22.1 BA: Cargo II
Henri did a good job of tipping the stacks into the water before they began to deform. Now, it’s not just the metal containers that morph into beings anymore, it’s the ship itself. All across the deck, Man-shaped craters pockmark the surface of Rich’s vessel.
Forrest watches as Win reaches the battleground, where only a few short piles of corrugated boxes remain at the corners. He extends his hands outward, glowing purple, and pinches his fingers as he strides ahead. A couple metres in front of him, something rises from the ground. A wispy figure in large plated armour. The assignees on the battlefield pause to look.
“Guys! Win is a User!” shouts Adi.
“Who’s Win again?” asks Jackson.
“The quiet one with the hat. Don’t you remember?”
Assignees turn around, rush forward, peer over the platform.
“No way…”
“Is that?”
Win’s creation colours to life. It’s large, covered with plated metal; a warrior with katanas sheathed at its sides and yellow eyes that almost leave a visible path of light as it moves.
The warrior surveys its surroundings. The metal army, the shipping containers, the pockmarked ship, taking it in on its own tempo. Then, with the crisp shink! of metal, it unsheathes both of its katanas, and watches its own fingers wrap around the hilts one, by one, by one.
Enemy oncoming. A creature morphed out of red steel approaches the warrior. Win’s creature reacts slowly at first. A few steps towards it, then it greets the enemy with a loud slash.
It’s a clean diagonal. The metal man slides apart without a bump in the decline.
Another enemy tries to tackle the warrior by the chest, feet dragging in its attempt to push. Win's creation is cemented in place. It shoves its blade clean through the enemy’s chest. Then it steps back into a lunging position and shoots forward in a blur of speed. Several enemies end up impaled through the katana, squished together. Win’s creature lifts them to observe the spectacle, like the shish kebabs they ate in Al Suit. It walks to the edge of the ship. Dislodges them into the ocean with a casual downward tip of its blade.
“Ocean Company, that’s what’s up!”
Gunner’s ran up to the railing. He’s shouted it at the other companies with his chin in the air, while Forrest is rather speechless.
Enhanced by Victor’s Synergy, Win’s creature is destroying the army in multiples. He’s not just helping, either. He’s brought the battle significantly into their time and favour. The assignee had been harbouring all this power and nobody even knew it. Win Miura. A real User.
“Now that’s a minion,” says Adi.
“A Creationist,” says Ina.
Whatever the name is, Rich’s ship is responding with more metal creatures morphing faster than before. The vessel is rapidly eating away.
A loud crank sends a shudder under their boots, taking their attention away from the fight. The platform they’re standing on is beginning to tilt. The deck, the supporting beams, slowly crumbling into pieces, while the enemies that continue to spring forth are just faltering into the ocean.
The mast above them is folding, loud squeals of rusting metal fills their ears. Forrest grabs Maeven.
“Into the water!” shouts Ina. Forrest shoves Victor’s paddle in his belt and carries Maeven with a bear hug. He jumps.
He crashes into icy water. Air pockets bubble around him as the sounds in his ears become deep and resonant. Panic rises in his chest. Maeven slipped from his arms upon the impact. He can’t find her.
He swims to the surface with a gasp of air; to croaking metal, splashing water and shouting assignees.
Maeven!
Lights have sunken into the water. Too dark to see as he whips his head around. Ftsss! The ocean starts to glow red. Somebody’s lit a flare.
He hears a gasp.
“Maeven?” says Forrest, searching for his leader. He can see the broken ship, reduced to a sinking mountain of metal.
“I’m here.”
He turns around. Maeven is treading the water behind him.
“You okay? You can swim?” she says. Her alertness is so immediate that he forgets to celebrate the fact that she hasn’t drowned. “Yeah, I’m okay,” says Forrest.
Maeven looks around, absorbing the information. “Where’s Callum?” she murmurs. “Callum!”
They hear Gunner holler from somewhere across the water.
“This way,” says Maeven. She does a noticeable double take at Forrest before swimming towards the direction.
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Is he bleeding? Forrest wipes his forehead and examines his fingers. No, it isn’t blood. It’s his skin. There’s something wrong with the way it looks. Discoloured and cracked all down his arms and face.
They swim towards the flares.
“Is everyone okay?” shouts Victor, treading water with the rest of Sky Company. A quick headcount and all the assignees appear to be present. “Maeven! This isn’t the sort of situation you thought you’d be waking up to is it?”
The Ocean leader is helping Callum stay afloat, his arm over her shoulder. “Lifeboat.” she says.
“I lost sight of it when I jumped into the water,” says Henri.
“Okay, but there’s someone coming toward us.”
“That’s Rich you’re sensing,” says Adi.
At this moment a dark pulse of energy waves over them. Everyone reacts to it. Their eyes turn to the same direction, and they slowly raise their flares.
Standing on the water about ten metres away, there’s a shadow of a large body. A man shielded in sleek black metal, prow-shaped like he was carved by the waves. He stares them down with a glower, eyes as fiery as their flares.
Not a scream nor gasp escape their mouths, as the figure sinks under the ocean blanket.
“Throw your flares away. Everyone,” Victor commands quietly. “Let’s move.”
They toss their lights and swim.
“Adi, Maeven, Eliza. Is he close?” says Victor.
“He’s below us, but deep,” says Eliza.
“Can you catch him with your strips, Henri?” says Victor.
“Yeah—but, I need to know where he is first.”
Forrest’s skin feels like its burning. Something about the water is making him itch like crazy and in the most inopportune time. He scratches his neck as he continues to swim. The scraping feels unfamiliar.
