As the battlefield calmed down for a moment, Noelle took the moment to strengthen the entire team, including herself. Krouse conjured a shield in front of the group, and Abel shot everyone with healing syringes.
Meanwhile, the Sky Serpent had been pondering its next actions. Clearly, fighting like it did before wouldn't help. So! The Sky Serpent needed to employ tactics.
Taking inspiration from a certain shadowy sea serpent - which the Sky Serpent had once seen fight, the creature began to spin at intense speeds. This generated powerful winds, creating a kind of barrier which cut at anything within a metre of the Sky Serpent's body.
As the Sky Serpent spun, it flew forward, creating a powerful bullet-like attack. Noelle leapt up to catch the monster with an outstretched sword, only to have the sword shatter in an instant. Chuck shot Air Bullets at the Sky Serpent, momentarily disrupting its spinning shield of air. With this opportunity, Abel fired several syringes into the many open gaps between the Sky Serpent's scales. Of course, Cane replicated them as they flew.
The Sky Serpent began to spin even faster, negating most of the syringes as the air knocked them off course. At this point, the creature had reached Krouse's shield, despite Noelle's best attempts to keep it away.
Crack!
Krouse's shield began splintering from the powerful air currents. Chuck leaped forward, his single arm outstretched. With an open palm, he blasted fire down the length of the Sky Serpent. Unlike the other objects, the fire didn't get sent off course. Instead, it wrapped with the wind, around the Sky Serpent - cooking the creature alive.
RROARR!!
The Sky Serpent quickly stopped spinning, which helped a bit - it only stopped the flames from reaching the entire body. The Sky Serpent's head was still roasting finely, though.
With another roar, the Sky Serpent switched to whipping its tail at Chuck once more. Seeing this, Krouse quickly formed another shield on Chuck, though it shattered easily, leaving Chuck hurtling through the air.
As the Sky Serpent's back was left undefended from its previous attack, Noelle took the opportunity to leap into the air, conjure a bow, and fire several arrows, so large they were almost like spears.
These arrows penetrated its back through the areas where the Sky Serpent had lost scales. Pinned to the ground, the Sky Serpent began to writhe in anger and pain.
Noelle landed on one of the arrows, driving it deeper into the Sky Serpent's body. Then, she began to pummel the Sky Serpent with her Apprentice Warrior strength, conjuring spikes on her knuckles as she punched.
Chuck had already flown back at this point, and he also began to bombard the Sky Serpent's head with a flurry of Air Bullets, Hardened Cards and fire. Seeing the situation, Cane and Abel joined in, creating foam around the Sky Serpent and freezing it. Even Krouse helped pin down the Sky Serpent with his shields.
Slowly but surely, the Sky Serpent stopped moving. It had been completely immobilised. It was completely encased in frozen foam, looking like a statue.
The group all let out a collective sigh.
"Did... we actually do it?" That was from Cane. A big mistake... that's called setting a flag.
Krouse also caught on. "Wait! Don't say that yet, or things could go HORRIBLY wrong!"
As Noelle was about to interject, a BOOM cut her off from speaking.
Sqeulch! Splatter!
"... What?" The team turned around, only to see Chuck, crushed to within his mech. Blood was seeping from the joints and the mech looked like a crushed soda can.
They didn't have time to grieve, however. Because standing on top of Chuck's dead body was a huge, Mechanical Beast.
Beast.
That was the only way to describe it. The thing was like a huge bear, except turned into some robotic freak. With a mechanical whirr, the beast shot forward like a cannon.
Crack!
The Mechanical Beast directly struck Noelle in the torso, where she'd been hit before. She flew backwards, incapacitated once more. Abel shot a healing syringe after her flying body, but it'd take a while for the syringe to catch up, he reckoned.
Krouse's face grew solemn, and he conjured a shield in front of the tired group. With Chuck dead and Noelle out of the fight, there was no one left to be a frontline fighter. Cane, Krouse and Abel were all only able to support in the fight between the Sky Serpent, and that wouldn't change all of a sudden when they faced the Mech Beast before them.
"Haha, guys." Krouse's voice was serious. "Should we... run?"
The Mech Beast turned upon hearing Krouse's words, and prepared to fire a laser cannon at the three. But, just as it finished charging, a stray pigeon entered the laser's path, causing the beam to shift ever so slightly to the side.
