Disclaimer: No one in this chapter is mine except Kaoru and Susan. Everyone else belongs to his or her respective owners.
Dedication: I'd like to dedicate this chapter to my close friend, Jing, for the inspiration brought on by her unending quest to excel and succeed in everything she does. I hope your time in China goes wonderfully.
Aside from the unmasked glances by Susan and Cindy toward the young actor, the day continued on without mishap. At Rayden's request, Johnny took them around town as they reminisced. Rayden had changed his clothes, thankfully, and pretty much fit in with everyone else. But while his friends were laughing and enjoying themselves, Johnny continued to remain concerned. Kaoru's persistent nature bugged Johnny right up the wall and across the ceiling, but he disclosed no information to her. Finally, she dropped the whole thing and instead asked questions about his friends, like how they met, and how good were they, and if Rayden really was the Chinese god of Lighting.
"No," they all said at once, even though they were quite surprised that she knew of him. They decided to leave her home after that.
When dusk arrived, the four friends ate at Susan's before setting out for a long walk to enjoy the comfortable night air. Or so they said. Once away from the house, Rayden transported them to a dark area of the docks, where they emerged without causing suspicion. Not many people were out, however, and the air was as still as the docks around them. Water lapped quietly at the moors while a few gulls flew overhead to return to their nests for the night. Only five small boats were docked somewhere about to feet away. Any other sea vessels were too far into the dark night to see distinctly.
Johnny moved ahead of the group to a specific spot where, even in the dark, the cement had a noticeable stain.
"Is this where…" Kitana asked quietly.
Johnny nodded, and smiled slightly when he felt her hand on his shoulder. He walked away and over to the railing, breathed in the salt sea air, then turned back to Rayden. "Well," he commented, "Do you feel anything, Rayden?"
The thunder god said nothing as he took a place beside Johnny to stare out at the black sea. Liu and Kitana joined him, and waited patiently.
Johnny, however, wasn't so patient. "Rayden…"
"Shhh." And silence settled over them again.
Becoming slowly agitated with the sea scene, Johnny turned away from the ocean and leaned his back against the railing. He stood there, waiting for an answer from Rayden, or an appearance from the local residents, when something else caught his eye in the distance. Headlights. A car pulled into the parking lot about thirty feet away, and the lights blinked out. Two figures, one tall and thin, the other shorter but no heavier, stepped from the vehicle to begin their trek to the docks.
Johnny thought he was going to have a coronary when the figures came into distinct view.
"What the hell are you two doing here?!" he yelled sharply as he ran towards them.
"You're daughter insisted, and threatened me with one of those damn sais you kept around the house," Cindy replied indignantly.
"Kaoru," Johnny said quietly, an edge to his voice.
"Don't even try it with me, Johnny," Kaoru spat back, startling him again. "If you're going to save Sonya, then I'm going to help, and there's nothing you can say or do to stop me."
"If you ever talk to me like th-"
"I can take care of myself, with or without your help. And I'll do it all on my own if I have to, but I'm not leaving."
Liu, startled by Johnny's outburst, followed him in hopes of helping to persuade the recent additions to return to the safety of their home.
Kitana stayed with Rayden who stood stiff and silent, his eyes fixed in the distance. She tried to sense his channel of power out to the distant spot on the sea, but a greater foreboding blocked out her meditative attempts. The plopping of the sea below her didn't help, either. With a heavy sigh, she looked over the railing at the few little bubbles below, and leaned closer to see the fish swimming around. A sudden movement occurred and Kitana's head was seized in a massive grip before her whole body was dragged over the railing and into the water with a loud splash.
"KITANA!" Liu ran and leaped over the railing after her and sank beneath the waves.
Johnny ran to the railing to follow Liu when he ran into something. It was solid but invisible, and Johnny smacked into it with such force that it made him stumble back.
"Rayden! What was that for?!"
But the thunder god didn't seem to hear him. His eyes were fixed on a spot out at sea, and his face was set in a grimace.
"Ray-"
An insanely large burst of water sprayed the dock as two figures leapt over the railing to land and roll on the deck. Sputtering water and groaning in pain from hitting the hard wood, Liu and Kitana rose to their knees and waited for the vertigo to pass. Both looked tired and a bit stressed, but neither seemed harmed save for a long cut across Kitana's arm that bled nearly black in the moonless night.
Johnny ran over to them. "What happened?"
It dissipated as soon as it touched the salty liquid, separated into millions of tiny molecules that drifted apart and disappeared in the waves. But its presence didn't go unnoticed by them. They drank greedily at the tangy substance, and when all was gone, they grew frenzied with hunger.
