The Carnelian Fox Read online

  Finn circled as best as he could, avoiding the slick puddles and the whip of the raptor’s tail. Charlotte bolted in and smashed straight into the dinosaur’s stomach with a resounding smack. Its claws found her hide, ripping at the scales on her hind leg. Until a scorching glob smashed into its jaw.

  “Nice work, Finn. Come on, Charlotte, use your fire, it’s weak to you!”

  The draco poured out a stream of flames, engulfing the plant Gem. Its roar halted her mid-step, frozen and wide-eyed. Damn, it could use a stun attack. But Finn kept up the pressure, his lava spits knocked the raptor sideways with their power. He was magnificent.

  The raptor regained its footing using vines growing from its shoulders to bury into the ground and stabilise it. Then it reached out with more tendrils towards Finn.

  “Don’t let them hit you,” I yelled, “Blast them, Finn.”

  He shot out little balls of flames, charring the vines and dropping them to the floor, but the raptor darted in behind and bowled him over with its hefty weight.

  “Charlotte, move your ass!” I screamed as the raptor’s hooked toe claw sliced down an inch from my fox’s squirming body.

  She shook her snout, squinted at the situation unfolding. Tremors twitched and sparked through my muscles, I was ready to run in and punch this human-sized monster myself. But she was there. Charlotte shrugged the stun off, bombed in to latch all her claws into the raptor’s back and breathe a river of fire down its spine.

  The bellows of pain tore my eardrums, I’d have felt guilty if that grotesque thing hadn’t made all those poor little rodents cry out ten times as bad earlier. Charlotte kept up her offence.

  Finn twisted beneath the raptor’s bulk, still fighting to avoid the flailing slashes, then unleased a full force lava spit into its face. It shrieked again, bucking and spinning until Charlotte flew off and sloshed into a gory pit of blood and muck. She scrambled out, coughing and swiping at the sticky crap and wisps of hay clinging to her brow.

  “Come on Finn! Its cheek is still smouldering, nice burn attack! Finish it off.”

  A wave of increasing sound flooded my ears. The battlefield erupted as the storm hit. Torrential rain blitzed us all in a stinging blanket. Damn it! It extinguished the raptor’s burns, and my pair of flame Gems huddled miserably in the overpowering liquid they had a weakness to. There went our advantages…

  “Guys, keep going! It must be close to dropping to capsule form by now. We can still do this.” I tried to encourage them, but I could see the fight had gone out of their eyes. The sheets of rain plastered Finn’s fur to his slim frame, making him seem even more delicate. Charlotte struggled to stay on her feet as her squat legs slithered from under her.

  The raptor however, that damn thing took strength from the weather. It tilted its face up into the crashing rain and I swear it smiled. It sprouted more vines, this time chasing my two dazed Gems. Charlotte was soon tangled, she breathed her flames over the plants, but the fire smouldered to nothing before she could sever their hold. Finn desperately dodged his, jetting out blobs of lava to knock the advancing tips aside or push the raptor back from getting closer. But it wouldn’t be possible to keep this up long. I’d need to withdraw them soon, or they wouldn’t make it.

  My fingertips sought the SOS tab on my eBand. Proud idiot I am, I should have pulled it earlier. But no, I wanted to be a hero.

  As I clasped the tab, the vines stopped still. Frozen in mid-air. Literally. Ice crystals climbed along the hungry stems, tracing them back to their source. The frost continued, covering the dinosaur’s limbs. The raptor thrashed, stomping around the cage in search of the culprit. I spotted it first. A frost mink peeked out of the bedding box the raptor had rampaged through, how had it survived? Propped on its side with bloody patches marring its beautiful white coat, the mink breathed out a continuous stream of faint, misty breath that hardened to solid ice wherever it touched the plant Gem. The raptor sniffed, seeking the mink, caught a whiff of its prey. Charged.

  No! It would rip apart our last hope. I could have recalled Finn or Charlotte, but I didn’t have a capsule for the mink.

  With a yip, the beast lunged for the injured mink. But it stopped mid-snap, yanked back by the jaws of my draco latched onto its whippy tail.

  “Yes, well done, Charlotte!”

