As Hikaru combined his deva with those of Seiren and
King to launch a three-element wave towards Martian Class #3’s main forces,
he thought victory was definitely within his and his classmates’ grasp.
Only when a vibrating pulse was channeled through the
ground beneath his feet which caused it to crumble to pieces to reveal the
enemy’s trap did the young Summerbolt realize who he was dealing with.
Many crystals with a coral color shaped like giant
blades, spikes and stakes were spread across the pit hidden under the area where
the Earthlings had stood, Hikaru and the rest falling right to them.
The spiky-haired teenager had an extremely fast
teleportation, even more so now that he could use a 100% deva output freely. That’s what saved his life along with that of two of
his classmates from the healer-sensor five, who he managed to grab before
teleporting away from the pit.
Before being able to spare a second to worry about his
classmates, a typhoon fell on the mad bolt’s group along with a number of
meteors the size of an exercise ball.
Caught in the typhoon, Hikaru could no longer hold on
to the girls, both of them being ripped from his grasp as the genius was thrown
around without being able to see a thing. His ears were full of nothing but the
howling of the winds, his throat – with the dirt carried on those winds. All
sense of orientation had left him, simultaneously feeling sick, but being
unable to throw up because of the numbness that had taken hold of his body.
The typhoon disappeared soon enough and the boy’s
nausea along with it, so he was overcome by relief, realizing only too late
that without that typhoon there was nothing holding him above the
crystal-layered bottom of the pit.
Young Mr. Summerbolt was able to teleport to another
part of the pit that was crystal-free no more than a second before being
pierced by the crystal spike he was falling toward, needing a few moments to
calm himself after he had survived that ordeal.
The battle with Grak had been scary, of course, but it
was nothing like this. So many abilities were used at the same time here and
those abilities were far more destructive than the chainman’s.
Focusing on the realization of how unprepared he
actually was for this Class Battle any longer was only going to put his
classmates in more danger, though, so Hikaru committed every ounce of his being
to the steeling of his mind.
He was the Earthling group’s genius. Now was the time
to protect them all with that brain he took great pride in having.
The spiky-haired teenager got back on his feet,
looking around the smoke that had risen from the crushing of some of the
meteors inside the pit to look for his classmates. He found something else
before that.
The members of the main Martian force jumped inside
the pit from all sides, those among them with elemental devas preparing
barrages of attacks before even landing. The attack aimed at the mad bolt in
particular was the doing of the same villain responsible for that typhoon
hitting the hot heads earlier – Jart.
He looked a bit like Vega, but his tummy was bigger,
his hair longer and silver in color, his eyes – so dark gray they appeared
almost black and his skin – closer in terms of complexion to that of the young
Summerbolt himself.
Many mini-typhoons were sent at Hikaru by him, blocked
by the hemisphere of electricity the mad genius formed around himself. The next
moment Jart teleported right next to that hemisphere and crushed a single
typhoon that was much bigger than those from his barrage in the Earthling’s
shield.
(Jart) ‘-Having fun yet, Summerbolt?!’
(Hikaru) ‘-If I was facing someone stronger, maybe it
would’ve been fun!’
Hikaru made the hemisphere burst in many lightning
bolts to push back the typhoon, shaping each bolt like a spear and sending it
against his enemy. Right after that he teleported to the side of the Martian
who was dealing with the spears, sending him away with a lightning-enveloped
fist in the jaw.
As Jart was pretty much buried vertically in the wall
of the pit by that attack, his opponent now went around the bottom in a frantic
search for the most valuable members of his class – the healers and the
sensors.
The Martians’ devas were generally stronger and more
combat-oriented and they would beat the Earthlings in a straight fight. Only by counting on the healers to patch up their
wounds and on the sensors to predict the enemy’s movement did Hikaru’s class
stand a chance.
The enemy was aware of that and the whole reason for the
two-stage attack they had used was precisely that – to separate Earthling Class
#1’s members from each other and take out the five most important among them
before anyone could come to their aid.
The first one of the five in question the boy found
had knelt on the ground next to the screaming Exo. She was currently channeling
her healing deva’s energy through his body to heal the number of cuts on the
techno-genius’ face and torso, one of which had almost cost him his left eye.
Vega and one of the girls that was a part of the rear
group of the class’s formation were fighting back to back next to those two,
the young Summerbolt joining them. The drunkard was breaking apart the masses
of darkness created by one opponent, his classmate providing cover for herself,
Exo and his healer from the lava river created by another by using her hair
that had come alive and had a volume and length many times above normal.
