Chapter 64: Not Beginner’s Luck

Chapter 64: Chapter 64: Not Beginner’s Luck

With both hands, navigation got easier.

No doubt about it. Two arms of vines meant two thrusters. He could steer left and right at the same time, brake with one hand, boost with the other, swing around the Hollow Stag like a bat around a lamp. For about 3 seconds, Jared felt like a god.

Then the concentration hit him.

It was harder. Much harder. He had to hold two knots of gas in two hands, pressurize them separately, and time each ignition to a fraction of a heartbeat. Left. Right. Left. Right. Every burst took a bit of him. A bit of focus. A bit of breath. A bit of mana.

[Mana: 8,102]

’This is taking more of me.’

The more hands he used, the thinner he got stretched.

He launched himself at the boss’s flank, fired both arms at once, and mistimed.

The right blast went off a hair late. His body flipped sideways. He zoomed straight past the stag, missing it by a yard, and plowed face first into the dirt in a spray of dust and gravel. He rolled twice and came to a stop on his back.

[You flew 40 feet to miss a target the size of a house.]

"I said shut up."

The stag turned its head.

Jared saw it coming and didn’t move fast enough.

The antlers clipped his shoulder. A hard, sharp crack. He spun through the air, hit the ground, bounced, and skidded 20 feet through the dust before he came to a stop against a rock.

[Mana: 8,102]

He lay still.

He coughed. A small cloud of green gas puffed out of his mouth. He coughed again, and something rattled in his chest. A strange sound crawled up his throat.

He started to laugh.

It was a ragged, wheezing, crooked laugh. He pushed himself up on one elbow, then onto his knees, then onto his feet. He staggered a little. Blood dripped from his lip. His shirt was torn. His arms trembled with exhaustion.

He looked like a madman.

"Ha," he shouted.

[He’s cracking up,]

[Quite literally.]

"HA!"

He charged again.

He didn’t plan it. He just ran, then blasted, shooting forward in a streak of fire. He swerved left, then right, then up. He had a plan this time. He was going to adjust. He’d missed the timing last time, too early on the left, too late on the right. So this time he held the right a half beat longer. He fired. His aim was off by a foot.

’Closer.’

He swung around and tried again.

And again.

Each pass, a little tighter. Each time a tiny bit more accurate. He started to feel the rhythm of it, the push and pull of each burst, how long a flame took to catch, how much gas it needed. He counted in his head. One, and, two. One, and, two.

[Mana: 7,641]

[Mana: 7,208]

[Mana: 6,790]

He dove at the stag a fifth time, and this time his aim was dead on.

He came in low, at the beast’s side, in range. As he swept past, he felt the thick cloud of gas around his arms and legs, pooled across the dirt from all his passes. He realized how much of it was in the air.

’Now.’

He snapped his fingers.

A tiny spark of white light danced at the tip of his thumb, a pinprick of Starfire’s ability, applied in his regular form. It touched the haze.

BOOM.

The air erupted. A ball of green and white flame engulfed the stag’s whole left side. The blast knocked Jared head over heels. He tumbled through the dust, rolled, and came up on one knee, panting.

The stag staggered.

It shook its head.

It wasn’t enough.

He could see that. It stood. It breathed. It lowered its antlers again, as untroubled as a man shrugging off a bad joke.

’It still isn’t hurting it as much as I’d like.’

He thought.

For the first time since the fight began, Jared stopped moving. He stood in the dust, arms hanging, chest heaving, and he thought. He’d been flying about carelessly. Zipping around. Dodging, hitting, dodging. Burning mana in handfuls. It was fun, sure. It was spectacular. But it wasn’t working.

’I need to stop flying around like an idiot.’

He needed to hit it hard, not often. He needed to put everything into a single blast. Concentrate. Hold it. Make it count.

’I need it to stay put.’

[Oh,]

[That I can help with.]

He blinked.

[I have a solution.]

"You do?"

[A very simple one. The Dungeon Cat. One pat on the boss, and it slows to a crawl. It’s a gentle little thing. The boss will stand there like a statue. You’ll be able to hit it as many times as you like.]

It was tempting. Painfully tempting. He could see it perfectly. A flick of the wrist. A cat, rubbing against the boss’s leg, and then the whole fight turned into target practice.

He shook his head.

"No."

[No?]

"Too easy."

[It’s a solution.]

"It’s a shortcut." He wiped blood from his lip.

"I need to exercise myself. If I use the cat every time something’s too fast, I’ll never learn how to hit anything. I’ll just be a guy who owns a timecat."

[There are worse things.]

"I’m serious. I’ve got to figure it out as I am. I would accept if I could actually use the cat abilities on my own. "

[Fine.]

"How do I get it to stay put," he muttered, "while testing my current abilities?"

It was a strange question. He didn’t ask what he could borrow. He didn’t ask what he could summon. He asked what he could do with what he already had. It was a new way of seeing. A mindset.

It could become the way he approached every problem from here on, even later, even when the problems were far worse.

He looked at his hands.

He unwound a few strands of vine from one palm. They dangled in the air, thin and green, like a bundle of snakes. He frowned, flexed his fingers, and sent them snaking across the ground toward the stag.

’Come on. Wrap around. Pin it.’

The stag didn’t wait.

Cold rolled off its body in a wave. A thin layer of frost crept across the dirt. The air crackled. And along its antlers, along its ribs, along its back, long white icicles began to form, glistening and pointed, as thick as spears.

