NORTHERN MARKETS
Episode 75

11:34 (3:34 PM)
Huge thick gray clouds set in blocking the Sun’s lethal rays as the bowmen descended on BorderTown
on their flying boards.
Bow Mistress and Maple Hero Rachel Luka, level 165, pressed her foot on the gas button on her Ignace flying board, firing up the jets even more. The magic radar or Meiger Counter mounted on the front end of her board beeped louder and more frequently.
“Luka!” A voice ehoed over the loudspeaker on her messenger. It was from the communication room in aboard the Hyuit.
“What?”
“2000 feet ahead is a magic concentrated source! Eliminate all moving targets!”

Down below, the air raid sirens went off and people ran screaming for cover as the swarm of bowmen came flying in.

Luka, flanked by other Bow Masters on both sides flew towards the target, the big Quonset structure that held most of the Kerning magician refugees!
She cocked her sevoy bow with diamond arrows and fired a Dragon Pulse arrow at the building!
The arrow, shining bright, screamed as it soared through the air, missed the roof of its target, flew another few hundred meters and slammed into another building.
The explosion was terrific. The blast destroyed the whole building and everything around it!

The Bow Masters fired more Dragon Pulse arrows at the building, but some the missile like arrows went berserk and flew around or over the place. Many rocketed back into the air and detonated. One DP soared over the town and slammed into a grain storage tower, blowing it up!
The blast ignited the super flammable grains inside making for one hell of a thundering boom that shook the whole town.
The fireball turned into a small mushroom cloud as it rose into the air.

Owl saw it as she sat in the truck speeding back into town. The guys around her all shouted random obscenities in Saskwa, since they were really pissed off about losing a grain storage tower.
Bowmen flew over the fields and spotted the trucks. One guy fired a Pierce arrow, (one that can cut through anything),
hitting the truck in front of Owl’s truck. The vehicle was literally crushed in the middle under impact of the arrow, but the Sasko troops quickly jumped out and ran, then BOOM!
The arrow had ignited the fuel tanks.

Furious, Owl powered up her phantom arm, and fired up her wind powers. Clutching her Pyogo staff tightly, she wipped up a wind storm around her, and blasted into the air.

The WheatHawk Grasslander hovercraft was equipped with rapidfire cannons capable of shooting projectiles such as arrows, bullets and stars; or magic such as ice or lightning. The battleship hovered over the ground as it rolled into town. The guns were raised and the gunners manning them opened fire.
15 bowmen were shot down instantly by the shards of ice and lightning bolts from the ship’s cannons.
The second armed Grasslander, the FieldSentinel, with weapons for defensive measures caught up to the Wheat Hawk and the gunners on board fired balls of supercompressed smoke that exploded into clouds, enveloping the bowmen.
Luka and Laini flew out of the way, trying not to get hit by the heavy fire of the Grasslanders’ cannons. They came up to the building again.
The Kerning magician and noob refugees ran screaming outside.
Laini shot off dozens of arrow bombs. The 17 or so bombs blew up on the roof, blowing gaping holes in it.
“That’s not how you do it!” Luka said.
“Watch; this is how a pro gets the job done!”
She stopped right above the Quonset, warmed up a DP missile, and fired it straight down. The Pulse arrow flew through the holes in the roof, crashed through the top floor and slammed into ground floor, which was full of people!
The sad saps never had a chance- the Dragon Pulse arrow detonated, and the whole building exploded, spraying shrapnel, shards of glass, debri, and chunks of flesh everywhere.

