Harlow swung with abandon at the termite Databeast, also known as a Termiterror. They were big things, pure white and bipedal and reached a little below Harlow’s chest at a full stand. Their arms were somewhat stubby and weak, but their bulbous fat heads had enormous pincers on that could do something nasty to him. They mostly attacked with their faces, so opened their heads up to big damage from his staff, but it still felt uncomfortable to fight the aggressive blighters.

Two had been defeated in this fight and there was only this one left. Watchdog, Captain Rizzo’s Instar-level databeast stayed by the sidelines. It had been joining Harlow in his training sessions and they had only increased in ferocity since the event that spawned the canine creature. The captain was pushing hard on both Harlow and his Databeast in order to level up his Databeast and get him to evolve from the Instar stage to the Juvenile.

Harlow and Rizzo had gone to a nearby town, Oxburgh to get him a low grade wind element stone and get it attuned. It had worked, and Harlow had never felt so good, or light on his feet. Certainly not Tommen had kneecapped him, anyway. But Rizzo seemed to think that he’d done Harlow a great favour by honouring his side of the bargain for the Databeast egg, and that Harlow’s debt to Cabletown was even greater than it was before. He refused to let up on the youth.

So, Harlow had little choice but to spend his days in the aftermath of his battle with Tom and Brand and Rosie in a battle frenzy. His leg hurt every minute now, but it had progressed into a dull ache, a constant reminder that his enemies were out there. While initially his fighting style had been truly hampered given his lack of agility, Harlow now felt comfortable in his ability to stand and trade with any creature, Databeast or animal from Earth, on Excoria. As such the termite Databeast posed little threat. He was merely weakening it, beating it down with brutal efficiency. Watchdog, on the sidelines, waited for its opportunity to strike.

The Instar-stage database was small and round with stubby little legs, which meant it couldn't move very fast. It also meant that it was absolutely no threat to the Juvenile-stage termite Databeasts. In order to level quickly, Captain Rizzo had turned Harlow into Watchdog's power leveller, defeating things most of the way so that the little Databeast could finish them off.

They'd been down the cave for days. It was a strange place, full of twisted metal veins that seemed to run through the ground. Large crystals jutted out the ground on occasion, and odd angular metallic structures that seemed natural reflected a rainbow of iridescent colour at them. Harlow was stood stunned as he hadn’t seen anything like it, but Rizzo had just grunted and said “It’s bismuth” before continuing on. Harlow hid his amazement as he followed the guard captain through the tunnels. Sometimes Harlow had to squat down, which was exceedingly hard on his damaged leg, or other times he caught it whilst walking on uneven ground. He wasn’t enjoying the underground, but for the most part the tunnels were fine and left plenty of room for him to stand up straight in.

They had been skirting around an enormous hive of termite Databeasts that had seemingly colonised an entire area. This was fine as long as they only fought the Juvenile-stage Databeasts, but if a Vanquisher-stage appeared then they were probably done for. Rizzo was probably approaching a Vanquisher in strength, but he wasn’t quite there yet. Harlow and Watchdog had to get a few more levels before they’d be able to support him there.

Luckily Watchdog was already level three. The Databeast had been almost exclusively fighting and defeating higher level Databeasts than it for several days now, and it was reaping the rewards. Every level gave it a noticeable boost in strength and speed, and although its diminutive form didn’t change and wouldn’t change unless it evolved, the Databeast had gained a mean streak, a certain glint in the eye that made it seem more dangerous than when it first spawned.

Harlow didn’t really like it. At first he’d been amazed with the Databeast, awed at seeing someone become a tamer for the first time in his life, and seeing a Databeast brought into this world. He still was, really. It was incredible. But he was starting to resent the pup as he resented its master, and its constant presence was growing frustrating to him.

Not to mention it was stealing his kills. He bashed the termite repeatedly in the head and knocked it onto its side and Watchdog ran in to savage the downed Databeast. Before long it disappeared into EXP, BITs and element.

“Why don’t you powerlevel Watchdog, while I take on some termites on my own?” Harlow said, tired.

“Why would we do that?” Asked Rizzo.

“It’d increase our growth rate. And it’s good to switch things up every so often.”

“I need to manage you in case something goes wrong.” Captain Rizzo said.

“Seems unlikely it will. We’d level faster if we split up a little.” Harlow replied. He was tired of having Captain Rizzo on his back, constantly.

“And what if you die to a Databeast? What if I face a Vanquisher and need some back up? You’re not as good as you think you are.” Rizzo told him. That was probably true, thought Harlow. But he couldn’t tell if the man genuinely believed what he was saying, or was just using it as an excuse to parasitise off Harlow’s hard work. Rizzo was also absorbing EXP, BITs and element from the kills, after all.

“What if I die then? My own life, my own risks. If I think danger is worth growth, then that’s what it is.” Harlow said, standing up for himself. It was the wrong thing to say to the captain. Rizzo’s face grew ugly with anger. Behind Harlow, Watchdog snarled. Harlow stood firm, looking at the man. They were about equal in size, though one was much more dangerous than the other. Harlow knew it wasn’t him.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“Your own life? Who raised you up? Cabletown.” Rizzo yelled. “Who gave you the clothes on your back? The strength of your arm? Cabletown. Who taught you to fight? Who let slide your failures? Cabletown. Who does your life belong to? To whom do you owe everything!?” Rizzo’s rage-filled eyes searched Harlow’s face while the little dog Databeast continued growling behind him. The silence stretched. It was clear Rizzo wasn’t going to accept anything less than an answer. Harlow had a lot of them. To whom did Cabletown owe? Harlow’s family had been among the first of the prestigious bunch to join Cabletown.

