Nomad Adventures Part 1: Path to Victory
Jack walked through the woods, taking his time as his eyes scanned across the old trees. It was familiar wilderness, with an early evening sky overhead with just the right amount of clouds to be comfortable. The beaten path he followed was one that he had used many times as a kid as a meeting place for other members of the coven. It led to the old “neutral ground” of Mellon Collie hill. Just a few days ago, he came here with Britney to discuss plans for helping Luca. But now, he had a plan that he could act on. Jack walked past the stone altar, and into the old temple behind it. Jack would’ve simply teleported here to arrive earlier, but he had a feeling that 8th Street- or heaven forbid, the PRA- would keep a closer eye on the Sycamore in the near future. And they would likely expect him to teleport here immediately rather than make the trip on foot.
He stepped through the entrance of the temple, and his footsteps echoed off the old stone walls. This was where he had planned to meet Kenshiro, to get their operations underway. The coven’s members were busy, and they could look after themselves for now. This place was familiar to them both, they knew where to go if they needed to hide, in the eventuality that purple Lux failed them. They’d need the seclusion this temple offered.
Ken intended to be tremendously busy with the hunt for Kari now ablaze in his heart. He’d found new motivation to keep up, and to match the energy of his peers. Chief among them was Jack Hawthorne, who had made an initial agreement with him to begin the classic hunt for power: The Artifact Snatch-and-Grab.
It’d been a long time since he’d bothered to come to Mellon Collie Hill, and whether or not it was a reasonable place to start their work together, he wasn’t so sure. It’d been quite the popular place in their youth, and he worried that it may not be as abandoned as they said. However, as he ascended the pathway, Jack would’ve been bidden by the familiar sound of croaking that echoed on and on until he ultimately knew he was no longer alone.
Within the run down temple, hundreds of tiny tree frogs stared up at Jack. Their united croaking ceased, and Ken was broken from his meditation.
"You… Walked? Is there something wrong, or are you just feeling under the weather?” he looked up, surrounded still by every amphibian the forest around them could muster up from hibernation.
”I thought I’d surprise anyone who might be spying on us,” Jack leaned back against the wall, looking around at all the familiar toads of the Emperor’s dynasty.
”We can’t be predictable, right now.”Especially if they were going through with this.
”We have the entire day to make progress on this. I’m surprised we haven’t tried to do this sooner.”Ken nodded, lifting himself up to stand before getting close to Jack and embracing him.
"I know you don't hug, but I certainly needed one.”He cleared his throat, thinking about their coming goal.
Pocket Realm Manipulation. Of course it was a Purple Lux technique, and the entire premise of the Ten Sage's Pathways. It was the same kind of magic that allowed him to make a hole in Kari's basement wall into a secret lockbox.
But unlike Jack, Ken's strictly regimented list of spells meant actual magical improvisation had to be left to the more creative Adepts.
Just like Jack.
As Ken pulled away, he patted his kindred brother's shoulder and nodded.
"Lynn Serenelight says Kari's still alive. I believe her, and it gets my blood warm just thinking about it.”He grinned.
"So, whatever this takes. For her, and the chance I may see her again.”Only, for what they had planned, Ken had no bright ideas. He would just assume base them directly in another Realm. But Jack had seen more of the spaghetti between worlds. He knew what the insulation and the inner walls looked like.
"For now, I'm your horse. Though, I brought-”From under his hoodie, he produced a tanto blade with its sheath. The thing looked ancient, far beyond old, and even without examining it closely, one could feel the radiating power.
Ken flashed the blade with Gold Lux, and for a split second, the Great Toad Emperor stood with them. His eyes crossed over Jack, and he gave a deep, approving croak.
"-Tennogama! When I spoke of your plan, he offered a fraction of his primal energy to convert into Lux. In case we need a bit more oomph.” he grinned.
Jack gently bowed his head in the direction of the Toad Emperor, grateful for the assistance.
”The three of us on one task, this will be a sight to see once we are finished.” He reached into the inner pockets of his coat, and withdrew his channeler, a literal spellbook.
”This is, on principle, a simple thing. We are carving through the bounds of existence, establishing substance in a place where substance was not found.”He flipped through the pages, looking for one specific section.
”But the difficulty lies in the complex nature of creating a pocket reality,” he continued.
”We are navigating a blank canvas. As with any spell created by any Adept, we’ll be investing time and energy to establish this realm. Firstly, we must secure the medium with which we will mold our creation. And for that, I will supply us both with the proverbial soil of the All-Verse, spacetime itself.”Ken nodded, listening to the principles. He’d manipulated the Paths; but if it was as Jack said, he quickly gleaned some base insight into the process that the great Sage had gone through so many thousands of years ago. The bending and twisting of Spacetime, the manipulation of the very building blocks around them.
He stared down at the book, then back at Jack.
"Well, Telekinetic Principle works in the same basic vein as Gravity… Are you thinking, like, Black Holes? Or…-” he questioned, this new method of thinking filling his mind slowly.
”In a way, yes,” Jack nodded.
”Thing of space- Matter and reality itself- as clay. The All-Verse is a work of masterfully crafted art, in that sense. But it was nonetheless created with something of substance. Only the substance, for our purpose, is the very axiom that allows us to be. We are taking that clay from a place where it remains malleable, between the seams of every realm in the All-Verse.”Ken’s brow furrowed as Jack seemed to dance around the ideas until it was finally fleshed out.
"So you’re telling me we’re going to carve a hole in some expanding sealant foam?” he asked with a grin.
"Sure, fine. I’m almost certain there’s a hundred blasphemes against this type of thing in the Pathwalker’s Oath, but my wife died and the Council of Ten laughed at me. So, I think the days of oaths to my people are over.” Jack would be able to feel the Purple Lux slowly gathering around Ken as it began to pool and saturate the area around him. Raw anticipation.
