VIII - Saved by Embarrassment

James was saved from imminent death by an embarrassment.

[FAMILIAR SUMMONING!]

A large black-and-white blur slammed into the igneel's side, sending it flying through a nearby wall. James barely managed to suppress a cheer at the lizard getting fed a taste of its own medicine.

The black-and-white blur was actually a group of pandas, magically summoned by the girl that had crashed on him earlier. Said woman stood not too far behind her summons, looking worse for wear but miraculously standing. Despite the fact that she looked like she had just stepped out of a tornado, James couldn't dispute that she posed quite a stunning figure.

Her previously messy hair was now tied up in a ponytail, highlighting her captivating cyan eyes. The way she held a fierce gaze and confident posture reminded James of a certain terrifying 'Madame' that he knew, and the fact that she also had a bunch of attack pandas with her only heightened his wariness.

To clarify, a group of pandas is called an embarrassment. Not that it wasn't still embarrassing either way for James to be rescued like a damsel in distress by a band of fuzzy bears.

"Hey! Are you alright?"

James put his focus back on the girl as she gave him a concerned look to which he just rolled his eyes. "Oh yeah, I'm great. I love sleeping under a pile of bricks and broken wood."

Her worried expression quickly morphed into an annoyed one as she huffed and thrust her hands forward, a command for her pandas to charge at the recovering igneel and perform a full-scale embarrassment attack.

"Ugh, forget it. Get yourself out of that rubble and help me out here already."

James threw his arms out in a 'Wow, why didn't I think of that?' gesture, or at least as much as he could move his arms under the weight of all the debris.

"If I could, I would!" James growled out in a whisper-shout. "I don't have a magus core so I can't enhance my body like you."

Her face reddened as she realized her mistake, the previously confident woman reduced to a blubbering mess as she bowed profusely and repeatedly muttered apologies.

James was saved from any more apologies by raining pandas.

The igneel had successfully shaken the embarrassment off, said embarrassment now falling from above and crashing into the ground, exploding in a shower of magus energy.

"No! MY PANDAS!"

The woman whirled around and fixed a glowering glare at the giant lizard, both of them sizing the other up. James just watched on in amusement, slightly concerned at how quickly the woman's mood could do a 360.

[ICICLE BARRAGE!]

She struck first, icicles materializing in mid-air and shooting towards the igneel. It was hardly even a deterrent though, the sharp points that would've skewered most people simply shattering as soon as they came in contact with the igneel's scales.

James wasn't keeping idle though. The brief moment of rest he had experienced gave him enough energy to try and wriggle himself out of the rubble, as daunting a task as it may be. He still kept his eyes glued on the battle in front of him though, not daring to look away for even a second.

The woman nimbly evaded a fireball before firing off more icicles, the attack proving even less effective than before as the igneel now just melted them with its breath before they could even get close.

"Not to sound like a know-it-all here, but maybe try dousing it with water or cracking its scales with some heavier magus attacks?" James offered as he squirmed around and tried to free his right arm.

"I can't!"

James paused momentarily as he gave the girl a weird look.

"I'm sorry. Run that by me again?"

Her face was the perfect combination of pissed off and utterly ashamed as she focused her gaze on him, her lower lip trembling as she repeated what she said.

"I can't. I can only use cryo spells and my familiar summoning..."

If James' hand was free he would've done the biggest facepalm he had ever done in any of his lifetimes.

"Are you fucking crazy? No amount of cryo spells can take down an igneel!"

Her embarrassed expression quickly faded as she fixed him with a fierce stink eye. "Hey! Just be thankful I even stepped in to save your sorry a- AH!"

The woman was sent flying head-first right next to James' pile of rubble, courtesy of James' least favorite lizard's tail.

"My bad," James winced as the woman groaned and rubbed the large bump that had swelled on her head, "shouldn't have started up a conversation while you were busy fighting that annoying reptile."

Said reptile roared and flashed its sharp pearly whites at James, obviously not pleased with how much he had been trash-talking it.

'For a thick-skinned lizard, it sure is sensitive.'

[ICE WALL!]

A thick block of ice sprung up in front of James, protecting him from the igneel's fireballs. Sparing a glance at the panting woman next to him, James knew she wouldn't be able to keep it up for long.

"Get me out of this rubble and then teleport us out of here, we don't stand a chance against that beast."

She just shook her head as she held her wand up, straining to keep the wall intact as it was bombarded with fire.

"Something is messing with the spatial channels in the atmosphere, and my magus keeps fizzling out whenever I try to cast a teleportation spell."

"What, you don't think someone activated an anti-teleportation barrier over the city or something... do you?"

If that was true, the scale of this disaster was much bigger than James had thought. An attack that rendered the Magus Brigade useless and civilians trapped, with the city under attack from the inside by a monster even the toughest mages would have a hard time fighting.

'This is all wrong though. None of this stuff happened in my last life. What in the name of Deus is going on?'

"Can't... hold it... any longer..." The woman's arms were now shaking all over the place, the icy wall standing between them and imminent doom cracking and slowly breaking into pieces.

A lightbulb went off in James' head as the 'perfect' plan popped into his head. It was definitely risky, and would end up with both of them dead if it failed, but there wasn't really any other choice.

"On the count of three, pull my right arm out of the rubble and expel all of your remaining magus energy out of your left hand."

"What?"

"Just trust me!"

Her cyan eyes met his own, and James hoped his pleading expression looked trustworthy enough for her to put her faith in him.

"Don't make me regret this," she muttered as she placed her focus back on keeping the wall intact. "Alright. On three!"

"One!"

The wall started to crumble.

"Two!"

The wall shattered into tiny pieces of ice, the igneel poking its head through as it prepared to roast them with its fiery breath.

"THREE!"

She leaped at him and pulled his arm out of the rubble, James ignoring the pain as his flesh ripped and tore against the sharp bricks. It was all worth it though as she thrust out her left hand and released her remaining magus energy, all of which went directly into the gun that James held in his hand.

"Sayonara motherfucker."

James squeezed the trigger and watched with a smirk as a glowing blue bullet whizzed right into the igneel's gaping mouth and then out the back of its head.

It was a truly miraculous shot that James was honestly pretty sure wasn't going to work.

"I-I did it! I actually did it! I defeated a monster!"

James looked over at the cheery girl sitting next to him, a bright smile on her face as if though she wasn't just in mortal danger.

"Don't you mean 'we' did it?" James asked as he stared at her with a deadpan expression.

Her cheeks turned pink and her eyes widened as she stared at him before rubbing the back of her neck sheepishly. "O-of course. I was just so excited that I forgot about it is all."

James just rolled his eyes and shifted his gaze back to the igneel, a lump forming in his throat as he stared at what should have been an impossible occurrence.

"You have got to be kidding me."

"Hm? What is it?" The girl turned her head to look where he was facing, instantly shrieking in horror as she did so. "That's impossible! It can't be!"

But oh it was.

The igneel was standing right back up, the mortal wound it had incurred closing up like it was never there in the first place. Its fiery eyes seemed to burn hotter than they had before as it licked its lips with its forked tongue and grinned at them.

"This day just keeps getting better and better."