Heretical Fishing-Chapter 64Book 4: : The Truth

The moment an otter’s innocuous-looking pebble hit the shell encasing us, all hell broke loose. Three distinct sources of chi shot outward from the point of impact, all of them burrowing into the earth elemental in a manner befitting their aspect.

The first essence type, that of one Corporal Claws, was the least surprising. Her chaotic barbs of lightning—laced with natural electricity—tore through everything in their path, even the hardest of rocks no match for the dual energies.

Next was the attacking elemental’s own chi. Any confusion surrounding the pebble’s origin was immediately answered; it had once belonged to the very being it now attacked. Rather than rejoin its former master, the essence was hostile, forming spears of crystalline stone that stabbed deep into the elemental before expanding outward.

Last and most shocking of all was the presence of the raccoon’s identity as a thief. The fact his power and will had joined Claws wasn’t surprising—he was her familiar, after all—it was the effect his inclusion had that was remarkable.

The raccoon, an adolescent mammal found lost at sea only days ago, was stealing chi from the ancient being—and not mere drops. The devious little bastard was yoinking all of it.

Great ropes of essence flowed back toward the stone. In seconds, metric tonnes of mass had been drained. Whole sections fell. I redirected the inert clumps overboard with an angled wall of solid light, just in case it was some sort of trick, then checked up on the ancient elemental with a few tendrils of my power, suspecting they would do… I don’t know, something to stop the theft of their very life-force.

But they were paralyzed. Robbed of the ability to fight back.

“Damn,” I said. “Looks like it’s checkmate. Well played, Claws. You—”

She cut me off with a chittering cackle, floating in midair as she rolled around, pounding a non-existent floor beside her. She zapped upright suddenly, her eyes and needle-sharp teeth aglow with blue electricity.

And now, she trilled, her voice filled with malice. For the real fun to begin!

Like removing a mask, her facade of civility disappeared, revealing a core corrupted with power as she zipped over to the pebble. Half the ceiling had fallen away, drained of the ancient elemental’s essence. Predawn light illuminated her as she plunged a forelimb into the translucent bubble of stolen earth chi billowing around her stone.

You thought me controllable? You assumed I would settle for the chaos of mere pranks on Barry? She let out a belly laugh, clutching her abdomen. No, Master! I will show you true chaos! I’ll unleash every ounce of this power on those you love most!

With this proclamation, she started creating a wave of incredible energy, turning it toward Tropica. If she unleashed it, it would take all the remaining essence I had to stop the village from being leveled.

What shall you do, master? She let out a chittering laugh filled with madness, her teeth parted to reveal their gleaming points. You can contain me, but the earthen chi will obliterate Tropica! It’ll destroy the whole village!

Her entire body glowed now.

Your only choice is to use every last drop of essence defending the insects you have grown to love! What will you choose? Will you sacrifice the lives of others to stop me? Will you—

“Claws,” I interrupted, the word hitting her with physical force as I crossed my arms and smiled at her theatrics. “I see what you’re up to.”

Her eye twitched subtly, but she hid it with another maddened cackle. I know not what you speak of, Master! I am Corporal Claws, wielder of lightning, channeler of chaos, maiden of the—

“Maiden of the pond,” I finished, my words shaking her. “I was wondering what your end-game was for the longest time. I get it now. One second.”

I snapped my fingers, and an extremely muscular man appeared beside me in a flash of light.

Claws gazed down at Barry with a distinct lack of comprehension, her fuzzy little face cute despite her facade of insanity. Barry, knowing that the hour for vengeance was nigh, gave her a shit-eating grin. Her scowl only deepened.

“The pranks you had me do to him?” I asked. “Barry knew about them. He was a willing participant, and you weren’t pranking him at all—we were pranking you.”

Her teeth parted again, but this time, it was in stunned silence rather than menacing glee. Barry’s ego and core both shone with vindication.

