Chapter 66

CHAPTER SIXTY SIX

<Watcher> I’m back. What’s your situation? Is everything okay?

<Penelope Green> Oh!

<Penelope Green> Hi!

<Penelope Green> Oops.

<Watcher> Oops?! What’s oops?! What’s wrong? What happened?!

<Penelope Green> Nothing.

The sound of a massive explosion reached him seconds later—even from what had to have been kilometers away. The earth tremors and shockwave followed shortly after. Neither were enough to hamper his stride, but then, he was a bit of an anomaly at the moment. As he ran, he remained on hold with the lizard men—in the meantime using the two way connection to greatly narrow down his avenues of search, from a dozen odd possibilities, down to just one.

<Watcher> Was that you? Because it didn’t sound like nothing.

<Penelope Green> It slipped.

Richard blinked at the painfully brief message, thought about inquiring what “it” could possibly be, then realized he was probably better off not knowing and promptly changed the subject.

<Watcher> Are you safe?

<Penelope Green> Mhm.

<Penelope Green> Miss you.

<Watcher> I missed you too, bud. So, tell me, if you’re safe, does that mean the- uh, bad cat man has given up the chase?

<Penelope Green> No. He’s here.

<Penelope Green> Say hi?

Richard grinned to himself. Snorting quietly.

<Watcher> Maybe next time. If he’s still after you, do you think you can head to where I am? That way we can face him together.

<Penelope Green> Okay!

<Penelope Green> How?

<Watcher> Oh, that parts easy. Just follow the sounds of explosions.

+++

“Boss!”

The Ra’ak Neerian burst onto the scene. Shouldering past the reptilian guardsmen posted at the entrance flaps of the discount circus tent—wildly flapping talisman upraised.

A large table dominated the center of the impressive space. Heaped high with all manner of guns, currency, and other illicit substances—basically everything that came to mind when one heard the words “criminal paraphernalia.” At the intrusion, all five of the senior gang members standing around the long table snapped their heads around in his direction.

Hard lined and narrow eyed—not a friendly face among them.

Suddenly the messenger was feeling a lot less sure about all this, and a whole lot more wobbly about the knees. Nevertheless, he persevered.

“B-boss! We got a call, but he’s not one of ours. Says he know’s you? Says it’s urgent!”

The boss in question, who’d been hunched over a gradually rotating holo-screen of some kind, slowly rose to his full, imposing height. Just then, two enormous bodies tackled the messenger from behind. Wrestling him to the ground. The talisman sent flying in the short scuffle. Arms summarily wrenched behind his back, and face pressed into the dirt floor, he saw the moment when the talisman gently settled down to earth. Heavy footfalls approached, though all the messenger could properly focus on was the knee painfully digging into his back.

Claw tipped fingers reached down and plucked the talisman from the floor.  Barely daring to breathe, Scrap raised the talisman to eye level, and spoke.

“Who is this?”

A faux gasp could be heard from the other end of the line.

“I’m hurt! And here I’d thought I’d made a lasting impact! I suppose that just goes to show how first impressions aren’t everything. Bet that comes as something of a relief, ay big blue? Oh! Can I call you big blue?”

The gang leader said nothing

“You know. As in, ‘what’s black and blue and red all over?’”

More silence.

“Alright, alright! I’ll give you a hint. Did you happen to check yourself out in the mirror following our lastlittle one on one conversation, by any chance?”

A vein in his temple bulged.

“Please. Keep on talking. Really, you’re doing nothin’ but makin’ my day. Every word out your mouth another night and day spent in my guys’ care. I pay them well because they’re the best, you know. They can make your death as long or as short as you’d like.”

“Ha! There’s the feisty cold blooded killer I remember! You know? I was beginning to wonder if I’d been forwarded to the wrong guy. Can I take it you enjoyed my little parting gift?”

“I’m going to enjoy watching you squirm.”

“Oh I’m sure! Anyway, enough with the formalities. I hear you’ve gotten your hands on a few things that don’t belong to you. Now where’d you find the gaul to go and do something like that?”

“What?”

“Okay, so, I know it’s basically your MO and everything, but please don’t play dumb with me. That nifty little gadget in your hand. Real lucky find, if you ask me. Stumble onto anything else while you were casually rifling through other people’s things?”

