Heretical Fishing-Chapter 60Book 4: : Foreign Fishy Force

Still grinning, I glanced up, eyeing the shifting ceiling of rock and earthen chi that would land on our heads at any moment. We were entirely encased. All light had vanished. Yet, thanks to two very different things, I bore witness to the landslide’s descent.

First, my enhanced body. In normal situations, that alone was enough for me to see in pitch darkness. But the circumstance I found myself in was anything but normal; the walls were closed in on all sides, and the ancient essence within sought to smother my own.

Which was where the second source of illumination came in. Soft light bathed everything around us, its purple color adding an ethereal, otherworldly hue to all it touched. I gazed down at the ability providing the glow—just in time for Cinnamon to come flying out of it.

The moment she cleared Borks’s portal, she flicked her head and flung something beige my way.

I caught the sack and the items inside shifted, making a pleasing sound even through my layers of protective chi.

Sorry about this, Bonnie, I thought, not having the time to communicate it. In a perfect world, I could have warned you.

Then, after pausing for a tiny yet necessary fraction of a second, I launched the sack skyward with everything I had. The reason for my momentary delay was unleashed a moment later in the form of an aura blast flying from a very-cute and very-deadly bunny’s kick. The world distorted around the pillar of force as it rocketed toward the burlap payload, and when it was mere centimeters from collision, I released the tendrils of chi sealing it shut.

The effect was immediate. My mouth watered. My body demanded that I leap to its rescue. Bonnie actually took a step forward, her desire to consume outweighing her confusion.

Before either of us could do something stupid, however, Cinnamon’s attack hit dead-center.

Several things happened at once. The bunny, her job done, vanished back into Borks’s portal. The sack exploded, as did its contents, each of them atomized into a fine powder. And the elemental, apparently an ancient being, was presented with a choice.

Its will was alien to me, its thoughts a mystery, but as that foreign consciousness assessed the particles and the chi radiating from them, I knew exactly what it was thinking. It wanted them. It desired to consume them. The question, then, was whether it was smart enough to resist.

As the cloud of brown dust billowed outward, the strange being revealed its wisdom, slowing its descent in an attempt to avoid the tempting yet poisonous motes. But it was working against gravity now, and Cinnamon’s aura blast continued on, smashing some of the noxious molecules into its form.

With that, a moment of truth arrived. I honestly had no clue if this would work or not. Despite this course of action being called ‘Plan B’, it wasn’t even in my top-ten list of scenarios likely to succeed. It was a contingency plan. A desperate venture to save Bob the boat from destruction, who was the only friend, sapient or not, that I lacked the essence to teleport to safety.

As the earth elemental’s chi started to vibrate, I knew it had worked.

Every wall jittered, its entire mass shaking like a mid-90’s Toyota Hilux speeding down a corrugated road on stock suspension. Even through the drug now afflicting it, the elemental attempted to retreat, slowly pulling back from the cloud.

Borks had different ideas.

He spewed flames from his mouth as he spun in a circle, ensuring his blaze reached every inch of air directly above our heads. Where his fire washed over surrounding barriers, nothing happened; the earthen clumps were immune to.

But that wasn’t why he’d done it. Lines of heat shimmered, pushing the brown powder up toward the enemy. It pulled—

No, not ‘it’, I realized in a moment of clarity. They.

Under the effects of the toxin, the being around us let their true form slip. They weren’t a single soul at all—they were dozens of individuals. A hive mind of sorts. Before the surprise of that discovery could take root and unfurl in my mind, I dismissed it, focusing on what was happening above.

The many souls revealed their intelligence again by opening a chimney in the ceiling. Heat—and the dread molecules they were trying desperately to avoid—rushed toward the vent.

I grinned like a cat given a whole damned fish. Nice try, I thought, preparing to release an uppercut that would make Cinnamon prou—Oh, speak of the devil.

She emerged from Borks’s portal just in time for me to unleash the strike. As my fist ascended through empty air, I released a blast of pure chi. It moved at the speed of light, forming a thin line out through the chimney and up into the sky. I didn’t watch it for two reasons. First, I already knew what it would do. Second, and of much more importance, cool guys didn’t look at explosions.