They shot toward him.

He barely had time to blink.

He thrust his arm behind him and fired. The gas ignited. The blast hurled him sideways, a green streak, and the icicles slammed into the dirt where he’d been, burying themselves to the hilt.

Another volley. He dodged. Another. He rolled through the air, skimming a hand’s breadth above the ground.

The combustive propulsion made it easy. Almost lazy.

’Good. That’s good. Now.’

He pulled a gem from his pouch and dropped it.

"Come on," he whispered. "Come up."

It was the gorilla. Of course it was.

The gem cracked.

Something strange happened.

The SwampGorilla did not appear whole. No broad shoulders. No calm, patient eyes. Instead, a mass of thick green vines burst out of the gem, whipping, writhing, uncoiling across the ground like a nest of snakes. They had no body. No face. Just a hundred ropes of moss and root, alive and thrashing.

[How did he...]

Jared didn’t wait.

"Wrap it!" he shouted.

The vines shot forward.

They sprang across the dirt like green lightning, up the stag’s legs, around its ribs, across its neck. They looped around its antlers and cinched tight. The icicles flew. The cold poured out. The vines blackened, stiffened, cracked.

But they held.

The icicles could do little to stop them. They stabbed and snapped and chipped, and the vines just kept coming. A hundred ropes. They wound around the boss in layer after layer, thick as a bridge cable, tight as a fist.

The stag struggled.

It roared. It heaved. It threw its head from side to side, rattling its antlers, stamping its hooves. The ground shook. But the vines didn’t give.

It was stuck.

Jared stared.

[That’s,]

[That’s new.]

[You made a net.]

He grinned. He couldn’t help it. He raised his vine hand, pointed it dead at the stag’s chest, and unleashed a huge, rolling cloud of green gas in a single shot. It burst from his palm and slammed into the boss. It coated the bone, pooled in the ribs, seeped into every crack.

He snapped his fingers.

The spark leapt.

BOOM.

The explosion lit up the whole plain. A ball of green and white fire swallowed the stag whole. The ground shuddered. A blast of heat hit Jared in the face and nearly knocked him off his feet. The smoke rose in a great, billowing column, black and gold.

When it cleared, the vines were charred. The bone was scorched. The stag stood, steaming, in its cocoon of vines.

Jared grinned.

’I did it.’

He thought it was over. He really did. He stood there in the dust, panting, a huge, triumphant grin splitting his face, thinking he had just won.

The boss grinned back.

That hadn’t taken it down.

Jared’s grin fell off his face.

’Okay.’

He was done being careful.

He blasted off the ground.

He rocketed upward in a spray of dirt and fire and landed on the stag’s back with a thud, right on the ridge of its spine, standing astride the bound beast like a man riding a bull. It bucked. The vines creaked. He gripped its antlers with his big green gorilla hands and hung on.

"Hey," he whispered. "Open up."

He yanked.

His arms were stronger than they had any right to be. They closed around the boss’s upper and lower jaws and pulled them apart with a groan of bone. The stag screamed. Blue light poured out of its throat.

Jared tilted his hand, aimed it down the beast’s throat, and released a huge amount of green gas.

It flowed into the hollow of the skull. It filled the neck. It poured into the chest cavity, thick as water. Jared’s own arm was shaking. His fingers burned. His mana ticked down in a steady stream.

[Mana: 5,230]

[That’s a lot of gas, won’t the explosion hit- ]

"I know."

"I KNOW."

He held out his thumb.

A tiny spark flickered.

"Sorry," he whispered.

He lit it.

He threw himself backward at the same instant, blasting off the stag’s back in a rocket of flame.

The stag’s body erupted from the inside, a fountain of green and gold fire bursting from its mouth, its eyes, its ribs, and Jared flew through the air in the middle of it all, laughing.

He hit the ground a hundred yards away and rolled.

Silence.

On the ridge, Karl stood very still.

He had watched the whole thing.

He stood in awe.

"Huh," he whispered.

That was all he could say.

* * *

Jared lay in the dust for a long while.

When the dust cleared, the sky above the barren plain was pale and still. A few wisps of smoke curled upward.

His whole body ached. His arms felt like wet noodles. His ribs hurt. His head throbbed.

He was sore. A bit. Okay, a lot.

[Mana: 4,918]

He stared at the sky.

[Well,] [That was a lot of fireworks.]

"It worked. Didn’t it. "

[It did.]

"I think I won."

[You might have.]

"I’m tired."

[You earned it.]

[I have an idea,]

"Hm?"

[You might want to go check what you just did.]

He blinked.

"What do you mean?"

[Go look.]

"I killed it, didn’t I?"

[Go look, Rex.]

Something in its tone made his stomach turn.

He pushed himself up. His legs wobbled. His knees buckled. He staggered a few steps, caught himself, and began to walk across the dirt toward the spot where the stag had stood.

The ground was scorched black. Smoke drifted up from cracks in the earth. A few bones lay scattered, charred and cracked.

He picked his way among them.

And then he stopped.

At the center of the crater, in a small hollow of ash, something was glowing.

It was a gem.

It was pale and cold.

He stood over it.

He didn’t breathe.

The wind sighed across the plain.

It was not a reward for a job well done. It was the beast last resort.When the pain was too great. When there was no other way.

He had burned it from the inside out. He had won. And yet.

"What have I done?" he said.