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With Ryia still holding Lucas in place after her devastating combination attack with Keres, Lindow intended to take full advantage of the situation. Appearing at the Lycan’s flank with the Cleaver raised high above his head, the Thunder Chosen tore into the back of his foe’s legs with a brutal two-handed slash. Lucas snarled in pain, erupting to life once again and furiously shaking Ryia off before turning to lash out at his new attacker in feral rage. But Keres was ready. She quickly blasted him with another powerful jet of water, causing the hulking figure to stumble and leaving him vulnerable to Lindow’s follow-up. “Ha! Atta girl…” Lindow sneered through his fatigue. Pushing his speed to the limit, he quickly closed the gap again, this time slashing at the Lycan’s stomach. The plan was simple, requiring no communication between the Water and Thunder Chosen despite their lack of affinity. With Lucas’s wounds clearly fatal, all they had to do was overwhelm him until his body realized he was dead. “Tsk,” Lindow muttered. Even at death’s doorstep, the Lycan managed to avoid the brunt of his attack. Lindow’s eyes narrowed in begrudging admiration as Lucas countered with his claws immediately. The shriek of scraping metal rang through the clearing as Lindow turned the Bandit Cleaver flat in a desperate parry that sent him skidding backward. Panting, Lindow retook his stance as Lucas charged forward. He could tell his foe’s strength was finally waning, noting that the follow-up attack seemed sluggish and sloppy compared to earlier in the battle. Growling with effort, Lindow ducked and weaved under another series of swipes from Lucas before darting under his arm and slicing at his ribs with the Bandit Cleaver yet again. The wound wasn’t deep enough to end the fight but enough to keep Lucas’s attention away from the spectacle happening behind him... Meanwhile, Keres swirled the water above her, moving it faster and faster into a spinning vortex. With all her might, she shot it up into the air and curved it above the wounded Lycan just as he turned to attack Lindow again. The water crashed into him between the shoulder blades. At first, the beast stayed standing even as the water tried to crush him. But his wounds soon caught up to him, and his legs gave out. He came crashing to his knees and then, as the rest of the water rushed over him, fell forward, catching himself with the palms of his claws. Seeing the opportunity he had been waiting for right in front of him, Lindow dashed forward one last time. With his own primal roar, he swung the Bandit Cleaver in a deadly arc, aiming for Lucas's neck. The blade bit deep, severing the Lycan’s head from his body, and seemingly causing the entire woods to grow silent. The beast’s lifeless form slumped to the ground, finally still. The Thunder Chosen stood over the fallen Lycan, panting heavily but victorious nonethless. “It's over,” he muttered, wiping the blood from his blade with a wide swipe to the side. "let's have a rematch in the underworld someday, kay?"

Unfortunately, Carmen was right. If the seal actually exorcised anything about the dog skull, it would have burned up, and probably taken the skull with it too. Brian made a little “pah” sound and placed the skull back in the dirt -- still with the seal on it, just in case. He had just gotten ready to shovel the (thankfully small) pile of dirt back in when Kenneth decided that he wasn’t okay with whatever he thought Brian and Carmen were doing, and though Carmen did her best to try and soothe the situation over, in classic Carmen fashion, she really was only making things worse. Brian gave Kyle a nod that he hoped signified respect. “Apologies, sir,” he said, echoing Carmen but more sure of himself. “You’re correct, and we probably should have called 811 while we were out here too, but when your problem is a ghost dog and you stumble on some dog bones… you can see why we made some assumptions, can’t you? If you’re taking your car to the mechanic to get serviced, you want to tell the mechanic all that’s wrong with the car before they start tearing it open to look, right?” Klyde grunted. “Haven’t had to take a car to a mechanic in a long time…” he said, which made so much sense to Brian, one more puzzle piece put into place even if he couldn’t explain why. But Kaden shook his head. “Alright, but don’t start digging up holes everywhere.” “Wouldn’t dream of it, sir,” Brian said. The phrase was especially boy scout-ish, but better safe than sorry. “So long as there aren’t any other dead dogs we don’t know about, we’ll keep the hole-digging to an absolute minimum.” K. narrowed his eyes. “No, no other dead dogs. Wherever that ghost dog came from it wasn't around here. No more holes.” But he didn’t seem in the mood to keep an eye on the two, and he turned around and went back to his house. Brian watched him go, making sure he was back inside and out of earshot before he started talking smack. “Seriously, like, are there any more dogs, Kent? Maybe you only have one ghost dog now but how many ghost dogs in potentia do you have, Kent?” Whatever. If there weren’t dog bones there were probably human bones or something. He turned to Carmen. “I almost don’t want to fill in this hole now, but that’ll definitely make more ghost dogs. You know, if there is even one here in the first place. Give me a sec.” Displacing the same amount of dirt the second time was technically easier thanks to gravity, but not by much. “Alright,” Brian said. “The bonus of having a shovel is there’s now something we can whack it with, I guess. That’s not nothing. But you’re digging the next one and leaving the talking to me.”