“Show off!” Laini muttered as she flew off. The noob rangers and snipers flew over the streets picking off magicians without any regard if they were Victorian or not.
“Neina! Neina! Mlease no!” one Saska magician woman shouted at a guy hovering in the street. The startled Ranger instantly cocked another arrow and aimed it at her, but hesitated.
Even though she was covered in a cloak and hood, she was beautiful, with long blue hair and bright yellow lines in it.
She was holding a baby and just fended off another attack from some one else as she was trying to cross the street.
Struck with guilt, the noob ranger lowered his weapon, but not wanting to face guilt, he slammed his foot on the jet pedal and flew off, leaving her in the dust.
Jango Alyth, level 70 ranger, clamped his hands firmly on the sides of the board as he rocketed into the air. He wasnt even too sure of what he was supposed to do. Sure back home they said that alien people like that lady he saw back there, were the devil’s vermin, but they never seemed that bad to him. Like all the other noob rangers on this trip, he was told he was going to be fighting the Permanoob bastards who killed some rangers back in November and they were all to pay for their crimes. But he saw no enemy here, just a bunch of people running scared. He never personally agreed with the JA’s campaign in Kerning City-
A heavy blast rocked the air around him. “What the hell?!!” He looked back.
A fireball rose from where that lady stood.

Mad as hell, Owl flew through the air, her Pyogo on her back and pumping her full of magic. She compressed air around her and made an assault rifle and opened fire on the bowmen. Caught completly off guard, they began dropping like flies as Owl flew up behind them and popped them off one by one.
“Heyaaaa!” One Bow Master screamed as he shot down right at her, the razor sharp tip of the board gleaming. The man had swung his giant bow back ready to hit her-
Owl slammed him with an air fist and bolted out of his way as he fell fast.
Next guy came at her, shooting arrow strafe at her. Owl threw up a wind sheild but some of the arrows still punched through so she was forced to drop out of the line of fire. The guy used Arrow Rain, but Owl used the wind and siezed control of the arrow storm, split the current of arrows into three streams and directed them all back at the ranger.
“Oh crap!-“
He and his flying board shook as they were shredded to bits! The board exploded blasting what was left of him to bits.

The Solar mages had more than enough time to get their S*** together and attack, but they kept having to flee because the bow masters kept shooting at them.
“Get out of the city!” Flowne ordered on her messenger. Dragon Pulse arrows kept flying down, blowing buildings and people to bits.
Flowne was in a jeep piloted by an army guy and they were speeding and werving to avoid incoming arrow bombs, DP missiles, arrow rain and the like.

High in the sky Owl was really in deep now. The JA guys noticed her now!
“Omg! That’s her! She’s the traitor!”
“She’s the one who killed our comrades! GET HER!”
Owl was forced to bolt, duck, zip and zag to avoid getting hit. Not only was she being fired upon by the JA, Owl was now in the Grasslanders’ line of fire!
JUST BARELY did she miss an all powerful lethal Snipe shot from one of the cross bow masters flyin around the perimeter of the city. As the arrow strieked past her just millimeters from the skin of her face, she sharp wind trail cut the skin, drawing out blood.
“CRAP!” Owl breathed-
“MAY YOU BURN IN HELL, DEMON SPAWN!” A level 188 Bow Master shouted as he dropped from above toward her. He had his bow swung back.
Owl tried to duck.
It’s a hit!
The tip of the bow hit her heck, shattering her collarbone. The whiplash from the hit snapped her neck, and she fell. The winds around her died as she dropped away.
The Bow Master whistled and pointed at a cross bow master and motioned for him to snipe the wind mage huntress-

The Wheat Hawk was on the fields off the western edge of Border Town now and the gunners saw everything.
“Chain Lightning! Angle 42* off ground, 3* to the right! Fire!”
the cannons exploded with a fury of lightning bolts at the rangers- and died.
“What the hell?!” a gunner cursed in Saskwa-

A clap of thunder louder than everything else ehoed accross the land. The solar mages and everyone else outside looked at the black stormclouds that were almost over Border Town. A lightning bolt went off, producing a flash of light 40 times brighter than the Sun. Several of the bowmen in the air were blinded. They screamed in panic as they flew out of control.

Onboard the Hyuit…
“Holy crap! Did you see feel that?”
“I heard the thunder-“
“Yeah, but did you FEEL it?”
“Find the source of that electrical burst!”
Unbeknownst to the crew of the Hyuit, the huge airship had drifted back over the magnetic barrier and was detected by the radar stations and Grasslander ships below.
“Enemy battleship south east of BT! Wheat Hawk! Take her out!” Flowne ordered.

