Assault

The night was getting colder and colder, and the ferocious storm outside was not inspiring somnolence at all. Tony was shaking under his panther fur blanket that Cloudfire gave him as a reward for building the Shithole. He was hardly sleeping with all the thundering and the sound of rain smacking to the hard stone ground. Water was dripping from the roof of Tony’s little shelter, but he did not pay attention to it. He knew that it was much better than having to sleep outside. The rumbling of the night was getting rougher and Tony was starting to be scared. He saw a big lightning flash from his little alcove’s entry, and then followed by a huge thunder cracking noise. The noise made the floor shake, the little alcove started trembling, and pieces of rock and grass started falling off. Tony crept out as quickly as he could before the frame would completely fall on him. As expected, the little shelter crumbled to pieces with only the blanket saved, which Tony was still covered in. He tried to get some heat off from the soaked blanket but it was useless.

            He stared for a while at his ruined piece of work, but the temperature was intolerable; he needed to get a move on and find a shelter of some sort. He wasn’t sure if he could go sleep with Cloudfire in his tent. His shelter was so tiny first of all, and second, he feared that Cloudfire’s heavy breathing would melt his skin off. As he walked around the cliff, he noticed that the tent beside Cloudfire’s, which he presumed was Pascal’s, was gone. He figured that the storm was so wild that it also blew away that tent. Tony tried in vain to make himself comfortable in one of the wooden storage sheds, but they were so crammed and piled disorderly with random items that he just couldn’t find a suitable sleeping position. There was no way he could climb down the cliff to find cover in this condition.

            His only solution was to wake up Cloudfire, who was still probably snoring through the storm in his own shelter. “Cloudy!” He cried out, in case that would miraculously wake him up. There was no response, and so he walked up around the pile of spaceship junk and to Cloudfire’s shelter, but Cloudfire was not in it. “He’s already up then,” he sighed in relief, “He’s probably getting something to help us out.” He kept on screaming the spitfire’s name in hope that he would be close when a lightning flash illuminated the whole area, followed by a big grumbling sound. The brightness of the lightning uncovered the shape of a miniature dragon, lying motionless a little farther ahead. He started advancing towards his friend while putting the blanket over his own head to cover himself from the rain, and another flash rose as Tony looked down at his feet to avoid the freezing cold water puddles. While the lightning had still brightened up the night sky, Tony could discern a little stream of pink running down to the puddle he had just stepped beside. He then immediately started running up to his comrade saying, “No no no… not now, it can’t be!” Before he could arrive, an immense crackling of thunder roared through the sky and the noise made Tony fall on his behind. As he fell down, his gaze still focused on Cloudfire’s figure, another stream of lightning lit up the sky, and he could now clearly see the dragon lounged in a big puddle of blood and water. His only friend on the desert island was dead. Horrified, he backed off slowly with mouth wide open, and felt a disgusting feeling in his stomach. He was about to scream in horror when he heard a faint laughter a little farther behind him. As he hesitantly turned around, still covered in his blanket and trembling, the only thing he saw was a huge boulder, the size of a school chair, flying straight towards him. He closed his eyes and screamed to death as his last resort. Then another lightning flash happened, but this time, it was green.

            The green flash disappeared, and standing there was a young boy with arms crossed, and plenty of rock debris around him. He looked down, snickered to himself and said, “Nice try.” He looked up at the sky, disappointed. “This is crappy,” he asserted, “Who would want to fight in that kind of weather?” He clapped twice with his blue-radiating hands, and as soon as that was done, the rain gradually stopped and the sun was rising fast. The turbulent night storm was soon transformed into a nice and joyful sunny day. “Now let’s see that ugly mug of yours.” He looked up to see a human sized creature, resembling a mutant alligator. He had the body structure of a muscular male adult, but with scaly green skin and the head almost looking like an alligator with an orange mohawk, and wearing tan, worn out pants. The creature had his sword in his left hand with blood dripping from its tip, and he was looking in Tony’s green eyes with an evil grin.

            Tony turned his head in Cloudfire’s direction, staring at the corpse that was once so full of life and wisdom. There was no way to bring him back. “…I thank you for everything you’ve done. Cloudy, I will avenge you, don’t worry. He will not get away with this!” He pledged.

The creature was laughing. “That was easy!” He exclaimed, “And yet another species brought to extinction under our hands.”

“You creep! He hasn’t done anything to you! I’m gonna kill you and I’ll have as much pity as you had when you slaughtered my friend!”

“You wouldn’t be saying that if it weren’t for your little dragon here, would you? You’d be dead without him.” The creature said, still smiling. “Now who’s going save you this time ey? Mister Hero…”

“I’ll gladly let the answer come to you. C’mon, give it a shot and I’ll show you my way of saving my a*s against scum like you.”

“Ha, save yourself by shrieking and crying, little boy, like you’ve always been doing!” The lizaard roared, and then ran towards Tony and jumped to land a kick.

While he was in the air to kick the boy, Tony ducked under him and took a hold of his right foot, making him fall down, but before the lizaard could even touch the ground, Tony spun him around like an Olympic hammer and threw him in the pile of spaceship debris. Bits and pieces were flying in every corner and the mutant alligator was then buried chunks of metal. The creature then crawled out of there and blared out “Nobody will get rid of the Great Jaw that easily!”

“Ha! You gotta admit you didn’t think I could do that, right?”

The lizaard threw a piece of metal at the boy from the pile behind him, but he tilted sideways in a carefree manner and dodged it by an inch. “Oh s**t! Okay mister Great Jaw! You win, you scared me.”

