Looming Shadow: Journey to Chaos book 2 (52 page)

“I
am
the fuel
and I say it was a legitimate use of myself.”

“Whatever you say, Boss.
Do we have time to pick up the girl?”

“No. Continue to the
destination indicated by the spirit light.”

Their destination was
Mount Heios, where Tiza, Nolien, and Vaya were running for their lives.

Monsters everywhere
were eating each other. They were slashing, biting, smashing, pounding, and
melting each other. The tussle between a reaper and a Bladi drove then into a
frenzy. Every monster without a meal looked to the small, insignificant-looking
creatures and deemed them an easy target.

The fungi that Neuro
was thrown into was poisonous to mind, body, and spirit, so he was out of
action. Tiza had to carry him on her back. In his current state, he was the
lightest of all of them.

Looking around, Tiza
scanned the horde for known breeds and quickly guesstimated what they were and
what they could do. Large, old, grown strong on a diet of Fog and the mana-drenched
meat of others, they ranked as B class monsters. She took stock of her
equipment and her allies and possible strategies in a moment. Then she closed
her eyes, removed her safety mask, and muttered, “Spider Daylra, all conditions
have been met.” The monsters pounced. She opened her eyes and shouted, “Light
come forth!”

Suddenly, the monsters
halted. Their instincts shouted danger of the creature that multiplied its own
power instantly. Tiza's eyes glowed with blue light and her body glowed with a
pale blue aura. She blurred past a monster and side-kicked a second to open a
path down the mountain.

She deflected a third
monster reaching for Vaya and then turned aside a fourth bounding toward
Nolien. Her light flickered, but she took a deep breath and renewed it. Then
she tossed both her companions over her shoulder and ran down the mountain
slope towards the edge of the Fog Cloud.

The monsters followed
her. Hideous and misshapen, they chased her relentlessly. It was only by the
power of Videlicet Mens that she stayed ahead of them. Only with the greatest
effort did she maintain its effect. She took one deep breath after another and
each one empowered her to greater heights. They also eroded her health and
sanity.

Her hair was matted
against her head with sweat. Her body heaved; a feat made dangerous by the
thick Fog. No longer taking controlled breaths, the Fog began to pulse
erratically within her body. Her skin turned both sickly pale and translucent.
Nolien recognized the symptoms, but she did not. She was no longer concerned
with them. She was not aware of them. The light of Videlicet Mens blinded her
to everything but her goal. She was developing monsanity, the insanity known
only to monsters.

As the seconds passed
and she grew wearier, the monsters grew closer. They grew close enough for
Nolien to count their teeth. A titanic monster stepped into her path, but Tiza
jumped ten feet and kicked it in the stomach. Empowered by Videlicet Mens, the
Fog, and her fierce determination, she knocked it over and then ran over its
face. She jumped off it and continued her sprint uninterrupted all the way out
of the Fog Cloud.

On her way down, she
tripped and skidded down the slopes. The three people she was carrying tumbled
in three directions. She breathed as deep and fast as she could but it was
hard, painful, and futile in the thin air of Ceiha. Nolien rushed to her side
to begin treatment, then paused when he looked back at the Fog Cloud. The
monsters were following them.

They started heaving as
he did when he first entered Ceiha's territorial waters. It was slow and clumsy,
but they continued stalking forwards. The smallest ones adapted quicker and
moved faster. Soon, they would be overrun. Nolien was calculating the odds of
running again when he heard something shocking.

Tiza
whimpered
. Nolien
would never forget it. Indomitable Tiza was afraid. His own safety was suddenly
less important and saving her became his priority.
Now...how do I do it...?

You can't do it,
Honorable Elder Brother. Give up
.

The healer ignored it
and made more plans, but it followed him. It pointed out every flaw in every
one. He could hear it laughing at him.
Admit it. You can't do it.

Tiza flickered like a
sputtering candle and, suddenly, it dawned on him.
I can't!

“As I am Chaos, you are
Order divine. As the sun to the moon, you shall shine. Take my power and me
mine!” His slip made his face burn. He swore he could hear The Trickster
laughing. “I mean like a leyline! MANA TRANSFER!”

