"Are you playing a prank on me?" Aurelio's scream resounded throughout the room.
Pinned at the wall, a lieutenant only let out a brave "No, Sir!" before getting punched in the guts by his enraged superior. Still, he stood tall in front of the drooling man.
"How can that Inyankaran boy be that strong? And how come he knew about you? Tell me, Giovanni! Are you trying to betray your nation?"
"No, Sir!"
"Then tell me who that boy is! Where have you met before?"
"I don't know, Sir! We have never met before, Sir!"
"LIAR! You two are in cahoots! You're trying to keep the sacred waters from me!"
Giovanni didn't say a word; he just stood there, back against the wall, looking straight ahead over the general's head. He was still in the clothes he wore during the battle.
Stained by blood as he was, the lieutenant didn't get a chance to rest after regaining his consciousness on the empty battlefield.
"You're lucky I left a soldier to watch for you! It's this body of yours that kept you alive. It's also thanks to your blessed body that I still have need for you!"
As Aurelio spoke, drops of spit splashed on Giovanni's face. The lieutenant had never before seen his general in such a state. It was disgusting, but as a soldier, he could do nothing but accept his punishment.
"Now tell me, Lieutenant, why weren't the waters there? It's not the first time you've given us the wrong location."
"I don't know, S—!"
*Smack*
Out of nowhere, the already beat-up lieutenant had his jaw thrown out of place by Aurelio's fist. Unable to stand straight anymore, Giovanni fell on his hands and knees at the feet of his general, who elegantly put his white glove back.
"Giovanni, do you have any idea how much I've lost to get here?"
"No… Sir!" Giovanni answered between coughs.
"Do you have any idea how many friends I've lost for those waters?"
"No… Sir!"
"Giovanni, do you know anything about me? About what I've been through? About my dead peers? About why I want those waters so much?"
"No… S—"
"THEN WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO HIDE THEM FROM ME?" Aurelio screamed, kicking the man who was already down.
"Sir…" was all Giovanni could say back.
Looking at him with pitiful eyes, the general spoke.
"Go, you stink," said Aurelio, turning his back to the struggling man yet helping him up by the face using water from his own spit.
When Giovanni was up, he put his hand to the temple and only spoke two words.
"Yes, Sir!" the man said, leaving for the showers.
*****
Saved by his trusty partner, Nayavu barely dodged the attack launched by a bird of a species he thought extinct.
"What's going on here?" was the only thing the boy could ask before another attack came his way.
Powerless, or maybe panicking too much, Nayavu looked Ayanda's way for help, but the woman just lifted her shoulders and smiled at him, showing her pearl-white teeth with a look of superiority.
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"That looks like a fun challenge for the two of you," she said. "Let me know when you're done playing!"
"What do you mean 'play'? Didn't you say you've defeated this thing?"
"I did. I couldn't kill it, though," the thunder representative added, pointing at the sky as she turned her back to the boy.
When Nayavu looked the way Ayanda pointed, what he saw was something he considered impossible. There was only a lonely cloud above them, yet a ball of blue lightning formed regardless.
Figuring that the bird might be using gases in the air and transmuting them to another form of energy, the Inyankaran used his quick thinking and manipulated the wind currents above, trying to destabilize the orb.
As wind violently ran across the sky, the ball didn't move in the least. If anything, it was getting bigger and bigger.
"There's no way…" Nayavu said while looking at the sky, and once he figured out that he had no way to stop the attack, he grabbed onto Tahu and let the stag take him away in the nick of time.
"There was nothing it could transmute! Could those guys go as far as to transmute time and space into what they want?" Nayavu spoke his thoughts, but even this theory felt shaky.
Transmuting time or space into another element would have clear effects on the surroundings of the sphere, yet the boy saw nothing of the sort. In his mind, there was one more possibility.
"Is it creating energy?" the boy asked, yet the woman who should have been around was nowhere to be seen.
