Chapter 34: Trust
A few moments ago…
In the skies above Redrock canyon, a boy was constantly ascending into the heavens. Zan looked down to see that he had already risen higher than some of the smaller canyon peaks, and the battle that he was fighting for with his life grew more and more distant. It seemed he had grossly underestimated the combined power of his eldritch appendages and spiral energy concentration.
The fault did not lay in him however, for the two powers simply had never met before, in fact they were not supposed to be able to mix. The clueless youth did not know that the power he had just displayed was unprecedented in written history. Cosmic abominations after all had no need for intricate energy gymnastics, the strength of their bodies could literally destroy worlds. Not that Zan was even close to that level of strength.
The mismatch between his human body and…whatever the rest of it was, the main factor that played in the miraculous, messy combination of powers. The youth was fascinated by this and became extremely curious. Separately, his insane physical prowess and masterful energy manipulation were already quite strong, but together, they were much greater than the sum of their parts. Zan wanted to explore it and experiment with it all but he currently was not in a…stable position to do so.
Air constantly broke as Zan penetrated through Eok's atmosphere. Seconds passed and the momentum driving him upwards slowly started to dissipate. The youth raised his head from enjoying what it was like to fly, to admiring the stars and the three moons that lit up the night sky. Observing them he saw a full moon, a half-moon and a crescent moon sending out beautiful silver light.
'Wait. What is that?'
Delightfully flying across the calm skies was a creature with the rippling muscles of a lion's body but the wings and head of an eagle. The wingspan of the thing was over 30 feet long and its powerful body stood at 15 feet in height. A joyful expression was plastered on its eagle-face as it flew and there was a certain happy rhythm to the flapping of its wings. Yes indeed, its stomach was just recently filled after all.
Zan started to panic. He was fast approaching the thing, it was too late to change direction and before he knew it he collided with the strange creature. The griffin happily enjoying its night was suddenly and unexpectedly whacked from the skies. Its beautiful and baleful cries were nowhere to be found as it yelped like a chicken. Full of shame and indignation, the powerful beast started to scour the skies for what just hit him.
Zan, who was afraid of retaliation for basically committing assault on a random passerby, kicked off of its stomach hard in an effort to get away. It worked, as the powerful force of his legs pushed the griffin through the air like a fired arrow. Not only that, but it also made the creature puke out its dinner in the process.
The boy accelerated back down at a speed beyond the planet's natural gravitational pull. The skin and muscles on his face started to flap again from the air that hit his face. Quin, who stayed attached to Zan's body the whole time, suddenly grabbed his hand.
‘???’
The severed hand kept motioning the boy’s arm in a throwing motion.
‘You want me to throw you?’
Quin could not say yes, for he had no mouth. So instead he kept motioning in the same way but with greater intensity.
‘You sure about this???’
The hand simply threw his arm around even stronger.
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“Alright…I trust you.”
“HAAHT”
The youth postured his body in the air, his right arm winding back and his muscles expanding twice their size.
WHOOSH!
The severed hand flew like a bullet, growing larger in the air and directing its momentum straight into the metal wolf’s left eye.
THUD!
Quin covered the left eye of the beast, making a perfect blind spot in the creature’s vision. Luckily, the robot mimicked organic life down to its optic nerves and five senses. Zan, the falling meteorite, went totally unseen to it.
The young fighter saw its companion’s intentions and started to prepare, he wouldn’t let him down. Zan concentrated all of the leftover energy he had inside him to his right arm. The youth changing his energy manipulation once again. Controlling the wild spiraling energy with his half human body became ten times more difficult so instead he devised new means.
First, he positioned the left side of his body to take on all air resistance that could disrupt his right arm. The youth flexed the muscles in his left shoulder, biceps, triceps and forearms to widen the coverage to its absolute potential. Extending his right arm away from him he proceeded with his new technique. Instead of fully creating a single line of spiraling energy and managing each into a cyclone, he made dozens of short lines shaped in crescent moons that helped each other spin in a connected system.
