The effect of the Esper puppet taking on the Bigfoot was a spectacle of its own: a strange-looking human snuck up on the alpha of the Neander throng and bought enough time for Adam Clay to get back to safety, sacrificing its life in the process.
This noble act was enough to inspire many and enrage the human army, now that they had firearms to fight back with; even still, they were no better than primitive weapons with no technological advantage other than hurling projectiles just a little bit faster and more precisely than their adversaries.
Where the fight was thickest stood the Bigfoot. His massive body found something to bash or smash, but his head was ringing horribly; images and flashes of memory that were completely alien kept banging in his mind, but none of them made any sense, and all of them enraged him more.
As his body shifted with every attack, his strength exploded in rebellion against those alien memories and the pain they brought him. He was lord of his own body and mind, not whatever parasite tried to worm its way through and annoy him.
Despite the rage and thrill of fighting, the Neanders were all on the same mindset as their Bigfoot leader, wrathful and out for blood, forming chaotic ranks. Against them, both Wartopians and Earthlings were finally holding their ground, but it was clear there was no way they could hold on with limited ammunition and no war machines.
The order for retreat to the hill was the one thing they were all waiting for, and many squads were already taking up defensive positions for the retreat of others.
Elena Skarn held the line, a pistol in hand, getting as close as she could to the stronger Neanders—the ones strong enough to tank bullets—and blasting her gun into their orifices with brutal precision. But as firepower started to run out quickly, soon bayonets were used to ward off the Neanders one more time. Now, however, morale was higher than ever before.
As the Neanders carried on their attack with utter madness, swarming the defense lines from front and flanks, a group of their fighters formed a thick rank of bodies in what seemed to be a meat tank, before striking hard against the right flank and bursting into action. Several Wartopians and Earthlings met their demise on the spot, and in the center of the Neanders was one who seemed driven by rage and sheer will for vengeance.
As his eyes fell upon the back of the human formation, there he saw his source of rage and target of vengeance: an elderly human surrounded by young people with firearms who were among the retreating groups.
Professor Hendrick was a nervous wreck. His efforts to stop the fight were fruitless, but the only merit he could attribute to his actions was buying Adam Clay and the military time to regroup and counterattack; fortunate in this bleak reality, but far from what he had hoped to achieve.
"Professor, keep your head low. If those people start throwing things…" The closest to him was one of his youngest students who was also a trooper, Qasim Zayan, whose words were cut short as something massive hit him.
Qasim was flung a few feet to the side, and in his place appeared a large Neander man, whose savagery was outmatched by others, yet one look at his face revealed his identity to the Professor. Almost all the others surrounding the professor tried to face the powerful Neander with their guns and shoot fast without harming the professor, but as his fist was raised high, Professor Hendrick's heart shook, and he realized the truth.
This was it… the end!
All he could do, however, was to look the Neander man right in the face and wonder what kind of person he was before this… transformation. What was that power that came from Bigfoot and mutated his former captive into a larger Neander variant? What principle did it operate on? How much humanity was left in them, or were they no longer human by this standard?
The look in the Neander's eyes explained many of these questions to him in the half-second between the fist going down with full force and fully contacting the professor's fast-thinking head, to shatter it to pieces. He theorized that the Neanders were some sort of an alien entity that took hold in the human brain through some supernatural means, erasing the person within before replacing them with something else. What he had met before was something close to a human, but now, with the effect of this Breath of Frost from Bigfoot, it had come closer to Bigfoot in shape and would continuously mutate until it became another Bigfoot of its own.
An alien race that uses humans as vessels for reproduction through the means of hijacking—in a way poetic, in another, totally fucked up and evil.
He wished he could have shared those theories and ideas with someone, but who would listen to his baseless ramblings? All his students now preferred to carry firearms and act like militants, whereas brilliant people like Captain Creed were too detached from this whole understanding-the-aliens thing, and would rather shoot them first and not even ask a single question later.
Funny, the only name that came to him in his final moment appeared right in front of his face before the fist of his Neander Archenemy flattened his head.
Right there, it was Kahori.
"Sage! Sage Hendrick! Don't freeze up! RUN!"
His body was shaken hard from a daze he didn't know he was in, and his body was being grabbed by two slender grey hands. Then the face of a totally alien lifeform came into view. Beyond her, the Neander attack was impaled against an Alfari sword held by her sister, Samara, and the two suddenly started dragging him away from battle.
