Heretical Fishing

Corporal Claws, fuzziest and most-patient of all Fischer’s animal pals, was getting reeeal sick of this shit.
For over a month, she had hidden away in the clearing that had once been New Tropica. All manner of experiments had been conducted. More days had passed than she had digits on all of her dextrous paws. And yet there was nothing to show for it.
Was she not Fischer’s strongest follower? Could she not have thousands of thoughts in the time it would take a regular being to consider scratching its butt? Why, then, hadn’t she succeeded in reforging the beautiful and frustrating object before her?
“Stupid vulgarite,” growled Claws. “No wonder they called you that. You
vulgar.
stupid.”
“Fulgurite, mistress,” chittered RPM.
“What?”
“It’s called fulgurite.”
The old Claws would have head-butted her familiar for interrupting her while she was busy insulting an inanimate object. The current Claws would too—and did, in fact—but with only a fraction of her power.

“Very gracious, mistress.” RPM wobbled his way back into her pocket. “I thank you for your…
”

Ignoring him, Claws peered up at the many-pointed sculpture she’d been working on, trying to see it from a different perspective. But it looked the same as always: an upside-down lightning storm, three-meters tall and composed of glass, growing thicker at the base. She’d created it following her ascension as an elemental, when she’d slammed her master into the sand and hit him with everything she had. That made her think of Fischer, but she banished him from mind just as swiftly, worried she might accidentally lure him in. She narrowed her eyes at this ‘fulgurite’, doing her best to scowl it into submission.
What was up with this stupid rock? It contained her chi. She’d been the one to make it. The damned thing was even shaped like lightning. So why wouldn’t it obey? She kicked it for good measure, resulting in the same as usual: a tinkling chime that resonated in her core. She swiftly withdrew RPM, who robbed the sound from the air before Fischer could sense it.
Again, she thought of Master. Her eyes flicked to the southeast for the barest moment. He was down there. Close by. She had a desire to zap over and receive a good scritching. She’d been intentionally avoiding him for the entire month, her resolve only breaking when food was involved. Perhaps that was why she, the otherwise unflappable Corporal, felt so abbreviated.
“Agitated, mistre—”
“I said what I said!” screamed Claws, once more head-butting her sniggering familiar down into her soul.
Fischer had been teleporting to and fro all morning, routinely interrupting her concentration. He was extra busy right now, most of his awareness flooding out, focusing on something she couldn’t be bothered to identify. This wasn’t like her. Never before had she felt so… Claws fumbled for the word, then cast a mental glare at the still-amused raccoon attached to her soul.
“Dejected, mistress,” suggested RPM.
“Yes. Never have I ever felt so dejected.”
Despite her uncharacteristically morose mood, the upside-down tree of glass taunted her with its beauty, each branch reflecting the stunning oranges and reds of the rising sun. Her master would love how it shone. Perhaps it was risky thinking about him again, but something had to change, so she considered him long enough to curse him out.
“Hey!” hissed RPM. “What did I do?”
But he knew what he did. The manic mammal descended into a fit of giggles. Claws rolled her eyes and considered her master again, finding comfort in the thought of him. What would he do in this situation? After a month of wasted time, in which no progress had been made? She’d tried everything to break some of the fulgurite off. She had even attempted making more by channeling vast currents of electricity into the sand. It created fulgurite all right, but it was nothing like the giant tree of glass before her, neither in scope nor power. None came close to replicating what she’d accidentally produced by slamming her master with everything she…
Her musings trailed off, jaw falling open as something moronically simple occurred to her. Her master. He had been there. She’d spent the entire month pushing away any thought of Fischer, so the possibility hadn’t crossed her mind. Half hoping it was the answer, half hoping it wasn’t, she pressed one paw to the fulgurite and sent a pulse of essence into it. This time, she let it ring out, picturing her master as it resonated with her core—and there it was. An echo of his chi within the fulgurite, so pure she hadn’t sensed it. Fischer was the missing link.
Claws head-butted the ground once, twice, and a third time for good measure. “Stupid master! Stupid rock! Stupid
” She flopped onto her back and rolled around, screaming the frustration and regret out. An entire month wasted. All those hours spent failing, when she could have been eating oysters, hunting shellfish, or hiding even more piles of sand in Barry’s belongings.