Zan’s right arm slowly turned into a centrifugal tornado that drove him even more forcefully downwards. The youth’s red eye glowed brighter and brighter until a strange phenomenon occurred. A hint of purple flashed across his red eye like an ephemeral shooting star. Suddenly miniature cyclones manifested in special points along the energy tornado, designed to explode the whole flow of energy all at once. And the most important part of the process, Zan flexed his right arm until it ballooned to twice its size.
The young warrior descended.
WHOOSH!
Right arm fully extending in front of him, the tornado stopped motion for a tenth of a second, before exploding in a flash of white.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!
Clouds of smoke, dirt and dust fogged the canyons like a storm. The alpha and its wolves were stunned. At one moment, blood red light encompassed their vision, saturating their world that was about to end. And then in the next moment, a thunderous explosion rang out that washed away the red sea of light. The hopelessness that settled in and made them grow despondent had totally transformed into pure utter confusion.
The army of wolves and its leader took several moments to try to understand what had just happened, and even though they did not, they still hoped for the best. Perhaps the metal thing made a mistake and killed itself in the process? The alpha knew the chances of that was near zero, at least according to its sight, but one could hope couldn’t they? The dust started to clear and their wolf hearts started to beat faster. Hope for the best but expect the worst was the true phrase they held in their hearts.
The three-eyed wolf saw it first. The bipedal creature was standing proudly on the deformed snout of the metal beast. He raised his head high, a single glowing red eye looked down on them while burning brightly through the clearing smoke. And through that smoke revealed the destroyed head of the metal colossus.
It was so huge that the height of its skull was the height of itself standing up. Despite its size however, there was evidence of a devastating blow slamming on top of its broad head. The impact resembled a rocky crater, and from what it observed, some object forcefully pressed down on the beast’s skull until the metal sank into itself deeper and deeper. So deep that it flattened the metal wolf’s ears, flattened the wolf’s metal eyes and indented its steel snout. The three-eyed wolf looked towards Zan’s right arm, noticing the gruesome stump ending itself at the shoulder.
Shivers ran through the three-eyed wolf. It knew just how hard the body of that metal imposter was, and here was a creature that smashed and deformed that impenetrable beast.
While the wolf pack was in surprise, Zan jumped off the skull of his last enemy and landed on the ground. His single bright red eye stared at them, and the sea of wolves felt their hair raise. Their strongest enemy was now defeated, but the one who killed it was now about to kill them. The alpha felt fear only a few times in its life, but this moment was one of them.
Zan walked over to the wolf pack calmly and silently. Like a cold-blooded killer intent on snuffing out the life of his victims. Every step he made felt like eternity to the wolf pack. The three-eyed wolf’s body struggled to rise, and every time it did, it collapsed back down. The desperate, pathetic attempt did not go unnoticed. A grin appeared on the youth’s face.
The pack of wolves left were elites, and they all had above average intelligence. It was this same intelligence and awareness however, that brought them pure terror and hopelessness. The wolves crowding around its leader could not move a hair as Zan paced closer and closer.
Then suddenly, a small white thing came out from the crowd and bit into Zan’s leg. The creature stopped. The glowing red eye shifted its maniacal gaze downwards to see a tiny pup with beautiful white fur. The tiny puppy bit at Zan’s ankles with all its strength but it simply did nothing as its teeth never fully grew out.
The little thing made a mistake, and accidentally matched the bipedal creature’s eyes. As soon as it saw that burning red eye, the puppy started to tremble and shake in fear. Yet, despite it all…it bit into Zan’s ankle once again, crying and yelping as it did so. In response the youth simply smiled in anticipation…
Growling and snarling had returned, and the youth raised his head to see that the wolf pack had regained their courage. The leader of the pack trembled, not in fear but in anger and resentment. This time, she stood tall without falling even once. No purple aura burst forth from her third eye this time, the wolves simply surrounded Zan with threatening gazes. As much as the three-eyed wolf wanted to pounce on him however, she restrained herself from doing so. The stoic alpha stared daggers into him, but she could not hide the worrying looks that shifted towards the tiny puppy still biting at his ankles.
In that moment of stalemate…blood red light flashed from behind them.