The One Who Hunts the King (3)
Ham Ort was Ored Ghad's third mate, and second in rank within the pack. Many of her kin shared her white scales, but none possessed power greater than hers.
That power had let her hunt the myriad creatures dwelling on this ice planet. Among those who met their end to her breath were beings worthy of the title of king.
The King of the Sky, however, had always been a maddeningly difficult enemy for the Galagons.
It soared through the heavens, swallowing whole even the energy her precious kin needed to feed on and grow.
Even back when she belonged to Ored Ghad's pack, the King had more than once stunted the growth of the young. Strong even in her youth, she had joined her kin time and again to slay the creature.
But time always gave birth to a new King. One that came, no doubt, from that sky above — from the space where the stars themselves dwelled.
Then, at some point, the King stopped coming for the kin. Instead, it circled endlessly around a single mountain that bordered the Garden of the Stars.
That mountain radiated a strange power, a place even her own kind avoided. When she still wore green scales it had been perfectly ordinary; at some point, it had simply changed.
In any case, after her molt into white scales, she had once brought down the King of the Sky all on her own. She had grown only stronger since — taking it now would pose no difficulty at all.
There was one variable, though: Adhai. Unlike kin born inherently superior, her daughter had come into this world in a weak body.
She was bringing the girl into a dangerous battle against a powerful foe for two reasons.
The first was that transporting the King's corpse would be a problem in itself. There was no time to spare, and the kin were exhausted. If she wished to raise the Daughter of the Shooting Star, it would be better to carry her along and feed her directly.
And the second reason was...
"Ham Ort." "Warns." "Escape." "Impossible!"
"Ouch!"
Since leaving the nest, the Daughter of the Shooting Star had already tried to flee three times.
If she pulled stunts like this even with two of them present, what would happen if Ham Ort left her behind to hunt the King of the Sky alone? The girl would bolt from the nest the moment her back was turned. It was certain.
"King of the Sky." "Strong." "This behavior." "Dangerous."
"Me." "Leave." "Danger." "Gone."
Ham Ort pinned the thrashing Adhai down with a forepaw. Until now she had simply knocked her unconscious every time she tried to run, but this could go on forever.
"Kin." "Daughter of Shooting Star." "Needed." "Cooperate."
"Kin." "Me." "Abandoned." "Me." "Care." "None."
Ham Ort had known for a long time that the girl was hostile toward her and the rest of the pack — because Adhai believed they had thrown her away.
But if she kept this up, it would be a problem. Even if they gained the strength to defeat Ored Ghad, it would all be for nothing if the Daughter of the Shooting Star fought half-heartedly.
"Ored Ghad." "Young kin." "All." "Kill." "Even so." "Acceptable?"
Adhai froze at the thought-wave, laced as it was with fierce emotion.
"Young kin." "Fault." "None."
At last the girl drooped, letting out a sullen pulse of thought. Ham Ort gathered up the now-docile Adhai and set off toward their destination once more.
She boasted the finest flight among all the white kin. She moved so fast that sound itself could not keep pace — and even as she flew, she wrapped her psychic power around her passenger to soften every jolt the Daughter of the Shooting Star would take.
Then, as she carved through the open air, Black Mountain came into view.
She could feel the foul energy seeping from the mountain. And within it, alien energies mingled as well.
"?"
Belatedly sensing the flow of power, Adhai lifted her head. Then, all at once, she began to squirm in Ham Ort's grip.
"Big Adult!" "Small Adult!" "Here!"
"Big Adult?" "Ugly kin." "There?"
At Adhai's words, Ham Ort focused on the tentacles fringing her own mouth. One of the alien energies was unmistakably the wavelength the King of the Sky emitted. The other, however, was an energy even she did not recognize.
The moment she grasped what the mingling of two energies meant, understanding dawned.
The Daughter of the Shooting Star's 'Big Adult' had moved before she did.
"Ugly kin." "King of Sky." "Hunting?"
"Big Adult." "Strong." "King of Sky." "Can't win."
Two emotions were woven into Adhai's thought-waves: pride, and certainty.
The unknown energy resembled psychic power, yet was vastly more potent. It gave off a sensation similar to what she had felt when facing Ored Ghad. Big Adult would win. It was no idle boast.
Ham Ort deliberated briefly, then activated her psychic power. Small violet sparks crackled from her tentacles, and Adhai's body went limp.
Knowing the girl's temperament, she would almost certainly do something reckless if she came face to face with her 'Big Adult.' Better to knock her out cold.
Halting her flight, Ham Ort descended to the ground and gently laid Adhai beside a tree.
She looked down at the small creature she herself had birthed.
Born frail, cast out by the pack — and yet, in time, the very one who had become the pack's savior. For the space of an instant, some emotion stirred in her amethyst eyes before fading away.
Turning her gaze aside, she spread her wings and rose into the sky.
