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359. Big Baby
🕑 Added 2025-04-10 14:00:08 +0000 UTCThe baby whirled again. It slammed a big fat hand onto the ground, and the soft earth trembled, then gave in. The rent in the earth hurtled toward Ike and Wisp. Ike dashed to the side, while Wisp hopped onto his shoulder and hitched a ride.
Ike summoned the scepter mid-leap and drew mana toward him. The fog swirled and hurtled into the scepter once more. His core filled with mana, and he summoned the Prince’s spell, calling it to his fingertips even as he pushed the mana into it.
The baby roared and slammed its hand down again and again. The ground quaked, as though it were water on a lake, disturbed by something slapping it, with ripples flying out from the apex where the baby struck. Ike hopped the ripples and continued to gather mana, only having to use a tiny amount of it to power his speed. He’d put in enough effort that speed was almost a factor of his body alone, rather than his aether and magic. He still used Lightning Dash, or, well, the evolved version of the skill, but it came as easily as breathing, a subconscious activation that automatically sparked to life whenever he ran. It didn’t feel like a speed boost any more, either, but an inherent piece of his own speed. If he ran without Lightning Dash, it simply felt like he wasn’t using his full strength to run, rather than as if he were choosing not to empower his legs.
The ripples rushed at him, great waves of earth that hurtled sprays of gravestones ahead of them. One of the stones flew directly at Ike’s face. He smashed it out of the sky with the Hungry Sword, holding the sword back from eating it to return it to sender instead. The stone whistled through the air and slammed the baby in the side of the head.
“Nice hit!” Wisp encouraged him.
“Hell yeah,” Ike said. Another stone flew nearby. He charged to it and smacked it back as well, then to the next and the next, using the ripples to his advantage. They knocked the gravestones into the air at predictable intervals, and he shot the airborne gravestones back at the baby.
Annoyed, the baby babbled in anger and raised a hand against the stones, as Ike hit stone after stone at it. Stones bounced off its protective arm and pelted its big head. It went to smash the ground again, then realized how stupid that would be, and simply plunged its hand into the ground instead, dragging up a small stone coffin to throw at Ike instead.
“Big one incoming,” Wisp advised him.
“I see that, captain,” Ike replied sarcastically. He drew back the Hungry Sword and narrowed his eyes, watching the baby’s arm.
The baby hauled back, then launched the coffin at him with all its might. Ike waited, holding his breath. Three. Two. The coffin flew open, and ancient, dry bones flew out, disintegrating on the wind. One.
The Hungry Sword smashed through the air. It struck the coffin, and Ike felt the weight of the throw in his entire arms, all the way to his spine. He gritted his teeth and pushed against it, swinging with all his might. In a split second, the coffin slowed to a halt, then hurtled back at the baby just as hard as the baby had thrown it at Ike. It pegged the infant in the forehead, and the baby fell backward, screaming, crying, and flailing its limbs at the air.
“Nice shot!”
“I feel kind of bad about bullying a baby,” Ike commented.
Wisp shrugged. “If it makes you feel better, it’s you.”
Ike thought for a moment, his brows twisting, then shook his head. “No, I don’t think that makes it better.”
She shrugged. “Worth a shot.”
His moment of sympathy only lasted a moment. In the next, the scepter finally absorbed enough mana for him to fire off one of the Prince’s whirlwinds. Before the baby could roll its way back to all fours, he unleashed the whirlwind at it. Its big eyes widened in panic, and it flailed harder, trying to roll upright with all its might, but there was no escaping in time. The whirlwind closed in on the baby, crackling with purple lightning, and the baby screamed as it struck home.
Ike chased after it, closing in on the baby himself. The baby was injured, its pale flesh carved open by the whirlwind, but not dead. How could it be, when it had never been alive to start? The fog rushed toward the infant, healing in the gouge. There was no time to waste. He put his hand on the baby’s forehead and drew it toward his core with all his might.
“You’re a part of me too, even if I want to deny it. Become part of me, ya big baby!”
“Ike’s gonna turn into a big baby!” Wisp cheered, laughing to herself on his shoulder.
Ike rolled his eyes. Abruptly, a cold hand grabbed his entire arm, and he turned his attention back to the baby. Its silvery eyes flashed, and it kicked with more purpose now, intending to roll onto its front, then smash Ike into the ground.
Was it only pretending to be badly injured? There was no time to second guess his choices. Ike gripped its gelatinous flesh tighter and pulled harder, calling to the baby’s core with his own core. Some part in there recognized that they were both part of some greater being. If he could just access that part, he won!
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. He couldn’t sense a single part of it that was also like him. He pressed his lips together. Were these ones failures because they didn’t have any of the greater being in them? Brightbriar had been dissatisfied, hadn’t he? Was that why? If he was out there spreading his wild oats, surely there would be times that doing so would only create a child of Brightbriar and whatever poor woman accepted his seed this time around. Were these all the products of those failed unions, where the infant he shared with his victim was nothing but a child of his, rather than a successful implant of the greater being?
Ike narrowed his eyes. He refused to believe that. There has to be something. Some tiny piece of the greater being in here! He felt it. Had felt it, from the moment he saw those tiny graves. These were also a tiny part of him. Maybe not a large piece, maybe not something that was easy to reach, but a part of him nonetheless.
“Ike, it’s getting up,” Wisp warned him.
“I know! I’m almost there!” Ike pushed his hand deeper, grimacing with effort.
