Chapter 62: Spore Show

Chapter 62: Chapter 62: Spore Show

[Spores,]

"Spores?"

[Spores. Whatever the yellow gas touches, it seeds. The spores bloom within seconds, and roots start growing. They keep growing until they cover the object. Or the person.]

" Even a Person?"

[Person. Animal. Boss. Fence post. It’s not picky.]

Jared looked at the yellow haze drifting around the Hollow Stag’s legs. The stag had retreated a few steps and was sniffing at the air like a very large, very confused dog.

"So it’s a fertilizer."

[It’s a hostile takeover by a garden.]

"I’m going to be sick again."

[You’re not. That’s the best part. Remember when I said the gas came out of your mouth?]

"Yeah?"

[It doesn’t anymore. It doesn’t have to, at least. ]

He blinked. Then he looked down at his own chest, at the thick green armor wrapped over his shoulders and arms. A faint yellow shimmer was leaking from the seams of the vines, a soft, steady mist. It drifted off his arms like steam off a hot road.

"It’s coming out of the suit."

[All of it. Every vine. The photosynthetic reaction finally gave you control. You’re not required to gag it up anymore. You can emit it from any part of the gorilla.]

"Any part?"

[Elbows. Knees. The back of your neck. I wouldn’t recommend that last one.]

A slow grin crept over his face.

"I don’t have to throw up."

[You don’t have to throw up.]

"I never have to throw up again."

[You’re welcome.]

"I love this."

[I know. You love me. ]

He pushed himself to his feet. The Starfire hovered beside his shoulder, bright and buzzing, and he cupped a hand around it. It shrank to a gem and dropped into his palm. He tucked it away in the pouch with a quick pat.

"Rest up, little sun."

The Hollow Stag was watching him.

It had stopped retreating. It lowered its antlers.

"All right," Jared said. "Let’s try this."

He raised his right fist and smashed it into the ground.

A cloud of yellow gas burst from his knuckles and sprayed across the dirt. The spores took. He felt it rather than saw it, a faint, crawling prickle through the soil. A moment later the ground heaved, cracked, and a mass of thick, pale roots exploded upward around his boots, twisting and coiling into a massive, knotted trunk.

It was alive. He could feel the shape of it.

’Okay. That’s insane.’

He grabbed two of the branches that curled off the trunk and wrapped his huge gorilla hands around them. The roots flexed. They fit his grip like a handle.

"Batter up."

He swung.

The whole massive tree of root came around in a wide, sweeping arc and slammed into the stag’s flank.

The stag didn’t move.

It didn’t even grunt. The root trunk hit its ribs, bounced off, and sagged limply in Jared’s hands.

[Congratulations,]

"It did nothing."

[Come on, it tickled at least.]

"It’s an A rank. It’s supposed to be tougher than a plant. What am I doing?"

The stag roared.

It tilted its head back and let out a long, hollow, shuddering bellow that shook the dust off the ground. And then, quite suddenly, frost began to spread over its skin. White crystals crawled over its bones, thick and fast, running down its legs, across its ribs, around its antlers. Cold rolled off it in waves. The air itself seemed to stiffen.

Jared felt it hit him.

It started at his fingertips. The wet green skin of the suit began to harden, sluggish and slow, like syrup left in a freezer. The vines stiffened. The moss turned brittle. His shoulders grew heavy. His arms moved a half second behind his thoughts.

’It’s freezing.’

He noticed it immediately.

[Rex.]

’I see it.’

[There’s water in the swamp. That’s what’s freezing. You’re going to be a popsicle.]

’I see it!’

He acted.

He wrenched himself out of the suit, he stumbled free. The gorilla’s body stood up behind him, whole and separate, a huge green shape swaying in the cold. It turned its head and gave him a slow, steady nod.

It stepped between him and the boss.

The gorilla caught the stag’s next charge on its forearms. The two collided in a rolling crash of bark and bone. Ice cracked across the gorilla’s shoulders, but it held its ground, planting its feet.

Jared stood a few yards back, panting.

"Thanks, buddy."

The gorilla grunted.

He didn’t go back to it.

Instead, he stared at the huge green back, holding the line for him, and his mind flashed back to a different day. He’d had a plan, back then. He’d meant to charge in wearing the gorilla and then split away from it, to fight as two bodies. A beast and a master, side by side. He’d never done it. He’d been too scared, too busy, too cautious. He was referring to the day he faced his ground dragon in the Golden Bear tryouts.

’I never did that.’

He looked down at his own hands.

