Elsewhere, a pale moon looked down on quiet black waters. The only sounds were the faint wind, and the creaking of the docks floating on the water as they rose and fell on the lightly breathing bay.
Under the surface reflecting the lunar rays, a bright blue light began to trickle through to the surface. Then, with a huge, struggling splash, Richie's half-conscious form was pulled from the depths by the dragon runes rising off his arms. The hissing serpents coiled around the stationary poles to which the docks were rigged, squeezing and locking fangs, providing a secure grip for their mutualistic host. Richie's right arm followed suit, clutching at the rough floor of the dock, and he scrambled onto the wood with what little adrenaline-fueled strength remained.
Sputtering and gasping, Richie flopped over onto his back and looked up into the tranquil night sky, where thousands of burning stars dreamily looked down on him like white fireflies.
It's night now? We weren't down there THAT long. Richie tried to sit up and hissed in a breath of pain as he felt sharp stabs in his sides.
"That green fucker nailed me pretty hard." Richie grumbled.
He gripped a thick, coarse rope wrapped around one of the standing beams and gave it a good tug. It was secure, so he pulled himself up in a single motion, springing to a straight posture with a grunt as he forced himself through the debilitating pain.
"Fuck!" he swore, partially collapsing against the beam, only its sturdy presence against his body and his handhold in its rope holding him up.
When clarity eventually seeped through the blanket of pain and frustration, Richie had sense enough to wonder where the hell he was. His eyes scanned an unfamiliar horizon marked by miles of shipyard flooring, piers, overlapping boathouses and walkways, and partially-submerged structures in one direction, and endless empty ocean in the other. The place was vaguely evocative of Venice in Italy, or one of the rural water towns in certain provinces of China, nothing but water channels carved out between boardwalks where streets and sidewalks should have been. There was little vegetation except for moss covering the exposed undersides and crevices of structures unveiled by low tide, and potted plants hanging from porch chains here and there. The whole of the nautical city was lit by thousands of tiki torches whose poles rose out of the sea at each corner where walkways met.
"If it weren't for my busted ribs, I'd assume I died and this is whatever comes next, but I've still got this annoyingly broken body." Richie talked aloud to himself to fill the eerie silence. "Am I still underground, and the sky is actually painted, like some film set or a dark ride? No, that doesn't make any sense."
His dragons tugged at him, tongues flicking out.
"When did I become a backseat driver in my own body?" Richie argued with them.
The dragons offered no reply, and only kept tugging at him.
"My ribs are broken, fuck you." Richie told them.
The runes silently sighed, then began spreading a blue glow over Richie's body, warming it and numbing the pain a bit.
"What other shit can you do that I don't know about?" Richie scratched his head.
The dragons only tugged - their response was clear - less talkie, more walkie.
Richie caved to their demands with a roll of his eyes, and let them lead the way. He stepped off a peninsula of dock that stretched out into one harbor side like one of many long fingers groping the sea in a large handful, and stepped over a rope rail onto a boardwalk nailed into the sides of boathouses. Richie had to sidle along these paths, back pressed against the walls, not eager to take another cold plunge into water to drown in again. As he walked around taking turns at the behest of his dragon runes, Richie confirmed his assessment that the entire place for as far as it stretched was the work of massive-scale carpentry and rigging. Before he had much time to wonder about the implications of this, he was led to take a turn off of a long bridge of planks sloping the span of a lower platform to a higher one that stood a few feet above the water, supported by large pillars from beneath. He passed into what looked like a kind of town square, boxed in by quaint little shops and outlets. Beyond the net-covered thatched roof of a bait shop lining the edge of a wharf, Richie could see a decently cobbled together shanty town of huts and rudimentary forts spread out like cobblestones in a sprawling cement of randomly intersecting piers. The elevations rose and fell randomly, and where buildings floated on the water lower than the solid floors, there were rope bridges flexibly linking the levels.
"There's no way this is the sewer anymore…" he stared out across the scenic panorama with mouth agape.
