Chapter 3: Powers And Opportunity

A scaled tendril, white and slow-moving entered the cave. It looked like a tendril of some sort of plant with specks of green. Flicking around, it might as well have been a snake with its accuracy at determining Matt’s location.

Matt instinctively lashed out with a kick at the vine-tendril. It snapped forwards, knocking into him.

The entrance’s light was blocked now, and Matt panicked once more. He was sure that more than one vine was searching for and looking to bludgeon him.

So he leaped, hopping around like a blind man in a trapped room. He recalled something during his panic.

Furiously, he began to kick at the walls, knocking pieces of rock loose. It was a risk he was willing to take, he definitely wouldn’t survive this creature, but he might survive a cave in.

The vine’s own thrashing aided in bringing down rocks into the cave, unable to grab anything with its lack of flexibility. The creature knew a heat source was in here, aiming to kill and remove said heat.

Cracks in the cave began to form, larger and larger chunks of rocks falling and being sent every which way with the vine’s ever more violent thrashing.

Matt’s luck ran out as a vine slammed him into a wall by his stomach. Rocks collapsed onto his head, the vine’s momentum not slowed at all by his added weight.

The whipping sounds of the vines’ didn’t quiet, nor did they slow.

Beads of blue light filtered into the cave, the opening had cracked, the ceiling itself filled with little holes now.

‘Right, not the same cave’

The rocks laid there, a free weapon. Matt grabbed one, smashing it onto a vine. That only seemed to agitate it more, as it made an absurd movement that called into question the creature’s own previous attempts at killing him.

A vine ripped directly upwards, through the ceiling that held before. Another vine smashed through the cave’s side, tearing through rock and ash. The monster had lost its patience.

A blue eye, sideways and large, as if covered in glass peered at him through the ceiling now. It was ash covered tree with a large eye embedded in its trunk. Vines stretched from branches, armored alongside the whole of its body.

The creature didn’t show such strength before, perhaps to keep the prey trapped without destroying its cage.

The adrenaline had faded once again, red liquid pouring and freezing from his chest, making his clothes redder.

A breakdown in dignity began, he had worn nearly nothing for days, and the blood ruining his clothes damaged one of the few things he still had some (bizarre) attachment to.

Regardless of his injuries, Matt was angry, the environment was quickly growing colder. His hands were in pain now, scratches in them from handing the rocks. The eye was far above and vines stretched towards him once more.

Matt kicked out again, in both anger and desperation instead of fear and alertness.

Now that it had a clear view of its prey the tree demon should’ve been able to entrap the leg as if using chopsticks to catch a slippery morsel. But something surprising happened.

The vines that were in contact with his bare skin suddenly caught on fire. A small fire that was quickly extinguished, but a fire nonetheless.

Enraged once more, vines bore in through the walls, tearing through absolutely everything… except the ground.

What was revealed was shocking.

‘A… drawing?”

A fantastical formation was the only way to describe it. Symbols interlocking strangely alongside a script of some sort and a picture of an eye, reminiscent of an eye formed by flame.

It was a disorganized image, sure, but as the tree demon suddenly reeled back, Matt knew something had changed.

Whereas before the vines approached, they now surrounded the altar, the formation.

Was this what moved him here?

‘If… this moved me here? Then could it get me back?’

An epiphany. ‘That’s what’s the tree is afraid of right? If it was removed from here and sent to a place of flames, it would certainly be ripped apart.’

These were the first things that went well for him since he fell.

Even with a bloody chest, slightly crushed legs, battered clothing, and scratched hands, Matt began to laugh.

And laugh and laugh.

His mutated feet had some sort of flame generation power, one that would certainly be useful here. But although things had finally made a turn for the better, the tree demon still watched him, not approaching but also not leaving.

The falling snow now landed in the fully destroyed, vanished, cave.

As the ecstasy faded from something finally going right, Matt began to think.

‘I need a fire, let’s test this out…’

Matt stomped on the ground with no result. Thinking back to when he first activated his powers, he… recalled that anger, the anger of having what was left of his clothes bloodied.

A flame started. And he was warm.

The tree demon just watched, and Matt questioned its intelligence, its sentience. It certainly felt pain, and certainly didn’t want to enter the formation-thing, so why hadn’t it left?

‘Surely it’s not waiting for me to leave…’

Unable to guess at the thoughts of a stupid fucking plant that nearly killed him, Matt began to calm down. If still a bit alert in case the tree demon decided to bear the risk regardless and attack.

Was the thing wary that Matt could use the formation? Or just of the formation itself? One meant he had to bluff, the other meant he could act as he wished.

But just as Matt regained a semblance of calm, he spotted another creature lumbering towards them.

A white horse head, a zebra coat of blue and white, and a particularly ridiculous size.

If the plant was two stories tall, this was five stories.

‘What is this place?’

It seemed like an actual animal mix, just enlarged to ridiculous proportions.

The tree demon remained still for a different reason compared to Matt’s shock at the thing’s graceful movement. It somehow didn’t leave marks or gouges in the ash.

The facade of being an animal didn’t last long though, sections of the animal began to unhinge as if cuts were being made to allow its innards out, with said innards being a whitish organ covered in blood.

Was this a single creature or a creature being parasitized?

Matt watched in awe of the thing, discomfort was forgotten in the safety of his altar.

The white organ enveloped branches, pulling at vines of the tree demon. The vines thrashed, cutting greenish blood from the white organs. (Which was absurdly odd, considering it was white.)

The horse head lowered alongside its white innards, before taking a large bite of the tree demon.

Matt hadn’t noticed it before, but… could the tree demon move?

Bones littered the base of the tree demon as if it had remained stationary for a long time. White hidden among white making them hard to notice. Matt considered what he would've done if this fight hadn’t occurred and suddenly he was rooting for the zebra demon.

‘Start a fire to burn down the tree, yeah as that would work…’

The zebra demon was chomp, chomping away when a blinding light flashed from the plant’s eye on its trunk. It had vanished.

A snort, expressing some emotion, came from the zebra demon.

The zebra demon appeared to study Matt once its meal ticket had fled, but a look at the formation made it wary of it as well. Before long, it too left.

Matt could feel his heartbeat again, his mind previously overwhelmed with the sheer power of the entities and their “fight”.

‘This place is certainly NOT peaceful.’