"…It is water."
"…Yes it is."
"…And it is falling."
"…Yes it is."
"…It is a waterfall."
I broke my stare with the proclaimed waterfall in favour of shooting Krabby a blank look. "Really?"
Given his species' convention for walking sideways, Krabby was already facing me before I'd even started talking. I swear he rolled his eyes, but his face was back to normal too quickly for me to be sure. "It is water and it is falling. Krabby does not know what Luke wants."
Our staring contest lasted for three more seconds. In those three seconds, I did nothing but wait until my eyes had dried out so that I had a reason to blink, turning back to the water that was falling a few meters away from me.
It was definitely water. And it was certainly falling.
I had to remind myself that yes, this was the special assignment Chatot had given us. I'd double-checked the map that I could barely read before we'd set off, and I'd triple-checked it once we got here. We were supposed to be investigating this waterfall. We were supposed to be investigating this generally clear liquid, that was currently moving perpendicular to the rock surface beyond it, abiding by the will of gravity.
Fuckin' A.
Shaking my head, I glanced at Skitty, who had been knocked to the ground some minutes ago and had yet to get up. "Any ideas?"
Because I was out. I'd never had any in the first place. We had rocked up to this wall, and had just been standing here ever since. Except Skitty, who had somehow managed to get away in the two seconds I had my back turned and decided that maybe charging a solid rock surface was the best possible idea available to us at the time. All she had managed to do was reaffirm my belief that she needed to be kept under constant supervision.
"There's something behind it." I raised my eyebrows as Skitty climbed to her feet, her expression tight and resolute. "I saw it."
She saw it, huh? I'd been scrutinising the damn thing for ages, and nothing I'd seen had suggested anything of the sort. And come to think of it… "and you didn't say anything before now… because?"
And just like that, the resolution left Skitty's body so quickly that a void opened up, and she wilted in on herself in a desperate attempt to fill it in. "uh, heh… I wasn't sure until now?"
"You still don't sound very sure," was my comment as I stepped towards the waterfall, my trust in Skitty doing nothing to assuage the overwhelming doubt in her words. My body, on the other hand, was having none of that shit, which was why I was already two steps away from the water, my eyes narrowed and hand cupping my chin thoughtfully. Nope, still nothing.
I took one more step…
What was that noi- OH GOD NO.
My vision swam as a multidimensional warble filled my ears. I tried throwing myself back, but by the time I realised what was happening, my body had already locked into the position that it would no doubt be staying in until the trance was over. My hand on my chin and my foot still in the air, I could do nothing but watch as the edge of our little outpost rushed up to meet me, along with the crashing waves below.
Welp, shit. May as well look on the bright side in all this sudden darkness.
Maybe the water would manage to beat me into a less embarrassing pose by the time rigor mortis set in.
XxX
I was not thrilled that this asshole of a waterfall was the first thing I got to see once the darkness had finally lifted.
I tried to throw my arms up in exasperation, and maybe so I could properly flip off whatever cruel and merciless deity had decided to toy with me, but I found that my arms wouldn't budge. Not only that, but now that I was actually paying attention, it turned out my legs were no longer under my control either.
I was walking towards the waterfall.
My eyes tried to blink. It didn't work.
I didn't want to walk towards this waterfall. I had bad memories of this place; they'd only become memories a few seconds ago! Wait, what was the progression of time in here compared to out there- oh, like I actually gave a crap.
What was far more deserving of my focus was the fact that the waterfall was slowly getting bigger. From the bottom of my vision, I could just make out the tips of some pink feet – sans toes – and that told me two things. First, the fact that I could no longer move my head around, control my limbs, or even blink independently implied that this time, I was in for some weird internal body point of view shenanigans for this little adventure.
Second, this fucking clown was picking up speed what no.
"Uh, buddy?" My voice came out as an echo that I couldn't have told you with confidence was real. It sounded like it was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Which is a shitty explanation, but I was currently trapped within some moron's head on what very well could have been an astral plane so spare me your judgement. "You do realise that's a wall, right?"
