Bomberman

Job:

Five men were standing around a light, foldable table. There was nothing on the table save for a lantern that cast an orange glow, a map of the surrounding hills and a detailed blueprint of what seemed like a mining shaft. All five of them were staring at the map intently, deep in thought. One particular man stood out from the rest of them. The others were wearing the uniform of Crocus’ city guards, undiscernible in the low light that the moon provided. The man in question, was Shane Stern, a mage from the legal guild Aurora.

His silver hair, kept short but poking out wildly in all directions, was the first thing that most people would look at. Then they would see the long scar running down his left eye, and the disturbing red eye that broke the scar. Shane carefully studied the blueprint of the mining shaft, his right hand resting across his chest and his left elbow propped up on it, his left hand covering his mouth.

It was only piece of information he had. That the “Bomberman”, as the city guards named him, was hiding in the old mining shaft. Based on information provided by one of the former miners, the reason they had closed off the coal mines was because of the extremely levels of methane in the tunnels leading to the mine.

From the northern entrance of the mine, Shane would have to travel down a tunnel that cut downwards into the mine with a forty-five degrees slope. From there, he would have to proceed through another tunnel, an even one this time, supported by pillars of coal. It was here that the concentration of the methane was high. An extremely volatile environment that could explode at the slightest appearance of a spark.

After traversing the tunnel, he would be able to reach the main mining cavern. Within the cavern, there was one long air vent, carved into the hill itself. Shane could see it from where he stood. At the top of the hill was a tall chimney that stood at ten feet tall, fences erected around it. With the air vent, the methane in the mining cavern would be diluted and that was where the danger began. That meant, that if his opponent was really a mage specializing in explosions, that would be where he could wreak havoc wantonly. And then, at the back of that cavern, was another long tunnel out, equally suffocated with methane.

Tightening the strap that kept the Breaker’s sheath to his back, Shane drummed the fingers of his left hand on the table in sequence from the pinky to the index. The four city guards gave him their attention immediately.

“Take your man and guard the entrances. Get a few men watching the air vent as well. I don’t want him to get any chance of escaping from there, however he may do it. I’m entering alone,” Shane instructed as he walked away from the table and made his way towards the mines.

Shane took a deep breath at the entrance of the mines, and then like a rubber band being released, shot into the entrance. The loose gravel under his feet made for a slippery path, made worse by the downward slope. A mis-step would easily throw off his footing and send him rolling down the entire length of this tunnel, something he wouldn’t want to happen. But instead of moving slower and more cautiously, Shane accelerated, taking longer strides as he charged downwards. The smell of rotten eggs, of the methane, gradually got stronger as he reached the end of the descending tunnel.

The moment his feet touched even ground again, the smell of the methane was so strong that Shane regretted not bringing any mask with him. The odor assaulted his recently enhanced sense of smell, courtesy of the Demon Slayer magic that he now possessed. With his left hand cupped around his nose and mouth, Shane chose to move slowly between the coal pillars.

Shane strained his hearing, also enhanced by the Demon Slayer magic, as he moved. Just as he walked past the fourth row of pillars, two spears suddenly thrust through the air. It would have pierced right through Shane’s head had he not heard the sudden shuffle of clothing when the two men had acted and had quickly dropped to the ground, rolling forward. Another three men rushed out from the shadows, armed with swords and swung at the ground as Shane continued rolling until he collided with one of the pillars.

The moment his roll was stopped, the mage leapt up towards the nearest assailant. A well-placed open-palm thrust into the man’s face, breaking his nose with a sickening crack and a spray of blood. The man dropped to the ground, stunned from the blow. Shane quickly avoided again, ducking low and throwing himself into a roll forward before getting back up on his feet, evading a horizontal sword swing by one of the attackers.

On top of the four men now trying to circle him, Shane also picked up the sounds of more footsteps, running with abandon, their shoes crushing the loose stones and gravel on the ground. And those footsteps were getting nearer. More enemies.

Shane pulled out Breaker, the weapon at its sword length and easily parried a blow from one of the spearman. Every thrust from the spear was smacked aside as Shane slowly got nearer to him. Until the fifth clash of weapons, Shane had used more force in his swing, throwing the man off balance. Without hesitation, the mage leapt forward, his right hand changing the grip on the shortening shaft of Breaker into a backhanded grip and pierced the spearhead of the now dagger-length weapon into the man’s neck.

Losing no momentum, Shane pushed the man away from him and bent his body low, extending Breaker into its spear length now, as the second swordsman tried to attack him with a chop. With him holding the base of the shaft, Breaker extended outwards into the swordsman’s chest and stabbed through. The man was dumbfounded, his own momentum having brought him down on the spearhead even deeper than Shane could have managed with the simple extension of his weapon. For a second, the man tried to speak but couldn’t find any words. He vomited blood in the next second, eyes blank as his body leaned down into the spear.

Shane shook his head and retracted Breaker to dagger length and ran off among the coal pillars, leaving the remaining spearman alone. The other footsteps were getting nearer, and he didn’t want to be caught in the middle.

