Chapter 2: Bilious green.
The door creaked open after the most cursory of knocks, sending chimes to clack woodenly together and letting the breeze whisper through the warmed interior. Rickter, who sat on a chair in the kitchen, looked up from an old and dusty book. In the doorway, a tall woman dressed in dark colors held a plant in a pot made from glimmering hands.
After a moment's cessation of heart and breath he recognized the truth behind the macabre first impression: they weren't corpse hands sewn together, but witchcraft, spawned from her palm to cup the soil.
And that was the only reason it had taken him so long to pay attention to the plant itself. The old book hit the floor and dust swayed through the air. His hands began to tremble and he could barely frame words. "Y-you, that, this. Here?"
Rickter got a better hold of himself. "Curses! Get out of here! Take it away!" He reached for anything that might make a weapon. The woman watched through desperate eyes as he held the shears wide.
"Aiaiaiaiaiiaia, don't get to too close!" yelled the boy. Suddenly a fist smashed into Rickter's face, forcing the Meister to the ground.
"Damnit Rick! Stop being such a creepy asswipe!" Zira shouted furiously.
"I-I need your help, please!" begged the woman, still standing in the door. "It's dormant. I don't know why..." She continued without giving Zira time to comprehend the first sentence.
"Uh ... Hi! My name is Zira." Extolier had to improvise.
"That's a dangerous treasure." stated Lucian whilst leaning against a wall. His gaze was as dark as midnight yet his voice was calm.
Zira turned her head and looked at Lucian with confusion that was clearly written on her.
The awkward situation and Rickter's sudden outcry soon elicited the attention of the entire gang and eventually everyone gathered in the hallway.
Nila scratched her head. "It's just a damn plant." The woman, introduced mysteriously and haltingly as Sinn, still held the plant with her spell.
"It's a daemon!" Draco immediately incited drama and tension as he flailed across the kitchen room with the shears in his right hand.
"It seems to be in a dormant-state. I'm not sure why. But it would probably defend itself if attacked. And I doubt you want us to kill them." Rickter's words crawled into Sinn's ears and she responded with a very facilitated smile.
"K-kill who?" Mikune's eyes widened. Draco's panic was replaced by zeal and he released the shears. The shears struck the floor, chipping the grimy tiles. He patted at his abdomen wildly. "W-where! W-what!"
"So ... would you be so kind and explain?" Starr looked at Rickter with a gentle smile and Rickter realized that what he just said made absolutely no sense to all of them except Sinn.
"My friends," Sinn responded with a steady voice. "This flower ate my friends. I need you to help me save them."
"Do you know what you're asking?" Lucian's calm voice was now tainted with discomfort and disdain.
Momo and Kenji, who were silently observing, looked at Lucian with resentment drumming in their bodies.
Chaos walked up to the table and accidentally bumped it. The object leaped and the group stared with held breath at the mysterious plant, now re-housed in an earthen pot, but it hasn't been tipped and didn't stir.
"S-sorry." cackled the clumsy Weapon.
"This... this is an organism so rare that most of the time they don't exist, sometimes for generations! They'll take over an entire island, clear it of prey - and by prey, understand that I mean life. No life - no food – no nothing!" Rickter's tone was deep and dead-serious.
"They're only ever encountered when an old seed washes up on inhabited shores, and once it takes root, there's no stopping it." Chaos and Nila exchanged surprised glances before they looked at Rickter again.
"Ah." exclaimed Lucian, flicking his fingers. "Disturbati autumnale. They say that a government team once picked up a specimen intact, but their findings were shrouded in secrecy."
"Then let us call the government!" suggested Strike, putting his oar in. Zira and Starr facepalmed simultaneously. "What?" asked Strike.
Zira frowned. "Got a number?"
"Oh..." Starr clapped Strike's shoulder as the latter slowly lowered his head in defeat.
"This is the second disturbati plant species by now." muttered Lucian. He looked at the inconspicuous plant whilst rubbing his chin.
Draco and Rickter swallowed the wrong way. "What?" expectorated Draco. For one person to cross paths with two of the most dangerous species in existence in a single lifetime, they couldn't believe that this pessimist had so much luck in his past.
Rickter gazed back at Sinn. "Where did you find this one?" The addressed woman took a deep breath. "A cove, on the far side of this island. We found shriveled corpses, adults and children alike, an empty village."
"Ewww..." Suzumi writhed with disgust. "We wanted to put a stop to whoever or whatever was responsible... and..." Sinn explained and then paused.
"At the last moment, I pulled myself from its grasp." As Sinn rubbed her left arm and sunk into deep thoughts, it became obvious that the woman was still a bit unhinged.
"The rest were not so lucky." She added.
"A piece appears to be missing." Kenji pointed out. The entire group asked with one voice. "What?"
Lucian chuckled. "Such an organism would inevitably spell the island's eventual doom no matter where it lay within its shores. And now we figured that a piece is missing, how amusing."
"How did you escape?" rasped Starr.
Sinn shook her head. "I'm afraid my prior experience offers no clues. I... remain uncertain what precisely even happened."
"And this time, there appears to be no symbiosis with a human who might be dispatched." Damion shivered at the way Rickter spoke of that murder in such unmoved terms.
