"Yes, skills. The trainer should have had them for you. There are some advanced ones you need to pay for but the basic ones are free for all classes." She sounded like a know it all and suddenly reminded him of Cassandra.
"My class doesn't have any skills. It is one of the Cons of the class." He felt a frown forming.
"Really? That's stupid." She again sighed. "Fine. You just run up and punch it then. At least it did some damage."
Jake was about to tell her he didn't need her when she walked past him. "Come on. I have a snare ability to slow it down enough you can catch it." As much as he wanted to tell her to shove off, he had to admit the beetle was too fast for him. Reluctantly he followed after her.
**********
Jake was again crouch walking forward trying to get as close to the huge bug as possible. The plan was simple. The moment it started moving the archer girl, Ella, would use her snare ability. Then Jake would punch it and she would shoot it. It didn't get more simple than that.
When he was as close as he felt he could get without alerting it he made his move. Again he charged forward and lept up to punch the beetle. It made the same startled chittering sound and started to move. Only this time vines erupted from the reddish dirt beneath it and lashed like whips across the top of it. The vines tightened their grip as nearly a dozen of them lashed out. Jake came crashing down on the now immobile bug. He had twisted back to put his full body into the blow. When his fist struck this time it carried all his might behind it. Chips of red rock broke free from the impact site and fissures spread from it. The beetle angrily cried out and dirt flung up from beneath it as its many unseen legs worked furiously.
But it didn't move. The vines held. Arrows began to plink off the shell seeming to do nothing and Jake started swinging. He had no special attacks or abilities so instead, he just swung wildly. There wasn't any real skill or tactics behind it. Jake had never been in a real fight. But he had read about them plenty. He tried to reenact what he had read in the past. Twisting his body the way he pictured from fighters in books he had read. Some of it felt wrong so he tried other things until he found a few things that felt right. It wasn't much more than wild swinging but he twisted his body one way then the other as he smashed into the bug with both fists one after the other.
While he might lack any skill it didn't seem to matter. The bug couldn't move and his blows seemed effective… really effective. More and more of the red stone covering broke away until he actually saw dark black shell. Shell that broke and cracked beneath his heavy metal fist. He wound back and slammed his right fist into it with all his might. A huge section broke off and his fist pushed in slightly. White bug goo leaked out almost identical to the insides of the smaller bugs. Only so much more.
"Keep it up! It's already at half health!" Jake ignored Ella's shout and resumed pummeling the bug. The vines began to snap and break. For a moment Jake was worried it would get away. Then more erupted from the ground lashing onto it just as the last one started to break.
"I can't reset my power again. We have to finish it off!" More arrows plinked against the beetle. Most of them getting closer and closer to him making him nervous. He started to yell at the archer girl before he realized she was aiming for the hole he had made in the hard shell of the beast. Stepping to the side he stopped punching and instead gripped the broken edge of the shell. "Don't stop hitting it!"
He ignored the girl's complaints but noticed she never stopped shooting. Bracing his foot against a rough section of the shell still covered in stone he started pulling. There was a cracking sound and he went falling back as a piece of the carapace pulled free. The sound from the beetle was so loud and high pitched it hurt his ears. From the ground, he could see he had pulled a section nearly as big as him free. It hung like a door flapping open while huge amounts of the white goo gushed out from the beetle.
"Yes!! Its health is dropping super fast now!" Ella had stopped bothering to shoot arrows. Instead, she was hopping up and down excitedly.
"Wait what?" She suddenly called out. Still laying on the ground Jake turned and even at this distance could see that look of displeasure on her face again. "Something is wrong! It's healing. Like… A lot!"
There was a twanging sound as the vines snapped and a cracking sound as fissures spread all through the rocky coating on the beetle. It wrenched free of the vines and turned to face Jake as he scrambled up. All the stone covering shattered revealing a normal looking beetle. A giant roundish body of black glossy chitin. The flap he had torn open in the side of the bug closed and seemed to seal. No more white goo gushing out.
That black glossy chitin turned bright crimson as the beetle rushed towards him faster than ever. It was like a barreling train coming down on him impossibly fast and huge. Before he could react the beetle slammed into him just like a high speed train. There was a flash of blue light as his armor's shield protected him. It lasted only an instant before shattering. Still, it had absorbed the bulk of the blow. A warning message flashed in front of Jake's vision, he vaguely saw something about Shield and Depleted.
He ignored it. Right now his bigger concern was that he was in mid air. The beetle had lowered its head when it barreled into him launching him almost straight up. He came down and the wind was knocked out of him painfully. "Too real." He wheezed out while his clawed hands scraped on the shell trying to keep him from sliding off. Hands scrabbling for purchase he thought he was going to fall off before his claws dug into the crease in the beetle's carapace.
Looking up he swallowed hard at how fast the beetle was moving. It had been fast before, too fast for him to catch running. But now it raced forward so fast the terrain was blurred. "Don't fall off!" He barely heard the shout from behind him over the angry chittering of the beetle as well as the sound of its many legs scurrying at improbable speeds.
Digging the claws of his left hand in he tried to smash the beetle with his right. Slamming his huge metal fist into it over and over. Even putting everything he could put behind it, there was no give. None. It was like hitting a mountain.
There was a shrill scream and he looked up to realize the beetle had turned around. It was now barreling down on the archer girl. She turned to run but it was obvious that the beetle was faster. Jake smashed into the shell harder, putting even more force into it. He almost dislodged himself in the process but still got no results. He looked up to see that the beetle had already closed the gap. Jake wanted to look away, it was obvious the girl was going to be smashed into the ground. The beetle seemed to have learned its lesson and wasn't lowering its head. It would trample her for sure.
At the last second, the girl turned back towards them and jumped. Doing a flip forward she crashed down on the back of the beetle with a grunt of pain. She started rolling across the back of the beetle, unable to find a grip any better than Jake had. When she rolled past him Jack reached out and managed to catch ahold of her ankle. She came to a sudden stop, the jerking stop almost pulling Jake's left hand from where it was dug into the crease of the beetle's carapace. Ella's hands flailed wildly trying to catch ahold of her bow but it went sailing further back to fall off the back of the bug. She said some very unlady-like words that left Jake staring at her open mouthed before she looked at him.
"Uh. Thanks for catching me." She was on her back and had to lift her head to look up at Jake who was still holding onto one of her ankle.
"No problem." Jake and her just stared at one another for a moment. "So… what do we do now?"
Jake didn't know what to expect but laughter wasn't it. Ella laughed, a full hearty laugh, and let her head fall back. "I've got no idea!" She finally said sounding cheerful.
Jake just stared at her like she had gone mad. She looked up at him again. "This game is great isn't it?"
Clinging to the back of a giant beetle as it rushed across the barren terrain like a bullet train, Jake laughed too. "Yeah!"