Whoosh!
“Whoa!” Obi shouted while knocking away a knife thrust aimed at his face with the back of his plated gauntlets. A well-placed palm heel strike to the unprotected ribs left open took the bandit to the ground without much resistance, followed by another punch right into the face knocked the man out cleanly. But before he could celebrate, Obi was already jumping away as another bandit continued pressing the attack with his longsword.
“Come on man, do you even know how to use that thing?” Obi continued to shout over the annoyingly loud alarms blaring within the shipping company’s vault.
The Rune Knight counted the number of bandits still around as he fought. There were three more of them trying to delay him while the rest of the group had escaped. Obi was fighting as fast as he could, trying to take them down with the least number of movements possible but who was he kidding? He was far from a martial arts grandmaster. All he had on his side was his power-ups.
The thought of botching up the mission because he was too slow made the young man anxious. But normal people would express their anxiety with a flustered expression, Obi Hinata was grinning madly with his shark-like teeth. It was a nervous tic that hadn’t done him any good his whole life, but in this particular case, against the noobish bandits, it did a pretty good job of scaring them for a moment.
Obi bit on to the moment of respite and quickly focused his magic energy throughout his entire body.
“Haargh!” the novice Rune Knight grunted as he activated his power-up transformation. The magic energy he had circulated around his body began to burst into a frenzy, giving him the power-up that he needed. Obi’s hair turned red, and his eyes would have too, had it not been originally red. Red flames, excess magic energy which Obi was unable to fully convert, burst forth from the soles of his feet.
“Demon!!”
“He’s a devil!”
“What the fu--!”
The third bandit never managed to finish his sentence as he took a knee to his chest, sending him flying into the nearest wall with a crash. Obi let out a long breath as he landed on the ground from the flying knee strike, crouching with his fingers on the ground to stabilize himself. The grin was still present on his face, but this time, it was from the exhilaration of the power within him. But he didn’t have much time to waste around and appreciate it. He needed to catch up to the rest of the bandits that were actually holding the loot of Jewels.
Spinning around on his toes, the currently barefoot Obi kicked off once again toward the remaining two bandits that had conveniently chosen to gather together. Obi adjusted the direction of his lunge and extended his right arm straight to his side and slammed into the two of them with a clothesline, knocking the two of them on to their backs gasping for air. What he should also have expected was the failure of the second part. Knocking the two down with his enhanced strength and speed was a given, but cleanly bowling them over while he dashed past them in a heroic fashion was not.
With his arm unable to clear the two men’s chest as they collapse, Obi’s lower half was lifted off the ground while his upper half stayed in place, giving himself a very, very painful drop to the floor on his back. All three men could feel the air pushed out of their lungs when they hit the ground, and furiously breathed in as fast as they could.
“Ouch…” Obi groaned as he rolled over to the side and pushed himself up. The two bandits weren’t that quick to recover. Just as he was about to punch the two of them to knock them out, the entire vault was suddenly washed over by a wave of bright light, replacing the dim red lighting from the alarms.
“Obi?” a familiar voice called out, pushing his way from behind the security guards leading the way.
“Sergeant!” A smile of relief could be seen on Obi’s face as he rushed over to his superior, Sergeant Lume Inox.
“Why are you here Obi?”
“Sir, I was looking for something to eat for dinner when I heard the alarms. When I came in to check, the security team had already been knocked out, so I just ran into where the alarms were the loudest. There were a total of ten bandits attacking this place. I took down six of them but they were the weak ones. There’s four more that ran while I was being stopped. I heard something about the docks and a ship. I think that’s their escape route,” Obi reported as quickly as he could while stealing glances in the direction of the escaped bandits with a worried expression.
“Good job. You go ahead at full speed, try and slow them down. The rest of the squad will try to catch up to you as quickly as we can!” Inox ordered with a firm pat on Obi’s right shoulder. Obi flinched at the touch, a bolt of pain shooting down his entire arm. “Are you injured?”
