Chapter 9: About Magic
A/N: I have to put my notes at the end this time, because they contain spoilers for this chapter. See you at the bottom!
1
It was nearly midnight by the time Esuma made her way back home. The party at school had been scheduled to last that long, so her mother merely greeted her when she arrived, blissfully unaware of what had happened. She was clearly tired and ready to go to sleep, so Esuma chose to wait until the morning to tell her about the attack before she saw it on the morning news.
For her part, she had never felt less sleepy. She went back outside and held out her hand for Racno to land on. The dragonfly did and looked at her, somehow managing to look sheepish.
"I don't understand what's happening," she sighed softly. "I can't believe what I remember about my parents, but I can't not believe it either, I know it's true! And you can do magic, like them?"
Racno shook his head. Esuma tilted her own head questioningly, obviously unsure she had even interpreted the insect's movement right. Racno flew off her hand and headed for the pond slowly.
Esuma got up and followed, feeling like Alice in Wonderland, as if she'd tumbled into a Universe where nothing made any sense and the only reasonable response was to just go along with it.
"Why do you want to go the pond?" she asked, following. "Does Oliaf have something to do with this too?"
Oh, sure. Blame the one who's just been swimming here, minding her own business, while Mr. Air Head and the Amazing Dung Digger were out messing everything up.
Esuma yelped and jumped back, landing on her rear. The voice had not actually been a sound: it had felt like it had originated from inside her head, overriding her own thoughts.
Ah, shake it off. You're tougher than that, girl; it's just telepathy. How else did you think I was going to talk to you?
Oliaf, please. She's had a rough night.
Esuma's eyes darted to Racno, who was perched on a branch near the pond, and she swallowed.
"You can both do telepathy?" she asked. "No, wait. That's why you wanted to come here, isn't it, Racno? You can't do it, it's just Oliaf, but she can let you do it too if you're close by. Right?"
Close enough, both voices answered at once.
"What about Falpis? Did you mean him when you said the Amazing Dung Digger? And did you call Racno an Air Head? That's not nice," she chided.
Not to mention it's inaccurate, Racno remarked drily. Don't mind her, Esuma: the four of us have been having disagreements lately on how to… handle things. Especially since Mr. Nakamura showed up, and then Mr. Smith.
She'd be safer if you hadn't interfered, Oliaf lectured.
Esuma frowned. "Four, is it? So, Sop too? And you've been debating how to handle my life, have you?"
Yes, Oliaf said, a note of amusement in her voice.
No, Racno corrected. We've been debating how to handle the rest of the World, and in particular, anything that may be connected to the Sorcerer responsible for your parents' death.
"Is that who changed my friend into that monster? A Sorcerer?"
Oh, no, dear child. That was the tooth fairy, Oliaf said, conveying through telepathy that she was also rolling her eyes.
OLIAF! Racno scowled. YOU picked this form, nobody else is responsible for your being trapped in a small pond! Stop taking out your perpetually rotten mood on her!
"It's okay, Racno; she's right. That was a silly question. I'm sorry, it's just…"
It's a lot to take in at once, Racno said.
"Right," Esuma said. "OK, I'm going to take it one thing at a time. You did magic back there, right?"
No, Racno said. I allowed you to do magic. None of us can use magic ourselves, we're merely storing it for you until you become older.
"But… Oliaf is doing telepathy right now!"
We can all use telepathy, Racno said, but Oliaf is the one who can allow you to use it as well if she's in close proximity to you. Our telepathy is limited to communications with other telepaths.
"Oh. So… I'm too young to have magic all the time, is that it?"
You're not strong enough yet, kid, a new voice answered. Esuma turned, but she knew before she even saw the ferret that the surly voice belonged to Falpis.
Is that an issue yet, Racno?Oliaf asked. She sounded like she was requesting an apology more than an answer.
Yes, Racno admitted.
Doesn't have to be for long, Falpis grumped. Just go get your locket, kid.
Esuma blinked at the ferret. "My… my locket? You mean, the one I had when Dad found me?"
Seeing as you don't own another one, that's a pretty safe guess, don't you think, girl? Oliaf asked.
Esuma nodded and took off for her bedroom, followed by Racno and Falpis. She skidded to a halt when she passed Sop's cage. The bird was going crazy in there, trying unsuccessfully to unlock its door. She opened it for her.
"Sorry, Sop," she said. "I didn't think of letting you out."
She hurried off to her room again, letting Racno and Falpis fill Sop in.
2
Esuma held her locket in her hands, this time surrounded by all four of her pets.
You need to have access to your magic, but your body and your mind are still not strong enough to contain it all within you, Racno said.
The locket can contain it instead, but it is not as safe a receptacle as we are, Sop added.
That's because we have heads of our own and we can keep them cool even if you lose yours, Falpis said. The locket can't: if you freak out, it will release any amount of magic needed to satisfy your adrenalin rush.
