As Bison stomped his way forward, Alexander scrambled to find a way out of this situation. Both Executives were stronger than him individually, taking both at once was out of the question. He could waste time, figure out a way to stall, but there wasn’t exactly anyone coming to save him. He was far from the clearing, much too far for Thomas or Kai to hear his screams, and the Bucko and Bison’s presence here made him sure any nearby tribe members were long gone to the afterlife. No, stalling would be gamble, and Alexander was not quite ready to leave his and Pengu’s survival to luck.
That left two options in Alexander’s mind: fight or flight. The pouring rain had created ample hiding spots within the rainforests, and Alexander was willing to bet he could outrun Bison. Earth Elementalists weren’t particularly renown for their speed. There were a few exceptions, but the behemoth before him was certainly not one. Even as the bear of a man approached Alexander, his movements were slow. Outrunning Bison would not be the problem.
Inching away from the two Executives, Alexander subtly moved around the crates and eyed the Bucko. The biggest deterrent to simply running away was the android. Its blue eyes shined like torches through the night. Alexander wasn’t sure of their capabilities, but they seemed, at least to him, more than capable of seeing in the dark. Running was also an option, but then again, Alexander had no idea if the thing was fast. Kai hadn’t mentioned anything about the Bucko’s speed, but to Kai, there probably wasn’t a lot of difference between slower than him and much slower than him. Running away didn’t make for the most glorious death, anyway.
All that remained was fight, and after the time spent sparring with Udra, Alexander felt it fitting this was his only way out. With a stubborn glint in his eye, Alexander spoke. “You wouldn’t happe-”
The world appeared to slow to a crawl as Alexander saw a metal spike teeter ever closer to his eye. The silent raindrops were pushed to the side as the metal spike burst through the wooden crates. Pieces of the wood splintered everywhere, some already embedding themselves within Alexander’s body.
He could hear the faint mirage of his heart thumping. His body screamed for him to dodge, to fight, to do anything at all that would allow him to survive, but the attack came too suddenly. Alexander’s reaction, the only response his body could muster fast enough, was the constriction of his pupil. They grew pinpoint as they analyzed the detail of the blade seeking to skewer him.
It stemmed from Bison’s mace. The man had slammed it down with such power the ground had broken, and from within the weapon, the steel spike had lashed out like the spikes on a porcupine. Immaculate, really. If Alexander was to die from a weapon, this mace would bring no shame. The luster of its steel reflected the raindrops, splintered wood, and Alexander himself.
Surprise had not yet made its home within his face. The attack was quicker than that. Instead, Alexander could see his previous emotions. A smug assuredness adorned him: lightly scrounged eyebrows, narrowed eyes, and the hint of a smile on his lips. At what point did I let my ego take over?
The underlying idea that everything would be okay had dug its nails deep into Alexander’s psyche at some point. He figured it was the lack of setbacks. Everything had gone swimmingly, and he let it get to his head. Worst of all, he had endangered his beloved penguin.
Straining his eyes to take one final look at Pengu, cradled in his arms, half his eyesight disappeared. It was painless. The sudden change in perspective was the only thing that let him know the metal spike had finally pierced his eye. Filled with acceptance, Alexander again strained to look at Pengu. His stupidity had cost them, but he intended to see the little chick at the end of things. Unfortunately, all he saw was the falling raindrops.
As he fell backwards, the spike dragged across his face, leaving a bloody route leading from his left eye down to his upper lip. It was Pengu who shoved Alexander in the nick of time. Reacting out of pure tenacity, she had managed to save his life but pushed herself towards Bison in the process.
Time snapped back to normal as Alexander collapsed on the ground. Coming so close to death, he was disorientated, his brain still reeling from the danger, but he knew he had to get up. His body had not exited the self-preservation it had entered at the jaws of death, allowing his thoughts to flow more rapidly, and he used this to release his first burst of the healing fire.
It did little to douse the torrent of pain coming from his face or his right chest, but it was enough to roll over to his feet.
The timely action saved him from his second encounter with certain death as another metal spike had already buried itself where he lied. He couldn’t waste any time, though; his only remaining eye had noticed the Bucko holding up his arm towards Alexander’s frail figure. Not willing to find out what the blue light on the Bucko’s palm would do, Alexander stepped closer to Bison.