While light enough not to be crushing her, being pinned by the little Crowdents was less than ideal; something that Dahlia was terribly aware of as more moved in to hold her down, face staring upwards towards the sky as she heard… Several things happen at once. Nikolaos had realized that they did, technically, have other Pokémon to fight with; the first truly smart thing he had said and done. Of course, what he did next was less smart, she gathered, as it sounded like he was charging into the Crowdent to retrieve the Pokémon. Next, then, the people with Pokémon actually got their act together, for once; a miracle, really. They had seemed as hopeless as they came when it came to actually acting in any sort of assertive manner, or making a decision-- Or at least, the guy who seemed to suck the fun out of anything did. Of course, the little psychic girl was as impulsive as ever, something she noticed as raw force lightly crashed into her, and sent a smattering of the Crowdent flying. The perfect diversion, and a weight off her shoulders; literally. Taking her cue, Dahlia forced herself up to her feet, and swept her arms upwards and downwards; slapping the remaining Crowdent, disoriented by the psychic throw from before (not to mention the inertia of her getting up), towards the ground. Their claws dug deeper, briefly cutting into her skin, before being wrenched free by the force of her movements, a distinct frown coming to her face as she noticed that while many of the Crowdent were going towards the active Pokémon, just as many seemed intent on getting her. She had intended to protect herself with the Umbrella, not make herself a target… And yet, just as she braced to try and dodge, there was a bright flash of white-- And their saviors appeared in the center of it all, disorienting the Crowdent with their flashy entrance. They were small, to be sure, but they were helpful just by their presence, and they each looked vastly unique compared to one another. Of course, as Anna spoke, Dahlia had already been moving towards them, using the momentum from what was originally going to be a motion to dodge the Crowdent, to instead propel herself closer to the Pokémon. “Crowdent are a Pokémon extremely similar to Rattata, in a way; even if they’re more pathetic. Meowth and Ekans are known to hunt Rattata where I come from-- Delcatty and Seviper too…” her mind raced as she came to a sliding stop beside the Pokémon, eyes scanning over them, with a distinct, important thought: “So which one of you appears to be the best hunter of the group?” Her eyes darted from Pokémon to Pokémon, before settling slightly as they came not to meet the top of a head, as she expected, but sky-blue eyes which darted from person to person, before settling on her with a growl; all while an enchanting red tail shook and illuminated the room around them from behind the little creature. “When it comes to show business, and when it comes to entertainment, one of the most important things to keep in mind is that you need to catch the attention of those around you. When you want to entertain, you need to draw their gaze to you by sticking out; and when you want to deceive, you need something to draw their attention away from your left hand… All while making sure you’ve got an eye on every person present, to make sure that you’re not being deceived yourself.” In an instant, Dahlia dropped to a crouching position, eyes locked with the growling Cub, and… She gave a slight nod, as she let her smile soften a little. "...Perceptive little one, aren't you? You don’t trust a single person here-- Especially not me, which means you’re an excellent judge of character,” she winked, before throwing a thumbs up at herself. “...But you can trust me for now, friend. After all-- We’ve got bigger problems than one untrustworthy lass right now,” she nodded, gesturing towards the Crowdent around them, who had rallied in the moment her conversation had taken. “So, mind teaming up with me for a moment?” The Felight watched her with narrowed blue eyes, unwilling to remove their eyes for any period longer than the second it took them to glance away and see the Crowdent, before… Releasing a quiet huff, that almost sounded like a sigh, growl dissipating for a moment as they shifted their weight slightly, turning in an instant to face away from Dahlia, tail thumping into the ground, light bobbing up and down not unlike a lure. “...See? Bigger problems,” Dahlia teased-- Earning a hiss from the Felight as she spoke; tail thumping the ground heavily with displeasure as they continued to size up the Crowdent. “Right, right, that’s not what you wanted to hear,” Dahlia smiled, still staying crouched behind the Felight. “Wait for the right moment…” she trailed off, eyes scanning the approaching Crowdent, voice growing hushed as her mind raced-- Going to the only move she could be sure that a cat like this would know. “...And then scratch, disabling as many of them as you can. Don’t charge in, since they outnumber us still,” she advised, as the Felight began to slowly stalk at an angle, waiting for the right moment to strike, as they were instructed.

