Vol Drung and Timus floated in the air above the rag tag crew that opposed him.
"As much as I would love to crush you insolent fools by my own hands, this has taken too much time. I must move forth with my conquest, Timus! Finish these feckless fools." He ordered before beginning to fly up towards his armada.
The general jumped to try and ground him but was slapped down by an invisible force actioned by Timus.
"Tsk tsk general, you have unfinished business here." Timus said with a grin as he pulled his hood down to reveal his old, leathery scalp set above a crinkled and sharp smile.
Vol Drung entered the rift and after a swift downwards swing of Dar Gul, it closed, returning the Jubembo sky to its usual purple hazy self.
“They're going to invade the capitol! The conglomerate is unprepared and all of the military is out here! Dammit I tried to warn those old fools!” The General yelled in furious despair.
Bob stood in silence as the scenarios ran through his mind.
“If he could take you and the drunk on at the same time… there's no stopping him…” Bob mumbled as he laid out another plan to flee in his imagination.
“Hunter!” Lyanus grabbed his attention.
“I'm going to need you, your pet and maybe your drunken convict friend if he's still alive, we have to work together to get off of this mud ball.” Gladius stated resolutely.
“Fat chance bub, how do I know you won't just throw me in the slammer if we even get out of this alive?” Bob spat back.
Before the conversation could continue, Timus summoned forth a demonic creature that rapidly jumped at the preoccupied Bob.
The general in a flash grabbed it by the neck and clinically snapped it into its grave just before it reached the bounty hunter.
“You're going have to trust me.” He said, the veins in his forehead popping out as adrenaline filled blood rushed through his body.
“...fine.” Bob hmphed as he took a battle ready stance.
Timus and half a dozen acolytes floated closer and closer, savouring the moments leading to their next execution.
“I don't know how strong they are… but they seem to possess occult abilities I have never seen before, so stay on your guard.” The General told Bob.
“Right… let's get a gauge on them first, just evade and give cover fire until we know what we're dealing with, and seeing as we're stuck in this together, I'll watch your back if you watch mine.” Bob answered curtly.
The general gave a huff of approval.
“You're not half bad, maybe there's a spot in my regimen for you if we get out of this alive.” He said. Bob scowled back but did not get time to reply before the acolytes were upon them.
Without any haste the acolytes materialised ethereal glowing chains and pulled out of the ground, a horde of deformed beasts that began their rapid advance.
The general stood his ground and pulled out his giga-blaster.
He continued to blast down the horde as quickly as they rampaged forward.
“Get after them! I'll hold these beasts off, I'll join you in a tick!” The general yelled as he massacred wave after wave of beast.
Bob nodded and activated his boosters, quickly manoeuvring around and over the horde, advancing onto the acolytes.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Most of them had their hands full keeping the portals open to unleash Vol Drung's horde but Timus and two others were floating in patrol, keeping guard.
Bob began firing his laser pistol sporadically as he unsheathed his sabre but just before he reached the acolytes he was caught mid-air by a smirking Timus’ telekinesis.
He was then thrown seemingly effortlessly away and out of the fray once more as the general kept up his onslaught of the horde.
Bob picked himself up with a series of laboured coughs before noticing puella and Vialdi behind him.
They had taken to dragging Hans, Gerad and the hynx out of the battlefield and behind the cover of a small mound.
Hans sat in a feral daze, Gerad lay on the ground battered and bruised yet still muttering incoherent babble.
The hynx had returned to its normal size and seemed to be nursing an injury to one of its limbs.
“quickly! Do you have any of those mushrooms you fed the monkey from before!?” Bob asked the two mishi.
Viladi opened her sack and rifled through it before pulling out a bruised yet still intact mushroom.
“I was saving it for when I'm hungry though!” She yelled back with moxy.
“There won't be a you to be hungry if you don't give it to the monkey!” Bob yelled as he began fighting off the demonic horde that had made its way over to him and the group.
“Viladi please!” Puella said as she nursed Gerad's broken body in her arms.
Vialdi begrudgingly threw the mushroom at the hynx with a sigh.
The shapeshifting primate's eyes lit up as he promptly gobbled it.
Bob quickly grabbed the convulsing little critter and threw him into the middle of the horde where the acolytes floated.
He then pulled out his own weapons and began to batter back the rapidly growing army.
Timus had a smug smile on his face as he watched the general slowly lose stamina.
However impressive the man's strength was, the sheer numbers were beginning to become over encumbersome.
The rest of the conglomerate military were still a fair way away from Jubembo as well.
Things were looking grim for the Galaxy's foremost hero.
He barely noticed the frothing hynx being thrown into the centre of the horde.
By the time he realised it was too late.
“Brothers!” He began to yell out at the acolytes before the hynx again transformed into the rampaging hulking behemoth that it was before, obliterating the summoned grunts around him.
The acolytes were disrupted in their summoning and flew around in a frenzy as the hynx reached out to violently grab a number of them and viciously throw them around.
Some he threw, others he dismembered and one he beheaded and ate before bursting into a fit of laughter.
The remaining acolytes including Timus hurried away to safety as the creature squashed and battered down the remainder of the horde.
The general quickly moved out of the frey, after his efforts he was far too weak to be any sort of useful and did not want to get caught in the hynx's path of destruction.
“Brethren! Cast the ethereal bounds!” Timus ordered but before they could begin, the tip of Gerad’s rapier appeared through the grand acolytes gagging mouth.
“Perish you pathetic swine!” The Fungal fellow said through gritted teeth.
The other acolytes gasped in anger and disbelief as their leader slowly and painfully died in front of them before falling face first into the mush below.
Gerad slowly pulled his sword from the back of the Timus’ head and hobbled to his feet to face the other surviving acolytes who surrounded him ominously.
“Gerad no!” Puella screamed from behind the mound.
“Fear not my love, no evil can quell my spirit nor my body!” He yelled out, still as ostentatiously as ever despite the broken state of his body.
The acolytes, all red in the eyes with fires of vengeance, began to cast their spells of violent retribution and Gerad stood with his chest out and steely eyes that a single tear ran out of.
Before the acolytes could tear him to pieces, the molten lead bullets from Gladius’ hand blaster burned their way through all of their skulls, dropping them like flies from where they floated.
After a brief interlude, as everyone caught their breath, all of the remaining group regrouped behind the protective mound.
“Well? What now?” Vialdi asked impatiently.
The General and Bob looked around the group.
The Hynx had shrunk down to size again, seemingly quicker this time due to exhaustion as it sat crumpled over, holding its limbs close with its eyes shut.
Gerad was in Puellas arms, gasping from the pain of his many broken bones.
Hans just regained consciousness but was locked in a foetal position with his head in his hands, his body ravaged and his mind in turmoil from an accumulative hangover as well as the tumultuous sobriety.
The general tried to contact his fleet but there was nothing but silence on the other side of the line.
Things seemed grim for the fate of the Conglomerate.
“Well, what now?” Bob ventured