"So, how do we start?””This is how we start.”Jack faced the stone walls of the temple, and drew a black circle with his magic, which expanded into the portal of his Voidwalk spell.
”To make this doorway into the Void, I reach through the All-Verse and peel away every single layer, creating a hole through all conceivable reality. The “clay,” or the foam, in our analogy, is being pulled away to form a gap.”He reached through the inky black portal with one hand, and pulled against the edge between reality and total nothingness. It was like grabbing the edge of an open window, the ledge of a tall building.
”So, rather than part the waters, I propose we harvest the spacetime that bleeds between the realms. Like gathering brush from the forest, or shells from a beach.”Ken stared, trying to wrap his relatively simple mind around the concepts that Jack was trying to teach. His grimace was accompanied by a motion toward his pocket, from which he pulled a single gold coin.
"So you mean to tell me-”He dropped the coin, and as if it were gripped by a machine, it slipped into the corner of nothingness. Bubbling Purple Lux gave solid form to a small wooden windowpane covered by a wood hatch. He pushed the hatch open, feeling the other side of the Paths rushing back toward him.
Having never bothered to look at the absolute bleeding edge of one of these little portals, he was surprised to see the same bleeding, leaking essence at the wooden-slatted edges.
Ken’s eyes widened.
"There’s… There’s no way…”His hand gripped the wooden edge. This entire time, he believed that the actual structural parts of these safe boxes were just for show. It didn’t take much effort to crush and rip it away, revealing the roughly hewn edge of the little portal absolutely gushing with the Stuff Between.
"Oh my God! He was… He was awful at making portals!? So he… He enchanted wood! To keep it from bleeding out!” he barked.
”So it would seem,” Jack said, feeling around between the layers of reality.
”There is no formal term for “essence of all that ever existed,” but it has a way of stabilizing. Perhaps the old master of your spells simply used enchanted wood to prevent leakages. Here, on the bleeding edge of cosmology, things become unpredictable.”He wasn’t personally experienced in this sort of realm-based magic. Jack was trying to grab something that was fundamentally formless. Water was fluid and air was malleable, but to hold sheer reality in his hands felt like trying to hold a slippery animal.
”This is why I feel we will need to create a joint spell for our goal. I know what to do, but you have the knowledge of other pocket realms already.”Ken wasn’t entirely impressed, at least not by what he saw of the Sage’s work. He was a farmer by trade, but farming was a lot more than just tilling some dirt and spreading seeds. No, he’d learned enough to trap his own Caches. He’d opened portals into the Paths without opening any premade portal.
He’d done it for Her. And it wasn’t so shoddy.
"If it’s liquid, can it be…”He did his best to telekinetically manipulate some of the material, but it wasn’t easy. Even if it was a little more effective than a normal hand or Jack’s phantom hand, it was still only so much better. The stuff seemed to leak from holes that didn’t exist.
But it was fun to play with.
"Alright… Fine. What kind of spell? What’s it take to organize this shit?” Jack blinked slowly, feeling the way the Bull’s work flowed and stretched.
”This is the domain of purple Lux. We are creating a realm that we would open a gateway into. Just as you do with the Paths, and I with the Void. Using what is already present is a shortcut, but it means we will be carving a space out through it, and rearranging it to our liking. So we will need to work our spell into that, shaping the structure of reality on a localized level.”Ken would be able to feel Jack’s Lux surging around them as he violently ripped something from the edge of the Void portal. A strange fluid with a lilac tint to it, that drifted through the air and faded away as it made contact with Shimmer.
”Hmm. Easier said than done, I will admit,” He said, allowing the portal to close.
"Well, it’s… Elemental, isn’t it? Have you tried your Aka?”Mura, Aka, Ao, Kin… Ken still called the Luxes by what he was taught, and their “true names” as far as he was concerned.
"I would imagine the Kin uses something similar to make a temporary passage for the souls and spirits. It’s the math, I fear, that escapes me. Or, in so much that this shit is math, I mean…”Ken looked a bit deeper at Jack’s book. It certainly wasn’t math. But his train of thought was cut by a deep, throaty intonation.
"Eat it.”"Sensei, I hate to say so but that’s almost always your first answer.” Ken retorted to the spirit of the great Toad Emperor, whose wispy form still stared from among his throne of frogs and toads.
"It is what we are. But, this is the Gama way.”Jack thought about that for a second. Eat it…
”Emperor… In your empire of toads, do you have builders that can construct things of this scale? Kenshiro and I could infuse the material with our Lux, and provide it to them to process,” Jack said.
”And we could instruct them, so they can assist us in constructing this Path.”Tennogama’s unopening eyes seemed to shift in their ethereal sockets for a moment. Small slits split the lids, and a deep inhale seemed to suck all the moisture around them out of the air. It was uncharacteristically warm due to the Great Beast Lord’s presence, but as his chest reached its apex, it was cold around them again.
The exhale was like being shoved into a sauna. The opposite, warm dampness filled the area once more, creating such steam outside his radius that it looked like an industrial machine was running atop Mellon Collie Hill.
"Kenshiro…”Ken tensed slightly.
"Sensei?”"He doesn’t know?”"Jack has been away longer than I have.”Ken’s face was a little sad.
"Lord Tennogama has… Issues. Well, really, we both do. See, I told you about what happened to my Clan. My people, my… Wife…”He cleared his throat.
"But I left out the part about the curse. The Lord of Fiends knew I would attempt to claim Tennogama. And for touching the sacred blade, I was cursed. Now, using Kin is dangerous for me past a certain level. And using a great deal of it here puts Lord Tennogama at risk.”A look of concern spread over Jack’s face.
”…I had no idea.”A throaty croak came from Tennogama, and a slight shifting in his throne.
"You ask of us, Jack Hawthorne, to risk invasion. To put our lives at risk, and the six thousand year bond.”Speaking in the tongues of the Shimmer was strenuous, incredibly. It was the presence of thought to project his thoughts into a completely different mindstate before being able to speak that put the most tension on the system.
