Storm Strider

The Mutant stomped once, and everyone—including Marisol—went tumbling overboard as it split the warship down in half.

… Fall on your feet, Marisol!

Don’t land on your back!

If you fall even once–

She didn’t even manage to finish her own thoughts. Somehow, she managed to twist mid-air and land on the tip of her glaives, skating a good ten metres back as the rest of the warship creaked and crumbled in front of her. The masts were falling. She watched with pained, watery eyes as the giant sails came down like trees felled by an unseen hand, splintered wood and knotted ropes raining down like deadly hail.

The crew was screaming, their voices drowned out by the storm. Those who’d been tossed far away enough were bobbing on the surface, clinging to debris, but some were struck by falling beams and others were dragged down by tangled ratlines. Far to her side, she spotted Enrique and a few of his close confidants clawing onto a piece of wood, but of the four dozen Harbour Guards who’d been on board, she spotted only half or so of their heads—and when the spotlights from the lighthouse shone down upon the sinking warship, all of them could do nothing but stare at the Mutant standing perfectly straight on the slanted bowsprit.

The spotlights shone through its translucent chitin. The form of its bony body segments, its twelve arms, its two legs, and its horn-like antennae were outlined in the flashing lightning behind it. If Marisol didn’t know any better, she’d even have thought the storm was bowing to it; wind and rain and water swirled around it like it was a god of the sea, but when it stared blankly down at all of them survivors of the warship, all she could think was the name she’d been hearing since the horseshoe crab island.

The plague of the ocean, ‘Plagas An Mar.’

[Identification Complete]

[Scientific Name: Caprellidae Amphipoda]

[Common Name: Skeleton Shrimp]

[Brief Description: Seven body segments, seven pairs of legs, and extremely difficult to detect—skeleton shrimps are remarkably slender and flexible, and each pair of limbs has a different function. The first two pairs are modified raptorial appendages that specialised in grabbing, cutting, and swimming. The third and fourth pairs are reduced swimming limbs that also double as gills and brood pouches where females raise their young. The fifth to seventh pairs are lined with segmented setae that allow them to grasp and anchor on hard surfaces. While their swimming ability may be relatively poor and they tend to drift along the flow of water, their highly specialised appendages allow them to–]

“Mutant sighted!” the lighthouse guards bellowed through their conches. “All warships, fire at will! Bring it down before it can reach the city!”

There was no hesitation. There was no delay. A hundred cannons from the dozen warships docked in front of them fired at once, cracking the sky with fiery streaks, and every last cannonball converged on the sinking warship that Mutant was standing on. Marisol braced her arms in front of her as wooden shrapnel flew everywhere, tearing through her skin, clothes, and hair. The resulting shockwave would’ve knocked her off her back, too, were she not pouring a hundred and ten percent of her focus into not falling—and while she managed to weather the shockwave by skating ten more metres back, the same could be said of the Mutant.

When the smoke cleared and thunder cracked, the Mutant emerged, standing atop the stormy sea with twelve claws wrapped around twelve cannonballs.

Then, it whipped its arms forward and sent the cannonballs flying back—the black streaks spearing through the dozen warships and decimating them in one fell swoop.

[... To the lighthouses, Marisol!] the Archive snapped, the little water strider poking her cheek over and over. [Get off the water! Do not engage it in battle!]

It was easier said than done. Her muscles seized up as she watched the Mutant reach down, pick up an entire mast, and chuck it at one of the still-intact warships in front of them. The warship managed to fire off another volley before the mast rammed straight through, detonating the gunpowder on board—the cannonballs were just more fuel for the Mutant to grab onto.

With a bored, idle click of its mandibles, the Mutant started walking towards the lighthouse on the left. Marisol’s eyes widened. She hadn’t noticed it before, but—just like her—it could stand on water. It flexed two of its arms, stretched two more, and with the remaining eight it scooped up more debris from the waves to toss at the lighthouse. Most of the projectiles merely bounced off the hard white stone, but it was evidently getting irritated by the crossbow bolts and harpoons it was getting pelted with by the lighthouse guards.

