Have you ever had a situation where you are just better than everybody at something? It could be anywhere, at your work, at the basketball court or the football field or even an online game. There’s a rush you get, just destroying everybody who happens to be unfortunate enough to cross your path. You feel invincible, you almost feel immortal! Like not even death could stop you when you are on a roll.

That was the feeling I was getting, except I, myself, wasn’t the true reason for my own exhilaration. No, it was the company I was in. I felt as if I was being flanked by two Gods who had just decided to rain down death on anyone who dared to look their way.

Let me start from the beginning. The patrol, or the hunt, as Frost called it got off to a mellow start. We were just jumping from building to building, on the lookout for anything resembling a monster. I had to keep up with the absurd pace at which Frank and Frost jumped and sprinted. It was frankly a grind just to be able to keep them in my sight. It was while I was huffing and puffing that they finally reduced their pace, allowing me to catch up to them. As it turned out, it wasn’t really out of the goodness of their hearts.

As soon as I caught up to them, they started taunting me for my lack of pace and stamina. It was Frank who began the ribbing, saying stuff like, “We are at half pace here, dude.” and “If the world really has to depend on the likes of you, we might as well lie down for the miasma monsters to consume us.”

Frost’s idea of insults was much more subtle, mixed in with words of encouragement. Some of the golden stuff out of his mouth were, “You really got to manage your energy, David, or you might be a lame-duck when you finally confront a monster.” and “You may have to train outside of our activities, David. You are simply not fit enough.”

So, now I was out of breath and out of confidence. It was while I was in this state that we finally encountered our first monster of the patrol. It was a dog but only in the sense that it barked. Although it sounded more like a roar. And the dog was the size of a horse with two heads. Both the heads looked as if it hadn’t eaten for days and would rip out the throat of anyone it encountered.

Although I had an inkling of what to expect, I was still shocked by the appearance of the monster. It was but a moment before it took notice of us and charged at us with reckless abandon. I flinched and involuntarily took a step back, with my previous confrontation with the cyclops still fresh in my mind. But I needn’t have worried because before it could get anywhere near us, it was pierced by a green laser right in the connecting point of its heads and it fell to the ground, dead. Looking towards my companions, I saw that Frank had his arm extended and his index finger was smoking, signalling to me that he was the source of that laser beam.

Turning around to look at me, Frank said, “Your fear makes for such powerful energy, David.” He finished his remark off with a short laugh which had been embarrassing to the extreme. Vowing to myself about controlling my fear better, I proceeded to follow them as we continued with the patrol.

The night was much of the same, with us encountering monsters and Frank and Frost disposing of them with relative ease. I would have felt pity for the monsters if their reaction to observing us wasn’t going straight for our throats.

The whole situation had me excited. Seeing them just roll over whatever opposition we faced made me anticipate the future, my future, to be precise. I could almost envision a future where I was as strong as them. A God on the battlefield. A figure to be reckoned with and feared. As these thoughts were running through my head, we had our most interesting encounter of the night.

I was brought out of my train of thought regarding the grand future of yours truly by a head-splitting screech. The screech sounded so inhumane that it made me want to tear my ears off. Looking towards the source of the sound, I was met with the sight of a creature that could inspire awe and fear at the same time. It was a flying creature, almost like a bird, if it wasn’t as big as a plane. Before I could marvel more at the sight above me, the bird opened its beak again to release another screech, or at least that was what I had assumed. Instead, I heard Frank yell at me, almost me in a panic, “David, jump backwards.” I was initially shocked to hear the panic in Frank’s voice. What could have unnerved Frank, a veteran in the matters of the Dimension? Nothing good, I decided and I jumped backwards with all the strength I could muster without seeing what I was jumping into. I crashed back first into a building and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was dazed completely and felt as if I was about to pass out. Before I could gather my thoughts, I saw Frost just pull me towards him and jump to the top of another building. I looked back to see what he was so concerned about and the sight made a shiver run down my spine. The position I had just been rescued from, because it was a rescue, alright, was now covered in ethereal flames. The flames were as black as the night in a moonless sky and the entire scene really made me appreciate how close I had come to death.

I asked Frank in a daze, still unable to believe the sight before my eyes, “ Is that a dragon or something,” referring to the bird-like monster which had just spouted the fire and was now perched on the top of another building gazing down on us, probably pondering on the best way to kill us.

Frank casually replied, as if he hadn’t seen his best friend almost die, “No, nothing so grand. Actually, that’s a kite. A hell-kite. They normally never grow so big.”

Frost voiced his agreement saying, “Yeah, that thing must be decades old to have grown that big. It requires a lot of miasma to grow that big.”