“Here’s what we do,” says Henri. “Let me swim that way. I’ll lure him out with a flare.”
“You wanna take someone with you?” says Victor.
“No, I’m alright. I still have your Synergy anyway.”
Maeven says, “Hold on.” Then Doom’s voice comes in, “I think I see the b—”
“Doom!”
They hear the splash of water. Too dark. Forrest can’t see what’s going on.
“Son of a bitch,” says Adi. “He’s fast.”
“Doom’s gone is he?” says Victor.
“Yeah.”
“Hara’s going in to help!” shouts Hara.
The following silence tells them she’s dipped under the water.
“I gotta be honest guys I’m freaking the fuck out,” says Gunner, his breaths laboured.
“We got you Gunner, don’t worry,” says Victor. “The lifeboat is just ahead, look. See that bright light over there?”
Forrest looks ahead, where a white globe shines out from behind the wreckage. Relief washes over him all at once, but the itch is getting worse, it impairs his swimming every time he reacts to it. Driving him crazy.
“Forrest,” says Maeven. The water begins to illuminate as they approach the safety vessel. Forrest fights through the discomfort and swims onward.
Then Maeven takes the paddle from under his shirt.
Victor’s Synergy, that’s right. He forgot he still had the paddle on him. He didn’t even try to use it, did he? He clung onto it. He was no help at all.
“Victor,” she says. “How does this work?”
Victor opens his mouth. “That’s—"
“Here, I’ll take it,” says Win.
Maybe Victor’s Will can fix the itch. Maybe that’s what they’re trying to do. Yeah. At this point it’s so bad he’ll try anything.
The paddle is handed to Win. Forrest shakes his ears and forces himself to keep moving. When he starts to feel the Synergy kick in, it works. The irritation begins to ease, and he feels revitalised with energy.
But it doesn’t stop there. Something deep in his core begins to emerge. Tendrils of power, pushing, then coursing. He looks at the assignees, the glow of their Will brighter than before.
Suddenly, the water feels good. He doesn’t need to move so much to keep himself afloat.
This is Will?
Everything feels so important, so potent. A tenacity lighting up his soul. He can feel the current of the water on every inch of his skin. He can feel himself, read himself, understand with the utmost clarity that up until this very moment, Forrest was scared.
Not anymore.
Forrest sinks under the water just to feel the sea around him, and the ocean bed lights up. He can see.
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22.2 BA: Cargo III
Maeven grips onto Callum, tapped into her Intuition.
Everything is foggier nowadays. A haze of obstacles every time she calls her Will. The blowback from being a Contract Enforcer seems to be worsening it, because she feels sick to her stomach, and her head throbs as she scans the ocean.
That was Forrest who sunk into the water. He’s swimming—fast towards Rich in pitch black water.
She caught on to Victor’s Concept because she felt odd about some of the assignee’s Will Signatures after they had regrouped. Win, Henri, Hara. Their aura’s both intertwined and saturated with Victor’s beaming Resonance. Then she felt the Resonance of the paddles, held by Eliza and Forrest. She guessed that the objects had something to do with the enhancement. Win affirmed it when he took Forrest’s paddle from her hands, and the boy’s Will started to shine in ribbons of light.
Concerned for the assignee Maeven continues towards the lifeboat. They need to help the unwilled first, and she’s not sure how long Callum can continue swimming. Victor’s already made it. He’s opened the little orange door, lowered on his knees to grab Gunner’s hand and help him onboard. The Users part to let Callum and Maeven through.
“What’s going on with Forrest? Where is he?” says Victor, after he assists Callum inside the vessel.
Maeven can’t think to answer.
“You going back?”
“Yeah,” she says. “You have an extra flare?”
Victor reaches into his jacket and hands one to her. Then with a gasp of air and a flare of Optimisation in her lungs, Maeven dips under the water and heads for Rich.
She’s not sure what compelled Forrest to head for the enemy—whether it was out of instinct or reason. The Will she felt when the boy was Synergised was solid. It was convincing. If it’s enough to defeat Rich without prior experience with Will, Maeven has no idea. All she knows is that she doesn’t want to leave him afar to find out.
Hara’s there, so is Doom, both alive. She can’t see anything but she can sense their Will coursing deeper in the water. Hara is surfacing now, it seems. Probably for air.
As Maeven gets closer she senses the Resonance start to rise just like Hara. She can hear Forrest’s voice but can’t make out the words. He’s swimming with Rich faster than even Maeven can, so she follows them skyward.
“—Got him! I got him!”
“Forrest? Is that you?”
Maeven has breached the water.
“What do you mean you got him Forrest?” says Hara.
“Almost ran out of breath!” says Doom.
Maeven strikes the flare alight. She can see the three assignees lit up in red.
“Oh, Maeven’s here,” says Hara.
Somehow, Forrest is holding Rich out of the water by his black armour. His head is slumped with blood running down his neck, still breathing though unconscious. She notices Forrest’s hands, the tips of his fingers retracting back to fingernails. There are streaks on his neck, fading like scars. Doom and Hara haven’t noticed it.
Automanifestation.
“Everyone alright?” says Maeven, angling the flare as she sees the assignees unwounded.
“Fine,” answers Doom.
“All good,” says Hara.
“Forrest, what happened?” says Maeven.
The boy glances at the assignees as they turn to him. The fact that he can keep holding on to Rich like that while he’s swimming is impressive alone. Presumably, it had only been a few hours since he wasn’t a Will User at all.
“Uh—I don’t know,” Forrest answers. “I just swung my arm and I hit something.”