Chapter 52: Son of a Gun
So sorry about the late update, everyone, something went wrong with the documenr submitter. And, considering that I haven't seen anyone else update any stories in the last 36 hours, I'm guessing I'm not the only one. However, I have discovered a workaround; to post, just overwrite an existing document you have stored with the new chapter content, and save. Thought anyone who was having the same problem would want to know. Anyway, on with the story!
Previously, on The Guild Next Door . . .
Tyria flinched, as the hunter crouching over her, about to bury a bullet in her skull, suddenly span away and collapsed, blood erupting from a hole in his chest. Motormouth's rifle fell out of Pierce's shaking hands.
Doing his best to swallow his emotions and focus on the situation at hand, the Tamer focused on his adoptive sister, and Grace pointed. "They're getting away with the Caladrius,"
"Oh, hell no," Pierce growled, and Requipped his flute.
~P's E~
Raya screeched at the top of her lungs as she rose into the air, Pierce and Grace clinging onto her back. Beneath them, the hunters finished securing the unconscious Divine Caladrius to the cage and all rapidly piled into Jarod Blastreyne's caravan as the Guild Master of Severed Tusk himself took his seat on a raised chair at the head of the caravan, before producing a whip and using it to strike the giant beetle he was using as a beast of burden. With a pained screech, the insect scrambled forwards, rapidly accelerating as it dragged its cargo towards the forest surrounding Qilin Village.
"Oh, no you don't! Solar Blast, Raya!" Pierce commanded, and his partner obliged, firing a supernova of flaming energy at the accelerating caravan. However, one of the lackeys had clambered onto the roof and, with a flourish, magically deflected the blast, sending it spinning away ahead of them.
Wheels clattered off the stone paving, before bouncing onto dirt track, and Jarod spurred his ride to go faster as the attack shot over his head. Looking up beneath his grey aviator's helmet, he watched as the fiery projectile slammed into the forest, setting a trio of trees ablaze, and gulped as the fire began to spread. "Faster, beast!" he commanded, spurring the beetle to reach the opening in the treeline that was the sole road out of the village before the fire could spread to it. The Caladrius' cage was metal, but his lime green caravan was wood and the reins holding the beetle to it leather; if they caught fire he would be in major trouble.
Pierce gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes as Raya swooped in close. "Can we trap them in the fire?" he questioned, and the phoenix twitched her wings in the approximation of a shrug. "Not at this altitude, but maybe if we follow them in,"
"Do it," he commanded.
~P's E~
"Tyria?" The tech wizard was jolted out of her pained daze by Sarph's shout, and she weakly looked up to see the golden knight driving a horse-drawn caravan that he had apparently stolen from the hunters. "Are you coming?" he challenged.
"I can't," she moaned, gesturing to her bloody leg, and Sarph winced. "I see,"
"I'll be fine, go help Pierce and Grace," Tyria commanded. "I'm sure the qilins or someone will be able to help me," As if by magic, Cor appeared, running over in panic. "Tyria? Hang on, I'll get help!" the ruby qilin declared.
Sarph watched him go with raised eyebrows. "Alright. Good luck," he nodded, and was about to drive away, when distant music reached their ears and rapidly drew closer.
Within a minute, the Sonic Boom rocketed out of the forest and drew to a halt next to the caravan. Panting, Boomer rushed out of the shrine. "I saw everything! Come on!" he shouted, getting into his magicmobile and gunning the accelerator, driving in hot pursuit of the chase that had just entered the forest. Sarph nodded, following him with the stolen caravan.
As a group of qilin medics appeared to aid her, Tyria watched them go and smiled.
~P's E~
Pierce squinted, trying to protect his eyes from the smoke in the air without fully closing them. Raya was flying along the forest road in pursuit of his father's caravan ahead of them, but the fire in the forest had well and truly spread. The left side of the path was already an incendiary maelstrom, and the right side was rapidly catching too. Raya, of course, was unbothered, but Pierce and Grace were having a harder time of it.
It was some small consolation, though, to see that the hunters they were pursuing were having just as much trouble keeping the flames away from Jarod's tinderbox of a caravan. One of them obviously had some kind of protection magic, and was using it to deflect as many sparks as he could from the vehicle.
