If nothing changed, there would be more plastic than fish in the ocean, from the tides down to the lightless deep, and what efforts have been made to be rid of this infestation have been dwarfed by the vastness of the sea and the ceaseless waste of industry. Whether from the intentional dumping of radioactive waste and munitions or the dross of civilization being bright down the river, the blood of Earth was being poisoned.
In Taiwan, this pollution has climbed in density to pile up on the western coast and threaten the seafood that make up an island’s diet. To address the marine debris issue, the Ministry of Environment has begun a project in collaboration with the Immortal Imperiun. The Imperium would release Ceti into the waters, sea monsters that can devour debris to eventually be expelled as mana crystals. The Ceti will be monitored and directed by their Immortal handlers using implanted runes, and the crystals would become Taiwanese property. The Immortals hope the success of the project will incentivise further signatories and mark a turning point in clean up efforts.
To ensure that the Ceti are not poached by pirates, privateers, or wandering fisherman would require a special detachment from the Oceania Maritime Security Initiative to patrol their movement. The details of putting together that patrol would take some time; to get the project running sooner rather than later, OMSI has requested the temporary deployment of a platform far faster and stronger than any fleet or armada.
One Cetus was dutifully swallowing up plastic bags and six-pack rings in its path through the abyss when it got caught in a steel pot. The pot was drawn up, pulling the Cetus out of the cold dark into warming light, past fish constricted by rubberbands and dolphins swollen from prey contaminated by synthetic compounds, breaking through the surface up to a boat by the hydraulic winch.
The unprepared, likely underpaid and underinformed, poachers were hit by a wave of awe and disgust greater than the tides against their boat. Creatures of Hell, both monster and demon, are mana made manifest and projected the influence of their realm. To be before a creature of such majesty and divinity invoked irrepressible wonder and jealousy. The Imperium’s gateways gave humanity exposure to magic unbound, enough to vaccinate most from all but complete submersion in hell energy, but the poachers were mesmerized nonetheless.
So enthralled, they did not see the storm that bounded from cloud to cloud across a clear sky until amethyst sparks rained upon them. The sparks bounced off the poachers and danced around the deck. From above descended white boots that were the base of purple columns that supported a bulwark covered by crossed arms that were butressed by white gloves. The sea breeze hardly swayed the three lightning bolts that hung over her back from the cloud around her collar. Whether it was the malignant influence of hell, or the shadowy hand that sent forth these fisherman to be their patsy, none could resist being overwhelmed by the amethyst concert in the wake of GalvanGal. In the face of that, the poachers released the Cetus.
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The Ceti were recalled by nightfall with bellies full of trash turned treasure. Back in her hotel in Cianjhen District after an exhausting work day, Hannah Vandimion let down her cape and boots to put on a denim jacket and sneakers for a trip to Dream Mall, the largest in Taiwan with 12 floors, thousands of stores, and an amusement park on the roof. From the underground floors to the top, Hannah wanted to see everything the mall had to offer while she was stationed in Kaohsiung.
While there were plenty of places to see, especially for someone who could crisscross the island in hour, the mall was fertile ground to produce an abundance of pictures to disperse for her catalog on Bouldr : atop the snowflake of the casino-corrupted christmas tree; looking out from the crow’s nest of the ship stranded on treasure island, unleashing volcanic lightning upon the twinkling garden; dancing at the disco square in front of an audience seated on dominoes. While anyone could take pictures, and she was more than open to her international fans, only one photographer offered to help her get the best angles.
“I said that, but it’s hard to find a bad angle on you,” said Tony Leung Chiu-wai, punctuated by the click of the shutter on his camera.
“Well, I guess you’d have to keep taking pictures until you find one,” said Hannah as she descended and set down a pink helicopter to let out the passengers, “but that’s enough photos for today.”
“Ahh what? I thought you wanted to clear the place,”
“I still need to be up early in the morning and I haven’t eaten all day. Maybe I was just focused on the landmarks, but I didn’t see a whole lot of vegan to go around,” sighed Hannah.
“Fruitful Food is supposed to be an all-you-can-eat buff—” palms like iron cuffs clasped around Tony’s hands.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Take me there now,” she commanded.
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Tony took out some mochi and raindrop cake because he wasn’t really that hungry. Hannah, meanwhile, wrapped green curry noodles around black pepper hericium mushrooms before getting to spicy bean paste tofu and washed it down with ginkgo biloba soup.
