Race

Emile and his cohort razed through the corrupted forest. They pummeled branches and squashed leaves all in an effort to arrive first.

Of course, Roy continued to walk at his leisure pace, he was seemingly immune to Emile and Blood's idiocy… but Willow wasn't.

And considering the weeks of effort invested into exploring the once unknown, the three of them ran without reservation.

Willow fueled her legs with essence. She moved faster than possible, faster than a blur. From the waist down, Willow vanished.

Behind her, panting worse than a dog, was Emile. His hand was pushed onto his chest, taut like he was squeezing, while he sprinted ahead. The one thing his all encompassing Gift couldn't provide for him was oxygen, a resource he couldn't force into his lungs fast enough.

Behind him was Blood. Blood wasn't out of breath nor was he far behind at all, in fact, Blood was on Emile's toes. The race to the canyon was a free for all, after all, and their Gifts were not restricted in the slightest.

As a result, Blood's legs were covered in a thin film of pink, a delicately controlled layer of blood that was being used to reduce his weight. Actually, Blood intended to fly at the start of the race, but Willow quickly banned it.

It was the only rule.

Emile burst through a wall of brush and entered an empty field. On the horizon Emile could see the canyon, but he also saw Willow's back far ahead of him.

Emile struggled to control his breath, he knew he needed a calm heart rate to integrate his essence into his movements; without uniformity he'd never grow accustomed to the practice.

Theoretically, he could fuse his essence and muscles with his heart beating so sporadically, but the difficulty skyrockets. It would be like trying to fill a glass with water, but the water pressure is out of your control.

Sometimes a steady stream of water may pour out and in that moment Emile could easily fill the glass, but if he turns the sink on and a high pressure beam of water cuts through the glass… It's obviously a problem.

That's the situation with his heart rate. A slow and steady heart beat translates to a smooth and fluid process. Quite simply, the amount of essence he'd be trying to control wouldn't be extreme. Extreme equals bad, calm equals good.

Suddenly, Blood soared above Emile and landed in front of him. Looking back, the dark prince sneered at Emile before leaning forward and sprinting for the final stretch.

Emile focused within himself. His eyes remained open, but Emile couldn't see what lay before him. Instead, he saw his body.

The essence and its flow, the speed of his blood, how it shifted and changed with the movements of his body. Emile memorized it all, he couldn't afford not to.

Then, for just a moment, he opened the floodgates. He pushed essence into his legs, equally dispersing it between his hamstrings, glutes, quads, and calves.

And then he took another step. His foot pressed against the ground and rolled along with the shape of the dirt before pushing off again. But this time, when Emile's foot left the ground so too did the rest of him.

With his foot in the lead, Emile launched high into the sky like he was being pulled by an invisible string. A scorching pain assaulted his thigh and thumped with each of his heart beats.

Emile passed Blood, flailing above him before he came barreling down and into the ground. A large cloud of dirt erected around Emile from the crash and hid him within it.

Clutching his thigh, Emile spread his jaw and roared, but no noise left his lips. It hurt too much for noise, leaving Emile to wallow in agony in silence.

He looked at his leg, he unbuckled his pants and dropped them to his ankles revealing an unparalleled muscle spasm. Looking at his thigh, the largest muscle found on the inside of his leg bobbed like a buoy and slithered like a snake.

Emile tore his muscle and this was the result: a muscle that detached from his tendons, constantly firing from the minuscule electricity transmitted to it by the select strands of nerves still attached.

Luckily, his Gift got to work and the nerve endings restricted and pulled his muscle back into place. Finally, as the dust settled and tears painted his cheeks, Emile lay back on the floor and heaved a sigh of exhaustion.

"Buddy —" Blood said mockingly, "you thought you could get ahead. That's cute."

"Just get to the canyon —" Emile spoke in a volume just above a whisper, "I can't bring myself to move anymore."

"Why? What happened?" Blood asked.

"I tried it."

"Tried what? Am I a mind reader now?" Blood commented.

"I tried fusing essence into my legs, but it did not work in the slightest," Emile sighed.

"Well duh!" Blood yelled while kneeling over to pick up Emile, "That's a Royal technique! What are you doing messing with it?!"

"My Gift is supposed to make it easier," Emile argued.

"Oh no! The guy who's already stronger than all of his peers couldn't get stronger again! What are we going to do?!" Blood recited his lines like a high-school bully while he pulled Emile's arm over his shoulder.

"Not stronger than Willow," Emile remarked under his breath.

"She's two ranks above you —" Blood said, "basically three since she's bordering on the line to Kinghood as it is. You're not supposed to be stronger than her."

"Yeah but —"

"She's also like two-hundred years old!" Blood exclaimed, "I don't know if you know this since you spend so much time with her nowadays, but we're teenagers. Do you have any idea how incredible we are, particularly me, I mean I'm…"

"Annoying —" Emile interrupted, "you're annoying."

"Annoyingly brilliant and handsome, maybe," Blood laughed, "Oh, and we're here."

Emile forced his head up and the wall of red was all he could see, consuming his vision in its entirety.

"Do you think the Ceremony involves food?" Blood asked.

"I don't know. Why?" Emile asked in return.

"We haven't eaten anything in months —" Blood complained, "I could use something tasty in this hellhole."

"Yeah, I suppose I agree."