Raya flinched as a bang rang out, and through blurry vision Pierce noticed that a couple of Jarod's lackeys were crouched on the back of the two-storey caravan and were using the cage containing the unconscious Caladrius as cover from which to take shots at them.
In response, Raya returned fire, but aimed her fireballs downwards, targeting the metal/rubber wheels of the cage trailer and avoiding taking the chance of hitting the Caladrius.
"I can't get a clear shot," Grace frowned, searching for an opening to use her Roar. "If I attack, I might hit the Caladrius. And I can't safely warp reality while we're moving at this speed,"
"It's alright. Just keep looking for a chance," Pierce reassured her, and Grace nodded.
Suddenly, a familiar sound reached their ears as Raya continued flying through the conflagration of flame and bullets.
Jarod, cocking his head and frowning from the driver's seat of his caravan, narrowed his eyes. "Is that . . music?"
"Looks like Boomer's come to join the party," Pierce grinned.
Fast-paced pop music echoed through the mountain as the Sonic Boom, its metal and glass body and steel wheels impervious to the fire raging around it, raced down the path to catch up. Boomer whooped with a frenzied grin breaking out beneath his black spikes of hair, before flinching and rapidly patting out a stray spark that had caught his black cotton jacket through a gap in the sunroof. "Astro designed the Sonic Boom with metal tyres because the warp drive places too much stress on rubber, which would tear itself to pieces after a few warps. And a by-product of this design is that the Sonic Boom is completely fireproof!" he declared, driving straight through the blaze without a second thought.
Sarph's stolen caravan, on the other hand, was made of the same flammable materials as Jarod's, and the golden knight had been forced to find (or make) an alternative exit to the village.
Boomer slowed his car so that it was keeping pace right behind Raya. "You didn't really think that I'd let you have all the fun, did you?" he challenged, and Pierce, sparing a moment to glance back at him, grinned. "Glad to have you on board!"
At last, Jarod saw daylight ahead, and, with a cheer, he spurred his mount onwards, driving out out of the flaming forest. Raya and the Sonic Boom emerged directly afterwards, and, freed from the constraints of the trees, Raya immediately gained altitude. This inadvertently gave Pierce the perfect view of the long, winding road down the mountain that Jarod was guiding his caravan down, with the Sonic Boom in pursuit.
"Every second counts, Raya. Let's go in again," Pierce suggested, and Raya nodded, angling her wings and dive-bombing the caravan. Flame flickered around her wings as she flew, and charged a Solar Blast in her beak.
This, of course, hardly went unnoticed by Jarod. As the head hunter wrestled with the reins to guide his caravan around a turn, he spotted the yellow bird in the corner of his vision and growled. "That phoenix . . it's that phoenix that came between me and him. This is all its fault," he growled, before beckoning to a nearby lackey. "You. Drive," he commanded, shoving the reins in the unfortunate man's direction, before abdicating his seat and climbing onto the roof. Precariously balanced on the unstable surface, Jarod drew his gun and pressed the sight to his eye, watching the phoenix as she dived towards him.
He fired.
Suddenly, Raya screeched and spammed in mid-air, and her left wing crumpled, causing her to lose control. "Raya!" Pierce panicked, seeing the way that she was pitching towards the snowy side of the mountain. Behind him, Grace leapt clear and vanished into a fold of reality, as, on instinct, he produced his flute and frantically recalled Raya - just before she could crash, which sent Pierce skidding into a snowdrift.
Spluttering, the Tamer pulled his head out of the bank and wiped dirt and snow out of his eyes. Ignoring the way that his body ached, he concernedly looked at his flute, hoping Raya was alright. The flute's magic would heal her over time, but it was still worrying . . He glared after the caravan as it rumbled away - and blinked. "Oh, shit,"
Pierce really needed to talk to his sister about her habit of running headlong into dangerous situations.
With a melody, Knox emerged from his flute and cast a baleful glare at him, but Pierce wasn't in the mood for any of his attitude. "I know, you hate sunlight and are perpetually in a bad mood, I don't care! We need to catch up with that caravan!" he snapped.
