Light. A blinding, blue-white light was all Alexander saw as Maia and the Bucko met. Then the sound came. A thunderous boom erupted through the rainforest, blowing away the closest trees and shredding the fallen logs. Lightning, thunder, wind, and rain combined to form a miniature tempest in the small clearing, all expanding outwards from the sphere of light that continued to encompass Maia and the Bucko.
The dome shielded Alexander and the incapacitated Emerald warriors from the hurricane causing mayhem outside, but its clear material allowed him to view the destruction. Lightning shot out uncontrollably, with gales slicing into anything the lightning didn’t bring down. Alexander briefly considered using the white flames to pierce the veil of light surrounding the battle but thought better of it. This was a mana storm essentially. Looking straight into it could damage his only remaining good eye.
Instead, Alexander pushed his white flames into Pengu’s body. He didn’t use much. He didn’t dare inflict the pain he had endured on the little penguin, but he was interested in stabilizing Pengu’s condition. On a cursory glance, the injuries she had received from Bison were superficial, bruises at worst, but his mana was passively leaking anyways. Alexander thought this was putting it to better use. Besides, Alexander would only be a support against the Bucko.
As he tended to Pengu, the light began to dissipate, allowing Alexander to observe the results of the first clash. It was… not surprising. With the same gracefulness employed in their triumph over Bison, the group of Emerald warriors had already backed the android into a corner.
Every single one of them used a bow as their primary weapon, but Alexander was astounded to see the variety with which they fought. The two warriors who always remained by Maia’s sides held thicker bows. The limbs of their weapon were twice the size of anyone else’s, and they used the increased girth to their advantage. In tune with each other, one of them blocked the Bucko’s attacks while the other swung his boy like a hammer. Their battle style was fluid, too, never making it apparent who would be attacking and defending, but it was the archers who left a stronger impression on Alexander.
The pair were like birds in the sky. Their acrobatics made it so the Bucko hadn’t been able to so much as lay a finger on either of them, and they also set the tempo of the battle with each arrow set loose from their bow. The winged arrows curved in the air and exploded on contact, while the wind mana arrows flew at speeds nearly imperceptible to Alexander’s eye. Additionally, the archers had taken out a third arrow type that launched traps on a timer. Alexander had seen ropes, smokescreens, and nets launched out of the arrows so far. Throwing in normal arrows at random intervals, the archers ensured the Bucko could never get comfortable.
Then there was Maia. She was battle incarnate, weaving in attacks between both groups of Emerald warriors effortlessly. At times she launched arrows from her bow, sometimes she used it as a blunt weapon, and others she fought with her fists alone. She was the only one of the Emerald warriors with some variety on her crystallized armor: an emerald gauntlet slotted on each of her hands, and it was devastatingly effective.
Despite the major contributions of the other Emerald warriors, Alexander was sure they had managed to subdue the Bucko so far mainly because of Maia. She was considerably faster than the others, blue tinted wind gathering around her occasionally, and she used this speed to limit the Bucko’s counterattacks.
The battle was frankly going exceptionally well. The Emerald warriors had taken Bison by surprise, but against the Bucko, it appeared they would topple him easily even in a direct confrontation, that worried Alexander. Something was not quite right here.
Kai had said the Bucko was stronger than him, and the Emerald warriors for all their elegance and ingenuity didn’t give Alexander the impression of trumping over Kai. That’s when he noticed it. The Bucko’s eyes were different. From the piercing blue they were at rest to the red hue they gained when he was angered, his eyes had always been circular, but now, they were a short line.
The android observed the archers first, and Alexander saw as the line grew until it had caught its own tail, forming a circle. When the Bucko moved his eyes to stare at the close quarters warriors, the line reset itself and began growing once more.
“MAIA!” Alexander jumped to his feet as realization dawned on him. “MAIA, YOU NEED TO RETREAT.” Running to the edge of the dome, Alexander cursed. Neither the Emerald warriors nor Maia had heard his scream, but he had no time to lose. The Bucko had just about finished analyzing the warriors and then only Maia would remain. Resolving to exit the dome, he placed Pengu down and ran out through the small hole Maia had made earlier.
The sounds of rain and battle buffeted him instantly. Alexander hadn’t realized just how much the dome was muting the surrounding noise levels, but he didn’t let it detract from his goal. “MAIA, RETREAT!! HE’S ANALYZING YOU.”
