Storm Strider

Walking horizontally up a colossal tree with a black storm roaring around her wasn’t how Marisol wanted to end her day, but if she wasn’t this high up, she wouldn’t get enough momentum to skate up the giant horseshoe crab’s ramp-like tail.

[What a stupid, dangerous thing to do,] the Archive muttered. [But I suppose you would not be Marisol if you were not a speed demon.]

Reaching the top of the tree with her segmented setae allowing her to stand horizontally on the bark, she turned and looked down, swallowing a hard gulp—it was a fifty-metre-tall skate down to the black sand beach, and then she’d have to maintain the forward momentum until she crossed the beach and reached the base of the tail. Then, she’d have to skate all the way up the hundred-metre-long tail and glide all the way back towards the Whirlpool City… and in this storm? With this sort of wind swirling across the great blue?

Oh, she knew it was dangerous.

… Coward.

[Reckless.]

Number-obsessed.

[Pragmatic.]

Not pragmatic enough to ditch me a long time ago.

The Archive chortled as she dragged her left glaive black, putting her right glaive crackling with electricity in front.

[Stimulating release of perception-enhancing compounds,] it said, vanishing off her shoulder as her field of vision widened. [You have ten minutes before your senses will overload. Slay the Mutant before then.]

…

Inhaling deeply, Marisol willed lightning to harden her broken right glaive. Raw muscle strands pulled themselves taught. Drying blood evaporated off her tiny cuts here and there, and a cool wind ran over her skin, ruffling her curly locks of hair.

She exhaled.

And then she kicked down the colossal tree, lightning speeding her trail as her glaives cleaved through the bark, splitting it down in half as she reached the black sand beach in two seconds flat. Light twisted around her. The world became a blurry mess. She kept her momentum as she sped straight towards the giant tail—passing Kuku and the cheering crab children as she did—and then she began skating up the tail, her eyes focused solely on the dark clouds she was heading towards.

Darkness enveloped her as she went faster and faster. She lost sense of herself, her body. Her mind was racing with a million thoughts, but at the same time it was so quiet she could cry; the ‘void’ that came with going too fast was almost familiar at this point, so she didn’t lose herself in it. Far from it. As she neared the top of the tail, leaning dangerously forward and hissing out every drop of air in her lungs–

Her glaives left the tail and she fanned her wings out, catching the winds as she pressed her limbs together to turn herself into an arrow.

Lightning at my heels!

Go!

Black rain lashed at her face like needles and the wind howled in her ears. The clouds swirled in violent spirals above her. The churning seas raged far beneath her, giant waves crashing into and swallowing each other, but she refused to let the night take her again. With bluish-pinkish lightning crackling around her glaives, she was sure she looked like a shooting star—streaking across the night sky and leaving a trail of stardust in her wake—and just the thought of it made her all giddy inside.

She was sure she’d never looked so pretty before.

How far until the lighthouse where I was, Archive?

[Three kilometres. Estimated time until arrival: two minutes.]

Thunder boomed around her, rattling her bones, but she pressed on with her teeth gnashed together. Even from a distance, she could squint and see the flashes of cannons firing in vain, more beams of light swerving from the backline lighthouses in an attempt to locate their target. The Mutant shrimp was moving with terrifying speed, though; it dismantled the second, third, and fourth lines of warships defending the Whirlpool City with a series of deafening cracks, and she didn’t even need to see its silhouette, exactly. Her eyes followed the floating wreckage and the sea of debris as she soared over them, and eventually she was close enough.

She saw the tiny, segmented back of the Mutant several hundreds of metres away, and she raised her wings to adjust her gliding path.

I ain’t settling for a shitty, boring entrance, then!

Archive!

[What?]

More adrenaline!

[Stimulating release of focus-enhancing adrenaline.]

The whole way down, her pulse was pounding in a painful, electrifying rhythm, but she wasn't going to lie: this was the most exhilarating thing she'd ever done. She shot through clouds, hail, and narrowed her eyes at the quickly-rising Mutant beneath her—it was still sprinting towards the Whirlpool City five hundred metres in front of it, but it'd annihilated every warship in its way. Every lighthouse was toppled. The only person who could intercept it before it could reach the city was none other than her.

So, the moment before impact, she flipped around and aimed her glaives at its back.

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

A hundred and ten percent!

The Mutant whirled, beady red eyes widening in surprise as she slammed into its torso. White-hot lightning exploded outwards as she cleaved through a pair of its blocking arms, screeching to a halt and kicking up a massive wave of water behind her as she did.

