Extending, bolting out from the ground, the vines shot at the Main Character, their barbed tips directed at his throat.

Strafing to the left, Ral felt the air distorting as the vines missed their mark, simply careening off further into the darkness. Lowering the Trident’s prongs at the bases of the hyper-extended vines, he discharged magic into it, sparking it up with blinding lightning.

The vines sizzled and disintegrated, flailing all the while, as the Trident radiated out searing, scorching rays of electricity. The Tree Behemoth wailed in pain as it shook itself. Leaves began to fall, fluttering into the ground in spirals, as gigantic, black fruit landed as well.

“What the?” the Summoner uttered out, briefly inspecting the strewn fruit now present within the area. One by one, these fruit thumped against the ground, battering it thoroughly as juices oozed from the their twaning skin.

Puddles of off-putting black seeping out of the cracked fruits were burning into the ground itself, corroding through it as if it was merely nothing.

“Watch out for the damned fruits! We’ll be melted away if we get too close as they impact!” Diving to the left, the Summoner barely caught glimpse of another fruit combusting kinetically as it shattered against the ground on where they once stood.

Regaining the Main Character’s composure, the Summoner dusted himself off, shooting a firm glare at the many-eyed beast several feet away from him. “Alright!” The Summoner looked around for certainty--noting that the rain of corrosive fruit has ended. “I think it tired itself out! Now’s our chance!”

“Target the eyes! Despite being a plant it uses sight as its main form of detection, but also be careful of the roots.” Ral coughed, pulling out the new gun at the tree, strafing to the right this time. “Vaas, you know how to use this, you’re up!”

“Alright, watch this shit!” Vaas exclaimed, as the MC ducked under a vine and aimed the pistol at the behemoth.

With two deft clicks of the gun’s trigger, the pistol bursted out fire from its muzzle, letting out a burst of two bullets. Crackling in the air, cleaving the winds, the two bullets closed the distance between it and the large eye.

The couple of bullets blurring into the eye of the beast, the eye promptly shattered, sickeningly resonating glass shattering coupled with flesh being sundered. Blood, viscera, and eye matter shot out from the socket as the eye bled out profusely.

The reaction was instant. The monster bellowed in pain as the light went out and quickly brought a collection of vines up to protect the eye that was still intact, oozes of blood-red, glowing fluid trickling out of the vines where the eye should be.

The Tree Behemoth closed its myriad of eyes, its slits clenching tightly. Only the mere red glows could be seen from where the eyes were located, dimly piercing through their eyelids.

“Oh come on now, don’t be a little bitch!” Vaas growled, angry that his other target was now obscured, “This is bullshit!”

The Summoner stanced himself, finding a clear route, and by that a route where there were relatively low amounts of vines, staring at the Behemoth Tree. “It’s blinded itself… we can go for a swift melee blow now!”

The Summoner rose his leg to sprint, but as the ground shook as a tremor suddenly instilled itself within the battlefield, he stopped himself to examine the tree that was shifting and convulsing.

It revealed its large maw once more, displaying its intimidating, black spines that were its teeth.

“It can’t constrict us with its vines… It’s blind, so it can’t coordinate its vines with precision, so using that cheap one-hit kill move is out of the question for this bastard, so-” the Summoner stopped himself as a putrid, pungent scent began to pervade around the atmosphere as the Tree choked and gurgled, letting out sap colored as pitch black from its maw. “Oh,” the Summoner simply uttered.

“It’s going to regurgitate out its sap!” Ral exclaimed, faltering back, his steps hesitant and worrying. “By the looks of it, it’s going to let out a lot!”

“I got this.” Malideus dispersed the Trident out of existence, summoning the Staff of Vodahmin. The lightning provided by the Trident receding, everything went pitch black as Malideus flicked the elemental setting of the Staff, setting it to fire.

Aiming at the somewhat, eerily glowing red interior of the Tree Behemoth, he unleashed a whirl of flames as Malideus smiled wildly.

The burning torrent singeing everything in its wake, vines and dirt alike, the Behemoth Tree cringed and wailed a bit, spitting out a few droplets of sap as it did.

The inferno managed to score a clean hit, burning itself deep into the jaws of the beast, lighting up the tree in a display of fire.

Its barks plastered with streaks of ash, smoke billowed from its jaw. The Tree clenched its jaw shut, an unsavory gurgling noise emanating out of it as the fires suddenly died out within it, stopping the billow of smoke from hazing out of it. Still, embers laid fleckered upon the tree.

