Chapter 19: In the Thick of It
Perspective: Fire
It had been a while since Fire had been part of a proper battle, if he recalled correctly, it was when he cleared out a camp of outspoken enemies of the Mencur-Besh. It couldn't have been more than a few months back but no matter, the battle he was in presently required his full attention.
The others had surrounded Glibby and his personal guard, but this was far from a decisive winning position, there were too many other soldiers for them to keep Glibby pinned for any meaningful amount of time. Fire heard movement behind him, time slowed down as he turned on the spot. He was faced with three human soldiers who were performing a coordinated charge on him. Unfortunately for them, to Fire they moved comically slowly, giving him enough time for a low sweep with his halberd. He used the hook opposed to the axe blade to catch the soldiers by their feet and throw them off-balance.
Two stumbled, one fell. Fire leapt at the fallen soldier, delivering a kick to one of the other two in the process. A quick cut from Fire's claws and blood started rapidly pooling under the fallen soldier. The other two had enough discipline to stand their ground but were wary of attacking.
With another arc of his halberd, Fire brought the back end down on one of the soldiers' heads. With both weapon and armor being made of diamond, blunt force trauma was the best option. The soldier fell down, the force of the blow was enough to cause brain haemorrhage, if he wasn't dead now, he would be in a few minutes.
The third soldier finally decided that it was in his best interest to flee the battlefield, only to be frozen on the spot by Shadow. Fire gave his sister a quick look of approval.
Meanwhile the fight in the trenches had heated up significantly. The entirety of the enderman force was fighting alongside Glibby against most of their own, sans Voidblade who was still making sure nobody could escape.
Kir's voice called out in Fire's head as Kay zapped an armoured enderman into submission: "Three left."
Somehow, against all odds the Ape had avoided any meaningful wounds despite being only lightly armored, perhaps boldness-bordering-on-stupidity had some protective properties after all. Fire refocused, it looked like the situation was still under control, as long as he had the attention of the human soldiers there would be no nasty surprises.
Almost immediately after that thought Fire cursed himself for thinking it, he felt a strong magical impulse coming from somewhere behind the trees they had toppled. It looked like Shadow had noticed too, shooting a storm of icicles into the general direction.
The icicles didn't reach their destination, a tidal wave of red rose from between the branches of the trees and stopped their momentum. As the wave splashed back down, Fire realized what had caused it. On top of the furthest tree trunk stood a figure clad in diamond armor, however as opposed to the other soldiers it had no helmet, instead it wore a cowl beneath which only two crimson eyes were visible.
Fire called out: "Blood mage! Must have survived the trees!"
As Fire looked to the ground, he saw all the blood that had been spilled in this battle gain a life of its own, gathering itself in pools, draining from still-full corpses, leaving them as husks. Seeing that one of their mages survived seemed to imbue the soldiers with new hope, they came storming towards Fire all at once.
Kir chirped: "Two left."
Meanwhile Shadow was locked in a fierce duel of magic with the blood mage, still unwilling to discard her disguise, victory was important but remaining obscure took priority for now. The blood mage was in the process of manifesting rib-like spikes from the sea of blood at his feet. Shadow readied another volley of ice spears.
Fire could look how his sister did later, now he had to take care of his own problems. He breathed in. The fight with the enderman in the first village they found flashed back into his mind, then the start of his fight with the hunters before Claw had taken over. This was different, he was armored, armed and prepared. And perhaps more importantly, Fire was a three-meter tall superhuman creature with thousands of years of experience.
As Fire breathed out, he could feel his body temperature rise as his muscles went into overdrive. The air around him started heating up, a bright orange glow shimmered from between Fire's scales. Time was almost slowed to a standstill. He was ready.
Even with their formation, the soldiers still were slightly staggered. The spear tip of Fire's halberd stabbed the foremost one straight through the throat. Using this leverage, Fire flung the soldier two meters into the air, tearing his head off in the process. The other soldiers now had to either sidestep the corpse or be hindered by their beheaded comrade.
