Yutah's Troopers

Aera stared blankly at Mirru as if she was the most fascinating blueberry in the world. Yes, a blueberry. Mirru continued to smile sweetly, despite her almost comical claim that she was to kill Aera there and then, which caused a fleeting smile on Aera’s stony face.

“I am to die?” Aera echoed in amusement. “Me? The world’s greatest assassin to be killed by an innocent dolt of a girl? Ha! You make me laugh, bright eyes!” Aera simply couldn’t take the young girl seriously and after laughing for a brief moment, she turned her back on the holographic girl, disregarding her as a threat.

“Not by me. By them!” Mirru’s light voice smiled in its own delicacy.

Mirru, however, had already registered the now vast amount of soldiers around her that had all lined up behind her as Mirru distracted her.

“You take me lightly, girl. Did you not see me decimate the previous horde of soldiers?” Aera’s tone was still mocking and gave a smile as she readied the muscles in her legs to pounce at the large platoon that had lined up on the large ship.

Mirru simply gave a very childish chuckle and cocked her head to one side as her holographic projection smiled on at Aera’s back and the vast amount of soldiers readying themselves. She had, indeed, seen Aera’s barrage of needles onto the previous guard forces, but despite this, Mirru knew that Aera would not win this time.

Aera gave a fierce growl as she pounced at amazing speed into battle, once more.

**********

Smaz rushed past another guard, his sword out in a slashing strike, disabling him instantly. The guard gave a scream and fell down onto the ship in pain. He felt bad for having to hurt so many of the King’s men after everything he had pledged himself to, over the years, and it was making a fair number on his guilty conscience, but he strode on.

He still couldn’t believe the King would turn against him so sourly, and his men mistake Smaz for killing King Yutah on purpose, but it had happened and he had to now live with it for ever. Not even the residents of his ‘home’ town would now trust him. Smaz gave a slight shake of his head as these thoughts trickled back into him as another soldier fell.

“Under orders of Princess Mirru, you are under arrest!” shouted a deep-voiced soldier from a top the mast.

“I go’ ya covered!” Marco called out and swiftly shot up at the soldier, his aim true to the head. However, the bullet made a loud ‘ting’ as it ricocheted off of the soldier’s head. “Hmmmm?” Marco looked more carefully in question to this.

The soldier was very much different to the others, wearing strong, golden armour instead of the typical silvery iron. Carved into the elaborate armour was a large phoenix with a small ‘Y’ in the centre of the bird – the King’s emblem. He was covered in golden plating all across his body, and his head was hidden by a rather sturdy, and long-nosed, helmet. A large red plume came out from the top and spread down behind the helmet, blowing violently in the stormy wind that had picked up.

Smaz looked up at the soldier, his eyes squinting in anger at the recognition of the deep voice.

“Carlos. I see you have continued to pledge your alliance with Princess Mirru.” Smaz noted, the tone in his voice now very much deeper, but none-the-less as smooth as before.

“Oh yes. King Yutah gave me the job of protecting the princess since she was born, and I will never leave my post and disrespect his wishes. Unlike a certain traitorous coward, I know.” Carlos snorted, his voice naturally deep and slightly echoed from the helmet.

“I am no traitor. It was all a grave mistake in the fight that ensued after the King ordered me dead. You hear that, Carlos? Dead. The King was the traitor to his own Kingdom, not I.” Smaz shouted up, the wind growing fiercer in the darkened, cloudy, night sky.

“How DARE you speak of the King so wildly! Smaz, you are nothing but a vile dog! You DESERVE the death sentence Mirru has given you!” Roared Carlos, his right fist shaking violently from his anger.

“So she has ordered me dead. Not even Mirru believes me…” Smaz lowered his head in pain. Mirru was King Yutah’s innocent daughter, who had never particularly had a great childhood, since the King was over-protective of her and confined her to her room, constantly. Despite this, Mirru was a kind soul, who adored reading and nature, and always snuck out to help around the castle grounds with some of the servants in gardening.

