Chapter 66: Numb

Chapter 66: Chapter 66: Numb

The owl touched down in a field of dead grass, and both of them slid off its back.

A gate hung in the air a short walk away, a ragged, sputtering oval the color of a bruise. It crackled when the wind hit it.

Karl dropped a gem. The tigercat appeared in a streak of orange, stretched, and fell into step at his side. He rolled his neck and glanced at Jared.

Jared was bent over with his hands on his knees, wheezing.

"Hey."

"I’m fine."

"You’re green. Maybe even moreso than usual. "

"It’s the lighting."

"It’s a field." Karl gave him a long look. "Come in only when you’re ready. I’ll start without you."

Jared sighed.

"Just give me a minute."

[He said a minute,]

[The man who has never taken fewer than 40.]

’I’ll take one.’

[You’ll take 40.]

Karl and the tigercat stepped through the gate side by side, and the shimmer swallowed them.

Jared took much more than a minute.

He sat in the dead grass with his back against a fence post. He drank the last of the water in his bottle. He counted his breaths. He listened to a muffled boom roll out of the gate, then another, then a long rattling snarl. At one point he lay flat and stared at the clouds.

[That’s 15 minutes,]

’I know.’

[He’s been in there alone for 15 minutes.]

’I know!’

[It’s not a spa.]

He got up.

[Mana: 5,409]

He walked through.

Jared needed to get himself after that last gate and now it seems he has.

* * *

The world beyond was a gray quarry, pocked with craters and littered with broken shells. A hot wind blew. Far across the pit, a huge shape reared and bellowed, and Karl was a small dark speck dancing in front of it, with the tigercat streaking around his legs.

The boss was on Karl.

Jared didn’t wait.

He thrust both hands out. Thick green vines burst from his shoulders, coiled down his forearms, and knotted into two huge gorilla hands. He hadn’t dropped a gem. He hadn’t summoned a thing. The gorilla stayed in his pouch, humming, and the arms just appeared, as if he’d wished them there.

[Hm,]

’What?’

[Nothing.]

’You said hm.’

[I said nothing. I noted something. I’ll bring it up later.]

He didn’t take note of it. He was already running.

A horde came boiling out of the craters, a dozen shapes, then thirty, then more, scuttling across the gravel. They were giant beetles, the size of dogs, glossy black, with thick curved mandibles and wet, clicking jaws. One of them reared up and spat.

A glob of green liquid struck the rock beside Jared’s foot.

It hissed.

The stone bubbled and smoked and dissolved into a hole the size of a bucket.

[Acid,] the system said. [Corrosive. Be sure to avoid that.]

"Thanks!"

[I’m not trying to be being supportive.]

He swung. The first beetle burst under his fist like a ripe fruit. The second flew into the third. He kept moving, a whirlwind of vine and fist, smashing through them in a spray of black shell. Each hit rang through his arms.

[Acid Beetle (lv12)] defeated!

[Acid Beetle (lv13)] defeated!

[Acid Beetle (lv12)] defeated!

They kept coming.

He hit the ground with a hand, loosed a puff of green gas, and kicked off. The blast hurled him skyward. He flipped once, spread his arms, and hung in the air above the swarm, grinning.

The beetles couldn’t reach him.

They spat anyway.

He dodged. He swerved. He met them in the air, one by one, with his fist cocked and a spark in his thumb. Each time he touched a beetle, a burst of gas flared and went off, a quick green flash, and the thing came apart in a shower of shell.

[Acid Beetle (lv14)] defeated!

[Acid Beetle (lv12)] defeated!

[Acid Beetle (lv15)] defeated!

"This is fun!" he yelled.

[It really is,] the system admitted, a little startled. [You look like you’re having fun.]

"I am having fun!"

[It’s disgusting.]

A glob of acid caught him on the left arm.

It hit the vines with a wet slap. Smoke curled up. A sharp, bitter smell stung his nose. He looked down and saw the green moss turning black, the strands curling and dissolving.

[Rex.]

’I see it!’

He didn’t panic.

He unwound the arm, quick as breathing. The vines peeled apart and hung in loose green ribbons, the acid dripping off them. He shook them out, flicked them in the air, and then wound them back together into a thick, whole arm.

It worked.

The corroded strands fell away. The fresh ones locked in place. The arm was clean and green and whole, and the black stain had disappeared. He flexed his fingers. He grinned.

[That’s clever,] the system said, sounding honestly impressed.

"I know."

[Don’t let it go to your head.]

"It’s gone to rest of my whole body then. "

The sky was his.

