As Sean and Jacques lept through the trees, using Jacques’ handy belt, they looked down onto the burning forest below. Jacques was filled with enough dread for him and Sean put together, which was good, as Sean had absolutely none in his heart as the two soared through the trees together, Sean clinging to Jacques's back.
“Aren’t you nervous, Sean?” Jacques asked, yanking his hook out from one of the branches.
“Nah, not really. What’s there to be nervous about?”
“A few things, dear,” Jacques casually responded, looking at the ocean of flames below them. They were mostly silent before Sean piped up again.
“Well, what exactly are we looking for, then?”
“Currently, a source. There’s gotta be a group of people with torches around who are setting the woods on fire, it turned up too quickly to have happened any other way. Basically, if we can neutralize the source, we’ll have a much easier task ahead of us,” Jacques quietly responded, scanning the ground, all the while making sure to focus on where exactly his hooks were shooting. He was looking for anything that could be igniting the foliage around them.
“How long have we been searching, exactly?” Sean asked, watching the world below him zip by at incredibly quick speeds. Jacques's silence told him everything he needed to know. Were they wasting their time? Was what they were doing really important?
“There!” Jacques said, cutting Sean’s thoughts off. Below them, surrounded by fire, was an absolutely hulking man. He was much taller than Sean, with muscles that bulged through his flame-resistant suit. Attached to his arm was a metal tube, littered with holes, which was shooting out flames in every direction when he moved his hand in a specific way. This was, evidently, the source of the fire they were looking for.
“Let’s get going, then!” Sean shouted, getting pumped to be in a real fight again. Jacques nodded and slowly began to descend, landing about a fourth of a mile away from the man’s location. As they landed, Jacques looked at the roaring flames again, before looking back at Sean.
“Dear… are you sure you can handle all this on your own? It’s dangerous, you know.”
“Oh, Jacques! Danger is my middle name! I can handle it!”
“Well, alright, Mister Danger. Just don’t go dying on me, now. Flames are deadlier than you think,” Jacques rolled his eyes at Sean’s comment, before giving him a soft kiss on the cheek.
“I’d never go dying without your permission,” Sean responded, straightening himself up and turning toward the man’s location. “If I kick his ass in ten minutes, you owe me a drink.”
“Yeah, yeah. We’ll see, Danger Boy. Now, I’m gonna go see if I can put out any of the other fires, the forest is a big place, you know. Good luck, Sean,” Jacques responded, before letting his threads launch from his belt and flying through the air again. Sean shrugged, pulled a stopwatch from his pocket, pressed the “START” button, and began to chase after the source of the flames. Once he reached the clearing where the man was, he stood up tall, quickly tore off his necklace, and called out to him.
“Oi! Mister Barbeque!” Sean shouted, waving his arms around to get his attention. The man turned around, looking at Sean with a furious expression behind his mask.
“Excuse me? Who do you think you are?” He said, raising his device at Sean, prepared to spit flames at him at any moment.
“I’m Sean, nice to meet you,” Sean said, outstretching his hand for a shake.
“My, my. Mistwood keeps sending stupider soldiers, don’t they?” He laughed, before giving Sean a wicked smile, holding his little flame-spitting device forward. “Well, Sean. I am known as The Incinerator, and it’s been lovely to meet you.” Without warning, he thrust his arm forward, fire spitting from his hand, before spewing out all sides of the metallic tube attached to it, hurtling towards Sean in a giant fireball. Quickly, Sean lept backward and outstretched his own hand, letting the fireball land squarely on his palm, rapidly cooling it off into nothingness.
“Well, you’re bad at greetings, aren’t you? No matter, I’ve dealt with plenty of impolite people in my time.” Sean said, recoiling a bit from catching the fireball.
“How did you do that?! What kind of soul do you have?!”
“Sorry, mister! I’ve already told you too much. Now then, let’s boogie.” Sean ran up to him and punched him square in the face, causing The Incinerator to recoil in pain. Once he recovered, he aimed his tube at Sean’s chest and let out a volley of flames. Sean lept out of the way before he was able to singe his flesh too bad, looking over at his opponent.
“You’re stronger than you look, boy.” He said, mostly recovering from the surprise attack he’d just been hit by. He laughed a bit, before launching a column of flames directly at Sean, which he dodged just in the nick of time. “Do you know what this is?” He asked, gesturing to the device on his arm.