I raised a questioning toward at Cinnamon—her eyes sparkled as she nodded, so stunned by my technique that she almost dropped the metallic object she’d retrieved. The beginning of a tear swelled up, but she blinked it away, not breaking her eye-contact with me as she gave me a proud nod.

My uppercut had, indeed, been of impeccable form.

Meanwhile, my thin strand of essence expanded, pushing the poisonous fragments outward and toward earthen walls that had no hope of outpacing it. Only when I’d sealed off the chimney completely did my power stop growing, and though only a temporary measure, it was all that was needed.

I hadn’t missed the secondary hole the elemental created. Showing a remarkable knowledge of heat and aerodynamics, they’d opened a tiny inlet for oxygen near the surface of the ocean, a place for air to stream in, fuel Borks’s fire, and launch the poisonous particles skyward.

But unfortunately for the myriad earthen souls surrounding us, my blocking of the chimney only worsened their predicament. The toxic dust swirled around chaotically, all paths leading to the elemental. When they made contact, the ancient being was unable to stop their absorption and assimilation. As more of our obliterated payload leached into their awareness, the jittering became so strong that they could no longer retreat.

The pull of addictive essence coming from above diminished with each bit the elemental incorporated. A tension I’d not realized was there eased, disappearing from my shoulders and upper back.

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The effect on Bonnie was even more pronounced. She shook her head and let out a heavy sigh as she returned to herself. Then, she whirled on me, eyes narrowed and expression pinched in accusation. “Why the hell am I here, Fischer? And if that was Plan B, what the frack was Plan A?”

I opened my mouth to reply, but she rolled right over me. “Also, what kind of demon beans were those? Why would you make such a thing?”

I smiled, looking away from the continually quivering mass to meet her gaze. “Those, my adventurous friend, were an unholy creation I made by mistake. The System called them Coffee Infused Coffee Beans.” I gestured around at the quaking walls. “The caffeine content was a bit too high for human consumption—elemental, too, by the looks of it.”

“Wonderful. I’m not at all surprised you created something so toxic by accident, but that doesn’t answer my first two questions.”

“Oh? What were they, again? In order of least importance.”

She gave me an impressive pout. “I asked why it was called Plan B, but knowing you, that stands for Plan Bean, doesn’t it?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It stands for Plan Bean-Infused-Beans.”

Duhhh, Cinnamon peeped.

I’d not thought it possible, but Bonnie’s pout grew even more severe. “Of course. That’s on me for underestimating you. And, for my last question…” She cleared her throat, took a deep breath, and yelled. “Why the frack am I here, Fischer? You three clearly have plans, and I’m not a part of them!”

I held up a finger, but unlike my previous statements, this wasn’t a method of distraction. Something was… changing. Without warning, the tonnes of rock started to move again, within itself rather than away from or toward us.

I couldn’t say for sure what was going on, but when I felt the caffeine molecules getting shifted around—a movement I could sense because of how much I consumed on a daily basis—I developed a hunch.

And they said my coffee addiction was a bad thing, I thought, smiling to myself. Who’s laughing now?

“Plan F!” I yelled. This variation was even further from the top-ten list of workable plans, but that didn’t make me any less excited to see it come to fruition.

A metallic pouch came sailing my way, launched by a supremely fluffy bunny who’d anticipated my need. I caught it with one hand. Instead of yeeting the parcel upward with all my strength, I lobbed it softly, removing my tendrils of sealing chi at the same time.

“Cinn—” I started, but was cut off when a streak of martial prowess and caramel-colored fur shot past me.

As Cinnamon’s flying kick annihilated the package right above my head, my enhanced vision allowed me to witness a marvelous sight.

She stopped in midair. An odd aura warped the air around her, and all the strips previously contained by sheets of thin metal were drawn toward her by the force. Then, my fuzzy bunny started to twirl.