Then, faster than lighting, Claws sprang to her feet, her needlelike teeth crawling with electricity as she let her emotions pass.
“Ready?” she thought at her familiar, sending him the devious thoughts she was having.
“Yes, mistress,” chittered RPM. His grin matched hers as he zapped from her pocket.
Together, they reached for their power. It used to take minutes for her to summon natural lightning down from the skies. No longer.
Roiling clouds formed. Her fur rose as the static built. And Corporal Claws cackled, forearms high, calling down a distraction so large, so brilliant, that Fischer couldn’t ignore it.
***
At the same exact moment I arrived next to Claws, her rat of a familiar latched onto me, his core stealing from the world around us. He yoinked nothing from me, which was a pleasant surprise. But his lack of larceny was overshadowed by an entire sky’s worth of lightning being redirected into me.
Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!
It wasn’t painful so much as it was annoying, like a mild version of a static shock delivered to my abdomen. That didn’t mean I’d let it continue, however. I grabbed the little bastard by the scruff of his neck, drew him back, and prepared to launch him clear over the western mountains—perhaps all the way to Theogonia—but froze when the furry bastard yoinked something from me in that moment of distraction.
RPM laughed no more. His body had gone limp, eyes unseeing, cute lil chompers clenched with effort. He’d taken… I didn’t even know how to describe it. It was more akin to pirating than stealing; the little prick had done the fantasy-world equivalent of torrenting my chi.
Claws snatched it, went to shoot me a grin—let out a choking noise when my copied essence hit her—and swiftly pressed her stolen goods into a sculpture. It was exactly what I’d suspected she was working on, and as I saw it for the first time, I couldn’t help but appreciate its beauty. Like a tree made of glass and lightning, it shone with the colorless brilliance of my chi, which swirled within its forms in wisps. Then Claws flooded lightning into it.
Her blue electricity crackled around my wisps, refusing to touch them at first, then combining with them as our distinct aspects became one one. I shielded my eyes with my arm, as did Maria and Claws, the light so hot it started to melt the nearby sand.
RPM, in a remarkable display of ambition or stupidity—probably both—stared directly at it, his forepaws wide, trying to steal some of whatever was taking place.
He succeeded, too, though I’m sure the outcome wasn’t what he’d expected. The raccoon, a being whose body was made of elements beyond my comprehension, spontaneously combusted, only managing to take a fraction of the heat before succumbing to its energy.
“
” his mind screeched, so loud it traveled from him to Claws, then from Claws into me.
His master released a screech of her own and drew him into her core even as disappointment flowed out of it, joining the smell of burned hair that lingered. The light slowly faded. I lowered my arm and stared at the sculpture.
The fulgurite’s glass and lighting branches were incandescent, yellow and blue and white flares flickering into and out of existence, each making a sound like a soft intake of breath. They shrank in size, reduced in frequency, and then stopped altogether, leaving behind a feeling of dormancy, reminding me of the needful moment before a lover’s touch.
It was a sculpture no longer. Through whatever Claws had done, she’d created the impossible—another artifact.
Maria squeezed my arm. “Is—is this what you felt from the other artifacts? I haven’t sensed them since my last breakthrough…”
“Yeah… Exactly like that, but this one’s a little weaker.” I winced, shooting a look at Claws, expecting her to take offense and deliver me a good zappin’.
She hadn’t even heard me. She took a slow step, followed by a swift one, then swarmed forward all at once, head low and eyes wide. She climbed the artifact’s trunk, skittered along a branch and grabbed its tip, applied pressure—
It snapped off cleanly. She held it up, gazing at the tri-colored pattern that flared and faded, going dormant again. She tucked it into one pocket with a shaking paw, more grave than I’d ever seen her. RPM, completely restored but still bearing a slight musk of scorched raccoon, popped his head from the other pocket and stared at Claws, the situation demanding even his respect.
Claws’s eyes met mine and I cleared my throat. “You can’t tell anyone.”
“You can’t tell anyone,” she croaked at the same time. Well, she made a sound like a dying frog, but the meaning was the same.
I smiled at her with a slight shake of my head. “Come here, you little rascal.”
