived. Elemental blasts from the three Kruna and swings with their Ultima Staffs proved sufficient to take down the five of the fifteen Tobawani. Just as the rest of the alligators moved in to attack, the other Kruna and Arka Knight entered from the clearing and engaged the enemies. Daisy raised sections of the ground to propel the Tobawani into the air, at which point Athelstan and Arka Knight hurled rocks and boulders at the alligators. Warra slashed a wave of water into another grouping of Tobawani, and Marut hit some of the other ones with a slicing Air Cutter. Bowser breathed four large fireballs to clean up the rest of the alligators, returning calm to the area.
"This jungle is infested," said Neva.
"We picked up two Crystal Tears," said Andrew. "What did you guys get?"
"We found one in the grass on our way back," said Athelstan, flipping the Crystal Tear over to Ramona. "So that's four we found in this jungle. We didn't come across any more, but Arka Knight has one. We also ran into a creature that was in possession of an Alkemei, so maybe that was one of the signals you had picked up on earlier."
"Maybe," said Ramona. "I know my pendant sounds and feels different when it's sensing other Alkemei."
"We've got something else to worry about in this jungle besides Crystal Tears," said Daisy. "What can you detect, Ramona?"
Ramona scoped the area with her Alkemei and swordstaff. "Besides Arka Knight's Crystal Tear, there are only two other readings my pendant's identifying. One of them is on the right but a little bit further in than where your group went, Daisy. The other is straight up ahead."
"Mind if we get those Crystal Tears before we look for The Suffering?" Daisy asked Arka Knight.
"Not at all," the brown-clothed Shy Guy replied.
With Ramona, Daisy, and Arka Knight in the lead and Bowser and Andrew tailing in the back, the Kruna marched through the marshy jungle in the direction of one of the two remaining Crystal Tears. The group of nine went through a congested area of trees and vines before coming to a bridge spanning across a chasm thirty yards in breadth. The long drop below ended at a low section of the jungle with a stream running through it, but Ramona's Alkemei Motomeru did not point them in that direction.
They crossed the bridge to get over the gap and entered a flatter, more sparse region of the jungle. Ramona's pendant showed that they were getting close, so they kept alert for anything out of the ordinary. A short distance deeper into the jungle, they saw the Crystal Tear gleaming in a hole in a tree trunk. Unfortunately for them, they also saw seven Harimen Spinies and five of their thicker, black-shelled relatives, the Harimenzetto Spinies, lurking about in front of the same tree.
Ramona put her arm up to stop Daisy from rushing headlong into them. "If you can't knock off their shells, you can't harm them."
"On it," Daisy said, letting seismic power flow through her arms. She thrust her hands forward at the grouping of Spinies to release her Seismic Wave. The rumbling power shook free the shells from the Harimen, though it did not affect the Harimenzetto. Neva attacked right after Daisy with her Novado to let loose a powerful beam of frost and ice on the exposed Harimen, dragging her wave back and forth to make sure she hit all of them. Her ice coated some of the trees and froze some of the falling rain along with the Harimen.
"Alright, the easy ones are taken care of," said Bowser. "Now what about these other five?"
"Their shells must be heavier and denser," said Warra.
"I got an idea!" Athelstan hollered. He detached the Grip Pitons from his Obelisk Swordstaff and combined their chains together. Holding on to one of the pitons, he threw the other one at one of the Harimenzetto. The thrown piton then latched onto the underside of the Spiny's black shell with one end of its hook. With the strength boost he called upon from his Alkemei Odina, Athelstan pulled the chain tout and yanked the heavy shell off the Spiny. The weighted shell fell halfway into the soft ground once it came off.
While Athelstan dislodged his piton, Neva shot at the exposed Harimenzetto with her bladestaff's crossbow. Bowser got into his shell and sprang at one of the other Harimenzetto with his Whirling Fortress attack. The moment he made contact with the Spiny, Bowser spun out of the maneuver, but he was successful in knocking off the creature's black shell. Arka Knight used his Povado Thumper to crush the Harimenzetto Bowser exposed as Athelstan latched onto another Harimenzetto shell. After Daisy attacked that one with a Smash Punch, only two Harimenzetto remained.
"Can you try out some plasma to incinerate their shells, Bowser?" asked Daisy.
