The ambient sunlight began to decrease in the surroundings as the sun began to set. Long shadows were cast along the rubble floating atop the waters while fishes swam around the floating rubble and proceeded towards a huge concrete building that stood majestically amidst the water body like an island.
The fishes swam through the murky waters that barely had any undercurrent until they came across a tiny crevice between two walls and entered it. The moment they entered the crevice, their surroundings changed as the initial murky waters became dyed a deep shade of reddish-brown while the bodies of many fishes and birds were suspended within it.
The eyes of the fishes that had entered this area just now reddened in craze as a maddening desire enveloped their bodies that sought to override their preordained instincts. The fishes hurriedly swam through the reddish-brown waters and gazed at three tiny bodies that floated on the water surface.
A faint trace of purple smoke seeped out of their bodies, implying that they had long since died and their bodies were under the process of vaporising into a puff of purple smoke. The fishes naturally couldn't see the purple smoke seeping out of their bodies and swooped in on them like crazy suckers and devoured the three bodies in a matter of seconds.
The moment they finished consuming the three bodies, the bodies of all the fishes that had taken part in the feast began to show signs of mutations. Rough outgrowths that looked like the initial stages of cancer growth appeared all across their bodies and steadily began to grow in size.
Only after the fishes had consumed all traces of the three human bodies did they regain some semblance of sanity only to experience sharp pain all across their bodies. The water area rippled as tiny waves formed over its surface due to all the fishes that were thrashing within it.
Within a certain Lego structure, a humanoid figure fell on the floor while a small stream of purple blood leaked out of it.
"Vikram!" Prakash felt afraid the moment he heard the sound and failed to receive any response from Vikram when he called him.
'Crash' 'Thud'
When Prakash tried to rush towards the source of the sound, his legs tripped and made him crash into a mobile that was affixed in the wall. His inability to control his strength became his downfall during such a time of crisis.
The mobile phone lit up in response to his crash and displayed its home screen in which numerous apps hovered before a screen saver that consisted of a huge bespectacled gorilla that donned a pair of white armour and had a futuristic gun in its hands.
The light from the screen lit up the interiors while the mini Victoris coiled around his body and placed its head just before his own, facing its spider face forward.
Through their connection, Prakash could once again regain his vision, though it was even worse than his human self. It was blurry and had a purple tinge to everything displayed through it. But beggars can't be choosers, he could only make do with the vision the mini Victoris shared with him.
Prakash hurried towards the figure of Vikram that lay unconscious at the entrance and hurriedly inspected his wounds. The injuries Vikram faced were a level more critical than his own; his hands and legs were laden with bone-deep injuries while large patches of his skin were ripped off. There was also the gaping wound on his right thigh that went from one side to the other; Prakash could even see the floor below through it.
What was worse were the blue veins that bulged all across his body and seemed to be eating away at his strength. Upon closer inspection at an open wound where a blue vein was torn open, Prakash noticed two different flows that were flowing through the blue veins other than blood: one that looked like a transparent substance which numbed and constricted the surrounding muscles, while the other was a condensed form of blue smoke that impeded his body's natural regenerative power.
The blue smoke also fought control with the surrounding purple smoke and the resulting violent clash of energies served to disrupt his body functions.
"Shaggy, Shaggy!" Prakash willed for Ugly Shaggy to materialise when purple smoke gushed out of his body but when it had half transformed into the figure of Ugly Shaggy, it dissolved into purple smoke and reverted back into his body. It hadn't recovered enough strength to materialise in such a short time span.
Purple smoke also gushed out of the body of Vikram and tried to condense into the body of Victoris but failed to gather sufficient strength and dissolved back into purple smoke. The mini Shaggy that hovered beside him turned transparent and rushed out of the Lego structure and entered into the body of an unsuspecting crow.
The moment it had appeared, all the surrounding mini Victoris shielded itself from the attacks of the surrounding birds and zombies like their lives depended on it.
The crow thrashed and turned in the air when the mini Shaggy entered its body. But just a single mini Shaggy failed to actually affect it enough to take control of its mind so 20 other mini Shaggy too turned transparent and entered its head.
The pressure the surrounding mini Victoris faced intensified upon the disappearance of so many mini Shaggy from the fight as the attacks of the birds turned increasingly vicious while the cunning zombies swooped in for the kill the moment an opportunity presented itself before them.
The main objective of the mini Shaggy was not to take control of the crow but to just transfer the blue smoke circulating within the body of Vikram into it. The complexion of Vikram was steadily turning for the better as his skin that was a deep shade of blue slowly began to turn into a light shade of brown.
