Lightning Tussle

This entire thing is crazy.

Bang! – There was a loud resounding bang as the wolf slammed its paw into the blue ground with an explosive strike.

I had fallen on my behind in my attempt to dodge the beast as it was moving ferociously, almost like it couldn't wait to tear me to shreds. Looking at it, the beast had reminded me of the floppy-eared chimera before it inhaled the fog, minus the falling apart.

It gave off the feeling of a predator, which it was, and currently; I was its prey.

I looked towards the other two Spectral Beast as I hurriedly stood to my feet, I dived down to the side as it swiped at me with its claws.

The two beasts on the sides were merely spectating. The floppy-eared one was sitting on its hind legs, watching us with enhanced focus – while the elderly one was still hard for me to perceive, it was placed there giving off the feeling that it wasn't focusing on us.

I couldn't delve into their reactions due to me having to deal with dodging the wolf, I had no time to spare focusing on the onlookers. They said I needed to prove myself worthy, though she didn't specify hopefully the other two won't join.

Bang! Bang! Bang! – Three bolts of lightning slammed down around me followed by the ear-bursting thunder. I nearly jumped out of my skin hearing them, but I tried to shrug off the fright – it wasn't the best idea to be scared stiff in this situation.

"Argh."

I ducked under another swipe of its claws which cut up my cheek causing it to immediately began to leak blood.

I was a weak child, and this was a strong, no, an overwhelmingly strong creature compared to me. This situation wasn't going to last long, either I find a way to deal with this situation or I die and, well fail.

Gosh. I'm surprised that I'm not at all worried about my untimely death, perhaps dying would be for the better even? No, I'll at least try, yeah, I'll at least try and solve this; I don't want Karma finding me as a mangled corpse. I'm too nice to do that.

Her feelings were certainly more important to me.

Well, that's that. Thankfully It's easy to think and move my body at the same time, of course, my injuries continued to build as the confrontation became longer and longer, so I wanted to settle it.

Since Tyvetta was no longer around, I could feel the slight pain in my throat as I choked down on my saliva. I wasn't confident in this fight, no, in truth, I wasn't confident in anything but I still had to try my utmost best.

Right, my utmost best.

Ducking under another one of its lunges I clenched my teeth, this was most likely going to be painful.

Twisting on my heels, the pipes on my legs began pumping, they were starting to assist my body with Flauna.

The way the pipes worked was a piece of brand new technology, derived from the study of Kritol Frame cores, specifically the core my aunt, Nellia, got from the large Frame she took down in the attack a while back.

She gave the core over to mom for her to research it, the pipes connected with the hexagonal plates, that she now called hex plates; on my legs and my back, along with the minor ones on my arm.

Along with their creation, she had made me new hex plates that were slightly thicker than the previous ones although they allowed me to walk for the same amount of time – they made my walking life much more efficient and tolerable.

The way they worked was that each pipe held a miniature core and once the pipes began to pump, the cores would draw in the Flauna streams from the air, and circulate them through the hex plates that will then pump the Flauna into my body – Improving my performance, in both speed and strength, mainly speed, mainly speed, the strength improvement was barely enough to match someone like Karma.

So, as Flauna was pumped into my legs, back, and right arm – I quickened considerably and began to struggle much less in dodging the wolf's attacks. Yet at the same time, I was feeling a slight sting with it, this boost didn't come without pain.

That pain only added to the constant pain in my throat, that's why I clenched my teeth. I had to get through the temporary pain that would assist me in getting out of this situation – ignoring the aftermath that was obvious ot happen in my mind.

Ugh – Grunting at the pain I slid to the side and dragged my leg and slammed it into the side of the wolf, causing it to stumble before I began moving around the beast once more; I had to keep Norten's advice in mind: "Focus on your speed instead of strength."

I already ignored his advice with that first kick as I had put too much strength into it. This was a habit that I had unconsciously built that needed to be destroyed, and destroyed now – I don't have the time to patiently rid myself of this habit, this wolf wasn't going to wait for me; life doesn't work like that.

Eek! – Out of nowhere, I was knocked away from the beast. It had swiftly swung its claw at me, at a speed I could barely see leaving me with only enough time to raise my arms in defense. When it made contact with my arms they went numb.

It seemed that this beast was merely warming up earlier, even with my sensitive eyes I could barely comprehend its speed, perhaps it was because I failed to train my eyes. After all, grandma's training focused on improving my physical ability, maybe this was the reason.

Even if I had better control of my senses and could see the attack if I lacked any physicality my arms would've been broken and turned into useless noodles. All in all the training worked, somewhat.

But despite this. I lacked the skills to proficiently dodge the now sped-up attacks which were now its only form of attack, lighting was still crashing all around us, frightening me from time to time as we danced across the blue plane.

I spun around one of its attacks, luckily dodging it as I struck down on its nose with my right and enhanced fist before pulling away once more. It howled in pain that I found exaggerated, I wasn't exactly the strongest person so it wasn't an expected reaction for me – was its nose sensitive?

It was honestly a surprise that this beast that continued to move in and out of transparency could be struck by me. But that was only an afterthought, the wolf's cry of pain seemed to, unfortunately, anger it.

Wuuu! – With a loud howl it gnashed its teeth and launched itself at me once more, red energy began dripping out of its maw, and moved much more viciously than before, increasing its unpredictability, unpredictability that I failed to handle.

Failing to access the change in the situation I was not prepared for its next movements. The wolf swiped its claw which I quickly prepared to dodge, pausing its paw it lurched its head forward, opened its maw, and chomped down on my left arm.

