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Going was slow, what would’ve been a half hour trip in the daylight seeming to multiply in length under the playful watch of the moon which seeded movement in every shadow. The ground beneath them, composed largely of dirt and long decrepit electronics shifted unexpectedly in spots where acid rain and geological disturbances had loosened the composite parts of patchwork terrain. One false step could mean sliding off the side of the mountain directly into a loving maw of jagged pipes or skewed rebar. Aibou wasn’t too worried about that, with Zanka carefully picking his way up the slope, utilizing her skillset expertly to streamline the journey. It was just… she vibrated in his grip. It was just taking a long time.
Despite the sheen of sweat on his brow, Zanka rubbed a thumb over a whorl in her wood grain in agreement. Who knew if those two were still there, if they’d even come at all. When they’d extended the invitation, Jabber had been all excitement and bloodlust, the fervor palpable even through the speaker of Zanka’s bracelet, but then he’d kept chattering. For more than thirty minutes straight. And eventually Zanka had muted the thing, slipped it into his pocket to prevent against even accidentally switching the annoyance back on. So they’d been walking for the better part of an hour now in relative silence (the ground was never truly silent, perpetually shifting and groaning), and she caught out of the corner of her eye Zanka’s hand twitching over his left pants pocket every now and again, pride always prevailing against insecurity.
So it’d be a trust fall. How much the party they were rendezvousing with trusted their strength. Still considered it worthwhile to clash against. Zanka’s fingers rubbed into her patterns, filling the air with the scent of silverpine.
It hadn’t been that long since they’d last fought, Aibou reassured, probably. She didn’t tend to keep track of specifics since Zanka seemed to keep track of things enough for three people. The logic seemed simple: if Jabber was there they’d whack him around a little, if he wasn’t… well, she hadn’t thought that far ahead yet, but they could probably track him down.
“Where?!” Zanka sounded incredulous. He threw his arms open as if to gesture to the entire concept of the ground itself.
It was a good question. Wherever he was. The answer must’ve made more sense to her than him because Zanka huffed that while he would love to go on a cross-country backpacking trip with her, Eisha, might not be as pleased if he missed his two week post-op appointment.
Follow-up… meant non-essential, right? Since if it was that important the doc would’ve put it in the initial infirmary visit?
“This is why Kyouka says yer a bad influence,” he muttered, though he’d stopped quite meeting her eye.
Aibou beamed, gave him the last boost over the lip of the mountain. They stepped around a jagged metal tower and onto the clearing. “Tower” in this case referring to a twisted amalgam of I-beams and sheet metal and copper wiring which curved as it stretched up skyward several stories. It was joined by nearly three dozen similar structures of varying heights which ringed the flattened area at the summit where the top of the mountain had skewered the falling carcass of a gargantuan trash beast. “Clearing” here referring to the vast, lake-like expanse of molten glass which had formed when the creature’s belly full of desert sand had superheated upon re-entry to the atmosphere, eventually cooled into a hard slag. Beneath their feet and the thick layer of deep red glass, Aibou could make out the shapes of forgotten objects now permanently suspended in time and place. It was haunting in the near darkness how the tide of the past was so close yet blurred with shadow. It was a beautiful spot for a date.
For a moment the arena appeared empty. Before Zanka could do that little thing where he slapped a hand across his forehead and dragged the skin all the way down, she drew his attention to the far end of the space. A lithe figure melted out of the side of a twisted rib, swayed in place, then dropped to its haunches.
Zanka squeezed her, only partially to adjust his grip. She couldn’t help but chuckle in delight. Hers was far from the loudest laughter on the mountain.
It was definitely charging toward them now, and she moved naturally to intercept, but the entire time her eyes did not leave the second shape which had stepped out from behind the shadow of the first.
On the ground, moonlight tended to wash what it poured down upon with a dull cast of pale grey. The Sphere anointed its gazers a tinge of vivid crimson. Not even those who considered it a second moon knew what caused the celestial body to glow that colour after nightfall, though most reputable organizations warned of possible chemical explanations, and the official policy was to avoid its nocturnal path to minimize risk. Despite the difficulty in predicting its orbit, this was seldom an issue, most sane people were inside sleeping or taking shelter already when it passed overhead anyway.
