My Werepanther System: Starting with Nine Lives
Chapter 65 FLUX

Chapter 65: 65 FLUX

When Rex came to his senses, he was on his feet.

Like any cat.

Despite this, he was wildly disoriented. The jungle had transformed into a sort of green shadow-labrynth with walls made of massive fallen branches that were slowly growing and rooting themselves into the ground in real time. Rare flowers and other weeded species hybridized and spit wild earthly magics, forcing new corridors into existence and melting the steel obstacle course that was already punctured all over and being eaten by the fallen forest maze.

Rex looked up at the sky slowly being lit by the rising sun. Under the semi-orange shimmer, thin red lines flared.

"You’re not serious..." Rex thought as he picked up a rock and threw it.

The rock came out the top of the maze in three pieces as the thin— nearly invisible, mana-webbings lacing the top of the maze did their job and cut it to pieces.

Syrus suddenly swung across the the top giggling to himself, "What’s better than tag? Tag in a maze! HAHA! Reporters, I suggest you get your up close and personal interviews in with the time you have and get out of the way when whoever’s it shows up. Thank me later or I’m suing."

Rex laughed to himself. It immediately transformed into a hiss as he wiped his face and remembered his eyebrow was split open.

"You’ll probably need stitches for that, sir. Then again I think we all will after today. That Syrus sure is nothing like the last holder of his Inheritence Ability."

Rex looked up and found a middle-aged man with glasses that looked like sniper scopes on his face and jungle camo that looked like loose sheets over his body. Without saying a word, he lifted his camera and took a picture. Sweat dripped down his balding head.

He looked up from his camera, "But yea. Stitches asap. Unless you have some rare healing ability in the form of a Physicality?"

"I don’t do interviews." Rex said before walking off. Truth was, he’d never done an interview.

The man followed. "Oh, please! Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Archibald McCade, I’m with the Militant Media Marketing group also known as Mx3. You’re a heavily questioned individual. Just a few questions..... Just—" He flinched as what sounded like a bomb went off in the maze to their left. A few other reporters screamed. "Just a few questions. You’re Imani’s new boy toy, right?"

"....dude? The fuck are you talking about?" Rex side eyed the reporter as his glasses seemed to fog up in his fiery excitement.

"I....uhhh— sorry, I just meant, you guys are an item right?" Archibald asked.

"Next question." Rex said.

"So.... You and Victor. How did that happen?" The reporter asked.

Rex thought back to how they met. "School fight."

Another explosion in the distance followed by, "YOURE IT!"

"Did you do something to offend the young inheritor?" Archibald asked as he filmed Rex.

"No. I was fighting three students. I was getting my ass beat actually. He intervened. We had a conversation. That’s it."

"How noble of him to save your life—"

"Alright, don’t get carried away." Rex rolled his eyes as he listened to another trainee on the other side of the wall bordering the path he walked.

"As for you, with your abilities inherited now, has you and Victor’s relationship changed at all?" Archibald asked.

"No." Rex said. But that was a lie. They spoke less. On the battlefield they didn’t occupy similar positions. Victor was a both a solo burst-damage operative and mass support role. Rex was an assassin and or burst-flank meant to stay alone or with few. Not to mention his fame was unlike Rex’s.

"Not even a little?"

"What do you want to hear?" Rex asked, "Do you want drama? You want me to say we hate eachother now?"

"Do you?" Archibald drooled as he shoved the camera in Rex’s face.

"You get any closer and I’ll burn it." Rex said as his eyes went purple.

"Interesting power. I’ve never seen an Inheritence Ability of purple flame. Are you one of the rare Altered-Inheritors?"

"The what?" Rex asked.

"Like Victor’s brother you know? They have fragments of Inheritence Abilities with genetic alterations and mana infusions to create variations and downsized versions of the initial Inheritence Ability. It’s a booming business since Drift-Spawn are evolving to withstand basic Inheritence Abilities! Price Industries is the spearhead of the operation." Archibald explained.

It was then that Rex remembered when he first met Imani she was saying how her family business was just getting into affordable genetic mana-bonding.

"Uhhh—"

"OR!" Archibald screamed, "Are you an Inheritor of one of the Shadowed-Seven?!"

Rex stayed silent.

"You know? Of the two-hundred and fifty Progenitor-Ability users, seven refused Military-Genetics Registry. Many argue that they were seven of the strongest. I mean they had to be to withstand a civil war against the others right?"

"Archibald." Rex said.

"Yes?" Archibald pushed up his glasses.