"But I cannot deny that, in my own hubris, I wish to see the work of my Builders be done in this world, and the Spaces Between. And your Nin is the correct shade.”Ken’s eyebrows raised high, and he shot a look back at the great Toad.
"N-nani?”Tennogama cleared his massive throat and smacked its lips… And then, for once, it laughed. It wasn’t loud or long, but Ken felt it rattle through his chest.
"I shall grant you my strength, Kenshiro. And should we need to fight over this decision, we will do so together. A King must stretch his legs.”Ken’s eyes were ablaze with excitement and anticipation. The influx of Purple Lux from his body was palpable.
"A-alright! What do we need!?”"What we all desire: A contract.””I will not ask you to risk your well-being without meeting you halfway,” Jack said.
”If this Lord of Fiends intercepts us while we make progress, then they will have to go through me if they wish to harm you, or your Builders.”Ken and Tennogama nodded in unison.
"I knew you would, Jack.”There was an old, half rotted table. With the tanto in his hand, he began to carve the ancient kanji into the wood. At first it was just a few symbols, but like all scroll work, each board became more thickly filled with text.
"A lot of this is just clerical work. Wording things the right way so they don’t feel as though they’re being cheated or slighted. There are benefits they get from doing work like this on the other side, so it all needs to be detailed clearly.”"For jobs like this, it isn’t money. It’s usually miracles. Wishes granted. Favor. Specifically, another period of long term placement in a particularly wealthy Temple.With a final flourish, Ken pulled the dagger away and lifted the wood table up to place it against a wall. Like a door. Sheathing the knife, Ken’s head nodded toward it.
"I haven’t had the chance to do this.”"And so, I am with you both. Kenshiro, please-”Kenshiro sheathed the Tanto, and at once the image of Tennogama was gone.
"Alright, so y’know how when we summon the Moonfoot? How you make the shadow happen and they, like, grow out of the surface like mushrooms?” he asked.
"This isn’t gonna be that. First, it’s gonna be all Murasaki… Purple… Because we need to send the contract. It’s kind of the easy part? Just focus on my signal, and push as much purple into it as you can.””Of course.” Black smoke curled off of Jack’s palms, filled with the power of his magic as he awaited the signal.
Ken stood in front of Jack, adjusting the man’s posture to match his before nodding to confirm. He lifted his arm, his Lux curling around the Contract and slowly lifting it into the air. It would give Jack a clear target to focus his own energy on.
Jack pointed both hands in the direction of the Contract, and funneled the black energy forward as indicated by his friend’s work. He let it flow like water from a fire hose, content to give as much as was needed.
As the energy flowed, the feed between Ken and Jack became like a unified stream. That stream became a river, and boiled over into a torrent of purple.
All at once, the contract disappeared from view. Just pure gone. Like it’d never even been.
Ken released the control, and the whole thing washed out into nothing, save for a tiny pinprick in reality. He took a deep breath.
"Alright. Easy part over. Tennogama has transplaced the tablet. Now, uh… I’d muster up. Because chances are we’re only gonna have a couple of minutes after the summon before there’s something big and gross to deal with.”Ken personally stepped away for a moment as he held tight to the Tanto containing Tennogama. Gold Lux slowly began to surge at his hands, filling the blade. There was the faint sound of drums.
Purple began to crawl through the pure gold, filling the grip and the sheath, and altogether there was a burst. Louder drums, the sound of a Kabuki singer. Ken’s clothing rippled and his hood flew up as his energy commingled with the essence of Tennogama.
Turning back to face his friend, it was clear that Ken had done more than combine their energy; his eyes were big, wide opened toad eyes of a deep gold with purple lights flashing within. His face had grown wider, body slightly thicker. He smiled, and released a deep croak from inside his body.
”What do you think? The Emperor’s Tanto… Another kind of harmony.” his voice was different as well, deeper and more rumbling like Tennogama’s was.
”Impressive,” Jack grinned, raising a hand to manifest his scythe from the dark.
”Let the Fiends come, and the three of us will cut them down.”The shadows curled into thin wisps of smoke at the edges of their vision, red Lux permeating the air along with purple and gold. This dim temple was the perfect place for him to stage a fight like this. And he was
ready.Motioning for Jack to meet him in the center, he squared up into a sheath-slash stance. In his hand, he held the Emperor’s Tanto at the ready.
”Alright. Match my pose, then feed your energy into the Tanto. Focus on the anticipation of our… New free digs.” he grinned widely.
Jack did as he was told, walking up to Ken and holding out a hand just before the Tanto. His Lux fumed out and into the blade, as he put his mind to the task. Their work was beginning, he could feel it in the air, and channeled that to light the fuse.
”So it shall be.”As Jack channeled himself into the blade, Ken’s headband tied to his arm beneath his sleeve seared red hot on his flesh. There was a searing noise, and the scent of meat cooking, the Gold Lux bubbling out from his being passing through the Curse of Natural Order. It sent ripples through existence and the fabric of it, and every place between where the beasts and creatures of Dark Order lurked.
An ancient evil stirred.
With so much energy traveling into the blade, Ken’s form and figure swelled up until he could barely maintain his posture. The sheer effort had him grunting in pain as the curse damaged his body and stole his own personal vitality.
But it was to be given and filtered back through Tennogama, his primal form converting Lux back into his own Amphibious magic. Energy pulsed from the duo, threatening to bring the ancient walls down from their stone foundations, and for every moment they pushed themselves further, the drums of the summoning became louder in their ears.
[color=7b81b3][b]”Al-r-ight… Draw with me! One swift motion. Ah?!”[/color] he grunted at the end as if asking Jack’s assurance.