She clawed the surface with her fingers, vibrating her hydrofuge spines to maintain her balance and clicking her tongue in irritation at the same time; it'd just barely dodged to the side and deflected her impaling kick by sacrificing two of its arms.

Tch.

The audience doesn't dodge out of the way, you fucking bug.

She didn't let her momentum completely screech to a halt, though. Twirling around to face the Mutant head-on, she immediately skated to the right while it dived to the left, her eyes glaring daggers at its shadow beneath the surface. It had the advantage of being able to strike her from below, so she couldn't ever stay still to take a break, but when had she ever stopped moving on water anyways?

… ‘Storm Stride’.

Arms spread out, fingers twirling as though she were paddling through water, she skated hard right while the Mutant pursued her from the left. They were opposites of the same maelstrom; lightning electrified the sea in her wake while the Mutant’s subsurface swimming kicked up giant waves, and she wasn’t slowing down. She had a routine to follow: Glide. Spin. Pause, raise arms. Twirl and caper. Sharp turn. Sharp pivot. Then jump—soar. She finished skating a whole circle back to where she first landed after twenty seconds, and then she repeated the routine, making the Mutant chase her in circles over and over again.

By the time the Mutant popped out of the churning waves and stood perfectly still to look around, it was already too late. She’d picked up so much momentum, skated so fast in circles that she’d kicked up a roaring waterspout around them, and it was a circular barrier of wind and electrified water that kept the Mutant from leaving the hundred-metre-wide arena. If it thought she was an annoying pest and wanted to continue towards the Whirlpool City instead, it’d have to wait out the lightning, but with her still skating non-stop?

It’d have to fight her.

And now I move in!

Glaring at the Mutant in the centre of the electrified arena, she kicked in with a burst of strength, leaning dangerously forward. It picked up two broken halves of a warship and sent them cleaving through the waves towards her, but she jumped and drop-kicked through the hull, shooting through the halves before landing on her glaives. The Mutant flung more debris at her—crates, cannons, planks, even entire masts with the ratlines still attached—and she dodged and spun and twisted through them all, shrapnel cutting her skin, drawing blood.

Speed couldn’t make her body bleed, but each and every last projectile it flung at her was deadlier than any opponent she’d ever faced. The Mutant’s tossing strength was unbelievable, so she had to get up close and personal.

She staggered through the barrage, then arrived under its five-metre-tall form. Its eyes weren’t catching up to her. It was still staring forward at where she was a split second ago, so she kicked at its torso—and its segmented body folded around her glaive, lightning zapping its internal organs as it punched at her in the same motion, trying to trade blows with her.

But she’d seen this attack before—it’d folded itself around her glaive not too long ago—so she let her preapical claws spring up and slashed her arms in a cross, severing two of its punching arms. It immediately recoiled with a pained screech, darting underwater, and that was the first time she’d heard it make a sound.

She sharpened her claws against her lightning glaives as it surfaced a good twenty metres away, its eyes fully alert and opened now.

How’d you like that, bug? She sneered, shooting it a thumbs-down. Your arms themselves ain’t so tough, huh?

Sucks to be you.

I’ve already carved a shrimp before.

The Mutant folded backwards and cracked each of its segments—the same way she’d bend backwards and stretch her spine every morning before performing a routine—and then it charged. Faster, wilder, and more wrathful than it’d ever been before.

Dipping in and out of the water to make itself harder to track, it burst from under her like a geyser, punching out with all eight arms in a flurry of strikes. She fanned her wings out and jumped up, kicking its arms away with a sharp exhale. Two legs was all she needed to match eight arms; she was fast enough, though her right glaive was still obviously fractured. She needed to electrify her own muscles just to keep it from bending the wrong way.

Backflipping off its final punch and landing ten metres away, she immediately skated in for a counterattack. It reared its arms back, ready to intercept. She smirked and screeched to a halt five metres in, splashing a wave of water into its face. When it tried to punch through the wave anyways, she met it with a standing Whirlwind Spin, kicking and slicing off four more arms with flashes of lightning. Again, it cast out a fist, and this time it caught her in the middle of a spin—she gasped as one of its claws stabbed through her right elbow, halting her momentum in an instant.

With its claw still in her arm, it jerked itself forward and followed up with more punches. She ducked, she bobbed, she weaved, but two more claws stabbed into her left forearm, and now it had both her arms in its grip.

