Captain Rashen only risked sparing a brief glance as Nirou ran off into the jungle, huffing and puffing all the while. That boy really was a soft one. It would have been nice if he had the chance to get whipped into shape before all this. But that was beyond concerning himself with now, and he quickly returned his attention back to the fearsome Lion-man in front of him.

Lion Beastmen were tough, but Rashen had faced them before. Even alone, he would have been confident he could win. With Kishaldam to assist, things should go even more smoothly. Of course the unknown factor here was the precise skill of his opponents. If the Lions he had fought before were actually all just inexperienced, this could be the one to finally prove a match. He doubted it, but the possibility was there. One can never be too careful.

For the Lion's part, it was sizing up the Captain and Kishaldam. While making an attempt to intimidate with a deep yet loud snarl, it was keeping a distance that allowed it to easily view both of them at the same time. Rashen could only guess it was a habit ingrained in the Beastman to counteract the disadvantage in peripheral vision caused by its huge mane. The creature seemed hesitant to make the first move after seeing Kishaldam unleash a wave of fire at it, so the Captain took initiative.

"Keep it from getting distance." he instructed Kishaldam, as he dove in with his fists raised. He held his armored forearms up in preparation to take the brunt of any attack that came his way. The Lion seemed content to pick its battles more wisely, but before it could jump back out of the way, a series of fireballs constricted its path of retreat. Kishaldam had run to the side and taken up a stance on one leg, repeatedly kicking the air and shooting smaller bursts of fire behind the Lion Beastman. With no recourse, the creature went on the attack.

A swipe of the Lion's claws scraped against Rashen's gauntlets, and he was forced to juke to the side to avoid a consecutive swipe from below aimed at his gut. This Lion at least knew well enough to mix things up. Kishaldam's suppressive fireballs were constraining the Beastman to close quarters combat, and it knew it. Rather than try to fight that fact, it had decided to go all in with a rapid series of deadly claw swipes from multiple angles. All the while, it was belting out intense roars that would have made even Rashen shrink back if he hadn't dealt with them before. The Captain was forced to spend too much time dodging and blocking to manage attacks of his own. But it wasn't a situation the Lion could keep up for long. Rashen kept his head about him and waited for the creature's stamina to falter. He'd get his opening.

As the Captain moved about to avoid or parry the Lion’s blows, he ended up facing the other side of the clearing where two of his subordinates were currently fighting the other Beastman. He didn’t have the luxury to watch, but the glimpse he caught seemed to indicate that they were doing alright on their part.

Ajandi stood with his feet both planted firmly on the ground as he held his giant shield in front of him with only enough space on his right to reach his transformed arm out. As incredibly strong as the Bear Beastman was, any attacks it made to the shield proved futile. Ajandi managed to be completely unphased by the strikes, his feet staying in place along with the shield itself. Of course, it wasn’t that Ajandi was just that strong. The unwavering defense was a property of the shield itself. With most of his body protected, he made swipes of his own with the claws afforded by his bear arm. None of them really seemed to deal all that much damage, but the Bear couldn’t stay close and put pressure on its opponent because of the threat that they might.

Behind Ajandi, Hamid was still twirling the ice flail by its chain. She seemed to be biding her time, merely trying to avoid the Beastman’s attention. With her teammate taking the brunt of the attacks, she wasn’t in any particular danger unless it suddenly decided to change targets. Rather than expose herself to the threat, she was waiting for her chance to jump in and strike before retreating again.

That chance didn’t take long to come though. Due to the shield’s seemingly impenetrable defense, the Bear changed its focus towards the arm that was putting up a paltry offense. As Ajandi made for a swipe, it used one of its own to bat his attack to the side before catching the transformed arm from below with its claws. It then dove in with its teeth, biting at Ajandi’s arm until it was clamped on tight. With a muffled roar, it reared its head back and tore the limb off down to the forearm.

The Bear’s triumphant grin disappeared however, startled by the results of its own attack. It saw Ajandi’s arm revert to an unsettling blob of pink flesh, churning into a compressed cylinder before changing shape again. In a mere few moments, the mass of flesh expanded into an even larger limb, changing color and texture to that of the leg of an elephant. “I guess using a bear arm to fight a bear didn’t actually make sense.” Ajandi admitted. “This is probably better. Even more defense.”

Ajandi didn’t have to use his new limb for anything just yet though, as Hamid jumped into action while the Bear Beastman was stunned. Diving from her place behind her comrade, she came from the Bear’s right side where his focus hadn’t been. Her sharp eyes were focused on her target, and breathed out clouds of ice crystals to cool her breath and keep her mind sharp. She swung the ice flail by its chain, striking a blow on the side of the Bear before it had time to jump back. The creature cried out from the pain of the ice spikes sinking into its body, and instinctively dove for its assailant. It made a desperate swipe of its claws just barely in range of Hamid, who was forced to jump back herself. A single one of the Beastman’s claws managed to graze her calf, leaving a wound that was just a step up from a scratch.