Owl goaned and cried in pain as the hackium fused her bones back together. Hurt like a m#$#4F@%.
She slowly got to her feet, and breathed deeply as the pain faded. She was still not used to being a hacker-
That’s it! she thought, I’ll hack those bastards! Owl fired up her phantom arm and instead drew on her hack energy, which seemed to overwhelm her with all its fury. Owl blasted up into ths air again, this time with a air compressed gun made partly from hack!

The bowmen continued their assault of terror on the town; blowing up places and killing residents by the hundreds.
Mistawasis had enough, climbed out of the FieldSentinel, spread her Beamoth angel wings and took to the air with all of the other winged Saska mages.
New Saskatchewan mages were something to be feared, especially the Solar and Organic mages.
Organic mages focused their power on life itself, and used their magic to craft new life forms, changed already existing ones, or to kill. While killing wasn’t their desired method of organic magic combat, they simply killed enemies by using their own cells to produce diseases or carve out short-lived golems of flesh that destroyed the opponent from the inside.

The organic mages drove around in cars or trucks and took up locations around the town and the combat zone.
The young but evil men and women giggled and laughed evilly as they raised their staves and put their powers to use.
The bow master that struck the traitor down was the first victim. He suddenly felt intense pain in his guts, then it spread throughout his body. While he had no idea what the f*** was happening, the cells in his body turned rogue and fought like bacteria. His organs turned to mush along with his muscles, tendons, etc. The man stopped breathing as his lungs disentegrated into the storm of disease that swept over him and he went bug eyed. His eyes became bloodshot and sweat poured down his forehead. The bowman pulled back his sleave and saw blotches spreading accross his arm.
He tried to scream but his vocal cords were gone now. The cells inside him mutated quickly and many exploded, releasing deadly toxic chemicals into him. He looked at his hands now as he crumpled to his knees, which soon fell apart as the rogue disease ate through his knee caps. His fingers turned to the color of vomit as the flesh melted off the bones. Soon the disease reached his brain and consumed everything. The man fell face flat on the ground. Dead in two minutes.
The A-Organic mage used his hands and cast numerous spells on the pile of flesh, commanding the cells to form into a creature he had in his mind. Because of the battle, he couldn’t stay and nurture his creation, so he had to leave it be.

Commander Laini saw what just happened, and was scared s***less. Still, she had the nerve, raised her bow, and fired Arrow Hurricane at the guy.
The mage jumped out of the way as the arrow storm ripped the body and his creation to bits.
Owl struck. She bolted into the air, carving a sword with her hack energy and plunged it right through Laini’s heart.
The bow mistress was paralyzed and surprised. She fell off her flying board, bug eyed, and fell to the ground.

Mistawasis, level 191 wind mage and bird master, whipped up storms of sharp winds at the bowmen, and summoned hundreds of birds. Her summon abilities teleported birds from a 500 mile radius and commanded them to attack.
The birds, big and small attacked the Justice Arrow’s men and women.
“Get away!” a sniper shouted, shooting her down with Snipe Arrow!
Mistawasis fell and crashed onto the roof of an undamaged house.
Instantly, some Saska bishops, and mages got her and took her to safety. The giant birds that she summoned instinctly flanked them as they drove back to the GrassLanders still in the fields.

“This is WheatHawk, we’re in firing position”
“Fire at will! Destroy that enemy ship!”

Onboard the Hyuit, alarms went off as the hovercraft was detected by their radar.
“Oh crap! Enemy ship at four o clock!”
Harrton grabbed the mic from the communications room and shouted, “What the hells going on down there! Destroy those land ships!”

The WheatHawk raised its cannons.
“Meteo storm ready! Fire!”
The cannons roared as they blasted beams of fire mage’s magic that exploded into flaming balls of fire and slammed into the wooden hull of the Hyuit!
The ship shook and shuddered violently as the meteo storm blew holes in the hull. Many noobs and crew were blown to bits instantly.
“Ice Storm, ready!”
“Ready!”
“Fire!”
The other cannons on the Wheathawk thundered and blasted ice magic up towards the Justice Arrow’s airship.
The magic beams formed into a hailstorm of razor sharp shards of ice. The ice pieces cut holes in the wood as they pierced the hull even more. The people inside were killed by the ice or shredded alive by blasts of splinters!
“Freeze blast, fire!”
The Hyuit blasted more pulses of magic energy which slammed into the sides of the ship, forming a heavy coating of ice on the hull and engines. One engine exploded, and the ship tilted badly as it started falling. The fuel lines had been cut and mana fuel and gasoline sprayed everywhere and fed the fires caused by the fireball storm.

