Prism Academy 3- Chapter 2 (Patreon)

Chapter 2- Land Fishing

The ground rumbled again. Precision closed her eyes and I felt that heightened awareness coming off her. A second later she screamed, “Run, something is coming from underground.”

I turned to Flame Form and was immediately in the air as were Demis and Inferna. Twinkle stood next to Precision waiting for word on which way to teleport.

I called out, “From under the outpost?”

Precision said, “No, to the east. It must be big for it to be shaking the earth this far out.”

At her words I looked to the east. My heightened senses worked even in Flame Form. How that made any sense was beyond me, but the scientists believed that any physical transformation kept the same basic properties for the body through use of progenitor energy rather than physical functioning.

Now, I could see the few trees that were out there buckling and then falling over. The ground rumbled and even without her Tremor Sense, I could see the ground being pushed up in a swath more than a hundred feet wide. Whatever it was, this thing had to be massive.

Sybilla shouted, “I can only sense a rudimentary mind. It wants nothing but to eat. I don’t think we will be able to affect it psychically.”

Precision glanced at me. I could feel her wanting to give the order for us all flee to a safe distance, but anything this big had to be stopped or it could bring down the walls of Phillie. There were other supers there certainly, but I was the damn prism and time that I started acting like it.

I ignored ANOP when she said, “You’ll only be the Prism when you’ve bonded six Rays.”

Then it didn’t matter. Precision and the others teleported or plain leapt back to the far side of the outpost. I jumped up to the front wall, while Demis and Inferna were not far behind me.

A few hundred feet in front of the wall the ground began to erupt up in a volcano of dirt. Out of it came a horror of a creature. It looked like an odd combination of a worm and a frog. The front part of its body was a massive head and mouth which looked like it was meant for consuming anything it could reach. The back legs were bent for jumping and its body trailed behind those legs in a worm like body which writhed wildly as it burst free. Altogether it was likely ninety feet from front to back.

The things body had to be more than forty feet wide which was the largest of these monsters that I’d faced yet. While this was hardly play time, I couldn’t help but feel a thrill rise up within me. There was something about the psyche or supers, especially Refractors which exulted in facing a challenge.

I grinned and shifted my hand to its flaming plasma form as I began heating up a trio of my boom balls. The name had stuck despite its silliness and to be fair it was an accurate description. After a few iterations they were quite impressive. I could charge the crystal cores with most any type of energy. Most of the time that meant heat or raw progenitor energy.

It might seem natural to have used progenitor energy against all the shadow creatures and if they all fell as easily as those which had been at the battle of the breach, then that would have been accurate. Either the shadow had adapted or there were just different types of monsters which were more powerful. Repeated experience had taught me that except for the weakest of the shadow beasts I needed to wear down their physical defenses first.

My boom balls even if they were hot enough to be my own version of tiny suns when they exploded weren’t going to do significant damage to a monster that large. Its skin was likely tougher than steel by multiple factors and most shadow beasts had astounding regeneration.

That was why I waited. I knew my team and they knew me. Sure, enough a second later Precision was barking commands. She might not be able to fly but her jet back did a fair enough imitation. Damn, that techno armor she had was oddly sexy even if it covered up every inch of her when it was fully expanded like now.

“D, I, hit those big ugly eyes. See if you can get a reaction out of it.”

Dang, I loved that woman. She knew just what I was thinking.

The two aerial Ray’s dove down with streams of fire jetting off of Inferna’s hands and that strange purplish black energy pouring out of Demis. Both hit eyes that were bigger than their body and as if scripted the creature’s mouth burst open to bellow its outrage.

That was my cue. Boom balls away. Sometimes strategy seems simple, but it really is doing what works. That means often using the tried-and-true methods.

The sphere flew into the massive maw. Its tongue shot out stabbing at Inferna who dodged it but then snapping back out again at Demis. Her winged flight wasn’t quite as smooth as her fellow Ray, so the tongue slammed into her. It must have been awfully sticky as it caught her.

I would have shouted something about me being the only one who gets to lick her, but I tried to keep my stupid expressions to myself during a fight. The girls always groaned when I didn’t restrain myself. If only they knew how difficult it was to hold back my witty comments.

The sphere exploded inside of the creature a second latter, causing it to shudder. It was far from dead, but the tongue fell limp from the damage to its mouth and throat. Demis was tough so I knew she could probably free herself, but I wanted to get more involved.

My plasma rods were in hand. We’d worked it out, so they were a full three feet long with an energy conductive handle which was strong enough for me to use them for at least a couple of minutes. The energy I poured into them as I turned my hands to a partial magma form made the rods glow like long plasma torches which is where we got the name.

I had already leapt as I powered them up and landed as close to the open beastial mouth as I could. My weapons cut into the thick flesh of the tongue. It was a good fifteen feet across but while dense it lacked the durability of its outer hide. My weapons cut through it quickly drive by S Rank strength. With two seconds, I had amputated its tongue then leapt back as its body was thrashing around.

I could almost picture the black ichor inside of it which monsters spread to heal their bodies. It would be working overtime to repair the seared flesh and then eventually regrow its severed tongue. I had no intention of letting it do that.

I watched my team in full motion. Precision was barking orders. Titana and Aqueous in battle form were working to find a weak spot in its hide. Overhead Inferna had gone nova and a column of fire twenty feet wide blasted down. Cipher, Sybilla, and Darca had rifles in hand, but held their fire. Such weapons wouldn’t hurt a creature like this, but what they could do was be extra eyes. Each of them took two of the team members and helped feed what they were experiencing to Precision and then sending back orders telepathically.

This caused the battlefield to be eerily quiet which made me want to go on to wonder aloud if this thing would taste like chicken or if we were the chicken getting the worm. It was probably best that I stayed quiet. The girl’s might be onto something. My battle banter always sounded better in my head.