  The mink took a deep breath. Finn raced in. The raptor received a double strike to the head, flame and frost both strong enough against the plant Gem to smash it to the ground and reduce its life force to the point that the creature conceded. Tremors wracked its body until it folded in on itself and reverted to capsule form on the edge of a little ridge that the huge toe claw had dug earlier.

  I fell, adrenaline not able to keep me upright any longer. Mud coated my trousers, rain plastered my hair to my face and back. I tried to push myself up, but my palm slid out from under me and I slammed my chin on the ground.

  Something even colder than the sucking muck touched my cheek. Finn’s nose. I stroked his sodden fur, pulling him in to share the scrap of warmth I had to spare, murmuring apology after apology. He didn’t deserve this crap.

  “Sam?” A distant voice reached my ears.

  Charlotte let off a few sparks into the sky, my personal flare gun.

  “My gosh! Whatever happened here?” Pippa bustled over me, checking my body for wounds.

  “Not me, I’m okay,” I pushed her away and pointed to the mink. “Please, help him. I don’t know if any others made it…”

  She nodded and ran over to the bedding box, examining the contents.

  I crawled through the mud, too drained to get there on foot. I picked up the green capsule and slid it into my pocket, that thing wouldn’t be getting a place on my wristlet alongside Finn and Charlotte. Not yet.

  Back inside I wrapped up in some fluffy towels and ignored the protest of my burning tongue as I sipped on the hottest hot chocolate I’d ever tasted. It still took an age to warm up. I couldn’t stop shivering or wondering if it was the cold or shock that was breaking me most. This job was bloody dangerous. It was time to get serious about training my Gems, I needed to grow my team. I was at an epic disadvantage right now with only two Gems of the same type. Though I guess I had a plant Gem to add to that. But I still hadn’t got the courage up to scan the capsule and register the raptor. That would mean I’d have to train it. I’d have to face it again.

  “How are you feeling, Sam?” Pippa sat next to me, her ample bottom sinking the cushion and making me lean sideways.

  “Bit chilly, thanks for rescuing me though.”

  “Rescuing you? Ha ha! You were the heroic one, my dear. There were four boxes in that run, it only got into two because of you. And what if it had attacked the other runs afterwards? You saved a lot of Gems and my livelihood. I’m in your debt, you’re a wonderful battle Prime.”

  “I’m just doing my job.” I smiled and sipped at my drink, looking down at the pair of capsules set in my wristlet. Finn and Charlotte were resting and healing up. I should put the green one there too.

  “I’d like to give you a few of my packs, Sam. To say thank you, job or not, you did a brave thing. Are there any you’ve had your eye on? I have plenty of wool I can trade in…”

  I looked at Pippa’s hopeful eyes, she wanted to do something nice for me. And that was cool, but I’d never even looked at the aesthetic stuff. I’d never had the disposable cash to consider buying equipment that only made my Gems prettier.

  “Why don’t you see what Lucy wants?” I pressed my palms into the mug, desperate to halt the shaking. “She’s proper into her aesthetics, I’m just a battle Prime.”

  “I would prefer to do something for you, Sam, what do you need?” Pippa laid her hand on my wrist, right by the capsules I kept there, and I realised what I wanted.

  “A trade,” I said. “And trust me, you’d be doing me a massive favour.”

  ***

  Lucy and I left the next day. She hadn’t come out in the night to see where I was. It was the pin
gs on Pippa’s eBand showing her losing the vitals of her Gems that had made her investigate. The wind had been way too strong for them to have heard anything.

  “I am glad you’re okay Sam,” Lucy said, leading the way towards our next destination.

  “Only because your dad would freak if you went it alone.” Sucking in a breath, I bent and straightened my arm, wincing at the punishment my elbow had taken from skidding on the mud last night.

  “I admire you, you know,” Lucy looked back over her shoulder, straight-faced, “It makes me hopeful for our future journey knowing you took on such a task. We’ll be a good combination. It’s your trade with Pippa I’m not so sure about though. I mean, I understand you’re the battle Prime and you’ve studied team combinations and how to set up your Gem pool. Yet it seems a little odd.”

  “I saw this guy in battle and he’s what I’m looking for. I know a fighter and a winner when I see one, Lucy. Like you probably get which penguin will be skilled enough to waddle the straightest.”

