Chapter 61: Not So Ready

Chapter 61: Chapter 61: Not So Ready

Karl dropped Jared off at the front gate.

"You’ve got 10 minutes."

"I only need 5."

"Then you’ve got 5 minutes of me being generous."

Jared sprinted up the driveway. He took the stairs three at a time, tore into his room, and yanked open the drawer under the shelf. The vial was exactly where he’d left it.

He shoved it into his pouch, checked the room once for anything else he might need, and thundered back down.

A mug sat on the kitchen counter with a note under it. Eat something. Z. He stared at the note for a second, grabbed a slice of bread, and left.

"Done," he said, sliding into Karl’s passenger seat.

"3 minutes. I’m impressed."

"Don’t be, I’m super motivated right now. Don’t get used to it." Jared smirked.

They drove.

The city slid by in a gray blur. Karl hummed along to a radio station playing something awful. Jared watched the buildings thin out into warehouses, then fields, then empty lots.

They didn’t talk much. At one point Karl glanced over and asked if he had an idea how much mana he had left . Jared said yes. Karl asked what it read like. Jared said enough. Karl said enough was a dangerous word.

Then they were there.

[Mana: 21,840]

The gate floated over a patch of cracked pavement behind a closed down gas station.

[Feeling ready?]

[To finally get back into it? After days of soup and daytime television?]

’I was never not ready.’

[You were very much not ready.]

"After you," Karl said, with a bow.

Jared rolled his shoulders and stepped through.

He made it about two steps.

Something hit him in the chest like a wrecking ball, and the world flipped. The sky spun. The ground vanished. He flew backward through the gate, tumbled across the pavement, and skidded to a stop on his back next to a rusted dumpster, staring up at the clouds.

[Health: concerning.]

He lay there for a long moment.

"I guess I wasn’t so ready," he said.

[I told you.]

He sat up, coughing, and checked himself. Nothing broken. Karl’s boots appeared beside his head, and Karl’s face leaned into view, wearing a very careful expression.

"Slammed?"

"Slammed."

"By the gate itself?"

"By something just inside it."

"Huh." Karl straightened. "I’ll go ahead. See if I can handle it. You take a minute."

He stepped through the shimmer and was gone.

Jared stayed on the ground.

[You’re sulking,]

’I’m recovering.’

[You were bounced like a rubber ball by a gate. A gate, Rex. Do you want a juice box?]

’I want a rematch.’

[Good. Then do it properly this time.]

He took a gem from the pouch and dropped it. The SwampGorilla rose, calm and mossy, and dissolved over him in a rush of green. Bark and root locked down over his shoulders, chest, arms, and legs, stopping at his neck. His head poked out above it, human and bare, hair sticking up.

"Okay," Jared muttered. "Round two."

He walked back to the gate and stepped through.

The force hit him again.

It was the same blow, a massive, shoving wall of pressure, like a bus rolling into his chest. But this time the suit took it. His feet dug into the dirt and slid back a few feet, trailing furrows. The bark creaked. His teeth rattled. He braced, grunted, and held his ground.

He didn’t go flying.

Through the haze, he saw what had done it.

The barren land stretched out in the usual flat gray, cracked and empty. Just ahead of him, rearing against the yellow sky, stood the boss.

[Hollow Stag (A Rank)]

It was a tall, gaunt, long legged thing like a deer built from driftwood and bone, with a rack of branching, pale antlers and two empty black sockets for eyes.

It stood directly in front of the gate, planted like a door in a frame. Its hooves were cracked and gray. One antler was still raised from the swing.

’It was waiting.’

He looked around.

No Karl to be seen. A faint disturbance in the dust, a trail of fresh footprints curving wide around the stag. A long, scuffed skid mark that ended in a dent in the barrier wall. Karl had gotten around it somehow. Flown, probably. Slid past on a gust of wind.

He was gone, somewhere in the haze, doing whatever he needed to get done.

Jared was alone with the boss.

The gate shimmered behind his shoulders.

[Hello, destiny,]

’Not now.’

[He’s so big.]

’I said not now.’

