On second thought, maybe it can smash this.

I didn't get a chance to sink my claws into the bulked-up smasher before the damn thing hammered the side of my head hard enough to smack me to the ground in a dizzying tumble. It was kind of like a nostalgic throwback to my first big fight against another Anathema—when I ran at an even larger, if lower tier, smasher and got punted into a me-shaped depression in the ground.

At least they live up their name. Fuckers sure do pack a punch. After scrambling back to my feet, the first thing I did was to launch myself skyward with a single powerful beat of my skeletal, metal wings. Just a single cycle was enough to send me a dozen meters, now that I was getting better at it.

I also began to consider my options at the same time. There was definitely a specific ability involved, there—that wasn't just a 'normal' punch with superstrength. I wasn't sure exactly how I knew that, but I wasn't going to over analyze my instincts right now.

Now letting myself slowly sink—essentially hovering—I spun myself around a bit to try to get a proper look at what was happening down on the ground. The smasher was agitatedly looking for me—it would only be a moment before—yep, there it is. The Tier 4 Anathema looked up, spotting me immediately. Leaning down, it cocked back one massive fist and prepared to swing at me.

I wasn't an idiot, so I dodged. And I was right to do so, because a concussive, vibrating blast of air rocketed right through the space where I'd been just a second ago. The proximity to its passage still buffeted me back a bit—if anything, the way my vibrating feathers 'caught' against the air itself worked to my detriment, here.

Beating my wings a few more times, I rocketed into a wide swoop, buying time while I tried to figure out how to approach this. I don't think I can just stay up here and win the fight easily from out of range. I recalled the heat blast that I used to incinerate the Kraken during a previous incursion—but unfortunately, my memories of the event were still vague and hazy. I wasn't in a particularly clear state of mind at that time.

Ultimately, I just wasn't confident that I could do anything to it without getting close—and that meant flying low or going back to the ground. Unless—yeah, that'll do. I launched myself over to the edge of the makeshift arena and landed upon the rim, digging half a dozen different legs into the gaps between bones. I'm like a lizard on the edge of a leaf!

Only, I was a very big, very heavy lizard on the edge of a—yeah, whatever. I assessed things from my new position.

The smasher was clearly well aware of my position, given that it was already bounding over in my direction. Alright, how do I do the thing? I needed to figure out how my heat blast worked. Frankly, I had no idea how to actually go about activating it.

I didn't get a chance to find out. The smasher catapulted itself towards me, and there was no way it would miss if I didn't move out of the way. That was exactly what I did, flinging myself back into the air before it could tackle me over the side of the arena.

And not a moment too soon, because the sound of its impact was unmistakable. Bone crunched—and then it crunched again, and I had only a fraction of a second to panic before a massive, meaty weight snatched me by the tail.

Well, shit. The Tier 4 Anathema had kicked back off the top of the arena almost immediately, giving it enough height to temporarily catch up to me and grab my trailing tail before it was out of reach. The sudden increase in mass didn't take me back to the ground, but it did succeed in completely stalling my previous momentum and flipping me into a precarious, vertical orientation.

I was sure the current scene looked rather ridiculous, what with a giant, mutant murder-ape using an alien, six-legged bug-dragon as a Mary Poppins umbrella. I'm sure I would find this really fucking funny if I wasn't so goddamn terrified. Recalling the way I'd inadvertently solved a similar situation with Lasso Guy a while back, I stopped providing artificial 'lift' with my feathers and let both of us plummet to the ground—with me on top.

The smasher might be bigger than me, but it was also much smaller than most titans I'd faced. Due to my own ridiculous density, I was ultimately the heavier one—a fact my opponent learned when it tried to swing my own body like a club at the moment it touched down. Or rather, when it tried to. Despite being more than strong enough to lift me, the higher tier Anathema lacked the right leverage to swing me about in the way it had clearly intended.

Seizing the moment of surprise, I ignored the pain of several of my own legs and body plates warping and entered a brutal, animalistic melee. Wrapping my entire long, sinuous body around the smasher—kind of like a snake—I latched on and took both of us into an alligator-esque death roll.

Wow, I think I understand why reptiles do this, now. Honestly, the tactic ended up being drastically more effective than I ever expected. Remember, Alex—you're not human anymore. You're not even human-shaped. The rules of what works in combat are going to be pretty different.