The werewolf was taken aback at Pierce's uncharacteristic snappishness. "Okay, okay. Grab on," he offered, baring his broad back.
~P's E~
"You're a meanie!" Grace shouted as she emerged from a rift in reality and punched Jarod in the face, sending him staggering and landing on the roof of the moving caravan.
"What?" the head hunter blinked, shocked by the unexpected assault. Glaring, he whipped his rifle around and fired again, but Grace swept her arm sideways and declared, "Reality Dragon's Spatial Wing!" In a blur of reality, the bullet vanished. She still didn't use that one much; she wasn't comfortable with using it on living beings, but inanimate objects or attacks directed at her were fine.
"Fine. I don't use magic much, but I suppose in this situation, I can make an exception," Jarod tched, and a brown magic circle appeared in his hand. "Kinetics!" he snapped, and an invisible force slammed into Grace's chest, knocking her into the air. Beneath her, the caravan moved without her, and the young Dragon Slayer immediately let herself fall into a rift, emerging in what she thought was Jarod's blind spot and preparing another blow.
But Grace had underestimated Jarod's hunter instincts, and a well-honed sixth sense for danger alerted the man to her attack. He wheeled and brandished his right fist, and suddenly her forwards motion was drained to nothing, sending her crashing to the ground. "What was that?" she moaned, picking herself up - and, as a now-familiar bang rang out, swallowed the bullet that had just been fired at her in a blur of reality with a small wave of her hand.
"Worth a shot," Jarod dismissively holstered his rifle once again.
Grace, realising it was impossible to take her foe by surprise, prepared for a full-force frontal attack. "Reality Dragon's Spiral Slash!" she declared, spreading her arms and throwing herself forwards, launching into a whirlwind of reality energy.
Jarod raised an arm and shouted, "Kinetics!" and, once again, the greenette was suddenly stopped dead. Then another invisible blow knocked her backwards, just as the caravan underfoot hit a bump. She collapsed, sliding dangerously close to the edge of the roof.
"My magic is simple, but that often leads people to underestimate its power," Jarod snorted, but didn't elaborate, instead delivering a kick to Grace's side before she could recover that sent her sliding off the side of the vehicle - but, at the last second, her hand caught the edge and she clung on, glaring defiantly up at the hunter as he leered down at her, and raised his foot to stamp on her hand.
"Not on your life!" Boomer shouted from where the Sonic Boom was trailing behind. He'd been watching the fight using the car's cameras, and the central speaker had been raised out of its normal position pointed straight upwards by a retractable bracket set into the roof and was now pointed directly at the roof. He'd been waiting to get a clear shot, and now, with Grace no longer on the roof and Jarod standing up straight, the hunter was a prime target. "Mega-Bass!" he shouted, launching his ultimate attack.
There was a massive boom that drowned out all the other noise in the area, and a white missile flew from the main speaker in less than a second, smashing straight into Jarod and throwing him clear off the roof before he could even react.
The greenette grinned, but winced, feeling her grip starting to slip . .
"Grace! Jump! Or, fall! I'll catch you!" Pierce shouted from below her, and she looked down to see her adoptive brother, riding Knox, keeping pace beneath her. Smiling, she obligingly let go and fell straight into Pierce's arms. "Thanks!" Grace smiled as Pierce let her get a proper seat on the werewolf's back.
"Oi! I can't carry both of you - I'm not that strong!" Knox wheezed, and the two nodded. "Alright," Grace nodded, jumping in place and vanishing into an invisible rift. With his burden removed, the werewolf jumped sideways, scrabbling onto the roof of the caravan, just as Grace landed nearby.
The two wizards heard dark chuckling behind them, and turned to see a pair of hunter lackeys pointing guns at them. "Hands up, guilders!" one of them demanded.
Instead, a blast of grey Reality energy - "Reality Dragon's Roar!" - blew them off the roof and sent them crashing to the road below.
Grace tched. "Goons," before looking to Pierce for approval. The boy grinned and nodded, fully agreeing with both her assessment and response, and recalled Knox.
He looked at the connections behind him that attached the cage containing the Divine Caladrius to Jarod's caravan. "It would be really good to have a sword around now," he sighed.
