The Bloodforged Kin

Chapter 221 - 215: Safehold - Cassian

It was finally his time. The next creature was his and he was anxious for it to show up, his nerves showing as he bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. It had been two hours and it should be here. Where was it? Was it over?

Cass hoped and prayed that it wasn't over. There was no way for them to know for sure when the last one would come, but if this one showed up it would be number nine and The System seemed to like even numbers. He was pretty confident that there would be 10 total, so he knew this would be his last chance to prove his strength to everyone here - and on one of the strongest ones yet!

It still burned him that they ranked him so low. Not only was it embarrassing in front of the Mehta sisters, it was just humiliating overall. How many times did he have to prove himself? How many times did he have to show them how strong he was for them to finally believe him? It was SO. FRUSTRATING. He just wanted to see them look at him with respect and admiration for once. To feel like they thought of him as a protector.

The blare of the alarm interrupted his reverie and everyone turned to the west. Sure enough, there it was, a full head taller and a few feet wider than any of the ones before it. Fear wormed its way through Cass's gut but he tamped it down. Being scared before a fight was the old Cass. He didn't think that way anymore.

He wished that were true.

"You sure you got this, bud?" Cass started and turned to look up at Ed.

"Yeah, I got it. I'm going to take it down."

Ed leaned in and lowered his voice so only he and Cass could hear. "I just want you to be careful, kid. I've seen you fight and you're fast, but these things are tough. I've seen every speedster movie, show, and comic book there is, so I know that it takes more than just speed to defeat bad guys like this."

Cass rankled at being called a kid. "I have my powers."

"You do, and they'll help, but I think you need something that packs a little more of a punch. Speedsters in all universes have some pretty cool skills that we definitely need to talk about adding to your repertoire later, but what do Barry Allen, Quicksilver, Jay Garrick, Impulse, Kid Flash, and even XS all have in common besides their speed? The one thing all of them have done in a fight against big baddies?"

Cass stared at him blankly. He liked comic books, sure, but he never got into them as much as his dad did. He liked the shows too, but mostly he just liked sitting with his dad and watching them together. He couldn't think of any answer that could satisfy Ed's excited grin. Luckily for Cass, Ed got impatient and answered the question himself.

"They threw things! Kid, you probably had a pretty good arm before The System, so imagine it now that you're supercharged! Holy shit the damage you could do! You're basically a living machine gun!"

"Okay," Cass could see his point but not the value in it. "Why wouldn't I just use a gun then?"

"Because bullets are small and would basically be useless against something that's almost three stories tall."

"Then what?"

Ed's smile turned feral and he pulled something out of his dimensional storage. Cass looked down at what was in his hand and returned Ed's look with wide eyes.

"Alright everyone, you better watch close because Boy Wonder here is about to do his thing!" Announcer's voice was loud and jubilant. "He only picked two songs, which is pretty ballsy of him! So far the record is two full songs and a little bit of a pause after - well, Takeshi only played one, but he was out there for a while, healing the damned thing while on his journey of discover or some bullshit like that, so that doesn't count. If he can defeat the Abominable Snowman before a second song ends he'll be the new champion! And this one is going to be a toughie - he's an ugly bastard and looks like a silo on legs! I'm not sure what Cass's magical stick things are going to do for him, but I think we're all excited to see!"

His camera panned to show Cass's face and Ben addressed him directly. "It's your time, kid! Finish it fast or get back here before it can whoop your ass!"

Cass swiped uselessly at the invisible camera in his face. He couldn't see it, but he swore he could feel it there - like when someone aimed a laser pointer at your face. You knew that you couldn't actually feel it, but somehow you still did.

"Okay then, we're about to start. Ready! Set! GO!"

Cass was off the wall in a streak of light just as 'Bodies' by Drowning Pool started. The snowman had cleared the space between the woods and the wall at a jog, but it came to a halt as a glowing circle of light formed around its legs. The light moved faster and faster, forming into a solid ring of blue electricity. It stomped down on it, but caught nothing. It kicked but only caught air. When it moved, the circle moved with it. Whatever it was, it obviously wasn't dangerous. It turned its attention back to the walls and began a lumbering run. The walls only reached its chest - it would be able to punch through them with ease and begin the true carnage insi-

An afterglow of the lightning registered before the pain did. The circle of light had grown in intensity, stronger and brighter with each circuit, before finally breaking off and traveling up its body to its head. It registered this even as its head exploded in furious pain, and it realized it wasn't looking at the walls anymore - it was looking at the stars.

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Cass ran, charging his power. He had Ed's trick up his sleeve - or, more accurately, in his dimensional space - but he wanted to do this his way first. He wanted to win with his own powers, not some trick. When he felt the power reach its maximum he shifted and took a moment to study the huge abomination in front of him. This wouldn't be any different than running straight up the building when they'd kidnapped Ben - he'd just have to be careful about reaching the top. It was frozen in place in front of him just as the world was frozen around him. He watched as the lightning trail finished its last circuit and caught up to him. Once he had all of his energy back he grinned and took off again, straight at the thing.

