The sight before me was like a nightmare that kept getting worse. Not only was a giant, water-controlling, snake trying to kill me but now there was the biggest grasshopper I had ever seen two feet in front of me. I felt a horrible tingling swim through my body as I stared at the grasshopper. Its long green and yellow legs stretched and cracked with every movement. It fluttered its long wings and snapped its mandibles together. I hated everything about it.

“An insect?” The girl in the tree yelled. “Out of all the Cores you could have chosen you picked a giant bug. Great… we’re dead…”

“Well, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m doing.” I snapped back at her.

“Hey pay attention.” The grasshopper called back to me. It talks… Wonderful… “I can’t fight this thing myself. I need you to focus.”

“On what?” I asked.

“On me.” The grasshopper crouched and bounded out of the way as the snake slammed its fangs down where it used to be.

“Okay Ben,” I whispered to myself. “If there was a time to not be afraid that would be now.” With every ounce of courage, I could muster I stood up and faced the Pondfang. The grasshopper landed next to me and I had to restrain myself from shuddering at its presence. Focus… Focus Ben.

A new feeling came over my mind. It was hard to explain exactly how it felt but the best I could say is that it was like an invisible bridge rapidly constructed in the depths of my subconscious. Or maybe it had always been there, and I never noticed till this moment. This connection pulled my thoughts, feelings, my very being towards the grasshopper. I resisted at first but was overwhelmed with the desire to live. Like being dunked in a bath of ice water all my senses flared to life. Sounds became clear and distinct. Smells filled my nose, and I could taste the moisture in the air. Everything was bright and vibrant.

I didn’t know how I knew but this was it. This was the Bond. The grasshopper and I had become synced. Thoughts working together, our senses shared as we both experienced this moment together.

I wanted to hate this feeling at first. It was like being in the mind of the one bug I couldn’t stand. The one insect that gave me chills. But at the same time, I kind of liked it. There was a new feeling within my heart. Something I had very little experience with, but I knew that this grasshopper thing did. Courage.

I stood my ground. Faced the giant snake and nodded in agreement with my newly bonded Essemon.

“Let’s do this.” We said in synchronization.

My ARC Band flashed a red light and a new hologram appeared before me. It only said one thing.

Essemon Battle Initiated!

In a whirl of motion, the world around me changed. The ground flattened and the trees arced themselves away. A wind picked up swirling leaves, grass and dirt around us in a large circle until finally dropping everything and leaving us in our own arena. The tree the girl was in and part of the large pool of water were the only unique terrain within the battlefield.

Another transparent image appeared hovering above my wrist band. Lifting it up to inspect it I saw what looked like health bars. One indicating the grasshopper's current health and one for the Pondfang.

Name [Unspecified] HP: 9/9 【▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮】

Name Pondfang HP: 11/12 【▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▯】

It looked like the Pondfang had already taken some damage. Maybe that’s why it’s so angry? An injured animal is a dangerous one. I noticed that the health bars didn’t seem to match up with the numbers being displayed next to them. It must be more of a percentage tracker than for each individual HP point being displayed. From the looks of it the percentage fell in increments of 10% with the total rounding down. I wonder how that would work if the Essemon had less than 10% of health. A thought for another day. Hopefully.

“Hey Kid!” The girl waved her arms at me. “I can tell this is your first battle. Be careful. That Pondfang has a species advantage over your bug.”

Species advantage? Well, that made sense. A snake would eat a grasshopper in a single bite and there was nothing the insect could do to stop it. Looking at my Essemon compared to the Pondfang, even with it being a massive grasshopper, it was barely bigger than the snake's head.

“I just got my first Core Essence today. I would like to keep it a bit longer.” The grasshopper said not turning away from the giant snake. “We have to come up with a plan. Any ideas?”

“Let me think. I…” I stuttered to myself. My mind reaching out to find anything we could do. How could a bug defeat a snake?

Before I could say anything the Pondfang slithered far to our left, got close to the ground as if to strike.

Some deep, long forgotten instinct must have been summoned at that moment because I called out for my Essemon to dodge his attack.