new berserk check it out

←Previous Post Episode Seven -- The Sword’s Owner Or: The Love Triangle Becomes A Love Square Content Warning: This episode introduces Princess Charlotte, a sixteen-year-old girl who adult-aged Griffith is attempting to woo throughout the story. This is treated as normal by Berserk and, aside from naïveté on Charlotte’s part, is going to go completely unexamined. I mention it now in this otherwise tame episode in anticipation of it getting worse. Let’s take a brief moment to talk about the team who worked on Berserk ‘97. It won’t be too long, because I’d just end up reading off Wikipedia for half of it and cribbing from video essays for the other, but I wanted to do it so here goes. It takes a real nerd to know anything about Japanese animation studios, but I guarantee that anyone reading this has heard of something produced by an Oriental Light and Magic studio, which is an impressive guarantee for a name that Google says is inspired by Industrial Light and Magic (aka the Star Wars effects team) without any sources backing that up. It’s extra impressive given that it’s no longer their name now: it’s just OLM Incorporated. In recent years, they’ve had reasonable success over here in the English-speaking world with the “Komi Can’t Communicate” adaptation and a season of “Don’t Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro,” and if you’re a nerd like me, they did the Deltora Quest adaptation and have a unit dedicated to following Takashi Miike around. There’s Berserk, obviously, which is why we’re talking about them, but the reason they had the experience to adapt such a dark and twisted fantasy manga is because they had prior experience with similar material: Pokémon. That joke is cribbed from the Lady Emily video essay on Berserk but it’s too good not to repeat here. Perhaps the joke is backwards, because the production team that worked on Berserk wouldn’t work on Pokémon until 2006, but it does mean you get some pretty funny credit portfolios. The Chief Director of Berserk, Naohito Takahashi, has a key animation or storyboard credit on ten Pokémon movies and a few episodes to boot. But we can find some more connections by digging into specific episodes. Episode One of Berserk, The Black Swordsman, was directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki, a very prominent member of Studio Trigger and Studio Gainax before that, directing FLCL and the first half of End of Evangelion. Because everything ties into Utena, he apparently found time to do key animation on Episode Thirty-Seven of Revolutionary Girl Utena as well. On the writing side, the job of adaptation was split roughly equally between five screenwriters, including the current head writer of the One Piece anime, Shoji Yonemura. In fact, a majority of the screenwriters have a double-digit number of writing credits for One Piece, and one of the ones that doesn’t, Yukiyoki Ohashi, has several dozen Fist of the North Star episode credits instead. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me when I find these connections. The American film industry has a large amount of crossover as well, to the point that there’s a memetic number linking actors to Kevin Bacon -- and there’s no reason not to include the rest of the crew as well when drawing those connections besides some nebulous “sharing a camera with” definition. So many people work on a project, it’s not surprising that some number of them have done other well-known things. Perhaps what I should be doing instead is giving shows an Utena number. I don’t hate that idea. I generally want to give the credits that I can anyway. It’s never just one person, especially for something as massive as Berserk. Which reminds me, I should probably talk about the other people who drew the manga. Next time, then. The meaning behind the episode title takes a bit of work to get to, though, at the same time, we’ve done a lot of the groundwork already because it’s going to be drawing many of the same conclusions we already have been in previous posts. Which is good! It means I’ve been following along and properly relaying the facts to you as well. In fact, on my watch of this episode, I nearly missed the conclusion it was getting at because it felt like old knowledge at this point. But it’s good to reinforce it. Let’s start with the facts of the episode in sequential order. Griffith, thanks to his continued success on the battlefield post-knighthood has been causing quite a stir amongst the nobility of Midland’s court. Rumors include that he even fought a demon (though of