Shit! She hissed, lifting her glaives and trying to kick it straight through, but it snapped its torso segments to the side and evaded swiftly. It really is a skeleton! So thin–

It didn’t let her think. It could’ve ripped her arms off their sockets, and she certainly felt her muscles tearing for a split second, but at the last possible moment she vibrated her hydrofuge spines as violently as she could to make the water it was standing on wobble; it lost its balance, albeit only slightly, but it bought her enough time to kick and sever two more of its arms instead.

Dropping her with yet another pained screech, it skidded back on all four remaining limbs and snarled at her, cracking its head left and right. She did the same, leaning forward and raising her back glaive parallel to the sea as well—and she watched, for the final time, as it dipped under the surface and swam to the edges of the electrified arena, swerving at the last second to begin charging straight at her.

[It wishes to challenge you,] the Archive said plainly. [Slaughter it head-on with your speed and speed alone.]

She coughed out a laugh, scowling at the charging Mutant.

I ain’t need you to tell me that.

Who do you think I am?

The Mutant kicked up violent waves wherever it swam. It took its sweet time circling around her in the centre of the arena, just like when she’d done the same to it minutes earlier, so she didn’t reciprocate in kind immediately: she took one slow step forward, keeping her body extremely low to the surface with the Silent Step, and started skating in small circles around where she stood.

She calmed her breathing.

She steadied her heart and mind.

What did her mama look like that day, when the dust devil was kicked away in the middle of a sandstorm?

[Would you like me to put her ghost in front of you?]

…

She shook her head slowly, a soft smile rising onto her face.

I remember.

And, you know, if I have to keep seeing my mama’s ghost just to perform a technique, that’s like admitting I won’t go home to see her in person.

She exhaled coolly, raising one knee as she spun idly in place.

No more ghosts.

No more bugs.

And when the Mutant pounced at her from behind—the ripples from its movements having reached her long, long ago—she performed the War Jump while still spinning idly in place, accelerating from zero into an explosive, graceful launch.

She spun eight times in total, and her lightning glaive came down like a hammer against a nail—bisecting the Mutant down in half and slamming against the stormy sea, a crack of thunder accompanying the strike on the distant horizon.

…

Marisol stayed kneeling after the downwards kick, exhaling slowly as she did.

She watched the halves of the Mutant fall apart, sink into the abyss, and only once she was sure she’d killed it did she stop electrifying her glaives as well.

The moment she did—the moment lightning left her entire body, not just her glaives—she crumbled like a puppet with its strings cut off, falling over backwards and sinking alongside the Mutant she’d given her all to slay.

[Objective #11 Completed: Slay the Mutant skeleton shrimp]

[Reward: Vengeance for the fallen]

… Sinking into the cold and quiet abyss for the second time tonight, she wondered, briefly, if anyone was going to come get her. She was this close to the Whirlpool City, after all—it’d be a shame if that ‘Black Storm’ protocol or whatever meant she couldn’t get in even though she’d come such a long way.

Would be a shame, wouldn’t it?

How far, Archive?

How long?

[Five thousand two hundred and eighty-six kilometres.]

[Two months, two weeks, two days, and twenty-two hours.]

[What a fortunate number.]

[Two, for ‘Mar’ of the western sea and ‘Sol’ of the eastern sun to become one.]

She blinked slowly underwater, feeling her mind drifting asleep.

Become one…? she mumbled in her thoughts, her body shutting down as she sank. And just what… do you mean by that?

You know, you still have a lot to explain to me.

About the anomalies that keep happening to me.

About that Mutant.

About…

Her thoughts trailed off as the little water strider jumped off her shoulder and pointed upwards—at the shadow of a man diving in after her, backlit only by cold shafts of moonlight.

She couldn’t see who he was, or even make out any of his facial features with her vision being so blurry and hazy, but she saw the flag he carried on his back billowing in the underwater currents… and it was an insignia she’d recognise anywhere in the world.

She hadn’t spent ten years saving up for her trip to the Whirlpool City to not recognise the nine-headed serpent twisted in the shape of a sword, after all.

… Oh.

A Harbour Imperator.

You know, if there was one out here, maybe he should’ve–

[He just got here, and he is no Harbour Imperator,] the Archive grumbled. [His identity is of no concern to you right now, though. I am certain he will be your guide once he drags you inside the Whirlpool City, whether he has to lose a few limbs pushing through ‘Black Storm’ with sheer brute force or not.]

[For the time being, simply close your eyes and rest, Marisol Vellamira.]

[Though you may be bedbound and extremely weak for the next few weeks owing to the sheer amount of points you have overconsumed the past few months, your journey to the Whirlpool City ends here.]

[Whether you can get a vial of healing seawater from Depth Nine of the Whirlpool City is another matter altogether.]

Volume One, End