This time Maia did manage to catch Alexander’s words, but it was the Bucko who acted on them first. Pushing hard on the ground, the android barreled towards one of the close combat specialists. The Emerald warrior reacted calmly, bring up his bow to deflect the Bucko’s charge.
It was a heavy blow. The warrior’s arms trembled as he forcefully diverted the Bucko into the air. The android seemed like he expected this, though. Twirling in the air, he skillfully dodged four of the arrows careening towards his body, using the force of the two that hit him to gain distance from the warrior.
This was the turning point in the battle. The thing Alexander had tried to so hard to prevent.
Four winged arrows flew through the sky unimpeded. Having missed their target, the arrows sailed past the Bucko. Unfortunately, the lone Emerald warrior stood defenseless in the path of the arrows. The near prophetic level of skill needed to use their own arrows against them caused the Emerald warriors to disregard their allies’ shots. Nobody expected for this to happen. No one even had a chance to be prepared, except for Maia.
She tried to prevent the demise of her soldier. She had already been on high alert from Alexander’s warning, and the Bucko’s sudden movements had set off her alarms. Blue wind gathered around her arm as it rippled with newfound power. Her muscles contracted so much her skin struggled to keep them contained, and blood began to trickle out of the pores in her arm when her skin gave out. She didn’t stop, though. She couldn’t stop. Another of her subordinates would not lose their lives if she still had means available to her, so she used the self-damaging attack to fling an arrow fast enough to catch up to the four stray ones.
The arrow flew true, going even faster than the wind mana ones. Rocketing through the newly barren rainforest, it accurately smashed into one of the winged arrows veering it off course and into a second winged arrow. The winged arrows exploded into their crystalline storm, engulfing a third one, but the fourth arrow remained. Powerless, Maia watched as the arrow closed in on the yet oblivious Emerald warrior. Her arm hung limply from her shoulder, blood flowing freely down it; there was nothing she could do but watch.
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Thomas skewered wave after wave of Green Mamba pirates. The rain was the greatest natural boon for him to encounter in the battlefield, and he was capitalizing on its presence. Channeling his mana into the sky, the falling rain morphed into sharpened pellets of hail as they adopted a tiny red hue in their center.
Walking in the eye of his personal blizzard, he headed in the direction of the army’s supplies. Thomas had wanted to rush after Alexander, but for this fight, his greater duty was to eliminate the Green Mamba’s goons. Putting both goals together, he had decided to take a roundabout path in which he met the largest number of pirates as he followed after his friend. It was a win-win. Besides, surely Alexander would not encounter a fatal situation so quickly. There was simply no way.
Pushing the blizzard outward, Thomas mowed down another dozen pirates. There should be an executive assigned to an army this large, but they have no reason to be flanking us themselves… Unless the pirate Empress has decided to change the way she’s been handling this conflict, but she wouldn’t do that would she? The nagging feeling of the worst-case scenario becoming an increasingly more likely possibility made Thomas quicken his pace.
This army was simply too large. Despite how he and Kai had scolded the Puma and Eagle tribe’s generals, Thomas wasn’t expecting this ambush either. This was simply too large a number of Green Mamba reinforcements to merely have been sent due to the tribe’s single victory. Thomas smelled a scheme, and Alexander had a penchant for attracting trouble.
Exhausting his blizzard completely, Thomas blasted out his entire arsenal of hail and annihilated all pirates in the vicinity. Gathering the rainwater in his hands, he formed a lasso out of it and threw it to the nearest tree branch. Tugging at it firmly to ensure it was solid, Thomas took a few steps back before he forced the water to yank him forward.
The wilderness flashed before his eyes as he sped South. He still unleashed the occasional harpoon of ice, but for the most part, he was laser focused on catching up to Alexander.
After a while of swinging from tree to tree, Thomas heard the sound of thunder in the distance. With no sign of lightning anywhere in the clouds, he quickly discarded the possibility of it being natural thunder and headed its way.
The thunder’s culprit soon became readily apparent to Thomas as he entered a section of the rainforest that seemed to have undergone a period of deforestation.
Standing in the middle of the clearing, surrounded by the burnt husks of fallen trees, the Bucko slammed his fists repeatedly on a bubble of wind. There were two corpses near the android that Thomas was able to recognize as the remains of the Kukulkan Emerald warriors. He wasn’t sure how they had appeared in Kedra Island, but he was happy to see the presence of allies.