He had gotten lazy or rather complacent. That was the truth of it. He’d been wearing the gorilla for missions. And he’d gotten comfortable. He’d gotten reliant. One form, one trick, one safe little shell.

’I’ve become too weak.’

’What am I saying, I’ve always been....’

The thought stung.

’Too reliant on the suit in one form alone.’

[Look who’s growing,]

"Shut up."

[I’m serious.]

"I said shut up."

[It’s a compliment.]

"I can’t just stay in the suit and fight under cover," Jared said.

He said it out loud, to the cold air, to the gorilla, and most importantly to himself.

He walked up to the gorilla’s side and laid a hand on its arm. It glanced down. He didn’t ask for the whole suit. He just gripped the thick vines that wrapped its right forearm and pulled gently.

The vines unspooled.

He took only one large arm off the gorilla. It came away smoothly. It fit over his right shoulder, snaking down along his own arm until it ended in a huge green hand. He flexed it.

"This is plenty," he said.

[Is it?]

"One arm. That’s all I need."

[Fashion forward.]

He lifted the arm and looked at it.

Yellow gas leaked softly from the vines. The new gas, the spore gas.

The vines that made up the arm answered his thoughts before he finished them. He twitched a finger, and a handful of them unraveled, peeling away from the main limb in long, thin ribbons. He flicked his wrist. They shot out and wrapped around a nearby rock, tight as cables.

He pulled.

The rock came sailing across the dirt into his hand.

"Okay," he whispered. "That’s cool."

He tried it again. The vines whipped out, grabbed a fallen branch, and hauled it to him. He sent them swinging, looping them around a boulder, and used them to haul himself up onto it in one smooth pull. They moved like thick web. Like living rope. Like something between a whip and a spider.

Jared was training in the presence of a boss.

[It’s a very impressive arm,]

"It’s an arm alright."

He dropped off the boulder and stood still, staring at the thing on his shoulder.

A familiar weight settled in his chest.

’I’m a beast master.’

He’d said it so many times. In his head, in his bed, in the arena. I’m a beast master. I’m a beast master. But what had he actually been doing? Wearing a suit. Dropping a gem. Pointing and shouting. Using one beast’s strength and calling it his own.

’This isn’t even beast mastery.’

His jaw tightened.

’Not yet.’

He stood in the middle of the cracked plain, one arm of vines on his shoulder, the other bare.

A thought flickered through his mind.

Karl.

He’d seen it, back in the dungeon. Karl rising into the air without a wing. Karl crossing the field in a streak of speed and then punching an A rank boss into the sky. He had flown with the owl’s ability and run with the tigercat’s. Two beasts. Two skills. One body.

’He combined them.’

It was so simple. Or at least Karl made it seem that way. So obvious. So simple.

Jared began to smile.

"What?"

[That’s a bad smile.]

"It’s a good smile."

"It’s a plan."

[That’s what I’m afraid of.]

His grin widened.

It stretched across his face, slow and crooked, and a gleam crept into his eyes, a hungry, mischievous, slightly unhinged spark.

He rolled his shoulders. He flexed his huge green hand. He turned to look at the stag, grinding against the gorilla in a spray of frost.

He started to laugh.

It began as a chuckle, low and rough. It grew. It rose into a full, wild, delighted cackle, rolling out across the barren plain, bouncing off the walls of the illusion. He threw his head back. He laughed until his stomach hurt. It was a mad, maniacal, gleeful sound.

[That’s terrifying,]

"I know!"

[I’m going to need you to stop.]

"I can’t!"

Far across , on a ridge of rock, Karl stood with his hands on his hips.

He had been fighting a pack of smaller beasts. He had been minding his own business. And then he’d heard the laughter, a high, hysterical, echoing laughter, and he’d turned, and he’d seen a boy in the middle of the plain with one arm of vines and a face full of teeth.

"What’s going on?" he muttered.

Nobody answered.

Down on the plain, the gorilla was losing.

It held the line, but only just. The ice had climbed up its legs, crept across its chest, and begun to lock its joints. Its movements were slowing. Each blow it struck came half a second later than the last. Jared could see it. He knew it couldn’t take much more.

Soon the SwampGorilla was going to freeze.

[Mana: 13,982]

He had a few minutes. A few at most.

And he knew exactly what he was going to do.

He was going to take one of his other beasts, one with a power he’d never dared use in the open, and pair its ability with the vines on his arm. A second skill. A second source. Two beasts, one body, just as Karl had done.

But which?

There’s no time to waste.