I nodded along before asking what was really on my mind, “So, we run, right? I mean, we can’t really take on such monstrosity with just two people, right?”

Frank bit back a laugh as he replied, “Believe me when I say this, David, that’s one of the cannon fodders of this world. Just because it has grown in size doesn’t mean that the fact it is weak is any less true.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! “What do you mean its cannon fodder? I heard the panic in your voice when you told me to jump. Admit it.”

Frank let out a snort at that, saying, “I was panicked because the hell-kite had set its sights on you and you weren’t aware of its capabilities. Even if you could have reacted its fire, you wouldn’t have been able to do much at all. That’s all.”

The hell-kite had had enough of us ignoring it and swooped towards again with its trademark screech. The hell-kite approaching us provoked a sense of foreboding in me but this time I was determined to see the action for myself. I was hoping to learn something. Now that I had stepped into this world, a world steeped in the amazing and the dangerous at the same time, I had to prepare myself for the eventual outcome that someday, I had to fight these monsters myself. And who better to learn from than the masters of the craft themselves.

Before the monster could take the fight to us, Frank and Frost took the initiative themselves. Rather than jumping away from the monster to evade it, as any sane person would have done, they jumped towards the monster. The hell-kite, seeing this, it decided to give them the taste of its black flames, which made me anxious, having already felt the potency of those flames.

Rather than reacting to the attack by the hell-kite, they let the fire consume them. My anxiousness rose to extreme levels as I feared that my childhood friend and his mentor had just become monster toast. But I needn’t have worried because they emerged from the flames, protected by some sort of pink shield, Frank’s doing, I suppose.

That was all the reason Frank and Frost needed to unleash their attacks. It was Frost who begun the proceedings. He shot out a solid beam of pure ice from behind Frank’s shield. The attack was strong and the effects could be felt even in the area I was located at, which was quite far away from the action itself. The temperature of the area I was in dropped considerably and I could feel myself shivering due to the cold. But the hell-kite was unfazed. It launched its own fire, more menacing and hotter than before. It was like seeing the collision of two forces of nature as the meeting of the two powers resulted in the whole area covered with a thick layer of fog. The entire sequence of events had left me jittery about the outcome of this confrontation.

But then the balance of powers shifted because Frost had another person on his side, Frank. And Frank was no novice. He shot out a beam of the whitest light I had ever seen. The power of the beam could be felt far and wide as it cleared all the fog in the area it passed through, washing the environment in its resplendence brilliance. I couldn’t look at the beam directly as I feared becoming blind. Even the hell-kite sensed that going against that light would be suicide as it hastened to move out of the way of the beam with surprising agility for a creature of that size.

But the beam was too fast for him and it struck its left wing before it could get entirely out of the beam’s way. Frost, then, emerged from the chaos and brought his fists together in some sort of attack against the bird. I didn’t realise the point of his attack as nothing happened. But then I heard a groan of despair coming from the hell-kite.

Looking down, I could only look on in awe as the hell-kite was being rapidly encased in a tomb of ice. The monster gave a screech of defiance before it succumbed to the ice, buried in the ice forever, or so I thought.

Frank shouted from the top of the building he was on, “David, stay alert! A creature as old as this must have a few tricks up its sleeve. The current situation will force it to show us its trump card.”

I was puzzled by that statement. Surely, the hell-kite couldn’t escape the grave of ice that Frost had trapped it in. I know that the hell-kite was strong and experienced but earlier in the evening I had seen a cyclops die just by falling over after being encased in a similar tomb of ice. So, personally, I was confident in the demise of the hell-kite.

As it turns out, I shouldn’t have tempted fate because that’s when things went wrong. Oh, so very wrong. As I was looking at the bird in the ice, a blinding light began emanating from the ice. Thinking that it was an attack from Frost to finish off the monster once and for all, I looked towards where he stood, only to find him looking at the ice with an unexpectedly grim look on his face.

I looked back at the position where the monster had fallen, only to realise that it wasn’t the ice, which was radiating light, it was the hell-kite itself. Before I could realise what was going on, cracks began to form on the ice. I was alarmed to see the cracks spread throughout the grave, finally making me realise that the ice was going to break and fail in its task of holding off the hell-kite.

With a screech that spoke of the hell-kite’s frustration, anger, and anguish at its current predicament, the hell-kite spread its wings within the ice and in a shocking show of strength, just broke through the ice. This was accompanied by massive icicles, sharp as daggers, just flying about in all directions. I saw that some even lodged in the body of the hell-kite. But more importantly to my current well-being, some were headed straight towards me. Overtaken by adrenaline or fear or the threat of death or whatever, I dodged the first two giant icicles in a display of agility I didn’t know I possessed. But my momentum which I gathered in dodging the first two, I was completely helpless to doge the third one as I saw it hurtling towards, ready to rip through me. Or it would have, had a pink shield not appeared before me and managed to deflect the icicle without a dent on it.

