“We don’t have as much time as I’d hoped,” Revalynd told his son as they finished making the fire. It was a small one. One hopefully hidden by the long, oval-shaped tree leaves above.
“It can’t be a coincidence,” Wyrlynd began, eyes narrowed at Sapphire.
His father shushed him. “Calm yourself, son.” To the group he then said apologetically, “I’m afraid that I must leave you once more, but not for long. I promise. There is a much faster route through the jungle, but one belonging to particularly…sensitive hosts. They know Wyrlynd and I well and thus allow us to pass through mostly without issue.” He gestured to everyone. “But I will need to prepare them for the fact that we’ve picked up all of you as guests.”
He turned back to Wyrlynd and placed a gentle but firm paw upon the boy’s shoulder. “Remember, son. No matter the face you now wear, you are no animal. Remain solid and strong.” His black lips curled into a small smile. “And be good.”
“Yes, Father,” Wyrlynd replied, hugging him. The boy watched after his father, striped brow knit with concern, before then getting distracted by the sight of Turtle’s tail. The lizard was stretching his legs while Paco tended to the fire. Turtle waved his mace-shaped tail back and forth like a happy dog. The tiger boy’s feline instincts snuck up on him. He bounded over and began swiping at Turtle’s tail, exactly like a cat playing with a swinging ball of yarn. Turtle played along, waving his tail faster and higher to keep Wyrlynd on his clawed toes.
Sitting against one of the larger rocks, Alton watched the boy play. Nakoda leaned back against the same rock. Fatigue had finally caught up to the little Rider. He snored softly, mouth hanging partly open. Alton couldn’t help but grin a little at the sight.
I wish I believed in me as much as you believe in me, little man, he thought sadly. I really do.
A chill suddenly ran up his spine, killing his smile. Alton felt eyes on him. He knew who they belonged to. Or really, the thing inside him-the thing this fin belonged to-knew. He ignored the strange bastard’s gaze, choosing instead to stare forward, into the fire, and focus on his breathing…
“Belkross, Alton,” Lilian suddenly declared, “I need to use this place’s version of the little girl’s room. Escort me, please.”
Alton turned. She was standing just within the fire’s light, Belkross already by her side. Alton gave the girl’s face a quick study. She wore an expression of discomfort and embarrassment, peppered with apprehension towards journeying this alien jungle in the dark.
Alton didn’t buy it for a second.
But this little play isn’t for me, he thought, feeling those terrible eyes still on him. Is it?
He was careful not to wake Nakoda as he got to his feet. As he walked, it brushed up against his leg. His new “arm”. It was infecting him, causing more and more scales to pop up across his body. It wasn’t content to just be an arm. No, it wanted all of him. Was that what he’d sacrificed to kill Kovack? Was his humanity bleeding away? If so, what kind of monster would take Alton Devers’ place once that humanity ran dry?
MORE! I’M THE CAPTAIN OF THIS SHIP! GIVE ME MORE!
The screaming voice-his own-blasted like a thunderclap through his mind, making Alton wince. It was the key to a very scary treasure chest he was too terrified to open. Gritting his teeth, he told it to fuck off and met Lilian and Belkross at the clearing’s edge, half drenched in shadow. Wyrlynd was too busy playing with Turtle’s tail to notice their departure.
So Paco’s in on whatever this is, Alton realized, sparing one last glance over his shoulder. Sapphire and Chrys were staring at one another, both in deep (and private) telepathic conversation. Only Don looked troubled, staring after the leaving trio. Yet the donkey-unicorn made no move to stop them or wake Nakoda. But not Nakoda, his mule, or the blue lady.
He looked back around before Salim, across the clearing, sitting in the shadows, could force eye contact. Alton stayed behind Lilian while Belkross took the lead. He glanced down, studying the back of the blonde’s head.
You’re good, little girl, he thought begrudgingly. Now what is all of this about…?
They didn’t go far. They were still in a strange, glowing jungle after all. And this time they didn’t have someone like Aycenia to protect them. Alton waited, his heart beating a little faster than he would have liked. Even this short of a trek had put a strain on his body. His throat was parched, and the jungle’s humidity made sweat trickle down his face. Despite the discomfort, he kept his mouth shut, waiting for the girl to get on with it.
“This should be far enough,” Belkross said. Lilian nodded. Instead of going off to do her business, she stayed put, turning to face Alton.