Without warning, a splayed open rib cage attached to an unnaturally long spine came swinging at Fire from the right, the individual ribs like sharpened spikes. Clearly the work of the blood mage. Fire held his halberd in his left hand and impaled another throat, his right hand caught the ribcage in the middle and yanked it out of the blood pool that spawned it. The ribs contorted, now more like the legs of an insect. With a quick motion Fire threw it into the oncoming soldiers.
A soldier had come close enough to attack Fire while he was preoccupied, the sword glanced off Fire's dark armor. They wouldn't find any gaps, Fire made sure of this when he created it. Only a blade like he was using, or a heavy impact would be meaningfully threatening. That or getting overwhelmed, and Fire was not about to let that happen.
Fire leaped backwards, regaining some space to use his halberd in. With an enormous effort Fire swung his halberd in an arc, putting enough force into it to behead a soldier with the impact alone and severely daze the next one in the halberd's path.
A quick glance behind him revealed that the reason the blood mage wasn't sending more support was that he was preoccupied with Shadow, who to him looked like a baseline human with ice magic. Of course, Shadow was nimbler than she let on, easily leaping out of the way of various sharp bones that would probably have impaled her otherwise. The blood mage also had to contend with a growing portion of his blood supply being frozen. Shadow more than had this under control. She was just following their usual strategy: Never show more power to the enemy than is needed to defeat them.
With his full attention back to his own fight, Fire took a headcount. Nine soldiers left, most of them looking more and more shaken, less and less willing to fight their seemingly invincible opponent, having had a bone centipede thrown at them had probably also contributed.
With another decisive attack Fire cut down another soldier, then another and another. As their numbers dwindled, Fire had to worry less about defense and could focus entirely on offense, his armor absorbing the odd blow that hit him. No movement was without purpose.
Once there were three soldiers left, Kir spoke in Fire's head again: "Destiny hurt. Help needed."
Instead of wasting more time attacking the last three soldiers, Fire shouted at them: "Drop your weapons, surrender and live!"
The soldiers seemed taken aback by this sudden change in dynamic but at this point looked too terrified to do anything else, discipline had its limits before the desire for survival overtook everything. They not only dropped their weapons but threw them to the side, far out of their reach, then fell to the ground cowering.
While bolting towards the fight in the trenches, Fire looked to the blood mage again. It seemed that Shadow had made a mistake at some point, somehow the blood mage had managed to catch her and was now holding her up by the neck. Just as he summoned up more bone-spikes, something golden slithered down Shadow's left arm and manifested as a dagger in her hand. One slash was not enough to kill the blood mage, however the surprise was enough to get him to drop Shadow. A crimson red icicle rose up from the sea of blood and impaled the blood mage's head. That was everyone but the endermen and Glibby dealt with.
The scene unfolding before Fire was a chaotic one. Kay was erratically teleporting around, occasionally landing a hit on the endermen. Destiny was slumped against a tree, evidently having taken several punches from Glibby, the fact that she lived was most likely owed to the ape's sadism, wanting her alive to witness the outcome. Astro tended to her with glowing palms. Tyron, Rose and Urist stood in front of them, holding off the eponymous Ape. Steve was currently locked in battle with Silver, Jennifer with a different Grey One.
Glibby was still only superficially bloodied, maybe he really was as good as he claimed, maybe he was supremely lucky, maybe both. Fire was going to find out soon. Kay just teleported into the guard of one of the obsidian-clad endermen, an opportunity Fire exploited. With a leap, Fire closed the gap to the enderman and drove the spear tip of his halberd into its lower back. This allowed Kay to land a well-placed attack, leaving the enderman on the ground gradually bleeding out.
"One left." Kir announced.
"About time you joined us!" Exclaimed Kay. "You had the perfect dramatic entrance and you squandered it!"
