Chapter 67: Chapter Sixty Seven

The seaweed hair held the troll for about ten seconds. Tops. Despite Jessie being incredibly quick on the draw and managing to wrap it up she wasn't able to restrain it for long at all. Luckily, Benny was more than ready. As soon as the thing was restrained he hopped in and smashed his left fist into the thing rapidfire. Three or four blows to the head and face before it tore itself loose and roared in challenge. It dove forward, but Jessie had scattered a carpet of seeds under Benny as he punched and while he dove back a wall of dense vines leapt up to grab the troll.

The troll looked barely even affected by the tranquilizer, but that was to be expected. With that kind of Vitality he would need to hit it quite a few times before it started to waver. I clenched a fist, but Callie put a hand on my arm, shooting me a sad smile. "We don't help unless things get bad. It might seem kind now, but the more we do for them the less they'll be able to handle on their own in the future. Training like this in a safe environment with higher rankers watching over them is an invaluable experience. Don't take that from them."

I nodded, chuckling ruefully. "See. This is why you're the boss. Every bone in my body is screaming at me to tear that troll apart with poison. Just hamstring the thing so they can fight it out on easy mode. But you're right. They need this. Enemies aren't going to get weaker. I've given them all the help I can for now. I shouldn't step in until things get really dicey." The words tasted bitter in my mouth. This was the kind of shit I hated hearing from Zeke, but at least he had no choice. I was actively making the decision to leave them in danger and it made me feel like scum.

But my faith wasn't misplaced. The troll came back in at Benny and my friend backed up, leading the thing as it broke free from Jessie's vine trap, he slipped to the side, circling, forcing the troll to spin in place rather than come forward, keeping it in the weeds so to speak. His left fist flashed out, short sharp jabs at anything he could reach as he slowly hammered in the tranquilizer blows.

The troll roared in frustration, smashing its massive fists down on the cement below it, breaking up the floor and allowing it to break up the foundation the vines grew from. It started picking up chunks of rock and hurling them at Benny, snarling in rage, and my friend dipped and dodged, jerking his left arm around to attract the ranged attacks before he ducked the other way, releasing the ability from his forearm. The combination of moves let him maneuver around the attacks expertly. I was impressed.

Jessie wasn't exactly resting on her laurels either. She had another handful of seeds up and was blowing them into the air. As they settled on the Troll she triggered her wand again and the vines once again lashed out like lightning. Unlike the last time, the vines wound not only around the limbs of the troll but around each other, yanking the thing's limbs in tight and preventing it from getting the leverage to easily tear free. It's lantern eyes widened in rage and it began to snarl and writhe, but it left the thing open for another series of punches from Benny.

Every blow landed on the head, and it looked like they had the thing licked, when suddenly there was a huge crash and a second troll came barreling out of the dark. I moved to intervene but Callie stopped me. I shot her a confused look and she flicked her fingers, conjuring a series of twisting shadow blades. "It's fine, I have them if they need it, but I want to see what they can do when pushed. Surprises happen, they need to learn to deal with this kind of thing sometime. Best it happens when they have backup."

I spotted a series of shadows around the edges of the room writhing like snakes and noted that Callie had been prepared to interfere in the situation the entire time. They were alright. I relaxed, giving her a nod, and she shot me a grateful smile as we turned to watch the unfolding fight. With the first troll restrained they were able to focus on the other entirely, but unfortunately the original was still actively trying to break free, distracting Jessie and leaving Benny to deal with the second basically on his own. Despite that he showed no hesitation at all as he closed with the beast, ready to put it on it's back.

He came in close, using it's long reach against it as he got right up in it's face and hammered his right fist, the triple blow right into it's jaw. It grunted, stumbling back, and as it was reeling Benny's other hand came up with a rope from his midsection. He threw it over the things head and looped it around the upper body to pin it's arms down, tied it at the spot where it overlapped and then, hands free to fight started to beat the thing violently about the head and body with his fists.

The triple blow would hammer the skull, causing it to reel at the damage and the tranquilizer punch would smash in while it was off balance. It's Vitality seemed to slightly offset the effect, but the more he hit it the more it staggered and stumbled like it was drunk. He continued to lay into the beast for a minute or two until it finally stopped moving, still as a corpse except the slow and steady breathing of an unconscious form. Benny looked genuinely elated, at least until Jessie's shouted warning.

