Richie caught a familiar scent. It was the odor he pinpointed later in the apartment complex, the smell of incense amidst the wind chimes. It was the smell that snagged his instincts and lassoed him into a sprint across the rooftops. Back then, he was clueless, scared, and in over his head. But now, it seemed almost nostalgic.
Richie smiled and snugged his scarf, then took a running sprint up onto an awning, bouncing himself atop a building. He ran across his stepping stones in the sky. The wind whipped his face, cool and refreshing, his scarf trailing in the sky like the whiskers of the great dragon. He felt so light on his feet, so light in general, like every muscle was working seamlessly in concert. He vaulted freely between rooftops, as though across trampolines, and felt his heart soar. Midair, he cracked a smile, and laughed into the night.
He tucked and rolled across roofs, kicked off of walls and panes, and slid down gutter pipes and fixtures as though they were fire station poles. Richie dropped from an awning onto the back of a moving car, speeding down the street, and stood, surfing. His coming and going were swift, and he was off the vehicle in the time it took the passenger to look out the window. Richie had jumped and monkey-barred to a street lamp, swinging, Olympic-style, and throwing himself atop it in a deep crouch. He wove between the street lamps, leaping and landing with fine control and grace.
He took a moment to look down at his hand and flex it.
"When did I get so strong?" Richie asked.
You've been scaling that mountain this whole while. Perhaps it seemed like a far-off illusion when you were stumbling in the foothills.
Richie thought of the bum rush, of bruising his tailbone in the fall to the greenhouse, of his brush with the jaws of death in his closet, of his fateful clobbering into the fetid river of sewage, and of the hazy perils beyond.
You're the man who's going to surpass the heavens, aren't you?
Richie thought of the kanji he had written back then, when he and Cuppy first met.
天
Richie nodded.
"Damn straight."
He looked to the gutter and saw, for a moment, himself as a boy of twelve, stumbling and crying, pulling his scarf tightly around his face. He saw his gaunt cheeks and smelled his unwashed, malnourished, desperate stench. He saw the lost fear and 'why' in his eyes.
Time stood still, and he walked to his younger self, kneeling beside him. He wiped a tear from his eye, smiling warmly.
"Don't give up. There's someone you haven't been yet." he said.
The illusion faded, and Richie looked up the looming peak of the skyscrapers.
There's no one waiting for me out there, in the world. he heard his younger thoughts echo up from somewhere deep within himself.
Ella would have called that nonsense. No one is born to be alone.
"You're an egg waiting to hatch right now," she had said once, pacifying his frustrated discontent with life under paranoid lockdown. "You'll hatch one day soon. You'll fly sooner than you think."
You'll find your place. Richie finished the thought.
He approached the base of one of the quartet of towers that encircled the abandoned greenhouse and looked up its imposing stature. He saw a spire that pierced the sky, a tower of Babel. He grinned and placed his palms on the slick surface of the angled glass and steel wall. The texture was slick and frictionless. Richie's dragons sniffed the air, and he drew in a deep belly breath, concentrating energy in his core. He saw that energy as a swirl of azure light, like the Abyss, and imagined it spreading outward through the narrow channels of his arms and legs. Dragon Sign level 3 engaged, his hands coating over in metallic blue scales and curling into pseudo-draconic hooks. He thought back to when Cuppy had him chop down a tree for spare wood to reconstitute Cuppet, and how he had focused the flow of Level 1's pressurized air to encase his ax and augment its chopping power. He circulated that razor current around his fingertips now, tiny, transparent cyclones enveloping his armored digits. Levels 1 and 3 were combined into a single form.
"Dragon Sign, Hybrid Form - uh… hmmm." Richie retracted his claws, dispelling the wind, and thought for a few seconds.
Wind Scale? his dragons suggested.
"Actually, that's pretty good." Richie nodded.
He reactivated his stance.
"Dragon Sign, Hybrid Form - Wind Scale!" he decreed, and plunged his hands into the tower wall.
Crushing in his own handholds and footholds, Richie began to climb up the tower like a lizard, free solo'ing the sheer length of smooth skyscraper. Whenever he remembered the choking fear that seized his gut when he fell, by accident, from the towers last, he forcibly paved the memory over with the image of a majestic waterfall.
The Legend of the Dragon Gate is an enduringly popular tale of Chinese mythology, which spread throughout the Asian continent, seeping its way into other folktales and fables, becoming an icon synonymous with noble struggle and the rewards of perseverance. The humble carp, swimming upriver against the current, traveling up the Yellow River, would eventually come to a dead end. At the border of Shanxi and Shaanxi, the River passes through a cleft in the Longmen mountains, carved by Yu the Great. The turbulent waters here forced the carp back downstream, to their mounting frustration. Yu's wife, daughter of the Jade Emperor, petitioned on behalf of the carp, and an incentive was laid; those who could ascend the falls would be rewarded with rebirth as powerful dragons.
Richie thought of the short, clipped-looking whiskers of the carp, and remembered the whiskers which trailed from the snouts of the Seiryu. For a moment, he thought of those whiskers as reflecting the sapling nature of the carp, untapped potential sealed within juvenile dragons to be. Only upon surmounting the divine hurdle were they crowned with their regal adult whiskers.
And this tower, which Richie was already dozens of feet up, the time passing dreamily, was his Longmen Falls. The wind whipped through his ginger hair and a manic glee took over his face, his spirit childlike and excited, as the summit drew nearer. Below, he left a trail of crushed, dented in holes where his claws had made their own purchase. His was the first carp ascent that would leave a record of its happening, to look on forever. Then, his belly was over the lip, and he pulled himself atop the tower. He stood, wind at his fingertips giving way the ambient wind around him, and looked over all of Station Bay, with its mixed monochrome, forestry and lakes, crowded ghettos and pollution, clear air and fields, man and nature, creation and destruction commingled in equal measure. He saw the distant art park and the boundaries of the bay, and he saw the islands of Carnival Top. The climb must have taken some time, for dawn was on the horizon. The sun kissed the low sky, fading in in waves of red, orange, and pink, till at last, divine Azure began to spread. He knew that behind the blanket of open blue sky was boundless space, and the glittering stars, infinitely more numerous than grains of sand on the beach. A profound feeling took over him. One Dragon Gate passed through, another - endless others - above and beyond.