“Damn!” Malideus cursed a bit as he switched out the Staff for the Trident. Clutching the Trident, he rose it high, igniting it once more, revealing much of the battlefield as it basked much in its light. “I was hoping for that to deal more damage!”

"The sap seemed to have extinguished the flames..." the Summoner pointed out.

The Tree settling once more, it opened its eyes in a split second. Its pupils were frantically shaking--as if it was enraged.

Ingraining its roots into the ground, a large upheaval of dirt was making its way towards the Main Character at an insanely fast rate.

“We’re not going to avoid it in time… “ the Summoner muttered out despairingly. Switching out the pistol for Ral’s journal, he opened it wide, displaying its pages. “I have but one way to counter this… Question is, do I still remember how to use it?”

“Whatever it is, just do it!” Ral shouted out, stepping away from the speeding vines that were traversing their way towards the Main Character underground. “We don’t have much time before they emerge!”

“Very well then.” The Summoner raised the book to neck-level, chanting out murmurs of arcane runes. The book suddenly went aglow with purplish light. Its pages being overwritten with archaic text of magic, pages from the book ripped themselves out of it and spiraled across the Main Character.

The pages suddenly flickered with flames, and soon enough, was engulfed in purple fire. Whirling around the Main Character, an aegis of infernal flames began to take shape, the pages did not relent their burn.

“Alright… it worked. Thank god that wasn’t exclusive to only Summoners.” The Summoner sighed a bit, feeling a tad relieved. “Guys, we don’t have much control over these flames, so I suggest we don’t move at all until they die out so that we may avoid immolating ourselves.”

“A fair command…” Ral spoke out.

“Will it work, however?” Malideus commented, spectating at the burrowing vines beneath them that were yonder ahead of them few steps away.

Suddenly, the vines stopped mere feet away from their footing, bursting out of the ground and snaking their way at the Main Character. However, as the first vine touched the barrier of flames, it disintegrated into mere ash, dispersing into the wind.

The other myriad vines followed accordingly, they too vanishing into the wind as mere cinder. The vining wall still unrelenting at the Main Character, they were met with failure as they all burned their length to null.

The Summoner scoffed a laugh as the remnants of the vines retracted back into the ground as the Tree distortedly cried out in agony.

“Oh. This went better than-” The Summoner fell down a bit as a migraine thumped against their cranium, the flame-like aegis dissipating into waning ashes. “Okay, okay. No worries… This headache is symptomatic of magical overexertion.”

“Yes,” Ral barely uttered out, rubbing the palm of the Main Character against his head. “I could tell.”

“Man,” Malideus paused as he gained control over the Main Character, “I hate it when this happens… Dammit, we need to expend more on INT next time.”

“Whatever!” Vaati managed to spoke out as he stared at the Tree, switching out Ral’s journal for the G-18 handgun. “Vaas! You’re up… and this time, please try to aim for more than one eye.”

“You’re the boss, hermano.” Vaas cracked a smile as he raised the pistol, lining up his shots with fortitude. With a calm breath, he tapped the trigger multiple times, unleashing a wall of lead. All the while, he switched from target to target with utmost precision.

The bullets flashing out from the barrel with a blinding flare, they all sped through the air, reaching forth at their designated targets.

One by one, the eyes cracked and shattered as the multiple bullets drove into them, unleashing their kinetic force as they cracked the brittle coverings of the Tree's eyes. The blood of the Tree seeping out from its now-bloodied sockets, it frantically shook, the sound of fruits falling once more sounding out.

“Damn! Fruits!” The Summoner cringed as a fruit from the tree landed just ahead of them, its splattering juices barely missing them. “Watch out!”

Strafing and diving, the Main Character performed somewhat of an insane waltz as fruit after fruit battered the ground, unleashing their contents.

The hail of fruit stopping, the Main Character once more confronted the Behemoth Tree with their glance.

“Damn.” The Fat Friar noted the vines completely covering the tree, providing some sort of cover for it. “It’s completely encased itself…”

“Yeah.” Ricky dully replied, “We can see that." Dodging as a fell vine swoop at them, Ricky continued, "Though, there are always more ways than one to beat the crap out of a tree-”

Emerging out of the ground with a quake, a very, very large root that rivaled the length of a building revealed itself, towering over the Main Character.

“Holy shit…” Malideus feebly uttered out. “What the hell is that, its dick?” He pointed the Trident at the monstrous root waving about mere meters away from them.

“That… If I must guess,” Ral spoke out with a bit of fear clinging onto his tone, “is the tap root of this tree.”

“The hell is a tap root?!” Vaati yelled out as the large Tap Root slammed itself horizontally towards the Main Character.

