Daniel

:We’re approaching a Terminal,: Cassie sent to the group.

“And Kenta’s over here?” Daniel wondered. “Is he trying something drastic?”

:I’m not sure exactly what’s going on, but the way Kenta’s future is so discordant doesn’t feel good. It could crystalize into certainty any second; I hope we’re in time.:

Not in time? There was no way. They were going to reach him before the demon, and then talk him down from whatever ledge he was standing on.

:There they are!:

They descended to approach two figures. The first was a demonic Kenta clone, the fourth lesser demon, running towards a frightening sight. Kenta’s hair floated above him like a dense black cloud swollen to several times the usual volume. The worst part was they could see Kenta’s limp body hanging in midair by the scalp, eyes closed.

Daniel cursed as the demon reached Kenta first. It screamed it’s alien, evil call and waited expectantly. A shiver ran through Kenta’s mass of hair and the rest of them groaned as the demon’s Voice passed over them.

“Paul, shoot!” Daniel yelled.

“I’m out of range!” the boy called back.

:We’re too late!: Cassie cried in dismay a full second before it happened.

Kenta’s head turned an unnatural hundred-eighty degrees, hiding his face from view. Kenta’s body from the neck down dropped like an overripe fruit. A slit over six feet long appeared in the darkest depths of Kenta’s writhing mass of hair. Then the slit burst open with a terrible roar.

It was a mouth. An enormous, disgusting, vertical mouth. Its teeth were shards of bone. Its drool was blood. Its throat glowed the bright red of a single monstrous—maw/eye.

The monster, Kenta’s monster, towered over the little demonic Kenta. Countless strands of hair twisted together into a hundred lengths of… rope? No, whips.

To the sound of machinegun fire, one hundred whips cracked turn by turn rippling up the sides of the maw/eye. When the pair at the top cracked, the bottom pair reset and continued the steady unleashing of blows. The gently undulating motion was mesmerizing, beautifully organic as a deep-sea creature, and terrifying when paired with the sound they made and the effect they had.

The demon was flogged unrecognizable in the span of a few seconds. Kenta’s monster didn’t let up but increased the speed of the whip array. The sounds bled together into a single continuous explosion of force that crushed the demon into paste and pounded it into the ground. All at once, the whips dissolved into the black cloud, revealing nothing remained of the demon but an oily crater.

Cassie landed, dropping the five of them around her as she shifted into human form. The maw/eye studied them coldly. It blinked once.

“Kenta?” the bat girl called, plaintive.

The maw/eye looked from one face to another, then swam backwards through the air, reminiscent of an octopus. The slow, rhythmic motion of its hair belied the speed of its low hover covering ground. Six floating hairballs separated from the mass as it fled.

“Come back!” she cried as she flew after Kenta’s monster. One of the six hairballs intercepted her. She tried to evade it, but the hairball burst open to become a wide net that snared her and contracted—sending Cassie crashing to the ground.

The others rushed forward to help her, and the hairballs met them. One blocked Daniel’s path and, when he tried to catch it in one hand, the hairs separated to slide through the grasp of his projected fingers. That’s annoying.

Beside him, Paul splayed his ten gauntleted fingers. Ten rays blasted forth from an aperture opening on the tip of each and, as he crossed his arms, the beams cut through and burned both his and Daniel’s hairballs.

“Thanks,” Daniel said, putting as much sarcasm as he could muster into the word to relieve some tension. Paul nodded at him and chuckled his metallic laugh.

Ziege swung her claws and missed a hairball. “I don’t remember Kenta ever being able to do this!”

“Becoming a monster doesn’t grant you any new skills or power,” Rana said as she sprayed her hairball with sticky slime. “It unlocks everything you weren’t willing to do before.”

“I guess you’d know… But you’re saying Kenta could always turn into a big bloody mouth and spew hairballs?” This time Ziege put some power into her claws and, when she swung, four flying energy blades cut her hairball to pieces.

“Yeah—knowing him, he probably thought it looked gross.” Rana’s hairball dropped in a gooey mess.

