Storm Strider

The Harbour Imperators’ conference room at the top of the Whirlpool City was as circular as the volcano city they overlooked. A golden lantern hung from the ceiling. The walls were glass, etched in spiralling patterns to mimic the flow of water, and moonlight filtered through them from every conceivable direction. Six lighthouses were built at the edge of the crater to overlook the ever-churning whirlpool in the centre of the dormant volcano—this way, they had eyes on anything that could claw out of the whirlpool at any given location—but there was no doubt that Lighthouse Seven, where all six Lighthouse Imperators were currently gathered in, was the safest place in the entire city right now.

All in total, six Lighthouse Imperators sat along the dark, polished wooden table in the centre of the room. Faint scents of seawater lingered in the air, mixing with the earthy smell of aged wood and the metallic tangs of armour that the ten of them wore into attendance. ‘Black Storm’ was still active outside, after all; they must’ve rushed through pouring rain just to get to Lighthouse Seven in time for their weekly meeting at nine.

… All of you smell.

Go take a shower first, you guácalas.

Victor Morina and two dozen Harbour Imperators stood along the walls of the conference room, behind the seated Lighthouse Imperators, and at the very least, he probably wasn't supposed to be here. The weekly meetings at nine were usually reserved only for the Lighthouse Imperators and the Harbour Imperatrix—the Lord of the Whirlpool City seemingly dozing off at the end of the table—but tonight was a bit of a special night. Even someone like Victor was called in to attend with his other Lighthouse Seven colleagues despite not possessing the proper rank to do so, which meant this meeting was serious business.

He should be paying more attention.

Rather, he should have paid more attention, because the Lighthouse Imperators had each already given their reports already, and he’d kinda slept through most of them while leaning against the glass wall.

Yawning with his arms crossed, he glanced out behind him and pursed his lips. It’d been nearly a month and a half since they activated ‘Black Storm’, engulfing the entire city and the seas around it in a never-ending downpour. Through the rippled glass, he could just barely make out the houses and buildings that clung to the volcano’s sides, rooftops slick and shining under the relentless rain. The sloped streets spiralled downwards, three hundred metres to the bottom where the harbours were, and anytime now their canals would overflow with torrents of water; the city wasn’t built to endure such harsh rain for longer than a month, let alone nearing two.

‘Black Storm’ has to come down soon, he thought, glancing back at the seated Lighthouse Imperators as he did. The city’s self-sustainable, but not for an eternity. Give or take six months, and we’ll be in deep shit if the storm still hasn’t come down.

“... So, to sum, we cannot lower ‘Black Storm’ until we are certain what Corpsetaker and his retainers are doing in Depth Nine,” the Third Lighthouse Imperator said. “But we do know what he’s doing down there, don’t we? He’s calling Mutants from all over the Deepwater Legion Front to this city. He wants them to come and free him from the outside while he and his retainers continue to assault us from the inside.”

The Fifth nodded. “That skeleton shrimp nearly did in the Harbour Guards stationed outside the city alone. More will come. I don’t know how it managed to get so close to the city without any of us detecting it, but I propose we keep ‘Black Storm’ activated until we stop getting reports about Mutants decimating our fleets across Deepwater Legion for at least a month.”

“And when will that be, eh?” the Second muttered. “Trade’s gutted. ‘Ah ain’t had marlins in my dinners for an entire month already. Ye want me to go without marlin for at least another two months?”

“It’s the safe option. That Mutant got dangerously close to the city without any of us noticing. Even with ‘Black Storm’ activated, it would’ve reached the lower city and wreaked up a minor havoc before any of us could’ve responded to it—and let’s not forget how atrocious our response time to that Mutant was.”

The Third shrugged. “True. But we were all still diving in the whirlpool, and it’s not exactly in our job description to defend the city from external threats. We’re Harbour Imperators. We stop bugs from crawling out of the whirlpool, and the Harbour Guards stop bugs from crawling in from everywhere else. If anyone needs a lecture, it’s the Guards–”

“Ya can’t expect the Harbour Guards to deal with a C-rank Mutant. They’re trained and equipped only to deal with normal leviathans, and ninety percent of ‘em were off fighting the Crawlin’ Seas behind the city that night, anyways,” the Fourth said, putting her feet on the table. “A lot of Guards died during that shrimp’s attack, ya know? Spare ‘em the lecture. I’ll take up personal trainin’ for the lot of ‘em when I’ve free time on my hands, though don’t expect ‘em to suddenly be able to beat a Mutant in just a month or two even if I feed 'em the shrimp. Ain’t like most Imperators can confidently beat a Mutant solo, either.”