Instead, he got a screech from the thunderbird for an answer, and with it, multiple electric arcs flew from its body to the pair.
With no time left to dodge, all Nayavu could do was raise the ground in front of him as a shield.
The small zaps were stopped, but now another orb was forming above the boy's head.
In an attempt to block all attacks, Nayavu surrounded himself and Tahu in stone. He made sure it was dry so that lightning couldn't pass through as he thought of a way to deal with the animal. However, not even stone offers perfect insulation, and another screech from the thunderbird signaled that the Inyankaran had made the wrong choice.
Soon after, high-power blue lightning struck Nayavu's little shelter, shattering it, yet leaving the boy barely scratched.
"It's almost as if it did it on purpose…" Nayavu pointed out with a frowning brow. "Tahu, are you all right?"
Tahu puffed to show the boy he was fine, then he stared at the bird.
"I guess shielding ourselves isn't an option," the young man pointed out. "Then all I can do is dodge and strike!"
As Nayavu spoke, he opened and closed his fist, arches of leftover electricity passing through his fingers.
"I guess all of this helped me remember something new!" he added, trying to get off Tahu and ready himself for a fight one-on-one with the blue bird.
Yet Tahu would have none of it. The second Nayavu tried to step off, the stag stepped to the side, trying to keep him on.
"Tahu? I can't use this power while touching you!" Nayavu said, but thinking about it, electricity was already flowing through his body and touching his trusty ride.
With an expression clouded in confusion, the boy looked down, only to see that through Tahu's strands of fur, small arches of electricity ran wild as they did on Nayavu.
"Tahu… There's no way…"
Something never before seen happened right under the eyes of the Iyankaran. Never before in his many lives had he heard a story of an animal controlling energy and using magic—at least not any animal that didn't hold a spot between elemental beasts.
Shocking things were once again happening right under his eyes, yet Nayavu had no time to admire his stag, as the bird was already preparing itself for another attack. In fact, a bolt of lightning was already headed their way.
The pair readied themselves for the strike, and once it reached them, Nayavu put his hand out in front, deflecting the blow.
"I guess this is the way to go!" the boy said, newfound motivation showing in his smile.
Yet what came from the bird was another disapproving screech. This time, as it seemed angered by the two, the thunderbird wasted no time and poured a lightning storm from the sky. If a simple attack was something the two could deflect, lightning was too much firepower.
Unlike previous times, this attack came way too suddenly, and it was way too strong. It was clear that the thunderbird had been playing with the two before.
"Hang on, Tahu!" Nayavu said as he grabbed onto the animal, ready to try something that would have taken many mages their whole life to master.
"If blocking and deflecting aren't on the table, then we'll dodge!"
At that moment, both Nayavu's and Tahu's minds synchronized perfectly, and they turned themselves into pure electricity for an instant—just enough to dodge the lightning bolt.
Once their bodies formed back, the look on Nayavu's face showed both shock and excitement, but he had no time to express it because another attack was already falling from the sky.
"Again!" Nayavu screamed, repeating the same trick.
"Again!"
"Again!"
"Again!"
"Again!"
Dodging bolt after bolt, Nayavu and Tahu were getting closer to the thunderbird.
"Now!" Nayavu screamed as Tahu alone transformed himself into electricity, taking Nayavu as close as possible to the elemental beast.
"Ahhhhhhh!" the boy screamed as the taste of ozone filled his mouth. In his hand, Nayavu held a boulder that he soon transformed into a spear.
"I know this must be your weakness!" he screamed as he launched the spear at the bird. As his weapon flew, Nayavu felt victory approach.
Maybe I'll also become a god, he thought as his weapon reached the bird. However, just before the spear got to pierce the blue feathers of the animal, light of the same color flooded Nayavu's vision, a blinding mass of blue energy being all that was left where the thuderbird stood.
Overwhelmed by the light, Nayavu closed his eyes instead of trying to deflect the rays. The next time he opened them, he and Tahu stood on the ground, and the thunderbird sat besides them.