Hunt: 8.11

Posted on May 24, 2021 by Rhythm

James:

The two boys walked the earthen pathway back to town in relative quiet; both half-marvelling at the newfound stillness of their environment. The patter of the rain had become such a constant that James had almost tuned it out. Now that it was gone, its absence almost rang in his ears.

It was nice, a break in the clouds allowing the last thin shafts of early evening sunlight to splay across the canopy, picking out the rich greens and browns of the reserve in a gentle orange. James liked the smell; rich earth and freshness.

“So,” Cody asked as they crested a small hill. “What happens now?”

James shrugged.

“I dunno, really,” he said. “I’ve never done this part before. We tell Finch, I guess. Then he can take it to the home office, and they’ll see what they can do now that Whiskers is being an adult.”

“Think they can get ‘em home?”

James sighed at that.

“Probably not,” he admitted. “Getting through to other worlds is super hard. There’s only a handful of people who can do it. Even then, finding the right planet’s really tough. Maybe if they find the hole that it got dumped here through? Not much chance outside of that.”

Cody cocked his head at that, starting slowly down the hill towards the lake.

“So… Going to other planets is still a thing, right? You’re not just messing with me?”

“Oh, yeah,” James replied. “I was on one for a while. It was… pretty.”

Cody snickered, then shook his head.

“You’re kinda surreal, you know that?”

James raised an eyebrow.

“I am?”

“Yeah.” Cody glanced back at him, and caught the surprise in his expression. He elaborated: “Okay. Like… How’d you know all this stuff?” he asked. “Where’d you learn it?”

“My grandparents, mostly.” James shrugged. “They’ve been doing monster hunter stuff for a couple hundred years- and, yeah, I get it. It feels weird for me too. I’ve been surrounded by it all for a year now, and some of it used to freak me out, too. I know it’s a lot. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Cody murmured.

James wasn’t really sure why he had. It felt awkward.

A short quiet, then Cody carried on:

“It’s not a bad thing. Just…. Intense. I don’t know what to do with it sometimes. Like when you start talking like a war vet, or I find out you’re a rape survivor, and I’m not supposed to mention it. Just a lot of stuff where I don’t know what to say.”

James winced.

“Trust me. With the rape stuff, just leave it. If I wanna talk, I will.”

“Okay. Fair,” Cody answered hurriedly. “But, I mean… I’m your boyfriend. Aren’t we supposed to be able to talk about this stuff?”

James laughed at that, then raised a placating hand when Cody scowled.

“I mean, yeah. You’re my boyfriend, but… I mean. I’ve known you for like. Five days. I don’t even tell my parents or my therapist some of what’s up here.” He tapped his head. “We made out one time. There’s kind of a gap there.”

Cody conceded the point with a sigh.

“Well… You should talk to someone.”

I usually talk to Casper.

James did not say that. It felt like the wrong time to admit that he confided more with his cute roommate than with his somewhat boyfriend. Life was weird. He changed the subject.

“Speaking of. What do we do with that?”

“Hmm?” Cody hummed. “Do with what?”

“Well,” James shrugged. “I’m done here, right? I’m probably gonna be heading home in a couple days. Does that mean we break it off, or…?”

There was an uncomfortable shared silence there.

“We could try long distance?” Cody pointed out. “I heard it sucks, but at least it’s something… Do you want to keep this going?”

James considered that a moment. Did he? That was a hard question, now that he thought about it.

“I don’t know,” he muttered. “… Not really?” He raised a placating hand when Cody winced. “I know. I’m sorry. I just… I kinda thought you were gonna be a vacation boyfriend. Like. Try some stuff together, then go home and get on with my life, you know?”

Cody sighed, but nodded.

“Yeah, I do.”

James took a breath.

“But it feels unfair, cuz we never went on a real date, with all the monster fights, and I… Kinda feel like I owe you more?”

“Dude,” Cody snickered. “You don’t owe me anything. I knew you were gonna be leaving when I asked you out. It’s fine.”

James gave a weak smile.

“… Thanks, Cody. You were a good boyfriend, for what it’s worth.”

The silence after that lasted just long enough to become awkward.

“C’mon,” Cody muttered. “Let’s get back. They’ll be worried.”

Finch:

Not for the first time, Agent Finch tried calling James’ phone.

“The number you are calling has been disconnected.”

He swore, then went back to scanning the mud beneath his feet.

He’d given up tracking James early on. The boy’s footprints were surprisingly hard to make out along the mossy ground, even with the cessation of the rain. He was too light. His tracks weren’t deep, and he had a tendency to float without thinking for a few dozen feet at a time when there weren’t any civilians around. It made following after him near impossible. Luckily, the trail the nature spirit left behind was a little clearer.

The situation in Rockford had been sorted; he’d knocked down a tree into the hole in the cinema wall before the solitary staff member had noticed it was even there. No witnesses. They’d been lucky. Then, with that particular crisis averted, he’d set off after his companion, as fast as he could go.

James was a good kid. He was strong, and smart, and surprisingly capable, for his age. Finch couldn’t fault him for how he’d handled the Spirit’s attack. But he was still thirteen. He was still a kid, and kids made mistakes. That made him vulnerable, no matter the foe. Finch was worried. He’d been at it for over half an hour already, and he was growing more aware with each passing second that he was losing ground.

It was as he drew near the sunken cave where he and James had first encountered the nature Spirit that he finally caught sight of them: Two figures walking together through the trees a couple hundred feet away, the evening sunlight playing oddly about their outlines. He squinted.

Young figures. Male. Adolescent, by their height. One with a rain jacket about his waist, the other with a shock of waterlogged black hair. It seemed like they were talking.

‘James? The fuck is he doing out here with Cody?’

He took a breath to call out to them both, before a new voice forestalled him, this one significantly closer.

“Please don’t. I’d like to talk to you alone.”

