Kahli smiled, effortlessly dribbling the huge boulder as if it were a bouncy ball. “Now this is a kicking around rock, right here!"

"What the hell does that mean?" asked the mega dragon as she choked out Kahli's dad.

"Ouchies!" cried Kahli's dad.

"Dad!" Kahli glared at the mega dragon. "You let my dad go or I'll rock your world!"

"Ugh, what a cheesy line!" said the mega dragon. "You know what? I hated that line so much, I'm going to go ahead and choke him so hard his stupid little skull pops right off his vertebra!"

"I won't let you do that, you stinky jerk," said Kahli. Froufrou squelched, looking a little offended. Kahli held up her rock and spun it on the end of her enormous left toe.

"Stinky? You think I'm stinky?!" the dragon roared.

"I don't think you're stinky." Kahli cracked her neck and popped her elbow. She coiled back and kicked the rock right at the mega dragon's forehead. "I know you're stinky."

Froufrou squelched again in shame.

The mega dragon roared as the rock smashed into her bony skull and - disappointingly - bounced right off. Then, it shot right back to Kahli's foot in an instant. The dragon only glowed a very faint red, and her reaction seemed to be one of shock and amusement.

"Wow, you call that a hit?"

Kahli sighed. She'd kicked with a lot of force! How could it not have made a bigger impact on the mega dragon? She just didn't understand.

"You'll figure it out, pumpkin! I - agh - I believe in you!"

"Dad! Don't say it like that! You're making it sound like you're about to die or something! I've already lost you once, and then also experienced the whirlwind of seeing you again as a ghost. I can't deal with you double dying right now! That can't happen!"

"Then you - ah - you better think of something fa - some - ah - something fast! She's almost ripped off my skull!"

Kahli racked her brain. There had to be something she could do to fix this situaton!

"Think about your [skill], pumpkin," wheezed her father, "Think about your [skill], and what it can do..."

Kahli suddenly remembered that half of her [skill] involved not only summoning a rock, but the rock that she summoned zooming back to her left foot at a breakneck pace proportional to how far it had traveled.

Kahli had an idea. What if she kicked the rock again, but this time, she kicked it away from the mega dragon? It was a strange idea, but she had to try everything she could or else her blue skeleton dad would die again. If that was even actually possible.

Kahli reared back her big left foot and kicked the rock as far as she possibly could away from the dragon.

"What the fuck was that? Seriously, are you blind?"

"I was blind. But now I can see," said Kahli with pride.

"Um, what?" said Kahli's dad as he struggled to speak.

"Watch this, Froufrou," said Kahli as she looked down at the putrid blob of tendrils sitting at her feet. She stood there proudly as the rock zoomed back towards her like a boomerang, soaring like a bullet through the air. It was quickly approaching her left foot, and for a second she was worried it might blow her foot right off when it returned. But now was the most important step. She had to redirect the rock, somehow, and she had to do it quickly. It was getting close!

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"That's awfully fast," said the mega dragon with a smirk. "Too bad it's zooming towards you and not towards me! Bah-hah-haaah!"

"It is impressively fast, as least, pumpkin," croaked Kahli's choking dad.

Kahli groaned. Nobody understood. But they would soon enough, she reminded herself.

Just as soon as the rock was about to reach her foot, Kahli shot down to the floor on the canoe with the utmost confidence. And, sure as Froufrou smelled like molten garbage, the boulder zoomed right on past Kahli and out into the sky. It angled just away from the mega dragon so that the rock shot out past the winged, bony beast, and it was only after it traveled a considerable distance past the foe that it seemed to realize through some form or function that Kahli and her huge left foot were, once again, far away. As if it could perfectly home through some alien magic, the stone immediately froze, and then it zoomed at a breakneck pace towards Kahli's massive foot. Which, at this point, meant that it had to soar right towards and, ideally through, the boney mega dragon.

