Storm Strider

Marisol’s harness dragged her ‘up’, giving her a stronger kick off the ground as she launched into a mid-air quadruple spin—blurring across the seagrass meadow.

She didn’t need to charge her glaives with lightning. Her non-fatal War Jump kick smashed into one of the Imperator men’s head and she screeched to a halt twenty metres behind them, quickly tapping her gemstone three times to revert her personal gravity to ‘normal’; that was, glaives on the ground and eyes level with the seagrass meadow.

Her preapical claws carved through the ground as she slowed her momentum with them, all four limbs close to the ground. The Imperator she’d kicked with the flat end of her glaive was still wobbling around, clutching his head in pain, so before any of his companions could realise what she’d just done—she did the exact same thing again, blurring forward by reversing her gravity for additional speed.

This time, she didn’t hold back. Charging her glaives with lightning was one thing, but kicking the already wobbly man a second time with all the strength she had was another thing. She already knew he wouldn’t die. None of them were that weak. The flat end of her glaive slammed into his temple, driving him into the ground, and then she skated back to where she first started off.

… One down.

As the lady immediately dropped to her knees to check on her fallen companion, the other Imperator raised his pincer at Marisol, snapping it hard. Her ears popped. Her ripple sensors flared. She felt she could see the sound wave flying at her before it even appeared, so she spun in place, vibrating her hydrofuge spines to send a ripple back.

Her ripple wasn’t nearly as powerful as the pistol shrimp’s sonar—nor could she really ‘fire’ hers in a particular direction while she was underwater—but what she did manage was a ripple barrier as she spun in place, dispersing the non-fatal projectile with an ear-rattling warble of water.

While the second Imperator man blinked at her, looking confused, she skated in one more time to knee him in the jaw, felling him just as quickly as the first. The Imperator lady tried to grab her ankle as she flew by, but she was too fast. Too nimble. She didn’t really even have an ankle, so she simply ended up landing on a clump of seaweed, looking directly up at her final opponent with a thrilled grin.

They’re definitely strong, Marisol thought, as the Imperator lady seemed to realise there’d be no waking up her companions anytime soon. She shot to her feet, raising her shrimp pincer as Marisol gritted her teeth. But… screw your ‘official training’ and ‘years of experience as Harbour Guards’.

Do any of you know what it’s like to dance barefoot on the blistering sand?

The heat is suffocating. Sand blows under your eyelids all the time. You’re always sweaty and heavy and you need specially tailored clothes just to keep them from tearing all the time.

Compared to the desert, it’s always cool down here. Your mutations let you see and breathe underwater. You’re always wrapped in water and your weight is lower and you can wear whatever you want without being bogged down by them.

Hell, you even got these harnesses that let you move like you’re on land.

Compared to the desert, ain’t we all actually a bit stronger down here?

She said none of that out loud, of course. Her words would only come out as choking, gargling bubbles, but her glaring eyes got the message across to the lady—and both of them dragged one leg back, ready to launch their strongest attacks at each other.

… And I ain’t that much younger than all of you, either!

Don’t call me kid!

The seven lighthouses built around the crater were Imperator bases—the bottoms could open up and release small vessels capable of sailing atop the ever-swirling whirlpool, and each of those vessels could lower a dozen diving bells fitted with image-transferring lenses, allowing Imperators in the lighthouses to surveil everything going on within Depths One to Three like reverse periscopes.

Now, it was still way too early in the morning, so there weren’t any vessels and diving bells lowered into the whirlpool right now, but that didn’t stop Victor and Andres from looking down at the churning whirlpool with their plain, human eyes.

It wasn’t like Victor could see the battle between Marisol and the new recruits—hell, he could barely see a hundred metres in front of him with the bandages over his eyes—but it wasn’t like Andres could, either. The mutations of the Imperatrix’s insect class certainly gave him a keen sense of vision, but not to the extent he could peer a thousand metres deep into Depth One where Marisol probably was.

In that case, there was only one reason why they were standing behind the glass wall at the top of Lighthouse Seven, pretending they could see anything.