I also got my first proper bite in, which definitely helped take the edge off of the constant crushing and bludgeoning. By the time our roll stopped, I had firmly latched myself around the other Anathema's body, with my own head snaking up around the smasher's neck. I also ended up being the one on the bottom, but that actually worked in my favor. It really wasn't too much weight for me, and it actually made it harder for the other Anathema to free itself.

But all things come to an end, and I only managed to rip and tear off a few additional chunks of smasher-flesh before the other Anathema succeeded in twisting into a new position and effectively pinning me down much in the way a human would. Now it was not good to be on the bottom. The hairy brute reached for one of my wings, which were now splayed out to either side on the ground.

Of fuck no. I retaliated in as many ways I could think of at once, including whipping my tail back upwards to strike the other Anathema from behind. As it was essentially a giant, extra solid chain whip, it was more than capable of doing decent damage—but not enough to budge this particularly powerful smasher.

What was more effective was tensing the right 'muscles' in just the right way to send my feathers into an especially violent, rapid vibration. With its palm being spread out flat on top of them and stubby, claw-tipped fingers digging between them, its whole hand got absolutely shredded. All I really meant to do was make it flinch and let go, but this was like I'd turned on a blender stuffed with loose razor blades.

The end of the limb wasn't so much removed as it was minced. Like the stringy insides of a halloween pumpkin, I couldn't help but think. Ribbons of it remained stuck to my wing even as the other Anathema ripped its arm free again. Nice.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I was definitely going to remember that for future engagements. I didn't think my wings would be effective as a primary offensive weapon, but this was clearly a fantastic backup with which to surprise an enemy. But I wasn't even done with surprises.

I doubted anyone—even an opponent with a bit more intelligence than a random Tier 4 smasher—would have noticed the thin arc of violet lighting during such a chaotic moment. But my bond with my sword meant that I could feel its position and distance at all times—and this wouldn't be the first time I weaponized the summoning mechanics. In fact, it wouldn't even be the first time I'd done it against the very same Anathema type.

And you know what was another feature of my awesome weapon? I didn't just call my sword. I ramped up its momentum nearly as high as it could go.

The timing couldn't have been more perfect. Just when the smasher was reeling from the way I'd mangled its right fist with my sharp feathers, the sword blasted straight through its lower back side, showering me with chunky, alien effluvia before snapping to a rest in between the talons of my own right foreleg. With the size and general anatomy difference in my full chamelium form, the sword was almost comically tiny.

That was fine, because now, I no longer needed it.

The Tier 4 Anathema still wasn't dead, but I was now in a much better position to change that than I was before. Missing one fist and one entire leg, the other Anathema was now at a serious disadvantage. I didn't hesitate to chomp down on the fully detached leg as I twisted back to my feet and put a few meters of distance between us.

God, this tastes so fucking good. Yummy, yummy, yummy. Everything tastes so good! Ugh, don't get distracted. The fight wasn't over. The smasher was rapidly regenerating, and it wouldn't even take a full minute for its arm to be back in perfect condition. Eating the leg I'd grabbed was useful for boosting my own regeneration, true, but between the two of us, I was the one who had much less to gain from letting regeneration run its course. Scarfing down the remainder of the leg as fast as I could—which was actually pretty damn fast—I rushed back in for the kill.

And I promptly got blasted back into another tumbling roll. God damn it. The other Anathema had used one of its abilities again, doing something to empower an otherwise wimpy swing with its good arm. What is it, though? Recalling the concussive blast of air it sent my way earlier, I was going to bet that it was some kind of air—or even sound—based ability to empower a bare-fisted strike.

That small realization triggered something much, much bigger in my mind. Holy shit. I felt like I was almost there—that I was close to having figured it out. Not just how to win this fight, but how to advance. How to become more.

Along with metal—which was pretty obvious just from looking at my own body—the main wiki article on chameliums said that our more elaborate esoteric abilities typically revolved around heat and air concepts. So far, I'd successfully honed my innate ability to mimic arbitrary sounds, unleashed fiery destruction, and most recently, I'd figured out how to fly. And what do all of those have in common?

Vibration.