“A little help, please,” Lea said. She’d surrounded herself in a protective swarm of bowling ball Caramboles and her hairball had been content to spend itself as a net to keep her trapped inside. Paul finger blasted the strands of the hairball in a couple places, and it fell apart.

With a snarl, Cassie shifted into her giant fishing bat form, easily snapping the hairball’s net as she stood on all fours. :Damn.:

“What was the point of all that?” Ziege asked, poking an inanimate hairball.

:The point was to slow us down. Kenta’s almost reached the Terminal.:

Daniel considered. They’d camped between several accessible nodes to have multiple escape routes in an emergency. “He didn’t have to go this far to world-hop. What’s at the Terminal?”

Nobody knew for sure.

Rana lifted Kenta’s body with surprising delicacy. “Feels alive,” Rana said as she cradled his limp form with her thick warrior toad arms. Sure enough, between the shoulders was smooth, unbroken skin without a drop of blood.

Cassie touched the body with her giant bat nose and pronounced, :He has a heartbeat, but it’s slowed to a crawl. It’s like he’s going into hibernation.:

“Not if we can help it,” Daniel countered. “Whatever’s at the Terminal, we have to stop him.”

They took to the air once again. They slowed her flight, but Daniel wouldn’t let Cassie go to face the monster alone. Kenta’s head-start let him reach the Terminal first. When they arrived, he’d already awakened the Taotie guardian. Which, like all Terminal guardians, were programmed to fight monsters.

An eight-foot-tall masked beast stood on the platform. It took the form of a tailless monkey viewed through a funhouse mirror. An equally large mosaic sword manifested in its hand from a thousand Letter tiles that appeared and zipped through the air to click into place.

The guardian swung its violet-glowing blade as it lunged forward. Kenta slipped back unharmed. Neither spoke; they had nothing to say. Next, the guardian spun, cutting forward, and then retreating with a second swing. The sword free-floated, guided by will, dragging the masked beast against the presumed momentum of its blows to make the guardian’s movements unpredictable.

“Hurry!” Daniel would be biting his nails if he wasn’t hanging onto Ziege for dear life.

:I can’t fly any faster without dropping everyone!:

After studying the guardian’s fighting style, Kenta loosed a handful of hairballs. They spread out even as the masked beast split one easily with a single slice. Before the guardian recovered from the swing, a second hairball burst into a net that bound its feet. A third hairball tied the masked beast’s sword arm to its head.

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“Try and break them up—Cassie, use your sonic roar to startle him!” Daniel said.

:Damn it, I shouldn’t have gotten so mad before with the lesser demons. That ability is one use per day. I could seriously hurt myself if I tried again.:

Daniel was of a mind to start cursing as well.

While the masked beast’s blade could slice through hair like a knife through pasta, each hairball restricted its mobility, allowing Kenta to get more hairballs under its guard. The Taotie warrior would soon be bound tight. Then the maw/eye closed, seeming to disappear, and the main mass of hair surged forward. With a last, desperate swing, the guardian cut clean through Kenta, splitting him in two.

They all gasped and held their breath.

An instant later, the maw/eye opened from inside one of the two divided hair halves. The cut half fell to the ground, lifeless. Meanwhile, the maw/eye slipped in close to snap at the guardian’s head. The masked beast abandoned its sword to catch the slavering bone-teeth jaws in both hands.

Daniel dangled by one arm and his legs around Ziege’s waist to reach for the battle on the Terminal with his left hand. He’d never projected his magic this far away before. Nausea slammed him like a tidal wave. He blinked away double vision. When he focused, he saw the apparent size of his hand compared with the tiny platform.

Forced Perspective. His projection grew larger and more costly the more distant his target.

He’d risk a coma or worse if he pushed through this warning sign. If he fell, someone would hurt themselves trying to catch him. Probably Rana.

Daniel felt disgusted with himself. Sure, his inability to reach Kenta or think of anything to say was frustrating… but the fact it’d come to this at all was inconceivable. What had he done wrong? What was his mistake? How had Daniel failed so spectacularly?