He planted his foot onto its shin and mentally adjusted 'down,' his skill compensating instantly. He sprinted up its body and flicked his batons open. He reached the chest and pulled his arms back for a wide swing. His batons hit the monster's chin with all the momentum he'd been charging them with and suddenly both of them were in the air. Cass twisted in the air, spinning to pull his feet underneath him. The part of his skill that prevented him from tripping and allowed him to treat any surface as 'down' was reaching its peak, and he could feel that it was waiting for another breakthrough to push into something more. He pressed it and realized he could orient himself in whatever direction felt right, even if he wasn't currently touching anything solid. It wasn't quite there yet, but he was able to orient himself in ways that a falling cat would be jealous of, even pushing himself against the air to slightly adjust his trajectory. He angled himself to fall into a skid next to where the beast was landing.

It crashed down hard, head smacking the ground with a hollow thump that could be heard from Safehold. He'd used most of his stored momentum in that strike, but his speed pool was full to bursting - he hadn't run in days and the power was begging to be used. His speed always felt like a caged animal, electric and wild, resenting being stored and desperate to be released. Tonight he would use it all.

Cass watched as the monster's head rebounded off the earth in slow motion. He didn't want to give it a chance to recover so he ran again, this time not bothering to conserve any of his momentum energy. He flashed around it, over it, across it - his batons were a literal blur of motion as he ran, hammer blows striking dozens of times per second as he moved. There wasn't an inch of the thing's body that hadn't been struck by the time Cass finished his circuit. His pool was down to the halfway mark, but he felt confident that he wouldn't need it all. He cast a glance back at the wall to see if everyone was watching, missing the blow that would turn the tide of the battle.

This monster wasn't dumb, like the smaller ones. It was a veteran of other iterations of The System and had been a part of conquering other planets. It had seen speedsters before and knew that their power lied in their need to move. Take that away and they were just stinging gnats. Purple hands slammed down on the ground and Cass was flung into the air.

The snowman caught Cass mid-tumble, slamming its hand over him like it was swatting a fly sitting on a table. Cass was smacked into the ground with terrible force and down the hand came again, slamming him deeper into the earth with each hit. Normally he'd be able to fling himself away long before the hand reached him, but that first hit had broken one of his legs and crumpled part of his ribcage. Cass couldn't break through the pain enough to pull himself away in time. The hand came down again, and again, and again. Cass pushed on all of his skills at once - his will and desperation unfocused as it sought any avenue out of this. Any way to survive. His speed skills tried to respond, but none were ready to push over the edge. His healing factor was running at full speed, but couldn't keep up with the punishing blows that broke bones every time they hit. His pain intensified as he pushed himself into hyper speed, as it always did, but he pushed his way into it anyway - knowing that the only alternative was death. He remembered the feeling of breaking past the bottom of his speed pool and desperately searched for anything like that to save him now.

A long-forgotten and ignored part of his build reached out to him, and Cass sensed a power than had been waiting to be used. It wasn't full, since he rarely touched it, but he pulled all of the advancement energy out of his other skills and pushed it into the awaiting skill.

His class, Shieldbearer, awoke and drank in the power greedily. Cass threw his arms up as the hand descended one more time, crying out in fear. The blow never landed. He opened his eyes and saw a golden shield, transparent and barely-visible in the dark, pressing against the palm. Cass had sacrificed the advancement of his other skills, for now, but it had saved his life.

Most of his speed had been used up keeping him in hyper speed and he wanted to take advantage of it before it ran out. He pulled two healing pills out of his dimensional pack and swallowed them, breathing a sigh of relief as his bones straightened and knitted together. That didn't get him out of the hole he was in, but it gave him a fighting chance. His speed pool was down to under 15% and it wasn't doing him any good down, here so he let it drop. The instant he did the fingers closed around him, digging up dirt beneath him as the fist closed around him.

The snowman tried to crush him, but the shield held strong, shifting to form a protective bubble around him. Cass could sense that it was almost out of power but he couldn't strike through it. He was trying to figure out what to do about that when his world went chaotic.

The snowman climbed to its feet and squeezed, trying to crush the fly in its fist. When that didn't work it shook its fist, feeling the small thing inside slamming around inside the protective bubble it had created. It shook him a few more times then flung him across the expanse and into the woods. It took a moment to collect itself then turned back to the wall.

Cass tore a hole through the trees, bouncing to a stop just as his shield failed. He groaned in pain and struggled to his feet. Nothing was broken this time, but pain radiated out of every joint. He was far away from the wall, he realized, and needed to get to it before it got to the wall. He couldn't stomach the thought of being the only one to let one of the snowmen reach the wall.

He checked his speed again - 10%. Hopefully it would be enough. He activated it and ran to reach the snowman. In the distance he could hear 'Stupify' by Disturbed almost wrapping up.

As he ran he pulled one of the solid steel orbs that Ed had given him out of his dimensional storage. They were 20 pounds each and the size of a softball. Pre-System he'd have struggled to lift one, but the additional points he'd put into his Strength stat made them feel as light as baseballs, and if there's one thing Cass was great at it was baseball.

The creature was paces from the wall and Cass could see the people on top raising spears in a panicked rush. No! He thought and threw a fastball.