"I can't," Bowser replied, panting. "I'm surprisingly low on energy right now."
Daisy smiled. "That's alright! You take it easy!"
When Athelstan threw out his Grip Piton at one of the Harimenzetto, Daisy ran up to the other one and flipped over it to grab its shell from behind. Both Harimenzetto got exposed once Athelstan pulled the shell off one and when Daisy overturned the other on its own shell. Warra and Arka Knight jumped and made finishing blows on the Harimenzetto with their elemental tools, ridding the area of the last of the Spinies.
Ramona grabbed the Crystal Tear from the tree trunk and put it away on her person. "One more to go!" she cheered.
"And it seems like this last one is gonna be somewhere in the deepest part of the jungle, right?" Daisy asked.
"I believe so," Ramona said, scoping for confirmation. "Yeah, I think that's the one I got close to before. It feels like it's moving around and not staying in one spot. Regardless, those chains of bridges up ahead seem like the quickest way to it."
"That means either the rain's washing the tear away somewhere, or someone has it," said Daisy.
The layout of the jungle ahead of the Kruna was far different from the rest of the environment. The bridges acted to connect pieces of land together across abyssal gorges, but it also looked like large portions of the jungle floor had been ripped free to the right of the bridges further up. As with the rest of the jungle, trees made the travel path narrow and crowded, meaning the only open areas ahead came from where it seemed like the underneath of the bridges opened out to.
When the group got across the third of the series of bridges, they looked over the ledge of the jungle floor and saw the rivers of the gorges raging into the delta hundreds of feet below. Where the delta led, they could not tell from their point of view.
"That may be a route out of the isthmus into one of the oceans," said Warra. "If it is, it's preventing the Monsoon from flooding the jungle. The relentless rain waters may have created a constant flow into the trenches that ended up washing away the jungle floor from the underside to create this sloping basin. That's the impression the flow of water down there is giving me."
Bowser frowned. "So not only has the rain been going on non-stop for however long Rosalina said, but now it's actually eating into the jungle and destroying it?"
A smashing sound caused the Kruna to look back behind them, where they saw a chunk of land from the other side of the bridge they just got off of slide down into the delta. The same bridge snapped as a portion of the land that held it in place also slid off.
"Alright, well, moving along then!" Marut said with a nervous grin.
"There's no saving this jungle," said Warra. "We best get done with our business here and leave soon."
Arka Knight and the Kruna passed through the remaining bridges and reached an area of the jungle more consistent with the other regions they had worked through. Ramona's Alkemei alerted her to the presence of the last Crystal Tear in the Monsoon Jungle. Just as she took out her swordstaff to scope, they heard wailing rumble through the air.
"Uh-oh," murmured Ramona. "Those are the same sounds I heard earlier."
The group of nine listened to the soul-jarring cries tearing through the sound of the rainfall. From what they heard, the source of the caterwauling was close by.
"That is it," said Arka Knight. "The Suffering's lamenting howls..."
Ramona scoped for the Crystal Tear and noticed the direction of her detection changing. "The Suffering might have the last Crystal Tear," she then said. "Neither my swordstaff or Alkemei are consistent with their glow when I'm holding steady, so something's definitely moving around with it."
"We're going to walk slowly in whatever direction we need to go," Arka Knight said to the Kruna.
"Pay attention to where Ramona's pointing her swordstaff," Daisy added.
The wailing continuing, Arka Knight and the Kruna moved through the deep jungle. Alert and attentive for whatever might present itself, they kept conscious of every step they made. A flash of lightning lit the jungle for a brief moment, something that had only happened a select few times since the Kruna had arrived. The ensuing thunder did nothing to mask The Suffering's wails.
The group rounded a corner into a wider path to see a grouping of Tobawani Alligators and Ringosuki Monkeys scattering and fleeing. The wailing and screaming got louder as Ramona's Motomeru hummed and vibrated more. With no need to scope anymore, Ramona got her Luster Swordstaff ready to defend against a possible ambush. The Suffering seemed to be moving closer to them as much as they were moving closer to it.
"Why do I sense King Boo..." said Bowser.
"I sense him too," said Daisy. "In fact...I sense a whole bunch of other beings with him..."
"They're coming closer!" Marut said.
