Withered Flower

"Well, ready to see it?" Ren said while adjusting his crop top.

"Please, never word it that way ever again." Ender said while re-doing his ponytail, "If only I knew that my clothes get teleported with me, I'd have gotten a shirt on."

"Well, I don't mind seeing that body of yours," Ren said while winking.

"What, you swing both ways now? Just show me Ability."

Ren nodded as he got further from Ender, and once they were exactly ten meters away, he stopped.

Ender stared at him trying to analyze any slight chance that may happen. But, after one minute of intense staring between both of them, he started wondering if he even knew how to activate it.

He started tapping his foot while waiting and crossing his arms. Suddenly, Ren's right-hand nails turned into black claws, and that's all.

"Uh... are you going to show it or not?" Ender asked impatiently.

"I'm having second thoughts honestly. If that thing is still there, you may have a bad time." Ren said while caressing his claws.

"I don't care." Ender sighed and made some hand movements to let Ren know that he was ready for anything, to which the boy replied,

"I hope that I haven't gotten rusty then"

Suddenly, black vines slowly traveled from his claws to his wrist and stopped there. A bunch of black leaves started growing around his hand and some small black and purple flowers started to appear, pitch-black flowers.

Ender could have sworn that he saw an eye appear for one instant on his palm, but thought of it as a simple visual illusion.

Once the vines stopped moving and the leaves had completely grown, making Ren's hand feel like grass on a dark autumn, Ender said,

"That's all? I thought it was something more mena-"

Suddenly, said black vines started rising at speed's light toward Ren's neck. His entire right arm was covered in leaves and flowers.

The intimating aura that the mere thing was oozing was enough to bring an adult to his knees.

He felt as if the leaves were watching every single one of his movements, predicting all of his thoughts for any future conflict.

Even Ender didn't know how he was standing with little confidence under that intense spell.

Suddenly, a bigger, black, and purple flower appeared on Ren's right shoulder.

This one, however, was staring at Ender, literally.

Its big, pitch-black, eye opened and stared at Ender, who felt as if it was eating him from the insides. Its pupil started to shake as it stared violently.

The leaves all pointed toward Ender as the flower tried to get closer and closer to him via vines. Not only that but Ren's right eye started glowing black, and contrasting with his left, red eye, made the situation even worse.

"I- a-ag... wha-" Ender couldn't even talk properly without feeling like a mere puppet of that flower.

Ren snapped his head toward the flower, which quickly lowered its "head" in submission and hid behind his back.

At that moment, Ender could breathe again without feeling that knot in his throat. He started sweating and even had to sit down for a moment as he felt like he was about to faint.

"If you, a Fear manipulator, were able to be brought to his knees by this ability... you wouldn't want to guess what would have happened to someone your age right?"

Ender looked up and saw Ren right in front of him, with his right arm dangling around with those leaves and vines.

His voice... it was different.

It wasn't the serious yet hidden sweet voice he sometimes made.

It wasn't the teenager's soft tone he had.

This one was sinking in hatred, drowning in resentment.

For one moment, Ender thought that Ren was truly mad at him for something, yet instead, gather all of his courage to try and take a deep breath.

He slowly got up as his mind calmed down and said, "How does it work...?"

"Huh? Well, think of it as passive fear. While claws only induce it via direct contact, I can do so by staring at you. The longer I do so, the stronger the effect... exactly the same as the claws" Ren started moving his arm around, leaving a slight smoke as a trail.

"I see... Does it have a consciousness?" Ender wondered as he sweated buckets.

"Indeed, it's a separate organism that lives within the Element. Now that you've unlocked it, it will become more powerful over time. His food, if you can label it at one, is fear."

Ender shivered at the thought of such a being living inside of him while he was oblivious to what it was currently doing.

"Now, for the ability it actually has. I guess you still don't know what is all that black smoke coming from the ground do you?"

Ender got confused for a moment, yet after looking behind Ren and noticing the black sand, his expression turned to an even bigger confusion.

Ren walked on it while moving his arm around and caressing his claws. He noticed that where his arm was, whatever was beneath it turned into a pitch-black color while oozing black smoke as well.

He then turned around and said, "Watch."

He then lifted a claw toward the sky and the next second a massive black tentacle came from the floor.

It looked around the place while wiggling its entire body, looking for something. Then, Ren made a humanoid decoy out of the sand.

When the tentacle spotted it, it quickly launched itself toward it, bringing all the black smoke with it, cleaning the sand from any black mark it had.

Then, it impaled the decoy, creating a massive black circle that quickly disappeared.

"That black spot acts the same way as the claws, just that it's more intense. You can even make multiple tentacles as long as you have corrupted some floor."

Ren dashed around the consciousness space, making a massive circle of black sand.

