NOTICE: I really ought to write faster, this one took over a week. Sorry to keep you waiting.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own MapleStory or its characters (owned by Nexon) except my own OC's.

CHAPTER 10: Vs Francis!

Twenty pairs of eyes all staring at the two hunchbacked people. The boy looked at the man and he nodded. The boy threw the thing on his back in the air and held it in his hands. He unwrapped the bandages, revealing a large puppet. He connected his fingers to it by Mana strings.

"You had us fooled long enough! I am Mighty Titan, and if you do not surrender, we will force you to beg for mercy!" said the pirate captain. He wore brown pioneer overalls, with the bottoms darker than the top. He had his hair closely shaved and had very tanned skin. He looked a lot like SourPunch. He wore a black sea captain hat and had a small scar on his eyelid.

"Surrender? Get real. I will never surrender!" said the man. At that instant, two warriors, a pirate and a magician all charged at him. He jumped up to a higher tree platform, luring the masters away from their students. Only Drake had stayed behind, he was in no condition to fight. Ten juvenile warriors walked up to the puppeteer.

"Pfft. You are pathetic. My puppet will destroy you all." said he said as his puppet launched a throwing star from its neck. It hit a pirate and she clutched her shoulder as she pulled the star out.

"You're going down!" yelled Natasha. A few others agreed with her.

"Do you know who I am? I am Francis, the mighty puppeteer! And now you will die!"

Francis launched several ninja stars from the puppets neck, yet Natasha deflected them right back at the puppet with her umbrella. She had a confident smile. Everyone else had a shocked face as all the stars impacted the puppets joints.

"Gah, I did not expect such a bold move." remarked Francis. "No matter, I shall still destroy you with my invincible puppet!"

Only one person did not react to this: SourPunch. He was leaning against a tree without a care in the world. Out of the blue, four ninja stars flew at him and he grabbed them between his fingers, without even opening his eyes. He turned to Francis with a soul piercing gaze, which would leave even the mightiest of warriors intimidated.

"You talk of the puppet as if it was a unit." said Sour. Everyone looked at him, without a clue of what he was talking about. Francis, on the other hand, grinned.

"From what we guess, the puppet is one. And that is why so many failed. Because the puppet can divide into at least three pieces. The arms and the main body. And chances are the legs can come off as well. That means we are up against five opponents, each with their own weapon."

"What on earth are you talking about? You have the intelligence of a pile of shit..." said Oshua.

"Think of it as an enemy with Swiss army knives in each hand. A weapon inside a weapon."

Kero was agreeing with Oshua and everyone else, until he remembered part of his previous fight.

"You are strong. I will admit that. But are you strong enough!"

"Stronger than you will ever be, you puppet freak."

"I like your attitude, kid. Show me what you got!"

Kero entered sword to sword combat, matching the puppet blow for blow. Out of the blue, the puppet's head sprung forward, knocking Kero back a long way.

"Of course! When I fought the puppet before, it detached its head to knock me over!" said Kero. "The puppet can detach and use its limbs as weapons, not to mention the weapons inside the limbs. So it's a weapon inside a weapon inside a weapon."

"A weapon inside a weapon inside a weapon?" asked Victor. "You've been a bit crazy, but man, this is a lot even for you."

A heated debate opened up and everyone was against Kero, except for Sour who knew that the puppeteer was going to strike any moment now. And he did.

"Hit the floor!"

God bless whoever said that because a second later, machine gun fire ripped through the crowd, wounding several people.

"Guess that broke the argument." groaned Sabrina as she got up from the floor.

"Macro Skill! Titanic Drill!"

Mighty dropped to the floor and launched a kick whilst standing on one arm and one foot, sending the hunchback into the air. He then used Mana to jump up high into the sky and held the man upside down and spun as he fell back to the ground. He penetrated several tree platforms before being knocked off course and drilling vertically through a giant tree trunk. He ran out of momentum just before busting out of the trunk. He swore as the man revealed to be a disguised log. He jumped back up to the higher tree platforms as Cruz, Drake and Paige were trying to defeat him. Who knew if it was him or another log?

"Ugh, we can't hold off for much longer." said Paige as she avoided an exploding sphere of Mana.

"We can...just watch me!" replied Drake.

"I swear, you have roared way too often in the past few months. If you wanna be deaf then fine, but count me out." said Cruz.

"Too late! Dragon Roar!"

A purple shockwave expanded in every direction, destroying almost everything in a 50 metre radius except for the warriors. The hunchbacked man was blown away and turned into a log. Many more copies who were hiding in the trees were blown back and turned into a log. The real one landed outside the blast radius, hurt, but nothing major. He jumped back in with exploding Mana spheres in his hands.