Before the Bear could do any worse, Ajandi bashed it from the side with his shield to throw it off balance. He then used his elephant leg-arm to wallop the creature in the face repeatedly as Hamid made her retreat. “Hamid, you gotta be more careful!” Ajandi insisted. “You always jump in too soon.”

“Yeah, yeah. We always just end up waiting though, I would rather not always take the longest amount of time possible to win. It gets kind of old.” Hamid checked her leg wound and decided it wasn’t too bad before freezing it over to stop any bleeding. As she backed up from the Bear, she pulled her ice flail with her by its chain. It had been released completely from its spot in the creature’s side, and was missing the spikes that had been protruding from the end of the ball that made contact. “Don’t have to worry about me any more though, my job’s done. So you just scooch over.”

Hamid ran back behind Ajandi and his shield, pressing up against her teammate to make sure none of her body was close to sticking out. With Hamid no longer a viable target, the Bear would be forced to return to futile attacks on Ajandi. He had no trouble staving off the Beastman’s strikes, and made no attempt to press any further attacks. There was no reason to do anything but wait for Hamid’s attack to pay off.

On the other side of the clearing, the Lion’s attacks were getting less aggressive. It was getting tired out from repeated swipes that were either blocked or dodged. However, it seemed to be under the impression that to let up would spell its doom. The Captain assumed that such an impression would have to have come about purely out of paranoia from seeing the team’s gifts in action. This Beastman certainly wasn’t skilled enough to come to that conclusion based on experience.

As a last ditch effort before being forced to break off the offensive, the Lion let out a roar and dove in headfirst towards its opponent. While it couldn’t reach the Captain’s neck, it did get a firm grasp on the gauntlet covered forearm he used to block. Rashen knew just how powerful the jaws of a Beastman could be, and he wasn’t keen on losing half of his five star artifact. The gauntlets were tough enough to make most blows glance off, but concentrated pressure was something else. No need to even risk it.

Before the Lion could use this chance to slash away at the Captain’s body, Rashen immediately reacted to getting caught. He stomped his foot down on the ground, and reached up to his head with his free hand. In a single instant, the two interlocked foes were flipped upside down. Had any actual movement been involved, the Beastman could have reacted at least a little bit. But there was no hope for it in this case, as the completely unnatural displacement was more akin to teleportation. The Lion was suddenly falling headfirst and didn’t know why. Rashen used his hand to push off from below and avoid the impact, while the Beastman smacked its head right on the ground. The distraction afforded by this trick left the creature open, as the Captain was prepared and brought his knee down into the Lion’s chest as it fell. A couple of further kicks saw the Beastman forced to release the gauntlet from its jaws.

As soon as he was free, Rashen swept his legs around and kneeled beside his opponent. He wound up his arm and started letting loose with a hail of punches, pummeling the grounded Lion. The Beastman tried to slip away as soon as the hit started coming, but any movement it made was useless for avoiding the blows. It could move its head to the side, roll one way or the other, but no matter what the strikes all hit home. With the speed at which the Captain was throwing the punches out, one would usually be able to avoid at least a few just by moving desperately. But thanks to the gauntlets' inherent ability, he didn’t have to worry at all. As long as his arms could reach his target, every single one of his blows would hit without fail. They locked right on to the nearest hostile target.

The Lion had taken quite a beating before it was able to get its arms up to defend itself, lashing out with its claws to try and stay the storm of blows. The Captain was then forced to back off, getting to his feet and letting his opponent do the same. However, with the Beastman alone on the ground there was no need to merely wait. Kishaldam kicked from her spot at the side of the battle, letting loose another arc of fire that hit the Lion straight on as it was getting up. The Beastman roared in pain as it was assailed by a torrent of fireballs, jumping to its feet and running in the direction directly opposite its attacker. It smacked its body in various places as it ran, trying to put out the burning fur.

As the Lion desperately patted itself down, its companion was facing a problem of its own. The Bear wasn’t making any headway in attacking Ajandi, the defense was too solid. In fact, it was getting less and less attacks in as time went by. All of the attention it should have been putting on attacking was instead drawn to the agonizing cold sensation in its side. The ice spikes were still embedded in its body, and they hadn’t melted in the slightest. Though for the Beastman’s part, it had no idea what material was actually stuck in it. Just that it was chilling it to the bone. The flesh around the icicles was dying from the cold, desperately sending signals of pain to warn of the danger. Necrosis was sure to set in soon, but the Bear didn’t have the luxury to pull the icicles out at the moment. Not by itself. With no recourse, the Beastman leapt to the side and around Ajandi to run toward its comrade.

