7. Ambush

I placed all four keystones we had gathered today together on the ground, then took a step backwards to admire our progress. "Three in one day, can't say I'm complaining about our progress."

"Not to mention Ether got to take some of her frustration out, so that's good too." Munchin chirped in. Ether glared at him, but our mosquito-like friend just smiled.

"Well I am not sure I like it." Ether snapped, turning her attention to me. "It is going a bit too well in my opinion. At this rate, we'll be home tomorrow. I thought the Occuria wanted to have fun watching us struggle?"

"You do have a point." I agreed. "Something smells."

"You, perhaps?" Munchin joked. "Seriously, Ic-y my friend, you swim too much in that dirty swamp water."

I made a hissing sound and used a fraction of my repulsion power to make Munchin fall over. "I'm not swimming, I'm stalking, for swimming is impossible in this shape! Besides, the water gives me excellent cover."

Unfazed, Munchin got back to his feet. "So does the mist. Gale didn't see or hear me until too late. So I don't see why you have to swim so much, but if you like it, fine. I was just joking, anyway."

"I know, I know." I said lazily. "I guess I'm just a bit on the edge since I became an insect."

"Aren't we all?" Ether said, shrugging. "Anyway, it's getting late. Let's get some sleep so we're ready for round two tomorrow."

"Sounds good." Munchin agreed, stretching his four arms as he yawned. "What do we do with the keystones?"

"I'll hide them." I promised. I snatched two up with my bladelike hands and scurried over to my fallen tree, my own personal bed. With the blink of an eye I made the ground repel my tree, as well as the air above my tree, causing it to hover still in midair. I dug a small pit and put the keystones in it. Munchin came to lend a hand and put the other two we had collected in. When that was done, I turned of my repulsion power slowly, landing my tree gently back on the ground. I laid on it and prepared for the night.

"G'night, you two." I mumbled. My two companions said something in return, but I didn't understand them as I was already drifting off to sleep.

--

I had a nice dream that night. I dreamt I was normal again, as were Ether and Munchin and we got revenge by changing the Occuria into insects and then squashing them. It was a pleasant dream and ended all too soon. An annoying voice shouted at me from outside the world of dreams. I tried to ignore it, for the dream was so pleasant, but the voice was determined to wake me up.

--

"Icarax, I swear, if you don't wake up this instant, I'm going to give you a kick you'll never forget!" Ether shouted threateningly. But even that did not wake me up. The beetle-like girl cursed and then gave me a kick so powerful I flew off my tree, in the air, only to land in the swamp with a splash. I was awake right away and glared at my attacker.

"Hey! What was that for?!"

Ether snapped the mandibles on her face together irritably. "You wouldn't wake up the nice way, Ic-y, so I had to do it the rough way."

I glared at her again, then narrowed my eyes. Ether recognized the look in my eyes and tried to back away, but she was too slow. I activated my repulsion power and made the ground repel her with such force she landed in the swamp herself. I heard her curse as I got to my feet.

"That'll teach you to throw me in the swamp." I muttered.

"I thought you liked the water!" She shot back.

"Yeah, when I choose to go in it, not when I am thrown in it." I replied. "Anyway, where's Munchin?"

"Hunting, he was hungry." Ether replied on a normal tone. Her anger disappeared like snow under the sun when the subject was changed.

"Again? He sucked Gale dry yesterday." I remarked.

Ether shrugged and crawled out of the water. "I guess Gale just wasn't that filling."

I yawned, still feeling a bit sleepy. "Oh well, let him, he needs to be at full strength for today. Kel and co are gonna be back for round two."

"We beat them all once, we can do it again." My female companion assured me. "We'll kick their sorry behinds so hard they won't be able to sit on it for a month. And after that we'll find the remaining two keystones and go home."

"You make it sound easy." I sighed. "However, I doubt Kel and the others will just let us waltz over them again like yesterday. They'll probably be more on their guard now."

"I think you're worrying too much." Ether assured me. "This is Kel we're talking about, the guy who rushes of in a fight with little thinking and who zooms around over the swamp yelling like an idiot."

I thought about that for a moment. "Can't argue with you there." I admitted finally. Ether smiled triumphantly. We fell silent for a while, until I looked around a bit impatiently.

"I wonder what's taking Munchin so long…"

--

As it turned out, Munchin was actually on his way back at the same time I was wondering what was taking him so long. He glided through the mist on his mosquito wings, having satisfied his hunger after draining the life-force of a monster from the swamp.

"I should hurry." He said to himself. "I've been gone for quite a while and by now Ether probably has succeeded in waking Icarax up."

A blast of energy shot out of the mist suddenly. Luckily Munchin saw it on time and managed to fly out of the way, but more attacks came out of the mist at a rapid pace.

