Scratching at his goatee, the large borc pontificated on how to dispose of the intruder before him. Somehow, this mysterious, one-armed knight, or whatever he was, had taken out 3 of his 4 traveling companions. His fourth had been dragged off a while ago and still had yet to return, leaving the borc to make the correct assumption that he had been taken out as well. Not that he knew what by, but that didn’t matter now. The boss was on his own.
The borc raised his knife, pointing it toward the metal man. Azim, not entirely sure what the borc was planning, simply replied, “I apologize for any rudeness that my words might inflict, but I do not anticipate your knife being of any danger to me, given that I dispatched the rest of your comrades.”
With a rough-toothed smile, the large man crossed the knife across his chest, holding the blade upward. Swinging the knife back down in a swift brushstroke, Azim watched as the knife expanded and transmogrified. By the time the borc’s arm was back at his side and the small pommel of the knife was grazing his upper leg, the entire weapon had shape-shifted into a behemoth of a sword. The now giant blade was warped and wicked, with chips and protruding edges along both lines of the sword. It was a double-edged weapon with a devilish look to the entire thing. What had once been a blade of about 6 inches now stretched to an incredible 6 feet long, just a foot shy of the borc’s own height.
“Oh my,” the android stated blankly in response to the sight before him.
Lunging forward, the borc boss was upon Azim in an instant. His giant blade came crashing down, the robot just barely managing to roll out of the way. The goateed man spun around, rolling his blade off his chest to throw out a backhanded swing. Holding out his metallic hands in a bubble-like shape, Azim tried to stop the incoming sword, not even processing what he was actually trying to do.
To both combatants’ surprise, the blade halted for a moment, shuttering back and forth as if trapped between two repelling magnets. Azim became aware of what he was doing, and the shock overcame him. Somehow, without thinking, he had unlocked a new spell, one that he did not even know the existence of. The sudden realization of his actions caused the robot to focus his processors too intently on what he was doing, causing him to actually lose hold of the spell.
Gripping the handle of the sword more tightly, the maroon red borc pushed through the restrictive holding of the spell and brought the blade closer to Azim. Noticing he was losing control of whatever he had pulled off, the robot released the spell and ducked entirely backward, his torso and upper legs becoming perpendicular to his claves and feet. The metal man watched as the giant blade swung over him, the shine of the steel glinting as it floated past his body.
With the goateed borc’s right arm stretched out wide from the swing, Azim took it upon himself to take advantage of the red-toned man’s vulnerability. Propping himself back up with speed, the robot launched a punch with his one arm into the borc’s exposed chest. The impact knocked the large man back, sliding backward along the dirt of the campsite, but not throwing him off balance. The boss had a bit more resilience than his companions, hence why he was the boss, and was not as easily defeated by something as simple as a punch. The maroon-skinned, goateed man looked back up with a grin. Throwing his cape behind him, Azim readied for another assault.
Taking a couple steps back, the boss stood himself next to one of the surrounding trees. With a quick pair of horizontal slashes, the brow chopped a thick disc out of the trunk of the tree. Before even letting the top half of the tree collapse, the maroon red man slammed his sword against the back of the dissected piece. Azim raised his arm in defense as the giant disc of the chopped-up tree flew at him like a large, wooden hockey puck. With his forearm raised to take on the impact, Azim staggered as the huge, wooden disc slammed into his steel. Noticing the force of the tree trunk losing intensity, the robot slapped the edge of the projectile, spinning it so the inside of the tree faced him rather than the side.
Before he could launch the now-vertically positioned tree trunk back at the large borc, Azim was caught off-guard by the tip of that fowl sword piercing through the wood. He stepped back just before the blade protruded out any further, the borc swinging the thick disc of wood at the android like a handmade hammer. The borc flailed his improvised weapon around wildly, trying to smack Azim with the sides of the trunk or stab him with the peeking tip. Azim was quick, evading the wild swings with ease and staying clear of any other possible surprise attacks.
Bringing the giant blade back down, Azim wondered why the borc was throwing out such an attack considering he was several steps away from getting hit. To his surprise, the android saw the tip of the blade in the tree trunk disappear and the giant disc of wood fling toward him. Unable to react this time, the huge chunk of tree slammed into the metal man’s armored chest, knocking him back into a bag of supplies that had been left by one of the other borcs. Looking back up at his opponent, he saw that the large, goateed man had shrunk his weapon back down to its knife form, resulting in the tree trunk releasing from its holding and flying forward. As the metal man was standing up, he noticed the knife screaming through the air toward him. He sidestepped out of the way, mere moments before the knife impaled his abdomen.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Unfortunately, the borc’s attack was not yet over. Transmogrifying the weapon yet again, the knife ballooned in size just as it approached Azim, scratching his side as the warped and deformed blade flew past him.