Surprise radiated from Bonnie’s core; she recognized the chi. Like a mini tornado of cute violence, Cinnamon spun on the spot, her limbs lashing out and breaking already lean strips into even smaller chunks.

Now that only a few motes of atomized caffeine remained, I withdrew my solid pillar of pure essence, opening the chimney once more. The surrounding air started to circulate. Only when the trapped winds became cyclonic did the martial bunny stop spinning and let go of her magnetic aura.

The dehydrated food she’d been smashing exploded outward, joining the storm. As with the coffee dust, when they struck the ancient being’s mass, they were absorbed. Unlike the poisonous cloud, however, the tiny fragments of meat were anything but assimilated.

I cackled as Borks snatched a few nibbles as they passed him by, my canine pal unable to help himself from indulging in the chi-filled treats. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com

“Fish-jerky storm!” I yelled like a protagonist declaring their finishing move, then leaned to the side, whispering. “Psst. Bonnie. Plan F is short for Plan Four F’s, which stands for—”

“Fracking Fishy Fish jerky?” she interrupted.

“What? Don’t be silly. That’s only three F’s.” I held up four fingers. “It stands for Foray of the Foreign Fishy Force.”

“... What?”

I nodded toward the surrounding walls as Cinnamon’s tornado of jerky hit them. “Unfortunately for our earthen attacker, the jerky is saturated with the entirely wrong kind of essence. Get it? Foreign fishy force!”

This had been something I’d gleaned from a conversation between Claws and her raccoon student—a bit of trivia my tricksy otter hadn’t meant to share. Some aspects were closely aligned. Rock and earth, for example, were basically the same thing. But lightning? It did not get along with either of them.

The elemental was already at war with the caffeine poisoning it. And if my hunch was correct, it’d been trying to isolate one of its many souls, which it could then flood every drop of toxin into. Adding electricity to the mix had introduced a third army to the battlefield, a phalanx of spearmen that slammed right into the ancient being’s side.

The effects in the physical world were impressive. Flecks of dehydrated meat hit the earthen walls like invisible punches from a giant, leaving craters behind in the now-pockmarked dome.

It was as effective as I could have hoped, and as the winds started to die down, I took a deep breath of the fish-and-coffee scents lingering in the air, both as enticing as the other.

“Ahhh,” I sighed. “What a beautiful sme—”

“Fischer!” Bonnie yelled, her face awestruck, perplexed, and distinctly lacking the mirth my animal pals and I wore. “I’m all for adventure, but this is fracked! Can someone please explain how in Hades’s burning crotch we’re going to get out of this, why you’re messing around here instead of helping Maria, and why the shit I’m standing here like an ornament instead of getting teleported… away?”

She trailed off, glancing down toward her arm. Power swelled beneath her skin, giving off a soft-blue glow. In moments, it grew bright enough for a shape to be revealed: a paw print, smaller than Borks’s but larger than Cinnamon’s.

“Forgive me,” I said, flashing an apologetic smile. “I couldn’t say so earlier, but there’s the answer to two of your questions. The other, though? Why I haven’t gone to Maria?” The blue brilliance coming from Bonnie’s arm increased, illuminating a grin I could no longer hide. “She called my name, but that was only to get my attention. She didn’t need my help. I was merely the delivery sys—”

I could have continued speaking if I wanted to; my voice hadn’t been drowned out, and my thoughts were clear. I didn’t, however—I wanted to give all my focus to the being that shot from Bonnie’s limb.

A translucent mammal, semi-opaque and filled with deadly power. A mouth lined by needle-sharp teeth, all of which were gleaming between parted lips. And caressed in both forepaws, a second being smiled and waved, his inclinations similar to his holder in both bearing and degeneracy.

A shrill, chittering noise came from his master as she cast a judgemental gaze across the entire world. In her position, most would have apologized for being late, perhaps enquired about everyone’s health to check we were okay.

This creature, however, was unlike any other. My friend. My ally. Corporal Claws—wielder of lightning, chaos, and a raccoon—simply chirped.

You’re welcome, she said.

Her essence erupted.