Monster Trainer Academy, page 24
“Titan, use wind blast!” I yelled.
Breck yelled a command to his monster at the exact same time. “Fenris, tornado!”
Titan sucked in as much as he could hold and blasted it toward the gray wargrim that looked like a cross between a gray wolf and a black-spotted hyena. The air was pulled right into Fenris’ swirling tornado. The two attacks canceled each other out.
“Ah, because those attacks are the same element, they equaled out,” Rusty broadcasted loudly to the class. “It is important to become familiar with your monsters’ attacks and to learn what they are strong and weak against.”
“Titan, tornado!” I shouted, hoping Breck wouldn’t use another special ability.
Titan’s blue and white feathers shuddered violently as he launched a small cyclone of wind from him.
“Wind shield,” Breck commanded his monster.
Wisps of air appeared, swirling around Fenris. I wasn’t exactly sure what that ability did until Titan’s tornado skill blasted directly into Fenris and then dispersed. I probably would have done at least 3 points of damage to him, but it only did 1.
“Mr. Winters used a defensive skill, which was a good move in light of Tyler’s special attack,” Rusty commented as the battle continued.
Breck and I both used claw next. Titan and Fenris bounded toward each other and slashed their paws, scratching each other in lines of red. Titan scored a critical hit on Fenris, dropping his hit points by 2.
According to my GameGrip, Fenris also scored a critical hit, but because of Titan’s passive armor ability, the attack only did one damage to Titan.
Breck snarled, which was a sound that should have come from Fenris. That told me that Breck was getting even angrier, which I could definitely use to my advantage.
I thought about my plan as hard as I could, hoping that Titan would get the feel of what I was going for. Then, I dug around in my pocket, acting like I was going to throw some heals toward Titan.
Breck took the bait and launched another strong attack. “Tornado!”
Fenris prepared for the attack, but Titan had totally understood what I wanted to do. The dragon skirted around the edge of Fenris, who reacted just a little too late. He launched off his attack, missing Titan by a mile.
“Rapid fire tornado and then wind blast!” I yelled.
I knew that would put Titan’s AP at 0, but Fenris’ guard was down, and he would have to take a few minutes to recover from his attack. His wind shield was still active, but Titan’s attacks would still do some decent damage, I hoped.
Titan blasted his tornado directly at Fenris, who took the cyclone fully in the side, sending him spinning and flying a few feet away. The attack did three damage, even with his defensive shield still active.
Fenris tried to get back to his feet, but Titan managed to send his wind blast straight for the wargrim almost directly after his first special attack. The blast gushed straight into Fenris again, doing another three damage. That meant that Fenris only had 4 HP and 4 AP left.
Titan ran back to me and caught some berries in his mouth that I tossed to him, giving him back 3 AP. As much as I wanted to use another special attack, I had Titan use bite, but Fenris had recovered and dodged the attack.
The wolf-hyena used claw and caught the side of Titan’s torso, leaving long claw marks. Titan yelped in pain but was more than ready to charge back toward Fenris and used his own claw attack.
Apparently, both Breck and his monster weren’t expecting the skyr to be so fast because Titan scored a powerful hit on Fenris without any kind of resistance. He did 2 points of damage, putting Fenris at only 2 HP while Titan still had 10 HP.
I wanted to feed Titan more berries, but anticipated a strong attack coming from Breck and Fenris.
Sure enough, Breck called out to his monster. “Tornado!”
Titan did his best to dodge, but the edge of the swirling wind clipped Titan’s leg and sent him spinning away, although luckily, it put him closer to me. I tossed some more berries to Titan so that when he recovered from the attack, he gobbled them up right away, restoring his AP to 3.
“Okay, buddy, this is it.” I wanted to end this battle now, but instead of speaking out loud and giving away my attack, I instead thought about the next move, having every confidence that Titan would understand.
