Savage Awakening 365. The Titan Rhino Tribe (V)

A/N:

Off for New Year's--chapters will resume on January 2nd!

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Zane’s aura showed just Ascendant. But the heft of it was staggering; it loomed in a hazy, shimmering blood-red eruption, jagged at the edges.

He roared and threw himself at the Titan Rhino. And instantly Mook sensed the danger. He blinked—but there was no panic in those dark eyes. Instead, he dropped his horn, which darkened in the licking firelight, a metal transmuting. Growing ever denser.

The two forces met in a titanic crash. Fists working against horn, and for a second they were locked dead still.

Then Zane growled and took a step forward. Mook blinked in surprise, blinked down at his muscles, still working mid-charge, but there was nothing he could do, even with his fiercest efforts; he took a good foot back.

Then Zane rammed in another step and another—and now the Asura aura was tinging the whole circle bloody.

The Rhino bellowed, tried throwing up another horn-bash Skill, but Zane was picking up steam now; Mook tried rearing back to headbutt him again.

Zane took the opening. He roared, stomping so hard each footstep caved in a swathe of dirt and stone, unleveling the ground of the circle.

The Desolate Wilderness sat in a high-grade zone. Everything here was stuffed with essence; hard to break. A boulder here could be as tough as a low-ranked planet.

To an observer, the force Zane smashed into that tackle wasn’t obvious—not at first glance. Neither was the heft of Mook's horn. The only hint was the way the world bent around it; the way the dirt levitated around it.

Then came a mighty WHAM!

Mook went flying straight out of the ring.

He skidded down the Plains, showering dirt, and came to a stop when his horn touched an idle boulder. C-grade Earth-ranked treasure—respectable thing. It took all the force of Zane’s throw, carried on Mook’s horn.

It exploded like a grenade.

Chunks of it ripped deep into space. The Barbarian Sage saw some of the shrapnel bring down an asteroid.

The big Rhino lay there for a second. His horn was smoking a bit—lightening in color as the Skill left it. He didn’t look hurt—just stunned. That was pretty much how all the Rhinos looked.

Then he hopped up, tail swishing, made a little wheeze, nearly a laugh. He sounded delighted. All around them, the Rhinos stomp-stomped a storm. Tails swished everywhere you looked.

Titan Rhinos communicated nearly all their thoughts with stomps, snorts, and tail-swishes. They could mean a dozen different things, depending on when they did it; it was pretty clear what it meant now, though.

“That’s the stuff!” said the Sage.

So far, things were going exactly like he’d hoped.

Mook came over to Zane, who was still breathing heavy, and gave him a horn-tap and a lick.

Then he ambled on off.

He left Zane standing there, looking a bit disoriented. But the Barbarian Sage could see that really got the lad’s blood pumping. The lad was grinning a little; his teeth were out.

A good thing, too.

Some humans might’ve balked at that show. But the Sage wasn’t sure the Rhinos knew what balking meant.

Another Rhino was already stepping up to the challenge. Just as big as the last, and he bore a white-streaked horn too. Thud-thud-thud went the Rhinos’ hooves, all around.

This one was Level 596—and it bore a full-fledged 100,000-year-old Bone too. It felt a little stronger than Mook’s, even—might be over 500,000 years.

It gave Zane a tail-swish and a snort. Zane looked it in the eyes and put his fists together.

He'd taken up the challenge.

The referee Rhino in his little cap came up, blew that war horn. The circle lit.

And like that, it was on again.

This time Zane stopped his foe’s first charge with his hands and face both, making a kind of shield. And he looked just fine at the end, apart from a little reddening. He was growling and butting the Rhino right back—to everyone’s surprise. Except the Barbarian Sage, of course.

“Well, I’ll be,” muttered Shaman Guri. “His head might just be as hard as a damned horn!”

The Sage chuckled.

There was an exchange of raw power at the center of that ring. Blasts rocked the Plains, driving fissures miles deep, and auras of blood-red and stone-gray wrestled deep into the skies as their owners wrestled for every inch of ground.

In the end, it was Zane who threw his foe aside again. He was sweaty, scraped up, bruised, and reddened down his face and shoulders and chest. His whole body was steaming with essence and heat; every big muscle on his body was pumped.

By the look on his face, he seemed to be having the time of his life.

His foe came up, gave him a tap and a lick. Zane returned it.

All around, the Rhinos seemed to be responding to his energy; a few started bellowing and hopping.

Just then, though, a gravelly voice broke through.

“I will have a go.”

It was the biggest Rhino yet—two white streaks on his horn, with a gold streak underneath too.

It meant he had a seat on the Council of Elders.

His aura was firmly at peak Minor God—as close to half-step True God as you could be. Two horns—one 100,000-year. One a 10,000-year.

Elder Thon, Titan Rhinoceros

Essence Level 598

“They let Minor Gods on the council now?” mused the Sage.

The Council of Elders ruled the Titan Rhinos—and usually only the six strongest Rhinos got to be on it. In his time, that meant you had to be half-step True God, at the least. Most were True Gods.

“Those are the times,” said Shaman Guri. Under her silver streaks, she had a single gold streak too. “But don’t you overlook Thon, now,” she said, giving the Sage some side-eye. “Might not’ve broken through, but he’s one of the most seasoned warriors we’ve got! The Bones tell the story. He’s built strong in the ways of the Rhino.”