More. More. More.
When. When. When.
Now. Now. Now.
Skitters ran rampant beneath the waves and soon the waves began spewing the spawn that was on a quest for food. A quest for blood.
From behind him there was a loud scream and a crunching sound. Johnny turned to see Kaoru and Cindy being stalked by some horrid black creature that was bony and decrepit. A sword swished in its hands, slicing the air as he came closer. Fearlessly, Kaoru stepped in front of Cindy, who tried to get in front of her, all while trying to walk backwards, and bringing themselves closer to falling on their backs and into a more uncompromising position.
Johnny moved forward to help them when his feet when up in the air and he landed hard on his back. Dazed but unharmed, Johnny looked up and into the burning eyes of a soulless creature that somehow appeared before him. A cutlass was brandished above him, and Johnny rolled away before it could slice him in half. Quick on his feet, he knocked off the head of the zombie with one sharp roundhouse. The creature wavered as it felt for its head. Finding nothing, its movement became wild and reaching, but without sight, Johnny easily avoided its attempted blows. He disarmed the soldier of darkness and quickly severed its limbs. It collapsed and squirmed.
"Damn, what does it take to kill these things!"
Johnny looked over at Liu who was back to back with Kitana and deftly avoiding the five mercenaries that surrounded them. He heard another scream and turned sharply to see Kaoru put the creature on the ground with a quick twist of her wrist. Removing the too big for her sai from behind her back, Kaoru thrust it into the creature's neck, severing the head from the body.
Johnny wanted to applaud his daughter but was knocked to the ground again. Three creatures, small, nagging bug like beings with jagged claws and gnashing teeth, scratched and bit at him. Their weight kept him pinned down and he could do nothing more than scream as they ate his skin.
The current made Johnny's body jolt and his hair stand on end for a moment, but it fried the creatures into black charred logs of monster. He easily rolled them off and gave a slight wave to Rayden in thanks. His relief was killed a moment later, however, when a sudden wave of black and red and glinting metal leaped onto the dock, growling and moaning and screeching in anger.
A new invasion had begun.
Johnny's main concern was getting his daughter and ex-wife off the docks and somewhere safer. Then he wanted to destroy every single one of the bastards. Then he wanted some answers. Then he wanted a good hot meal and a long night's sleep.
But no one ever gets everything they want.
His attempts at reaching the woman and child were many but futile. More creatures kept blocking his way, and the harder he fought to get through, the more they appeared out of nowhere. Rayden seemed eager to help, but could only get a few bursts out ever so often. A pained, concentrated expression was on his brow, and somehow he was able to avoid being touched by any creature on the dock.
Liu and Kitana seemed to have worked out a pattern that kept them always guarded, always fluid, and always to the advantage. If not for the chaos about, Johnny would have likened it to a dance, with them being the central gravity that pulled everything in and pushed it away to pull it back again. Neither fighter seemed stressed or tired, but Johnny knew they couldn't hold out forever.
As for Kaoru, she held her own better than Johnny expected. Movements slightly more sparodic than fluid but hitting each mark with a solid connection, the young girl kept Cindy and herself protected fairly well. But her youthfulness couldn't match the increasing skill of the undead warriors, and soon the two were swamped.
Johnny's heart sank in terror as he watched the two disappear underneath the cloud of black. "KAORU!"
Another brilliant flash lit up the deck. The creatures screamed and writhed then disintegrated into ash, revealing the two cowering women underneath. Johnny didn't even bother thanking the thunder god for his interference, focusing more on helping the ladies up and getting them away from the docks.
"You both have to leave, now!"
Cindy barely nodded, too much in shock to be firm about anything. Kaoru, on the other hand, would have none of it.
"I'm not leaving. You need my help."
"You're not skilled enough to be helpful."
"Look what I did just now!"
"Then stay with Cindy and protect her, just leave here n-"
"Look out!"
He spun in time to see the sharp dagger fall toward his heart. With no time to sidestep, he raised both his arms and crossed them at the wrists to make an x, stopping the descending arm with the blade inches from his face, and twisted his body around to throw the creature to the ground. His leg lifted in a fully vertical axe kick, and he crushed the skull into three crumbling pieces.
"Come on!" Johnny seized both Cindy's and Kaoru's hand and began pulling them away from the docks. He dodged and weaved through the masses of creatures that came at them, and had to take brief pauses to actually fight the hordes off. But Johnny's determination to get his ex-wife and daughter to safety kept him moving, and soon they were heading toward the parking lot.