His runes began to pulse their Azure glow.
This must be… the Backyards? Richie thought, and looked down into the boxed wilderness of the forgotten greenhouse below. He saw the tree tops piercing through the open panes, and saw the jagged fragments of the glass he had fallen through. The leaves moved and rustled as if whispering, and the mixed aromas of spring and fall rose up to Richie's twitching nose. The trees seemed to grow taller, along with the precipice Richie stood upon, as though he were a camera zooming out. The trees seemed to part in a rough circle, revealing an ethereal well filtered by botanical green light within. Autumn leaves of brown and red swirled upward in a spiral breeze. Without a doubt, a wandering corridor had opened beneath him, its liminal door unlocked by Richie's reclaimed childlike wonder and starry-eyed ambition.
With only a moment's hesitation, he lilted forward and felt his feet leave the ledge, and then he was diving through the air, toward the circular clearing at the center of the trees.
Unfortunately, that moment's hesitation, that doubt, was enough. The trees reconfigured themselves into their original formation, the light faded, and the aura of spring dispersed. The otherworldly safety net of the Backyards was gone, leaving Richie plunging headlong toward an unpleasant landing.
How quaint.
"Oh fuck!" Richie braced himself as he sunk through the treetops, branches breaking under his weight and lashing at his face. Leaves scattered as he tumbled out of the canopy and entered a second freefall toward the ground. Richie flipped forward and thrust his arms under him.
Remain calm. he closed his eyes, focusing.
His dragon heads engulfed his fists as he entered Level 1, and gathered the wind on their snouts. He fired twin airballs beneath him, and watched the pressurized air push a shallow depression into the overgrown grassy floor. Dirt clods and blades of grass scattered from the preliminary impact, and the wind lifted Richie for a moment. He flipped over again and landed on his tailbone in soft soil, only a bit startled and sore for his trouble. The emergency attack had become a literal airbag, breaking his fall.
So close. his dragons tutted.
Richie, hyperventilating as the adrenaline faded, began to giggle, then threw his head back and laughed heartily up toward the sky. He saw the beautiful early morning orange atmosphere through the broken greenhouse roof and wild treetops, and smiled.
After a minute, he picked himself up and dusted himself out, stretching his legs and cracking out a kink in his back.
"Well I'm awake." he said, blowing loose strands of his wind-mussed red hair out of his face.
Casually, he made his way through the rebelling aisles of planter boxes, into the concrete monolith of the graffiti-scarred parking garage, and into the lush yard of the Misty Glen complex. It only dawned on him now that the layout of these places to each other made no sense. He hadn't needed to hurl himself down the freefall above the greenhouse every time he came back from the store or something either. He gathered that the group summation of a wandering corridor having been anchored to a worldly physical location was correct, and that perhaps, at this junction, reality and fantasy had begun to leak into each other. No one but the five of them, barring outside manipulation, had been able to find this place.
It was set aside specifically for them. That voice - the one who alluded to the rain, and how it falls when it may - had said something about fate. If this was fate, it wasn't so bad. Perhaps it was less like puppet strings attached to the fingers of God than it was the total of possibilities offered up by the random number generator of the cosmos. Fate was for those who took it into their own hands, and claimed the mantle of fated. That spirit, or seer, or whatever she was - perhaps she had seen what number combinations were available to Richie and the others, and what statistical advantages they held. Perhaps some could see the entire game board of being, and analyze every possible move.
But even so - everyone had the same right to roll the dice.
His dragons began to glow faintly, as the distant sound of a train whistle faded in his psyche, and he saw a brief flash of Tide Town and Blue Terminal. He smelled roses, and the glare of the sun became a blue star for a second.
Impossible, his dragons thought to themselves. They had held onto the lost memory of Richie's venture through other worlds in his place, when he had offered up his memory to be transfigured into a ticket for the train ride back home. They had kept this knowledge to themselves, not knowing how the frustration and mindfuck of so much lost time and experience would affect their host, or distract him, for better or worse. Now it seemed the question of when to enlighten him had been sidestepped, as Richie's consciousness drew closer, for a second, to the Abyss.
Perhaps Richie's affirmation to the conductor had not simply been idealistic prattle - his heart did remember.
The realization was gone like a sneeze, and as quickly paved over by the brain's ever self-correcting linear narrative. Richie, whistling, stepped onto the back porch of his apartment.
The curtains drew back and a microwave pistol's muzzle pressed to his forehead.
"Oh, Richie, hey." Holly greeted him.
Richie's eyes were crossed upward, looking at the blaster kissing his noggin.
"Uh, hey." he said.
Holly replaced the gun on her hip. "You can't keep dropping in unexpectedly like that, keep thinking a grumpy feral is snooping around or something."
"I'll come up with a secret knock." he shrugged, letting himself in.
"Want some coffee?" the alien secretary asked as she moved to the kitchen. Richie saw that her work desk at the computer was a mess of scattered notes and reference books dipping toes in the pools of both science and mysticism.
"Yeah, that would be great, thanks." Richie nodded, smiling.
"You've gotten a bit better at passing for polite." Holly said, putting a new filter in the coffee maker.
"You've gotten a bit better at passing for not being a condescending snob." Richie tutted.
Holly chuckled. "Just had to make sure you're the real Richie."