A blue tether shot from
his staff to Tiza's back and, instantly, all her fatigue disappeared. Empowered
by Nolien, she grabbed the horns of the monster about to gore him and used it
as a club to bash, smash, and flatten the last three monsters pursuing them.
Then she tossed that one into the air, channeled enough mana to her blade to
make it a mana blade, jumped up to the monster's level, and slashed off all its
heads before it crashed to the ground, dead. She landed lightly and stood tall.
Then other monsters caught up with it.

Unlike the three
before, these were bigger than she was. Their spirits were far stronger and,
unlike her, they were not exhausted. Instead of fighting them, she retreated.
While she could not defeat them, Ceiha itself could. Artfully, she drew them
further and further away from the Fog Cloud. One by one, they suffocated on the
thin air. The sense of self-preservation in the remaining monsters kicked in
and they retreated to the Fog Cloud.

Nolien had never been
more in awe of her. Together with the blue dress, she appeared as a sapphire
reaper. Then she faced him and he saw a monstrous look in her eyes.

Nolien beat himself on
the head. The voice from before laughed and ridiculed him. In his panic, he had
forgotten Rule Number One of Healing. The Griffocratic Oath stated that, above
all, a healer must never harm someone they’re trying to help. By providing her
with so much unregulated mana, he pushed her closer to mana poisoning and
monsanity.

She shivered and shook.
Her skin was still glowing blue and tiny jolts of mana arched off her body. Her
eyes were glazed and wild, her breathing ragged and hoarse. If he didn't do
something soon, she would die and kill him in the process. She sniffed and
bared her teeth.

“Tiza...Adrenaline
Junkie...you need to stay calm so I can cure you.”

She pounced on him and
he went down. She bit his collarbone and raked him with her gloved hands. Ignoring
all of it, he embraced her.

“Tiza! Don't you
recognize me?” He pulled her head back and looked her in the eyes. “It's me,
Tenderfoot!”

Tiza snarled and
snapped.

“Tiza, please! Don't do
this!”

With one arm around her
waist and another curled around her head, he held her gently. Enduring the
pain, he stroked her back and hair and recited their adventures. He told her
about their joint training sessions and how she made fun of his lack of
stamina. He told her about the restaurant they liked to go to and the last
movie they saw together. He reminded her of the time he slipped on a banana
peel and they ended up trapped in a closet. He reminded her that Retina and
Sathel were waiting for her in Roalt. He ripped off one of her gloves and forced
her to stare at the scar on her shield arm. Two jagged red lines were his last
hope.

“Please, Tiza, I'm
begging you! Tell me you remember this! Remember me!”

Tiza blinked. For a
moment, she stared at it; an
agonizingly
long moment. In the end, her eyes
rolled to the back of her head and she fainted into Nolien's arms.

 Her heartbeat, so
strong and fast, was now terrifying slow. Desperately, Nolien reached for his
detached medical mindset and set about treating her: lay patient flat, cross
patient legs, move patient hands to womb, check for damage with Scanning Staff,
and finally initiate Spiritual Stabilization.

“If this doesn't
work...there will be two humanoid monsters running around.”

His mana, now
controlled and measured, flowed into her, and she began to recover. Then one
more monster crawled out of the Fog Cloud. A snake-like creature, it was red,
black, and big enough to swallow an orc whole. Its tongue slipped in and out as
it slithered toward the humans. Fog left its body with each hiss, but given the
length of its body, it wouldn’t suffocate until after it consumed all of them.
Nolien gritted his teeth, bit his lip, and finally lost the battle.

“ABYSS TAKE YOU,
TASIO!”

The hum of a mana-driven
engine filled the area seconds later. A small airship shaped like a griffin
descended from the clouds and hovered above the monster. Hatches opened on its
flanks and munitions dropped from the wings to open elemental fire on the
beast. Now that it had the thing's attention, it hovered just out of reach. A
girl dropped on top of the thing and ran its massive length to the head. The
sun shined on her alone as she dug a giant wedge into its skull to fish out
vital tissue. Finally, she jumped off and her airship fired a bolt of lightning
that fried every single cell in its body.

Then the ship dimmed
and its engines shut off. It plummeted hundreds of feet until its emergency
stability jets kicked in. They slowed its fall enough to avoid a crash and make
an emergency landing instead. Kallen grimaced when she heard the crunch.