Shane ran hard, Breaker in his right hand, in a backhanded grip. He twisted around the pillars every so often, and fluidly ramming his weapon into the unsuspecting man that happened upon him. So far, he had taken out three men in the initial fight and five more while running. They barely had any idea of what was happening when they ran into Shane.

The darkness of the tunnel began to brighten as Shane reached the main cavern, finally running past the final row of coal pillars and immediately kicking off the ground and landing beside some large crates. An explosion took place where he had last stood, followed by laughter.

“Ohh, you’re good!” the Bomberman called out from the middle of the cavern. “But can you avoid it all?”

The man, a wiry guy with cropped red hair and a carrot-orange moustache, looking very much like a rat was pointing at various places with his hands. Everywhere he pointed to exploded, with Shane avoiding the blasts by the skin of his teeth each time. Not taking it any more, the silver-haired mage activated his Guardian Ward spell, forming three spheres of wind behind him as he ran. With a steely glare fixed on the Bomberman, Shane sped up in a straight line towards him.

“You must be crazy!!” the man shouted as he brought both hands in front of him, aiming his explosions. The distance between closed rapidly as Shane charged forward, deploying one sphere after another, transforming them into large shields of wind against the explosions. With his Guardian Ward exhausted, Shane leapt high into the air avoiding another two explosions and used Burst to shoot himself towards the Bomberman.

Shane landed on the ground feet first, skidding as the distance between him and the Bomberman zeroed and swiftly threw an uppercut at the man. The Bomberman was caught off guard by how fast Shane had approached him and took the full brunt of the uppercut. But it wasn’t a total loss for him. As he was lifted into the air from the uppercut, the Bomberman directed his right palm at Shane and let out an explosive blast from close range. Likewise, Shane took the explosion fully, barely shielding his face with his left arm and was thrown backwards.
The two mages stood up at the same time. The Bomberman massaged his lower jaw with his right hand, appraising Shane. Shane, on the other hand, was coughing. The blast, although smaller than what had been used earlier, was still a critical hit.

“What’s your name?” the Bomberman asked. Looking at him again, Shane finally saw that this mage wasn’t as thin as he thought. He was lean, an athlete’s frame.

“Shane,” he replied curtly, before lunging at his opponent. Wind gathered around him as he charged and Shane leapt off the ground, attacking the Bomberman with Lotus Flight, a lunging knee strike capable of ignoring barriers. The Bomberman smirked, despite Shane coming at him super speedily. Pinning his arms to the side of his body, he held his palms facing down and hurtled into the sky with two blasts from his palms. Shane’s attack went through thin air, quickly landing on his feet and glanced up ruefully at his opponent, who was now sailing through the air by virtue of his explosions.

He had a bag on his back, and while he was still in the air with the blowback of his blasts, the Bomberman pulled a ripcord behind him. There was a tearing sound, followed by a whoomp as two large wings appeared from the backpack behind the Bomberman. The wings were shaped like bat’s, and the Bomberman used it to glide in the air from the blowback of his blasts. He then proceeded to pull out sticks of dynamite from behind him much to Shane’s chagrin.

The enemy mage continuously threw the dynamites as he glided above Shane, raining explosion after explosion on the latter. If him evading the explosions were close, then this was even closer. But there was no way he could outrun the enemy while the latter was shadowing him from the air. It didn’t take long for the dynamites to outrun Shane, explosions going off all around him and smoke enveloping the entire area.

With no clear view of his target, the Bomberman stopped his onslaught of dynamites and circled in the air around where he had last seen Shane. He was running low on his dynamites after having used so many.

“Sky Demon Slayer’s Stingers!!” a voice shouted from within the smoke cloud, followed by six white arrows that converged on the Bomberman. Because his flying ability was dependent on the blowback from the ground explosions, there was no way for him to quickly change his direction. The six white arrows, three on each side, rocketed through the wings behind the mage, tearing through the light material.

The Bomberman cursed vehemently as he realized what Shane had done, and what was happening. Before he could even react, the smoke cloud was sliced apart by three rapidly flying blades of wind, flying towards him. Blood sprayed as the three blades of wind cut into the Bomberman’s right shoulder, his chest and his left thigh. He roared in pain as he plummeted to the ground, landing in an unsightly heap.

Bloodied, dirty and clothes torn, Shane emerged from the slowly-dispersing smoke cloud and walked towards the Bomberman, who was struggling to get to his feet. His pace picked up from a walk into a full-on sprint, culminating into a forward flip and smashing his feet into the Bomberman’s right shoulder with an axe kick just as the latter got up. A scream of pain echoed throughout the large cavern as Shane’s kick hit him where the Gale Claw had cut into his shoulder, the injury made even worse by the fracture of his shoulder bone.

The man slumped back to the ground in severe pain, trembling. Kneeling down on one side, Shane watched the man in silence for half a second before slamming his fist downwards into his face, knocking him unconscious.

Five minutes later, Shane exited from the other exit of the mine, dragging behind him the tied-up Bomberman. He had torn off the wings from the man’s backpack and then kicked the bound-up mage on to it. From there, he just dragged the man out by a length of rope out of the mine.
“He’s all yours, officers,” Shane said the moment the city guards ran up to him.