A/N: Well, I'm back at school, but my exams are over so I can relax a bit. As per usual, my thankies go to thebladeofchaos, Bladed Thesis, shyangel06, Rothek the Thief, A Reviewer, Kirinfang and Aibde for reviews, favourites and alerts! Even though I know I've lost some favourites and alerts recently, I'm glad that people still like my story. If the site would let us type smiley faces properly, you'd probably get one right now.
Disclaimer: (Is shot for still doing this) ONLY SU ZHI IS MINE.
I turned to see that the men at the supply base were struggling against a couple of elephants.
"I'd better go help them!" I said, turning back briefly to Sun Quan before running in their direction.
I wasn't entirely sure how you went about fighting an elephant - simply knocking the riders off their backs sounds a lot easier to do when you aren't faced with a ten foot beast like that. It wasn't just a question of the height, but also of how you knocked the riders off an animal that was impervious to shock.
Ready to try anything in this strange battle, I whipped out my wrist blades, jumped into the air when I judged myself to be in range, and whipped around in midair with my arms out, creating a wave of air that somehow managed to knock both riders off their elephants at once. The beasts then immediately settled down and became docile.
Right.
I made sure that the supply base soldiers were okay before turning back to the battle. Most of the tigers had run away by now, but there were still a few Nanman and elephants. I started back toward them, but stopped when I realised that they were losing heavily.
Well, I wasn't needed here anymore. Time to make my way to where I was to meet my bodyguards. I turned to the west, and began to pick my way through the debris, head down so I wouldn't trip and fall -
"Su?"
I looked up, not daring to believe my ears.
"Tong?"
There he was. The sounds of the fighting behind me seemed to fade away as I finally managed to persuade my legs to move towards him. I felt like I was about to explode from happiness as I flicked my wrist blades away, and stumbled over the remains of the wall into his embrace. I was still grinning when he let go of me.
"Did you miss me?" he said, grinning down at me.
"I'm going to kill you for being away for so long!" I said, before pulling him into another embrace.
An elephant trumpeted behind me, bringing me back to the battle.
"I suppose we'd better finish off here before that, hmm?" said Tong, still grinning.
I let go of Tong and flicked out my wrist blades in one smooth movement. He flicked his nunchucks out from his belt, and span them around. I smiled at him.
"Shall we?"
"Of course."
We set off down the way Tong had just come, and were soon approaching the first base. The rest of Tong's men had already cleared it out, from the look of it, allowing us to walk straight through and right into the heart of the action.
Ahead of us was one enormous mass of soldiers fighting, archers firing, and elephants stampeding. I shared a glance with Tong, elated but determined, before we both ran into the fray. I flicked my wrist blades in and out distractedly as I ran. This was going to need some of my stronger moves, at least until the crowd thinned out a bit.
"I've got the elephants!" shouted Tong, before disappearing into the brawl. I nodded to myself, concentrating on my move as I sped up, performed a half-turn no-handed cartwheel before launching into a series of back-flips with my arms held straight out and my blades shearing through anything they met. Ten meters and countless fatalities later, I straightened up and charged at the nearest uninjured enemy soldier.
I carried on hacking my way through the enemy. Every time I looked in the right direction, I could see that there were less and less elephants, until they were finally all gone, and Tong reappeared at my side.
"Fun as that was," he said, panting slightly as he took out a soldier who was trying to blind-side me, "we should really try and seal off the passage over there."
I glanced to where he'd gestured as I gutted a soldier who had been a bit overconfident in his attack, and saw even more Nanman pour out past the guard captain. We needed to get over there soon - the sheer intensity of the the soldiers all around us threatened to overwhelm us, both physically and mentally.
"Looks like we're fighting our way over there," I said, ducking under a spear and gutting the man to the owners right as Tong took out my would-be attacker.
"Race you there?" Tong said, smirking, before taking off.
In theory, it should have been easy for me to follow him, as he was creating a path, but I found out almost immediately that both the enemy and Wu soldiers has a distressing habit of collapsing at my feet in a bloody mess, suddenly jumping backwards to dodge wild swings, or generally getting in my way. Just when I thought I'd found an opening, it would be filled. In the end, I just gritted my teeth, put my head down, and pushed.
After a few feet, though, I could see that this approach wasn't going to work. I steeled myself for one final push -
"This is our land!"
I span around to be confronted by a large man with dark skin, a large pike, and an angry expression on his face.
"I am king Sha Moke, and I shall not let you take my land!"
The crowd seemed to open up slightly as I jumped back to avoid his wild overarm swing.
"You can't be a king!" I said as I ducked under a horizontal swipe from his pike. "A real king wouldn't look to anyone else for his orders!"
Sha Moke roared at my words, and swung at me again. I easily dodged, and grinned to myself when he next spoke.
"I have ten thousand men under my rule! Do not think I take orders from anybody!"