Richie stepped out toward the center of the plaza, the smell of sea salt sharp in his nose. There was a string of platforms framing one side of the square, elevated to a brief upper tier of docking by mesh-enclosed stairs. An ice cream shop adjourned a candy shop with a big placard offering a clearance sale on saltwater taffy. A barber shop pole turned in the nest of buildings underneath. There were little booths and stands all over where painted displays advertised seafood vendors, though they were emptied at the moment. There were a variety of gift shops whose display windows were lined with bead bracelets and necklaces, seashell sculptures and shark teeth, and tie-dye t-shirts. A plastic orca surveyed the square from above, hanging from nearly-invisible strings like those in aquarium displays, the strings interwoven in a formation like a massive spider web spanning the upper rafters and rain gutters. The white spots on either side of the marine mammal's face stood stark and ghostly in contrast to the dark of night.
"This place kind of reminds me of San Francisco, but that's on entirely the wrong coast. What's going on here? Did I already eat one of those mushrooms?"
Richie felt something tap down behind him, and heard the boards creak under sudden weight. He turned around and was instantly looking into slit feline eyes, dyed a deep orange-brown. They were set in a broad face, separated by a wide bridge of nose terminating in flaring nostrils, and a great snout. The huge head was covered in short tan fur, and framed by a bright red mane like a fiery wreath. Black-lined lips pulled back, scrunching up a whiskered face to reveal great shiny white teeth that looked like daggers. A low rumbling growl vibrated up from the big cat's throat.
Richie was literally face to face with a huge male lion.
"JESUS CHRIST!!!" Richie drew backward in understandable panic.
The powerfully-built lion stood six feet tall at the shoulders and twelve feet long from nose to tail tip, body rippling with solid muscle. He was abnormally large for his species, especially for being so lean - there was no fat or fluff at play here, just solid lion.
Big bastard's got got to be close to a ton! Richie halfheartedly froze his dukes in a guard position that would mean absolutely nothing if the lion wanted to pounce.
"Easy kitty, good kitty, scamper off now. Please?" Richie mumbled through a hitch in his throat.
The lion trundled forward, pressing its muzzle deep into Richie's personal space to sniff at his collar, inspecting him.
"Heel, Sparta." a new voice joined the silence, followed by a crisp finger snap.
Richie and the lion both looked toward the far end of the plaza where an extravagantly dressed man with a long mane of light, nearly silver blond hair strode toward them. A bright red overcoat lined with a multitude of decorative black belts strapped over it hung about his frame, loosely buckled at his chest. Tasseled yellow shoulder pads were sewn into the jacket, and a coil of some kind of vine-like whip studded with red rose thorns was sashed at his waist.
"Sparta, come here." the man gestured to the space beside him.
The lion backed off from Richie and trotted over to his master's side. The man in red scratched his lion under the chin, eliciting a dog-like kicking of the lion's leg.
"Lo there. Are you friend or foe?" the man called to Richie.
Richie glared at him. "Who wants to know?"
"Leon Valentine." the man introduced himself.
"Am I supposed to know who you are?" Richie asked with all the flippancy he could muster.
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Richie's dragons came to life and started snapping in the pair's direction, twisting and hissing as their azure glow began to spread over Richie's body.
Leon nodded with some interest toward the runes. "Looks like your ink made a decision for you. You have some interesting tattoos. Let's see what they're made of, shall we?"
He unhooked his whip from his sash and cracked it out to its full length, unfurling like an unraveled spiral covered in fangs. The length of the whip was beyond expectation, trailing easily thirty feet. The mere crack of the fiendish-looking weapon made Richie flinch. The thorns glinted sharply under the moonlight and the flicker of the tiki torches, and Richie could tell from a quick glance that the serrated cord could easily tear right through tough leather with just a halfhearted lash.
Richie kept one eye on the lion, sitting for the moment on his haunches and watching the scene play out until called upon to act by his tamer.
"Keep your fancy pet out of our fight if you want to throw it downthrow down." Richie said.
Leon pat Sparta's hind quarter and dismissed him, the lion turning with a flick of his tail and padding off in the direction of another pier leading away from the plaza.