Eager to help the warriors he assumed were trapped in the wind cocoon out, Thomas raised blocks of ice to act as a makeshift staircase for him before leaping from the top. Accelerating dangerously as his spear glowed with the yellow color, Thomas launched his spear forward, aiming to destroy the Green Mamba executive. Entranced in his pummeling, the Bucko noticed the incoming threat too late and was forced to surrender his right arm to Thomas.
The spear’s blow caused shockwaves to ripple through the area as it ripped off the android’s arm and pinned it to the ground, rattling the defenses of the wind bubble, but before Thomas could follow up with another attack, he heard Alexander’s voice. “Thomas, hide! You gotta come inside the dome!!”
With no hesitation, Thomas kicked the Bucko away and rolled into the wind bubble. It opened once Thomas was close enough, and he saw a woman rush out as the dome resealed. Next thing he knew, Alexander had tackled him to the ground with a bear hug.
“You have no idea how glad I am to see your sorry face.” Alexander laughed, a hint of hysteria in his voice.
“I followed after you a few minutes after you left, but the endless horde of pirates out there slowed me down. Care to catch me up on the situation here? You’ve got an executive pounding on your- Wow! Alexander, your eye!! What the hell happened here?” Thomas quickly became concerned as he held up his hand to Alexander’s face.
Sitting upright, Alexander sighed as he swatted away Thomas’ hand. “It was an ambush. This whole stupid night has been ambush after ambush, and I got hit by two executives at once. Bison over there got the short end of the stick, but the Bucko is proving to be a problem.”
Thomas leaned sideways and his eyes bulged as he noticed Bison’s dead body a few feet away. “Y-you did that?”
“I just survived. Pengu added even more injuries to her body in the process of helping me, and as you can see, I didn’t fare too well.” Running his hand down his facial scar, Alexander lamented his weakness. “No, Maia did that. She’s the leader of the warriors who saved my life.”
“Emerald warriors they’re called.” Thomas added as he glanced at the collapsed men and women laying scattered within the dome. Their emerald armor was broken and discolored, leaving the warriors clothed only in tattered rags. There was only one live male and female left, the rest having moved on to the afterlife.
“Alright, well, the Emerald warriors defeated Bison and tried to stop the Bucko.” Gesturing towards the bodies, Alexander sounded dejected. “You can see the results for yourself.”
“How did he do it? The Emerald warriors are masters of their craft. Although their destructive abilities are not top tier, they are famously difficult to kill. Plus, your wind dome held even under the Bucko’s fists. How did they die?”
“Well, simply put, that damned android is of a much higher quality than we had initially guessed. He caught the Emerald warrriors by surprise and reaped the benefits. Which brings me to why I called you into this dome.” Fidgeting slightly, Alexander glanced at the fight outside before speaking hurriedly. “I don’t know the limits to his ability, but I do know he watches you. Once his eyes complete a ring, he becomes able to anticipate your every move. That’s how the Emerald warriors outside and in here died, and it’s how we ended up turtling in the dome. From a certain point in the battle, they became unable to land a single hit on the Bucko.”
“Why did this Maia go outside then? She’s running straight into the maws of death!”
“She did it to buy time. Maia is rapidly draining her mana as we speak to maintain a blue color speed augmentation that will keep her alive long enough to let us have this conversation. But it won’t last forever, so you need to listen to me.” Alexander spoke sternly. “The android will take no longer than a minute to analyze you. Which means we have one minute to bring that can of junk down. So far, it seems staying out of his line of sight pauses the timer, but I wouldn’t rely on this. It’s just my speculation based on a very small sample size. The important thing is he can’t scan you completely. If he does, he’ll be untouchable.”
“Kill the android in less than a minute. Got it. Anything else to add?”
Alexander spoke more slowly this time. “If you can hold him in place for long enough, I think I can finish him off.”
Nodding his head, Thomas didn’t think to question to Alexander. “Hey, you’ve observed the Bucko longer than I have. If you’re sure, I’ll do it.”
Alexander briefly hesitated, but watching Maia fight for her life outside, he rid himself of his worries. “Do it.”
“Aye aye.” Thomas shot Alexander a comforting look before tightening his grip on his spear.
Alexander banged on the wind dome to notify Maia they were ready and watched as Thomas sprinted out of the opening she made. Wasting no time, Thomas flung his spear towards the android and began the toughest minute of his life.