Finch’s head snapped around at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light, his hand already half-raised into a casting stance, before he caught sight of who was speaking. An old woman leaned against the trunk of a nearby tree, arms wrapped in around herself, shoulders covered by a cardigan utterly unfit for rain, refusing to shiver in the cold. He recognized her in under a second, a face right out of his mission briefing.

“… Lady Toranaga. May I ask what’s going on?”

The older woman shrugged.

“Not a lot to tell. The spirit situation’s handled, for the moment. My grandson called for some advice. I decided to observe.”

Finch scowled.

“Little shit,” he muttered. “He should have called me.”

Another shrug.

“Broke his phone. I lent him mine, but I doubt he has your number memorized.”

Finch grunted.

“And Cody?” he asked. “Is there a point to calling his boyfriend out here?”

Tsuru smirked.

“So that’s Cody, is it?” she said wrily. “I did wonder. He was called to bring out a peace offering after my grandson had the spirit subjugated.” She turned her eyes to him for a moment. “You’re the one in charge of taking James down, aren’t you.”

Finch winced. There wasn’t any point in lying. She wouldn’t have asked if she didn’t already know the answer. He nodded.

“Who told you?”

Tsuru snickered.

“No one. But, your government developed a counter strategy for my son. It stands to reason that you’d do so with my grandson too. His first full mission was the most opportune time to get a sense of him, so I assumed. What’s your plan, so far?”

He hesitated for a moment, then answered with a resigned shrug.

“Sedatives,” he admitted. “Aerosolized for inhalation. If that failed, probably a coordinated attack from myself and members of my team.” He saw her grin at that, and shrugged. “He’s strong, and you’ve got his instincts honed surprisingly well already. His reflexes are great, but he’s prone to tunnel vision. An arrayed attack lets us catch him off guard and crack his shield so someone has a chance to tranq him.”

A snicker.

“Good start,” Tsuru allowed. “But don’t rely on tunnel vision. I may have trained that out of him before too long.”

Finch heaved a sigh.

“Noted,” he muttered. “What about you?”

“Me?” she asked, one eyebrow raised.

Finch gestured to her.

“You’re here, aren’t you? Interrogating me on the plan. Digging for information. What’s your angle? Will you try and stop us, if it comes to it?”

The witch considered him for a moment.

“That depends on your side, I think,” she said at length. “If there’s cause for it, I might support you. That’s why I allow these plans at all. Better you have an option that keeps him safe. On the other hand, if it’s done to attack my family, I’ll put an end to it. That’s all there is to say.”

Finch wasn’t sure what to say to that; either to the intimation that this woman would turn on his country if given half a mind, or to the idea of how much harm she’d cause. He kept his peace.

“I’ll pray it never comes to that,” he said evenly.

Tsuru laughed.

“Likewise. Now, come on.” She gestured towards the distant boys. “They’re almost at the lake. We might as well go meet them.” She smiled. “Not everyday you get to embarrass your grandson in front of his date.”

Finch forced a laugh.

“You’re a cruel woman, Ma’am.”

“I can be.”

Previous Chapter: Next Chapter:

Hunt: 8.8

Posted on March 16, 2021 by Rhythm

Previous Chapter: Next Chapter:

James:

James knelt on the ground, fully dressed once more, debating whether or not to bother with his one remaining shoe.

What to do now?

The spirit was still hunting him. He could feel it nearby, moving through the underbrush, surprisingly stealthy, given it’s bulk. He’d glimpsed it once, about half an hour ago, its oaken hide shifting against the backdrop, growing a patina of moss and loose bark, matching its environment like a chameleon; near invisible.

He’d given up on tracking it by eye after that, instead setting loose tendrils of his power to float about himself, tracking his surroundings by disturbances in the air. An approach which only occasionally led to him being unduly startled by a passing squirrel. It worked, though. He could sense it.

What to do? If he let it pounce, he could take it by surprise, but every time it got its jaws around his shield, it took another measure of his energy to recover. That was the problem, here. He was stronger than this thing. There wasn’t a single move it could make that he didn’t have a way to counter; but he was broadly mortal, and it wasn’t. He could wail on it with all his might until his energy ran dry, and he’d get nothing out of it except maybe scaring it off. For the spirit’s part, all it had to do was wait till he fell asleep.

He felt its enormous form crouch low in the underbrush, moving slow so as to avoid alerting him. He stood, then turned to face it. His opponent froze, just as he’d hoped. It was a hunter, after all. It knew that he was strong enough to hurt it. It wouldn’t attack while he was facing it. Its disguise was alarmingly good. Even looking directly at it, he could barely make the spirit out, part of his brain telling him it was just another fallen tree and some bushes, its edges blending so well into the underbrush that its outline was impossible to discern. Good. It wouldn’t move while he was watching. That earned him some thinking time.

If I don’t do something, this thing’s gonna wear me down to the bone. C’mon, James. What would Batman do?

Distressingly, the answer he eventually came up with was not something Batman would have ever done.

In a calm, unhurried manner, James slipped a hand into his pocket, and pulled out his phone, before dialling in a number. He pressed call, and put it to his ear, still staring at the spirit’s half-concealed form.

The person on the other end picked up after the first five rings.

“Hello, squirt,” his grandmother murmured. “How goes the hunt?”

For once, it was James who shifted the conversation into Japanese, just on the off chance that the spirit understood english.

“Hey, Baba. Quick work question. How do you deal with an angry forest spirit?”

A momentary pause while his grandmother considered.

“That’s a lot bigger than we thought you would be facing. Are you okay?”

James noticed a faint greenish glow beginning to build around the frozen spirit’s outline, and began slowly backing away, working as best he could to keep his voice level.

“I’m fine so far. It’s weaker than me, but I can’t make it go away. It’s gonna be a problem when I have to sleep. I had to push it into the reserve cuz it picked a fight with me in town. Staying out here for now. Giant wooden tiger thing. Don’t want it following me back.”