“Stupid looking, that’s for sure,” Sean responded, lunging at him in a desperate attempt to punch him. The Incinerator swiftly dodged his punch, before returning one of his own. Sean’s head moved out of the way just in time, and he returned his punch with a firm kick in the jaw to The Incinerator, causing him to recoil from the impact. Without any hesitation, he gave Sean a firm smack in return, causing the side of his face to burn with pain.
“What the?-” Sean quickly exclaimed, pulling himself away from The Incinerator, resting his own hand on the newly singed flesh. While he was distracted, he was almost immediately pelted with dozens of fireballs, most of which he was able to avoid, though a few managed to catch his arm and burn his flesh.
“Do you understand the power of who you’re messing with now, boy? I am The Incinerator, the greatest pyrotechnics specialist that Ulthos has ever known. Whatever power you have over temperate is no match for the power of FIRE.” On his last word, he shot out another column of fire. Sean was able to leap out of the way, though he was obviously beginning to lose his edge in battle. He quickly darted behind a tree in a desperate attempt to recover himself as best he could before throwing himself back at him. He quickly looked down at his stopwatch as he pumped cooling energy into his face and arms. Five minutes until his little bet with Jacques was lost. Of course, there were more important matters to attend to, but games with Jacques were nothing to mess around with. As he pondered his little conundrum, he could hear The Incinerator cackling as he launched fireball after fireball at his tree. Using the flaming foliage as cover, he darted between trees, trying to throw off The Incinerator’s trail.
“A coward’s approach won’t get you any favors in the army, little soldier!” He shouted, a billowing roar escaping his throat as he launched waves upon waves of flames at the trees in the area. Sean was beginning to wonder if the smoke’s effects were getting to him, or if he wasn’t entirely sane. He decided to stay on the move, weaving between trees as quickly as he reasonably could with his injuries. The frost had helped to cool the burns down, but his skin was still raw, and his left arm was singed pretty bad. He looked down at the stopwatch again. Six minutes. He’d need to do something drastic to win, at this rate. He looked up at the trees, realizing that his best option was to get a vantage point. For all of The Incinerator’s strengths, he seemed to rely on them as a crutch more than anything. Sean’s gaze turned toward a remarkably thick tree, littered with branches thick enough to support a human, and relatively untouched by the flames. Without hesitating, he leaped onto one of the branches, quickly scurrying up the tree as quickly as he could. He grunted as he felt the rough bark digging into his raw skin. Once he was high enough, he looked down to check on The Incinerator, finding him noticeably more frustrated than he was when Sean first hid.
“SHOW YOURSELF, LITTLE BASTARD!” He roared, shooting more fireballs at random trees, clearly in a desperate attempt to find him. As Sean made his way to the top of the tree, he looked down, realizing that he could seriously injure himself if he attempted his plan. Then again, the threat of injury never bothered him before, and it certainly wouldn’t let it bother him now. Once he found a suitable branch where he was facing the behemoth of a man, he gave a hearty whistle, looking down at The Incinerator in his grove.
“Hey, matchstick!” Sean shouted.
“I found you, coward!” He screamed in response, before blasting a huge fireball directly at Sean’s branch. Before it could hit, Sean launched himself from the branch, hearing it explode and crackle into ash behind him. As he floated through the air, time seemed to completely stand still, the sound of the crackling flames being the only thing to bring him to his senses. He balled his hand into a fist and aimed for his target. Before The Incinerator could even figure out what he was doing, Sean had made his mark. With all the force of his own muscles, as well as the force of gravity, he punched The Incinerator as hard as Mother Nature could muster, all the while blasting him with enough cooling energy to freeze a bucket of fish ten times over. And just like that, before he was even able to react, The Incinerator was defeated, and Sean managed to stand up, having used his body as a cushion. He pulled out his stopwatch and pressed the STOP button, smiling to himself.
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
“Eight minutes, forty-five seconds,” He said, brushing off his hands on his slightly singed shirt. He was smiling like an idiot at the turn of events, but he got to work relatively quickly, checking the pulse of the man he’d just punched to make sure he was still alive, before giving a hearty whistle to alert Jacques that he was ready. In a few minutes, he could hear the faint whistle of Jacques belt, before he appeared before him.
“You’re not hurt, are you?” He asked, quickly looking over his wounds. They were minor, but still very much present.