Richie wandered around the room, scanning for his scary mentor. He came to the bathroom door and saw it sealed off with bright yellow caution tape.
"What's up with this?" he asked.
Holly peeked her head down the hall. "Oh, that. It's a, uh, full moon, so to speak."
Richie heard Chikita groaning inside.
"Ah, I see." Richie nodded.
Then, he rapid-fire Gestapo-knocked on the door. Holly startled a bit, nearly spilling a virgin strawberry daiquiri she had made for herself, complete with tasteful little umbrella. Snaggles popped out of the inner confines of his cat tree, having apparently dislocated his too many joints and folded himself in order to fit. Holly and the tamed feral exchanged glances, and Snaggles gurgled questioningly.
Richie continued to pound the door.
"Chiki! Quit queefing out red ice cubes and come do your job!" he yelled.
Holly looked down at her drink, frowned, and tossed the daiquiri into the wastebasket. Snaggles exploded out of the cat tree like a rocket fired from a launcher, and dove into the basket to slurp up the abandoned strawberry slushy goodness.
Yukihana's keen blade stabbed through the door to the hilt, two inches to the left of Richie's face. Richie looked at the smooth, seamless edge, suppressed his jump scare, and smirked. "Am I on thin ice? :3"
"Richie, I swear to Tsukuyomi," Chikita growled through the door, "I will shove my tongue down your throat and lick your uvula if you don't shut the fuck up."
Holly frowned and turned green, then excused herself. Snaggles' twin-assholed posterior wiggled, and his tails alternated swishes, as he macked down on the melting fruity drink in the basket.
"I need more Backyards training, what do we pay you for?" Richie growled back.
Chikita groaned some more. "If you're in such a goddamn hurry, why don't you come help melt my ice caps?"
Richie's eye twitched. "I'll give you some space then, right."
"You fuckin' do that." Chikita growled, then whimpered some more.
Richie wandered into the living room. "So, do you think Chiki really has froz-"
Holly put the microwave gun to his forehead again. "STOP TALKING!" she snapped, ready to hurl. "You are both complete and utter vulgar deviants!"
Snaggles popped out of the wastebasket, the front of his face smeared with melted daiquiri, his neck fur matted and sticky. Holly saw this, and then promptly lost her lunch.
In brief, Richie and Snaggles were kicked out back for a bit.
"It's my house, but whatever." Richie shrugged. He stood up, shook himself off, and headed into the forest to find the training grounds where he had last been met with bitter disappointment.
He saw his own fist marks embedded in the worn, bark-stripped trunk. He saw faint blood stains worn into the wood divots, and cracked his knuckles out, feeling the phantom remembrance of their sting. He took up another boxing stance, picked up his feet, and began bouncing in place, rolling his head and cracking out his neck.
Stay light on your feet, Richie. Breathe, Richie. Focus. Breathe!
He was back in his house. He was twelve years old. Ella stood before him, mirroring his bouncy stance. Her exposed biceps were swollen, her body solidly built like a rooted oak under her pretty face and womanly veneers. A plumage of vibrant orange spikes of hair fell pell mell every which way about her kind but cheeky face, eyes set in determination. Her bodice was red, with sections across the stomach and chest that were turquoise, like armor plates embroidered into her top. To Richie, they looked like draconic scales. Ella's fists clenched in fingerless black combat gloves, her forearms enclosed by hard red bracers.
"Come on, Richie, give me all you've got!" she coached her hatchling son.
The boy, dressed in baggy gi pants and wearing a white headband, mirrored his mother's stance and movements. They touched gloves, and the sparring match began. Quick jabs and hooks were exchanged, and soon, both combatants began to pick up their feet and pivot their heels, whirling around each other while always keeping their gaze forward, eyes locked on target. A few tentative shin kicks softened up each other's legs, and Richie's grew sore sooner. His shorter limbs put him at a disadvantage, and a few pity shots entered the radius of Ella's main target areas. A few grazing blows to the chest and stomach, but nothing substantial. Then, without warning, Ella entered a low squat and lifted one leg, pivoting and spinning rapidly. A rigid leg pounded the side of Richie's ankle, calf, and thigh, as Ella spun and kicked a total of three times. Richie leaned sideways, his leg pounded and failing to support him, and stumbled, trying to regain his balance. In the same motion, Ella rose an up kick under Richie's jaw, rocking his head back. As he was dazed, Ella flashed beside him, swept his legs, and slammed the solid bar of her leg parallel to Richie's back. The rising kick to Richie's spine lifted the boy six feet up. Ella lifted her leg straight up, doing a standing splits, and brought her heel down on Richie's chest, slamming him back into the ground.
Her boy was knocked breathless, and clutched his stomach.
"What was that combo?!" Richie groaned, coughing.
"Always expect the unexpected." Ella waggled her finger.
"Pull your punches a bit, mom, geez." Richie rubbed his jaw.
"I did." Ella gave a toothy grin, eyes closed. "Come on, get up, you're a tough kid. Shake it off, Richie."
She gave Richie a hand back up, practically yanking him onto his feet.
"Again." Ella gave the 'come on' gesture. Richie shook out his bruised leg a bit and began bouncing up and down on his feet again, shifting his weight a little to compensate for his sore leg. More blows and combos were exchanged. The reach advantage - or lack thereof - bit Richie in the ass again.
"I can't get in close!" Richie sweat, desperately weaving in and out of pistoning fists and feet.
"You want to get in close?" Ella gave a cat grin, Dempsey rolled in close, and planted a one inch punch in Richie's chest. The boy went rolling backward a dozen feet.
"Up." Ella raised her palm up.
Richie dusted himself off.
"Don't hesitate to punch me in the face, Richie." Ella said. "Parent, child, mentor, student, friend, lover, race, nationality, gender, personal histories, clan and creed - none of that matters in a fight. Your only concern is to give it your all. Focus only on what's in front of you, and how to surpass the obstacle. Your goal isn't just to win."