His hulking figure dwarfed Alexander, but he still approached undeterred. Bison granted him a malicious grin in return. One second later, Bison lifted his mace over his head. The metal spikes drew back into the mace, producing sparks as the metal of the spikes rubbed body of the mace. It was as if they had been summoned home.
Alexander made the first move, directly punching Bison in his gut, but the attack yielded no reaction. In fact, Alexander thought he felt more pain from his fist and shoulder than had been inflicted.
Bison returned the useless action with another slam of his mace. Like a thunderclap, the ground roared with fury as it was torn apart. Large stones lifted out of the ground, encircling the point at which Bison had swung. Alexander was swept away by the force of the impact, even the rain had temporarily avoided the make-shift crater.
It was catastrophic, and the metal spikes had begun a second wave of attacks. They burrowed through the ground, looking to skewer Alexander, not that he would make it easy.
He rolled, ducked, leapt, and threw himself recklessly. It was the only way to remain alive under the endless assault of the metal spikes. With the second slam, a third metal spike had been born out of the mace, and Alexander feared successive slams would lead to an ever-increasing army of the living weapon.
Already at three, Alexander felt he would not be able to evade injury for much longer. His lungs burned from exhaustion. Merely a few seconds, and his body was falling apart, but he pushed further. Pengu was his biggest motivator for pressing on; her tired body was collapsed face down within the rubble of the broken crates. Saving Alexander had propelled her towards Bison who had unintentionally thrown her back with his heavy attack. The poor penguin lay battered and motionless, half-buried under chunks of broken earth.
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Can you hide? Alexander prodded as he dodged between two metal spikes.
Too… sleepy. Pengu responded without moving so much as a muscle.
Rolling closer to Bison, Alexander clung to his shadow with desperation. Until now, all of his attacks had spared Pengu, but Alexander wasn’t sure how long that would last. He urgently needed to heal her or defeat Bison. Neither option seemed particularly likely, but nothing ventured nothing gained. At least persistence could sometimes create miracles.
Following the train of thought, Alexander released his second burst of healing on himself and unleashed a rain of blows on Bison. Releasing his grip on the mace, the executive welcomed the shift to close combat. The first few punches were mutually dodged, but as the exchange ramped up in intensity, Alexander noticed his exhaustion take effect but more than that, their difference in skill.
Slowly, the tide of battle shifted in favor of Bison. Wide dodges hampered Alexander’s ability to counterattack but his lacking vision made anything more precise impossible. Bison, on the other hand, moved his body only the slightest amount necessary. He was precise to a ludicrous degree as any of Alexander’s attacks would whisk a mere millimeter away from him, and the weight behind his strikes was incomparable. As much as Alexander tried to move with the attack, he could feel fractures accumulate.
The final result appeared inevitable. Bison controlled the tempo of the battle so thoroughly, after a while, Alexander was unable to even attack. The timing to dodge blows grew smaller and smaller, and eventually, Alexander was blocking more often than not.
Bison took advantage of this, and his next blow carried much more weight than any prior ones. The lustrous metal of his mace wrapped around his fist as it connected with Alexander’s forearm and snapped both his radius and ulna bones. Great pain momentarily caused a lapse of judgement on Alexander’s behalf, and he unthinkingly fired off a left hook.
The metallic gleam perpetually covering Bison’s face had prevented Alexander from attempting anything, but that single lapse of concentration, the one bad decision, it cost him. As soon as his fist made contact, the bones in hand shattered.
Alexander stifled a whimper, but he could not help falling to the ground. His hand hung limply from his wrist, quickly mixing blood with a nearby puddle of rainwater. His right forearm was bruised horrible, the broken bones not breaking the skin, and his left eye had still not finished bleeding. He was the picture of defeat, yet he was already on his way to get back up.
Director Li would probably be proud of how well I can take a beating. The stray thought flew through his mind before he felt another terrible pain course through his body.
At some point, the Bucko had decided to shoot the blue light that had been charging within his arm. Piercing through the trees, beside Bison, and into the downed Alexander, it erupted with electricity, burning his skin. Electrocuted, Alexander trembled uncontrollably while a dribble of saliva crawled out of his mouth. His vision tunneled as he wrestled with his fading consciousness, and his body finally activated his last resort.
