Disclaimer: I do not own Hero: 108.
Chapter 8:
All the animal kings and respective leaders of each village and Big Green were currently situated around the table. "Understood?" The hardness in Lin Chung's eyes left no room for argument. After having informed all of them that they were to move immediately to the valley while they could, and Twin Masters was probably seething about having lost the memory stick.
Everyone nodded, not wanting to anger the usually calm leader of First Squad.
"But why the valley?" Lady Green voiced out, the only one that actually dared to speak up.
Lin Chung turned to her. "Because of the strong magic there."
Most of the animals and representatives frowned at each other at this brief explanation. Lin Chung noted the looks, and continued his explanation.
"There are no barriers, and it is the closest place to where one could freely access to the dead because of the many battles there before, with the soldiers all buried there in ground. And the valleys make it hard to hold a fight there in safety, because of the constant fragile boulders and rocks, which could hit anyone at any second. It is considered extremely suicidal to fight there."
Lin Chung himself knew about the valley. He had visited there once before, only once, when he had first come to Big Green. It had stunned him how dangerous the valley was, even though many battles were held there.
Just proved how foolish normal humans are. Lin Chung mentally shook his head. No. He couldn't bring that up now.
Everyone nodded, understanding now. "Remember, not everyone goes. We have to keep some here to protect Big Green, and any of the wounded." Everyone nodded once again, before they filed out of the room. Panther King exchanged a quick look with Jaguar King, quickly glanced at Lin Chung, and then set off.
Within hours, all of the wounded were put into the main rooms at Big Green, though not thinly spread out, giving them the chance to defend themselves if necessary. The animals organised themselves, helping the humans whenever they could.
The army organised themselves as well, watching Guan Yu as he screamed out orders to everyone, not just the army.
Everyone scurried around, either following his orders or someone else's, desperate and frantic in their effort to get everything ready in order to leave Big Green and move to the valley.
Jumpy looked around as explosions dropped everywhere. Dust from the floor floated around them, either blinding them or making it harder to see what or where you are or fighting. If you were not careful, the dust got into your nose, mouth or eyes. The boulders were balanced precariously on the top of the cliffs.
Lin Chung was right.
The valleys were indeed a dangerous place to fight in, but a surprisingly good place for an ambush, being not too far from the East Citadel, where Twin Masters, Highroller and the others were hiding or getting ready to fight. Led on by Lin Chung, they had easily taken the enemy by surprise.
But once the tanks arrived from the East Citadel, Big Green stood near to no chance.
He flinched violently as another bomb dropped down beside him.
At first, Big Green had thought that Twin Masters would stop using the bombs, since Big Green now also had a whole room full of them, but they were proven terribly wrong. Twin Masters seemed determined to keep this up.
He hopped away to the left, dodging Lady Green, who had decided to join them on this particular risky mission, and then pressing himself against the wall, closing his eyes as dust flew up again.
He looked around once more.
No one noticed him, all too busy with their own fights, either in groups of 3 or individually.
Silently, he crept up to the shadows, moving closely to the wall, in order to try and reach the end of the valley, where the tanks were. It was slow-going, especially trying to hide from anyone who suddenly turned, and the soldiers who were guarding the tanks.
The tanks were deadly at close range, and even from far, it had done a considerable number of damage to the forces of Big Green, weakening them as they struggled to keep up defence yet at the same time block any blasts from the tanks.
Where was Lin Chung? The thought floated into Jumpy's head, before he caught sight of him, moving around the boulders balancing on the cliffs, taking down any archers or ambush people. He could see everyone, everything, and that made it a good spot to hunt, though it was dangerous as well.
Jumpy moved further on, only catching Lin Chung's eye once before the sharpshooter looked away and fired a shot at a archer that was trying to get Lady Green.
Finally, Jumpy made it through the soldiers, having to knock one or two out at the very side, and pressed himself harder to the wall, heart pounding in his chest. This was a suicide job. Getting to the tanks.
Taking out his jumping rope, he used it to lash around the firing gun of the nearest one to him, and pulled it to the direction of another tank, which exploded as the blast fired. The soldiers screamed at one another, wondering what was wrong.
One caught Jumpy at the side.
The soldiers surrounded him, weapons at the ready. But despite all of his grenades, shurikens and jump ropes, it was no use as he was forced back, only succeeding to knock out a minority of soldiers. He moved carefully, dodging each blow, and trying to land some on the others in return. That was, until he got careless. One of the soldiers saw an opening, who Jumpy didn't see, and slashed down, from Jumpy's chin to lower down.
Jumpy could hear someone shouting blearily, but he couldn't identify who.
Blood was pouring, gushing out of the wound, not showing any sign of stopping in his long cut. He faintly registered seeing a face above him, cruel and hard, weapon raised, before he was pulled back, and a blade came out in his chest. Someone leant in front of him, examining him.
"Jumpy?" The voice was familiar, but he still couldn't place a paw on who. Cold nimble fingers gently pressed at the beginning of the wound - his chin - and he hissed, but then felt a relieving numbness as the fingers moved down, still putting pressure on the wound, but the numbing made it more bearable.
He regained some of his focus, and watched as Lin Chung took out some of the warriors, purple bamboo shooter whirling around in a blur, hands glowing light purple.
Suddenly, something hit him from the side, and he blearily tried to throw a grenade but missed as a blade tried to reopen his wound.
Lin Chung turned around.
And Jumpy immediately regretted crying out as Lin Chung, using his Harmonic Energy, drove the soldier back, but his eyes widened as he didn't move fast enough. Jumpy's eyes widened as well as a blade poked out of the left side of his chest. Lin Chung forced the blade out with a painful grimace and turned around, striking the same warrior with the weapon.
Jumpy was getting his vision back, and noticed Mystique Sonia and Mighty Ray gently helping him up from the ground, leading him back to their side as explosions still went on all around. From what he could get, a bomb accidentally dropped on the tanks, destroying the remaining ones.
But he still protested, feebly wriggling to get free as he tried to check on his best friend.
They didn't allow him to.
They reached where they had set up camp, and immediately gave him to a Panther physician to get checked over. It was only after Kowloon joined them and told them that although Lin Chung suffered serious injuries to his left lung, he was still breathing, and had convinced everyone that he would be alright in a few hours, before moving to help yea any seriously injured people/animals.
The Panther physician had sighed, tutted Kowloon for not bringing Lin Chung to him, and then turned and started to treat Jumpy.
Jumpy didn't know how much they would regret not making sure that Lin Chung was alright.
AN: Hope you liked.
15/02/14 - No comment