"What the fuck?" said the mega dragon and Kahli's dad in unison as the rock increased its speed tenfold, twentyfold, thirtyfold! The boulder was nearly on fire! Sparks were flying in the air as it zoomed closer and closer!

"Wow," said Kahli.

"Oh shit!" said the mega dragon as the rock collided with her and immediately ricocheted inside and around her body ribcage, cracking every single rib and covering the beast in flames of fire before zooming on out toward Kahli's foot.

[Mega Dragon killed]

"WOW!" said Kahli as the stone snapped to her left foot and then, on command of her mind, crumpled down into dirt in the canoe. She quickly brushed away its sediment, which dissipated into nothing at all.

"Well, you did it, kiddo," said Kahli's dad. "I'm very proud of you." He laid splayed out yet crumpled on his tartan rug, which was still floating in the air, although it seemed to be weaker than before.

"Dad! Are you okay?"

"That mega dragon fucked my shit up pretty royally, honey bunches of oats," said her dad weakly.

"Dad!"

"Sorry, I don't mean to swear so much. It's just that... well... I think I really might be dying again." He coughed up a blue bone dramatically. He looked to his banjo. "I could write a song about this."

"Is that even possible, Dad? I mean, aren't you a ghost?"

"Yes, yes, I get what you're saying, I really do. But there's more to this world than meets the eye. There’s more than simple, boring things like the history of the world and the ripple effects of the living wood on all of us that we've all just grown to accept and understand as if it were old hat." Kahli's dad's sombrero slipped over his skull. "Damned old hat. Used to fit perfectly when I had some skin and hair over this stupid blue head of mine. Oh! That could be a song too. Let me just, heh, get my banjo out here..."

"Dad, wait, you look weak! I have a bad feeling about this."

"Nonsense, pumpkin. After all, as they say, if music be the food of life, sing on, sing on!" He picked up his banjo and gave it a proud strum. "OOOOOOOH!"

And then, a sickening snap echoed through the sky like a chicken's neck popping.

"My banjo!" cried Kahli's dad as the banjo string coiled up to the neck.

"It's just a string, dad," said Kahli. "Can't you just restring it?"

"Do you know how difficult it is to restring a banjo without skin on your bones? And furthermore, do you know how difficult it is to find the ghost of a banjo string to restring my banjo with? They're like, what, five times as expensive as they are for banjo strings in the world of the living!"

"I thought you were going to die, Dad!"

"Ah, no, no, I'll be fine," he said with a chuckle. "I just have a limited amount of time here to spend with you, and that stupid mega dragon wasted way too much of it. I'm going to have to go back to the great beyond soon, and you're going to have to paddle that canoe of yours with that unspeakable horror on your own once again."

"Oh." Kahli felt sad for the first time in a while. And maybe even a little regretful. "But Dad, I have so much left to talk to you about! I want to tell you about every little thing that I never got the chance to! And I have so, so many questions about my system!"

"System, shmystem, peach pie. Systems are a little bit different depending on who uses them, because people are each a little bit different. The main thing though is that they're by design intuitive. You're going to be fine. You just showed that you've got a real knack for using a system in combat in that fight with the mega dragon. You were really using your noggin, and it made me one proud-ass blue skeleton ghost dad." He wiped a single tear from his blue face. "I believe in you, pumpkin. But seriously, do be careful about the perforations between our worlds, between living and dead. It's really been getting out of hand recently, and I keep putting in maintenance tickets, and-"

"Dad!" Kahli was growing nervous. Her dad was becoming more and more translucent, and his voice was muffled and difficult to hear. "Dad, wait! Before you go, I have to tell you something."

"What?" he asked faintly. He was barely more than an afterimage at this point.

"I forgive you for never getting me the Glombiceraptor!"

But it was too late. Her dad was gone, and the sky was now a cool blue instead of a light pink. The strange interlude had ended. Did that mean Kahli had learned all there was to learn about her system? She doubted it. But it had been really nice to get to see her dad.

And then, Kahli was hit with a realization as she noticed a familiar tightness in her lower back. She was ready to level up!