Its body surged forward, and the ground rippled more like the surface of a pond than solid earth. It’s mass and power were such that it was simply too powerful. I glanced and Demis had freed herself. We made eye contact, and she gave me a quick nod to tell me she was okay.

Precision was barking orders for her to start strafing from overhead. But it was quickly obvious to me that the team wasn’t making much of a dent in its hide. Valkyrie wanted to bring her jet into play, but the general rule was that it was saved for emergencies or escape. We hadn’t reached that point, at least not in my mind.

I heard chatter over coms and Demis was asking permission to change to her dragon form. That likely would finish this off, but it would take her out of commission for the rest of the battle and we still needed to go down into the outpost. There was a chance that some soldiers were alive down there and I just had the feeling that we needed to know what the shadow wanted with the bodies of the soldiers which must have been slain.

Other plans were thrown around ranging from Aqueous wanting to turn into acid and letting the thing swallow her. That sounded like too much of a desperation thing. No one should be inside of a monster like this. Fortunately, Precision shut down each plan and the team instantly fell in line. It was nice to have some order.

I waited for her to reach the same conclusion that I had just a second ago. She wasn’t gonna like it, but it was our best bet to take this out without expending too much of our capacity. Energy management was a much a part of her job as tactical awareness. In fact, I expect that she would have already given the order if it weren’t for the fact that she hated plans that put me in danger. They were all still protective of me, which was only fair given how I felt about them.

Precision’s voice came through loud and clear. “No complaints. This is the easiest way. I’m estimating this thing is close about two hundred and twenty-five tons. Aden, I need you to flip it over. From what I can tell the under belly is about half as dense as the skin its top and sides.”

The first part was so that none of the others would think she came to this plan lightly. As for calling her numbers estimates that was a bit inaccurate. Omni-sense gave her astoundingly precise measurements.

“Got it boss,” I replied as I leapt through the air. Hitting the ground and running wasn’t an option. This thing was still tearing everything around it up.

“You don’t have to sound so excited about it. You aren’t indestructible,” she snapped back.

“Why live if you can’t have fun?”

One of the other girls mumbled something about killing me if I let that monster hurt me, but I tuned them out. It was business time and for all my powers, there was nothing quite as satisfying as going toe to toe in a test of strength with some new monstrosity.

She knew my limits, and this was well within them. Of course, it wasn’t like the froggy worm was gonna just lay still for me to lift it. When I impacted the ground next to it, my energy field was at full burn. I had quickly realized I could boost my strength and durability by focusing on burning more capacity. That was what truly made me S rank in those stats.

Its front leg lashed out at me, but its body was still spasming from the explosions inside of it. Those burns must have been nasty. I’d already put my plasma rods away. They wouldn’t hold up to long and the tech people were already mad at me for how quickly I literally burnt through them.

Instead, I caught the income swipe. It would have looked comical to anyone watching without an understanding of the physics of a super. I should have been swatted away without trouble. Its stubby front arm was as thick as I was tall, yet it came to a stop as I caught it.

The creature’s movements became less erratic for a moment as its head tilted towards me. Those eyes were still burnt out so it must have had another way of detecting me. Then its mouth opened just a slit and a cracking voice came out deeper than any bass rich stereo could have ever created. “Son of Light.”

The words were slow and garbled by the damage to its throat, but my enhanced processing allowed me to decipher the sounds. So, the brute wasn’t entirely mindless. That didn’t change anything. It wanted to destroy humanity so I would destroy it first.

I spun my body, which again shouldn’t have done anything but the energy field with me translated the motions of my body into an effect far beyond what my size would allow for. My hands dug into its flesh and black ichor coated them only to be burned away as I activated Light’s Judgment instinctively. The creature screeched as I did.

Then I threw it like I would have thrown a human sized opponent. ANOP and my processing as well as guidance from Sybilla factored where everyone was whether on the battlefield or above it in the air. The massive body flipped over and landed with a thunderous sound. The ground shook and hundreds of thousands of pounds made a craterous impact.

The rest of the team was instantly in action. I pinned the creature which bucked and tried to move, but my energy field extended my strength to prevent it from rolling over. I grinned as it tried. It was strong. Stronger than any super I had wrestled with, but after only a few seconds, I knew that I was stronger.

I pushed Light’s Judgment against it which burned it to its very core, but it was still too powerful for me to quickly undo. That was where my team came into play. Titana and Aqueous might not have been able to penetrate the tougher hide on top but they were ripping into its belly. The former swung a massive, spiked maul which must have weighed a couple of tons, but which translated her powerful twelve foot frame into deadly force. In her titan form she was at peak A rank strength.

My watery bond had learned to combine her forms and was cutting into the creature with the claws of her expanded battle form while exuding a potent acid which at away at it. Overhead, Inferna and Demis had combined to create a powerful column of death which cut through the skin like tissue and then cauterized the wounds preventing them from healing.

Even Precision was hovering overhead with her drones and raining down laser and pulse weapons fire. Everyone was conscious of their fields of fire and worked in tandem with a practiced ease. To my vision, I could see the dark energy within it being depleted. When its core was a little less than half the size it had been I raised my hands up for a second to gather the most condensed ball of light I could conjure.

Then I slammed my hands down into what I guess was its chest. The light infusing my body exploded down into the creature. Gore and black ichor were blasted out but only very little of it hit me beyond my hands. The power of Light’s Judgment kept me protected.

I saw that black core tremble then get pierced by the sphere of light. I pushed with what felt like a physical strain and made it penetrate the creature’s core. Then with another surge of my will it exploded outward. All the dark life which had animated this monstrosity left. But in the second before it did, I would have sworn I heard two words.

“Help us.”