Chapter 34: Category Three Rukh (Patreon)

For the third time in the last five minutes Jason wondered where the hell Chris was and what exactly was keeping her busy. There was no way she didn’t know their entire plan hung on her. He spared the hole in the ground a quick look as Oliver slowed their opponent with a gravity spell. The spell burst in a purple glare and pulled the creature against a tree as it struggled against it.

They’d found the floor upstairs just as afforested as the one below and had done little to question how it had happened. Like humans after the second awakening, some plant life had evolved to carrying strange characteristics. Just as there were climbing grasses, there were also some varieties of climbing trees and they were more than inclined to believe this was the case here. And Oliver used the environment to his satisfaction.

The scraggle they fought was taller than the Beta rank scraggles they’d left to Zed and Ash which was unsurprising. Scraggles got significantly larger with each rank they rose. From the size and aura of the four they’d run into two were in their final category in Rukh rank and, not for the first time, he wondered if Heimdall had really not known what had been lurking within this building because he usually set them on tasks they were perfectly fit for.

“Where the hell is she?!” Oliver hissed as the monster broke free of his spell.

It went charging at Oliver and he jumped to the side, casting a spellform towards the roof. The core of the spell affixed itself to the roof and he hovered within its gravitational pull so that he continued to rise rather than fall.

He was halfway to the roof when he cancelled the spell. He dropped from the height and landed beside Jason. Oliver’s mastery of gravitation spellforms was growing beautifully well, and just as Heimdall had suspected, it was only a matter of time before he had enough mana to cast enough spells to give the illusion of flight since his spellforms didn’t necessarily need to latch on to anything to work.

“Are we sure she’s okay?” Oliver asked, as he landed heavily beside Jason.

“She’s good,” Jason answered, he could feel her aura coming up the stairs already.

On the other side of the building where the stairs were already halfway collapsed, Chris popped into the battle, her bent baseball bat in hand.

Being the weakest of the three she wasn’t supposed to be the heart of their plan but her versatility in different types of spellforms worked better here. And while it didn’t do that much against the scraggle, it served to slow it down far better than any of the spells Jason or Oliver could cast comfortably.

“And where have you been, young lady?” Oliver asked as she joined them.

Chris stuck her tongue out at Oliver. “Had to save your sister from the scraggle we dropped on her.”

Jason blanched at the level of conversation, staring between the two of them as the scraggle backed away, now that it was flanked on three sides. Oliver stepped away from Jason so that he was free to attack it on another side.

A month ago Oliver was still busy reminding Chris that only Ash called him Ollie. Apart from that, he didn’t have half the mind to even complain about half the things she did. A month ago his statement would have bought him a swinging bat to the face. Now, he had Chris sticking her tongue out at him?

Jason had seen the way they’d behaved the night they’d eaten at Oliver’s place and had simply taken it as Chris getting into one of her moods. It wasn’t common but it happened. The first month he’d known her she’d gotten into the mood at least twice, flirting with him with that commanding nature girls tend to display around boys they knew would not argue about it.

It had only taken him a while to realize that nothing was going to come of it. It was as if she only did it to remind herself that she was a girl and that she was pretty. She only did it to remind herself that she could.

“Not the time to space out, Jason,” Chris said from where she stood. “I’ll draw its attention again, as usual, and you try and take its legs out.”

She didn’t wait for an answer before casting her spell. She used an improvised spellform, chanting a short phrase rather than the entire spellform.

“Earth and concrete, crumble at my feet.”

Mana responded to her call, rippling and shaking around them. The ground shook as a part of the ceiling came down on the scraggle. The fat slab struck the creature’s stone head, staggering it and Jason blasted its leg with a high beam of concentrated light. It left a scorch mark just behind one of its knees, drilling a hole that wasn’t deep enough to burst out the other side.

The scraggle fell to its knee and reached for one of the trees that surrounded them. The tree wasn’t particularly fat as most trees tend to be—in truth, none of them were—and its hand wrapped around its trunk as if it held a club. It tugged once and the floor shook again, threatening to throw them as it uprooted the tree from its root.

The scraggle swung at Jason, and Oliver cast another gravity spell. The small electricity of bright purple shot out to attach itself to the nearest tree and exploded in deep purple light. Its expanded sphere filled with crackling purple lightning stretched out from the tree, and the scraggle’s weapon was caught within its reach. The scraggle’s swing was slowed considerable and it turned to look at the tree as if it wasn’t sure it carried to correct weapon.

Unlike most mages, Chris never used her specialization. Instead, she displayed her usefulness in carrying a wide array of spells, holding a versatility in improvised spellforms. It was another reason Heimdall had been more than obliged to keep her around even when she wasn’t a very obedient hunter.

She held her hands out and chanted a quick spellform.

“Space waits for no man, and flames come with no plan.”

Her spell lit up the ground around the scraggle, spreading around it in a ring of fire. Jason knew it wouldn’t last, most of her spells didn’t, but he also knew it was a setup for another spell. It was the way Chris fought, always chaining spells, always casting like a mage with a bottomless mana core.

The tree in the scraggle’s grip touched against the flame and it spread like wild fire. Jason made an impressed sound. The flames were already guttering out, but the one on the tree would last a good while. It would eventually spread to the scraggle even though it wouldn’t do it much harm.

“Either that,” Jason muttered, “or…”

Oliver’s gravity spell petered out and the creature swung the burning tree at him.

“… we just gave it a flaming club,” he finished and blasted it with another beam of light.

He channeled enough mana into this one and it drilled a hole as big as his fist in the creature’s arm. It served to destabilize its attack and its arm dropped with the burning tree. It turned back to him, anger in its expressionless face. Its anger met Jason already casting another light spell. Without a spellform, he blasted it with a sphere of light. This one large.

