Chapter 5: Freak of Nature

Kai and Nuyal are both asleep in the cave after a long day of work. As they slept, a shadow appeared in the cave and crept toward the leftover beast meat. It began feasting on the meat, ripping into it with its sharp teeth.

Kai stirs awake at this and sees the silhouette of the beast hunched over the food. He gasps slightly before covering his mouth with his hand to muffle the sound. The beast looks twice as big as the one that he fought before and is between him and Nuyal, blocking his exit.

The beast luckily didn't hear Kai's gasp and continued to devour the food; after minutes of agonizing silence save for the beast chewing, it finally finished the meat. Satisfied with its meal, it began leaving the cave when finally, Nuyal was awoken when the beast passed near him.

Shooting up from his bed and at the ready, Nuyal immediately throws a right jab at the beast out of reflex. Smacking uselessly off its hide. His eyes widen as he recognizes the form of the beast, and panic can be seen on his face.

The beast lashes out with its claws toward Nuyal cutting three slashes into his chest, which sprays blood onto the beast. Nuyal manages to stay standing, and while the beast is temporarily blinded by the blood in its eyes, he makes a break for it out of the cave.

Kai, still deeper into the cave, starts to panic, seeing Nuyal run off without him. 'Fuck! That bastard is leaving me alone with this monster. Hopefully, it follows him out of the cave.' Kai thought to himself with dread.

The beast did just what Kai hoped and began chasing Nuyal out of the cave, but unfortunately, before Kai could celebrate, Nuyal did something Kai truly didn't expect.

As Nuyal passed through the mouth of the cave and into the open wilderness, he turned and fired an energy blast at the roof of the cave entrance sealing Kai and the beast into the cave.

Darkness fell in the cave, with the flickering embers of the fire casting long dark shadows as Kai stood in shock. As the rubble finally settled, nothing but Kai's and the beast's breathing was audible.

'H-he actually just sealed me in…' Kai's mind blanked, still not believing what just happened. After a moment, Kai felt a new emotion he hadn't experienced in this life yet. Rage. Rage at such a blatant betrayal and rage at himself for getting into a situation where something like this could happen.

Without realizing it, a great amount of pressure was building within Kai, needing an escape. All of a sudden, a piercing noise like a tea kettle could be heard as steam started pouring out of the holes in his body.

Gritting his teeth, Kai could barely contain his anger at Nuyal as the beast in the cave became startled, sensing Kai's killing intent.

Fixing its focus on Kai, it pounced at him, hoping to shred this new threat with its claws.

Kai, still consumed with rage, threw a punch of his own, forgoing defense. His punch landed on the beast doing minimal damage before three large gashes opened on his chest. He took a half step back, pausing a moment while his wounds rapidly healed until he was unmarred.

Again he charged, this time ducking the slash and rocketing up underneath the beast, using his ability to stretch his whole body to generate more force, hitting it in its center mass. The beast let out a shriek as its internal organs were damaged from Kai's heavy hit.

The beast snapped its jaws at Kai as he fled from underneath, hoping to create some distance. The beast's maw caught his right leg holding him in place.

Kai, fueled by instincts and rage, continued forcing his way forward until his leg was ripped off by the beast. Falling to the ground, Kai realized he could still feel and move his leg that was in the beast's mouth.

Smiling a devilish grin, Kai controlled his leg to rocket into the beast's digestive tract, directly attacking its internal organs. The beast shrieked and began thrashing back and forth, slashing with its claws looking for the attacker.

Kai sat back out of range, focused on doing the maximum amount of damage with his leg. Eventually, after some time, the beast gave one final death cry before collapsing onto the ground.

Something could be seen moving in the beast's body, wriggling towards its mouth. Kai hopped towards the corpse and pried its mouth open. Kai's leg shot out and reattached itself.

Kai stood there for a second, staring at the shape of the beast he had just felled. Slowly, steam began building up around him again as he thought, 'That bastard left me to die! He used me as bait to keep himself alive.' Kai was fuming.

"You're going to regret that," Kai spoke aloud, growing a cold edge to his voice.

Kai turned and surveyed the cave before spotting Nuyal's pack. Walking over and squatting down, he began rummaging through the pack until he found what he was looking for. Kai grabbed the scouter and affixed it on his face over his right eye.

Pressing the button, symbols began appearing that Kai didn't understand, but he remembered Nuyal using this to scan him as well as check coordinates, so maybe he could use it to find him. Eventually, the symbols stopped flashing, and a circle appeared on the screen somewhat off to the left with two numbers underneath. Kai took a few steps toward the circle, and one of the numbers changed.

'I wonder if that symbol is how far away someone is.' Kai thought, 'That might be Nuyal then if so.' He gritted his teeth and approached the rubble blocking the exit. 'Now to get out of here.'

After seeing Nuyal do it, he had a decent idea of how to mimic his energy attack. Kai began building up energy in his palm, and a pink energy ball began to condense in it. After a few moments, he let the built-up energy release blasting out towards the rubble.