If it had taken Zanka several days of his hospital stint to calculate the when and where, perhaps it was the first time the figure standing at the edge of the ribcage had witnessed the Sphere’s Lunar Zenith so close. Metal rings rubbed ruddy by refracted light clinked together in a midnight gale. A trash cyclone spun out in the wastes.
“Hi,” Aibou breathed, moving through familiar positions—a dodge, a whack, a spin, a lunge, a parry—until direct attack crashed into direct attack. Until their hands met.
Mankira smiled. And the sky caught fire.
She isn’t a straight-on brawler, that had been Aibou’s first thought.
She’s beautiful, had been the second.
Their attacker had dallied a moment after the hit, dropped down to take a perfunctory sniff of Zanka’s hair, rolled the scent in his head thoughtfully, and that was why Aibou had the chance to take in the details of his partner at all.
With a svelte, wiry frame and long locs cascading down to past her thighs, the woman who’d knocked out Zanka might not match her in arm wrestling, but she was clearly formidable, dangerous. Long nails tipped the ends of her fingers in tapered spikes which seemed to shift from metallic grey to green. A shining globule dripped onto the ground centimeters from her head. The air tanged acrid and sweet.
The raider shoved a pointed shoe into Zanka’s side where he laid limp on the ground, kicked him half a pace, sucked his cheek in annoyance when he didn’t shake off a near lethal dose of neurotoxin and pop back up on his feet ready to play ball.
But Zanka squeezed tight enough to splinter weaker wood. It was a signal he wanted her to act. It was a signal to wait. And it did not go unnoticed.
“This deck… Seven out, three-hundo points, nix the blanks. It’s no fun with a snail. Boss-man said. Where’s the rabbit? This,” The raider waved his head from side to side in thought, caught between a desire of the past and one of the present. An accepted order and a burgeoning amusement. He hadn’t thought long before his partner made the decision for him.
The woman’s eyes passed over the two of them once, then she turned around and walked into the darkness. Sauntering behind her, he whistled a tune to himself which from a different mouth might’ve sounded like a lullaby.
“Let’s catch up to them.” Zanka gritted out, the vein on his jaw bulging likely from more than just the poison.
Aibou smiled, happy to offer him a hand up just like that first day so long ago now. It had taken several tries, muck and age making the stones slick, difficult to find a foothold in, but when Zanka had finally heaved himself over the ledge of the well and they’d collapsed on their backs side by side in the grass, the sun was still high in the sky. Zanka had looked over at her, she’d blinked back at him, and they’d both burst into laughter, the breathless kind that lingered as sore abdominal muscles for days afterwards.
As they made slow progress down the hall, Zanka leaning his weight heavily into her, Aibou looked over to see if it was another one of those laughing situations.
Not even the sheen of sweat glazing his face could take away from the hatred in his eyes, the rigid clench of his jaw. Okay, not a laughing situation.
She turned forward again, setting her face with determination to match. Maybe later.
“Oh… hey…” One of the raider’s eyeballs tried to wander as he looked up at them. “It’s Mr. Bad Attitude!”
A new one! Aibou’s chest sang in delight, blood pumping fast with battle adrenaline. Zanka loved nicknames.
Show him what’cha got. Zanka snarled as he drove her down with enough force to snap a neck. There was a sickening crunch.
But the guy was still alive. Aibou could tell because the woman from before was now squatting at his side, an unreadable expression on her fine features. If he’d been dead his partner would be gone as well. While some vital instruments were legacy artifacts which could be passed between inheritors, the vast majority were valuable only to the specific person who’d discovered their potential. Once the connection was severed, either by the destruction of the object or the death of the wielder, the anima would scatter, disperse back into the world without its focal point.
The woman didn’t look ghostly either. As steady and real as ever, she traced two fingers through the blood on her partner’s temple, brought them up to her mouth. Raising her eyes, she locked Aibou’s gaze with hers as she licked her fingers clean.
Although Aibou didn’t look away first, it didn’t feel like she won the staring match. Eventually the other jinki simply trained her attention on the raider instead, indicating the conversation was over. The room felt like it was spinning. Maybe Zanka’s poisoning symptoms were rubbing off on her.
Locs of dark hair curtaining her face, the woman caressed her partner’s cheek with her left hand, nails grazing lightly over his neck. The gesture was soft, soothing.
Then they dug in, and all hell broke loose.
The second time it was also Mankira who found her first. Aibou almost felt embarrassed. They ought to return the gesture. It wasn’t polite to make the other person do all the work.
