Chapter 25: Frozen Out

Chapter 25: Chapter 25: Frozen Out

This is the last of the free Chapters so I gave it everything I got and made it extra lengthy too. Enjoy.

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"Rocks," Jared said. " Everything you’ve got."

The Ground Dragon turned her head, her throat flickering orange. He closed his eyes and pushed the thought through the bond, stone, stone, as hard as he could. He couldn’t control the size. He knew that. The last attempt had produced a quarry. But that was exactly what he was counting on.

The dragon opened her jaws.

What came out was a roaring, tumbling avalanche of rock. Boulders the size of barrels. Slabs as wide as doors. Fistfuls of gravel and sharp, glittering shards, all of it blasting out in a ragged cone and slamming into the trees. The forest erupted. Trunks split. Branches exploded into splinters. A thunderous crash rolled through the dark, so loud it rattled his teeth.

[This is the least subtle thing I’ve ever witnessed.]

"That’s the idea!"

[You’re counting on a tantrum.]

"I’m counting on a ruckus!"

The ManShrubs shrieked. Dozens of knotted, thorny shapes lurched out of the dust, whipping their limbs in confusion, tripping over one another. A rolling slab clipped three of them at once and sent them cartwheeling into the dark. Another boulder pulped a fourth. The ground shook with every impact.

[ManShrub (lv3)] defeated!

[ManShrub (lv4)] defeated!

[ManShrub (lv3)] defeated!

"Yes!"

Then one burst through the smoke on his left.

It was fast. Faster than the first, and bigger, its branches spread wide like grasping arms. It lunged straight at him, thorns flashing, a rasping scream tearing out of its hollow face. Jared didn’t have time to think. He sucked in a breath, tilted his head, and exhaled.

A blast of white frost shot from his mouth.

It hit the ManShrub square in the chest. The creature froze midstride, its limbs locked mid reach, a layer of glittering ice crawling across its bark. It stood there like a statue for a heartbeat, then toppled backward and shattered on the ground in a spray of frozen splinters.

[ManShrub (lv5)] defeated!

Jared stared at his own hands.

"I didn’t even need to gag," he whispered.

[A major improvement. Truly. You’ve gone from vomiting to exhaling.]

He grinned. A fierce, bright grin spread across his face, and in that moment he had a thought.

’If I can freeze with breath, can I change it?’

He turned toward the next ManShrub, a thin, spindly thing creeping between two trees. He took a breath and reached for the bond, pushing the thought outward. Ice, then something else. Steam. Water. Anything. Change it. Change it.

He exhaled.

A cold white jet burst out, the same as before. It hit the shrub and froze it solid. The thing cracked and fell to pieces.

[ManShrub (lv3)] defeated!

"That didn’t work," Jared muttered.

[It was still a decent kill.]

"I wanted it to change." It wasn’t enough.

[You want a lot of things.]

It didn’t stop him. He tried again. He picked the next shrub. He inhaled, focused, pictured the ice shifting into something new. His breath rolled out cold and sharp and simple. Frost. The shrub froze,and subsequently fell.

Meanwhile, the Ground Dragon was doing exactly what she needed to. She tore through the underbrush with heavy, relentless strides, snapping vines, crushing roots, her tail sweeping a clear arc through the undergrowth. Every few steps she spat another burst of rock, and another shrub went down. She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t need to be told.

Jared watched her for a second, and something prickled in his chest. Pride. Envy.

’She’s better at this than I am.’

The thought made him angry.

He leapt down from her back, hit the ground running, and charged at the nearest ManShrub. It was a big one, as tall as a door, its branches thrashing. He didn’t have a plan. He just clenched his fist, drew back his arm, and punched it as hard as he could in the center of its trunk.

CRACK.

The bark split. The shrub reeled back, shrieking. But something in his wrist twisted wrong. A sharp bolt of pain shot up his arm. His fingers bent sideways with a sickening snap.

He yelped and staggered back, clutching his hand.

It didn’t bleed. No cut.

[Rex.]

"I’m fine."

"It was only a shrub."

[One with a bad attitude. I might add. ]

The ManShrub recovered and swung. A thick, gnarled limb whipped toward his head. Jared threw up his good arm, braced, and thought, quick and panicked, ’Help.’

The Ground Dragon leapt.

She cleared the space between them in a single bound, landed heavily beside him, and let out a roaring blast of fire. The flames hit the ManShrub in the chest and the whole creature went up in a white hot burst. It shrieked, thrashed, and collapsed in a blackened pile of cinders.

[ManShrub (lv4)] defeated!

Jared let out a long, shaky breath.

Then he turned and glared at her.

"I didn’t tell you to use flame."

The dragon blinked.

"I DIDN’T TELL YOU TO," he said again, louder. "I TOLD YOU ROCKS. WE’RE IN A FOREST. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? THERE ARE TREES EVERYWHERE. YOU CAN’T JUST..."

She lowered her head, ashamed, a thin puff of smoke curling from her nostrils.

[I don’t know if you’ve noticed,] the system said, [but this isn’t really the time.]

"When is it ever the time with you?" Jared snapped.

[Look around.]