course, magic isn’t real in Berserk, so that’s obviously fake) and that he is about to be made a member of the peerage (a notion so insulting to the existing gentry that it must be stopped at all cost). Despite the negative conspiracy that is a minor focus of the episode, this is still a net good in terms of Griffith’s goals. He is even developing a small contingent of favors, people within the court who are trying to ride the coattails of his rise to power. Of course, all of that excitement means Griffith has less time to spend with the people who got him as far as he has. When the Band of the Hawk commanders all try and visit him, they are barred entry. Griffith even laments this to Guts, though given how we’ve seen him pull everyone else’s strings to keep them complacent, he may be using a similar tactic here. “Oh, if only I could, but alas,” is a common excuse, after all. At the same time, when Guts does finally get time with Griffith, there’s a pretty big hint that this isn’t the case. When Guts asks Griffith why he charged in to fight Zodd, putting his life on the line to save Guts, Griffith hesitates. “I thought we settled this three years ago,” he says. “Do I really need a reason?” And, like, we know he has a reason, but this is a nineties anime adaptation of a late eighties manga, so… As much as I’d like to continue speculating on the sexuality of these fictional characters, I have already made the joke about a love square and I’ve already said who it’s with in the Content Warning. This episode introduces Princess Charlotte, who is Griffith’s best chance at seizing the throne. Her hand in marriage is the ultimate goal, and Griffith is very good at making you fall in love with him. The King notes that she is normally afraid of the warrior-types that have been populating the palace, but Griffith demonstrates a softer side of himself that endears him to her. To the Band of the Hawk, that’s one extra person competing for Griffith’s attention, and sure they might understand on a logical level why he is doing what he’s doing -- and some of them might even encourage it -- but that’s still going to matter emotionally. You know, like a love triangle. It is despite all of this that the meaning of the episode title becomes clear. Guts, reflecting on the events of the episode, including a moment of Casca lashing out that I didn’t deem necessary to cover (it’s mostly following through on the end of the previous episode, you can imagine what happens), finally resolves that yes, he is going to help Griffith get his kingdom, defying Zodd’s prophecy, not out of any sense of obligation to the Griffith who defeated him three years ago, but to the Griffith that has saved his life twice now. He has internalized Griffith’s invisible message, and now believes they regard each other as friends. In the words of another fantasy story, he is telling Griffith, “You have my sword.” The Sword’s Owner is Griffith. Also in this episode is General Coborlwitz, making another anime-only appearance to extend his mini-arc, but also a brief discussion about what Nosferatu Zodd even was. We know the answer is Apostle, but Guts and Griffith don’t have that language yet. The rumors say he is a demon, and Guts seems to agree, but Griffith instead calls him a “God.” Now, this is a dichotomy that’s going to run through basically the entirety of Berserk the manga, so I can’t get into too many specifics here, but because this is the start of the narrative throughline, I do want to point it out for those starting on that particular journey. I’ll try to talk more about it when I can. Until then, -r Next Time: Every man makes sacrifices for his ambitions. Especially when he possesses a young heart, he is unable to suppress the consuming hunger. Achieving glory for oneself, and crushing the dreams of another… Is this an unavoidable result of causality? ←Previous Post

BGM: Pokémon Anime Sound Collection - Raid! "Weak for a Pokémon you mean right? Ever get Tackled by a Zigzagoon before? I'd rather you run into me again than that!" Shawn shouted over the din. Anna chortled from her position on the floor. "Yeah, I meant for a Pokémon! Even a Zigzagoon is stronger than them." "Hell of a first test for us, Assistant Professor!" Dahlia called out, somehow retaining her sense of humor even now. "Hey, this wasn't my—ugh!" Anna's indignant cry cut off as another Crowdent jumped on her back. The air came out of her chest in a whoosh. For one terrifying second, she could not breathe. And then the Crowdent crawled off, skittering to join its fellows in their assault against those still standing. Anna took in a deep breath then, letting it out quickly in her panic. Another breath in. And then the backward slide as she exhaled. Spots gathered in the corners of her eyes. This was a disaster. And it was all her fault. She had known the Crowdent were inside, had heard their faint whispers that grew silent at her call. But she had told the others to enter, anyway. She had erroneously assumed her abilities protection enough. She had been wrong. 