“You thought you’d deceived me,” I continued. “You thought I genuinely believed you capable of hurting people if I didn’t sew chaos for you.” I shook my head. “Claws… please. I know you better than anyone else. If you had actually meant others harm, I would have locked you away until you changed your tune. I’ve already learned that lesson.”

I… she tried, her eyes showing panic despite the bright light still flooding from them. I am capable! You’d better shield the village, master! I’m about to let all this energy go! If you don’t protect them, I’ll—

“No,” I interrupted again. “You knew this elemental was coming toward Tropica, and you planned to steal its power for yourself. There was only one problem—me.”

She just stared.

“I could have stopped you, so you needed me to overexert myself. The entire evil act—you did it for this exact moment. If I wasted the last of my essence protecting the village, you could yoink it for yourself.”

Don’t…Don’t be ridiculous! What could I possibly want all this power for? I am perfect as I am! She gathered the earth chi with one paw and prepared to release it with the other. I’m really going to do it, master! This is your final chance! Protect the village, or… or else!

I rested a hand to Barry’s shoulder. The entire sky was clear now, so as I turned to look at him, his face was lit by the pink and red colors of the coming dawn. “I’ll give you the satisfaction, mate. Cheers for going along with my plan without knowing the end goal.”

He blinked, not yet drawing the conclusion.

“If you were the maiden of a pond,” I continued, “and one of your rival spirit beasts had her pond awaken into some kind of sapient familiar… how would you feel?”

Claws’s jaw dropped completely open, and the jolts of lightning bouncing from tooth-to-tooth faded back into her body. All she could do was stare as her careful plans unravelled before her.

Barry didn’t skip a beat. “Hermes’s sleight of hand! Seriously, Claws? That’s why you did all this?” He bellowed a laugh. “The look on your face—gods above, it was all worth it. Thank you, Fischer. This was a wonderful gift.”

“You’re very welcome, mate. It was the least I could do given my participation in your depantsing.” I looked up at my favorite otter, whose jaw had yet to stop hanging open. “Now, Claws, I—”

She let out a bestial cry and appeared before me with a thunderous boom, jabbing an accusatory digit toward my chest. You’re lying! she screeched. You’ve been pranking people all along! More than just Barry! I’ve seen it with my own peepers! freewёbnoνel.com

“Well, yeah. I had to make it believable. Besides, it was kinda fun.”

She froze for a fraction of a second, the truth of my words hitting her, then her indignation returned. Do have any clue how hard it was to seem evil for so long? Do you comprehend the sacrifices I had to make?

“It… was only three days.”

Only three days?

“Uhhh, yeah?”

She leaned closer, her face tinged with genuine madness. Do you have any idea how busy my schedule is? That’s three days of missed scritches from the townsfolk! Three days of harmless pranks left unsprung! And the snacks…

Stolen novel; please report.

“What sna—”

There’s a couple on the north side that leave fishies out for me! Every! Single! Night!

“Well, as they say, there’s always more fish in the s—”

Her wild-eyed expression occupied my entire field of view, and she reached up to squeeze my cheeks together. Do you know what they’ve been doing with those fish when they’re still there in the morning, Master…?

“Uhhh,” I said through my smushed mouth. “They give them to someone el—”

Crabs! she screeched, her pawpads making circular motions on my face. They’ve been feeding them to crabs! Unascended. Crabs!

She pressed her forehead into mine. Tiny sparks of electricity lanced through her eyes. And she abruptly deflated.

Her whole body went limp as she drifted away, a half-otter, half-liquid pile of dejection incarnate. All for nothing… she cooed, morose. Master is devious. Master is cruel. Master—

“Is forgiving,” I interrupted, unable to hide my amusement.“I won this battle fair and… okay, maybe not fair and square, but we were both being deceptive. Those were the rules of engagement.”

She didn’t reply, simply floating in place and staring up at the coming dawn. Her translucence flickered and faded away, revealing brown and tan fur I’d not seen since her awakening as an elemental.

