23

Zeeth asked, "Hey, will these balls really destroy the meteors?"

Page replied, "No, but we plan to attach explosive parts to it to them and blow them to smithereens. The meteors aren't big, there are just a lot."

"These look really cool, do they all work?"

"Sure, you can try them. We've tried them all and they shoot really well. Especially our twisted cones, they fire like a spinning torpedo. Just make sure to not damage them too much and get them back when you fire them."

They aimed one of the cannons at a nearby wall, loaded the sliding wooden magazine, and launched one. The magazine was long enough to hold around 2 balls and shot them rapid-fire, although it was a risky move since one could destroy the other.

"Hey, how about some long javelins. If you made these a bit longer and made some magnetic javelins, they could sit next to each other and shoot out about 5 javelins. It would look like a rain of javelins. They could load them up side by side and they would hit each other, perfect for hitting multiple targets."

"That would be great. We just need to figure out how to not get them to stick to each other."

"Since the cannons are all south poles at the back, if we make them all south poles and tie them together, it could work.

"The one issue is tying them together. That would take a ton of work."

Someone from behind Zeeth said, "We can also use normal metals for them. They won't fire as far, but they can work."

They all turned to look at the source of the voice, Leia, Loren, and Tatio looking happily over. "Leardio!"

It was the man that Alba had been tending to in that room. His skin was a bit darker brown, seemingly having regained his conscience and some color to his body. He held onto a part of the wall for balance, still shaky from his last fight and a long time resting.

He didn't have a mask like the rest of his village and it revealed a rugged face with a scar on his left chin. A part of his hair had been turned to steel that clinked together like wind-chimes.

Loren looked curiously at his head, "Your hair. A part of it is silver."

"What? Oh, yeah he must've gotten my hair during the fight."

"Are you gonna cut it off?"

"No, I've grown fond of them. They can stay as a reminder of the great battle I had with him. By the way, where is he? And who are these two?"

"Right," Leia said, "this is Zeeth and that's Page. They came here for some training and has been helping us make use of these magnets. Now, we don't need to melt them with lava."

"I'm very sorry for causing so much trouble with the magnets."

Tatio responded, "It's no problem, with it we can increase our defenses multiple times. I'm just mad we didn't think of this sooner instead of tearing down our walls and houses to make these. These two helped us out so much and saved us so much trouble, we need to thank them after this meteor shower."

Leardio walked closer and leaned on a nearby cannon, "Right, the meteor shower. How many cannons should we make?"

"We want to make as many as we can which should've taken a lot longer, but with you here things can go a lot faster."

Leardio looked around at the cannons and the ammunition they had prepared and tried molding a few of them. "These should be a little straighter or it would mess with the speed. I think there should be a gap at the center holding the cannons so that you can make balls that are connected to each other and if you fire one out earlier than the other it can create a spinning torpedo of magnets. Add some spike that'll shoot out later and you got yourself a cool bomb."

"Oh, yeah. That would be super cool, we never even tried it, but you can easily make it, right?"

"Yeah, leave it to me. First, I want to see 23. He said something at the end of our battle, something I want to ask about."

"Sure, he's on our judgment stick."

"What?! No, get him down! He doesn't belong there, we need to recover him back to health!" Leardio tried to limp quickly to the judgment stick, pulling up a hunk of magnets nearby and gliding his way across.

"Leardio, what's wrong? He tried to destroy our village why shouldn't we use him as bait?"

"He's not the one who been attacking us, he was being controlled by a bug and I was able to take it off at the last moment. It took all I had to get the bug and not him, which also knocked him out in the process." they all ran to the judgment stick that was still swinging around. Leardio tied a bunch of magnets around the bottom of the stick to stop it from moving so much and tried to cut it loose, but a pretty large rock the size of his head came flying by from the sky, a streak of red and blue fire trailing behind it. It flew right at him but Leardio dodged at the last second, destroying his platform in the process as he fell to the ground.

Before it could hit the meteor could hit the ground Zeeth jumped ahead and tried to punch it with a fist covered with Mag and a ton of water. The water was steamed away, but it extinguished the fire in the process. The rock then hit Mag and dug deep into Zeeths hand. At last, when the pain was unbearable, he pulled his hand away and let the meteor hit the ground. It wasn't as strong but it was still able to dig itself a little hole that it sat in. Zeeth checked Mag for any damage and saw a small wound where the meteor had hit it. It was quickly healing by borrowing power from Zeeth and the other slimes but it was still a pretty harsh wound. And that was just from a small meteor, he knew he would have no chance against the much larger one about to come.

He heard Leardio yelling, "are the meteors coming already?"

Alba talked for the first time in front of Zeeth, "no, there are a few more hours before the main body arrives. The little one was just early. Leardio, why did you want to save 23?"

"He's not the real enemy, there's someone controlling him, get him down, now!"

"No! He stays!" Tatio held his staff up to stop anyone from getting near him, "he's a heinous criminal, we can't just let him down like this! Look at what he's caused to our village!"

"Dad, what are you doing? You heard me, it's not him!"

"How can you be so sure? You were knocked out at the last moment, you could've imagined it."

"You don't trust me? Fine, we can talk about how reliable this is after we get him down. Then we can interrogate him and get the real answers. Dad, just let him down."

Tatio stood there for a few seconds, not saying a word. Suddenly, the shrapnel of a magnet flew up and cut the ropes, freeing 23 from the pillar. The stick suddenly flew forward and pushed him in front of Leardio who created a bubble of water from his finger and fed it to him.

"Leardio, I didn't allow this!"

"If you had kept him up any longer he wouldn't have even been able to talk. We need to track him back to the actual source that tried to kill us. someone get him to a bed and feed him something."

Alba lifted him with her magic and flew him into a house and began healing him while some people ran over to give him some food.

"Fine, fine. We'll find the actual source and kill them, but 23 is not off the hook."

Alba pointed to the sky and muttered, "the initial wave is coming."

"What? I thought we had a few hours."

"Yes, until the main wave with the most and biggest rocks. The first wave is just five, no six meteors coming our way."

Zeeth looked up at the sky and could just barely see a few black dots in the sky. They got closer and closer, revealing the flaming trail like the first one.