Called it, he thought dryly.
“I bet that you were so busy trying to not look at him, that you didn’t notice Seaweed Man send out his shade to track Revalynd,” she said dryly. “But his paranoia is our gain. While he’s focused on that, let’s talk about that arm.” She pointed at Alton’s fin. “Paco’s idea might work, but it’s your call, Alton. If we cut off that fin and have the kid bite you, you could potentially gain the ability to regenerate it. You’ll become a tiger-thing like them, but hey, better than a fish.”
“I…” Alton’s voice caught in his throat.
All of this was because she wanted to help him?
A spark of hope flickered to life in his heart.
And the monster in him didn’t like that. Didn’t like that at all. A wave of nausea and irritation flared out through his body. He felt more scales tearing their way through his skin. He doubled back, clutching at his stomach. “…This th-thing,” he gasped as Belkross drew his blade. Lilian raised a hand, stilling the mercenary’s hand. “…Me killing K-Kovack woke it up…I don’t remember…Salim might know…”
“Salim?” Lilian asked, eyes narrowed.
“S-Seaweed Man.”
“Ah. Good to know.” She showed Alton her hands. Her voice was gentle as she said, “It’s your call. But you’re gonna have to make it now.”
“Cure a-a curse…with a curse?” he said through gritted teeth.
“Yes, exactly.”
“…Okay. Okay, let’s do it.” He looked past her, at Belkross. “You’ve gotta tie me up, man. I can’t control it much long-!”
He was interrupted by the flat of a blade to the side of the head. For a split second, as he fell sideways, the man’s eyes mutated. They became twin, toothy maws. Belkross ducked behind him, and struck the back of Alton’s head, knocking him fully unconscious. Alton’s eyes returned to normal as he collapsed backwards into the mercenary’s arms.
“Make it quick,” Lilian said. She turned towards the clearing as Belkross laid Alton down on the ground. He then raised his blade, held it over the area where fin and bicep met. “Time for phase two.”
#
Nakoda was nudged awake by a familiar snout. “I’m up, Don, I’m up,” he yawned out, reaching out for his lance. He found it and used it to help him get back to his feet. Auntie Oli would probably have screamed at him for using the weapon in such a manner. “Oof!”
Using his teeth, Don grabbed him by one of his pauldron’s straps and started dragging Nakoda across the clearing, away from the fire. “Whoa, Don!” Nakoda cried, instantly fully awake. “What’s going on-? Paco?”
The gunslinger was standing in their way. Beyond him, Wyrlynd was still playing with Turtle’s tail. “Hey, good, you’re awake,” Paco said. He ducked in, grabbed Nakoda by the arm, and pointed in the opposite direction that Don had been leading him. He was specifically pointing at Seaweed Man. The strange man was sitting with his legs crossed underneath him, his eyes shadowy orbs as he stared at nothing. At least, nothing that Nakoda could see.
“I need you to keep an eye on him,” Paco told the little Rider. “In case he does something really fishy.”
“Do I have to?” Nakoda whined, slumping forward. He’d really tried, but Seaweed Man was determined to not be his friend. Plus, he and Alton weren’t getting along anymore.
Wait, Nakoda thought. Alton?
He looked around. He spotted Sapphire and Chrys, cuddling by the fire, but there were more than a few people missing. “Where’s Alton? And Lilian and Mr. Belkross?”
A piercing cry answered him before Paco had the chance to.
“Something attacked us!” Lilian appeared, scrambling our of the jungle and into the campfire’s light. “Some kind of monster! It was too fast to see!”
Belkross came next, weighed down by Alton on his back. The stump that had once been Alton’s was now a steaming stump. They’d probably used some of Lilian’s magic fire to cauterize it, keeping Alton from bleeding out.
Out of the corner of his eye, Nakoda noticed Salim shudder.
Paco saw it, too. “Lilian,” he exclaimed, “the kid!”
“Right!” She spun around, looking back and forth wildly until she finally spotted the tiger boy. He was standing frozen in place, hands still outstretched towards Turtle’s raised tail. Everything had happened so fast. He flinched as Lilian screamed at him, “Wyrlynd! Quick! You need to bite him!” She pointed back over at Alton. He was being set down on the ground by Belkross. “It’s his only chance!”