This return to her old body felt just as right as her opaque variation, but it was arguably more natural for a single reason: it didn’t use any of her power. I hadn’t realized it before, but now that it was absent, a whisker-thin strand of chi had been facilitating the appearance.

A flicker of a grin tugged at the corner of Claws’s mouth when she sensed my surprise; in this, at least, she had managed to fool me. I grinned at her, seeing an opportunity for us to move forward. In retrospect, I should have known better.

Oh-ho-ho! Master finds that funny! she accused, poking my chest with a lightning-infused paw. My torso tingled. Do you know how bothersome it was not being able to change forms when I felt like it? She flickered and became translucent again. To have an itch in my mind that I could never scratch? To have an oyster right on the edge of my awareness, its meat juicy, succulent, yet just out of…

Her eyes drifted to the muscular man beside me, and she deflated once more, falling backward to starfish in midair and stare up at the sky with a distant gaze.I glanced at Barry, wondering why his visage had afflicted her so.

I half expecting him to look a little regretful, reflecting the conflicted emotion in my soul at seeing my always-chipper otter going through a bout of melancholy.

Nope. Not even a bit. Barry wore a victorious smile above his chiselled jaw. He was visibly enjoying every second of vengeance so much that it had plunged Claws into a depression.

In response, the raccoon’s upper torso shot out of an otter pocket. He scowled at the muscleman, giving him a rude gesture with one paw and rubbing his master’s stomach reassuringly with the other. Comforted by the strokes, Claws shifted back to her furred form, which also robbed her familiar of his opacity.

Deciding I’d let the maiden of the skies wallow for long enough, I cleared my throat. “Before you cut me off earlier, Claws, I was going to give you good news.”

She rolled over dramatically. Master taunts me! Does the cruelty ever come to an—

“You can have the elemental’s power.”

She zapped bolt upright, small jolts of electricity excising her gloom in an instant.

“But!” I held up three fingers. “I have conditions.”

She nodded so slightly anyone else might have missed it. There was some distrust gathered in the bunched lines around her eyes.

“First, no more pretending you’re a murderous beast of a creature unless it has strategic purpose. Plus, either Barry or I have to approve it. Preferably both.”

Another nod, more animated than last time, her suspicions waning.

“Second, you have to acknowledge that I out-chaos’d you in this battle of wits, and that you’re only able to attempt evolving your pond because I, the humble, handsome, and humble Fischer let it happen.”

She was frozen for a few seconds, then her hackles fell when she realized this wasn’t some kind of trick. She slammed into my chest and stretched to rub her chin against mine, chittering softly all the while.

I accept defeat, she cooed with great vigor. I have been bested by my master in a game of wits! He is flawless! And so handsome! I never should have tried to fool him!

“Good girl,” I said, scritching behind her ear with one hand—and flicking her raccoon on the head with the other when he tried to steal the cord that held up my pants. “The last concession is the most important.” I stopped patting her so she could look me in the eye. “You need to not drain all of this ancient elemental’s power. If you let it live, there’s a slight chance it could joi—”

Half the world went black. It happened in an instant. All I could make out was a shape. Giant tendrils—no, tentacles—were wrapped around Bob, countless suckers securing themselves to his hull, deck, and mast. The creature’s head was even larger than the ship; it blocked out the entire port-side horizon.

Set within the blackness, two terrible eyes glared down at me. They bore directly into the center of my soul. Each orb was the same shade as the rest of it, but tiny swirls of mercury broke up the abyssal monotony, those dark-gray flourishes betraying intelligence that was vast, ancient, and unspeakable.

As I stared up into that alien gaze, I felt a flicker of the power stored behind them. Its essence was that of the abyss. Incomprehensible. Meaning clean.

Death.

My core opened up, and chi poured out.

***

The kraken had lived for thousands of years. He knew well the bitter taste of deceit and betrayal—yet he’d almost fallen for it again. He had been a fool. Naïve despite his time on this corrupt planet.

He would rectify it immediately.