There was a brief pause as his grandmother considered. For his part, James stopped backing away from the spirit, if only because his back had hit a tree. It had stopped glowing now.

“I see,” Tsuru murmured, a note of concern buried in her voice. “Are you still in danger? Is it close by?”

“Pretty close,” he answered, his voice tight. “It’s hunting me.”

When his grandmother answered, it was with a good deal more intensity.

“Right. First, you’ll need to-”

The attack came at him from behind; a vast mass of compacted earth and gravel that charged through his sensory web at top speed, before smashing the tree at his back as though it wasn’t even there. With what little warning he had, he made it all of half a step before it struck him in the back, the sheer force of it launching him through the undergrowth, his shield sparking static all around him. His motion only halted when, ironically enough, he struck the still stationary form of the spirit’s prior incarnation. Even with his shield up, the impact hurt, a knobbled mass of wood that had once been the creature’s front paw slamming into his gut, cutting him off, mid-scream.

Had it not been for nine months of combat training, James Toranaga might have died right then. Nine months ago, he would have stayed on the floor. Nine months ago, he’d have spent a second being stunned. That second would have given the spirit’s follow up attack the time to land.

As it was, however, his reaction time was rather good. Still gagging, he shoved himself upwards into the air, avoiding the earthen tiger’s jaws by less than a foot.

As he climbed up above the canopy, the monster roared its fury up from underneath him. He shot an ineffectual wind-blast at its face on general principle.

“Not your friggen chew toy,” he mumbled, still coughing. “Better not have broke my phone.”

He moved back over the top of the canopy, spying the ground below for his phone. The spirit, seemingly out of sheer bloody mindedness, prowled along beneath him, snarling occasionally up at its prey.

James was not in the mood.

He spotted his phone, still intact, about half a second before the spirit positioned itself above it.

“… Move.”

The monster raised its head, bared its earthen fangs, and roared.

… Nope. I’m done. Screw this and screw you.

James dug into his spellbook.

Unlikely as it may have seemed, Hideyoshi and Tsuru Toranaga were actually very responsible teachers. James’ training under them had never been allowed out of hand, had always emphasized safety and control, and, most importantly, had been based near entirely on the more defensive points of combat.

They would not, in a million years, have taught him a spell as dangerous as the one he now dug into. Unfortunately for them, his powers had developed this one on their own. He wasn’t in a hurry to tell anyone about it, either.

“Get off my phone.”

The spirit glowered at him as hard as a giant tiger made of rocks can glower. He raised a hand, fingers splayed, energy just starting to gather at his palm.

“Last warning. I wanna talk to Baba.”

The spirit didn’t move.

James scowled darkly at it.

“Your funeral.”

For a moment, James’ powers seemed to weaken, his body growing heavy in the air, his shield fading to a bare bubble above his skin. He felt gravity begin to tug him down towards the ground.

There was a sound like a power line short-circuiting, then he shot the spirit in the shoulder with a bolt of lightning.

The monster roared; not in anger, this time, but in agony. It reared back as the bolt seared through the gravel about its back and side, molten slag trickling from the point of impact like blood from an open wound. To James’ surprise, it fled, its left foreleg giving out as it tried to put weight on its now half melted shoulder. It fell on its side and scrabbled in the dirt for a moment in its haste to get away, paws carving deep trenches in the earth.

“Yeah!” James shouted after his retreating foe, understandably annoyed. “You like that, hecker!? I am your God, and I am pissed!”

He belatedly retrieved his phone, and brought it to his ear.

“Baba? You still there?”

No reply.

He pulled the phone back from his ear, and looked at the screen. There was a nasty crack running all the way down it. The picture was glitched and frozen, halfway between the call screen and the home screen.

Son of a flip!

James was still trying to decide whether or not to extract a painful revenge for his fallen phone, before he heard a distant, very human sounding scream.

Crap.

He set off in the direction of the noise, images of some terrified camper crossing paths with the wounded spirit playing vividly in his brain.

“-ames!”

… Wait. What?

He drew closer, sticking to the canopy, the leaves keeping him largely hidden from those beneath him as he moved. He recognised that voice. It was louder now. Easier to discern.

“James! Where are you!?”

“Baba?” he muttered, uncertain.

Sure enough, as he floated near, he caught sight of his grandmother sprinting through the sodden treeline, an expression of utter panic on her face, and a mobile phone held against her head.

“I don’t know what happened, Peter. One second, we were talking. The next, he screamed and the line went dead. I ported to where the phone finder app said he’d be, but he’s not-”

She stopped dead when she saw him floating there, gazing bemusedly down at her in the rain.

“… Hi, Baba. Sorry. Whiskers the Wondercat broke my phone.”

“False alarm,” his grandmother muttered belatedly into her phone. “There was a problem. He handled it. He’s fine. Talk later.”

She hung up the call, put her phone in her pocket, and waved her grandson down towards her.

“Young man, you have precisely five seconds to give your grandmother a hug.”

James wisely did as he was told. His grandmother’s grip was much tighter than usual, he noted, and she was in no hurry to let him go.

“Sorry I scared you,” he mumbled into her shoulder.

“It’s fine,” she replied, reluctantly releasing him. “You’re safe. That’s all I care about. Now, you said you needed some advice? Something about a forest spirit?”

“Ugh, yeah,” James grumbled. “It’s been trying to kill me for like, three hours. It ate one of my sneakers. I need to figure out why it’s so pissed so I can calm it down. Otherwise, I think it’s gonna keep on trying till it works.”

“Hmm,” Tsuru murmured. “Tricky. You don’t often see a spirit holding grudges without a reason. Can you think of anything you might’ve done?”

James gave a helpless kind of shrug.

