Raiga:
Valerie urged her mount, Glimmer, to rise higher so she could see the beasts more clearly. She saw a wall of red fast approaching, so she hastily carved another runestone. When activated, it would launch a controlled wave of wind at the Nartox hurd, dispersing them to ease the burden off the defenders so that each one of them could pick off a few beasts at a time, while the rest of the beasts would be distracted by the casters as well as the formation-filled stones she had carved. In order to make up for the small size of the stone, which would limit its effect, she overcharged the rune with half of her wind energy pool. It sounded like a waste on paper, but she had a wind restoration pill that she could eat to recover the used energy. She slowly trickled the wind energy into the rune to avoid blowing it apart. It would burn out more quickly but produce a great explosion in return. She then brought out the brown and green pill and swallowed it, feeling her energy spike and filling her stores of wind Vaq.
The full hurd came into view, stomping towards the defenders and the city they protected. She could now make out their individual shapes. Red ox-like creatures with long crimson horns jutting from their heads, the tips of which were hollo. They were roaring in panic, likely afraid of something. She wondered what would scare a hurd of Nartox. They quickly entered range, and Valerie activated the overcharged scattering wave runestone. An immense gust of wind impacted the hurd. Her aim was slightly off, as the wind only touched the edge of the hurd's number instead of its center, but it did the job well enough. Nartox fell on top of one another or on the ground, causing even more chaos to erupt. Some trampled their kind, unable to stop their momentum in time, and the defenders didn't miss a beat. Individual members of small groups picked one or two at a time, with the melee fighters grabbing their attention while the casters bombarded them from range. Spoken moves filled the battlefield.
"Firebolt!".
"Ice blast!"
"Ultimate Dragon King strike!", a brutish fighter rumbled. Some of the names were way too exaggerated. The one who had roared out the pretentious name merely sent his blade slashing down, causing only a slight rippling in the air and piercing his opponent with a Vaq-infused attack, further amplified by the boosting field her runestone array created.
"Firefall!", Raeven uttered in a low voice filled with gravitas, and a dozen small star-like drops of fire shot forward, the boy likely underestimating the boost he had received and not knowing that he didn't need to use that much energy. Before the drops even impacted the amplification field generated by the runestones, the boy sent out a gyant-bursting ball of fire. The wind strengthened the fireball and turned it into a blazing sun. It too came into contact with the runes, and it turned into a firestorm.
Raeven was shocked, but the fire cooked the Nartox he was targeting in seconds and spread to cover more of the beasts in sight. They tried to escape the fire, but those who were set on fire spread it to those who weren't yet, quickly escalating the damage further and further. Without hesitating, Valerie told Glimmer to dive forward and scoop up as many of the fighters as she could, and she saw four pairs of fighters being dragged through the air by an invisible pull. Vorn was doing his job well, it seemed. Imori, that little bastard, also did rather well, even if she hated to admit it. He doubled in size and width, then started carrying some fighters on his shoulders. Before passing by, he looked at her and spoke.
"Your little student has made a mess because of your actions, Ventree. Be ready for the displeasure of the officer.", he declared.
"Do what you will, Imori. I will bear the consequences of my actions with pride.", she replied calmly. He grinned at her, then faded out of sight. Raeven ran toward her, looking horrified.
"Ma'am, I'm sorry! I didn't know that my fire would be that strong and get out of control like that. I'm sorry! Please forgive me!", he was saying. Glimmer lengthened her head and widened her form, pulling the boy onto her back.
"No, I'm the one who caused this mess, Raeven. I underestimated the power of your flames and cascaded the power increase too much. I'll deal with the consequences myself. Please sit back and learn. I will kite the weaker ones into the fire and widdle them down while I pick off the survivors and e-grades. Your fire is no longer yours, so trying to command it wouldn't do you any good. I'll just try to snuff the fire out by overwhelming it with strong wind. That should create enough force."
"Why not just cut the air flow off in the fire's direction? That should put it out, right?"
"That would be the thing to do, but I cannot do that."
