“Whooh! You all see that?! You seeing those colors pop?!”
Sparks flew in all directions, colors lighting up the sky, while the buildings of Outpost 3 caught fire and lit up, too. The terrams of Outpost 3 were yelling at the stranger to stop. Some pleading and some shouting angrily, yet the wily intruder seemed unresponsive to any of them. Several residents went to shield the outpost’s pantry, thinking it was the most valuable and easily-destructible building in the vicinity. The buildings could be rebuilt, and the supplies had a high likelihood of surviving the fire, but the food, that would be a great loss.
As Azim and Leone arrived at the outpost, they were met by a frantic lizardfolk man, flinging vibrant sparks of rainbow fireworks from a strange leather glove on his left hand. The lizardfolk was waving his hand all around him, throwing splashes of orange, blue, purple, and green everywhere in his immediate surroundings. The sparks of the fireworks were raining down onto the buildings of Outpost 3, setting the charcoal roofs of the iron buildings on fire.
One brave townsman, seemingly the one who ran the outpost’s smith, was standing against the reptilian man holding a solid steel naginata. The weapon was about 6 feet long, which looked somewhat small in the terram’s hands. The only thing that separated the handle from the weapon’s blade was a leather wrapping where the two met.
“Hey! HEY! Stop that! Stop what you’re doing at once!” called out the rock-covered man.
“Oh, you wanna play?” asked the lizardfolk. “Come here then!”
Just then, the reptilian intruder stuck his hand out toward the terram, sending a flurry of rainbow sparks flying forward. The armed man tried to shield himself with his weapon, though it did not help much. The terram’s own body was actually more of a protection than anything else, as his rocky skin kept the intense flashes of heat from bothering him. Realizing this, the man pushed forward toward the intruder.
Seeing the terram come forward, the lizardfolk gave the townsman more attention, throwing out another few clusters of sparks. When he saw the terram mostly unfazed, continuing forward, he stopped firing and took a couple of steps back. At the reptilian man’s waist was a pair of corked bottles, both of which contained some sort of small cloud whirring around inside them. The intruder plucked one of the bottles off his belt with his right hand, putting his thumb against the cork. “You’re quite the stubborn fella’, aren’t you?” the lizardfolk chided. “Didn’t think I’d have to use up one of these, didn’t want to, really. Oh well…”
Just as the terram got within 3 meters of the stranger, the lizard man pointed the bottle forward and flicked his thumb, popping the cork off the container and releasing what was inside. Instantaneously, the spell bottle let loose a furrowing gust of wind, strong enough to knock over small trees. The sudden windstorm pressed against the terram, blowing him back with incredible force. He lost hold of his weapon as he flew, smashing into one of the burning buildings, which, due to the shock of his impact, dropped a sign that read “SMITH 3”. The terram lay in the small burning building, the charcoal roof caving on top of him, unable to get back up.
The lizardfolk laughed crazily. “Ha ha ha ha ha! What an exit! You really flew, did you see that? Well, I guess not, ha ha ha ha!”
It was then that the lizard man heard a strange monotone voice, one that could not have belonged to any of the terram townsfolk. “Excuse me. May I have your attention?”
“Huh? Who is that?” asked the reptilian intruder, turning his head toward the source of the voice.
Standing a few meters away, seemingly having watched the recent events unfold, was an odd metal man standing next to a young, dark-skinned human. While the young man looked relatively normal, and weirdly excited, thought the lizardfolk, the man covered in metal stood out much more.
Someone with critical thinking and an ounce of curiosity would have taken the time to analyze this figure. After all, he was very obviously out of place, not just in this town, but everywhere. Nowhere in Irvana would anyone ever find someone like Azim. Some might have thought he was a spell come to life, or maybe an odd-looking monster under someone else’s influence. Regardless of what one thought, they would rationally take the time to think, and try to gain some form of understanding about who or what he was. The rampaging lizard, however, was not a rational one.
At first sight of the robot and his companion, the lizard man shouted, “Ooh! More valiant defenders! Why do y’all have to be such party poopers?!”
With a flick of his glove-wearing hand, a small gem on the back of it lit up, sending forth a stream of flashing light and color from his fingertips. Streaks of orange, yellow, and blue shot forward, splattering into several streams as they did, leaving those strands to fly forward and do the same thing. Colors popped everywhere, snapping and cradling echoed through the air, and tiny flash bangs went off with every explosion of pink, green, and red. Leone dashed out of the way, his amped-up speed faster than the incoming sparks. Azim, however, stayed completely still, letting the shower of light and color overtake him. “No way,” Leone grinned.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
As the flurry of fireworks faded and the shroud of smoke settled, the lizardfolk and the robot’s companion both witnessed in amazement as he emerged from the mess… completely unharmed. With a flick of his left hand, he waved the remaining smoke away.
“What… the… hell?” whined the reptilian intruder. “How the hell did you do that?”
Ignoring the lizard man, Leone mentioned to Azim, “Hey buddy, it looks like you’ve got this covered, so I’m just gonna’ go see if I can help put out the fires. You gonna’ be okay without a weapon or anything?”