There was one thing Adhai did not know.
The reason Ham Ort had not died — the reason she had been able to leave this planet at all.
But she had no intention of ever speaking of it. Whatever the circumstances, her daughter had been exiled. That much was fact.
And her own responsibility was surely tangled in it. She fully intended to answer for it someday.
Ham Ort hung in the sky, her white wings spread wide. Without taking my eyes off her, I focused on my auxiliary organ.
The Skywhale was a formidable adversary even for Galagons. On raw stats alone it was roughly comparable to a White Galagon — but its special ability changed everything.
For Galagons, whose strength lay in high-output psychic attacks, an energy-devouring Skywhale was nothing short of a natural predator. Unless it was a Black Galagon capable of killing one in a single strike, the standard approach was for a group of Galagons to swarm the whale together.
During the event, they showed up at nearly five-to-one odds.
Which meant other Galagons had to be out there.
I was still sweeping the surroundings with my auxiliary organ when Ham Ort came flying straight at me. A single beat of her wings carried her right up to my face.
She swung a forepaw. Claws gleaming like polished diamonds — and their target was my throat.
Fast.
It was speed fit to be called white lightning. Hovering mid-air on beating wings, I wrenched my head back, and her claws missed the Monster's Tentacles by a paper's width.
Even as I pulled away, I tensed the tail that hung stretched toward the ground. Muscle coiled tight through my lower body, and the pincer at the tail's tip whipped upward.
But before it could smash into Ham Ort's hind leg, her silhouette abruptly shrank — she had already retreated, the instant her strike failed.
And then violet energy began gathering at her tentacles. The moment she fell back, she was already preparing a Psychic Breath.
I hurriedly drew together the energy in my own body as well. She, having finished her charge first, fired hers first.
A violet heat-ray split the darkened sky. I held my energy charge and folded one wing completely shut. My body lurched downward, the ray grazing and lightly searing the carapace of my head.
My Psychic Reflection Carapace — the armor that turned psychic techniques back upon their casters — auto-activated, and a portion of the ray ricocheted toward her. The Monster's Tentacles, belatedly completing its charge, loosed a violet ray of its own.
Ham Ort, who had displayed such astonishing footwork moments before, slipped effortlessly between the forked streams of psychic essence.
[Zzzzt(Now!)]
Hearing my wavelength, Mother of the Sky, riding on my back, moved to unleash Ice Evil Spirit.
"!"
"Tch! Too far!"
But Ham Ort, catching on that we were about to do something, hastily put distance between us — and the attack failed.
Sly thing.
Well, what else would you expect from a Galagon who dared raise a claw against a Black Galagon? Even our brief exchange was enough to tell me her judgment outclassed most players.
Having opened the range, she apparently decided close combat worked against her, and began firing Psychic Breaths in a relentless barrage.
With the Beast's Reinforced Wings, I couldn't match a Galagon's Super Acceleration, but I could move with respectable agility all the same. I bored straight through the torrential storm of violet fire.
Her aim was formidable, but this body of mine was an old hand at evading attacks. I adjusted the angles of my wing-arms to shift my flight path, threading between the rays with the barest minimum of movement.
Of course, dodging alone would never win the fight, so I never forgot to slip in counterattacks between evasions. Thanks to the effects of Berserk Synapse, my energy consumption had dropped dramatically — and that benefit applied not only to physical exertion, but to traits that devoured massive amounts of energy as well.
Which meant I could wield God's Whip far more freely than before.
Twisting my body along with my wings to slip past another ray, I charged the Thunder God's power. My black scales took on a golden sheen, as if catching the light of a setting sun.
To a being that could see the flow of energy, it would look very different, of course. It would see a monstrous power condensing, moment by moment, inside the body of its enemy.
Sensing the crisis, Ham Ort fired another Psychic Breath. Far thicker than the one I had launched — she had cranked her output up yet another notch.
Doesn't matter, as long as it doesn't hit me.
Dodging the incoming ray, I thrashed my golden-glowing membrane wildly and heaved my body upward.
And then something happened that surpassed all my expectations.
A ray that should have passed far beneath me bent its trajectory — and came for me.
What the—!
The one who had been constantly repositioning to keep me in her sights was now simply hovering, doing nothing but beat her wings. Around her, psychic power fanned out wide, webbed like a spider's silk.
She's controlling the rays!
She was forcibly seizing the Psychic Breaths she had already fired, twisting their trajectories at will.
The ray, bent sharply upward mid-flight, was a heartbeat from slamming into my abdomen. Far too late to dodge. I threw my combat arms up to shield my belly.
But at the very instant of impact — the ray simply dispersed into the open air.
What?
Where the ray had come apart, dozens, hundreds of strands of psychic thread lay interwoven — a lattice strikingly similar to the one Ham Ort had spun.