Kenta wasn’t a bad guy. He just missed his sister.

Where had the demon come from? Why hadn’t Kenta explained anything in time for them to help? Daniel didn’t know what had gone through Rana’s mind, but the frog girl hurt Kenta while defending herself—not knowing the full effect it’d have on the boy. Blaming her would miss so many important details it was stupid.

Was this anyone’s fault, really? That thought became a pit in his stomach. Everything was out of control, and nothing made sense.

The Taotie guardian lost its grip on the maw/eye as strands of hair restrained its arms. Kenta bit into the head behind the mask. The guardian’s body went limp.

Daniel and the others moaned together. Why, Kenta?

Then, something very strange happened. The hairballs and knots uncoiled themselves from the guardian’s body, freeing it. The masked beast stood. The maw/eye melded into the guardian’s head until the mass of hair appeared to grow from the masked beast’s own scalp. The new creature took up its sword and activated the nearest World Gate.

“Possession,” Rana breathed into the wind, but Daniel heard.

This was it. If Kenta went through that portal, their chances of fixing this went down drastically. Every second made mending this rift seem more unlikely. Was it time to accept the inevitable?

Daniel couldn’t picture talking Kenta down at this point. The monster hadn’t even stopped to chat when they’d approached. Perhaps if they’d fought then… but that was the past. It was all in the past.

Dinners with the seven of them. A circle round the campfire. Playing poker with candy tokens. Games of Go! and chess. Making snow angels. Searching for the T.O. together. Wandering the desert, using Kenta’s hair for shade. A hair umbrella in the rain. Kenta designating himself the group’s chef. Kenta stopping bullets in the heart of the Facility. Kenta snatching Lea from the jaws of death. Where would they be without him?

All those memories, those moments, were sandcastles on the beach.

A swell of emotions washed over Daniel mingling happiness and sorrow, joy and loss. It was too much. More than he could contain or process. He spasmed, unable to control his grip. His heart exploded. His back was fire, then ice, then nothing.

He was… alive. That was good. But not for long—the wind whipping his robe and the lurch of his gut said he was falling. Daniel’s adrenaline kicked in and he finally found the black shadow of Cassie’s wings against the stars. She was circling around for him. He hoped she made it in time.

Still, something felt… off. Unusual. His body had changed. He noticed a flash of white to his right. Daniel twisted his head to see, and his jaw dropped. Out of his back had sprouted a white-feathered wing.

His new appendage shimmered with dust catching the moonlight. He’d barely felt it because, despite its size, it cut through the air without resistance. Wait, a wing can’t create lift without wind resistance, that’s fundamental to aerodynamics—How do I even use this thing!

Hello?

What was that? It wasn’t a demon’s Voice, but the touch of the heart reaching for his own felt distinctly feminine. No… it couldn’t be.

I came as quickly as I could, but you seem more confused than murder-y right now. Did I miss the fun part?

Oh gods, it was.

It looks like you’re falling. Do you not know how to fly? Wait, let me put this on hold…

He stopped falling. Correction, the world stopped. What the actual heck? There were dust and pollen particles suspended in front of him. Cassie was frozen. Kenta was frozen.

That’s better. Now I have a chance to figure out what’s going on.

“Excuse me, if you don’t mind, I’d like to know your name, please. I just want to be sure. My name’s Daniel, uh, ma’am.”

Mmm, I like that. You could be a bit more polite, but it’s a good start. Oh! You’re so young… Yes, the wing is new… One of Perses’ children, ah, that explains it… You’ve been learning a lot recently… Some lovely battles, but so few deaths…

“Uh, what are you doing, ma’am?” Whatever she’d found clearly told her way more than he wanted the entity to know.

Reading your Lifeline, dear… Name, Daniel Ruin. Wait, you’re not that Daniel, are you?

Please no.

