He set out his mental sense and discovered his commanders weren’t quite correct. A large force of enemy troops was barely a hundred meters away, moving towards his position in a skirmish formation. He set out the alarm and ordered reinforcements while his own people dug in with the few troops that were stationed on the hill. Two minutes later, a firefight erupted as the first of the enemy troops appeared through the trees. A surprisingly brief firefight ensued as the enemy fell back almost immediately. He was keeping track of the enemy with his mentalist senses, and then suddenly, he felt a powerful mentalist’s bright, hard knot of power appear right in front of his position. The man must’ve been shielding himself the whole time the enemy advanced.

Figures appeared out of the trees, and his men opened fire immediately, but it did no good because, this time, the enemy troops were shielded by the mentalist who was clearly at the center of the small group of enemy soldiers that were visible. He spread his shield out to offer his men some protection and then collected as much power as he could before slashing at the enemy mentalist, who was only about twenty meters away. He didn’t break through the enemy’s shield, but he must have surprised him with the strength of his slash because the enemy mentalist ordered his men to take cover and then pulled his shield back to around just himself and another soldier that was standing behind him. Toshiro slashed again, but this time it seemed to have even less effect than the previous time, and before he could come up with some alternative plan of action, the enemy threw a force punch at him that didn’t break through his shield but rocked him back a couple of feet from the force of it. Damn, the man was strong!

Then a fireball came his way, and he hastily raised an energy shield. He’d already had both a physical and a mental shield up and holding three shields was as much as he could manage, which meant he couldn’t attack. He briefly dropped his mental shield and threw a fireball of his own, only to see it disperse against the enemy’s energy shield, and he quickly threw the metal shield back up again as he felt the first glimmerings of a mental attack. Whatever it was didn’t get through his mental shield, and he dropped his physical shield to throw a force punch of his own. The enemy mentalist yelled out as he did so.

“Now!” There was a crack of a high-powered rifle just as his force punch hit his enemy, and the enemy mentalist staggered backward slightly, but the force punch clearly didn’t penetrate his shield. At the same time, something hit him hard, knocking him back, and he found it hard to breathe. His vision started to tunnel as he and any felt himself falling to the ground as everything went completely black.