As soon as Jabber unfurled himself out of the portal, she felt the adrenaline in the air jump, wasn’t sure if it was Zanka or herself. He’d emerged hand first, wiggling fingers graciously allowing his lady to lay eyes on their opponents first, so perhaps it was Aibou’s pounding heartbeat mirroring in her partner’s chest after all. Jabber landed on his haunches. She waved across the room with her entire arm.
Mankira waved back, the kind of wave that was all fingers, no hand no wrist. Its lax movement brought attention directly to the long stiletto points of her new set of glossy nails. Magenta and cerulean flame licked up the walls of the earthen cavern as both jinki activated.
Mankira met her immediately this time, their hands locking, fingers tightening around each other’s. The pressure grew stronger until bone ground against bone, threatened to splinter. Oh, it was such a shame when they had to let go.
If she was beautiful standing, Mankira was even more lovely in action, the elegant steel rings decorating her locs clinking together like windchimes. A couple dozen in number, of various makes and sizes, they flew up when she spun. Catching her staring, Mankira smiled, silvery drops of Saturn gleaming in the lowlight imparting upon her features a uniquely ethereal quality.
Aibou’s muscles rippled as she wedged her fingers beneath the lip of rock, pried until she heard granite fold to her will. With a powerful heave, she sent the section of ground and viscous sludge flying. Jabber watched the dark globules rotating in the air with wide eyes, almost mesmerized by the absurdity of it. Anticipation shattered into the present as rock impacted with a resounding crash which echoed, multiplied in the tunnels all around them.
But that wasn’t it. Couldn’t be, no way.
Zanka circled the rubble, errant pebbles of rock crunching to dust underfoot. But no movement stirred. That was it?
The ground itself seemed to come alive, a wheezing giggle emanating out of vents in the cracked surface. What pulled itself out of the darkness beneath was metallic, but dim cave light caught on swirling shapes molded upon its surface, warping its form and even colour however briefly. The cocoon of shifting bloodlust and laughter was difficult to look at. Aibou blinked to focus her vision, then her chest exploded with sheer elation, a joy even Zanka must’ve felt.
Jabber was cackling, rambling on about something in the background.
Zanka wasn’t paying attention to what he was saying because some logical part of his brain was attempting to come up with a plan Z—a plan J would do, it wasn’t like he hadn’t faced worse before (probably).
Aibou wasn’t paying attention because something was happening to Mankira.
As the other jinki unfolded from around her partner, silvery petals melted into her form. Tattoos glowed, activated runes against dark skin, as her hair grew, snaking out and out. Each loc writhed in the darkness, stretching, extending, staking themself into the ground with crystalline pitons of rich magenta. Rather than lift, the dark ropes tied to those anchors seemed to serve merely as tethers. Fantastical flames surged along metallic claws tempering them with an iridescent sheen and charging the air with potential energy as her feet lifted off the ground.
She floated there, the central organ in a ribcage of hair. Mankira’s molten eyes which shifted between silver and pink and green and silver and black, swirled with playfulness anew, no longer beholden to the laws of the ground.
She looked a bit like a large, hairy spider, Aibou murmured in wonder. Smoothing down the hem of her uniform, she felt vaguely underdressed.
Mankira smiled tightly. And then they were moving. A blade, a song, a whirlwind. A deli shredder, a cage. A cradle. An invitation beneath the ribs. She leaned down, the skin under her eyes creasing as she traced Aibou’s jaw with the tip of a nail. Lips parting, Mankira dipped closer, almost tender at the riverbank. She looked beautiful then, more than ever, wading out to dunk a lover beneath the Styx, her pants rolled up to her knees, silver anklets shifting in the tide.
Zanka’s grip tightened, and Aibou smiled, winking as she rolled out from beneath the feathery branches of the willow tree. Bone crunched as the cage splintered. The gondola ride would have to wait.
Pain blunted by adrenaline, they were almost weightless. Craters in the arena floor, a cyclone of their own making, versatile, inspired. The kick landed solid, firm, but recovery wasn’t swift enough.
The chiming of hollow metal tubes in the wind. Lotus petals unfurled, tips frenched in crimson.
“You’re not worried?” Mankira stared down at her, attention threatening to stray now that she considered the fight over.