“...”

The room went quiet as the Fourth brought the point home. Victor sighed quietly. The city had lost a lot of Harbour Guards eleven nights ago—two hundred and three men, to be exact. Replenishing those numbers would be an arduous task for Lighthouse Four, the team closest to the Guards. They’d probably see incredibly low new recruits this year, perhaps even the lowest it’d ever been in decades; that’d simply be the natural result of a colossal screw-up that should’ve never been allowed to get that close to the city in the first place.

“... We need new recruits,” the Third muttered. “Both for the Guards and the Imperators. If we’ have enough numbers to hold the city even without us, then all nine of us can just get together, dive to Depth Nine, and fuck Corpsetaker up a little. We can stop him from calling other Mutants over for maybe a few years, and then we can lift ‘Black Storm’ to resume trade–”

“Then why the hell are we skirtin’ around the real reason why we’re here tonight?” The Second raised a finger, chuckling under her breath. “Ain’t like none of us heard what happened. A Mutant gettin’ close to the city ain’t all that uncommon, really—we always managed to slaughter it in the lower city even if it gets ashore—but this time, it’s that guy who slaughtered it we’re all here to talk about, right?”

The Third narrowed his eyes at her. “It’s a lady. Even younger than you, I think.”

“Hah? Ain’t no way–”

“Dethroned as the former precocious child of the Imperators. What a cruel world.” The Third sighed, glancing at the Fourth as he did. “The Harbour Guards she sailed here with gave their testimonies, didn’t they? What’d they say about her?”

The Fourth scratched the back of her head. “Not much. That Enrique fellow ain’t really talkative this past week since he’s still stuck outside with ‘Black Storm’ activated, and apparently, that was his daughter the Mutant shrimp burst out of. It’s hard tryin’ to get anythin’ outta him. Even harder since we can only communicate with the Guards stuck outside by trading cannonballs stuffed with handwritten letters, and damn if that ain’t annoyin’ to do day in, day out–”

“Okay. And?”

“... Accordin’ to Enrique, the girl’s some sort of dancer from a desert town,” the Fourth said, shrugging nonchalantly. “No combat experience. Knows next to nothin’ about bugs. Told him she was headin’ to the city to get healin’ water for her sick mama back home, but three months ago, the ship she was on got capsized by a leviathan before she even really left the shoreline harbour.”

“Three months ago…” the Fifth mused, hand on her chin. “That was when reports of Mutants acting up all over Deepwater Legion started coming in from all over as well. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that her ship was attacked.”

“It ain’t. And get this: there was a Hasharana on her ship at the time, and while Enrique ain’t told me much since he doesn’t know much himself either, I’ve run through the records myself. Three months ago, there was supposed to be a ship with a Hasharana on board arrivin’ at the city, so I ran through the list of Hasharana who’ve worked with us before–”

“Antonio Saranno,” the First said, and everyone glanced at the old man; his eyes remained closed as he leaned back in his chair, hands clasped in his lap. “He’s worked with me for years. I know the man. Good Hasharana. Fierce Hasharana. If we haven’t heard from him in three months, I assume he went down that day with his crew?”

Victor dipped his head as the Fourth nodded slowly.

“Aye,” she said. “Or, at least, we’re pretty sure he’s dead. ‘Cause the girl has an Altered Swarmsteel System. Only person she could’ve gotten that from is Antonio.”

The Second whistled. “Sick. So she took the worm, got an insect class, and then flew until she found Enrique’s ship? That still don’t explain–”

“She skated here,” the Fourth interrupted. “Accordin’ to Enrique, she’s got the water strider class.”

Victor’s ears perked, and the Harbour Imperatrix—the silent, sleeping lord at the end of table—opened his eyes.

The other six at the table didn’t seem to notice.

“Water strider?” the Fifth mumbled. “You don’t mean… that silly class that lets people stand on water?”

The Fourth tilted her head. “Hey, that’s what Enrique wrote to me. ‘Sides, just the water strider class by itself ain’t too strange—apparently, she skated through a storm, landed on a giant horseshoe crab island, fucked up a bunch of Blackclaw Marauders who were hidin’ out there, and then ‘sailed’ their ship by herself until she reached Enrique. Ah, by the way, Enrique and his crew were already eaten by a giant remipede at that point, so she bumped into that thing too and got herself eaten as well.”