"So, you're still a thorn in my side, eh boy?" Pierce and Grace turned to see Jarod Blastreyne grimacing at them from the front of the carriage roof, where he had fallen after Boomer attacked him. "And after all these years too . . and to think I'd dared to believe I never would have to deal with you again, son," he mused.
"Sorry to disappoint," Pierce shrugged.
"No you aren't. We established that when you loosed a rampaging chimera on my camp," the guild master rolled his eyes. "You know, three people died because you did that," he informed his son, curious as to what his reaction would be.
Pierce shrugged. He'd sorted out his position on taking people's lives a long time ago. While he'd never kill a victim, he shed no tears over the deaths of criminals. "And that's supposed to bother me? You can't claim they were innocent people, who never did anything to deserve a fate like that. Not like all the beasts you slaughter on a regular basis,"
Jarod conceded the point. "Oh well. You should have stayed out of this, son," he sighed, cocking his gun. "Though I'm certain this will grant me some notoriety in the criminal underworld. After all, how heartless does a man have to be to kill his own son?" he asked with a slight chuckle.
Pierce was about to respond, but paused, hearing a yelling noise. "What's that?" he questioned, looking up the hill to the sound's source.
There was an out-of control caravan speeding straight down the hill towards them. The horse had vanished, and Sarph, brandishing his sword and yelling like a maniac, was riding in the driver's seat. It was immediately obvious that the two caravans were on a collision course.
"What the hell?" Pierce blinked, and Grace gulped. Jarod followed their gaze and raised an eyebrow, which vanished beneath his helmet. "You've made a lot of very strange friends, son," he offered.
"And I wouldn't trade them for the world," Pierce nodded, accepting the backhanded compliment, even as Jarod turned and jumped off the roof. The Tamer blinked, before dashing forwards to see what his father had done, and saw that his father had landed on the giant beetle that was pulling his caravan and was in the process of using a knife to cut through the reins that kept them attached.
"Pierce! We have to bail!" Grace shouted from behind him. The blond could see that Sarph in his stolen caravan was bearing down on them, and the two caravans would crash into each other at any moment. But the one they were standing on was still moving too quickly. They couldn't jump off safely. "How?" he asked.
Grace thought it through, and realised there was only one option. She stepped forwards, standing next to Pierce, and a silver magic circle appeared in her hand. "Pierce, do you trust me?"
"Yes," the response was immediate, and Grace smiled. She'd put this off long enough as it was. "Alright. Reality Dragon's Spatial Wing!" The world in front of them blurred, and then the caravan's momentum carried them into the distorted space.
And then suddenly the two had landed in a snowdrift. Pierce immediately recovered, looking around, and hastily pulled Grace out of the snow. "Grace, did you just -" A massive crash interrupted them, and he turned to watch the caravans smash into each other only a few metres away. Timbers buckled, glass shattered, splinters flew everywhere and Sarph laughed like a madman as he was lifted clear by his Aera magic wings. When the dust settled, the two vehicles had been reduced to a haphazard pile of timber, with the giant cage holding the Divine Caladrius, which had remained intact, wedged into the side.
"Yeah. I teleported both of us," Grace nodded, shakily smiling.
They heard Sarph distantly shouting, "It's not teleportation! It's bending the fabric of . ." but they ignored him, and Pierce grinned. "Awesome. Well done,"
Grace weakly smiled in response. "Thanks, Pierce,"
"Oh, how touching," The two saw Jarod, riding on the back of his massive insect, bearing down on them. "Enjoy your final moments," he declared, looming over them as his pet reared up, preparing its front legs to stab the two wizards. Pierce stepped forwards, shielding Grace with his body - and paused, as the ground underfoot shook.
Suddenly, the snowy dirt underfoot splintered, cracks running through the ground as the snow shifted and began to slide away. "What the -" Jarod demanded, but before he could finish his sentence, the chunk of mountain they were standing on broke open, revealing that it was a thin layer of dirt and snow covering a massive crack in the ground, which the hunter and his beast fell into, screaming as they fell.
"Shi-zzle," Pierce hastily changed what he had been going to say, remembering just a second too late that Grace was standing right behind him.
