My Scumbag System - Chapter 261

Chapter 261: I Don’t Know What We Are, But It Works
The question felt strangely important and loaded with more weight than I had intended.

She opened her mouth to answer.

Before she could speak, a massive disturbance rippled through the shadows at the end of the tunnel. The darkness there seemed to thicken and congeal before rising up into a towering form twice the size of the other creatures we’d fought. Its head scraped the ceiling of the tunnel while leaving gouges in the concrete, and where its face should have been there was only a swirling void that seemed to absorb what little light reached it. Tendrils of pure darkness extended from its amorphous form and reached toward us with hungry intent.

The boss had arrived right on schedule to interrupt what was probably going to be an important conversation.

Thanks, Carmen. Your timing is impeccable as always.

Skylar looked from the monster back to me. A slow dangerous smile spread across her face that was different from her usual smirk. This was something wild and genuine that transformed her features completely. Her eyes lit up with the same excitement I’d seen earlier but magnified a hundredfold.

“I don’t know,” she said while her voice dropped to a low thrilling purr that sent an unexpected shiver down my spine. “That depends.” She stepped back into the light of my flame with her eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that was almost physical. “You want to show me something that isn’t a cliché?”

She extended her hand toward me in a gesture that was both invitation and challenge. Her small palm turned upward while waiting.

I looked at her hand, then at the massive shadow boss that was currently forming more tentacles than seemed anatomically necessary. Then back at her hand. Then at the boss again.

“You know that thing is about to kill us, right?”

“Probably.” Her smile widened. “So make it interesting.”

“You have a very strange definition of interesting.”

“And you talk too much.” She wiggled her fingers impatiently. “Are we doing this or not?”

I smiled and took her hand while igniting my palm with a controlled flame that danced between our fingers without burning her. The fire cast strange beautiful shadows across her face and lit her eyes from within until they glowed like violet suns.

“Let’s find out.”

The boss monster let out a roar that shook dust from the ceiling and made the water in the puddles ripple in concentric circles. It charged forward with its mass of tentacles reaching for us like the world’s most aggressive octopus.

“Same as before?” I asked while already gathering more fire in my free hand.

“Hell no.” Skylar’s grin was absolutely feral now. “We’re going bigger. Way bigger.”

“I like the sound of that.”

“I thought you might.”

She inhaled deep and then exhaled a massive cloud of her Phantasm Smoke that billowed out in every direction. But this time instead of just catching my light it seemed to multiply it and amplify it until the entire tunnel was filled with a swirling galaxy of luminous particles. Each particle caught fire and became a miniature sun that orbited around us in intricate patterns.

The smoke formed into dozens of our duplicates, each one glowing with inner light that was bright enough to make the shadows scream. They spread out in formation like an army of light warriors, each one moving with perfect synchronization.

The boss hesitated for the first time since appearing. Its void face turned from duplicate to duplicate as if trying to process what it was seeing.

“Now,” Skylar said while squeezing my hand tight, “give me everything you’ve got.”

I poured power into my flames and turned them from orange to white-hot blue. The heat was intense enough that the water on the ground began to evaporate instantly and created clouds of steam that mixed with Skylar’s smoke. Our combined Aspects created a maelstrom of light and heat and illusion that filled the tunnel from wall to wall.

The duplicates moved as one. They surrounded the boss from every angle while each one carried a weapon made of pure light. The boss lashed out with its tentacles and struck duplicate after duplicate, but each time it made contact the light burned it. Its mass began to shrink as pieces of it were burned away.

“It’s working,” I said while maintaining the flow of power. “Keep it up.”

“I know it’s working.” She was breathing hard from the exertion but her smile never wavered. “I’m the one controlling all these things. You just stand there and look pretty while providing the power.”

“I can do more than look pretty.”

“Prove it.”

I gathered more fire and compressed it down into a single point between our joined hands. The heat built until the air around us shimmered and distorted. Then I released it in a massive beam that shot straight through the center of our duplicate army and struck the boss dead center.

The beam punched through its void face and came out the other side while leaving a hole that glowed with residual heat. The boss shrieked in a way that made my teeth hurt, and then it began to collapse inward like a dying star. The darkness that composed its body sucked inward toward the hole I’d created until there was nothing left but wisps of shadow that dissolved into nothing.

The tunnel fell silent except for our heavy breathing.

“That was…” Skylar started to say.

“Awesome?” I suggested.

“I was going to say overkill, but awesome works too.” She was still holding my hand even though the fight was over. “Not bad, Stray Dog. Maybe you’re not completely hopeless after all.”

“High praise coming from you.”

“Don’t let it go to your head.” But she was smiling when she said it, a real genuine smile that reached her eyes and transformed her whole face.

We stood there for a moment while our hands stayed joined and the last wisps of smoke and steam cleared from the air. The simulation’s objective marker appeared in my vision and pointed toward the subway car ahead, but neither of us moved toward it.

“So,” I said while breaking the comfortable silence, “about what you said before. About me being a cliché.”

“What about it?”

“Was that interesting enough to change your mind?”

She tilted her head and studied my face with those sharp purple eyes. “Maybe. A little.” She squeezed my hand once before letting go. “But you’ll have to keep proving it. I’m not that easy to impress.”

“Good thing I like a challenge.”

“Good thing I like watching you try.”

We started walking toward the subway car together with the mission objective finally in reach. The simulation would end soon and we’d be back in the real world where things were more complicated and less straightforward.

But for now, in this weird virtual subway tunnel with fake monsters and fake danger, something real had happened between us.

I just wasn’t sure what yet.

“Hey, Bubblegum?”

“What?”

“Thanks for not feeding me to the shadows.”

“The night is still young, Stray Dog. There’s always next time.”

“Looking forward to it.”