But he didn’t wait for an answer. Four hands all pulled in unison against the tanto’s grip. Only, a tanto isn’t what was pulled out. Much like Ken’s own preferred blade, the Emperor’s Tanto continued to unsheath itself long after it should’ve been over.
The blade had to be six feet long, and as its tip split the air, so too did it split the reality before them.
Shredding paper wasn’t the apt noise. It was like an explosion ripping through a tank, the noise and force that occurred from the moment of the spell’s casting causing every bit of dust remaining to leap into the air.
They were both still holding onto the sword, but Ken’s clammy hands patted Jack’s, his breath heavy and slightly ragged from the strain and effort. Then he pulled away.
Before them was a portal. At twelve feet wide and eight high, the box was a perfect window between their world and the world of the Toad Emperor. Ken couldn’t help but stare longingly at its grandeur, Tennogama’s memories mixing with his for the moment.
Standing there, on the other side, were figures who looked to be in a great rush. A wooden bridge rolled out from Gama, slapping onto the wooden floor in Shimmer. Two small frogs with wooden mallets leapt through after it, hitting the floor of the temple and staking the ends of the bridge directly through the wood. In unison, their bodies swung forward, the weight of their mallets swinging them into the air to perch upon.
From within, various sized and shaped amphibians from the Realm of Gama began to shuffle through. They had a bevy of construction tools and materials, different supplies necessary for whatever they may need. Among them, dressed in a beautiful satin blue kimono and sat upon a palanquin carried by four Pacman Frogs, a little Salamander priestess sat. Not the typical priestess, this one’s wig was massive, and rather than the usual face paint and gentle styling, she smoked a pipe and had sunglasses on.
As she made it out into the room, the frogs brought her directly to Ken and Jack. Her little frame stood up and bowed to them both.
”Ma Kiki, my Lord. At your service. Your contract was explicit about your requirements: My men are used to dangerous conditions. You protect, and we work.”Jack returned the bow, unsure if it was expected or not for one to be formal towards the Salamanders as one would Gama royalty.
”We will provide protection and an ample supply of material as your workers deem necessary,” He said, holding his scythe upright against the floor.
”The danger is soon upon us, and we stand ready to uphold our end of the Contract.””Indeed… I can feel it. Kiki, please, secure the temple here as best you can for your men, and we’ll lead the beast as far away as our summoning will allow us.””Ma Kiki is no wallflower! You will remain where I can assist you, and not ask questions!” the feisty Salamander barked, a jet of flame shooting from her mouth.
”This is for the honor of our God Emperor, and the Gama Pact! We’ll do what needs to be done and nothing less!”Ken put his hands up as if he were being admonished by his mother.
”Well, you heard her, Jack.”He nodded, nothing more needed to be said about that.
As the boisterous Salamander Priestess began to bark out orders to her followers in their native tongue, there was a streak that flashed in the sky.
”A cool thing? Since there’s a Greater Fiend on the horizon, the curse can’t actually pull any more Kin from me. So, with Tennogama giving me help, I can use it freely like I use-”The streak in the sky seemed to be getting closer and closer, hurtling toward them like a smart missile locked onto a target. The eerie shades of blue and purple and pink it made gave Ken a good idea about what exactly was coming. The Fiends seemed to be somewhat disparate groups, each discipline taking on something of a different appearance.
He judged it by its own entrance into this world, from whence it came and what it did when it first arrived.
”A Phoenix!?”All at once, the streak of light broke apart into a million different pieces, and they were all hurtling down toward the earth. Toward them.
”That is your Curse?” Jack asked, raising his weapon aloft and pulling the shadows inwards. A phoenix implied light, and he could play tricks on a creature of light.
”If they have an army, what do you suggest we counter them with? Moonfoots? Path warfare?” He looked into the sky and memorized the dispersal pattern of the falling debris, knowing they’d likely be surrounded.
Classically, he had to regain form. Ken let the massive blade slip back into the tiny sheath bit by bit.
”I’ll be honest with you, Brother; Usually if I find one of these? I run.”His legs split wide open, his torso getting as low to the ground as he could get without breaking his sheathed stance. With a swift twist, the entire blade flicked out from its sheath. The boards beneath Ken’s feet shattered from the weight.
The roof of the temple, or what was left of it, blew off the frame with a loud clamor as the shockwave erupted from the tip of the blade. The many lights continued to scream down toward them, but a pattern among the light wavered and pulled off out of the storm.
His golden eyes, enhanced with the sense of Tennogama, tracked the massive bird through the illusory flames.
”Ah! It’s a screen! Jack, they’re not real, the-”A massive beak ripped through space and time, leaving a gash in reality as it tried to peck at them with its massive tooth-filled beak.
Jack lunged for Kenshiro, enveloping both of them in a swirling cloak of darkness, and quickly Gloomy Stepped them both out of the temple, roughly a hundred feet from the stone altar outside.
It got them away from the phoenix, but it left the toads defenseless.
”If we keep its attention long enough, then what?! Will it tire of chasing you?!”As he asked this, he picked up a rock with his shadowy hand, and hurled it with blinding speed in the direction of the Phoenix to alert it to their presence. It was like a baseball being thrown by an Olympic athlete, uncharacteristically strong for someone like Jack.
”No chance, my Brother! It dies, or we cross into another realm and hope to trap it in the confusion! And today? I’d like to say we slayed it like warriors!”The Phoenix’s trajectory spun immediately. It looked like it was flying, like it was trying to fly from an unfathomable distance toward them. But, if it was, it was so far away and moving so slowly that it certainly wasn’t making any quick progress.
Ken stared up, watching the rock hurdle toward it only for it to pass through some kind of shimmering barrier and disappear.
”The beast obfuscates its position! It wishes for us to be confused and caught off guard!”He pointed up to the sky.