“...
pyudtfgx
...That's
gonna be expensive...” she muttered, then she waved Nolien over. “Come on; you’re...Nolien,
right? She can rest in the cabin. The zombie can come too.”

“What zombie?” Vaya
asked.

“Oh, yeah, I guess it’s
cat hairs in this case. In any case, you’re all welcome to my home.” 

Nolien didn't move.
“Was your ship flying just now?”

“I’ll explain later.
I’m in a hurry. I shouldn’t have stopped to help you.”

The metal griffin's side
door opened, creaking as it did so. A teenage girl with red hair stumbled out,
clutching her head. She wobbled on the solid ground until she regained her
bearings. Then she marched toward the green-haired girl and glared at her.

“Kallen! You
jarsupik
gusil
! I
told you
we were going to run out of fuel!! Now we'll need
to call Draco...if they can even
get
here…” the redhead ranted. “Our
premiums are going to
skyrocket...
I don't know how we're gonna
land
–”

“Nolien Heleti, we’re
on our way to rendezvous with Eric. Put your Tiza in the ship’s cabin.”

“Kallen! Don’t ignore
me!”

“I’m not. I’m simply
prioritizing someone in need.”

“Then what about the
other girl?”

“She’s not in need.”

Nolien put one arm
under Tiza’s shoulders and another under her knees. Her head settled into the
crease of his shoulder. Ignoring the others' stares, he carried her into
Albatross
IX
. The impact had tossed loose articles to the floor and Nolien took care
in stepping around them. He found the cabin and nudged the ajar door open with
his foot. Ever so gently, he laid her on the bed and tucked her in.

“Have a good rest, Tiza,”
he said as he stroked her hair. “You deserve it.”

She nestled into his
touch and moaned contently. “Tenderfoot...”

He smiled fondly. “Yeah,
it's me. I'll be right here when you wake up.”

Tiza smiled.

Nolien left the cabin
and closed the door behind him as quietly as possible. His legs then turned to
jelly and he sank against it.

Kallen sat in the
captain's seat and revved the engine. A field of electrical power swept the
ship, making the hairs on Nolien's arm stand up. The engines hummed to life and
the griffin
spread its wings. Kallen pushed the accelerator forward and
Albatross
IX
took flight.

Nolien waited until he
was sure the takeoff hadn't woken up Tiza, then joined Kallen in the cockpit.
As he entered, he noticed a crystal inserted into a slot near the ship's
ignition and a yellow light glowing within. He chose the seat closest to the
door. The instant he sat down, Kallen asked, “How long have you been going
out?”

“Excuse me?”

“How long. Have you.
Been dating?”

Nolien buckled himself
in. “We're not a couple.”

“I’ll fix that for you
when I come back.”

Kallen parked above the
Fog Cloud and flipped a switch to shift the engine's mana drive to outside mana
instead of Ligol's blessing. She pulled the crystal out and reconnected it to
her staff. Then she pulled a scarf out of the glove compartment and wrapped it
over her nose and mouth. Next, she grabbed a bag and stuffed in some devices.

 On the way to the
hatch, she gave Emily orders such as how long to wait for her, what to do if
she didn't come back, if a large and/or flying monster approached, etc. Her
first mate told her not to worry. Kallen pecked her cheek and said, “Goodbye,
honey. I'll be back in time for dinner.” Then she jumped out of the ship
backwards.

“Does she know what
she's doing?” Nolien asked.

Despite her blush,
Emily responded in a deadpan manner. “I ask myself that every day.”

Kallen plunged into the
monster den and the Fog rushed by as she fell. Her skin tingled pleasantly as
vapors brushed against it. She shook those thoughts away before they triggered
ones that made her skin crawl instead. She landed on her feet, crouching to absorb
the impact.

The Fog limited her
visibility to a few yards. She held her staff out in two hands in case a
monster surprised her. The grey spirit light glowed steadily. She swayed it
this way and that, watching the pulsations. At last, it reacted.

She breathed slowly and
carefully. Although her scarf protected her from the Fog, it couldn't block out
smells. Fog could be the most fragrant aroma or the most repugnant of stenches or
all at the same time. Here, they mixed with the decaying organic mass and the
byproducts of the Fog's inhabitants.