Whoever this person was, it was obvious they couldn't hear me. Stubby little arms had made it into my vision now, swinging back and forth as my new ride accelerated from a brisk walk to a brisk jog.
I couldn't even slump down as I whined, this dumbass' pace getting more hurried with every second passing. If someone I was inside of during one of these veams died, would I die to? Would I just be ejected? Did I even want to leave if I was just going to suffocate as soon as I got back into my own body?
Holy crap, you fall into one alternate dimension and two more pile on. Was this normal?
"Oi, dickhead! Slow your damn roll!" Why give me control of my mouth if I wasn't given anything along with it? Never had I wanted to slap a concept I didn't understand so much bef…ore… this guy had just started rolling.
Could he hear me? Did he know I was in here?
…Was this now going to count as murder?
Head tucked in, arm clenched around his stomach so hard that I could feel it, ears that I hadn't noticed before folding down and cutting off the edges of my vision, and oh yes; seeing the ground and sky in rapid succession of one another probably helped lead me to that conclusion too.
Fuck me, I was gonna be sick.
Ground, sky, ground, sky, ground, water, darkness, ground, crystal- wait, what?
Abruptly, I snapped back to paying attention. My new ride was looking around, giving me a pretty nice view of the cavern he'd stumbled upon. I was just glad he'd gone back to using walking as a preferred method like any civilised folk would.
Glancing over his shoulder, my valiant steed stared at the curtain of water he's just charged right through. I had the chance to look at his shadow on the wall as he turned, for all of a single second, before he was abruptly back to looking at the darkness, humming a merry tune as he took his first step further inside.
Something screeched in my ears as his foot hit the ground. The darkness around me became a void of nothingness. I guess my veams just didn't like spoilers.
XxX
The first thing I did upon opening my eyes was blink.
It worked. Good.
Now. Was I dead?
A preliminary scan of my surroundings revealed to me that no, I was not dead. There wasn't nearly enough fire for that to be the case.
My scan also revealed to me the fact that I was still falling towards the water. Which was odd, because I was sure that more time would have passed here from wherever I was. This was an interesting case of time dilation I had on my hands.
Oh, and also?
"ARRRGGGHHH-grk-!"
Thank God for Krabby. His claw digging into my tail hurt like Hell, but at least the chance of losing a body part had been reduced to one that I wasn't likely to use anyway.
I was already scrutinising the waterfall as Krabby hauled me back up over the lip of our little outpost, a finger scratching idly at my chin as I glanced up. I could already hear Skitty rushing towards my back as I jumped as high as my legs could take me, which turned out to be pretty damn high, and held out a hand towards the cliff in front of me.
"Force Palm!"
The detonation blew a hole in the water, the disturbance spreading the further down it got, likely because of any lingering energy that was already taking up the space. I wouldn't know, I wasn't a buff on hydrodynamics and ethereal life energy. All I knew was that the cave behind this waterfall did indeed go this high up, and that gave me a very dumb idea.
I had another Force Palm readied in my hand by the time I landed. My body began to glow as the energy for a Quick Attack started flowing through it. Just to be safe, I flicked the little metaphorical switch in my brain that triggered Endure. "Krabby, can you do that thing that makes me go fast?"
"Agility."
I didn't feel any difference, but after a few seconds had passed I nodded – either a job well done or a yeah, that – and turned back around to address Skitty. I hadn't expected her mid-launch, but I caught her with relative ease and was depositing her on the ground a moment later.
"There's something behind there, you were right." For a heartbeat she was still, before her head fell to the side. I merely nodded, straightening up and making sure the slowly gathering ball in my palm was still secure before I relayed my admittedly thrown together plan.
"I'm not sure Force Palm residue will do to both of you, so I'll blow a hole in and jump through, then do the same on the other side higher up. If I haven't shown signs of life five seconds after the water returns to normal, then make some preparations for a funeral." I couldn't help but wink cheekily as Skitty opened her mouth. "I would like to be chopped up into six pieces, have each piece be put into a suitcase, and each suitcase thrown into the ocean at a different point in the world. Until then!"
That was when I decided to do something new.
Pivoting on my heel, I spread my hand out, flinging the Force Palm straight towards the water. And Krabby, but he managed to duck out of the way before it could get close enough to react to his presence.
