by N X Hunter
Kitsuna took a deep breath and nodded, steeling herself. As if in a dream, with James's arm around her, she walked slowly to the door.
"It's probably there now. Remember, just find the others, and keep your mind on your reality, never let yourself forget even for a moment that you have things to come back to."
He gently reached down for the door handle, and Kitsuna was glad that she didn't have to do that small, yet also huge, thing herself.
"I'll see you very soon," he said, and pulled the door of the insulated room open.
Chapter 12
On the side of the door inside the room, the hallway looked normal - just those offices off to both sides, and the daylight from the digital windows streaming in - showing no sign of the storm that was no doubt darkening the local sky outside. But Kitsuna knew, somehow just as surely as she knew that the earth was round, that as soon as she stepped through the door she'd be somewhere entirely different to the mundane Calibre Academy corridor.
She also knew that to the man standing beside her, there would be no wait at all for her return. That no matter what awaited her in the storm domain, when she returned he would be standing here looking and feeling exactly as he did right now.
It must be nice in a way, that they don't have to wait and worry.
She looked into his eyes and saw the anxiety he was feeling on her behalf. Well, she knew he'd be OK in a moment, and she wanted to take the memory of him with a happier face with her to where she was going. On impulse, she leaned in and pressed her lips softly against his, just a hint of kiss, but enough to let her feel the closeness of him and take some strength from it.
That's better, she thought as she pulled away, seeing the longing in his eyes. That's a look to tempt me back from wherever the fuck is outside this door.
They nodded silently at each other, and then, scarcely believing she'd found the balls to do it, she stepped over the threshold.
There was a strange feeling, as if her nerves were somehow fired up by the very atmosphere around her, and for a second her vision went dark. She heard her voice saying the words, without even consciously knowing she was going to say them. Her wand was pulsing in her hand, too, though she hadn't remembered actually picking it up.
"Platinum magenta power - change me!"
It was as if she was in a whirlwind, hot air rushing around her in all directions, disorienting enough to stop her physically feeling that her body, clothes and hair were metamorphosing into a new form - a form better suited to the environment she couldn't yet see.
Unlike in the previous transformation, she did, this time, manage to land in a relatively dignified way, crouching on the ground like a runner awaiting a starting pistol. Her body felt great - there was a sense of boundless energy in her muscles, and a strength she had never felt even during her gym-freak phase in high school. But that feeling of energy also came with a constant flood of adrenaline. She felt not only like she could keep moving forever, but also that if she didn't start moving, she might implode from the building tension inside her.
Having assessed how she herself felt, she summoned up the bravery to finally look around her, and see her first storm domain.
It looked in some ways like a desert, and the arid heat was the same too, but instead of sand, the ground was cracked, parched earth, with sickly - or perhaps even dead - trees off in the distance, bone white and bare. The colors were all wrong, though. It was like her eyes weren't processing color like they normally would, and everything was being seen through some sort of filter that stripped the saturation out, making even the daylight the color of cigarette ash. An empty, pale palette that was somehow too stark and also too dull. There was color in the sky, but it didn't seem to change the land, as if they were two separate things that didn't interact at all. There was no source of light, either - no sun up in the sky, no moon or stars as one would expect to see in a desert untroubled by man made light. What there was, in the sky, which gave Kitsuna a troubling, almost vertiginous feeling, were large planets. Six of them. The closest was too close - much closer than the moon, and larger too, with a swirling, visible layer of indigo cloud over it and rings that extended out so close that it almost seemed like if this place had skyscrapers, then they'd be touching them. Were these planets real planets that existed in her universe, somewhere ridiculously far away, where no astronomer had seen? Or were they whole worlds from this other dimension, this Big Emptiness? Maybe they were neither. Maybe they weren't even real, and were just an unsettling illusion.
There was a wind here, too, and it blew hard across the dusty landscape, making her shield her face from her whipping hair as she turned around to confirm what she already knew. That she could no longer see the door, or James, or anything from the world she had spent her life in.
But what she also couldn't see were any monsters. Or Rayna, or Courtney - whatever she looked like - or anything that might be a core. She didn't have a weapon, either. Maybe it only appeared when it was needed, and the fact that she only had her wand right now meant that she was, for the time being, safe.
My body wants to run.
Before she'd even finished thinking it, she was sprinting, running against the wind in the direction of the withered trees, feeling the drag of the air as she moved more swiftly and effortlessly than she ever had before. She found herself taking great, leaping strides and needing no work at all to control her breathing. Even in the dry heat she wasn't sweating, and there was a sense that her body just wouldn't fatigue. She pushed herself to run faster, and found that this too was easy. She was certain she was going faster now than a record breaking athlete, a sprinter even, despite the fact she had been running for minutes and had probably covered miles.
It was hard to know how far away those trees were with no other point of reference for her eyes, and the general uncanniness of the light here, but they hadn't got much closer looking. She was only aiming for them because they were the only landmark. Perhaps Rayna and Courtney would have the same idea, wherever they were.