The wailing reached its loudest volume yet. A grotesque figure equal in size to Bowser dragged its body into the wide path and cried out at the elemental wielders. With charcoal gray skin, the ghoul had mouths where its eyes were supposed to be, six-arms, a deformed, asymmetrical torso that looked morbidly decayed on its left side, and lumpy tumors all over its pyramid-esque legs. It had no rhyme or reason to its abomination of a form.
"The Suffering," Arka Knight said under his breath.
"There's the Crystal Tear!" Ramona shouted. "It's lodged in its forehead!"
Sure enough, as the screaming body writhed on the ground, the others saw the Crystal Tear stuck halfway into the center of its forehead. It looked like the Kruna would not only have to beat The Suffering, but would also have to pry the Crystal Tear out of its skull.
"That's the last one to get from this jungle?" asked Daisy. Ramona nodded in response.
The Suffering kept using four of its six arms to drag its body through the muddied jungle floor. Bright gold light shined from each of its three mouths whenever they opened. Sections of its torso wriggled and jiggled, making scratchy, squishy noises. Steam and vapors rose from where The Suffering's body contacted the ground.
"You know, if this wasn't so creepy, I'd probably be laughing at how ridiculous this thing looks," said Marut.
"This is supposed to be a threat, Arka Knight?" Andrew snapped. "It can barely move!"
As the Kruna of Shadow marched towards the front of the group, The Suffering made an unholy shriek so horrendous and dreadful that the nine elemental wielders all covered their ears to block the awful, cringeworthy sound. Marut, Athelstan, and Andrew lost their hold on their Ultima Staffs in the process and dropped them, but they couldn't pick them up right away. All nine of them had an incredibly hard time trying to move for the duration of the scream and even for a few moments after The Suffering stopped. When normal movement returned, their bodies felt half-numb through all their ranges of motion.
"What was that?!" asked Bowser.
"Some sort of paralysis move," Andrew said, clutching his bladestaff. Before the Kruna of Shadow could get off an attack, The Suffering opened its mouths and let green fumes ooze out. The haze sizzled in the air as it floated along the ground.
"Woah!" Andrew yelled. He and the others backed up immediately, though The Suffering's fumes moved slow and had a very short range. The grass the green haze hovered over wilted, crumbled, and died in just seconds.
"Careful!" snapped Arka Knight. "We are dealing with something extremely toxic. Do not initiate direct contact with it! Stay as far away as you can, or it will make you suffer for it."
"That limits our options to ranged attacks," said Warra.
"We must handle what we are dealt with, regardless of the circumstances," said Arka Knight.
The Suffering emitted another paralyzing howl and began a slow advance towards the immobile elemental wielders. With the Kruna unable to move, The Suffering closed the distance between it and them and got close to the four elemental wielders up front. Just as The Suffering spewed more of its toxic green fumes, motor control returned to the Kruna. They backtracked just out of the way as the haze floated over where they formerly stood.
"There! That tree!" Warra called out, pointing at one with low branches. One by one, the nine elemental wielders ran for the tree and leapt onto the limbs to ascend into the treetops. They spread out to various trees around The Suffering, who still dragged along on the ground, moaning and screaming. Though Athelstan and Bowser had to perch on lower, thicker branches due to their heavier weights, they remained high enough off the ground to stay out of harm's way. Now dozens of yards off the ground, the nine elemental wielders waited and locked their gaze on The Suffering.
"I don't like these evasive tactics," Daisy muttered.
"Would you prefer having the flesh peel off your legs?" Arka Knight snapped.
"Look at it," said Bowser. "It's just lurching around down there. We can just pick it to pieces from up here!"
"That seems underhanded and cheap, if you ask me," said Daisy.
"I reiterate; would you prefer having the flesh peel off your legs?" said Arka Knight. "Or did you always aspire to be braised meat?"
"Wait, what's it doing?" said Marut.
The Suffering had made its way to the base of one of the many jungle trees. From there, it propped itself up and staggered to its clodhopper feet. It then gripped the tree trunk with all six of its arms and crushed the section in its hands. When it let go, the tree began to lean back on its way down. It took the elemental wielders a moment to realize that it was Andrew's tree falling. The Kruna of Shadow tried to jump off to a nearby branch, but he didn't have enough height to get to the one he targeted. His trajectory put him on course to land right next to The Suffering, who had already started breathing more of the corrosive, ghastly green haze around it.