The two Beastmen met up halfway between where they had been fighting, and made various snarling sort of noises. Surely some kind of communication. As Rashen and Ajandi closed in on their foes, they saw the Lion digging its claws into the flesh of the Bear. It seemed to be trying to grab the ice spikes and pull them out. The larger Beastman was gritting its fangs and enduring the pain while keeping its eye out for the next attack. But this was a desperate measure. The Lion only had time to pull one of the icicles out before another blast of flame came their way courtesy of Kishaldam’s kick. After a roar from the Bear, the duo jumped to the side and out of the way of the fire. However, that move only put their back to the wall. The two of them were up against the mountainside and boxed in by Ajandi and the Captain on either side and Kishaldam from the front.

With almost no hope left, the Beastmen leapt in tandem toward the target that most impeded their chances of escape. Kishaldam’s fire was what was keeping them in place for the most part, and she seemed to be a soft enough target. As long as they could break through a bit of fire, they surely thought that they could slash right through her and get away. But they were overestimating themselves. The flames rained on the both of them head on, burning their faces and stifling their breath. As much as they wanted to keep rushing through, the pain that had accumulated was too much. Their charge slowed, and the Captain came up from behind.

A quick flurry of blows from Rashen left the already reeling Beastmen in dire straits, as they were too hurt to be able to focus on either defending themselves or counterattacking. With their guards completely obliterated, the Captain went in for a finishing blow. He got low to the ground, ducking under any possible attack the Lion could have mustered at this point. He then put his hand to the ground and pushed, whipping his leg up to kick the Beastman right in the jaw. At the moment of impact, he also used his other hand to smack the ground. Once again, the orientation of both him and the Lion were flipped. The Beastman again had to endure its head slamming into the ground unexpectedly, but this time Rashen was upright. And right in position above his target.

The foot that had been kicking the Lion in the jaw was now stomping on its neck, and the Captain let gravity keep doing his work for him as he fell right into pummeling the hapless Beastman over and over again. Every single one of Rashen’s punches was always at max power. His gauntlets aimed for him, so all he ever had to do was punch as hard as he could. Ultimately that meant his enemies got pulped sooner rather than later. The brain could only take so much shaking around. After a few rounds of blows, the Lion was down for good.

The Bear was further along its path of attack towards Kishaldam, desperately enduring the torrent of flames. It was in pain, but managing to power through. It was nearly in range to dive for Kishaldam’s throat when it felt an even worse pain from inside its body. In the areas around the ice spikes was a sensation like a billion tiny knives spinning around in its flesh. The ice was no longer in large solid spines, but changing rapidly between water and ice over and over again. Seeping between tissues as water, it would change in an instant back to sharp pieces of ice to cut the Beastman up from the inside. Its body temperature was already low from the sheer cold of the ice stuck in its flesh, but this pain on top of that was too much to bear. Stopping short of its target, the Bear grasped at its side and roared in agony.

With time now to catch up, Ajandi ran up on the Beastman and bashed it once again with his shield. He held the shield in place against the creature to keep it from getting back up, while using his elephant limb to stomp on it a bit. Just for good measure. Hamid came around once more with her ice flail and despite its missing spikes, she started to slam it into the Bear over and over again. Ajandi was putting too much weight on it for it to have any hope of escape, and eventually Hamid’s swings found their way to the Beastman’s head enough times to put its lights out permanently.

“See, that’s what we should be doing.” Hamid commented as she admired her handiwork. “Just hold ‘em down and let me wail on ‘em. All the waiting for internal damage stuff gets kind of boring after a while.”

Kishaldam checked both of the bodies to make sure they were dead, then the four teammates set off in the last direction they had seen Nirou and Laska run in. “The two most dangerous Beastmen are taken care of, but that doesn’t mean we can relax.” the Captain insisted. “Those two kids can’t handle themselves as well as we can, so we have to be ready to help if they turn out to need it.”

“Not confident in them, Captain?” Hamid prodded her superior. “I guess it wouldn’t be smart to expect a couple of novices to take on a Beastman.”

“You’re one to talk.” Kishaldam interrupted. “You got too hasty and took a hit again. Anyway, the Captain is just worried. Nirou and Laska are his charges for the time being, after all.”

“I bet they’re fine!” Ajandi announced confidently. “They’ll have the whole thing worked out long before we get to ‘em.”

“Alright, enough with the chatter.” Rashen cut off any more casual conversation from his subordinates. “This mission isn’t over until I say it is, so let’s get it done.”

The team left behind the scorched battlefield and Beastman corpses for the time being. There was one more still out there to take care of.