#but the thing is the telegraphs are so obvious and the windup is so long

[foxstens]

i just second tried the apparently tankiest boss in the game

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 123

It feels really good to be back writing and posting, I’m going to be super honest.  Thank you again, to everyone who reads and leaves notes on these chapters. You keep me going and encourage me more than you will ever know.

This was originally going to be one chapter, but it went really really long and I didn’t have the heart to leave parts out.  Even splitting it in half, each half is longer than most of the chapters so far.  But I couldn’t help showing how far the Ark has come from simply “figuring out how to exist”!  In my defense, @baelpenrose egged me on, too.  Blame him. :P

Shout out to @zommbiebro, @charlylimph-blog, @books-and-cartoons, all the other contributors for characters in this chapter. INCLUDING @werewolf2578 for Michael Smith, who finally makes his debut here. Finally.

As Maverick and I entered the gymnasium - now larger and more finished than it had been when Arthur and Jokul’s showdown happened several years back - the atmosphere was filled with excitement. Three Terran years previous, collapsible bleachers had been constructed shortly after sporting and skill exhibitions had regained popularity on-par with Pre-End times, and today was one such occasion. Every seat was packed, and Miys was working overtime in multiple bodies, strategically positioned to keep the air filtered. Else-chicks swarmed on the floor, eagerly consuming anything that had been spilled or dropped.

Today, Jokul and Arthur were once again on the floor, in full view of the crowd. Instead of a bloody one-on-one, no holds barred fight, however, they were two of twenty participants in a weapons exhibition.  Between them, Charly bounced on the balls of her feet, scanning the audience - a smile here and there when a container of neon popcorn caught her eye, but a huge grin along with extra bouncing and an enthusiastic wave when she saw our small group.  She elbowed Arthur, who was deep in conversation with Tyche and Coffey on his other side.  All three turned to wave.

“Where’s Conor?” Maverick asked, searching the floor carefully.

I shrugged. “He may be on his way, or in another room, stretching. You know he isn’t a huge fan of crowds this large.”

With a huff, he blew a lock of hair out of his face. “I know it’s his first one of these things, but he’ll be fine. He’s gotten really good. Even Charly and Tyche said so.”

Evania Josue took the floor and gestured for silence, indicating that the exhibition was starting. “Thank you, everyone who could be here in person, and everyone watching from other areas of the Ark, and welcome to our second Von-annual ranged weapons exhibition.  As with last time, combustion weapons will not be used in any of our events, for safety reasons.  We will continue with our order from the previous event, and begin with axe-throwing.”

Cheers erupted, and Tyche, Coffey, and Arthur took their seats on the sidelines. Charly, Jokul, and three other less-familiar faces waved to us as they were introduced, before drawing lots for the order they would go in.  One of the people I didn’t recognize went first, and made a pretty good showing - all six axes hit their targets, regularly striking midway to the bullseye from a distance I could barely hit the floor from.  Charly was second, and Maverick clenched my arm tight enough to make me wince - she was the smallest competitor in this event, but the entire crowd went deathly silent as she lined up the first target.

Thunk. Bullseye, and buried deep.

Thunk. Just left of center.

Thunk. Another bullseye.

Three more axes led to one more bullseye and two just to the right of center. The crowd exploded into cheers, only going quiet as the next person stepped forward.  It was another solid execution, but not quite in the same level of skill that Charly had demonstrated.

Jokul was last, and as soon as he stepped forward, you could hear a pin drop. No one even dared breathe, lest they missed out on what they hoped they were about to witness.  Sure enough, Jokul stood three feet to the left of the first table holding an axe, and started walking at a calm pace. Without breaking stride, he would grab an axe and suddenly it would appear in the center of the target. No windup, no careful lining up of his throws, just ten paces, six axes, and six bullseyes.

Screaming erupted from the entire gymnasium, to the point that Miys was covering their sensory organs. Charly was red in her face from cheering, and I honestly could not blame her - it was one of the most impressive things I had seen, and never ceased to amaze me.  Even Arthur was nodding in approval and applauding.

The cheering died down to a murmur of discussion as the athletes took their bows and the equipment was removed. Charly and Jokul both took seats on the sidelines, while the other three left the floor entirely, indicating they had no other events.  The next event was slung projectiles, which neither Maverick nor I was remotely interested in.

He leaned closely so he wouldn’t distract anyone. “So, I’ve been wondering this for a while now… Those axes are pretty heavy, right?”

I nodded.  I had tried throwing them, but they were close to two pounds in Terran gravity - worse in Von-standard, and obviously front-heavy.