"Well, what is Meng Huo, huh?" I shouted, grinning maniacally. If I could just get him angry enough, then he would become careless, making for an easy defeat. It looked like it was working - he ground his pike into the soil, threw his head back, and bellowed at the sky. I braced myself against his fury, but was nearly knocked off my feet all the same. However, when he next looked at me, I knew I was in trouble.
"Meng Huo is the man who single-handedly united these weak nations, and deserves some respect from you invading fools! I would gladly give my life for him!"
He was suddenly on top of me, and it was all I could do to block his sudden frenzy of attacks. As the onslaught subsided, I attacked, using a combination of kicks, counters and slashes. I tried to perform an axe-kick, but he knocked my leg to the side with his weapon. He made a spirited attempt to disembowel me, and I knocked the blade out of the way and ran in closer, slashing at him with my blades as he tried to fend me off.
It was when he managed to slash my arm that I began to get a little desperate. As blood began to drip down from my left upper arm, I dropped back, grimacing from the pain. I was getting fed up of this, as well as all the soldiers jostling, collapsing and screaming all around me, so I flicked away my right wrist blade and pulled out my Clackers, acutely aware that the attack was going to be weaker without both hands -
A blade whistled past me, and my Clackers suddenly felt a lot lighter. Temporarily forgetting about the enraged king and the pain from my arm and fingers, I lifted the weapon to eye level. The string that had held the two ends together had been cut right through. My Clackers were ruined. The ease at which my favourite weapon had been disabled was... well, it was surreal. And incredibly infuriating.
"You broke my Clackers..." I said, almost to myself. "You cut the string and now they're broken... my freaking Clackers!"
My eyes narrowed as I refocused on the now hesitant Sha Moke. Without thinking, I wound my arm back, and threw the half of the Clackers that was still in my hand at him with all my strength. By some strange chance, the little metal ball trailing string smacked him square between the eyes, and he toppled like a felled tree. For good measure, I gave him a boot in the ribs.
"Bastard," I muttered as I went to retrieve the two halves of my Clackers. Tong appeared from out of the crowd as I straightened up, but stopped when he saw me.
"What happened to you?"
"Bastard over there attacked me, then he broke my Clackers so I knocked him out." I muttered darkly. Tong gestured at my bleeding arm.
"Did he do that, too?"
I looked at it as if seeing it for the first time (which I was), then back at Tong before shrugging.
"Let's just get this over with."
Tong took one look at me, and obviously decided against inquiring further.
"I closed off that passage. It's just an attack base and this lot to get to Meng Huo."
"Good."
I shoved my stricken Clackers into my pocket, and flicked out my right blade with slightly more force than necessary. I could see that we still had a long way to go before this battle was over - even with the decreased number of soldiers, there were still many more than I'd ever faced before. The Nanman closest to us looked hesitant to attack after my performance with Sha Moke, but they were looking more interested by the second.
"Hate to say this, but I think we need to pull out the big moves early ." I said as they edged closer than I was comfortable with.
"Don't you need your Clackers for that sort of thing?" Tong asked, turning to look behind us and dropping into a defensive stance.
"Pssh, they were only meant for backup. Luckily for us, I'm great at improvising." I said, while quickly flicking my blades away, bending to pick up Sha Moke's pike, and snapping the head off over my knee in one movement. "Right. Are you ready?"
We were completely surrounded by a contracting ring of Nanman soldiers, and stood back to back. I felt Tong tense behind me slightly, and began to concentrate on my own part of the move. Our attacks both struck at the same time, waves of his fire and my ice somehow mingling and becoming stronger, creating a cold that really burned. It seemed to spread further than usual, too. Soldiers fifty feet away were thrown from their feet, and the soldiers who had escaped injury took one look and beat a hasty retreat.
"That's what I call unity," I muttered as the plain was all but cleared of enemies. "Come on. Let's take down that attack base."
I threw away the broken pike handle, and flicked out my wrist blades again as we walked toward the attack base, occasionally stepping to the side to dodge the giant arrows being fired at us. The first group of soldiers ran at us, spears raised, but Tong darted forward and took them all out with a spinning jump kick. I stalked onward, into the base -
"My lady!"
I turned to see my bodyguards running up to me. They all seemed to be in one piece, which was reassuring.
Tong ran past me, swinging at someone behind me. I span around to find that all the men in the base were trying to kill me, and just in time to duck under another spear. I launched at the nearest person, slashing at his stomach with my blades before spinning around and planting my foot into the temple of another Nanman soldier. To my right, a couple more soldiers fell as my bodyguards joined in, and just in front of me and to the left, Tong took care of another soldier. It wasn't long before the base was empty, and Tong turned to me.
"Why do you have bodyguards?" he asked me, looking slightly confused and worried. I sighed.
"I'll tell you when we've finished up here. It's... complicated."
Tong hesitated before nodding, but I could tell that he was concerned. There was no time to reflect on this, though - another group of soldiers were running in our direction and needed our attention.
We quickly reached the Nanman main camp. Compared to the others I'd seen, it was practically deserted, even though there were still a good hundred or so people waiting around. And, in the far back corner...