And that only sounds like a good thing, Oliaf specified. Too much magic going through you can harm you at this point, and you almost certainly won't be able to control it, meaning you're more likely than not to create some kind of disaster. If I were you, I'd let your two protectors do their job and stuff the locket back in your jewelry box.
"My two… you mean Tommy and Snake Eyes, don't you?"
She put the locket on.
"I won't let either of them get hurt defending me again," she said firmly. "Transfer the magic, I'll just have to be careful."
Racno was the first one to respect her request: he flew to the pendant and touched it, causing the same light transfer as when he had allowed her to use magic at the dance and the jewel to briefly shine green. Sop landed on her shoulder and, lifting the chain with her claws, touched the locket with her beak. The locket shone red, and then yellow when she lowered it for Falpis to put his paw on. She then dipped it in the pound and Oliaf's touch caused it to shine blue before it settled back to its natural comparatively dull white gold.
3
"It does feel like it contains a lot of energy," Tommy commented, gently lifting the locket up from Esuma's chest.
The two of them, as well as Snake Eyes, were in the gym teacher's office, early the following morning. Tommy had insisted he was fine and much to his doctors' displeasure, had simply left the hospital with Snake Eyes shortly after Esuma had gone back home.
"Do you know what you can do?" Snake Eyes asked her.
Esuma waved her hand in a so-so motion.
"They said they each held the powers of one element," she said. "Racno had air, Falpis earth, Oliaf water and Sop, fire. They wouldn't give me any more details than that, they said I needed to discover it for myself. They wouldn't even say why I had always associated the locket with life; Sop just wished for me never to find out."
Storm Shadow lifted an eyebrow, but the conversation was brought to an end by the first bell ringing, indicating classes would start in 5 minutes. Esuma grabbed her bag and giggled upon suddenly finding herself in the arms of a certain ninja in white.
Snake Eyes, still strangely uncomfortable with the relationship despite the fact he agreed Esuma was not in fact a child, looked away while the two exchanged a kiss and a hug.
"Be careful," Storm Shadow admonished as he released her.
Esuma smiled indulgently, turning her head back towards him as she left. "You're the one who needs to be careful," she said. "I don't have a crazy uncle after me."
Storm Shadow frowned slightly as Esuma ran out of the gym, unlocking the door for the first group of the day as she exited.
"Power attracts the need to use it," he told Snake Eyes in a whisper. "Please watch over her."
Snake Eyes nodded out of reflex. "Right," he added, solely for the sake of getting rid of the habit of silence. He then left, letting Asanuma Nakamura turn his attention to his students, who were all asking on top of one another whether he was all right and demanding to know what had happened.
4
Marie ran more than she walked to join her two friends at the picnic table they had elected to eat their lunch on. She sat in front of Esuma and leaned towards her.
"Is he okay?" she breathed. "I know everyone says he is, but is he really?"
Esuma nodded. "He's fine," she said.
"Is he now?" Lily asked mischievously. "Beyond the obvious, that is? Is he… I don't know… a fine… kisser?"
Esuma blushed a bit, looked around to make sure no one was listening in, and nodded, grinning.
"Not that it's any of your business, but yes. The hugs are nice too, if you must know: firm and strong, but still gentle."
"Firm, strong and gentle… would that be the kisses, the hugs, or both?" Marie asked, winking.
Esuma giggled. "Oh, alright; both," she said.
"Hey, Esuma? What's with the old locket?" Marie suddenly asked, spotting the necklace.
Esuma felt her breath catch in her throat. She had been wondering ever since last night how much to tell her friends, trying to think whether or not knowing what was going on could possibly put them in danger, and had decided to tell them everything. It was a big step from the decision to actually doing it, however: she was terrified they would believe her completely insane.
She took a deep breath and leaned low on the table, motioning them over.
"This is going to sound crazy, but just hear me out, okay?" she started.
The other two girls eagerly nodded.
"You remember my dress changed last night? Racno did it, by transferring some magic to me. I knocked over that guy that was attacking with a burst of wind."
Marie and Lily's eyes went the size of saucers and they gulped, but they nodded and gestured her to continue.
"You know those dreams I kept having, of my parents…"
She was suddenly interrupted by Snake Eyes, seemingly coming out of nowhere, ramming into her and pushing her off her seat just in time for a giant mosquito to bury its stinger in the exact bit of bench she had been sitting on. Marie and Lily screamed and threw themselves backward, falling off their own bench. Everywhere around, more screams could be heard as several insects roughly the size of cars flew and lumbered around, tossing people aside.
Esuma instinctively clutched her locket and was trying to think of what she should do, but she couldn't seem to think past the idea that the school was being attacked by giant insects. The closest one, the mosquito which had nearly impaled her, fell to the ground following Snake Eyes punching through its head with both fists and, further increasing her inability to grasp the reality of what was happening, dissolved into sparkling dust that floated in the air for a moment before disappearing altogether.
