Son of the Beach

## Drops

None

The **Son of the Beach** is an organic boss in CrossWorlds. It is encountered in Azure Archipelago, as part of the quest Beach Fight.

## Appearance

The Son of the Beach, just like his distant cousin, is a red-brown ape with a green gem on his forehead, with the main difference being his clothes and weapon. He uses a fishing pole with a purple end and wears green spotted trunks, an orange, short-sleeved spotted shirt, and a pair of sunglasses.

## Overview

As one of the longest and most multi-phased bosses in the game, this section will describe the arc of the confrontation. The boss may be referred to as "monkey". The boss has a total of six different phases indicated by each of its health bar's thresholds, with the pecularity that they become further apart every phase, contrary to other bosses which have evenly spaced health thresholds. This guide will describe the monkey's attacks as 'attack sequences' that increase in lethality as the player progresses through his health.

### Attack Sequences

* **Ground** - The encounter begins with the monkey fighting the player on the ground with his fishing rod. In this attack sequence, the monkey wields his fishing rod while staying on Neutral mode, making him highly vulnerable to damage, Status Conditions (such as  Burn), as well as knockback from charged VRPs. During this sequence, however, the monkey is also able to imbue his weapon with one the four Elements, making him significantly more lethal and resistant to damage. Regardless of the chosen element, in this attack sequence, the monkey's attacks are all related to dashing at the player and trying to hit them with his fishing pole.

* **Phase change** - After a segment of his health bar gets depleted, he jumps to the center of the stage and leaps onto his cloud. He always follows up with the Cloud sequence.

* **Cloud** - The monkey will jump to the center of the island and ascend into the sky on a cloud. He cannot be targeted during this phase as he is in the air. He follows the player from his cloud, attempting to hit them with a variety of projectiles. Here he uses all elements but Wave. After this sequence has gone on for long enough, the screen darkens for the last time and the monkey hurls a mixed Cold, Heat and Shock projectile that pulls the player towards its center for approximately 12-20 seconds.

* **Island** - This attack sequence is characterized by elemental attacks that can cover the entire island arena while the monkey stands still. With the Cold element, he stands at the center of the island and summons homing icicle chains. With the Heat element, he also stands at the center and uses a rotating flamethrower that fires in four directions. When using Shock, he fires multiple lasers that attempt to hit the player. And with Wave, he may stand anywhere and fires explosive Wave projectiles at the player.

The rest of this section describes the behavior of this boss. For a guide and tips on how to beat it, see the Strategies section below.

## Combat

**Phase 1**

* Jumps back, dashes towards the player and hits them with his fishing pole.
* Twirls his staff above his head, granting himself and his fishing pole an elemental shield that can only be broken by attacking it with the opposite element. He can use any of the four elements in the game and breaking the shield also breaks him along with removing his fishing pole’s elemental properties, leaving him exposed and unable to attack for a short time.

**Phase 2**

* This phase begins with the monkey riding his cloud and launches three random projectiles at the player. These could be a lightning strike, a snowball that leaves three small icicles, or a meteorite that lands with a small delay. This attack sequence concludes with him hurling a mixed projectile Shock and Heat projectile, surrounded by a broad ring of icicles. Upon impact, the center constantly tries to draw the player in and launches tracking Heat lasers at them three times. The pull weakens significantly once the player exits the ring of icicles. They should strive to escape the icicle ring as swiftly as possible. The attack concludes with a massive shock blast, lasting a few seconds, and the removal of the icicles.

