by Jakob Tanner
A cloud of smoke erupted between the skyscrapers, emanating from the bottom ground level where the werewolf and dragon had fallen in a powerful smash.
Battles across the city continued even if the most epic of them had temporarily paused.
“Are they dead?” asked Casey, scratching her head.
It had been a pretty intense fall, thought Max. Such a descent and crash landing would probably do a serious amount of damage to either one, but was it enough to kill them both? Maybe. Had that been the climber president’s plan all along?
ROARRRR!
The sounds of a tail whipping back and forth, smashing parked cars in its wake, echoed from down below.
“Uh oh,” said Casey. “Sounds like the dragon is still alive. What about the climber president?”
If the climber president was already dead that would be the worst-case scenario. He was the only other A-ranked climber in the city. He was the only one who had a true chance at taking out Samuel Archer, the city’s other powerful A-ranker.
GROWLLLLL!!!
Casey turned to him. “Dragons don’t growl, do they? Snarl? Roar? But growl? That’s more of a wolfish thing, no?”
Bursting forth from the clouds of smoke was the dragon and the climber president clinging on its back with his werewolf claws.
“There they go,” Max shouted.
Falling however many stories high would clearly not be enough to kill a dragon or a climber president turned werewolf.
The dragon flapped its wings, zooming upward into the swirl of stormy clouds.
The dragon flew higher and then did a loop in the air.
“It’s trying to throw the president off,” shouted Casey.
Max and Casey clung onto the drake, he had control over. They needed to help the climber president, but he wasn’t sure what they could do to turn the battle in their favor.
The dragon did another loop and the werewolf lost its grip.
The werewolf dangled with one hand onto the dragon’s scaled back.
“He’s losing his grip,” said Casey. “He’s going to fall.”
As with their previous crash landing, a fall wasn’t enough to kill either creature but it wasn’t as if the climber president didn’t have any wounds or bruises. Max could see a slight tremble and shiver in the werewolf’s body, aches and pains it was trying to ignore. One more fall might not kill him, but it might shift the balance of power in the dragon’s favor.
The climber president dangled on the dragon’s back as the monstrous beast flew faster and more haphazardly now, trying to remove the werewolf pest from its back.
The climber president dug its nails deeper into the dragon’s scales and, with all of his strength, pulled his fallen arm up and dug back into the dragon, securing his place on the monster’s back.
The werewolf growled and then took a massive bite of flesh out of the dragon’s back.
“The climber president just bit a chunk of that dragon’s flesh off,” said Casey in disbelief. “That’s so badass!”
Max and Casey were getting closer in the air to the fight and, thankfully, Max finally knew what they had to do to end this.
Max took the reins of the drake and flew them closer to the fully grown adult dragon.
“Why are we going so close?” shouted Casey.
“Trust me,” said Max. “I have an idea. Wait here.”
“What do you mean, ‘wait here’!? Where are you goin—!”
Max disappeared in a burst of shadow and reappeared on the dragon’s back, just above the climber president.
The wind rushed through his hair and he felt his stomach lurch as upside down and right side up became absolutely meaningless in the chaos of riding on the back of an enraged dragon.
He had a plan. It might be the only way to stop this horrible monster from destroying their city and killing the climber president.
He pulled himself up on the dragon’s back until he was right above its skull.
He then placed his hands on the monster’s head and attempted cellular manipulation.
Nothing happened.
What’s going on!?
He was using Samuel Archer’s cellular manipulation trait at double the power. He should be able to take back control of the dragon, or at the very least, relinquish Samuel’s control over it.
But nothing was happening. Why couldn’t he undo the manipulation Samuel had put this dragon under?
He then looked around at the skyscrapers below and saw multiple random climbers standing on the rooftops.
They were buffers!
They were increasing and strengthening Samuel’s cellular manipulation power, enough so that his mimicked version of the ability was still weaker at double the power.
But then how come he had been able to free the climber president?
Ah! Because the flame instructor had taken out the nearest buffer in that previous area.
Max knew what he needed to do now.
He triggered shadow blink once more and reappeared alongside Casey on the drake.
“Looks like your totally batshit plan didn’t work,” said Casey.
“No, it will,” said Max. “We just gotta go take out those buffers first!”
102
Blood gushed out of Sakura’s wound.
She placed her hand over it to stop the bleeding, but she was in so much pain, she kept losing focus on the task of stopping the blood loss.
“Tick tock,” said Samuel. “It’s just a matter of time now, Sakura.”
Crap. She only had a few minutes to live. What was she going to do? What options did she have?
She kneeled on the ground from the pain of the wound. She kept one hand blocking the blood and with another tried to push herself back up to her feet.
Her whole body wobbled and she couldn’t muster the strength to push herself up.
“Pathetic,” spat Samuel. “The great Sakura The Golden Blade killed by a couple of shield slimes.”