The little orb wobbled along its path, a high pitched keen following along behind it as it impacted the waterfall. I had taken off before I had time to actually register the explosion, and as such had to dig in my heels at the last second to avoid being flung in the opposite direction.
Wow, that was loud. And apparently very destructive; just something else I would have to work on later, I suppose.
Steam was what greeted me as I hurled myself through the opening I had created. I hadn't actually expected the hole to be any bigger than my hand, which was why I did my level best to emulate an arrow as I flew, but I needn't have bothered in the first place. The opening could have fit all three of us if we got very comfortable with one another, but the plan was made and I wanted to stick to the plan.
…Good lord, I had been hired to throw explosives made out of me at water and stumble around dark, unknown territory in search of some form of treasure. This was my life. I had chosen this.
I flicked another Force Palm into the water as I puzzled over that, closing my eyes as the displaced liquid sprayed in all directions. I ended up a little bit drenched, but the two thumps on either side of me probably meant my idea was a success.
Cracking open an eye, my lips tilted up slightly as I took in Skitty's broad grin and the bored slant running across Krabby's eyes. The cave was fairly dark, but there was enough light where we were standing to actually see what we were standing on.
Skitty and I were on stone. Krabby was in a pool of water.
…And no crystals. Lame. I had actually been looking forward to that part.
Bowing mockingly close to the ground, I swept one hand up to my chest, the other stretching out behind me to gesture towards where shadows morphed into inky blackness. "Shall we?"
My smile grew just a little bit wider as a soft tail thumped against my head. If I had to attempt to replicate what it sounded, I would probably have provided a short 'bing'.
"Don't black out on the edge of anymore cliffs!" Skitty was trying to scowl at me. I say trying, because the only evidence was the slightest twitching at the edges of the beam she was directing straight into my face. Before I could get a word in edgewise, her tail was around my waist, my feet kicking up twin clouds of dirt as I was dragged further into the cave. "And also YES, let's GO!"
I allowed my body to go limp in Skitty grip as I caught Krabby's eye, shrugging as though to say, 'explorers, am I right?'
He just wordlessly followed along.
XxX
I couldn't help but roll my eyes as Skitty pushed herself onto her hind legs, her efforts to pull the massive crystal we'd found amounting to little more than a very enthusiastic hug. I would have offered my help, but before I could even take a breath Skitty had turned around, her tail wrapped around the bottom of the gem and her legs kicking up dust and gravel as she sprinted in place.
"Come OOOOONNNNNNNNN!"
Her frustrated yowling was adorable, hilarious, and completely understandable. After the day we'd just had, we all deserved to find some way to unwind.
The cave was dark. Not in the metaphorical or traditional sense, I was talking absolutely pitch black. Skitty and I had powered up a Foresight five steps into the damn place, and that hadn't helped one bit. While I was no expert on how Foresight worked, I did know that you needed even a tiny bit of light to get night vision working.
We were shit out of luck in that regard. Two turns in, and we were walking basically blind. Sure, we could see the outlines of other people if they were nice enough to walk into our line of sight, and the very, very dark blue smudges in amongst the nothingness was vaguely identifiable as water, but the difference between wall and air was if your nose was being smushed into your face or not with every step.
With me taking the lead as was pretty much standard procedure by now, I was the one generally running into the walls. Skitty got off pretty lightly by not following my example, but she had her moments too.
Krabby could just count his lucky stars that he was a Water Type. He'd fallen into so many pools that he probably would have drowned three times over if he wasn't able to breathe underwater.
It took one of us two hours to remember I could set my leg on fire. It had worked for about five minutes, but trying to fight and avoid all the water on the ground while maintaining the flame was a logistical nightmare. Eventually my legs had just gotten too wet for me to set them alight at all, and we'd been forced back into darkness.
And the fighting… if we didn't split up, we'd hit each other. If we did split up, it was a game of Marco Polo from whatever circle of Hell was watery to meet up again. If we tried to run, we'd smack into a wall and be forced to fight anyway. Between the three of us, we must have caused at least a dozen rockslides just from attacks going wide and hitting the walls.
