As long as you are breathing

Chase after Chase

Kalil kept throwing roundhouse kicks. Spess used springing footwork to avoid the kicks. But he can’t escape forever. Between the duration of two kicks, he decided to land a pushing front kick of his own.

But Kalil caught it smoothly. He then threw the leg upwards intending to throw him off balance. But the balance and flexibility of a Savate fighter weren’t to be underestimated.

“We train on boats and ships. Our martial art was made to fight the pirates in the boats shaken by the waves of the sea. You can’t throw me off balance,” said Spess.

“True, I can’t defeat you with balance since your art was made in the sea. But that means you can’t defeat me in this fight, my art was made for war,” smirked Kalil.

He then immediately jumped towards Spess, without chambering his leg.

“What kind of kick is he throwing? I know he throws his roundhouse without chambering but can he throw a proper kick in the air without chambering?” thought Spess as he dived deeper and deeper into a dilemma about what counter to throw.

But it didn’t take him long to realize that it wasn’t a kick when Kalil’s knee blasted on his skull and throw him to the ground.

“Come on, please don’t make it any more boring,” said Kalil.

Meanwhile, on the soldier’s side, the Navies seemed to have an advantage over the Armies. But Khestri was there to make all the difference needed.

She pulled them into joint locks and throws which gave the Armies opportunities to land damaging attacks. One of the Navy’s left elbow joint was completely damaged. The other’s right knee joint was ruptured. The others dealt with a severe injury in his right shoulder joint.

“Damn, the condition is looking grim for us,” said Spess, “I guess I have to use this sooner than I thought. I hoped I would wait for them to draw out their weapon first. But now I only have to hope that they didn’t find a weapon yet.”

Suddenly, Spess’s show started to glow dimly. For the first time, everyone noticed the awkward-looking shoe that he was wearing. It had two feathers on both sides of the ankle.

Suddenly Spess started to shuffle his legs very fast. In a few moments, his leg started to disappear partially like how the ceiling fan disappears when it is moving too fast.

“Enjoy the rush!” said Spess.

In a moment, he dashed towards Kalil and threw him a front kick causing him to fall off the cliff.

“Kalil, no!” exclaimed Khestri. But in a flash, a punch threw her unconscious too.

Kalil tried to hold anything that came to his palms as he was rolling downhill uncontrollably. But mostly he kept catching grasses and unable to bear Kalil’s weight they tore apart.

Fortunately, the stem of a bushy tree came to his arm and he held it tight enough to stop the motion. The bush was uprooted. But he already stopped. So he was safe.

He took a break to breathe. He can’t count how many places he was hurt while he was continuously slammed by the hard uneven rocky surface. He had bruises all over his body. But he crouched up slowly.

He then took a look above. It’s a long way up. Can he climb that far?

He then took a look down. It’s not that far.

He sighed and said, “I will need to go down and then walk back up continuing the whole journey again.”

“It took us half a day the last time. But I will go faster this time,” he told himself though he knew he was in a worse state than he was the last time.

“Please be safe Khestri, Khalid, Walid, and Sajid,” said Kalil inside his mind as he calmly closed his eyes knowing that this might take way too long for him to join the fight. Now he only has faith in his friends to count on as he hopes that they would tackle through the impossibility and find a way to defeat Spess somehow.

“Please be safe Kalil,” thought Khestri as she was escorted by the enemy along with the three twins. They were all tied up. Nobody had the gut to do a surprise attack in that state. What’s the point? They will get defeated by Spess in a few seconds anyway.

Kalil was walking back with as long steps as he could while holding his ribs. Suddenly he heard a trumpet. Few seconds after which he started to feel the ground shaking. It didn’t feel natural.

He started to hear the sounds of trees falling over. At a moment’s notice, the tree in front of him started to fall over too. He jumped to the side to avoid the tree. Then he realized, there are ancient creatures in the game too as he stood face to face against a large angry wooly mammoth.

The wooly mammoth started to chase Kalil. Kalil chose the most compact places he could find to escape the mammoth's wrath. But the mammoth could easily uproot the trees like grasses. Are wooly mammoths this big and strong?

He started to run changing directions but he couldn’t escape the focus of the beast. He is getting more tired with each step as the mammoth gets closer.

It reached a point where the mammoth almost grabbed Kalil’s foot, but Kalil jumped into a dive roll to escape. He looked back at the mammoth and his body paused in panic. He is too tired for this. His muscles and bones are roaring for rest.

Unexpectedly a bright green beam of light pierced through the mammoth belly and the mammoth fell down. It used its trunk to scratch the ground in pain. But he couldn’t live very long after that.

Kalil couldn’t but feel thankful. He checked to the side to see where the beam came from. It was a guy with a golden gauntlet. He looked rather young. He had blonde hair and blue eyes but an expressionless face. He was walking towards Kalil.

“Hey there, thank you for saving me,” said Kalil hesitantly, not trusting the look in that guy’s eyes. “Let us be a team. We will have more chances of survival.”

But he pointed the gauntlet at Kalil and the gauntlet began to glow as if it was charging. Kalil rolled towards the side before the sudden beam strike.

“Dammit, I need to run,” thought Kalil as he ran zig-zag.

The dude walked silently towards him as he kept charging and shooting beams at Kalil. The beams were getting more and more accurate as one of the beams even managed to graze Kalil’s cheek. He could feel how melting hot the beam was whenever the beam was near.

The chase finally led the two of them to the base of a tower. Kalil rushed inside the tower. But then he realized, this beam can probably penetrate the tower.

But when the beam was shot, both of them realized that the tower isn’t made of something ordinary as the beam didn’t do anything except darken the skin of the wall.

Kalil quickly started to shut off the door.

“So heavy!” Kalil grunted as he pushed the door close. There were six of them. The guy kept trying to enter through another door but Kalil closed then with full strength and speed as if his life depended on it, which it did.

But the dude managed to enter through the sixth door.

“Dammit,” said Kalil. “Only way now is up.”

Kalil rushed through the stairs, some of the beams going above him as ducked underneath and some below him as he jumped over them. The other guy climbed through the stairs chasing him too.

Sweat dripped from all the sweat glands he had. His body begged him to stop running, his muscles pounding like a heart. But his mind said that his life depends on it

Finally, Kalil reached the end of the stairs. At the top of the tower, he stood as the light starts to cover his eyes.

He breathed in tiredness as he looked in a panic at how narrow the top of the tower is. He then saw something odd.

“It’s that Muay Thai old man!” said Kalil. “How is he floating in the air? Did he gain a special weapon too? How come our team is the only one which didn’t get anything?”

Suddenly a green beam of light was shot at the sky from the entrance which Kalil noticed by feeling the heat behind him. He looked back to see that the gauntlet guy was here.

“Come forth kids,” said the old man, “Don’t be scared. The ceiling is invisible. But you can stand on it safely.”

The gauntlet guy pointed his gauntlet at Kalil.

“Damn, my body doesn’t have the energy for one more step,” said Kalil as his muscles felt like it was turning into stone. His eyes slowly closed.

But the beam missed.

Kalil fell unconscious by the tiredness.

The gauntlet guy pointed the gauntlet at Kalil yet again. The green light came from the gauntlet as he charged it. But as he was about to shoot, a roundhouse kick to the wrist made him miss his target.

The beam was shot at the invisible ceiling but couldn’t break it.

“Don’t target my prey,” the old man said.