Richie charged Ella, throwing an overhead superman punch with all he had, flying across the carpet. Ella's eyes flashed, she stepped aside, caught Richie's leading knuckles, and wrenched, redirecting Richie's momentum and flipping him pitifully on his back.
Ella couldn't help but chuckle a little, seeing Richie's eyes swivel. She sat next to him in a crisscross position, and began affectionately mussing his hair. "Try not to overextend yourself." she tutted.
Richie shook out his dizziness and groaned. "If the goal of fighting isn't just winning, then what's the point?"
Ella flicked his forehead playfully. "To be stronger today than you were yesterday."
They stood again.
"Remember, son, every opponent, no matter how strong, can be overcome with superior skill and technique. Take note!"
She charged Richie, slid, and swept an extended leg toward his feet. Richie jumped up, not ready to fall for that trick again. Ella giggled, and sprang upward. An elbow slammed toward Richie's ribs, and he thrust his hands down to block. Ella smirked - checkmate was in effect. She jumped and performed an airborne outer crescent kick. Richie gasped and raised his hands to guard, only to find that his left hand was numb. The elbow point driven into the side of that hand apparently knocked the nerves wonky. Only his right hand was able to rise to block the coming kick.
However, the outer crescent kick was a feint. The leg retracted and folded out of the way, making Richie's one-handed block an empty gesture that threw him off. His limbs had each used their moves and now he was midair with no way to counter or attack. But Ella still had a leg left. She completed the momentum left by her cancelled crescent kick, shifting into a roundhouse kick to Richie's temple.
Shit! he thought.
But, the top of Ella's foot stopped an inch from connecting, and she daintily landed on her feet, having expertly pulled out of finishing her microcalculated combo assault.
Richie, still overbalanced, fell onto his tailbone and hissed.
"I call that the Whirlwind Brick Barrage. Old home recipe combining precision fakeout, foresight, directed nerve cluster attacks, and spinning momentum, executed simultaneously to position the target for a devastating final blow. Like I said, how you throw your power around is just as important as what power you have. If you're creative and driven, you can surpass any opponent."
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Richie beamed. "That was so cool! Can I be a badass like that too?!"
Ella cocked her head and chuckled. "Richie, you silly boy!" she pulled him into a noogie.
"Hey! Knock it off!" Richie growled, and slipped out of her grasp.
"I'm not teaching you martial arts so you can be a 'badass'. It's a dangerous world out there, full of as many wolves in sheep's clothing as it is nice guys and saints. I want you to be able to protect yourself and fight for your survival if it ever comes to that. The outside world isn't going to coddle or look out for you. You deserve better than to live in fear, and the best way I can give that to you is to make sure you're ready to fight back if pushed into a corner. But that doesn't mean I want you to go out looking for trouble just to prove anything. You're a good boy, a sweet boy. Mommy's bubbly little dragon." Ella beamed with pride.
Richie pouted, looking away. He wanted to be badass, like her, goddammit!
"Promise me you'll always have a good reason before you resort to violence, ok?" Ella pinched at his cheek.
Richie sighed, then smiled. "Ok mom, I promise."
"Good." Ella nodded. "Oh, but, if push comes to shove and someone puts you in that corner anyway," she made a provision, then smirked at Richie with an almost feral grin, "put that punk on his ass. Leave his ass print in the pavement."
Richie grinned. This was a fair compromise.
"Now then," Ella said, scratching out her ear. "The next opponent of the day - hunger."
She shared a goofy look with her son, and they both started cracking up. "What do you want for dinner tonight, sprout?"
"Chicken tenders!" Richie chirped.
"You got it." Ella nodded.
While Ella set to work frying the chicken, Richie set the table for two.
"Hey mom?" Richie asked.
"Yeah?"
"How much longer do you think we have to stay inside the house? I'm going stir crazy." he asked.
Ella stopped and sighed. "I know, son. I just want to make sure the coast is clear before our next outing. Better to be safe than sorry."
Richie rolled up his sleeves and looked at his Azure dragon tattoos. "It's cause of these guys, right?"
"Yes." Ella said bluntly. "Those markings are a powerful mystic weapon, but they are also a brand. People who know what Dragon Sign means will target you relentlessly, whether to prove their mettle beating you, or…"
"Or killing me?" Richie asked.
"Yes." Ella sighed.
"Why? What did I do?"
"It's not what you did, Richie, it's what you are. Your rune system is the mediator between your human form, and the wellspring of draconic power you've inherited. They mark you as a denizen of higher planes. There are those who would seek to return you to that world, by destroying your earthly body." Ella said.
"I inherited these from my dad, right?" Richie slunk. "I wish I could have met him. Hell, if he's as strong as you say he is, he could fix all of this for us overnight."
Ella smiled, forlorn, and looked out the window, toward the azure sky marbled with white drifts of cloud. "Your father and us are worlds apart."
Richie became downcast.
"Oh." he said simply.
-
Are you in the heavens, father? Richie wondered, lightly but swiftly jabbing the tree. He rotated around the tree and slammed an elbow into a hard knot of wood sticking out the side. His funny bone sang, but he ignored it, and kept going.
There was a pretty clearing like this once, in the warm dew drop light of spring. The coast was clear then, and Ella beckoned Richie forward, out of the shrubbery.
"Why do we have to sneak around all the time? Can't we just go outside normally?" Richie complained, yanking his ankle out of some annoying ivy snare.
Ella gave him a sad smile. "We should be able to, yes. But, it's dangerous."
"Why? All the other kids get to go to school and hang out with their friends and all that." Richie said.
