It was early in the morning, when a very unusual scene was being displayed in front of the Mixers Clan’s village. Side by side, the core of the Clan's fighting force waited for the representatives of their undesired neighbors.
In the line, people could see a few known faces, such as Dalton, Artemis, Jason, Duke, and Saulo, and a few unknown ones that didn’t care to be known by the common folk.
Dalton was, as usual, using his armored leopard clothes/armor, since this was the only material resistant to his power that he could use to dress himself. His outfit was composed of a thick kimono and trousers with the characteristic gray color the creature had (similar to judo/jiu-jitsu clothes).
Artemis, in a similar fashion, was also fully dressed in armored leopard leather with some parts protected with extra metal sheets, giving the image of a common medieval knight. The plates covered all the parts that didn’t demand mobility, like the chest and forearms, but the joints were covered only in leather or nothing at all, like her elbows.
For the sake of politeness, she left her 2m long single hand sword and her tower shield at home, since this was supposed to be a diplomatic meeting and not a hostile attack.
Jason, Duke, and Saulo, on the other hand, were wearing very light clothes each for their own reasons. Jason and Saulo mostly because they fought as a usual long-range and support duo, in which Saulo kept repositioning Jason around the battlefield while Cindy and Jess’s father rained fire on their enemies from unpredictable places. Duke on the other side, was a completely different case. He didn’t care about armor because he simply had to get naked during fights, so there was much less need for armor or a fancy outfit.
The other less-known members also alternated between moderate armor and none at all, because in the end, the front-liners usually were much harder than any armor they could get their hands on, because they had dreams upon dreams to make them become living war tanks.
But one thing was common among everyone in this lineup: Despite a few not being well known inside the clan, every single one was marked by all the other clans as someone to avoid conflict with at all costs. The reason for that was quite simple, as it was what being a top clan powerhouse represented.
Each one in this class could level a city in their own way, and no one could do anything to stop them before the deed was done. They were way too powerful to be stopped, and if someone tried, the damage to their surroundings would be even bigger.
For instance, imagine dealing with Dalton if he set his goal to destroy a city. He would come flying at supersonic speed, blast the city from the height of a hundred meters in the sky and then go away to repeat the process the next day. To counter that, first, it would need someone who could fly and fight Dalton at the same level to, at least, stop him. Second, they would need to stop Dalton far from the city since his blast radius could reach 1 km if he really wanted to. And finally, if they were really able to accomplish all that, the city would also need a very powerful scout focused 24 hours a day to notice him coming from a very high altitude at supersonic speed so they could react in time, before he reached the city.
Accomplishing one of these tasks was already hard enough for anyone out there, and the three of them together was the reason that made Dalton so feared among the other clans, and the reason that getting his powers put a huge target on Tomas’ back. Absolutely no one in Taknoa would like a second Dalton being born; one was enough to deal with already.
The sun started going up in the sky, partially melting the snow on the ground, making puddles of mud. After almost an hour after the mixers had assembled, the tamer delegation began appearing on the horizon. Actually not the delegation themselves, but their ride. A creature of giant proportions slowly made its way toward the Mixers Clan’s village.
As the creature got closer, its details became easier to see, and some instantly recognized the creature as a sand drake. It had all the common features other lizards had, except for being 10 m tall and having a flat body in the shape of a circle, which made it perfect to carry large groups on its back.
“God damn idiots bringing a poor desert creature to this place, just because they want a ‘comfortable ride’. Not a single bit of respect for the beast,” Duke commented with a sneer.
“Oh, I remember this one. It’s that lizard that is good for traveling in quicksand places because they don’t sink right?” said Artemis, and Duke, as the one with the most knowledge in the topic, confirmed, “Yes, that's the one. They live mostly in the desert between here and the knowledge clan.”
“What I really don’t know is how the drake is still alive in this climate. If I’m guessing right, they took this one during their migration before setting up camp in our territory and kept it here ever since…” Dalton shared his doubts, not expecting any answer since it was all speculation.
After a few minutes of small talk between the mixers, the opposite delegation finally arrived. The drake lowered itself, and something similar to a fire ladder was lowered, so the riders could get down from their mount. The first thing that could be noticed between the two delegations was some extreme cultural differences since the tamer clan's representatives were wearing some colorful tunics and fur coats, opposing the battle-ready mixers.
Weirded by this first impression, the taller representative asked with a mocking look on his face, “I thought this was supposed to be a diplomatic meeting and not a battle to the death. I believe I should go back home to get some other pets and my armor, right?” Dalton stepped ahead to solve their misunderstanding and mock the representatives back, but Artemis was quicker to show everybody why she was usually left out of any serious discussions. “Stop bitching around, be thankful that nothing in the woods tried to attack you when you are dressed in your fancy clothes. Let's go and get this meeting started because I’m tired of waiting for your lizard to get here at a snail's pace.” And then she started walking ahead, leaving the tall representative astonished, never having faced a diplomatic situation like this.