“So, to throw them that fast, Jokul has to have a lot of arm strength, right?”

Another nod.

“How did Charly get up after he punched her?”

I sighed. I’d wondered where he was going with this. “First, he pulled the punch. Second, it was an awkward hit because he was aiming for me. Third, with two cracked ribs and a whole lot of ‘Charly’ involved.”

“So necromancy,” Maverick nodded seriously.

“I can neither confirm nor deny, except that she popped up like he hit her with a pillow.” I shook his knee as something caught my eye. “There! There he is!”

Conor was finally visible, crouched and in discussion with Tyche.  From the way he was running his hand through his hair, he was clearly nervous.  She just shook her finger at him with a serious expression, and whatever she said made him laugh and shake his head.  Probably a death threat, I figured.

He was just in time, as the next exhibition was knife-throwing.  I don’t know if Evan was rigging the lots, but once again the most anticipated participant - this time Tyche - was last. Instead, someone I recognized as Michael Smith was first.  Standing from beside Grandma Kim, he gave an emphatic command to the chocolate labradoodle at his feet and took center stage.

The knife throwing event was ten knives, one target, and timed as well as scored by where the knives landed.  I knew from previous events that Michael preferred throwing knives with a hilt, which made the balance off center.  Nonetheless, all his hits were dead-center and solid, even if he telegraphed his throws a bit much for my liking.

Next was Arthur, who made a show of his one-upmanship by finishing faster and with less obvious movement.  He patted Conor on the shoulder and said something to reassure him as Conor stood for his turn.

The crowd started murmuring as Conor turned toward his target, back on full display.  Rather than pulling his knives from his hip, or picking them up from a table, Conor had found it easier for him to actually keep them slung across his shoulders and drew them like arrows.  I had never seen anything like it, but Coffey had suggested it soon after Conor decided to follow mine and Tyche’s footsteps.  And while his display wasn’t the fastest, or the most accurate, he drew some fascinated chatter from the crowd when switched hands after the fifth knife, with no change in speed or precision.

When he finished, there was enthusiastic applause but none louder than our family. Coffey’s voice boomed out, even louder than mine, to congratulate him before they traded places. Once again, there was hushed chatter as Coffey drew over his shoulder, this time trading off hands with every single knife, and breathless applause when he finished with a tighter cluster than Conor had. He smiled, but his eyes were all for Charly, who was next.

The crowd hardly had time to focus before she started letting blades loose. As fast as she could grab one, it was flying behind the last one, covering the bullseye by the time she was done.  With a flourish, she took a bow that left us all laughing and cheering.  She danced over to the sidelines, sweeping one more bow for Tyche to take the floor.

As soon as Tyche stood, the air crackled with excitement. In the same way that everyone watched the axe-throwing to see Jokul, all eyes were on my sister for this event. As though she was utterly oblivious to this fact, she strode to her marker.  She was still mid-stride when she brushed her hair out of her face and let the first knife fly from the same hand.

Bullseye.

Brushing off her legs saw two more knives, one after the other, hitting their marks. Then a dagger from her left hip, a tactical knife from one boot, and on and on. Each blade came from a different spot, no two the same size or shape. All hit their marks, and all without a single indication of exertion.  The only indication that she finished was when she dropped her hands and tilted her head, studying the tight pattern on the target.  My datapad indicated that she had matched Arthur’s time and close strikes.

When she turned to sit back down, everyone’s brains caught up and the expected cheers deafened us again.  As soon as she reached her seat, Arthur and Charly stood by some unspoken agreement and made ridiculous sweeping bows to her, only encouraging the audience to cheer harder.

Evania stepped forward again, to let everyone know that there would be a twenty minute intercession. The next events needed more intensive preparation, which allowed friends and family to take some time to talk with the participants. Sure enough, the second I was in earshot, I could hear Tyche complaining.

“I got much tighter patterns than that in practice,” she moaned.

Conor, head resting on both hands, shook his head in disbelief. “If you think you were bad, I feel I’m hopeless.”

That had the exact reaction everyone saw coming, as she whirled around in righteous fury. “Conor MacMaoilir-Reid-Okima, I have been throwing any knife I could get my grubby paws on since I was four. You started three years ago. I taught you, Sophia taught you, Coffey taught you. Your throwing has an exceptional pedigree and if I hear you talk about giving up, I’ll… I’ll…”

“Let me use you for target practice,” Arthur intoned, half-joking.

“No!” she insisted. “I’ll let Simon use you for target practice!”

“I’d be safe as houses, if he was aiming for me. Poor guy couldn’t hit the floor with a knife if he dropped it.”