"We are allies! Our priority is to rescue Sage Hendrick! Please, let us assist!" Kahori's voice echoed as she dragged him through the lines of soldiers and started running with him back towards the civilian base. "Don't worry, Sage. My sister will cover our retreat."
The Professor's lips mumbled a few times, but soon he found himself looking strangely at himself, then at the woman, slowly uttering her name, "Ms… Kahori."
"Sage? Are you injured? Should I lead you to a human mender?" Kahori asked, still holding hands with the professor, whose reality was shattering in real time the more he heard her voice and saw her face.
"You… you said you wouldn't come… ever again." In a shaken voice, he spoke. With dazed eyes, he watched every motion of her alien physique as she shifted to him, walking backwards, her eyes clearly looking between him and whatever was happening back in the fight.
"It is not time for this talk," she spoke, greatly distressed. "Following the Freeze, the Jotnar will soon Thaw. We cannot stay here for long. You must come with us to Fiya."
The Professor's mind almost lagged, trying to process what Kahori had dumped on him so fast. Freeze, Jotnar, Thaw, and now she wanted him to go to that place called Fiya, the one where she kept describing as the Alfari's most advanced city in the Rift.
In the middle of this battle, there was only one possible reply.
"No!" The professor retracted the hand held by Kahori and looked back. "My place is here. I'd die where my students die."
"Sage! I beg of you!" Kahori still tried to hold his hand again, but the Professor stepped back.
Having almost all he wanted, and all he dreamed about offered to him—Kahori, the Alfari he was fond of, and the prospect of living in a peaceful and advanced world once again—Professor Hendrick was more surprised about himself taking this firm stance, knowing full well that he was not some strong-willed hero wannabe. He was usually timid, pacifist, and a bit antisocial, but this sudden change in him made him feel stronger and braver than ever.
He looked behind as Samara was fighting multiple Neanders at the same time. One of them was badly slashed yet still managed to sneak behind her with a stone club. The professor looked around for anything, but then he looked at Elena's mechanical arm, which he was still carrying, and followed what she did when she flipped a hidden switch in its deep mechanism for spikes to immediately come out of the shoulder part.
The old man immediately rushed towards the Neander behind Samara and, with all his might, he swung Elena's mechanical arm/club, planting the spikes right into the skull of the man.
The spikes broke the bone with great resistance that ended with a wet sound, followed by the immediate pull of gravity as the Neander fell face-first into the snow. Samara noticed what happened behind her and used her blade to parry another attacker before rushing to the professor and shouting at him.
"Suku!"
Kahori came from the other side, but before she could translate, Professor Hendrick interjected at the warrior sister:
"Zei!" He said, shaking his head, before realizing that was all he could say in Alfari, then adding in English, "I am not running!"
He held the mechanical arm once again and tried to take it off, but it was rather stuck.
"Sage! This is our only chance." Kahori still went ahead and tried to dissuade him from his foolhardy behavior, but the man was done listening.
"You said the Freeze then the Thaw?" The Professor asked her. "This is only getting worse then. There is no way I'd let this happen to my kids." He then proceeded to press the button that retracted the shoulder spikes, and the arm was finally freed. "And those Neanders, these are the Jotnar from D-Day? Weren't they supposed to be giants?"
"Those are the Children of Jotnar, fake Jotnar or half-Jotnar at best. But there is always one True Jotnar leading the Thaw. The Freeze is evidence that it is close." Kahori explained, trying her best to take the Sage away with them.
"More reason to stay then." The Professor hoisted the arm over his shoulder and looked around for the student that was just escorting him. "Where is Qasim? He should be over there!"
Kahori finally realized there was no more room for trying to convince this man, and a disheartened expression appeared on her face. She wasn't skilled enough to use the Mind rune to make people follow her will, especially Sages, whose minds were more complex than most living beings. The only resort was to take direct action, and for that, she turned to her sister and made a nod.
Samara understood what her sister meant, since this was their Plan B, but before she could raise her hand and grab the Professor, her heightened senses picked up danger heading towards her sister's way.
Without thinking, Samara's priorities went on autopilot, and she rushed to stand between her sister and whatever danger that was, only to be slammed with the full weight of a human body slamming against hers and launching her off her feet.
"MUJI! (Sister!)"