As both of the attackers of this quartet had focused
their attention on them, Hikaru succeeded in smiting both villains with a
couple of projectiles made from his lightning bolts. This wasn’t going to take
them down, of course, but it distracted them long enough for a number of
wide-diameter disks made of rocks to go through them, leaving as many cuts on
them as those on the boy who was currently being healed. Yonira, the girl that had
the second greatest hair volume among all the members of the class and was the
second strongest girl among the Earthlings (third, if counting Yuki), landed
next to the mad genius then.
Having taken out the immediate threat for them, Hikaru
and Yonira regrouped with Vega and their classmate who returned her hair to its
normal size and form, their attention quickly turning to Exo. He still screamed
of pain even though some of his wounds had already closed completely, his skin
being covered in sweat, his breath – faint. Healing such damage with high speed
still put a lot of stress on the body, after all, and for someone who was not
used it, the treatment could prove nearly as tormenting as the wound itself.
(Hikaru) ‘-I see you found Rika. We’ve got one of the central
five covered, then. What about Exo?’
(Vega) ‘-Not everyone was so lucky when we were pushed
in the pit. Especially those who tried to protect their comrades.’
(Hikaru) ‘-He protected you guys?’
(Yonira) ‘-How else do you think we came out unscathed?’
(Hikaru) ‘-He’s done his part. It’s time we …’
Jart came out of a typhoon behind him, having
enveloped his right arm in a number of mini-typhoons to transform it into a
typhoon-drill, getting ready to pierce Hikaru when Yonira stopped the attack with
a multi-layered rock wall.
(Jart) ‘-How long did you think that was gonna delay
me?’
(Hikaru) ‘-Enough for me to assess the situation. (he
turned his attention away from his opponent and back to the group in front of
him) You’ve formed a good group here, so make sure you stick together. And
protect Rika and Exo at all costs. I’ll sweep around the pit to see how the
others are doing.’
The Earthlings’ genius vanished with a crack of
thunder, realizing while moving around the pit that the enemy far outnumbered his class’s forces.
Investigating this while looking for the other members
of the healer-sensor group was not going to be an easy task, but the longer the
mystery with the Martians’ numbers remained unsolved, the greater the danger
for the Earthlings’ prized jewels would be.
The young Summerbolt teleported at the edge of the pit,
looking at what lay on the ground level beyond it to find the cause for the
disproportionate ratio between the two classes’ members. One of the Martians
had fallen on his knees near the pit and had put his hands on the ground, dark
purple blobs with small bits of yellow light inside coming out of his back and
detaching themselves from it when they grew in size. Those blobs started changing
their shape and appearance after being separated from their creator’s back,
eventually becoming identical clones of him. From what the spiky-haired
teenager had seen, he estimated that at least thirty clones had already been
sent at the bottom of the pit.
There were also around twenty more with the original
who were just standing in one place without doing anything. That too was not
random – those clones had been gathered closely around something: two
silhouettes in between their ranks who were not identical to the others.
Upon realizing what an opportunity had just revealed
itself to him, Hikaru couldn’t help but grin.
(Hikaru) ‘-So that’s where you’re hiding them. (the
clones turned their shocked faces to him as he came out of the pit and stepped
closer to them) I don’t know the devas of all the members of your class, but
I’m pretty sure you’ve got one with a healing deva and one with a sensor deva.
That’s who you’re guarding there, right? (he used the highest teleportation
speed he was able to achieve at this point to get to the original who was
creating the clones, concentrating electricity in his chest to move up his
throat and release in a roar-type attack) And if I take out the original, the
clones protecting those two will …’
Before he could finish his sentence, the ground he was
going to use to provide proper footing for a strong roar was shaken by a strong
vibration. The loss of footing led to the roar being released prematurely and in
an upward direction, the mad bolt’s eyes searching for the one who had crippled
his attack.
A Martian who stood on the other side of the pit was
caught by his gaze, touching the earth with a triumphant smirk that had a tinge
of mockery to it.
(Martian #1) ‘-If you realized our sensor is there,
you should’ve figured she’s already sensed you. (the moment Hikaru got back on
his feet meteors rained down on him, only now noticing another Martian that
stood all the way by the trees beyond the remains of the big central field had
directed both his hands toward the skies) Those clones aren’t the only ones
protecting her if that’s what you hoped for.’
The young Summerbolt now sent lightning bolts from his
whole body in sufficient numbers to deal with all the meteors falling from the
skies, blowing them up in smoking pieces of rock enveloped in electric charges.
His other adversaries in the vicinity wasted no time, ten of the clones who
were guarding the Martians’ healer and sensor having split from the rest to
attack him while he was distracted.