“... You don’t think the girl will pass your little test?” Victor asked, both hands clasped on his walking cane. He didn’t look at Andres as he spoke. “Reina gave her a piece of skyball coral in candy form just now, so she won’t drown. I reckon she’ll drag herself back up in ten minutes.”

“You don’t want the girl to pass my test,” Andres replied plainly, arms crossed behind his back. He didn’t look at Victor as he spoke, either. “I caught a glimpse of thunder from all the way up here back when she killed the skeleton shrimp, so she’ll win. The initiates will underestimate her in a moment of arrogance, and I reckon she’ll drag herself and the three of them back up in... around five minutes.”

Victor snorted. Reina, who was still standing behind the two of them with her arms pressed to her sides, stiffened in response to Andre’s statement. She probably didn’t want her juniors to lose—especially considering this was probably Marisol’s first go at fighting underwater—but the result had been determined the moment he brought Marisol up to the lantern room and he saw her reaction to the whirlpool.

Most people, new Imperator recruits included, would flinch and look hesitant at the thought of diving down there.

But Marisol’s eyes had looked lost in the swirl of the whirlpool, almost as though she’d been thinking about how she could skate on top of it.

The ‘test’ was really just a formality.

“I was the one who noticed her falling, dived in, and dragged her in against ‘Black Storm’. You know how tough that is on my body? I can barely walk as I am, so why would I have risked my life dragging her in if I didn’t want her to pass?” Victor asked, shrugging nonchalantly. “Why, if she’s gonna beat your new recruits, you might as well just make her a fully-fledged Imperator while you’re at it. Take her off my hands. Just think of the Altered Swarmsteel System in her nape as a bonus y’all can use to your advantage–”

“If you’re trying to shove her into my Imperators hoping I’ll force her to fit in with the rest of them—in turn, pushing her to adhere to our boorish and often cutthroat traditions—then you’re sorely mistaken,” Andres said calmly, lifting his chin slightly. “She’s a water strider. She can’t be controlled, and she shouldn’t be controlled. Free spirits like her only learn when her life’s on the line, so thank the grand creadors she’s even more antsy about us and this whole city than you were when you were first assigned here—even if she fails the test and you pawn her off to me, saying she’s too 'weak' to be your apprentice, I’ll just let her do her own thing. She’ll certainly try to help us out even if she's not an acting Hasharana for the purpose of getting home faster, so if she's going to be interfering in Hasharana duty anyways, you might as well be her mentor instead of me.”

Silence.

Victor held up his smile, lifting his chin slightly as well.

“Mentor?” he murmured, the word coming out soft and stilted. “I ain’t mentoring anyone no more, Andres. Least of all another water strider. After the last two–”

“Felipe and Rico had never fallen prior to the moment they did, so they died. But the girl’s different, no?” Andres interrupted. “Her palms’ calluses got calluses. She’s a Sand-Dancer. She’s clawed her way to the surface after sinking once, so even if she runs straight into a leviathan and falls, she’ll fall right through it instead of back."

"She's a civilian."

"Who killed a Mutant with zero professional training. A once-in-a-generation talent. You do remember we are fighting a losing war against the Swarm, yes? Tens of millions across the Deepwater Legion Front are at risk of getting overrun by Corpsetaker and his brood every single day, and if this front falls, the rest of the mainland falls. Maybe you've gone soft over the decades, but I will gladly force her to suffer and fight if it means her life can protect millions; as do the other Imperators. We're not picky at this point."

"She ain't at all prepared for working with you lot. She's a Sand-Dancer who's never left her shitty desert town before all this, for god's sake, and you wanna drag her into this war where she'll have to look both sides before charging into a bug? There's a reason she ain't trusting me and you Imperators, you know. Half-hearted threats followed by weeks of silence while we're still paying for her accommodation, food, and general living. Oh, we must be a far cry from the decisive 'heroes of the old era' who pushed back the Swarm Queen and fought alongside the Worm God three decades ago, and I bet she's read all about the Imperators since she was a kid, with all sorts of fairy-tale expectations you'll die before you ever turn into reality–"

"And I'm saying she’s a real daredevil, Chariot. Nothing like your pitiable apprentices back then–”

Victor's cane cracked the floor. “This lighthouse is too small for the both of us, Imperatrix. Perhaps you would like to jump out the window and see the battle below the whirlpool up close and personal?”

