How exactly does one deal with an invincible enemy? Small in stature as it may be, and doubtlessly weak in terms of physical strength... It still held fast to the single thing that would make defeat impossible: imperviousness to damage. An interesting puzzle.
Sora took the first charge, spinning himself around with his blades held outward. The creature groaned and hissed as cuts ran all over its upper body, yet Sora saw them slowly ooze away as he halted in a crouch a short distance behind it. Where gaping wounds had yawned out all over its chest, shoulders, arms, there was nothing but the clammy green of goblin skin, lit up dimly by the glitches that hovered close to its flesh.
Mimiru charged next, slashing down diagonally across the goblin. Again, a huge wound opened up, stretching from one shoulder and ending down by its hip... but that, too, faded away just gradually faded away.
"What the... Are we even hurting it?" she growled. As if to follow up her question, she suddenly stabbed her sword straight through the monster. It made a very unpleasant squishy crunch, as well as a ghastly shriek that made even Sora flinch. Had this been any other goblin, it might have been mildly comedic to see it impaled upon the blade of Mimiru's gargantuan sword, helpless and doomed to being erased yet again... It hunched over the blade, growling quietly at the metal that had punctured its body. Feeble hands grasped at the edges, ignoring the new cuts that blossomed... Its own dagger had been dropped and forgotten.
Mimiru lifted a foot up as if she was going to slide the goblin off of her sword, but a low squeaking noise made her stop. She looked at Sora, thinking that maybe he was making weird noises again, but he seemed to be staring intently at the goblin. Its claws had started to go into the blade, pushing holes through it; THAT had been the source of the noise. "Hey, stop that!" she scolded, shaking a fist at it. "This is my favorite sword!"
Heedless. Absently it began to dig its claws into the very middle of the blade and started pulling outwards, completely oblivious to the fact that by doing so, it was forcing the blade to split in half right through its own body. The sword could only creak in protest, and its bearer fumed as a good half of its length was split in half in such a way that the sword looked more like a giant T than any sort of weapon.
"Masochistic fellow, isn't he?" Sora noted.
Helplessly Mimiru held up her ruined sword, running a hand over where the metal had been forced apart (strangely warm). "It took me forever to get this sword, you little creep!"
An eye twitched. He saw it coming long before Mimiru even set her attention back upon the enemy. "Move," he barked, but she was the sort to look before leaping every single time. Puzzled, she looked at him first, before noticing that the goblin's fists were rushing straight at her. It hit her square in the stomach, knocking her a good distance backwards... The clatter of armor upon the floor was loud and harsh. From beyond the doorway, a stunned Mimiru gasped and scrambled back onto her feet.
Heavy Blades, like their Blademaster counterparts, had the advantage of relatively high defense compared to most of the other classes in The World. Goblins were... weak, weak enough to where usually the only people who had to worry about them were those with fresh characters.
Sora checked the party listing. Mimiru's HP had gone down into the red... "How did... What...?" she breathed, holding a hand up to her stomach. Fear shone clearly through her large greyish eyes. They began to widen as the goblin took one slow step toward her, followed by another, and yet another. Before it could come close enough though, Sora leapt in between it and the Heavy Blade.
"You have healing items, I hope?" He did not look at her when he spoke, settling back into a battle-ready crouch. "Might be helpful to make use of them. One more hit and you're out."
"Er, right..." A pearlescent light washed over her as she used a Recovery Drink, filling most of her HP bar back up to the maximum. The shock of the attack still stayed, though, as well as a dull ache where she had been struck; little bugger's strength stats must have gotten glitched as well as its appearance and HP.
Sora waited until she had been healed before he started off another attack. Before she had the time to blink, he had rammed shoulder first into the monster to knock it a short distance away from her, as well as the only way out of the room. "Doesn't look like that'll be much use for you anymore," he said before diving closer to give the goblin a few new (worthless) cuts lengthwise across its belly. "And it doesn't look like this thing is going to be nice and die for us anytime soon. Any ideas?"
Defeated, Mimiru flung her blade off to the side where it clanged dully upon the stone flooring. "If this is something we can't defeat, then... maybe we should just get out of here? And let some one know that there's something wrong with this monster..."
The goblin charged at Sora but he was quick enough to leap up over it. As he landed, he spun about and slammed the hard metal sheathing that covered his forearms into the goblin's side, sending it sprawling. "Then off you go! That is, unless you forgot to bring a Sprite Ocarina as well."
"No no, I have one." Briefly she shuffled about a conceniently invisible inventory before holding up a small white ocarina. "But, um... What about you?"
It was then that something odd happened. Two separate individuals sitting in two different settings did the exact same thing at the exact same time both in and outside of The World: they blinked, felt their mouth open a little as if they were going to say something, and went about pretending that neither had been surprised in the least bit.
Sora quickly shaped his surprise into a look of amusement, putting on a lop-sided smile. Mimiru on the other hand slipped into looking just a tad sheepish; why was she, of all people, concerned about his wellfare anyways? (Coincidentally enough, the same thought ran through hs mind as well.)
The goblin gathered itself back up and glared at Sora, growling low deep within its throat. For all he knew, the fighting might have just been making it stronger since its HP counter wasn't showing proper numbers; random symbols sat above a health bar that seemed to have failed to decrease at all.
"Never leave town without them. So what are you waiting for?" As if doing so would usher her away, he waved a hand at her.
"Aren't you coming along?"
He sighed and spoke in half-monotone, like he was explaining something obscenely simple to a child. "If I leave before you, it'll go after you, and you will die. I'm faster than you are, remember? Things don't hi--"
With his attention split between the two, he did not catch on to the goblin's body language as quickly as he normally would have if he were alone. It had crouched down and sprang forward like a cat, and Sora had moved to dodge just a second too late. He managed to dart off to the side, but not unscathed; claws left a searing pain upon his torso. Then in an instant, the goblin went at him again, this time with fists flying. Sora managed to block one punch but another caught him square in the jaw. Deftly he somersaulted back away from the goblin a few times, landing in a low crouch with a very displeased look on his face. "OW."
Mimiru smirked sweetly. "You were saying?"
Thank goodness for higher levels... Sora grumbled something about unfair advantages as he used a Recovery Drink or two on himself. His only saving grace that time was, of course, his high amount of HP. Twin Blades weren't renown for being very sturdy. "Hurry up and go. See you up top."
"Hai, hai." The gentle chiming of a quiet laugh echoed through the room before she held the ocarina up high and dissapeared.
Once she was gone, Sora let himself slump forward a little and rub sorely at the side of his jaw. "Tch... That really did hurt, you know," he told the goblin. Indifference kept the goblin from responding. "You're really something... Hmm, something else to keep an eye on. Well, until next time... Ta-ta~!" Playfully he waved to the goblin, who had chosen that moment to throw another flurry of punches but Sora was gone before they could sweep through the space he once stood in.
Again, silence reigned within the dusty chamber. The broken creature hobbled back towards the center to wait, for that seemed just a good a place as any to do so, and from that point it could stare far through the doorway and down the halls that led to its own personal domain. Time rendered irrelevant, the passage of it just as meaningless as the few combatants it may drag along with it.
A slow, stupid blink crept across its eyes as another presence filled its chamber. It craned its head from side to side searching it out, but no body was to be seen. From the darkness clinging along the ceiling, trailing serpentine shapes along the nooks and crannies that ran along the top corners of the room, an oily feminine voice uttered a single word: "Wonderful."
And just as quickly as it came to be aware of it, it slipped away and there was nothing but silence.