“That bad, huh?”
“It’s not hard, just tiring and boring going back and forth over an ocean all day. Are you gonna eat that?” she said with a tempeh taco in her hand and spitting out of her mouth. Tony pushed the mochi plate to her which she seized, stuffed into the remaining taco, and scarfed down.
“It may not be exciting, but I can’t think of anything more heroic than healing the planet.”
“Maybe,” she used her forearm to wipe off spittle, “but I'm not the one ‘healing’ the planet, it's those monsters from the Imperium.”
“Does it matter where it's from if it's helping?” asked Tony.
“No. Yes. I don’t know. I told myself that I wasn’t going to sit on the sidelines, that I was going to take responsibility. And here I am, taking orders to be muscle for the military’s oddjobs, while the Imperium is tracking mud on our carpet whenever they feel like. It didn’t feel like I won before, now it just feels like I lost. I can’t change the world like this.”
“I’d say you made plenty of difference already. You’re pretty much the only reason the Imperium didn’t take over everything. People come to you because you’re a player on the board; most people, most nations, don’t get to be as important as you are,” said Tony. Hannha’s eyes darted to the floor, and her chews slowed until she finally swallowed.
“They only pay attention to me because I’m a weapon too dangerous to be ignored. I wanted to have a world without weapons, but the deeper I go, the more it looks like weapons are all that matter.”
“Look around you, Hannah. Do you think swords and guns built this place? Did bullets grow those grapefruits and sprinkle them with brown sugar?” Tony reached out to hold her hand on the table which drew her eyes to his, “Were you created from war… or from love?”
“Hannah Vandimion had a loving father that she loves just as much back… but GalvanGal, the one everyone wants, was raised to be the best by a warmaster.”
“I can’t speak for everyone, but I think the best can only come from love, and Hannah Vandimion is the one I want.”
Their eyes locked into each other, she turned her hand to meet his hold, and leaned forward—when something in the distance caught her ear. Something far away, far off the coast. She could’t tell what it was but what she felt was the same as that day—the day she became GalvanGal. He let go of her.
“What are you waiting for?” asked Tony, “someone out there needs Hannah Vandimion, right?”
She affirmed with a nod, grabbed the last mochi, and bolted out of the restaurant, over the interior railings, and up out of the mail. Tony went to pay the bill at the register. “超出你的范围(Beyond your scope)” said the cashier. “酸溜溜(sour)” said Tony.
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The ocean was a dangerous, uncontrollable mistress at the best of times, but the storm that whipped up such tumultuous waters had not been forecasted. Not by the east asian coastguards, nor by the American third fleet, and certainly not by the captain of a rusty, aging, fishing trawler overloaded with hundreds of passengers. On the brink, this vessel would barely make it to its destination under ideal conditions, but these conditions were far from ideal. The peaceful night sky, so very far away, was eclipsed by black clouds that snuffed out what moonlight they had, leaving the ship to be thrashed by the ocean’s maws in the darkness. Each tide that slammed into the ship and tossed water on board was another limb of the deep reaching out to pull them under.
A tide like a boulder slammed into the trawler, its impact threw passengers off their feet and reverberated across the walls and floorboards as the ship had its last bit of strength knocked out. Carried by the jagged waves now, those in the lower decks desperately fled to higher ground: the hull had been breached. The maw found its grip and sunk its teeth in. With the dark stretched to the heavens, to the horizons, to the hollows, no matter how they screamed, or cried, or begged, nothing less than a miracle could save them from their inevitable reality.
The clouds that smothered moonlight were pierced by amethyst prances that blew them apart in their wake, letting through that moonlight and leaving a trail of falling sparks that glittered the black sea. From the last cloud, an amethyst pillar struck near the boat with a flash of light and a roar of thunder that quelled the tides and the passengers alike. Suddenly, the boat rose, rose out of the water and began to fly, fly between the starry sky and the glittering sea faster than the boat—any boat—could ever sail.
The dark that almost consumed them was left behind as citylight on the horizon, a beacon under the moonlight, fast approached until they were finally set down in the Port of Kaohsiung. Wet and shivering as they were, their fear was washed away by relief as they poured off the boat. From what little she has seen and understood, there would be people that had a problem with what GalvanGal did, but that could come tomorrow; right now, the captain that clung to her with tears of gratitude was enough for Hannah Vandimion.