He flipped, twisted, rolled through the air in a lazy, showy arc, ripping beetles apart as he went.

He cartwheeled over a spit of acid. He did a barrel roll around a mandible. He fired a burst at his own feet and spun like a top. Somewhere behind him, he heard a faint, disbelieving whistle from the ridge.

He landed on a monstrous beetle, the biggest of the lot, with a shell like a car hood. It scuttled under him. It spat. He lifted both arms, brought them down together, and smashed straight through its back.

The shell cracked.

A pale green spark flickered in his thumb.

He lit it.

The thing burst apart in a ball of green flame, and Jared leapt clear in a shower of sparks.

[Acid Beetle (lv19)] defeated!

He landed on his feet.

He stumbled. Caught himself. Stood, wheezing, bent over his knees, his chest heaving. A fine tremor ran through his thighs. Sweat ran into his eyes.

Another horde was boiling out of the craters.

It was bigger than the last. A hundred shapes, a wave of black chitin and clicking jaws.

[You need to rest,]

"I’m fine."

[You’re shaking.]

"I’m fine."

[Mana: 2,940]

’It’s dropping fast.’

[It’s your cap. It’s shrinking. And that last combo took 800 by itself.]

[You need to rest.]

He stood there.

He should have listened. He knew it. He had a doctor’s warning in his head, and a captain’s, and his own. He knew what a body looked like when it was running on fumes. But a picture floated up in front of him. He saw a girl, She was smiling. She was looking at a man in a long cloak, and her eyes were shining.

’Julius is so cool.’

He thought of the patrol. A secret mission. He thought about what he would need to qualify. He thought about how far he was from that.

He thought about the man himself.

Jared had never seen Julius fight. Not once. He had seen Karl, had watched him punch a boss into the sky. But Julius was.... Different.

’I’m going to beat him.’

It came out of nowhere. It was childish. It was stupid. But he felt it all the way to the bone.

"It isn’t time to rest yet," he said.

[Is this about the girl?]

He didn’t answer.

[It is. It’s about a girl.]

’It’s not.’

[You’re doing all this to impress a girl who isn’t even on this team.]

’It’s NOT.’

[It’s a little bit about a girl.]

He gritted his teeth.

He crouched, aimed his arms behind him, and jumped.

The blast kicked him forward. He soared over the swarm, a streak of fire and vine, and came down out of the sky toward the horde.

The ignition went wrong.

Something twisted in his hands. The timing slipped, the gas flared, and the whole blast went off sideways. He lost control. The world spun. He hit the ground like a thrown stone, bounced twice, and plowed through a dozen beetles in an explosive crash that sent a column of smoke boiling into the sky.

* * *

On the far side of the pit, Karl heard it.

He turned his head, just for a second.

The boss was a giant, upright, humanoid beetle, twice his height, with a glossy black shell and four jointed arms, each one ending in a bladed claw. It reared up and swung at him, and in the half second his eyes were off it, it saw its opening.

A claw came down.

A blur of orange hit it from the side.

The tigercat slammed into the boss’s forearm and knocked it wide, and the claw tore through the dirt where Karl had been standing. Karl stumbled back. The tigercat landed in front of him, tail lashing, snarling.

"Thanks," Karl breathed.

He risked a look across the pit.

"You alright?" he shouted.

Far away, in a crater of smoking beetle shell, a figure pushed itself up on one elbow.

"I’m good!" Jared called back.

He barely was.

He sat there in the wreckage, shaking, a thin line of blood running from his nose. His arms hung limp. His ears rang. His left hand felt strange.

It wasn’t just the pain.

It was something else. A kind of absence. A hollow, tingling, buzzing blankness, like a limb that had fallen asleep.

He looked down at it.

His fingers were curled against the ground. He tried to move them. Nothing happened. He tried again. A faint twitch, and a wave of dizziness.

"I can’t," he whispered.

[Rex?]

"I can’t..."

[Rex, what’s wrong?]

"I can’t feel my hands."

His voice came out thin and small. He lifted the left hand and stared at it, and the right one, and both of them hung like gloves on the ends of his arms.

The world tilted.

He collapsed.

* * *

Karl saw him go down. He didn’t get up.

Something went cold in Karl’s chest.

He didn’t hesitate. He pulled a gem from his belt and threw it down. It cracked against the stone.

Light flared. Heat rolled across the pit.

A beast rose out of it. It was huge, heavy, and wingless, with a thick tail lashed behind it. Its amber eyes opened and burned.

It was a dragon with no tail.

Its rank was unknown.

Karl cranked up the heat.