While the wyvern was still stunned, I rammed my shoulder into it, knocking it back. Over and over, I plunged my free blade into its throat and chest. As the thing crumpled to the ground, another wyvern hit me from the back-right with its talons in a dive bomb. This time, I was on more steady footing than in bike mode so it only knocked me a couple stumbling steps. I whipped around and slashed at it, catching it across the stomach as it tried to flap backward. Cyclone wasn’t great at jumping but I could get high enough to grab the beast by the leg and pull it back down to the ground. Both blades were out now and with a quick scissor motion I separated its head from its body. A blast of wind magic hit me but at the angle and my current weight, it didn’t do much.

I looked up to see the wyvern that had blasted me, holding off at a higher altitude. These things were smarter than I thought. Thankfully they didn’t seem to be pack hunters, just more opportunistic, so there wasn’t any teamwork happening. Other wyverns were still circling in the sky, presumably looking for openings.

I assumed that these guys didn’t like carrion like the lizard but were probably here to try and snack on anything that did. Some of them even seemed to be attacking the lizard, but it mostly ignored them. I was reminded of oxpeckers on a rhino. Through Carnivac’s eyes, I could see that several wyverns had landed near them and were testing the barrier. The sooner we could get the village one up the better. Via Carnivac, I asked Matty if he knew anything about the barrier device for the village. He said that he’d seen the village chief operate it before so it was better than nothing. I had my hands full trying to fight off two wyverns at once right now and couldn’t get to the fountain. The time it would take me to get out of Cyclone would leave a lot of opportunity for attack right now.

Through Shea’s barrier, Shea was hitting wyverns with her water attack which didn’t do much if any damage but got them plenty wet. Elita was then nailing them with bolts of electricity and getting chain combos as the lightning would jump from one soaked wyvern to the next one. Even Sparky was getting into it, blasting wyverns with tiny streams of fire when an opportunity would present itself. Once there was an opening, Carnivac scooped Matty up and swung him around onto his back and bolted through the barrier. Running at full speed, using all fours, Carnivac easily dodged around any landed wyverns as well as incoming attacks, thanks to me keeping an eye on him for a third person view.

The two I was dealing with, were taking turns hitting me from the air with their wind attacks. It wasn’t doing me any damage but it was keeping me pinned down. When Carnivac and Matty got to the fountain, I used [Blink] to shoot myself about ten meters straight up, loaded the token into an arm cannon and fired it. As a human I would never be able to make this shot, but my aim was true and the token sailed directly for Carnivac. Carnivac set Matty on the ground by the fountain device and caught the token. Thank Primus the thing didn’t just break.

As I dropped back down, I chambered some explosive rounds and let my dance partners have them. One of the wyverns took the shot to the face and flew backward doing summersaults, the other got hit at the shoulder and lost a wing for its troubles. I landed hard on the ground and took a bit of falling damage but with the stones beneath me shattering from the impact I felt like Iron Man.

Carnivac quickly put the token in place on the barrier device and a system screen opened up. This time, the token logged us right in. The mana levels for the device had run out and it would need to be charged up again. Without Prime inside, Carnivac couldn’t push any mana or use any magic so we were really relying on Matty here. Matty seemed to be a pretty level headed kid when needed and focused on figuring out what he needed to do. More wyverns were starting to land or take an interest in the pair, and Carnivac alone wouldn’t last long against them.

I transformed and raced to their position. Carnivac was keeping one wyvern busy, slashing at it with his swords and a flurry of interspersed kicks, but another was coming up behind him. I came in at an angle, transforming into a shoulder check and [Blink]ed to a space just on the other side of the wyvern.

I didn’t exactly know what would happen here. I understood the basics of how the magic worked, but I really wasn’t prepared for what happened.

First my shoulder exploded. The armor was just... gone, and my arm was pulverized. The wyvern? Well, I thought I might get a Team Rocket effect and send it flying... but no. The thing basically turned into a vapor explosion sending a bajillion teeny tiny bits of wyvern flying in all directions at a very high velocity. The force of the explosion sent Carnivac flying into the wyvern he was fighting, who was also sent flying up and over the fountain. I was suddenly very very afraid to see what had happened to Matty, but it looked like Carnivac’s wyvern had been at just the right angle to shield him with its body. He was covering his ears and looked shell-shocked but he was alive.

Most of the grounded wyverns took to the air like so many black birds scattering. Even the lizard who had actually started fighting off about five of them had taken off running for the tree line.

“WHAT IN THE EVER LIVING HELLS WAS THAT????” I heard Elita scream.

I looked up as a fine mist of wyvern gore began raining down and put my hand to my shoulder as my left arm simply fell off. Not really how I thought today was going to go. I looked down to see that Matty was starting to notice all the blood raining down on him and was starting to freak out. I walked over to him and leaned over, using my body to give him a little cover. He looked up at me and I gave him a wink, “think you can get the barrier going?” He gave me a thin smile and tapped away at the screen and placed his hand on the device to feed it some mana. I watched as the charge indicator went up a small amount before Matty started looking really sleepy.

“That’s plenty Buddy, good job” I said. He nodded and let his hand fall away. From the indicator, his charge would only last us about five minutes, but once it was going anyone should be able to feed it now. He tapped another key and a warm glow emanated from the device and bloomed until it hit the edges of the village. He was groggy but it didn’t look like he was going to pass out.

At the village gate, I saw Elita walk through and come toward us, but Shea looked like she just walked into a wall. She cried out and bent over holding her nose.

“Oww, owww, ouuch... That’s not fair... how come you can walk through and I can’t?” she moaned.