Chapter 63: Beast Combustion

Chapter 63: Chapter 63: Beast Combustion

The gorilla was losing.

Behind him, the Hollow Stag drove it back another step. Ice ran up its thighs. Frost cracked across its chest. The big mossy beast kept its arms up and kept its feet planted, but each blow landed a little slower than the last.

Jared stood a few yards away, one green arm of vines hanging off his shoulder, grinning like a lunatic.

"Okay," he muttered. " Combustion. Too plain sounding, Beast Combustion. "

[Beast what?]

"Combustion. It’s what I’m calling it."

[You can’t just name things.]

"I just did."

[Is it a real technique? Do you have an idea of what you want it to be?]

"It will be. I do. "

He flexed his fingers. He was going to use Starfire’s beam, the real beam, the type that had put him in an infirmary for 9 days. Not through a casual little blast from the arm. More as a party trick than a weapon.

And he was going to emit it together with the green gas.

Not the newly acquired yellow. The green.

He had already fooled Karl once, back in the barren plain, into thinking Starfire’s beam had come from the gorilla. If he could sell it again, bigger, with the green gas lighting up around him, nobody would ever guess where the fire came from. Nobody would suspect a second beast.

It would cost a lot. He knew that. This was the first he would use two beast skills at once after all.

He didn’t care.

[Mana: 13,982]

[You’re high,]

"I’m what?"

[You’re might be at least. You’re vibrating. You have the energy of a man who’s had way too much espressos and a good idea.]

"I feel great."

[That’s what worries me.]

[My hypothesis,bis that it’s because you haven’t been on the field in over a week. You’ve been cooped up. Soup. Television. Now you’re out, and the adrenaline’s hitting like a truck.]

Jared said nothing.

He was too stuck in his own head to answer.

First he needed the green gas out of the swamp arm.He closed his eyes and reached into the vines.

It didn’t work.

The arm twitched. A faint yellow shimmer leaked from the seams, same as before. He frowned, pushed harder, and the shimmer thickened. Wrong color. Wrong gas.

[That’s the spore gas,]

"I know."

[You’re making the wrong one.]

"I know!"

He tried again. He tried a third time. He pictured the arena, the volcano, the barren plain. The sweet, fruity smell. The pale green mist curling out of a gorilla’s mouth. He felt for the thread that led to it and tugged.

[Mana: 13,640]

Something clicked.

The yellow shimmer faded. A thin pale green haze seeped out of the vines, curling along his forearm. It drifted past his fingers.

"Got it."

[Finally.]

"Don’t act like you knew I could."

[I was wildly optimistic.]

He grinned.

He raised the arm and pointed his huge green hand straight backward, away from the boss, toward the empty sky. The gas gathered at the base of his palm, thickening, glowing faintly. He took a breath.

Then he disappeared.

* * *

It happened so fast that Karl, on the ridge, only heard it.

A sound like a cannon firing inside a bell.

Jared was in the sky.

He rocketed up in a streak of green and gold, spinning, whooping, a blur of limbs trailing a plume of fire. The green gas from his arm had ignited the instant it left his palm. A single spark, a pinprick of Starfire’s ability applied through his own regular form, was all it took. The gas lit. The blast shoved him skyward like a firecracker.

He grinned.

It was the widest, wildest grin he’d ever worn. His hair streamed back. The wind tore at his clothes. The ground dropped away beneath him.

"YES!" he screamed.

[I think he’s lost it,]

’Haha ahaha ah, argh!’

[He’s lost it.]

’I’m flying!’

[You’re falling upward with confidence.]

[Mana: 13,419]

He twisted in the air. He had no steering. No rudder. Just a hand full of burning gas and a general sense of direction. He pointed the arm sideways, and the plume swung. His body followed. He angled it downward, and the world tilted.

Jared dropped. He came down like a meteor, trailing fire, and then, a foot above the ground, aimed his arm behind him and fired. The gas ignited. The blast kicked him forward, around the stag’s flank, and he vanished from sight.

On the ridge, Karl lost him.

He’d been tracking the boy for 5 seconds. A green streak against the sky, an orange flare, a skid of dust. And then nothing. The kid moved too fast. He struggled to keep up. He squinted, tracking the flashes of flame as Jared began his fight with the boss.

"Okay," Karl whispered. "Okay. That’s new."

Down on the ground, the frozen gorilla stood like a statue.

It had already given out. Ice sheathed its whole body now, a thick white shell from head to toe, locked mid swing. The stag had shouldered past it, ignoring it, and turned its head toward the tiny, spinning, laughing thing that was darting around its legs.

Karl watched.

He saw it all. The ignition. The propulsion. The control, wild, but there. The kid had figured out something real. He felt a strange, sharp pride rise in his chest.

A beast leapt at him from the dust. A small hound.

Karl didn’t move.

"Tiger," he said.

