Chapter One
Vance lived in Highland Town in the country-state of Unioven. The settlement was one of the highest points on the map habitable by humans, which did give them a lot of Electrogen benefits. That was at the cost of thin air.
The 16 year old groaned as he got up from his brown sofa bed; the gift from the furniture maker in town for having to face the Forest thrice in order to get enough firewood for him. Pretty well earned, in his opinion. He still had the claw marks across his arms to prove that.
Taking in the look of the tiny apartment with only two rooms; a bathroom and a living room, one might think that he was poor and must've had bad fortune. To him, he would consider himself very lucky. He didn't remember much about the past, but he was told that he was dropped off in the town square and left there to freeze to death. He was a newborn; probably some teen that decided to get rid of her problem. An elderly man that had passed away a year ago; Mr. Bakersfield, took him in as his own, and that was where Vance's life began.
Back to the present, he said to himself, shaking off those thoughts as he folded up the bed and got to work.
The sparsely furnished room was a hodgepodge of stuff. Where he couldn't afford to get a TV, there was a full-body mirror from Mrs. Bakersfield that he couldn't pawn for the life of him. Said mirror was now the object of his attention as he walked up to it and tried to look as presentable as possible; he had woken up a few hours before and had prepped himself to go before those things appeared.
He wore a black T-shirt with a long sleeved denim jacket over it. His black, crew cut hair we're the same colour as his eyes. Looking down...
"Ugh... Again..." He groaned, realizing he wasn't in anything other than his underwear.
His denim trousers were quickly put on alongside his grey and pink sneakers with pink laces. Hey, he couldn't be judged; it was a free world. Besides the fact that the shoes were a gift from a neighbor whose daughter had ran away from home.
The third time.
This week.
Shaking his head at the thought of the silly teen camping out in the forest for a while, risking her life because of some stupid tantrum, Vance walked out of his humble abode, heading towards Zenith Forest.
As he walked down Steep Lane, he remembered what he was sent to do. His boss and mentor; Professor Igneous- strange name, but not the worst he had heard- had sent him to collect a package from the porters in Piershore. Suddenly, he broke into a run, right after hearing particularly harsh chirping coming from the forest.
"Damn it! Those things are active earlier than usual!" He cursed under his breath, willing himself to run faster. With any luck, he might just swoop through without a confrontation.
Vance knew that while Petex didn't need to sleep, they could still do so, but only opted to do so to reduce the amount of constant energy they expend. If a Petex extended too much energy, it would revert to its most basic form to try and make up for it, only changing back when more energy was available. If even in those forms they over exerted, they eventually but suddenly disintegrated... Into nothing; the remaining structure of the cube like bits would simply disappear., Wasted by the elements.
The Thornbristle Sparrows that occupied the forest had other ideas.
"Oh, crap."
Three of the Petex were chasing him, smoky, curling trails of cubex leading him to believe they had either recently been reenergized, or spawned.
Huh. Noobs?! This might work, after all!
Vance dodged around trees in an attempt to shake them, but he only got scratches and prickly fly-bys for his trouble.
Then he saw a glimmer of fire.
"Hey! Anybody!" He yelled as he ran towards the source of the flame. He didn't notice that the birds had started pulling back as he got closer. Something at the back of his mind told him that the fire was dangerous, but he needed help.
When he stumbled into the small clearing, what he saw wasn't a fire, but a Petex.
It was a red quadruped draconic Petex with red, leathery skin. It's stocky hind legs were a bit bigger than the fores to let it stand upright if it wanted to. The legs were tipped with three white claws and cream soles. It's relatively long arms had three sharp claws as well. Its underside was cream colored and it had a slightly long snout. It's eyes were shut, but one didn't have to look far to find the source of the flame.
Its smoldering back of ridged spikes had flame on them, all the way to the tip of its tail, which had a little 'devil' arrow. Its relatively small wings also had small ridges of flaming scales on little rivets.
"What the-!"Vance began, shutting up as percing yellow eyes snapped open and the Petex snarled at him.
"Okay, I'll just, be going now..." He said, backing away.
Only when he felt the prickle of poisoned thorns sticking on his jacket did he realized it wasn't safe.
"Damnit..." He was stuck between a rock and a relatively hard place. By the Petex's laboured breathing and it's momentary pixelating and realizing, he figured that it had run dangerously low on Electrogen.
"Hm..." He took a gamble and dropped to his hands and knees, crawling forward and trying to be as docile as possible.