”I think… We need to take the fight-”The creature’s proclivity for the creation of snapping portals gave it a great deal of effectiveness when fighting at a range. It could stay as far away, or as close as it could get, and rattle off spells and physical attacks from impossible angles. Ken barely managed to block the talon strike that forced itself through reality, the massive sword radiating an incredible noise as it smashed against the sharpened claw.
”Grab it!”Jack leapt forward, grabbing onto the beast’s claw with his magic hand. His fingers sunk deep into it, changing shape such that if the Phoenix wanted to shake him off, it would need to rip its claw out.
”I have it!” He shouted, swinging the scythe overhead and down into the closest thing to a leg that he could.
The beast screamed on the other side of the portal, promptly closing it and letting the limb be severed in return. It withered away almost instantly, crumbling to ash that floated into the air around them.
”Damn damn! Damn it all! Fuck this bird!”There was a strong burst of Purple Lux that engulfed Jack. Ken’s voice wobbled through the TK field.
”Baseball, take two! Be careful, and steer with your hands!As Ken pressed himself in a low squat, the bubble holding Jack began to rotate faster and faster, orbiting around Ken until he became a blur in the center of an otherwise gyro-stabilized orb of high pressure energy.
”What in the-“Then, all at once, Jack was launched at an incredible speed high into the air. As he was, Ken took off behind him like a rocket blast. He surged ahead of Jack’s sphere, gripping it with his magic and using the even more extreme force to slingshot him into the sky at a greater speed. The two of them broke the sound barrier within moments, yet the bird seemed no closer to them.
The illusion of a never ending hallway stretched out before the two high speed magic missiles. Reality collapsed around them on all sides, the endless void of space peeling away to stretch reality far into the sky. It was like being in between the fold of a wormhole.
He wasn’t accustomed to flying, but this was
incredible. Jack felt like he was being flung through a thousand different doors, chasing behind the creature alongside Ken. But the Phoenix was faster than them.
Damn.Jack studied the illusion they were passing through. If this was a real hallway, they may have been in another dimension right now. But if this was just fake, they were probably flying through the air and away from the Hill. They needed a way to get out ahead of this. If they were just in an illusion, Jack couldn’t teleport. But if he let Kenshiro take the wheel…
”Take over!” He shouted.
”I have a solution!” Jack began to draw a Void portal out in front of himself and Kenshiro, focusing on where to put the entrance more than the exit.
Kenshiro pulled out in front of Jack just as the Cursefire was starting to rain down. Not just down, however, but from their sides as well, as the molten balls of blue flames rocketed at them at high speeds. He used strong bursts of TK to push them both out of the way of incoming projectiles, occasionally having to dodge one that was coming from behind them as it circled back along its path.
A dozen of them collapsed in tandem, forcing Ken to break momentum slightly. With the empowered Emperor’s Tanto, he spun around Jack like a whirlwind to split the spheres as they surged toward them. A small flame clipped Ken’s shoulder, instantly boring a hole through the layers of cloth, skin, flesh and bone until it burst from the other side like a bullet. He grunted at the pain, but by the will of Tennogama, he pushed through the pain to align Jack for the perfect spot.
Jack’s focus was unshaken by the chaos happening around him, and he reached through the All-Verse to cut open a path. A black portal opened in front of them both, swallowing them whole and whisking them away into an endless ocean of dark nothingness. They had crossed over into the Void.
And just as soon as the two of them left the All-Verse, they were shunted back into it through another portal, the Void itself nothing more than a frame in a scene. Only this time, they were traveling in the opposite direction, in front of the phoenix and
towards it.
”NOW!”
The giant bird’s freakish face registered shock and horror as the two of them collided with it like two cannonballs hitting a wall of sand. It’s unnatural physiology and incredible durability caused it to ragdoll about its personal space in the same way a pinball gets caught in a bouncing hazard.
Ken couldn’t fully control it, but still he reared back as all the momentum bled off into the impact.
”I need speed portals! Underneath me!”Ken threw a few hand signs across his chest, and as he lashed forward there was a great golden frog’s tongue that snapped from his mouth. It grabbed the oversized chicken around it’s neck, crushing it tight. As it tried to teleport away, a backlash of Purple Lux kept it from going anywhere.
The tongue dragged him back to the bird at breakneck speed, and he did his best to hold it for what could only be described as the greatest piledriver of all time.
Jack ripped open another set of portals, under both of them for a quick escape.
”Move, now!”Ken held tight to the bird’s neck. There was a great, howling screech that echoed from the Fiend as the portal collapsed.
Ma Kiki could feel the Gama Pact in her veins as she waited for the Emperor and his companion to return. So long as her heart still beat, and her connection to the other side was strong, she was sure that her God was still out there somewhere in that dense woodland. Last she saw, they were in the sky, and she was cursing with all her fury as they left her out of the fight.
She wasn’t frail. She wasn’t a wallflower. She was the great and powerful Ma Kiki, and she expected to be treated as such.
“Ma? The entryway is complete!”
”So? Did you stop?”“N-no Ma!”
”Then keep bloody building! I don’t think the contract has ended yet, do you?”There was a loud popping noise as the signal to the Pactholder grew stronger. Ken’s audio signature as he flung himself and his companion through the sky. Though their trophy had mostly burned away, the young warrior clung to a single shimmering feather that managed to linger on after the Phoenix’s demise.
He settled himself and Jack in a joint bubble, having given them both time to talk about the beast and what they’d do next. Now they were touching down outside the ancient structure, and both came to a gentle landing. Ken had returned to normal, and other than looking exhausted he showed no signs of lingering damage. The hole in his shoulder had already been cauterized by the flame that caused it.
Ma Kiki ran out the front door, her short stature making her anything but threatening despite the fire spitting from her lips in a very literal sense.
”You boys! You heard what I said before, right!? Stick with me and you’ll be safe! But nooooooooo, y’all had to get fancy immediately! Damn you both? What if something were to happen to you, Pactkeeper!? Or worse, our Lord!?”She gripped Ken’s pant leg.