“She never said with knives,” I added wickedly, causing his head to snap up and his face to pale.

“Sophie. Please, that’s cruel.”

I waved him off. “Oh, as if he would ever actually aim for you.  If Simon had to hunt for his food, he’d be a vegetarian, I swear.”

Rolling his eyes, Maverick stepped into the fray. “Conor, you did really well. You wouldn’t be here if you couldn’t. And it’s not like this is a competition, you were literally invited to just show off what you can do.”

“I still don’t know why… Coff over there clearly did better.”

A dazzling smile flashed as Coffey turned from his conversation with Charly. “Ah, but we are the only two who use that technique! Showing it off here means others may be interested in learning later.”

Hair flew as Charly nodded. “And besides, I could never get the hang of pulling a knife like that. My brain says ‘arrow’, and it’s just confusing.”

I was nodding in agreement and gesturing for Maverick to take Arthur’s seat, when something wet nudged my ankle.

“Sparkles. Heel.”

I turned to see Michael Smith and Grandma Kim had joined us. Unable to resist, I knelt to pet the dogs that accompanied them. “GK, Lyric II is looking more and more like her mom every day.” A muzzle streaked with white fur poked my hand. “Hey there, girl,” I whispered, blinking hard. Lyric was already ten when we were all brought to the Ark, and Hujylsogox medicine could only do so much for dogs.  Permission had been given for her to have one pup, to be trained as both a service and a protection animal, in preparation.

Michael’s animal looked to him for permission before joining in the ear scratches I was dishing out. He was one of the very few certified service animal trainers on the Ark, so when Lyric II was born, so was Sparkles, with the intention that they grow up and train as a working team. Michael’s past was extremely blank and sketchy, but something about him reminded me of both Arthur and Xiomara.  The fact that both of them respected him made me both at ease and suspicious at the same time.

I pushed that out of my mind and focused on the pile of fur before me, begging for belly rubs. “What events are left?”

“The security animal events have been added to this one, to allow time for the other participants to rest more, and then archery, spear/javelin, and thrown projectiles.”

I shook my head at ‘thrown projectiles’, but Charly was the one to speak. “I can’t believe we made a sport out of rock throwing.” When mouths started to open to correct her, she held up both hands and glared. “I mean ‘we’ like ‘people’, not ‘we’ like ‘the Ark’. I am well aware that humans have been killing things by throwing rocks forever. Don’t shoot me.”

“That’s a different exhibition,” Maverick pointed out, eliciting a groan from several people. “What!? It is!”

“I think she would beg to differ.” Tyche pointed to Charly, who looked like she was about to explode.

“Oh, right. Archery - “

“You are IN that event, how could you forget!?” she finally erupted, more out of confusion than anything resembling anger.

“I learned firearms first?” he begged.

Charly grunted and scrunched her face. “Fine. I can accept that as a semi-reasonable excuse.”

I shook my head at their antics.  Despite years of watching the two goof around, it was always adorable to watch men twice her size cower from the feisty ball of energy.

She was still teasing him. “I still think you owe me an apology.”

“Charly, I’m sorry,” he sighed with no real sincerity behind it.

“Mmmm, not good enough.” She tapped her chin with her finger and took out an eye-scorchingly yellow candy bar - which, by now I knew was just chocolate and caramel, but was still cringeworthy to watch. “I think…. You should make me dumplings.”

“Those take forever,” he whined, kneeling and clasping his hands. “You always want them from scratch.”

“They taste better from scratch,” she pointed out around a bite of her snack.

Tyche nodded. “They really do.”

And there it was. He was defeated, as our entire family stared at him in anticipation. With a heavy air, he hung his head. “Fine,” came the mumbled reply. “What kind?”

Quiet cheers sounded, along with fist bumps and in one case money exchanging hands. “Chicken and veg, pork and veg, and seafood,” Charly cackled.

I was pretty sure I was the only one who could hear Maverick mutter “I just got so played…”

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[aterabyte]

Rating Fallen Order Bosses from Easiest to Hardest for Me, Personally (Except the Albino Spider thingy because I never fought that)

Beware of spoilers and longwindedness below the cut. 

12. AT-ST; this was by far the easiest boss. It took me a while to whittle down, but I don’t believe I even needed to use a stim. It was just parry until it’s stunned, run in and slash, roll away from the grenades, force push the missile, and repeat. No trouble at all. Granted, it was to introduce a recurring enemy (albeit a rare one), but I think it would’ve been served better as a more dangerous modified AT-ST of some sort (perhaps with a stomp attack?), with regular ones appearing later as degraded bosses with fewer features.