“No. But I might have tore something when I tried to clothesline the bandits,” Obi replied with a nervous grin as he massaged his shoulder and shrugged it a few times.
“Don’t overexert yourself. Wait for backup if the situation gets bad. Now go!”
“Yes sir!”
“Rizka, Sam, Kinai, Noel! Let’s go, we need to back up Obi. Corporal Taka, you and the rest stay here to make sure everything is okay,” Sergeant Inox ordered as he began to activate his own magic. Thick, grey smoke gathered around his feet as he waited for the four he had named to assemble. When all four was ready to go, the smoke explosively pushed Sergeant Inox into the air in the same direction Obi had left. The squad was a small one, led by a sergeant but each and every one could pull their weight. Lume Inox did not have to worry about his team not catching up after him.
Each of them had been called to assist Obi because they each had their own mobility spells to assist them. Kinai surfing on a surfboard of wind that cut through the air gracefully, Rizka defying gravity by making incredibly high jumps through the roofs but with delicate landing to make sure she doesn’t damage the structures, Noel sitting on her technologically souped-up broom which matched Kinai for speed, and Sam being all ninja-like as he ran through the air with his arms spread back, stepping on small platforms of ice created instantaneously.
It took the team a total of five minutes to get from the shipping company to the docks. It was easy enough to spot the escaping ship, which was also a pirate ship. The sounds of battle was quite easy to notice from their airborne positions and after taking up formation behind Inox in mid-air, the five of them charged straight for the huge pirate ship.
Aside from the four bandits that were a cut above the six that Obi had defeated, there was also a full pirate crew onboard. When Obi had arrived at the docks, he had already been too late. The bandits had managed to make a getaway, and the pirate ship was already sailing away. Without thinking, Obi had quickly climbed up to the highest place he could and took a great leap, successfully landing on the middle of the ship to be surrounded by the bandits and crew.
Obi had managed to take down a few of the pirates, but their numbers were too many for him to finish alone even if they were a gap between their skills and his.
Sergeant Inox swooped from the sky, plumes of smoke extending from his arms as he carried off five screaming pirates from the circle that surrounded Obi and flew off, dropping them into the water before turning around in air. Rizka, having stood behind Noel on the broom, stepped off and dropped in freefall, using her gravity magic to slow her descend enough for her to reach the right height and spinning roundhouse kick two pirates to their heads before landing.
“Thank you, thank you,” the girl said as she gave a curtsy to the remaining wide-eyed pirates.
“The floor is lava!!” Noel shouted gleefully as she flew around erratically above the heads of everyone, dropping red ball after red ball to the ground. When the red balls hit the ground, they exploded into a sticky mess of red gel that quickly stuck to pirates’ legs, gluing them to the ground.
“Woah!!” Obi screamed as he threw himself to the side, just two red balls dropped where he stood and exploded, covering the area with the red goop. “Noel!! Careful!”
“Don’t stand around like an idiot then, idiot!” the girl snapped before flying up higher, performing a loop-the-loop.
Kinai and Sam flew in to handle the rest, with Kinai stopping her wind-board inches above ground and then kicked up a wind with her board to blow some of the pirates that had managed to escape Noel’s red glue over the rails and into the sea.
“Sheesh, you guys should really be more careful. We are on a ship in the middle of the ocean here,” Kinai spoke with a feigned concern before flashing Obi a grin. “Yo, dunce, you owe me one.”
“Sergeant! The stolen loot has been secured,” Sam’s voice rang out as he walked up from the stairs leading into the ship’s hold. A huge block of ice with all the Jewels stolen from the shipping company frozen within floated in the air behind him. “The pirate captain and his immediate subordinates have already escaped after they failed to secure the Jewels.”
“Good job team. You held the fort well, Obi,” Sergeant Inox commented with a proud smile as he landed on the deck.
“Thank you, sir!”
