After a few days of traveling through the sky, Terias and the other BLAU warriors arrived at the big battle in the Land of Fish. Twenty flocks soared over the beach, with each group flying in their separate V-shaped formations. Terias looked down at the madness below. Men scrambled about aimlessly, attacking any enemy that was in sight or running for their lives. Bodies were laid out everywhere. There was even some fighting in the Ganchian Ocean. An all-out sea battle was in full swing between the fish and crustacean forces. Arrows flew back and forth between dozens of ships, and aquatic manek users went toe to toe in the water.
The flocks split up and veered off to certain areas of the battlefield. Captain Deon led the flycatchers to the chordate reserve units which were stationed behind the Keanoans’ final line of defense. They landed in the midst of chaos. Terias watched as a man nearby was rapidly pressing down on the chest of an unconscious man. He turned and saw a guy being carried by two men. His left leg bloody and mangled. Terias turned again and watched a nervous man lean over and barf out his previous meal. The Flycatchers kept walking until the captain approached an angry-looking man. His hair was buzzed short and gray. He wore viewing specs over his eyes. Captain Deon spoke to the man.
“You must be Admiral Orcus, I presume?”
“That is correct.”
“I am Captain Deon and these birds behind me are the Flycatchers Flock of the Bird Land Air Unit. What orders do you have for us, sir?”
“We need to send a battalion of reptiles and amphibians to the Ganchian to help take out the crustaceans. You men are needed to help them get there by neutralizing the threat of flying insect attackers. Report to Commander Drae and he’ll provide you with further details. You will all be moving out soon, while you still feel the rush of war.”
“Understood, Admiral.” The captain turned to his flock. “Flycatchers, follow me.”
He led them to a large group of fighters that had maneks of turtles, frogs, crocodiles, toads, and alligators. They were neatly aligned in thirty rows of ten men. The Flycatchers stood behind them and formed another row. Captain Deon walked to the front to speak with Commander Drae. Terias observed all of the men in front of him. They all stood still and silent, keeping their eyes forward. If there were any fears or doubts among them, they hid them well. Terias was tempted to have a quick talk with Reni, who was on his left, but he knew it wasn’t the time for that. In just a few minutes, the captain returned to the flock to give them the rundown.
“Flycatchers, these men in front of you are going to advance with full force towards the ocean. Our job will be to cover them from the air. When they reach the water, you will return here. If your manek form tires out during the mission, you will have to fight from the ground until you reach one of the chordate camp spots. Any questions?”
They all remained silent.
“I want all of you back here alive, so get out there and fight with everything you’ve got!”
“Yes, sir!” they shouted.
All that was left for them to do was wait for the men in front to move out. Many images began to flash through Terias’s mind. He saw a vision of his reign as a mighty feudal lord. He pictured the praise from the Bird Land citizens, from his father, and from Sona. He touched his necklace and thought about his mother. These thoughts reminded him why he must survive the battle.
“Charge!” The outburst came from Commander Drae.
The battalion roared as they stormed unto the battlefield. The Flycatchers flew upward into the sky and followed them. Waves of arthropods were quickly approaching the battalion. Terias watched with his keen hawk eyes as the opposing teams savagely collided. Swords clashed, arrows rained from the sky, and men were dropping left and right. The scene was a spectacle, but Terias would soon have his own fight to worry about. He shifted his focus to the bug-men that were flying straight towards him, carrying deadly weapons.
A fearsome foe with cicada wings and a long ax took a vicious swing, aiming for Terias’s head. Terias shot up, barely dodging the ax blade. This gave Terias an opening to attack. He jabbed his foot towards the man’s neck and slit his throat with his talons. His opponent dropped down into the brawl below.
“Nice work, T!” yelled Gus, who was coasting just off to the right of Terias.
Terias heard him, but he kept his sight on the cicada until he hit the ground. He didn’t look away until the man was engulfed in a sea of warriors. His first kill was now a stain on the earth.
The next challenge came from a hoverfly man, but he didn’t go after Terias. He was heading straight for a frog fighter who was oblivious of the hoverfly’s intentions. Terias was too far away to help him. It seemed like the frog would fall victim to the surprise attack, but a devoted bird came to his rescue. Reni flashed downward like a bolt of lightning and rammed the hoverfly’s skull with a wooden club. The frog man was saved.
The chordates managed to push back the arthropods quite a bit. They just needed to push for about half a kilometer across the grassland and they would reach the beach. The water reinforcement battalion had lost about a quarter of their men, but the birds were still fully staffed. The Flycatchers continued to face off against insects. They held their own until a real adversary appeared.
