The Scrap Tamer - Chapter 86

Chapter 86: Fighting Another Senior

Ethan kept his eyes on the tablet, watching the red dots split apart. Two of them had fully committed to chasing the decoy, leaving only one still moving toward their real position.

“We’ve still got one on our tail” he informed the team.

Reid nodded, “We’ll deal with them if we have to, but let’s try to avoid a fight.”

Marcus grunted. “If they catch us, we’re not exactly in the best shape to fight back.”

“Which is why we won’t get caught,” Reid said. “Keep moving.”

Ethan, still focused on the tablet, frowned. “Wait… something’s off.”

Clara glanced at him. “What now?”

“The red dot isn’t moving as fast anymore,” Ethan muttered. “It’s slowing down, almost like—”

A sudden whoosh split the air.

“Down!” Reid barked.

The team barely had time to react before a shadow blurred past them, striking the ground where they had just been standing.

Dust exploded outward from the impact, and when the it started settling, the outline of a figure stood in the center of the impact, eyes glowing faintly in through the dust.

Before Reid or any of his teammates could react, the figure disappeared before the dust cloud completely cleared up.

Reid crossed his hand on his chest just in time to block a punch from the figure. The impact sent him sliding backwards.

The figure disappeared again, aiming for Marcus this time but,

Bang.

A bullet left Clara’s gun, and although it seemed as if her shot was random but a moment later a grunt came and the team finally saw their attacker.

A young man staggered back into view, his dark combat suit blending into the ruined cityscape.

A faint shimmer flickered around him before vanishing—some kind of cloaking ability. He narrowed his eyes toward Clara, who had already lined up another shot.

“You actually hit me,” he muttered, rolling his shoulder. “Not bad.”

His Forged-Beast, a Jackal, materialized beside him, it had a light brown fur and around it was a glow.

[Species: Spatial Jackal.

Rank: Gold tier.

——-

Abilities: Space jump, spatial clone, spatial cloak, limited time manipulation.

] Evo revealed its stats.

“Do you think you can give us 10 minutes to rest?” Clara said, her hand still on her gun “we kinda just came back from fighting one of you guys”.

Now, Ethan’s lizard could’ve healed them and boosted their stats, but due to whatever they experienced in their nightmare, it was indisposed at the moment.

The man smirked in amusement but didn’t answer. Instead, he snapped his fingers. The Spatial Jackal vanished in a blur—then reappeared right behind Ethan.

“Move!” Reid shouted.

Ethan barely ducked in time as the Jackal’s claws slashed through the space where his head had been. He rolled away, cursing under his breath.

“He’s fast,” Marcus growled, stepping in front of Ethan.

“No,” Clara corrected, she could see the distortions created in space through he hawk’s view. “He’s teleporting.”

Reid’s mind raced. If the Jackal could teleport freely, they’d never be able to track its movements. They needed a way to limit its space or predict its attacks.

Nyx would’ve been able to do just that but it wasn’t here at the moment and he couldn’t risk calling it back now since that’d mean the other two would realize they were chasing decoys.

That would make this fight a 5v3 and he was not willing to find out the skills the forged-beasts of the other two seniors.

The attacker straightened, tilting his head. “You’re sharp. I was hoping for an easy job, but maybe this’ll be fun.”

He vanished again.

Reid clenched his fists, his mind working overtime. His team was already exhausted from the fight with Owen, and Nyx was still off with Marcus’ Rhino. They had no way of tracking the Jackal’s teleportation directly.

They needed to slow it down.

Marcus shifted to the left, Clara moved right, Ethan stayed low and Lisa went high. Apart from Marcus, the others had their forged beasts had been summoned to their sides

The space distorted behind Marcus which the entire team missed, well almost the entire team.

“Behind you!” Clara fired without hesitation, but the bullet passed through empty air.

The Jackal had already moved again.

‘Damn it, it’s too fast!’

Reid barely caught the blur in the corner of his eye before the attacker reappeared right in front of him.

A fist shot toward his face but Reid ducked.

The impact shattered the wall behind him, sending debris flying.

Reid countered with a quick kick, but the attacker vanished mid-motion, reappearing behind him—

And slammed an elbow into his back.

Reid gritted his teeth as pain jolted through his body. He hit the ground but rolled quickly, avoiding the follow-up stomp.

“We need a way to track him!” Ethan shouted, typing furiously on the tablet in his hand.

“Working on it,” Clara replied, scanning for distortions.

Reid pushed himself up, eyes locking onto the enemy, who was smirking, standing relaxed as if he had already won.

That’s when an idea clicked in Reid’s mind.