11. Security Droid; another boss fight to introduce a new enemy, and only slightly more dangerous than the last. It had tight confines that made the droid hypothetically dangerous, given its long ranged melee attacks and high damage, but the droid was ultimately far less threat than many droids that appeared later on due to being fought alone. I’m not sure it even brought me to half health on my first stim pack. 

10. Arena Bounty Hunter; Ding, mine was called. She caught me by surprise during the ambush and stunned me without me landing a single blow, and when I finally got to the arena and got my lightsaber back, I had an infuriatingly tough fight--I think I must have died three or four times. The last death was right after I reached her with about half my health left and no stims--but then when I got to come back in at full health with no beasts to fight, she was pathetically easy. She mostly attacks with blaster fire, which can be easily parried. Every once in a while, she’ll fire a missile or strafe you with a flamethrower, but these are easily avoided. The only time she even damaged me in our second fight was when I got greedy and didn’t roll away in time after landing a lightsaber combo, and she hit me with her flamethrower. 

9. Nydak Alpha; this one took some time for me to figure out as I’d spent most of Dathomir avoiding the Lesser Nydaks. Because of this, I died once when I had almost killed it. When I came back, however, it was just a matter of patience and diligence, dodging its unblockable lunge and then parrying its three-hit combo to get a few good hits in. Rinse, repeat. 

8. Second Sister; by far the easiest melee-focused humanoid enemy in the game. She has an impressively varied set of combos and some good range, but her attacks are easily parried, and her unblockables are not only easily dodged, but leave her very vulnerable. Not only that, but the fight ends at half health, so she doesn’t last very long. Unlike the previous two entries, she didn’t even kill me--but at the same time, the last two were mostly circumstantial losses, and she got a number of good licks in due to her sheer variety. 

7. Gorgara; This oversized bat seemed at first like it would be a terrifying foe. Its very early first phase is easy, with just a couple of heavily telegraphed unblockable that let you land several hits, followed by an opportunity to Force Pull it to the ground and hit is head for massive damage. After you do that, though, it takes to the air and starts hitting you when sonic strafing runs, then charge attacks, then ground pounds that make a shockwave like the last two bosses. For all its variety, though, this boss fight is clearly a power fantasy more than anything. Its attacks are easily avoided and it takes little damage to bring down for its size. 

6. Taron Malicos; Essentially a better version of Second Sister in every way, and the first boss I’d say gave me serious trouble as a lone enemy against a full-health Cal. He starts off with some easily-parried lightsaber combos, but those combos quickly cease to be easily-parried once he starts mixing in his unblockables. Malicos is an extremely technical fighter who will often take a parry, then bounce back with an unblockable--or throw his lightsaber at you several times in a row, then toss one into the air out of your sight to pull in back down at you while you’re dueling him, or just pick rocks out of the air and throw them. Lucky you, Merrin will come in and start helping you halfway through the fight, hitting him with magic at various points that drops his stamina. He didn’t quite kill me, but he got me within a single hit of death, which was impressive since I had six stim packs at this point and a badass magic lady teleporting in and out of the fray. 

Honorable Mention. Electrobaton Purge Troopers; these guys are actually just regular enemies, but you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. The first time I encountered one, he killed me with almost no damage taken because of his absurdly fast combos that stunlock you into taking several more hits if you don’t block or parry the first blow--and then killed me two or three more times for good measure. These guys also have an unblockable at the end of their main combo, which catches you by surprise at first. And if you don’t parry before attacking and instead just block then dodge, they also tend to, instead of blocking and letting you take down a chunk of their stamina meter, dodge your attack and throw a weird jumping attack out of nowhere. Plus, they tend to come in areas where you can’t Force Push them off the ledge, at least after you unlock the upgrade that makes your pushes strong enough to affect them. Even at the end of the game, one of them came in with a couple scout troopers and took two of my stim packs, which was absurd since I was tearing through every other regular enemy in the Fortress Inquisitorius with ease. Fuck these guys.

5. Oggdo Boggdo; Oggdo Boggdo was an interesting one. The earliest miniboss in the game, encounterable in the first hour to hour and a half. If I’d come back and killed it later, I likely wouldn’t have struggled at all. Fighting it as early as I did, however, I only had a single lightsaber blade, one force power (which didn’t even work right, because if you Slow its tongue and try to hit it, your blade goes right through) and little enough health that it could kill me in two hits even after I lowered the difficulty to normal for the only time in the game. Even after doing so, I had to drop down from above and cut off a quarter of its health, and it still brought me to almost no HP. Oggdo Boggdo may not have been that dangerous in reality, but with how early I faced it, it earned a solid place just just inside the top 5.