”Get down here, young man, and let me fix your damn shoulder… That’s a Cursefire burn!”"Well, we did it regardless… So, you guys are free to keep working as long as we have you.”The steely salamander priestess eyed Ken with big, dark eyes. Then those same eyes turned over to Jack.
”Was it… Fun?” she asked quietly, her tongue smacking against her lips in anticipation.
”That depends on if your definition of “fun” includes banishing yourself in and out of reality just to keep pace with spatial tunnels.”Jack wasn’t any less worse for wear than Ken, but his eyes were a pair of murky, dark orbs rather than their usual appearance. He was mostly blind, having used his red Lux extensively to wound the beast.
”It certainly was not dull.”The little salamander woman spouted off in ancient Japanese for a solid forty-five seconds as her hands worked the meat of Ken’s arm like puddy. Every little bit of flesh filled back in with a great, agonizing pain to accompany it.
”Baaah, I am jealous! So jealous… Kenshiro-saaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!”Her little hands started smacking his shoulder, and he laughed.
"Enough, enough… What work’s been done?”Kiki finally pulled away, a slight dejection on her face. She took them back up the steps and back toward the board. The same table top that had been their contract had been carved into a door with black metal enforcements.
”You’re both attuned to the door, since both of you contributed your Nin. It’s not static to this location; you want to move the door, simply grab it by both sides with your energy, and you will be able to move it. Is that understood?Out of curiosity, Jack reached forward and channeled his purple Lux, and sure enough, a heavy metal door snapped into existence before them.
”…Excellent.” He grinned, feeling pleased with this work.
”Now, to open it, you'll provide a personalized passcode. It's complex, it's individualized, it's a passcode that cannot be taken from your brain because even you won't actually know what it is. Simply put, the door has a whitelist and a blacklist, and we're responsible for it! The weight of Me-Gama City could collapse around our temple, but your citadel's security is insured!Ken nodded for a long set of seconds before his face turned between Jack and Kiki with some confusion.
"So… Are you actually gonna tell us how t-””It's. A. Fucking. Door. You push? It opens. Someone else pushes, it's not there. Simple enough!?”Ken grimaced.
"Why talk about pa-”A little pink portal opened up, and Kiki shoved her little fist through it to clock Ken in the jaw.
”Do you want to know how it works or *not*!? Hey, Gloomy…-” she yapped upward at Jack.
”-Do the honors, would'ja? So Dickhead over here quits interruptin’ me!”Jack nodded, not fully able to see where Ma Kiki even was, and swung the magical door open.
He then stepped inside to take in the scene around him. It was difficult to appreciate everything, his eyesight being what it is for the moment. Everything looked like a late evening to him, but he saw he was standing atop a cliff, before the entrance to a building constructed like an old
Japanese estate. He stood on the steps, and to his right was a wall of banded rock draped in lush ivy. And brush from overhanging trees. Down the steps, he saw the pathway away from this building, but it was difficult to make out what was at the end.
Warm air, fit for amphibians of the Toad Empire to frolic and thrive.
He looked into the blue sky above, and saw
everything. The All-Verse was above him, splayed out before their space like an aurora, universes blurring together on a canvas of watercolor. He could not see Shimmer, but Jack knew it was somewhere up there, beyond this gap between the breadth of creation.
It was beautiful, even to his hindered sight.
”This- This is incredible. Pocket realms of this size take months of tireless time and energy to create. But your men have done it in a day. The Toad Emperor chooses his Priesthood well.”Ma Kiki stepped forward, her blue kimono a flash of color among the green and gray. Ken made his way in front of them, walking completely upside down on essentially nothingness.
”This is crazy. Look, Jack, I can no-clip.”As he said that, his feet moved forward and “up” as if he were ascending an upside-down set of stairs pointed toward Hell.
One, two, three steps of ascension and Ken's head went through the stone of the ground. As he reversed his motion, his head re-emerged from the floor, and he had a wide smile.
"So cooooooool!” Ma Kiki scoffed at the shenanigans, shaking her head while trying to focus on Jack.
”Few among you have mastered the art of Inceptual Growth. Is it so hard to imagine that the space here isn't so big? You're deceived by the scale.” she attempted to weakly explain.
”Ah, I see,” He realized.
”This space is built as a tesseract, and we are only perceiving the center?”Ma Kiki simply nodded, stepping forward and onward toward the Estate.
”Mostly. But, the structure repeats. So, it's got plenty of room for expansion without putting extra strain on the Algebraic Warding.Jack nodded.
”Expansion will be easy, we only need to saturate the cosmoplasm and parallel it to the foundation.” He was saying that just to fuck with Ken, it meant absolutely nothing.
The enigmatic salamander woman crooned slightly, the long thin cigarette holder fixed between her lips dipping down.
”Indeed… And because of our work along the Stellar Marbling, you’ll not be finding any cosmoplasm leakage or shoddy craftsmanship.”Either Jack had unwittingly intuited celestial pocket dimension theory, or
she was in on it. The inflection that carried her comment along was so flat and cold that there was no question in Ken’s mind that it was the same phenomena he’d experienced when pulling the wood away from the portal previously.
"Oh! Like the stuff that Sage Kai tried to cover up with his carpentry!”Ma Kiki’s fist slammed down against an invisible force, smashing it like one would smash their hand off of a desk. Simultaneously, a burst of energy crackled around Ken’s head, clobbering him.
"Heyyyy! What did I say!?” he groaned, rubbing his head in pain.
”Feeble of mind… The Gods blessed you with a hearty constitution for no reason beyond your brain being made half of mush!”There was a pause, and a small chuckle left her mouth along with a puff of smoke. Kiki’s weathered face turned up toward Jack, and a genuine smile formed.
”You’re a funny one… Maybe one day you’ll come to Gama, and we’ll teach you the ways.””Perhaps,” Jack acknowledged.
