Insomnia Wake #Wattys2016

Chapter 22 - Pets Will Interfere With Any And All Other Forms Of Life

"Rin!" I yelled. "Cover as much of the ground as you can with your barrier!" It looks like he can only generate his growths from the ground, and can only control them while they are still growing. Surely we can take advantage of this!

There was a twinge of hesitation, as continuing would be dropping her guard, but in the end she complied. Everyone jumped into the air as the black stuff spread out thinly along the ground.

It didn't take long for Havel to realize his fatal mistake. He jumped back out of the area of the barrier and touched bare ground. "Oh no you don't!" On his command wooden branches started growing upwards and over us, in an attempt to lock us in a cage.

So I was right, huh? "Ren! Lift us up now!"

Seeing that we were being boxed in, she immediately made the platform take off into the air. The platform swayed and shook as we broke through the parts of the cage that had formed and flew up into the air. "This is too thin for me to control properly, so hold on tight!"

Before we knew it we were well above where we were, and were seemingly safe from our attacker.

Havel gritted his teeth and yelled up at us. "Don't think you're safe just because you're on that thing!" He kicked the ground and a large bean stalk started to sprout from under him. He grabbed on and it shot upwards, carrying him up to our altitude, then he jumped off the pillar and landed on our flying barrier, but stayed close to his stalk.

"You could have just jumped up here, right?" I asked.

"Don't question me, you pebble!"

"But you didn't because then you wouldn't have access to your powers, correct?"

He looked surprised. "Quiet!" He threw his hands forward and a few branches of the beanstalk shot towards us. A boulder sized bean grew and dropped down from the stalk and fell into his hand. He threw the legume at us and then stood back to watch the damage.

Everyone used their powers to the best of their abilities. Ariel shot bubbles forward, one even bouncing away the bean, which exploded in the air shortly afterwards. Buddy slashed with his sword of hair, and the Defenestrators were working together to attack, shrinking Bishop's controlled rocks then sticking them to the vines to gain control of the whipping branches. Even I slashed away at an incoming vine with my dagger.

As he saw his plans backfire on him, Havel panicked a little and started throwing bean after bean. "Die already, you little ants!"

The somewhat natural bombs flew at us from all sorts of angles, but we had already had seen what they could do, so we deflected them at all costs. We were slowly getting the upper hand, and Ariel and Bishop started sending their objects of control back at the enemy.

Amazingly, he simply swatted the vines and bubbles away, not caring about the explosive forces the latter had. "Don't underestimate me!" He leapt away from the stalk, leaving his safe place, and charged right for us. "I don't even need powers to defeat the likes of you!"

He was headed right for Catherine, who panicked and tried to cover herself by making her arms into a defensive 'x' shape.

The only ones with time to react were the ones right next to Catherine: Ren and Rin.

Ren jumped out to push Catherine out of the way, and Havel hit her instead. Ren's body was thrown like a bullet out of the area, disappearing somewhere into the trees.

Havel skidded to a stop, stopping just short of falling off the edge of the platform. "That's what she gets for interfering." He grinned maliciously. Everyone was stopped in their tracks and watched him for his next move. He looked at his fist, which was now covered in the same silver substance as before. "Tch. Got some swine blood on me."