117 Deals

Tai looked at Ed and Carlos. "I'll be the main fighter. You two just support me whenever you can. Remember, our only goal is to delay. No need to take any risks." The red flame dragon underneath his feet flew forward, the President's pressure not affecting it or Tai at all.

"Ah, if it isn't the foreigner from a few years ago." The President grinned. "Still haven't made any progress I'm guessing? Well, at least your body looks stronger from your time in the cage."

"Humph." Tai snorted. "As if I was serious the last time we fought." Seven streams of flame swirled out from his body, quickly forming into seven dragons of seven different colors.

"Oh?" The President nodded. "It seems you really did progress since our last fight. If I recall correctly, you only used three paths back then."

"Naturally, I was holding back on purpose." Tai smiled. "And as a result of that, the cage has had its first successful prison break in history. I'm sure this will be quite the embarrassment for America once the international community finds out."

The President chuckled. "As if I care about anything they have to say. If they were capable of surpassing America, then they would've done it a long time ago." He pointed forward, causing thousands of black threads to snake outwards. "Let's get this over with. If the paths are all you have, then you're no more a match for me than you were the last time we fought."

"We'll see about that!" Tai pointed his fan forward. "Go!" The seven flame dragons moved up and down through the skies as they travelled forward.

The Presidents threads rapidly swirled together, forming seven black spikes, each of which stabbed into a flame dragon. Multiple explosions rang out as the dragons blew apart, spreading various types of flames as they did so.

'Interesting.' Ed thought as he watched. The red flame dragon had only released ordinary fire upon blowing up, but the others were all different. The silver flame dragon released sparks of electricity within the fire, much like how Ed's own silver fire worked. Even though the blue flame dragon looked like extremely hot blue fire, it had exploded into thousands of ice shards. The yellow flame dragon had exploded into a yellowish lava-like substance that hardened into earth as it fell from the skies. The green flame dragon had released strong waves of green fire, likely due to the wind feeding the flames. The black flames were as expected, corroding everything they touched. Lastly was the white flame dragon, which was nearly invisible to the naked eye. Its light had directly annihilated hundreds of the President's threads upon blowing apart.

"Tai!" Carlos yelled while creating large amounts of green wind. "Use the white flames and I'll feed it!"

"Right." Tai agreed as he waved his fan, creating seven white flame dragons. As they flew forward, Carlos green wind fed into them, drastically increasing their size. They then flew closer together, fusing into a single large white flame dragon. It was nearly the size of a football field and radiated so much heat that even the espers on the ground could feel it.

"DIE!" Tai shouted as the dragon surged forward.

"Child's play." The President smirked as his black threads weaved together into cloth and turned golden in color. His golden cloth quickly wrapped around the white flame dragon, completely blocking it off from the outside world. A brief moment later, it unwrapped, and the flames were nowhere to be seen.

"My mana?!" Tai yelled in shock. "What the hell did you do to it?!"

"Simple." The president shrugged. "I've just sent it somewhere else."

'Tsk.' Ed clicked his tongue as he watched. 'Hardly anything I can do to help without my mana-batteries. Tai's silver flames weren't effective, so mine won't be either. The purple flames are weaker than the silver flames... what can I do to help?' He looked around the battlefield, eyeing various conflicts going on. Espers on both sides were dying in hordes, and it was made worse due to the prisoners frequently retreating. He spotted the mana-shells and cannons on the walls. 'Maybe use those...? No, won't be strong enough.' He shook his head and kept looking. Suddenly, he spotted what he was looking for and smiled. 'Perfect!' He began flying away from the battle.

"Ed?!" Tai called as he watched him leave the battle. "Damn! Carlos, it looks like it's just you and me now."

"Right." Carlos nodded as he shot red wind towards the enemy. Unfortunately, it couldn't make it past the President's threads or cloths.

Ed landed in front of the mech tank he had created in the past. The pilot was currently shooting fire towards hordes of espers that couldn't break through the hull. "HEY!" He yelled towards it. "I'll be taking back some of my belongings if you don't mind!" Purple flames lit up on his hands and he shoved them into one of the mech's arms.

"What are you doing?!" A feminine voice yelled in panic from the mech tank's speakers. She shook the mech's arm back-and-forth, trying to shake Ed off of it.

'There we go.' Ed grinned as he reached into the mech's arm. He pulled out five fire mana-batteries and shoved them into his pocket. 'Ah, I'll probably need some manullium too.' He melted a few manullium ingots from the arm to take as well. Then he let go of the mech and flew towards the other arm, repeating the process of collecting mana-batteries and manullium ingots. "Thanks!" He waved as he flew away from the mech, having taken all ten of its fire mana-batteries.

"DAMN IT!" The pilot screamed. She now had to face the horde of espers while having close to zero attack capabilities, only being able to swing the mech's arms forward at best.

'Now for the cannon.' He flew towards the wall, which was now deserted of espers. Multiple steam cannons were set up along the wall, but none of them were particularly powerful. 'Man, I miss my rail gun.' He sighed while shaking his head. 'I'll just have to make do with what I have...'

He began collecting the cannons and mana-shells, moving them together atop a tower which was built into the wall. Then he melted the cannons into raw materials to create a much larger and longer cannon. He lined the insides of the cannon with a layer of manullium using the ingots he had taken from the mech. 'Almost done.' He smiled. 'Unfortunately, steam power isn't going to be strong enough. The flying bastard would definitely dodge it at that speed.'