"That's because they don't have targets on their backs. I'm putting together the plan and resources to go far away, and leave this living in fear behind us though. Soon enough, you'll get to go to school and have lots of friends your age. Just endure it a little bit longer, ok?" Ella said.
Richie stepped into the clearing and looked around, whistling. The perfume of wildflowers and stagnant rain was everywhere, and the forests and meadows seemed such a vibrant green.
"Here," Ella said, and beckoned Richie to a large stone in the center of a shallow pond.
"We came for a rock?" Richie asked.
Ella shook her head. "No, silly. Look closer."
A faint layer of snow lay over the stone.
"Why didn't this melt with the rest of winter?" Richie asked.
"Her duty wasn't finished yet." Ella began to wipe away the sleet. She took Richie's hand, and swabbed the surface clear of the melting frost. A single sapling, with twin leaves, unfolded from beneath the white cover, and stood to the sun. The green little sprout was growing right out of a crack in the stone.
"Woah." Richie smiled faintly. "Look at that, growing right out of the rock."
Ella smiled. "Take note by the little sapling. It did not choose where its seed should drift and take root. It had to make the most of the harsh geography it had to work with. Yet still, something so small and fragile carved out a living, and is making its way in the world."
"And through the snow?" Richie asked.
"Yes." Ella nodded.
"You said the snow didn't melt because it had a duty to complete. What did you mean?"
Ella gave another toothy grin. "The seasons all exist for a reason, even winter. Some seeds would get rooted out and eaten by the likes of squirrels if it weren't for the concealing snow. It protects and nestles those seeds, nurturing them until the spring, when new life springs up from the frozen earth. And so, the cycle of the seasons loops again."
Richie circled the sprout, and played with the little drops of water from the melting snow, fascinated by the gregarious nature of drops and their tendency to combine if pushed close together.
"The elements that make our world all have a purpose and a function. They are part of each other. None are intrinsically good or bad. They simply… are." Ella mused.
The next sparring session, Richie was far more mobile and at once focused.
"That's it, Rich, pick up your feet!" Ella said, throwing jabs.
Bend like a reed. Richie thought, swaying out of the way of the flurry of punches.
An ax kick came overhead. Richie threw an up kick, catching Ella's leg under the heel before it could drop on his head.
Be solid like stone.
He dropped low and swept his leg, forcing Ella to awkwardly hop back to avoid being taken down.
Fluid and swift like water.
Richie countered with his own prolonged assault, pushing his mother further and further off guard and off balance.
Be fierce like fire! Richie thought.
Ella's arm came down for a hammerfist, and Richie threw a hook punch into the side of her elbow, rattling the funny bone. Ella's guard was broken.
Cold like ice.
Richie took a deep breath, puffing out his chest and narrowing his eyes to draconic slits.
Gather the elements, feel the world. Here we go!
Richie kicked in the side of Ella's knee, forcing her into a deep, awkward crouch. He spun into a reverse elbow strike aimed at the nose. Ella blocked it with both hands.
Richie had banked on that. Stepping onto her thigh and rolling over her shoulder, Richie twisted his body midair, spinning behind Ella's back.
Fly like the wind!
Richie chambered a backfist as he spun. Ella dashed back and to the side to keep Richie in her line of sight, but it was too late.
"Whirlwind Brick Fist!" Richie announced, throwing his arm out and back with the force and momentum he had built up in that moment like a human tornado. The backs of his knuckles stopped an inch from Ella's face. He held that pose, a second seemed to pass, and he landed on his feet again. He turned to Ella, smiling.
After the shock wore off, Ella smiled back. They bowed to each other, closing out the session.
"Who told you you could modify my combos?" Ella pulled Richie into a combination hug and headlock, and gave him a playful noogie.
"Ok, so I put my own spin on it. If it was the exact same move, you would have countered it, right?" Richie giggled.
"My smart little boy." Ella kissed the top of his head. "Speaking of which," she gestured to their book shelves, "it's time for you to study."
Richie's face fell. "Can't we just keep practicing techniques?"
"You've done plenty today. A strong body is only as good as the mind piloting it. Now hit the books." Ella said.
"Oh, ok." Richie grumbled.
…
"I'm making barbecue ribs tonight, sweetie!" Ella called out from the kitchen. "Expect to get messy. Don't wear any of the nicer shirts, alright?"
"Got it." Richie called from the living room.
He was sitting on his stomach, face held up by his hands. He was watching a ranked match in sumo, and the two rikishi were stomping around the ring, laying purifying salt in preparation.
"Hey mom, you've been to Japan, right? What was it like?"
Ella chuckled from the kitchen. "It was nice. You have your city hustle and bustle, and you have your remote countryside, just like you do here. Under all the bright neon lights is a deep, rich history. The mountain air there was unbeatable."
"Is that where you met dad?" Richie asked.
"Yep." Ella nodded.
"How come you never talk about him all that much?" Richie asked.
Ella paused. "Richie," she said, "it's a delicate matter. I've been trying to find the right time and way to explain a lot of things to you. I guess I put it off too long, now that you're trying to dig for the answers yourself."
Richie rolled his sleeve up and looked at the azure dragon adorning his arm, exquisitely crafted in that classical Japanese mythological style. A single reptilian eye opened and swiveled to Richie, locking its gaze with his.
"Is it about why I have these tattoos?" he asked. "I know other people aren't born with ink. These are too fleshed out to be a birthmark. Why do I have them?"
Ella leaned against the wall of the kitchen threshold and sighed. "Alright. We've lived carefully for fear of the wrong people finding out you have those markings. Seeing as it decided the course of your childhood, you deserve to know why, and why I want you to be able to take care of yourself." she sighed. "But first, get ready for dinner. We'll talk over our meal. Go wash your hands and set the table." she said.
"Ok." Richie nodded, smiling.