"Shady!" Neva screamed.
Luckily for the Kruna of Shadow, Marut swooped down with the power of his Alkemei Furaito and snatched him up before he got within reach of The Suffering. The Kruna of Air angled back up to the treetops and set Andrew down on a branch before landing on one himself.
"Thanks, Marut," said Andrew, gathering shadows around him. "Time for a little payback!"
Andrew charged a dense orb of dark energy above his head and slammed it down to the ground at The Suffering, making direct contact. But when the shadows dissipated, The Suffering acted as if nothing happened and lumbered towards another tree.
"You've got to be kidding me!" Andrew growled.
Bowser breathed a fireball at The Suffering, but again, the ghoul did not show any signs of damage to its body. The same thing happened when Ramona fired a beam of light energy, when Neva shot ice arrows, and when Warra aimed an Aquavado blast. The Suffering took all the attacks without even blocking them, yet had no damage to its form.
When it staggered close enough, The Suffering breathed its toxic haze onto a tree and then let it work its effects on the wood. Daisy felt a jolt on her tree when the fumes ate into the trunk and jumped to an adjacent branch of a different tree. She initially missed the branch, but she caught the trunk and clung to it with her Crystal Grip. The other tree fell over much like the first one did.
"It has held up against all of our attacks so far," said Warra.
"We're just not trying hard enough is all," Andrew said, clutching his right wrist. Shadow power flowed out of his open hand in aggressive swirls. He prepped himself to jump down at The Suffering with his ripping palm of dark energy. "I'll overpower any defense!"
"No-no, stay up here," said Bowser. "Have at least some bit of patience."
"Elemental attacks aren't working," Arka Knight said. "You're going to have to break down and demolish its body to stop it."
"What do you mean?" asked Athelstan.
"You can't burn it, you can't freeze it, so tear it limb from multitude of disfigured limbs!" replied Arka Knight.
"That's impossible!" Bowser exclaimed. "If we get anywhere near it, then it's going to scream at us, paralyze us, and then acidify us!"
"Pay attention, dudes," said Marut. "It's about to take down another tree!"
As soon as Marut said that, The Suffering swung two of its arms in vicious hooks. With a loud snapping echo, the tree Arka Knight stood on whipped to the side and flopped over. The wild tree forced all the other elemental wielders off their spots and to trees farther back. Arka Knight hopped onto a low branch and jumped back up to the height of the others just before The Suffering could try and swing its arms at him.
"I hate what it's doing to this jungle," Daisy said. "We've got to come up with something quick."
"It doesn't matter at this point," said Neva. "The jungle's falling apart from all the rain anyways. We just need to figure out how to beat this monster. At least it doesn't have any true ranged attacks."
"Yeah, but our ranged attacks aren't effective against it," said Bowser. "So it's a standoff until we can get up close."
"But we can't get close!" Daisy exclaimed in frustration. "Damn, this is so restricting!"
"I'll try something with this," Warra said, activating his Alkemei Inpei. After his pendant glowed for a brief instant, he completely disappeared without any trace other than his thin silhouette in space. And even that appeared inconspicuous.
"Wow, this Alkemei's working much better on you than it did on Cractus," said Marut. "I don't think I can even see you at all!"
"Well, look how gigantic Cractus was compared to me," Warra said. "Oh wait, you can't see me now, can you?"
"Nope!" Marut and Ramona both replied.
"Wait, I didn't even notice he had an Alkemei!" Andrew snapped. "So you mean to tell me I'm the only one here without one?!"
"Yes," Arka Knight replied with nonchalance. His flat response made Neva, Bowser, and Marut laugh.
"What're you thinking about doing, Warra?" asked Daisy.
None of them heard the Kruna of Water say anything. Daisy called out his name again, but he still didn't reply.
"He's gone already, isn't he," Daisy muttered.
Athelstan pointed down at The Suffering, who got set to take another swing at one of the tree trunks. Just before it did, Warra became visible right behind it and slashed his Tidal Swordstaff upwards full force at one of The Suffering's arms. The swipe with his blade cut just below the elbow of the ghoul's top right arm and lopped it off.