How big is this place? Are there limits to this domain, or can I go to anywhere in this reality's world? With enough time, could I reach other landscapes, or an ocean, or is this some new dimension the invaders create which has boundaries?
She stopped running for a moment, her powerful momentum causing her to skid a moment on the dehydrated land, grinding up a cloud of dirty pale dust around her bright pink boots, which looked so colorful against the desaturated land that she found it hard to pull her eyes away from them - as if she was craving color and normal light.
She'd stopped because she'd sensed she was no longer alone.
Looking behind her she could see them coming up across the land, their numbers seeming to curve in, as if to try and flank her as well as follow her. She couldn't quite see what they were yet, but there were lots of them. All different shades of black and gray. They lumbered towards her, gaining ground with no particular rush or uniformity. This was more unsettling than if they were truly giving chase, somehow. It was as though these things, whatever they were, didn't need to move too fast, didn't need to be organized. They shambled like they themselves were an inevitability, like it was just a fact of reality that they would get to her, no matter how quickly she could run. She spun around, though she didn't like taking her eyes off of them, and realized there were more approaching from the direction she'd been running in. A mob of monotonous, fuzzy grayscale, trudging towards her colorful form.
They're going to surround me if I don't do something. I can't see how far back the mobs stretch, or really even tell what shape these things are yet. I might be able to jump over the crowd in this form, but it's untested - I should have tried some other stuff to see what the limits of this transformation are instead of just running... If I had my weapon I could maybe cut a path through them and keep going toward the trees.
She surprised herself with how rationally she was able to think in the circumstances. She was not as scared as she'd expected to be. Everything
was more awry and unsettling than outright dangerous, she felt. These things were creepy, and there were inexhaustible numbers of them - far too many to fight, even if her team mates were there - but they weren't fast or even especially purposeful in their movements. They seemed to be attracted to her, and she knew instinctively that it would be a bad thing to be caught up in that overwhelming tide of them, but they didn't seem to project any kind of bloodlust. They were more like an encroaching numbness. She got it now, why the best way that the mahou shoujo of the past had been able to describe them to people was in terms of emptiness. The only plan was to get clear of them and seek out the core, because otherwise she knew in her gut that she would be stuck endlessly battling their listless forms here under this odd sky for eternity, never seeing anything vibrant or feeling anything again.
The weapon. Perhaps I just need to sort of tell it I need it now? James seemed to think it would just materialize, but then, he's never been here. Perhaps there's something I need to do that only a mahou shoujo would think of. Like my words - they just came instinctively when I listened to Illaria and concentrated. I think I need to get into that state again now.
Closing her eyes was hard, knowing that the things were getting closer, and would soon be close enough to take shape in her vision. She wanted to see them, couldn't really resist it, even though she knew with a concrete certainty that whatever they looked like, it was going to be in some way disturbing. But no, she had to ignore that compulsion. She had to get in touch with her magic again. Not screwing her eyes shut with force, but relaxing, serenely. Concentrating on that power inside her, not what her senses told her existed outside.
She held the wand in front of her chest again, and focused on breathing in the magic in the atmosphere. If it was possible for magic to have a taste, it was somehow more potent and intense here than it was in the Academy's insulated room. As she inhaled she felt its buzzing, effervescent energy rushing into her nostrils, into her lungs, into her blood, even. And the wand, it began to vibrate as strongly as if it was trying to shake apart its own make-up, rearranging its atoms into something else.
It's becoming the weapon. It's becoming...
"Platinum gun!" she heard herself roar, breaking the eerie silence of the ash colored world.
Wait, gun? What the fuck?
She opened her eyes to look, not at the advancing creatures, but at what her wand had turned into. Her own words, which had come from that place of magic inside her, had not lied. It was indeed a gun - a platinum colored revolver with a magenta inlay in the grip. It was pretty, she had to give it that, though it looked like some kind of antique that a wealthy lady might have kept more for show than anything else; its design was ornamental and old fashioned, and it didn't look like it packed much of a punch. But of course, James had warned her that her weapon would be in a weak form. And it was still a fucking gun.
Of all of the weapons that had crossed her mind, guns, or any other kind of firearms or explosives for that matter, hadn't occurred to her as a possibility. It just wasn't what she imagined a magical warrior to use.
Is this a good thing? I mean, isn't a gun far better than a knife or a sword or whatever? I know which would make me feel safest in my world, but here, isn't it the same? I can shoot them from range, much better range than a bow and arrow I would have thought, and assuming bullets actually damage these things, and that this gun is magic, so I don't need to conserve ammo.... Isn't a gun pretty much the best thing I could hope for?
She decided to waste no time in testing that the gun did indeed come with its own ammo supply, and that the creatures of the Big Emptiness were vulnerable to bullets. She aimed at the mob in front of her, between her and the trees, and pulled the trigger. And then she pulled it again, and again, because the gun was indeed firing, sending off bullets that cut through the air strangely, almost as if the air was thick and they needed to push their way through it, leaving trails of pink smoke behind them.