The Sage nodded. He could feel it in the fellow’s aura. Thon had two Bones—one a 100,000-year-old Bone, the other 10,000. It was a rare thing indeed at Minor God. Especially for a Bloodline as proud as the Titan Rhino’s.

Thon was just short of half-step True God—a reality distortion field would make him a different beast entirely. But even without one he cut an imposing figure. In raw power, it’d pretty much be as strong as Minor Gods got.

This got even the Rhinos looking at each other.

It was the lad’s first Wreckoning. It was quite unusual they’d test him against an Elder.

But the point of the Wreckoning was to get at the steel in a Rhino. To see if the heart was as unyielding as the horn.

For that—for Zane—it made sense they’d need the big guns.

He rubbed his hands.

“This ought to be a treat.”

Elder Guri watched on beside him, head tilted.

Thon showed his strength in the very first exchange. He loaded up an Annihilation Charge—and each step sank deeper and deeper into the dirt; each step left a glowing gray footprint. Each step, the gray halo around its body—strongest around that 100,000-year-old Horn—ratcheted up too.

It thundered six steps before Zane caught hold of it.

It nearly drove the lad out of the ring then and there. The shock broke something in his hands, rippled visibly through his body; it had him cross-eyed and wobbly again.

The Barbarian Sage grimaced. It was no soul attack—that’d be easier for Zane. No. That was a good old-fashioned smack.

But Zane kept his feet—and this time he recovered faster. He hung on and roared right back. Wrestling the big fellow until he held him to the center of the ring.

There man and Rhino struggled. Rhino Bloodline burned in both their veins; shining down their struggling forms; it was a back-and-forth affair. For what seemed like quite a long time the two stayed locked in the middle, struggling to wrest away an advantage.

Zane tried shucking the Rhino off to a side, even tripping it. But Thon seemed wise to it; the Rhino wrestled well. Again the two ended up in deadlock.

There was something pure about it, thought the Sage—that was the beauty. No domains. Hardly any Skills either after that first charge. Now it was raw strength against raw strength.

“He really can stand against a peak Minor God Rhino,” said Guri, blinking.

“I’ve been feeding him every chance I get,” said the Barbarian Sage, who was just happy someone noticed. He could’ve gone on all day. “Feel that bloody aura right there?”

“Mm.”

“That’s his new Titanform! It got boosted by his Title. It’s damn near as strong as that Thon fellow’s second stage right now. And he’s near-maxed it out too—just a few more Levels, and he’ll have it. That’s where all that power’s coming from.”

Zane’s runes were searing now—like shining bloody war-paint on his body; they pulsed brighter with the beating of his heart. Baring his fury for all to see.

Then Guri gave a wheezing cackle for no reason that the Sage could tell. “Mm. Might just be he’s the one we’re looking for after all.”

She gave him a headbutt and shuffled off toward the Bonfire—off to glimpse the future in the flames, or whatever the old loon got up to these days. The Sage didn’t follow. He was busy rooting for Zane.

Things were coming to a head.

Zane couldn’t seem to budge the Rhino.

But to its surprise, the Rhino couldn’t throw him out either. Its horn density only grew and grew; now its front quarters had sunk a good foot into the stone beneath. More as it pawed and snorted.

Its second Bone in its hindquarters worked like another motor, giving him that extra oomph.

But Zane just absorbed it.

The strain on both those hulking bodies—the way their muscles stretched and bunched under the skin, like raging rivers only dammed up by each other as they heaved, and growled, and snorted, breaths staining the air—it made the tension nearly palpable. Half the Rhinos had stopped chewing.

It was clear it couldn’t last—one side had to give.

It came soon enough.

The Barbarian Sage was getting a smidge worried near the middle there—he couldn’t lie. But by the end he was pretty sure Zane was taking it home.

If there was one thing he knew he could count on his lad for, it was stamina.

Sure enough—half a minute in there was a nearly imperceptible shift in the lock. The smallest of stumbles from the Elder Rhino.

You didn’t need to give Zane an invitation.

He slammed in a crater of a step, put his shoulder into it—and gave it a full-on ram.

There came a sound like a cannon-blast. Then the Elder Rhino found himself sailing through the air.

It landed on its side, blinking.

There was a silence.

Then it trotted back and gave Zane a lick.

“Welcome to the Tribe,” rumbled Elder Thon.

There came a great stomping, and tail-swishing, and bellowing from all around. Zane seemed to be registering the crowd again only now—after all that effort he seemed woozy. He grinned—gave them a wave, and they thumped louder. 

“You just won three in a row, lad!” shouted the Barbarian Sage, struggling to make himself heard over all the ruckus. “Means you just passed the Wreckoning. Against an Elder, too—you’ve damn sure earned it, lad!”

It was the Horn’s initiation ritual. Zane had just proved himself worthy of joining the fiercest of them.

Before the Sage could tell the lad, a horde of Rhinos mobbed the circle, giving him plenty of headbutts and licks.

Then—somehow, as one—they all decided it was mud-bath time.

The herd picked up a bewildered Zane, headed on over at a steady pace, and chucked him in the mud whirlpools. Then they hopped in too.