EMERGING (1)

Flint's muscles flexed as a sheen of sweat could be seen glistening on her face.

She held herself firmly to the hard metal floor so she could keep Ulanni and Sarah from rolling out like the other children.

Back in the driver's cockpit. Sage groaned as she felt a headache coming on and it was all because of that damn Spikey!

Kabe had his back straightened and standing tall with his eyes fixated in front, of the visible Mobile glass on the road ahead.

He spared the dashboard a glance once in a while, to see how close the Monster was to the Mobile.

And what he was seeing was not good. The Three-Spiked Monster was very close. It was just right behind the Mobile!

Kabe was broken out of his trance by Sage's steady voice from beside him.

"Kabe, I need you to go faster. I need some distance away from Spikey…Am going to shoot again." Sage said solemnly.

"You have used up a lot of balls Sage! And this is just the first stage of this journey."

Kabe reminded with his eyes trained on the screen.

Despite his response, he still went ahead to push hard on the acceleration button, which was present on the steering wheel.

The Mobile sped forward, leaving an uproar of dust behind and also succeeding in creating a bit of distance from the Three-Spiked Monster.

"I know. But we have to first survive this part. We would figure out something later on" Sage replied to Kabe's earlier question before she brought her attention back to the task at hand.

She took a deep breath as she closed her eyes before she slowly released the sucked-in air. She snapped her eyes open as her grip on the steering hardened.

Her eyes now shone with determination as she glared at the monster that had been a pain in her neck for the past hour.

With her eyes still trained on the beast, she jabbed hard on buttons on the dashboard. The Monster kept plowing behind the Mobile.

When she was done giving the command, Sage pressed hard on the red button underneath her thumb.

[Re-directing _ Shoot System...]

[ Complete… ]

A robot voice called out. Sage had once again redirected all the Musket in the direction where the Three-Spiked Monster was.

"This is it…" Saying this, followed by a loud cry from Sage. She jabbed her

finger again on the red button continuously to initiate repeated denotation of the red cerculean balls.

Booooom!!

Boom…boom…boom!!

The reoccurring sound of miniature explosions filled the air as the earth underneath the Mobile quaked.

Kabe didn't draw the Mobile to a stop but instead pressed on harder, which had the Mobile moving speedily away from the explosion.

Sage gazed through the different projections as she tried to see if she could spot the Spikey.

But after searching for some seconds and she still didn't spot Spikey emerging from the cloud of dust which had been blown up by the Mobile.

Her tense muscles began to relax, but she still kept her eyes on the projector.

She just had that feeling deep within her, and she also didn't think it would be easy to kill Spikey.

Kabe kept throwing side glances at her as thou waiting for her to give the shout that the Monster was dead.

But as he didn't hear anything from her, a frown came to settle on his face.

The red fiery dust of the earth slowly came to settle back down, allowing room for Sage to finally see what was behind it.

She saw it! The monster lay flat on the fiery red earth, and the glowing red tattoos against its green body had now receded to a dim glow.

The area where it lay was sunken with cracks in it and they are barren of any sort of life, except for the Monster that lay there.

A small seed of happiness started to sprout in her heart. And Kabe on sighting this also let out a breadth of relief.

But these moments of relief soon came to a hitch when a low pained growl reached their ears.

She looked closely at the columns to find the battered Monster trying to roll itself to stay on its belly.

The Monster finally succeeded in laying on its belly. It thrust its left knotty muscle-cladded fist in front of him as he tried to lift its weight.

It gave a throaty growl in anger as it collapsed back down to the reddish earth.

It raised its head to stare at the humans who were responsible for its present condition, as it let out another roar, but this was cut short as a splutter of black blood choked it.

Black blood flowed freely grow its mouth and also from the gaping large hole in its torso, which was as wide as the height of a four-year-old human child.

The organs there were missing as the flesh around that area sizzled. With the severity of its injury, one would have expected the Monster to be dead.

"Are you kidding me!!!" Sage shrieked, as she hit hard on the steering with annoyance.

The Monster was soon going out of sight as they sped away and this seemed to only make Sage even more agitated.

"Why the long face? At least it is too weak to chase after us again." Kabe stated, not sharing the same sentiment as Sage.

"We have gone short on both blue and red balls and you talk like that!!" Sage barked as she looked at Kabe like he was crazy.

"Oh! You are talking about the energy right?" Kabe questioned.

"Of course Kabe. The energy!" Sage screamed at him

"Hey calm down. I know we would not have to depend on the Mussel for defense as it would be out of shooting capacity, but by then we would be out of Lava Mountain and we would be able to get out and fight."

Kabe said in one breadth. He was just a bit elated that they were able to get rid of the Three-Spiked Monster even though they were not able to slay it.

Although, the enemy particles they would have gotten from the Three Spiked Monster assuming it had been slain would be massive and would do great in recharging the Mussel to full power due to the mana level of the Monster.