Mako had released a massive ray of green energy from his hands just as the giant Puffclaw was upon him and it was strong enough to push the Puffclaw back, burning its fluffy fuzz and tearing away its flesh, spraying blue blood everywhere and finally hitting the gem right in its abdomen.
Unlike the fuzz and the flesh, the gem was quite hard and didn't immediately disintegrate from the power of the green ray as the giant Puffclaw just got pushed back by the force of the green ray.
Bill and Iris were both shocked that Mako had such a strong ability that he had not shown up to this point and that it looked like it could almost one-shot the giant beast.
They watched as the green ray continued to push the giant beast back while continuously hitting on the gem. It looked like the beast would fall over at any moment but then all of a sudden, the ray of green light stopped pushing the beast back anymore as it stood its ground and even began to slowly take a step forward.
Mako who was releasing this ray of green energy was facing no resistance up to that but then all of a sudden, he started to feel an opposing force that was canceling out his energy beam.
Suddenly, a flash of dark pink light erupted from the gem before a visible beam of red energy began to release from the gem itself countering the green ray that was attacking it before.
The red ray began to grow in length and quickly take up more and more room from the green ray as Mako could now feel the force of the incoming ray which was much greater than his own which was why it was able to overpower it so quickly and now was barely able to counter it himself.
The red beam was gaining more and more toward him and Mako could do nothing besides watch his energy points go down as he maintained the green energy beam, the only thing that was slowing the time till his death as he couldn't break away from the beam fast enough to escape its radius and will be completely obliterated by it.
Mako had no idea that the gem on the Bulked-Up Puffclaw could also release a beam of energy, one that was more powerful than what he could produce.
He had aimed at the gem because to him it looked like it was a weak spot of some kind and if he managed to crack the gem, the beast would die or something, but it wasn't that at all as it was just a storage unit for all the emotions that the Puffclaw had collected and could then manifest those emotions in the form of a powerful energy beam.
The red beam had completely overtaken the green beam at this point and Mako was inches away from death, when all of a sudden, Mako felt the ground to his left vibrating a little bit.
Mako was a bit late to understand as by the time he did a blunt stone spike erupted from the ground and hit right on the side of his ribs, dealing a good blow and launching him to the right so fast that the beam of energy wasn't able to hit him in time.
With no more opposition, the red beam completely went through and collided with the river bank and blew up a lot of dirt and water into the air.
The beam was quite hot, hot enough to vaporize small particles of dirt and evaporate a lot of water causing a lot of steam to rise and cover the battlefield.
The dust, smoke, and mist were enough to completely hinder the beast's vision and it had lost visual contact with all three of its prey. The Puffclaw was angered by this and having no means to blow the mist away, it was stuck attacking blindly into the mist hoping to hit one of them.
Mako on the other had been launched by the stone spike in a random direction. The hit was quite decent so much so that Mako believed that his ribs might be broken from that hit. He had hit the ground a good distance away from the giant Puffclaw and momentum carried him further away as he skidded off the ground.
Although not the grandest and most painless escape of all time, Mako was still grateful as he knew it was Bill's doing who had saved him just as he was about to be vaporized by the red beam.
He skidded a couple more times which made his ribs hurt even more and eventually came to a stop next to two pairs of feet. Mako was in quite a bit of pain but nothing he hadn't dealt with before. He looked up to see both Bill and Iris staring back down at him, both were completely wet and their eyes were still red and watery from the emotional rollercoaster that they just went through.
"Couldn't you have hit me a bit less hard?" Mako asked in a slightly joking and cheery tone to try and raise their spirits a bit after what they had just gone through but it didn't work as neither of them showed any emotion back.
"Sorry 'bout that, I had to make sure you were hit with enough speed so that you could escape the range of that blast." Bill apologized in a gloomy tone for the harsh hit.
Iris bent down towards Mako and slowly lifted his shirt to reveal the bruised area where he was hit with the stone pillar, and without saying a single word just closed her eyes and began to heal him.
Bill walked forward a bit and stood in front of both of them as if to guard them against the giant shadow of the beast that was being projected on the mist in front of them.
Absolutely no words were exchanged between them but somehow it didn't feel awkward at all as Mako felt feel the seriousness and anger inside both of their hearts.
"Tell me, Mako... What happened to us exactly?" Bill finally asked without facing him.
Mako was a bit reluctant upon telling them the details of what happened up till now while they were hallucinating because it felt like he would rub salt on their freshly cut open wounds but given the seriousness of the situation, Mako complied and narrated the entire sequence of events that took place after he opened his eyes.
As Mako narrated, he could see Bill's hand getting tighter and tighter with veins starting to pop all over while Iris's hands were visibly shaking with tears still falling from her closed eyes.
It only took Iris a couple of minutes to finish healing Mako but by now the giant Puffclaw was fed up attacking blindly because it was getting it nowhere. It had now switched tactics where it was once again utilizing the red beam only this time with less intensity and in short bursts to try and hit them.
Seeing that it was now shooting beams again, the trio couldn't stay still even though fortunately, they didn't have to move yet because the beast could accidentally target the shelter and hit Erin and Leon who were still inside.
"It's time we put an end to this!" Bill said as he began releasing his aura.
"Yes... This has gone on for long enough!" Iris said with anger as she also began to release her aura with her eyes still closed.
Both of them were releasing their aura and were reaching the limit of a Level 3 ability user but they didn't stop there as Mako began to feel pressure building around his neck because even though both of them were at their limit, they continued to push their auras more and more and exceeded past the stage of a Level 3 ability.
Both Bill and Iris had broken past their limits right in front of Mako and achieved a higher stage of their ability; however, the pressure didn't stop building as even after auras had reached the stage of a Level 4 ability, the pressure just continued to increase to the point that Mako was getting suffocated a bit and to counter it he had no choice but to release his own energy manipulation ability aura.
"Yes... I agree with you guys! Let's take that thing down!" Mako said hyping himself up as well to match both Bill and Iris.
"NO!" Both of them shouted in unison.
Mako was visibly confused as he didn't understand why they would not allow him to join them since they were all on the same side.
It was at this time that Bill turned his head back and around to face Mako and Mako was left in shock by what he saw.
Bill's eyes were glowing green!
"Sorry, Mako but I can't let you fight this one anymore! He has made this too personal!" Bill said as he addressed the reason why he didn't want Mako to participate in the battle.
"Yes, it has indeed!" Iris joined in as she also agreed with Bill while grinding her own teeth out of anger and to stop herself from crying.
She stood up from next to Mako and opened her eyes as well and to Mako's absolute surprise, Iris' eyes were glowing blue!
Both Iris and Bill stood side by side in front of Mako who was still on the ground and stared at the giant shadow of the Puffclaw in front of them shooting red beams in random directions.
"Let's get that bastard!" Bill shouted as he began charging up his wind ability.
"Yeah!" Iris shouted in agreement as she drew multiple snakes of water from the lake.
Both of them were ready to take on the Bulked-Up Puffclaw on their own!