Survivors of Alterna: Final Run

Chapter 34: The Demon vs The Monster

"W-what's going on?!" Metta yelled in a panicked tone. Her worry wasn't unwarranted, as the whole arena shook like an earthquake.

"Look!" Eight pointed in the distance.

To the group's horror, they witnessed thousands of salmonids ascend to the sky from the metropolis. A majority of the salmonids were either Chinooks or Snatchers, but there were quite a few Flyfish as well.

Finally, the cause of the arena shaking showed itself—or rather, themselves.

Similar to how there was a swarm of flier-type salmonids, many of the lesser and flightless boss salmonids started appearing from the sides of the arena. They had climbed their way up.

All the salmonids had two things in common: They were converging on the group, and their eyes were bright red.

"What's wrong with them?!" Nakji questioned with a fearful expression plastered on her face.

"I-I don't know!" Eight snapped her head in a different direction. "WATCH OUT!"

Everyone turned just in time to see Sal lunge for them with a rage-filled roar.

Akikta barely caught Sal by the chest before using his strength to toss the large bastard away. Sal crashed into the oncoming horde of salmonids, knocking quite a few of them away in the process.

The charging salmonids had a crazed look in their eyes; They seemed to be moving much faster than usual, too.

"They've gone crazy!" Akikta blurted, watching Misaki throw a splat bomb into a nearby crowd.

"No, they've gone into a frenzy!" Eight shouted, looking up as a group of Flyfish fired a barrage of ink missiles at them. Akikta expanded his left arm into a large blanket, absorbing the missiles and keeping the others safe from further air attacks.

"Doesn't that only happen when there are glowflies?" Metta questioned, splatting three chums with her bow. "What's making them so aggressive?!"

"It was that roar," Akikta stated, punching a cohock so hard it flew into another cohock. "Sal's gotten them all riled up!"

Nakji grumbled. "Just what we needed." She slashed the air, sending out an arc of ink that struck a Steelhead's fully formed bomb, causing it to explode into a massive puddle of ink. Dozens of other salmonids near the Steelhead went out with it.

"Watch out!" Misaki hollered.

Akikta whipped around to see a chum leap at him with its mouth opened wide. He reacted quickly, spinning and kicking the salmonid back into the swarm.

After dealing with the attacker, Akikta was left confused. The chum had broken through their little circle, and despite being closest to Misaki, it completely ignored her and went for him. Soon, Akikta noticed strange behavior coming from the salmonids.

Despite their frenzy, the flying-type salmonids didn't attack the idols, who had long since stopped singing and watched in horror at what was happening below. Even Boris kept trying to dive-bomb the arena, completely ignoring his own battle.

Similarly, the salmonids on the ground often ignored critical openings within an agent's stance, opting to go for Akikta instead. In fact, many of the salmonids that came close to him were much more aggressive than they were with anyone else.

The only salmonid unaffected by Sal's roar was Little Buddy, who kept intercepting Boris. It was easy since Boris refused to acknowledge Little Buddy at all, giving the transformed smallfry plenty of opportunities to inflict damage on the black serpent.

Akikta quickly put two and two together. "They're after me!"

He declared before breaking the circle formation by sprinting away from the agents.