[1690 words]
“Whoa!” Obi shouted while knocking away a knife thrust aimed at his face with the back of his plated gauntlets. A well-placed palm heel strike to the unprotected ribs left open took the bandit to the ground without much resistance, followed by another punch right into the face knocked the man out cleanly. But before he could celebrate, Obi was already jumping away as another bandit continued pressing the attack with his longsword.
“Come on man, do you even know how to use that thing?” Obi continued to shout over the annoyingly loud alarms blaring within the shipping company’s vault.
The Rune Knight counted the number of bandits still around as he fought. There were three more of them trying to delay him while the rest of the group had escaped. Obi was fighting as fast as he could, trying to take them down with the least number of movements possible but who was he kidding? He was far from a martial arts grandmaster. All he had on his side was his power-ups.
The thought of botching up the mission because he was too slow made the young man anxious. But normal people would express their anxiety with a flustered expression, Obi Hinata was grinning madly with his shark-like teeth. It was a nervous tic that hadn’t done him any good his whole life, but in this particular case, against the noobish bandits, it did a pretty good job of scaring them for a moment.
Obi bit on to the moment of respite and quickly focused his magic energy throughout his entire body.
“Haargh!” the novice Rune Knight grunted as he activated his power-up transformation. The magic energy he had circulated around his body began to burst into a frenzy, giving him the power-up that he needed. Obi’s hair turned red, and his eyes would have too, had it not been originally red. Red flames, excess magic energy which Obi was unable to fully convert, burst forth from the soles of his feet.
“Demon!!”
“He’s a devil!”
“What the fu--!”
The third bandit never managed to finish his sentence as he took a knee to his chest, sending him flying into the nearest wall with a crash. Obi let out a long breath as he landed on the ground from the flying knee strike, crouching with his fingers on the ground to stabilize himself. The grin was still present on his face, but this time, it was from the exhilaration of the power within him. But he didn’t have much time to waste around and appreciate it. He needed to catch up to the rest of the bandits that were actually holding the loot of Jewels.
Spinning around on his toes, the currently barefoot Obi kicked off once again toward the remaining two bandits that had conveniently chosen to gather together. Obi adjusted the direction of his lunge and extended his right arm straight to his side and slammed into the two of them with a clothesline, knocking the two of them on to their backs gasping for air. What he should also have expected was the failure of the second part. Knocking the two down with his enhanced strength and speed was a given, but cleanly bowling them over while he dashed past them in a heroic fashion was not.
With his arm unable to clear the two men’s chest as they collapse, Obi’s lower half was lifted off the ground while his upper half stayed in place, giving himself a very, very painful drop to the floor on his back. All three men could feel the air pushed out of their lungs when they hit the ground, and furiously breathed in as fast as they could.
“Ouch…” Obi groaned as he rolled over to the side and pushed himself up. The two bandits weren’t that quick to recover. Just as he was about to punch the two of them to knock them out, the entire vault was suddenly washed over by a wave of bright light, replacing the dim red lighting from the alarms.
“Obi?” a familiar voice called out, pushing his way from behind the security guards leading the way.
“Sergeant!” A smile of relief could be seen on Obi’s face as he rushed over to his superior, Sergeant Lume Inox.
“Why are you here Obi?”
“Sir, I was looking for something to eat for dinner when I heard the alarms. When I came in to check, the security team had already been knocked out, so I just ran into where the alarms were the loudest. There were a total of ten bandits attacking this place. I took down six of them but they were the weak ones. There’s four more that ran while I was being stopped. I heard something about the docks and a ship. I think that’s their escape route,” Obi reported as quickly as he could while stealing glances in the direction of the escaped bandits with a worried expression.
“Good job. You go ahead at full speed, try and slow them down. The rest of the squad will try to catch up to you as quickly as we can!” Inox ordered with a firm pat on Obi’s right shoulder. Obi flinched at the touch, a bolt of pain shooting down his entire arm. “Are you injured?”