Her fun was spoilt by Carlos, who usually discovered her missing and took her back to her room constantly, ordering tighter security more and more around the room. Whilst confined to her room, she would read the many books that lay locked with her, like a personal library, but what Mirru craved was freedom. Mirru always escaped, though – her intelligence was vast, and she always invented a way to sneak out with her brains and intellect.

“Why should she? She loves life. You killed her father. You’re nothing but a mere wasp right now – an irritation that deserves death.”

Smaz looked back up in anger.

“Oh, look who is talking! You always loved your position because you wanted to get closer to the princess! You are the dog, Carlos! You! You cared not for age, but only your selfish desires!” Smaz roared.

“…That isn’t true.” Carlos spat after a brief pause, evident that that was, indeed, his intentions. “…I spat in my helmet. Anyway… under Princess Mirru’s orders, prepare to submit to death, Smaz!” he roared and jumped down from the mast towards Marco, who was now drinking a small bottle of ale.

The pirate looked up, the small bottle in his mouth.

“Oh shizzle.” He commented, his voice muffled by the glass bottle, now hanging in his mouth.

There was only a brief moment in which Marco could react, so instinctively he held up his hands in a blocking way. Smaz jumped up to try and catch Carlos in mid-air, with his extraordinarily high leaps. It was useless – Carlos had long sailed past Smaz in the air as he reached the correct height, and was upon Marco in no time.

However, as luck would have it, there was a loud clanging sound as Carlos’ fist connected with Marco. As Smaz turned his head in mid-air, he saw that the heavy plated fist had made contact with Marco’s metal fist. Smaz looked satisfied from the result.

There was a brief pause as Carlos’ body weight caught up with him and the impact of the metal fists erupted with vibration in both of their bodies. In seconds, the pair was shaking uncontrollably from the clang.

“Arrrr… now this is wha’ I call when I’ve ‘ah too much ale…” Marco’s voice rumbled as he lost his balance. Carlos staggered backwards slightly, and just enough to make the back of his metal-plated legs connect with the wooden banister on the higher level deck that Marco was on, which held the wheel of the ship.

“Arrrrrrrgh!” Carlos shouted as his balance threw him off of the side of the wheel-deck and onto the normal deck that Smaz had landed back upon. His heavy weight brought Carlos slamming down onto the wooden deck with a considerable impact.

“Get up. We are to fight.” Smaz simply said, pulling out his Moonsuya sword in a sleek ‘shwinging’ sound and holding it out at the fallen body of Carlos. “To the death.”

**********

A fist slammed into Aera as she rushed in for the fourth time. The fist made contact with her unprotected stomach with such force, she lurched over in agony.

As she wheezed there momentarily, the left fist of the plated soldier slammed her face in an upper-cut formation, knocking her chin up into the air. There wasn’t much sound from Aera, but a trickle of blood was all that was needed to say that she was injured.

“I told you that it was useless,” came the unnaturally chirpy reply of Mirru, “these soldiers of the castle are elites. There are almost in the same class as Smaz, except that these have much stronger… um…” Mirru tried finding the word. “Defensive capabilities, thanks to the armour I invented for them.”

Aera was about to curse Mirru, when the soldier kicked sharply into Aera's legs, knocking her off balance and onto the deck of the ship. She let out a sharp wail of pain.

“Arrrrrgggh… I’ll… kill you…” Aera wheezed in agony.

“I am afraid you won’t… this is only a hologram. You can’t even make a dent on those soldiers’ armour. They make them stronger, and more defensive. How do you expect to take me down if you can’t even defeat the KNIGHTS of the castle?”

Aera widened her eyes as the blood trickled slowly from her mouth. Mirru seemed to be a genius; she had created super armour for the elite soldiers of the castle, enhancing their abilities, and they were severely beating Aera in battle. She equalled Smaz in a match, and he was one of the castle’s top knights. With Mirru having perhaps enhanced the other knights’ abilities, they would be a force to be reckoned with.

More over – Aera could not win.