Scrap’s eyes strayed toward the table loaded with valuables, and the duffel bags which sat foremost among them. Stuffed to the brim with all manner of goodies he’d yet to decide on how he wished to distribute. Then they widened—his finger strayed to an inner jacket pocket. To the matte black point cards he’d safely tucked away. Suddenly, all the dots began to connect in Scraps mind, and, not long after that, a twisted grin split his face.

“Ahh…” he let a bit of the gloating smile slip into his tone. “So that’s it then, huh? I should have guessed they were yours. The females. All the signs were there.”

“M-mine?! What? I don’t know what you’re-!”

“Naïvely,” Scrap cut in. “I’d believed you too young for such a thing, but, clearly I was mistaken. Shame I didn’t think to grab them when I’d had the chance. Good thing there’s still time. Your females have backed themselves into a corner. Great timing as well, seeing as I hear Lue’s been looking for some new dancers. The exotic ones are always in high demand, though they rarely last long. Wear and tear, you understand. Occupational hazard.”

For the first time, there was silence on the other end of the line.

“Matter of fact, I’d say we’ve sat idle long enough. Figure it’s time to get off our hands and finish this little game of tagalong.”

More silence.

“Nothing to say? Well. That suits me just fine. Stay on the line and I’ll give you something worth speaking up about. My officers tell me the boys and gals have been a bit overworked lately. A bit of stress relief might be just what the doctor ordered.”

“Huh. That’s strange.”

Scrap frowned.

“Strange…? What’s strange?”

“Well, see, it crossed my mind to call you some variation of clown, right? Of course I scrapped the idea. Talk about cliché. Come to find out, your main headquarters is literally a circus tent.”

For whatever reason, a chill ran down the crime leader’s spine. Without any warning, he rushed from the tent into the cool night air. His startled underlings sharing a confused look before they rushed outside to join him. Even the messenger was lugged out after them—the guardsmen just as curious as to what was going on as anyone.

The boss whipped his head around. Turning this way and that. Trying desperately to make out a diminutive figure in the dark. Apprehension and anticipation vying for dominance in his chest.

“Where are you?!” he screamed into the talisman.

The boy, however, pretended as if he hadn’t heard him. Prattling on as he was, apparently, wont to do, except there was something different about him this time.

“Moral of the story? I guess I really am too hard on myself sometimes. Really need to practice more self love. Thanks for staying on the line, by the way. It really did simplify things considerably.”

His words reverberated strangely, as if his voice were coming from two places at once. One from the talisman, and the other…

“Speaking of, you seem to have gotten the wrong impression somewhere down the line. I really think we need to have a chat about who’s hunting whom.”

… coming from immediately behind him.

Scrap spun, just as the others flinched back at the child which had appeared in their midst as if from thin air. Quite a bit older than when last he’d seen him, that arrogant, almost dismissive air about the brat hadn’t changed one bit. He smiled up at him—this despite quite literally being surrounded by enemies—his gap-toothed grin wide below the black wolf’s mask obscuring the top half of his face.

“Surprise!”

Without a lick of warning, several dozen explosions went off simultaneously, targeting several gathering areas around the camp. Makeshift tents, cook areas, the officers’ mess. All of them going up like new years fireworks. Tremors running through the earth beneath their feet. Screams came soon after, shortly followed by billowing smoke trails. Spontaneous fires blossoming from everywhere that’d been untouched by the detonations.

Jumping shadows cast a nightmare scene against the steep rock walls of the ravine. Cries for order, and cries for sweet release jumbling together.

Only serving to add to the rampant confusion. 

“Now that I’m here, why don’t we pick up right where we left off, shall we? What are we thinking? Are we predator or prey?”

And all the while, the brat stood proud. Arms raised high like a dramatic presenter or a man crucified. Suddenly very keen on reenacting the latter, the crime boss lashed out, aiming to pull the brat up by his neck. With every single one of his stats maxed out at six hundred—thanks in no small part to the little black “gifts”  he’d appropriated—he was not the same male he’d been during their first encounter.