Seeking to defuse the situation, Dalton invited the tamers to follow him while making some small talk to make them forget the earlier interaction. Luckily, not to have his mental sharpness compromised by the unexpected opening speech used by the mixers, ordering him to ‘stop bitching around’, he chose to act as if that had never happened.
After some talk with the representatives on the way, Dalton asked about something that had been bothering him since the beginning. “If I may ask, there is something that I’ve been asking myself since I saw that drake of yours. How do you keep it alive in this climate?”
“Well, normally we wouldn’t share this with everybody, but I see no harm in telling you the secret behind our sand drakes for the sake of diplomacy. The answer is, we don’t. We’ve tried for some time, but the temperature and the lack of the food they like is too much for them. So instead, when we need one, we send some of the younger adults to go fetch one in the desert, and when we have no use for them, we eat them to not waste the meat and to avoid having to go back to the desert to release them.” The shorter representative answered, as it was the most common thing to do. “Not what you were expecting?”
“I was thinking the trick was something closer to building special housing to keep it warm and finding a food it liked, but no judgment from me. It is like you are hunting them, but making use of its utility before killing it.” Dalton answered, but despite not condemning the practice, it was a bit too dark for his tastes. So, the conversation slowly died for the rest of the way.
When they were all seated around the large wooden table where the council used to hold its meetings, Dalton stood up to begin the first diplomatic meeting between the two tribes. “As the Mixers Clan leader, I declare the first diplomatic meeting between the mixers and tamers open, to negotiate borders and reach an agreement about the land division. Before we start, does anyone want to say something?” For every living soul in the room’s despair, Artemis readily stood up too. Everybody froze, their eyes trailed to the troublemaker, hoping she wouldn't destroy the peace negotiations before they even started. Silence permeated the room, and after a moment of apprehension that felt like hours to those seated there, Artemis finally spoke, relieving everyone of their fears, “I’ll go to the bathroom, you can keep going without me,” and then she left and started walking without waiting for an answer.
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‘She followed the script, good’ thought Dalton, relieved that she followed their agreement to leave before anything serious started. As much as he wanted to piss off Artemis and make her endure a ‘boring meeting’, she was way too unpredictable for something serious like this. With that little show out of the way, the serious talk began.
The talk was mostly done by Dalton, Jason, and the two representatives, while the others didn’t do much, except for Duke. Since the hunter worked with some sensory areas that humans weren’t supposed to have, he only had one job: to observe. From the moment of their arrival, he kept track of their reactions, their body language, and other feedback animals gave in an unconscious manner. Everything was very normal at the beginning, and them being a bit surprised by Artemis' reception was a normal reaction, but a few moments ago, they started behaving very odd, and he didn’t know exactly why, but both representatives suddenly started to get more and more anxious.
Walking happily in the opposite direction of the council room, Artemis was whistling a few tunes from the place she was born on the way to get her son. Certainly, nobody would care about her bailing out of the meeting, right? She thought.
“Let’s gooo, Tomas!!! It’s so nostalgic to go test new powers! I don’t even remember the last time I had to go out to test something! Lately, my dreams are just about enhancing what I already got…” Artemis went from happiness to dejection when she remembered how much time had passed since she received a dream that wasn’t focused on improving her other dreams.
It was a pretty common pattern actually, being the first dreams the rough base of someone’s powers, and the later ones would add the finesse and control that the first ones didn’t have. But for Artemis, it took part of the fun in getting new dreams, so taking Tomas to field test a new power was a kind of nostalgia for her.
“Are you sure of this mom? You don’t have explosion resistance like dad…” Tomas questioned, still a bit uncertain. No matter how powerful and well-developed your dream build is, even a kid with the right dream can give you a lot of trouble. ‘No one is invincible’ is a fact widely discussed in Tomas and every other kid’s lessons to make sure they never commit a mistake for lack of cautiousness.
But Artemis dismissed his worries, “What do you take me for? Have you forgotten that I’m the only one in this Clan that can hold the death beast in a stalemate for a few minutes alone? Your kid version of your father's powers can't hurt me, so don’t worry and give your best, okay?” She encouraged the kid.
“Well, it's not like I have another option, god said I have only one boom, and that’s it.” Tomas said.
“Where should we go? I remember Dalton telling me your training grounds were in the northeast, right Tomas?” Artemis asked her son. “Yeah, it's a few kilometers in that direction,” Tomas answered. “Let’s ask dad’s bird to take us there; it will be much faster that way.” he suggested.
But Artemis had a different plan in her mind. “No need. Why would I miss the opportunity to show off in front of my son?” She said with a mischievous grin on her face. “How fast can you endure?” Artemis asked.
“Dunno, but I’m sure dad has gone supersonic once while holding me, for the sake of limit testing” Tomas said.
“That’s more than enough then! Hold tight,” Artemis said, already picking up her son. Doing a few warm-up jumps to check if Tomas was secure, she walked a few meters away from their and any other house, so the aftereffects didn’t destroy anything.
