The Mantis Synchronicity - Book Five - 11. Chapter 11 - Dry Land

Tygo, Filiou, and Djaruki were in the middle of the body of water. They were still walking, and they could not see land in any direction.

“I wonder if we’ll see any frozen sea monsters,” Filiou commented, and the shimmer on her complex eyes shifted.

Djaruki did not like the sound of that.

The trio did not see any sea monsters, but they eventually did spot land on the horizon ahead of them, and there was a small town. The girls had unknowingly walked on water for the equivalent of a distance that would have taken five and a half days on land. When they arrived at the distant shore and stepped onto a sandy beach, their feet were dry.

Tygo kept the world motionless as they explored the town.

Fisherfolk were frozen in the middle of casting their lines, mending their nets, or gutting their catch, all aspects of life that looked very familiar to Djaruki.

“Where are we?” Tygo whispered, even though none of the people affected by her powers could hear her.

“Let’s see if we can find a sign or a map or anything,” Djaruki recommended.

What they found was only a rundown village that was no more than a few narrow lanes stretching a short distance from the shore. When they reached the town’s abrupt edge, they also found a small brass placard.

Filiou read the inscription aloud. “Welcome to Little Hamlet, on the Island of Lesser Lo.”

“Maybe this is the island with the Shifts,” Djaruki commented.

“But we didn’t see anyone in that town like Filiou,” Tygo replied. “Aren’t there supposed to be Shifts and Bio-Shifts on that special island you told us about?”

“Yeah, there are. I think you’re probably right,” Djaruki agreed, and she sighed. “It doesn’t seem like this is the island.”

The land stretched before them to a lush forested hill. It was high, but it was not a mountain, and the trio climbed it. They saw many exotic birds in midflight, and a herd of pygmy deer that were grazing among the groundcover. When they reached the summit, the trio could see all the way around the island. There were no cities, and Little Hamlet appeared to be the only inhabited region.

“Tygo, do we keep walking across the water?” Filiou asked, and she stared out to sea with her wondrous eyes.

“Yes,” Tygo replied with enthusiasm, “I really like feeling my power.”

“But which way?” Filiou added.

The three of them looked out in every direction, but they could see no land.

Tygo turned to Djaruki. “What do you think?”

Djaruki looked back at Little Hamlet. “We came from that way, so why don’t we keep going the direction we were headed?” She pointed out to sea ahead of them. The girls agreed, and as they began their way down the other slope of the hill, Djaruki asked, “Tygo, you like using your powers?”

“I love it! It feels like the whole world is giving me a hug while I’m using them.”

Djaruki was surprised by the girl’s reply, but even more startled by her follow-up question.

“Don’t you like what you can do?”

“Yeah, Djaruki,” Filiou added, “what can you do?”

Djaruki may have been frightened by accidentally felling the enormous old tree in the forest north of Duguza, and using her powers had felt like she was doing something forbidden, but she had been itching to use them again. Djaruki had been feeling a little guilty about wanting to use them. Even though she knew she should not feel guilty, it was sometimes hard not to. Djaruki’s power felt like a pleasure she was supposed to avoid, but Tygo was using hers freely, and the girl seemed to have embraced who she was. Djaruki wanted to feel that way.

“I can do things with air,” she stated.

“That’s neat,” Filiou replied, causing an unexpected ripple of happiness to surge through Djaruki. “What do you mean?” the spiny Biological Shift girl added.

A small smile cracked on Djaruki’s face. “I don’t know really. I can just do stuff, and I think it’s the air that I’m using.”

“Can we see?” Tygo asked in an excited voice as the three girls approached the far edge of the island.

“I guess so. What should I target?”

Filiou pointed where they were headed. “Do it to the water.”

“Okay.” Djaruki focused, and she released a pulse wave from her heart that hit the water like an explosion detonating just beneath the surface. A huge geyser of saltwater sprayed up and was frozen in place by Tygo’s still-active powers.

Both girls staggered back.

“Oh wow,” Filiou whispered.

“Eek,” Tygo added, “please don’t do that while we’re walking on the water.”

Djaruki looked sheepish. “Yeah, right, sorry about that.”

“You’re really powerful!” Filiou declared with a boisterous laugh that made the other two laugh as well.

Only Tygo used her powers for the rest of the girls’ journey across the sea, which they did not realize took them twenty-two days worth of walking, but they were again unaffected by the ravages of hunger or weariness. They chatted and walked as if they were merely on a casual stroll to the corner store, and not walking across the vast expanse of the ocean. They circumvented motionless storms that stretched for miles, completely losing track of their direction as they walked, but on that twenty-second day, they spotted something in the water beneath their feet.