The patronizing bastard made her sick, but he was right. She was about to bleed out and die. Was this really it?
Samuel stood over her, laughing at her dying in pain.
“Face it, you can’t win, Sakura.”
Fifteen years ago, Sakura received her copper badge with the letter E engraved on it.
The climber president smiled as he pinned it on her chest.
“Well done, Sakura,” he said. “I expect great things from you.”
The climber president’s words filled her with joy. Not many people had believed in her during her term at the climber academy, but to have the optimism and approval of the strongest climber in the city meant a lot.
After the graduation ceremony, there was a wine and cheese reception in the banquet room of the climber’s guild on the upper floors.
The newly graduated student climbers mingled with the higher-ups and other climbers, laughing and having small talk.
Sakura had gone to pour herself another glass of punch when a man stood beside her.
It was Samuel Archer.
An A-rank climber and newly promoted branch commander of the healer climbers.
“You seem happy,” he said in a dour voice.
“Thanks,” said Sakura. “It feels really satisfying to have graduated. I can’t wait for whatever’s next.”
The older man snickered. “I wouldn’t be so happy if I were you. You’re nothing but a fake-vein with a common trait. E-rank is as far as you’ll ever go. How does it feel to know you’ve reached your peak? That your potential is nothing worth celebrating.”
The man walked away from her then.
His words had felt like a punch to the gut.
She knew that she shouldn’t listen to the words of a curmudgeonly snobbish older climber, but she couldn’t help but internalize them. She knew already that’s what everyone said behind her back. Everyone was surprised she had made it this far.
The graduation had been one of the happiest days of her life and, in seconds, it had been ru
ined.
Who was she kidding? she thought. She was never going to make it as a climber. Graduating had just been some kind of weird lucky fluke.
She went home that night and cried.
But in the morning, all she felt was anger.
Anger at herself.
She’d graduated from the bloody climber academy! Less than 10% of the students at the start of the year passed and she was one of them.
How could she let the words of some jerk get the best of her?
She wouldn’t let that happen again.
Furthermore, she was determined to become stronger.
After a year and a half of harsh training, she hit D-rank.
People began to speak about her differently.
“A silver-ranked slicer, huh? Don’t see many of those.”
That was right, she thought. She was going to do better than anyone ever believed she could.
She was going to show the world that a climber with a common trait would be able to be just as powerful as any other climber!!
Sakura’s whole body trembled in pain.
She gritted her teeth and pushed herself up, wincing as she ignored the overwhelming pain as much as she could.
“Here’s the thing, Samuel,” said Sakura as she stood up. “You’ve always underestimated me and that’s been your biggest downfall.”
As a B-ranked climber, Sakura could use her slice trait twenty-five times consecutively at a total of seventy-five times a day. Take off three slices for attacks she’d already used and one more for safety, leaving her with seventy-one slices before she hit her daily capacity.
She was going to die in a few minutes anyway, she had nothing more to lose than go all out.
She clenched her fist and triggered her slice ability, again and again and again...
Until seventy-one massive golden blades of energy filled the entire arena and shot straight at Samuel Archer.
“Dodge this, asshole!”
103
The seventy-one slices shot forth into Samuel.
The man lifted up his shield slime-covered fists to dodge the blow.
“That won’t be enough to dodge all my attacks,” shouted Sakura as she commanded the blades of energy to blast into the A-rank climber.
This was her last attack she’d be able to do before she passed out and bled to death, so she had to make it count.
The slice attacks pounded into Samuel Archer.
He kept his fists raised, but it wasn’t enough.
“Arghhh!” he yelled in pain.
There was no way for him to dodge the attacks, so he was focusing on defense, but it was a huge amount of damage to take.
“You won’t defeat me,” he shouted.
The shield slimes that covered his hands liquefied once more and began to cover his whole body.
“Hiding behind your shield slimes, eh?” muttered Sakura.
She manipulated her remaining slices, enlarging them into huge blades of energy, before slamming them down into Samuel.
Samuel’s body was almost entirely coated in shield slime now.
“You can’t hurt me,” he yelled. “My defense is too high with the shield slimes protecting me.”
Arrogant as always, thought Sakura. The fool!
One slice shot into Samuel and then another.
CRACK!!
The shield slime disintegrated around him.
“You idiot,” shouted Sakura. “You screwed up as soon as you covered yourself with the shield slimes.” Beforehand, Samuel could keep alternating between the two shield slime-covered fists as one recharged its energy shield, but combining them meant two hits were all that was required to break through the shield slime’s energy barrier.
“Let’s finish this, Samuel!” shouted Sakura, sending in her remaining slices into the man.
A barrage of blows shot into Samuel.
The man screamed in pain.
When all the attacks were done, the arena swirled with smoke.
Sakura collapsed onto her knees, out of breath.
