I weep for the world that could have been with max toughness Keras wrapped in constantly regenerating livingwood armor shrugging off every attempt to attack them as they wade through their opponents best attempts to hurt them to bring their axe to bear.
Understandable, yeah; though even if it's not Keras acting as a juggernaut alone, we seem to be setting up for Beti to be capable of performing pretty much that same role with us.
On Beti's side of the bond we've got her main specialty of massively Enforcing the durability and power of her bark and vines, her expansive Madra reserves, and her sheer difference in form from the humanoid opponents most people train to defeat. She also provides a zone of safety for Keras to operate from, whether that be directly in her branches or to a slightly lesser degree from anywhere within the reach of her many and speedy vines. Then we've got Keras acting as support; puzzling out strategies and the specific nature of enemy Techniques with a genius on-call to doublecheck their work, using their advanced and accelerated senses to give Beti incoming dangers and vine-targeting suggestions at the speed of thought through their bond, personally harrying enemies that could handle either the vines or an opponent but not one seamlessly making openings for the other. And of course, even if anything
does get through the kill-zone of powerful vines and hardened defense to damage Beti, Keras'd be right there and immediately healing her - no matter whether they're up in her branches or fighting nearby at the time thanks to their ability to heal at a distance and incredible coordination, and with probably even more effectiveness than they
normally get thanks to her plantlike body being more suitable for our Path than the animal-healing it's mostly been used for.
Plus, there's the pair's other specialties that might be come into play on a battlefield outside of that core synergy - like, maybe Beti ends up making use of her capacity as a Refining material producer, and by the time any of this talk actually becomes relevant she's found some simple and fast products that can be mixed up on the fly or kept stored for later, giving her options to spray acidic/ sticky/ slippery/ blinding/ fire-suppressing/
etc liquids over swathes of ground or opponents as required.
Or like Keras keeping on throwing out debilitating Techniques from their perch for Beti to capitalize on - Clinging Vines to hold someone in place at just the wrong moment, larger Desiccated Valleys acting to weaken and distract over time and potentially even feed that Life back into us with further mastery, Verdant Valley might grow surrounding plantlife into something miserable for humans to travel through but which poses no obstacle for Beti, or even find direct offensive use by 'healing' an enemy from afar in ways that are very much not conductive to their continued health. Plus, of course, there's Dandelion Rain - which when used normally would find fertile metaphorical ground in all the blindspots opened up by people focusing on the big obvious tree, but could also be physically handed over to one of Beti's vines for either a vine-strike that's got an added source of damage or an explosive projectile that's effectively just been launched at incredible speeds by a massive and sentient sling. ...Much the same could be said of just about any rock Beti picks up off the ground, admittedly, and that'd absolutely be a solid and negligible-cost ranged option for her to get into the habit of regardless; but I feel like there'd probably be
something extra we could do by giving her a Forged projectile besides the obvious but mostly extraneous burst of damage, even if it's not a 'something' that we've got or discovered at its current mastery level.
Adding it all up, the two've got the potential to absolutely be a force to reckon with on a battlefield. My main concern is that they'd be
too much so, honestly, and combined with Beti's attention-grabbing bulk we might attract the attention of either a strong single enemy looking for their next target, or enemy group tactics/ formations aiming to overwhelm our own teamwork with numbers. But, presumably, most such battles we take part in will be ones where
we've got allies too, and Beti+Keras makes for one heck of a helpful rallying point that would make assisting us a priority. ...Though, if attention becomes
too much of a problem, Beti's still got us covered anyways - she's
clearly a master of subtlety! See, look at that pristine and motionless Perfectly Normal Foreign Tree standing there in the middle of the pitched battle - who would ever suspect such an unobtrusive plant???