When she landed in my arms, it was like holding an entirely different otter. The expected pridefulness and boasting were nowhere to be seen, and trembles wracked her in waves, shaking their way across her slight form. Maria patted her head, and I joined in as my eyes drifted back up toward her creation.
I could hardly believe it, but my senses weren’t lying. She’d really produced a mini version of the ancient- and naturally occurring artifacts we had already collected. Though its potency was reduced, its aura was just as strong, echoes of its luminescent flares radiating out.
“Are you okay, Claws?” Maria asked.
The elemental of lightning and chaos nodded, but another tremble struck her at the same time.
“Actually, Claws, I might need to tell someone else. Is that okay?”
She nodded, so I reached for my power. Before I could grasp it, Borks tore a portal open before me, his excited form skidding to a stop on the sands. He peered up at the tree with unbridled excitement, his head darting back and forth between us, eyes wide and tongue lolling.
“It’s exactly what you think it is, mate. Our troublesome otter seems to have created a weak version of the natural artifact. Would you mind stor—”
“
” screeched Claws, standing upright on my arms, her face close enough to touch mine, forepaws squeezing my cheeks together. “Weak, master?
You
”
Maria giggled into a closed fist. “There she is. Welcome back, Corporal.”
Claws folded her arms and sniffed haughtily as she shot me some audacious side-eye. RPM’s paw exited her pocket to give me an undignified gesture.
“Yeah, yeah. My bad. Let me rephrase.” I cleared my throat. “Corporal Claws, our one-of-a-kind wielder of lightning and tamer of treacherous beasts—” RPM tried to protest via the offensive gesticulation of a forepaw, but Claws stuffed it back into her pocket and nodded for me to continue. “—has done the impossible by creating a natural artifact.”
Her pride rolled across her shoulders, then wiggled across the rest of her.
“Glad you approve. Would you mind storing it for her, Borks? I don’t wanna lure any more terrors of the deep to Tropica. The two we have are plenty enough.”
He barked and tore another portal open, but before we could put anything into it, hundreds of green fruits came tumbling out.
“Mate…” I gestured at the mountain of coconuts. “We were gone for like a minute. How did you collect so many?”
He wagged his entire body.
“Do you have space in your secondary storage? I don’t want those tactician kids plotting against me for leaving their coconuts all the way out here.”
With a proud bark, he ripped his other portal open, its surface a different shade of purple. And again, before we could put anything in, something came flying out. Power.
power. The combined aura of eleven other artifacts—ten crystalline trunks and the thankfully unspoiled bill of an ancient fish—put the potency of Claws’s fulgurite tree to shame. Not that I’d tell her that.
Borks flexed his will, spread the portal wide, and we eased the dormant tree of glass and lightning within. Claws instructed like an overprotective foreman, donning a hardhat that was really a shell, and blowing on a whistle that was in truth… no, it actually was a wooden whistle.
“Where the frack did you get that?”
She shrugged in response, accompanied by a taunting waggle of her brows.
“All right. Keep your secrets. Can you at least tell me what you’re going to make with the bit of fulgurite you broke off and put in your…” I trailed off, seeing the truth on her fuzzy little face. “You’re not gonna tell me shit, are you?”
Her grin spread wider still. She patted me on the shoulder, leaped down to the sand—paused to give Borks a chirp that landed somewhere between thanks and a warning—then tore off through the sky, smiling as the lines of her body shimmered and became lightning.
When any trace of her passage was gone, I pursed my lips and glanced around. A faint sense of unease washed over me, growing stronger by the second.
“That’s it?” Maria asked, also peering in all directions, waiting for the next insane event to occur. Seconds passed. “Huh. Maybe that’s it? I can’t help but feel that—”
Chi slammed into my body and mind, the first rushing in from the east, the second coming in through one of my connections. “I fracking knew it!” I reached for my chi and turned to Maria, both of us sensing that the call was for me and me alone. “I’ll be back soon. I love you.”
“I bloody knew it,” she said, squeezing my arm as I finally got control of my essence. “Say hello for me.”
I disappeared in a flash of light and was greeted by crushing pressure, freezing water, and the languorous shifting of
of crustaceans.