Chapter 36: Gag Order

Chapter 36: Chapter 36: Gag Order

A stream of fire screamed past his ear. A shard of ice burst against the wall behind him. A bolt of lightning cracked across the ground a foot from his boots, leaving a smoking black line.

’Hand in the mouth. That’s all I need. Basically try to vomit.’

It was a simple plan. It was also impossible to do while sprinting.

He needed maybe 5 seconds. 3 seconds, if he was lucky. A moment to stand still, shove his fingers down his throat, and let the beast do the rest. But every second he stood still was a second the Ground Dragon could spend taking aim. A single blast, and he’d be in the dirt with everyone else. He wasn’t ready to lose. Not here and not to her.

’No standing still.’

[ Even I could have told you that.]

He gritted his teeth and kept moving.

The solution, when it came, was stupidly simple. If he couldn’t stop, he’d make sure he didn’t have to. He would run straight at the dragon. Close the gap. Dodge everything on the way in. And when he got close enough, he wouldn’t stop at all. He’d go over her.

He turned and charged.

The suit pounded across the arena in great, thudding strides. Fire bloomed to his left. He jumped it. Ice sprouted from the dirt on his right. He vaulted it. A bolt of lightning whipped toward his chest, and he twisted sideways, felt it graze his shoulder, and kept going.

Thirty yards. The invisible line.

He hit it at full speed.

A wall of wind slammed into him like a giant’s palm. His armor groaned. His feet left the ground. For a heartbeat he hung in the air, spinning, the whole arena turning slowly around him.

Then he came down hard on one knee, skidded forward a few feet, and sprang up again.

Twenty yards to go. He was past the invisible line.

The dragon’s head swung toward him, eyes narrowing. Her throat flared orange.

He dropped. The fire roared over his head and he heard it hiss past the armor. He kicked off the dirt with both legs, launched himself forward, and rolled under a sweeping tail as thick as a tree.

Ten yards.

[She’s going to stomp.]

He jumped.

The dragon’s front claw crashed down where he’d been standing, and the whole arena shook. He soared over it, arms wide, boots skimming her scaly knuckles, and came down on the rough, ridged slope of her shoulder.

He landed on top of her.

For a second he couldn’t believe it. He was clinging to her back, one hand wrapped around her jagged spine, heat radiating up through the bark. The dragon let out a furious roar and began to thrash. She bucked. She twisted. She whipped her tail from side to side, trying to throw him off.

"Hold on," Jared muttered.

He wrapped both arms around her neck and clamped his legs against her ribs. The world swung wildly. The ground tilted. A wall flashed by. She slammed her shoulder against a pillar and he felt the impact in every bone, but he didn’t let go.

’I’m not letting go.’

She roared again, a deep, rattling sound that shook his teeth. She reared up on her hind legs. He clung to her mane of spines with one hand.

He used the other to shove two fingers into his own mouth.

It wasn’t easy. He had to reach through and , jam his fingers and push. His eyes watered. His stomach lurched. The dragon bucked again and nearly knocked his hand loose.

[That’s the single most disgusting thing I have ever watched.]

[It’s very brave.]

’Will you shut up already.’

He pushed.

His throat convulsed. His whole body clenched. A hot, sour surge rose up through his chest. His eyes squeezed shut, and his stomach rolled over, and he thought, for one terrible second, he might actually throw up.

’Come on. Come on. Come on.’

Something shifted.

The suit around him rippled. His mouth released a substance and out of it, in a thick, rolling cloud, poured a stream of green gas.

It wasn’t dramatic. There was no roar, no flash, no burst of light. It simply flowed out, pale and heavy, curling around the dragon’s neck like smoke from a damp fire.

Jared stared at it.

’Am I seeing that right?’

[You are.]

’That’s... that’s the gas.’

[That is a gas.]

’It worked.And it has color. ’

He couldn’t believe it. His heart leapt. He wanted to laugh, to shout, to punch the air. He had done it. After failing, after hours of straining and concentrating and cursing, he’d finally figured it out. All it had taken was a finger in the throat and a little desperation.

The dragon had had enough.

With a deafening snarl, she arched her back and heaved. Her whole body bucked like a bull.

A vicious twist of her shoulders sent him flying. He tumbled through the air, limbs flailing, and slammed into the dirt a dozen yards away.

He rolled to a stop, coughing.

His mouth was now leaking some gas. A gas he had no idea what properties it even possessed.

He tried to stop it. He clamped his jaw shut and pushed back on the gas, but it wouldn’t stop. It wasn’t a burst. It was a constant flow, a steady, hissing stream pouring from his mouth like water from a broken tap. It rolled across the ground in a thick green fog, spreading outward in every direction.

’I can’t shut it off.’

[That’s a problem.]

’Why is it a problem?’

[What do you think the gas is?]