His figure blurred. Claws sliced through the air unerringly. His success a foregone conclusion. Which was what made it all the more inconceivable, when a tiny hand caught his wrist, and held it fast. All of his momentum arrested in that single moment. The kid didn’t even budge. Their strength somehow evenly matched. Scraps eyes widened. Or… No…! Was he, slowly pushing Scrap back?!

His massive arm quaked, triceps flexing—both bulging heads larger than the little boy’s own, hair very much included. And yet, no matter how hard he pressed, it was no use. He was being overpowered. Claw toed feet began to skid backward—black claws digging shallow furrows in the stone. The crime boss shook width the strain, lashed out with another arm, only for it too to be stopped just as easily.

The shrill scrape of claw on stone joined the general cacophony, while, within the strange bubble of calm that’d formed before the entrance to the circus tent, everyone merely looked on in slack jawed stupefaction.

This had clearly never happened before, not to the giant of a Ra’ak Neerian, and you could tell as much by the others’ reactions. Scraps eyes flicked from the kid, to his most senior officers, and the sudden wave of chagrin that hit him gave him newfound strength. The boy’s eyes grew round as his forward momentum suddenly stopped. Then grew even rounder when his own feet began to skid back. The scale-clad giant huffing and puffing. His enormous frame towering over the boy. Shoving him back, inch by inch.

The crime boss grinned. Hot breaths slapping the boy’s masked face they were so close. Quietly, as not to be overheard, he hissed back a breathy reply.

“The fact you even asked tells me all I need to know. Let me let you in on a little secret, huh kid? See, some of us are born with the sole privilege of being kicked around by those bigger and stronger than them.”

The strain was visible on the boys face by this point. His arms trembled. The flash of fear glinting in his eyes.

“And, news flash tiny, far as I can remember, there never was anyone bigger or stronger than me.”

The crime boss gave one more triumphant shove, thinking to snap the boy’s arms at the wrists, when he was seemingly met with an unyielding stone wall. His eyes widened. The boy smirked. His hands having grown uncomfortably hot, his skin suddenly flushed an unnatural shade of red, while all the veins of his neck bulged prominently. 

With a sharp twist, the boy broke both of Scrap’s arms—splinters of bone poking through at odd angles. Then, before the pain from the swift reversal could even register, an irresistible force pulled him forward. Downward. Within range of the kids stubby appendages. Whereupon a diminutive foot planted itself firmly in his belly, and rocketed him across the valley floor.

TWACK!

The barely conscious giant blasting through several burning tents in succession, before disappearing beneath a heap of smoking canvas.

“Wrong answer,” Richard commented, sporting a sardonic smile.

+++

“Wrong answer!” the scruffy boy exclaimed.

“Wait wait wait!” Richard flung his arms out wide before the vine could latch on, and fling him on another express trip to nowheresville. “Just,” he gasped, eyeing the slowly circling vine warily. “…wait.”

The kid that claimed he wasn’t, but most certainly was, Shaper paused. And, goddess be praised, so did the vine.  

“Hmm…” he cupped his chin. “Okay…? But this had better be good. I need a good reason not to send you packing after this atrocious display. Really, what am I supposed to do with this?”

The boy kicked the limp corpse he’d just spent the past hour hauling up here to the peak in the vain hopes of actually making some progress with the kid. Half plant, half animal, it’d been something called a Verdant Life Stalker, and resembled a green tiger made entirely of vines, twigs, and leaves. Although now it looked more like a stinking pile of decomposing plant matter. When Richard spoke, it was with a mixture of calm rationality and apprehension. As if he were speaking to a deadly predator with the temperament of a small child.

…

Actually that wasn’t too far off from the truth.

“You said you wanted to play make believe, right? Well. You’ve got your guy,” he waved a hand at the deflated corpse. “I’ve got mine. And, maybe, just maybe, while those two go at it, you can finally explain to me what in the world I’m supposed to be doi- wait wait wait!”

Richard took several steps back. Away from the serpentine vine thing that’d, apparently, found his explanation unsatisfactory. The vine stopped once more in its approach.

“Why should I?”

“Because, that is the third time I’ve had to climb up that god forsaken mountain, and if I have to do so for a forth time, I might just loose my marbles. Normally a promising proposition for me, believe it or not, but only when there’s an actual cause. So far, I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be doing! Apart from getting chased across the entire forest by evil relentless plant demons.”