'This never would have happened if I had just went with the original plan and let the professor come here instead.' Nikolaos's question tugged Anna away from her pity party. It also provided her with a glimmer of hope. She could still fix this! She could fix this and pretend like this was all part of the plan. Except she had a feeling the others wouldn't fall for it. Especially Dahlia. She hadn't known the woman for very long, but the other seemed as sharp as a Larvara. But even if Anna couldn't pretend, she could still fix this. That was what mattered. Their current situation was precarious at best. Dahlia had been overrun with Crowdent, though as soon as the woman fell down they lost interest in attacking her, content to sit on her instead like they did Anna. The rest crawled off of the woman, aiming for the others. Several flew at Shawn and Chigusa, but scattered at Chomper's Aqua Jet. Those that were hit passed out then and there. Several more, aiming for Lini, fell to the floor in sleep from Pinky's Hypnosis. The nearby Crowdent let out high-pitched keens, which the others soon took up. Then they came at the Totodile and Munna with Tackles, joined by others racing in from the back of the warehouse. Though Chomper and Pinky posed the greatest threat so far, not all the Crowdent focused on those two. One Pokémon found the pack of crackers that Nikolaos had dropped, paying no mind to the battle as it stuffed its cheeks. Various Crowdent still kept Anna and Dahlia flattened to the ground. A few more approached the latter, wary of her skill with an umbrella. Though they would soon have something else to distract them from the fallen woman. Selini found that telekinesis on an animate organism was much harder than on inanimate objects. Objects didn't resist being pushed, but living beings did. And the psychic's attention was divided between multiple Pokémon, which made it even harder. Still, the rodents' lightness worked against them here, and three Crowdent were thrown back into the horde. While she still had some Crowdent on her back, they were few enough now that Dahlia could pick herself off the floor if she wanted. The keening resumed, but this time the Crowdent had no obvious target to direct their energies towards. The rats shifted in confusion before running toward Dahlia, Chomper, and Pinky in renewed fury. With most of the pack distracted like this, Nikolaos made his way to Anna mostly unmolested. The girl was ready for him, having shifted around enough to open up her duffel bag and take out the thin square metallic box containing the starter Poké Balls. How she had imagined this would go! She would give a grand speech—but not too long, of course, because she was never great at public speaking. And then she would provide a test to choose which trainers to give the starter Pokémon to. Professor Appel had thought it a good idea to give them out to those trainers who were less confident in themselves, or less likely to catch one themselves. But Anna thought that was stupid. Why give out valuable Pokémon to weaklings who would give up before they even got their first Gym badge? They wouldn't be of any help to the professor or his research. So she had devised a test. She would find some willing wild Pokémon to scare the group, and she would choose the three trainers who could handle the fright best to receive the starters. Honestly, not that different from what they were going through right now. Except now Anna was also part of the test. The girl handed over the container to Nikolaos, gritting her teeth as the boy stared down at the box, making no effort to help her up. While she also would've appreciated some help, she knew that time was short. She wasn't the priority right now. The Pokémon were. And then a Crowdent crashed right into Nikolaos's back, another running forward and knocking the box out of the boy's hands. "No!" Anna cried. With a surge of adrenaline, she clawed her rat-laden self forward, desperate to catch the container. Her focus narrowed on the box, and for one second, she believed she would make it. And then the back of her