An elite kicked her in the stomach as she was down, causing her to gasp out in pain. Her strength was failing her, rapidly. But she was the best. The best assassin in the world. Losing to mere elite soldiers? She was better than elites. Yet… Mirru enhanced them.

“I… will… not lose…” Aera growled, struggling to pick herself off of the deck.

“Sorry, what was that?” Mirru’s hologram innocently asked.

“I… will… NOT LOSE!” she roared and raised her blade through the bottom of the elite’s helmet, rupturing his chin and lunging the blade straight into the soldier’s brain. It takes no genius to figure out that the soldier’s life ended immediately. She then added to Mirru, sharply. “Cloth ears!”

**********

The wind picked up all the more as the clouds moved across the dark moon-lit sky. Smaz’s cape blew furiously to his left from the strength the wind was emanating.

Time seemed to elapse slowly as Smaz held his sleek katana-like Moonsuya sword towards the direction of Carlos, who was catching his balance. It was clear this fight had to end soon, for staying in such a location was endangering the crew’s life, if they made out of this predicament alive. Mirru may have wanted Smaz dead, but the storm wanted that even more.

As the waves crashed against the sides of Marco’s ship, rocking the boat sharply to one side, Carlos lifted his helmet off of his head and threw it onto the deck between Smaz and himself.

“Not even your disgusting face has changed, Carlos.” Smaz commented, his eyes squinting in anger at the man. Carlos laughed slightly.

From where Smaz stood, he could clearly see Carlos’ long muzzle, his fierce face and his largely pointed eyes. Carlos was older than Smaz, as clearly evident from the small wrinkles that had formed on Carlos’ face over the years. As well as this, his eyebrows were rather bushy with their maroon colour, as was Carlos’ scruffy hair, which was perhaps as long as Smaz’s, but not tied back neatly into a ponytail, at all.

The moonlight shone down on the deck in a pale white light, but all could be seen clearly. Carlos frowned at Smaz as he eyed the point of the Moonsuya with his brown eyes. A shadow crept over the deck from above – a cloud passing over the moon. As it did so, Carlos attacked.

Smaz only had a brief amount of time to evade the lethal punch that Carlos threw at him from his position. He swiftly rolled to the right as the elite soldier made his fist-lunge.

“Not quick enough!” Carlos shouted, as he stopped, his left fist still outstretched.

Smaz swiftly got back on his feet and made a swipe at Carlos with his sword, intending to make a deep cut into Carlos’ leg armour. However, within that moment Carlos’ fist exploded with a wave of electricity from the clenched hand. Smaz’s eyes only had time to register a small, but bright, spark of electricity before a loud crack was heard and an intense pulse riveted through his body.

“Graaaaaah! What is this?!” Smaz roared as the electricity pulsed around him. He screamed more, unable to move from the electrical force holding him still, paralysing him to the spot with his sword still half-way through its swoop.

Carlos simply laughed a malicious laugh and then swiftly pivoted on the spot towards his left, where Smaz had rolled to – his right metallic gloved fist clenched into a punch.

All Smaz could do was watch as he saw the fist curve around to his direction. Had he not been paralysed from the shock, still, he could have moved. His eyes swiftly darted to Carlos’ face as the first came towards him, clearly seeing the ferocity imprinted on the soldier’s face, gleaming with anger at Smaz. This was going to hurt.

There was a hideously loud wham as the fist impacted on Smaz’s muzzled nose, his nose cracking painfully. Smaz roared with pain as he was sent rolling backwards from the sheer force of the punch.

He dropped his sword.

“For a long time I’ve wanted to hit you that hard, Smaz… I have waited so long…” sneered Carlos, as he carefully strode over to the shivering heap from under the cloak. He eyed the cloak and smiled, his voice in a very mocking tone. “I have always considered your sorry soul an irritation to me ever since you were picked up into the castle. No one ever liked you. You were a loner. A pathetic dog that only wanted attention… and yet…” Carlos clenched both fists in anger. “You always DID get the attention of the King. You worked your way through the ranks until you were second-best. I hated you. Your strength improved in leaps and bounds… it rivalled even mine. A rival… I hate thinking of you as my equal… I hate YOU, you pathetic WORM!”