He exhaled. “Marcus. Dust.”

Marcus didn’t hesitate. He slammed his fist into the rubble beneath him, sending up a massive cloud of dust.

For a split second, the battlefield became a hazy mess—

And that was when Reid saw it.

A faint distortion. A ripple in the dust particles.

“There!” He lunged forward, fist pulled back—

The attacker’s smirk faltered as he materialized right into Reid’s punch.

Reid’s fist connected squarely with his jaw, sending him crashing into the debris.

The Jackal, sensing its tamer in danger, teleported to his side, growling lowly.

Reid cracked his knuckles, exhaling. “Looks like you’re not untouchable after all.”

The attacker wiped the blood from his lip, then grinned.

“Not bad,” he admitted. “But let’s see if you can keep up.”

With a snap of his fingers, the Jackal’s glow intensified.

Then they vanished again—

But this time, two blurs shot toward the team.

“Double,” Clara muttered, already adjusting her aim. “Now that’s just unfair.”

Reid barely had time to process it before both blurs streaked toward them from different angles.

“Split!” he ordered.

Marcus tackled Ethan out of the way as one of the Jackals reappeared mid-air, claws slashing downward. It hit nothing but concrete as they rolled clear.

Meanwhile, the second blur shot toward Clara—

Bang!

Her gun fired, but the shot barely missed as the second Jackal twisted mid-teleport, dodging with unnatural reflexes.

Lisa intercepted it, her lightning wyvern sending a blast of lightning at it, only for the Jackal to vanish again right before impact.

Reid clenched his fists, his mind racing. The Jackal’s teleportation was already a problem, but now there were two of them?

Or was there?

“Ethan!” Reid barked. “Tell me that’s not a real duplicate!”

Thanks to Ethan’s tinkering, the tablet had been rewired the tablet and activated a couple of interesting features.

Ethan, tapped a few times on the tablet, he had been recording the fight all this while so he was reviewing the footage but through infrared.

“I don’t think so! There’s only one heat signature, but its movements are desyncing—like an afterimage!” he answered.

“An illusion?” Marcus grunted, keeping Ethan behind him as he watched the shifting blurs.

“No, I don’t think that’s it,” Clara said, adjusting her aim. “I think it’s moving between two places so quickly it looks like two of them.”

“Then why is the two attacking at the same time” Marcus asked.

[Space is connected to time, so it’s using that to its advantage,] Evo started. [It’s applying the Many-Worlds Interpretation concept. One of them is the real one, while the other is acting as if the real one had made a different decision—playing out an alternate possibility in real-time.]

“F*ck” he cursed out loud.

His team had the same reaction when he relayed Evo’s explanation but they quickly calmed down, they were in the middle of a battle and they couldn’t afford to lose their calm.

Knowing the right one would be tricky, but if only one was real in their timeline, then..

“Lisa!” he called. “I need an AOE attack in its direction!”

With a nod, Lisa carried out his order. Her wyvern floated high into the air and released multiple lightning strikes in the direction the Jackals moved.

Electric arcs crackled through the dust cloud, and for the briefest moment, Reid saw it—two blurs flickering in and out of existence.

One of them hesitated.

“There!” Reid lunged forward, aiming for the one that didn’t instantly shift.

His fist shot forward—

The Jackal materialized right into his strike again, but this time, it twisted mid-motion, avoiding a direct hit.

Reid was ready.

He grabbed the Jackal by its foreleg and pulled.

The beast yelped as its momentum was thrown off, and in that moment of instability, Lisa’s wyvern sent a concentrated bolt straight at it.

The attack struck, sending the Jackal skidding backward with a pained snarl.

Its tamer clicked his tongue. “Tch. So you figured it out.”

Reid didn’t let up. “Marcus—now!”

Marcus roared, slamming both fists into the ground. The shockwave sent a fresh wave of debris and dust into the air, but this time, Lisa’s wyvern charged the particles—turning the dust into a field of static electricity.

The space around it distorted again, but, for the first time today, it didn’t teleport.

“Got you,” Clara whispered.

Bang!.

A single bullet punched through the static haze, and the Jackal howled as it collapsed, sparks still dancing across its fur.

Its tamer cursed under his breath, stepping back as he reassessed the situation.

“You really don’t know when to stay down, huh?” he muttered, rubbing his jaw where Reid had punched him earlier.

“We could say the same to you,” Reid shot back.

The man exhaled. Then, with a sharp whistle, his Jackal shimmered and faded—retreating back into his inventory.

A smirk played on his lips. “You win this round.”

And just like that, with a shift in the space around him, he disappeared.