“I mean, not really? I found it like, two days ago, while I was cave diving, and it’s been trying to eat me ever since. Cody thinks it maybe tried to skip town when me and Finch got here.”

“Cody?” Tsuru asked.

“Just a kid I know from town,” he replied, a bit too quickly. “Nothing special.” There was a moment’s awkward silence at that. “Um… D’you wanna see the body it left behind? It made a new one out of rocks to get the drop on me.”

Tsuru gave him an appraising look of the kind that told him she knew he was hiding something, then shrugged.

“Lead the way.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“So, about this Cody-”
Previous Chapter: Next Chapter:

Tide: 7.6

Posted on July 16, 2020 by Rhythm

Previous Chapter: Next Chapter:

Charlie:

There’s a kind of primal panic in suffocation. A kind of shock. Limbs act of their own accord. Lungs wrestle against themselves. The conscious mind is put on hold, supplanted by instincts and an ice-white fear.

‘I can’t breathe.’

The boy had never experienced it before.

There was water in his throat. He flailed, his legs kicking for the far distant surface, his hands rising to his neck, trying to do something about the pressure in his chest. He tried to scream, water passing painfully across his vocal chords.

He was going to die.

The lava man reached for him, then recoiled as the boy sent another amber bolt spinning through the water, a bare fraction as powerful as the last. Above them, his companion screamed, the stress of it seeming to almost bend the water around them out of shape.

He had to hold on.

A portal. If he could just make a portal. He tried to focus. His lungs seized. His legs curled themselves in against his chest, even as he tried to paddle his way up. He was sinking.

The lava man stepped towards him, a glow of buried light shining up from underneath them.

His body hit the seafloor with a muffled thump. Whatever barriers had been placed over him were fading. He felt his skin grow hot.

He didn’t want to die like this.

The edges of his vision began to fade as the lava man stood over him, a single burning hand reaching down towards his chest. He felt his skin cooking even as he tried to pull away.

His companion reached them with a soundless roar, bearing down with desperate speed. Forty feet. Twenty. The lava man jerked towards it, one burning hand clamping down on Charlie’s wrist, his free arm raising as the ground below them split, another spire of molten glass spewing forth from underneath. His companion neither countered, nor dodged, instead slamming itself against the lava man’s counter at ramming speed.

The ocean roared. The earth shook. The boy had a moment to register the sea of molten glass beneath the oily floor, before his companion’s body struck them, and all three were plunged down into it.

Pain. Glass. Fire.

He felt it pulsing across his being, writhing as if every inch of him was on fire. The shock was such that it took a moment to realize the agony wasn’t his.

He’d stopped choking. His throat still ached and his lungs still heaved with the strain of trying to breathe; but he wasn’t dying. His barrier was back as well, flaring gently around him as tonne after tonne of melted silt flowed on about his form. For a moment, he was confused. Then he understood.

His companion was suffering. He could feel it nearby, half-buried in the molten silt and boiling sea, its barriers thrown aside in the need to keep him safe. He tried to offer it some comfort, but his voice was too quiet.

He started swimming through the glass, already searching frantically through the spells buried inside the creature’s mind. Attacks. Transmission of energies. Summoned allies. No. No. He needed healing. He had to help. A spell for cold? Cold would do. He latched on to his companion’s power, and began to shape it in his mind.

He made it less than halfway towards his friend before the lava man re-emerged, darting up before him as he made his approach; barely visible amidst the glow, even from a foot or so away. The man looked to the boy, then to his companion, his expression angry, puzzled. The boy had no time for him.

The lava man reached forwards, something sparking power about his arms. The boy was too quick for him.

The cold-snap left his body in a pulse, omni-directional and quick. The ambient glow faded just as fast as it had filled his sight, his world now solid; his movement hindered. His friend’s pain died down a tad at that. He wondered if he’d managed to freeze the ocean overhead.

The boy wasn’t the only one stuck, it seemed. The lava man went still as the world around them turned to crystal, the light of his own form fading to a barely present glow.

That wasn’t to last for long, it seemed. Even as the boy watched, the man once more began to move, the heat flowing out around him as his inner light returned. The glass softened. The man inched forward.

The boy had neither the time nor the inclination to be gentle. He plunged into his companion’s mind, and pulled out the most violent power he could find. He gritted his teeth as the glass around him split, then pushed his body forwards.

Pure kinetic force. Unfocused. Angry.

His punch was such that the world around them broke, the newly contiguous plateau of frozen silt fracturing into a hundred thousand shards as the lava man passed through it. The boy spared no thought for how far the man had gone. He was focused on his friend.

The creature was struggling, its tendrils writhing against the bedrock in an effort to pull it free, even as every motion tore new wounds in its fire-blackened skin.

Its voice was plaintive in his mind. Fearful. Small.

He moved to its side and gave what help he could. A spell to dig at the shell of rock around it, another one to push it free.

When they found the water again, the lava man was gone. So too was the creature that had tried to wrestle with his friend. Looking up, though, the boy still saw the star man up above. He could have sworn he saw the light of it glowing brighter.

For the first time, his companion wanted them to run. The boy shook his head. The star man would only follow them if they fled. The boy had no intent to let him.

His companion’s energy was weakening; five spells’ worth of borrowed force, each cast with a mountain-weight of strength, and each made wasteful by his total lack of skill. Their power waned. He had to think this through.

Hideyoshi:

Hideyoshi watched his wife retreat, and gave a nod. Good. That should be far enough.

It was going well, all things considered. Whatever Peter had done before Charlie sent his body flying from the water had clearly caused the Whale harm. It moved slower now, each tendril jerking spasmodically as it tried and failed to swim without causing its body further harm. Something had broken down its shield. Perhaps it was weakened by whatever powers Charlie was digging into.

It didn’t matter. Tsuru and Peter were clear. This would all be over soon. He put his hands together, and readied his attack.

