Chapter 11: We Cause a Bird to Explode

Chapter 10

The bird stopped breathing fire and looked at me in confusion, almost like it was trying to say. What the hell is this thing of made of? Caligula and Hyas both appeared shocked. Hyas responded first, he threw one of his javelins at me. I grabbed it out of the air and threw it aside. It did, however, give my first opponent enough time to draw his two swords. One glinted bronze, the other pure black. He moved forward as Anna provided covering fire to hold back Calligula and his little tricks.

Hyas swept his blades down, I blocked it with one arm, swiped at his midsection with the other. I landed a blow to his midsection, which healed over almost immediately. He smiled.

“A blessing of my new patron. I cannot be killed by anything that came from her body.” My Anger processed this. New tactic, I tried to stab my hand through his chest. His heart did not come from the earth, and humanoid monsters lived like humans - a main organ that pumped their fluids to the rest of the body. Removing that is not a weapon that came from the earth. He jumped back from my jab, but something was different. My arm hurt. I looked to where I had blocked his attack. The place where that black blade hit was smoking, the liquefied metal pouring around the wound, magma leaked a little bit from the wound. This is new.

Black blade is bad. I rushed in low and he swung his blades in to meet me, I moved to the left and as he moved both blades to meet my attack I leaped to the right slashing at his arm. He dropped the bronze blade. So he could still feel pain. Good to know. He tried to dive down for the blade, but I moved in to attack, preventing him from getting his second sword. He swiped his black sword at me, but I deflected it with my claws. I could feel each blow damage my metals, but there was nothing I could do

My little combustible bird dive-bombed straight into the Pheonix. The bird hiccuped. Then a small spot in the birds chest started to glow. Closer to the bird I could see it was wearing a deep black riding harness, black like the blade that was cutting me bit by bit. Hyas must have put it on the bird to control it, the deep cold counteracting the intense heat, keeping it under control.

“ENOUGH,” screamed Caligula. He sent a shockwave in the direction of Anna, who was still summoning and firing arrows at the madman. She jumped and moved to the side as Sean appeared near Caligula and started attacking him. Calligula blocked Seans attacks with his own blade, but between him and Anna he was rather occupied.

The scream did jar Hyas for a moment, which was enough for me to charge in. I was going to attempt to bite him with the jaws. Instead I caught him mid-strike, and pushed his sword into his stomach. He pushed me away with such strength that I flew and landed near Anna, causing a Mark sized crater where I landed. Caligula, with Anna distracted by my act of flight, tripped Sean and stabbed downward. Sean used his blade to move the attack away, so it only gave him a gash on the leg. In anger Caligula stomped on the ground, which made Sean fly into the air, and with another swipe sent Sean flying at us, landing next to me.

I growled as I started to get up, when the light from the Pheonix too bright.

“It’s going to nova!” screamed Anna. The anger let go, and the metal fell off of me, filling the crater I had made a moment before. The way the light was building I knew there was no way we could get far enough away from the explosion to survive. Then I remembered something. When the Pheonix hit me with its fire blast back at the base, my clothing was unharmed. I took a calculated risk. I transformed Glacius and Ignus into their shield forms and started digging into the rock that was protecting us from Caligula’s attacks.

“This is no time to play archaeologist Mark, we need to survive!” Anna cried out while Sean groaned in appreciation of her comment. I continued to dig.

“The last time,” I grunted as I continued to cut pieces of the rock away. “The Pheonix,” more peices cut away, “attacked us, I was immune, to its, fire. My clothes,” enough rock was cut away for me to sit down. I plopped down and continued. “My clothing was unharmed. All of it. The fire that turned the path of sand in the fort into glass seemed like a warm summer breeze to me. I am hoping that, since we cannot run far enough in time to evade the explosion, whatever it is that saved my ass will keep this rock in one piece. That would, in turn, keep you two from being barbecued.”

Sean nodded, then crawled closer to me and wrapped his arms around my legs. He got the idea. Anna stared at me for a moment.

“Your immune to fire?” she asked finally. The light was making her face red, or perhaps the heat I was not feeling from the fire. Sean's face was fine.

“It appears so, ask later, get over here and survive now.” She paled a little, impressive considering the situation we were in, and moved forward to grab my leg. Then all hell broke loose.

Chapter 12