The two peered over the edge. It was so deep, however, that they couldn't see the bottom. "Think he's dead?" Grace questioned, her orange eyes glistering in the reflected light of the snow, and Pierce shook his head. "Naah. His Kinetic magic would allow him to stop himself in mid-air moments before he landed. We'll be lucky if he bruised,"
"How does his magic work, anyway? It's weird, like all my momentum was just drained when he used it," Grace mused, confused.
"His magic lets him manipulate kinetic energy," Pierce explained. "You know, a being's motion. It lets him immobilise his enemies by preventing them from generating the forwards motion needed to move. He can also use it to attack, hitting his enemies with projectiles of pure force,"
"That's a weird magic," Grace commented.
"There's a lot of odd kinds of magic out there," the Tamer shrugged. "Long and short of it is, he'll have survived that fall," He Requipped his flute. "Meaning I gotta go after him," He quickly played the tune to summon Cubelios. Raya was still injured, and while he could have summoned Victoria, he knew that because Mount Zheng was a volcano, conditions would be hot down there, and Cubelios, as a cold-blooded snake, would deal with the heat better than Victoria could. "Okay, Cubelios, I need you to fly me down there," he commanded, pointing for emphasis, and the giant, winged viper obligingly spread her wings and offered her broad back for Pierce to ride her. The Tamer jumped on as Sarph flew over and the Sonic Boom pulled up nearby.
"Your father's down there, isn't he?" Boomer questioned, and Pierce nodded.
"We could just walk away?" Sarph offered. "We've successfully rescued most of the village and the Divine Caladrius, and his operation is in shambles. That's pretty good. No one could fault us for resting on our laurels,"
"No. I have to go after him. I can't let him escape, not now. Not after all this," Pierce shook his head.
"Well, me and Grace can't follow you down there," Boomer pointed out. "Neither can I. My wingspan is too wide, and it looks like the fissure narrows down there," Sarph pointed out. Pierce realised he was right; the only reason Cubelios would fit was because her wings were disproportionately small, so much so that it was a wonder she could fly to begin with.
"It doesn't matter. I still have to do this," Pierce shook his head. "Come on, Cubelios. Let's get down there," The snake hissed in what sounded like agreement, and lifted off, before diving down into the depths of the mountain and carrying the Tamer with her.
~P's E~
"Damnit, I can barely see anything," Pierce huffed when they reached the bottom. Cubelios hissed inquisitively, and Pierce cast her a baleful look. "We can't all have night vision, missy," he evenly retorted, before pausing as a thought struck him. "Wait, maybe we can," he mused, before tensing. "Take-Over: Werewolf!" At once, silver-grey fur coated his body, his teeth sharpened and became canine, lupine ears and a short tail emerged, and his eyes changed, becoming far more receptive to the minimal light. Pierce gritted his teeth and swallowed, trying to keep the rush of hormones that usually accompanied that spell at bay. Now was no time to go wild.
Cubelios approvingly hissed, and Pierce raised an irritated eyebrow. "Let me guess. You were trying to tell me to do this all along," The snake was unresponsive, and her Tamer was reminded of her problems with understanding the human language. Which was unfortunate, but what could you do?
The two wandered down the cave, searching for any sign of Jarod or his giant beetle. "It's too quiet," Pierce moaned to himself. This was why he liked having Kit around. The yokai always had something to say. His serpentine companion hissed sympathetically, and the Tamer again wondered exactly how much Cubelios understood when he talked.
They paused, noticing an unearthly yellow glow from a chamber up ahead. "Let's go investigate," Pierce raised his eyebrows, leading on, and soon they passed through a rocky archway, similar to a door.
"Whoa," Pierce gasped, and Cubelios hissed in amazement. Before them was a simmering, glowing pool of lava, which took up around half of the floor space of the chamber they were in, which was shaped roughly like a sphere horizontally bisected. Three passages intersected the cave, and the ground underfoot was a crisp, volcanic brown. "We really are inside an active volcano," he mused in wonderment.