"ST… NAKAMURA!" Snake Eyes screamed.
The name finally shook Esuma's mind into place, and she squeezed the locket in her hand, intent on calling upon the power of air for no other reason that she at least knew what this one involved. A hand closed on hers and she screamed in surprised before realizing it was Tommy's: much like Snake Eyes, he had seemingly materialized out of nowhere.
"Don't just yet," he said hurriedly. "The first time you're seen using magic in public will be the end of your life as you know it!"
"But…"
She didn't get a chance to formulate more of an answer, there was too much going on to really carry any kind of conversation: Snake Eyes was fighting off more mosquitoes using the first one's stinger, ripped from the carcass, as a sword to both block the other stingers and stab the insects themselves; students everywhere where running away from a variety of giant critters ranging from cockroaches to butterflies, and several horse-sized ants were headed straight for Tommy and herself. Storm Shadow got in front of her and wrestled the first ant briefly, ripped its mandibles off and, imitating Snake Eyes, used the stolen body parts as a weapon against his remaining foes.
Esuma watched and waited, following Storm Shadow's advice, but only as long as her powers were not needed to protect anyone. She wouldn't have expected it to take very long, but amazingly, the fight wasn't going all that badly: the insects weren't chasing the students and staff very heartily and soon enough, Tommy, Mr. Smith and herself were the only humans left in the schoolyard. Now that there was no more public to witness her using magic, she called to the power of air and her clothes changed from her belted, pencil black corduroy skirt and her red and cream layered top to the same dark green dress that had appeared the previous night. She noted with some relief that the dress was whole once again and thus, at least decent in length, brushing her knees. It still had a bit of a plunging neckline and the fabric was so light and loose that the slightest breeze was likely to lift her skirt right above her head, but Esuma supposed that as long as she controlled the wind, she could maintain her privacy.
She looked around: Snake Eyes was almost done with the mosquitoes, and Storm Shadow was doing quite good against the ants, but there were a dozen moths coming their way. She wasn't sure how dangerous even giant moths were, but she wasn't willing to find out. She extended her arms towards them and willed a gust of wind into existence, which carried the insects away.
"Oooh, lookie-lookie, my babies!"
The voice sent a chill right down her spine: it was both slimy and grating, guttural yet high pitched. She turned towards the source, as did Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes. Judging by their expressions, Esuma guessed the voice sounded as disgusting to them as it did to hers.
And yet, the voice was nothing compared to the sight of its owner. Esuma gasped and backed away a step when she saw the vaguely human-looking collection of disparate pieces of insects that looked as though they had been melted into each other.
"She did magic," the creature said. "We don't like that, do we? Let's make sure she doesn't do it again!"
The Earth suddenly shook furiously below and all around Esuma. She was down in an instant and thought herself doomed, but just as a giant worm came out of the ground towards her, Tommy swept in, grabbed her in a cradle hold, and leaped away from the worm.
They had no sooner landed again that giant flies converged towards them. Snake Eyes, now armed with two mosquito stingers, ran towards them to assist and would have been there in time had the flies chosen to tackle their preys. Instead, the monstrous insects spit towards the couple.
Storm Shadow only had one second to react to the streams of acid headed straight for Esuma and himself and acted on instinct alone, turning his back to the flies and shielding his precious cargo with his own body. He let go of her just as the acid reached him, and for one blissful second, he thought the monster had miscalculated and the acid was not powerful enough to harm him. Then, his clothes started smoking where he'd been hit and a few drops of the corrosive liquid reached his skin.
Esuma automatically grabbed her locket and called upon the power of water. The flowing dark green dress changed to a silky form fitting dress with a white bodice and a blue skirt, while Esuma chanted a plea that her powers over water allowed her to create some and launch it as opposed to, say, just swim very well. She extended her arms towards Tommy, who was unsuccessfully trying to get the acid off by rolling in the dirt, just as the flies spit towards him again, covering him in more acid.
She willed the water forth, and suddenly, what could best be described as a small tidal wave rushed from just in front of her to Storm Shadow, lifting him from the ground and carrying him a good ten steps further, where he fell back to the ground, drenched and…
Esuma felt herself turned bright red: the strong shower had finished the acid's job and pretty much disintegrated what little had been left of Tommy's clothes, leaving the ninja clean of any acid but soaked, winded, and wearing nothing but water-drenched underwear.
Storm Shadow, for his part, didn't seem to notice or to care at all. He jumped to his feet and ran straight for the flies, taking a stinger handed to him by Snake Eyes as he went. Reasoning the flies would be much easier to defeat at ground level, Esuma launched another mini tidal wave, this one at the insects. Their wings soaked and in some cases, torn, the flies started drifting to the ground, where Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes were able to take them out.