But as Warra got ready to strike again, he had to back away and clear distance between him and the ghoul. Neon green acid poured out of The Suffering's open wound and splattered on the ground next to its severed arm. By the time The Suffering turned around, Warra had activated his invisibility again. The Suffering let out a wail of agony and cried out as green fumes billowed out from the point where its limb used to be. The ghoul grabbed its head and screamed its paralysis howl even though it couldn't get to any of the elemental wielders in the trees. It then had a seizure in increasing torment, toxic fumes continuing to flow out all the while.
"It literally sounds like it is in an intense, endless cycle of pain," said Ramona. "It's as if thousands upon thousands of voices are crying out in terror every time it opens its mouths."
"No living thing should ever have to go through whatever that fiend is going through," said Dasy. "No non-living thing should either. I can't even imagine..."
"Especially for the souls trapped within," added Arka Knight.
"You know, I'm still sensing a whole array of other energy signatures," said Ramona. "Including King Boo's."
"But he's nowhere near here," said Andrew. "None of them are."
"Then they're all a part of The Suffering," said Arka Knight.
After the elemental wielders saw a few tree limbs shake in ascending order, Warra became visible kneeling on one. "Now even I can't get down there," he said. "Those gases look like they're just going to keep coming out of its body, and now it's dripping acid from where I cut its arm off."
"But at least you showed how we can destroy it," said Arka Knight. "The Suffering is resilient against elements but weak when it comes to direct hits. And since getting anywhere near it will mean death now, we have only one viable option."
Daisy's expression turned grim, for she knew what Arka Knight meant. She clutched the gem of her Alkemei Orianthi in her hand, the Pendant of Reanimation she had used only one other time. But before she did or said anything else, The Suffering took another swing at one of the trees, this time smashing the trunk of the tree Marut and Ramona stood on. Both Kruna escaped the falling tree, Ramona leaping onto the limb of an adjacent one and Marut hovering in the air with his Pendant of Flight active.
"Kruna of Earth!" Arka Knight barked. "The dead animals underneath the marsh; revive them!"
"Guess I don't have a choice, huh?" said Daisy.
"Oh, you have a choice," said Bowser. "It's just that if you don't use it, we're going to run out of life preserver trees!"
The Suffering raised its deformed right leg and smashed it into another tree, the one Neva stood on. Its strike cleared trunk from underneath the tree and made it drop down on its bottom, creating a jolt on contact that knocked Neva off balance and sent her plummeting to the jungle floor. Marut tried to swoop in and catch her, only for The Suffering to grab hold of the loose tree and throw it up into the air where it smacked him away from the battle scene.
As Marut got caught up and tangled in a thick vine far off from the action, Neva dropped flat onto the jungle floor and lost consciousness on contact. At that instant, Andrew darted down the limbs and branches of the trees to the floor in front of Neva. Daisy descended through the trees as well, coming to a stop just behind The Suffering, who had turned its attention to Andrew and Neva.
C'mon, c'mon, Daisy thought. She clasped her hands together and pointed her index and middle fingers up, trying to concentrate on using her power and not on her friends' peril. Orianthi!
Daisy activated her Pendant of Reanimation and focused her control down under the ground of the jungle. Her influence and life force awakened several corpses and bodies from within the earthen terrain as The Suffering stalked towards the two vulnerable Kruna. Andrew picked up Neva and accelerated backwards with her, but got stopped in his tracks once The Suffering let out yet another wail of paralysis. The toxic haze continued spewing out of The Suffering, threatening to snuff out Andrew's and Neva's lives the closer the ghoul lumbered.
Bursts of water and light rained down on The Suffering from above but proved no more effective than they did earlier. Andrew backed up with Neva in his arms until he felt a thud hit him from behind and realized that he had walked into a tree. As he turned to run to his right, he got pelted with another paralyzing cry. The Suffering continued lurching towards Andrew and Neva, unrelenting in its pursuit and getting ever closer.
I'm gonna have to let you go, thought Andrew, looking around the jungle. He grimaced trying to force his body through The Suffering's immobilizing shriek. There's gotta be somewhere I can throw you behind where it won't get to you...
The Kruna of Shadow looked behind him to see The Suffering trudging closer and closer in its cloud of corrosive haze. And then I'm gonna have to take my chances, he then thought.