* His fishing pole carries a unique effect after each swing based on its element. Cold triggers a snowflake cloud that wanders aimlessly and produces a trail of icicles directed at the player when it vanishes. Heat summons a falling meteor, signaled by a red crosshair, when the player is hit. Shock releases a small ball that targets the player once and transforms into an electric current linked to the Son of the Beach (with the connection indicated by a line). Wave creates a transparent clone that attacks the player unless hit with any attack.
* Spinning his fishing pole with an elemental shield lets him execute particularly powerful attacks, leaving him fatigued and his shield more vulnerable before he resumes motion. He leaps to the arena's center when using these attacks, except for the Wave one.
	+ Heat: Four flamethrower attacks emerge in a cross pattern and rotate counterclockwise, concluding with the Son of the Beach firing a laser at the player.
	+ Cold: The fishing pole generates an icy tornado that draws the player in, while streams of icicles sporadically launch in their direction. The attack ends with the Son of the Beach throwing a snowflake cloud that immobilizes the player, releasing them just before a huge ice spike erupts from the floor.
	+ Shock: Functions similarly to the projectile that accompanies each swing of his fishing pole. Six small Shock balls are fired at the player, which move unpredictably and abruptly form an electric current emanating from the Son of the Beach’s location.
	+ Wave: The boss summons two portals to his sides and two Wave bombs, which are launched at the player after a brief delay. The intended evasion strategy is teleporting just before the bombs reach the player."

**Phase 3**

* During projectile attacks, the snowball now leaves four icicles around its impact zone, and the thunderbolt dispatches four electric currents towards the player, their paths indicated by straight lines.
* The boss now strikes twice in succession with his fishing pole.
* To effectively disable the boss, the player must break two of his shields. However, he can still be damaged normally while his shield hasn't regenerated.
* The Wave element grants him a new attack where he momentarily disappears and surprises the player with two clones. After a brief delay, all three entities attack the player with their fishing poles. However, landing a single hit on the real boss will eradicate the clones and halt the attack entirely.
* When spinning his fishing pole in Cold mode, he creates a semi-circle of icicles around the player before the ice spike emerges. In Shock mode, he releases seven Shock balls.

**Phase 4**

* While riding his cloud, snowballs release five icicles and the thunder shoots five electric currents.
* Heat shield generates a damaging fire circle around him, and Cold shield covers the floor with ice, making it slippery.
* When using his basic fishing pole attack, Cold and Wave modes summon two snowflake clouds and clones on the second swing, respectively, while the electric currents caused by Shock mode can appear with a small delay.
* On the attacks caused by spinning his fishing pole, he fires one  Fae Round projectile along with the two bombs if he is on Wave mode, and shoots eight small Shock balls if he is on Shock mode.

**Phase 5**

* Snowballs release six icicles, meteorites fall in pairs, lightning strikes release a second homing one, and the icicle ring formed during the mixed projectile has two layers.
* Getting hit by the fishing pole while he’s on Heat mode summons two meteorites, and if he’s on Shock mode, the second swing releases two small Shock balls.
* He creates three clones on his ambush attack.
* While spinning his fishing pole, depending on his element, he shoots two  Fae Rounds along with the two Wave bombs, fires nine small Shock balls, or an icicle ring with a smaller opening.
* His shield must be broken thrice to actually break him.

**Phase 6**

* Snowballs release seven icicles, and both the Heat and Shock ball attack way faster, firing five lasers and six electric currents.
* Swings his staff thrice, with the second swing acting like the first one and the third one releasing three snowflake clouds, clones or two Shock balls depending on the element used.
* His fishing pole spin, depending on his element, fires three Wave bombs, ten small Shock balls, or an icicle ring with an even smaller opening.
* He ambushes the player with four clones.
* His shield must be broken four times to actually break him.

## Strategies

While he is similar to the Son of the East, he is also bigger, faster and stronger, too. The latter's strategies still apply to a certain extent, though.

**General Notes**

* Damage carries through phases. This means you can try to damage the monkey so he has a little bit of health above reaching the next phase, and then use a heavy Combat Art to end the phase.
* If you are in trouble from Status Conditions and also can't eat, switch to the damaging element to receive less damage and try to wait it out.
* Managing and preventing elemental overload is important during this fight. However, in order to continue to generate SP, you can still throw neutral VRPs at the monkey.
* The monkey's Wave clones and Cold icicles can fall off of the arena if they spawn too close to the edge.