He would use everything he had for this. Every drop of power, compressed first into an orb between his hands. Then he would cast it into the depths. A harpoon of solid sunlight, built to skewer him a Whale. He charged it up.

The portal opened some twenty feet above him, a two foot hole in spacetime, letting forth a torrent of water. He let it sizzle off him with a laugh.

‘Nice try, Charlie. Water might dampen fire, but you’ll need more of it than tha-’

The boy’s body heat vanished from below him, only to re-emerge above his head.

Hideyoshi put all his strength into his shield. Then Charlie punted him into the sea.

Charlie:

Another portal saw him back at his companion’s side just as the sea above began to burn. He couldn’t help but spare a glance at it as he pulled himself into place on his companion’s back.

It was quite a sight, the star-man’s body flaring sporadically amidst an ever expanding plume of subaquatic steam, the heat of his body doing its utmost to hold back the rushing tide around him.

It wasn’t enough. The boy watched as the star man began his climb towards the surface. Slow, fighting for every inch of distance, yet making headway all the same. The boy shrugged. It wouldn’t kill him, but it would do. He placed a hand on one of his companion’s fins.

It was time for them to run.

The creature moved slowly, at first; limping, injured. He told it to go faster and, scarred skin creaking and cracking at the stress, his friend complied. He did his best to share the pain. They could not afford to slow.

Already, he could feel the enemy gaining ground, even if every glance behind them showed him nought but empty water. He knew their third pursuer wasn’t giving up.

Sure enough, after less than a minute, there it was, the elongated shape of that silvered water-dragon winding ever onward in their slipstream, so vast that the depths obscured it well before he had a chance to spy the tail. The boy doubted his friend could make it through another bout with the thing. He silently begged for greater speed.

Already close to breaking with the pain, his friend complied.

The following minutes were tense. That final burst of effort had been enough. They were pulling ahead once more. Their progress was slow, painfully slow, every second of it a strain. Inch by inch, the boy and his beast regained their ground.

The dragon’s head was barely more than a distant shadow in the water when the final disaster struck. When it did, it was something of a surprise.

A faint pop.

A spark of light below them.

He cast his gaze around. Nothing.

One second. Two. Three.

A female figure suspended above them in the water, sparking green light dancing about her form.

The sight connected to something in his brain. A forest full of long dead trees and fog.

‘Aw, crap. It’s James’ grandma.’

What unfolded from the woman then was like sewing thread, a thousand or more strands of it, floating loose of her and extending through the water; the closest thing to a jellyfish this ocean had ever seen.

They tried to swim beneath it. Tsuru Toranaga drifted down to meet them. The strands began to catch, and where they caught, they stuck, anchoring on his companion’s flesh like steel cords and superglue.

His companion thrashed, trying to pull away. That only caused more of them to catch, tangling on tendrils and fins. Binding. Slowing.

Behind them, the dragon started gaining ground.

The beast roared. The boy did the same.

This wasn’t fair. They had almost nothing left. He glared at the woman up above them, then launched himself towards her.

To his credit, this action caught the woman by surprise. Partly because it was dumb. Within the first few feet, he was entangled. By the time he reached her, he could barely move.

But he did reach her.

He dug into what remained of his companion’s might. As the dragon bore down upon them, the boy twisted a palm towards Tsuru Toranaga, a bolt of amber aimed towards her gut, too close for her to dodge.

The woman vanished with a quiet pop.

So did the threads.

They were free. The dragon was right behind them.

He re-connected with his companion. The two began to flee once mo-

The ocean split.

That was when James Toranaga plunged his wind-bound hand through the sea, wrapped his fingers around the creature’s form, and began to drag it up.

That was all it took for the dragon to catch up, its snakelike body coiling and wrapping about his friend, its claws scratching. Teeth ripping. His friend barely had the strength left to fight. All the while, James yelled, dragging them ever closer to the surface.

He knew that voice. He knew the face that it connected to. He knew James, whether in part or in full, he wasn’t sure. He knew that yell. James cared too much about things, sometimes. God, he could be loud. The boy was his friend. That was why this was going to suck.

James’ arm had punched a hole, a pillar of stable air between his companion and the surface. Charlie stepped into it.

“James?”

Nothing changed. Charlie took a breath.

“If you don’t back off, I’m gonna die.”

The yelling stopped.

“… What?” his friend asked. “How?”

Charlie shrugged.

“I dunno. I guess I’ll find a way.”

When James spoke again, his voice was angry.

“Dude,” he muttered. “I swear, if you give me any more of your stupid crap. I’m gonna-”

Charlie raised a finger to his throat, the tip of it slightly glowing. James stopped.

This felt shitty. He wished he knew how to explain.

“Look,” he tried. “I’m… broken. It’s-” he gestured to the beast beneath his feet. “My friend. It’s fixing me. I don’t want it to stop.”

“… You’re not gonna kill yourself, Charlie.”

At that, all the boy could do was shrug.

“Maybe,” he said honestly. “I dunno. I just-” he swept a loose gesture with his free arm about himself. “I don’t like this. At all. Don’t make me figure out how it has to end.”

For a long time, the two were quiet; beneath them, even the beasts had fallen still. Tsuru emerged overhead. She didn’t speak. She was frowning.

“Charlie,” James tried, his voice almost pleading. “This is wrong.”

“Yeah.” Charlie muttered. “Sorry.”

“Don’t follow me.”

Previous Chapter: Next Chapter:

Tide: 7.5

Posted on June 30, 2020 by Rhythm

Previous Chapter: Next Chapter:

James:

James had, as it happened, been correct. His instincts had led him true. His splitting of the ocean had found just the right spot to pinpoint both his targets; Charlie and the beast now both floundering on the seabed.

He had found them, even if his titan’s arms were already shaking from the weight of the water pressing against his form. Even if Charlie spared him little more than a glare as he clambered to his feet, before returning his attention to his captor. He’d still found them.