It lowered itself on all fourteen limbs, cracked its chitin, and then went under the water; disappearing from sight.

[Marisol! Get out of–]

She gnashed her teeth together and flicked the little water strider, skating straight over to Enrique before grabbing him by his collar. He understood her immediately, grabbing another man’s collar, and that man did the same to another man, forming a chain of six people; she dragged them all ashore onto the base of the lighthouse on the right, practically throwing them up onto the rocks with her superhuman strength.

Then, she skated back out and did it all over again, pulling all of the surviving Harbour Guards ashore as she kept stealing glances at the Mutant entering the lighthouse on the left by punching out a shrimp-sized hole at the bottom.

She couldn’t see what was going on behind the thick white walls, but she could hear the screaming, the thumping, entire sections of the giant lighthouse being punched out from inside as the Mutant made its way up to the very top. By the time she dragged the last of the Harbour Guards ashore, the glass dome at the top of that lighthouse exploded with a belching roar, the entire building going up in flames.

[... Generally speaking, there are three types of bugs.]

[First, ‘Critter’ bugs are small bugs. You can see them everywhere. They are the spies and the scouts of the Swarm, but they do not typically fight or do anything normal critters do not do. As far as we care, they are bugs we squash under our boots without sparing a single glance, and eating them does not yield many points.]

[Then, ‘Giant’ bugs are the bugs you have been facing the past few months. Bugs like the fairy shrimp, the horseshoe crab, and the remipede are the frontline soldiers of the Swarm. They are also what humans with systems typically consume to gain points, and while their sizes can range from three metres to upwards of a hundred metres—the horseshoe crab and the remipede are exceptions I will explain later—they are still unintelligent creatures at the end of the day. They are simply oversized critters, and if you are simply ‘stronger’ than them, you can overpower them. You can slay them.]

[However, ‘Mutant’ bugs are human-like. They typically stand on two feet, and they compress their incredible muscle density into a small, human-like form. A Giant can evolve into a Mutant if they devour enough humans in the same way humans can gain points from devouring insects, and once they become a Mutant, whatever abilities they already had will typically be amplified tenfold, as well as augmented with special effects.]

[If a Mutant devours enough humans, they will become Lesser Great Mutants—who are capable of human speech—and if they devour even more, they may become Great Mutants, the lords of the Swarm, of which there are only seven known individuals in the entire world—one of them being the ‘Corpsetaker’ of the Whirlpool City.]

[In sum: do not engage the Mutant skeleton shrimp in battle.]

[As you are, you will not win.]

The Archive had never sounded more sure and confident, and Marisol could understand why. As black rain continued battering her face, she spotted the Mutant standing on the very edge of the lighthouse on the left, staring blankly down at all of them. They were separated by a hundred metre distance of churning, wreckage-filled waves, but even from here, she felt an indescribable tightness in her chest as she locked eyes with it—it was fear she thought she’d cast away when she first performed the War Jump, stabbing her gut and stopping her from being able to move yet again.

She knew she had to do something—get the Harbour Guards into the lighthouse, skate them somewhere else, or even just run away herself—but the only thing she wanted to do was nothing the Archive wanted.

She knew it.

The Archive knew it.

And as Enrique and the Harbour Guards glared daggers up at the Mutant, she dragged one glaive back and leaned forward.

… But what happens if I don’t try to fight it?

[The lighthouse guards above you are most likely beginning the evacuation protocol. They will enter conch shell shelters, bolt the door shut, and drop themselves into the ocean in an attempt to survive the Mutant. They will definitely try to get the captain and his Harbour Guards into the shelters as well.]

How long would it take them to get all that done?

[Three minutes.]

And how long did it take that Mutant to completely decimate that lighthouse over there?

[Two minutes.]

…

Silence.

Neither of them said anything, nor did they need to—they hadn’t spent the past few months stuck to each other for nothing.

… I’ll buy them two minutes to get inside the shelter and evacuate.

The Archive didn’t blink. [You will die.]

What are the chances?

[Ninety-nine percent of death.]

She couldn’t resist a short laugh as she forced a small, quivering smile onto her face.