hand slapped against the latch of the box, and instead of catching it, she threw it further away. The movement had also undone the latch, and the container flipped open, revealing a velvet interior cushioning three shiny Poké Balls. It was like watching a chariot wreck in action. The box crashed to the concrete floor, dented but whole. Separately, the three Poké Balls all landed as well. BGM: Pokémon Anime Sound Collection - Pokemon I Choose You! When she first arrived at the laboratory, Anna didn't know the first thing about Poké Balls. But Professor Appel was quite knowledgeable. He had showed with an empty Poké Ball how clicking the button in the middle once would resize it, and holding it down would open it. Closing it required just a simple press of the two sides together. "Applied force to the surface of the Poké Ball also works," the professor explained. "When thrown, they open after hitting the ground. If the ball is empty, they release a red particle beam that converts electrons into muons, and if the ball is full, they do the reverse. It's quite fascinating, and discussed in full in Professor Westwood's essay on the mechanisms of Poké Balls." And that was where he lost her. But she understood the basics. Using force from the outside on a Poké Ball would open it. So then, these falling Poké Balls… would the force of them falling to the floor be enough to open them? According to Professor Appel, the answer was no. "Considering the negligible mass of a Poké Ball combined with gravitational acceleration… not even mentioning air resistance, ahem. Dropping a ball from up to seven feet above the ground does not produce enough force to open it. Poké Balls were designed that way to avoid accidents. After all, most new trainers drop their Poké Balls from time to time. Heh, even I've done the same when my arms were full." So normally, the balls would have just dropped to the floor. But Anna, in her attempt at catching the container, inadvertently transferred energy, or positive work, to the container, which then acted on the Poké Balls. Now their acceleration had increased, surpassing the threshold. In simpler terms, her knocking the box away caused the Poké Balls to fly out and not just drop, but slam against the floor. This excess of force caused them to open, revealing the Pokémon inside in a flash of white light. The first to appear was a tiny green snake with a darker scale pattern on the back of its head, narrowing down to a point between yellow almond-shaped eyes. A shiny round red fruit hung from its tail. It blinked and tasted the air, then shook its tail in a rattle of warning. The second was a fierce-looking silver kitten with blue extremities and a shock of white hair on its head. It bore matching white markings on its face and belly. A spiky tail glowed faintly, lighting up the surrounding space. It crouched down, letting out a low growl as its sky-blue eyes darted from person to person. The last was a small calf with a milk-colored coat and brass-colored nose, horns, and front hooves. Aqua blue hair curled over its head in gentle waves. While the front looked like a normal bull, the back ended in a blue fish's tail, giving it the look of a bovine mermaid. It peered into the darkness with wide eyes, hooves pawing at the ground. "Grissy, Felight, Calfin!" Anna called out, still lying on the ground. The three turned toward her, recognition lighting up their faces. "I know this situation isn't like we discussed before, but these people will be your new trainers." She gestured at the group. "Listen to them and follow their directions!" The two-toned girl looked toward the other humans in the warehouse. "These are Grissy, the fruit snakelet Pokémon; Felight, the glowing cub Pokémon; and Calfin, the sea calf Pokémon. They are—" she cut off as a Crowdent jumped on her, and then took a deep breath when it leaped off, "—grass, fire, and water types respectively. I wish I could give you more time to decide, but you'll need to choose quickly. Or just take a random one for now and decide your starter later. We need more battlers, and fast!" OOC: Hello, hello! It's that time of the RP. Yes, it's starter time! For those of you choosing fakemon starters, anyway. Just as Anna said, you can either decide amongst yourselves which starter you're choosing (and of course, certain people get priority for certain starters). Or you can choose a random Pokémon to fight this battle now, and decide your actual starter later. Also, once I am sure everybody has read this post, I will post a picture of the starters in the Discord chat.

