Tom knew that, for an almost six-year-old, he was strange. If he was forced to name his preferred activities, any adult who heard him would have been horrified. Sessions in the trial were always the highlight of his week, followed by the hours he spent in the isolation room. For a normal child, that would have been considered shocking and would have triggered compulsory counselling; however, when it came to reincarnators, Tom wasn’t so sure. Despite him spending most of his time around Kang, there were rarely any situations where they could talk frankly. He was pretty sure that Kang felt the same way he did, but he didn’t know for sure. Maybe normal people were built differently. Maybe they enjoyed the easy routine orphanage life enforced. A period that was special for a different reason, even if was tainted by being forced to be around and act like children. It was possible they enjoyed being able to relax and not having a duty to fight. Potentially, it was he who was the strange one.
Not that he cared. No matter what, he was going to do everything he could to win.
Tom’s third favourite thing was a community-focused one. It was this. With a cheerful smile, he stared up at the sky, the sun, and the great outdoors. For a moment, he stood there, breathing in the fresh air. While the orphanage was great and had lots of activities, sometimes a man - or a boy - just wanted to get outside and be himself. Every other weekend, they were released for the afternoon to explore the town, and it was almost as precious as his time in the trial.
Not that Tom had any intention of wasting any more than a moment enjoying the freedom. He had training to do, and, with the memory of his recent consideration of what it took to gain an earned skill, Tom decided to take more risks than was usual.
“Let’s play over there,” he said, pointing at one of the artillery pieces mostly at random.
“Lollies first.” Briana insisted.
“There’ll be a line.” Tom countered. “We play briefly, then go.” Before she could argue further, he took off at a sprint. It was the only way to manage her.
The weapon he had chosen looked a lot like a two-story-high dung beetle. It was huge. Its pincers were longer than two metres, and its back carapace was shiny smooth metal.
Perfect, he thought, and, without breaking stride, he clambered up it, trying to use speed to propel himself higher. The entire back was polished, and to declare the footing treacherous was an understatement. Gamely, he tried to maintain his momentum and run all the way up, but his foot slipped; then, on his hands and knees, he slid off the side, falling nearly two metres to the ground.
Its highest point soared almost seven metres above the ground. If he fell from that height, Tom decided, it would have been a good start to his training. Once more, he felt blessed that Clare had completed his plan. If community fate wasn’t active, and if it wasn’t as powerful as it was, there was no way he would be attempting this.
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With a broad grin, he jogged back to line things up for another attempt.
Kang was looking at him like he was an idiot, but he ignored him. He retreated a full five metres away from the base of the statue, which was enough for someone his size to accelerate to full pace and then ran at it even faster than before. This time, he got half-way up before slowing down, and then an errant foot slipped on the smooth metal. He threw himself flat as he slid off the side, and used the full extent of the technical body skills amassed over the years of performing similar stunts to orientate his legs down. Unfortunately, instead of sliding gently to the ground, because he was higher, he plunged off the edge of the giant beetle, and, while airborne, spent a single point of fate to protect himself. The drop was almost two metres, and he had not been fully balanced while falling. That fact caused him to overbalance slightly, and, rather than falling vertically, he did it at a slight angle, which was far more dangerous.
A squeal escaped him as he struck the ground. He kicked off to buy himself time to rotate, to land on his shoulder, then to tumble head over heels and help dissipate the force of the fall.
“Ta,” Briana squealed as she ran over to him. “Tom. Are you hurt? Do you need a healer?”
Slightly dazed from the bone-rattling impact, he assessed his own body. He was shaken, and a normal kid would probably risk going into shock, but for Tom it was a regular enough occurrence that he wasn’t reacting to the situation like that. A few bones were sore, but he was pretty confident that nothing was broken.
He sprang to his feet, ignoring the slight ache the movement caused, and grinned. This was a chance to train and push himself. “That was awesome. Let’s do it again!”
Kang looked decisively unimpressed, but was forced to join in when Briana started copying him. Tom forced himself to be more reckless in his approach than he would have been if he was really just trying to reach the top. While the others fell as regularly as he did, when they did so it was usually a controlled backsliding. That was fun, but didn’t risk them doing any damage to themselves. Tom, on the other hand, mostly tumbled off the sides, sometimes safely on his bum, but just as often on his feet, or, more concerningly, headfirst. His fate reduced significantly while they trained. A single point was spent on each of the more dangerous tumbles. That was how he intended to use his fate from now on, at least when he wasn’t saving to spend it all in a burst to support a perfect spell or skill attempt. The allure of a fate-linked Earned Skill was too tantalising for him to use the limited fate resource on anything else.
Every time, he was able to ensure the tumble did nothing more than superficial injuries. His recklessness, however, was not passing unnoticed. Kang was glowering at him noticeably, and he knew his antics were going to earn him a lecture and possibly another intervention. However, he found he didn’t care. What he was doing was too important to worry about stuff like that. There were too many overt safety features indoors for him to take the risks necessary to get an Earned Skill, so it had to be done out here.
Kang reached the top and, with his aid they all made it, and were able to sit on the pinchers looking out over the town. It was an amazing view.
They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, enjoying it.
“Problem,” Kang called out suddenly and pointed. Briana’s head snapped to look, but Tom didn’t need to do the same. He was already watching them. On the horizon, there were a lot of black dots and they were getting closer.