Rescue Mission II

Heat followed extremely faint footprints with his eyes squinted as he walked, till he reached a point where they disappeared. Just then, a man came from behind a tree.

"Why am I not shocked to see you here alone? Heat Fury."

"Who are you, and why do you have them?"

"I see you want it straight forward; I want you to join us to destroy Lord Hebi's-"

"Yeeeaaahhhh…forget about that."

"Our plan is to get rid of both sides."

Curious, Heat asked, "And how do you plan on doing that?" "That information depends on your answer. Would you join us?"

"Would you hand over Mira and the others?"

Heat lifted his head and stared at the sky for some seconds. He sighed.

"You will have to give me some time."

"You have one hour. Try anything funny, anything that puts me in danger in any way, and they all die. I'll meet you here when you are ready."

With that warning, the man disappeared into thin air.

****

Heat headed back to the clearing to meet Supido.

"How is it going Heat?" Supido asked the real Heat who was sitting on a tree meditating as he reverted back to his real form as Supido.

"Still can't believe you transformed into me."

"It's a lu'a."

"What's that?"

"Closest English word would be an illusion. I manipulate what someone's senses detect. Here, I made myself look like you. But I probably have your trademark idiocy to thank for its success."

"Well that was rude, and offensive."

"What else is new?"

Heat jumped from the tree.

"This meditation sucks! The concept is ridiculous. Why am I doing this?"

"Like I said before, animal synchronization. It'll help you connect better with actual snakes."

Heat pointed to a tiny snake behind him. "Like that one?"

"Hmm…a few minutes. You almost matched me—I learned it in seconds."

"Braggart. So, what did you find out?"

"I sensed multiple spa. The one I spoke to is a snake amen but a horse amen and a bull amen were behind him, trying to conceal their spa.

"So three people."

"Not quite; I was also able to trace the movement of their spa to a cave."

"How many more?"

"Two amen; a rhino and a strange one I couldn't identify, and three people—Zainab was one of them."

"Bingo!" Heat pumped his fist. "What's the plan?"

"You sit down and wait for me."

"Wait, What?!"

"I'll be back."

"Supid – eff you!"

Heat was left frustrated after Supido's disappearance. He decided to sit back down and continue the meditation.

****

Supido (as Heat) approached his destination. Waiting for him was a scruffy-looking individual.

"Well? What's your answer?"

"I'm in. But I have a condition."

"Name it."

"Release the people you have held hostage."

"No problem."

"How can I be sure that you'll release them?"

"How can I be sure that you'll keep your word?"

The question was met with silence.

"Follow me to where your friends are."

Supido followed him to the cave.

****

Once inside the cave, Supido scanned around. He looked at the amen and met cold, doubting eyes.

"We had a tip…that you are not Heat Fury," one of them said.

"What do you mean? This is me, Heat Fury."

The five of them began to approach him slowly.

"It looks like this is it. Oh well, took you long enough."

They stopped in their tracks, confused. Supido smirked. A rhino amen rushed at him headfirst. As he ran a horn emerged from his face. The moment he tried to hit him, Supido used his palm to stop the horn.

"That's pathetic."

He held him by the horn and threw him into the wall. A horse amen charged at Supido from behind, transformed his right fist into a hoof and there was a sudden crash on the cave wall again.

"Ron!"

That was the cry of a bull amen, after seeing his friend destroyed.

"Hey, El Toro, I'm waiting."

The bull amen let out a scream and jumped at Supido but in midair, he fell abruptly to the ground.

"Man, I hate using lu'a. It makes me feel lazy."

Supido turned to the final amen in the room, the snake amen.

"Wh-who are you?!"

"Jeez, you're a terrible kidnapper. Can't you pretend to have an upper hand or something?"

Supido noticed the ropes used to tie the hostages were moving.

"Hmm…I stand corrected."

He broke the lu'a and appeared as himself once again.

"No way! It was you?!"

"Big deal."

The ropes began to tighten around the captives.

"If you touch them, they automatically explode and the hostages die."

Supido looked the ropes and how close the amen stood to the captives. He knew it would be a long shot if he tried to rescue them. While he was pondering his options, three snakes appeared out of nowhere bit the ones disguised as ropes.

"That would happen because he is a wolf amen," Heat said. He walked inside the cave. "But, I am part snake amen."

"You did show up after all."

"You sound like you expected that."

"Of course I did."

Supido flicked his finger, releasing a powerful force which slammed the amen into the wall.

"There is one person left, but I can't detect him," Supido said.

"Why was that dude scared when you revealed who you were?"

"Idiot, so you were around and waited that long?"

"It's all about the entrance, Stupido, all about the entrance."

"Whatever, at least you now know how to call your own kind now."

"Yeah, nah, I'm not amen, remember? Higher life form, standing here. I'm-"

Heat went silent the moment Supido's hand went up.

"Never mind, it's them."

Aquila entered with Ursus and a few other amen.

"It was you guys who told them I was not Heat, right?" Supido asked.

"Yes. You should have known better than to take Heat along—he was the target," Aquila said.

"You know very well he would have found out anyway and done something stupid!"

"Can you guys stop speaking of me like I'm a kid?! I'm right here."

"Well, just so you know, there is one amen left and even I cannot detect him…perfect camouflage."

"A blending specie?" Ursus asked.

Blending species refers to the amen who are naturally hard to detect, like chameleon amen.

"Most likely, but he leaves no traces of spa even by breathing which is supposed to be the weakness of most blending species."

"What do we do then?" Aquila asked.

"I say I take Mira away and leave the rest of you to handle the situation," Heat said.

"That's just being selfish," Ursus said.

"Eh, well I don't do stuff I am not likely to benefit from."

Heat carried Zainab on his shoulders and held the two others by their shirt collars, dragging them along.