Jared froze.

He lifted his head and looked at the cloud. It was rolling across the arena now, swirling around the fallen bodies, drifting up toward the ceiling. The smell hit him a moment later, faintly sweet, like ripe fruit.

’Oh no.’

It was a plant gas. A common one. The kind that ripened bananas and drifted off tomatoes. It was lightweight, colorless in small amounts, and very, very flammable. Ethylene.

A real, honest hydrocarbon, the sort of thing that turned a sealed room into a bomb with a single spark.

’Everyone’s going to...’

[I’d say you have about 2 seconds.]

The dragon was already turning.

She had spotted him on the ground. Her throat blazed orange, brighter than ever. She drew a deep, rumbling breath, and the gas swirled toward her open mouth, drawn in by the suction. A tongue of fire licked between her teeth.

"No," Jared whispered. "Wait. Don’t..."

She fired.

A column of flame exploded from her jaws, it tore across the arena in a single rush and met the gas.

The room went white.

There was a sound like the sky splitting in two. A massive, rolling boom shook the arena from floor to ceiling. A wall of fire roared outward, swallowing everything in its path. The green fog ignited all at once, a shimmering sheet of flame that raced across the pit in an instant. It rolled over the fallen applicants. It engulfed the beasts. It roared up the walls and licked at the iron chains.

Screams rose, thin and muffled. A dozen bodies vanished in the fire.

Jared curled into a ball, arms over his head, trying to seal the leak and felt the heat press down on him like a giant hand. The suit creaked. The bark on his back started to smoke. But it held. The swamp wrapped around him, damp and thick, shielding him from the worst of it.

He felt only a deep, searing warmth, as though he’d stuck his head in an oven.

Everyone else went up in flames.

Everyone but two.

Through the roaring blaze, he could see the Ground Dragon standing in the center of the pit, unharmed. She didn’t flinch. Her durability far outscaled the attack. She was an SSS rank beast, and she’d been born in fire.

And the SwampGorilla. It had been made from the swamp itself. Wet. Thick. Rooted in deep, cool water. The flames ran over it and sizzled and died.

’Zoey.’

She was lying in the dirt, unconscious, somewhere out in that inferno. She hadn’t moved. She couldn’t. And the fire was rolling over her just like the others.

"No," he gasped. "No, no, no..."

He lunged forward. The suit refused to move. His legs shook. His vision swam. He couldn’t see anything but orange and black.

Above him, something cracked.

It was a sharp, high sound, like a frozen lake splitting. He looked up through the smoke. A long fracture ran across the glass platform, then came a second crack and then a third.

Then the glass exploded.

Julius.

Even through the smoke, Jared could see the polished stance, the straight spine, the calm.

A hand rose.

A gem struck the dirt.

Something enormous unfolded in the haze. Wings. A shape. A pair of eyes that gleamed gold in the firelight. Jared saw only a blur, a shadow in the thick, billowing smoke, but he felt it.

The flames vanished.

It happened all at once. One moment the arena was a wall of fire. The next, the fire simply wasn’t there. The heat died. The roar died. The whole inferno snuffed out like a candle in a draft, as though something had reached into the world and erased it.

The ability had been negated altogether.

Jared lay on his back, staring up at the broken ceiling, gasping.

He didn’t see what had saved them. The smoke was too thick. A drifting black curtain hung between him and the shape in the center of the pit, hiding it from view. He caught only a flicker of wing, a pair of gleaming eyes, and then even that was swallowed up.

’Was that...?’

He couldn’t be sure. He had no confirmation. He had no proof that what had just saved everyone, Zoey included, was the very beast that had robbed him.

The smoke stirred.

Two shapes stood at the edge of the haze. One tall. One slouched. They didn’t move for a moment. Then a calm voice carried across the pit.

"Do you wish to continue?"

Jared didn’t answer.

"You’ve done enough," the second voice added, amused. "No shame in stopping here. Nobody else made it this far."

The owl, if there had been one, was already gone. Called back, he guessed, into its gem. There was no sound of wings. Only a silence.

Jared lay still, thinking.

They had been impressed. He could hear it in their voices. He had done more than anyone, with so little.

More than any of them had earned their place, and he more than anyone had earned his in a fierce guild, in one of the strongest teams in the country.

But that wasn’t what he wanted.

That wasn’t what he needed.

The two shapes retreated into the smoke. Footsteps faded. A faint, distant door clicked shut.

Jared stood up slowly. His legs shook. The armor creaked. He brushed the soot from his shoulders, turned, and looked across the scorched, smoking arena.

The Ground Dragon stood where she had been, tall and silent. Her eyes were fixed on him, steady, unblinking, and for one long moment, the whole world seemed to hold its breath.

He took a step toward her.

He turned to look at the Ground Dragon, and then he spoke.