Her heart rate was high from exertion, not fear, so Aibou supposed she wasn’t. “I trust Zanka,” It wasn’t something she’d put to words before, there had been no need, “He’s my partner.” Where he went, she would fall into step alongside. He’d get back up, and tomorrow, after the sun rose, they’d walk out to the courtyard together, his cheek resting against her grain as he asked how her morning was going. It was simple, familiar, a surety.
“Famous last words.” Mankira slid a curved finger under Aibou’s chin, raising her head until their eyes hooked together. Regardless if it was a challenge, a test, or a research study, Mankira didn’t look away as Jabber stabbed Zanka through the stomach.
The crimson soaking his cleaner uniform, the mirrored sanguine in her liquid eyes, was the last thing Aibou saw. In the final heartbeat, Mankira’s irises seeped out to drown her universe.
Aibou stirred to the sound of several large and filled binders dropping on the floor. Orange flashed in the darkness of her vision. A hand grabbed hers, its fingers slightly too short—she forced her eyes open.
They were walking down one of the tunnels. A pattern of footprints followed behind them in the dirt. Not a great thing, she was just formulating the thought when a small foot kicked her in the back of the calf with the force of an arrowhead. “Ouch!” Aibou hopped on one leg, rubbing at her muscle with a hand.
In doing so, she bent down a little, and something flung itself out of the darkness of the side of the tunnel, landing on her back and gripping tight with what felt like a dozen little knives. She roared like a dinosaur, spun around wildly attempting to shake the world’s deadliest back-jumping spider while it shrieked in delight. Eventually, finding an even better perch, it crawled up to her neck, settling on her shoulders and wrapping little arms around her head for stability. One of the hands was over her eye, she moved that one up an inch to clear her vision. The other hand was over her nose, and it smelled of gunpowder.
Tilting her head back caused the creature to shriek again. A mop of orange hair and the curve of a pale button nose poked in from the top of her field of vision. “Pew pew?” she asked.
The child puffed out his cheeks, clamping his mouth shut as if the secret would escape somehow if he opened it. He shook his head vehemently until his partner looked back at them and shrugged. Entire countenance changing, he crossed his arms and puffed out his chest, nearly losing his balance in doing so until Aibou grasped his ankles and he locked his hands back onto her head. “Got him good too. One in each limb, pectoralis, and colon. Last two were even bonus points!” He looked over at the cleaner slung limply across Riyo’s shoulder. “Is Zanka…”
“He’ll be fine,” Aibou reached a hand up to tousle his hair. “I think he might be invincible. Could survive the end of the world.”
“Like the roachies!” He couldn’t decide between excitement and disgust. “They’re so annoying to clean outta the works! Wish they’d all just ka-boom.”
“Hey… Y’know where there’s no roaches?” She tightened her grip on his ankles, a mischievous smile curving up the corners of her mouth.
Dark eyes lit up like they were reflecting fireworks. “Vroom!”
“Vreeeeoooooooooooom,” Aibou drew the syllables long as she took off running down the tunnel, the boy on her shoulders spreading his arms as if the wind reminded him he could really fly, take off one day and soar far away.
Mankira had drunk blood recently. Her skin burned hot to the touch, her eyes wide, the pupils impossibly large. Crimson rouged her lips, a dark, wet sheen which gleamed in the absence of sunlight. Might pushed against might, their faces mere centimeters apart before pulling back, trying a new angle. The air smelled of metal, appetite.
“Were they strong?” Aibou asked her partner’s question for him.
“Tell me about the siren you ran into.” Mankira’s gaze flicked to the bandages over Zanka’s chest like she could see through his paltry attempt to cover them with the layered cloth of his uniform. Jabber’s eyes were narrowed in annoyance his playmate was moving slower than usual. The jig was up.
“He wasn’t as pretty as you, that’s for sure.” She winked. The charm attack bounced off a brick wall, skittered ineffectually across the floor. “Attacking it felt like punching clay-dough…” Aibou said slowly, taking the time to put vague feelings to words. Her memories of the doll festival fuzzed out toward the end, specifics giving way to static like a radio tuned just off station. When she’d hit the monstrosity which Mymo’s body had morphed into, it’d been solid as stone. But as soon as they’d repositioned, his form shifted again, frames clipped from the reel to deposit whoever viewed him forward a couple seconds in time when things were ever so slightly different. The red silt-laden sludge the kids of Canvas town made in a bucket had similar properties. While it rested in a container, it appeared liquid, spread out to fill the chipped yogurt tub or empty tin can it was poured into, but when jabbed with a stick or punched, it put up resistance. Two truths had been contorted into one body, two natures forced to share one description, and yet the creature hadn’t been satisfied, still wanted to achieve a third. That was where her memories kowtowed to what the others had told them later. “It… gave up its partner. Sounds… lonely.”