The little dragon seemed to get it, because it looked at him with a tired look and closed it's eyes. When Vance breathed a sigh of relief, the eyes snapped open again, only to close.
Vance just had a dumb idea, and it might either save him, or damn him.
Mustering up his courage, Vance made the most threatening yell he had ever made in his life, spooking the Petex and the Thornbristles. Without warning, he grabbed the dragon and bolted like he was being pursued by the devil.
The little dragon which acted so tough was paralysed with shock as it stiffly let the human carry it. Its eyes were wide and it constantly looked at the human's face to see if any hostility would emerge. He knew a single attack would disintegrate him, and he didn't want that, so he stayed still.
Meanwhile, Vance was ducking and weaving and bobbing and barrel- rolling to avoid the hail of thorns, claws and beaks that had become eight of the Thornbristles.
Suddenly one appeared from only God-knows- where and rushed him. The Petex got so up close and personal that Vance had a precious second to assess it.
It was an avian sparrow-looking Petex that was very small, around a foot high. It had rough green plumage surrounding it's head and three tail feathers underneath three tail leaves. It also had bright green feathers on it's back with a beige underside with light brown down. It sported a yellow hooked beak and beady black eyes. The most interesting part of it were it's wings; They sprouted green spikes from every feather. The feathers shared their space with leaves that made up the secondaries of the bird Petex's wing.
"Scree!" It screeched, flapping it's wings twice and producing a volley of Poison Thorns that lodged deep in the ground where Vance stood a moment ago.
He had sidestepped the volley, but that gave an opening for two of the ravenous Petex to straighten their wings and slash at him with them. Botano Cubex mixed with the Electrogen in the air and the Nature Wind Slash was used.
The double attack cut into his back through his jacket. Thankfully no Irradia/Gamma Cubex was used, or he might be in trouble.
Ignoring the pain as best he could, Vance continued running, but he started to falter as his vision became blurry from blood loss.
"I think, this is it..." He groaned, stumbling.
He emerged from the forest with a little shout before flopping facefirst into the ground. He released the Petex from his hold before he fell, and it was now nudging him, wondering why it had stopped.
The little dragon huffed a little as it saw that the human had taken damage on its account. It was meant to be strong...
No more.
The tiny two foot tall dragon crawled over to the human's palm and nuzzled into it, feeling warmth leave it. Its last thoughts were along the line of "I hope I won't regret this..." Before it disintegrated.
The Electrogen in the blazing red Cubex flowed like a river of flame into the human's palm, burning a mark there and entering his body. The cubes then turned blue and inert.
With a cough, Vance stood up. He felt better than before, for some reason. Like the wound on his back didn't matter.
A screech reminded him how he even got those marks. He looked back at the Thornbristles and noticed that only a few of them were slowly venturing out of the few protective trees left of the forest cover.
He noticed another look he got. The same look they gave him when they kept away from the Petex.
They were afraid.
With a grunt, he flipped the birds the bird and looked for his cargo. When he saw the Cubex on the ground his eyes widened in realization.
Electrogen was used by humans as well. It was in their blood, making then able to function in nearly superhuman ways before the Great War. Humans didn't have to take shots of the substance anymore because they all had access to an increased immune system, resistance to pain, denser body structure, sharper senses, etc.
A boost of it passed the treshold, but it was like caffeine that burnt like cotton.
"Gotta move, fast!"
He ignored the little jolts his body sent him as he scooped up the mass of Cubex. Once or twice a Thornbristle would squawk, but a snarl from the human shut them up. When he was done, with Cubex in his trouser pockets and jacket, he took off with a burst of speed.
The ground thundered as he ran like the wind. The Boost had nearly given him wings! He felt invincible as he ran, jumping over boulders like they were fences and leaping over tributary rivers they were little streams of water. He never stopped moving until he evened out in the last stretch of land leading to Hope's Point.
Timeskip
The Outpost security lookout looked from the tower with a bit of wonder. He was seeing a light dust cloud moving towards the town and first thought that a wild Petex was rampaging towards them, but he quickly found out it was a human teenager that was hauling ass incredibly fast.
He alerted the guards down as to what was happening and one jumped on a Hovercycle and zoomed off to meet him.
As soon as the guard met the teenager, he grabbed him as the Boost wore off and the kid collapsed in his arms.
"Reenergize this..." Vance groaned, pulling off his jacket and losing consciousness...
I'll end it here, cause, who doesn't like minor cliffhangers!
I'm eeeevilll. Deal with it.