Sidestepping far to the right just before they got smashed, Vaati continued as he staggered back up, “Seriously?!”

Vaati, more or less in a dazed stupor, glared at the ground that has depressed and shattered against the weight and impact of the Tap Root.

"Yup." Audrey nodded in both adrenaline-induced craze and amusement. "That'll break more than just bones," she stated as she pointed at the semi-chasm the Tap Root had just burrowed.

Withdrawing back hastily in a dash as the Tap Root swerved and wriggled vehemently against the ground, strewing jagged rocks and dust, the Main Character brought a defensive arm up to his face.

“A tap root is the most dominant and largest root of a plant…” Ral trailed off as the Tap Root regained its positioning, once more upright. "Oh... come on!"

Sending itself at the Main Character, Ral dove away just in time to avoid being impaled by the tip of it. Catching his breath, Ral returned to finishing his statement.

“What’s strange is that most trees don’t even have tap roots; usually, only flowers have them,” he finished, letting out a much-entailed gasp for breath.

Audrey, taking control, backflipped several feet away as the Tap Root swerved down, bringing its weight crashing down in a swing. Dusting herself off, Audrey chuckled a bit. "I eat chumps like these in salads... Well, before I was nerf'd to bits, anyways."

“Agh!” Ral whined out as he was suddenly flung back into control. “Oh. Thanks, Audrey. Anyways, as I was saying… Tap Roots usually run deep and usually collect the most amount of minerals… and I can see why this tree is larger than the others now.”

“Wait, so Taproots gather minerals!? That explains the curse breath! The minerals!” Malideus exclaimed.

“All roots gather minerals…” Vaati mentally facepalmed.

“Something must be buried deep underneath this tree to have caused it to grow like this.” The Summoner arched back as the Tap Root flicked itself at the Main Character, it's spinal tip just grazing the space inches away from the Main Character.

Retracting itself back, it recovered its poise as it swung once more, administering much more force as the winds themselves cleaved and crackled at the blurring Tap Root.

Barely missing its target as it idly landed on the ground, seemingly tired out. “But for now, we have to eradicate this damned thing!”

Malideus merely sniffed, smiling. "Now... I can feel it! It is my time to show off!"

"Any minute will do," the Summoner quipped, hesitantly strafing left to right, keeping a sharp watch on Tap Root.

“On it.” And with that, Malideus switched to the Staff of Vodahmin, changing the element to poison. “Hey, Groot! Absorb THIS!!!” Malideus yelled, casting a gargantuan cloud of semi-liquid poison at the downed tap root.

Vile toxic seeping into the Taproot, it winced and twitched, flinging itself back upright as it began to tear away. Still, it remained relatively unharmed.

“You’re going to need a lot of poison for this bastard…” the Summoner muttered out in a curse. “All those minerals, liquid, and whatever compositions within it… it’s most likely diluting the poison.”

“Aw, what!? That’s fucked up, man.” Malideus pouted, shifting control to another character.

“We can try to dry it out, I suppose… I mean, plants do hate heat, right?” Vaati suggested. “They wither and stuff…”

“If only I knew that this was gonna happen,” Vaas pointed out his finger, “I’d have brought molotovs…”

“We apparently cannot bring items from when we were alive.” Ral shrugged. “Whatever. If we have to dry it out, we’d need to make it still… but how?”

“I have an idea…” The Fat Friar said, scratching his chin thoughtfully.

“Well, out with it! I don’t think I have the DEX to dodge anymore!” Ricky cried, prompting the Friar to act.

“Vaati, what magic do you specialize in?” The Fat Friar asked.

“Wind, duh. And Darkness, but…”

“That’s all I needed to hear. Malideus, pull out the staff and switch it to the dark element! Vaati, try and cast something to hold that root down!” The Fat Friar commanded, and despite their doubts, Malideus and Vaati obliged.

Vaati, stabbing the Staff down into the ground, staying it still, flickered magic within his free hand, darkness swathing within it. Directing magic towards the Taproot, his head ached a bit.

“Not a lot of magic within us left… I can still pull this off… hopefully.”

The winds morphing in ripples, began to rampage around the air, forming tidal waves of winds. Sending them at the Tap Root, the deluge of wind collided against the root, its kinetic discharge dispersing against it with a resounding snapping sound.

The Tap Root, barraged by a wall of dark wind, began to flail and twitch. The whirlwinds of black magic immobilized it, however, causing it to remain somewhat stationary.

With a grunt, Malideus then plucked the staff from the ground, and glared at the immobilized tap root, thinking of his best one-liner to date.

