Infinity Legends

Chapter 6: The Blue Horn

Luca’s day had been full, jumping from one classroom to the other and then a lengthy afternoon gym session followed by a quicker routine at the pool, but as soon as he entered his dormitory, he rushed to Fantasy Stars. The strange roommate was nowhere to be seen, thankfully, and Luca did not bother looking for the notebook in his bag. He was confident he recalled all the steps described in the cryptic notes. In fact, the proposed series of movements had occupied his thoughts from morning to evening, and while sometimes things seemed to make some sense, Luca still failed to see how those actions would kill the Bluehorn.

Still, the longer he went without trying it, the more curious he got.

Once Luca had embodied Takol Scaleback, he had spent about an hour navigating the dark mines running under the mountain chain. It took him twenty minutes to locate and repair the antimatter mining drill, buried deep within a closed off section of the mines. The remaining forty minutes or so were spent facing zombified miners in search of the drill’s access token. At points, Takol would consider the possibility of that being absolutely pointless and felt tempted to just go back to the surface and get straight to business with the Bluehorn, but patience paid off when he found the codes inside a technozombie foreman’s pockets.

Now the green-scaled alien was back on the ridge overlooking the grazing herd of Greenhorns. As usual, the Bluehorn was there, drinking from the blueish river next to the most vulnerable members of the pack. Luca mentally ran the plan over again… If those vague instructions could even be called a plan.

Engage the Blue Horn, then active the drill, remotely, and keep running to the energy poles. Use the same explosives as before, just a bit differently. Yeah, he knew what to do. He had no clue if or how that would work, but he would do it nevertheless.

Takol unhooked the plasma rifle from his back, activated smart tracking, synching it to the mines on his belt and leaped over the ridge. Plasma bolts zoomed through the air and at the gathered animals by the river as Takol’s white cape waved behind him. The Green Horns took off running uphill, and the Blue Horn charged at him. Nothing new so far.

As usual, Takol turned around and took off running to the opposite direction, hearing the hooves hammering the ground behind him, growing closer every second. He counted to seven, as suggested by the strange orange notes, and only then punched the drill codes into his wrist-communicator, activating the mining gear meters beneath the ground he stood on.

The soil trembled slightly as the antimatter drill was activated, but other than that nothing happened. No detonations, no explosions, no boosts or any visible change in the scenario. Anyhow, the Bluehorn’s approach left little time for contemplation. If activating the drill was going to accomplish something, Takol would soon find out one way or another.

The shallow portion of the Creek came into view, the energy poles sticking right out of it as usual. Last time, Takol had glued the mines onto the poles themselves and detonated them as the Bluehorn ran by, to minimal effects. This time, orders were to move the explosions to the riverbank, for whatever reason. Takol was hardly confident on that strategy, given how the beast was more likely to get close to the poles than the margins, but then again, no part of that plan seemed to make any sense whatsoever.

Zigzagging through the poles—like he had grown used to doing—Takol turned and flicked a mine at the marginal foliage growing by the river’s side. The Bluehorn’s stomps were already being added to splashes of water, meaning it too had come into the creek. With a zig and a zag worth of a lead, Takol turned back, rifle automatically aiming at the small explosive sitting by the river’s western margin. He held his finger. The blue-skulled giant was still lagging behind, but a second and a half later Takol took the shot, never stopping his run.

A solitary sphere of green plasma arched through the air and collided with the round device, erupting in a magnificent ball of flames and metal shards. The Blue Horn was still too far to be visibly hurt by the explosion, but the bright flash, loud noise and slight tremble had, just like last time, thrown the creature off course. Except this time it reeled towards the center of the river, rather than its borders, headed directly towards the lined up energy poles.

The massive momentum of the monstrous metallic-blue skull rocked the whole energy rod. A colorful electric discharge rained down upon the creature, who staggered and dropped in a convulsion. Takol came to a full stop, startled. Surprised. Thankful? Had it worked? All he had to do, all along, was push the thing to collide with one of the posts? The green scaled alien took a hesitant step towards the fallen juggernaut, eager to loot it for all it was worth, but two rapid observations made him dig his heels in.

First, the Blue Horn was still moving. Groggy, yes, but very much alive, and very clearly intent on getting up and back on the fight. Takol could not know how long the shock effects would last, but once they wore off the Blue Horn was bound to be even more pissed off than usual.