"Why the Nether not? You are a wind caster, aren't you? That sort of thing can't be that hard for you!", he exclaimed.
"That's the thing. I'm a wind caster, not an air caster. The two are different, even if they have similarities. Wind is the current of air that always moves around. Wind casters work with that current. Air casters, on the other hand, can manipulate the air in ways that wind users can't, like cutting off the flow of air in a certain direction.", she explained. His anger deflated.
"Let's not waste time. I'm about to engage, so brace yourself.", she declared. Glimmer rose high into the air. It was strange to Raeven how the mount had no physical form when he tried touching it, yet it still held him and Valerie like gravity. Flying gravity?
The rest of the hurd were trying to get to them by going around the flames, but every time they tried crossing, they would flinch and jerk backwards in a grunt of pain as the heat reached them even before they got close. There were around 26 of them alive. The majority sported bruises and scorchmarks on their bodies from the fire, but a few of them, along with five E-grades, were unscathed. Raeven thought he had heard the caller say there were six e-grades when he was near the watchtower, so where had the sixth gone? He didn't have much time to dwell on the matter as Valerie launched a wind clone at one of the beasts. It took the bate and charged the wind figure straight into the fire. It mooed pitifully and disappeared deeper into the inferno. The hurd's anger overwhelmed their caution, and they charged forward, seeking revenge against their hurd mate's windy killer. One by one, their numbers decreased, and only the e-grades remained.
Raeven sent a fireball hurtling toward one of the e-grade Nartox, and Valerie instantly turned it into a giant ball of infernal doom with her wind techniques, fanning the flames and strengthening them. It struck the Nartox, causing it to roar in pain and rage. It turned toward her, its horns locked on her position, and two cones of green fire shot out of each of its horns' hollo tips. Glimmer quickly flew away from the attack, and the ground melted on contact with the green flames. It bellowed in frustration and slowly adjusted its aim to Glimmer's new position. It charged the white mount, expecting to ram its now-folded horns into something. It was confused when its horns passed through the figure made of light. It was too late, however, as both Raeven and Valerie struck the same position with blades of wind and flame.
Some of the attacks amplified each other and caused more damage than others. A wind blade came into contact with a flame blade, merging with it and increasing its power. The combined blade hit home and pierced the Nartox's coating.
It bellowed furiously and charged once more, faster than before. Glimmer flew out of the way, but then the bull shot a cone of green fire at her. The fire was too quick to dodge since the beast wasn't very far off from its target. Glimmer whistled in pain, and her form visibly shortened. She regained her lost length a moment later and shot a ball of white energy at the beast. It was cooked instantly. It was not dead yet, but Glimmer snorted and heaved in frustration. In a surprising move, the bull turned on its hooves and faced the fire. It charged it full-tilt, disappearing with a moo. The ground shook. Raeven remembered something from the bestiary he had read. Nartox hurd leaders could absorb the energy of their dead hurdmates.
"Oh no, we're in trouble!", he yelled in panic. "We were only feeding the leader the energy it needed to evolve! It was biding its time, and we gave it exactly what it needed on a silver platter! We're screwed! What should we do?
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"Relax, boy! I'm here to help,", a gravelly male voice said from afar.
"Vorn! I'm glad to see you. Let's do the double V formation,", Valerie told the man.
"Right on it,", he replied. Both the woman and the man, who had a wooden right arm, stood with their arms crossed. Glimmer shifted her form to that of a line of white light, connecting the two fighters. Vorn positioned his telekinetic energy on his end of the light line, and Valerie positioned her wind on the other end. They aligned and balanced their energies with one another's and pushed. Glimmer's line rapped around both of their arms, and they fused together. The entity that stood before Raeven was a giant humanoid figure, twice the width of a human and four times as tall. It was a strange, translucent-looking green and white color.
"Stand back, boy!", a deep voice said. It sounded neither male nor female, just a burry, atonal voice that boomed loudly. Raeven immediately complied, recognizing that it was the command of someone strong who knew what they were doing.