He managed to roll off the troll as the first one finally broke free of the plant binding. It came after him snarling, claws raking the cement and desperately trying to find purchase in Benny's flesh. Then it stopped and staggered. Jessie had followed it across the room and was kicking the living shit out of the back of it's legs. When it turned to deal with her Benny rabbit punched it in the back of the head with his triple strength fist. It roared in frustration as it tried to wheel around and get it's hands on him only to have it's balance knocked out by a blow to the back of the knee from Jessie.

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I hadn't realized the two of them would work so well together. Jessie had given up her ranged advantage to help, though considering the patches of moss on the trolls skin had mostly been torn free when it escaped she had less options there anyway, but their teamwork was closing the gap. They were pulling the old circling wolves trick. One in, one out, then switch when the monster figured out the pattern. Luckily their Perception was higher than the trolls, if it even had that stat unlocked. The thing really was pure almost pure Vitality from what I could tell.

What few points it had other than in that stat was most likely all in Might. It was pretty big and relatively strong, though thankfully not nearly as powerful physically as it was in terms of regeneration and energy. Between Jessie's eleven Might, and Benny's thirteen, they were able to more than offset the portion of its power invested in strength. The troll was honestly probably a bit stronger than they were, but they had higher Perception and the advantage in numbers. Even as I thought that though the troll managed to change directions last second and land a hit.

Jessie screamed in pain as it's fist smashed into her midsection, hurling her back with the sound of cracking ribs. As she did though, Benny jumped on it's back in rage, hooking it with the same looping rope technique he'd used on the last one before it could follow up. Wrapping his legs around the big monster Benny started pummeling it's head and shoulders like he had the last one, alternating that triple impact punch and the tranquilizer to devastating effect. The monster started to sway on it's feet as he beat it.

Luckily for us, Jessie was also heavy into Vitality. Aside from healing ability and dealing with life force, Vitality could help her heal just like it could for the troll. Once we confirmed she wasn't in any danger and was healing alright we relaxed, since Benny had the troll under control. Still, this one was taking much longer to go down. It's Vitality must be higher than that other troll. The second downside to that was becoming apparent. Aside from healing Vitality gave energy and stamina, allowing the monster to use it's Might to full effect without tiring.

Still, it was far from enough. The troll was flagging from the tranquilizer, and eventually dropped, unable to stay up under the assault. As soon as it hit the ground Benny was up, retracting his rope and bolting over to check on Jessie, who was sitting up with a wince. She put a hand to her side pull out a roll of bandages and then beginning to wind them around her. She closed her eyes and there was a bright green glow as she used her first aid Skill in conjunction with her Vitality to increase the rate that her bones would mend.

Benny knelt down to look her over. "Hey are you ok? That looked rough, I heard the crack from a few feet away. I'm sorry, I thought the thing would go down faster. I half expected the tranquilizer to spread faster because of the increased healing, but apparently it's more an effect than a substance so it doesn't work like that. Or Vitality doesn't do what I think it does, I don't know. Point is I'm sorry it took so long and I should have done better and I-" Jessie laughed, putting a hand over his mouth.

She winced at the movement of her ribs the laughter caused, but gave him a grimacing smile anyway. "You're babbling, Clockwork. I'm fine. Better I took that hit than you, I have WAY more Vitality and a much better chance of getting back in shape soon. It probably would have taken you days to recover from damage like that." He winced guiltily but I was impressed. She was right, healing broken bones was a nightmare compared to normal cuts and scrapes. More serious wounds took longer to heal unless the damage was offset by Vitality.

It wasn't consistent sadly, I was pretty sure it had something to do with the Impact of the person doing the damage relative to the recipient. Regardless, the rule of thumb was that the worse the damage the longer to heal, and the higher the Vitality the less time that actually took. Benny helped her to her feet, turning to look at us. "Please tell me we're done. I don't have another fight in me." He sounded exhausted but proud. I was happy for him. I'd been worried he might be pissed but it seemed like he got our reasons for staying out of it.

I laughed, as did Callie, and I let her take the lead here. She smiled wolfishly. "No. You two are finished. Tie them up with that rope of yours just in case and carry them out to the car. Solomon and I are going to go hunt down a few more. Those spatially expanded trunks can hold quite a bit, and it seems like such a waste to leave so much money on the table." She turned to me with a predatory smirk. "Don't you agree?" I cracked my neck, smiling under my mask. I did indeed. I wanted to stretch my legs too.

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