Just when Ryuzio thought he'd beaten Baru, the Volant turned his head, eyes shooting a glare. Ryuzio gritted his teeth, feet not sliding anywhere due to the exhaustion of his Ether. He couldn't do much now, without his Dragon Cloak and all…
"You feeling it too now, eh, kid?" Baru said, blood spurting down his nose. "The frustration of when the one you hit doesn't go down."
Ryuzio remained silent. Without his fists, he had no answers. Why did he waste all of his Ether on a move that was not perfected? No wonder Baru did not go down. Dragon Chase was just not tough enough yet! Even though with every bounce it hit harder, sending Ether to something like that—and maintaining its shape—was way different and difficult than just a simple Dragon Bullet. Without a doubt, Dragon Chase needed work.
Baru took an unstable step toward Ryuzio, the effects of the Chase lingering on the opposing Volant, even if his body refused to admit it. "You're out of Ether, brat," he blurted. "Now don't drag this anymore and just hand over that headband!"
Ryuzio put his fists in front of him. "I told you already! I'm not giving you this headband!"
"Even without any Ether," Baru said, wincing, "you still dare stand against me?"
"Of course!" Ryuzio shouted.
Baru spat blood to the side, keeping eyes on Ryuzio. "I'll make you regret everything, you persistent brat—" His cheeks inflated and he spat out a lot of blood.
Ryuzio noticed it. A pink "plus sign" had appeared on Baru's bare chest—same as the one that had healed Codix, just bigger—and then…it spun anticlockwise, turning into a purple "X" sign.
Baru fell to his knees, flattening on the ground—
Ryuzio threw his palms to the spheres of light shooting toward him. They were numerous and all blindingly fast. None of them stopped when they reached Ryuzio; instead they dug deep into his skin, as if ENTERING him. Or maybe as if Ryuzio was absorbing them—
All of a sudden his skin started glowing and some weird warmth coated his body. He felt as if he was no longer empty on Ether. Instead of a tiny ember, he now had a weak flame. This feeling wasn't exactly new to him, just like these spheres of light piercing his skin. It just had been so long since any of this occurred to him that it all seemed new.
But why now? What were these muticolored spheres of light?
"I took down Baru for you," the pink-haired girl said, approaching. "Now you owe me."
"Heh?" Ryuzio picked his nose with a pinky, his brows furrowing. "Are you dumb?"
"Didn't you see that massive Cross on his chest?" she said, putting emphasis on the "cross." "It was MY Etherskill that did it. I weakened him to the point that the damage you dealt was JUST enough to knock him out."
Ryuzio squatted beside Baru's unconscious body, poking at his head with a finger. "Is he really out?"
The masked girl stopped beside Ryuzio, folding her arms. "Positively," she said with a nod. "After all, you did absorb all the Ascension Orbs."
Ryuzio climbed to his feet, turning toward her with a smile. "Oh, yeah, the 'attention horns.' Everyone knows about them… Can you remind me?" He rubbed the back of his head, laughing.
"You're kidding." She sighed deeply, shaking her head. "If you don't even know about something like Ascension Orbs, I think I might have made a mistake by picking you over Baru as my ally."
"Ally?" Ryuzio said, pointing at her. "We're not allies! You're Balloonru's squadmate!"
"Wrong," she said, crossing her wrists, shaking her head. "We were just in an alliance. We simply made a deal to help each other out. I gave him my Etherskills, and he promised to give me his strength for whatever I needed.
"But that'll never happen since our alliance just ended. I even removed my Etherskill from his cronies. And because I helped you in taking him down, now you owe me a favor—"
"No I don't," Ryuzio said, walking past her.
She turned, reaching for his shoulder with her left hand. "Wait! What do you mean—?"
Ryuzio gazed over his shoulder to meet her eyes. "I never asked for your help!" he said loudly. "You're not my squadmate! You were on Balloonru's side!"
She did not dare rest her hand on Ryuzio's shoulder, so it lowered to her side. But then she put her right hand forward. "Then how about this: let me be your squadmate—"
"Are you dumb?" Ryuzio said, turning away and walking off, letting her hand hang. "How can I make someone who betrayed her captain my squadmate?"