The Suffering screamed yet again, immobilizing Andrew before he even got to distance himself from the ghoul. Any chance of throwing Neva behind the trees and into the bushes somewhere left with the chance of escaping. The Suffering had moved within ten yards of the two Kruna, and its fumes of death even closer.
"Ohh..." Ramona groaned. She shut her eyes, gritted her teeth, and clenched her fists in expectation of the worst. Bowser, Athelstan, Warra grimaced and scowled as they and Ramona watched from above in the trees, all four of them and Arka Knight helpless to do anything to stop The Suffering. Marut had snapped free from the vines and flew back to the scene, but he knew he couldn't dive down to grab Andrew and Neva in time. He would get caught too if he tried. Another debilitating roar from The Suffering locked Andrew into place, but the Kruna of Shadow made one final adjustment to hunch over Neva and put his back to the ghoul.
The next several moments felt so quick to Andrew, he didn't even realize anything happened. Because nothing happened. The next thing Andrew knew, he had feeling back in his body and could move. When he looked behind him, he gasped in awe of the sight of something born out of an abhorrent, grisly horror movie.
The Suffering could not move any closer to Andrew and Neva, for eight pairs of partially decayed arms had erupted from the ground and grabbed hold of the ghoul's legs. Daisy stood way back behind the abomination with her Alkemei Orianthi glowing. The Kruna of Earth held her left arm up and pointed two fingers skywards, coinciding with the ascension of eight zombie Ringosuki Monkeys from underneath The Suffering. Andrew carried Neva away from the danger and got behind a nearby rock to peer out from.
When all the undead Ringosuki emerged from the ground, they wrapped themselves all around The Suffering's legs. Twelve skeletal birds crawled out from the marshy jungle floor and went airborne, circling around the agonized monstrosity and taking turns diving in at it. The Suffering struggled and wriggled against the grapples of the zombie monkeys and swung its arms to hit them off, only for Daisy to bring more of them to the surface.
"Oh my gosh..." Ramona mumbled, sick in the face. "What am I watching?!"
"This is only going to get more disturbing, I'm sure..." murmured Warra.
The zombie Ringosuki dug their hands deep into the left leg of The Suffering and ripped it free from its torso. Knocked off balance from the sudden limb loss, the ghoul fell over on its back. More acid and toxic fumes poured out as The Suffering screamed and wailed as hard as it ever had. Some of the undead monkeys and birds faltered and disintegrated under the effects of the corrosive fluids and gases, but the decreasing number of reanimated bodies just meant that Daisy could now bring up more to replace them.
And so she did. Ten Tobawani Alligator corpses burrowed up from around the jungle and closed in on The Suffering. Andrew watched two of the zombie alligators crawl past him just inches away from his feet, neither of them even paying any mind to him or Neva. The last of the Ringosuki zombies pinned The Suffering to the ground until all the undead Tobawani joined them before faltering and breaking down. While the skeletal birds continued their aerial attacks on the downed ghoul, the alligators bit into and ripped apart the Suffering's acid-leaking, gas-spouting body; all while The Suffering screamed and cried without end.
In a macabre display, the alligators and The Suffering experienced simultaneous destruction. The zombie Tobawani tore The Suffering's body apart into dozens of disheveled chunks, but they themselves went under and broke down from the acid and fumes The Suffering's body released. The other elemental wielders descended from out of the trees to join Daisy on the ground as the grotesque event unfolded. Before long, only a few of the skeletal birds remained and flew around in circles over what had become a massive pile of decayed bodies and rotting, mottled limbs.
When that pile began to sink into the jungle floor from the spilling acid, Daisy directed one of the remaining undead birds to pull out the Crystal Tear from The Suffering's forehead. She then had the bird drop it by her feet to let the rain wash it off a little before anyone touched it. With that, Daisy willed the reanimated birds to land and return back under the ground before deactivating her Orianthi.
The Suffering's acids ate away at its own body now that it had all flowed out and escaped from its containment within. As The Suffering's body melted, a bright wavy flash of white light oozed out and up through the treetops before spreading out in all directions. The Kruna heard thousands of voices coming from the light from the time it shined to the time it faded out and dissipated.
"These past ten minutes have been all kinds of wrong," said Marut. Andrew carried Neva far from the sinking gaseous pile of acid and dead bodies on his way over to the group.