He could still hope.

It was huge. Swollen. Inches of ichorous oil sitting thick over skin that could have been either leather or foetid scale. Fins the width of football posts flared wide along a trio of tendrils, each themselves like elongated train cars, flailing in its efforts to swim through the empty air.

He felt a moment’s satisfaction there, marred when Charlie clambered up beside it and pressed his shoulder to its centre mass, heaving with all his might to push it back towards the surf.

The thing was big.

He was bigger.

He could do this. Maybe even fight it; drag it up onto the shoreline and hold it there until the sun, the air, or its own crushing weight brought it to its end.

He could win.

“Give. Him. Back.”

Charlie wasn’t listening. The boy didn’t even bother to turn around.

The Whale did, though. Its two side tendrils heaved against the silt to twist its centre skywards. A single bloodshot eye glared up at him.

James forced himself to smile at it.

Then it drove a spike into his brain.

It was the strangest feeling, having his coherence stripped away; like pain, but carried by sight and sound and smell. The world grew dark and clammy; not that he any longer cared to note the difference.

If he’d remembered how, he would have screamed.

His arms went limp. The water walls began to give, a billion tonnes of surf breaking into first geysers, then floods, ready to sink his quarry to the depths.

His titan form failed.

He lacked the capacity to care.

He was in the abyss now; nothing to see or hear in all the world.

Except it’s jaws upon his soul.

His life was saved by a flash of light that burned a line of fire through the sky, before coming to a halt a yard or two away from him. In some distant recess of himself, he thought it might be Jeremy the firebird.

It hung there briefly; a point of flame, smaller than a candle.

First, it swelled.

Then it warped.

Something white-hot streaked from it towards the creature’s centre mass, the bolt striking just as the water rose back up to coat the beast. For a moment, the water fizzed where it had struck, the bolt reduced to a pale glow beneath the surf. Then it exploded.

The monster screamed.

The world lost its thorns.

Clarity returned itself with surprising haste. James shuddered.

‘Okay. That sucked.’

James turned his gaze toward the fire, half expecting to now owe his life to a random bird. Instead, he found a finely featured boy hanging in the air before him, built of solid flame.

“Get back, James,” said the fire boy, not looking at him. “Right now.”

“Who-” James tried.

The world snapped out.

For one moment, he hung suspended in the void, his mind trying to acclimate to the sensation of being everywhere at once.

Then the world snapped back.

He was on a beach.

He spluttered.

“What?!”

A hand clamped down on his scalp. He yelped, turned to strike-

-His grandmother pulled him into a hug.

“You are in so much trouble,” she said, her voice catching.

He hugged her back. It was a reflex. Why was he shaking?

“Baba! Charlie’s-” he gagged. “Charlie-”

“I know,” she said, gently prying him off of her and standing upright. “We’re dealing with it. You stay here, okay?”

James began to protest. His head snapped to the side. His cheek stung.

That took a second for him to process.

Tsuru lowered her hand, her expression stony.

“I’m not losing you to that thing, James. Don’t make me knock you out.”

With that, she stepped off towards the shoreline, beyond which could still be seen the flaming figure floating above the water, now disgorging a gout of flame on the water’s surface.

As James’ brain slowly came back online, Tsuru’s outline began to flow. It was like mist or pipe-smoke, a trio of pale shapes rising from her skin and hanging in the air behind her, each of them slowly gaining solidity.

Soldiers. At least, that was what it looked like to James. Two with swords at waist, one in modern flak gear; colorless, like thickened smoke.

“Shield his mind,” she ordered in Japanese. “Keep him safe. Do not let him follow me.” She was gone before her men had time to nod.

The one in flak gear turned to James.

“You heard that, right, kid?” a male voice echoed. “You did good, but this is above your pay grade.”

Behind the first figure, one of the others raised an arm. James watched something flicker across his vision. The residual itching in his mind began to fade.

He turned his gaze toward the horizon, the flaming figure he now suspected to be his grandfather dodging and weaving through the air as the sea raised itself in columns to try and douse him.

“Kid,” the soldier asked. “You listening?”

James raised a hand to massage his still stinging cheek. He remembered the loosened pain of that thing gnawing on his soul. He remembered Charlie glaring at him.

“Fine,” he grumbled. “I promise I won’t try anything.”

“Unless they start losing.”

Charlie:

There was something about all this that the boy found unsettling. An unrest that went beyond the faint discomfort he had felt as he’d watched his companion devour his once-friend’s mind. It nagged him more with every passing second as he watched the dancing of the lights above the water. Something buried in his head. Flashes of a half-connected memory.

A star above a snowfield.

That fire in the sky was a threat.

They should leave. They ought to run.

His companion didn’t listen. It was angry. It had never been burned before. He could feel it bleeding through every facet of their connection.

Its rage was so much more than him.

It was a struggle not to drown in it.

Far above, the star-man loosed a bolt of piercing heat, plunging it down into the depths, highlighting all around it in a momentary orange glow. His companion dodged; far more agile, now that it was in the water, fins and tendrils flexing to spin it to the side, the boy clinging to its centre mass by force of mutual will.

The flame-spark hung there for a moment in the water, far more stable than it should have been. The boy understood the threat and sent his friend a warning a mere moment before the spark dispersed, the water all around it flashing into steam.

His companion laboured to shield the vastness of its form, but it did not have the time.

He didn’t need a link to hear it scream.

It fought back, its powers reaching through the water, twisting waves and torrents towards the star-man in the hope of quenching him.

The star-man dodged them easily.

Frustration.

His companion was not built for this. How was it to fight something that didn’t touch the water? He felt it searching through itself for something that could help. Words from languages it never spoke. Skills that it lacked the hands to use. A thousand spells, only a fraction of which it understood. Unable to even determine what could be of use.