“I will be fine, thank you. I agree with the plan. I will stop this man from causing any more damage to this outpost.”
“Sounds good, bud, good luck!” With that, Leone was off to keep the outpost from facing any more ruin.
Azim started walking slowly toward the lizardfolk. The robot was not too worried about the reptilian man’s arsenal, as from what he had seen, and experienced, the man had nothing that was that serious of a threat to him. With all the influx of oxygen and wind from the flames and other chaos, Azim’s cloak blew wildly behind him as he walked, only adding to his intensity in the lizardfolk’s eyes. “Hey man, I’m warning you,” groaned the scaly intruder. “You might wanna stay back, or I’m gonna’ light you up!”
Clenching his fist in front of him, the lizardfolk built up something in his glove that Azim could not see. The android did not care. He continued forward. Seeing that the metal stranger was not backing down, the reptilian man opened his hand and let loose a rainbow streak of color much larger than before. The stream of rapidly changing color screamed toward Azim, not bursting prematurely as the smaller ones had. Instead, the attack continued to fly forward, piercing through the air and heading straight for the robot. Still, the metal man did not falter.
Just seconds before the firework made contact with Azim, he rolled out of the way, throwing the cape of his cloak back and letting the other side of it fold over his right shoulder. The firework sailed past the robot, exploding in a grand display of color and sound that merely served as an impressive backdrop for the robot’s advance. The wily lizard man watched in astonishment as the metal stranger so effortlessly dodged the attack, resulting in him walking away from a beautiful, blooming explosion. Then, without warning, Azim started running.
He raced toward the reptilian intruder, his cloak rippling elegantly in the wind behind him. Losing confidence, the lizardfolk started waving his gloved hand in front of him in a desperate motion, throwing as many bursts of fireworks forward as he could. He watched in horror as the metal man ducked and sidestepped every one of the sparks that came his way. He could have sworn that every once in a while, a few stray streaks even managed to hit the metal man, yet he somehow just brushed them off without any worry. It was crazy. Even when the colorful sparks actually struck his attacker, he was unfazed and continued running forward as if they had not even touched him in the first place.
“Whoa, woah, woah, woah!” yelled the reptile, starting to backpedal.
Just before Azim could reach him, the scaly intruder disapproved from the robot’s sight, leaving Azim to throw forward a punch that made contact with nothing but air. The android looked around but he could not detect the lizard man. He hypothesized that those connected to magic could probably learn how to detect others, similar to how Riva had done in Lemarek. He wondered how she had done it. She had said she could see the lizardfolk that she had fought. But how? Did she have some kind of magic detection? Was that a common thing to have? He supposed he had much more to learn about that. Azim realized though that even if he found out, he would still probably not be able to do whatever it was, as he had no “connection” to magic himself. However he had magic, it was not natural, and it was not because of his soul, or rather lack thereof.
Instead, the android decided the the best solution would be to give himself a substitute; a form of altered sight that could make up for his lack of magic detection. While he wasn’t sure what that would be, he was sure he would invent it. The robot added “Magic Sight” to a list of “Needed Upgrades” in his back brain.
While Azim was still thinking, looking around for the lizardfolk at the same time, he felt a forceful gust of wind hit him without warning from behind. The metal man flew forward about 10 meters, bracing himself from landing face-first into the charred ground. Lying so close to the ashen dirt, the robot’s internal sensors were starting to pick up the heat a little more. He quickly got up and let his systems cool down slightly. Looking around, the robot noticed he was starting to leave the boundaries of the outpost, entering the open space between it and the heart of the city, hence why the heat was starting to get more noticeable.
Thinking back to Riva’s fight, Azim thought of an idea. He looked around. Still, the lizardfolk was nowhere to be found. He ran back toward the outpost, running low and scraping his hand along the ground. Soon enough, a flow of colorful sparks erupted from the right. Instantaneously, the android doubled back, pivoting on his arm, and ran around the fireworks. As he did, he flung his arm up, throwing forward a clump of char and ash that quickly dissipated. Rather than falling back to the ground, most of the spreading black dust clung onto an invisible figure. There he was. Quickly, Azim got in close, dodging another point-blank spray of fireworks now that he could see the reptilian man’s hand.
With one clean left hook, Azim launched the lizardfolk farther back than he had even flung the robot with his spell bottle. By the time the scaly intruder hit the ground, he was already unconscious.
Azim walked over to the lizard man lying out on the charred ground and waited for him to regain consciousness. After about a minute, the intruder slowly started to wake up, his eyes struggling to open and his body unwilling to move. “Oh…” he groaned. “Ow…”
Seeing the metal-covered man standing over him as his vision gradually came back, the lizardfolk thought to himself that this was the end of the line. He had been having so much fun toying with his glove, and some stranger just had to come along and ruin it for him. All he had been trying to do was get a job done and do so in a flashily entertaining way. Now... he was lying defeated. Great, he thought. Now I’m going to die in this burnt-up hole of a town. Thanks, guy.
Then, the figure spoke. Oh no, what the hell does he want?
“Excuse me,” asked Azim, “can I ask you a question?”