"Any other requests?" Leon asked Richie.
"Drop the whip?" Richie asked hopefully.
"Denied." Leon answered.
"Then no." Richie sighed and cracked his knuckles out.
If I take him out quickly, I can avoid aggravating my injuries too badly.
Richie spread out his stance, leaning slightly forward into his front leg, eyes narrowed. He counted his breaths, then sprung his attack. He didn't make it two feet before a blur of green and red rushed past his face, and a sting rebounded across his cheek. Blinking in confusion, Richie touched a hand to his cheek and felt a thin line of blood drawn just under his eye. Leon's arm had hardly moved, yet the whip fluttered down in a wave to the other side of his stance.
A whip's length and flexibility converts just a little bit of startup power into tremendous speed, and especially at that length and with spikes, that thing can effortlessly do a lot of damage. Is it just for show though? Can he really control such a long whip fluidly if I just rush him? Richie calculated inside his mind.
"If you're trying to intimidate me, it won't work." Richie said to Leon, wiping the bit of blood away with his thumb and sticking the tip in his mouth.
"Come catch me if you can, then." Leon beckoned Richie forward with an inviting finger.
Richie sprinted in random zigzag patterns, trying desperately to rush Leon down from unexpected angles, bobbing and weaving to make himself a moving target that couldn't be intercepted by a weapon reliant on such a delayed windup time. But Leon's extraordinary aim factored these delays into the equation as easily as breathing, it seemed, never looking for a moment like he wasn't in complete control of the deadly cord extending his striking range so far from where his feet were planted. Each time Richie took a step forward, the crack of the whip at his feet or glancing across his legs pushed him back two steps or more.
"What's wrong?" Leon asked. "You haven't crossed my line in the sand a single inch. Are you just all talk?"
Easy for you to say, you fucking hack. Richie grit his teeth. I'd like to see YOU try to outrun an oversized whip while fighting through broken ribs.
He was already panting again, the energy loaned to him by his inflamed dragon guardians beginning to ebb away quickly already. Richie stopped and tried to catch his breath for a few seconds, one hand lightly touching his cramping side.
"You'll never win if you just stand there." Leon said, and began twirling his wrist.
The whip fanned out as its length was slowly twisted and spiralled outward, and became a solid pink blur like a gale storm of loose rose petals as Leon picked up speed. The whip was cracking out against the air just from the force of rotation, and Richie could feel high winds blowing outward toward him like a giant industrial fan. Within the funnel, the sonic whip narrowed to a singularity at the handle where it was clutched tightly in Leon's single hand, the man's dainty wrist clearly capable of much stronger torque than it looked.
That's practically a tornado! If one hand so much as touches that, I've had my last five finger discount. How the hell am I supposed to get close to that? Richie grimaced.
His bluff ended up being only that - a bluff. He was very, very intimidated.
"If you aren't going to attack me, then you must concede defeat. Pick one or the other." Leon laid out his ultimatum.
Richie looked down at his right wrist, and the dragon head looked back at him with eager eyes.
Have some dragon's pride! that look seemed to say to Richie.
The boy looked up at Leon, and suddenly nothing else mattered - the clawed freak, the wraith under the hood, ghosts, monsters, broken bones, torn flesh, whatever - nothing would change by not making decisions.
Fuck it. Richie decided. I told that ghost thing not to start fights you can't finish, so I've got no room to bellyache about making the wrong decision now. That's a consequence of living on the edge.
Without realizing it, his dragon runes automatically unlocked Level 2.
"If you want a few fingers, go ahead and take them!" Richie shouted, then dove headfirst into the eye of the pink storm with reckless abandon.
His legs longed to propel him straight through the eye to the other side so he could strike the overdressed tool right in his pretty face, but even with the power of the dragon runes, Richie's body was at its limit. The activation of their enhancing power only served to accelerate the deterioration of Richie's body. He cleared the storm of shredding whip lashes, leaving an afterimage to be chopped apart instead in his wake, but he could not reach Leon.