Oh! Perses told me all about you! He said to watch for a boy with an unusually loud Call, and what a Voice you have! Not at all like what I typically hear from my Children… but exquisite none the less. Mmm, let me into your mind, little boy. I want to run my fingers through your sweet hair. It’s been too long since I kissed the brow of a Son of Ruin.

“No, thank you, ma’am. I prefer my mind the way it is.” Daniel didn’t need to have heard Paul’s story to know that was a bad idea.

You’re no fun, she teased. Is that any way to treat your great, great, I’m not sure how great, grandmother? It was true, this was definitely the one Rana had warned him to stay away from. No matter. Now, who do you want dead?

“What? Nobody!”

What? She seemed as shocked as him. You’re kidding. I heard your Call. There’s no mistaking it.

“No, I was upset!”

You sure? Not just shy? Everyone gets nervous before their first kill.

“No, they don’t, not everyone has a first kill! I don’t want to kill anyone!”

Boy. For the first time, Daniel sensed a hardness in the other being—an inkling of this entity’s primordial age and power. Do you know to whom you speak?

I am Kali, The Dark Lady.

I am The Fullness of Time.

But you can call me the Queen of Murder.

“No.”

There was a moment of stillness that made Daniel’s skin crawl. Then he felt her laughter, warm and gentle. He let himself relax the tiniest bit.

You’re too adorable to stay mad at. Alright, son of Ruin, why did you Call me?

“Well, I’m falling. Can you do anything about that?”

Yes, and no. No, there isn’t a shortcut in learning to fly—especially with one wing.

One wing? Daniel spun his head around and checked his left shoulder. Nothing. He only had the one wing on his right? Seriously?

And, yes, I can help. Let me steer for a bit and I’ll land you safely on the ground. Unless you’ve changed your mind…?

“I’m still a ‘no,’ ma’am. And I don’t think I can take your offer on the safe landing.” Daniel had been controlled by Perses before. He had no idea what Kali would do if she started driving his body. Best not to take the risk, and trust someone caught him.

That’s too bad. I wouldn’t call it a wasted visit, though. You’ve been a profoundly entertaining change of pace for me. And… if you do ever feel that special urge, I simply must be the first to hear of it. I promise I’ll make time for you, my darling Daniel.

Till then.

He fell. The world exhaled and began to breathe.

Where was Cassie? Wait, why should he be afraid? He’d survived falls and crashes before. His magic protected him. Daniel reconsidered the whole falling thing. On second thought, if he at least slowed his fall with the wing, that’d free the others to go after Kenta.

Daniel flexed his shoulder muscles to no success. He sensed the wing as part of his body, now he knew it was there, but it wasn’t mapped in his brain the way his arms and legs were. Not that he’d have any idea how to fly, let alone flap, even if he had perfect acuity of the new appendage. Flapping was a learned motion, like walking, or a baseball pitch—people aren’t born knowing how to do these things.

He tried flexing the wing and it twitched, but not the way he’d wanted. Daniel wobbled disconcertingly in his fall. That, and the ground zooming closer made him give up on the measured approach. He wheeled his arms and gave flapping his best, hopeless shot just as he saw Cassie approaching. Too late.

The wing flailed. It was like being strapped to a crooked jetpack at full throttle. Daniel shot away at unbelievable speeds, corkscrewing in an arc over the grass. The last thing he saw was the upheaval of roots and dirt as he plowed into the soil.

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One last thing, Daniel, I’ll leave it here for you to remember later. I saw something troubling on your Lifeline.

I can only check a person’s Lifeline once—I do it for all my Children when I first meet them—so please attach the proper weight to these words.

Your path dead-ends soon.

It doesn’t happen right away or at a specific time. Given this, I believe you are being drawn to someone, rather than being hunted by them.

My advice, and I’m an expert on avoiding dead-ends, is to stay indoors for the next twenty years or so. Abandon whatever quest you’re on. Take up a hobby. In that time, I believe your malefactor will lose interest. Unfortunately, that means you’ll have become less interesting, but at least you’ll be alive.

Consider carefully.

If you continue on this path, you’ll die.