With a tremor, a giant crimson bull emerged from the fire, easily standing 20 feet tall and covered with what looked like spikes. It had a colossal jagged horn instead of two hollo ones, which looked capable of breaking steel. It roared loudly, sounding like the grinding of bolders and the groaning of metal blending together to result in a horrifying sound.
*Boom*!
It stomped forward once, twice, three times. Then it charged slowly, gaining momentum by the second. The fused Vorn and Valerie (Vornerie?) stood their ground to meet the bull's charge. Eruptaur was the evolution of Nartox. By Raiga's classification, it was a C-grade beast. Raeven still didn't know why even iron-rank defenders, who were noticeably more powerful than coppers with their Vaq-hardened bodies, struggled against c-grade copper threats, even though those creatures were technically lower than them in rank. Why were high-copper beasts so much stronger than low-iron-ranked people? He stopped dwelling on that question and settled to watch the fight between Vornerie and the eruptaur.
The eruptaur reached the apex of its charge. Vornerie blocked the beast's strike with one of its own, making the spikes ripple but not damaging it in any way. The colossal figure hissed in pain upon brushing against the razor-sharp spikes and exhaled. The wind technique that hit the creature only served to ruffle the spikes, and the beast did not even seem to notice it was being attacked.
"Why isn't it being damaged? There must be a way to hurt it!", Raeven thought.
He shot a fireball at it from where he was sitting. It hit the beast from the right, and it finally reacted by inhaling quickly, then exhaling a breath of green-tinted fire at Vornerie. The fire grew upon hitting Vornerie's body, and the giant growled and glared at Raeven, making it clear to him that he'd better stop using fire. Then it kicked at the beast, making it grunt in pain.
"Hey! Vornerie!", Raeven yelled as loud as he could. "If you can use your wind and kinetic energy at the same time, hit the bull with your right fist, and if not, hit it with your left."
Vornerie looked at him and punched the eruptaur with its right hand.
"When I shot my fireball at it earlier, it abandoned what it was going to do and immediately sent a fire attack with the same fire I used, just a bit touched by its own internal energy. That means that it has to vent off that fire as soon as possible! I think it could normally only use its own fire, which isn't possible right now because it just finished evolving! Try to force its pours closed, and I'll bombard it with my flames. If it keeps absorbing my attacks like a sponge, then, with any luck, it might destroy its body from the inside out! Do you know what I'm saying?", he yelled. Vornerie punched the eruptaur with its right fist again, signifying that he had understood Raeven's hypothesis. The bull suddenly stopped, its mouth forcefully closed by a thread of wind and kinetic energy. It tried opening it, but it was no use. Taking it as a signal, Raeven threw all he had at the beast.
"Firebolts!"
"Fireball!"
"Fireblast!"
Five small fireballs impacted the beast and were absorbed instantly, then a large one hit it on its head, where it was amplified by the wind energy Vornerie blocked off its mouth with, turning into a miniature sun and getting sucked in. A wave of flames hit it on its back, and only a sliver of wind energy was used to strengthen the blast. It too was sucked in through the mass of spikes on its back.
"Your theory isn't working, boy.", Vornerie rumbled.
"I'll keep going. Can you infuse my core with wind? I have no time to think about the unexpected side effects. Right now I need power, and the only way to get it that I could think of is this.", he said resolutely, deciding to venture forth into the unknown.
"Good luck with this, boy. I hope you get a good combined core.", Vornerie said, and then gestured. A ball of wind struck Raeven's chest, passing directly into his core and integrating itself into it permanently, changing and transforming it for better or worse. The fire within his core raged, intensifying beyond its normal level of power. He felt his core shaking, threatening to burst apart and cripple his cultivation, so he threw all he had at the eruptaur. Balls and bursts, blasts and bolts, cones of fire and blades of flame—all were sucked in. However, this time, the beast seemed more desperate, trying to flail away from the blockade that contained it and prevented it from venting the power that wasn't under its command. Vornerie roared, increasing the power of the wind and kinetic force blocking the beast, which flailed harder, trying to kick and ram its horn into the wind wall that prevented its mouth from opening, but Vornerie put all it had into sustaining the cage until Raeven's plan bore fruit, not letting go of the eruptaur. The inferno kept raining down on the helpless beast, which started to swell in size, puffing its body in an unsuccessful attempt to grow larger than the cage around it in order to destroy it with overwhelming might. Raeven's breath heaved, but he continued to blast the bovine creature with all the energy he could muster.
