James and his crew watched as Crock took down thousands of alien soldiers by himself. After James instructed his crew to be ready for a fight, Cameron drew his bow, Karnilla laid her bag down and pulled out her chain, and everyone else assumed a defensive stance.
James thought about trying out the multiplication technique that Crock had just demonstrated. He started with a base of four-strength, and multiplied it by three-strength. He was pleasantly surprised when he successfully achieved twelve-strength, and then proceeded to use the technique Sole-less Ricochet to launch himself towards the enemy fighters, and then used the technique Bullet Skeleton to ram through them, taking down about fifty soldiers at once.
After doing so, he found himself surrounded by fighters. He used Quills of the Echidna, a technique involving rapidly punching in every direction and inflicting paralysing pain upon the targets. This proved more effective, as he began to mow down hundreds of soldiers per second.
Brandon was perched on the roof of a building when hundreds of soldiers stood below him, shouting in an alien tongue. He looked straight at them, without hesitation. He opened his eyes fully to draw the soldiers' attention to them. However, what they would not have guessed is that his stare was potent. He possessed the ability to intimidate his opponent. When the fighters looked directly into his eyes, they were frozen with fear. Shortly thereafter, they shut down due to being unable to process that fear, much to Brandon's surprise.
Cameron ran around the southern shores of the island. He drew his bow and shot from it special arrows that he had found in the weapons stockpile. He aimed to hit as many soldiers as he could while avoiding all attacks.
Karnilla assumed a defensive position as she lifted her chain above her head and began to swing it.
"Viper Chain: Fang Scratch!" said Karnilla, as she swung the chain at the soldiers. The trap at the end scratched at them as it flew around before coming back to rest on her shoulder.
"I'm just glad James let me get some practice with this thing, otherwise I might have hurt myself just as badly as I hurt those guys." She looked around at the hordes of soldiers still approaching, and smiled wickedly. "Alright, who's next?"
Persimmon stood in an alleyway, thinking about how exactly to approach this situation. He remembered his culinary training and the very odd course on flavour fighting. Yes, that ought to do the trick, he thought to himself. He charged into the fighters and once adequately surrounded by them, crouched down and thought to himself: the chef who plays with fire will get burned, but the chef who uses fire can cook whatever he needs to. He pulled a matchbox out of his pocket and drew a match. After striking it against the side of the matchbox, he spun around and lightly touched the match against the surrounding soldiers. He then spun around a second time, this time using his other hand to create a breeze that would snuff the fire out.
"Not to worry, your midsections have been cooked to perfection. But come any closer, and I'll show you just how heated things can get."
During the month spent aboard the Psychic, Patricia had learned how to best observe, and so she thought it a sensible idea to go to the top of the clock tower. When she arrived there, she met with the three androids. She remembered that they had said they were there to help. She explained that she was an exceptional lookout, and so they agreed to let her go up to the top, as long as she gave them adequate warning of approaching forces.
She took the elevator that Amperes and Halberd had come out of to the top of the clock tower. As she was going up, she thought to herself: Wait, this place has an elevator?
"Smart thinking building that elevator," said Amperes.
"And good job jump-starting the generator," said Halberd.
Patricia arrived on the roof of the clock tower and marvelled at the sight of the island. That marvel turned to shock as she saw the thousands of aliens still walking around.
"You really have to wonder whether we're even making a dent in this invasion," she said to herself.
Aboard the mothership, Two-Seven reported that only twenty-seven thousand of their troops remained.
"Damn this whole thing!" Phenos said in frustration. "You know, I might just have to go down there and deal with them myself."
Aboard the Psychic, Chonk's cell door was detached and deformed on the floor. From inside the cell, tendrils emerged and lifted the door, proceeding to fold it into a ball.
"I told them that they couldn't hold me," said Chonk.
Chonk decided that despite his thirst for revenge, he would not wreck their ship. He thought it would be more worth his time to go out and see what all the noise outside was about.
