The boys sped through the plains. Far to the side -- more a blink on the horizon than an actual place they might retreat toward -- was a stretch of forest. Neither Jiehong nor Zan thought any of utilizing the forest. Their focus was on saying as close as possible to the border. Staying as close as possible to the ruins was their goal.
"Keep the heavy bits of the ruins in mind when you're looking for something to grab onto, remember," Zan reminded his friend.
"I know my own plan, Zan," Jiehong replied.
Zan knew Jiehong knew. But with exhaustion piling on their other concerns, Zan thought it no issue to remind him more. Better safe than sorry.
Though the airship's size would have made one think it was slow-moving, as the boys discovered, it was anything but.
Only ten minutes had elapsed since the airship had noticed them cross the border. Yet already, the airship was moving into position to strike them. Zan shouted for Jiehong to keep his eyes strained. "We're going to need that plan of yours, buddy! And soon!"
With Jiehong on the lookout for something to attach his mechanical arms toward, Zan's attention remained affixed to the sky. Specifically, the Slipstream whose outline had seen start to emerge. By now, the Slipstream glowed as bright as a festival firestick adorned with dyes and popping-dust set aflame. Zan reached his hand toward the sky and chanted the simple, holy prayer. His body filled with magical energy from the gods. Instantly, he felt as though someone splashed a cold bucket of water on him, especially once he used his partly skills to heal himself and Jiehong's bodies using his entire reserve. Empty on magic, Zan simply stretched his hand to the sky once more, again chanted the holy prayer, and was filled with magic.
Had Zan been at full strength, he would have only needed a fraction of his magic to perform a simple 'refresh' incantation. Drained, tired, strangulated as he had been over the past few days, however, and his talents had withered. His body and soul were run amok. In this damaged state, then, magical consumption was inefficient. He would need to use more to do less.
Zan knew something about the Tolls of magic. Basically, he knew he would need to use magic as frequently as possible if he wanted to approximate his healthier state's natural mastery of the basics.
"Let me take control of the bike while you fill up on magic," Zan shouted to be heard as the airship now grew close enough to make its engine be heard.
Jiehong relented and gave control over. He filled on energy, used his own restorative magics -- not that magically derived healing could do much for chemical energy, but alas, Jiehong would take what he could, when he could -- and refilled once more. "I have control again, focus on dumping magic into the bike. Let's test this out!" Jiehong shouted.
It was Zan's turn to relent. He placed his hand on the bike. Magic flowed into the bike, allowing the bike to enter its super-charged, and super-fast, mode.
Like an urged upon horse, the bike kicked into a higher gear of movement. It flew across the ruin-dotted landscape like an eagle rushing to its nest.
While imbuing the bike with magic, Zan received a System notification. It read-said, [Constant Magical Usage Detected. 1.5% Use Per Two Seconds].
Relaying the information to Jiehong, neither cared. The Slipstream had recently come out and so it would be out for a while. Which meant magical use would be practically unlimited during the battle. So as long as they did not enter any kind of building, they could refill whenever they wanted.
"We've got its attention. Now it is time to keep it!" Zan yelled. With magic flowing through the bike, its wheels sped so fast and churned up so much dirt, the sound from the churning alone threatened to block out communication despite Zan and Jiehong's closeness and the echo-beetles. The airship, of course, didn't help matters.
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Jiehong nodded his agreement and scanned the horizon. "Found one!" Jiehong shouted.
Taking aim using the SPIDER system, Jiehong found a target and locked onto it. With a press of a button, his pauldrons exploded steam and out came two thundering snake-like arms which blasted toward and locked onto a pillar. With the speed they were going, it would not have long to remain attached until forces of nature ripped the arms free. This was exactly what the two friends intended, however.
"On my cue -- full power!" Zan shouted. Imbuing the bike with all his energy at once, the bike surged forward as though a hurricane had propelled them with naturalistic fury only known by Divine and Eldritch deities.
Jiehong took the bike's inhuman movement as the cue -- which was just as well, as Zan's actual cue, a spluttering of words, became lost in the cacophony. Turning the SPIDER system to full power, like he had during his testing earlier, the arms easily whipped the modest stone tower from its foundations. The tower tumbled behind them, tearing itself to pieces as it thrashed into the many lesser stone buildings throughout the ruins.
The tower's destruction caused a giant dust cloud to emerge. "It's working!" Zan screamed. "It's working!"
"Good!" Jiehong screamed back. He wasn't paying attention to what he said as he was readying another arm-blast. With the cooldown complete, Jiehong again sicked his arms on the nearest, appropriately shaped pillar capable of being caught by two mechanical arms.
Feeling the impact as the arms struck their gold, the tower hadn't long to live as in the instance after the arms attached, the tower was ripped from its bedrock. Like the precious tower, it dragged behind Zan and Jiehong's bike for mere moments before being annihilated and turned into a cloud of debris as it struck -- and destroyed -- the many buildings alongside it. Again, and again Jiehong repeated this action. He tore up a total of five towers before all through the battlefield a massive cloud of smog choked visibility.
Visibility for everyone except Zan. Who, through the use of his Command Center System, could navigate the inescapable cloud; icons flashed on his visual display when he had need to evade. How the System did this was by unknown means. Zan thought it had to do with the magical echo-location stuff the Screen Master was talking about. An icon popped up and Zan shouted at Jiehong to move in whatever direction the system demanded.
Concerning the airship's location, however. The System could not pick up on where it was: icons flashed all over, yet Zan saw no airship. Which, by extension, meant one of two things for the airship: it would either drop and descend on them to continue its hunt or rise above the cloud and deliver itself to safety. Zan and Jiehong knew the airship would take the latter option. Airships were too rare, expensive, and symbolic of power to risk them going after two teenage warriors on bikes.
"Feck yeah!" Jiehong screamed. "Let's get our asses back to Winters. We have a city to-- wait, where is the airship? I can't see its shape in the sky."
Zan frantically searched as he drew magic from the Slipstream. Unfortunately for both Jiehong and him, not only could he not see the airship, but his 'pull' from the Slipstream became further limited. Now, not only tiredness taxed his efficient use of magic, but the dust cloud obscured his intake, rendering the quality of magic he pulled as being inferior to what he would have drawn from the Slipstream had the dust cloud never formed. Considering the airship as a major threat, though, Zan still considered the strategy necessary, however badly he felt for the ruins he and Jiehong destroyed or how he felt about the lesser quality of magic.
And then, a moment of destiny: Zan discovered why his System couldn't pinpoint the airship -- because it was right in front of them and so big, Zan could not see the forest through the trees. It happened so fast. Jiehong, the Screen Master, Zan thought he heard even Sigma-Prime yell. Everyone screamed as through the heavy cloud came the thunderous and titanic form of the airship. Neither youth could understand why the airship was so low to the ground. Was its captain insane?! Did they have a blood vendetta against he or Jiehong?!
More as a reflex than reaction, Zan and Jiehong both dumped all their magical energy into the bike. They became as a bullet and fired straight into the massive airship.
Every hair on Zan's body stood up straight. He couldn't stop screaming, hardly able to believe such a massive ship was someone so close to them, attempting to snuff them out. The airship's size made it less a vehicle and more a small town onto itself. Incredible as its size was, however, the speed and angle of Zan and Jiehong's blast-off closed the distance all too quickly. What happened next, surprised even the airship.