Chapter 48

  The rumbling death wheel that was the Ancient Fortoise collided with the Wealth Cashfish even as the turn marker shifted from it, to the Lion King, and instantly to the Bolt-Charged Brutalist. The Fortoise’s edges chipped off, sending fragments flying about as it smashed into the gemstone body of the Cashfish, which didn’t seem bothered in the slightest that a tank sized top had just crashed into it. The impact sent the Fortoise toppling backwards, its spinning slowing and sputtering out as broken pieces of shell and wall, in irregular intervals, created a dragging effect. Looking less like a top now, and more a broken set of gears, it was much less formidable.

  An annoyed roar drew my attention back to the Bolt-Charged Brutalist. It’s attack had charged the entire previous turn, the orb of crackling energy remiding me of the massive ball boll dropped at midnight for new years… assuming it was, you know, made of freaking plasma. The gorilla creature tried to turn, to angle its attack in the direction of the Wealth Cashfish, or more likely, the Lion King it had consumed, however, its body rejected the effort. Both its forearms had sunk into the ground, which was in the middle of liquifying from the electrical energy supercharging it, and with its missing leg, and the other in no actual working order, it couldn’t muster the strength it needed.

  Instead, the attack released as it reached maximum charge, and the Brutalist collapsed mid turn. The energy ripped through the air, shooting with enough speed it left behind a glowing afterimage streak of super charged air, like a tree sized beam of light. Even though it missed the Wealth Cashfish by a few feet, I saw the gemstone scales on the creature’s face shift, as if there was enough power in that attack to even damage it, residually mind you, with the force alone.

  The blast collided with the edge of the arena, and erupted back toward the Muns within the arena, contained and redirected, as it was, by the forcefield in place to keep all the onlookers safe. The backblast of power spread outwards, and engulfed the Ancient Fortoise in pulsing light, and reaching both the Wealth Cashfish, and even the airborne Muns. Nothing was left unscathed by the attack, save the two Tamer’s, around which protective fields of invisible power flickered, the moves unable to damage them.

  By the time the light of the attack faded, and I was able to take in the damage, I had a feeling Mikael had not planned on that turn of events. His Fortoise was gone, as was his Bolt-Charged Brutalist. Meanwhile, the Herculean Diamond Beetle was still airborne.. mostly, though it was quickly losing altitude, likely due to the fact it’s wings had been blow to pieces. And the bark on the AX-olotl’s body, was blackened and charred. As for the Wealth Cashfish… it’s scales had cracked, some of the gems had begun to fall off… and there was the smell of cooked fish floating into the air, strong enough I could smell it from the stands.

  My mouth watered… and I had to wonder what Fried Cashfish tasted like…

  “That backfired on him,” I commented, ignoring the thoughts I was actively having over the taste of the Muns currently battling before me. Talk about questionable ethics.

  “Not really,” Guy answered, and his tone drew my gaze from the arena, to his face. A small, knowing look played across his face, as he guided my focus to the descending beetle. Without its wings, it couldn’t control its descent. Instead of what I figured was meant to be a headlong dive towards the ground, or perhaps a Suplex, it was spinning like a plane in a nose dive. Meanwhile, the turn order still blinked, the beetle not highlighted… what?

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  “With his Muns defeated, Mikeal has to summon two new Muns, before the turn order resumes. He’s frozen the battle for a moment, in a sense, and in doing so, the Herculean Diamon Beetle isn’t able to execute the second part of its move, even if it still had its wings. He’s stalling, summoning them, and is likely waiting till the beetle crashes to the ground. That way, the beetle will merely release his AX-olotl, and he’ll have voided out what would have otherwise been a devastating attack.”

  “But he lost two Muns.” I countered.

  “Both were extremely damaged and operating at minimal efficiency. If anything, he just reset the battle in his favor, and applied a good bit of damage to Julius’s Muns in the process. The Wealth Cashfish is a tank, it’s not a damage dealer. So he’s less likely worried about it. This way, sure, he’s down two Muns, but Julius’s Beetle isn’t long for this battle either, and if my guess is correct about Mikael’s amplifier, he just weaseled his way into an even better position.”

  A countdown timer appeared above the image of Mikeal, showing he had ten more seconds to make his Mun selections. He waited until the last two seconds, as the Herculean Diamond Beetle crashed to the ground… its body taking the full force while it cradled the AX-olotl, unable, as Guy had said, to execute its attack and cause further damage to Mikael’s Mun. With his main damage dealer safe, Mikael’s gauntlet glowed as he quickly summoned two Muns.

  “Not above cheap tricks on top of good tactics, eh?” Julius commented as he eyed the turn order… it flickered off his Beetle as its head lowered and the AX-olotl was released.

  Mikael said nothing. Instead, he gave the next command to his Mun, as the turn order shifted, and showed one of his two new Muns, got to go before the Wealth Cashfish.

  This mun, called a Shifting Serpent, looked like a Sidewinder, that is, those strange, desert pit vipers. There were horns atop its sandy colored head, and the air around it shimmered, its size shifting, making me wonder if the damned thing was a mirage. I couldn’t make out many details about it, other than the fact it was moving quickly, in that strange, sideways way that such snakes did, towards the Wealth Cashfish. However, it stopped, just short of the fish, and froze its movement, coiling up, ready to strike. The posture reminded me of how the Springer’s coiled, waiting for an attack, before they bounced away and landed their counterattack.

  The turn order shifted to the Wealth Cashfish… and it opened its mouth, letting out the Lion King, which was once again standing, its body gleaming with power and light. Not only had the Wealth Cashfish protected it, the Mun had also healed, or at least buffed, the Lion King as well.

  Unfortunately for the feline… the moment it was let out of the Wealth Cashfish’s mouth, it passed within striking distance of the waiting serpent. Or… the waiting serpent grew in size to ensure the Lion King was within striking distance? Moving like an ever shifting heat haze, the Shifting Serpent struck the Lion King. Deadly fangs sunk deep into the Lion King’s side, and I watched as its mouth tightened, the fangs pumping venom deep into the Lion King. On the monitor, the creature’s indicator turned a sickly green… and I didn’t even have to ask what that meant. It had been poisoned.

  And to make matters worse, with the release of the Lion King, the Wealth Cashfish’s turn was over. The AX-olotl coiled back up, beginning once more, its spin of death. A split second later, the Herculean Diamond Beetle was gone, cleaved in two by the AX-Olotl, which, thankfully for Julius, uncoiled after only a single spin. If I had to guess… the interruption of its turns, had put the move’s stacks back to the start. Still… if it wasn’t interrupted again, the next time the Mun was up, it would hit two of Julius’s Muns. A big problem, all things considered, as Julius summoned his fifth Mun, and the battlefield, just as Guy had mentioned, looked to once again be in favor of the challenger.