Krabby had suggested we keep knocking shit down until we opened up a few holes and got to see where we were going. After the first boulder had landed on my head (when I'd just so happened to be Enduring a pressured blast of water that was being shot into my face from somewhere near my feet, lucky), that plan had been scrapped. Which was a shame, because even if it wasn't the best plan, it was exactly what this damn place deserved.
At that point, we'd been in here for six hours. The only reason I hadn't burst into tears of pure frustration was the well-practiced stiff upper lip I'd employed to keep from giving away our position to yet another ambush, though the humidity in the air probably could have replaced all the lost fluids on its own. It only got harder to breathe the further in we ventured.
I was about ready to start digging through the walls with my fingernails when finally, it happened. A speck of light, no chance of it being noticeable if it weren't literally the only light surrounding us, had appeared around another corner. I'd almost taken my eye out on a jagged stone in said wall, but that wasn't important.
What was important was the massive crystal we had found at what must have been the end of the dungeon, that Skitty was now trying to remove by… chewing on the base.
I rolled my eyes once more, turning to Krabby and holding up a single, glowing palm. "May I?"
Krabby just nodded. He knew what was up.
"Ta." My hand fell down to my side, the sphere growing inside of it getting brighter with every step I took towards the crystal. Skitty must have noticed I was approaching, because one second she was there, the next she was off to the side, watching with no small amount of vindictive glee as I stopped within a single bound of the treasure, the Aura I was gathering actually cracking the ground beneath my feet.
It really was a lovely crystal. Nice and bright, with so many pretty colours. I would really miss it once I sold its ass and used the money to hire a crew to blow this fucking cave off the face of the planet.
The grin that cracked my face was downright demonic as I sprang forward and shoved my hand into where the crystal was buried in the ground. Literally shoved, I made it up to my wrist into the stone. What can I say, I was in a bad mood.
"Force Palm!"
The crystal came loose. I attempted to steady it with my free hand as it toppled down on top of me, before hastily pulling the other out of the ground when it became apparent that the crystal was more powerful than I had given it credit for.
The initial struggle was short, but iconic. I redirected the crystal with the palm I had managed to free just in time and handed it off to the ground, which took the weight like an absolute champion and executed the mother of all inverted atomic drops on it. I knew there was a reason I tagged that beautiful bastard in.
I probably looked a few steps past delirious as I spun around to my team, my arms in the air and my head thrown back in triumph. Skitty was cheering, and the clacking of Krabby's claws against one another filled the cavern.
*CLICK*
My eyes snapped open. Krabby's applause slowed to a halt.
*KER-CHUNK*
Skitty's celebration died down to little more than a whisper.
*WOOSH*
The three of us shared a look. The trepidation in our little triangle of gazes was so dense I could taste it.
Mechanically, our heads all turned to peer into the darkness to our left. Whatever lay beyond it, it was rumbling and crashing and smashing and getting louder with every second.
With what may very well have been the last conscious decision I would be making in this lifetime, I reached out a palm covered in Aura and lay it against the crystal. With a bit of mental effort, I reached the natural energy that remained within it, wrapping it up with my own and effectively fusing the two of us together. I wasn't sure if it would work or not, but if I was about to face down whatever was coming for us right now then there was no real reason to not at least try.
For all intents and purposes, this crystal and I were now one. It was my brother in all but blood. Our souls were intermingled on a spiritual level. We were closer to one another than the most intimate of lovers.
If I ended up dragging it into the afterlife with me, so be it.
This fucking thing was ours. Putting it on the market, smashing it to pieces and building a nice chandelier out of it, grinding it down and injecting it into our veins; whatever. We'd stumbled through this damn cave and called dibs on it, so come Hell or high water, I was not going to let go of it. If someone else wanted it, then they'd have to take my hand along with it, because as far as I was concerned it was now part of me.
Our adversary finally entered the light. I looked up… and up… and up… and that's the ceiling of the cave. Well.
That was some pretty high water.
Shit.
XxX
This chapter is very wet.
I wrote it during a thunderstorm.
There was hail and stuff too.
