ABH - CH 47 - Two Trains of Thought

A/N: I'm sorrrrryyyyyyyy, I don't know why it takes me so long to write ABH, I literally have so much fun. Anyway, come see me at Dragoncon this week in Atlanta!!! It'll be a blast!! I'm on like 6 panels with a reading session!!!

Chapter Forty-Seven

Two Trains of Thought

Rise of Winter, Week 5, Day 7

Rising up off the ground, Freddie launched back at the golem with a ferocity she was all too familiar with. Battle madness. It wasn’t new; she’d had it plenty in the First Floor. She’d had it plenty in elsewhere, too. Long before she had risen through the ranks of the Games, when Freddie was Kalina and Kalina was just a child, she had a habit of becoming feral as her coach had taken to calling it. 

It was odd to think back on those memories. They weren’t fuzzy, per se, but they hadn’t seemed fully formed—not since Awakening in Maeve. It wasn’t something Freddie dwelled on a lot. The Before. It mainly consisted of darkness, fights that Kalina would barely survive, a family that would solely take, and coaches who would never let up. It hadn’t been long, just a month since arriving to this world. To a family that was more than simply kind. To a family that was supportive—not just with their words, but their actions. It was something the Kalina of then could never fathom.

And, now, Freddie missed it. As her foot cracked the golem's abdomen, she felt her ankle bend. Pulling her foot back and bringing her center of balance to her, Freddie thought through what her mother of then would have done if Kalina had been lost to a dungeon. Or, rather, trapped during a raid. 

Oksana Kastrinova was nothing if not obsessed with herself. Would she have cried? Did she cry when Kalina died? Freddie remembered, now, even though the quickness of it made the memory distant. The pain blooming from her skull. 

Where had it even come from? She thought, tucking herself down below the strike of the golem. I had my senses—and security. 

Frowning, Freddie struck her opponent at its center. Underneath the cracks her fist caused, she could see the Mana Pearl roll within. The golem was forced backward into the wall. Freddie tried to think of what was happening before she’d died. 

What was it? The fuzziness of her mind got more intense. It screamed for her to focus on the here and now, to remember what a good life she was leading, to forget. But Freddie didn’t want to forget. 

Freddie had never been a great student, but she’d never been stupid. She could remember. Least of all she could remember what happened right before she died. She had to. 

The golem brought its good arm up in front of its face, creating a facsimile of a guard stance. As the crystals jutting out of its elbows began to glow in an iridescent light, Freddie jumped backward. 

Think, Fred, she scolded herself, even as she dodged flying shards of crystal. You were leaving the Games. You had to be. That was the only time the crowds were that crazy. Who did you fight? Who were you talking to? Who were you with?

As a jagged edge ripped into her arm, Freddie hissed in pain. An ache settled in around the crystal, as [Regenerate] tried to passively heal the edges. It wasn’t enough, and Freddie ripped the crystal out of her skin and used [Fire Conjuration+Fire Manipulation] to cauterize the wound, empowering [Regenerate] with some mana to heal it over. A new silver scar was left within moments. 

Frustration filled Freddie, and she launched forward, following [Fist of the Flame Monk] as it led her to stretching out her arms and bending forward slightly to angle herself for another hit. Landing her fist into the crevice of its elbow, the crystal shattered, and the golem was left without its limb. Without hesitation, Freddie lifted her foot and swept the unsteady golem off balance by sliding her ankle underneath it. Forcing her way through, the golem fell back into the wall once again, sliding to the ground. Freddie stomped with all her force onto one of its ankles—completely shattering it. 

The golem turned its head up at Freddie, moving forward rapidly.

Freddie slammed her skull down into the oncoming headbutt with double the momentum the golem was able to bring to bear. A crack resounded, and the dungeon monster went still. Within its chest, the shining Mana Pearl’s light dimmed significantly—though it remained a vibrant blue and a stark white, swirling within. 

Looking down at the slowly dissipating corpse, Freddie snarled. “Why can’t I remember?”

The iconic rainbow miasma left the golem, and as it did so, Freddie heard a creak of movement from behind her. As she turned around, two more Fryst Golems were leaving the opposite wall. 

“No [Combat Report] means combat isn’t over,” Freddie darkly reminded herself. 

[Inspect]

[Fryst Golem, Tier 1, Level 11]

[Fryst Golem, Tier 1, Level 11]

Shaking out the tightness in her arm from her freshly healed wound and sending a spark of [Regenerate] through her knees, Freddie glanced at Ogon. 

“I’ve got right, you got left?” She said, though her voice held no questions. 

“I’ve got left,” Ogon said, the chirp in his voice pitched lower than normal, and Freddie could barely hear the following, “Useless as I am.”

Freddie paused, her muscles filling with tension that had nothing to do with the fight ahead—even as the golems began approaching. 

“Ogon,” Freddie snarled, her voice shaking, and the bird did a loop and turned around, “do not—and I mean do not call yourself useless.”

The spirit blinked its ashen eyes. “But my flames—”

“Have their time and place,” Freddie said harshly, brokering no argument. 