I stared. An absolute monster of a man was sat proudly astride an elephant. His weapons appeared to be massive fanged animal head gauntlets. He looked around seven feet tall and several hundred pounds.
When they told us we were fighting Meng Huo, I didn't realise that this was who they meant!
As I stared, the man seemed to notice us. The elephant turned to face us, and the monster riding it threw his head back and laughed.
"I am Meng Huo!" he bellowed as the elephant began to lumber towards us, "And you're not gonna get our land!"
I dived to the side as they reached us, but quickly rolled back onto my feet. I was beginning to panic ever so slightly - that elephant could only obey its master, but how did you get a man that size off its back? It was impossible! I went to share a glance with Tong -
He wasn't there. The elephant moved to the side, and I saw him slump to the ground, blood dribbling from his temple. I took a step toward him, eyes wide with sudden numbing fear -
"My lady!"
I half turned, and saw Meng Huo bearing down on me. I dived to the side again, barely avoiding being trampled by the beast and completely on autopilot.
"We have you covered, my lady! Do what you must!"
I'd landed on my side, but I pulled myself onto my hands and knees and began to crawl towards Tong. My arm was stinging nastily, my blistered fingers were pure agony, and my hip hurt where I'd just landed awkwardly on it, but I didn't notice, or just didn't care. Tong was just lying there, half his face covered in blood, and his nunchucks lying where he'd dropped them. Had the elephant got him? Why hadn't he moved? Was he okay?
My hand fell on his nunchucks, and I felt the icy feeling of terror change to the burning fire of fury. They come here, threaten our land and all we have done to keep it safe, then have the - the unmitigated temerity to first break my weapon, my damned weapon, for god's sake, and then they dare to hurt my Tong? How dare they?! THEY SHALL NOT GET AWAY WITH IT A MOMENT LONGER!
My wrist blades flicked back into their sheathes for the last time as the red mist descended. My fingers closed around the nunchucks, and I was on my feet before I'd made a conscious movement. I turned and saw Meng Huo, riding around like the king of the damned world and knocking over my bodyguards as though they were nothing to him...
He shall not get away with it!
The rampaging elephant had knocked over one of the towers the Nanman archers used, and, through the red mist, I saw myself leap onto it, dash up the side, off the end onto a building... And Meng Huo was right in front of me. I took off in a flying side kick, with the apparent speed of continental drift but the unstoppability of an avalanche, saw Meng Huo try to block - too late! - felt the kick make contact, saw the monster of a man be forced off his elephant... and nearly fell over as I landed on the other side.
Regaining my balance, something made me swing the nunchucks up and around as I turned, and I caught Meng Huo a glancing blow on the chin. Undeterred, he came at me again, swinging his fearsome gauntlets, but then I was behind him, and raining blows down on his unprotected back. I didn't think, I just fought, as around me, my bodyguards - those who could still fight - fended off the other soldiers. They knew that this had become my fight.
Meng slammed his fists into the earth and I was knocked off my feet, but with barely a grunt of effort, I flipped upright again.. The edge of my fury was wearing off, but I fought on, bitterly determined to finish it. To this end, I performed a series of bandals, followed by a butterfly kick, then a back-flip kick, intended to catch him under the chin. He blocked it all, then lashed at me as I landed, forcing me to dodge clumsily. I fell on my behind, jarring my back, but scrambled to my feet and blocked his following assault.
"What's up? Is it getting too hot for ya?" the man bellowed. I glared at him, gritting my teeth and wiping my brow with my uninjured arm. Yes, I was hot, tired, sore, scared, angry as hell - but I wasn't about to give up any time soon. His insult had brought to mind an earlier failure. This monster was no Sha Moke...
"You say that, but you're sweating like a pig! You're no great leader! You're pathetic!"
He roared, to my hidden terrified delight.
"All these men look up to me! They see the man who beat the sense into a load of warring tribes! They see the man who acts when he's angry! And you don't wanna make me get that angry again!"
"You're all talk! These men see a fat, ugly, sweating pig, and they only follow you because you'll fight them if they don't! There is no respect here!"
Meng Huo fell silent, that odd type of silence you get when you're too enraged to speak.
"You dare -"
I never let him finish. As he dropped his guard, I leaped forward, nunchucks swinging. I attacked faster than I thought possible, and with every impact grew a ball of ice on the chain holding the two halves together. My penultimate attack had so much force behind it that I span right around, but I just used the momentum to create a stronger finishing move.
I swung the nunchucks at him, but without making contact. The ball of ice flew off at him, and hit him in the chest. He was thrown off his feet, and collapsed to the floor, struggling for breath and grimacing in agony. I turned, grimly satisfied at my victory, but stopped as I glanced red in the distance.
Tong... Oh, god, Tong!
A/N: Don't expect coherence. It is late, I had a crap day at work, and I am tired. Therefore, there will probably be many mistakes, because I only glanced through it.
Also, please don't kill me. Because it only gets worse from here...