Richie's legs gave out even as a single lock of his messy brown hair was lashed free of his face as the sole damage of his dive through the continuous attack.
Leon decided to reward the boy's valiant attempt to close the distance by humoring his desire for close quarters combat, thinking to himself that the mysterious visitor was sorely mistaken if he thought fighting in fist range changed anything. The hard point of a reverse elbow strike sank into Richie's abdomen.
Richie's eyes shot open and a shocked, agonized gasp was knocked out of him along with his breath as his eyes began tearing up. With his ribs still mulched thanks to the beating he took from the leprechaun, Richie had no resistance whatsoever to blunt strikes aimed at his torso. It was no longer a matter of willpower - there was simply no shield to buffer blows from hitting him directly in the fragile lungs and other organs the rib cage and sternum were shaped specifically to protect.
Richie doubled over helplessly, clutching his stomach with both hands, any semblance of a guard position or self defense dropped altogether. His dragon runes shrieked once and then fell silent, their blue glow fading out instantly like a thrown light switch.
"Come on, I didn't hit you that hard, did I?" Leon asked, even as the sensory feedback of his elbow told him that something didn't feel right.
Richie only huddled on the planks, a bit of hot bile leaking drops onto the deck from his pain-contorted mouth.
Am I fighting an injured man? Leon wondered with slight pity, shortly before extinguishing it. Mercy and leniency in battle were unbecoming of lions.
Leon dropped his whip, letting the handle clatter to the floor, and straddled behind Richie, looping his arms around the boy's waist from behind. Richie felt a slight tickle from the man's almost angelic hair draped partially over his neck, and the slight urge to sneeze from where a strand brushed his nose. Leon's fingers interlocked in an unforgiving iron grip, and he hoisted backward at the same time he sprung to a full-height standing position. Richie felt another stab of pain in his stomach as he was pressed and yanked, and was then looking straight up at the moon with his legs kicked out in front of him, flailing limply. Leon fell backward with Richie, supple spine bending backward with the fluid flexibility afforded only to the double jointed and the cat-like masters of yoga and contortion. The back of Richie's skull slammed into the hard deck with the full force of both their weights as Leon executed a flawless textbook wrestling suplex. There was no arguing with a concussion. Richie was knocked out cold.
Leon stood back up from his limbo-like backward bend, unassisted by any arm movements. He surveyed Richie's unconscious body, noticing that he looked almost peaceful now that he wasn't struggling.
"Sweet dreams." Leon said, then fetched his whip and began rolling it back up into its resting position at his waist.
A caramel-skinned Brazilian woman who seemed a little too lightly dressed in the cold of night for her own good sashayed over to Leon's side, hands on her hips. Her brown hair was cut short, leaving only a pair of lightning streak-shaped bangs dangling at her temples.
"I think you overdid it a bit, Leon. Sheesh, have you ever heard of taking it easy on a guy?" she said playfully, a mocking tut at theon the end of her words.
"I did take it easy on him. All of his ribs are broken, if he kept wiggling around he was going to puncture a lung. Best to take a risk knocking him unconscious with one big solid blow." Leon huffed.
"Still, I think you left a dent in the deck." The woman, who looked a handful of years older than Leon, measured the alleged damage to the planks with the space between her thumb and index finger.
"He'll live." Leon said. "Sparta." he whistled, and the cat jumped down beside him from across the wharf rooftops. "Take him to the medical room, we'll catch up with you." he gave his order, carefully picking Richie up and draping him over Sparta's back.
The lion nodded his acknowledgement to Leon, and took off at a gentle jog to ease the strain of the road on Richie's body.
"He could have just answered the question." Leon scratched the back of his head with a protracted sigh.
"It's a good thing no elderly person tried to cross the border on your shift if that's how you welcome our guests." the woman said, lightly thumping Leon's back with a good-humored chuckle.
"No exceptions." Leon gave a sly smile.
"Come on, the perimeter is secure, let's go get some grub already." the woman pointed to her growling stomach, exposed to the wind by a wide margin.
"After you." Leon shrugged, and followed behind her.