The gorilla didn’t take very kindly to my taunt. I saw its prideful eyes darken as it heard my tone, not needing to understand my words to know that I was insulting it.
It was clearly an animal used to being obeyed by others, which only served to prove me right in my guess that it was the strongest animal around. So the fact that I didn't scamper away in fear was more insulting than anything I could have said.
With an earth-shattering roar, the beast rose to its full height and beat on its chest in a classic gorilla move before jamming its fingers into the ground and yanking out a massive chunk of the dirt. Its arm arched back before launching forward at an incredible speed, sending the boulder-sized clump of soil flying at me.
With a determined face, I stood in the path of the attack and angled my pole at it. Fire churned at the tip of the pole as I gathered more and more Flux there, before it suddenly burst forward and struck the clump of earth right in the center.
The fire was hotter and stronger than ever before, and the slightly tapered point I’d made split the dirt apart as soon as the two forces collided. The fire didn’t have the arrowhead-level of sharpness I’d envisioned, but the result was good enough. The dirt was thrown in every direction except for mine, exploding apart as my fire ran through it. The strength of my beam was greater than even I had expected, and it somehow made it all the way to where the gorilla stood. The gorilla took the fire in stride, however, dispersing the beam with a simple swipe of its hand. The heat seemed to do almost nothing to it, but I wasn’t discouraged.
Anything could be burned, after all. I just needed more fire.
Lighting a ball over my palm, I raced towards the giant gorilla with a speed that even I didn't expect; the strength that coursed through my body was almost alien to me. But I got a hold on my boosted speed quickly, basking in the air rushing through my hair for a quick second before I arrived in front of the animal. It looked even taller close up, like a golden, furry mountain of muscle. Channeling extra Flux through my legs, I threw my fireball on the floor and leapt upwards as hard as I could, using the force of the explosion at my feet to help me gain height. The animal had just begun to look downwards as I flew upward, but my pole caught it on the chin and knocked its head back. Fire burned on the fur of his chin as I flew above its face, meeting its eyes as it looked straight up.
With a slight malicious curve of my lips, I grabbed my pole with both hands and swung it down on the gorilla’s face with all the force I could muster.
The flaming metal smacked down on the brown skin of its face, but the surface was far harder than I had been expecting. The attack didn’t manage to do nearly as much damage as I had been hoping it would, which meant that I had been underestimating the defense of the gorilla. Still, there wasn’t much I could do at that point, so I stuck to the plan and tried to use the gorilla’s face as a springboard to launch myself back and away from it.
But it seemed I had underestimated the gorilla far more than I had realized. As I pulled myself back, I suddenly noticed my body start to get heavier, and a strange vice-like grip began to circle around my ankles. Since I was still in the air, I began to drop far faster than I was supposed to, too fast for me to control. As I fell, I looked down at my ankles and realized that, strangely, stone bracelets had appeared around them, sandy brown and incredibly heavy.
I was still busy wondering how the bracelets had gotten there when the gorilla’s fist rammed into me like a speeding semi-truck.
The world blacked out for a moment before it rushed back as I struck the trees on the other side of the clearing. I fell down to the ground just as three stone spikes crashed through the trunk of the tree that had stopped me. As I landed face-first in the dirt, I dimly realized that I should have expected a rock gorilla to be able to control and create stone. This was a whole new planet, of course – one that had Flux for far longer than Earth ever had.
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I also realized that I had several broken bones, which meant that I had to Revive. But as much as I wanted to complain, I had to admit that a blow like the one I’d just taken would have left me in a far worse state only a few hours ago. Broken bones would have been the least of my worries if my body hadn’t been strengthened to the level that it had.
The gorilla was not so merciful as to allow me time to get back to my feet, however. Before I could even begin to prepare myself to Revive, I heard the whistling of what I knew to be more of those stone spikes headed my way. With a groan, I rolled myself over just a second before they crashed into the dirt, ripping through the ground and burying themselves deep. The spikes were each at least a foot long, cone-shaped and fatally sharp. The gorilla was not playing around; that much was clear.
Before the gorilla could launch more of those spikes, I quickly sucked in a deep breath and held it as I let Flux run through my body, setting right all the different bruises and cuts and broken bones. The pain was as intense as always, but I could feel that the improvement that came with the Revive was slightly better than it had been before. As if the upgrade had not only improved me, but also increased the rate at which my body improved as well.
A fascinating prospect, but unfortunately, not one I had long to think about, as the thudding of the ground around me told me that the gorilla had finally decided to make its way over to me.
Rallying the Flux within my veins, I pushed my mind harder as I tried to come up with a plan as fast as I could. I didn’t have much available to me; I had basic strength and speed, a five-foot-long metal pole, and fire. The body enhancements, as cool as they were, weren’t enough to overcome the gorilla’s defense – that much was obvious from my previous failure. The pole didn’t offer much either, unfortunately.
That left fire as my only option. And while I’d been using fire as my main thing for a while now, I’d always carried a nagging feeling that I wasn’t using it to its fullest potential.
And as the gorilla got closer and closer to my prone form, I decided on what my newest experiment with my power would be. I’d used the flame to make me move faster and jump higher, I’d made two different kinds of projectiles with it, and I’d used it to coat my body. I couldn’t rely on continually coming up with new uses and ideas – I was already coming up blank on that end – and what I had was already enough. What I needed to focus on was simply volume and temperature. I simply needed more fire.
The gorilla was almost in front of me by the time I decided on my plan. I was apparently its only target, as it had walked past Ren’s body with no reaction, but that worked in my favor. I didn’t want to have to deal with having to protect Ren’s body while I fought.
The gorilla paused over my face-down body for a second, before reaching over a hand to grab me. I waited until the second its thick fingers had closed around my body to unleash the flame. Simultaneously igniting the Flux around me and releasing the Flux inside of me, I boosted the temperature of the fire to a level far higher than ever, and the results were obvious.
Swirling flames surrounded the beast’s fingers, instantly scorching the brown skin. The ape roared in pain as it immediately released me, yanking its burning hand away and shaking it in the air.
Still face down in the dirt, I grinned wildly to myself as I basked in the pleasant warmth of the fire around me, feeling so alive within the flame, so at home, in a way I’d never been before.
I sent the fire around me downward and propelled myself straight up in the air, bringing myself high enough to be level with the gorilla’s face. As soon as I was, I swiped the air in front of me and sent a blade of flame flying at its face. Not bothering to check how much damage it did – I knew it wouldn’t do much anyway – I landed on the ground and ran to the side, fire burning through me as much as it was around me. There was a restless flame in my veins that pushed me to move faster, to fight, to win.
It didn’t take long for the gorilla to collect itself once again, although I was sure the pain in its hand wouldn’t leave any time soon. And the pained anger with which it roared at me only made me grin wider.
You think that hurts, you big ape? ‘Cause I’m just getting started.