“Jacques, I’m fine. You’ve been burnt worse back home.”
“Hush, we’ll get you medical attention back in town once this is done and over with. Are you in good enough shape to put the fires out?”
“I’m in the best shape of my life! Let’s get moving.” Jacques rolled his eyes at the comment, but grabbed his husband and let his belt shoot out the little threads that propelled him through the air.
“Alright, now all we’ve gotta do is use your temperature powers to put out the fire as best we can. It shouldn’t be all that hard, yeah?” Jacques kept his eyes on the horizon, scouting the area for fires before a pocket watch quickly appeared in his vision.
“Oh, and by the way, I followed my end of the bet,” Sean said, causing Jacques to sigh and roll his eyes.
“Yeah, yeah. Next place we go, I’ll get you a drink. Promise.” Sean smiled at his response, watching the trees whiz by underneath him.
----------------------------------------
As Sean and Jacques were darting through the trees to put out fires, Alicia, Sly, and Miranda were busy in town. They remained huddled in their little alleyway, trying to size up the situation that they’d gotten themselves into. With Sean and Jacques gone, their fighting potential had gone drastically down.
“Should I get my sword ready?” Alicia asked, looking over nervously at Miranda.
“No. I don’t want your chest to explode anytime soon. Besides, we’re only gonna fight when we absolutely need to.” Miranda was pacing from side to side in the alley. It was only a matter of time until they were discovered, and Sly was taking far too long to think of a plan. “Alright, you got anything yet?” Miranda pointedly asked.
“We’re severely outnumbered. I need more time.” Sly responded.
“We don’t HAVE time, Sly.” Miranda groaned, before slumping down on the floor. “This was a terrible idea.”
“Hey, don’t say that,” Alicia said, helping Miranda to her feet. “All we need to do is take out the commander, right Sly? Wouldn’t it be easiest to just charge in and take him out first?”
“Theoretically, but he’s likely protected, and we need to rally the workers, don’t we? That was the whole point of us doing this, yeah?” He stepped towards Alicia, narrowly avoiding a smoldering beam that fell down where he was just standing. He looked uninterested.
“We’re not gonna HAVE any workers if we keep dragging our feet like this. We’ve gotta make a plan, and we’ve gotta make it quick. So then, what’s your idea?” Miranda asked, putting her foot down on the stalling.
“Alright, fine,” Sly responded, peering out of the alleyway. “We go to the residential area first. That’s not too far from here, and there are sure to be people there. If we can recruit a large enough army, I’d say fifty or so, we can take our chances and charge the commander.”
“Then let’s move out!” Miranda shouted, grabbing Alicia’s hand in the process. “You ready, Allie?” Alicia nodded, and they wordlessly began to move out, slinking through back alleys and crossing crackling pathways in their attempt to reach the residential area. As the shops began to grow more scarce, the sound of horse hooves only grew louder and louder. This boded poorly for the three of them, who were ideally trying to avoid combat.
Eventually, they reached the residential area of town. It was falling apart from the flames, much like everything else in town, though there were comparatively few soldiers. Instead, standing in the middle of the plaza was a tall, lanky man, both of his eyes covered with cloth. A sword rested at his side, and he was clad in the Uthosian military uniform that they had gotten so used to seeing. There was a large group of citizens bound by rope across from him. Despite the fact that they probably could’ve cut the rope and run, they seemed paralyzed with fear.
“What’s with him?” Miranda muttered, making sure they were at a safe enough distance to not be heard.
“Based on the garbs and the fact that there’s nobody around him, he seems to be a high-ranking military official. Be on guard, I’d say.” Sly whispered back, and the three of them slowly moved closer to the plaza where the man was pacing.
“Alright, you two go and free the citizens, I’ll distract him.” Sly stood up and drew his blade from his back, holding it with two hands in front of him.
“Sly, what if you get hurt?” Alicia asked. “We can think of another plan.” In response, he stared down at Alicia, the slowly dwindling flames reflecting off his sunglasses.
“Trust me, I can handle him. Just go free the citizens.” Sly raised his head up and walked off into the plaza, letting his trenchcoat flip behind him as he moved, leaving Alicia and Miranda to formulate a plan alone. As he walked, his shoes made a noticeable sound on the cobblestone paths, causing the military man to perk up and stare directly at him.