The force of the flying sword knocked the android’s waist to the side, throwing him off-balance. Taking advantage of the metal intruder’s lack of focus, the goateed borc pounced toward him, grabbing the robot with both arms and throwing him onto the face of the cut-out tree trunk. Before wasting another moment, the large, red man interlaced his fingers and held up his hands, bringing them back down in a hammer blow. Picking his hands back up, the borc noticed that his attack had not done much to his enemy, and Azim remained laid out without much visible damage.
In response, the maroon red man walked over to where he had thrown his 6-foot sword and picked it up. He slowly walked back, satisfied to see that the robot had not moved in the time he had been away. Holding the sword in a reversed grip, the borc raised the blade with one hand, the daunting point of the sword looming over the metal man’s chest. With a fearsome series of barks, the lumbering boss brought the blade down, leaving it to stab so far through the android that it dug into the disc of wood underneath him.
At least, that was what was supposed to happen. Instead, the borc was met with stiff resistance as his blade halted a few centimeters above Azim’s exterior. A thin aura of muted yellow manifested for just a moment around the robot, before dissipating once more. Reeling the sword back, still in its reversed grip, the boss looked around for what could have caused such an interference. For who could have caused such an interference.
To his surprise, the borc noticed an older woman, about 40, peeking through the nearby bushes. She had an arm extended out toward the two fighters, almost as if she had just cast a spell. Her.
Turning away from the sprawled-out android, the lumbering borc paced toward the hiding woman. Frantic, Riva popped up so that only her waist and below were covered by the bushes in front of her. “Hey, wait, hold on,” she pleaded to the boss, holding her hands up in defense. “I was just trying to- I didn’t mean to- Stay away, stay away!”
Crossing his arm across his chest, the sword extending forward in his revised grip, the borc readied himself for a scythe slash of his weapon. Then, footsteps. Rapid footsteps.
Sneaking up on him was Azim, racing to stop him from hurting Riva. However, the borc, anticipating this, spun around and threw his sword back at the metal man, letting it spin like a stray buzzsaw. Without enough time to properly react, Azim was left with no other choice but to jump. Rather than letting the spinning sword bisect his face or behead him at the neck, the robot let the weapon dig into his steely chest. The weight of the impact pushed the metal man back, leaving him to fall back onto the ground with a sword sticking out of his upper body. He lay there on the dirt for several seconds, unable to move due to the depth of the wound. The side of the sword had impaled across his entire torso, resulting in a wound that stretched a little under a foot long.
Walking over to the fallen robot, the maroon-skinned borc picked up the intruder by the sword sticking out of him, leaving him stuck to the weapon. The large man then started running toward one of the trees that rested several meters behind the robot. The two slammed into the tree, the borc pressing on the giant blade so that it would cut the metal man in half.
To his dismay, the borc saw that familiar yellow tint reappear and disappear once more. Before him was the metal stranger, pinned to the tree, sword still in his chest, but the blade no deeper than when it had first been thrown. After that whole attack, the sword had not dug any deeper into the android. The borc was furious. He looked behind him to see the woman holding her arm up once again. She had a nervous yet determined look on her face, as if she was acknowledging the risk that met her as a result of her actions and acting as she did regardless.
Holding the metal man against the tree with one hand, the borc bent down and picked up a small rock. Without much care, he flung the rock back towards the timid woman, leaving her to suck in fright, yelping as she did. “Stay back,” the borc yelled to the bushes, which the woman had disappeared back into. “Between me and him. You stay out. Or get hurt.”
The bushes did not speak back to him, which the borc took as a fearful acknowledgment of his warning. Returning his attention to the pinned robot, the borc put his second hand back on the edge of the sword and pressed slowly. “You had nerve to come here,” he barked in the metal man’s face. “You stroll into camp, make demands. Know place, before get hurt. You… not… strong!”
Azim felt the pressure of the 6-foot sword pushing into his armor. He held up his left arm and tried to push the sword back out, but the maroon red man was too powerful. Azim was already losing control of his processors due to the damages and was struggling to focus on his strength. However, there was more. The android could feel it. He could not actually, yet somehow he knew. Some kind of pressure emitting from the sword, or the borc himself. Maybe both. He knew it had something to do with magic, but he was unsure what. Whatever it was, it was something he was not strong enough against. Not yet.
“You… are strong,” the metal man replied weakly to the goateed borc.
The red-toned man flinched for a moment at the words. He was unsure how to react to the statement, especially considering the certain circumstances. However, he was not deterred for long. Regaining his composure, he resumed pressure on the sword, pushing it deeper into the robot’s chest.
From behind the bushes, Riva was freaking out. She had already saved her metal-composed companion twice now, but any more attempts and the boss would come after her. That flying rock had already been enough to assure her he was serious. So what could she do? She wasn’t just going to let Azim be defeated, especially not by some random in the woods. And Leone, he was still gone. Where was he? She had made the assumption that he had been the thing that dragged off that first borc, but she was curious as to how he had still not returned. Where was he? She supposed she couldn’t worry about that right now, because the crisis at hand was more important… but what could be done about it?