Harlow felt he owed his parents a lot, they had always supported him. Or had they? They’d sent him to all the best schools, given him all the advantages, made sure he’d done well. But had that been to ensure he was the best that he could be? Or was that to brag to their friends? He’d always been compared to his parent’s friends' children, as no doubt they had been compared to him. Who was going to do more for Cabletown. He hung out with some of them but he couldn’t call them friends of his own. How could he be friends with them, when every time he met them he was confronted by a twisting in his stomach, both a feeling of intense seething inferiority mixed with a sneering superiority. So they’d given him advantages for selfish reasons and put up barriers between him and those who were supposed to be his peers.

But still, they were his parents. And they still had given him things, regardless of motivation. So maybe he did owe them. And they were part of Cabletown so maybe he did owe Cabletown, as Cabletown owed him.

Maybe he owed Rizzo too, one for putting him on a collision path with Brand and Tommen and two for dragging him out on a broken leg and giving him a janky prosthetic, but only on one leg. He had come to realise that this had changed his whole body posture by making his legs uneven in size and weight. His back had been sore recently because his uneven hips had sent his whole body out of whack.

He had seen himself reflected when he went to bathe in Ash Baths. The chaos there had quickly made him forget, but he remembered now. His body that he had been so proud of was now even more lean and muscular - thanks to Rizzo’s brutal training program - but his form was hunched and gnarled, a twisted abomination of what he could have been.

So Rizzo had made him stronger, but also made him a mess. Maybe he owed Rizzo too. And even Brand and Tommen. But all those three were from Cabletown also. So if he owed anything then maybe he did owe Cabletown.

“Well?” Rizzo demanded.

Harlow met his gaze with surety. “Cabletown.”

“That’s right! Cabletown! Cabletown! Cabletown!” Said Rizzo, smashing his guard staff against the walls as he said so. “And don’t you forget it boy. Now get ready, that ought to have brought some more of those Termiterrors over here.”

________

Rizzo had been right, it did bring more Termiterrors. Lots of them. Harlow supposed the man had wanted to prove a point, and he did that. Harlow had needed Rizzo’s help to survive the assault of five of the termite Databeasts attacking him. Of course, Rizzo had only joined in once Harlow was already overwhelmed and feeling the vice-crush of clacking jaws around him.

Still, once he’d got back to safety and made a momentary recovery, it had felt good to push back the expeditionary force of five Termiterrors with Rizzo and to corner them and defeat them. Fighting side by side with someone was something Harlow thought he could get used to, though he still hadn’t made his mind up on whether he trusted the captain of the guard. A Databeast of his own would have been great to fight beside, he thought.

He cursed when he thought of how he’d had to give Rizzo that egg. But he decided he’d have a better Databeast than Watchdog anyway. In fact he was glad that he hadn’t got that specific Databeast egg. Although that being said, it’d have been a different Databeast if he’d been the one to tame it. So it was sort of a moot point.

The point was that he wanted valuable companions that he could trust to have his back, and that he actually liked spending time around. Not for the first time he’d wondered exactly when they’d be going back home. Not because of the hard ground to sleep on or the battling or the endless walking, but merely because he wasn’t sure just how much longer he could stand the always irate captain of the guard.

They’d stopped now and set up a temporary camp behind a giant bismuth crystal that jutted out the side of the wall and just concealed a little indent that they could set up as a semi-hidden shelter from the denizens of the tunnels. Shortly after their encounter with the five Termiterrors they’d seen - first felt - a Vanquisher stage databeast making its way through the passageways beneath the ground. They had hid up the tunnel the Termiterrors had come from and waited for the lumbering thing to pass.

It was an enormous mammalian creature of some kind, though instead of hair it just had grey-leathery skin. Its back legs were much larger than its front and it walked bipedally and comfortably in a hunched over manner, though it stopped once to put its front paws on the ground whilst sniffing around.

That was when Harlow saw its face. It had a freakish appearance that could have been cuter on a smaller creature. It was almost mouselike but elongated. Harlow thought it looked like a shrew had been stretched over a hornless rhinoceros and then lost the hair. Most startling of all were the two pointy incisor tusks that stretched out of its upper jaw towards the front of itself, giving Harlow no doubt that he didn’t want to be on the receiving end of a charge by the creature.

After it had gone and they could relax, Rizzo had told him that it was a Hy-Rex and one of the scarier Vanquisher level Databeasts. So knowing that that was wandering around, they’d decided to take extra caution in setting up their camp and making it difficult to spot, if one didn’t already know where to look.

But that made the camp no more comfortable and after a while of cramped sitting he proclaimed that he wanted to go for a short walk as his leg was aching after being kept in a poor position for a long time. It was half true after all, all the best lies were.

Rizzo just gave a noncommittal grunt in response, so Harlow wandered slowly to get himself some alone time and enjoy the majesty of the underground tunnels they found themselves in. Despite the pain and discomfort, the vast caverns really were amazing, covered in fluorescent algae and all wonders of beautiful metal. It made being here that much nicer. It almost distracted from the constant and endless stream of pain that flowed upwards from his knee.

He limped forward on his bad leg and thought of his argument with Captain Rizzo earlier. “Who do I owe this broken and mangled leg to?” Harlow muttered under his breath. “Cabletown.”