”But we have business that demands our attention. We cannot be away for long, not until the murder of our coven is behind us.”Ma Kiki waved him off. At the same time, a portal opened from her hand to the top of Jack’s head. She patted him gently for a moment.
”That… Was the point of one day, my blunted friend. Oh, you young ones…”As she pulled away, the doors to the structure opened wide. The crew -covered in sweat and slicked in the essence of creation as it splattered across their uniforms to make universes for the brief time between work and wash- carried their tools from the platform down to meet the two tenants. Hitting the bottom step, they bowed in unison before their Boss and their Clients.
Ken raised his hand in salute to them, bowing low as well. Ma Kiki cleared her throat.
”Shall we? It’s… finished but, requiring your will and input. A space made from your ego.””Of course.” He turned and followed her.
Leading the two of them up the stairs, sconces of purple fire lit themselves as the latent energy produced by the two Adepts filled their miniscule fueling requirements.
”You’ll be happy to hear that the entire compound is lit by Shadowflame; A light in which you are safe to use your unique skills, Jack. And entirely powered by your presence. Per the contract, it is such that only Mura Nin-” she paused, grumbling something to herself.
”Purple Lux is the only way one may access this realm in the first place. In order to interact, one must either be of such, or must come as a guest. And those guests who are not of the Purple may not linger here without the presence of one such as yourselves. That is per your agreement as Tenants under the forbidden articles of the Gama Pact. This is your stronghold, but our property. Do you both understand that?”Ken, having felt Kiki’s serious energy return, was focused on her like a hawk once again.
"Yes, Ma Kiki.” he replied.
Jack nodded.
”I do. We will both follow these conditions to the letter. Though, I doubt anyone who is not a purple Adept will find their way here regardless…” As he said this, he thought back to that time the Temple’s Adepts ambushed him in the
Void. ”If we are lucky.”Jack looked from left to right, pondering the curious torches of purple flame. He held up his hands and formed a mass of darkness in it, and sure enough, there was no difficulty in doing so. And with his eyesight slowly clearing up, he didn’t have any trouble at all. He didn’t expect that to be included in the construction, but he wasn’t at all going to complain.
”Good, good. Now, of the interior.”She led them over the threshold of the door and into the hard wooden floor of the main common area. There was a large fire pit inside, and a chimney led up and out to the sky. As they approached, it lit with the same fire as the sconces and warmed the room evenly across the span of a few moments before holding steady. She pointed her hand around aimlessly.
”Now, this and all the space on the first floor are static. It needed a base structure, so this is the footprint. You have four side chambers, use them how you like. As you get more adept at manipulating your spaces, you’ll be able to do just about anything to them except change their dimensions to be larger than that space.”But her little legs didn’t stop moving, rather continuing their ascent of a set of stairs at the opposite side of the common area from the entry.
”Up these stairs, you come into the last big bit of solid structure. It’s the Outer Ring. Think of it like a hitchin’ post; you secure your own space onto it, since it doesn’t actually exist structurally you need to have it connected.”She led them to one of the dozens of tatami sliding doors that lined the walls of the “Outer Ring”. With one swift motion, she slid it open to a swirling, hellish pit of purple energy going absolutely chaotic on the other side.
Seeing it, she simply grinned.
”Each room has a finite amount of material. You’ll find clever ways of saving it. For now, how about you try reaching in there, Jack? Show us that big brain, and your design skills. Whatever comes to mind, you simply put that thought into your energy, and let the room have what you’re thinkin’.””By all means.” Without missing so much as a beat, Jack walked up to the purple inferno, rolled up his sleeves and stuck his hands through it. He thought of something practical, the kind of thing he appreciated having in a place where he intended to spend significant time. The purple flames spiraled into the shape of a tornado, Jack twisted his hands like he was turning the wheel of a ship, and held that position for a moment.
”We will likely be here for days at a time, in the future. So…”Jack brought his hands together, and then spread them apart. The purple fire exploded outwards, rippling through the door and behind them to leave behind the room he had just created: A fully decorated
study room, built like a small library and furnished with chairs and tables for people to rest. The shelves appeared to have books, but upon further examination, Ken and Ma Kiki would find that they were simply flickering illusions, a byproduct of the image Jack had in mind.
”There will be plenty of time to fill the shelves with books and other resources. But for now, I think that will do.”Ma Kiki and Ken both trailed behind him into the regal and pristine repository of illusory knowledge. Hearing him say several days, Kiki piped up.
”I would certainly be careful about that… Time in here is strangely distorted, and while you may enter and remain at the same speed, it will slowly begin to stretch your seconds out into real world minutes. Before you know, you may be lost to time. Ken? Do you understand yet?”He was starting to understand, yes. The places he’d lived in all his life. They were caught out of time, and traveling was always done through the paths created by Sage Kai. He was already well accustomed to the temporal shifting of traveling between realms, as his entire life had overall spanned less time than his Sycamore Tree counterparts.
But it went further than that.
"Your branch of the Priesthood built the Villages…”She grinned up at him. His face was lost in thought.
”Ah, so… Not entirely empty up there.”Ken rushed out of the room and down the hall, ripping one of the doors near the end open before he practically stuffed himself through the purple hellscape. It flashed a series of bright colors from the entrance until it finally ceased.
There was a gasp, followed by a loud cheer.
"YATTA!Making way to see his creation, passing into view would reveal a peculiarly modern-furnished
minka estate, with a lush and warm air blowing through. Ken was outside, technically, and staring back up at the building and into the room which the entrance had fit into. He had both of his hands dragging through his hair, and he was on his knees.
Ma Kiki took a deep breath, recognizing the construction of the building that Ken had made. With the man himself having blasted his own brain with some more mental damage, she looked up at Jack to explain.
”This was, I believe, his home. In his village. Albeit, furnished like he robbed an Ikea…” she chuckled.