Sound was a pressure wave. Heat was a nuanced and complex phenomenon, but it was often simplified as the kinetic interactions of moving and vibrating particles at the smallest scales. And how did I fly? I didn't generate lift in any conventional sense. Rather, some intrinsic part of my biology was devoted to generating an intense vibration in my razor feathers that somehow made them 'stick' to the air itself. It's all fundamentally vibration.

And yet there were two other abilities I recalled. One was the ability to shape and deform metal—as if turning it temporarily soft and fluid. The other was something I'd barely paid attention to—the fact that I could manipulate any electrical current that entered my own metal body. Electric current—flow. Air flowed. Electric charge flowed. Heat flowed. Metal itself was a great conductor of not just heat, but sound—and shaping it seemed to be a matter of turning it fluid. My own exoskeleton melded in and out of my body, after all.

Vibration and flow. Holy shit. I wasn't entirely certain—but I was convinced I was really onto something. By this point, I'd picked myself back up and was now stalking back toward the injured Tier 4 smasher. I also noted that Mr. Bones was still watching us from atop his throne. Amusingly, he didn't look like he was bored anymore.

Energy. Vibration. I imagined the way it felt when I made my feathers vibrate during flight. But this time, I directed it inward. Into my chest. I could reason about it, sure—conventionally, unleashing a torrent of fire implied some kind of high pressure cavity, tank, or whatnot ejecting a stream in a focused direction. But really, it was just what felt most natural.

And sure enough, I could feel something starting to build. After only a few steps, the pressure had mounted to a point where I felt like it was ready to release—but I certainly didn't have to release it—and instead, I continued to let the energy build.

Soon, my body was beginning to feel, for lack of a better word—saturated. It wasn't even uncomfortable so much as it was like trying to inflate a pool toy that was already fully inflated.

Now that I was no longer focusing on building heat and vibration, I realized that the surface of my exoskeleton had actually grown cold and frosty. Like I sucked up all the heat. That was unexpected, even if it made some amount of sense. I suppose I could see it going either way.

By this point, the smasher hadn't just finished regenerating its fist, but was making great progress on its leg, too. I might have been more worried if not for the realizations I'd just made. As it were, I didn't even bother to dodge when it vaulted into a leaping slam. I simply stood my ground, inhaled, and braced for impact.

Wispy white air condensed around the Tier 4 titan's cocked fist. I tilted my head. That's cute.

Then I blasted the ugly motherfucker.

Holy shit. There was recoil. Rather than a torrent of draconic flame, or even a beam of heat and light, it honestly felt and looked more like an explosion in a tube. I think there was an epic heat ray in there somewhere, but it was a bit hard to distinguish it through the incredibly loud burst of air and fleshy chunks. I didn't just kill the smasher—I exploded it.

Holy shit. It never even had a chance to hit me with its own attack—or even body. I'd completely countered its existing momentum. Holy shit.

A slow, boney clap made me turn my head back around to look at Mr. Bones. "Nice. Very nice. I've never seen you do that one before. Were you just holding back this whole time, or…?"

Sitting down—I was honestly quite a bit tired from what I'd just done—I tried to find my voice again. Damn, I might have fucked up my throat a little bit again. Fortunately, it wasn't nearly as bad this time, even though I was pretty sure what I'd just done was even more powerful and destructive than what I'd done to finally kill the Kraken a while back.

"Sort of," I replied. Good, I can still talk. "I did something similar not too long ago, but it kind of knocked me out for a while afterwards. Also, it might have even been weaker."

Mr. Bones' skull tipped slightly in just the barest hint at a nod. "Good. That's exactly what I was hoping for." He paused, a contemplative look washing over his featureless skull. "I was actually going to end it here, but—I think you might really be ready for Tier 4."

I blinked. Surely he doesn't mean—Oh, come on. The gate was beginning to open, and I could already tell that a host of skeletons was dragging in a new, equally powerful challenger.

"Oh, don't give me that look," Mr. Bones said. "If you don't like being at the mercy of people like me, well, this is still exactly what you need to do to get strong enough to take us on."

You know, that kind of sounds like tempting the narrative. I didn't say that, though. Instead, a low growl escaped my throat. "Fine then. Bring it on."

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