AN: References used: Teen Titans, Marvel/X-Men, Kingdom Hearts (our focus), Bleach, Final Fantasy (I: Dawn of Souls, VII, X, XII, and XIII), Call of Duty, Naruto, Pokémon, Nintendo, 300, Dragonball Z, Johnny Test, Fantasia, and Hercules. In this chapter: Tales of the Abyss.

Chapter 6 — Taming the Beast

Bowser was pushing the limits of the three brothers. He wore Slowpoke down to the point where he did not have enough energy to get up. Bongo's left arm was scarred by one of Bowser's fierce claw strikes, leaving long open wounds down it. Mooch could barely keep up with the Acolyte, let alone protect himself; Bowser was relentless.

"Any last words?" Bowser asked Mooch, standing over him while preparing to fire a Fire Blast in his face.

"...Look alive." Mooch struggled to say, smirking.

"For what?"

"For me." spoke the voice of Felix, who was directly behind Bowser with a Chidori charged in his hand.

The great koopa turned around only to be inflicted with the ball of surging electricity, which sent him flying through a nearby cliff. While he was on the ground, the rest of the New 12 appeared on the scene to aid Trio Alpha.

"Thanks, Hoppity." Mooch said, for it was her that sent him a telepathic message saying that the rest of the team was on the way.

After Mooch got up, the healers of the team dispersed. Ewey immediately casted Regen on the three for gradual healing, Bonnie used Soten Kisshun to restore Bongo's arm, and Megan used her Medical Jutsu to bring Slowpoke back to full strength.

"We probably should've snagged a few Senzu Beans..." Christina figured.

The group suddenly felt Bowser's power rage.

"Yeah, that's never good." Ears uttered, turning to where Bowser was thrown.

Bowser bursted out of the cliff and stood in front of his opposition, sneering angrily.

"I'm gonna reduce you... to ashes!" Bowser growled.

"If you're gonna fire a Cero, don't waste your time... we've seen plenty of those around before." Sly said, still in his one-tailed state.

Bowser gave a short chuckle. "Foolish, foolish Bean Titans. You automatically think of me as any other Acolyte—as if we have the same sort of abilities at our disposal. Maybe you should think twice. I don't fire Ceros... I TRANSFORM!" he finished saying, just before his body began to slowly expand and morph into a far more dangerous vessel. He grew by at least three times his normal size. The spikes on his shell grew longer, and the shell itself became more rigid. Also, an extra set of spikes appeared on his short tail. Bowser's skin darkened, and his horns were enlarged. To be frank, it was quite a transformation, even by the sharp increase in his power.

(Music begins: "The Deep End" — Kingdom Hearts)

"I thought he was strong before..." Bongo murmured.

"Before you all die, make sure you know this form of mine... Giga Bowser." he announced, as he thrusted his fist at the ground the New 12 stood on.

Without any second guess, the heroes avoided the attack and dispersed in different directions.

"I know he's strong and all, but he's still oversized. It should take a lot of effort on his part to move as quick as we can..." Bonnie assumed, analyzing things first-hand.

"OH REALLY?" Giga Bowser grumbled, as his voice was heard behind Bonnie's position.

Bonnie winced. "Wh-what...? I didn't even sense him moving..."

She was hit directly by a fireball that quickly launched from his mouth, and she was sent flying away from the island. Felix retrieved her and let her rest on the far side of the island, seeing as she was half-conscious after the hit.

Ewey warped to him. "I'll take care of her, Felix."

The cougar did not say a word; he only had his head down and his eyes closed. Ewey assumed that Felix was slowly becoming more and more vengeful, now that Bonnie was rendered unable.

Hoppity tried hitting Giga Bowser with her Super Psywave, but had it deflected by his bare hand. His other hand was used for another one of those energy slashes that cuts into flesh. Hoppity barely avoided it completely, and Slowpoke took Giga Bowser's immediate attention afterwards by hitting him with a Meteor Crush fist.