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The Pondfang did exactly what I thought it would and it quickly launched itself forward, fangs dripping with saliva. My Essemon quickly jumped to the right getting out of range of the snakes attack. I was impressed with how fast the Essemon reacted. His speed was awesome. I thought struck me and I opened up the ARC Band again. Quickly checking my Essemon’s stats I could see that their SPD stat was the highest besides HP. That must be its speed stat. Almost every game I played that used stats of some kind had speed as SPD. If only there was a way to see what the Pondfang’s stats were.

As if by command my holographic displayed popped up with another notification.

Would you like to Survey this Essemon?

I answered the device with a yes and its screen changed to the image of the red and blue ball of energy flowing around in a slow circle. It reminded me of the computer loading screens we had in school. Another notification popped up saying Complete followed by another panel of stats.

Name Pondfang Abilities Level 6 [Aqua Scales] ★☆☆☆☆ Rank 2 Stats Traits HP 12 Element [Water] ★☆☆☆☆ ATK 6 Species [Reptile] ★☆☆☆☆ DEF 2 Territory [Unbonded] ☆☆☆☆☆ SPD 1 SPT 2 Rarity Uncommon Form Slither

Chance of Core Duplication: 19%

Just like I expected. The Pondfang was slower than my Essemon. Much slower by comparison. Speed was its lowest stat. Next were what I assumed were defense and something, I didn’t know what. So, the Essemon could deal damage, but it couldn’t take it.

“Jump behind it.” I said to the grasshopper. Without hesitation my Essemon did as I said and took a few fast jumps far out of reach of the snake's bite until it landed behind the Pondfang. “Stay out of its sight. It’s slow. We can use that to our advantage.”

“Now that’s a good plan,” The grasshopper said with a smile or what I assumed a grasshopper’s smile would look like.

The Pondfang let out another long hiss as it curled its body to try and keep the grasshopper Essemon within striking range. Fortunately for us it was far slower than my Essemon as it kept bounding around in circles.

Okay, so we knew how to prevent taking damage, but we couldn’t jump around all day. I needed to go on the offensive.

“C’mon Ben. Fight back,” I said under my breath. I tightened my fists, clenched my teeth and said the first thing that came to my mind. “Bite it!”

I could feel the grasshopper's hesitation at my brilliant idea. I could also feel that it didn’t have any better ideas and was willing to try anything.

Bite it? Seriously?

My Essemon bounded forward, jumping right and left in a zigzag pattern, dodge another attack and leapt on the back of its head. The grasshopper opened its mandibles and sunk its teeth deep into the Pondfang. The wild Essemon let out a shrieking hiss as it took damage. It swung its body hard and the grasshopper couldn’t hold on. It jumped away and landed close to me watching the snake curl in anger. I took another look at the condition of the fight.

Name [Unspecified] HP: 9/9 【▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮】

Name Pondfang HP: 10/12 【▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▯▯】

One damage?!

How did we end up only doing one point of damage? Both the grasshopper and I looked at each other. This was going to be a long fight.

“Hey so I’m no Bonder Trainer but pay attention to its abilities.” The girl was now sitting on the tree branch watching the fight. She had moved closer to the trunk of the tree, so she didn’t have to yell as loud.

Right. It’s abilities. Let’s see.

I pulled up my ARC Band and brought up the Survey I had done on the Pondfang. She was right. At the bottom of its entry there was one ability, [Aqua Scales] ★☆☆☆☆. I touched on the ability and more information popped up on the screen.

[Aqua Scales]

A defensive ability only usable by [Water] [Reptile] Essemons.

The Essemon manipulates water to swirl around its body like a second skin.

Effect: Slightly reduce physical damage taken.

Well, I now knew that it didn’t matter how slow the Pondfang was because eventually it’s going to land a hit and then were in trouble and that’s exactly what happened.

I was so caught up in reading the Pondfang’s ability I wasn’t paying attention to the fight when the snake had crouched down again, head low, and struck at my Essemon. The grasshopper took the hit hard. It fell back several feet and landed on the ground with a hard thud. At the same time, I felt my left arm become consumed with pain. I let out a cry as I clutched at my shoulder. I had felt the damage that the grasshopper had taken. I didn’t necessarily feel like my actually body got hurt. There were no scrapes or blood but instead a thriving pain deep in my muscles. I saw a flickering on my ARC Band as the HP bar updated itself.

Name [Unspecified] HP: 2/9 【▮▮▯▯▯▯▯▯▯▯】

We're in a lot of trouble.