He went down the hall. Then, the doorbell rang. Ella perked up. "That will be Robert with the groceries. I've been waiting for that eggplant." she went to the door.
A sudden sense of unease stayed her hand, as it clenched the doorknob. She peeked through the peephole.
"Richie, hide!" she yelled. In the same moment she peeled back from the door, the long, thin length of a saber pierced through the door, stabbing Ella through the shoulder. She grunted and clutched the wound, the blade still lodged in her bone, and the door was kicked inward off its hinges with incredible force. Ella was sandwiched between the floor and the door, a lithe figure in full Olympic fencing gear standing atop the door like a surfboard. He wrenched the sword out of Ella's shoulder, and the door, and positioned himself to stab Ella through the throat.
A lamp shattered over the fencer's head, and he stumbled backward, clutching his mesh-guarded face with one hand, and slashing about randomly with his other hand, gloved fingers gripping his saber handle tightly. Richie took the chance to yank and fling the door off of his mom, who sat up, clutching her bleeding shoulder and gritting her teeth.
"Found us, eh?" she growled.
A shadow fell over Richie from behind. He turned around and saw the tall man in the trench coat and fedora, the one who would haunt his dreams from then on after. The man tilted his head down at Richie, giving a dismissive tut. An iron-toed boot buried its toes in Richie's stomach and tossed him over and behind the couch, knocked breathless and retching.
Ella's fearsome mama bear instincts kicked in, and she grabbed that leg before it could pull back. Her fingers dug indents in the sides of the boot. With a grunt, she twisted her body like a crocodile performing a death roll to tear its prey to chunks. The man in the trench coat was forced to twist with her, rolling across the ground, his knee nearly twisted out of its socket. The cartilage tore. Before Ella could straddle him, she sensed the fencer's lunge from behind. She jumped back and tripped a leg, stumbling the saber wielder. A gasp came from inside the helmet as the thin sword went wild, piercing the floor between the trench coat man's legs, just shy of his crotch. While he was off balance and stuck, Ella dropped an elbow into the fencer's back between his shoulders, pancaking him against the ringleader of the assault.
Behind the couch, Richie forced himself to his feet, clutching the bruised imprint in his stomach.
"Mom!" he tried to call, and coughed. He trotted to her, the best he could make of a run attempt, and stopped as he saw a shadow fly overhead. He looked up and saw a man dressed in a blue shinobi costume and mask drop from the ceiling. Richie fell backward more than he dodged, and his eyes went wide as the fist splintered the floor. The ninja twist his head toward Richie, and threw a sidekick. Richie slid under him and kneed him in the balls. He could only see the eyes through the face mask, but the way they went suddenly wide as the full moon said everything it needed to.
Richie left the invader clutching his crotch, forehead to the floor, and ran to help Ella. He saw the trench coat man planted against the wall, heard a cry, and saw Ella stumble backward from the fencer. A long gash was down her arm, spilling hot blood, and another cut was above her eye, leaking obscuring blood to blot out half her field of vision. Whenever she closed her eye or tried to wipe it clean, the fencer took that familiar front stance step forward, arm extended fully, and stabbed at Ella. She was forced back each time, barely ducking or swaying out of the way of the saber.
"What's wrong, mademoiselle?" the fencer said in a thick French accent. "You cannot win if you stay on the back foot forever."
Richie rushed forward, flipping his pocket knife into position, and performed his own lunging stab.
"Richie!" Ella shrieked in terror.
The fencer whirled on Richie and thrust his blade forward. Richie saw things in slow motion, and ducked past the blade tip. It grazed his cheek as he lunged, drawing a thin line of blood. His eyes turned draconic and furious. Somehow, he could see through the protective headgear's visor to see the man's eyes widen in fear. The knife plunged into flesh, and Richie heard a cry of pain. Then, he saw the problem - the fencer covered his abdomen and chest with his forearm, taking a painful but nonlethal stab between the ulna and radius bones.
The man frothed and wrenched the embedded knife free of Richie's grip, grabbing him by the collar.
"Rotten brat, how dare you strike me?!?" the fencer roared.
"Dragon Sign!" Ella said, dashing forward with a scale-coated punch. It sank into and shattered the fencing helmet, burying itself square in the man's face. He was surprisingly pretty. Or rather, he was, before Ella broke his nose. A distinctive, aquiline face with a mane of silky silver hair stared back in pain and surprise, a once proud but now bent nose gushing blood.
The French man stumbled backward, wrenching the knife out of his arm and feeling the blood leaking from his nose with trembling fingers.
"M-my beautiful face!" he sounded on the verge of tears. "You filthy bitch I'll fill you full of holes!" he roared, dashing forward.
Ella entered a Dragon Sign stance again, a prototype of the Level 2 her child would use in time, and flashed rapidly between the lightning storm of thrusts the fencer was dishing out. No matter how fast he dished out his dozens upon dozens of stabs, none of them hit. Richie grabbed a heavy pestle from its decorative mortar, and moved in to help. He felt a heavy hand grab his shoulder from behind, and looked back to see the tall man in the trench coat. In that time, while his shoulder felt it was being crushed to a pulp, he heard Ella shriek out in pain.
He whipped his head back and saw that a shuriken had buried itself in her back. The blue ninja was back on his feet, his arm still outstretched, fingers unfolded where he had flung the throwing star. The man in the trenchcoat slammed Richie's head against the wall and released him. Dazed and his consciousness wavering, Richie dropped the pestle and slid down the wall, half-conscious. Then the man in the trench coat grabbed the fencer's wrist and yanked him back.
Ella was two meters back, panting and desperately trying to catch her breath. The blood flowing from her shoulder and arm, and now her back, was trickling to the floor and pooling there.
"You almost stabbed the boy in the face. We need him alive." the man said to the fencer.
"Tch!" the fencer yanked his arm free and flourished his sword, flinging the flecks of blood clean of its forte. "As you wish." he grumbled.