Jack walked in, observing the space.
”It seems comfortable. This suits you, Kenshiro. It reminds me of that time when I fell through a tree on my way to visit you, years ago.”If Ken heard what Jack was saying, he didn't respond. He seemed to be lost in his own little world, tears falling from his face. Jack would know Ken's propensity for wearing his heart on his sleeve well, but it was never this bad.
”We are not done yet, young man. Come back here and leave your sorrow to your personal time.”After a few minutes of them passively checking around the room, Ma Kiki's voice cut across the room and out into the fake yard.
Sad as he was, reminiscent as he was, he knew she was right. Time was still limited.
So he stood, and did his best to make it look like he wanted to leave, and to see whatever else the crew cooked up.
"I apologize… Thank you for your compliments, Jack. I was… Always fond of my family home.”He wrapped an arm around Jack, hugging into him by the shoulders despite knowing that he wasn't going to get anything back.
It was a brotherly embrace. He was just looking for a grounding connection.
But Ma Kiki led them back down the stairs to the main common room, and back to the large purple fire pit in the center.
”Ken, please channel the Gama Pact into this fireplace.” Kiki directed, even throwing in a bit of politeness for the quietly depressed Pact Keeper.
He was leery of the curse, but channeling his gold lux into the fire pit made its mechanisms clear. It only needed the connection, the mere suggestion that he was the Pact Keeper was enough to cause its shifting and morphing.
It lifted up from the floor, separating into several segments that still burned bright with Shadowflames.
What was in its place was a hewn stone staircase.
”This is the sole reason we of the Celestials are so keen on this structure existing, and why we're happy to front the costs.”Walking down the stairs, one could hear the moisture building up as shoes began to splash more and more. It was unbelievably hot and muggy, and before long the ribbits of lesser frogs could be heard.
The entryway was arched with a red wood Torii that had frogs carved into it and frogs hanging out on top of it. Ahead were dozens of hot spring pools separated by stretches of moss-carpeted stone. The surface was a slice of swiss cheese, the pools placed naturally with little concern for symmetry, but everything led to the rear of the massive cave.
Toward the back, a Shrine was carved directly into the solid stone wall, and Ma Kiki continued toward it despite her primal inclination to abandon her kimono and descend into the pools herself.
The shrine was identical to the one that existed in Kenshiro's childhood village, apparently ripped directly from there considering the thousands of names still carved into the outer walls. He found his class, and his fingers gently rubbed across his wife's name.
But he knew what this was for. The Emperor's Tanto slipped from his belt, and he laid the weapon upon the stand within. Tennogama's ethereal form wasted no time releasing itself into the magically saturated grotto lair, taking a few steps to emerge from the wall.
He went right for the biggest pool, diving in and taking a deep breath as his head resurfaced. As if on queue, the shades of a thousand amphibians began to fill the other pools.
”Souls of Gama will gather here in reverence of Tennogama. And he will remain here, where the prayers of our people can reach him.”The massive toad spirit was already seemingly holding court with the froggy phantoms, his deep rumbling croaks causing the pools to vibrate in turn.
”A place for him to rest…” Jack had been following behind, quiet as a mouse in a library. There were things in Kenshiro’s past he did not know, and that was obvious from the structures around him. They were a product of Ken’s energy, the reflection of his soul made solid by this place. This grotto was a reminder of all that he had experienced, and Jack was just the passenger in this moment.
It was beautiful. Every square inch of this realm was.
”Does this mean that Tennogama will regain his lost strength more easily here?” He asked.
Ken turned, a frown still crossing his face. He shook his head. Even Ma Kiki turned her head in vague remorse.
”Ah… No. Tennogama is… Well, not in a position where he's able to heal and restore himself anymore. He has vast energies still remaining, but…”He tried to think of a tactful way of putting it.
"The Lord's physical form can no longer house his spirit. Long ago, it passed on. His chamber is private, and only the Celestials enter to tend to his mummified remains. But, it is a tomb.” he finally said.
”Then… He cannot be helped?””What is there to help? Look at him…”The massive toad was surrounded by his lesser subjects, small frogs and toads adorning his head and shoulders as their souls commingled with that of their Heavenly Emperor. It was more than he'd had the chance for in many years, and for what it was worth, he looked thrilled.
Not even Ken could deny it.
”I will miss his closeness, and he will miss adventuring. But, he can still rest, and maybe that is healing enough. He can feel safe here.”Ma Kiki turned to face them both.
”Do as you both see fit. When a new person comes along to add to your little group, your consent will register them. They'll be able to manipulate the rooms on the second floor, and do just as you both do. But only Ken's connection as Pact Keeper will open this place up. It's secure as can be, and I would encourage keeping valuables under Tennogama's watchful eye.”She could no longer deny her nature. She began to divest herself of her robes, but paused.
She cleared her throat.
”Prithee, any further questions before I relish in my own hard work?” she questioned.
Jack looked off into Tennogama’s direction. He did look happy. And for some, that was enough.
”None,” He said, at last.
”Your work is appreciated. Thank you.”Ma Kiki nodded in acceptance.
”Repairs will be made as necessary. If you need to find me directly, you can find me with Him.”As she pulled the Kimono fully from her tiny frame, she gave up any pretense of a physical form. She burst apart in a confetti of universal material, her radiant spirit resembling a giant axolotl whose gills were red hot.
As the ethereal giant slithered into the pool with Tennogama, the entire thing began to bubble madly, then settled down to a rolling boil. Ken nodded.
”Oh… They really hide a lot of soul in those little bodies.”He took a deep breath and bobbed his head back toward the entrance.
”Come on, Jack. We'll get some pizza or something…” He nodded.
”We accomplished something wonderful today, Kenshiro.” After Ma Kiki had left, Jack swung an arm over Ken’s shoulder.
”Where would the Sycamore be without us?”
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