I knew that Fenris only had 1 AP left, so he could only use a simple attack. The wargrim bounded toward Titan, ready to claw. With all the willpower I could muster, I thought the words wind blast over and over again so there would be no doubt in Titan’s mind what I was thinking.
The smart dragon knew exactly what to do. He let Fenris get dangerously close as he slowly sucked in air for the attack. As Fenris raised his razor-sharp claws, Titan shot his attack straight at the monster. Fenris was caught directly in the blast and tumbled backward, landing in front of Breck in a total KO.
21
A chorus of cheers and applause rang out around the ring of students surrounding us. I took my moment to gloat and pumped my fists into the air. Titan did a few of his jump-flying backflips, also basking in the limelight. He definitely was a crowd pleaser and totally ate up all the attention, and I was more than happy to let him have it all, if not only to show more people how awesome skyrs were.
Rusty joined in the cheers, too, even jumping up and down, pumping his own fists, and, for some reason, playing air guitar. He abruptly stopped, probably realizing that he was the professor and probably shouldn’t make a show of favoritism, but who could blame him? Breck was a jerk, and Titan and I had beaten him fair and square. It was another lesson to the Runners that all their bravado meant nothing if they didn’t have the skill to back it up.
Rusty slapped his hands over his mouth, trying not to laugh at himself for being such an excited dork. However, his shoulders shook violently, and his eyes streamed with tears for a second, but the silly man managed to quickly get a hold of himself almost comically quick. He straightened his shirt, tried to smooth down his nest hair, but he still gave me a sly wink of congratulations.
Abigail and Claudette definitely cheered wildly, both unashamed and having no reasons not to show their support for our awesome win. They both yelled and jumped up and down next to Rusty like they were my own personal cheerleaders.
It was a nice sight and feeling, I’ll admit it. I think Rusty enjoyed watching Claudette, too. He smiled widely at her but then snapped out of his possibly uncouth behavior once again, realizing he should probably take charge of his own class.
“That was an excellent display of what Monster Trainers can do,” Rusty commented cheerfully as he walked toward us on the green field.
I was over the moon that Titan and I had won yet another battle, especially one against Breck. It was like good feelings times ten. I chanced a glance over at the pompous Ruby Runner. I knew he wouldn’t be happy at all, but he looked downright enraged, like scary mad. Something about the way he glared down at Fenris scared me.
I remembered seeing that look on Benny’s face when he had stared down at Hank after the serious beating he had taken back in Plott Town. All that shame, embarrassment, and failure had bubbled up inside Benny. Now, the same thing happened in Breck, and the closest thing to take all that out on was their monsters.
I knew exactly what was coming next. I pushed past Rusty as I charged over toward Breck, yelling and screaming my lungs out. “Don’t even think about touching him!”
I was seconds too late. Breck landed a hard kick straight into Fenris, who was still lying unconscious on the ground. Breck’s booted foot slammed right into Fenris’ back, even though the poor monster couldn’t even move. Breck, the jerk that he was, hadn’t even bothered to revive his monster yet, and now he was literally kicking him while he was down.
“You asshole!” I screamed as I dove headfirst into Breck’s torso, slamming into him as hard as I possibly could. I tackled him to the ground and put all my weight and strength on him to keep him from getting back up.
The loud thud and stunned sound Breck made when we hit the ground told me that it hurt, but even if Breck was winded, that wasn’t going to stop him from trying to beat the tar out of me.
He clawed and grabbed at the back of my shirt and landed a few hard punches to my lower back and my shoulder. What really hurt was when he slammed his fist directly into my ear. Everything went silent for a second, and then the nothingness was replaced by a loud ringing and an incredible thudding pain.
I used all the pain and anger to press down on him even harder, straining every muscle I could. I tried to wrap my arms around him and squeeze his arms down so that he couldn’t hit me again because I would admit that he hit damn hard.