Holy shit. Cane was sure of something at that moment. Was that... my Innate Luck activating?
Yes.
At this moment in time, there was nothing Cane or any of the others could do - the situation was out of their hands. And thus, Innate Luck was activated.
The Mech Beast took a step forward in confusion, only to have its foot break the metal plate it stood on, and sink through the floor slightly. The heavy machine was now momentarily stuck, to which Abel launched corrosive acids.
Not that it'd do much, but everything counts, right?
Activating jet propulsions, the Mech Beast flew up into the air. Hovering mid-air, the machine began to fire at Cane and the others - full auto.
Cane responded, firing energy bolts back with his two pistols. Miraculously, most of the bullets were intercepted by his blind shooting, and the rest which got through were stopped by Krouse's shields.
"Cane... how are you doing that?" Abel looked on in amazement. Indeed, to any observer, it would seem like Cane was accurately finding each individual bullet and intercepting them.
"Come on, let's run!" Krouse grabbed the two, activated a final shield, and sped off with his Apprentice Combatant speed. The Mech Beast promptly chased after them, only to be hit by a lashing tail.
At that moment before, the Sky Serpent's tail finally broke free from the mold and whipped around through the air. That was when the tail and the Mech Beast met.
The Mech Beast was dented in the arm, causing one of the jets to stop functioning. This in turn caused it to spiral to the ground, out of balance.
CRRACKK!
The Sky Serpent finally broke free from its cage, extremely furious. But so was the Mech Beast.
ZZAPP!
A laser cannon blasted the Sky Serpent in the head, melting scales and causing the Sky Serpent to crash back into the ground. It whipped its tail at the Mech Beast blindly, to which the Mech Beast dodged.
Grabbing a hold of the Sky Serpent's tail, the Mech Beast lifted the entire creature and slammed it into the ground with an overhead throw. With a roar, blades shot out from the Mech Beast's arms, and - pouncing towards the Sky Serpent's head - the Mech Beast began to execute a flurry of slashes.
RROARR!!
The Sky Serpent began to twist in the air again, causing the wind to cut at the metal reinforcements of the Mech Beast. The two Rank 4 monsters began to fight a battle of attrition.
The Mech Beast was too close to use bullets or lasers, so it could only slice with its arm blades. Meanwhile, the Sky Serpent was unable to use its flame breath due to the damage it'd suffered at the hands of Noelle and the others previously.
As the tail of the Sky Serpent drew close, the Mech Beast used a predictive pathway program to move out of the way. Then, without missing a beat, the Mech Beast slashed off the tail, bisecting the Sky Serpent.
This wouldn't be enough to kill the Sky Serpent, of course. With a furious lunge, gaining a burst of speed, the Sky Serpent shot forward and directly bit onto the arm which had removed its tail.
As the Sky Serpent latched onto the Mech Beast's arm, the Mech Beast used its other arm to smash against the Sky Serpent's skull. Despite the continuous, punishing blows, the Sky Serpent held on and ripped the arm off.
They withdrew for a moment, and then in an instant, the Sky Serpent lunged forward again, intending to end it all. The Sky Serpent's powerful muscles within its body wrapped around the Mech Beast, constricting it like some snakes would.
The Sky Serpent was almost dead, but with its final lifespan, it sacrificed everything for one final attack. With a FWOOSH!, the Sky Serpent's entire body burst aflame. This was the hottest fire it had ever produced, directly melting the Mech Beast's arm-blades and shoulder turrets.
The Mech Beast quickly pushed back, but the damage had already been done. Now, it couldn't fly, couldn't shoot, couldn't slice. And it'd lost an arm. The Mechanical Beast was reduced to using physical attacks only, just like a real beast.
Krouse and Abel might've thought differently, but only Cane knew.
That was all done by MY luck?
What the f*ck is this dog sh*t luck!
Meanwhile, the Mech Beast had turned to face the fleeing trio. This time, it began to charge after them instead of shooting forward like before.
"AH! The Mech is catching up!!!" Krouse shouted in a panic. He conjured a shield for himself to jump on, propelling them further. But it was all in vain.
Crash!
With a single strike, the trio got knocked to the ground.
The Mech Beast loomed over them, ready to end them, end Noelle, and end the battle. Cane could only pray for better days.
Please save me, my dog sh*t luck.