He turned.

He counted. 8. 9. Maybe 10. Their hollow eyes glowed faintly. Their branches twitched.

He stared at them.

A slow, strange smile crept across his face.

"I’m ready," he said.

[Ready for what?] The panel flickered, and for once its voice cracked with something very close to panic. [Rex. What are you ready for? Don’t do the thing. Whatever the thing is, don’t do it.]

Jared straightened, rolled his shoulders, and raised his good hand.

"Turn," he said. "Turn around and fire."

The dragon hesitated.

"All the way around. Don’t stop. Go."

She spun.

It was a full 360. Her heavy body pivoted in a slow, rolling circle, claws gouging the dirt, her tail sweeping the shrubs aside. Her throat blazed orange as she turned. A thick stream of fire poured out of her jaws in a perfect, widening ring.

And Jared thought.

He thought of Ice. He felt the bond stretch. He felt something inside him strain and then snap open, like a door that had been stuck for years.

The flames of the ground dragon changed to ice.

They didn’t just freeze. They changed all at once, a rolling wave of blue white frost that blasted outward in every direction. The ring of fire became a ring of ice.

The ManShrubs froze where they stood. Branches turned to crystal. Leaves became glass like. The ground cracked and shone.

The wave rolled on and on. It spanned more than a couple of meters. It covered the whole clearing, then the trees beyond it, then the underbrush and the ditches and the road. For a long distance, the city wilds were nothing but ice.

Silence fell.

Frozen shrubs stood in a circle around them.

Jared swayed.

His legs wobbled. His vision spun. He fell to one knee, panting, sweat running down his face.

[Mana: 94,877]

He stared at the number.

[That was more than 4000 mana points. You’ve never spent that much on a single attack.]

"I know," he gasped. "It took a lot."

[It did.]

"But I did it. I actually did it. That was real transmutation. That was actually..."

[It was impressive. I’ll give you that.]

He laughed, weak and breathless, and let his head hang. The ice glittered around him in the dark. His arm throbbed. His throat burned. For the first time all day, he felt something close to triumph.

Then the air changed.

A deep rush of wind swept through the frozen trees, whistling past the crystal branches. A shadow passed over the moon. Something large and soundless dropped out of the sky and landed in the center of the clearing with a soft, heavy thud.

Jared lifted his head.

It was an owl.

A giant one, bigger than a horse, its feathers a deep gray that shimmered. Two huge golden eyes gleamed in the dark. Its beak was curved and sharp, its talons as long as swords. It stood perfectly still on the ice, head tilted, watching him.

’How did it get through?’

The thought arrived slowly. The whole forest was covered in ice for quite some distance. Every branch, every gap, every corner of the canopy. There shouldn’t have been room for something that size to land. And yet it was here, unharmed, untouched by the frost.

’That’s strange.’

He wasn’t going to wait for answers.

"Fire," he barked. "Fire everything you’ve got."

With all that ice around them, he could afford to go all out. There was nothing to burn. The dragon reared back and unleashed a blast of white hot flame. It roared across the clearing in a blinding stream, melting ice, flashing steam, and slamming into the owl with the force of a collapsing building.

It was quite a sight. Jared’s skin prickled. The hair stood up on his arms. He felt ecstatic, drunk on it, and he threw back his head and laughed.

"Stand down," he called, when the flames finally died.

The dragon stopped.

The steam cleared slowly. Water dripped from the trees. A haze of smoke drifted across the clearing.

The owl was still standing.

Not a feather was singed. Not a talon scorched. It sat on the ice, perfectly calm, its golden eyes glowing in the dark, one claw lifted as if it were about to preen.

Jared’s smile faded.

"How?" he whispered.

[That’s not normal.]

"I know it’s not normal!"

He tried again. "Water. Hit it with water!"

The dragon coughed out a thick, rushing torrent. It slammed into the owl and rolled harmlessly off its wings. The bird didn’t even blink.

Jared sprinted to the other side of the clearing, skidded to a stop, and breathed out a stream of ice. It hit the owl in the chest and stopped. The frost simply wasn’t reaching the owl. Like there was some barrier between them.

He stood there, panting.

[Interesting.]

"It’s not working."

He narrowed his eyes. A pattern was forming in his head. Fire. Water. Ice. Each one had hit the owl, and each one had fizzled out. It wasn’t dodging. It wasn’t blocking. The attacks were simply failing.

"It’s negating them,it’s negating them somehow" he repeated slowly.

[That’s my guess.]

"It’s negating our abilities."

[Which means...]

"It’s high ranking." His stomach dropped. "It’s really high ranking."

This wasn’t a wild beast. This wasn’t something that could be beaten by brute force. Whatever it was, it was far beyond what he could handle.

"Okay. We’re leaving."

He raised his hand. "Come back. Come back, girl. We’re retreating."

The Ground Dragon turned, her form shrank, folding inward, a flash of red light swirling around her. In an instant she was a gem again, glowing in the air, arcing toward him in a bright ruby streak.

He held out his hand.

It never arrived.

A blur of gray shot across the clearing. A pair of talons snapped shut in mid air. The owl swooped, plucked the gem out of the sky, and rose in a single silent beat of its wings.

