This feels familiar, as if it happened not a minute ago or something… but once more I find myself sprinting towards the very same opponent that had been raining hell on me just a moment earlier. Jasper’s been buying me precious few seconds with her offense, and from what I can see she’s still going strong on that front, but her attacks are being evaded with relative ease.

The bird zips around, their movements are fast enough to be difficult to track for me, and made even more so by the darkness of the night. Long story short, the little bugger’s an evasive monster. I frankly have no idea how I’m supposed to touch this thing, but, hey gotta give it a try at the least, right?

The way I see it, I have about thirty seconds to put on my best offensive. It would seem it doesn’t have the MP to keep spamming whatever it was doing earlier, so it can’t retaliate with life ending fireballs out the wazoo, and off in the distance is the crowd from the wagon. Once they approach, I can’t imagine the bird would be too keen to fight a… twenty versus one or something like that? And given it is significantly faster than both me and Jasper by a wide margin it would seem…

11!

Oh, point taken, it just tore a gash through Jasper’s side. A glancing blow, but still enough to prevent the usual strategy… it’s simply too fast for me to feasibly react to at the moment, so the best thing I can do…

Woosh!

Is to fight side by side with her.

My blade cleaves through the open air where the brown blur had been not moments ago, its wings having pushed it back in a mid-air maneuver, flying clear of the sweeping attack. I pull my sword back before it makes contact with the ground, ready to swing once more, but almost flinch as the thing is inches away from my face when I blink.

Dipping to the side, I narrowly avoid a talon through the eye as it glides through where my head formerly had been, instead drawing a shallow cut-6!- into my cheek. This thing is ridiculously fast now. Which frankly just doesn’t feel right to me. How could something at such a low level, have so many different stat points to distribute? There has to be some sort of catch to whatever it’s doing, but whatever it IS-

Once again I narrowly avoid a critical blow, raising my arm to cover my eyes before my enemy takes them out. Instead of landing true, its talons dig into the bare skin-16!-in between my gloves and tunic… and given the rather raw landing of the attack, even if it’s NOT my eyes, the damage is… kind of low, no?

For a short moment, it struggles to break away from my arm, causing me to wince as it tears a chunk of flesh-10!-out of my arm. Given the nature of our current reality, the attack doesn’t leave any actual wounds, and is instead immediately recovered, but the sensation of having your own flesh torn out isn’t quite that pleasant.

With another swoosh my blade goes flying through the air, though it doesn’t connect as the monster simply dodges around it once again. Its speed is overpowering, and basically incontestable as it is. There’s no way I can land a hit and no way to defend… myself…

“Jasper! How much MP do you have?”

Even with the speed of communication between us being boosted with the link between me and my tamed monsters, even trading a sentence or two is enough time for the bird to reset its offense and come flying at me again. And once more, it’s a narrow “dodge”, leaving a glancing cut on my chest for another 6! chip damage.

“Mmm!”

Three? Damnit, they need more than that. At least ten for one shot at taking this thing out.

7!

Another hit lands, and as the seconds tick past, the damage starts to build up. Even if it only deals one per hit, if it hits me multiple times a second I’ll still die in timely fashion. So… this fight needs to end fast.

5!

Fortunately, it seems to be focused on me for some reason or another. Which leaves Jasper ample opportunity to hopefully…

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“Eat this!”

After “deflecting” (8!) another shot, I reach into my inventory as fast as I can manage, pulling an MP potion from out of thin air and chucking it as hard as I can at Jasper. Doubly fortunately, it also buys me an extra moment of reprieve from the storm swirling around me, perhaps mistaking the potion to be some sort of attack.

Not questioning my orders in that split second, Jasper crunches into the potion, shattering glass with her jaws and therefore acquiring the liquid within. Her face instantly turns sour, and-1!-and uh…-1!-broken glass-1!-but she got the potion nonetheless!

My prospective allies get closer by the moment, but they’re not really going to be of much help in this fight as far as I’m concerned. It’s either going to be over soon, or I’ll be dead before they get here to scare it o-1!

…I’m sorry Jasper.

Spitting out the shards of glass as the bird comes flying in at me for another swipe, Jasper with now, hopefully, THIRTY three whole MP should be ready.

I’ve noticed a bit of a pattern. This thing, LOVES, to aim for the face. It doesn’t do it every time, so it’s not as if I can predict it, given I’d risk taking far more damage if I did so, but when it does, I can at least somewhat react, raising my arm to block the damage for the most part, while also not making the mistake of exposing bare skin and taking far more damage.

But, comparatively my armor is much easier to tear its way out of, but when it landed on my arm proper…

There was a brief window where it was vulnerable, not one I could take advantage of, but Jasper, with an instant teleportation ability…

“When I tell you to activate [Hunter’s Pursuit], do it immediately! Once you do so, hit your target as hard as you possibly can!”

5!

Another shot at the chest…

4!

One at the legs…

3!

Jasper waits patiently, growling with apparent fury for each blow that lands. If blood and guts existed in this game, I imagine I’d be quite the mess right about now, but thankfully, they don’t! So I don’t look like a horror movie piñata!

16!

And, FINALLY! It takes another shot at my face, its talons burrowing into my arm once more, but this time around, it doesn’t even immediately attempt to escape, instead, it burrows even further in-4!-trying to force as much damage as it possibly can…

Alright then, dig your own grave.

“NOW!”

Activating [Hunter’s Pursuit] right on cue, from her position a moment’s dash away from the fight, she appears in an instant, paw raised to come sweeping down on the small figure lodged into my arm, tearing away at my body.

And the moment after, it comes crashing down.

It reacts instantly, flailing as hard as it can, but having dug itself so deep into my arm, more so than ever it’s practically impossible to get away without delay. So, even as it struggles with all that annoying goddamn speed…

[Hunter’s Mark]!

154!

It gets smashed into the dirt with all the fury of a wrathful predator.