You could’ve said one percent of survival, she thought. I really have corrupted you, haven’t I?

[... All good Hasharana do.]

[Without exception.]

And, as the gate at the bottom of the lighthouse opened behind them—a dozen lighthouse guards rushing out to drag the Harbour Guards inside, shouting at them to evacuate or something of the sort—she took off onto the stormy sea to begin her interception mission.

The Mutant pounced straight at her, a hundred metres across, and she launched into the War Jump. Six spins. Seven spins. She kicked out at the last moment, putting rage and sadness into her attack as her glaives slammed into its segmented torso—and she watched, in pure horror, as its body simply folded around her glaive, six arms punching out at the speed of a blink.

She jerked her head and evaded, just barely. Her lungs were tight. She spun an extra time and flung the Mutant off her glaive, sending it flying into a sinking warship, but through the waves and the lightning and the rain pelting her face, it chucked volleys of wooden debris her way. She heard the projectiles whistling through the air before she saw them. A Blinding Spin to kick up a small cyclone of water blocked the first few projectiles, but when more and more started flying in, she dodged away and began skating around it, trying to put some distance between them.

It pursued her, diving in and out of the sea like a burrowing worm that occasionally needed to come up for air.

It’s fast, tough, and strong!

How do I usually beat types like that?

[With your speed and speed alone.]

She glanced behind her, growling as she vaulted onto a sinking ship, grabbed a harpoon from a crate, and chucked it back at the Mutant as she backflipped over the railings on the other side. The Mutant simply grabbed it out of the air and chucked it back, the speartip whizzing past her ears.

I’m not fast enough! I need information! Tactics! Weaknesses to exploit!

[It is a skeleton shrimp. Its limbs are highly dextrous, each pair with its own specialisation, and from what I have been able to observe, it is able to manipulate each individual arm like they have their own minds. They are nothing like the whale lice’s clumsy appendages. Each of its limbs are as precise and powerful as the Blackclaw Marauder captain.]

Weaknesses! Stop telling me–

[We are quite fortunate that normal skeleton shrimps are quite poor swimmers, so you may only be slightly slower than the Mutant.]

[If all you do is keep skating away, you can easily buy two minutes before it catches up to you.]

…

Of course.

But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try her damndest to put a dent in it somehow.

As she skated through the sea of wrecks, she pivoted here and there to kick chunks of debris back at it, trying to poke holes in its defences. It easily swatted away her projectiles with its upper pairs of arms. Its legs and lower pairs of arms were more for running and swimming and diving. It didn’t seem to have any ranged capabilities like the barnacles or the Blackclaw Marauders, but it more than made up for it with immense physical power. She dodged and spun and launched in a desperate dance across the wrecks, her own speed surprising even herself—she hadn’t known she could go this fast if she really, really wanted to.

To a certain extent, she was elated. She was exhilarated to be going this fast, to be dancing on the edge of a storm… but it’d be a lie if she said she was content with sharing a stage where more eyes were on the Mutant then her.

So the Archive counted—one minute, two minutes—and when she spotted what looked like half a dozen giant conch shells dropping out the middle of the lighthouse, she pivoted and spun a full half-circle to face the Mutant head-on.

She hadn’t come to a stop, no. Her momentum was still there. Her grit was still there. If ‘fate’ was to catch up to her no matter what, then she’d reach it first, and she’d kick it first.

The Mutant reared only one of its fists back for a punch as it pounced at her, and she launched into the War Jump, spinning six times in sequence.

I got this, I got this, I got this!

Finish the routine with a–

And the Mutant’s seven segments extended, dislocating to give it just that extra bit of reach, just that extra bit of punching range—and its fist slammed into her right glaive right as she tried to kick out, shattering chitin and breaking her leg with a sickening crack.

She barely even felt pain as the force from the attack sent her flying down into the sea, cold and dark water enveloping her senses, fogging her mind.

…

She’d lost her speed.

She’d lost her balance.

And she’d known, from the very beginning, that she wouldn’t be able to climb up if she ever sank into the abyss.