Agh! Ugh! – I shouted out in pain, it was using its canines to bite into my arm digging them into my skin, biting down on my bones. Quickly, the pumps on my right arm sped up, maxing out on the flauna that could be pulled and pushed into my arm as I stuck down.

I struck again, again, and again. A continuously struck its nose and head in a frantic panic, It felt like it was about to pull my arm off as tears escaped my eyes from the excruciating pain, it was unlike anything I've ever felt – the assassination attempts I've gone through in the past couldn't even compare to this pain.

Aaah! – I screamed at the top of my lungs, striking down once more. This time the beast released my arm as its teeth were stained with its blood and it whined in pain from my continuous strikes while I quickly removed myself from the creature.

Its nose and head were bleeding from my stikes but I was in a much worse condition. There were large holes drilled into my arm and it was practically on the verge of falling off my shoulder as it was mangled and torn apart, It was a horrid sight to see – especially when it was my arm.

I could only choke back the pain and stare down the wolf that had viciously ruined my left arm. It was growling at me while it walked in a circle as it watched me, it seemed as if it hadn't expected such explosive amounts of strength... Which wouldn't, no, couldn't happen again.

That explosive amount of strength came from me putting the cores and pipes on my arm into overdrive. Once in overdrive, the cores had sucked in a major amount of Flauna to the point where they could no longer handle it, resulting in them becoming dust.

It was a result that was explained by mom as something that aunt Nellia witnessed after dealing with a few Frames on the capital streets.

Ugh! Arg! Ah! – No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't ignore the pain in my arm. I was watching the scrutinizing beast with bated breath; my gaze was darkening, tears were streaming down my face, I felt like vomiting, my stomach was churning, and I was queazy – I was on the verge of passing out.

With its looming figure approaching me, there was only one thought on my mind. Was I going to die here?

Perhaps it would be easier to just lie down and allow this beast to kill, dying was simpler than struggling. That was something I had learned over the years as struggle proved time and time again to lead to only more struggle.

Death was a common thought in my mind. Whether that be me dying from an unfortunate event or me... but the thought of my family, the thought of Karma and her face always popped up, surfacing on my mind. Preventing the thoughts, or at least putting them on the backtrack.

But... even if these people were important to me I couldn't struggle and risk even more pain just because they were important to me. Well, that's what I wanted to think... hah – I have such a weak heart.

Swallowing down my saliva I closed my eyes, there was a feeling growing in my gut since a while ago; I had to focus. The hairs on my... the remaining hairs on my arms and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as I focused.

I lost all focus on the beast in front of me, it was either it kills me, or I somehow pull through and return to my family and friend.

I couldn't see it but I could tell that there was a change in the atmosphere, I could hear the hurriedness of the wolf, and there was a metallic taste on my tongue – lighting was going to strike... and, perhaps I was the lightning rod,

I could feel the feeling in my gut began building up, It was surging up my body and at the same time, the wolf pounced at me. It was almost as if time was stopping, the feeling was surging throughout my entire body, yet, it felt like it would take an eternity for the wolf to reach me.

The metallic taste grew greater and greater, compared to the previous times this taste was different. It felt different, more powerful.

The feeling overflowed my body and as it did that thunder roared in the sky and I could tell something was coming.

That was when I opened my eyes.

Boom! Boom! Boom! – Explosive, after explosive, after explosive, lighting stuck down on me like I was the most attractive lightning rod on this plane. The Wolf that was on the verge of coming down on me was blown away.

I gazed down at my body as the lightning calmed down, I felt overwhelmingly energized and I felt changes in my body. The pain in my arm was nulled as it was being held together by powerful bolts of blue lightning.

Small arcs of lightning danced around me with each movement and my senses were heightened far past their previous capabilities. Staring at the beast panting in front of me I could see it clearly and solidly for the first time since I first saw it – it was no longer transitioning in and out of transparency for my eyes.

Did it seem to be scared? It seemed to still be on the ready to pounce and it was injured from the strikes of lightning earlier, but it was... shaking? This creature, this beast that had nearly bit my arm off was shaking in its little fur boots!? It was so hilariously unfunny that I nearly laughed when seeing it.

This was a frustrating site. I wanted to confront it once more, so I took a step, well I tried to. With that single step, I found myself flat on the ground, face first quite a bit away from the wolf. There were arcs of lightning dancing across the ground in a line behind me.

"What... is this?"

Everything that was happening was confusing, I had questions. I had questions yet there was only one person that could give me answers, that was Tyvetta – and to get her answers I needed to get past this wolf.

Doing this I winded my right arm back which was followed by lightning running along my arm and fist, which was pretty neat. Raising my foot I stepped forward this time I kept myself steady and winced my eyes luckily stopping my movements in front of the wolf – I slammed my fist of lightning into its side.

The wolf let out a cry of pain from the hole in its side, causing it to hop back. I looked at my fist in a daze, what the hell was this? It already felt like I was doing more damage than usual to this wolf, but now I've blasted a hole in this thing, this... was awesome!!

I can do something to this level now... I was excited momentarily but then the consequences of this power hit my mind. The price of putting my Flauna cores into overdrive, using this lightning with my weak body, wait, lightning. I'm wearing mechanical objects... Ugh!

I buried my face into my hand and screamed my frustrations into it. I rose my head as I heard the beast begin heading towards me once again so I rose my uninjured hand in response, almost instinctively arcs of lightning danced around it.

Boom! – An explosive bolt of lightning shot down from the sky above, slamming into the beast as the light from it attempted to blind me, but to no avail.

The lightning had pierced the beast clearly and it was dissipating into specs of red.