Crock was still going strong, having taken out at least ten thousand troops by himself. As he went, he thought to himself, It would seem I'm a bit out of practice. Struggling with twenty-eight strength? That's not what got you through the Terminus. Thirty-five strength used to be your easy minimum.
Milangelo fought bravely as well, using various hooks as the enemies came to him. However, he had chosen an unfortunate position that presented little challenge. During a brief period where he had no enemies to fight, he heard Patricia call him from the top of the clock tower.
"You should really find somewhere with more aliens to fight!" she said to him. She then suggested that he go left, and fight a section of troops that faced no current opposition.
Milangelo obliged and soon discovered that there were indeed a lot of aliens on this part of the island. He remembered what both James and Crock had been able to achieve during the fight, and thought that trying it himself was worth a shot.
He started with a base of three-strength, and multiplied it by two to achieve six-strength. He noted in his head that he would need to get stronger if the multipliers were to mean anything.
He delivered a swift array of punches and kicks, all in the style of those who had taught him self-defence during his years as a reclusive millionaire.
Brandon saw that despite the effectiveness of his stares, the approaching aliens did not think twice about coming towards him. About a thousand or so even had the idea of not looking Brandon in the eye, which got them closer than most. Brandon was also strong, however, and activated six-strength, and then multiplied it by five, to achieve thirty-strength. He then used his warm-up technique: Monster Fist. This technique, although it only ever managed to disarm the Kraken for a few seconds, would be more than enough for the aliens approaching him.
He soon realised it would be a better use of his time to take the offensive. He began to pummel the approaching aliens, easily taking down thousands every minute. Having subdued all the aliens in his immediate vicinity, he started making his way around the island, eager to get this over with.
A few thousand years can make you forget that it's been a few thousand years, he thought. I'm a lot stronger than I was before. I don't need to fear an invasion.
Persimmon fought against the alien fighters, using various techniques he had learned during his flavour fighting course. He recalled the words of his teacher: Like food, each and every martial art has its own flavour. A chef's primary concern when creating food is to blend the flavours to give the diner an experience like no other. It should therefore come as no surprise that doing likewise for martial arts is very important. This, more than anything else you have learned in my course, is the essence of flavour fighting.
While Persimmon disagreed that flavour was the primary concern of chefs, he knew of its importance, and was top of his class when it came to flavour fighting.
He defeated a few hundred fighters when suddenly, the others surrounding him had been mowed down. He wondered who it could have been, as Crock was on the other side of the island.
Halberd, Amperes, and Bolster fought off aliens at the base of the clock tower, while Cameron and Karnilla fought them on the shores north of the tower. Halberd ran circles around hundreds of troops as he swung his knives at them; cutting them down as he went. He paused to put the knives back in his forearms, and pull out daggers in their place.
Amperes punched as many aliens as would approach him, giving them electrical shocks in the process. Bolster jumped around, swing-kicking rows of aliens as they had the bad luck to be lined up in front of him.
Cameron continued to make use of his bow and arrow, though he began to grow tired, and similarly, Karnilla began to tire after several uses of her viper chain.
Phenos listened to Two-Seven's updates as his patience began to wear thin. "Twelve thousand soldiers remaining."
"Enough already! Send me down there!" he demanded.
"I'm afraid I cannot do that, sir. Your life must be preserved."
Aboard the Psychic, Chonk had made his way outside, to see that the invasion had begun, but appeared to be failing.
It was at that moment, Chonk realised that he was on a planet with more oxygen in the atmosphere than his species was able to withstand. The over-exposure began to affect his body. He could not breathe. His tendrils began to wither. His body soon followed suit. What an unexpected turn of events, he thought. He continued to wither until he had turned to ashes.
Phenos lamented that he could not do much more than sit back and watch his forces be decimated. He was then informed by D'Mitri that Chonk had just withered away due to over-exposure to oxygen.