"Macro Skill! Titanic Hammer!"

SourPunch kicked Francis into the sky and jumped up to an incredible height. He locked his hands together and making them glow blue with energy. Out of nowhere, an arm grabbed Sour's foot and stabbed it with its concealed blade. The puppet then moved on its own, pulling a Mana string to bring SourPunch to the floor.

"You are strong, young one. I would expect no less from the disciple of the Mighty Titan." said Francis. "But you are not strong enough!"

"Macro Skill! Puppet Clones!"

Out of nowhere, the puppet divided into two, then four, then...thirty two. The puppets created a pyramid like formation of Mana strings, each puppet holding two puppets, leaving sixteen puppets able to attack.

"I control them all. You cannot destroy me. There are too many."

"Yes we can! Charge! For the Maple Land!" yelled an anonymous adventurer. Everyone charged. So did all the puppets. Everyone entered the fight. Mages were at a disadvantage, as they lacked close combat ability, yet fought just as fiercely and fearlessly as everyone else.

The blue haired boy looked across the horizon. He had heard an explosion earlier and hopped off the tree and into the forest. Out of nowhere, a red headed girl appeared.

"Hello Apollo."

"Hey Phoenix. Listen, I'm busy, ok? I have to see what happened out there."

"Let me come, brother."

"No. You stay here. If I don't come back in ten, then call for help."

"No way! There is no way I stay here. Besides, I heard that annoying pirate was there. I can't wait to..."

"Quiet!"

An explosion of green light appeared in the forest. The siblings jumped through the trees towards their destination.

Purple eyes stared at the puppeteer. A green aura covering the body. A draconic head composed of aura. Fangs that could shred through almost anything. Almost everyone had been knocked down and Oshua had begun a transformation and had rampaged through seven puppets and was aiming for the eighth.

"Wow, she sure is mad. Even you haven't gotten this angry." said Kero.

"Yeah..." replied an uninterested Mad, as he rolled out of the way of an ice ball. Oshua's draconic head of aura began breathing ice at the Mana strings, keeping the puppets in place. It then chomped through the strings as the green aura intensified. Oshua then spun around, releasing a blizzard, which froze Francis in place and destroyed most of the puppet clones. Unfortunately, a lot of her teammates were now stuck on the platform.

"Wh...What are you?"

"I am Oshua. Do you want to know what you are? DEAD!" she yelled as she spat out an ice ball barrage. As they impacted the puppeteer, they blew his flesh off his body. To her dismay, the Francis was just a puppet clone. The real Francis thrusted his arm into Oshua's stomach. As she reeled back, all her Mana was locked. Her aura disappeared, her fangs receeded.

"Take that! Not so strong now are you?" mocked the puppeteer.

Oshua then exploded in a flash of green. The aura burned brighter than ever before. A second dragon head appeared and a tail of Mana emerged from the intense green aura. Her eyes looked evil.

"Note to self: Get out of here." said Kero.

"Get out of here!" a voice screamed. It was Natasha. Kero, Mad, Sour and a few other people still standing grabbed their teammates and got out of there. A ball of electricity exploded, destroying half of the tree platform that they were standing on.

Oshua's dragon heads bit the puppet on the arms, causing them to come off. They launched straight at her like rockets, and the poison blades impaled her.

"We're toast..." said Sabrina.

"Toast? We're in deeper shit than toast, sis." replied Mad.

As Francis extracted the blades from her chest, she smiled. A red liquid bubbled out of the wound, reacting with the aura, turning it into a green gas. The wounds slowly began healing

"What? They healed? But how?" asked Francis.

"Die!" screamed Oshua as her fangs began filling with a green liquid. She bit Francis on the shoulder and he recoiled away in pain.

He held his wound, and asked: "What did you do to me?"

"I gave you a taste of your own medicine. So you might want to find an antidote."

"This can't be! No! No! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

"Ground Smash!"

The hunchback jumped as purple blasts emerged from the ground. Out of nowhere, a fist barrage knocked the man off the ledge.

SMASH!

Francis, the puppet and his master were all in a pile. The five masters arrived with the fifteen juveniles Oshua calmed down and her aura turned into a sphere. She lay it down carefully next to the pile.

"Get the fuck out of here!"

The sphere exploded, blasting almost everyone away, wrecking everything in a 100 metre radius. About a minute later, people began waking up from the blast. Out of the smoke, two figures appeared. They were both beaten to a pulp, but they were there. And armed.

"Prepare to die."

The adventurers have lost! Or is there still a shimmer of hope? Is it really a grim victory for Francis and his master? And what of Phoenix and Apollo?

New chapters every 2-10 days.