As if to disprove her point, Don was already rushing over. Belkross had his blade already half-raised, but Lilian sent him a quick mental command to let Don approach. Begrudgingly, the mercenary did so, internally cursing the girl’s newfound soft spot for the donkey-unicorn. Meanwhile, shaking off his shock, Wyrlynd bounded over past Lilian and to Alton’s side.
“Whatever it was b-bit off his arm!” she cried, tears spilling from her eyes. “He’ll d-die if he was poisoned!”
Wyrlynd stared at the wound for a quick moment before looking back over his striped shoulder at her. He studied her face. And in that moment both of them came to an understanding. She knew that he knew she was lying. And he knew that she knew that he knew. There was no creature. This was all a farce. Intellectually Wyrlynd Yggdrafield knew that they were up to something. Maybe they were after his mother’s gift? A gift his father treated like a curse to be hidden away. Afraid of…
Curse or gift, it didn’t matter. These people wanted it. And a stunted, frustrated part of Wyrlynd wanted to give it to them. Smelling blood, this part of him bypassed all of his father’s training. It took control of his large, amber eyes and made look at the wounded man on the ground. The tiger’s pupils dilated as saliva trickled from between his fangs.
But Dad said, was as far as his rational side got out before the body was jumping onto Alton, sinking fangs into flesh above the stump. Don cried out in alarm, but the boy was too far gone to care. Nothing mattered. Nothing but the blood and the meat.
And now, Lilian thought smugly, looking over her shoulder, phase three.
She saw that Seaweed Man-No, Salim-was back up on his feet. The black faded from his eyes as he let go of his shade’s vision and returned to the scene in front of him. With the fire between them, he locked eyes with Lilian. And like with Wyrlynd, they also came to a silent agreement.
That this was war. One for Alton’s soul.
Yet, unlike Salim, she wasn’t fighting this war alone.
Paco raised his hand at Salim, relying on his magic rather than a gun this time. The lines of his palm flared purple before releasing a spiral of supernaturally soothing energy. Unfortunately, he wasn’t as quick on getting off the spell as he was on pulling a trigger. Salim ducked forward into a roll, barely getting out of the spell’s area of effect.
Lilian and Belkross cursed. Distracted, they both missed Wyrlynd releasing a sigh of ecstasy and moving onto Alton’s other, whole arm. Outside of Don, due to the threat Salim had become, no one else noticed.
No one else except for the woman of blue and her silver dragon.
“Rewinding”-as the modern Earthlings say-a few minutes back, one would have found Sapphire and Chrys sharing an existential crisis. What looked like conspiring to suspicious onlookers was in reality closer to two lost children panicking on whether or not to call their parents to pick them from a slumber party gone awry.
The trigger had been the object that had flown overhead. Unlike the others (barring the elves) Sapphire recognized it immediately as a much smaller version of the transport shuttle she and Onyx had flown. This was then outright confirmed by Chrys informing her telepathically, Signal encountered. Connect?
Sapphire immediately opened her mouth to give the affirmative.
Only to stop, close it, and allow the ship to fly them by. She stared in its general direction, barely aware of the tigers beginning to put together a fire, until Chrys eventually told her, Signal lost.
He hovered in the air just above her left shoulder. She glanced over at her winged companion. Chrys…I think we’re home.
Home, he repeated as she took a seat by the growing fire. The dragon settled upon her lap, looking up at her with his unblinking silver eyes. The majority of my files were irreversible corrupted by our prolonged disconnection from the Link. Why not connect to the signal if you believe Castrovel to be our place of origin?
…I don’t know, Sapphire admitted. She didn’t for a second consider lying to Chrys. It would have been like lying to one of her arms or legs. The dragon was as much a part of her as any of her limbs.
She was momentarily distracted by Revalynd telling them all that he was leaving to obtain them safe passage through the rest of the jungle. That just left the boy. He’d definitely meant to do her harm with the knife back on the boat. And then after that…
Chrys, she thought, run “Forces scum” through all recovered files.
Command complete, he said nearly as soon as she finished giving the order. No matches found.
Sapphire frowned. It troubled her that she didn’t know if the lack of matches were because of the corruption or because Chrys had never possessed any relevant files to begin with. And then she felt troubled because she felt troubled. All of this could have been answered in an instant if she’d just allowed Chrys to accept the signal…but…
She chanced a quick glance at the rest of the group. Alton and the mercenary, Belkross, were leaving to guard Lilian while she settled biological matters in the jungle. Nakoda and Don were resting, with the little Rider snoring rather loudly despite his small size. That almost made her smile, as did the sight of Wyrlynd playing keep away with Turtle’s tail. He seemed so…free and without care.