  “Ugh, you can be impossible sometimes.” Lucy tossed her hair and continued on her way; I was dismissed. But at least she’d given me respect for my crazy adventure. Trusted me to keep her prim ass safe if we got caught up in any trouble.

  I had to disagree with her analysis of my latest Gem though.

  I tapped the capsule sitting in my wristlet. The new white one I’d slotted between the two red ones just to break up the colours because I’m a weirdo like that. Yeah, it was white, not green.

  The mink was improving. Pippa had washed the blood from his coat before she’d capsuled him to recover, and the wounds were closing now. His thick fur was still patchy and the skin underneath raw. I picked him up, supporting as much of his meagre weight as I could in case he was tender. He shrunk into my arm, nose darting and eyes flickering around the unfamiliar terrain. As I stroked the glinting fluff on the top of his head, it was as if he’d been rolling in snow. The tips of each hair caught the light like morning frost and prickled my skin with a thousand tiny touches of ice, but beneath his undercoat radiated warmth and life. A life I’d helped save.

  I brought up his details on my eBand. His stats weren’t anything to write home about, except the excellent evasion which was probably how he’d avoided becoming raptor chow. But I’d seen the heart on this little guy, and he’d be way better suited to life as a battle Gem than sitting in a cage waiting for wool drops all day. Once I got higher in the ranks, I’d invest in a handful of stat boosts or upgrades for him, anyway. I was over the moon with my new addition. Until I checked his name.

  “Hey, Lucy. Pippa named this guy WM17. How Am I going to shout that in battle?”

  “It’s White Mink number seventeen. Most farmers have a system to name their Gems such as Pippa’s, they have way too many to keep track of. Just change it if you don’t like it.”

  “But I’d feel weird if someone changed my name, maybe I can give him a cool nickname?” I looked at the nervous bundle in my arms, trying to come up with something that would work with WM. “Wilbur Morris? Wentworth Myriad? William Macklesby? Ugh, why do all my ideas sound like eighteenth-century poets?”

  “Then just call him Seventeen,” Lucy said with a shrug.

  “Yeah, if I wanted him to sound like a cyborg. Oh! I’ve got it, I can shorten it to Sev. You’d be okay with that, wouldn’t you, Sev?”

  He yawned, little pink tongue flickering between the tiny, sharp teeth, and fell asleep in my arms. I was smitten already.

  “Guess I’ll take that as a yes.”

  I think I made a good choice for once that day. No way would I ever have been confident getting that damn raptor out, I had nightmares for months about the way it chewed on those poor Gem’s bones. But don’t worry, I got over it after a while. It would have been so much better if I’d have been as wise with some other decisions I made.

  Chapter Seven

  “Well done, Sam!” Lucy clapped, Dew sat perfectly at her side.

  I grinned and gave her a thumbs-up. Only one more fight to go. Bart had taken a quick look at my info and presented me with a three-stage battle. I had to use each of my Gems once, but at least I got to choose my opponent for each one. He still went easy on this rookie. Even if I had been a wuss and come to a plant-based challenge so all my Gems had an advantage. It felt cheap after insisting to Callum that I didn’t want to do that, but the fight with the raptor had knocked my confidence. Like I didn’t have the nerve to face something as difficult yet. Plus, it was the closest hall and I’m lazy.

  Charlotte had faced a leopard, I put her bulk against it as it was the biggest one. Sev’s first proper battle had been a warthog, it looked like an unfair match in size, but it dual-typed plant and water so his frost attacks had obliterated it. I was so proud of his transition to this new role.

  I’d been training them since the farm. Spending time getting them to fight each other and build up their abilities. I took it easy with Sev while he recovered, but he didn’t tolerate special treatment for long.

  Finn faced a hummingbird. On paper it should be a delicate, pathetic thing but I knew to expect a seriously high evasion rate. They usually had maxed out speed too. But Finn had his ridiculous accuracy to counter it and I trusted him to get the job done.

