As we dashed across the countryside of the Conomi Islands, stepping in marshes, cursing a lot, and dodging haphazard rodents, I called to the fishman behind me, "So just who the hell are you, anyway, and what's your beef with humans?"
I felt a tingle in my chin and looked over my shoulder to see water droplets flying to me at high speed. Remembering that fishmen could throw water and make the droplets feel as strong as bullets, I jumped, turned a full 360, and threw my arm out, yelling, "Mimic!" A curl of water exploded on the nearest marsh and tore through the air behind me, just in time to block the water-bullets.
"Not too bad, dodging my Water Shot," said the fishman as I fell to the ground and came up rolling. "The name's Fennu, by the way."
"Artwaltz D. Yuril," I supplied. I heard him snicker behind me and my eye twitched. "Look, I didn't ask to be named that! I just was!"
"Here's good," he said, and I skidded to a stop.
There was a tense moment where neither of us moved, just sized each other up. Then, as though we were on the same mental wavelength, we both attacked at the same time.
Fennu gripped his hands together, wrapped them in water, and yelled, "Fishman Karate: Sledgehammer!" He raised them high above his head like going for a downward cut with a sword, and then brought his hands smashing down.
"Aqua Boxing!" I called, wrapping a layer of water around my arms and hands. I thrust my hands up in an X-block and managed to trap his own hands. I threw them to my left, opening him up, and drove my fist into his chest. His eyes widened, and I pounded him relentlessly.
Finally I ended the brutal attack, panting. I smirked at Fennu, who had started to fall backwards, but then did a double-take as he suddenly stopped and threw a double punch at me.
"Whoa!" I yelped, throwing myself to the side.
"Water Shot Gatling Gun!" said Fennu, and I regained my balance only to have a relentless barrage of high-powered water droplets pound into me. Pain flared through my body as it shook with the force of the attack. I nearly bit my tongue.
Finally, the fishman ran out of water and I dropped to the wet ground, writhing in agony.
"Ha! Take that," he remarked.
I looked ahead, a fire of pain pervading my nerves. A marsh, filled with deep water, was only a foot away from me. I remembered falling into the ocean at the Baratie. If I could make it into the marsh...
But Fennu had obviously realized what I was thinking, because he said, "Oh, no, you don't."
—WHAM!
A bone crunching kick was delivered to my side, wrapped in a little water as well, and I was thrown into the air, coughing blood. I careened to the ground, but luckily fell into one of the nearby marshes with an enormous splash.
"Dammit," Fennu muttered.
As I lay there, submerged in a shallow pond of water, I grimaced. This was a demigod I was facing, and he had the same powers as me. He was far more experienced than me in the art of fighting with water, and to make things worse, he was a fishman. They had an advantage whenever it came to the sea.
I felt the water giving me strength. It seeped through my pores and repaired the damage that bastard brother of mine had done to my body. I stopped panting, the sour taste of blood washed out of my mouth, and I grew more energized again. I sat up, effectively healed, but what I saw when I wiped the water out of my eyes made my breath get caught in the back of my throat.
Huge black dogs were sitting patiently by Fennu's side. By their other features, though, I could tell they were mastiffs. Now, when I say huge, I mean HUGE! The hounds had to be at least the size of a truck, dwarfing their master by far. And when I say black, I mean they looked as though they had taken the night sky (minus the stars), made it into clothes, and wore it.
"What are they?" I whimpered. Yes, whimpered. Why? It could have something to do with their glowing red eyes, but I couldn't be sure.
Fennu smirked. "Hellhounds. I called them out of Hell to kill you before you can make it into a body of water. They're Archetypes, which are monsters that can be dispelled to the pits of Hell but cannot actually die."
"Like the monsters in Percy Jackson," I gulped.
He nodded. "Pretty much."
I paled and my hand crept to the blade hanging by my side—what had Lady Vestionora called it? Raise Your Heart Up? No, wait, Raising Blue. I had a feeling my new addition would be vital to my survival now.
Then the hellhounds roared and all rational thought escaped me except this: GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE!
I shouted in fright, scrambled to my feet, and took off over the marshes, panting in fear of the massive monsters behind me. They snarled and dripped poisonous saliva which killed the grass around it, turning the grass to a sickly brown color. If that spit got on me—well, I didn't even want to think about the consequences.