"Hoppity." Felix called, trying to contact her mentally.

"Yeah?"

"There's no way any of us are gonna beat him on land. I can end this really quick if you guys can get him into the water."

"Conductivity, huh?" she assumed.

"Yeah. I already sent a static charge to run all over his shell through the Chidori I hit him with earlier. But what I'm about to hit him with is far more dangerous than my Voltage Blast Charge... so when I start chanting, get out of the way."

Hoppity understood and mentally informed the rest of the team about Felix's plan.

"All right then. Titans, GO!" Mooch shouted, now that an actual course of action was in play now.

Slowpoke stayed back, pivoting his right fist. "Ouch." he uttered.

"What's up?" Christina asked.

"My Meteor Crush barely moved him at all. So how can anyone other than me move him? He's too heavy, and he moves quick..."

"Maybe, you just gotta hit him with something heavier." Lucy said.

"What do you mean?" the sloth asked her.

"Don't you get it? It's just Tactics 101, but in your case. You're in a predicament of power versus speed. Those who excel with their speed, like Felix and Bonnie, can easily get around even the strongest of enemies—that's what makes them useful for any team. It might not sound valid to you at all when I say this, but based on what I just said about people with speed to their advantage, it doesn't leave those with brute force and less speed at a loss."

"What?" uttered Slowpoke, shocked to hear this reality, as he always believed that true speed always triumphed over heavy impact.

"To keep it short and sweet, the only way you're gonna be able to overcome any type of speed—of which you can see, of course—is by completely ignoring it and being confident enough in your mind, body and spirit to be the deciding force in battle. If you can do that, you can very much dictate any speed... then you'll be immovable." Lucy finished, smoke-porting back into the fight, following Christina.

Slowpoke thought about what Lucy said and took it to heart. Acting on his newfound confidence, Slowpoke gained newfound power—his Ascended Legendary level, Adonis Mode. His appearance was different in the change of his torso. Every muscle on his upper body and arms expanded and then took a heavily defined shape (over-ripped), and he wore a tight-fitting, shiny black vest. From that perspective alone, it was obvious that he was much stronger physically than before.

(Music change: "Storm Center" — Bleach.)

His strength intrigued Giga Bowser, after he smacked Sly down to the island.

"Oh... what's this? You want to be a hero now, do you?" he inquired, quickly dashing up to strike the sloth with a heavy fist via Sonido.

Slowpoke, without hesitation, raised his hand up as if he were telling someone to stop. When the Acolyte's fist made contact with Slowpoke's open hand, two massive walls of wind bursted out to the sides of the two fighters. However, Slowpoke did not move an inch from the impact. He did what seemed to be impossible in this battle—he made himself immovable.

"What the hell? Impossible..." Giga Bowser thought, extremely shocked that his attack didn't even phase the Bean Titan in the least.

Slowpoke suddenly exhibited a heavy red aura with his power. "Correction... I AM a hero." he retorted.

Hoppity predicted Slowpoke's next action—it was time now. "Felix! Start doing your thing!" she prompted him.

Slowpoke then kicked the Acolyte into the air, and then followed with another kick, sending him over the nearby body of water. Giga Bowser recovered in the air and fired a giant fireball as Slowpoke was getting very close to him. The Koopa King and the other New 12 members only saw a great explosion of flame occur in the air. Giga Bowser presumed that Slowpoke was done.

"Ha! Hero my ass! No one survives my Super Fireball, and it's even worse at close range!" he boasted openly.

"Oh really?" spoke Slowpoke's voice, which sent a shock through Giga Bowser's mind, along with those of his fellow Bean Titans. "Then why am I not even singed from it?"

The Acolyte growled. "THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE! HOW CAN A WEAKLING LIKE YOU BE ABLE TO—!"

Slowpoke interrupted him with a Meteor Break fist (level 1) to his gut, silencing him.