Some sixth sense alerted him, and Pierce jumped aside as a bullet shot through the area where his head had been seconds prior. He cast around and spotted his father hidden in the shadows of an alcove above the lava. "That's Take-Over magic, isn't it?" Jarod sneered, and Pierce growled an affirmative, glaring at him. "You just keep finding new ways to disappoint me," the hunter mused. "To think my son would wilfully join his flesh with that of a lowly beast," he snorted in faint amusement.
Pierce remained silent, lacking a comeback, and instead played the tune to recall Cubelios. As he did, the hunter snorted. "No matter. Your head is forfeit one way or another," he growled, before, with a massive leap, he leapt over the pool of lava and landed opposite Pierce on the rock shelf. "Do you know what you've done?" he demanded.
Pierce was about to respond, but his father wouldn't let him. "You've ruined me! You've ruined my life's work! I spent decades building Severed Tusk from the ground up, and in the span of a night and a day it gets brought crashing down around my ears!" he barked, gritting his teeth. "I was on the cusp of greatness! With the power of the Divine Caladrius, the power to heal any wound or affliction instantly, I would have been unstoppable! Hades of Grimoire Heart, Eternity of Kairos End and even Mard Geer of Tartaros, none of them would have been able to stand up to a wizard who could immediately rid himself of any injury or curse they could inflict! Severed Tusk's position in the Balam Alliance would have been assured, and my name would be heralded as that of the greatest hunter who ever lived!"
" 'The greatest hunter who ever lived', huh?" Pierce parroted with a bitter grin, tapping his flute as he did to signal Inky. "Yeah, that sounds right. All you ever cared about was killing, so it stands to reason you'd want to be able to say no one does it better than you,"
Jarod rolled his eyes. "I'd tell you to stop being so subjective, but it's a bit late for that," he huffed. "Trying to talk to you never did get me anywhere. We both know that there's only one way either of us will walk out of here,"
"True," Pierce nodded, before bringing his flute to his lips and dashing forward, blasting Inky's ink at his father as he closed in for a direct hit. The blasts stopped dead as Jarod barked "Kinetics!" and drained the motion from them, but doing so allowed Pierce to close the distance and deliver a blow to his face that sent the man reeling backwards.
Jarod rolled with the punch, spinning on his heels and dealing Pierce a backhanded blow backed up with extra Kinetic energy, before raising his rifle again, and preparing to fire. However, Pierce, his muscles rippling with lupine energy, ducked under the shotgun and forced it upwards, sending the bullet up towards the cave ceiling, before simultaneously bringing his knee into Jarod's groin and his fist into his throat.
"Your best chance to inflict a fatal blow is to go for the throat," Pierce mockingly quoted.
"I can't believe you remember that," Jarod commented as the two disengaged, and the Tamer shrugged. "Turns out it works on humans and basilisks alike,"
"Of all the things I tried to teach you, that's what sticks in your head. Typical," Jarod tched, before raising his gun and taking advantage of the distance between them to fire without impediment.
And, in a flash, a white streak of light shot from the flute and into Pierce's body. Recognising the sensation, Pierce released the Take Over and allowed the Yokai Unison to envelop him, feeling his hair extend into a massive white mane and magical fur coat his body. The bullet pinged off his new, bulletproof coat.
Jarod raised an eyebrow, sensing the unearthly magic power emanating from Pierce/Kit. "That's new,"
"Actually, Yokai Unison predates you by several centuries," Kit pointed out as he rushed forwards. Jarod brought an arm up and declared, "Kinetics!" and the yokai fusion stopped dead, granting him the time he needed to holster his gun and prepare for another bout of hand-to-hand combat.
But, instead, Kit leapt backwards to restrategise. "Damnit. That Kinetic magic of his will prevent us from dealing any solid blows," Pierce muttered, and Kit weighed in, sharing his tongue. "We could just wear him down in hand-to-hand combat?"
"No. Yokai Unison puts a major drain on my magic reserves, remember? We won't be able to hold on as long as he can," Pierce pointed out, trying to pitch his voice so that his father couldn't hear.
"Damnit. Well, there has to be some way around his Kinetic magic. What way could we attack so that he can't stop us from coming at him, even if he drains our momentum?" the yokai wondered, and Pierce pondered for a bit, before it suddenly hit him. "The ceiling! We need to hit him from above! Gravity will continue our attack even if he stops us!"