As the light and heat began to fade, the boy caught sight of something new. A point on the ocean floor had begun to glow.

The spread of it was hard to tell, the silt covered over with a few years of his companion’s slime. All he could tell was that it was growing. A spot of heat an inch or so wide. Then a foot, then more.

He had a sinking feeling that he knew what would come next.

That feeling was proven right as a glowing hand pushed itself free of the molten silt, a man of flowing lava pulling himself into view.

For a moment, the two monsters just gazed at one another.

Then the lava man raised his arms, and a spire of molten substrate rose from the seafloor like some wretched sort of spear, impure glass forming and cracking on its surface as internal heat battled against the cooling forces of the water.

His companion pulled away before it struck. The lava man shifted pose. The spire exploded, ripping through the ocean in a thousand jagged spikes.

His companion’s fury echoed through the sea, and they were sand again.

This wasn’t good. Two adversaries now, both too strong to be ignored. His friend had barely been able to hold against the first.

He had to do something. He couldn’t just sit waiting on the sidelines. There had to be something he could do.

He had an idea.

The boy gave his companion a gentle pat, a thousand tiny ridges of cartilage and scale brushing beneath his fingers.

‘I can help,’ he said. ‘You have to let me go.’

He wasn’t prepared for the force of his companion’s denial. It was angry. It was scared. It didn’t want to be away from him.

He leaned forward, his forehead resting against its back.

‘You have to trust me.’

A moment of agonized deliberation, then whatever force had held him shackled to the creature’s back eased off.

He pushed away from it, trying to resist being buffeted as its gigantic form sent eddies through the water. He swam down towards the lava man, his focus split between navigating the depths and searching for something he’d glimpsed being tossed aside in his companion’s mind.

It didn’t take long for the lava man to spot him. A moment of surprise flickered across what passed for the being’s face, followed by determination. As the boy continued for the depths, the man waded forth to meet him, each step slowed by a cold and pressure that the boy no longer felt.

Above them, his companion and the star-man warred, each bout sending heat and fury rippling through the sea. The boy ignored it all, even when a third combattant came upon them, this one carried by a long, snake-like drake of a size with his companion.

He could worry about that later. He had to stay on task.

He had nearly reached the lava man. He thought he saw compassion in what now passed for the figure’s eyes. It was hard to tell, so distant from the sun.

The boy reached out a hand.

His enemy did the same.

He found what he’d been looking for in his companion’s mind:

A thousand spells it didn’t know how to use.

Peter:

It was all Peter Toranaga could do to keep from being torn apart as the boy he had come to save reached into a well of power far larger than himself, and loosed a bolt of amber from his palm.

He let it catch him by surprise. He should have been prepared.

What struck his shield then was, to Peter’s estimation, the most powerful attack that he had ever witnessed. It didn’t so much strike into him as break around him, the light blooming out across his chest, then out into the water like the flow of an aurora.

His shields were reinforced by more than a month’s collected energy. The spell carved through them like a butter knife.

He felt pain in the places it had flowed, a half-dozen trenches simply burrowed through him by an ocean-weight of force. He would bleed when he returned to human form.

To his credit, he reacted fast.

‘Shield his mind. Get him out of its control.’

Charlie was already paddling backwards in the water; but he was hardly the strongest swimmer.

Peter loosed his spell, watching in grim satisfaction as the faintly glowing barrier pulsed into being around the boy’s form.

He hadn’t expected for the Whale to panic, nor for Charlie to do the same. Panic they did, though, the Whale jerking around in the water above them, breaking loose its grapple with his mother’s dragon, before thrashing its way towards them like a raging bull.

Bad as that was, Charlie’s response was even worse.

Charlie started drowning.

Previous Chapter: Next Chapter:

Tide: 7.4

Posted on May 24, 2020 by Rhythm

Previous Chapter: Next Chapter:

Bermuda, Peter:

Peter would be first upon the breach. There had been no argument on that; though he could tell his father had wanted to. The topic had not been broached.

His parents had failed. There was no judgement to that. No recrimination. They knew it just as well as he did. They had failed to protect his son. This was his job now.

When the portal opened, he would be the one to storm the gap, however fortified the enemy had made it. He would pass through, he would destroy, and he would find his son. It was that simple. There was nothing to fear.

That didn’t mean there was no tension in the air as the assembled team waited for the gate to open. They were all quiet. Peter struggled to look at Jackie as she worked, kneeling in the ground as she searched for the tear her son had left in their reality. Was that how he looked to the rest of them? That ironclad look of calm? That stiffness in her shoulders? Those eyes that still radiated fear?

No. Of course not. Why would he look like that? There was nothing to be scared of. He was going to fix this.

He should say something to her. Something reassuring. She was his friend, after all. He opened his mouth, hesitated, then closed it again. No. It would be over soon enough anyway. Better to let the woman do her work.

He sighed.

Minutes passed. A whistling of the wind. The lapping of waves against the shore.

“Found it,” Jackie murmured, the lights already starting to spark blue around her as she spoke. “Bridging the gap in one minute.”

Peter unclipped his belt-flask and weighed it in his palm. Almost full. Several months of stockpiled power. Enough to fill out his reserves a dozen or so times over. He shook his head. Endurance would be pointless on the other side. His enemy would be flooded with magical energy. He would have to be as well.

He glanced at Jackie’s work, waited until she was only twenty seconds or so from the completion of her spell, then unscrewed the cap.

The fluid was just as foul as always. He swallowed every drop.

His skin began to glow.

It had perhaps been inevitable that Peter Toranaga would one day find an elemental form, his father being what he was. Such was the way with half-breeds, after all; to draw from the nature of their parents in some or other manner. For Peter, though, it had taken time. He had been well into his adolescence by the time he was powerful enough to make the shift, and even then, it was nowhere near as pure.