Richard thought back to the first of the Verdant Life Stalkers he’d stumbled upon. It’d taken on the shape of a dear.

At first.

The second it had spotted him—unavoidable, since it seemed to be hogging the only watering spot around for what felt like miles—it’d transformed. It’s body splitting down the front to form a vertical maw with rows upon rows of teeth. The trees and underbrush around it’s hooves turning brown and folding in on themselves. The creature literally draining the life of the surrounding flora to grow and change rapidly—turning itself into a leafy eldritch abomination whose roar reach far and wide.

How did he know it reached far and wide, you may ask? Because the stampede of similar leafy green horrors that followed hadn’t exactly been lying around in wait. That was when the running began, and it hadn’t stopped until he reached the foot of the mountain. Something about the mountain denoting a barrier the creatures would not cross.

“Hmm…” the boy plopped himself down onto his rear and folded his legs under him. “Well, I suppose before I send you back down there, a bit more information wouldn’t hurt.”

“Or… you could give me the information without sending me back down into that man eating deathtrap,” Richard tried hopefully.

“No, I’m definitely sending you back down there,” Richard slumped. “As for what you need to know…? Hmm…”

The boy began to tap his chin in contemplation, before he raised his pointer finger, and an honest to gods lightbulb appeared above his head.

“Ahah! I’ve got-! Ow! Wha-?! Stupid thing!”

The brat rubbed a sore spot on his head where the falling lightbulb had connected. He swiped his hand at what remained of the prop, a scattered pile of glass, and it promptly vanished just as soon as it’d appeared.

“Uhh… where was I?”

“You were just about to give me some priceless, lifesaving information concerning the external manipulation of life energy.”

“I was?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“A-are you sure…? Because that really doesn’t sound like-”

“Never been more sure about anything in my entire life. Now, you were saying?”

“Oh. Yes well. I guess… how good are you at life energy manipulation?”

“I can feel and guide life energy through my body just fine. It’s when it comes to outside the body where I run into issue-”

“Wait that’s it?”

Richard paused.

“I-I don’t under stand. What’s it?”

“You just sort of… move it around? What’s the point of that?”

“I-? You-? What do you mean. What else would you do with it?”

“Circulate it? Burn it? Concentrate it? But just sort of… moving it around? Why?”

“I-! Because it’s valuable! I mean, it’s not as if it’s a completely useless skill. In fact I’d go so far as to say it takes a considerable amount of effort and willpower just to shift the energy by a little.”

The kid looked skeptical.

“I was able to gain several stars in prestige by…” he explained to the kid the method by which he’d upgraded his prestige.

By the end of his story, however, instead of looking impressed, the kid just looked even more confused.

“That’s… nice. I suppose. I mean, I still don’t really get what the big deal is, but so long as it makes you happy. Still, I’d like to have a chat with whoever your life instructor was, because clearly he did a terrible job of explaining the basics.”

Richard pursed his lips.

“I’m self taught.”

Finally that seemed to take the wind out of his sails. His haughty expression turning to one of shock and surprise.

“S-seriously?”

Richard fought the urge to smirk. After all, for all he knew this was just another prank played at his expense.

“Seriously,” he replied simply, to which the kid merely stared at him for several long seconds.

“Huh. And here I was thinking you were a complete moron. Guess it would be kinda hard to learn by imitation if you don’t even know what you’re supposed to be looking at.”

“Yes! That’s exactly my point! Now-!”

“Then again, if you’ve made it this far, I see no reason why you can’t go the full distance.”

“Wait what?!”

The wicked vine lashed out, pinning his arms to his sides before he could even begin to resist.

“I mean, just think! A self taught life master! How cool would that be? If you somehow managed it, you’d be the talk of the pantheon.”

“W-wait-!” Richard struggled to free himself. “We can talk about this-!”

“It’s all about roots and burning, remember that. Everything to do with advanced life energy manipulation can be boiled down to those two things. The forever-engine of forward progress—as fleeting as it is eternal—and the resonance  that connects all living things. Roots and burning, don’t forget it!” he said, then waved, as the vine tightened around Richard’s middle, and flung him into open air.

“AAAAAAHHH!”