Marco
A basilisk.
A Basilisk.
A Cog-Dammed Basilisk!
Marco had heard of them of course, and yes he knew that they were natural predator of the gray goblins by reading up on the later, but really! A springing basilisk! This was just unfair!
The young tinkerer took a deep breath and recollected everything he had ever heard of or learned about basilisks in his previous year at eureka. After all, he had learned about them when reading up on goblins because of how many first-year missions required him dealing with the nasty little things, and marco was never the type to take it lightly when a book told him "oh yeah, by the way, the thing you;re hunting is also a tasty meal for a horribly lethal giant snake monster that you probably won't encounter but just might."
"Uhm, ok, well, the weasel thing is a bit misleading. It's a popular urban legend that came up from an old translation error. Basilisks actually hate the smell of mongooses who are natural snake hunters, but specifically the Eritainan fire mongoose who are among the only animals to routinely go toe to toe with basilisk and win; just for the hell of it too, not for food or territory: 'fire mongoose don't care, fire mongoose don't give a damn' as the old saying goes. Sadly they're not native to Eureka so using one to get us out of this mess isn't an option right now."
He looked at his team captain with a serious expression. "The basilisk is one of the top hunters in its ecosystem and one of the most lethal lower magical creatures period. They are quick, stealthy, intelligent, and vicious. Their scales have an incredibly high calcium content that not only gives them a rock-like texture and appearance, but makes them hard as bone to boot. Their venom is so potent that a single bite from an adult is said to be able to paralyze a dragon for the better half of a day. And if all of this wasn't bad enough they have a magical third eye on their forehead that can cast a powerful hypnosis spell on anyone who looks into it. Even trained monster hunters are told never to hunt one alone.... So the way i see it we have two options. We can go back to the academy and tell the instructors what happened. This is an unforeseen complication and not the kind of thing they would usually let a team of our level handle. They won't have any reason to grade us poorly since we did actually find the tools and we should at least pass this mission. We might even get a pat on the back for informing them about such a dangerous creature early. Catching a basilisk before it can establish a nest and create more of its kind could have saved several student lives that would likely have been lost in basilisk attacks otherwise. So that's option one."
His look became less serious now and he smiled mischievously. "Option two, we take on the basilisk ourselves and make a name for ourselves right now at the beginning of the year as the team that went above and beyond and took down a cog-damned basilisk by themselves. The hunters are told never to take them on alone, but there's three of us, and we have two big advantages in this situation. First, the basilisk isn't an adult yet. Those things live for centuries and by the time they're done growing they are massive. Old wizards would even use them to act as guardians to their toobms and the hidden chamers they would keep their secrets in. There's no way a full grown basilisk would fit in that burrow comfortably so that one's probably just an adolescent snake. Two, that one already fed, and no matter how big the snake, when it eats, it gets sleepy and lethargic. The reason it left us alone was because it knew getting in a fight while it was still digesting those goblins was a risky move even for an apex predator like itself. If we lure it out here in the open and force it to fight, between my brains and gadgets, ashling's skill and range, and your magic and leadership, it wouldn't be impossible to take it down. We'd come back to the academy as young heroes for sure."
Bobby
When the automaton noticed the mantis drop out of the sky and Hibiki leap into action, he immediately got into a battle stance and turned his attention towards the angry beast, scanning it to verify its identity while it was relatively immobile at the foot of the tree it had crashed into. It was indeed a yelktenk as they were hunting. Bobby had quick reaction times and incredible strength, but he knew he lacked the mobile agility to keep up with the giant insect if it tried attacking anyone else. If he was to serve as a shield for the rest of his teammates, he would need to do something to keep the monster's attention. Thankfully, he had heard of ultrasonic insect repellents before.
The lights on his visor blinked in a subtle pattern as he effected the change to his vocal programing and soon from his voice box began emitting a high pitched whine of constantly varying frequencies between 35kHz and 50kHz, the human Reever's ears wouldn't be able to pick up the frequency and Bobby didn't know if the two Kitsune would hear it either, but as soon as he started the whistle the Mantis became visibly enraged, the varying ultrasonic frequencies aggravating it and making it direct its attention nearly exclusively on the source of the noise, namely bobby.
slowly moving to the side without relenting the auditory assault, keeping his visor on the mantis, bobby drew the creature's attention away from the rest of the group as it snarled and threateningly clicked its mandibles at him. Soon the Yelktenk had had enough of this aggravating annoyance and charged at the Golem who met both of the mantis' clawed forelegs by catching them in his hands, wrestling with the surprisingly powerful beast as its head constantly bit in his direction, the mandibles scratching inefficiently off the side of his ancient metal as the large arthropod repeatedly attempted to inject its venom in his nonexistent veins (though bobby still made a point to try and dodge the mandibles as best he could since they were here to gather that very venom and it wouldn't do to have the beast waste all its reserves fighting him).
"If any of you have any plan of attack, i would suggest executing it while the quarry is distracted with me." said the golem, simulating yelling by simply increasing his volume output, not needing to keep up the ultrasonic whine anymore as the mantis was well and pissed off just by the fact that bobby was refusing to let go. As the yelktenk continued to thrash against bobby in growing fury, the automaton found it increasingly difficult to hold onto the mantis' legs without ripping them off outright, and he wanted to avoid killing the creature if possible.