I looked towards Frank to show him my thanks. But I found out that his attention was being completely occupied by our current adversary and predicament. Looking towards the hell-kite myself, I saw that it was still bathed in a yellow glow. I was puzzled as I saw had thought that it was a one-time thing enabling it to counter Frost’s ice.

I asked Frost at the top of my voice, “Hey. What’s happening?”

Frost looked at me for just a moment before shifting his sight back to the bird. He said, his sights still set on the hell-kite, “It has become desperate. It probably thinks that it is futile to take us head-on. So, he has finally revealed its trump card. A trump card, which all miasma-monsters have if they reach a desperate enough state.”

I was puzzled, wondering if this was some sort of berserker state that I had seen in games and movies for some characters and I voiced my question towards Frank. His reply shook me to my core. 

He said, “No, David, this is not a berserker state. This is actually much worse. This is actually its evolved state.”

This did not serve to quell my confusion. It only further fuelled them. But before I could interrupt, Frank continued. “When a miasma-monster becomes desperate enough and thinks its knocking on death’s door, something awakens in its core. They evolve. They become stronger, faster, better. Things seem to be move slowly for them. But that wouldn’t be much of a concern to us if that’s all it could do. We could still take care of it. No, our biggest concern right now is that in the evolved state, the hell-kite can interact with the mortal world.”

I pondered on his words for a moment before the weight of his words impacted me like an avalanche. All the horror tales I had listened to about monsters interacting with the mortal world. The example of the black plague. Nothing good came out of such situations.

Frank looked at my expression of horror and nodded, “Yes, now you realise the severity of the problem. The mortals are in danger here. The buildings, the people living in it, the entire city is in danger here. This will force us to become defensive and focus on minimising the collateral damage, while we wait for some sort of enforcement, which could take some time depending on how soon people realise that there’s an evolved in town.”

I was appalled at the severity of the situation. A monster which I had thought to be a mindless beast driven by nothing but instinct had forced us into a corner. It had, in one fell swoop, made the entire city its playground and made the people in it a liability. It had essentially taken the city hostage.

The hell-kite didn’t wait for any more of our conversation amongst ourselves and dove straight towards the building Frank was on. Instead of attacking, Frank erected a shield enveloping the whole building and the hell-kite crashed into it. It was dazed for a moment but the shield was broken. Frank quickly reinforced his shield. The creation of such large shields was taking a toll on Frank as he was struggling for breath now.

That was when my eyes fell on the icicle that had deflected off Frank’s shield which he had used to protect. And the craziest, most foolhardy plan formulated itself in my mind. I picked up the icicle, careful not to cut myself on its sharp edges. I ran straight towards the edge of the building I was standing on, in the direction of where the hell-kite was. Gathering all of my strength, I jumped, making sure to time it with the hell-kite striking Frank’s shield for a second time.

The hell-kite struck the shield and was again dazed for a few moments. As it turns out, I had timed my jump perfectly. I raised the icicle over my head in mid-air and just as I was about to land on the hell-kite’s back, I brought it down with all the force I could muster. The icicle pierced through the body of the monster and it started hurtling towards the ground, with me still on its back, as gravity took over. I was banking on the fact that it was already exhausted and all the icicles already lodged in its body had it already close to its demise. I just wanted to strike the final blow, the final nail on the coffin, if you will. I heard the faint cries of alarm from my companions but I was too hurt to care. In my daze, I noticed that the monster had stopped glowing and was leaking miasma into the air at a rapid rate, meaning that the icicle had done its job.

We hit the ground with a deafening crash, my fall cushioned by the hell-kite, though it wasn’t long before I kissed the ground as the monster had completely evaporated into the miasma. I was shaken and dazed as I tried to get up but ended up falling onto my knees. I heard fast footsteps coming towards me before abruptly stopping. I looked up, expecting to see looks of admiration and awe on the faces of Frank and Frost. Instead, their faces were washed over with shock as they were looking at my chest rather than my face.

Feeling self-conscious, I looked towards my chest, wondering to myself if I had been pierced too. But to my utter shock and surprise, my chest was glowing right where my heart is supposed to be. I was confused by the implications of my chest glowing before realisation hit me.

I had just unlocked my tattoo, on my first night as an untethered. I was no longer ‘slotless’.