I thought at first that she had canceled her own attack, but that wasn't it. She hadn't seen this coming either; her confusion was written all over her.
Then, from my back, No. 26 sent out a wave.
"I'll protect our Big Baby!"
No. 26!
This miracle was unmistakably her doing. In much the same manner as Ham Ort, she had reached out and interfered with the Psychic Breath itself.
It clearly hadn't come easy, though — exhaustion tinged her thought-waves.
Whatever the case, it's an opening!
I had no idea how the two of them had arrived at the same technique, but the chance was right in front of me. Riding the opening she had carved for me, I activated God's Whip.
The golden light enveloping my body crept up along my throat and coiled at the edge of my mouth. The lightning lash wielded by the Thunder God. I spewed that power out into the open air.
A heartbeat behind me, Ham Ort too exhaled a breath of pure psychic force.
A golden serpent tore across the heavens. Rising to meet it, a violet heavenly steed came charging head-on.
The instant the two collided, a storm of light erupted. Between me and Ham Ort, a sun formed of two blended energies was born.
A blazing sun of violet and gold.
Then the sun exploded, and a colossal shockwave burst outward. A wave of pure light swept away the black clouds that shrouded the planet's atmosphere. Across the newly cleared sky, yellow lightning and violet energy spider-webbed outward like the cracks in shattered glass.
When the shockwave had scoured the heavens, a roar followed that shook earth and sky to their foundations. It was less a sound than something perceivable only through raw, primal instinct — something that passed beyond mere loudness and left nothing in its wake but a deep, muffled pressure.
The clash, brilliant enough to be seen from outside the planet's atmosphere, did not last long.
The verdict: my victory on points. God's Whip had overwhelmed the Psychic Breath outright. Ham Ort had evaded with her superb judgment, but not cleanly enough.
One wingtip damaged, she staggered, barely keeping herself aloft. Her snow-white scales were scorched and shattered by the aftermath of God's Whip.
"Ham Ort." "Does not lose!"
Even with defeat written all over the battlefield, she roared her refusal to surrender. Her tentacles had taken on a paler shade of violet than before.
I was readying God's Whip for another volley when my auxiliary organ sounded a warning: multiple lifeforms approaching fast.
Galagons?
Just as I'd expected, every last one of them was a Galagon. In the cloudless sky, ten green-scaled Galagons came into view.
They shot toward us, clustered around Ham Ort, and began conferring.
What are they doing?
I'd braced for them to swarm me — but no. It almost looked like they were drafting a battle plan, except the mood was all wrong. I would have loved to eavesdrop on their thought-waves, but whatever trick they were using, I couldn't make out a word of it.
"Big Baby, something bad happened at the bad people's house."
No. 26, whose psychic attunement far outstripped the rest of ours, had listened in on their conversation and was relaying it to us.
Something bad happened?
Though whether I understood what she meant by that was another matter entirely.
The Galagons exchanged a few more words among themselves, then wheeled around as one and flew off. Whatever the reason, they were unmistakably retreating.
As if I'd just let them run.
Forget the Green Galagons — Ham Ort was all but caught. I couldn't let an APEX slip through my claws now.
I was training God's Whip on the backs of their heads when Ham Ort fired a thought-wave at me.
"Daughter of Shooting Star." "Below."
[Zzt(What?)]
"Danger." "To prevent." "Brought her." "If late, dies." "Quickly." "Go."
[Zzzz(Crazy)]
The moment I grasped what she was saying, my body moved on its own.
"?"
By then, Ham Ort had already departed with the Green Galagons. She seemed to have sent something else before leaving, but there was no time to dwell on it.
To think she'd use her as a hostage!
I'd assumed Adhai would be safe — the Galagons needed her, after all. And she was Ham Ort's own flesh and blood; I'd trusted she would never come to harm at her mother's hands.
But I had been dead wrong. Folding my wings tight against my back, I dove toward the ground as if to drive myself straight into it.
I hit the earth in something close to a crash landing, dumped the kids off my back, and activated my auxiliary organ on the spot. The Skywhale corpse, swollen and burst open, didn't even register in my vision.
Where? Where is... there!
A familiar scent drifted from the edge of the forest. I hurried toward it at a run.
Before long, I spotted a Galagon lying slumped against a tree. Scales of emerald green, a small frame, a plump little tail — unmistakably Adhai.
The instant I found her, I began generating Symbiotic Spores. If her life was hanging by a thread the way Ham Ort claimed, these were exactly what she'd need.
But just as I moved to press the spores against the deathly still girl, her head suddenly shot up.
"?" "Big Adult?"
[Zzzzt(You okay?)]
"Big Adult!" "Glad!"
She scrambled up, threw herself against me, and nuzzled her head against mine. I looked her over once, twice, three times — not a single wound on her body.
...Don't tell me.
I didn't want to believe it, but from the look of things... I was the one who'd been played.