The man signalled for the ninja to grab Richie, and he complied. He wrenched Richie's arm behind his back and forced his other arm against the wall. The man in the trench coat pulled Richie's sleeve down and saw the seiryu that may as well have been Richie's signed death warrant.
"Son of Seiryu. Your soul will be returned home soon enough." the ringleader said.
Richie strained and struggled against the wall, desperately trying to free himself. His mom was gonna bleed out! He had to stop these heartless bastards!
His rune came to life with a pulse of azure, and lifted off his wrist, its jaws snapping at the man's fingers. He shrieked and fell back, squeezing his bleeding hand.
Richie stepped away from the wall and flexed, light surging, eyes slit and enraged. He punched a wall, hitting a stud, and the crack of his knuckles and finger bones was audible.
"He can't control his gifts." the ringleader nodded, as the two hired henchmen moved to his sides, forming a single profile that filled and cut off the threshold of the missing door. He looked to Ella, doubled over, fading in and out of consciousness.
"Seems the real deal is a more feral power than that cheap imitation his mother relies on." he held his chin thoughtfully. "We have no use for imposter dragons. Dispose of the woman. She's an eyesore."
Ella grabbed the star buried in her back, fingers cut and bleeding on the jagged edges, and pulled it out with a pained grunt. She stood and entered a boxing stance, but was unable to bounce freely on her heels as she had before. Her right foot was broken.
Richie was roaring mindlessly, head thrown back and eyes shining with azure light. The sounds of footsteps behind the man in the trench coat and his hired muscle drew closer. A Colombian man with slicked back black hair and a trailing ponytail stepped into the room from behind the man in the trench coat. He wore a white shirt with the collar popped, a bandolier of high-caliber ammunition, and a sash that carried an array of nasty-looking knives. He wore a crowbar on his back, and liberated it from his sash, testing its weighty impact against his open palm.
Ella stepped forward. "Corporation assassins… your mad cult has enough sway to use Cultivator Corp assets just to track down a poor single mother and her son?" she growled.
"Our reach extends far beyond the limits you can go to protect the boy. Though, your love and devotion to your child is to be commended, it's impressive that you forced our community to go to such lengths to liberate the dragon from this earth."
Ella smirked. "Good, then I can take you out, plus three other evil pieces of shit in one shot."
She opened her mouth so wide it was as if her jaw came unhinged, and surging blue light began to gather in the back of her throat. Azure energy condensed into a glowing ball, the size of a tennis ball.
The man with the ponytail lunged forward and swung his crowbar. Ella stepped to the side, taking the brunt of the sledge on her shoulder and the side of her neck. Undeterred, she fired the energy blast from her mouth. It hit dead center among the trench coat man and his assassins, and the ball engulfed them as it expanded into a huge destructive sphere, swallowing the empty door frame and filling the house with blinding light. Within the impact radius, as the explosion spread, peeling floorboards from the ground and scorching the walls, the silhouettes of the trench coat man, the fencer, the ninja, and the man with the crowbar danced like puppets, twisted this way and that by the tremendous shockwave. Fabric was torn to shreds, leaving them half-naked and exposing deep, sickly purple bruises, lacerations, and sizzling patches of cooked flesh.
The explosion, fired at point blank range, ballooned into Ella, and its dissipating fringes even caught Richie as well. Richie snapped out of his mindless screeching with his ears ringing and eyes full of a blank white field, as if he had been hit with a flashbang. He heard distorted noises trying to urge him, and felt something shaking his collar.
"Richie!" Ella said, her clothes torn and scuffed, her hair frazzled out and dusted with soot.
Richie's vision faded back into proper working order and, looking behind his mother, he saw that the doorway was blown apart, leaving the front of the house wide open. The cult leader and his assassins lay in a trembling pile, struggling to get up. The ninja's mask was blown off, revealing a sharp Japanese face with a strong jaw and goatee. He was clutching his sides, hacking, and the Colombian man sat on his knees in a daze, blood pouring from his mouth and nostrils down into the tattered remnants of his white shirt, soaking it crimson. The fencer lay face down, smoke rising from his exposed back, his suit torn apart. His saber was shattered to pieces.
The ringleader stood on quaking legs like a newborn fawn. He coughed, clutched his stomach, and threw up a gout of startlingly bright red blood. He touched his lips and looked at his reddened fingers, glowering.
"So much for the stealthy approach." he grumbled.
He whistled over his shoulder, and a procession of men, ordinary-looking and casually dressed, indistinguishable from the masses if not for the fact that they were heavily armed with assault rifles and machine pistols, filed in.
I see. Ella thought with a bitter grin. Never had a chance to begin with.
She snatched Richie up by the back of his hood and fled to her bedroom. A few shots, wary of hitting the human sacrifice, pelted Ella's back. She had coated herself in dragon scales, but these were easily punched through. She practically fell into her room, almost landing on Richie, and kicked the door shut. She scrambled to her feet and carried Richie to the window, shattering the glass wide open with a punch.
"Listen to me Richie," she held her boy on either side of his face and looked deep into his eyes. "No matter what, keep running."
Thunderous footfalls sounded outside the bedroom door as the assault force prepared to burst in.
"Run. Hide. Do not let them find you." Ella said.
Richie began tearing up. "Aren't you coming with me?"
Ella nodded. "Yes. I'll always be with you." she coughed, and blood leaked down her mouth. "But this is as far as my body goes."
Richie clung to Ella, burying his head in her chest and sobbing. "Please, I don't want to be alone! No one's out there for me!"
"Of course they are. Even if it takes you years to find them. Be strong, Richie. You're my sweet little dragon." Ella ruffled his hair.