I didn’t want to fight Breck, though. I just wanted to keep him away from Fenris so the piece of shit wouldn’t hurt a defenseless creature anymore. I also knew that others in the class wouldn’t stand for that either and would jump in to help, so all I needed to do was hold him down until more people could help hold him back.
Within a few seconds, I felt hands all around us as more of the class jumped in to help. A couple of people pulled me up and off Breck and made sure I was okay. The others yanked Breck up to his feet. It took like ten people to fully hold the rage-filled man back.
Breck acted like a complete animal. He yelled and screamed and tried to wrench himself free, but there were enough determined students around him to keep him from escaping.
Some of the other class members, including Dom and Sarah, surrounded the other Ruby Runners, keeping an eye on them, just to make sure they didn’t try to step in and make things worse. I almost laughed at their terrified faces. Either they were just as appalled by his behavior as the rest of us, or they were just scared of having to deal with Breck themselves.
I didn’t think Benny was horrified at Breck’s awful treatment of his own monster since he had done the same thing. No. I figured Benny looked so afraid because he was reliving the time I totally destroyed him too, and he must have realized that if I had beaten him and Breck, I was pretty damn unstoppable.
The only Runner that didn’t look completely shocked by Breck’s behavior was Penny. She just wore the same hard grimace on her face that she usually did, so I had no clue if she was mad at the situation or mad at Breck. Either way, I had no idea why she hung around with a guy like that, especially after how I had seen him treat her.
“Go. Now.” Rusty’s voice was calm and steady, which was actually kind of terrifying since the man was usually a giant ball of goofiness. He lost all of his awkwardness in his silent anger. Rusty marched right up to Breck, glaring at him.
Breck stopped his trashing and whining as Rusty approached, but he didn’t look scared. Honestly, for a second, I was afraid that Breck would spit at Rusty or manage to get an arm free and sock him right in the glasses.
Rusty didn’t show any signs of fear at all. He kept a straight face as he stared Breck down and pointed back toward the Academy, hidden somewhere off through the trees.
“Go straight to the dean, and I’ll deal with you later. You decide whether you want to tell her what happened or if you want me to, but I’d suggest you start acting like an adult.”
The students holding onto Breck had the mind to try to drag him all the way back across the courtyard, but Rusty stopped them with a palm up. “If this guy is stupid enough to assault his monster in front of me and not take his ass straight to the dean, then I’ll be really surprised. Also, don’t think I won’t hesitate to end your monster training career immediately.”
Breck ripped himself free of the students’ grasp. I think there was a little wave of panic that rippled through everyone. None of us knew what the released beast was going to do. I figured he would either try to assault Rusty or maybe me again, but maybe he wasn’t that stupid.
He stomped toward the treeline and only slowed down for a second to glare at his friends. Some of them couldn’t even look him in the eye, which I found to be hilarious and also sad. Why would any of these people want to hang out with a person like Breck? I guess everyone had their reasons for things, but I couldn’t understand why.
Breck looked like a complete idiot as he thudded along the path, yelling and punching at trees and plants, looking like an oversized toddler. When the angry man finally was out of sight, we shared a collective sigh, but nobody could say for sure where Breck actually went after he disappeared into the forest.
I hoped for his sake that he would just do what he was told, but then again, if he made things worse for himself, then he would never be able to train another monster again. I think that would make the world a slightly better place, for sure.
Now that all the commotion happening with Breck was over, I immediately tended to Fenris, who still was unconscious on the ground. Claudette and Abigail appeared, too. We immediately revived him and used our best healing sprays. The wargrim’s red eyes slowly rolled open.
“Can you hear me, Fen?” I asked the beast as he tried to raise his furry, gray head.
Fenris’s pointed ears twitched in response to my question. His eyes searched around for a minute, still trying to stay open, but they found me and locked on. He could totally understand me.
“How does your back feel?” I asked as I stroked a hand along his fur.
I was afraid he might not want me to touch him, but I could tell that my touch immediately calmed him down even more.