Then, he lifted his entire arm and six massive tentacles appeared, striking the ground continuously until they disappeared along with the black sand.

"Agh! Fuck my head!" Ender clutched his head after each strike, feeling that his mind was about to explode.

He looked towards the barrier, marking the integrity of his mental state, and saw a very tiny crack.

"Ren! Are you trying to fucking kill me here!?" He shouted.

Suddenly, Ren dashed toward Ender and created a wall behind him, pushing the boy against it.

"Kill you? Of course not. I'm still not that crazy you know..." Ren started weakly laughing as he stared right at Ender,

"But who knows... maybe one day..." He widened his eyes as he got closer to Ender.

Suddenly, the flower appeared yet again, not breaking visual contact, but this time however it was different.

Instead of focusing on Ender, it slowly turned toward Ren while moving its four petals around.

Ender looked at Ren with fear written in his eyes, his heartbeats rising drastically as his sweat drenched his body. For once, he truly felt as if he could die at any moment.

"Maybe one... day..." Ren blinked multiple times, then swung his arm as hard as he could, making the vines disappear instantly in black smoke.

The flower made an ear-destroying scream before disappearing into thin air.

Ren stared at his hand while repeating, "It should have waited more..." His expression slowly changed, first, he seemed sad, then worried as he looked at Ender. Then, he snapped his head toward the grey star.

"HEY!! I thought you would get rid of the fucking parasite! What kind of ability are you giving the kid?! He is going to end up dead the second he summons it!"

Ender watched from behind Ren and thought about was the problem was. Except for the flower, everything seems just fine.

When he finished his line of thought, Ren looked back,

"That flower is a sentient parasite! If you summon the ability it will take over your body instantly!" He shouted in distress and looked at the star,

"I don't fucking understand! I thought you got rid of that idiot!"

Ren made a bed out of the sand and dropped it on it while shaking. Ender looked at the grey star before sitting beside Ren.

"When that flower first appeared, you seemed unbothered by i-"

"Because that wasn't me!!" Ren shouted, "That fucker took over the entire time... you are so fucking lucky it didn't go rogue.

Like, d-do you have the slightest idea of how easy is for me to destroy your consciousness."

Suddenly, the grey star shined.

"Of course, I know you won't let me... but you won't do shit against the parasite!" Ren got up from the bed and pointed at the star while shouting, drowning in rage.

"Also, I can't still fucking trust you. You come out of nowhere, I came out of fucking nothingness, from the void itself!!

Appear in a boy's body with not the simplest clue of what is going on. And am I supposed to believe that you are some sort of god?!"

He turned back toward Ender and said, "Do you know why I wanted to teach you about this ability?

Because I thought that the fucking star got rid of the corrupted flower. I thought, that the thing that gave me hell back then, finally left."

Ren took a deep breath while clutching his face. Ender, though, kept staring at Ren without knowing what to say.

He got something clear, never activate this ability until he gets a higher mental resistance.

He got up and slowly walked toward Ren, who was taking deep breaths, slowly getting rid of the shakiness enveloping his body. Ender put a hand on his shoulder making Ren look back. The boy sighed and said,

"Sorry about that... Until we know how to increase your mental defenses, or rather, the star decides to give you something to help with it, don't use it."

"Do you even know how you got it?"

"No, for now. I hope I can get any clue about why I had a parasite inside my body... You should be going now, we will talk later... Sorry about all of that."

The same rift opened near Ender. He started walking toward it but before going inside, "Get some rest first, talking can wait." And stepped inside.

He felt as if his entire body was spinning in zero gravity before suddenly appearing on his mattress.

He opened his holographic phone to check the time and saw it was 5:30 AM. He reluctantly got up while clutching his forehead.

He went to check if the Withered Flower now appeared in the System to check the description, but once he did he was left confused about it.

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>>[Level 1] Withered Flower (Sentient): As the grass taints black and red, the flower dances.<<

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'Sentient? Hey System, can you give a better description that isn't a riddle or something like that?'

[...]

'Tch, do as you fucking wish.' Ender got up from the bed and went straight to the bathroom, where he noticed that his entire body was drenched in sweat.

Instead of taking a bath, he decided to go toward the forest to quickly finish the daily tasks, and he did in less than fifteen minutes. Then, he took a bath to get rid of that unpleasant smell assaulting his nose.

As he lay in the bath, letting the water relax his muscles, he couldn't stop thinking about what just has happened. It was something he did not expect, that's for sure. But for some reason, he felt there was something hidden.

Don't get confused, he knew something was up since he got the System. But after today's interaction with that flower, he knew there was something darker.

'I don't want to get into that shit... I just want to be strong and live a good life. But something tells me that sooner or later, I'll need to get deeper into that matter... I hope I'm strong enough to handle it by then.'