I stumbled over the swamp-like field, splashing through shallow ponds to renew my energy and skirting around the deeper ones to save time. The hellhounds never relented. They would snap at my heels and I would pause to smack them away with a quick geyser of water, but I was getting nowhere. They just kept closing in.
I leaped into a marsh, imagined it hardening, and ran across it to the middle, where I turned and drew Raising Blue. I had no idea how to use it, except for a few vague memories of fencing in gym class years ago, but I figured I'd learn by instinct or die. That was how it had been the last time. Plus, I knew he was right. I couldn't outrun these beasts much longer. Eventually, they'd sink their teeth into me and I would become a giant sized dog biscuit.
Not the greatest way to die.
The hellhounds had faltered at the edge of the deeper marsh, unwilling to go forward. Perhaps they had a fear of water, or maybe my drawn blade was giving them the heebie jeebies. Whatever the case, they had momentarily ceased their chase and given me time to regroup.
First, I examined Raising Blue. Now that the sheathe was off, I could see it was a thick blade, blue in color and narrow at the top, tapered to a point. It gleamed in the sunlight, and I thought I could feel an air of energy around it. I frowned—what kind of sword was blue?—but pointed it at each hellhound. They were pawing the water, unsure whether to follow me in or wait for me to make an escape.
Instead of making an escape, I directed my thoughts to the water in the marsh below me, ordering it to pressurize beneath my feet. I felt the pressure build up under me, and then I released it all with one thought, yelling, "Aqua Rocket!" I shot off in the direction of the hounds, throwing my arm back for a swing of the sword.
As I passed through the monster pack, they tried to bite at me, but I swiped with Raising Blue and they backed off quickly. I twisted so my feet were aimed at the ground. When I landed, the bottoms of my Adidas sneakers were torn up a little, but I skidded to a stop.
"So you decided to fight at last?" laughed Fennu. "Ha! You won't last three seconds."
The dogs barked at each other, but the biggest one snarled and the others backed off. I assumed this was the pack leader. If I could beat him, maybe his friends would run with their tails between their legs. As the truck-sized mastiff loomed over me, charging me with poison spit and deadly sharp fangs, I ducked, rolled between the creature's legs, and swiped with my blue blade.
With a sickening SHUNK, I cut through its front left leg, which thumped to the ground, dark blood spilling everywhere. A lick of fire ignited at the top of the severed stump and burned down, leaving nothing but a pile of ashes. The hellhound roared in pain and tried to stop and turn to me, but having one less leg didn't do it any favors and it nearly fell over.
I was left wondering, How the hell did I do that?
The other hounds snarled in anger and crept forward, shaking the swampy ground with each step, but the alpha barked again and they backed off, though they clearly didn't like it.
I came out of the roll and turned, raising Raising Blue for another attack. I backed into a marsh and it charged again, sloppily this time due to only having three legs, I released another Aqua Rocket and soared through the air. The giant mutt's momentum worked in my favor, and it couldn't move to the side quick enough. As I passed over it, I remembered years of playing baseball at the Al Oerter Recreation Center Outdoor Field in Manhattan. I threw Raising Blue with all my might, imagining it slicing through the air directly into the beast.
I let out a scream as I fell through the air.
I heard a roar of agony and splashed down safely in a marsh, grinning and no longer afraid. Somehow I did it. I turned and saw it wrapped in flames, burning down to ashes as Raising Blue dropped to the ground and stuck there, quivering. I figured that whenever the monsters got a killing blow, they burned down to flames, and if something got cut off them, it would burn down, too.
I had no idea what I was doing, but it was pretty damn awesome.
Excuse my language.
"No way..." Fennu gasped. "No freakin' way! An inferior human brought down the Hound of the Baskervilles? But... But that's impossible."
"I'M A FREAKIN' PIRATE!" I shouted over the crazed snarling of the other hounds. "SCREW IMPOSSIBLE! I DON'T FOLLOW THE RULES!"
The underling dogs... underdogs?... all charged me at once, biting and snarling and gnashing their wickedly sharp teeth. I gulped. I'd been placing my hopes on their dependence on their leader, but apparently they wanted revenge for his death, and I was now weaponless. All I had to defend myself with was my own two hands and the water in the marshes. I yelped and backed further in the shallow marsh, wishing Raising Blue would be like Percy Jackson's Riptide and reappear in its sheath or something.
No such luck.