She didn’t listen to whatever the fire spirit did or didn’t say after that. Instead, she pulled on the magma in her veins and activated [Quick Fight]. The mana running through her invigorated Freddie. Rushing toward the golems, she veered to the right. 

[Fist of the Flame Monk] wanted her to stretch out, to take a more moderate approach. Freddie wasn’t feeling very moderate, though. 

Useless, Freddie spat the word in her mind. That’s what they said about me, in elsewhere, when I joined the Games. Nothing is useless. Some tools are unique to the job at hand. 

Freddie lunged forward. She had a want—no, a need to destroy these monsters. To prove, flames or no flames, she was enough. Even if she couldn’t remember. 

The golems stood taller than Freddie, but not by much. So, she propelled herself forward, jumping off the ground with enough force to send her airborne. As the apex of the arc, she twisted her body until she was facing the ground and launched a backward kick into the head of the golem. As her foot made contact, a satisfying crack resounded. Pulling her foot back, she twisted back around and landed with her guard up as she glared at the golem from behind her fists. 

The golem was pushed back roughly, but Freddie didn’t wait for it to regain its balance. She was unsettled, more so by her inability to remember than anything else, and so, as [Fist of the Flame Monk] guided her back to stability, she closed the distance and used her middling range to land a hook on the construct’s abdomen. Another crack. 

Beside her, the light of Ogon was leading the other golem across the cavern in a wild chase. Freddie only spared that a passing thought—the Fryst Golem before her had begun to glow, much like the first one. 

Freddie stepped back, anticipating the jagged crystals the golem would launch her way, and used [Fire Step] to gain more distance. As she climbed up the cavern, Freddie narrowly missed the barrage of crystals coming from the golem. There were over twice as many projectiles as last time, but none could reach Freddie. 

Going from the back edge of the platform to the front as fast as she could, Freddie launched herself up and over the top of the golem’s head. Descending down, she grabbed the top of its crystal skull and maneuvered her legs to snap them down around its neck. Freddie gripped under its chin and twisted. A dark snap filled the cavern, but the golem did not show an outward reaction to its head breaking off and falling to the ground with a crack. 

The golem then reached its arms up and started grabbing for Freddie. As its poorly defined palms ripped her sleeve, Freddie gave up trying to dodge the arms and instead wrapped her hands around the closest arm. Holding it in place, she kicked the golem’s elbow out and sent the arm falling to the ground. She promptly did it to the second arm as well, before jumping down from the golem’s shoulders. 

Crumbling to its knees, Freddie watched the light die around the Mana Pearl at its center before stalking toward Ogon and the second golem. The construct was being led around by the spirit easily. Ogon was shepherding it around with his sparks, keeping it from crossing back to where Fteddie had been fighting. 

“I’ve got it from here, Ogon,” Freddie called, breaking out into a run before using [Fire Step] to climb up the cavern once again. 

It had, after all, worked quite well on the other golem. 

Ogon flitted around as Freddie jumped down from the ceiling and wrapped her legs around the golem’s shoulders. Twisting the golem’s chin, she snapped its neck. That in and of itself wasn’t the death sentence it had been for the goblins. Instead, the golem slammed its side roughly into the wall—near crushing Freddie with the force of it.

Freddie grunted, pushing herself and the golem away from the wall. It was unfortunate, then, that the golem did it again. Not so unfortunate was the way Freddie braced her arms, holding them out and absorbing the impact.

Untangling herself from the golem, Freddie winced at the feeling in her knee. It was more painful than she’d expected—then again, it had been pressed between a sentient rock and a hard place. Still, she dropped to the ground smoothly. A strangled sound left her throat upon landing and Freddie shot [Regenerate] through her once again. It was eating her mana up something fierce, but until the Welcoming Committee was over she’d have to deal with it. As it was she was lucky the potions on her waist had been on the opposite side of the wall.

Otherwise, she’d likely be plucking shards of glass out of her side too.

Feeling her knee come back together under the skin, Freddie charged the golem, striking with a flurry of blows. The first of which was aimed for its elbows, the second followed after a quick ducking maneuver had her swiping out at the golem’s jagged knee cap, the third cracked its abdomen, and the fourth shattered the casing of the Mana Pearl in its chest.

Ripping the pearl out of the golem, the construct collapsed in a heap.

Freddie was breathing heavily, and her knee was still in a horrible condition—with every step a sharp pain was spiking up her leg.

Popping the cap off the health potion at her side, Freddie took a deep drink. Usually, she’d apply the fragrant liquid to her injury and let it seep directly into the wound. And while there had been some minor scrapes on her skin, her Skill had already healed them over with silver flecks. 

As the potion set her to rights, there was movement at the center of the cavern.

The floor was standing up, taller than the other golems—and more vicious looking.

[Inspect]

[Utopia Golem, Tier 1, Level 12]

[This golem was crafted with the uncommon Utopia crystals. It retains the ability to bend light much like the crystal it is created from.]

Freddie felt a grin spread across her face.

“Oh, you,” she said, the pain in her knee finally fading. “You’ll give me a real fight, won’t you?”

As Freddie shook out her shoulders, Ogon sighed from above.

“I bet I can’t do anything against this one either.”