“Any chance we can somehow get Beelzebub to come to us before the rest of Corruption’s forces arrive?”
“No, I do not believe he will risk such a confrontation, especially when your build is so suited to counter his.”
Tilly shot a look over to Hiro. “You think they have that information?”
“At this point, it is almost certain. If you made even half the stops we planned for you, then your fighting style and witnessed Abilities would have made it back to our enemies. And a force this powerful is bound to have instantaneous communication capabilities.”
‘Bonded… give me my child and allow me this. I am best suited to this task. We need to show our capability, or they will overwhelm us in short order.’ Kindle again insisted, visibly frustrated as she ruffled her feathers.
“Gah! Fine, but you are taking as much heat as I can give you in the next minute,” Tilly huffed out loud in her direction, setting Doom Ducky a few feet away to be examined by his two curious companions. He inflamed his hand, instinctively pushing more Mana into the ability than usual, increasing the drain on his core as he held out his arm to the phoenix.
She fluttered over happily, landing on his forearm and dipping her beak into his flame as if drinking it. He felt the familiar pull on his Mana Pathways and watched his HUD as his Mana Well was emptied at a pace only made possible by their bond.
The distant army flooded the horizon, filling it from end to end and a low rumble filled the air. Even forty or fifty miles away, the sound of their approach was already reaching the mountains.
“Jonathan Tillman! It is good to see you again… in a manner of speaking!” A voice boomed from nearby, startling Tilly into jostling Kindle, who squawked and flapped free of her perch. Tilly’s head spun looking for the source of the voice, before finding an origami bird flitting around the striking new altar, demanding the bird’s attention.
“Quite a relief to see you here, big fellow! We feared the worst when you disappeared, but young master Ichiro assured us we would see you-”
“Shuji, report!” Hiro demanded.
“Ah, so sorry Lord! Our elites are coming through first, along with the various leaders of the Factions present in the coalition. After that, the rest of our forces will move through, the path through the Auction House was… tedious.”
“Good, have the leadership assemble up here for a battle plan, send the elites throughout whatever tunnel network exists in this mountain, and make sure we know what we have under us. We need to know if there are any underground links to the other mountains…” Then, trailing off uncharacteristically, Hiro cocked his head in Tilly’s direction.
“Where is Brokenridge? I know you were successful in your quest, yet he is not here.”
Tilly sighed, “Honestly, I’m not sure; I think he will return, but when and with whom, I do not know.”
Taking that at face value, Hiro continued, “Pity. I had hoped to have him as aerial support… but I suppose the enemy played that hand early, so hopefully, we will not face too much more pressure from the skies.”
“Your orders have been relayed, Lord,” boomed the tiny bird enthusiastically.
“Shuji, I can sense the crystal somewhere below. We need to get it online quickly and activate any system-granted bonus for our position. We also need to distribute the Kingdom upgrades as we planned.”
“Our people are already searching, and I am dispatching all my birds to add to their numbers. The coalition leadership will be there shortly.” Shuji responded before flitting off.
“It is time,” Erash broke in, picking up the brightly glowing misshapen glass duck and handing it respectfully to Kindle.
Beelzebub had begun stirring on the peak, and his concentrated position was expanding as he sent out his insects, probably planning to surround the peaks, filling the skies with his body.
“We need to catch as much of him in one place as possible for this to be effective,” She added.
Kindle beat her wings enthusiastically, clutching the glass container in her talons. A ripple of fire flowed from her beak down her back, blazing out through her feathers, and she trilled in excitement at the coming confrontation.
“Careful, girl! Don’t set that thing off early.” Tilly cautioned, gesturing at the glass container clutched in her non-flaming talons. His warning elicited a spiteful glare from the bird as she began to rise into the air on easy wing beats.
‘I am no hatchling. I know well the capabilities of my own child. You will see.’ She sent back, almost sassily, and then with a powerful flap of her wings, she was off, shooting into the air at speeds that should have been physically impossible for a body her size.
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Seeing her go, he scowled, squeezing the heads of his hatchets on his belt in irritation. He had had a perfectly good plan to explode in the midst of the enemy power and blow him to kingdom come, but the situation demanded they adjust…
And, if he was honest with himself, seeing the size of the coming army, with who knows how many Powers present and ready to do battle, he probably needed to save every title ability he could for the larger battle. He would just have to trust that she knew what she was doing, not that she had ever let him down in the past.
‘Go get 'em,’ he sent after her, something like pride blooming in his chest.
In reply, he heard her release a piercing cry, tearing through the slow building rumble of the approaching army and the distant buzzing of her opponent. She did not fear the thing that had infested the far Peak, actually, all he could feel from their bond was a hungry eagerness to reclaim these skies as her own. She made quite a sight, burning brightly in the evening light, as she crossed the distance to Beelzebub’s Peak.
“Do you think her attack will be enough to give you teleport access?” Tilly asked as an even crazier idea rose to the surface of his simmering mind. She might have had to face the Demon Prince alone, but he wouldn’t abandon her to the outcome of the fight if he could help it.
“Most likely, I will know for sure shortly,” Hiro replied.
“I want you to take me there almost immediately after the blast. I think I will have moderate resistance to those flames, and I want to reclaim that peak for our coalition.”
“Jonathan… if I take you there, I will not be able to get you back unless you get clear of those flames. I do not share your resistance.”
