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((The Father's Day Special -- page 17 of 24))
"But the clouds should be your priority," Hector went on. "The last thing we need right now is another storm like the one at the airport."

Roman exchanged glances with Voreese who was still attached to his shoulder, and then he gave Hector a nod. He crouched down a little, and when he leapt away from the ground, the force he left in his wake was strong enough for Hector to feel it through his armor but not enough to push him back.

Hector watched him zip off into the sky and puncture the clouds like a bullet. Roman immediately curved around for a second pass, then a third, and just kept going. The moon was fighting to become visible again, and the porous clouds were fighting to keep it hidden, but Roman was clearly making progress.

Why those clouds seemed so resilient, Hector didn't know. He'd noticed that before, too, back in the cave. Maybe there was more to Chort's ability to control the weather than he'd realized.

But with the clouds neutralized for the moment, Hector had a feeling that the monsters would now attack. They'd probably been waiting for a storm to provide them with cover or something, so now that it wasn't going to happen, they would have to adjust their strategy. They could do something completely different, of course, but Hector suspected that they would go after Roman in order to start to building up their storm clouds again.

And he wasn't going to let that happen.

So when the shaking earth became more violent than ever and the monsters finally started popping up out of the ground, Hector was ready. And so were the Rainlords.

Fidel Blackburn's copper was right there alongside Hector's iron, bisecting the creatures with metal blades as they were appearing.