Jaw ran towards Tony and started slashing his sword in every way and direction. Tony tried to get out of the way but received a diagonal slice across the chest, just deep enough to make him bleed, before he could move away.

“Oh-ho! The Hero’s not as invincible as he makes himself to be!” Jaw said.

“And the lizaard’s not as slow as he looks either.” Tony muffled to himself.

Holding his chest which burned in pain, he dodged Jaw’s sword swings and tried to counter, but the sword’s long reach made it seem impossible to come near him.

“Mr. Jaw,” Tony said through swooshes of blades that were too close for comfort, “I’ve thought about it.”

“Thought about what?” The reptile asked through swishes of swords that weren’t close enough for his comfort.

“I’ve also the right for an awesome name, out of fairness and equality, and so from thereon you shall call me Super Tony.” A second after that, he felt the creature’s blade swipe a little nick of hair off his head, and it did not give off the awesome shrill of danger he had expected, but more of a ten year-old boy’s feelings towards a monster with a sword trying to kill him.

In an effort to stay far from the dangerous creature, Tony jumped as high as he could in the air, and surprisingly, he did not feel himself falling back down.

“Am I…flying?” As he was hovering in place in the air, he looked down at Jaw and he didn’t seem so menacing anymore.

“Not so arrogant anymore, ey?” Tony shouted from up in the air.

“Har-har! You really find yourself so powerful up this high in the air?” he shouted back.

He then crouched in a squat position and pushed himself up with immense strength, and he projected up into the air so fast that Tony didn’t have time to realize what Jaw was doing. As Tony watched him sky-rocketing up his direction, he tried to move quickly, but with no success since he wasn’t used to flying yet, and it just caused him to dance unbalanced in the air. The alligator, head first and straight as a bar, flew right under Tony’s chin. The collision followed with a hard, teeth-shattering noise. Tony was jerked up, and then fell back down leaving a trail of blood deriving from his mouth.

The young boy’s body knocked front first hard to the cliff’s ground. While Tony struggled to push himself back up from the floor, Jaw landed on both feet directly on the boy’s back, making him squash back to the pavement instantly. Tony was choking on his own blood while he tried to ignore all the pain and broken bones in his body.

“What a great power I feel inside of you, little boy! Now would be a great time to use it don’t you think? Ha-ha!” Jaw laughed as he continuously stomped on Tony. He finally stepped down from Tony’s back and then kicked him in the ribs, making him roll up to a pile of wood a couple of feet away.

Tony was motionless on his back in the pile of rocks, with blood running down his nose and mouth. The only movement showing he wasn’t dead was the extension and retraction of his diaphragm, which meant he was still somewhat breathing.

The lizaard walked slowly towards Tony, examining his victim and enjoying himself. “What a bugger, he can’t even budge a muscle!” Jaw exclaimed. “Let’s remember this day as the day we finally annihilated all nemusian existence! Ha-ha! Lizaross will now prevail once and for all. Eat this!”

Jaw charged his sword back, and then swung a powerful thrust towards Tony’s chest. But before the sword could reach the boy’s body, an unpredicted foot tossed aside the sword in a sweeping motion. With his left hand, Tony then took a tall wooden log in the pile he was laying on and drove the log in Jaw’s abdomen. The shot was so painful that he dropped his sword before he could even finish his second swing, and stood there, crouched and winded. He was looking at Tony, who was still lying on the floor, smiling, with his foot still raised in the air.

“I guess that leg wasn’t broken after all, heh-heh.” Tony said with a weak laugh. “Thanks for giving my body the time to regenerate, by the way.”

“What?” Jaw started.

“Kicking me up in this pile of rocks, then your little boast about ‘Nemusian Annihilation’! And then this log shoved up your stomach. Yup, with all this time wasted where you could have killed me, I feel great now!” Tony stood back up with ease, and he started stretching his back, and then cracked his neck, which totally hurt him. “Okay, I don’t feel ‘great’, still aches a little here and there.”

Jaw was still holding his stomach with pain, staring at Tony aghast. The boy pulled his arm back for momentum to then give Jaw a powerful left hook in the face, which flipped him to the ground, and then to show the sucker what it felt like, he also kicked him in the ribs, like a football, making the lizaard fly quite a couple meters away, tumble to the edge of the cliff, fall down, and land in the woods below with a deafening growl.

After hearing the satisfying thump he was waiting for, he then hovered over the woods where Jaw’s battered body had anchored, and held straight up both of his arms, making appear a big green ball of energy in his hands, about four times the size of a beach ball.

“This is over!” Tony screamed, and then screamed even louder the name of his strongest attack, “GREEN LASER!” with echoes as a response.

As he shouted the name of his just-now invented attack, he threw the big energy ball in Jaw’s landing area. As the ball descended through the woods, every tree that it touched got absorbed in it, and then it was Jaw’s turn to get absorbed in the explosive energy ball, while he held his hands up yelling “NOOOO!”  The beam touched the forest ground, and the impact resolved in a big explosion. The scene was an immense flash of green with trees and rocks flying out of it. It was then followed by a huge cloud of smoke so thick that not a thing could be seen through it.

“Oooh! I better watch my strength, I could’ve destroyed the Cloudy Cliff with this!” He said to himself. “Ha, Green Laser. Awesome. Things always come out awesome when you’re in the heat of the moment.”

Tony then flew down to the remaining debris, still blinding with smoke. He roamed around to find any remaining part of his enemy, if there were any, and then he heard a faint cough through the smoke. He turned around quickly to see an unknown silhouette.

“Ha-ha-ha...” whispered an unfamiliar, hissing voice, “I’ll crush you into pieces.”