They were victorious. Though looking around you might not think so. Reinaan was propped up against a tree. Unconscious and only barely a step away from critical condition. As he was he could be felled by tripping and falling. Damien too was still unconscious and the only sign of life from him was the way that he gripped his sword tightly. The two elves both were exhausted and battered to the point that they could barely prop themselves up to survey the scene. Madeline had collapsed down onto her knees the second that Lindow had finished off the lycan leader. It was clear she wanted to say some sort of snarky remark but she was even too worn out to do that. Keres was still standing but that only lasted a moment. She attempted to step towards the others and simply toppled to the side and landed on the ground with a thud. "Ow." She winced. "I...do not believe...I can move." She said. Keres felt her eyelids grow heavy and knew that she wouldn't be able to fight it off for long. Before she slipped into slumber she said a simple phrase that, despite her usual tone, managed to convey some emotion after all. "We...did well, didn't we?" Only Lindow and Ryia were still standing but for both of them it was a struggle. The bodies of the lycans remained around them and the fire that they had set had burned down to cinders so the entire clearing was shrouded in shadows and soon they would not be able to even see where their companions lay. Still, they had to keep going. At least to gather everyone close together and remove the corpses before some sort of carrion beast decided to come in to finish them off for the easy meal. Only Lucas's head, which had yet to revert back to human form, was kept nearby as they still needed it if they were to enter the elven city. Despite their weariness the Chosen would feel a strength surge in them as the spirits collected the energy from the powerful foe. There would be no watch that night. Only the hope that the intense struggle scared off any other would be predators. This battle was over but they still had work to do. But, for now, these remaining warriors had to lay themselves to rest. If only for a moment. The Demon Gate still waited.

I legit haven't played the game in years and when I did I was bad; anyway I had an idea so here have a card NCM. This card can only be activated on the opponent's turn. For every 1000 damage you have taken this turn you may Special Summon 1 "Slime Token" (Aqua-Type/Water/Level 1/ATK 500/DEF 500) in Attack Position.

That is fair, I can (and usually do) always adjust my criteria of a card's power/efficiency to something being competitively good nowadays, casually good/fun, or good if it existed in X past format that is still popular (Goat, Edison, etc). So power/efficiency is.... it's not unimportant but I'd rather find and read something interesting in flavor/theme here. There are extreme cases when somebody at YCM would post a 100% "kid thinks it's cool" kind of card like a 4 Tribute monster with 3400 ATK whose effect is something lame like "gains 250 DEF if it destroys a monster by battle" or "gains 600 LP" that are totally not worth the effort or they ARE but their effect is so weak that it can be ignored or deleted and it'd even make the card better xD But those are the extreme cases, your stuff even if you don't play/don't know the card pool/say you have never been good/etc. I find it is on the fun and competent side. Had this card been printed back in 2007 I would have tried making a deck with 3 copies of it along with 3 copies of "Sinister Seeds" and some effects that give me some LP back to help against the constant damage, just because 6 copies of "I make 2+ tokens that can be Tributed for big chungus" effects would be enough things to make a deck around. It would probably not be good at all but it'd be fun haha (actually I kinda did make a deck like that with those and a card called "Regenerating Rose". I won a game against a HERO deck at the Swap Meet and caught the attention of another player that proceeded to stomp me with Lightsworns out of curiosity).

Reminds me of a GX era card (2007-ish) named "Sinister Seeds". Though the condition to activation is a bit different come think of it. I think even back then, you could get away with it being a x500 damage deal instead of x1000. Part of me wants to suggest "make the Tokens 0/0 Aqua Level 10 and make it so you can Summon as many as possible when any damage is taken regardless of whose turn it is. That way you can transform them into Egyptian God Slimes when your turn comes around" but like.... there's barely a cap in how much you can get away with nowadays, I'd rather keep only the first 2 lines and think this card was meant for like Edison-like power levels and I have more fun thinking of that xD