Another silence.

Reina fidgeted behind the two of them, taking a step back out of caution.

“... Hmph. You’d take up too much space yourself, too, if you weren’t on edge,” Andres said, the corner of his lips twisting into a smirk.

Victor smiled cheerfully. “Says the man twice my size and half as broad as your mother.”

“Just mentor the girl,” Andres muttered. “You know she’s got the aptitude to go faster than Felipe and Rico combined, and with you still tied up by your wounds like that, we could use a water strider alongside our ranks.”

“There are still twenty-one other Hasharana across the Deepwater Legion Front. All of them may be stuck outside the city because of ‘Black Storm’ right now, but if I send the message, they’ll claw back here with everything they’ve got, tooth and nail–”

“Please. Like they won’t be bedridden with injuries for an entire year after trying to force their way through ‘Black Storm’,” Andres said, giving his proposal a dismissive wave. “Right now, the only Hasharana in this city are you and that girl, and you’re still pathetically weak. How many more times can you use your insect ability again?”

Victor tilted his head back. “Two times. Well, it’s been two times for an entire decade, but I used it once when I dragged the girl into the city.”

“So, one more time and you drop dead?”

“Sounds about right.”

“We can’t count on you to get anything done if worse comes to worst, then.” Andres sighed, shaking his head in dismay. “As long as you’re like this, you can’t help us out by diving alongside us. You can’t go deep underwater anymore, either, so if anything out of the ordinary happens while my Imperators are down there—and strange things will happen down there in the coming weeks, mark my words—I need someone with an Altered Swarmsteel System down there with my Imperators.”

“So she’ll be bait in case you need your Imperators to run away?”

“So my Imperators can be bait while she runs away,” Andres said, voice low and quiet. “You Hasharana and your… ‘Archives’, is it? A single Archive can analyse and process more information than all of my Imperators combined if it can just be allowed to hover around Depth Seven collecting environmental data. By ourselves, we can’t figure out what Corpsetaker and his bunch are planning by calling Mutants from all over the great blue, but if it’s the Archive…”

“...”

Andres narrowed his eyes. Small bubbles were popping on the surface of the whirlpool directly beneath them, and Victor glanced back at Reina, nodding at her to go down and receive their returnees.

“... Train her, Victor,” Andres said, turning around to leave the lantern room. “After an entire decade of not having used your ability charges, you finally used half of it for that girl. You see something in her. Since you can no longer go down there yourself, at the very least, make her strong enough to survive Depth Seven so her Archive can investigate what Corpsetaker’s doing all the way down there.”

And there wasn’t going to be another discussion about it. The old bastard made it clear to Victor: he was the one who’d dragged Marisol in, so he was going to take care of her until the inevitable bitter end. No amount of trying to discreetly shove her off to the Imperators while staying neutral himself was going to work on Andres.

To begin with, Andres already knew she was going to be an important asset, so there was no chance he’d let her get out of the city or live a quiet life as long as she was here.

The Imperators were bastards like that, but they were also humans like that.

…

Victor sighed, leaning on his walking cane as he saw Reina running out onto the platform at the bottom of the lighthouse, receiving Marisol and the three Imperators she was dragging out of the water by the collar.

Marisol tossed the Imperators over to Reina, crawled onto the bobbing metal platform, and while she gasped for breath—he caught her glaring up at him, shaking an angry fist as she shouted a slew of incomprehensible words.

He was pretty sure she was saying something along the lines of ‘I want my Swarmsteel back’ or ‘I want my book back’, but he’d rather not strain his throat and shout anything back.

She’d climb all the way back up here, anyways, so he supposed he could just tell her her actual job once she was well-rested.

… Tch.

Where’s my ale?

When did I toss it away?