Carlos roared in intense anger at his memories and immediately slammed both fists down with an incredible ferocious force into the cloak on the deck, which immediately preceded a brief flash of light… and the intense electrical pulse that exploded out from both fists after.

“You are to DIE, Smaz! I’ll even tell you the name of the attack which is to kill you! ELECTRIC PULSAR!” Carlos roared fiercely. There was another loud explosion as the electricity intensified and then blew a huge radiance of light all around the vessel, and an even larger amount of volts down into the cloak that was Smaz.

With the electrical power flowing down, the cloak caught fire from the heat emitting from the hands of Carlos.

“Burn! Burn until your soul reaches hell, in which is your only saviour from my power… and as punishment for killing the King…”

Marco heard the shouts and could only groan as his eyes groggily caught a shine of light from the bottoms of them. As his eyes came into focus, he realised he was facing up at the dark, cloudy sky, evidently knocked down from the impact of last time.

“Betta… ‘elp the poor… lad…” Marco said to no one in particularly, pushing himself from up the deck floor. He staggered over to the wheel deck’s broken banister, in which Carlos had fallen from. “Arrr snap!”

He took a staggering step backwards to reach for his pistol after seeing the intense electricity from below, powerful enough to be drilling the fiery cloak down into the splintering wooden deck. After finding it, he immediately threw it out into his metallic hand and without further hesitation aimed down at the back of Carlos’ head. And shot.

**********

Moving at the speed of the winds, themselves, blood trickling behind her as she ran with her magical power of speed, Aera began slashing wildly through the air in a circular formation.

“Moving at such speed proves nothing – the elite soldiers were able to stop you once before, so they’ll easily do it again. You’re forgetting they have defensive armour that can easily withstand your nasty blade.” Mirru’s voice was still all the innocent, but strangely, it was fading out every so now and again without her knowing it – the hologram was reaching its limit in projecting the image of her body.

“Tornado Piercer.” Aera simply called out, the last word echoing slightly in the winds around her. Take note, young readers – to perform a magical attack, one must call it out, first. Or to perform their ultimate move. Don’t ask me why that is – it’s just how things go in the world of battle.

Soon Aera’s body completely vanished from a blur, seemingly nowhere in sight. The elite soldiers briefly looked around before gale winds hit them with full force shortly afterwards.

“Ma’am – I can’t see her!” One elite panicked.

“I don’t know what she’s planning, but as long as you wear that armour, you won’t be harmed.” Mirru smiled as her voice faded in and out of frequency, totally oblivious to this fact.

“Sorry ma’am, what was t-” however, that was all the elite could say before he suddenly was swooped into the air – his voice lost in a powerful blast of wind.

Mirru looked up in awe as suddenly the elite soldiers were all swooped into the air, each one screaming from the fear of being swung so far up into the sky. Their bodies swirled higher and higher from an invisible force, the wind picking up wildly. Soon their screams all faded into the blasting flurry of the wind, itself.

Aera was moving so fast, she had faded from all vision… becoming the wind, itself! The bodies swirled faster and faster in the sky, the winds blowing the ship from side to side dangerously.

Mirru shouted something up, but whatever it was, it was unheard by anyone. Whether that was because the communication signal was fading, or because the wind was so strong was a different matter, however.

Many of the surrounding ships suddenly started to break apart from the sheer ferocity of the wind, wood splintering and shattering off and into the sky as if parts of a dandelion were being blown by a small child. However, the child wasn’t the controller of this chaos. Aera was.

The waves, themselves suddenly started to roar into a swirling formation from below, like a dangerous whirlpool beneath the fleet. The soldiers around the other ships, which were grasping onto them for dear life, suddenly found themselves swirling around swiftly as they were caught in the swirling currents.

It was this hugely powerful tornado that caused Marco to lose his balance and miss the shot to Carlos’ head altogether. The ship, they were on, began to rocket around the swirling current, small wooden pieces breaking off to join Aera’s tornado of destruction.