Had she done it? Had she stopped the mad man from wreaking havoc on their city?
The smoke cleared.
She stared out in shock.
Samuel was still standing where he had been before. His clothes had been completely burned off, but his muscular skin was hardly damaged at all.
“If anyone’s running out of tricks, Sakura,” he grinned. “I think it’s you.”
104
A huge explosion emanated from the nearby tournament arena.
Max peered over as they rode atop the drake.
“I hope Sakura’s okay,” said Casey.
Me too, thought Max. Me too.
The wind swirled around them as they flew the drake towards a rooftop where one of Samuel’s buffers was out posted.
On the roof, there was a D-rank climber torturing an E-rank climber.
“The era of weaklings ruling over Zestiris is over,” said the buffer.
He carried an energy blade similar to the buffer they’d fought in the alleyway on the way to the control center.
He was making big gashes in the E-rank climber’s body, but not enough to kill him, just enough to put the man into incredible pain.
Suddenly, the evil buffer was surrounded by a swarm of paper cranes.
“What the—!?”
The man collapsed on the ground, unconscious and defeated.
Max and Casey stepped out from behind an air vent and hurried over to the cowering E-rank climber.
“Are you okay?” asked Max.
The man had cuts all over.
“Thank you,” said the man. He materialized a healing potion from his pouch and uncorked it and took a sip. The lighter wounds on his body began to fade away.
“Do you know how many buffers there are across the city?” Max asked.
“They’re all over, but they were mostly in place to get the monsters into position, then he relinquished his hold on them, and let them wreak havoc and destruction. As the dragon was the most powerful monster in his arsenal, the buffers were stationed nearby to keep it under semi-cellular control.”
“Damn,” said Casey. “We don’t have time to rush around and take out all of those buffers.”
Max peered around. “Maybe we don’t have to. All we have to do is get the dragon into the area of effect of this specific buffer we’ve just taken out. Within this specific radius, we should be able to relinquish Samuel’s hold on the monster.”
Max and Casey rushed back to the drake and hopped on board and flew back towards the climber president.
Then a huge explosion of fire appeared in the air.
BOOOM!
105
The dragon blasted out a huge ray of fire.
The blast was directed to its own back where the climber president was hanging on. The flames barely effected the monster’s hardened scales but they charred and burned the werewolf’s fur.
“No! The climber president!” shouted Casey.
The climber president was in a tough spot. If he kept hanging on, he’d be burnt alive. If he let go, he was looking at one nasty fall to the ground.
The werewolf dug its nails into the dragon and then reached over to get out of the flame blast’s radius.
The werewolf reached out to grab a scale and then flinched with pain. The dragon’s skin was scorching hot.
“He won’t be able to hang on,” said Max.
The only way the climber could stay on the dragon was if the monster stopped breathing fire even for a couple of seconds. So the question was: how long would this dragon keep breathing fire onto its own back?
Fire kept spraying out of the dragon’s mouth in an unrelenting torrent of blazing flame.
“He can’t hold on for too much longer!”
The werewolf winced in pain as it dangled on the dragon until finally it let go.
The climber president started falling through the air.
“No!” shouted Max.
; The climber president may have been able to survive a fall like this ten minutes ago, but he was now suffering from multiple injuries. This fall could be the end of him.
“Casey!” said Max. “Can you manipulate the wind to cushion his fall?”
“It’s too stormy around us,” cried Casey. “It won’t have any major effect.”
Like a meteor falling in the sky, the climber president rushed towards the ground.
KABOOM!
The climber president smashed into the street, breaking both a street lamp and a fire hydrant.
“He’ll get up,” cried Casey. “He’s got to.”
The climber president lay motionless on the street.
“He can’t be dead, can he?”
The dragon roared, lording over the sky of the tower-zone once more.
The climber president’s eyes twitched. They were open in little slivers.
Healer climbers rushed around him, pouring a healing potion between his lips.
“You’re going to be okay, sir,” said one of the healers. “We’re patching you right up. Good as new.”
The climber president lifted up his hands and saw his beastly claws. He was still in werewolf mode.
His eyes closed momentarily.
The voices around him got louder.
“We’re losing him,” said one voice.
The climber president was no longer dying on the street, but somewhere else. He was watching his life flash before his eyes. He had to get back to the street though. He had the most important responsibility in the whole of the tower-zone and Zestiris at large. He had to protect it. He promised the climber president before him and made a vow to the others who had gone and passed. He had to protect this city and the young climbers who would grow up to continue protecting it!
“He needs a boost of adrenaline,” shouted another healer climber.
The climber president’s eyes bulged and he swung up, wide awake and alive.
It was time to use his strongest move.
Wolf’s Rage.
He rushed over to the side of the building and starting running up the side of it, mana-imbued on his feet to hold him in place.