Sight Beyond Sight
Brunhilde trudged through the thick marshes of the Ballow Swamplands, a biome that rested a on the outskirts of the Charlie Cape. Just a little further and she'd find herself a village where she could pay a boat driver to take her to Queen's Puddleland. From there, she could take a ferry to Fero Village. At which point, Brunhilde was a hop skip and a jump from Pure Heart Valley.
"I can't believe they're still on that whole pact thing," Brunhilde grumbled to herself. "I was sure we had put it all behind us."
If Brunhilde remembered correctly, they were less than a month away from the pact's deadline. Brunhilde found herself wishing they had forgotten, if they had, it would have been much easier. Whose idea was it to set a ten year deadline on the pact? That's such an absurd amount of time for a mistake they made in their youth.
Regardless though, Brunhilde still kept trudging through the marsh. The only thing that held present in her mind was her wish, and she'll be able to fulfill it by gathering with her siblings.
Badgerclops sat at the kitchen table, which has been feeling smaller and smaller lately. Prior to Minori visiting, it had just been the three of them, now the table was seating seven. But it came its own set of upsides, like daily five star breakfasts.
Minori stood before the stove, humming as she flipped the batter in the frying pan. The pancake had a nice golden brown on the other side, letting Minori know she made it perfectly. Once it was finished, Minori brought the giant stack of pancakes to the table, dispersing the disks of fluffy goodness to each of the individuals.
"Eat up everyone," Minori said, sitting down at her own seat. The group dug into the discs of deliciousness. As usual, Minori's dishes were the finest anyone tasted.
Ashaki looked up from her pancakes, her eyes glazed over, as if she was just staring off into space. "Looks like we might have to cut this meal short," said Ashaki, quickly stuffing the last of the pancakes in her mouth.
"Momfar abbakj?" Minori said with her mouth full. Ashaki just rolled her eyes and nodded. Minori's eyes lit up, jumping from the table she ran for the door.
Badgerclops and Adorabat looked at each other, then looked over to the rest of the group. Mao Mao just sat in silence, while Violet gave the answer to their silent question.
"There's a monster attack," Violet didn't seem to be in a rush to finish her pancakes.
"Really? Man, it feels like forever since we've had a proper monster attack," Badgerclops leaned back in his seat.
"Come on!" Adorabat had already left her seat, flying towards the Aerocycle.
Badgerclops begrudgingly left his pancakes, heading to the garage, with Mao Mao close behind them. "You coming, Tanya?"
"Nah," Tanya denied, getting another mouthful of pancakes. "Minori and Ashaki, as well as you three? That monster has no chance, me jumping in seems like overkill. But don't worry, I'll make sure your left over pancakes don't go to waste!" Tanya gave her classical devious smirk, eyeing Badgerclops' leftovers.
Badgerclops felt a pang of jealousy, he really wanted to stay and finish his pancakes, but if he tried, Mao Mao would surely shout at him to get his lazy butt out onto the aerocycle. "Okay, if you say so."
Once Badgerclops left the room, Violet eyed Tanya, wandering what the tanuki's plot was this time. Tanya caught the warrior's doubtful gaze. Tanya just smirked in return.
"What?" Tanya said. "I can't just stay to enjoy some nice pancakes?"
Upon arrival, Badgerclops, Adorabat, and Mao Mao found Minori and Ashaki facing a long winding monster. It resembled a viper, however it's scales were made of a variety of foliage.
This monster is called the Toxiper. Most commonly, the lush greenery of its body largely of poison ivy and other poisonous plants. Supposedly a lot of pharmacologists would want their hands on this creature, figuratively of course.
Minori on the other hand, was riding the toxiper like it was a wild bull, her claws gripping the vines that snaked from its head. Badgerclops had to wonder if her bangles also provided protection from toxins that interacted at the epidermal level.
"Come on Shaki," Minori yanked on the vines, keeping the toxiper in the village square area. "Torch this thing already!"
"Not how it works!" Ashaki called back. "That and I refuse to touch it!"
