Sero (part 1)

     Libero was the first to move, sprinting directly at his opponent as he always does, but this time I moved right alongside him as there was a particular idea I wished to test. As if to validate my idea, Sero allowed us into close combat. As he raised a hand, crackling with electricity, ready to catch Libero’s blow, he saw that I had my hand on Libero’s back, and retracted the electricity, opting to catch the blow normally.

“What’re ya doing?! Why’re ya touching me?”

“He wants me alive, so as long as I’m nearby, he can’t use electricity on you carelessly, or he might kill me as well!”

“Hah! Is that so? Well, don’t slow me down!”

     Sero was silent, but I’m sure he was irritated by the simple counter to his powerful ability. Despite the size and pressure of his territory, Sero only seemed to match Libero in close combat, maybe even weaker. This was shown as Libero let out a hail of punches and kicks with seemingly no care for where he was aiming and Sero could only barely block or avoid the attacks.

     I kept contact with Libero’s body while using openings under or beside him to extend iron-covered fingers at Sero, but even the direct hits hardly seemed to scratch his exterior.

     Sero leaped back and wrapped his double-elbowed arms around himself, then leaped back towards us while turning his body, unleashing a powerful back-handed strike into Libero’s guard. It didn’t do much damage, but it was powerful enough to knock Libero away from my grasp. Completing his turn and unraveling his other arm, Sero punched me square in my chest, knocking me off my feet and across the road. In this small window, he brought down a bolt of lightning on the exposed Libero.

     But in that moment that his attention was occupied, huge wooden arrow crashed into his head, arm, and chest, knocking him to the ground where he was bound in vines again, but this time he was also quickly covered in some kind of strange fluid.

     As I rose to my feet, I looked towards Siti. She had grown huge wooden ballistae around her, as well as in a ring around where the fighting was happening. At the same time, she had created walls of vines and bamboo and was busy fending off other demons that were trying to get involved in the fight.

     As I ran back into the fight towards Libero, I called out, “Siti, use these!” and quickly formed numerous iron bolts that could be used in her ballistae, hoping they would be far more powerful that wooden ones. But those wooden rods gave me plenty of other ideas as I began forming metal in both hands.

     Sero quickly used his electricity to burn away the vines again, but the odd fluid secreted by the vines seemed mostly unaffected, shriveling up some, but otherwise remaining. He used his hands to try and wipe it off, only to find it sticking to his hands as well. He let out an audible “Ugh! How vile!” then noticed my approach towards Libero and moved to intercept.

     Sero was much quicker than I and, even with his hands occupied by the strange adhesive, could use the bends of his elbows and legs to swing at me and keep me away. I tried my best not to back off, using metal-coated crab legs and pincers to try and combat his strength and, by dedicating all of those extra limbs to blocking one attack, I actually could! This caught Sero’s attention as he stopped bothering with the adhesive and brought down both hands in diagonal chops towards me in a way that I couldn’t block both with all limbs, having to split them to half-block both.

     A familiar cracking sound came and Sero was immediate to turn towards Libero, ready to direct another bolt of lightning at him, but he froze as he saw one of the things I’d been using metal to form: a metal chain that was wrapped around Libero’s torso and connected to my left arm.

     “YOU DAMN LITTLE PEST!” Sero shouted as he immediately tried to sever the chain with a quick chop, but before he could bring his hand down, CLANK! Another wooden bolt struck him in the head, then another to the chest. He turned his attention to Siti and directed his electricity to block the other oncoming wooden bolts, turning them into ash and char before they could reach them. CLANK!! Sero recoiled as one of the iron bolts tore through the wall of electricity and struck him in the face, cracking that once smooth and featureless surface.

     CLANK!! Libero was back with a crushing punch to the back of Sero’s torso, leaving cracks there as well. I moved to follow up with a slam of my metal claws, but my body froze up as electricity coursed through my body. Sero no longer seemed to care about keeping me alive, or he was trying to not use enough to kill me.

     “I’ve had enough of you all.” the Demon Lord muttered, lightning cracking across the sky. “The King already thinks I’ve failed. So it’s of no further consequence if you truly do die.” The lightning grew louder, bearing down and reducing multiple of Siti’s ballistae to blackened char. Then, as it gathered overhead, there was a deafening boom as it was brought down…but not where he intended.

     “What?” Sero said confused, before Libero quickly grabbed him and brought him to the ground. I quickly detached the chain from myself, but began forming metal around the pinned Sero. Another thunderous boom ripped through the sky, and another flash of lightning missed its mark. “WHAT’S GOING ON!?” Sero yelled as Libero landed one punch after another into his face. Seeing that I had removed the chain, Sero tried to shock just Libero, but his electricity was suddenly being scattered as I had formed numerous copper rings that ran from his body into the ground around him.

     As I rose up, still recovering from my shock-stunned body, I pointed to a tall metal pole that I had been working on at the same time as the chain, “As I thought, I’ve never seen a lightning rod before.”

     Sero could move his head enough to turn and see it, even as the lightning crackling across the sky was drawn into it. From that, he seemed to understand that the copper bindings were even taking the electricity he tried to emit from his body and taking it harmlessly into the ground. He lied still, silent until Libero stopped punching him.

“What’s wrong Lord Sero? All out of spark already?”

     Sero merely sighed, “I’m just realizing that it’s true: there are humans who understand our abilities better than we do. I had heard it, but I couldn’t believe it until I saw it. I thought the devices I saw in that human world were magic, clever uses of the flow. How arrogant I was.”

“So? You givin’ up? Cuz’ that was a lot of words for ‘I surrender.’”

     “No.” Muttered Sero as the cracks in his body began to glow. “No, I won’t be disgraced so one-sidedly like this. This Lord does not surrender.”

     A sizzling came as the parts where Libero was touching Sero began to burn. The Demon Lord’s joints and connective parts began to glow a red hot. The copper coils meant to divert his electricity began to melt and the cracked plating of his body came alight with a circuit-like pattern.

[Territory Manifestation: Plasma Dynamo]

     I could feel it in the air, EVERYTHING felt like it was electrified. Arcs seemed to be coming off of everything and arcing to every other thing. Bricks, rubble, wooden and metal bolts, even arcs of plasma began to form off of the lightning rod, running hot pink-ish streaks against everything around it. Sero rose up slowly and directed his hand to Libero. I tried to run towards him again, but he shouted,

“BACK AWAY!!”

     There was a bright flash and an ear-splitting BOOM!! Then, Libero was gone, not a charred husk, just dust.

     “One down.” Sero muttered before turning his attention to Siti and I.