"Great, Kel's up as well I see. And I just had breakfast, couldn't he have waited a bit?" Munchin muttered as he made a dive straight for the waters below him. But another assault of energy blasts from another direction forced Munchin to quickly change plans.

"Hell, there's two of them!" My mosquito-like friend cursed. He tried to locate his attackers, but the mist obscured his sight. Energy blasts flew at him from both sides at once and he had no choice but to move. As he flew through the mist, evading blasts as he went, Munchin did his best to orientate himself. "I mustn't lead them to the camp. Though I'm sure we could beat all of them when united, it's not worth the risk of loosing the keystones."

A third series of blasts coming from right ahead of him interrupted his thoughts. As Munchin swayed to the right, he couldn't help but shout: "Woah, you've gotta be kidding me! All three against me?!"

A familiar silver and red figure appeared suddenly from Munchin's right and hit him with the spinning blades on his shield. The blades ripped through Munchin's metallic armour and even managed to damage the organic tissue that lay underneath it. The unfortunate mosquito screamed in pain, yet managed to strike Kel with all four of his arms, knocking the leader of the opposite team out of the sky and into the mud.

"Good morning to you, too, Kel." Munchin hissed. He tried to rush towards Kel and slam into his guts, when he was hit from behind by two shots at once. Blaze and Gale appeared out of the mist, blasters aimed at Munchin who tried to regain his balance in the air. While Munchin was distracted, Kel got to his feet and took to the skies once again, surrounding Munchin together with his friends.

"Good morning, Munchin." Kel greeted cheerfully. "Thanks for the blow, the places you hit were itching and needed some scratching." The red and silver humanoid figure aimed his grey and black blaster at his old friend. "Now, where are Ether and Icarax? And more importantly, where are the keystones?"

Despite the bad situation he was in, Munchin managed to grin. Apparently, Kel and his friends had no idea where their camp was. "They're at our camp." The mosquito said smugly. "In Icarax and Ether's claws. You'll have a tough time convincing them to let the keystones go."

Kel returned Munchin's grin with one of his own. "Oh no we won't, because you're going to do that for us."

Munchin crossed his two pairs of arms. "And why would I do that?"

"Because we'll kick your ass otherwise." Gale shot back. "I still owe you some pain for yesterday."

"Be glad I didn't kill you." Munchin snapped. "Given the circumstances, I was really tempted to, but thought better of it. You ought to be more grateful for my mercy, Gale."

Gale's expression darkened and it looked as if he wanted to shoot Munchin out of the sky right there and then, but Blaze stopped him before he even tried to do so.

"Calm yourself, if we damage him too much Ether will never let us get away with it."

"Not to mention Icarax will repel you from here to Archades." Munchin chimed in with an innocent smile.

"I'm not that worried about that fan, we can handle him with little trouble." Kel replied, sure of himself. Munchin raised an eyebrow at that, or he would have done that if he had had eyebrows.

"As I recall, he kicked your sorry behind yesterday, Kel. Besides, he may not be a guild member, but he's still as hard as me or Ether, and quite scary when he's mad."

"He got lucky. Bored me to tears first with all his talking and then caught me off guard." Kel said quickly, shrugging Munchin's words off. "In a fair fight, I'd beat him within seconds."

"Kel, you're being tricked." Blaze said with a sigh, glaring at Munchin. "You were hoping to keep us talking long enough until help arrived, weren't you, Munchin?"

"Not at all," Munchin said with fake innocence. "I talk with my enemies in the air every day. It's a nice way to pass time. Try it sometime."

"Enough!" Gale snarled, still mad at Munchin for what he did to him yesterday. "You're going to show us the way to your camp right now and tell your friends to hand over the keystones."

"Or else?"

His three captors smirked evilly, but Munchin wasn't really impressed. In his mind, nothing they could do to him was worse than being the way he was now, or loosing the keystones. He shivered at the thought of what Ether would do to him if he handed over he keystones.

"Or else you'll be the one looking like scrap." Blaze said calmly. "I still owe Ether one for that."

Munchin laughed in himself. So Blaze got beaten quite badly by Ether, eh? She had told him that she had encountered Blaze and 'persuaded' him to give her his keystone, sure, but she had never told him how. Oh, he had guessed, but it was still nice to have his suspicions confirmed by blaze himself.

"So what's it gonna be, Munchin?" Kel demanded, getting impatient.

Munchin's thoughts were racing as he considered his options. He could take them to camp and join up with his comrades and fight Kel and co off, but that way they risked loosing the keystones during the battle. He could lead them in the opposite direction and try to escape, but it wouldn't be so easy because they were united, three against one. Or he could take them to camp the long way and try to make enough of a ruckus or escape attempts to warn Ether and Icarax that they had company and that he was in trouble. Yeah, that sounded like the best option.

