The entrance to the Savage Garden wasn't a gate. It was a warning.
The massive wrought-iron arches that once welcomed families into the Royal Park were twisted into jagged shapes, as if a giant hand had wrung them out like a wet towel. Beyond them, the jungle was a wall of oppressive, unnatural darkness. Vines as thick as pythons strangled the stone statues of ancient kings. The air was heavy with humidity and the buzz of insects the size of dinner plates.
Ren stood before the gate, staring at his own hands. They were trembling, but not from fear this time. From frustration.
"Make a fist," Kaira said.
She was sitting on a fallen stone pillar, legs crossed, eating a bruised apple she had scavenged. She looked bored.
Ren curled his fingers into a fist. It felt alien. These were fingers made for holding quills, for turning delicate pages, for mixing ink. They were soft. Uncalloused.
"Now hit that tree," she commanded, pointing to a massive oak with bark like iron scales.
"Why?" Ren asked, lowering his hand. "We need to move. The Sun is going down."
"Because if you don't learn how to throw a punch, you're just a walking blood bag," Kaira said, taking a loud crunch of the apple. "I need a partner, Ren. Not a pet. Hit the tree."
Ren sighed. He stepped up to the oak. He channeled his frustration—the fall from the tower, the pain of his ribs breaking, the terror of the Hyenas, the loss of his quiet life. He pulled his arm back and swung.
Thud.
Pain shot up his wrist like a lightning bolt. Ren yelped, clutching his hand to his chest. He had barely scratched the bark.
Kaira didn't even look up. "Pathetic."
"I'm a scribe!" Ren snapped, shaking his stinging fingers. "I write things down! I don't hit trees!"
"You're not a scribe anymore," Kaira said, her voice dropping an octave. She stood up and walked over to him. She grabbed his wrist, her grip like a steel trap. "You are a Regenerator. Do you know what that means?"
"It means I heal."
"No," she corrected, looking him dead in the eye. "It means you are the only person on this planet who doesn't have to obey the rules of biology. Normal people stop when it hurts. Normal people stop when bones break. You don't have limits, Ren. You just have pain. And pain is a liar."
She released his wrist.
"Again. Swing with your hips. And stop worrying about breaking your hand. Let it break."
Ren glared at her. He hated how calm she was. He hated that she was right.
He wound up for another swing. He focused on the blue light humming in his veins. Let it break.
BOOM.
The ground shook.
Ren froze mid-swing. Kaira dropped her apple core.
From the darkness of the jungle gate, a shadow emerged. It was massive—easily eight feet tall and nearly as wide.
It was a man, or it had been. Now, it was a walking siege engine. His skin was gray, inches thick, and folded like tectonic plates. A single, jagged horn made of keratin, three feet long, protruded from the center of his forehead. His eyes were small, red, and burning with a dull, heavy rage.
The Rhino.
He wore the tattered remnants of a Royal Guard uniform, stretched to the breaking point over his massive frame. This was the Gatekeeper.
"None pass," the Rhino rumbled. His voice sounded like millstones grinding grain. "The King of the Garden sleeps. None pass."
Kaira stood up, steam already hissing from the vents in her elbows. A feral grin spread across her face.
"Finally," she said, cracking her neck. "Something worth hitting."
She didn't wait for a signal. She blurred forward, closing the twenty-foot distance in a heartbeat. Her right arm transformed, the iridescent chitin armor locking into place. The air around her fist shimmered with heat.
"Mantis Style: TWENTY PERCENT IMPACT!"
She slammed her fist into the Rhino's chest plate.
CRACK.
It sounded like a cannon firing. The shockwave blew the dust off the ground in a perfect circle.
But the Rhino didn't fly backward. He didn't even stumble. He slid back maybe two inches, his feet carving grooves in the dirt.
He looked down at Kaira's fist buried in his chest. Then he looked at her.
"Tickles," the Rhino grunted.
He backhanded her.
It was a slow, clumsy blow, but it had the weight of a wrecking ball. It caught Kaira mid-air and swatted her into the wrought-iron fence. She hit the metal with a clang that rang through the clearing and crumpled to the ground, motionless.
"Kaira!" Ren yelled.
The Rhino turned his small, hateful eyes toward Ren. He lowered his head, aiming the massive horn directly at Ren's chest.
He scraped his foot against the ground.
He charged.
The earth trembled with every step. THUD. THUD. THUD. He was a living battering ram moving at thirty miles an hour.
Ren stood frozen. His mind screamed RUN, but his legs wouldn't move. He looked at Kaira. She was struggling to get up, clutching her head, blood trickling down her forehead. She wouldn't make it in time.
I have to fight.
But how? He couldn't punch this thing. Kaira had hit it with a bomb, and it laughed. If he tried to punch it, his arm would turn to paste.
You don't have to break him, the Wild Soul whispered in the back of his mind. You just have to stop him.
Ren didn't run. He stepped forward.
He didn't make a fist. He opened his hands.
As the Rhino closed the final distance, the air displacing around the beast like the wake of a ship, Ren didn't try to dodge. He lunged into the charge.
He grabbed the Rhino's horn with both hands.
CRUNCH.