When his father touched the flame, it was to become something else entirely; devoid of substance or weight; of anything, save the heat.

For Peter, the transformation wasn’t quite so clean. He was fire, true enough; yet his body still possessed solidity. He didn’t grow, or fly, or feel a shift in his perception. Instead, he flowed, the heat gathering at his fingertips and falling in droplets to the earth. The sand fused into glass about his feet.

He would save his son.

The worlds connected. He felt the scratching in his mind. His calm broke at that.

Whatever it was, scrabbling at his soul, James had been stuck here with it for almost a day. He felt his son’s odds of survival plummet.

Behind him, his father had begun to speak. He stepped forward through the aperture.

‘Don’t panic,’ he told himself. ‘He’s a smart kid. He probably ran the moment he felt that thing nearby.’

The reassurance didn’t help.

It was almost a relief when the first attack came. At least it gave him something else to focus on. He didn’t have to wait long. The moment his feet touched the surface of the new world, there was a snap, something green and slender tearing free of the ground around him, sending sand plumes high into the air, lunging from everywhere at once. A good opening move; too quick for him to dodge.

He didn’t have time for this. He reached into his gathered energy well and used it to press his shield out. The barrier swelled around him like a bubble, crackling for a moment as the emerald cord slammed itself around it, a loop of lightning trying to constrict. He pushed his shield out further.

It wasn’t exactly surprising that they’d set up a trap. It was the only logical choice if his quarry ever expected to leave this world again. They had to have known his team would pursue them when they fled, and they had to know that his family would be unbeatable if allowed to absorb the power of this planet. Better to fight his people here, with the bottleneck of the portal and the time to prepare an ambush. This had been expected, but he’d thought they’d make a greater effort.

The lightning coil hissed with unspent energy as it tried yet harder to crush itself upon him, its one directive to cut his form to shreds. He pushed his shield out further, forcing the coil out with a sound like grinding rust. He glanced around. Crystal sands, red-boughed trees, and a gentle tide.

Still no sign of an ambush. Had they thought the lightning coil would be enough? Had they fled the psychic noise? It made no sen-

There was a faint pop a few dozen feet to Peter’s right. He glanced over, and met the eyes of an old, sallow looking man, a series of faint burns still healing on his face.

The man swore. Peter continued pushing his shield out. The lighting cord began to flicker. The enemy aimed his gun at Peter’s chest.

The first shot struck his shield with a force to split the sky, the sound of it piercing the relative quiet with an almost whiplike crack. His barrier sang with the weight of it.

‘Stop wasting my time.’

The lightning cord was there to waste his time. Hold him down while the gunman poured out shot after shot against him. It had to go. He dug into his power. A brief incantation, then his shield pulsed. The binding tore apart with a sound like crunching gravel.

Another empowered bullet set his shield thrumming like a base drum. Then another. He looked his attacker in the eye, shrunk his barrier down, and simply let the bastard shoot him, all the while pressing his power into the ground about his feet. He waited for the man to empty out his gun before he spoke, the sand glowing rose-pink with the heat of his abilities.

“Tell me where the children are,” he said plainly. “And I will try as hard as I can to let you live.”

Something rippled from the ocean then, a distortion in the air. The scratching in Peter’s head grew stronger. There was no time for this.

At his words, the enemy simply clicked open his revolver, and started to reload.

‘Well, I tried.’

He raised a hand towards his foe. The man popped out of existence a mere fraction of a second before a spire of molten glass rose to fill the space where he had been.

He cocked his head towards the portal.

“Kill him.”

When Sebastian Grey re-emerged, it was to find the full might of the Toranaga family arrayed against him. To his credit, he did not buckle. There was no pleading. No attempt to flee. Neither action would have saved him.

Once the fight was done, the three gathered. The traps were disposed of. They had their foothold. Now to begin the search.

Peter raised his arm toward the sea, the sunset glow of his transformation pushing through the fresh-made markings on his forearm to create an odd, faintly purple light. Hopefully this new familiar could find them.

Caleb had resisted at first, when told to hand it over, gratitude for his partner’s safe return warring with deeply coded paranoia. It was only when told the use to which it would be put that he relented. It had taken more patience than Peter was proud of not to take it from the boy by force.

“Well?” Hideyoshi asked. “Anything?”

Peter raised a hand for quiet. He had to focus. The bird’s senses were foggy; weakened by weeks of starvation on a planet that lacked the energy to sustain it and clouded by the newfound weight of magic in the air. It took time. There was something at the bottom of the sea. Something leaking its power into the water. It had a scent that seemed to terrify the hunting bird. He shifted his arm, searching for new trails on the wind.

Eventually, the bird caught a trace of something more familiar; the same scent that it had found scattered about his house. The smell of his son, along with something that could have been Charlie, were it not so tainted by the scent of burning plastic. He pointed.

“There,” he said, his eyes alighting on one of the distant islands. “Smells like Charlie’s with him. No doubt the other kidnappers are still out hunting fo-”

That was when the ocean split, the surface shearing apart a mile or so from the shore to send a plume of spray hundreds of feet into the air. When it cleared, all that was left behind was a long, wide trench, caving into itself in a set of hard right angles, as if someone had cut the water like a birthday cake.

Peter stopped talking, he and his parents turning as one to stare.

At that distance, it took a second or so for the sound of it to reach them, an echoing boom, followed by a low, rumbling roar, like the crashing of a distant storm. Then came the words, clear as a bell, even at such a distance.

“Give him back,” said his son.

‘James.’

As one, the three of them began to move, leaving Sebastian’s body to cool beneath a mound of faintly glowing glass.

Previous Chapter: Next Chapter:

Touch

A survival story

Tag Archives: Tsuru

Hunt: 8.11

Hunt: 8.8

Tide: 7.6

Tide: 7.5

Tide: 7.4