Jared froze.

"What?"

The owl flapped up to the nearest tree, the gem clutched in its claws.

"What’s going on?" he whispered.

Then it hit him all at once. He sprinted forward, waving his arms. "Hey! Give that back! That’s mine!"

The owl ignored him.

"Come back here! Come back!"

[Rex.]

"GIVE IT BACK ack!"

[Rex, listen.]

He fumbled at his belt, ripped open the pouch, and Looking for some other gem. There was none. He had left the others at home.

He tried to pull her back through the bond, thinking her name, thinking the order, pushing with everything he had.

Nothing happened.

[You have to have the gem make contact with a surface. You know that.]

"I know that!"

[You aren’t the one with the gem right now.]

He stood in the middle of the frozen clearing, staring up into the dark. The owl had landed in a huge tree at the edge of the wilds. It was a truly giant thing.

’That’s not a wild beast.’

The thought crept in slowly.

’Wild beasts don’t steal gems. Wild beasts don’t plan. That owl was sent.’

It wasn’t a rogue beast. It was under a beast master.

A voice drifted down from the dark, low and amused.

The master had summoned the beast within the gem. A deep rumble shook the tree, and a dark shape shifted on the branch above.

"Well," the voice said. "Well, well."

Jared’s blood ran cold.

"This beast," the voice murmured. "This beast is SSS rank."

He couldn’t see the speaker. He could only hear him, calm and delighted, with a faint laugh in his throat.

"To think the lad who caused such a commotion at this hour would give me such a gift."

"No," Jared whispered.

There was a rustle in the branches. A heavy thud. The sound of someone settling onto the back of something large and warm and winged. The owl let out a soft hoot, and the master hopped onto his owl, snatched the gem, and took off.

Wings thundered. The tree shook. A wave of wind rolled across the clearing and sent a shower of ice crashing down.

Then there was only silence.

Jared stood there.

He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. He just stared at the empty branch, at the dark, at the place where she’d been.

Then he screamed.

It was an ugly, raw, wordless sound, ripped out of the very bottom of his chest. It echoed through the frozen forest and bounced off the trees and rolled away into the dark. He screamed until his voice cracked. He screamed until his throat bled.

Then his legs gave out.

He fell to his knees on the ice. His hands hung limp. His breath came in short, jagged gasps. The forest was silent again, glittering and cold, and he knelt there in the middle of it, surrounded by the shattered remains of the fight.

Hours passed.

The moon crossed the sky. The remaining ice began to melt, drip by drip, forming small, shining puddles. A pale light crept over the trees. A bird, somewhere far away, began to sing. Jared didn’t move. He knelt there, surrounded by the little bits of ice that still hadn’t melted, a boy in a coat and boots in the middle of a ruined forest. The cold began to take it’s toll and he began to shiver.

’How did I lose her?’

The thought circled slowly.

’How did I lose the one I put the most into?’

He had trained with her since he arrived He had learned her habits, her moods, the way she tilted her head when she was waiting for an order.

She had been his first. His only. The beast he had entrusted with everything. She was the start of his new life in this new world.

’My Ground Dragon.’

[Rex.]

He didn’t answer.

[Rex. Listen.]

[Look. I’m not good at this. But at least you still have 9 SSS rank beasts.]

Jared said nothing.

The silence stretched. A drop of water fell from a branch and landed in a puddle.

[...Too soon?]

He still didn’t answer.

"Jared!"

The voice came from far away. It was thin and high and frantic, carried on the wind. He didn’t turn. He didn’t even lift his head.

"Jared! Jared, where are you? I’ve been looking everywhere!"

Footsteps pounded through the underbrush, crunching on melting ice. A girl with messy braids and a rumpled jacket, her face flushed, her eyes wide.

Zoey.

"I’ve been searching for you," she gasped. "I woke up and the door was locked, and I couldn’t find you, and I assumed... and I..." She broke off. "What happened?"

He didn’t look at her.

"Jared. What happened? Why are you...?"

"I lost it."

Her mouth opened.

"I lost it, Zoey." His voice cracked on her name. "I lost my dragon."

"What?"

"I lost my beast." The words came out in a rush, shaking and wet. He lifted his head, and his face was streaked with tears. "I lost her. Someone took her. I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t..."

He started to cry.

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t dramatic. It was a ,helpless sound. His shoulders shook. His hands curled into the ice.

Zoey stood there, stunned.

She stuttered. She opened her mouth and closed it. Then her legs seemed to give out, and she dropped to her knees beside him on the frozen ground. Without a word, she reached out, gathered him against her chest, and laid his head down on her shoulder.

"It’s going to be alright," she whispered.

"It’s not." He said with tears still rolling down.

"It will be."

"You don’t know that."

"I don’t," she admitted. She stroked his hair, slowly, the way she might have done for a scared kid. "But I’m here. I’m right here."

He squirmed against her, trying to pull away, trying to hide his face. She held on tighter. He gave up. He pressed his forehead against her shoulder, and he cried.

’I lost her’

Sniff.

What does it mean to lose to a person who’s never had anything to lose before?