"We must find another way." yapped Sinn with big eyes.
"So we are botanists now?" Chaos' acidness made Nila laugh.
"We have to investigate the cove." exclaimed Kenji as he clenched his fist.
Rickter made a point of examining every millimetre of the plant under a magnifier, squinting through the lens, sketching the shape of veins and cells in leaves with his free hand, holding the pencil in uncooperative joints that crackled and seized up. The light filtered down onto the desk through the grimy glass.
There was barely enough light in the basement for their studies on the plant but they were unable to move the heavy furniture, thus Rickter was glued to this dark hole. Soon, he had no choice but to extemporize. Draco ventured up a ladder to the plafond and cellotaped multiple lights ceiling-proof.
Nila Mizushima, obviously bored, wandered about in a manner Rickter found distracting, ducking beneath the old branches and dangling vines of the department's overgrown wilderness, unworriedly brushing spiders from the exposed skin of her arms, crouching low and peeling back fronds to reveal the informational labels.
As if it was group pressure, Momo and Mikune quickly joined Nila and the next time Rickter looked up, he spotted the trio as it traveled through the aged basement. Draco scowled and forced Rickter's eyes back down. They had, after all, an opportunity before them that may only previously have been presented to a select handful of government scientists. May only, or may not at all.
Draco had always craved a greater claim than just believing in even the most ludicrous occult theories. He and Rickter were eager to make notations and observations, even if it'd kill them ... well.
Sinn was right, however. All was not well with the flower. Its reactions now are almost nonexistent, and it seemed hardly like a sentient thing. Rickter wiped sweat from his forehead and wondered, who were these friends of hers, and what had they done to reduce the terrifying entity of legend to this near-catatonic state?
Obviously he dared not cut into the plant, nor did Draco, instead they took samples from brushing the surface of the petals, leaves and stem. Soon Lucian joined the duo in order to gain more knowledge about the herbage of death.
A short, academic debate was soon aroused which in this case was all synonymous with speculation. Whether the second, larger part of the flower was a construct of the disturbati abilities of the smaller plant or the other way around, or indeed if both were equally real... or, bizarrely, if both were equally unreal.
The girl trio wandered across Draco's peripheral view, aiming for the other side of his 'occulti collection', the more densely-packed jungle behind their desk. His temper finally snapped. "Flipping touch something wrong and I'll personally send you all to hell! Try and be useful instead. Help the others who went off to the cove." He pointed to the door.
Nila grunted and followed his finger, then curiously looked upstairs before gazing at her own hands and arms, her skin stained the colour of gray dust and dirt. Mikune and Momo silently dangled after Nila.
It was much easier to concentrate with their absent but for the faint noise of squeaking steps from the stairs. Rickter finished taking his samples and stared intently at the yellow petals, convinced that their movement was starting to look more lively then.
Lucian muttered something opaque before he too went to the stairs. Draco set the machines to work analyzing the chemical content. Fortunately Suzumi and he brought some laboratory apparatus with them. Although they were actually used to produce liquids which Draco used in his rituals, the equipment now found new use.
"All we can do now is wait." exclaimed Rickter before he gave a long yawn. At some remote period, a noise alerted the duo and they finally returned to the basement, thus they enquired the results.
Draco looked at the hideous amount of numbers and was visibly surprised. "Numbers … numbers … oh and more numbers." nagged Draco. Rickter scrutinized the paper and after a short while, his jaw dropped.
As Corz's jaw dropped, Draco raised an eyebrow and took a closer look. He queried with surprise. "What is it?" Rickter only shook his head. "Um … Rickter?" Draco cleared his throat.
"What have you found?" Draco's expression tightened mid-speech, and before Rickter could stop him he rushed to the pot on the desk, fingers clutching its sides and claiming their muddy stains in an instant. Draco's chin jerked up. "They've been in there too long. Their souls grow weak tell me, Rickter, what did you figure out? We have a chemical breakdown, so name a substance we can use to weaken the plant further."
"And release whatever is stored within? Any of your myths that might force it to give up sound more logical." Lucian returned to the basement and promptly launched a caustic remark. Draco and Rickter threw puzzled glances at the pessimistic mage.
"It strikes me that you seem little concerned for the larger picture, Draco. Inside the flower, are her 'friends' who have been keeping it outwardly dormant. Once they fail, the rest of the island would be in its path."
Draco tore off the punched sheet of results from the clicking and whirring machines. "Get to the point you old Hag." Lucian slowly waltzed towards him. "However, there is no one else on the island except us. So who is in its path?" Rickter's eyes widened. "A trap?"
The mage chuckled. He scratched his chin with his fingers, and pointed with a crooked finger at them. "Now that we know what the plant is up to, you can surely figure who is the only potential candidate for the symbiosis."
Draco lost his train of thought and silently observed Rickter and Lucian. "Sinn … ?" Rickter smashed his clenched fist onto the table and Lucian began to laugh. Eventually Draco got in with Lucian's hints. "She's the only one who had contact with the disturbati. She's the only one who wants to open this plant."
"She's associated in symbiosis and is leading Chaos, Suzumi and the others directly into the core!" yelled Rickter before Draco could infer. "Get Starr and Strike. We have to find them!"
Yours faithfully,
Skadow