Filiou paused and asked, “What is that?” She pointed down and added, “It’s a structure.”

Djaruki and Tygo turned to her. They could see the massive thing, but it appeared distorted beneath the motionless waves.

“What do you mean?” Tygo asked. “What can you see?”

The shimmer on Filiou’s multifaceted eyes shifted. “It’s a machine, some sort of barrier. It looks old, but it’s still functional. I can see that parts of it are frozen in motion by your power.” She turned to Tygo. “If we’re at a structure, maybe there are settlements that aren’t too far away.”

“I think that’s a reasonable assumption,” Djaruki replied. “Shall we follow it?”

The trio could tell it stretched along the seabed for many leagues in either direction.

“Which way?” Filiou asked, crossing her spiky arms in front of her and pointing both.

“Since you can see it better with your special eyes,” Tygo replied, “does one way seem better to you?”

Filiou turned both directions and shrugged. “It looks the same.”

“So which way?” Tygo asked. The two girls looked up at Djaruki.

“Let’s just pick one. This way?” she pointed one direction.

The trio continued to walk, and after traversing across the waves a distance that would have taken them two more days to walk without Tygo’s power, they saw land and another village. They also saw an expansive mountain range stretching up beyond the little community.

“The underwater thing leads toward the forest,” Filiou stated, pointing at the wilderness with a spiky finger, “but I think we should go to the town.”

“I agree, I think we’ve made it to a new mainland,” Djaruki added.

“Should I keep the world frozen?” Tygo asked.

“I think so,” Djaruki replied. “Let’s see what kind of place this is first.”

The girls stepped onto dry land again, and they found themselves in a charming little fishing village with a sign.

“Hazel Cove,” Filiou read it also. “That’s a nice name.” She smiled, and her jaw-horns curved up.

A block from the beach, they saw a café called Weirdo Beard-O’s, and to their delight, a big red-bearded fellow out on the back patio was leaning down toward a whole group of children. The man was holding up his hand, and he was making a surprised face at it; the man’s hand was partly invisible.

“He’s a Shift!” Tygo squeaked in glee, and she deactivated her powers.

To the perspective of the man with the invisible hand, the group of children around him, and whatever adults also happened to be in the café, the trio of girls suddenly appeared!

The man’s hand returned to normal opaquety, and he stood up with a start, but instead of the reaction Djaruki in particular was expecting, the man welcomed them.

“Why, hello there, new friends! I’m so happy you’ve come to Weirdo Beard-O’s! I’m the head weird-beard myself; I’m Bivon.”

The trio had traveled vast distances with no effort, thanks to Tygo’s power, and their long journey had very little effect on anything in the world. There was, however, a group of villains who died the instant Tygo released the grip of her power.

Back in the town of Rolling Green, upon the grand stone steps of that majestic cathedral where two Biological Shifts were being slain, Djaruki’s actions against the attackers were far more devastating than she ever could have imagined. She did not realize how much power was held in the motionlessness created by Tygo.

The head of the young man who she punched in the face had only moved slightly, and from Djaruki’s perspective in that frozen moment, she had done very little to him, but as life returned to motion, his head violently twisted around! His neck was broken in an instant, and he collapsed. In that exact same moment, all the other villains Djaruki had attacked caught the full brunt of her actions.

The skinny woman in her thirties who had appeared off-balance, flew backward into a brick wall with such force that her flesh and organs burst in all directions like a hideous party favor. The two men with clubs who had been pummeling the Biological Shift with quills all over his body found themselves suddenly impaled by their own bludgeons, and they both crumpled to the ground with the handles of their blunt weapons poking out of their broken chests. The swordswoman’s body split in two gruesome pieces along the thin stripe of red where Djaruki had slashed her. The two halves went spinning in different directions, spraying the woman’s innards all over the stone steps. The final attacker had been crouching over the silver-furred Biological Shift’s head, and Djaruki had stuck the sword into him. As movement returned to the world, her sword-thrust ripped into and through the man, and the sword’s tip became lodged in the stone wall behind him.

Witnesses could not explain what caused the brutal and immediate end to the people, who in one instant were murdering two Biological Shifts, and in the next, were corpses themselves. None of the observers had been aware of Tygo’s powers, and to them, there was no freeze. The assailants were just dead★