"Perfect!" Kit suddenly made a break for a curved part of the cavern wall, powering straight up the side of the cave. The hunter watched, but didn't respond as Kit powered through the slant between the wall and the ceiling, before kicking off and launching himself straight towards him. He simply raised his gun towards the wall and fired.
"Yokai Wave Blast - ah!" The bullet ricocheted off the side of the cave and punched Kit in the chest, boosted by the power of Kinetic force. While it was still deflected by his bulletproof magical fur, the impact knocked him sideways in mid-air . . and sent him toppling straight towards the nearby pool of lava.
A flash of light enveloped Pierce's body as Kit cancelled the Unison, and Pierce drew breath for some whispered final words before he vanished under the surface of the molten rock.
Jarod watched, emotionless, as his son disappeared beneath the bubbling lava. "Well, that took far too long," he growled, turning away and deciding it was time he found a way out of these caves.
But, beneath the lava, an eye opened. An eye, surrounded by feathers. A phoenix's eye.
The hunter turned back as he heard a bubbling from the lava. "What, did that brat give the volcano indigestion?" he groaned, glaring at the lava pool as though it were an errant child.
And then a massive shape burst from it, with beating wings and lava dripping from its feathers. Jarod gazed upwards, eyes wide as Pierce, his body coated in orange and gold feathers, plumage running down his head and neck, a burnished gold beak adorning his face, seven majestic tailfeathers splayed behind his legs, and sixteen-foot wings spread outwards with lava dripping off them.
At the last moment before hitting the lava, Pierce had invoked his Take Over: Phoenix Soul, drawing on Raya and, more importantly, her complete immunity to fire and lava. He hated to call on her again after she had been shot, but hoped he could be forgiven under the circumstances. And, sensing her soul inside him, he could tell she was enjoying this just as much as he was.
The look on his father's face was priceless. After all, it probably seemed to him that his son had just been reincarnated as an angel.
"Solar Blast!" Pierce shrieked, building a massive flare of solar energy, enhanced by the lava he had just been immersed in, in his beak, and aimed directly at his father, before unleashing it. The shot crossed the space between them in an instant, and detonated.
The fiery blast blew Jarod clear across the cave, sending him crashing to the ground. His helmet fell off and rolled to a halt nearby, letting his blonde dreadlocks loose, and, futilely, the hunter raised his gun and tried to fire . . only for the weapon to promptly liquefy in his hands, the sheer heat having reduced it to molten slag. He squeaked in horror as the white-hot metal burned his hands and frantically withdrew them.
"It's over, Jarod," Pierce declared, landing, furling his wings, and striding towards his father. "You're done," he said with finality in his voice.
Jarod could only numbly nod.
A/N
A/N
So, funny story . . I got all the way up to writing this chapter before realising I still had no idea what kind of magic Jarod used. Up until now, all he's needed was his gun. Whoops. XD So I started thinking about what kind of magic a hunter would use. I've already done illusions, to bait and lure prey, traps, to trap, and pure animal strength to fight them on their own terms. Not to mention Metal Make for supplies. So how else could a person hunt? . . After a little while, I thought of magically paralysing targets. But Syrus' Venom Dart Magic already had paralytic capabilities. So I couldn't use any kind of poison. I then decided, instead of actual poison, why not simply a magic that could stop something from moving? That was when I began considering what a magic like that could do, which led me to researching kinetic energies. And thus I developed the principles of a magic that could sap kinetic energy from a person or object, preventing it from moving, and then use that stored energy to deliver attacks of pure force. Cool, huh? . . Not as hunting-related as I'd have liked, but it was this or Net Magic (not Internet magic, but fishing Net magic.), and that would be almost as lame as Vijeeter's canon Dance Magic. (Which is actually a shame, because Dance Magic has a lot of potential - ooh, I feel a lightbulb!)
Anyway. Yes! Pierce has finally dealt Jarod the ass-whooping he deserves! And, again, I feel like this entire chapter has been one of the best fight scenes in this story to date, and I hope you all agree. Peace!