Since he was still thinking about the whole situation
he had found himself in, Hikaru couldn’t take out the clones before they
reached him, the first of them landing a hit on his face that pushed him back. Another
clone had already moved behind him by then to grab the genius and allow the
others to unleash the fury of their fists and kicks on him. The pain from that first smack had hardly subsided
when his face was pummeled by a volley of punches, his torso following suit on
the pain train.
A pulse of lightning electrocuted all ten clones and
separated them from him, but not before he coughed a little blood, which meant
some damage had been done to his organs for the short span of the beating he
took.
As devastating as the clones’ attack was, it turned
out to be just a diversion in order to distract the spiky-haired teenager from
the meteors that were still falling around long enough for one of them to hit
him. By the time he understood that, one of the enemy’s heavenly projectiles
reached his back, another lightning-fast teleportation saving the hot head
again. Or so he thought.
Seeing as how he couldn’t take on all the enemies on
the surface alone, he teleported back to the bottom of the pit, a sense of cold
spreading across his whole back then. That sense of cold lasted only a second.
What followed was more agonizing and prolonged. A
feeling of searing pain expanded across the back of his body and the back of
his neck and although he could not see the damage, Hikaru gathered what its
nature was.
‘-That last meteor that managed to hit me must have
made contact enough to burn me before the teleportation was complete.’ he
thought as the pain in his back increased, the fact that what remained from the
back of his T-shirt dug into the singed flesh making it all the more
excruciating. At the same time the lower half of his face and his body still stung
from the beating of the clones. The combination of both types of damage was
enough to make him want to fall on the ground and curl up in a ball.
In order to give his nervous system some information
to process aside from the feeling of pain, the wounded genius looked around, seeing
how one of his classmates was running away from something out of the corner of
his eye.
It was Keiry D, the tiny black-haired sensor deviant
of the Earthlings, who came out amid a veil of dark blue smoke with sheer
terror on her face. The most likely cause for her dread was the couple of
brown-skinned tentacles with orange scales on them here and there that came out
of the smoke.
Clearly now was not the right time to be curling up in
a ball.
Saya Summerbolt’s son teleported between Keiry and the
tentacles that had almost reached her within a second, burning them with his
bolts and then grabbing his classmate by the waist before teleporting beyond
the smoke.
He knew that dark blue smoke was created by one of the
girls of his class, so there were bound to be allies beyond the veil.
Fortunately his assumption was correct, finding the creator of the smoke was
being patched up by another healing deviant from the Earthling group there.
Meanwhile three others held off a couple of copies of
the clone creator on the surface, the Martian who had created the tentacles
that had come through the smoke and another who was in the process of
transforming into a giant spiny-tailed iguana.
Hikaru left Keiry D next to his classmate, whose
broken arm and partially mangled face were being treated, looking at her while
attempting to hide his shock and concern. She smiled a bit, so that probably
meant he couldn’t hide his emotions well enough.
The genius had never seen any of his classmates in
such a state. And every time he did, his resolve wavered and the anger in him
swelled. At this point the swelling of his anger had become more palpable,
however.
(The Smoke-making Earthling) ‘-I know. I’ve looked a lot better than
this.’
(Hikaru) ‘-Are you going to be OK?
(The Smoke-making Earthling) ‘-This baby here’s patching me up, so I
should be just fine.’
(The Earthling Healer) ‘-Have you found a way out of this mess
for us yet?’
(Hikaru) ‘-Not quite, but I’m working on it. Have any
of you seen Annabel and Vale?’
(Keiry D) ‘-Annabel’s with Seiren and King. Vale’s
with the other flank quartet.’
(Hikaru) ‘-What about Hock or Gorudora? Have those two
made an appearance around here?’
(Keiry D) ‘-I haven’t sensed them anywhere near us,
nor has anyone said they’ve seen them.’
Another realization dawned on the genius’ mind when he
heard that. Maybe there was still a chance. A chance to turn this whole situation
in his class’ favor.
(Hikaru) ‘-Right. The original creating those clones
over there is on the surface, guarding the Martians’ healer and sensor along
with the vibration and meteor deviant of the enemy forces. I’m not sure taking
him out will make the clones disappear, but it’s worth a shot. You girls find a
way to get to him and neutralize him along with the healer and the sensor. That
may turn the tables against the group of attackers you’re facing here and help
out anybody else from the class who’s fighting the clones.’
(Keiry D) ‘-What about you?’
(Hikaru) ‘-I’m going to end this Battle before anyone
else gets hurt.’
Points: 31
Reviews: 65
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