Unconsciously using all of his remaining mana, white flames invaded every inch of Alexander’s body. They doused him with vigor and strength and repaired the most urgent wounds. The pain was the first to be dispelled, allowing his vision to return. His bones came next as the white flame readjusted them and snapped them back into place. Alexander’s open wounds were simultaneously cauterized, and he used the sudden health of his body to drag himself away from the puddle of his blood and the rain. To maintain his state, he needed to stop being electrocuted.
Soldier crawling away, Alexander noticed Bison had not finished him off. The man had stopped moving very close to Alexander. Too close, he hastily dug his fingers into the moist soil to have more distance between them, but Bison still didn’t move.
Suddenly, Bison gripped his chest. His hand clawed at the fabric of his shirt as he gasped, and his leg buckled, forcing him down on one knee. As the mountainous man collapsed, Alexander was able to spot the mace behind him.
The metallic weapon was erratic. If Alexander had to compare it to anything, he would say it was having a seizure. Standing upright on its handle, the iron spikes on the mace extended back and forth in quick, repetitive movements. Both the mace and its owner appeared to have suffered critical hits. Tracing his eye down the figure of the mace, he noticed it along with Bison were both standing in the puddle of Alexander’s blood.
Could it be?
The rain poured harder, providing Alexander with enough cover, he hoped, to finish off Bison without the Bucko noticing. Gathering his strength to stand, Alexander was not given the chance.
Five green birds descended like comets from the branches of the surrounding trees. Crashing into Bison, the birds stabbed through his chest, back, face, and both shoulders, and once they hit their target, a flurry of feathers slashed at Bison’s body as the birds puffed into smoke.
The birds harmed Bison greatly, but the gale from their strike also swept away the blood, allowing Bison to exit his paralyzed state. He stood dazed but with a straight back and roared in anger at the forest. The trees whistled back, releasing a wave of arrows towards the bleeding Bison.
With a shake of his hand, the iron mace melted away into a liquid resembling mercury and fused to his body, providing Bison with a steel armor. He blocked the majority of the arrows with it, but wave after wave continued to blanket him. Every wave, one or two arrows stabbed into the open joints of the armor and sent Bison one step closer to death’s door.
Realizing he would lose the battle of attrition, his hands morphed into blades, and he began to indiscriminately slash down the surrounding trees. His rampage continued until no tree stood untouched and his enemies had been revealed.
Five warriors, three men and two women, stood tall as they faced Bison. A rudimentary emerald armor covered their bodies, and their hands were slotted with beautiful bows. They wore stony faces as they faced the behemoth, not an ounce of fear apparent in any of them.
Bison huffed as the bleeding of his wounds began to take a toll on him. He was exhausted, injured, and outnumbered. For some reason, the Bucko had not regrouped with him yet, and now, he was in Alexander’s exact position from a few minutes ago.
Snarling like a beast, he smashed his fists together causing a loud clanging to reverberate in the forest. The metal in his hands had now reformed into gloves, allowing him to display this clear provocation.
The Emerald warriors waited no more as three of them rushed Bison. Watching intently, Alexander noted how different this was to his own battle. Despite their numbers, he was sure they could each give this current Bison a run for his money individually, and if their only task was to survive, they’d all succeed.
Bison attacked like an angered beast. Long gone was the meticulous executive who had coldly driven Alexander to the brink of defeat. The three Emerald warriors in close quarters masterfully kept Bison at bay. Their moves were like an art, a practiced swaying that nullified Bison’s strongest moves.
The other two Emerald warriors had taken to the fallen logs of the trees. Hidden behind the cover, they shot a relentless stream of arrows and interspersed bird attacks. These attacks caused no damage to this fully armored Bison, but their constant threat limited the man from shifting his metal as fluidly as he would have desired.
Within a few seconds, the Emerald warriors had toppled Bison allowing one of the female warriors to unsheathe a knife she used to promptly slice through his armor. The terror that was Bison slumped lifelessly to the ground and his metal armor slowly trickled away. Alexander rubbed his eye, struggling to believe the terrifying pirate had been reduced to nothing so quickly.
As Alexander began to sit up, the one who struck down Bison walked towards him and offered him a hand. Wiping away the blood on her shoulder guard in the crease of her armpit, the woman sheathed the blade and smiled. “Alexander, right? I’m Maia. Nice to finally meet you.”