The tigercat appeared in a flash of orange and tore the hound apart in a single pass. Karl didn’t even look. He folded his arms and settled onto a rock. The tiger was already summoned he only had it come to his aid.

He had stopped fighting.

Right now, he wanted nothing more but to watch Jared grow.

* * *

Jared appeared behind the boss.

He came out of the haze with his hand raised, and the stag turned to meet him, antlers lowered. Frost rolled off its hide. Cold hit him like a slap.

The flame guttered.

It guttered, just for a moment, and a bad little chill ran down Jared’s spine. The ice was too strong. The cold was killing his burn. He felt the propulsion falter, the plume sputter. He wondered if he’d emitted enough gas.

Then, a second late, it went off.

BOOM.

The blast threw him sideways. He tumbled, rolled, and came up grinning.

"Okay," he gasped. "Okay, okay."

He pointed the arm to the left of the beast and fired again.

His propulsion worked like this. He concentrated the green gas into a single point at the center of his palm, a tight, pressurized knot of it. Then he lit it. All at once. The knot burst. The blast shoved him in the opposite direction. He steered by aiming the knot, a hand’s width of control, a flick of the wrist.

[That takes insane concentration,]

"Like you wouldn’t believe."

[You have to hold the gas in a tiny space. Compress it. Time the ignition to the millisecond. If you get it wrong, you blow your own arm off.]

"I know!"

[It’s honestly impressive. It’s also deeply stupid.]

He shot to the right. The stag swung. He shot above it. It missed. He circled it, a streak of green flame, round and round, faster, tighter, laughing.

[Mana: 12,208]

It couldn’t keep up.

That was the best part. The stag was an A rank boss, a giant of bone and frost, and it couldn’t keep up. It spun and swiped and swung its antlers at empty air. Its hooves hammered the dirt where he’d been. He was a wasp. A bottle rocket. A hole in the air.

He hit it again and again.

Left flank. Right shoulder. Back of the neck. Each time, a puff of green fire, a hard punch with his vine wrapped fist, a cloud of sparks. Each time, the stag roared. Each time, he whipped away.

[Mana: 10,975]

[Mana: 9,840]

He kept going.

It was only near the end that he realized something was wrong.

He circled past the boss for the twentieth time, panting, grinning, and slowed to look. The stag stood in the middle of the dust, chest heaving, one antler cracked. But that was it. A crack. A scratch. A little chip in the bone.

It was barely scratched.

His attacks were making little dent.

’No.’

He had been dazzled. He’d been so busy flying, so busy laughing, that he hadn’t looked at the damage. Twenty hits. And all he had to show for them was a chipped antler.

[Hm,]

’I know.’

[You’re only a very fast mosquito to it. ]

’I SAID I KNOW.’

He skidded to a stop in the dust.

His mind raced. He was moving too fast, hitting too light. The vines were strong, but they were vines. The green fire was bright, but it was brief. He needed something heavier. He needed more.

He raised a hand.

The frozen gorilla, standing like a statue off to the side, vanished in a flash and collapsed into a gem. He caught it. He tossed it into the air and let it fall.

It cracked.

The gorilla rose again, fresh and dripping and thawed, and stood tall in the dust, and Jared walked up and took its other arm.

[Mana: 8,611]

The second arm came away with a wet tear. He fitted it over his left shoulder, and the vines coiled down over his own arm to the wrist and ended in a huge green hand. Now both of his arms were gorilla arms, thick and mossy, heavy as logs, hanging to his knees.

He turned to face the boss.

Gas hissed softly from the seams of both hands.

He stood there for a moment, looking at it.

The stag tilted its head.

’This isn’t enough.’

He knew it. Even with both arms, he wasn’t hurting it nearly as much as Starfire would. Starfire was a sun. She could carve it in half with a thought.

’What if I just use her? Just like that?’

’It’s too much.’

He had no mana for it. He was exerting himself too hard already. He had maybe 8,000 left, and the beam would eat the whole lot. He’d be unconscious again in a heartbeat. Back in the bay. Back on soup.

He stood very still.

And then, quite suddenly, he smiled.

It wasn’t a sensible one. It crept across his face like a crack through glass, wider, then wider, until it became something fierce.

"No way," he shouted.

His voice rang across the plain.

[Rex?]

"No way!"

[Rex, what are you doing?]

"I’m about to..... to win!"

He threw his arms wide.

"I will win!" he screamed, swaying a little, staggering, his words slurring together like a drunk at a party. His eyes were bright and unfocused. His face was flushed. "I will win as a beast master!"

"I WILL WIN AS A BEAST MASTER!"

He threw back his head.

And then he began to laugh.

It was the loudest, wildest, most unhinged laugh of his life. It rang in the air like a bell.

He laughed until his throat hurt.

He laughed until his ribs ached.

And he did not stop.