Chapter 9: Round Two

We ran out at Arch's shout. We found Tora being held by the monster in its larger hand, her arms pinned to her sides. Arch was trying to shoot the Chronohorn, but it wasn't shooting bombs everywhere so his shots were ineffective.

"Wait, Arch!" Blinx yelled. "Wait for the eye to open up and then shoot the eye. That's it's only weakness!" Arch halted and ran over to meet us.

"A little help here!" Tora said. Lightning crackled in between the Chronohorn's horns, and it shot at us with it. We barely dodged.

We fanned out into a circle around the platform, waiting for the next attack. It was focused on Tora. The monster raised its fist and slammed her down onto the ground next to me. A Retry kicked in on her, but it stopped when she was closed in the Chronohorn's fist again. Blinx facepalmed. That was helpful.

"Can you tempt it to shoot bombs?" Bandit asked, ignoring the telepathy.

"Stay spread out and hope for the best," came the reply.

The Chronohorn then shot out bombs. Arch shot the red eye, but the monster didn't flinch. Instead it grabbed him in its other fist. Deciding that Arch was more interesting, Chronohorn dropped Tora onto the floor. I caught her before she hit the ground. Then time froze around us, but with a blue tint. Blinx had hit the button on his sweeper, with a Pause control. But it didn't even last. The Chronohorn had taken it like it was a hit, and dropped Arch in the process. He ran up to us.

Blinx's eyes widened, as did mine. Third stage. He switched over to a Slow control, and the effect happened again. We let him take care of it. Rewind. Fast Forward. Record. All worked and a crack appeared in the clock in its face. But then things got tricky again. It didn't lose it's armor. Instead our bodies stiffened, and time crystals came flying out of our sweepers including the Retry crystals. Looking at the monster, the crack was gone.

"It healed itself," Bandit said. We all just stared.

"Great. Now what are we going to do?" Tora asked.

"Bandit, try using the control thing again," Blinx said.

"Pause!" Bandit's shout was all it took to activate another control, the stage happening over again.

"Who has what control?" I asked.

"Bandit has Pause and has blue eyes, Juro has red eyes and Retry, so Record!" Blinx said. As the last word left his mouth, the control took effect and damaged the Chronohorn once again.

"It corresponds with our eye color, so I should have Fast Forward!" Tora said. The speed control also activated and hit the monster.

"Mine is Slow!" Arch said once the Chronohorn was moving again. His control made it invulnerable for a few seconds again. Once it was moving, I called out mine.

"Rewind!" The last call was enough to complete that stage and again the clock was cracked. Failing to heal itself, the boss shot bombs onto the battlefield. But this time they exploded on contact, and the ice bombs coated the field in ice, making us slide and trip.

"I hated these things," Blinx said to himself mostly. "Still do."

We jumped as lightning came at us. Chronohorn started to scatter bombs again, but Tora shot it in its weak point. This time it worked and the boss took the hit. And cloned itself.

"Either we did more damage than I thought or it's switching around on us," I said. "Hit both at once!"

Just then the platform tipped. We managed to grab onto the grating, and avoid the bombs that were blowing up at the bottom. Keeping our sweepers in hand, we waited until the platform was level again. The monster and its clone tried to bomb us again, but we were too fast for it and shot it. It took another successful hit. The bosses now tipped the platform again, and we repeated what we did before. Except this time one clone scattered bombs at the bottom while the other electrocuted the grating we were hanging on to. Having no way to get to the ground and discharge, the electricity coursed through us painfully until the clone stopped a full minute later and the platform leveled out. We managed another hit on it and then Chronohorn merged back onto one and lost its armor, revealing the green body underneath. It lunged at me in final attempt to defeat us. It didn't reach me as a bomb hit it straight in the side and defeated it. Blinx breathed a sigh of relief before putting his sweeper on his back and running up to me.

"Are you okay? Is everyone alright?" Blinx said as the others came around us. They all nodded.

"Hurts like heck though," Tora said. Electricity sparked through our fur, and some discharged into the grating. We jumped onto the floor, and felt the electricity disappear from us.

"That helps," Juro added. We started walking towards the door, but we tripped over the simplest things, rocks, our feet. Eventually we stopped trying and rested.

-XxXxX-

I woke up to someone shaking me. I opened my eyes and found a stranger trying to wake me up. Then I realized he was one of Lena's guards. I sat up and he backed off. Lena was waking Blinx and her other guards were getting Juro, Bandit, Tora, and Arch. All of us were pretty groggy, but we got up anyway.

"Thank you all for your help," Lena said once we were on our feet.

"No problem, princess," Blinx said. With that we walked out and headed back to the goal gate. Thankfully, we didn't run into any more monsters along the way.

We arrived back in the Factory just as another team was going in. They stopped when they saw us fly out and do a less than perfect landing. In other words half of us fell and the other half barely stayed on their feet. The other team ran down to meet us. They're frowned when they got closer.

"No offense but you guys look terrible." That was an understatement because our coats were ripped, as were our gloves and pants, and our fur was sticking up all over the place. "What happened?"

"Another, smarter and tougher Chronohorn," Blinx said. They didn't say any more. We walked out of the gate room for B1Q64 and headed to the CEO to update him on what we had learned.

Sorry I didn't update last week guys, things are getting crazy. Hope you all have a good week. Go get 'em fey!

-ThinMintE