The crewmen all ran screaming as the ship began to collapse on itself.

The bishop aboard the FieldSentinel loaded the cannon with a magic glass ball which he programmed to form an Angel Ray.
The cannon boomed as it went off, shooting the ball into the air. The glass was vaporized, releasing the magic energy which formed an Angel Ray, a holy powered projectile. More powerful than the DP arrow the A-Ray didn’t just blow up on impact of the target, it cut through the target, then exploded.
As the RKS Hyuit fell, the Angel Ray blasted through the hull from front to back, vaporising the JA and crew inside, then it exploded with all it’s holy fury.
The explosion was bright and the blast wave shook the town lightly.

Owl paused in her slashing of bowmen and saw the flaming wreckage of the airship fall to the fields on the other side of town.
Mistawasis saw it from the bridge of the medical GrassLander called Hope’s Wing.
Luka saw it- more of her comrades all killed in another big shot. She was buring with rage, and then she spotted Owl.
Ohhh, it is on!

The solar mages stole this oppertunity while the JA men stood on their flying boards stunned stupid by the explosion.
The shadow mages cast their shadow cloak over the down, engulfing all of the buildings in a thick black cloud of darkness. Some of the rangers including Jango Alyth and Rachel Luka saw it coming and dashed into the shadow cloak-
The solar flare was set off and the whole area was bathed in the lethal light.
The same arch mage who killed the magician victims had teleported actual raw sunlight from a location above the atmosphere.
The lethal rays literally burned the 300 bowmen still in the air and they dropped like flies, screaming in the sheer pain and agony they were in.
The shadow cloak was cleared out and daylight touched Border Town again.
Owl shook her head as her senses returned to her. The streets were littered with bodies of bow masters, rangers, and snipers and townspeople they had killed.
A bishop used her Genesis attack and killed surviving groups of bowmen who dashed into the shadow to evade the solar assault.
Another thundering boom echoed. The storm was getting closer. Owl flew over the town, popping off bowmen-
Thwack!
She fell and slammed into the ground.
Owl jumped to her feet and dashed out of the way as a strafe of arrows hit the ground around her. He looked up and couldn’t believer her eyes. Bow Mistress Luka, her trainer, her teacher, her mentor from childhood.
She rubbed the back of her neck and felt hot blood on her fingers. Luka struck her with the sharp tip of her bow.
Luka fired another strafe at her and she was forced to jump out of the way.
“Today, you die, traitor!” Luka shouted, gassing the jets on her board and flew after Owl.
Owl opened fire with guns again to ward her off.
“Bring it, 6itch!” she shouted back.
Luka screamed a warlike cry as she lunged at Owl with her bow and swung hard. Owl just barely flew out of the way!
She saw that her former coach’s quiver was empty. This was going to be a close combat fight.
Owl formed a sword with her winds and wielded it, ready to fight.
Luka rushed at her again, this time way faster than Owl expected, and she hit her hard in the chest with the bow!
Owl fell fast, but swung her sword, and bashed the psycho bow 6itch away, before landing feet down on the ground.
“OW!” Owl cried- she landed so hard she felt her ankles snap! The pain! o.m.f.g. it’s so intense!
Luka charged at her again, swinging the bow like a maniac. Owl tried desparately to get back but Luka hit her again, and with her powerful knockback, she sent Owl flying against against the wall behind her.

Luka walked up to her. “Hacking vermin, I’ll finish you!”
Owl struggled to her feet- her ankles still hurt. Why wasnt the hackium working?!
Blood dripped from her mouth as she breathed heavily. Owl spat a red wad out in her enemy’s direction.
“Pathetic hacker! You have defyed the Migrator! You have forsaken the only right way of life! How in Lord’s name can you do such a thing after all the things we taught you?!” Luka shouted.
“You mean like religious insanity, hysteria, propaganda, genocide, terror, and war? Against ethnic groups that never even wanted anything to do with home sweet Henny?!” Owl spat back.
“You murdurer! You killed hundreds of our good men and women who were fighting the good fight! A spot in hell is reserved especially for you!”