*Boom*!
The eruptaur's body just... evaporated. One moment it was flailing, trying to escape its demise, and the next it was replaced by fire. All the flames Raeven had thrown at it came rushing out, now deep orange-colored with a slight green hue. Then something strange happened. A door-like object opened out of thin air, and a wavering, blurry figure of a large, serpentine creature with 2 legs and 2 wings, broad sholders, and a strong-looking tail with a wicked stinger at its end came through. The blurry image was colorless and translucent-looking. It dove out of the doorway, which then disappeared, and into the flames. The fire was moving somehow, shaping itself into the same image as the figure that just popped out of nowhere. The fire gained substance and turned solid, becoming a red serpentine being with a pair of wings and legs. There were greenish-orange wisps of fire dancing across its scaly surface. A scale here and there stood out, being black and merky-looking, seeming like they were small fragments of a shadowy ocean where things lurked in the depths.
"Come, save me, Starborn! I need your power. I can feel you; the accursed influence is already lessening!", it said with a raspy and gruff voice that was distinctly male.
"Woah! Is that a dragon?", Raeven thought aloud, his mouth open in awe and wonder.
"Ga ha ha, I wish, flameling. No, I am a Nether Wyvern,", it said, some of the words longer than others, while others slurred and were shorter than the rest. Then, it occurred to Raeven that it had stopped rattling off insanities and reacted just as he displayed his awe.
"He is near, flameling. You should meet him. I am going to hide for now. Do not call me unless you are alone, because I know that the others will not be pleased to see a wyvern like me. And you, creature, can I trust you to keep secrets?", he said, pointing his large snout at Vornerie.
"As long as you don't harm anyone and don't let them detect you, no one should even think you exist. Though I wonder, how did you come here?", Vornerie rumbled, not at all sounding or looking disturbed by the fact that a weird beast came out of a magical door that appeared out of nowhere and fricking spoke to them. It talked, for God's sake! Was Vornerie really that composed? Was that normal for Vorn and Valerie? Did they see talking monsters every day or something? Raeven couldn't even muster the will to care at this point.
"I can't say yet, humans. Not until the Starborn arrives,", he replied. Before any of them could ask the self-proclaimed wyvern about this 'starborn', he vanished into the earth.
"What the Nether? That was awesome! Did you see that, Vornerie? He said he was a wyvern! That's like a type of dragon, right?", Raeven said excitedly.
"I am not Vornerie, boy. We are the Double V formation,", Vornerie rumbled.
"Nah, that's too long. Vornerie sounds far more epic,", Raeven argued. He was trying to cope with the developments. They were happening too fast, and this was his only way to get his mind off things, even if for just a little bit.
"Good point. I'll think about that name. Good job with that strategy of yours, kid. You killed the c-grade. You killed a bloody C-grade iron threat while being just high copper. Do you know how absurd that is? You'll get over a thousand defense points for this. As far as we know, no one has done this before. Doing two extraordinary things at the same time, you're even better than Valerie when she was your age,", Vornery rumbled. The figure dispersed, and the man and woman held each other's hands for support, breathing deeply.
After saying their goodbyes and voicing their desire to meet him again, they turned to leave. Valerie waved with her free hand, while Vorn grinned and gave a thumbs up. They both faded out of sight, and Raeven walked back to old Jack's little hut. He wondered about that wyvern and about that starborn he spoke of.
"Did he say that I should meet him? He also said that this Starborn was near. When will I meet him? Am I supposed to wait for him to come, or do I have to actively look for him?", Raeven thought.