13 Red Hot Battalion! Part 4

"What?" his comrades all shouted. Even Morey was caught off guard by the sudden declaration.

"You heard me!" The lieutenant barked, "Move out!"

"But sir! We can't just-"

"You'rre not leaving me here," Carlos affirmed as he pulled out his halberd and another vial of blue liquid. As he poured the liquid over his blade he continued, "You au have done well'e in defending our two main effighters, and so as much as I am trusting you to take dem to deir destination, you are to trust me into fighting these creatures!"

As soon as another soldier was about to respond, Carlos continued, "And if any of you arre doubtful, den that is an insult to my pride as a lieutenant of dis platoon! Now go!"

The warriors jumped as they began to move again. As they moved, two figures split from the group and ran to the lieutenant.

Morey turned his head towards the two figures and raised an eyebrow, realizing that it was the cowardly robe twins. Weren't they just scared a few hours ago? What made them want to go fight with Carlos? It seemed counterintuitive if they wanted to be safe, Carlos was going to fight all the creatures head on, and they were going to be in the center of the chaos.

One of the cloaked figures turned around looking over the army they just left, and both he and Morey locked eyes. Instead of some scared teary eyes that Morey would have expected, the mage instead had sharp narrow eyes, completely devoid of any form of fear or unease. The mage did widen their eyes a bit when caught by Morey, but a moment later the person's eyes shifted into what Morey could guess was a smile. They smiled! Why were they smiling? They were about to go to a dangerous battle they were scared of not too long ago, and now it looks like they're about to go on a picnic instead of a fiery hell of monsters and magma.

Morey attempted to understand the sudden shift in courage, but the screams of the warriors snapped his attention back to battle in front of him. He can worry about that later.

The frontliners did their best to avoid engaging with the other monsters around them but the few that managed to get close were pushed back. The stubborn ones were torn to shreds by a storm of blades, but the sheer number of monsters only continued to grow, and without the mages to summon those shield spirits again, all the monsters focused on the group.

"I can see the sunlight!" One soldier exclaimed, causing others to scream out in joy at the revelation. Morey also looked on and saw the light peak through the forest of hell. He wondered if it was possible to see such a sight and feel nothing but relief.

But he felt something was off.

Before they were all just jogging, but now they all began to sprint towards the cracks of light that shone through the mazes of charred trees. They were almost there. About five kilometers left before freedom.

But of course, something jumped at their path, causing all the soldiers to jump back. Morey looked up to see another Lobber, and it had brought some friends. Many of the magma rock monsters floated around the Lobber, and the red worms sprouted from the ground, surrounding the Lobber from the ground.

"Shit!" The warrior in front yelled as a glob of lava at him. This time, there was no one to stop the worms from spewing lava to the air, allowing for it to land everywhere.

"Shields up! NOW!" William roared, "Stand back I'll take-"

"No!" Many of the warriors shouted in unison. One near William spoke up afterwards, "It's our responsibility to protect you and get you to the other side! If we can't even do that we won't be able to look at our lieutenant in the eyes without feeling great shame!"

"But look! How can you take on these monsters without any of the previous support!" William yelled, "You were all barely able to hold them back before! How can you take them on now?"

Before any of the soldiers could respond, a loud explosion was heard off in the distance, a bright blue mushroom cloud blew up off in the distance, causing a shockwave to blow towards the army, knocking both allies and foes to the ground.

"What the hell was that?" Morey asked, one of the few still standing.

"Carlos," William simply responded. "That madman is going to get himself killed."

"What? How?" Morey wondered, until he saw some of the lava creatures begin to float towards the source of the explosion.

"Lava and fire are from the same element, fire," William explained, sheathing his sword again, "They have a common natural enemy."

"It's the cold," One of the soldiers said, although he seemed far from relieved and instead was gritting his teeth, "You guys have to hurry, ignore everything else, we'll take care of this."

"What?" William gaped, "You're going to fight it now?"

"Listen," The soldier said, "We've taken you this far, if we're to put our faith on you two, then put yours on us." The man then did a salute, "We're expecting great things William Arc and Morey Anderson! Now go take down that dragon! We have to go and help Carlos! He's in danger!"

Before any of the two seekers could respond, The Touros charged at the Lobber and worms, leaving the two alone in the road.

"We go around, let's go," William stated as he began to run into the thick part of the charred forest.

"Wait!" Morey yelled after him, "Are we really just going to leave them there?"

"What other choice do we have at this point? They already made up their mind, now all we can do is protect them the best way we can!" William boomed as he cleared all the dead branches around him, and jumped out of the forest.

Behind them, Morey could then hear cheers be yelled from the Touros:

"Go get 'em!"

"Kick ass!"

"You'll all be back for a drink, right?!"

Morey sooned followed, feeling a new vigor he never really felt before, jumping towards the opening and also jumped out of the clearing. His heart was beating faster than ever, they were almost to the dragon. The thing even experienced warriors were afraid to fight head on. Yet here they were, all on their own, prepared to fight it.

Morey really couldn't wrap his head around the size of the dragon. The one that killed him before was pretty big, but William told him that it was considered a runt compared to the behemoth that they were going to face. Morey still couldn't imagine it that big.

The seekers suddenly felt a strong gust of wind, although it wasn't on par with the shockwave that Carlos made before, it was consistent, and Morey was beginning to lose his balance from the blow of the wind.

A large black figure can be seen far off in the sky. It was slowly getting bigger as time went on, and when more of the details could be seen, the shape of the dragon slowly began to form.

The giant flying creature was large enough to shadow over the hills and the trees that were up ahead, and every flap of its wings sent out a powerful gust of air that capable of knocking multiple trees that were rooted to the ground away.

Morey was in complete awe of the monster, how the hell were they going to take it down? That thing was large enough to cast a shadow over everything like a cloud. He turned to Willam for any ideas only to notice that William was far off looking in a different direction, completely ignoring the flying lizard.

William was focusing on something else far off in the distance, something that caught his attention more than the gigantic monster that was currently flying towards them.

"That's strange…" William whispered.

Morey barely heard it, but he was able to make out what he said and asked, "What is?"

"That volcano…"

"What about it?" Morey asked, getting annoyed. "You do know that we kinda have bigger problems right now!"

"That volcano Morey!" William suddenly shouted as he turned to him, "Its structure has a smooth edge to it. Along with that, there's no smoke rising despite there being a so-called eruption recently."

It didn't take much for Morey to understand what his mentor was implying. "You don't think…?"

"The eruption…" William hissed, "It was man made."