“I know, but no matter what happens, I need to be there in case she needs my help. Sure, it will be tough for me to get back… but how hard do you think Corruption will have to work to reclaim that peak once I claim it again and leave behind a supposedly unquenchable fire? At the very least, it will buy us significant time.” Tilly answered with a smile.
Hiro matched his smile with a look of sharp pleasure at the proposal, “Precisely the kind of boldness we need… Very well, stay by my sid,e and I will inform you the moment I can take us there.” Then his expression became more subdued as they both turned back toward Kindle, fully ablaze, tracing a line of fire through the sky in a direct line toward their enemy.
The dispersion of Beelzebub’s body slowed and then stopped as the entire entity seemed to shift and focus on the approaching phoenix. Tilly drew both of his weapons in irritation, hating having to watch from a distance as his bonded risked herself.
A testing tendril of the dense formation whipped out suddenly, striking at Kindle before she could reach the main body.
Even at this distance, Tilly could tell that despite being quickly consumed by the flames that were a core part of her nature, the press of millions of insects still functioned as an effective bludgeon, knocking her off course. Their bond vibrated with the strike, and he caught echoes of the pain that shot through her body at the impact. Tilly had to choke back a yell as he watched her right herself in the air and continue forward unsteadily, her flame flickering wildly.
Bolstered by his success, several more tendrils shot off from Beelzebub’s main body, whipping toward Kindle with a speed far beyond what insects should have been capable of.
Just before the multidirectional attack struck her, Tilly felt a fierce surge of satisfaction resonate through the bond… She had been baiting him!
The flames pouring from her form shifted from bright blue to almost full white in an instant, and she shot forward in a burst of supernova-like heat.
The tendrils collapsing in on her old position were blown back as the phoenix blasted into the almost solid formation of Beelzebub’s condensed form. His buzzing rose several octaves in outrage and surprise, as most of his outer shell split off into hundreds of tendrils, curling in on himself and drilling into his center, attempting to root out the interloper burning a bright path through his body.
Their bond became a riot of energy, pain, and determination. Tilly found himself holding his breath as her light disappeared completely, covered over by the army of insects crashing in on her position. He could faintly feel them attempting to brute force her fiery protections with the weight of numbers alone.
He faintly heard the approach of running footsteps from the other side of the mountain, and Erash turned to meet the leadership, but his eyes were fixed on the distant Peak as he bent all of his attention toward his bond.
Kindle had entered into a hostile storm of foes, choking the air around the peak until she was practically swimming through them. Undaunted, she released another screaming cry of battle and pushed deeper, dumping huge amounts of her reserves to continue burning a path forward, her progress slowing incrementally with every flap of her wings.
Determination soon gave way to exhaustion as her stored heat was consumed at an alarming rate. The Demon Prince’s body did not suffer from the weakness to her flame like many of the other servants of Corruption, their supernaturally resilient exoskeletons offering protection far beyond what they had faced so far.
Yet she pushed on doggedly, determined to make it to the very center, and Tilly fought down the urge to encourage her through the bond… But he dared not distract her, he could feel just how precariously she was balancing her heat output between defense and forward progress, all while fighting to keep the area immediately around the glass item in her hand unactivated.
Then the complex shifting movement of Beelzebub’s body took on an arcane glow.
“Damn, he is using them to cast an enchantment of some kind,” Hiro muttered darkly next to him.
Tilly felt a cold pressure begin to push in on Kindle's already diminishing flames. Insects started to make it through her defenses, biting, tearing, and clawing at anything they could before her flickering flames consumed them. She pushed on with everything she had, yet the added arcane pressure slowed her down to a crawl.
‘Just let it go, Girl!’ He shouted internally, fighting to keep the thought from running along the bond.
Another agonizing second passed before he felt her wearily recognize the shape of a stone formation ahead… she had made it.
Then, with a feeling of profound relief, she released her technique, coughing up the last of her heat into the item clutched protectively in her talons. Insects stormed through her now-absent defenses, and whatever enchantment Beelzebub had been casting flooded her body with a gnawing emptiness…
Their bond suddenly went quiet, and Tilly gasped in a panicked breath, fighting for air as he reached frantically for any sign that she was still alive.
A thunderous clap shot through the peaks, causing a huge shudder to run through the giant formation of insects as it crashed into the small crowd of observers on the peaks.
“Hiro!” Tilly shouted over the sound of roaring as an explosion of fire followed the sound, blasting apart the formation.
“Hold on!” He shouted back, grabbing Tilly’s shoulder.
All of his senses were caught up in a whirlwind of gale-force winds as his position in space and time shifted. An eyeblink later, he found himself hundreds of feet above the blast, beginning to fall into the intense heat blooming on the Peak below.
“Call when you are ready!” Hiro growled over the sound of hot, rushing wind. Then he pushed away from Tilly’s body and was gone in another gust of wind.
Tilly’s attention quickly shifted downward as the now fiery peak approached at increasing speeds. His armor responded to the environmental strain, shifting to its Sun Salamander form and significantly reducing the heat pressing in on his body. His resistance should be enough to reduce the damage to manageable levels, especially considering that at least a portion of this fire had its origins from a friendly source.
Not that he paid any of that much attention as he fell like a meteor toward the mountaintop surrounded by the charred remains of millions of bugs… No, his attention was entirely bent on his silent bond, and the tiny flicker of life he could sense directly below him.
‘You aren’t leaving me this time girl…’