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328. Rush
🕑 Added 2025-03-10 14:00:07 +0000 UTCIke ran.
Behind him, a strange shout rang out. He whipped around, staring back. Puppets rushed the gap. For a second, he squinted, lost, and then his eyes widened. That’s right! All the puppets outside. There’d been hundreds of puppets arrayed just outside the mountain, waiting for something.
I think I’ve figured out what that something is, Ike thought to himself.
The grinding of the walls changed in timbre, growing louder from behind him. The gap pinched shut faster on the puppets’ end. It still ground shut all around him and ahead of him, but the mountain was clearly prioritizing crushing the puppets.
Ike activated Storm Clad, pushing his aether toward his legs to speed himself up further. His legs churned, and purple lightning trailed after him in a streak of light. Stone dust and ground porcelain clouded up behind him as he ran. The gray-and-white clouds flickering with lightning gave him the appearance of a stormcloud, given human form and rushing at great speed over the ground.
Ahead of him, Wisp and Mag raced at top speed. Ike caught up to Wisp first. She saw him coming and transformed into a tiny spider, hopping into the air as he approached so she landed on his shoulder. Overhead, Mag winged on. His rank spiked up to the limits of Rank 4, and he hurtled ahead, barely keeping ahead of Ike.
“Oh, you want to race, do you.” Ike’s eyes glowed with purple light as a smile spread over his face. Pushing his foot down, he hurtled ahead, running at his absolute top speed.
Wisp and Shawn clung tighter to his shoulders. “Whee!” Wisp cheered.
The walls pressed in. Compared to the size they’d started, the width of Shopkeep’s city, they’d closed in to the size of a smaller city, but they were still far from touching. Which was good, because they had a long way to go. They were in the very center of the mountain. It had taken them over a day to walk to the center. At that same pace, they wouldn’t make it even a quarter of the way out before the mountain closed entirely.
But they weren’t moving at the same pace.
Mag worked his wings, flapping as hard as he could. Flying up or horizontally were the same, at this point; the mountain stretched for untold heights, just as it stretched long before them. He flew dead ahead, winging ahead of Ike by mere inches.
On the ground, Ike sprinted at his top speed. He usually couldn’t sustain this speed for long, but now, he poured his all into it. Every drop of aether he had raced through him, lending his legs the strength and stamina to push further.
No. This isn’t the limit!
When he ran, he ran at the limit of his speed. The fastest he could go without harming himself. An unconscious limit held him back, preventing him from injuring himself.
But he was stronger than that, now. He could reinforce his feet with his steel skill. He could constantly heal with the Body Reforging Art. By letting his unconscious limits hold himself back, he wasn’t truly pushing himself to his absolute limits. He was only pushing himself to the start of his limits, to the beginning of where he could go no further—but not to the edge, past which he could truly progress no further.
Ike shoved more aether into his legs. Pumped his legs faster. His feet beat against the ground at a staccato beat, accelerating with every passing moment. He ran so fast he tore his legs apart, but all the aether in his legs also fed the fires for Body Reforging Art, fixing the tears and breaks as they formed. His ankles trembled, so he coated them in steel, reinforcing them from the outside in. Once more, his speed increased. Faster. Faster. He pulled past Mag and kept accelerating, racing toward the exit.
The walls closed in. As he accelerated, so, too, did they accelerate. At first, he thought it was just his perception, but then he glanced over his shoulder and confirmed it. The mountain had squished the puppets to death behind him, so it was now free to target him and his friends. The distant exit closed the fastest, cutting away the light. It narrowed down, even as Ike sped toward it. A building’s width. A door’s width. He was still hundreds of yards away, and the exit pinched shut. No more light spilled through.
“Wisp,” Ike said.
“I see it,” she replied, equally terse.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
She laughed. “Always.”
Ike jumped. The second his feet left the ground, Wisp shot a spider’s thread upward and yanked them up. Ike stepped on the stone wall and jumped off again, propelling himself up and out with all his force. On his shoulder, Wisp shot another thread, pointing it across the gap. On Ike’s speed and Wisp’s thread, they crossed the gap. Once more, Ike kicked off, and Wisp yanked them upward. Between Ike’s leg strength and Wisp’s thread proficiency, the two of them dashed back and forth across the mountain, climbing forward and upward at the same time. Up and forward, up and forward. The mountain closed. Overhead, light fell away. Ike locked his eyes on the sky and climbed, refusing to let doubt enter his mind. He would break free. He would escape. There was no other possibility. He wouldn’t allow it!
The sky narrowed. Down to a arm’s length, a handspan. Wisp shot her thread upward and tethered onto a tree, and Ike kicked off the wall one last time. She pulled, and he pushed, and they hurtled upward, speeding toward the narrowing gap.
