Hector hit the dirt head first. He tumbled over himself and landed just perfectly enough to see the bike sailing toward him. In the split second he had to react, he decided to embrace the madness and put his arms out wide to catch the bike. The rear tire crushed his ribcage, but his hands grasped the metal frame and held on.
Eyes wide, he set the bike down. He looked down at his caved-in chest and tasted a mouthful of blood. ‘It doesn’t hurt...’
‘I got to you just in time,’ said Garovel. ‘You’re welcome by the way. And nice catch.’
Practice resumed. By the time daylight began to wane, Hector had crashed several more times, though none so bad as before. When Hector finally felt as if he had acquired a passable degree of competence, the bike was hardly recognizable anymore with all its new dents and scratches.
As the engine began to make a fresh clanging noise, Hector slowed to a stop. ‘That can’t be a good sound...’
‘Yeah. But it’s fine. We don’t need the bike to last that long. It’ll probably get destroyed one way or another, anyhow.’
‘Really? It’s starting to grow on me, though...’
‘Don’t get too attached. I’ll be shocked if it’s not a smoldering pile of scrap in a couple weeks.’
‘Aww...’
-+-+-+-+-
“I h-have someone here who wants to meet you...” Swank squirmed under Geoffrey’s gaze.
“Oh? Show them in, then.”
Swank exited the room briefly and returned with the person in question.
“You are the man in charge?” said the stranger, smiling in a groomed, confident way. “You’re much younger than I anticipated.”
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
How old IS he anyway? Maybe he could get an actual bike and lessons after all this is over.
ReplyDelete...
Although at this rate, it'll only be over when the pair dies. All the things, all the time!
Hector is sixteen. It's a possibility.
DeleteAnd yep, that is also true.
Do people make iron bikes? Maybe hector could just his powers to revitalize the bike when needed...
ReplyDeleteThat'd be possible to an extent. 'course, if a tire gets shredded or torn off, then he can't just replace that with metal. Also, creating certain bike parts would require tremendous precision, which is still beyond his abilities.
DeleteHow old is Geoffrey? I keep hearing "____ was surprised how young he was" or something xD
ReplyDeleteThat gets answered. Page 175-ish, I think.
DeleteWow it took a few more crashes for Hector to get competent? I want to joke on him...but I dunno if I would have done any better
ReplyDeleteHello, I just started reading this story 4 days ago. I came here from topwebfiction after reading Worm and Pact.
ReplyDeleteThis story is really good and the comments section makes me laugh almost as hard as the story.
I look forward to reading many many more pages
:)
Hello from another Worm and Pact reader here! I also came here after voting for those two on webfiction; These days, ZK tend to get my vote just after super Powereds. As an older reader, I appreciate the way This story is easy read snippets, whist still having depth!
ReplyDelete