A minute passed in such a fashion when Prakash could no longer trace the remains of the blue smoke anymore flowing within the body of Vikram. On noticing that his body's regenerative trait had kick-started the healing process, the attention of Prakash was focused on the transparent fluid flowing in his veins.
Tracing his surroundings, Prakash hurried towards a corner within the Lego structure and found a small cup that was filled with water. In his hurry to return, Prakash once again failed to control his footing and fell, spilling all the water within the cup.
"Damn it," Prakash picked himself up and proceeded to lift another cup when his line of vision suddenly darted forward. It seemed that the mini Victoris that acted as his eyes slithered forward and coiled its serpentine body around the cup of water.
Prakash's head spun as the vision that was shared with him rapidly changed its point of reference with respect to his body that disoriented his spatial perception.
After coiling twice around the cup, the head of the mini Victoris once again placed itself before his face.
Prakash then sprinted forward while his mini Victoris acted as both his lens and his suspension that ensured that the water in the cup wouldn't spill every time he lost his balance and fell down.
The moment he neared Vikram, Victoris gently placed the cup of water beside his body that was rapidly shrivelling up as the water content stored in his body was used to repair the life-threatening injuries.
The mini Victoris turned transparent and moved forward until its spider head touched a vein in his body. A moment later, the transparent fluid flowing in his veins was steadily sucked out and stored somewhere in the middle of its serpentine body as the head of the mini Victoris carefully moved all across his body from head to toe.
A minute passed in such a fashion as the body of Vikram began to almost resemble a dry husk when the mini Victoris emerged out and hurriedly flew out of the Lego structure, towards one of the crows.
It rapidly closed in on the eyes of a crow and opened its mouth to breathe out a thick viscous liquid. The viscous liquid extracted from Vikram's body was actually the wasp poison that the six-armed zombie had injected into his body in their previous fight.
'Caaw'
The crow cried out in pain and immediately lost its balance and fell to the ground. Its fall damaged the joints of its wings and legs to such an extent that it could no longer fly for the time being. The mini Victoris had decommissioned a crow with a single sneak attack.
Without waiting to see the results of its sneak attack, the mini Victoris flew back and hovered beside the body of Prakash who was scooping out water with his hands from the cup and pouring it over the body of Vikram.
The dehydrated body of Vikram absorbed the water that touched it like a sponge, not leaving behind even a single droplet of water.
The eyes of Vikram shot open as he propped his wobbly body and dipped his face into the cup of water.
'Glug' 'Glug' 'Glug'
Vikram voraciously drank the water like a lost traveller who hadn't had a single drop of water in the middle of the desert for a month and chanced across an oasis.
"Aah, I feel alive," Vikram smacked his lips as he had drunk water to the point of bursting. His body was also slowly regaining its bulky stature and swiftly healed all the accumulated injuries.
As Vikram clenched his palm into a fist, he felt a faint numbing sensation that was still prevalent throughout his body that was causing him a faint sensation of pain and itch.
"Rest here brother. I'll be back in a jiffy," Vikram said as he walked out of the Lego structure. Prakash raised his hand to stop the youth but after a moment of pause, he decided against it.
Vikram had recovered his strength for the most part; the longer the fight dragged on, the greater the casualties their side would face which would impact the forces they could spare later to search for Anita.
Walking out of the Lego structure, Vikram stealthily inspected his surroundings and gazed at a crow that had formed a connection with him. The figures of twenty mini Shaggy hovered beside it and fought against 4 crows and 2 pigeons.
Purple smoke gushed out of the pores on his skin and coagulated into a cocoon that wrapped around him and shattered to reveal a wasp from within.
The wasp rushed towards a nearby zombie that was critically injured and punctured its head in a single hit. The zombie was almost on the verge of death and his sneak attack finally sent it to the afterlife.
The moment the scouts of the primary Lego structure noticed the appearance of the all too familiar wasp, they instantly transferred the information to everyone around them. A moment later, the doors of the primary Lego structure opened as hundreds of humans charged out.
Learning from their past experiences, any warrior whose skin had turned a shade of blue, no matter how minute, stayed within the primary Lego structure and continued to control the physical manifestation of their Skills i.e. the mini Shaggy and the mini Victoris.
The ones that charged out rapidly transformed into various insects that for an instant blotted out the skies and looked like an ominous cloud of death.
"We have to finish this battle before the sun sets," The face of the wasp dissolved for a second to reveal the face of Vikram who bellowed to the people that had rushed out. Immediately, it proceeded to attack another zombie that looked to be on the verge of death.
The moment all the zombies were killed, it would give them some breathing space. Another vicious battle ensued.