It didn’t last long.
Returning now to the moment where Wyrlynd bit down on Alton’s other arm, Chrys was feeding information to Sapphire, correctly theorizing, Lycanthropes spread their condition through bacterial infection, most often through bite. If accepted by the body, outside of shifting capabilities activated either through stress or external triggers, the infected will gain varying degrees of regeneration. The probability of the subject ‘Alton’ accepting the lycanthrope condition and reversing damage done to both arms…thirty-four-percent-
But not if the boy kills him first! Sapphire thought incredulously.
By now she could see the bone of Alton’s arm as Wyrlynd swallowed another chunk. He then bared his fangs and swiped a claw at Don, who’d tried to kick him off Alton. His claws cut into Don’s flesh, making him stumble back. Meanwhile the only other person close enough to do anything, Belkross, was fully focused on the seaweed-wearing-man charging in.
And this skirmish added yet another layer of confusion for Sapphire. Yes, there’d definitely been tension between the strange man and Alton (and Nakoda of all people) but this? It almost made her wish she were back in hibernation!
Sorry, she thought towards Wyrlynd. She drew her grappling pistol, aimed it at him, and pulled the trigger. The grapnel pierced his side and latched on. In his bloodlust he didn’t react beyond an uncomfortable “Oomph!”
But then she pushed a button on the pistol’s side. The cord connecting the grapnel to the gun began reeling itself in like a fishing line. And Wyrlynd was the fish. The tiger boy yowled in alarm and pain as he was suddenly yanked off his meal.
This gave Salim the opening he needed. He rolled past Sapphire, and beneath Belkross’ blade, and arrived at Alton’s left side. His eyes fell to the man’s “good” arm. There was a large gash at the center of the forearm, with the skin around it shredded to ribbons. Salim reached into one of his pouches, grabbed a fistful of small bloodstones, and inserted them into the gash. He then pressed a palm over it, channeling healing energy into the limb. He felt flesh repairing itself, closing over the bloodstones. Alton’s mouth fell open, releasing a pained sigh.
“He put something in the wound!” Lilian screamed out.
“Because he’s dying!” Salim snapped back, drawing a dagger while keeping his other hand wrapped around Alton’s arm. He blocked a panicked attack from Wyrlynd, slashing the boy’s palm. He then kicked the tiger in the chest, aiding Sapphire in reeling him off of Alton.
Salim whirled around and suddenly found his dagger parried by another. Lilian had dropped to Alton’s other side. With the two daggers clashing directly over the shuddering man’s chest, she placed a hand on his stump. Black fire pulsed from her fingers and into him. The two energies went to war, “healing” him while also trying to extinguish each other.
Alton’s eyes suddenly flew open and rolled up into his skull. Curved teeth split his gums and his mouth stretched as he suddenly bellowed, “YOU DARE TOUCH ME?” The voice hit Lilian with the force of a crashing wave. “THIS IS MY VESSEL! RUN NOW AND I WON’T EAT YOUR HEART!”
Lilian flinched. Gaining the edge, Salim knocked the dagger out of her hand with his own weapon. Yet he wasn’t given long to feel smug over this small victory. He just barely ducked back out of the way of Belkross’ sword, avoiding getting his head chopped off by mere inches.
“Don!” Lilian called through chattering teeth. “Nakoda!”
Speaking of, the little Rider was currently frozen in place. Had been for the last thirty seconds or so.
Why? That word repeated on and on through his green head as he struggled to make sense of the chaos. Why? Why is all of this happening?
Aren’t…aren’t we supposed to be friends?
He looked to Don, his brother. Despite his bleeding leg, the donkey-unicorn was back to trying to kick Wyrlynd away. The tiger boy was still trying to get back to Alton, desperate for more meat. Sapphire was using her gun to pull him back, but he was stronger than her, making her feet slide inch by inch across the ground. With them in the way, Paco was struggling to get a clear shot at Seaweed Man. Next to him, Turtle looked as confused as Nakoda felt.
And beyond him…
Oh, no, Nakoda thought, turning away from the chaos and holding up his lance with trembling hands. Everyone else was too busy to spot the mass of orange and black fur tearing its way through the jungle to get back to them.
Back to his injured, screaming son.