“Well, when we get there, let’s all party!” Owl said saracastically. “Pull up a keg of hard stuff, party all night long and just get hammered to celebrate!”
“Shut up, you!” Luka shouted. “I’m not going to hell, YOU are! After all you have done! There is now way the Lord can ever forgive you!”
“Maybe true, for letting you kill all those refugees noobs and magicians!” Owl spat back. “For letting you establish your sick twisted magic market busniness venture!”
Luka reached into her pocket, and drew a .38 caliber handgun. She cocked it, and extended her arm, the pistol pointed at Owl’s face.
“Any last words before I send you to hell? Well? What does a hacking scum poor excuse of a human being like yourself have to say?!”
“So you hate hackers, huh?” Owl asked with clenched teeth-
=Click!=
“BE A HACKER!!!!” Owl screamed as she bolted from the wall and crash tackled the bow mistress to the ground.
Luka punched her hard in the face, and kicked Owl in the gut with her knee, but her bone crushing hits were just not hurting this woman!
Owl clamped her hand hard on Luka’s chest and pumped as much black magic into her heart as she could.
Luka screamed and clawed at Owl’s arm, but it was no use!
Owl jumped off of her.
Luka twitched and squirmed on the ground as she screamed in pain.
“Now who’s the hacker?! Your precious Justice Arrow won’t take you back now!”
“I’ll kill you!” Luka screamed as she charged at Owl. She tried to punch her- A hackium bolt shot from her fist and hit a car, blowing it up. She quickly learned to fire bolts and was shooting them nonstop at Owl.

The GrassLander Hope’s Wing’s radar instruments picked them up.
“We have hackium bursts in the north east part of town.” the guy said in Saskwa.
“Who is it?!” Mista demanded.
[“It’s one of the enemy bowmen fighting some purple haired mage.”] a guy’s voice rang out over the loud speaker.
“Let’s shoot them.”
“Don’t destroy them!” Flowne ordered as she stepped into the communications room of the AirStyder. She knew the purple haired mage was Mista’s daughter, and she also wanted the bowman alive.
“I want that bowman alive. Disable them, yes. When they are down, retrieve them both. Take the mage to the Hope’s Wing and bring the bowman to me!”

The fight went on as flashes of lightning lit up the land. Owl wielded her Pyogo staff like a sword and had to rely on her brute strength and sword fighting skills. She lost the ability to use her magic again, and she still had no idea why!
Owl had to keep jumping out of the way as Luka fired deadly hackium bolts at her. Too much hackium energy could kill a person. The bolts missed her and crashed through windows, blew up cars, trucks, tractors and parked farming equipment.
Owl charged, dashing between hackium shots, and swing the Pyogo mushroom staff hard at Luka. She struck her in the back, shattering her ribs!
Luka fell to the ground, comletely unable to breathe as her broken ribs stabbed right into her lungs.
Owl wondered if she’ll heal- She was right. The hackim instantly forced her muscles to grib the ribs, pull them out and fused them together. Luka screamed as she endured the agony. Then she ran at Owl, bow swinging. Owl parried with her staff, and the swordfighting went on for a tense few minutes.
“DIE YOU!!!” the former Pureblood JA commander screamed as she charged at Owl…then her fly hack abilities kicked in.
Luka was thrown by her own powers and slammed into a brick wall. She triedto get up, but flew back wards and slammed into the side of a truck. Owl followed her cautiously, her Pyogo up like a baseball bat.
Luka flew at Owl, completely out of control, and Owl hit her has hard as she could baseball batter style!!

The Cap end of the Pyogo staff slammed into Luka’s head and chest and she was sent spinning and crashed through the window of a meat shop. The young organic mages stared at her in surprise.
They were in there using powers to grow flowers on the raw beef steaks.
Luka fried them with her hack powers before blasting her way through the door, and charged at Owl.