“My ship! WHY?!” Marco yelled as he landed on his side from the force of the sudden movement. Carlos looked up as Smaz’s cloak flew into the sky, into the tornado. But not Smaz.

“WHAT? Where is he?!” roared Carlos, realising that all this time he had been attacking nothing more but a cloak. He swiftly looked down to see a large hole where the cloak was. Smaz had burrowed down under the deck. It seemed he had avoided all of Carlos’ attack altogether.

Carlos swiftly looked around the ship, desperate to find Smaz, and uncaring about the tornado – his armour being as special as the elites, but still weighing him down. Their ship wasn’t as close as the others and thus, it wasn’t as windy here.

Suddenly, a crack of wood from underneath Carlos erupted as a familiar Kyote’s body swooped up from under the deck, his leg facing up at Carlos. The impact cracked Carlos in the chin fiercely, knocking the direction of his gaze upwards. Smaz smiled as he made impact.

Marco swiftly jumped down from his deck after regaining his balance, to help out properly.

“Now it’s time fer Marco!” the pirate shouted, racing towards Carlos with his metallic hand outstretched.

“We’ll… see…” wheezed Carlos, and then grabbed Smaz’s leg before it reached the floor. He clutched onto Smaz as he held his body in the air from his leg. “You’re becoming an irritation of immense proportions!”

Smaz grunted and attempted to kick Carlos in the chest – his usual tactic in case he was caught like this. However, whereas normally this would work, it didn’t this time, thanks to Carlos’ golden armour created by Mirru.

“Try what you like – it’s no use!” Carlos laughed and then punched Smaz with immense force with his right fist – the one that wasn’t holding Smaz’s leg. Each punch, to Smaz, was more like a brick being thrown at his chest, rather than a punch, causing Smaz to growl wildly.

Carlos smiled evilly as he pulled back his punch and a small electrical light sparked up from the fist. Smaz knew what was to come. Just as Carlos was about to draw it down into Smaz, his fist stopped.

Marco had grabbed it with his own metal fist. Great for stopping punches. Terrible for stopping electricity.

“Nah you don’ yer… ARRRRRRGHHH!” Marco yelled as the electricity pulsed down his metal hand and electrocuted his own body.

Carlos smiled and swivelled around, using Smaz as a club to whack Marco. There was a loud smack as the two collided and a swift crack as the electricity conducted from Marco’s body into Smaz’s.

“Ahaha! You are foolish, the pair of you! Mirru has crafted my armour to perfection! I am twice as strong and twice as powerful! You can attack me all you want – my armour will withstand any attack… with the added ability of electricity!” Carlos laughed.

Smaz and Marco dropped to the floor in pain. Carlos then kicked Smaz hard in the stomach as he lay there.

“Grovel. All I’ve gotta do now is kill you. As long as I’m wearing this armour – you cannot defeat me, and nor can I even be shocked by anything electrical.” Carlos explained, rubbing his foot down onto Smaz’s torso painfully.

“We shall see, SCUM!” Smaz roared and then grabbed onto Carlos’ leg from his position, with both arms. He tensed his muscles and suddenly a memory returned to him of his father leaving.

“If you wish to find me… locate the seal of the seas…” His father’s echoed voice said. Smaz’s mind returned to the location and he growled. Blood had trickled down onto the deck from his nose and strength suddenly started to flow through his body.

Marco wheezed and struggled to pick himself up… but then suddenly he found himself already in the air.

“Whaaa? Wha’ is this?!” Marco wailed in fear. He looked up at the ferocious tornado and feared briefly for his life, until he discovered that he was not moving towards the stormy attack at all.

Smaz’s red iris’ spread out across the whites of his eyes as he growled in anger.

“W-w..what are you?!” Carlos shouted out, genuinely frightened from Smaz’s fearsome growling and suddenly powerful grip on his leg. As Smaz’s eyes entirely turned red, he roared out his reply.

“I am Smaz Ugonih – master of LEVITATION!”