Her wary happiness about the gun was short lived though, as she saw its general lack of suitability for this situation. When a bullet hit one of the creatures, it did seem to cause it to turn to smoke and vanish, but this didn't really help thin out the approaching wave at all. She couldn't fire fast enough to cut a path through them, as she could have done by rushing at them with a melee weapon like a sword. Taking them out one by one was having as little of an effect as removing one grain of sand from a beach.
This is hopeless...
She kept on firing, as the bullets seemed infinite, and she couldn't really think what else to do, as she waited for the otherworldly beings, which she could now begin to see in their full, horrible glory, to crowd her.
Hopeless...
Chapter 13
They were hard to see, even with the sharp vision that came with her transformation. Aiming her gun was easy enough (though unnecessary, as firing at the wall of them was always going to hit something), but it seemed that she could only really look at one or two of them in focus at any one time. The others would resume a blurry, chaotic form, like they had been scribbled in charcoal by an angry child, or would fizz and buzz like static. But when she could see one, they were far from the whimsical, psychedelic, random things that Rayna had talked about.
These appeared to be animals, but they were twisted perversions of things that would normally be ordinary, or even cute. A smog colored fox with empty chasms where its eyes should be staggered forth on its front paws, dragging the open, blackened wounds that should have been its back legs behind it. A mangy, drooling bear - also severely lacking in the eye department - lumbered forward, oblivious to the thousands of flies caking its skin. Sickly deer with black antlers that flaked like rotten wood staggered on broken legs, and trampled bald, bloated rats unseeingly as they continued their grim progress.
Pitiable, grotesque creatures all around her, but worse, a disconcerting humming sound had started, coming from each of them, a cacophony of different frequencies, rising and rising, making it impossible to hold onto a thought for more than a moment.
But she still tried. She tried, as her shaking hands fired bullet after bullet into the throng, to remember what she was supposed to remember.
I can't win here. But Rayna is out there. Rayna will get the core and I'll go back to... I'll go back to James. He said.... He promised to... He said he'd take care... Any damage. They're here. But I'll heal. They're here so they're not there. Rayna and... Courtney... They're safe. Core.
Her head now in the full grip of what would, in her own world, have been a migraine, an aura of light interfered with her vision, making it harder still to see.
Shooting is useless. Need noise to stop.
She dropped to her knees, her all-powerful, athletic new form no use to her here, no use to her when her mind was coming apart from the droning sound and the strange light, and the nightmarish visions all around her. She lay her gun in her lap and curled up in a ball, her hands clamped over her ears, though it did little to drown out the noise. The creatures were so close now that she could feel the air getting stickier from their breath and their sweat, and some remaining part of her sentience was almost surprised that they even had such physical, visceral presences. Perhaps they didn't. Perhaps this was all her own mind's invention, as it tried to make sense of beings too alien to understand.
She felt her throat vibrating, and realized she was humming a tune herself. Maybe to try and distract her own mind from the droning, maybe to put up the pretense that something terrible wasn't happening to her. It didn't matter.
She was barely there, in her mind, when the first set of gnashing teeth bit at her hair, ripping out a clump. It didn't hurt. It didn't hurt as claws tried to rend her bare arms, or small, scrabbling rat-paws scraped at her back, clambering over her. It didn't hurt as the creatures rode over her, swarming her, blocking out all of the light and air and crushing her beneath their very real weight. Whether it was the result of her transformation, limiting pain and healing her instantly, or whethe
r her mind had just given up on feeling pain and fear, she didn't know, she didn't even wonder.
There was no way of telling how long it had been, but eventually, somehow, she noticed that the noise had stopped. The ground underneath her knees was smooth and cool now, and the weight on her body was gone. Pleasant, gently chilled air conditioning felt like gentle, soothing hands running over her skin - skin that had been torn over and over and over, but which bore no wound or scar. Her mind was blank, and exhausted, but she knew, in some part of her more primal than her mind, perhaps the part of her where her magic dwelt, that she was back in her own world now, and safe. There was a voice saying something, but she couldn't give it any attention, and it meant her no harm. She let her body slump onto her side, pressing her hot cheek against the tiled floor, and let herself drop away into a deep sleep - a sleep mercifully devoid of dreams.
***
The next time consciousness visited her, she found her head resting on a soft, clinically clean white pillow, and realized that she was in an unfamiliar bed. Well, her own bed at the apartment was also pretty unfamiliar, given she'd only spent one night there, but this one was different again. A gentle light like a late afternoon glow filled the room, which was completely white, other than for the digital window that the calming light was coming from.
"She's waking up," said Rayna's voice, from somewhere by Kitsuna's feet.
She tried to sit up to look at Rayna, but immediately she felt a man's hands on her shoulders, gently, but firmly pushing her back down. He must have leaped over to do that as soon as Rayna had spoken.
"Hi again..." she tried to say, her throat parched and croaky.
"Don't sit up yet. Here, drink some of this."
James held a glass with a cloudy liquid in it and moved a straw to Kitsuna's lips.
"What is it?" she asked in her raspy voice.