Johnny froze. Something was terribly wrong. The night had suddenly become dulled into a near silent state. Then a trembling. A soft sound of something pounding into the earth. It slowly grew louder, and Johnny realized what it was. Hoof beats.
From the shore about 200 feet away, shifting shadows crept up onto the beach, each one taking on a distinct form and moving in a graceful way. They merged then separated to come together again in a cloud of inky blackness with flashes of steel and scorching eyes. They rode up onto the pale white sand, majestic knights that have decayed and rotted into horrifying creatures, and once valiant steeds that portrayed strength and beauty now resembled nothing more than skeletons of desecration.
"Oh, great," Johnny muttered as the captain of the band of horsemen spotted them, howled a great sound of anger and destruction, and charged the three mortals. He looked from side to side frantically, trying to find a place to hide, but was left with open land. Dead soldiers blocked them from the right, the horsemen charged from the left, the parking lot was distant behind them, but too far to outrun the galloping soldiers, and the ocean lay ahead of them, clear and merciless.
"When did that get here?" Kaoru quipped suddenly, turning the adult's attention to her hand pointing off in the distance. Bobbing silent in the rocking waves was a yacht, its lights completely black and its picturesque sails hanging limp. Though it was clearly a personal ship, it looked more like a small casino cruise ship than someone's outing vessel.
An odd rush of fear swept through Johnny's body, but he quickly set it aside. Any port in a storm, he thought.
"Who cares where it came from, they can't get us if we're on deck," Johnny commented quickly, an arm gesture referring to the oncoming horsemen. He began leading the two girls toward the ominous ship.
"Wait, Johnny, what if those things are crawling all over it?" Cindy asked, the panic in her voice making it higher than normal.
"Those horses will be crawling all over us if we don't get somewhere safe, preferably where they can't reach us. Come on!" And once the horsemen pass, maybe there'll be an opening long enough and safe enough to get Kaoru and Cindy away from here, Johnny said to himself.
The three ran quickly toward the ship, with Johnny leading to ram through the soldiers that attempted to block them. Kaoru's heart was pounding in anticipation and in fear, but her devotion to the woman who saved her life more than once was unstoppable. As the large yacht loomed ahead, Kaoru caught a flash of something in the corner of her eye.
Kaoru… help…
Her feet slowed as her body tensed, and she turned in the direction of the soft whisper. Standing near Rayden, skin death white and hair limp, Sonya waved frantically for the little girl, who blinked several times as she stared at the strange apparition. Then, Sonya called again, and ran to the side, where she disappeared behind a cluster of soldiers trying to get the best of Liu and Kitana.
"No, wait!" Kaoru changed direction without stopping and ran at full steam through the growling creatures to the combatants. So focused on finding the drifting spirit, the girl never noticed the three creatures that crowded up behind her, or the pale hands that snatched her up before she was fractioned into three pieces. Her scream of surprise was contorted and lost as the world shifted around her, shapes blurred in a watercolor motif, and she became dizzy as her body became weightless.
She dropped to the ground with a thump that kept her down momentarily. The cement bricks under her hands were cool, firm, and ancient. White padded shoes entered her view, encouraging her to look up into the gray eyes of the man that saved her.
"You'll be safe here. I will return soon."
Orange and blue filled the room, a crash thundered in her delicate ears, and when she looked again, Rayden was gone.
Johnny grabbed the ladder and encouraged Cindy up when he realized something was out of place.
"Kaoru?!" He searched wildly through the oncoming warriors. "KAORU!"
"Johnny, please hurry, they're coming!"
"I can't find Kaoru!" Johnny was about to run back into the horde when Cindy shouted above him.
"She's there!"
Johnny followed her aim of direction toward Liu and Kitana, and just caught a glimpse of Rayden seizing her then disappearing in a bright ball of light. Relief flooded his veins for a moment.
"Come on, John!"
The insistent tugging on his shirt brought him back to the present and he leapt onto the ladder as he scaled up and over the top.
"In the cabin," Johnny urged. The two hurried across the damp deck and into the dark captain's cabin that lead down into the passenger area.
Unbeknownst to them, the door leading back to the deck slammed shut and locked itself; a shudder ran through the expansive yacht when the engines roared up, the anchor rolled in, and ghostly hands of mist began pulling the luxury boat out to sea.
Ahem, ok, well, that's the end of this chapter. I have a couple more, and perhaps after some revisions, I can bring this thing to a close. And Lilsweet, this is just for you. Thanks for your review.