He slipped a hand into his pouch, felt around, and came out with a tiny speck of light that hummed against his palm. He opened his fingers.

Starfire floated up.

[Mana: 21,688]

The cost was small. The summon, a trickle. He eyed the glowing speck, then the stag. He remembered the finger blast, the one that had dropped him in a heap. His whole reserve, burned through a single fingertip. He could do it again. Right now. Skip the middleman. Skip having to use the beast itself.

’No.’

He remembered how much it had cost him. The headache. The infirmary. The week of soup. The entire week wasted leading to the devolution of one more SSS rank beast.

"As is," he told it. "Fire."

The Starfire flared.

A white beam lanced across the land. It was bright, clean, and fast. It crossed the distance in a blink, straight at the stag’s skull.

The boss stepped aside.

It simply moved, a single smooth sidestep, almost lazy. The beam passed through the space where its head had been and kept going, crossing the plain in a long, thin line, scorching the dirt, punching a hole in the distant wall of the illusion.

[Mana: 14,903]

’It dodged.’

[Hm.]

’It dodged after I spent all that mana on the Starfire beam.’

[It’s an A rank. They tend to do that.]

From somewhere far off in the haze, a voice floated back.

"What was that?"

Karl.

He stood on a distant ridge, small and dark against the sky, one hand shading his eyes. He’d seen the beam cross the barren land and was staring at the hole it left in the horizon.

"What was that?" he called again.

"A warm up!" Jared shouted.

The stag turned its head.

It looked at him with those two empty sockets. It lowered its antlers. And then it moved so fast the air cracked.

Jared barely saw it. One moment it was standing 30 feet away. The next its shoulder hit his ribs, and the world turned sideways. He flew through the air, hit the ground on his side, and rolled, bark splintering, dust flying. The suit absorbed most of it. Most.

He lay face down in the dirt.

Something hot and wet rose in his throat.

He coughed. It came again, a heave, a lurch, and he threw up. A thin, harsh, burning spray spattered the ground beside his face.

It wasn’t blood. It was a gas.

He stared at it.

It was yellow.

A faint, pale yellow mist curled up off the dirt, drifting, spreading, swirling in slow clouds. It smelled faintly sweet. Like freshly cut grass. Like something green and alive. It didn’t taste like anything. It hung in the air between him and the boss.

’Am I seeing this right?’

He pushed himself up on one elbow.

[Mana: 14,803]

The Hollow Stag had stopped.

It stood a few yards away, head tilted, antlers swaying. It seemed as surprised as he was. A thin tendril of the yellow gas curled around one hoof. It stepped back, shook its head, and snorted.

"System," Jared gasped. "Properties?"

[Analyzing.]

[Gas detected. Origin: your mouth, via the SwampGorilla suit. Composition: a compound derived from plant pigment.]

’Plant pigment.’

[Chlorophyll,]

[It’s an actual chemical, found in nearly every plant. It’s what makes leaves green. It’s what lets them turn light into food. The process is called photosynthesis.]

’I know what photosynthesis is.’

[Do you?]

’ Like why wouldnt I , I was a hospital aid remember.’

[Then you know that plants take in light and produce gas as a byproduct.]

’Oxygen.’

[Usually. Not always.] The panel pulsed.

[Here’s what happened. The gorilla’s vines are covered in chlorophyll. When Starfire fired that beam, it flooded the whole area with enormous amounts of light. The suit reacted. It photosynthesized. Fast. Violently. And the byproduct wasn’t oxygen.]

’It was this.’

[It was this.]

Jared stared at the yellow cloud.

’So the gorilla is solar powered now .’

[More or less. ]

’And that made me throw up.’

[That part was entirely your fault.]

He sat there for a moment, watching the gas drift, watching the boss watch it. The stag didn’t come closer. It circled once, warily, and retreated several paces.

’It’s afraid of it.’

[Possibly.]

’It doesn’t know what it does.’

[Neither do you.]

Jared swallowed.

He looked at the system panel then at the stag, at the yellow haze rolling slowly across the barren ground.

"So," he said, in a low, cautious voice. "What does it do?"