Wrestling control from the predator isn’t easy, but I do it. Its mind—like its body—is scattered, sent reeling from the explosion. Plus, a good portion of it getting ripped away by the containment cube didn’t hurt.
I mean, it did hurt the predator. That was the point. Anyway.
Now that I’m back in reality, back outside of the predator’s influence, Echo’s notifications are streaming through me. Fall damage, concussive damage, bludgeoning damage—yet somehow, through all that, I’m alive.
I’m alive.
The predator is, too. It’s still there, lurking at the other end of our tether, though I’m keeping a tight hold on its leash. Enforcing as great a distance between us as I can manage. For now, it’s not pushing back. The creature is still confused, scattered, reeling. I might say humbled if I didn’t know any better. Right now, I just do my best to box it away and focus on my surroundings.
The world quakes, sending the scattering of rubble and broken glass clattering over the stone floor. I roll onto my side, causing hundreds of microscopic fractures to send stabbing pains through me, and just as many new notifications from Echo. I brush them aside.
“Zyneth?” I call. At least my translator isn’t broken. There’s black ichor and broken stones everywhere—I can’t see him.
Echo, help me find Zyneth.
[Affirmative,] Echo says. [The user will be notified when the Zyneth subject is identified.]
I try to stand, but one of my legs falls away. Dammit. I float the leg back up in place and go to activate a Sculpt, but—
[Mana: 0/111]
Shit. Bonus Mana?
[Bonus Mana: 0]
Between activating the portal to Earth and the predator sucking up every point of mana at my disposal, I’m bone dry. I guess the predator needed everything I had left to keep its claws latched onto reality. Pity it wasn’t killed when the containment cube exploded—I guess I’ll just have to take “weakened” for now. But I have other things to worry about.
“Zyneth!” I call again, trying to limp over a large chunk of stone. I slip, falling and shattering what remained of the broken leg. One leg, one arm. I can’t be of any help like this. Unclasping my core from around my neck, I set myself down on the ground. My core is fractured, still damaged from Gillow’s attack, but at least the harness and four legs I have secured around my vial aren’t broken. Carefully picking my way through the debris, I reach into every shard of glass within my range, controlling every piece I can manage, and move them with me.
I activate Elemental Radar as I go, swirling the glass through the rubble.
The portal’s spell circle is ruined. Lines in the stone are broken, runes blasted away, everything shattered by massive chunks of the coliseum’s pillars that have fallen to the ground. Bits of void are scattered everywhere, too, though even now they’re slowly, painfully starting to seep back in my direction like creeping black slugs. I ignore them, desperate to find Zyneth.
As I search, the world shakes again. There’s a terrible roar somewhere in the distance. I levitate my head, as high as my range will allow, and turn it in a slow circle. Several white cracks run through my vision, but on the other side of the arena, nearest where the containment cube had been, I can make out where several of the pillars had collapsed and water is now gushing in through the side of our bubble.
The spell circles powering the air bubbles are damaged. Their magic is failing. We have to get out of here—soon.
I speed up. I need more eyes to find Zyneth, but the last time I tried turning on more than a few sources of sight, it was overwhelming. Too much to parse. And I’d only had a dozen pieces of glass, then.
The predator regularly uses several sources of sight—it wouldn’t have a problem with this. But I’m not giving that monster even the smallest sliver of control—not now, when there’s more of it than there is of me.
But it doesn’t have to just be sight, does it? I’m already using a sense of touch in all of them.
“Zyneth!” I call again. Then I tell Echo, Turn hearing on in all my pieces of glass.
[Activated.]
The room becomes deafening. The same thundering sounds ripple through me, delayed a fraction of a second between my furthest pieces.
And somewhere amidst all that chaos, I hear a moan.
I push myself harder, trying to zero in on which glass had heard it. Not the ones to my left; I turn the sound off in all of those.
“Zyneth!”
I hear him again, a raspy breath. I turn off more glass. Push myself faster. One by one, I start whittling away at my glass, closing in on where I can now make out his consistent labored breaths. But he’s still not answering my calls. I steel myself for the worst.
[Zyneth identified.]
I see the blood first, and I start shaking. Not with fear or regret, but rage. This is what the predator made me do. What the predator did. It hurt him, and I’m overcome with a violent urge to hurt the predator back. At this moment, if I had the opportunity, I would do unspeakable things.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
But Zyneth comes first. He’s on his back, several shards of glass protruding from his limbs, glass that had been outside my range when I’d first started looking for him. Apart from the stab wounds, a puddle of blood is forming beneath his head, and a large piece of stone is obscuring his left leg.
I Check him.
[HP: 45/150. Zyneth is suffering from a concussion, fractured leg, and multiple lacerations.]
Even as I watch, his HP ticks down one more point.
“Okay,” I say. “I’m going to need you to wake up, buddy. I can’t carry you out.”
He’s still breathing, but he doesn’t stir. What can I do? I’m out of mana. A trickle of water streams past us, mixing with Zyneth’s blood. And we’re running out of time. I’m not strong enough to lift the rock off his leg, let alone pick him up after.
“Zyneth!” I shout, although the volume of my translator seems to be capped. I shake his arm with some of my glass. “Please, wake up, I need you to help me.”
The void is creeping back toward me, too, gathering its scattered bits from the battlefield, crawling back toward me as it follows the predator’s call. I try to ignore it.
Echo, what’s the state of my inventory? I ask.
[Inventory: 0/1]
My soul leaps. There’s one slot? I can use that?
[Affirmative,] Echo says. [Although largely perforated by the attacks of the entity designated predator, a small fraction of the pocket null dimension is still functional as storage space.]
I don’t even let her finish before I’m already racing to the rock on Zyneth’s leg. I tap my core against it. Add this to the inventory.