She trailed a step behind him. "I told you already! We were not flucking squadmates; we were just allies, together to make use of each other's abilities!"
Ryuzio froze and she stopped beside him. "Use?"
She nooded. "Hm."
"So you were never friends, yeah?"
"Friends? No way! Why'd you even think about…?" She trailed off seeing Ryuzio walk away once again.
He exited the alley, turning right, going to regroup with Hitryel.
"I HELPED you in taking down the most wanted Volant of this skybranch!" she yelled from behind. "You can at least give me a little thanks, pigsnot!"
Thanking squadmates? Odd. Why would he?
"Are you even listening—?" She crashed into Ryuzio's back as he abruptly stopped.
Ryuzio gulped, a chill running down his spine—another experience that he had forgotton about. "Hit…?"
The pink-haired girl almost yelled at Ryuzio for stopping suddenly, but closed her lips after looking what was ahead. "THAT'S your squadmate? Hitryel flucking Hystryk—?"
Ryuzio sprinted without a second thought, Ether blazing throughout his body. "Get away from Hit, you bastards!"
###
Hitryel jabbed at one of the hundreds of bubbles of light shooting toward him, but instead of bouncing away from his fist, the bubble of light…entered his fist. He looked down at the other parts of his body being bombarded by these bubbles, only to find out that they were harmless. Every single one of them was simply entering his body, as if his body was absorbing them involuntarily. If they had any bad effects, Hitryel was in real trouble—
A wave of calm warmth washed over him, accompanied by a faint glow on his skin, sweeping away most of his fatigue and worries. From this, he concluded that whatever these bubbles of light were, they were at least not something related to Davith's toxic abilities—
Hitryel clenched his jaw, his breath clogging in his neck. As he slowly rolled his eyes down to the right side of his stomach, they widened.
The black-haired man grinned, clinging onto the knife he just stabbed deep into Hitryel's side. A glittering pink-colored plus was glowing on his forehead. He climbed to his feet as Hitryel's knees weakened.
'Smoke it!' Were the bubbles of light merely a distraction for this outcome to occur? But why would anyone aid their opponent's recovery, only to injure one of their vital organs just after? Answers were just like strong opponents under these stars—not a single real one.
From the other side, the blond one cracked his knuckles, the same pink plus on his forehead as the one on the black-haired man's beside Hitryel.
"You thought you could beat Davith and live to tell the tale?" said the one who'd stabbed Hitryel, thrusting the knife deeper. "Well, you thought wrong! Look what happens when all you have is brute strength—"
Hitryel grabbed the hand on the handle of the knife, and with the other, punched the man holding it in the face, knocking him away. "I'm not unfamiliar with opponents using underhanded tricks to fight me," Hitryel said under a grunt. "But I can't put up with any smoking blabbering."
The blond one rushed, arms outstretched to the sides. "You're going down."
In fact, he wasn't.
Hitryel gripped the knife in place, ducking under the thick arms of the blond one. The man passed by Hitryel, so he threw a forward kick, pushing the blond man away. 'As long as the knife is plugged in, these guys won't be a problem.'
Hitryel glanced to the opposite side of the road. Davith still lay flattened there. He returned his eyes onto the two opponents ahead, wondering if they too had some gas-based abilities.
Strange, because for once he got an answer right away when the black-haired one threw—what looked like—a gas bomb.
Hitryel got close to them. That was his strategy to defeat opponents who used gas as a weapon.
At the same moment, the black-haired one tossed a gas mask to his partner, wearing the other one he held.
"Huh—!"
They both threw a gas bomb by their feet, a massive cloud of white smoke exploding, swallowing all three of them.
"You may be stronger than us," the black-haired one said amidst the gas cloud. "But brawn isn't the only way to win!"
"We're still going to beat the living spit out of you, don't get us wrong," the other one said. "But only because of our gigantic brains."
With that, both of them charged at Hitryel with murderous intent, closing distance swiftly inside the white gas cloud. Surrounded by the cloud of gas, Hitryel felt his senses dimming. But excuses wouldn't save him. He had to fight and somehow defeat these two. Before his body and mind began a fight of their own, that is.