Kai was pushed back slightly as he didn't brace himself properly for his attack. He felt a drain on his energy as the blast continued on until he finally stopped supplying energy. The blast reduced in size before totally puttering out.

Where the rubble stood previously is a circular hole that cleared enough space for Kai to escape. When the smoke cleared, Kai immediately began sprinting off toward the circle on the scouter.

Kai himself didn't know what he would do to Nuyal if he found him, but his anger didn't allow time for self-reflection. Whether it was his rage driving him or the result of his training, he sprinted through the wilds faster than he ever had before.

Minutes turned to hours as his nonstop death march ceased to end. Using his nigh inexhaustible stamina, he took no breaks and kept moving towards his goal. The gravity that once took all his focus to combat was long forgotten as he closed in on the circle.

Then after the symbols had reduced to single digits, Kai crested a hill and saw him. Nuyal resting against a rocky outcropping, nursing his wounds. Kai's heart began to pound when he saw him as rage overcame him. A piercing noise erupted from him as steam poured from his body.

Nuyal sitting at his makeshift camp, flinched upon hearing the strange noise before his eyes widened in shock at seeing Kai alive and well.

"H-hey kid, look at you. Y-you made it out." Nuyal stammered, trying to find an excuse, "Since you passed that test, how about I teach you that move I promised?" Nuyal said, trying to salvage the situation.

'Shit, how did that kid get away from that beast!? There's no way he killed it, did he? That'd be impossible, but it wouldn't have let him go so easily.' Nuyal thought.

While Nuyal was struggling to understand how this situation came to be, Kai began laughing as the steam continued to pour out of him. When the steam stopped, he began charging the energy blast in his hand. "No need," Kai said with a snarl before blasting it toward Nuyal.

Nuyal quickly reached out with both hands to block the beam sent his way and began being pushed back until his back hit the stone, stopping his movement. His hands started to burn before he flung his hand to the side, redirecting Kai's blast.

As the blast cleared from Nuyal's view, Kai was already charging toward him. Nuyal dropped into a basic fighting stance, preparing to counter Kai. Kai threw a punch, extending his arm along with it while outside of Nuyal's range. Nuyal was caught off guard and just barely got his guard up in time to block the attack.

With his other arm, Nuyal grabbed Kai's arm to limit his movement. Kai responded by lifting his feet off the ground and retracting his arm quickly, causing him to rocket toward Nuyal. THis motion caused the scouter on Kai's face to fall off.

Seeing Kai coming up fast, Nuyal quickly shot out an energy blast toward him. Hitting Kai and causing him to fall like a ragdoll.

Just when Nuyal begins to think he has a moment to rest, the arm he is still holding's fingers stretch out, trying to poke his eyes out. This causes him to let go of Kai's arm and jump back, giving Kai a moment to pick himself up off the ground.

They eye each other warily as their first exchange comes to an end.

"Listen, ki-," Nuyal began to speak before being interrupted by Kai rushing him once more to tackle him while consumed by anger. Nuyal frowns as he sidesteps Kai's charge and hits with his right elbow behind Kai's head, causing him to be dazed for a moment.

Nuyal takes this opportunity to charge up another blast with his left hand. Purple energy condenses as he shoots a beam aimed at Kai's midsection, putting a hole directly through him.

Kai recovers from the elbow to the head and tries to make some distance. Nuyal doesn't give him a chance and immediately vanishes, only to reappear in front of Kai with a two-handed hammer fist to the head. This slams Kai's head into his neck as his malleable body tries to absorb the impact.

Kai is barely conscious and falls onto his back. As he lies there, the hole in his chest begins closing while his head is slowly rising back into its proper spot.

Nuyal began approaching Kai's laid-out body. "Thought you could beat me, kid?" spat Nuyal. "Just cause you killed some beast doesn't mean you know the first thing about a real fight." He shook his head in disappointment, "I thought you had real potential. It's too bad this is where it ends, kid."

Nuyal finished his speel as he arrived at Kai. He raised one arm and began once again charging an attack. Anyone could see he meant to end things this time.

Kai, just barely conscious, began to come out of his near-berserker rage and stared straight at Nuyal's blast in horror.

'This wasn't how this was supposed to go!' Kai raged internally.

Nuyal feet left the ground as he began to float up above Kai.

He gave Kai one last look and said with pity, "Such a waste." Before unleashing his blast. The diameter of this blast was enough to almost completely engulf Kai as it barreled through the air toward him.

Kai was engulfed by the blast and torn apart by the raging energy before he could even react. After a few moments, Nuyal cut the energy flow leaving nothing but pink smoke and a crater.

"That should be enough to end that freak of nature," Nuyal landed back on the ground and sat down to rest. 'That kid was much stronger than he had any right to be. No matter how hard I hit him besides stunning him, he would just bounce back." Letting out a grunt, Nuyal pushed himself up off the ground and made his way over to his scouter laying on the ground.

"Luckily, my scouter survived the fight, at least," Nuyal said as he reached down and grabbed the scouter. "I should get the rest of my stuff."

Nuyal began backtracking toward the original cave, and luckily for Kai, he completely overlooked that strange pink smoke littering the battlefield.