Wrapping my glamour around me so that humans would see but a small porpoise, I allowed myself a little playtime. Breaching into the black sky only to dive back down into my sea, I reveled in the freedom and security I felt in the water.
Except for when I swam with Trill, this was my turf, my territory… Besides the kelpie, I was the only supernatural swimmer in the waters surrounding Rockabill.
Which was why, when I felt the skittering of a foreign power on the very edges of my perception, my shields were up and ready. That said, because of the Sea Code I didn’t expect to have to need them. So the blast of magic and water that came at me was deflected easily, although I couldn’t have been more startled.
What the hell? I wondered, even as another blast—stronger this time—buffeted my shields.
I’d stopped dead in the water, floating about two feet from the surface. Peering around the darkness, I scanned for my attacker while trying to figure out what to do.
The fact was, I’d never really fought besides in practice, and I certainly hadn’t fought in water. We’d always assumed I was safe in the water, as I was accepted as a water-being despite being, more accurately, amphibious. Therefore, the one genuinely offensive thing I knew how to do—besides belch the alphabet—was throw mage balls, but they worked only on dry land… Don’t they? I wondered, as I realized I had a few Boeing jet–sized holes in my training…
So I did what Jane does best. I fled.
The ocean helped me along, speeding me through her waters as if she wanted me to escape. But I could feel my attacker behind me, using that same power to propel himself as I remembered Anyan’s words about my mother’s kidnapping…
“Sea Code,” my foot, I thought as an ominous blast of dark water shot past my ear.
Apparently there does exist the water version of mage balls. Too bad I don’t freaking know how to make one…
Really panicked now, I opened myself even further to the ocean and put on the speed. I also began a weaving maneuver as I felt at least two blasts of energy hit against the shields protecting my feet. Those blasts were strong, and I needed to put as much energy I could into escape.
I was swimming as fast as I could, but I knew the creature behind me was gaining. I could feel the presence of powerful magics more than anything else. We were close to Rockabill now, but not that close…
Where the fuck is Trill? I thought, suddenly remembering Anyan had said he would contact her just as one of those dark water balls clipped the tail end of my shield.
It didn’t blast through. But it was strong enough, and I was going fast enough, that it sent me into the aqueous version of a tailspin.
I stopped only when I slammed against the seafloor. The wind was knocked out of me, and in my panicked state I nearly took in a deep breath, a real breath, that would have drowned me.
Get it fucking together, girl! I screamed at myself, even as I skittered away as one of those black balls of magic came piercing through the water toward me.
I forced my heart to slow as I raised my shields. Then I tried to calm my racing brain and focus.
You know how to make mage balls. It can’t be too different to make the water version… Think, Jane.
As if to give me an example, two powerful magical strikes hit my shields inches from my face. My attacker was obviously close. Had I been above water, I would have screamed for him to show himself. Limited, however, in my ability to express frustration, I shook my fist good and hard at the surrounding darkness.
The water around me started to heave as a shape began to coalesce just outside the range of my vision. It was small—not as small as Nell but a good foot shorter than me—and vaguely humanoid, although it appeared to be hunchbacked.
As it came closer, and the swirling sand settled back to the ocean floor, I saw it clearly.
Oh, shit, I groaned. It’s a fucking kappa…
I’d heard of kappas from Trill, who’d explained to me that the Japanese legend of the dreaded water sprite was based on the cousin to the kelpie, the kappa. Kappas and kelpies had probably started out the same evolutionarily, but when kelpies veered off to become shape-shifters, the kappas had stayed humanoid with modifications.
Holy shit, Trill was right. It does look just like a goddamned Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.
I’d scoffed when my friend told me that kappas resembled those surfer-dude-voiced reptiles. Or were they amphibians? Whatever, this little guy was very green, with a strange, slightly beaked face, and a definite shell on his back.
If he’s got nunchakus, I am so screwed.
The water around me increased its buffeting, and I beefed up my shields in response. But even though I could feel what the kappa was doing, when I tried to emulate him, I was stumped.