"Shut up, right now. Just now, you sounded just like my brother before he made the New 12 with me. You're claiming something that isn't necessary to even go through your mind. First off, I just survived your "unstoppable" fireball without so much as a scratch because of my Armor of the Core, not the Mantle. Without lowering any bit of my speed at all, it grants me invincibility for 30 seconds. But that's not the point. Calling me a weakling is just a retarded blurb of what's actually real. To make my point, I've said it to my brother before and I'll say it again, now that it applies to you: your will is weaker than mine—that's why you'll never be stronger or even better than me."

Slowpoke finished speaking and hit Giga Bowser's head uppercut-style with a Meteor Crush fist (level 2), which was enough to stun his whole body and knock him up so that he was floating horizontally in the air. Seeing his bare side up, Slowpoke used Flash Step to float beside it, while powering a massive load of energy into his fist.

"I won't be ending it for you, but the result of this fight is the same. You're finished! Meteor... SHATTER (level 3)! he shouted, striking the Acolyte's torso with tremendous force, causing him to zoom to the shallow (to Giga Bowser) waters at a breath-taking speed. On contact with the ground, a great tremor in the earth occured while a half-mile wide crater was made under the Acolyte's back.

"Finish it, Felix." Mooch said.

"I thought I wouldn't have to do this, but since you hurt Bonnie that bad... you deserve it." Felix thought, walking to the cliff while greatly increasing his power, almost to the point where he ascended to his Wildfang Mode. "I, who stand in the full light of the heavens, command thee, who opens the gates of hell. Come forth, divine lightning..." As he spoke, a storm began to rage in the sky and long circular glyphs hovered horizontally over the overgrown Koopa King. "INDIGNATION!" Felix finished, commanding a massive shower of lightning to strike Giga Bowser at every possible location in and around him. And since the lightning hit the water also, he took even more punishment. This force alone took what was left of the Acolyte, and did what he himself claimed he was going to do to the New 12 before he transformed—reduced him to ashes.

"Good gravy, Felix! I know he was our enemy and all, but what made you do that to him? How powerful was that lightning?" Bongo freaked.

"He deserved it. I wanted you guys to get away from Bowser because I know for certain that none of you would've survived the lightning."

"How do you know that?" Mooch asked.

"I tested my Indignation technique in the Danger Room, way early in the morning. I imagined how Hoppity casted her Wizard spells and came up with my own chant, using my own power. Once I used it that time, I went back up to check the stats from it. To answer your question, Bongo: anyone who doesn't have a power source or spiritual pressure detected at 15,000 BEANs would suffer the same fate as Bowser did—slow, painful disintegration."

"Oh wow..." Ewey murmured.

Bonnie began to stand herself up.

"You okay, Bonnie?" Lucy asked, noticing a light blush on Bonnie's cheeks.

"Yeah, I'm okay." she responded, looking off.

Hoppity winced.

"What is it?" Ears asked.

"For some reason, I have a clear vision of what's going on in our world. Apparently, those small Heartless know that our Home Base is our biggest resource, so they're all surrounding Galveston to get closer to our base." she explained.

"That's not good..." Sly mentioned.

"Wait... Fleece is drawing them all to her with her Angel Mode, like you're doing here, Ewey. And the Legendary 12 are keeping them from moving off shore towards home! Looks like they figured out the Heartless' elemental weakness... but they're still multiplying like mad. How is that... wait! The sun!"

"What's the problem?" asked Christina.

"It's slowly being eclipsed by that orb we all jumped into."

"We gotta stop Wrinkle now—we have no time to lose." Mooch said.

"Why's that? Can't the Legendary 12 figure it out on their end?" Ears interrogated.

"It's not just them I'm worried about. We were given the order to stop Wrinkle at all costs. If we stray from it now, we'd be talked down on about our leadership issues, and we don't want that, right Sly?"

"Exactly." Sly responded, with a smile.

"Wrinkle and Ansem went into that hidden cave. New 12, remember what we vowed before we split up earlier. We do the impossible. Titans, GO!"

The twelve heroes dashed into the cave in which their adversaries took their leave.

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