Taking a deep breath under the accumulated strain and energy drain of her Alkemei usage, Daisy knelt down and picked up the Crystal Tear at her feet. She handed it to Ramona, and, as promised, Arka Knight tossed his over to the Kruna of Light as well. Counting the one from Arka Knight, the Kruna had acquired seven Crystal Tears out of their mission through the Monsoon Jungle.
"Excellent use of your Orianthi, Kruna of Earth," said Arka Knight.
"I didn't enjoy one second of that, you know," Daisy replied, turning to walk up to Arka Knight. "This is not a power someone in my position should have. This feels so...twisted and wrong; this pendant is not ethical at all. I...I should not be tampering and playing with the dead like this – it's a mockery of real, natural life... This isn't noble, this isn't befitting of a Kruna, this...it's disgraceful... This feels like cheating!... Why did you give me this Alkemei?... Why did you ask this of me?"
Arka Knight didn't reply right away. Daisy turned and paced away from the brown-clothed Shy Guy in angst, adding only, "I'm waiting on a response."
"We survived because you used that ability, Daisy," said Warra. "Don't curse it."
"That's the second time your pendant has saved us, Daisy," said Bowser. "Clearly, good has come out of using it."
Daisy sighed and looked away as she gripped her forehead through her cloak hood, trying to relax. She was silent for a little while, but when she turned back around, she seemed more at ease; even if only a little. So many thoughts and wonders filled her head.
"Hey..." Arka Knight called out to Daisy. "Thank you for destroying The Suffering, Kruna Daisy. You did well here... Don't get swamped by rain that doesn't fall."
Daisy didn't get a chance to say anything or ask what he meant, for Arka Knight spun around into a brown twist and disappeared in a warped blur. The Shy Guy's energy signature vanished just as quick. With Arka Knight gone, the attention turned to Neva, who still lay unconscious in Andrew's arms.
"Is she okay?" Ramona asked.
"Nothing seems broken," said Andrew. "I mean, I'm not a medic, but...I hope nothing's broken..."
"She did have a pretty high fall, but the ground's soft from the rain," said Warra.
"Then she oughta be fine," said Daisy, walking up to her. "She is kinda fragile, but I wouldn't worry. It just seemed like an awkward landing."
"Hey, I think she's waking up," murmured Andrew. The others came closer to look in. Neva's eyes drifted open. She looked around, quiet and calm.
"See? Just a little shock is all," Daisy said with a soft smile.
"Welcome back," Andrew said to Neva. "Are you alright?"
"I think I am..." Neva asked. "What happened? All I remember was that I fell on the ground...and The Suffering was on the ground..." She then paused and wondered why she was floating before realizing the Kruna of Shadow's hold on her was what kept her suspended off the jungle floor. "Andrew...did you save me?" she asked.
Before Andrew said anything, Athelstan cut in and sounded off. "Oh yeah! You should've seen him! He shot down like a lightning bolt as soon as he could and got you away from that six-armed freak of nature!"
"He did?" Neva asked as Andrew scowled at Athelstan.
"Yup! That was all him!" Athelstan said. "He didn't drop you or let go of you for one second! You didn't even come close to touching the ground once he picked you up."
"I think you owe him a big thanks, Neva," said Daisy.
"What? No! Thank Daisy!" said Andrew. "She's the one that destroyed The Suffering, not me."
"But she didn't pick Neva up and run with her to get her away from it, did she?" said Bowser.
"Wha- Bowser?!" Andrew shouted.
"And she wouldn't've survived without him by the time Daisy reanimated those creatures from under the ground," added Athelstan.
"That's true," said Daisy. "I was working as fast as I could."
"But I wouldn't've been successful in doing any of that if Daisy hadn't used her Orianthi!" Andrew snapped at Athelstan.
"But you went down and grabbed Neva before I even got ready to use it, you big softie," said Daisy.
"Jus-shut up!" shouted Andrew.
Everyone else burst into laughter; except for Neva, who blushed and beamed from what she had just heard. Their work done in the Monsoon Jungle, Bowser and Warra both activated their radio transmitters to call for the Koopa Cruiser. The Kruna then began to make their way out to the other side of the jungle to finally leave the dreary land of endless rain.