  Bart was about a billion years old, I reckon he thought his style was ‘comfy’, but I swear he wore pyjamas. I was jealous I didn’t have the guts to pull that kind of outfit off in public. He had a little tool belt on with a trowel shoved in the waistband, and a half-spilled packet of seeds poking out of a Velcro pocket. His challenge hall was tiny compared to the air one, and most of it was off limits, with rows of bedding plants and seedlings growing. Plant Gems tended the gardens, most cub-sized, spilling water from their mouths if they were dual-typed, or plastic watering cans if they weren’t.

  “Last stage, Miss.” He tapped a capsule, and the hummingbird appeared. I expected it would be a challenge to hit, but this thing could have fit in my palm! “Meet Darcy.”

  A scan told me it was in the tiny size category. It already had a full evasion stat, and Gems that were tiny got a bonus to it. That still gave it a slight advantage even though Finn had a maxed accuracy stat. It also meant it had a penalty to defence, so he’d only need one or two good strikes.

  Darcy flew up and buzzed around the ceiling, sprinting loops and changing direction faster than I could ever track. Finn looked at me, eyebrows raised.

  “I don’t know,” I said, shrugging, “You’re the sharp-shooter. Shoot it, I guess?”

  He was such a good boy, putting up with me like that. I realise I could have been a better Prime. Come up with strategies or fancy tactics. But hey, ‘shoot it’ was all I had right now.

  Finn spat out a glob of lava. It sizzled against the ceiling. Bloody hummingbird. I should have saved Charlotte for this one, she engulfed a larger area with flames. He tried again and again, his attacks getting within a feather of the infuriating little bird. All I saw was a flicker of green as she darted around my head, Finn refused to shoot with me in the firing line.

  “Do I lose if I just punch this thing out the air?” I folded my arms and fought off the twist of rage on my face.

  “I’m afraid so,” Bart said, “Are you withdrawing?”

  “No way! Are you? Because the way I see it, you haven’t landed a hit yet either and I bet I can stay awake much longer than you if this match lasts all night, grandpa.”

  “Grandpa? Well, well, a bit of fire in you? That’s something to cull in a garden. Go for it, Darcy!”

  The thrum of wings disappeared from my ears and hurtled towards Finn. He was on the run, twisting and bolting to avoid solid green feathers that Darcy was firing at him. They stuck into the stone floors, sliding in like they were slicing paper.

  “Dodge, Finn! Don’t get hit by those, just keep running.” My mind raced, trying to find a solution. I scanned the arena and couldn’t come up with a plan. I doubt Finn had the capacity to think while evading that hard either. />
  “Into the flowerbeds!” I shouted, he needed cover, fast.

  Finn raced over and leapt into the gardens, ducking the missiles and weaving between planters. I struggled to see where he was heading, how he was dealing with the barrage.

  “Back this way.” I hoped he’d hear me. We had to work together to pick apart our opponent.

  I saw him then, the glint of red and yellow as he turned and charged towards me along a narrow corridor of young saplings. Darcy dogged him, weaving in and out of the skinny trunks and launching more salvos. Then she chased him as he changed direction, dashing through another avenue.

  “Now!” I yelled.

  Finn spun, paws splayed under the force of his turn, he’d peppered the sky with a barrage of his own before Darcy could respond. The hummingbird dived, one wing smoking. That was enough for Finn, he dead-eyed the next shot and as it struck, Bart recalled her. He knew when to quit.

  “Well done, young lady,” Bart said, dropping Darcy’s capsule into his tool belt. “Present your eBand.”

  I was bursting with pride, all my Gems had played their part, and I’d earned ten more challenge points. Still made me blush when my eBand was three generations older than this geezer’s though. One day I’d earn enough credits to get an upgrade.

  “Okay, what do you have for me?” Lucy asked, all business now I’d finished my challenge.

  Bart brought her info back up and mused over it for a second.

  “A test of concentration,” he said, reaching into another pouch and bringing out four capsules, “Let me see your team.”

  Lucy released her other three Gems, a robin, a lemur, and a squirrel. All sparkling, candy pink with added rainbows. They joined Dewdrop and stood to attention.

  “All they have to do is maintain an even pace as they walk all the way to my side of the arena and back to you,” Bart said.

  “Wow, I get show Primes have it easy, but I didn’t realise it was that bad,” I scoffed, sitting down with my three Gems. Sev crawled into my lap and laid his head on my knee, Finn shuffled up against my hip and fell asleep. Charlotte watched.