Ed began taking apart the various mana-shells, extracting piles of mana-powders from each one. Soon, he had a pile of seven elemental mana-powder nearly as big as his head. He sealed the powder into a thick steel shell and loaded it into the cannon. He carefully aimed the cannon towards the President in the sky. 'Now for the final step.' He opened the back of the cannon, shoved the ten fire mana-batteries inside, and hurriedly slammed the back of the cannon shut.

Upon coming in contact with the manullium inside of the cannon, the mana-batteries began glowing red. Almost instantly, they released their full power. With only one exit available, all of the power concentrated towards a single direction, pushing the heavy steel shell as it went.

"Wow!" Ed shielded his eyes as a red ray of flames blasted from the cannon into the skies. It successfully blasted through thousands of the Presidents threads, and then, there was a huge explosion. Fire, water, darkness, and other elemental energies blasted out for dozens of meters in every direction. Soon, the energies cleared, revealing the President wrapped up in golden threads completely unharmed.

"Tsk." Ed clicked his tongue. 'Still wasn't as powerful as the rail gun. There's only so much I can improvise.' He looked at the battlefield and saw that most of Tai's men had already escaped. 'That's my queue to leave too. I've already done more than enough when considering these aren't even my men.' He eyed some of the remaining mana-shells he hadn't taken apart and reached out to grab them. 'I guess I'll take these with me. No point in leaving good gear behind.' Silver flames blasted from his limbs as he fled the wall, flying east through the Alaskan wilderness. He decided to meet up with the escaped Fire Dragon Clan members at a previously planned location.

...

Within the Alaskan wilderness. The last rays of the descending sun reflected against the snowy ground. Frost covered trees were sparsely spread out over the rough terrain. The temperature rapidly fell as the sky grew darker.

The Fire Dragon Clan members were huddled together in a large opening. Ed tiptoed around the opening amongst the trees in the wilderness. Each step he took, he seemed to be doing something to the ground. It was as if he was taking a walk in his own backyard and watering the flowers. 'That should be good enough.' He smiled.

It was nearly two hours before Tai and Carlos turned up to the meeting location. Tai was holding the body of a dead guard with his right arm. He grimaced as he surveyed the situation. "Looks like only 800 survived between my and Rubi's forces." He sighed. "But I guess that's actually pretty good. Roughly a forty percent survival rate is leagues better than the other gangs."

Ed walked out from the crowd. "Yo!" He waved before his eyes widened in surprise. "The hell happened to your arm?"

Rubi exited the crowd as well, worry evident in her eyes as she examined the injured Tai.

Tai frowned as he stared at his now missing left arm. "Obviously the President took it." He tossed the dead guard's body to the ground. "A purple mana-core to make me a new arm. Deal?"

"Sure, sure." Ed laughed as he nodded. For once, he wasn't pushing for more. After all, he knew the terror of fighting the President himself all too well. He melted the dead body, creating a strong arm for Tai. "So, what's next?" He questioned.

"I'll be heading to California." Tai replied. "I made preparations there long before I was ever imprisoned, and I have a ship ready for taking my men to China with me. We can also stop to hunt the bat mutant on the way there."

"I see." Ed nodded. "I still have some personal matters to attend to in Florida. I don't suppose you can wait a while? If not, then I'll have to find a way to head over on my own later on."

"Hmm..." Tai rubbed his chin while eyeing the crowd of espers. "It would be difficult to conceal this many espers for long. The President will no doubt contact the Hunter Association to send out hunters to catch these sinners. Let's do this instead. I'll head for Hawaii first, and you can meet us there later. Then we'll head to China together. Sound good?"

"Hawaii... It'll be easier to get there then all the way to China I suppose." He nodded. "All right, let's plan on doing that. I'll try to be there within a month or so."

"Good." Tai smiled. "I'll be sure to show you Chinese hospitality once we reach the mainland." He lifted his arm into the air. "ATTENTION!" He shouted. "We're moving out! We've got a long march ahead of us, so prepare yourselves!"

"Yes, Mr. Long!" A chorus of voices echoed.

Suddenly, the crunching of snow echoed in all directions. Nearly a thousand espers exited the woods, led by the other five gang leaders. Neo crossed his arms while grinning. "So, Asian boy thinks he can just leave after using us as cannon fodder the last few days, huh?" He rose his hand to his neck and made a cutting motion. "But who says we're going to allow it?"

Tai frowned. "Do you really want to do this? You barely outnumber us, and we have Ed and Carlos."

"Ptui." Thur spit on the ground as he stepped forward. "Ed and Carlos ain't shit out here. There's no manullium giving them the edge this time!"

Rubi stepped forward, towering over most of the other espers. "Just come out with it! What do you really want here? You wouldn't come throw away your forces without a reason."

"Heh." Nao chuckled as she slammed a fist into her palm. "I guess she isn't as stupid as she looks. I'll happily tell you. We made a deal with the President to kill or capture you all in exchange for pardons. It's a good deal for us, right?"

"Are you mad?!" Tai yelled. "There's no way he'll keep his word!"

"You're wrong." Ed sighed as he interrupted the conversation. "From what I know, the President is a man that keeps his word. If he said he'll grant them pardons, then he'll really do it."

"What?!" Tai's eyes widened in shock. "But why would they do that?"

"Simple." Ed replied. "He doesn't want to see China strengthened by the cage's forces. Plus, it would be nearly impossible to track all of the escaped espers on such short notice. This kills both birds with a single stone."