"Let's just get this over with," Mao Mao grumbled under his breath. Pulling Geraldine from her sheath, Mao Mao ran into the fray. Shifting his grip oh Geraldine, it began to glow. After his scuffle with Violet while under the moon moth's control, he devised a more efficient method of heating the sword with the intense light. Rather than applying it to the whole blade, just the edge is more than enough.
Coming up on the toxiper, Mao Mao slashed a small bit of foliage on its flank. The intense heat caused the flora to ignite, flames began climbing up the serpent's body. Minori leaped off the head of the serpent before the flames could catch her too. The toxiper writhed in agony as the flames licked at its body. It only took a moment for the monster to fall over, breathing it's last breath.
Ashaki nudged Minori, motioning to the felled monster. "Think you can makes us a five star cuisine out of that?"
"Nope," Minori flat out rejected. "Not to say I can't, but it's too much work and preparation. I got to descale it, remove all the toxins, just forget it, really."
"Minori!" Adorabat screeched. "Your cape!"
"My cape?" Minori looked over her shoulder, seeing a trail of smoke rise behind her. "Fire!" Minori lunged out, tucking herself into a ball as she rolled, and rolled, and rolled, snuffing out the flame.
"You would've been fine," Ashaki says, rolling her eyes.
"True," Minori agreed, patting all the dirt off her white gi. "My clothes however, not so much."
Badgerclops looked at Minori in wonder, her fur wasn't even singed. Mao Mao went on a tangent once about his weapon which was practically a glorified glow stick. But the weapons his sisters held were each a sight to behold. Speaking of which, Badgerclops was especially interested in Ashaki's contacts.
Badgerclops had asked Mao Mao to clarify what he meant when Ashaki's contacts gave her "sight beyond sight". Supposedly Ashaki's is up there as one of the most versatile weapons. Not only did it give her perfect vision, it gave her x-ray vision, far sight (let's her see into distances kilometers away), see the future supposedly, and even see into other's thoughts, among other variations of sight.
If he could just study them for a few minutes, he could maybe figure out how mere lenses could do the things they do. Suddenly, Badgerclops was struck with an idea.
Night had fallen several hours ago, Badgerclops tip toed up the stairs toward the attic. Slowly opening the door, Badgerclops peeked in, seeing Ashaki floating in the air on her side. She was lied out as if she was on a bed, resting on her side, conveniently facing away from the door. But his focus was more on the pair of objects resting on a box close by.
Much like regular contacts, Ashaki has to take hers out when she goes to sleep. She rested them on a pristine piece of cloth, careful not to get them dirty. Badgerclops snaked his arm into the attic space, is robo-arm extending across the floor, winding and bending like a serpent. Coming up next to the box that the lenses rested on, his arm raised up over the lenses, ready to pluck them off their perch.
Ashaki rolled over in the air, now facing to the door that Badgerclops was hiding behind. Although if Ashaki wakes up, he'll treat the door more like a shield than a hiding spot. Her left eye opened slightly, and Badgerclops' heart leaped into the back of his throat. The green sclera pierced through the dark attic like a knife. Ashaki mumbled something about how she was sorry and closed her eyes again.
Badgerclops heaved a sigh of relief, gently picking up the lenses off the box and slowly reeling his arm all the way back to him. Once there, Badgerclops eased the door shut, leaning his back to the door, he struggled to get his heart to settle down. The lenses rested in his palm, a pair of golden disks that were incredibly thin. Badgerclops swore he could crush them in his fist, but he remembered how when Mao Mao was on one of his tantrums, he bent his sword to a ninety degree angle, and how it bent itself back into a straight line; with this information, one of Badgerclops' hypotheses was that the golden weapons were indestructible. But he wouldn't know for sure until he ran some tests.
The following morning, Mao Mao entered the dining room, with a half asleep Adorabat riding on his shoulder. Already at the table were Tanya, and Minori stood at the stove again.
"Morning, Mittens," Tanya waved to them.
"Where's BC?" Minori said as she cracked an egg onto the frying pan.