The door was kicked in, and the cultists poured in. Ella screamed with exertion and coated her entire body in scales, turning a shiny Azure blue whose metallic sheen caught little glints of rainbow.
"Protect him." she told Richie's runes.
A wall of guns took aim.
"Mom!" Richie cried. His dragons nodded solemnly. His scarf was stained with her blood.
She reared her arm back, gathering condensed wind, and launched Richie far out the window. His dragons took control, and kept him running all the way out of the city. Without her precious cargo, Ella no longer had any cover. A hail of bullets punched into her body as she turned to charge the cult. Her scales were blown off bit by bit, and her bullet-riddled body was thrown back against the wall. The rest of her scales fell away like dead leaves from a tree in fall.
The man in the tattered trench coat stepped forward, and stood over Ella, watching as blood pooled under her, and her breaths became erratic.
"Why are you smiling?" he asked her.
Ella spat out blood and gave another toothy grin.
"Because… that was your only chance… I win… he's going to survive. I know he will. My son will live his life, see amazing places, accomplish great things. He will be happy. You fuckheads lose. And one day soon, you hunters will become the hunted." Ella threw her head back and chuckled, even as she coughed and felt her lung collapse.
The cult leader nodded. "You may be right."
He pulled a pistol from his pocket and pressed the muzzle to Ella's forehead.
"You have no regrets. More than most people can say." the trench coat man said. "Any last words?"
Ella flipped him the double bird. "Moist." she said.
I love you, Richie.
-
Richie frowned, facing the tree.
"Kya!" he punched it. The wood was unyielding.
"Again!" he said, and struck. His knuckles hurt, and he clutched them. He shook out his hand, shifted his weight, and swiftly planted a trio of roundhouse kicks on the tree. He spun and struck an adjacent tree with a backfist. He remembered the stories of Dai Funka's constant thunderfall of palm strikes on trees. He opened into a combo flurry of punches and kicks, looked up, saw a high branch twenty feet above him, and activated Level 1, forcing a wind gust under his feet and flying up. He kicked the branch and it was sheared from the tree.
He had Snaggles hold a punch pad with each tail, randomly flitting them about erratically to make them harder to hit. Richie engaged Level 2's preprogrammed reflexes, and his body moved automatically, striking the pads at every angle and practically predicting where they would go next.
He targeted a gnarled tree stump and fired an air ball. The stump's roots snapped as it was ripped out of the ground and hurled backward.
His runes seemed to rev up a little in ragged bursts, fluctuating wildly and seeming ready to shine full Azure, only to die back down again, like a faulty lawnmower trying to start. Richie punched repeatedly into the tree trunk.
"Come on!" he growled.
He put on a burst of Level 2 speed and ran straight up the tree. At the top boughs, he flipped over backward and landed in a deep, cat-like crouch. He ran up again, and again. His footprints were soon warn into the trunk going all the way up. Sweat drizzled down his forehead, matted his hair, and soaked his shirt. Frustrated, he cursed, took his shirt off at a sprint, and dove headfirst into the reservoir.
He kicked powerfully, impelled irrevocably downward by the anchor of determination. He felt the growing cold and pressure distantly, like so much white noise. This artificial fish preserve, where he had angled the big catfish he and Cuppy fried together, was, for all intents and purposes, Richie's pool. Swimming pools were fun! They touched a cornerstone of childhood innocence and joy, surely?
And for a moment, it did. The known populations of trout, bass, and aforementioned catfish he already knew of and occasionally preyed on, outside agents, idiosyncratic with the bloke, began to bleed into the aquatic farm, along with the elements of the seascapes they inhabited. A hodgepodge of features of tidal pools, the Congo and Amazon river basins, the great lakes, and the abyssal oceans began to cobble itself together, mixing into a new sea like opposing currents meeting and mingling. Angel fish, moray eels, giant tiger fish, sawsharks, sea turtles, jellyfish, giant groupers, and even great big octopuses cohabited the apotheosis of all underwater habitats for a few dreamy moments. In that time, the deep light of the Abyss reflected in Richie's draconic runes, and he realized that the deepwater aperture spiraling open in the muddy floor of the reservoir was a submerged wandering corridor. Within the breadth of the threshold to the Backyards, Richie no longer felt cold or like pressure was building painfully in his eardrums. More, he could suddenly breathe water, as warm, light, and airy as though it were dry air. A deep sense of curious yearning touched him, and he felt pleasant tickles in his belly.
There! My Backyard! he was ecstatic, ready to lay his claim. He saw another snippet of their time at the aquarium, seeing a great tank that took up the back wall in its entirety. A huge volume of gallons upon gallons of water, matched only by the largest tanks in Asia, housed the gentle giant form of a meandering whale shark. Its huge, bespeckled body was a marvel to the trio of teenagers, watching with a profound sense of admiration for the beautiful complexities and aesthetics of evolution in motion. Richie saw that same gentle filter feeder within a pond at the bottom of the reservoir, where a coral reef dropped off into open ocean. He was safe by the whale shark though. He had only to grab its fin and go for a ride.
Then, a chill touched his spine as he thought of what else hid beneath the waves. Less docile sharks, piranha, those creepy-ass goonch catfish that had grown fat on ritual funeral pyres in India and decided they wanted more man-meat - and, worst of all, that goddamn alligator in his closet. Fuck that guy.
Richie, having startled second thoughts, saw his watery pond portal into the Backyards fade and close. He was still diving down full-bore, however, and saw the gate lock a few seconds too late to stop his momentum. His head hit and stuck itself in the mud of the lakebed. The cold and dark returned at once, along with his pesky need for fresh air.
He threw himself into the shore, shivering, sputtering, and spitting mud and sticks out of his mouth, and pounded the ground with his fists.
"Pussed out at the last second!" he roared.
Then, a moment of clarity - 'fuck this, I want a snack'.
The wisdom of youth.