Blessed Combat

15 - Finally...

“Aww man...it’s snowing now...” Caterpillar complained lightly while Arma picked himself off the snowy ground for the umpteenth time. He brushed off the snow from his head, face and coat with his numb red hands and eventually sat beside the other lad, utterly defeated. For the past half an hour, the tall lad had been constantly using his Minor of Flight. Jumping didn’t help when he didn’t have a solid ground to jump from so instead of popping out the pit like he hoped, he was sent hitting head first to the walls of the pit instead. Caterpillar had tried to refrain himself from having a fit of laughter but it was too funny. Thankfully for him, Arma wasn’t in the mood to tackle him.

Then he had tried flying. Arma thought about it deeply since basically when he flies, he didn’t need to use solid ground if he started slow at first. Even when there were some jumps that were successfully vertical, the pit was too deep. Caterpillar watched in awe when he saw grey-blue wings in the shape of a jet appearing behind the tall lad’s back, sparkling in its glory. Nodding to no one in particular, Arma’s wings started vibrating gradually, emanating a buzzing sound as it did so. Once the tall lad’s feet were above ground, he then flew higher.

That’s when more misfortune tumbled upon him again. He was just a few feet away from getting out when his wings suddenly started shrivelling up. Confused and startled, Arma looked back to find it buzzing even more loudly than ever and the colour of the wings slowly fading away. Then all too soon, the tall lad landed back in the pit beside Caterpillar once more, shell shocked and wingless with what had happened.

Caterpillar had guessed it was due to the temperature of the arena which backfired his Minor quite up a notch and Arma couldn’t help but recall what his partner said about how all the conditions are not fulfilled for his Minor to work. However, stubborn as he was, Arma had kept on trying till now. Arma turned to his new friend to find his face was now rosy due to the cold and he was shivering as well. Arma fared better than Caterpillar due to him having more body temperature than normal. Sometimes he would hear Phoenix complain that the tall lad was like a walking Bunsen burner and sometimes Stabs would constantly worry whether he had a fever or not.

“D-don’t tell me there is going to be a snowstorm soon?...” Arma asked as the mortifying thought popped in his mind out of the blue when more snowflakes came raining down on them, showering their hair with it. He saw Caterpillar shudder lightly beside him before shaking his head negatively.

“L-let’s hope n-not...I am sure s-someone is going to find us...” Caterpillar stuttered lightly, making Arma wonder whether it was due to the cold or the fear and whether he was trying to convince himself too. Just then, they heard the second loud gong ever since the third stage started, representing that one team had been knocked out and there were now six teams left standing.

“Do you think it’s the work of Team 14?” Arma asked curiously to which Caterpillar simply shrugged, too cold to answer back with words. A few seconds later, Arma thought he heard something. Straining his ears to listen, he would have sworn he heard it again but he was still wasn’t certain. Standing up which caused Caterpillar to momentarily flinch and straining his ears once more, Arma was then certain that there was someone calling out for something.

“I can hear someone.” Arma noted out loud, causing Caterpillar to jump up and stare up as well, his deep brown eyes with those grey rings at the edge of his pupil longing for someone to save them both. After a few minutes of silence, they could hear the muffled voice screaming louder than ever, indicating that anonymous person was close, but yet pretty distant as well.

“CATERPILLAR! .....ARMAGEDDON!” When the voice was crystal clear now and seemingly belonged to a female player, Arma saw Caterpillar’s eyes lit up like a young child’s eyes when they had won the grand prize of a game. Just by looking at it, Arma felt something click in his mind, but he couldn’t exactly place what.