"He was gone when we woke up," Mao Mao explained. "I thought he was already here."
Tanya shrugged at the notion, saying she hadn't seen him either. At the sound of the front door opening and closing, Mao Mao turned back to see Violet trudging into the dining room and setting down in a seat.
"Where have you been, Vi?" Minori asked.
"I couldn't sleep, so I went on midnight patrol," Violet replied, the exhaustion causing her voice to be even more monotonous.
"So we're just missing Badgerclops and Ashaki, then?" Tanya asked rhetorically. As if on cue, a series of thuds drummed out, followed by a fowl curse. Mao Mao wasted no time turning on his heel to check out the source of the noise.
Running into the living room, Mao Mao found Ashaki at the bottom of the stairs, rubbing her head.
"Ashaki! What happened?" Mao Mao went to her side to help her up. Adorabat jumped off of Mao Mao's shoulder to get on Ashaki's opposing side.
The others filed out of the dining room to see the commotion. Tanya couldn't help but take notice of Ashaki's eyes, they were her real eyes, not the golden contacts. Her left eye were the Mao family's signature green eye, but her right was a beautiful shade of blue, as deep as the ocean itself and glistening as its surface.
"I'm fine," Ashaki said, taking Mao Mao's hand. "I can't find my contacts. Minori, where are they?"
"I didn't take them!" Minori exclaimed before quickly correcting herself. "Not this time."
"Sure you didn't just misplace them?" Tanya asked.
"Ashaki has never misplaced anything," Violet interjected. "Someone had to have taken them."
"Don't tell me," Mao Mao grumbled under his breath. Mao Mao took Ashaki's hand as he led her and the others into the basement slash garage. Sitting at the work table was Badgerclops, looking into a microscope, and under the microscope was the golden dish of Ashaki's contacts.
"You better have a good reason for this," Mao Mao said angrily.
Badgerclops looked up from his work space, confused, then surprised, then scared. "W-what are you guys doing down here so late?"
"It's morning," Mao Mao answered. "Why do you have Ashaki's contacts?"
"You stole my contacts?" Ashaki said pointing her finger towards Badgerclops. She was pointing in the general direction, but she was more precisely pointing at the wall behind Badgerclops. Mao Mao reached out and adjusted her arm so that she was pointing at Badgerclops.
"Are you blind?" Badgerclops asked, trying to change the subject.
"Without my contacts I am!" Ashaki shouted at him. "That's one of their downsides, much like wearing someone else's glasses, the wearer's eyes adjust to the lens! Now please give me my sight back!"
"Okay," Badgerclops pulled the contacts out from under the microscope, stretching his robotic arm over to Ashaki, placing the gold disks in her palm.
"Why did you take them anyway?" Mao Mao asked.
"I wanted a closer look at them," Badgerclops replied sheepishly. "I was trying to figure out how they work, but I couldn't figure it out! They're gold, just gold!"
"If you wished to know about our golden weapons," Violet said to Badgerclops, stepping forward to the front of the group. "We would've been glad to tell you."
"Yeah," Minori agreed. "You just had to ask!"
"I want to know how they work," Badgerclops said. "How do they do the things they do?"
"We regretfully don't know all the specifics," Violet said solemnly. "But they were made from the vault."
"The vault?" Badgerclops mimiced.
"It has another name, 'the forge'; it's where all the weapons are made," Mao Mao informed them. "The weapons are made of a special kind of gold, indigenous to the mountain our ancestral home rests on today. The vault takes the gold and forms it into the weapon, and the crafter of the weapon imbues it with their special power."
"How though?" Badgerclops was leaning so far forward in his seat, he was nearly about to fall off.
"That's where our knowledge ends," Ashaki said, her contacts now on her eyes once more. "The rest of the information you're looking for rests with the head of the Mao clan, our father."
Badgerclops face was crestfallen, all of his bigger questions remain unanswered. The only person who can answer them is thousands of miles away.
"Now if that's all," Ashaki said coldly, still harboring some minor resentment towards Badgerclops. "I'm going to eat breakfast."