Not least because of how my ocean had decided to play me. Granted, people had been writing the same type of sea shanties ever since that first ancient sailor had learned to shant: the songs about how the ocean was a fickle mistress who would grace you with bounty one minute and take your life the next. But it was hard to take that message to heart, when every night I swam in her and loved her and she loved me back.
So I was more than a little surprised to find my ocean practically ignoring me. Don’t get me wrong, she was still responsive, but not nearly as responsive as she was being for the kappa. For the ocean was answering his call at the moment.
How is he doing that? I wondered, panicked, as he continued to brusquely cut me off each time I reached out to the water.
I pulled hard, sending out my own probing magics to figure out how he was managing to pull my own element away from me.
There it is, I thought, as I could suddenly “see” what he was doing with his power: Where I asked politely, he forced; where I pleaded, he demanded. And the ocean ignored me to fall over herself doing his bidding.
Fickle bitch, I swore as I felt the side of one of my shields bow under the strain of the attacking water. I couldn’t believe I was sitting here, being defeated by my own element like I was some landlubber, especially after the virtual miracle I’d performed when caught in Phaedra’s Alfar trap months ago.
Hmmm… speaking of what happened months ago, I thought, suddenly inspired by remembering Conleth’s own tactics. In a desperate bid to escape, I tried waiting till the kappa was between attacks and then shooting away as Conleth used to using his fire. To be fair, I did a pretty good job. I was rocketing up through the water, until the power of the kappa batted me down to the seabed like he was a badminton player and I was his shuttlecock.
This time when I hit sand, I hit hard. And the kappa’s power was there immediately, taking advantage of my disorientation to press in with his power. If he breached my shields, I was a goner.
That’s when I heard the cavalry approaching, sweet music to my ears.
Tiny hoofbeats, weirdly booming underwater, struck the ground ever more loudly. I knew I just had to hold on a little while longer…
Throwing the last of my power into my shields, I nearly wept when Trill’s little pony shape came hurtling past me. Trumpeting a weird underwater war cry, she made straight for the kappa, sending out pummeling blasts of water like thick, liquid laser beams.
I sat, catching my breath, pulling power from the water around me as the kelpie and the kappa squared off. Baring his teeth at Trill, the turtle-man began a complicated barrage of attacks. In response, Trill weaved through the water like a maned eel, lobbing her own spheres of power.
In that moment I realized two things. The first was that the unassuming My Little Pony whose ass I continually kicked on land was like My Little Ninja Pony underwater. The second thing I realized was that if the kappa had attacked me the way he was attacking Trill, I’d be a goner right now.
He didn’t want to kill me, I realized. He wanted to capture me.
And then it hit me.
We were wrong. Everyone assumed that my mother was captured on land, but I bet she wasn’t… I bet this little motherfucker took my mother.
With an admittedly rather watery roar, I leaped to my feet and swam toward Trill. Joining my shields with her own, I watched until I figured out what she was doing. First of all, I realized where I went wrong with the ocean herself. Having used my element only to recharge, or to play, I was used to doing something akin to sort of vacuuming up the power I needed. In other words, being in the water meant I was surrounded by power that I could just suck up as I needed it. But what the kappa and the kelpie were doing was pulling from their power in a way that made it as much offensive as defensive. They were putting power into their pulling; effectively dueling each other for access to the ocean even as they recharged themselves. I could see how effective a strategy it was, and how cunning. A truly powerful water-elemental could put so much force into their own gathering that the enemy would end up draining themselves trying to recharge, making them extremely vulnerable.
Shit, I have a lot to learn, I thought. My new daily mantra… But now was not the time for contemplating life lessons.
Now is the time for putting a cap in that kappa’s ass, I thought as I put all my own power into forcing the ocean’s strength to flow toward Trill and me. Once the Atlantic was firmly back on our side, and the kappa was starting to look a little panicked, I began lobbing my own modified mage balls at our attacker. The first few fizzled before they hit their target, but soon they were hitting home.