The sphere struck the scraggle square in the chest and sent it flying. Chris was already ready with a spellform before it hit the ground.

“Earth and concrete, hold firm where you meet.”

The scraggle hit the ground and its arm fused with the floor beneath it. It struggled to pull its arm free and Chris ran at it, bat swinging. She struck it once across the head, the metal bat denting further with every attack she’d been giving since the fight began. When the bat was practically useless, she chanted spellforms that pulled the mana around them, coalescing them into boulders of earth she dropped on its head.

“Jason,” Oliver called as he ran towards the creature.

Jason didn’t hesitate to call up his spellform. He was the strongest of the three and knew the only way to defeat a scraggle that no longer had a soft torso to attack was with nothing but blunt force.

He reached out to his connection to force mana as weak as it was and grabbed it by the skin of its teeth. The words flowed into his mind as he connected with the nature of mana and he allowed it encompass him, focusing for maximum effect. Monsters of the same category as a mage were usually considered a category stronger, sometimes even two, and it took most of what the mage had to defeat it.

Jason held out his hand as the connection to mana steadied and chanted his spellform.

“Raise the world in intimate design and bring all things to their knee. Grant the world a powerful grip and crush those who stand before me.”

Mana reacted to his call and the air above the scraggle wavered and shoot, gathering like a thousand shards of broken glass. It coalesced into physical form above the scraggle and its struggling ceased for a moment as what was about to happen dawned on it.

Chris distanced herself from it and Jason’s ball of pure force came down on the monster, crushing its gut and killing it. The monster’s once struggling arm fell limp.

Chris walked back up to the monster and struck it in the head with her bent bat once more for good measure.

Jason looked at her with raised brows.

“What?!” she protested. “I was just making sure.”

Jason found himself wondering if Zed was right. Maybe the girl had a little too much anger issues to be resolved.

In unnatural fashion, Chris turned to Oliver first.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m good,” Oliver nodded, taking a moment to rest his hands on bent knees. “How’s my sister.”

There was a hesitant pause before Chris answered.

“Good,” she said. “Just catching her breath down there. Apparently, the category three gave them a bit of an issue.”

Oliver smirked at that and Chris palmed her forehead.

“You’re not going to let her live that down, are you?” she said. It wasn’t really a question. Still, Oliver answered.

“I’m not.”

Jason stared at the carnage around them. They were surrounded by the corpses of two dead scraggles and enough burnt and upturned trees to start a deforestation process in the building. There were holes in the ground below them and the ceiling above them, and they stood amongst the carnage.

He wondered if there hadn’t been a more controlled way to have won the fight. He sighed, shaking the thought aside as Oliver cracked one joke or the other about the tough time his sister had.

“It should’ve been like taking candy from a baby,” Oliver was saying. “I mean, there’s a reason everyone picks fighting a hundred toddlers over fighting a hundred old men.”

“Personally, I’d go for the old men,” Chris said.

“Of course you would,” Oliver snorted. “You’re just dark.”

“What do you mean? How is going for the old men darker than going after babies.”

“It’s simple,” Oliver shrugged. “The babies just started, they don’t even know what’s happening. But the elderly, they’ve been struggling at life for years. Now that their bodies are old and weathered and useless, all they want to do is rest. But of course you’d go after them, like they haven’t suffered enough.”

A mild discomfort crossed Chris’ face so fast Jason almost thought he’d imagined it. As for Oliver, he clearly didn’t see it because he went on.

“Then again, someone has to be the cruel one in the world, because where’s the fun in it if everyone’s all hunky-dory, right?”

He laughed at his own joke and Chris turned away from him with a frown and stalked after the farthest scraggle corpse from him.

Jason gave Oliver a suffering look and worried for the boy’s safety in the future.

Oliver walked over to him with a thoughtful expression, no longer laughing, and folded his arms.

“Is it just me,” he said. “Or did she not take that well.”

Jason sighed.

“How the fuck do you even have a girlfriend?” he asked, then forestalled Oliver’s answer with a raised hand. “You know what, never mind. Let’s just get this over with. Let’s go get my gun, we need to get the cores out.”

“Zed’s tomahawk won’t do?” Oliver asked.

“No.” Jason shook his head. “It’s not strong enough to cut a Rukh monster’s skin, speak less of a scraggle. You go on ahead. I’ll go get Chris.”

…………………………………

Chris walked down the last flight of what was left of the domed building stairs. Her mind was filled with mixed emotions that had nothing to do with the fight she’d just had. She knew most people thought of her as mean and cruel, even angry. It hadn’t bothered her before, and sometimes she carried that very behavior to stave off a lot of unnecessary troubles and potential troubles, so it didn’t bother her.

But for Oliver to think she was that cruel…

Then again, she was that cruel. It might have once started as pretense but she knew herself well enough to know she was actually cruel and angry, there was no need for self-revelation on that part. But she thought Oliver would know better by now. They’d spent the last week together, practicing his sound magic specialization. It didn’t change the fact that she was what she was, but the way he’d said, like that was all she was.

She wasn’t very surprised, though. If anything, she was more surprised by the fact that it hurt more than it usually did. She was more than just an angry and mean person. She thought he knew that by now.

Chris’ mind still contemplated over her feelings when she got to the bottom of the stairs. When she saw Zed and Ash walking up to her, she froze.

“What, in the hell, is that?” she asked, staring at Zed.

“Oh, this?” Zed smirked, dragging a large stone grey club along the ground. “This is called a scraggle bone club.”