Editing The Crow and Cloud Formation (section)

==The Formation Triumphs==
Essence-pollen poured off of [[Mayhiros Xenon]]'s skin and in through the hole he'd punched in [[Choshu Ishi]]'s armor.  The cloud grew thick, clogging the gunzosha suit's filtration baffles and seeping into Ishi's lungs.  He coughed.  Poison!  Xenon had found a way to lace his aura with the power of his anima.  Ishi's sword slipped a little in his grip and the image of the colossus towering above him began to crumble.

No!  His battle was not over yet!  

Ishi clenched his fist around the hilt of his straightsword, dug his feet into the ground and struck two desperate, heroic slashes across Xenon's thigh as the rider spun his horse around.  The Ivory Dragon felt Essence flow through him at his success, and he held up his sword, ready to catch the horselord's next blow.  

The lance flashed down, dragging the cloud of pollen, and a gout of blood from Xenon's injured leg, with it; another Heaven's Black Lightning Punch.  Ishi took the lance's tip on the flat of the blade, turning it aside from the sure path to his face.  Simple steel was no match for jade, though, and the sword shattered.  Ishi flew back from the force of the strike, crashing heavily into his own earthworks.  

Ishi, bladeless, fumbled for a new weapon while Xenon struggled to bring his direlance around to strike again.  Ishi found his moment first; a rock from his crumbled fortification fell into his searching hand.  The Ivory Dragon surged to his feet, pushing the rock at the front of an open-palm blow to Xenon's flank.  Ishi invoked the power of his own special technique, 'Submission to the Stone's Judgement,' and channeled the combined power of the Five-Dragon Force Blow and the Mountain Toppling Method through the rock into a devastating strike.  

Xenon flew from his horse and crashed to the ground; on the walls of Madai, his Black Thunder Lancers let out a collective gasp; Choshu Ishi smiled.

And then all was chaos.  Han Ying and Chan Fei and their Fangs drove sixty horses before the main gate and away across the plain.  Half of the Black Thunder Lancers threw open the gate and poured out, desperate to have their prize horses back; the other half struggled to close the gate again.  Soi Fang scattered them all with a Mob Dispersing Rebuke.  Xenon struggled to continue his duel but Ishi's remaining three Fangs advanced at a calm gesture from their commander.

At long last, Ishi's towering marble colossus lumbered back into the dust.  Mayhiros Xenon had escaped, probably to his manse, but more than a few of the Black Thunder Lancers stayed behind, curious to know more of this resourceful new commander.  Most importantly, Madai was free.  Encamped beyond the range town's walls that night, Ishi turned to Soi Fang.  "I see, now, what [[Cathak Nekuto]] was talking about that day.  I couldn't have won this fight without my men."

The relay smiled.  "I don't think this is exactly what he meant; you still did most of the fighting."

"You said yourself: his men outnumbered us five to one.  I had to do something to keep them out of the field."

"There are other ways."

"I know," Ishi said, and smiled.  "But this was more fun."


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[[Heaven's Mandate]]