“Do you think you can sit up?” I asked, hoping that the berries and sprays had started to kick in. I knew it wasn’t always an instant response, but I was hoping that he wasn’t too injured.
Fenris slowly rolled himself up and curled his legs under him. He planted his front paws on the grass and pressed himself up, bringing his back paws up until he was in a standing position. He wobbled a little bit, but Titan came up alongside him to steady him. He took a few tentative steps, and then his furry body rippled as he shook himself from head to tail. Fenris looked at me and basically smiled. He opened his mouth and let his tongue droop out as he panted happily.
“I think he’s doing okay,” Abigail laughed in her musical way. She still had a fluffy Chipper on her shoulder. The little creature watched Fenris curiously, turning his head from side to side.
I knelt down as Fenris walked toward me. He nuzzled his head against mine and then licked the side of my head.
“You know, you don’t have to stay with him,” I told Fenris as I scratched behind his ear. “Breck is a terrible trainer. There are much better ones out there for you.”
Fenris was a super cool monster, and now I knew firsthand just how strong he was. I loved the monsters I had so far, but I honestly wouldn’t have minded having a monster like Fenris, too. I was only a level 2, though, and Chipper was still only level 1, meaning I wouldn’t be able to tame another monster until Chipper was at least level 2 or I was level 3.
Fenris turned his head slightly to the side, like he was thinking about my words or maybe even reading my thoughts. He blinked his red eyes at me. Then, he touched his wet nose to my nose.
A couple of things happened at that moment. First, I totally felt some kind of electric shock buzz through me at the touch, kind of similar to how I felt Chipper’s pain when his paw had touched my hand. I didn’t feel any kind of pain with Fenris, though. All I felt was how extraordinarily happy he was at that moment. I got the sense that a huge weight had been lifted off him now that he didn’t have to be with Breck.
The second thing that happened was my GameGrip vibrated. I didn’t really have to look at it to know what had just happened, but I checked it anyway.
Congratulations! You have tamed your third monster, Fenris!
I couldn’t help but burst into elated laughter. It was such a good feeling to know that Fenris was both free of Breck and now ready to tag along with me, but how in the world had I managed to bond with a third monster when I shouldn’t have been able to. Maybe it had something to do with Fenris already having been tamed by Breck, but I had no clue. I was just so happy and confused by it all.
“Whoa, how do you have Breck’s monster now?” one of our classmates shouted.
“Yeah, he just stole him!” another girl screamed.
“Excuse me, but it is impossible to steal another person’s monster,” Rusty corrected his students. “What happened was, Fenris, of his own free will, chose to unbind himself from Breck. We all saw why he would want to do that.” Rusty eyed the class over the top of his round glasses.
“So that means he chose to bond with Tyler then?” the first student asked.
Rusty nodded. “Exactly.”
My GameGrip vibrated again, still in my hand. It almost startled me because I was lost in my thoughts.
Congratulations! You are officially a level 3 Monster Trainer!
“Holy balls,” I exclaimed as I glanced down at the screen of my gaming system.
Abigail and Claudette bonked their heads together as they both tried to get a look. They laughed and groaned and rubbed their heads and were sure to make sure they didn’t do that again as they took turns checking my GameGrip.
“I also bonded with Fenris,” I grinned.
“Wait, did you bond before you leveled up?” Rusty asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure.” The GameGrip vibrated one more time in my hand.
Congratulations! Your monster Titan has leveled up!
Titan is now a level 3 monster!
Titan has gained an open ability slot!
“Holy cow!” Abigail exclaimed as she stared at the screen.
“He must have leveled up in combination with the battle he just had and you leveling,” Rusty explained to me, and then he turned to the class, who had all been staring at us. “This is an excellent example of how your bonds with your monsters are so beneficial. The stronger your bond, the more experience you can gain from each other.”
“So, he got another ability slot, but no ability?” I asked, holding the GameGrip over so Rusty could take a look.