The second detail to catch Takol’s eyes were the sparks flying from the crushed energy rod, and the fact that the bright chain of energy running from one pole to the other had vanished after the crash. That meant the energy supplies to the mine had been cut out, which meant the antimatter drill had no more power, which led to the question: Why was the ground still trembling?

Worse. Why was the tremble that much more intense now?

The answer came less than a second later as a whole lineup of green skulls came into view, turning at the riverbend up ahead. The whole Greenhorn pack was coming, charging madly and clumsily shoving each other aside as they rummaged downhill. Downriver. Towards Takol. They might have been smaller and less powerful than their blue compatriot, but Takol would take a single Blue Horn over three dozen Green Horns any day of the week. He cursed, unable to do anything other than watch the storm of hooves drawing closer, ready to turn him into alien paste, their added mass agitating the running water around Takol’s feet.

The Bluehorn was still struggling to get back up when the herd got to it, pushing on their relentless, frenzied advance even as they stampeded one of their own. With a pained shriek, the Bluehorn vanished beneath the cluster of gigantic hooves kicking up water and dust. A long, yellow-teethed smile stamped Takol’s face as his success finally downed on him, but the joy was short-lived. If he met the same fate as the Bluehorn, which he soon would, none of it would have even mattered.

Then he recalled the last three words of the cryptic instructions: climb a tree.

He had not climbed a tree. He had done everything else, but not climbed a f*****g tree, and there was no more time for that.

Ducking, Takol hid his face onto his chest and covered the back of his neck with both arms. A pointless attempt to remotely increase his odds of surviving the passing monsters. The cascading stomps grew louder, the cool water running by his scaly forehead more and more agitated, until a splash was heard just in front of him.

He peeked up, seeing two white boots with moderately high heels standing just between him and the coming Greenhorn avalanche. A human woman, dressed in a white gown covered in tiny dark trinkets. No. Not trinkets. Dark-matter crystals. With her white hair fluttering behind her, the stranger moved her arms in grand gestures.

In a second, the water running by Takol’s ankles was gone. The woman had held it back, mentally pushing the whole stream up into a pair of walls forming a sharp angle, almost like a spear  pointed at the incoming herd. Then, with a flick of her wrist, the water wedge solidified into thick ice.

No, not just ice. Dark-matter infused ice. Takol could see the pitch-clack and purple veins running through the transparent structure. He scrambled on all fours, inching closer to ice protection as he understood its purpose.

With his back to frozen wall, Takol watched as the Green Horns collided against the pointy end of the structure and redirected their clumsy rush to either side of the wedge, unable to break through the ice. The white haired human kept her hands up, small icicles leaving her palms along waves of dark-matter. In a matter of seconds, the last of the Green Horns had ran past their improvised cover.

Letting her arms drop, the mysterious sorcerer allowed the walls to instantly melt, and the creek resumed its course undisturbed.

Takol took a second to watch the mass of Green Horns as they continued on their way downhill. Eventually, they were little more than a very noisy blot on the mountainside. The reptile looked up to the human sorcerer.

“You saved me!”

“You’re welcome,” the woman, young and tall, with sharp features and clever brown eyes, winked at Takol. “I’m Serry, by the way. Serry Frost.”

“Takol!” he offered her a hand to shake, but she pulled him up to his feet instead.

“Takol. You should have climbed a tree.”

“Yeah. I know,” Takol scratched the back of his neck with his dark claws, then looked upstream to find the stomped corpse of the Blue Horn. “I didn’t expect the whole herd to come down.”

“So, you weren’t the one who activated the antimatter drill?” Serry asked.

“I… was,” Takol hesitated. “Didn’t know what it’d do, though.”

“It made the ground tremble,” Serry explained. “Greenhorns think there’s an avalanche coming and run away. I thought that was your plan, to kill the big one,” she pointed the mangled Bluehorn.

“It was the plan, just not mine,” Takol said.

“It was a damn good plan, whoever’s it was.”

“You want some of the loot?” Takol started walking towards the fallen monster. “You earned a share.”

“Nothing that could interest me,” Serry paced beside him. “More interested in the dark-matter core on that drill you activated earlier. Think you can take me there?”

“I… sure,” Takol nodded. “But maybe some other day? Right now, I have something very important to do in real life.”