Fire had no time for friendly banter, there was an ape-shaped problem that had priority. Kay also didn't have time for it, as he only narrowly avoided a swipe from Silver's claws. A glance to the side revealed Steve crawling towards the defensive line, hands clasped to his stomach and blood seeping between his fingers. Shadow had also reached them, her throat visibly collapsed by the blood mage's grasp. She nodded at Fire, then proceeded to join the battle by hurling ice at any target she had sightlines on.
This was enough to get Glibby's attention off the slumped, unconscious Destiny, now turning towards Fire.
"Oh, the lizard has finally shown up. Had fun with the cannon fodder?" Glibby taunted.
Fire indulged him, any time he spent talking was time the others had to fight the endermen. "Not a lizard, a genetic splicing of enderman, human and assorted additional genetic code as well as a little bit of elemental magic. I gave up correcting people a few thousand years ago."
Glibby slowly came closer, gauntlets raised. "How about a good, old-fashioned one-on-one fight?"
Without waiting for a reply, Glibby already threw the first punch, Fire had anticipated him fighting dirty. Glibby's strength and reach combined with his heavy gauntlets meant Fire actually had to be careful around his attacks, the human soldiers might as well have been attacking with wet noodles by comparison. The heavy, blunt impacts would render his armor mostly ineffective. This was a real threat.
Fire moved only minimally to avoid the punch, then instead of counterattacking leapt backwards: distance was his ally in this fight. Fire quickly thrust his halberd forwards to see Glibby's reaction. As soon as the Ape went to defend against the attack Fire pulled back, halberd attacks were too telegraphed to be useful, Glibby's reflexes were too good for that.
Another heavy punch from Glibby, another evasion from Fire. This time Fire looked inward, into his inventory and pulled out an anti-magic splash potion, which promptly materialized in his left hand. All mages on the battlefield were dealt with so he might as well get some use out of the potion. The potion impacted on Glibby's raised gauntlet and shattered, some of the liquid splashing in the Ape's face, unfortunately missing his eyes. It had been enough to surprise him though.
The others were attempting to get close, but the remaining armoured enderman and one of the Grey Ones had taken a page from Fire's own book. They swept with halberds to keep them at a distance. Kay was too busy with Silver, each now attempting to break the other's guard on top of the remains of the frozen tree.
Suddenly Kir spoke up in Fire's mind: "Hey. Ape looks for weakness, then attacks like… ape. How he got Destiny."
This was useful. Fire quickly formulated a plan. It was risky but the payoff was high, which already was the whole point of this ambush so he might as well stay in theme.
Just as Glibby was wiping the drops of potion from his face, Fire surged forward, once again swinging his halberd in a wide arc. Under normal circumstances he wouldn't have done this, he knew full well that the arc was predictable, and a thrust might have even landed a hit here. Glibby realized as much, blocking Fire's attack with his left hand and at the same time throwing a powerful right-handed punch.
The punch connected, hitting Fire square in the stomach. The force was dampened by Fire's armor but once it proved too much, instead of breaking the armor deformed inwards, an intentional property. The blow carried through. For a few moments time stood even stiller than Fire was used to. He felt a numb pain from his stomach. The armor bent back to its original shape.
There go most of my internal organs. Fire thought, moments slowly ticking by as he watched himself be launched backwards. Then he felt it, the emergency response of his body. Throughout his limbs and torso glands started secreting a reagent that would keep his muscles running as long as they received signals from his brain, even if he bled out he'd still live for long enough to get healing. This was another part of what made him what he was. Mencur-Besh.
Time returned to a sensible speed again, Fire managed to land upright but made sure not to land too well, falling to a knee for a second. That was what Glibby had waited for. He came running at Fire like a freight train, arms wildly flailing. Fire dropped his halberd to the ground, instead pulling two daggers from his inventory, they were made from the same re-crystalized diamond as his halberd, sharp enough to cut steel, which was precisely what Fire intended to do.
