Brute Force: Snippet

Brute Force continues! Read down for a Patrons-only snippet a bit later in the book.

------------------------------------------------------

Quicksand

Induce the earth to soften into a mire. 30ft targeting radius, 20ft circular area of effect.

“Okay, Booger! Let’s test this out!” I leaped to my feet. “Quicksand! Give it all you got!”

Booger vibrated intensely for several seconds, and then a small two-foot patch of soil turned to a sucking mire of liquid mud. Three feet away. 

“Oooh.” The slime deflated sadly. I scratched my nose with the tip of one tentacle. 

“Well… good try.” Booger twisted from side to side, as if she were shaking her head. 

“Maybe Absorb will get better as you get stronger?” I was kind of trying to pep myself up at this point. Much as I hated to say it, Angel was right. Booger wasn’t exactly the Mike Tyson of Legions. Didn’t mean I wasn’t willing to help her… but if we had to battle to advance here, there was a good chance she was gonna die. 

Booger inched toward me. Then, almost sadly, she extruded the edge of her Lesser Legion collar toward me. 

“Huh?” I looked down.  

“Nuuu.” She jabbed it at me insistently.

“No. Nuh uh. If I take it off, you’ll die. That’s what Angel said.” I growled aloud. “Besides: You took a quarter of the damage that Tortoi could have leveled at me. I want to see what sync abilities we have.” 

“Mmmm.” Booger hummed sadly, moseying around as I squinted at our sheets. 

“Dermal Armor and Toad Skin? That might make some dual Poison/Acid type armor that works on Metal-type Legions," I muttered. "Drown and poison cloud, maybe?” 

Booger froze, and I had the distinct impression she was looking at her own HUD somehow. After a couple of minutes of not moving, she began to blob up and down in excitement. “Chuuu! Uuu!”  

“What?” I cocked my head at her. 

The blobbing intensified in speed. “Suuu… duuu!” 

Suu doo? I narrowed my eyes in confusion. Sudoku? Sushi?

“Suu duu!” She squeaked, gesturing wildly with several small pseudopods. Mimicking my tentacles. 

My eyes widened with sudden realization. “Soul drain?” 

“Suu duu!” She hopped up and down in agitation. 

Soul Drain and Absorb. I reread the description. Then it hit me. 

“You can drain abilities from other Legions,” I repeated the description of my Prime Ability as I read it. “Oh. Hell yes. It doesn’t say anything about enemies, does it?” 

Booger responded by bouncing over to me. She swarmed up my leg and onto my back, vibrating with excitement.

 “But if I Soul Drain you, I’ll hurt you.” I looked back at her. 

“Suu duu!” She repeated, firmly. 

“Well… okay. You asked for it.” I braced myself, reared the pud squad up, and drove them down at Booger’s mass.

The obsidian-tipped points sunk into her, and she quivered briefly as the Soul Drain engaged. As they did, time warped to a near standstill – and I got a list of abilities to pick from. 

-    Analyze 

-    Drown 

-    Absorb 

-    Water Saber 

-    Liquid Armor 

-    Quicksand 

I picked Quicksand, and time warped back to normal. Heat flushed through my synapses – and somehow, I knew exactly what to do. 

“HRRRAH!” A wave of Psionic energy pulsed out of my forehead and blasted  into the ground ahead. Thirty feet away, a huge mire opened up in the soft earth, gurgling and popping. A small tree near the center leaned over, then toppled to the ground.

I stared at it, stunned by the implications of what we’d just done. Booger squeaked with delight, dancing up and down between my shoulders.

“Booger,” I thought back to her. “You’re a genius.”

“Oooh!” She crooned in agreement.

Booger couldn’t use the abilities herself because of her racial weakness… but I could. And she could hold up to ten Absorbed abilities of any type. Any element. Any Legion. As her trainer, I could pick and choose which abilities she had in her stable. I had an awestruck feeling, like the sky had opened up and angels had come down with trumpets to sing Gloria. This was amazing. It was unpredictable to our enemies. And I was going to abuse the ever-living shit out of it.

“Booger,” I thought back to her. “You’re a genius.”

“Oooh!” She crooned in agreement.

“You and me are gonna rule the whole fucking world together.” I licked my chops in satisfaction. “Come on: Let’s get back to Angel. I wonder if I can sit on in any of those type-matching classes she was talking about?”