“Let’s bake this potato, folks!” Malideus cried out, switching the Staff’s element to fire, but not before some criticism from his teammates.

“Never had I seen a potato this large and dangerous…” the Summoner exasperated.

“Should’ve gone with something related to spicy salad.” Vaati sighed.

“Oh, stuff it, I’d like to see you guys come up with something on such short notice.” Malideus growled, hurling a great whirlwind of fire at the immobilized tap root, causing it to burn to ashes… or that’s what Malideus expected.

The Taproot simply shrivelled down in size twofold. The barricades of winds breaking due to lack of magic put into them, the Taproot broke free--ashen black and appearing withering, but free nonetheless.

“Holy fucking shit!” Ricky cursed out in disbelief. “What in the bleedin’ hell is this root made of?!”

“A lot of water and minerals… and presumably artificially crafted chemicals Ral pointed out. “No understatement there.”

“Not fair, that was my best one-liner… and move! I call hax!” Malideus cried, shaking the MC’s fists at the tree.

“Ugh. What is this?” the Summoner exclaimed. “This is supposed to be the first boss, for crying out loud!”

“Now we’re stuck with absolutely no magic left…” Vaati noted. “How the hell are we going to win this now?”

“That shit… doesn’t… fly with me!” Malideus roared, getting significantly angrier. Suddenly, he noticed that nothing was happening. “Crap! My bomb-ass technique isn’t working.”

“I’m thinking that we need to use that stupid ‘Regain Memory’ option that True Bastard is offering,” the Summoner stated.

“We don’t need magic. Dammit!” Audrey sprinted at the burnt Taproot, equipped both with the Trident and Staff.

Closing on the distance of the Taproot, she buried both the blades of the Trident and the Staff into the Taproot. Retracting both of her weapons, she let loose a frenzy of blows, hacking away at the Taproot, sending out flecks of biomatter from the Taproot.

“Don’t get so damned close!” the Summoner yelled out as the Taproot countered, sweeping away at the vicinity. Nimbly dodging, the Summoner dove to the ground, far from the Taproot’s length.

“Grah! We still can’t hit it!?” Malideus grumbled.

“What about the puddle of fruit juice on the area?” the Summoner pointed at a particularly welling pool of corrosive fruit innards just yonder left of them. “It should burn away the root, right?“

“Yes… It should!” Ral lit up. “We just simply need to taunt it into slamming into the puddles of acid… I’m thinking that the tree is using sound as its primary way to hit us, so it should work.”

Sprinting towards the puddle of acidic juice, the Summoner’s footsteps echoed, causing the Taproot to turn accordingly towards the Main Character.

“Hey!” the Summoner yelled at the Taproot, flailing his arms around. “Your mother was a fern, you lowly wheat plant!” The root took great offense to that, and flung itself at the MC. However, The Summoner dodged at the last second, causing the tendril to hit the acidic puddle.

Bathed in liquid that was akin to hellfire, the Taproot writhed in pain as it began to dissolve. The Behemoth Tree’s base too flailed and shook, pain laced within its roar.

Suddenly, its maws opened once more. This time, however, it revealed a rather large, glowing sphere glowing with red.

“There!” The Summoner extended his arm, pointing at the jarringly obvious weak point. Shifting the Staff into the pistol, the Summoner added, “Vaas, shoot it there!”

“You got it, hermano!” He lowered the tension of his shoulder as he raised the gun. However, before he could shoot, Malideus stopped him, with one last piece of advice:

“Don’t forget the one-liner!” He advised, unsurprisingly.

“Uh…” Vaas hesitated a bit as he went into deep thought. “Let’s blow this poppyseed stand--I don’t fucking know; I’m not a comedian!”

Pulling the trigger, the bullet deafeningly flared out from the gun, delving into the maw of the
beast within a split-second. Piercing into the heart of the beast, it burst into a display of blood.

The Behemoth Tree, still bleeding from its jaw, shriveled and began to wither--as with its Taproot. Thudding against the ground, the Taproot blistered out oozing liquefied minerals from its scalded skin, melting away into withered remains.

Seemingly being eaten away, the Behemoth Tree and its roots began to fade. Fully consumed by the ground, it decomposed rapidly, leaving a wake of vibrant flowers upon its grave.

The billow of ghastly smog emanating from the tree stopped as the atmosphere suddenly becoming clear, the sun peering from the dispelling smokescreen.

“Aww yeah, son, that’s how you kill a boss!” Malideus said, pumping his fist into the air.

Author's Notes:

Keep Calm, Parry On, And Roll the hell out of those cheap-ass attacks!