Thick tentacles and immovable suckers held him to the ship, and as he recalled the morning’s events, his limbs tightened, making wooden fibers creak and groan. A number of things had stilled his actions up until this point; the entire universe seemed to urge him not to destroy them all.

First, there was his oldest ally’s reluctance to use their full power. Until the earth elemental tried to assimilate the newly awakened otter of lightning and chose, the Kraken’s stored detonation would not be strong enough to guarantee the fulfillment of his duty.

Then, when said being of chaos had arrived, she had a divines-damned raccoon in her soul, the bond between them true. And as stunning as that revelation was, it was nothing compared to the object hidden within her strange little pockets.

This otter and her familiar had stolen something that belonged to the earth elemental, but the pebble had been changed so much that its previous owner couldn’t detect it. The weave of power was genius, really—it robbed their target of even the ability to understand the exceptional danger they were in.

The ancient kraken, however, didn’t have his eyes or senses clouded. When the newly awakened lightning otter and the devious being she’d bonded with started to steal his oldest ally’s essence, he wasn’t caught off guard. The speed with which the two drained the earthen elemental’s life, though… how were infantile beings so efficacious?

Either the twin souls of chaos and larceny would succeed in their robbery, or they’d fail. If the former came to be, they’d have fulfilled his duty for him; if the latter came true, it would be the perfect moment for him to strike, obliterating what remained of his oldest ally by the time they broke free.

It all made sense. It was logical. Backed by reason.

So why did he want to destroy neither the newly awakened elemental, nor her apparent master, the human wielding unaspected essence? The man’s actions were rash and boisterous, just as expected from a soul willing to channel pure chi—what other personality type would do something so reckless?

Yet, despite this dangerous level of impulsivity, the cultivator reminded the kraken of two very important people. His former masters. The only ones that, out of countless other souls, had never betrayed nor tried to destroy him. When he recalled their demise, his cold rationality returned, but then the aspectless cultivator had done something so compassionate, so stupid, so human, that all the good times with his departed friends flashed through the ancient cephalopod’s mind.

This embracer of pure chi… he could steal the earthen bubble of essence for himself. It would give him unfathomable power—and kill him shortly afterward, of course, but when did that ever stop a human from reaching for ascension? Instead, the cultivator told the strange otter to just… have it. For a pond. It defied comprehension.

The way he treated his many animal slaves, too… they weren’t slaves at all. Humans were the easiest to corrupt of all beings; their short lives, endless ambition, and ability to rationalize evil were a fatal combination. Only a spirit beast left no other choice would willingly bond themselves with the contemptible species.

But what of his fallen masters? Their pure hearts and pristine souls were what had made them so special. This man before him, who was scratching an otter of chaos behind her ear, appeared to be cut from the same cloth. Maybe… maybe the kraken didn’t need to annihilate him. Perhaps this strange gathering of beings could fulfill his duty for him. The memory of his two masters—his two friends—urged him to show this kindness. It was surely what they would have done.

But then the truth had come to light.

Like the sun rising over a pitch-black ocean, the man announced his goal. He asked the otter to let the earth elemental live! The mask of grace was a facade. He was just like so many evil dictators before him, seeking personal power to the detriment of life itself.

The kraken was left no other choice. He revealed himself, reached for his condensed bubble of chi, and prepared to release it. Enough of the earth elemental’s power had been drained away by now—their destruction was guaranteed.

At long last, the kraken’s duty was to be complete. He regretted the collateral damage—the swathe of souls his explosion would send to the next life—but sacrifices were sometimes necessary. The Kallis Realm would not know peace while the pure-chi cultivator, or his oldest ally, remained.

In that final moment, the ancient being thought of his friends once more. His loving and compassionate masters. They really would have tried to let this man and his slaves live. They were kind to a fault, after all—which was exactly what had gotten them killed all those years ago.

With a tear swelling in one abyssal eye, the kraken released his condensed pocket of chi, welcoming the blessed nothingness that would soon follow.