Kahori cried, losing balance in the snow after her sister was suddenly thrown off a few meters away, but before she could worry about her sister, a massive figure stood over her and the professor, looking menacingly at them.
It was the Bigfoot, whose expression was one of pure rage, with multiple laceration wounds all over its hands and chest. Somehow, that monster, whose hide was thick enough to bounce bullets off, had been cut by something that made it bleed, despite the wounds being shallow.
In its hand, it held a human in a tan leather coat, who struggled with a spade axe, fruitlessly trying to chop off the monster's arm, only for the weapon to show dents instead. As for the direction where Samara was thrown, a voice came with a loud shout:
"MADA MADA, KUSO YARO! (Not yet, not yet, you bastard!)." Kave stood, shaking, after crashing hard against Samara, who was knocked out cold. "Ore no HP wa mada aru zo! (My HP is still there!)."
He aimed his blade at Bigfoot and stepped ahead, staggering from all the pain and the few cracked bones from the impact just now. A minute ago, he had made the rash decision to face the damn Bigfoot, and Flint the Fanatic was supportive of this folly, only now to face certain death.
Kave, however, was far from afraid, since no matter how much fear this fake, shitty Bigfoot was causing, it was all nothing compared to a dragon.
The Bigfoot faced Kave with an equal, if not greater, amount of rage, seeing him as the daring mosquito that had injured its body with a flimsy stick of metal. Without thinking, the Bigfoot slammed Flint against the ground and stepped over him as it advanced towards Kave, fully intent on finishing the job.
Professor Hendrick and Kahori were now stuck in the middle of this scene. Kahori immediately took hold of the Professor and dragged him past Kave, who stood unshaken with an unhinged grin on his face. The two reached Samara, who was right behind Kave, and tried to lift her, but with a strong gust of wind, the Bigfoot was now standing over the four of them at the same time, its hand cupped into a fist. The moment it landed, none of the four would draw in breath ever again.
Well, that was if he didn't have a say in the matter, and by "he," it meant the man whose hand stopped the Bigfoot's fist with surprising ease.
"Why don't you pick on someone your own size, mutant filth?"
Standing at an equal height, Captain Creed locked eyes with the Bigfoot, as his power-armored hand grabbed the Bigfoot's fist before starting to squeeze. A couple of seconds later, the Bigfoot was on its knees, its fist absolutely shattered under the Paladin's power, howling painfully, no longer on the same height as the goliath in metal.
Professor Hendrick and Kahori watched what unfolded in terror, especially the Alfari, who had just encountered the superhuman Paladin for the first time. Kave was still there, but he was already losing his footing before getting supported by Adam, who seemed to have arrived with Creed.
With an excited face, Adam finally gave the order Creed was happy to obey.
"Finish him!"
In an ironic twist, the Paladin raised his hand, cupped into a fist, and it crashed down like a meteor into the Bigfoot's face, shattering part of its upper face and fully dislocating its lower jaw. The following punch landed in the unfortunate creature's throat, and the third broke through its throat and out its back, blood spraying and flesh exploding. Then, with his other hand, Creed tore the Bigfoot apart in two unequal, messy halves that were flung in opposite directions.
The fight didn't pause for this glorious fatality execution, but the Troopers and the Neanders soon realized that the tide was shifting. They parted into two opposite sides, equally retreating: the humans behind Creed, and the Neanders, now leaderless. However, the wild, primitive former humans weren't willing to retreat, still trying to encourage themselves with savage cries and maniacal bravado.
It was then that Creed stepped up again, fully emerging in a translucent, fiery glow as if wreathed by holy flame; but it wasn't "as if," for he was literally so. This Holy Flame protected him from the "Freeze," just as the Holy Furnace did in the base, protecting it from blacking out to the Sorcery of the Jotnar invaders.
Now, Creed stood facing the horde, turning left and right as if assessing them. Part of his helmet opened—the snout area before his mouth—as if he was trying to tell them something without the inconvenience of his headgear.
That thing that he wanted to say, however, was nothing but one word.
"Burn!"
From his core, his Atenite Cradle gushed forth a wave of flames that broke upward through four specialized energy vessels that power-charged his lunges, and the air within became fire. The anatomy of his jaw area was illuminated, his jawbones visible under his flesh as light erupted and broke forth into the entire horde.
And the answer is yes: the sons of Sol Imperius can breathe fire.
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