They didn't have time to celebrate, however.
"Pests!" the monster cried, his voice even more horrible now that he was angry. "Go, my good soldiers, obey my will for it is that of your Queen!"
Directly in front of them, out of nowhere, appeared a bee hive the size of a very big house. It came into existence right through some tables and trees, and consequently, was immediately poked through in a few places by the obstacles. Thinking themselves under attack, the proportionally-sized bees came out and, spotting them, identified them as the threat and charged. At the same time, a half dozen beetles, appropriately enough around the size of Volkswagen bugs, materialized all around them.
"He's just going to keep making more of them appear!" Esuma said, shaking her head in discouragement.
"Only until…" Storm Shadow had been about to say the summoning monster would stop once they took him out, but he interrupted himself and dashed towards Esuma. "DUCK!" he screamed.
Esuma instinctively complied, crouching in a ball as Storm Shadow leaped over her and kicked the bee that had been about to stab her with its stinger. The bee, furious, flew into the still airborne Storm Shadow, knocking him down right in front of a charging beetle.
Storm Shadow only just had time to position himself to receive the hit before the beetle impacted him. The insect was so strong and had such momentum that it didn't even noticeably slow down; it just kept running, pushing Storm Shadow ahead of it until both rammed straight into the hive.
Storm Shadow cursed under his breath: having his clothes completely destroyed by acid and being burnt in spot himself by said acid was bad enough, but being shoved into a bee hive by a giant beetle and consequently finding himself covered head to toe in honey was just the straw that broke the camel's back.
He roared and tackled the beetle, pushing it back out of the hive in a tumble that exposed the creature's belly long enough for Storm Shadow to punch right through it several times in rapid succession. The beetle stopped moving, and Storm Shadow jumped off it, or rather, tried: his honey-covered legs stuck to the insect a bit and he ended up half falling and half sliding off the beetle, landing sprawled on the grass. Adding insult to the injury, only then did the insect dissolve.
Storm Shadow pushing himself back up from the ground resulted in a suction noise due to the honey that completely coated him sticking to the lush grass. He clenched his teeth to prevent himself from letting out a string of curses in front of Esuma and frantically looked around for her. Thankfully, she was still unharmed, holding the insects at bay with gushes of water. He ran towards her, looking for a discarded stinger to use as a sword, but found none: the one he'd had before had presumably sparkled out of existence like the rest of the insects once he'd let go of it.
Not having a proper weapon, he had to make do with using his own body, as sticky as it currently was, to fend off the insects that got through Esuma's increasingly weaker attacks. Snake Eyes was trying to get to the monster summoning the insects, but was making very little progress.
Things went from bad to worse when the worms came back. One of them made Esuma fall and the bees automatically converged on her. Storm Shadow dived to tackle her and roll her out of the way, and Snake Eyes had to abandon his efforts to stop the summoning monster in order to come assist them. The assistance proved more than necessary when it took Esuma and Storm Shadow almost a minute to tear themselves apart from each other, the honey having stuck them together.
Esuma had had enough: she was exhausted, her friends obviously were as well, and there was just no end to the giant insects as long as the monster could summon them. She had to stop him. She clasped her locket in her hand and closed her eyes in concentration, calling upon the power of fire.
Storm Shadow looked in horror when Esuma's dress transformed to one seemingly made out of red and yellow leaves and she sank to her knees, her beautiful legs failing her and her chest rising and falling jerkily as her breathing became ragged and laborious.
"Esuma, stop! We got this, don't use any more magic!" he cried out.
She tuned him out: she was vaguely aware that she wasn't standing anymore, and she could guess he was worried, but there were no other options available to them: she needed to destroy the monster that was summoning the insects, or the three of them would soon be dead. If the effort ended up killing her, at least Tommy and Snake Eyes would survive: it was still a better outcome than their dying right along with her.
She forced one of her hands up with great difficulty: the lithe limb felt like lead. She narrowed her eyes in concentration and just before Storm Shadow's hand landed on hers to force it down, she unleashed a flaming tornado that tore right through several bees and worms to finally engulf the monster that had been bringing them forth.
The monster's screams of agony and Tommy crying out her name in despair was the last thing she was aware of before the World faded away into silent darkness.
A/N
Disclaimer: the idea of getting a GI Joe character coated in honey is not original to this story. There are three more stories doing it (currently), all in the cartoon section: Beach's Honey Buns, Bear Trap, and The Greenshirts and the Werewolf... that one has an open request to do one with Storm Shadow. It didn't look like anybody else was going to write it, and I came up with this idea for doing it here, so I went for it. Hope you enjoyed!
If anybody else was working on a story that does this to Tommy, or wants to, I certainly don't mind not being the only one to do it!
Thank you for reading, please review!