“No. But I might have tore something when I tried to clothesline the bandits,” Obi replied with a nervous grin as he massaged his shoulder and shrugged it a few times.
“Don’t overexert yourself. Wait for backup if the situation gets bad. Now go!”
“Yes sir!”
“Rizka, Sam, Kinai, Noel! Let’s go, we need to back up Obi. Corporal Taka, you and the rest stay here to make sure everything is okay,” Sergeant Inox ordered as he began to activate his own magic. Thick, grey smoke gathered around his feet as he waited for the four he had named to assemble. When all four was ready to go, the smoke explosively pushed Sergeant Inox into the air in the same direction Obi had left. The squad was a small one, led by a sergeant but each and every one could pull their weight. Lume Inox did not have to worry about his team not catching up after him.
Each of them had been called to assist Obi because they each had their own mobility spells to assist them. Kinai surfing on a surfboard of wind that cut through the air gracefully, Rizka defying gravity by making incredibly high jumps through the roofs but with delicate landing to make sure she doesn’t damage the structures, Noel sitting on her technologically souped-up broom which matched Kinai for speed, and Sam being all ninja-like as he ran through the air with his arms spread back, stepping on small platforms of ice created instantaneously.
It took the team a total of five minutes to get from the shipping company to the docks. It was easy enough to spot the escaping ship, which was also a pirate ship. The sounds of battle was quite easy to notice from their airborne positions and after taking up formation behind Inox in mid-air, the five of them charged straight for the huge pirate ship.
Aside from the four bandits that were a cut above the six that Obi had defeated, there was also a full pirate crew onboard. When Obi had arrived at the docks, he had already been too late. The bandits had managed to make a getaway, and the pirate ship was already sailing away. Without thinking, Obi had quickly climbed up to the highest place he could and took a great leap, successfully landing on the middle of the ship to be surrounded by the bandits and crew.
Obi had managed to take down a few of the pirates, but their numbers were too many for him to finish alone even if they were a gap between their skills and his.
Sergeant Inox swooped from the sky, plumes of smoke extending from his arms as he carried off five screaming pirates from the circle that surrounded Obi and flew off, dropping them into the water before turning around in air. Rizka, having stood behind Noel on the broom, stepped off and dropped in freefall, using her gravity magic to slow her descend enough for her to reach the right height and spinning roundhouse kick two pirates to their heads before landing.
“Thank you, thank you,” the girl said as she gave a curtsy to the remaining wide-eyed pirates.
“The floor is lava!!” Noel shouted gleefully as she flew around erratically above the heads of everyone, dropping red ball after red ball to the ground. When the red balls hit the ground, they exploded into a sticky mess of red gel that quickly stuck to pirates’ legs, gluing them to the ground.
“Woah!!” Obi screamed as he threw himself to the side, just two red balls dropped where he stood and exploded, covering the area with the red goop. “Noel!! Careful!”
“Don’t stand around like an idiot then, idiot!” the girl snapped before flying up higher, performing a loop-the-loop.
Kinai and Sam flew in to handle the rest, with Kinai stopping her wind-board inches above ground and then kicked up a wind with her board to blow some of the pirates that had managed to escape Noel’s red glue over the rails and into the sea.
“Sheesh, you guys should really be more careful. We are on a ship in the middle of the ocean here,” Kinai spoke with a feigned concern before flashing Obi a grin. “Yo, dunce, you owe me one.”
“Sergeant! The stolen loot has been secured,” Sam’s voice rang out as he walked up from the stairs leading into the ship’s hold. A huge block of ice with all the Jewels stolen from the shipping company frozen within floated in the air behind him. “The pirate captain and his immediate subordinates have already escaped after they failed to secure the Jewels.”
“Good job team. You held the fort well, Obi,” Sergeant Inox commented with a proud smile as he landed on the deck.
“Thank you, sir!”
[1690 words]