4. Haxian Brood Droid and Bounty Hunter; of the randomly-generated miniboss ambushes, this was the only kind I ever encounter, and it was a doozy. Both enemies are unthreatening on their own--the Bounty Hunter is identical to the one in the arena, and while the droid has long range and mostly unblockable attacks, it’s also slow and easily avoided. The problem is that this is a very good combination. The Bounty Hunter tends to stay in the air, and it’s a lot harder to deflect her charged shot and bring her down when you have a Droid named Chonk or whatever pummeling you. Conversely, if you try to focus on the Droid, you get pelted with annoying lasers and stunned with missiles. Of the four times one of these pairs showed up, the only one I actually killed was on Kashyyyk,  where the Bounty Hunter got stuck in an infinite walk cycle and couldn’t move or attack unless I came close, allowing me to whittle down the, on its own, pathetically easy Droid. This pair is perhaps the greatest example of enemies being more than the sum of their parts. 

3. Rabid Jotaz; Funny enough, I never actually killed this thing. I went to face it immediately after getting the scomplink, died three or four times, and then gave up. I’m confident I could have killed it if I’d faced it a little later, but at that point in the game, this simple enemy was too much. Its attacks have wide arcs and obvious tells and are easily dodged in theory, and its health was pitiful for its massive size, but the Rabid Jotaz had one big advantage--a tiny arena. Seriously, the arena was a claustrophobic circle maybe two and a half times its armspan in diameter. It didn’t matter how slow the thing was when there was no room to go anywhere and its unblockable swept across half the room. It would’ve been much easier, I think, had I come back to kill it later on but I hate backtracking, so it gets a spot in the top three. 

2. Trilla Suderi; Trilla has an absurdly varied moveset. Even right off the bat, she likes to throw two different combos with multiple variations on how they can end, sometimes leading into each other, sometimes leading into a weird spinny move, sometimes leading into a jumping downward stab. Of course, that’s nothing compared to the shockwave she has. It’s like Ninth Sister’s where she’ll smash her hand into the ground after a short windup and send a wave of force bullshit you have to jump. The thing is, she likes to throw it at two inconvenient times. One, right after she summons an annoying probe droid to distract and stagger you, and two, when you’re at point blank range and have no time to dodge. She also has absurd range, blinking across the entire large arena in a matter of moments, which is bad enough when she’s throwing an unblockable lightsaber attack, but is even worse when she’s throwing her most infuriating attack of all. She’ll lunge at you, grab you by the face, and suck out both your health and, for good measure, your Force meter. The only saving grace is that is has a generous windup time. 

With all that, why’s she only number 2? Well, she’s sloppy. I had a hard time whittling down her block meter because so many of the attacks she does will let you just hit her health directly and take off a good chunk. Plus, after my first death I started using a fun tactic where I’d run in, spam Force Push to drop her Stamina, hit her to regain my Force meter along with the experience she stole, then use a dual lightsaber attack for massive damage, dropping somewhere close to a fifth of her HP in one fell swoop. Plus, her attacks are mostly easily blocked or dodged. She killed me five times, but it was always because she either used her OHKO suck-yer-brains-out move, or because she summoned a Probe Droid that staggered me at critical moments before I could kill it. With all that, it was very satisfying that I beat her by throwing her own exploding probe droid into her. 

1. Ninth Sister; she killed me a whopping twelve times. Like, seriously; this lady did not play around. Her first phase, when she’s using just one blade, is simple. Parry, parry, dodge to the side to avoid the unblockable stab when she Force Pulls you in, don’t get hit by the overhead jumping swing. You can deal good damage to her with the openings she leaves, but she’s still more defensive than Trilla despite her brutish style, and she has health befitting her stature. Still, the first phase poses no threat. Then, she activates the other blade on her lightsaber and becomes a lot tougher. 

Noticeably, she has several more special moves. She’ll do a shoulder charge that’s pretty easy to avoid, but once her health gets down to about a third, she’ll throw in a second charge, which caught me off guard sometimes even when I was expecting it. She has an unblockable spinning blade attack, which is easy to avoid but does massive damage, and she has a ground slam like Trilla--but easier to evade because she always creates distance before doing it. My big struggle was the simpler part. Her combos are faster and last longer, she seems harder to land hits on, she pulls switcharoos with similar-looking attacks that turn out to be unblockables, and her stab seems to have less windup time, making it a far more dangerous attack than in the first phase. For all the fanciness that she adds, it’s mostly easily avoided. What got me was just the regular attacks, and that damnable stab. With this, the Ninth Sister of the Inquisitorious takes the #1 spot.