My mind stutters on whether Tara’s talking to me or the Driger. My body jumps aside on autopilot as the glowing Driger pounces like a wildcat. I’ve trained for situations just like this without a Rayment. My body remembers. With a Rayment, it’s like I’m sparring with Reggie instead of a homicidal psycho jungle cat. With a side order of wings. I can see how Driger will move, like my eyes are supercharged. My mind barely has time to compare it with the original drawing I made for Lee. This looks a lot more realistic than the drawing I made for him three years ago. Even with the giant adorable eyes.
“Good dodge, Gēgē!”
“What the heck am I supposed to do here, Lee?” Mom and Dad don’t like us to use curse words. But this situation is really tempting me to let loose a few expletives.
“Tame it, Matt,” Tara unhelpfully comments from the sidelines as I roll under the Driger’s next aerial assault. It flaps its wings to halt its trajectory mid-pounce and lashes out with a reptilian tail, catching me on the side of my head as I come up from my roll. I should be seeing stars for the second time today. I guess the third if you count Tara’s eyes. Instead, I notice a faint red tinge to the edges of my vision like I’m wearing vintage sunglasses. I don’t have time to think about it. I send out my own back kick and hear a growl in return. The kick helps me reposition for the creature’s next attack. “The Driger is mad. Aggressive. The only option you have is to scan its data with your tablet!”
That sounds simple. As simple as sticking your head in a shark’s jaws. Easy to do and extremely stupid. At least I can finally take a good look at this thing under the stage lights.
The Driger is like a fuzzy tiger cub. Not that I’ve ever seen a real one. Its shoulders go above my knees. The immediate differences from a tiger cub are the leathery wings raised in anger, the small nubs on its forehead where horns will grow as it matures, and a raised tail with a few hints of the reptilian traits Driger’s maturity will bring. Like scaly ridges on the tail which just tried to slap me into last week. Kind of kicking myself for adding that detail.
Seemed fun at the time. Lee loved it.
“Grab it from behind like a pet cat and stop its wings, amigo!” Juan’s yell cuts through the crowd noises of awe, terror, and exhilaration like a knife. A plan to execute. Music to my ears. But how? We pace each other, trying to circle and find an advantage.
My peripheral vision doesn’t catch anything helpful. I’ll have to risk a glance around, but I think I remember seeing a structure for lights above the stage as I crawled here. A batten? Mom liked to have us help her set up Sojourn’s best stage on the former cruise liner Festival of the Seas and always complained about lacking the stuff they used for theaters before The Old World War. Not that she had any experience with it either.
I decide to look up as the Driger catches a paw in a floorboard crack for a fraction of a second. Yes! I see a spot I can grab and plenty of handholds along the struts. But one hand is still holding my cracked tablet. Any lights left up there shouldn’t electrocute or cut me if Tara’s weird Holos did as thorough a job cleaning this stage as they did the lobby.
The Driger can’t capitalize on my distracted glance as it recovers its paw. It quickly crouches and starts glowing crimson. Orange highlights rise around it as if it’s charging up an attack, like old VR video game monsters. The orange highlights shift more and more rapidly and its yellow eyes gleam.
“Ooo it already knows Char Blast,” Lee yells in glee. I’m not as enthused. I guess punching bags never are. Time for a desperate plan. I drop the tablet on the ground, crouch and tense my legs like springs.
Then I jump up and away.
I hear a whoosh and feel the heat approaching as a crimson and orange fireball launches. I hope my guess is right as the fireball explodes beneath me, impacting my legs.
I see red again. This time my whole body is glowing after the impact and a prompt tries to block part of my vision. I ignore it and it fades. I focus entirely on using my new vertical momentum to reach my objective.
I stretch and grab onto the batten, then swing myself up like an ancient sailor climbing the mast of a rickety galleon. Once I’m settled, phase two of my genius plan takes place: taunting the tiger.
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