The stone vanishes. At the same time Zyneth lets out a strangled cry, eyes snapping open as his body spasms.
His HP slips to 34.
“I’m here!” I rush back over toward his head. “It’s okay. We’re getting out of here.”
Zyneth sucks in a tight breath, squinting through a grimace as he turns to look at me. His eyes pinch in a pained smile. “Little friend,” he says between breaths. “Happy to see you looking like this.”
Never thought I’d say the same, but me too. “Don’t get too excited, I won’t be much help to you in this form.”
He closes his eyes. “That’s fine. Give me a moment. Need to rest.”
Not with his HP still slowly ticking down—and the water turning into a small stream beside us. “Uh, afraid not, buddy, we’re about to get flooded. And then probably crushed by a million tons of water. Also, you need a healer. Like, five minutes ago.”
“Alright.” Zyneth lifts a clumsy hand to his head, wincing as it touches his temple. Then he screws his face tight, and pushes himself up. He immediately stifles a scream as his injured leg shifts.
“I’m not sure walking is an option,” he says through a gasp.
The ground shakes, and with a sharp crack, another pillar collapses to the ground. Zyneth ducks his head and I tense as a cloud of dust and pebbles race past us.
“You have to,” I say. “We’re going to die here if you don’t get up!”
“No, just me,” Zyneth says, breathing heavily, as he takes in our surroundings. “You can make it back to the Prismatic.”
“Fuck that!” I cry. “And then what? Twiddle my thumbs at the bottom of the ocean with no idea how to get back as I reflect on your death? Get up! You have to get up.”
“Kanin,” Zyneth says, pausing every other word to catch his breath. “I cannot stress enough how difficult it is to even be holding this conversation. I am very tired. I am in excruciating pain. Please understand, I make no suggestion lightly.”
No. I won’t accept it. He didn’t give up on me when the predator had me, and I won’t give up on him now. Options. Options!
The void is slowly pooling next to me, clustering around the shattered pile that was my clothes and body. It’s keeping a respectful distance. Maybe it knows how pissed I am. Even at the thought, it shrinks in on itself, seeming to compress into a smaller pool.
Wait. Compress.
Echo what was that spell that the predator did before? With the null magic. When we teleported the Prismatic.
[Displace, Level 1,] Echo says. [Objects may be moved between two coordinates within an Attuned volume of void. Requirement: Attuned void. Mana: variable depending on size.]
How much to move Zyneth?
[Mana: 320]
Even if my mana wasn’t totally extinguished, more than I can handle. But…
I Check Zyneth’s mana as well.
[Mana: 335/640]
Holy shit. Just enough.
Just enough if the predator doesn’t suck any of it away. Would it cooperate? It’s only invested in keeping me alive, and it already tried to kill Zyneth once today. Can I force it to cooperate? Or would initiating that contact open a new can of worms?
A distant column collapses, then hits another. That one collapses, too. Water geysers into the arena, crashing into the ground and spreading out over the floor. By the time it reaches us it’s no longer a wave, but a quickly moving stream. Zyneth plucks me from the ground just before I can be swept away. He holds me to his chest as the water races past.
“Kanin. You have to get out.”
No time to waffle—this is our only shot. “I am—we are! Zyneth, I need your magic. All of it, as fast as you can.”
“What are you—”
“No time!” I cry. “Do it now!”
Zyneth takes a steadying breath, then a comforting yellow light engulfs me.
[Bonus mana: 25,] Echo says. The counter starts to race up.
I turn to the predator next.
You’re going to work with me here, I tell it. The predator’s attention shifts to fall over me like an icy wind. You were willing to work with me before. And after what you just pulled, you owe me.
It doesn’t reply, it only radiates frigid hate and resistance.
I frankly don’t give a fuck, I say. This is all your fault to begin with. If you hadn’t attacked Zyneth—if you hadn’t taken those souls—we might have been able to find middle ground. But you’re only capable of thinking about yourself. The words make me pause, even as I’m thinking them, but I press ahead. Well now it’s time to fall in line. Because if he doesn’t get out of here, neither do I—and neither do you. If you take a single whiff of the magic we’re getting right now, it’s through. We’re dead. So. Right now? You’re working for me.
The predator moves. Its mind presses forward, and I steel myself, ready to throw everything I have at it, ready to kill myself over this one final, desperate, most important act. But it doesn’t attack. The gap along our bond closes, and for a moment I am seeing its thoughts as clearly as my own: Like looking in a mirror, it’s focused on my resolve, my determination, my conviction. And I’d die for Zyneth right now. I really would.
This is one fight not worth having.
The predator lets me take the void. It lets Zyneth’s stream of magic pass through its grasp. I can still feel its reluctance there, its unending hunger, but it’s also radiating a new concept, one that a part of itself had only learned within the last few weeks: restraint.
I grasp the void, flinging half of it to the edge of my range. With the predator’s mind this close, with it cooperating instead of fighting, it makes it all the way to the Prismatic. The rest I gather around Zyneth and I, clustering all my remaining glass as close as I can manage as well.
Another geyser of water burst through the bubble, this one closer, sharp lashes of water pelting against Zyneth’s back. He hunches over me, eyes squeezed shut.
I Check Zyneth’s HP: 22.
I Check my Bonus Mana: 310.
I swirl the void around us. “I’m going to need you to trust me on this.”
[Bonus Mana: 315]
I can’t see from my core anymore, Zyneth’s hand obscuring my vision on one side and his shirt on the other, but my other glass has a front-row view as the nearest column collapses and the ocean thunders toward us.
Zyneth’s hand, still gentle and careful as ever, squeezes tighter. “I always have.”
[Bonus Mana: 320]
I activate the spell.