Kal burst through the paddock gate and threw himself at the giant water trough, splashing the irritable old Melbray, who had been enjoying a quick drink. Kal pulled himself up for air but left his burning hand submerged.
"It's not supposed to hurt this much!" he shouted, causing the thoroughly annoyed and wet horse to give up and seek greener pastures through the conveniently open paddock gate. Kal glared at the glowing blue spots above the knuckles on his right hand. He'd been overjoyed waking up to the long-awaited glow of magic, but then the itching started. I was nothing, in the beginning, just a bit of a scratch here or there. As the sun rose and he mucked out the stable, it became a nuisance. He'd had to pull off gloves every few minutes to give the spots a good rub. By lunch, he was raking the back of his hand with his teeth and flailing it around until it was set to fall off. When the metal of his Token started pushing through just above his forefinger, his hand felt like he'd plunged it into a forge. He was shocked the water wasn't boiling around it as he swished it back and forth in the freezing pool.
"Somebody help me!" he shouted in panic. No one had ever described it as being this painful. 'A bit of an itch,' they'd say. His brother Jase slept through the whole thing when his Token day came.
"What are you yelling about!" his brother Jase yelled from behind him.
Think of the bloody devil, and he'll appear. Kal ripped his hand from the water and thrust it at him. "This. This is what I'm yelling about! You sod-sucking fuck." Kal almost screamed at the smirking idiot. Just as Jase was about to laugh, the agony in Kal's hand peaked, and he collapsed. He was only out for a second, not even long enough for Jase to reach him. The burning faded rapidly as his mana points gave one last light pulse before settling on a gentle blue glow that was hardly noticeable in the daylight. However, a copper oval covered the mana point on his fore knuckle, blotting out its light. All memory of his previous pain left him as he rubbed the Token lovingly.
"Such a drama queen. It's only a bit of an itch." Jase needled him even as he crouched down to look at Kals hand. "They say the more painful it is, the more powerful the summon."
Kal ignored his brother and grabbed a cleanish rag from a hook above the water trough to dry himself off.
"Come on, stop being an idiot," Jase said, annoyed at the silent treatment. Kal couldn't help grinning when Jase grabbed him in a rough hug and spun him around.
"Alright! I give." Kal laughed. "I better be able to summon a dragon after the hell I've gone through this morning." he rubbed his Token again with growing nervousness. Focusing on the Token, he closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, letting them out slowly and calmly as his dad had shown him. Sensing the mana in his hand was easy, like he'd been told it would be. Once he mentally touched it, he felt the heat begin to come from the mana points, but it was nothing compared to before. In his mind, he imagined a warm blue pool set into the ground, and above it was a floating copper disc. He thought of the water in the pool spinning and spiraling up like the twisters in the sailors' stories his family told. It didn't take long before the pool obeyed him, and the growing spiral touched the copper disc. Once all of the mana had been absorbed by the disc, Kal opened his eyes. With a mental nudge, he made the Token project an image of the summon it contained. It was a large, flat rectangular block with some smaller rectangle on top. The top block had a more rounded front and a long stick coming out of the front that stuck out even beyond the length of the bottom block. Here and there were smaller cubes and sticks. He picked out what he believed were wheels at the base of the thing, but they had a strange sheet beneath them. He fed the mana his desire for a name as he'd been taught, and above the whole contraption, its name appeared.
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"M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank"
"what the hell is that thing?" Jase asked, squinting and twisting his head to try and get a better view of it. "Some kind of cart? A war chariot?"
"I..I dunno." Kal whispered in total confusion. He'd been expecting something fishing-related like the rest of his family or maybe some farming summon. He knew it wasn't guaranteed he'd get something related to his everyday life, but that was often how it worked out.
"So, are you going to pull it out or just stand there imagining what it is?" Jase urged him out of the paddock and into the middle of the road leading away from the house. Kal took another deep calming breath and willed the summon to come out. He felt the mana pop like a soap bubble, and a torrent of blue poured out into a swirling blue ball. It slowly morphed into the rough shape they had seen in the projection before shimmering away, revealing his massive summons. The two of them staggered around the monster, tapping its hard metal shell. It was a light tan in color and was cold to the touch.
Kal worked his eyes from the bottom to the top, taking it all in. The wheels at the bottom had a set of metal links between them and the ground. The bottom section was at least 30ft long and almost as high as his shoulder, while at the back, it rose slightly above his head. The metal shell was mainly uniform segments, all joined in some unknown manner. The top section was beyond strange, and Kal struggled to understand it. At the front, a long hollow tube protruded from the middle of it, and to either side of the tube, it flared out before tapering back in an almost diamond shape. On the roof of the thing was a series of circle hatches, A large bowl-shaped piece of metal, and another much smaller tube. He had climbed up to the top and struggled briefly to get one of the hatches open. He climbed down the small ladders set into the thing, and then the hatch shut behind him by itself. He was in total darkness for a moment, but then an omnipresent blue light made the inside of his summons glow.
What little room inside the thing was taken up by an odd chair. It was so reclined that it might have been a bed, but the most bizarre thing was the helmet that seemed to be attached to where the head would go.
Kal took the obvious hint and lay down on the chair, carefully sliding his head into the helmet, covering his entire head. Just as claustrophobia seemed like it would become an issue, Kal's whole perspective shifted. He was suddenly looking at the M1 Battle Tank from the outside as if floating about 5ft behind and above the summons. He found that when he focused on a specific part, its name and description would appear over it. The terms of the different parts were strange, like the cupola on top, which was a small turret. Not that he knew what a turret was for this thing, he knew castles had turrets, but besides being on top, he didn't see the relation. On the cupola was a machine gun described as an automatic gun that fires bullets in rapid succession for as long as the trigger is pressed. Unfortunately, there was no explanation of a gun or bullet, so he was still in the dark. It took a while for him to review the different bits and pieces, but once he had, he got a rough idea of his summons. The strange view was similar to how his dad described controlling his ship summons. From that, the wheels and the continuous tracks, he was sure this was some kind of land boat, except it was for one person and the guns mentioned firing things, so it was a warship but for land.
He could see Jase outside getting slightly bored and decided to surprise him. With a thought, he commanded the Battle Tank forward, which roared to life. It moved far faster than Kal had imagined possible. He wasn't used to controlling things from such an odd perspective and needed help smashing into the trees with the back end of the Tank. The young trees were flattened beneath its weight, and he swerved back onto the road headed towards town.
"Bloody hell!" he shouted, and he heard his voice projected around him even over the loud engine rumble, something he'd learned powered the whole Battle Tank. Kal slid himself out of the control chair and quickly jumped out of the hatch he'd used to enter. Jase was running after him with a mouth like a fish. He kept looking from the Tank to the trees and then the torn-up ground.
"Mum's going to kill you."
"Yep." Kal looked back to the Tank and struggled to care about the damage. He'd worried often that his Token would be rubbish, but this thing gave him options he'd never dared to hope for. "I think I'll be fine though."