A man with skin as dark as charcoal and black armored-wings flew towards a bird fighter named Lyru. The man didn’t seem to be holding a weapon, but there was a large, sharp horn sticking out of his forehead. There was no mistaking the fact that his manek was from a rhinoceros beetle. Lyru threw darts at the beetle. They hit the man, but it was the wrong part of him. The beetle had rotated which caused the sharp dart tips to bounce off of his impenetrable wings.
He then bolted in and delivered a nasty punch to Lyru’s stomach. The punch was so powerful, Lyru’s arms instantly dropped to his sides and he coughed up blood. The condor was knocked out and began to fall to the ground. Gus swooped in and caught him before he could fall too far.
Terias happened to be nearby and he caught the attention of the rhino beetle. The beetle zoomed towards him and threw a wild right hook at his face. Terias dodged, feeling a rush of wind slide across his face as he narrowly avoided the bone-crushing blow. He was well aware of the strength of a rhinoceros beetle after reading about it in the bestiary a while back. The beetle tried to land punches with all four of his fists, but Terias was crafty enough to avoid them.
After sizing up the enemy with his evasive maneuvers, Terias decided to get serious. He unbuttoned his vest halfway and exposed a circular object that was wrapped to his torso. He peeled away a buckskin case and revealed a metal disk. It was as big as the hand of an adult man. The outer rim was razor-sharp, but there was a gap in the metal where he could place his hand for throwing and catching.
He threw the disk at the beetle. It whipped through the air with intimidating acceleration. The rhino beetle got out of the way just in the nick of time. If he had moved a fraction of a second later, he would’ve gotten decapitated. The disk journeyed upward and then started to come back to Terias. When it reached him, he caught it and immediately threw it again. This time, the disk grazed the beetle’s right thigh, creating a bloody gash on his leg. Once again, the disk came back to him.
Terias immediately threw the disk for the third time. The beetle got out its way by sliding to the left. It was exactly what Terias wanted to happen. He pulled a dagger out of one of his vest pockets and boldly charged towards the beetle. The arthropod was on guard and ready to clobber Terias as soon as he got close enough. It was do or die for Terias. He knew that just a single punch from the bug could kill him. His life depended on the success of his next move. With the dagger pointed forward, he closed in. The beetle went for the knockout punch, but he hit nothing but air as Terias flapped his wings and propelled himself up.
Terias could see the confusion on his face and he surely wasn’t ready for what came next. The beetle suddenly jerked forward as the sound of metal smashing against his back rang through the sky. He took a direct hit from Terias’s disk of destruction. After hearing the impact and seeing the bug get whiplashed from the force, Terias thought he had the match won.
The perceived victory was short-lived. He was shocked as he watched fragments of the fractured disc fall to the fighters below. The wings of the beetle were just too indestructible for the disk. The surprising outcome caused Terias to let his guard down for a moment, which allowed the beetle to reach up and grab his ankle. Terias struggled to get free form his hold, but the grip from the bug man was tremendously strong.
Terias knew that if he even blinked, he’d be dead. Instinct kicked in and he remembered the dagger in his hand. All he could think about was throwing it at the jugular notch just below the bug’s throat. There wasn’t a single shred of time for any other thought. The muscles of his arm fired involuntarily as he cocked his hand back for one last desperate shot.
A high-pitched noise ripped through the atmosphere without warning, causing the beetle to release his grip on Terias. The level of its pitch was incomprehensible. The sickening sound was poisonous to the brain. The wicked tune was so intense, the rhino beetle was driven to a state of insanity in mere seconds. He flew around frantically in many directions and screamed like a lunatic. Eventually, he had greatly distanced himself from Terias, and he was no longer a threat.
When the noise suddenly stopped, Terias was a little dazed himself. The world was spinning, his head ached, and his ears were ringing. Luckily for him, it seemed like he was just outside of the epicenter of the sound waves. He searched for the source of the sound and saw a person just below him, who was wearing snug, dark clothes. They hid their identity by covering their face with a plain mask made of clay and wearing a hood over their head. The person was flapping black wings, but they weren’t those of a bird or an insect. They were bat wings.
Terias opened his mouth to say something, but the person flew away before he could speak. As Terias watched them go, he noticed that there were many more masked people that had shown up out of nowhere. They all dressed differently from each other, except for the masks and hoods. The mysterious invaders had maneks from each of the five lands of Keanos and the four domains of Zitonia. Terias was puzzled by the fact that they were helping the Keanoans and attacking the Zitonians.
Terias decided to continue with the mission. The bat made him remember something though. He thought about that day when he had dropped Mory from the sky. He had said something to Mory after he had pulled off that miraculous gliding stunt.
The only mammals that can truly fly are bats.
Fantasy
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