“... And?” the Third asked.

“And she led the crew outta the giant remipede as well,” the Fourth said, shrugging again. “We’ve confirmed the death of a giant remipede in that area four days ago. She blew it apart from the inside-out, picked up Enrique’s pregnant daughter driftin’ on the surface, and then continued sailin’ with Enrique… and then they ran into the Whitewhale Marauders.”

“Oh my,” the Second said mockingly.

“So they sailed into Dead Island Straits, came in contact with the Damselfly Oracles, and fucked up that one Whitewhale that followed them in as well,” the Fourth finished. “Ya know the rest, don’t ya? They left the Dead Island Straits, sailed straight here, got stopped by the lighthouses, and then the Mutant showed up. She ended up killin’ it herself.”

“Speaking of,” the Third said, scrunching his brows, “How did the Mutant get past us, anyways? That god was watching, wasn’t he? Shouldn’t he have told us a Mutant of that calibre was getting that close to us?”

“... This is just me guessin’ based on Enrique’s story,” the Fourth said, “but I think this is how it went: that skeleton shrimp led a buncha leviathans to attack the Antonio’s ship on its way to the city, probably thinkin’ Antonio will at least continue towards the city by himself. Y'all know how that Worm God’s all-seein' eyes work? He knows when powerful bugs are comin’ is by seein’ the ‘aura’ they give off. A Mutant’s super strong, so it’ll naturally give off a strong aura, but what do ya think would happen if a Mutant sticks close to a Hasharana who also has a strong aura?”

The Fifth frowned. “The Mutant’s aura would be camouflaged alongside the Hasharana’s. The Worm God wouldn’t be able to notice the shrimp easily, and then he wouldn't be able to alert us to its coming.”

“Right. So the shrimp's plan was probably somethin' like this: destroy Antonio's ship, get him to go to the city alone to report what happened, and then follow him all the way here so it can slip through our defences,” the Fourth said. “Unfortunately, Antonio died in that very first attack… but that girl inherited his Altered Swarmsteel System, and surprise surprise. She ain’t that weak herself. So, it must’ve been followin’ her the entire time she was headin’ towards the city, using her aura as camouflage. Then, when it found Enrique’s pregnant daughter drifting on the seas, it decided, while she and Enrique and the rest of the crew were still screwin’ around inside the giant remipede–”

“The shrimp folded itself into a tinier form, ate its way into the daughter’s belly while she was still dehydrated and delirious from having been drifting on the seas for a week, and hoped it could just hide inside the daughter the rest of the way here," the First finished. "There was a reason why the daughter didn't get attacked by anything for an entire month while the girl and the guards were inside the giant remipede. Everything nearby knew there was a Mutant inside that belly, so they steered a wide berth from her."

Silence.

The Fourth scowled, baring her teeth at the First in what could be a smile, what could be a show of irritation. “Ya heard the story from Enrique, too? How’d ya know what I was thinking, old man?”

The First dipped his head slightly. “The Mutant was a skeleton shrimp. It’s not the first time I’ve heard one parasitising off foetuses or piloting half-dead humans by replacing its host's skeleton. The captain's daughter may very well have been half-dead for a long time, but she just didn't know it herself—most parasitoids put a lot of effort making sure their hosts don't know they exist before they're ready to reveal themselves. Just look at the Empire's civil war three decades ago as an example.”

“...”

He didn’t say any more than that, so the Fifth coughed and turned to look at the Fourth again.

“After that… the shrimp stayed inside Enrique’s daughter until it realised we weren’t going to let them into the city because of ‘Black Storm’,” the Fifth said. “So it decided to pop out, fight its way through the final stretch, and then… the girl with the silly class killed it? Alone?”

The Fourth pulled her head back, looking down on the Fifth. “How many times do I gotta say this, girl? She killed it. Cut off all its arms. Split it down in half with lightnin’ glaives for legs. Ain’t such a silly class if she’s got fuckin’ lightnin’ on her legs, eh?”

“...”

Victor snorted as the conference room fell silent again for what felt like the fifth or sixth time the past few minutes.

They’ve always been like this, I guess, he thought. So indecisive.