“So, the soldiers of Mistwood sent me more prey.” The man laughed, before lunging at Sly, blade out, attempting to stab him with his sword. Sly’s blade immediately blocked and deflected his opponent’s, causing him to react in surprise.
“I’m no soldier, so don’t flatter yourself,” Sly responded, before swinging his sword over his shoulder.
“Then this will be even easier,” replied the man, who kept trying to stab Sly. Each thrust of his sword was quickly deflected by Sly’s much larger blade. He was beginning to find it boring, in all honesty. Sly lept backwards, before charging at the man, wildly slashing with his heavy blade. Each slash held substantial power behind it, enough to easily cleave a man in half. His opponent, however, was remarkably quick on his feet, especially considering he couldn’t see what was happening. He rolled under Sly’s sword swipes with ease, before retaliating with a swift stab to Sly’s gut.
“You fought better than most, but you are no match for Damien, the strongest swordsman in Ulthos.” He slowly drew the sword from Sly’s abdomen, smirking as he sheathed the blade. The wound in Sly’s stomach was severe, it would almost certainly kill someone without medical attention. However, the wound did not appear to be bleeding, and much to the onlooker's surprise, Sly didn’t react to the pain at all. He stood tall and stared at the back of Damien’s head.
“Well then, Damien,” Sly said, leaping into the air and swinging his sword downwards, catching the man by surprise. He was just barely able to roll out of the way in time, and a surprised gasp erupted from his throat. “You ripped my coat.”
“You should be dying! I felt the blade sink into your abdomen! Every person I’ve stabbed with my blade has died!” He was wildly slashing his blade now, hearing Sly get progressively closer and closer, his massive sword aimed at the man’s throat.
“Well, every person would imply that I’m human.” Sly laughed, before lunging forward, hearing his blade clanking off his opponents.
“If you’re not human… then what are you?” Damien responded. Sly just grunted and continued to swing his blade. After that, words were not spoken. They continued to swing and slash their blades, the only sound heard was the occasional groans of the captured townsfolk and the harsh clanking of metal against metal. After a brief moment of pause, Sly was roused by a familiar voice.
“Sly!” Alicia shouted, waving her arms. He stepped out of the way of Damien’s strike, before making his way towards her. “We’ve got the townsfolk out! Let’s go!”
“You’re not going anywhere!” Damien shouted. “Nobody gets struck by my blade and leaves to tell the tale.”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything, then,” Sly responded, walking towards Alicia and the townsfolk. Damien sighed, realizing now that he was drastically outnumbered. No matter how strong a swordsman was, they couldn’t eliminate an entire army by themselves.
“Fine then, I concede, for now. But let this be known, warrior. There will come a time in the future when you and I will clash blades again. That time, I won’t go easy on you.” He straightened himself up and walked away, leaving Alicia and the townsfolk to stare at Sly in awe.
“Alright then, that covers that,” Sly said.
“Sly, are you okay? He stabbed you.” Alicia quietly muttered as she looked at Sly’s wound. He ripped a piece of cloth from a nearby flag and shoved it into the rip in the fabric.
“I’ll live. Now then, let’s get going, shall we? We’ve got a general to take down.” Alicia nodded and turned towards the frightened townsfolk, clearing her throat a bit before speaking.
“Look, I know you’re scared. I know all of you are scared. But now is not the time for fear! For the first time, you all have the power to strike back! Not just at Ulthos, but at Mistwood as well! I heard what they said in the temple. They knew this was a possibility, and yet they still held the festival. They held it to placate you, to make sure you could work in the fields and make them money! Now is the time to fight! Fight back against Ulthos, and show the government of Mistwood that not only will you stand up for yourself, but that you will fight and gnash and claw for what you believe in!” For a moment, the crowd was silent. The world was sitting on the edge of a needle, and Alicia was entirely sure that her plan had failed. Shortly, however, a man stepped forward. He was older, but he was still able to fend for himself.
“I’ll fight with you.” He said, picking up a soldier’s long-forgotten sword from the ground. More people began to come forward, picking up swords, spears, sticks, and rocks, each saying words of confirmation. Alicia stood tall and nodded as they made their way behind her. When the dust settled, fifty people were rallied behind Alicia, ready to strike back.
“You did good, Allie,” Miranda said, a genuine smile on her face. She turned towards the crowd and began to shout. “Alright! Let’s move! The time is now!”