Teon zoomed towards the Bird Land Air Unit’s main base at maximum speed. That is where he believed the bellbird call came from. The base was roughly three kilometers away from the academy and it took him a little under ten minutes to get there.
As he approached the base, he was shocked to see troops frantically running and flying around. When he got close enough to descend, he propelled himself with his wings using as much force he could. He landed next to captain Turic who was in his chimney swift manek form. The captain seemed spooked as he paced back and forth while hyperventilating.
“What is going on here, Captain?”
“Colonel Teon . . . we’re under attack . . . insects fighters are here.”
“Where are they? I should have seen an army by now.”
“They’re scattered around the base. It’s no army. Just a few of them. They’re monsters. Dressed in black cloaks and at least three of them can fly. One of them took down my entire flock easily!”
The captain’s shaking was very noticeable. Teon could also sense the fear in his voice. “Just breathe, Turic. You’re clearly in no condition to keep fighting. Go to the recovery tower and stay there until you can think more clearly.”
“Yes, Colonel.”
Turic scurried away, looking nothing like a BLAU captain should. Teon knew these invaders must be incredibly strong if one of them single-handedly decimated a flock of ten troops. He set out to find the insects and help take them down.
His search didn’t take very long as after wrapping around a dormitory, he found one of the hooded cloak figures zipping through the sky while battling airborne troops. It was like a black blur as the fighter whipped around striking down men left and right. His weapon, which was poking out of his sleeve, looked like a large wasp stinger.
Teon watched as the cloaked fighter punctured a young warrior’s wing with his stinger. The warrior fell to the ground with a force so great that Teon could hear bones crack. As the warrior groaned in agony, the cloaked fighter dashed in to finish him off. Teon drew his sword and swept in to rescue his comrade. He was just barely in time as he parried the stinger away from the wounded man. The cloaked fighter created space by jumping backward.
The two sized each other up, preparing for a battle to the death. The cloaked fighter charged in trying to stab Teon’s chest. Teon slapped the stinger downward and countered with a sword jab towards his opponent’s left thigh. He was too quick and sidestepped away from Teon’s attack. The man in the cloak wielded the stinger as if it was a sword that he had trained with for his entire life. They traded blows, both searching for an opening to deal a lethal strike.
Teon leaped backward then he lifted slightly off the ground with the use of his buzzard wings. He bolted towards the insect man neutralizing the stinger with his sword while trying to gore him with the spear-like talons on his feet. The mysterious foe was able to duck but Teon ended up catching his hood and ripping it off of the cloak. The man’s exposed face revealed that he was the manek user of some sort of wasp. Teon focused on the man’s eyes which were like shards of amber.
“Who are you? Why are you attacking this land?”
The wasp man just stared at him menacingly. Teon, realizing that he wouldn’t get an answer, reached into a pocket in his vest and pulled out about a dozen severed talons and threw them at the man as if they were darts. The wasp hovered sideways to dodge some and slapped others away with his stinger. Two talons were able to pass through the wasp’s defense. One pierced his right shoulder and the other one lodged in the center of his biceps on his left arm.
When Teon saw that he could no longer use the left arm, he rushed in with the sword in one hand and talons in the other. He subdued the stinger with his sword and tried to stab at the man’s throat with the talons. To Teon, victory seemed like a sure thing at this point.
He was wrong.
As Teon took a shot at the enemy, a wasp-like leg, that was nearly a meter long, popped out from underneath the cloak and pushed the wrist of his sword arm away. Then another leg jetted out and knocked the sword out of Teon’s hand. As the sword dropped to the hard dirt with a thud sound, Teon leaped a couple of meters back from the wasp fighter. Retrieving his sword at that moment would have left him wide open for a fatal strike.
The colonel was aware that some insect manek users receive an extra set of legs when they transform, but his opponent’s ability to hide them so well caught him off guard. Teon was mentally assessing his situation when the wasp man suddenly decided to speak.
“I am Felix, the executioner wasp. Long live Zitonia!”
Felix plucked out the talon that was lodged into his arm and flicked it off to the side. Then he began pumping his wings back and forth until he generated enough energy to burst straight towards Teon.
Teon couldn’t react quickly enough to Felix’s incredible speed, and he had no weapon to defend himself with. The wasp thrust the stinger right through the center of his chest. Teon gasped as his sternum was split and the stinger went in deep. Felix quickly pulled the stinger out and Teon collapsed to the ground.
While struggling to breathe, all Teon could do was stare at the golden grass skinned boots on Felix’s feet. The shock and pain from the stinger stab left him speechless and immobile. He felt like a lightning bolt had struck him in the chest. Felix had some word’s to say to Teon.
“My venom isn’t lethal but it won’t feel pleasant at all. I’m sure you will die from the stab wound anyway. I’ll allow you to have that little time to live as a reward for giving me such a good fight.”
Another cloaked person crept up to Felix on foot. Teon could tell that it was a woman by the sound of her voice
“It is done. We must return now.”
“Damn. Just when I was starting to have some fun. Very well.”
They walked away. Teon laid on the dirt road, and a great amount of blood poured from his chest. He felt like he was burning alive from the inside as venom spread throughout his body. His breathing was severely labored as each inhale elicited a sharp pain in his chest. Death seemed like it would be merciful.
He thought about his family as he was slowly losing consciousness and his senses were beginning to fade. He wished he could have gone home with his family and had that delicious feast. He promised Ariel that he would come home to her. Perhaps the mercy of death would not be for the pain, but perhaps for his regret.
Just when he thought he had reached the bitter end, he felt someone slowly turn him over and apply a mild pressure of cotton rags to his chest. He turned his head and saw the young lad that he had saved earlier, kneeling next to him while holding down the cotton over his wound. He had crawled a few dozen meters over to Teon with a broken leg to stop the bleeding.
With a quiet and shaky voice, he said, “Not yet, Colonel. Not yet.”
Fantasy
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