The impact was catastrophic.
Ren felt both of his shoulders dislocate instantly. The ball joints popped out of the sockets with a sickening wet sound. The force of the charge lifted him off his feet, driving him backward. His heels slammed into the dirt, carving deep furrows as he was pushed back five feet, ten feet, fifteen feet.
The bones in his forearms shattered under the pressure.
Ren screamed. It was a sound of pure, unadulterated agony. It felt like his arms were being ripped off his body.
But he didn't let go.
Heal, he commanded the Wild Soul. Don't fix it perfectly. Fix it TIGHT.
The blue Aether flared in his arms. The muscles, torn and shredded, began to reweave themselves. But they didn't heal back to normal human tolerance. They healed around the trauma. The ligaments tightened like steel cables. The shattered bones fused into a solid, calcified mass.
The Rhino roared, tossing his massive head, trying to throw Ren off.
But Ren was healing faster than the Rhino could break him.
Every time a muscle tore, it knit back together instantly. Every time a bone cracked, it fused harder. Ren locked his legs, digging into the earth until he was buried to his shins.
He was burning through his stamina at a terrifying rate. His vision was swimming. But he was holding.
He was a living shackle.
The Rhino stopped moving forward. He thrashed, furious, but Ren's grip was absolute.
"Let go, insect!" the Rhino bellowed, shaking his head violently. Ren was whipped back and forth like a ragdoll, but his hands were fused to the horn.
"No!" Ren gritted his teeth, blood leaking from his nose and eyes. The strain was tearing his body apart over and over again. Tear. Heal. Tear. Heal.
It was agony. It was the worst pain he had ever felt in his life.
Ignore it, Kaira's voice echoed in his head. Pain is a liar.
Ren squeezed tighter. His grip wasn't human anymore. It was the grip of a creature that refused to die.
"KAIRA!" Ren screamed, his voice raw and bloody. "NOW!"
Kaira looked up from the fence line. She wiped the blood from her eyes. She saw the impossible. The skinny scribe, the boy who couldn't punch a tree, was holding a two-ton beast in place by sheer force of regeneration.
She didn't hesitate.
She scrambled to her feet, the orange light in her arm flaring brighter than ever before. The whining sound of her elbow vents pitched up into a mechanical scream.
"You crazy bastard," she whispered, grinning through the blood.
She sprinted. She didn't aim for the chest this time. She aimed for the physics.
"Mantis Style: KNEECAPPER!"
She slid across the ground like a baseball player, driving her fist into the side of the Rhino's right knee joint.
SNAP.
Armor is tough, but joints are leverage. The Rhino's leg bent sideways at a ninety-degree angle.
The beast roared, his balance shattered. He toppled to the side like a felled tower.
Ren let go at the last second, the Aether releasing his grip. He rolled away, gasping, as the massive creature crashed into the dirt where he had just been standing.
The Rhino thrashed, trying to stand, but his leg was useless.
Kaira was on him instantly. She jumped onto his chest, raised her fist high above her head, and focused all the heat into her knuckles.
"Sleep tight, heavy metal."
She delivered a final, concussive blow to the helmet-like plating of the Rhino's head.
BOOM.
The shockwave cratered the ground beneath the Rhino. The beast's head slammed back into the earth. His eyes rolled up into his head. He went still.
Silence returned to the jungle gate, broken only by the heavy breathing of two exhausted teenagers.
Ren lay on his back, staring at the darkening sky. His arms were smoking. Literally smoking. Steam rose from his skin where the regeneration had worked overtime to keep his limbs attached.
He felt hollowed out.
A shadow fell over him.
Kaira stood there, looking down. Her expression had changed. The mockery was gone. In its place was something else. Respect? Awe?
"You caught a Rhino," she said quietly.
Ren sat up, groaning. He rolled his shoulders. They popped, loud and wet, as the joints settled back into their proper human alignment.
"I… I didn't know what else to do," Ren rasped.
"You sacrificed your arms," Kaira said, crouching down. "Both of them. You let him shatter them just to get a grip."
"They grew back," Ren muttered, wiping the blood from his nose with his sleeve.
Kaira took his wrist. She examined the skin. It was flawless, pale, and smooth. But underneath, the bone felt denser. Thicker.
"That's not a sponge, Ren," she said. "That's a Bone Lock. You break your own structure to trap the enemy. It's… it's psychotic."
She let go of his wrist and stood up, offering him a hand.
"I like it."
Ren took her hand and pulled himself up. His legs were shaky, but he stood. "Does this mean I pass the training?"
Kaira laughed. It was a genuine laugh this time. She slapped him on the back, hard enough to make him stumble.
"You pass. You're not a fighter, Ren. You're something scarier. You're a masochist."
She turned toward the open gate of the Savage Garden. The path was clear now.
"Come on, 'Bone-Breaker'. The lions are waiting."
Ren looked at his hands. He made a fist. This time, it felt solid. It felt heavy.
He realized then that he didn't need a sword. He didn't need claws. He was the weapon. As long as he was willing to break, he could never be beaten.
He adjusted his satchel, ignored the phantom ache in his shoulders, and followed the Smasher into the dark.