Tamer Dale (P.O.V)

Commander Ethan. "I just received word from the Communications Wing, several hundred Icebugs are attacking the stadium. I need you two to head out, clear a path, or distract them long enough for the survivors to open up the sunroof and let our J.T.Ds land. We will commit to a holding pattern in this spot above the city."

Dale and Travis acknowledged the order and proceeded to the rear cargo bay door that had opened up to let them both drop out from the aircraft, traveling over five thousand feet in the air over Texas. They called out their monster partners.

[Summoning Monster: Eagle of Asgard (Huginn)

Type: Mind, Sun, Mana, Bird, Wood

Mastery: Extra skill slot

Combat Style: Monster Fusion

Skills: Loki's Clones (Beginner), Sol's Rays (Beginner), Heimdall's Vision (Beginner), Odin's Wisdom (Beginner), Yggdrasill's Will (Beginner)

Skill Features:

Loki's Clones- The Monster can create identical clones by injecting its Mana into Trees. The clones will be able to operate independently. Once a clone is created, it will not perish until the Mana inside it is recalled, or the clone is destroyed.

Sol's Rays- The monster eyes can generate concentrated, immense amounts of heat from their eyes, which can be used to burn, heat, melt, weld, targets. Mana is needed to activate this skill.

Heimdall's Vision- The Monster's eyes can zoom in on things within two hundred meters and see it in slow motion if it wishes. No Mana is needed to activate this skill. All clones have access to this skill.

Odin's Wisdom- The Monster can record what it sees through its eyes and store it in the monster app. No Mana is needed to activate this skill. All clones have access to this skill.

Yggdrasill's Will- The Monster absorbs Mana from Trees or any plant life within a one-kilometer radius. When the Flora loses all their Mana, they will wither and cannot be harvested for any more Mana]

Based on a Harpy Eagle, Huginn looked menacing and ancient. However, instead of feathers, his body is covered in leaves of all shades of color that one would find on the trees in Norway's Autumn season. Dale noticed the eyes, beak, and claws made from polished Amber. In addition, there are ancient tree vines and bark wrapped around his body like armor.

Agni's height dwarfed the Huginn, but he didn't look intimidated by her death glare. Instead, its own eyes seemed to be able to see through the soul and etch every detail to memory. It was both fascinating and creepy.

Dale gave the order to the Monster App and made Agni transform into her equipment transformation form, which turned him into a winged Knight in Black armor-covered rubies of all shapes and sizes. Dale was about to jump, but he noticed that Travis hadn't transformed yet.

Travis. "Don't mind me. I prefer jumping out and transforming in the air since my fusion form is too big for confined spaces."

Dale. "I see."

Travis. "Oh, and I need you to hold back your bombardment run for a few minutes. I need to find a few trees to turn into clones to record your work. Otherwise, it defeats the purpose for me being here."

Dale. "But the survivors are being attacked!"

Travis. "That stadium has military-grade walls. As long as it's in lockdown mode, they will hold out. Anyways, I won't take too long."

Dale. "I guess... I will power up till you get back."

Travis and his Harpy Eagle jumped out first and activated their combat style. After the fusion between the two was complete, Travis became a giant version of his monster partner instead of transforming into a humanoid birdman.

Travis then retracted his wings and dropped to the Earth the same way Dale conducted his dive bomber runs. From the tip of his Amber beak to the Norway Maple leaves on his tail are around twelve meters long, and when he stretched out his leaf wings, they spanned twelve meters as well.

Dale then jumped out and flapped his wings hard to gain altitude. Once he found a spot free of clouds, he converted the solar energy the rubies on his body captured to refill his mana reserves and power up his fire barrage attack.

Even from all the way up in the sky, Dale could spot Travis's prominent figure disappear into a forest below filled with Texas Ash, Texas Redbud, Southern Red Oak, Mexican Plum, and Cedar Elm trees.

Within a minute, Dale noticed trees began to lose their color and wither away. From what he remembered about Travis's skills, this must be Yggdrasill's Will, which absorbed Mana from Flora.

Once Dale completed the summoning of two hundred fireballs, around thirty clones, Travis's clones rose to the air in mass. There were nearly thirty of them in total. Each one bore the bark and the leaves of the tree they were created from.

Since Dale knew what the original leaves looked like, he thought he could spot Travis among his clones as they climbed into the air, but it was hard to make out those details from this distance. The majority of the Travis camera crew headed towards the stadium while a few came up to record Dale and his fireballs.

Since Travis and his clones were ready and seemed to have begun their recording, Dale decided to start the attack run. He activated the jet propulsion under his wings, which let him travel at Mach One along with the massive array of fireballs that would follow Dale until he designated targets for them.

It took two minutes before the stadium came into Dale's line of sight, along with the swarm of Icebugs crawling all over the stadium. So far, they haven't found a way in yet, but that didn't stop them from trying their best to weaken the walls by freezing them and chipping away the material while it is brittle.

This work couldn't be done by a few Icebugs alone, so hundreds were gathered into tightly packed groups at different locations around the stadium. They made it quite simple for Dale to target specific areas instead of individual targets.

Dale dropped from the sky and his fireballs with the Travis camera crew recording every detail from thirty different angles. As they neared the stadium, the heat and sound they generated were enough to grab the Icebugs attention.

For the past few days, Dale had noticed that most Icebugs, when confronted by a surprise fireball attack, act like Deer in headlights. As a result, most of the Icebugs surrounding the stadium were burned and blown to bits when the two hundred fireball barrage attack made contact. Thankfully the explosion failed to damage the stadium walls other than leaving behind scorch marks. The Icebugs that survived the first volley were scrambled to the nearest tunnel to find protection from any further attacks.

Before Dale could smile at the success of his attack, Icebug flyers emerged out of the tunnels and launched into the air. Dale quickly turned around and began climbing back up to a high altitude with the help of his jet propulsion skill.

Unfortunately, Travis has no skill to let him quickly flee the area. His massive body frame was an easy target for the Icebug flyers to redirect their attention. But as they swarmed towards him and his clones, their wings were hit by concentrated heat vision emitted by Travis's amber eyes.

The accuracy of the attacks must have been aided by the superior vision Travis possessed. Even when the Icebugs used their supernatural reflexes to dodge, Travis's eyes could keep up with them.

Though the clones had limited mana reserves to draw upon, they only had to spend an insignificant portion of their Mana for this style of pinpoint strikes at weak points. As a result, the sky is soon filled with screams of Icebugs as they fall back to the surface after their wings melt off like Icarus from Greek Mythology.

This didn't mean the battle was in Dale and Travis's favor. On the contrary, the Icebugs on the ground had regrouped under the leadership of four odd-looking bug creatures far more prominent than their brethren.

Dale did not know what made them unique and assumed they belonged to the Royal Guards, who directly protected the Queen. Sensing they were now the biggest threat in the area. Dale fell back to the Earth with his new fireballs to take out these newcomers before they could rally the Icebugs.

The number of fireballs this time was far lower than the first wave, with only thirty since Dale didn't have the luxury to refill his mana reserves and build up his best attack before these creatures showed up. However, as Dale rushed towards the surface, one of the four that looked like a Bombardier Beetle presented its caboose to the air before it transformed into a cannon and started firing a stream of boiling acid at Dale.