Then she bent her knees and put a hand on the ground while holding Tomas with the other. Power started flowing through her body, enhancing every muscle, bone, tendon, cartilage, and piece of skin that would be demanded to complete the movement, optimizing every single cell of her body to waste the minimum energy from her dream as possible while achieving the best results. A fading light started glowing in Artemis' eyes, indicating her dream was turned on, giving her the air of a living god, and for a moment, Tomas’ world stopped.
A surge of acceleration like he had never seen before happened, and then, when he opened his eyes, their village was long gone, turned into a miniature in the horizon. What he couldn’t see was the outcome of her ‘jump’. Some guy once said that every action generated a reaction of equal scale, and in this case, the 10-meter radius crater in the middle of the village was the consequence of her showing off.
“Mom, can you fly too?” Tomas asked, a bit dumbfounded by his mom's newfound powers.
“Of course, no! Just like we fall after a jump, we are simply falling now, Tom,” She answered.
His face instantly turned from awe to despair and fear of dying. “Mom, you may survive falling from this height, but I’m dying for sure!!!” Tomas screamed. “Have a little faith in your mum, will ya?” Artemis tried to calm down her son with not much success.
While screaming, Tomas saw the ground come closer, and closer, and closer, until he couldn’t bear it anymore and closed his eyes, just hoping the landing not to be the crash he was expecting. Even gentler than Dalton’s landing, Artemis finally touched the ground, like she was stepping down a stair. With the same movement that someone who is underwater uses to go to the surface, she used her legs to 'push the air' and lose speed. It wasn’t something she could keep doing to ‘fly’, as she needed a burst of power and speed to make the air behave like water, so she used it only to ease her landing.
Opening his eyes, Tomas instantly recognized the place. The craters of different sizes scattered around the open space in the middle of the forest and a few broken trees were obvious signs that Dalton and Tomas had been here. “I remember this place, mom! These holes were made by dad last week when blasting me in the morning. How did you get the place right while Jumping from the village?!” He asked, not believing her accuracy. “Actually, I didn’t. I had to adjust in the air a bit, but that’s not important. Testing time!” Artemis said, apparently more excited about this than the dream owner.
Leaving him in the middle of a very big crater, she jumped away, opening a distance of a couple of hundred meters. Despite telling him not to worry about her, she really didn’t have heat resistance like him and Dalton, so she had to get to a safe distance before her son went ‘boom’.
Receiving the OK from Artemis, Tomas began to focus. Since he never used an active dream, he actually didn’t understand what he had to do, so he stood there, trying and searching for a way to access his desired power. A minute went by, and he started to sweat, a proof that he was really trying. Tomas had already found his energy storage, which was slowly filling with the seconds passing by, but he was still searching for a way to let it out.
A couple of minutes later, he finally found it! The path the energy had to take to move out! But it was kinda closed? Like a newborn baby, he had to learn how to stand up first, so he could walk later, and so he began. Directing his power to his rightful path, Tomas could instinctively feel that this was the right way. Slowly, he moved all his power through his channels, making sure that the path didn’t contract again after the energy passed. It would take time, but he would get his blast.
Tomas lost his focus a bit to look for his mother, as a form of asking for some kind of instruction, but he found something he wasn’t expecting. The look on her face wasn’t from his usual loving and easygoing mother, but the look of a veteran warrior ready to fight to the death. It scared him deeply.
Everything was going ok, until it wasn’t. Tomas was struggling a bit with his dream, but it was normal, and everything was fine at that point until a shiver went down her spine, her instincts went crazy, and she instantly assumed a battle-ready position. At first, it was the lack of sound. Way too quiet for a forest. Then, she noticed some trees moving, a bit far away. Something big was coming, it was time to leave. She started going back towards Tomas in large and quick steps, never letting the imminent danger out of her sight. Their power testing could wait.
“Tomas, let's go, something is coming. Cancel your dream and move,” She said, already reaching his shoulder with her hand to take him away. But something unexpected happened. The moment she grabbed him, an energy path under his skin somehow activated, and a small explosion was released. Artemis' dreams went full defensive, and in a matter of milliseconds, her right hand became reinforced as much as her dream allowed. Her skin hardened like rock, and the important parts of her hand were strengthened in a way to defend from the unexpected attack.
But in the end, her hands were still charred black from burns. Despite having reassured Tomas about her lack of resistance to his powers, organic matter never handled heat well, and she knew it. Even having a heat resistance dream to handle air friction, it wasn’t powerful enough to handle her son.
Dismissing her burned hand, Artemis started to get nervous, the creature started getting too close to her liking by the way the trees were moving. “Come on, Tomas, you can do it. Just cancel it so we can run, ok?” She tried asking again.
“Don’t know if I can, mom…this stubborn energy simply doesn’t go back from where it came, I’m trying…” Tomas answered.
While her son was fighting his own dream, Artemis' eyes were glued to the patch of the forest the beast would come out from. Trees started shifting closer, closer, closer, until it was finally revealed, and Artemis gasped. Instantly she entered a fight-or-run situation in which she couldn’t run, only fight. Tomas' unstable powers didn’t allow the other option, and leaving him behind was never a possibility.
Three full-grown armored leopards, that's what she would be facing.