In the escape pod bay of the mothership, Cindalyn, Klokar, Friend, Glaum, and Olden were holding a meeting to discuss their next course of action.
"I like invasion plan very much, I not see why we leaving good captain because of hard time we fall upon," said Klokar.
"Ignore the muscle-brain," said Cindalyn. "The plan is a bust, and the captain has become suicidal. If we don't plan our escape now, we may never live to see another day."
"While I'm no stranger to betrayal," began Olden. "What about Nekro, Repeat, D'Mitri, and D'Lores?"
"Personally, I hate them all," said Cindalyn. "And besides, what use could any of them be to us?"
"D'Mitri and D'Lores are useful," said Friend.
"Friend raises good point. You call yourself smart woman, but you are petty on inside. Leave good people for dead because you don't like them," said Klokar.
Soon they came to an agreement to escape separately. One group consisting of Cindalyn, Olden, and Glaum would leave immediately. The other group of Klokar and Friend would attempt to get D'Mitri and D'Lores, and leave only if things became so bad that they were left with no other choice.
Crock had taken down over twenty-thousand aliens, Brandon over ten-thousand, and there were only a few thousand aliens left standing, concentrated at the north of the island. James and everyone else met up with Cameron and Karnilla to fight the remaining soldiers.
When all was said and done, the eleven individuals that fought against the invasion that day were exhausted. They were also happy that everything seemed to be over.
Klokar and Friend could not convince D'Mitri or D'Lores to leave with them, and ended up having to convince the siblings to let them leave. Repeat and Nekro saw Klokar and Friend go off to the escape pods, however, and soon the four of them agreed that they would escape together.
Aboard the ship, at the captain's console, Phenos came to the realisation that he should simply bring the problem to him, if he could not confront it himself. He promptly transported the eight people that had given him such trouble onto his ship, and confronted them.
"You should not have done that, you foolish mortals!"
"Oh, shut up, Phenos!" said Brandon.
"How do you know my name?"
"I lived in that town you invaded. I survived the attack only because I had been cursed years before you ever came."
"Oh. Well, I don't remember you, so stop acting like you know me."
"Oh, but I do know you. You're a broken man. You bring great suffering into this world because it's all you have left. You want to die. I know all of this because a couple of organic androids that you once held prisoner told me all about you."
At that moment, before Phenos could protest any further, his face began to distort. He began to scream in pain. His face began to split open. A large bug-like creature emerged.
Suddenly, a voice echoed through the minds of everyone there. Finally, I have waited for so many years to break that horrible bond and find someone worthy of my power.
Then, the only person who could hear the voice was Patricia. Patricia Neofoly, I am Reveal, and I lend you my power.
As Phenos' knees buckled and his headless body collapsed, the parasite began to bond with Patricia. The process was intensive and gruesome to watch, but it was over in a matter of minutes.
"So, that really just happened? Did we all see that?" said Karnilla, not quite sure what exactly had happened.
Suddenly, Two-Seven's voice rang throughout the mothership with urgency in it. "Captain is deceased. Ship integrity has been compromised. Proceeding to land on the planet's surface and self-dismantle."
The crew were transported off the ship back onto Notably Small Island. Amperes, Bolster, and Halberd had gone back to the clock tower, and Halberd gave the signal for Selma to return. He noted that all they had to do now was wait.
"This whole adventure has been much weirder than I could have ever thought it would be," said Cameron.
"I think you've got some explaining to do, Brandon," said James. "If that is even your real name."
"Really captain? Such a clichéd question," said Karnilla. She then tended to Patricia, who began to wake up.
"Before anyone asks, I'm fine," said Patricia hastily.
"Alright, I will tell you everything. And yes, Brandon Black is my real name, I just change my appearance every few decades to avoid unnecessary attention.
"I am cursed. I have been for over three thousand years. And the Kraken; he is my brother. His form is part of the curse. But perhaps I should take this slowly, and start at the beginning..."