"Fine." Munchin said, acting as if he gave in. "I'll take you to our camp. Just follow me."

"No tricks, I warn you!" Gale said threateningly as he glanced meaningfully at his blaster. "I won't hold back after what you did to me yesterday."

Munchin shrugged. "Suit yourself."

Then he flew off, above the mist so he could see where he was. His old friends never left his side and kept a watchful eye on him all the time, weapons at ready. As they flew over the swamp, Munchin looked around frantically, trying to find a way to alert Icarax and Ether. He wished he had a special power now besides his massive strength. At least Ether could summon an army of herself, and Icarax was a tricky opponent on his own thanks to his repulsion powers. The mosquito-like boy also did his best to take the longest way possible towards camp. He noticed a small forest of trees and large swamp plants below. That gave him an idea. Looking around some more, he also noticed they weren't very far away from camp anymore. If he was going to act, now was the time to do so.

Without warning, Munchin quit flying and let himself drop towards the ground. He fell like a stone, the swampfloor approaching rapidly. His three captors had been too slow to stop him. By the time they flew down in pursuit, Munchin had already started flying again and had reached the edge of the small forest. Energy blasts flew over his head and exploded when they hit something.

"Perfect." Munchin thought. "Camp's close by and you're making all the noise I want you to. If Icarax and Ether don't notice this ruckus, they're deaf."

To add some extra noise, Munchin ripped a full-grown tree out of the ground and threw it at high speed towards his approaching opponents. All three of them fired at the projectile at the same time, blowing it into a million pieces when their shots exploded.

"Common, fire some more, I want you to do it!" Munchin shouted, sounding more than a little excited. He ripped two more trees out and soared high into the air. He threw his projectiles at the oncoming Team Kel. They evaded the first one, but made the second one explode. The tree exploded in midair, high above the swamp. The light and smoke the explosion created could be seen from everywhere in the swamp.

"They must have seen that…" Munchin muttered. "But just in case they didn't…" He let himself drop towards the ground again. Shots were fired at him, but none hit. Munchin only spread his wings once more when he was surrounded by the trees of the forest again. Team Kel was closing in quickly now, shooting like mad. Munchin tried to keep them at bay by throwing some more trees and even a huge boulder or two, but he only managed to slow their approach.

"Damn!" He cursed as he had to jump out of the way for a particularly large energy blast fired by Gale. The blast hit a boulder instead, which exploded and sent pieces of rubble flying in all direction at high speed. A few hit Munchin, who shielded himself with his arms. The shards of stone made dents in his armour, crushing the organic tissue underneath his armour. "Not good…!"

Another blast hit him and the mosquito-like boy was blown on his back in the mud. Munchin tried to get up, but another shot that hit him knocked him flat once more.

"Foolish, Munchin." He heard Kel say. "Do you really want us to hurt you?"

Munchin managed to raise his head and glare at Kel. "Did you really think I would be so stupid as to lead you to my friends and the keystones?"

"You were stupid enough to think you could escape from us." Blaze commented. "All you did was prolong this fight. We'll get the keystones sooner or later."

"Are you sure of that?" A female voice asked, amusement in her voice. Before Blaze could react, he was surrounded by ten Ethers, all of them looking at Blaze with murder in their eyes. Kel and Gale moved in to attack, but the air around them suddenly repelled them and sent them slamming into each other. The two spiralled out of control towards the swampfloor. I soared through the air towards the battlefield, glad I had made it. I landed right besides Munchin and helped him to his feet.

"You okay?" I asked.

"About time you two showed up!" Munchin replied, annoyed.

"Apologies, my friend. We'll make it up to you later." I looked at the sky, where the ten Ethers attacked Blaze. The black and silver figure fought back, however, and one of his blasts hit the real Ether, breaking her concentration and making her past selves disappear. Blaze fired another shot, but a fraction of my repulsion power send the blast right back at him. He was hit, but the shot did little more than daze him thanks to his thick armour. Kel and Gale by now had recovered and flew up to rejoin the fight.

I looked at Munchin. "Care for a rematch with those losers?"

He nodded eagerly. "My claws are itching already."

I repelled myself off the ground and flew towards Ether together with Munchin. The two of us joined her at her side. The three of us now stood face to face with our three opponents.

"Alright." I said towards my companions. "Let's do what we're good in and take them down!"

--

Next chapter: an all out battle between the two teams in the swamp and skies of the Nabreus deadlands! Nobody will hold back in this fight…

And yeah, it took forever for an update. Deal with it, I've got nothing to say. =p

I'll see you all when I'll see you.