"Were you actually wondering if I’m a child of the Shadowed-Seven or did you just want to nerd out real quick?" Rex asked.

Archibald laughed as his cheeks warmed, "haha... uhh— no, I just wanted to make sure you knew what I was referencing. The others say you don’t interract with media. That’s what I’d do if I had powers the entire world was after."

"Fair." Rex said as he walked.

"So, no on that one then?"

"Yea. I don’t think either of my parents had any special powers stemming back to the first Drift Dimension." Rex said while also thinking, "But there was somebody related to me who had something a little different."

"Well, what are your goals here? Everyone wants to know. Drift Soldier? Special Forces? Contractor? Justice-Weilder? What’s in store for Private Rex?"

"Drift Soldier. Now can we cut the interview. I’m too tired for this shit."

"Long night with the Price princess?"

"Dude— you’re like thirty asking about a seventeen year olds sex life. Get the fu—"

At the end of the maze corridor they walked down, a trainee came around the corner. He was tall and thin. So thin that his martial-skin was loose on him and the pistol on his hip looked oversized. Rex knew him by his green highlighted gelled back hair.

"Simon Hugo. Bladed Psionics Inheritence Ability." Rex thought.

The thin trainee sprinted down the corridor after Rex. As he ran, green sparks spiraled around his head and Psionic blades spun into existence at his side.

"Back up, Archy." Rex said before activating, (Blade Sense). Immediately, he became more acutely aware of Simon’s weaponized energy constructs.

Just in time as well as the trainee threw them in a blast of Psionic force.

Rex ran into the bordering wall and climbed up its length, flipping sideways as he did to continue his press as the blades flew underneath him.

Camera flashes from behind frayed his focus. Even so, he landed behind Simon.

He tried to run.

Only for a massive Psionic great sword to appear, swinging at his throat.

Rex dropped to his knees and slid under the weapon as it cleaved through the wind. From there, blades began ripping out of the ground in a trail following Rex.

"This isn’t how you play tag." Rex said as he turned and threw a fireball at Simon.

"You’re right. I’m not playing tag." Simon said in his usual layered voice that made it sound like two people speaking at once.

"The hell are you doing then?" Rex asked.

"Generating traffic to my families company by engaging the trending topic. No hard feelings." Simon said before his hands were suddenly coated in Psionic blades.

"I regret a lot on this day." Rex yawned and put his fists up. "Let’s get to it—"

The camera flashed again.

"ARCHIBALD! The flash!" Rex hissed before turning around at the touch of something on his foot.

He looked behind himself and found a detached hand on the ground pointing at him.

Simon smiled faintly, "This game would be perfect for Mani and his Anatomical Liberation ability."

"I’m it?" Rex said.

Simon nodded, "Come and get me. Please."

Rex smiled and put up the middle finger, then he charged to the left and broke through the labyrinth walls to tackle the trainee hiding on the other side.

With his feline agility, he crashed into the individual, slamming them to the ground before front handspringing off them to create distance and say, "You’re it..."

Rex turned and found himself looking at Caspien.

"Awe damn— dude. My bad." Rex said as Caspien wheezed from the ground.

Even so, Rex took off. Of all the trainees in the class, Caspien was the fastest. Even though he didn’t at all look it. He was lightning. That much was obvious during their last obstacle course event he breezed through even as Rex chased him down.

With that memory in mind, Rex sprinted through the labyrinth to create as much space as possible.

Caspien got to his feet, "Trish told me I need to fight my own battles. I know this is only a game for a cameras, but I feel like it applies. I’m coming Rex."

"Oh now he wants to grow a pair...." Rex rolled his eyes as he ran.

Archibald yelled after him for a while before a weird whistling and popping filled his ears.

Suddenly Rex realized it was deathly quiet.

He couldn’t even hear the sound of his footfalls.

He looked down at his feet and saw that he was floating. Bounding actually with long distance skips.

He was rising above the maze.

Meaning....

"Syrus’ webbing is gone. Either he canceled it or....."

Rex looked around as he floated above the maze.

Other Inheritence Ability users floated.

Within the air, weird sigils, shapes, prisms and things he couldn’t wholly comprehend flowed like visible particles enlarged and distorted. Disturbed.

"Mana...." Rex realized. More accurately, "Mana distortion...which comes right before—"

From the floor Archibald yelled, "MANA FLUX!!!!"

Before Rex could even think to do anything, the sigils, sequences and shapes that were the physical form and essence of mana itself began to vibrate and fall apart before reforming as steaming glowing icons that exploded in a mass particle blast.

All they saw was a flash.

But what they felt was far worse.