**Ground**

* Without an element, the monkey has no shield around him. Charged VRPs will knock him back, and he is susceptible to all types of attacks. You should prepare SP for when you break the monkey's shield and put him in Neutral mode, but you have to attack him fast enough so he doesn't reactivate it.
* Avoid breaking the monkey's shield in a way that could knock him off the edge of the arena, especially with charged VRPs. When the monkey is stunned, pushing him into the water makes him recover immediately. This gives you even less time to either eat or damage the monkey as you are forced to deal with more of his attacks.

**Cloud**

* The projectiles he throws during this sequence don't originate above you. Instead, they originate from the monkey's position in the air, so if you run away, his projectiles might become unable to reach you.
* On his cloud, the monkey has very poor handling and 'drifts' a lot. You can lure him in certain directions to make him miss. The monkey always finishes this sequence with the mixed projectile. If you have a hard time with some of these attacks, you can use Combat Arts like  Azure Strike to dodge them.
* Every hazard and laser that comes out of the mixed projectile has limited range. You can jump into the water to lure the projectile out of the arena, neutralizing it entirely. This has the risk that you might become glitched and start falling into the water indefinitely until you die or the attack ends. That's why it is better to just let the projectile land on one corner of the arena and then run to the other edge since neither of the lasers has enough range to cross the entire island.

**Island**

* With the Cold element, the monkey fires streams of icicles at you. They are easier to avoid when you are farther away. On higher phases, you can stay on the edge before he tries to trap you in an icicle ring to make the icicles fall from the arena. You can also dodge the icicle ring attack by using  Flare Burn!, which puts you in the air for a long time. Dash Combat Arts ignore the icy floor and can be used in dire situations.
* With the flamethrower attack, the closer you are to the center of the fiery spiral, the more damage you'll take and the faster you'll get inflicted with  Burn.
* On higher phases, the monkey tends to finish his attacks with explosions. You can take advantage of  Flare Burn!s air time to dodge them.

## Locations

**Azure Archipelago**

* Ape Island

## Dialogue

*"Seeker. I am the guardian of this peaceful island. Long have I been undisturbed. But now, humans have come and are crawling all around me, left and right. Hoho, you misunderstand! This is exciting! Finally, opponents for me to challenge. No more sitting around with nothing but fishing to pass the time! Seeker, do me the honor and meet me in combat. I shall gladly test your abilities."* - First encounter.

*"HA, splendid! I will gladly await your challenge, young one!"* - Accepting his quest.

*"Seeker. Are you ready to face me?"* - Talking to him after accepting his quest.

*"I see. You want to prepare yourself. So be it. But don't leave me waiting much longer. I already endured half an eternity without challenge."* - Picking [No].

*"Good! The time has finally come! We shall hold our epic battle in an undisturbed arena. You will see. But for now... Hold on tight! And off we go!"* - Picking [Yes, start the battle].

*"There we are, Seeker. This shall be our battleground. Now, be on your guard!"* - Beginning of the fight.

*"Ha... You beat me! Splendid! Indeed, a battle for the ages! Too epic even for your human books of history! But let us return and continue our talk back on the main island! Time to hold tight again, Seeker."* - After defeating him.

*"Yes, Seeker. That was a splendid fight! I haven't felt so alive in ages! But now I will take another rest and savor the sun. I mean... Guard this island, of course. Goodbye!"* - After getting back from the fight.

## Gallery

* Moments before disaster.
* Attack of the clones.
* The boss surrounded by fire.
* The floor getting frozen.

## Trivia

* His monster fibula entry references the DK Rap from Donkey Kong 64, specifically the verses that describe Lanky Kong.
* He is the strongest boss in the entire game, even surpassing CrossWorlds's final boss and the DLC's with his stats.