[“Targets are in sight! Freeze! Fire at will!”]
The heavy cannons of the mighty GrassLander ship roared as they fired ice magic at the two women.
Both Owl and her enemy were wrapped in ice and couldn’t move! But then they both broke free. Owl used her own strength and broke off the ice wrapped around her, and Luka shattered the ice with her hack powers. She fired a storm of hack bolts at the ship, but it was no use. She flew, fighting furiously to gain control of her fly power, whish only brought her within firing range of the Hope’s Wing ship.
Owl ran after her, and as she did, she began to feel the painful electrical tingling.

The Wing’s Hope fired Arrow bombs at the hacker bowman. One hit, blasting Luka away and she fell to the ground.
she found a diamond arrow left over from her comrades. She got up, cocked her bow, and readied a Dragon Pulse Arrow.
Owl saw it coming. “NO!” she screamed as she ran accross the field, trying to fire a magic claw or something at that psycho 6itch!

[“Oh crap! Dragon Pulse at close range! I can’t evade it!” the pilot shouted]

Luka released the shining arrow missile.
The Dragon Pulse arrow screamed through the air, closing the 400 foot distance between her and the GrassLander hovercraft. The arrow hit the GrassLander, and blasted its way inward, vaporising or burning the New Saskatchewan troops to death. Mistawasis saw the tip of the giant energy missile as it cut right through her.
The arrow gashed through the energy crystals, and detonated.

The GrassLander exploded. All onboard were instantly killed.
Owl stared at the blazing wreckage in shock and terror. Her mother was onboard that thing! She knew it!
“MAMA!!!!!!” she screamed as she fell to her knees. As she started to cry, Owl saw her shadow form on the ground as the gray clouds to the south parted.
Owl was sooo fuqking pissed off right now, but with no magic and no hack energy available to her, she did the only thing she could do to make that bow b!tch pay. Owl hit the ground as hard as she could with her Pyogo and cracked the hard shaft. The blue magic inside began sizzling and fizzing. Owl ran, carrying the busted Pyogo as fast as she could.
As the Sun got brighter and brighter, Owl became increasingly overwhelmed with the painfil tingling as she was being burned alive by the lethal Solar radiation. It hurt even more that her hackium powers consumed her to combat the rays that pierced right through her.
Owl screamed a bloody war cry; blood spewing from her mouth (she lost a tooth when Luka smoked her in the mouth)
as she leaped in the air, and hurled the Pyogo staff like a javelin as hard as she could!

The Pyogo mushroom staff cracked even more as the magic inside it sizzled even more. The spell that kept it from exploding was about to wear off since Owl cracked it. The staff soared through the air, and it landed-
+Sschlock+ stabbed through Luka’s body!

Luka screamed as she fell and slowly died.
Owl fell and started siezing up as the pain overtook her. The Sun was burning her alive. Owl dared to take a peep at it-
The center of the Sun was a giant black spot! That was all she saw before she passed out….
++

The WheatHawk approached the spot where the flaming wreckage of the other ship was located, and Sasko soldiers (mages, bandits, other bowmen, warriors), rushed out. They quickly threw a tarp over the purple haired mage, wrapped her up like a cocoon and rushed her aboard.
When the mages found the dead Justice Arrow woman with the busted Pyogo mushroom sticking through her, they instantly knew what was going to happen…
“It’s gonna blow! Clear out! Clear out! Get the ship away from here!” they screamed in Saskwa as they ran.

The Pyogo mushroom exploded. The blast of bright blue magic made the explosions of the RKS Hyuit and Hope’s Wing look like firecracker blasts.

Then, the first lightning bolt from the super storm struck the ground as the storm moved over Border Town, and the the deadly storm began.

The Justice Arrow had lost everything they had up here today, but that was not the worst of it; the worst of it was that one of their members, Jango Alyth, a 70 ranger who doubted the JA policies his while life was alive.
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Finally i get this scene done. No this is not the end of the series, and Owl is still alive and so is Azure, I’ll check on them
later. For now, I’m going back to Victoria.