Inside the door was a long corridor with platforms and roiling vines. Each platform was twenty feet square and spaced apart with ten to thirty-foot gaps.
"Woah! This place is wild! But this doesn't look very hard!" Katie exclaimed as she walked forward, but as she did, creatures started to grow up from each of the platforms.
"Don't talk too quickly. It looks like this is going to be more of a challenge than it looks," I said as I stretched my arms out to the side.
Katana's grew from my hands, and roots wrapped around my body like armor. A helmet spun to cover my face, only leaving one eye revealed, the other eye showing a more detailed display of my surroundings.
"What is this costume? Are we going to fight? You look like you're going to an anime convention!" Katie laughed as I created a black robe with red clouds and then flared the collar.
"What will I gain from criticizing this absurd reality?" I quoted, clenching my fist in front of myself dramatically, and Kaite groaned.
"Just get up there and show me how it's done! PS, I don't think that he used katanas!" Katie laughed, and I gave her the thumbs up, sucking the katana's back into my hands.
You are right! I need a guitar that I don't know how to play!" I declared and pulled a replica of the one the Obito Uchiha used, but it seemed more like a cardboard cut out of a guitar.
"That is a fan, you moron! You are not a ninja! Nor can you use chakra!" Katie complained, but I barked out a villainous laugh.
"Bwahaha! I will bring the world under my control with my brown eye in the sky! You must defeat me to prevent this, Karuto!" I declared.
"Why are you suddenly acting like a five-year-old?!" Katie exclaimed, and I laughed again, this time striking a Jojo pose, crossing my arms, and leaning back on the air.
"I see. You are too scared to face the full force of my might! Haha!" I laughed, mocking Katie, who glared at me.
"Fine! You want to play the bad guy? I will do your job and show you how a real Hero does it!" Katie growled, and she reached her hand up as a short sword with a ruby on the hilt.
The rest of Katie's body was covered in a cute set of red and white armor that had tassels streaming from behind her. She looked pretty with her green hair and skin under the armor, and she turned to me with a grin as a shield appeared in her hand.
"Well, don't you just look like a cute little Hero?" I said, and Katie turned up her nose at me.
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"I am going to kick your ass all over this course! You have just better be watching your own back out there!" Katie declared and then hopped up to the first platform, rushing the Goblin on it.
I watched as Katie blocked its slash with her shield and then slashed through the body like paper. The two halves of the Goblin were absorbed back into the platform, and Katie turned back to look at me.
"Are you just going to watch me, Tree-bito?" Katie laughed, pointing her finger at me.
I was grinning, but she couldn't see it under my mask. I wanted to let her get a head start, so I didn't seem too flashy.
"Ho Ho Ho! Let me show you how it is done!" I called and leaped into the air, cardboard cut out in my hand.
Before I could even hit the ground, a root slapped out at me from the wall, and I used my fan to deflect the strike over my head, making my body spin. Roots shot out, grabbing the platform, launching me at the Goblin I was facing.
I spun with the fan and split the creature in half from shoulder to shoulder. My roots launched me into the air as roots from the wall swung where I had just been, but more were coming.
My roots shot to the next platform where there was an Orc weighting, but I was fighting off the wall roots even as I landed. I flipped back but was hit with a club from my blind side by the Orc.
I tumbled but was thrown back to my feet, trying to bring my fan back around, but a root smashed into my stomach from the wall. I was sent out over the platform's edge, and my wing burst from my back as my roots tried to grab the edge.
Then, vines shot up and ripped me out of the air, and I was sucked down into the roiling mess of them until I was spat back out at the start of the room. My wings retracted, then my roots slowly pulled back into my body as I lay there.
"Wow, those roots do not like you! Almost like they are getting some payback for all that shit talking you were just doing!" Katie laughed from the third platform that she sat on with five Goblins.
"How do you have them all sitting with you?! You are still supposed to have to fight the monsters!" I complained as I slowly got up and sucked the fan back inside of myself.
"I leveled up, and now I can control low-level monsters and direct them. They are gonna go over and help your five now. Orcs are still too strong, but I am sure I will get there! I will get experience if my monsters can defeat you, or even if a random monster like the Orc beats you! You gave me this place, so it's my monsters, and it's my experience, you crappy villain!" Katie laughed, but I was fired up now.
"Yeah, I would make a crappy Villain, but I am also a crap Hero. What I am good at is winning, so enough messing around!" I said, katanas growing from my hands, and my blood was starting to pump.