The cold wind howled across the barren landscape, carrying with it the sharp bite of ice and snow. Hidden on a distant ridge, two figures stood against the chill, their appearances commanding and strange.
Skully, a tall skeleton with a crimson suit and a gleaming top hat, peered through enchanted bone binoculars, his glowing eye sockets fixed on the approaching convoy. Beside him, his partner Frosty, a hulking humanoid snowman dressed in an immaculate white suit, rested a spiked ice baseball bat on his frosty shoulder. His top hat tilted at an almost jaunty angle, a stark contrast to his menacing aura.
“They’re getting closer,” Skully muttered, his voice a dry rasp as he adjusted his binoculars. “Just as expected. Arcana's soldiers always rely too much on their tech. Too ethical, too bureaucratic, and way too predictable.”
Frosty chuckled, his deep, resonant laugh sending small snowflakes scattering. “You’d think they’d have learned by now. Technology’s only as good as the magic guarding it. And when that fails…” He twirled his bat with one massive hand, his icy grin widening.
“…that’s when we strike,” Skully finished, lowering the binoculars.
They moved quickly, their teamwork seamless. Skully muttered a dark incantation, and the skies above the convoy began to churn ominously. The air thickened with the iron tang of blood, and moments later, a crimson rain began to fall, coating the ground and vehicles in a sticky sheen.
As the convoy approached the ambush point, Frosty summoned jagged ice traps along the road with a wave of his hand. Shards of enchanted ice jutted from the ground like crystalline blades, spreading frost that crept toward the convoy wheels and engines. The vehicles screeched to a halt, their tires locked in rapidly freezing tracks.
Inside the convoy, chaos erupted.
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“Status report!” barked a Magna Corps commander.
“Our weapons are offline!” shouted a soldier, frantically tapping at his console. “Scanners are down too—some kind of interference!”
“It’s magic!” yelled another. “We’re sitting ducks!”
Meanwhile, Skully stood on the ridge, hands outstretched as he maintained the disabling spell. “See? Told you. All it takes is a little unknown magic to leave them fumbling like toddlers.”
Frosty grunted in agreement. “Showtime.”
He leapt from the ridge, landing with a thundering crash near the convoy. Soldiers scrambled to react, but Frosty moved faster. With his ice bat, he swung wide, smashing through armor and bone alike, his strikes leaving trails of frost and shattered limbs.
A Magna Corps soldier tried to fire a sidearm, but Frosty slammed the weapon aside with a lazy swipe, sending it skittering across the ice. With a vicious grin, he brought the bat down hard, freezing the soldier solid before shattering him into icy shards with a brutal kick.
Nearby, Magma Corps soldiers desperately channeled heat spells to melt the encroaching ice, but the frost was relentless, creeping faster than they could counter. Skully’s blood rain wasn’t just a distraction—it attracted bloodkillers, who began to emerge from the misty red haze. Their grotesque forms lurched toward the stranded convoy, their dripping claws gleaming in the unnatural light.
“Time’s up,” Skully called, his voice carrying over the chaos. With a flick of his hand, a large transport box floated toward him, the sigils on its surface glowing faintly as it resisted. Skully muttered another spell, suppressing the enchantments long enough to claim the cargo.
Frosty hefted another box, his icy hands leaving frostbite scars on its surface. “Got mine,” he said, crushing a final soldier underfoot as he turned to Skully.
“Then let’s bounce,” Skully said, his grin as sharp as a knife.
The two villains locked eyes and nodded. In unison, they activated their teleportation spells, their forms flickering and fading into nothingness. The stolen cargo disappeared with them, leaving the convoy in disarray and at the mercy of the encroaching bloodkillers.
As the crimson rain fell harder and the bloodkillers closed in, a Magna Corps officer clenched his fists, rage boiling beneath his calm exterior. “Find them,” he growled to his remaining soldiers. “I don’t care where they ran—we get those Astros back. Or we don’t come back at all.”
The blood rain poured on, masking the devastation left in Frosty and Skully’s wake, as the convoy prepared for what was shaping up to be a long and dangerous pursuit.