"Damn blade!" I cursed, and threw out my thoughts to the water all around me, trying to command them to my will. Keyword here being 'trying.' Something was interfering with my thoughts, and the marshes weren't responding. I looked up. The hounds were almost upon me, poison saliva killing the grass no less than two meters away.
"Come on, come on," I muttered, increasing the desperation and power of my thoughts. The interference wavered, and then suddenly broke.
FWOOM! A wall of water roared over my head and came crashing down on the unsuspecting hellhounds, washing them back. As it neared my blue sword, it parted and left the patch dry. Yipping and snarling, the massive mastiffs fell into the marshes in front of me. I saw my chance and ran forward, grabbed Raising Blue, yanked it out of the ground (it came free with a FWUMP), and jumped into the marshes. I landed on the first of the thrashing monsters and stabbed its chest, back flipped off, and sliced open its brethren. They erupted in flames like their leader.
I stepped out of the marsh and faced my half brother, panting from the effort of defeating the monsters... what had he called them? Archetypes?
Fennu was staring at me in a strange mixture of admiration and utter hatred.
"How d'ya like them apples?" I said triumphantly.
"N-No way..." The clown fish fishman stuttered. "There's no way you could've defeated all of the Greek hellhounds. It's just impossible. It defies nature. No hero has achieved such a feat since the ancient times!"
I dipped Raising Blue into a marsh to wash the dark monster blood off of it and approached my half brother. "Now, before I kill you, I wanna know that I have a good reason for doing so," I announced. "Tell me why you hate humans and joined Arlong's crew."
He narrowed his eyes and backed away, drawing water from the marshes and wrapping it around himself protectively. "I joined Arlong's crew because they promised the two things that are the most important to me: Revenge and money. I was offered a place in the Senshi's army, but I declined because they wouldn't give me any belli."
"So you're just greedy," I summed up. "You kill defenseless humans for money. You hurt one of my nakama as a means to this end."
"Hai," he confirmed. He got in a fighting stance. "What are you gonna do about it? You're still injured from our previous fight. The water didn't heal you all the way. It never does. I know."
My side ached from my corrupt brother's kick. He was right. The water hadn't totally healed me, unlike the time at the Baratie. For some reason, at the last second, the power of the water had abandoned me. But it didn't matter. I had still been able to defeat those giant poisonous dogs in this state. Next to them, Fennu seemed like an insignificant ant.
"I have a message for you," I said, after I got an idea for a cool catch phrase for myself. "Because you have sinned too much and become corrupted, the gods have abandoned you. They no longer protect you from your enemies. Fennu of the fishmen, this is the day God has set for you to die."
And with that, I charged him and plunged my blade into his chest. It burst through the thin layer of water, slowed a little, and speared his chest. It stopped, and I pulled it out of his chest. The end of it was dripping red blood, and I felt a little sick in my stomach. Then I glanced at Fennu, and almost threw up. His face had lost nearly all its color, and his chest was pouring buckets. Shock was written all over his expression.
"How..." he muttered, staring at nothing, eyes wide with fear and confusion. "This isn't... possible..." he coughed blood. He gave a shuttering, rasping groan, and, eyes dimming, fell face first into the swampy muck.
"Oh, gods..." I gasped, backing away in horror. "What the hell have I done? I just... I just killed someone!" In anime, when a bad guy was defeated forever, there was an overwhelming sense of triumph. None of that was coming now. I'd felt it at the Baratie, but maybe it was because I couldn't actually see the body after I'd beaten Yugly. Now, however, with the gruesome corpse right in front of me, I realized something.
This wasn't an anime, no matter how much it seemed like that. This was real life. When you stab someone in the heart, they die. Their eyes don't close like they always do in the movies, they just keel over and... their life ends. Bile rose in my throat. I bent over the nearest marsh and was sick. The stench of sour throw-up filled my nostrils and I chucked up my lunch again.
"Oh, gods," I groaned.
I picked myself up off the ground and tried to delete the memory of Fennu's body lying on the ground like that, of him staring at nothing, his eyes wide with panic and horror and fear. I couldn't. It was as though my mind was an SD card that the memory was permanently burned onto.
I washed my blade in another, cleaner marsh, cleansing it of Fennu's lifeblood. I stuck it back in its sheath and almost threw up again, but managed to force it back down this time. The true horror of the moment still fresh in my mind, I cleared my brain and walked off in a random direction (having forgotten which way I came from), once again letting fate carry me back towards Arlong Park.