There was a splash behind me. I threw a push-kick into the killer whale’s gut and ran up him like a stepladder, jumping up out of the water and spinning around to attack whoever was behind me. As I spun, I threw my weight into a punch.
Lacy eyes, shaggy black hair. I pulled the shot, but Rali grabbed my fist. A blast of orange Warm Heart Spirit flowed down my arm, starting up the healing process in the shredded tissue.
“Don’t spend it all in one place,” he joked, heading off toward the fan boat, where Warcry was fighting the dude with the boat hook.
Insect wings fluttered. I’d lost Death Grip, and the space moth was free. Not wasting any time with me, he darted at the tree where Kest lay motionless across a branch. The hawk guy headed the same direction.
A huge fist crashed into the back of my skull. Lightning flashed in my brain as I slammed into a tangled root ball.
Idiot! I hadn’t taken out the killer whale dude, and I hadn’t triggered Dead Reckoning. I threw out a wall of it as I thrashed to my feet, brain reeling.
Dead Reckoning pinged the early warning for the killer whale’s next shot. I spun, triggering Death Metal, and threw a shield-bash combo at his head and throat. He blocked the blow aimed at his head, but missed the throat-shot. It hit with a sickening crunch, and he went down, clutching at his thick neck. An overarm blow to his now unprotected head knocked him unconscious.
I spun, searching the trees for Kest. She wasn’t on the branch anymore.
Something flapped overhead. The hawk guy and the space moth. Between them, they were carrying another pink Spirit net with Kest wrapped up inside.
“Guys—Kest!” I yelled.
The hawk guy let out an ear-piercing whistle as he soared for the canopy. “Got the chick! Cut and run, boys!”
Before they could get away with her, I grabbed the hawk guy’s life point again, this time ready to put it out. The pink flame guttered. Hawk guy shrieked.
A wall of Warm Heart Spirit slammed into my chest, knocking me backward into the water. Dead Man’s Hand dropped, and the hawk guy’s life point came back just shy of going out.
“They’re going to get away!” I spluttered at Rali as I came up, my voice cracking.
“Not on your life, grav.” Warcry ripped the boat hook out of the fan boat driver’s hands. He smashed the guy’s nose in with it, then launched the boat hook at the space moth.
The pole tangled in the space moth’s wings. He pitched off balance into a branch and dropped his side of the net. The hawk guy cussed as Kest tumbled out.
The space moth dropped, smacking branches on the way down, but Kest plummeted through open air. Rali splashed toward them, thrusting both fists at her in an invisible technique. Whatever it was slowed her fall enough that she splashed down a lot softer than she should have.
The space moth, Rali let hit the water at full force. His buddies splashed through the water and grabbed him, taking off into the swamp.
Overhead, the hawk guy shot up through the canopy and disappeared, getting away scot-free.
I growled through clenched teeth and slapped the water with both hands. I wasn’t the only one mad, either. When Rali got Kest’s head above water, she coughed and sputtered out one word—
“Useless!”
“Kest,” Rali started, but she didn’t give him a chance.
“No.” Her voice went suddenly flat, and the iron in my blood turned cold as she switched to Cold Metal. “Put the storage ring to my forehead.”
Rali sighed, but he lifted her dripping hand out of the water and did it.
“Cinnabar!” she ordered.
The chunk of red metal appeared in her limp hand, then when the fingers didn’t grip it, dropped into the water. She closed her eyes. The surface of the water rippled as something moved below it. Rolling silver climbed up her side and surrounded the place where her left arm ended, forming a sort of stick arm with an elbow and wrist joint and five articulated stick fingers.
There was a thud behind us. We turned to find Warcry climbing into the fan boat’s driver seat.
“Let’s not hang about waiting for them to come back,” he said. “Get in the boat.”
Fan Boat Ride
TURNED OUT THAT OUR slam into the front of the fan boat had cracked the hull. Kest sent some of her cinnabar to patch it temporarily. It didn’t hold really well, but it cut the leak down enough that the boat would stay up until she could move around again and weld it correctly.
After some researching on our HUDs and backseat startering from Kest, Warcry and I managed to figure out how to start the fan and get the boat moving. He drove while I sat on the floor of the boat with Kest’s head and shoulders across my legs. Rali knelt beside us, hands on her temples, pouring orange Warm Heart Spirit into her.
“Start cycling as much of this as you can to your Spirit sea and rivers,” Rali told his twin. “This poison tastes like an Organic supertype, maybe Floral affinity, so the only way out is to work it through your system.”
Kest’s lips etched into an angry line, and the lace in her eyes darkened. Her tan skin glowed faintly red-orange underneath like molten magma was flowing through her veins, and the air started to heat up around us. Hot Metal Spirit.
Rali grinned down at her. “That’s a good idea as long as you don’t start boiling the trace metals in our blood.”
She rolled her eyes and swiped some wet hair off