Just say something already, someone–

“‘Ahm assumin’ the real point of this meetin’ is to see who gets to take charge of the girl, yeah?” the Second said, leaning forward in her chair with a sharp, shining silver glint in her eyes. “Lighthouse Two will take her. We need new recruits for deep dives, anyways. Ah’ll whip her into shape for underwater missions.”

“Who died and made ya king?” The Fourth scoffed. “Lighthouse Four is takin' the shrimp's carcass—we need the flesh to replenish the strength of the Guards who were seriously injured durin' that fight—and we'll also be takin' the girl. She already has experience workin’ with the Guards, so if we have her join them, they’ll also have someone who can help them deal with invadin' Mutants. We won’t have to worry about the city gettin’ attacked from the outside while we’re all divin’ down the whirpool.”

The Third whistled, shaking his head. “Objection. Lighthouse Three will take her. We’ve just had a bit of internal restructuring, so she’ll fit in perfectly with all the new recruits under my command. Having her go with either Lighthouse Two for deep dives or Lighthouse Four for city defence is much too complicated for an untrained warrior like her. I’ll start her off with simple Depth One to Three patrols, how about that?”

The Second and Fourth clicked their tongues at once. “Rejected.”

“Now, now. She’s gonna die if you make her deep dive, and she’s also gonna die—of boredom—if you make her play security guard, so–”

“Lighthouse Five will take her,” the Fifth said stiffly. “She is not a trained combatant, period. She is a civilian. We cannot involve her in any dangerous activities, so if she desires, I can offer her a simple administrative job at my lighthouse. It will be safe, at the very least.”

The Second glanced at the Fifth. “The girl sounds like a whack job with a thing for danger. She ain’t gonna like sittin’ at a desk.”

“You and your Imperators in Lighthouse Two are the whack jobs," the Fifth muttered. "And? What do the two of you think? Where should she go?”

The First didn’t bother responding, and the Sixth… wasn’t here. A spinning chair was left in his wake, and everyone but Victor and the Harbour Imperatrix blinked; they started looking around for the man who’d left halfway through the meeting without making so much as a squeak.

Victor had seen him leave, though. He’d even shot both Victor and the Imperatrix an acknowledging nod before disappearing through one of the windows.

“Hah. Guess he got bored.” The Fourth chuckled, shaking her head in dismay. “So, Lighthouse One and Six don’t want her, but the rest of us do. We’ll duke it out, then. Get your cards out. We’re playin’ basset until one of us gets three wins–”

The Harbour Imperatrix stood up, making the entire room rattle, and the four Lighthouse Imperators who were busy pulling their decks of cards from their pockets froze where they sat.

“... You were the one who ran out and dived in after her, weren’t you?” the Imperatrix rumbled, glaring at Victor with one ocean-blue eye. The other was sealed behind an eyepatch made from the chitin of a Lesser Great Mutant; Victor simply smiled and bowed halfway, one arm folded before his waist.

“I was,” Victor said plainly, and he grinned under his full-body bandages as he looked up at the Imperatrix. “Dragging her into the city through ‘Black Storm’ took a few years off my life, but, well—can’t say it wasn’t a hell of a thrill pushing through the storm.”

“Where is she now?”

“Well, it’s been a week since she killed the Mutant, and… uh, a few things have happened.” Victor bowed again as he scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. “We’re detaining her in a cell for now. She’s right in the lower city, so you wanna meet her or something?”

The Imperatrix snorted, turning his back against the table as he faced the window on the opposite end of the room, overlooking the churning whirlpool in the crater of the volcano.

“You’re the one who dived in and dragged her here, so you’ll take responsibility,” the Imperatrix said. “She has one of those things. An ‘Altered’ Swarmsteel System. It’s only fitting for a Hasharana to take care of another Hasharana, isn’t it?”

“...”

Victor chuckled as he pushed off against the window, picked up his walking cane, and headed out of the lantern room with every Imperators’ eyes on his back—he was used to being stared at as one of very few Hasharana in the Deepwater Legion Front, but he wondered, very briefly, if the girl he was going to visit would be able to endure the same sort of wary gazes.

If she skated all the way here as a water strider, then… perhaps?

She did punch a Harbour Guard in the face, though. Maybe she’s gonna be a pain in the ass to deal with?

He hummed all the way down the spiralling stairs, his cane clacking against cold stone in a rhythmic one-two, one-two beat.

… Well.

First, I need to know her name.

I ain’t young enough to call her the ‘Storm Strider’ like the kids down in the lower city are calling her.