A couple of Mankira’s locs crystalized, a state halfway between forms. Beneath them, the red glass sea seemed to give way to the abyss. Their hands crashed together again in understanding.
It was not unheard of, the ultimate betrayal. Humans were, at the end of the day, prone to fits of extreme emotion when cornered. Experienced in battle, both of them had seen it happen. The concept never became less unpleasant to even remember. Mankira cracked a smile first, and Aibou laughed too, admitting it was a little funny that
Even creatures borne of anima could fear death.
A stain was blossoming upon the abdominal area of Zanka’s uniform. Sweat dripped down his brow, but he gritted his teeth, pressed on. Perhaps placated by the proffering of that flower, Jabber let his annoyance go, slipped back under the influence of the adrenaline. Mood as mercurial as his moves, he bolted up the side of a steel rib running so fast he was near perpendicular, then vaulted into the air, claws outstretched.
Thirty rings dyed crimson from above glinted in the darkness, dozens of eyes blinking in and out depending on angle. Aibou dropped to one knee etching the glass lake across in pale spidery cracks as she offered her hand.
Mankira took it, their fingers lacing together. And across that ballroom at the edge of heaven, they danced.
Jabber almost appeared a little tired as he sat back on his opponent’s pelvis. He looked down at Zanka without really doing either, looking down, or at, the cleaner gasping for breath beneath him. Wistfully, he traced the dark red shape which had now spread to soak his entire abdomen, pressing down harshly into the reopened wound with the pads of his fingers but not the tips. That was it then. Perhaps he no longer wondered what reaction would come out if he put a new poison in. Perhaps he’d gotten tired of lying on the ground next to him, laughing as dirt pressed into their hair. Opening a stained hand, rings heavy with blood, he reached forward. “Night, Zan Zan…”
Lunging up, Zanka caught Jabber’s wrist between his teeth, ripped off a sizable chunk of skin.
The resulting noise was likely further from pain than Zanka would’ve preferred.
He went for the throat next.
“Look,” Aibou spread her arms, breathless. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
Pushing aside her instincts, Mankira considered the curtains of sanguine light hanging above them. Their view of the tapestry of the sky was largely unobstructed by the trash beast’s splayed ribs, and up so high above the rest of the ground, it felt like they could capture the entire world in one shutter click.
It was true the celestial phenomenon was pretty, but it held no candle to the sight before her, the one within reach. Mankira took another step forward, her hair swishing slow about her hips. Aibou stepped back, bumped up against the cold metal of a twisted spire. “There’s supposed to be a controlled burn tonight!” She flushed.
“Is that so?” Mankira closed the distance with one more leisurely step. There was nowhere left to go but off the edge of the known universe.
“Y-Yeah! We should be able to see it along the ley lines!” She pointed over Mankira’s shoulder. “Last time it got outta hand and we had to help put it out…” Words trailed off as the side of a nail slid down the decline of her clavicle.
Mankira’s voice itself had even slowed, infused with honey, with teasing. “Tell me more.”
She opened her mouth, happy to do just that, when a finger hooked through a loop of the cloth bandage wrapped around her neck, tugged her down.
The sky overhead shimmered with trails of red and magenta, but Mankira didn’t look away, not even after they pulled apart. It would’ve been pointless. All the light in the world seemed to be encased in Aibou’s eyes. Sunshine dappled pellucid waters with refracted rainbow shards. Those pale pinks and yellows and greens could only have come from within, she pondered, for no flowers as softly pretty grew on the ground any longer. Cheeks flushed the colour of angel’s trumpets, botanicals Mankira had only before read about in old encyclopedias, Aibou chewed her lip.
And reading her was easy. There were no whiplash mood swings, no meaning layered behind meaning, no twenty step play with pitfalls along the path. It was even easier to give, to wrap an arm around her broad shoulder, the other set of claws around her waist. To squeeze and feel hesitant lips part for her. She was warm.
If there was a poison in the world which could make her feel as strongly, Mankira could spend a lifetime searching.
Aibou was in her grasp now, and she wouldn’t let go so easily.