Glibby's first blow missed, Fire quickly slashed at the gauntleted hand that delivered it, the diamond carved a notch into the metal. Fire actively dodged the next strike and repeated his slash, Glibby seemed to pay no heed to his opponent's renewed vitality.
Fire backed up further and further, adding more and more notches to the gauntlets. They were now no longer on soft forest ground but on the hard stone floor near the edges of the canyon. A few seconds into his frenzy Glibby finally took note of the fact that not a single one of his blows had landed. He hesitated. Now Fire was the one to exploit a gap in his opponent's guard, bringing on two final slashes. Glibby recomposed, now winding up for a crushing blow with both hands.
Fire probably could have killed him then and there, nothing easier than a slash to the throat from his position, however as long as capture was an option lethal force was off the table. Killing someone only one step down from the Entity was a good way to become the target of a large retaliatory attack.
Instead of attacking, Fire launched himself backwards, landing on his back. Glibby's fists impacted on the stone, at the same time his gauntlets shattered into dozens of small pieces. The shards cut into the Ape's hands as he shook them off. Glibby stopped, then looked straight at Fire, this time with genuine rage in his eyes, letting out a primal scream before lunging forwards.
Fire's daggers disappeared back into his inventory, just in time to duck under Glibby's lunge and send the Ape flying using his own momentum. Losing the gauntlets had significantly lowered Glibby's threat. Now any punch he landed would hurt him more than it would hurt Fire.
Glibby lunged again, this time windmilling his arms mid-air. Fire opted to completely dodge out of the way this time, not wanting to risk getting hit. Glibby attacked three more times before he finally got lucky, catching Fire in the chest. The blow was hard, it probably would have cracked some of Fire's ribs if Glibby had still worn the gauntlets. Instead, it merely sent Fire flying again and left Glibby clutching his fist, seemingly broken out of his rage.
While Fire recovered from the blow, the so-far unaccounted for third Grey One appeared next to Glibby, whispering something into the Ape's ear. After a short pause, the Ape turned to survey the scene.
The last of the armoured endermen had died, and only the other Grey one was managing to slow the advance of Fire's allies. Silver was still locked in a melee with Kay. Glibby nodded and called out "We're leaving! To me, my Grey Ones."
The halberd-wielding enderman teleported up and put his hand on Glibby's shoulder. Glibby looked to Silver, who looked back and forth between his master and Kay. Glibby glared at him yet more sternly and shouted at him.
"Silver, we are leaving!"
The enderman hissed: "Void upon your cowardly retreat! I will be satisfied!"
With that he tackled Kay from the frozen log and out of sight.
"You protect someone for a decade, and they treat you like that," Glibby sighed. "You just can't get good help nowadays. Anyway, let's leave. Adieu, Fire, it's been a pleasure."
With that, Glibby sighed, patted his two guards on the back, and the three of them disappeared. Destiny's javelin of ice landed the second after. Fire reckoned it would have gotten him right in the head.
"Of course. Just my luck," mourned Destiny as Astro held her up.
The moment they were gone, they heard the sounds of Silver's duel with Kay. Shadow and Fire rounded the corner to see an obviously irritated Kay teleporting around. Shadow lowered her head and started focusing, seemingly waiting for something. Suddenly the sounds of fighting stopped, and Silver found himself surrounded by a dense weave of energy, not unlike a cage. He visibly strained to muster up a teleportation but seemed unable to.
"Gotcha!" Shadow exclaimed, having substituted her crushed voice box with sound-generating magic.
Kay cheered: "Mission success! Well done everyone! We've two officers now!"
Fire felt… not good but certainly not bad either. Most of his internal organs had been damaged beyond function but that was why he had prepared healing potions at the shelter. He'd be able to hold out until then.
Astro had meanwhile gone around and mended any injuries he could. Steve looked paler than usual and winced as he walked, but everyone seemed to be in good enough shape to make it back to the shelter. Once there they could have healing potions and proper rest, they definitely earned it.
Suddenly Shadow's eyes went wide. "Something's wrong at the rockslide team."
