Sheep and Wolf Puzzle

“Will this work?” Slater asked, turning to his sister who was slowly arriving at the site her brother had found. Only a couple minutes down the river, a ruined shop by the waterway had various supplies in it, most notably being the singular object Slater found in the back: A short, wide rudimentary floating vessel made of a sturdy plastic material. Slater had hauled the object out of the back, showing it off to get it appraised. His sister simply pointed to the large seat in the center.

“This was made for only one person. We can take it with us, but we’ll need to find something else to get the other person across.” Her voice was a bit hoarse, but she at least didn’t have to stop to pant between words anymore. Slater handed off the vessel to his sister, feeling she had more of a grasp on what to do with it than he, but made sure to at least pick up a paddle from the back room as well to store inside the boat until it was used.

Slater, now exiting the small building, darted his eyes between the river and the small kayak. “We now know we can get one of us to the other side, which expands our options a bit…” He trailed off. His eyes, once again, began to search around for some sort of thing to clue him in. “Some sort of way you can bring across for the other person…”

Hearing her brother’s thoughts out loud, Lillian remembered a brief moment. She looked down at her stained bandages, reminding herself of what had happened. Axel’s blade had extended and bended itself. “What if… You extended the blade of your sword? And we used it as a zipline to get across?” She pointed out another ruined building nearby, towering over them. “You make it to the other side, then extend your blade and I can slide down it using…” Lillian looked around. “I’ll find something.”

“But…” Slater kicked his foot and looked down. “I don’t even know if mine can do that! We can’t just—“

“If it doesn’t work,” His sister put up a hand to shush him, then a hand on his shoulder. “Then you can just paddle back and we’ll figure out something else.”

The brother drew out his sword, looking at it in its dormant state, before grabbing the kayak from his sister and heading closer to the water. He drew the paddle out with a noise of clanging from inside the kayak, but nothing Slater concerned himself with. He breathed in, and then out. “Before we have to yell across the river,” Slater tried to make final preparations. “I get over there, try to extend my blade into that building over there,” he pointed to the same one his sister had moments ago. “And you will just slide down it to where I am?”

She gave a simple nod in return, which was enough for him to turn back towards the water and get his journey underway and over with. Slater rolled up his pants so he could wade into the water easier, taking the kayak out into the water with him with one hand and holding the paddle in the other. Once he was sufficiently deep in the water, at least to his own standards, he hopped over the side of the boat and plopped himself into the center of it. Sitting in the seat wasn’t the most comfortable. As he felt various bits poking into his rear end as he sat, but he imagined he wouldn’t have to endure it for too long.

The river itself was calmer than Slater had imagined, not battering the boat or throwing him off too much. As he paddled he very swiftly made his way over to the other side, making the two thousand feet across look like light work. When he got close enough, Slater dipped his feet into the water below to check the depth, fully exiting the vessel when he dubbed it shallow enough. He walked back out onto dry land, turning back to see the place he had just come from. The side he found himself on now certainly wasn’t majorly different from where he had come from; it still had the same dull grays and ruined buildings, but the new perspective at where he had come from at least added a feeling of accomplishment.

Setting his sights on where he had came from, he focused on the building he and Lillian had pointed out earlier. In a portion of the building three stories up, Slater made out the image of his sister waving down to him from a large collapsed wall. Now, he had his target, the problem now came with shooting at it.

Placing a hand at his side, Slater drew out his blade and switched it on. The blue light stood in contrast to the surrounding gray, and yet, the color still hurt his eyes a bit. First came trying to remember what Axel had done. From what Slater could recall, the extension came as a result of a thrusting motion. So, planting a foot and reeling the sword back, Slater prepared and executed a gallant thrust. He stood still in his finalized position, but after looking up at the blade, he noticed a notable lack of any extension. Stubborn as he was, Slater’s strategy did not change as he continued trying various forms of the thrust. After all, why wouldn’t it work?

These thoughts eventually died out, leaving Slater at a loss for what to attempt next, or if he should even give up now and sail back to try something else. One look at the kayak and remembering the sensation of sitting in it ruled out the latter for him. Now, with his determination at an all time high, Slater tried various slashes, stabs, and even verbal commands to try and modify the blade’s shape, but nothing would make the blade of energy so much as fluctuate.

Fiddling around with the blade, Slater tried finding some way to stretch or extend it. When nothing worked, in his desperation he even grabbed the end of the blade and began trying to stretch it himself. He pulled, but still, nothing changed. Which was when he realized, he was holding his blade. The same one which could burn through metal fences and burned the white cloaked man’s body in the alleyway, and yet, his hand was fine? However, right as the thought of the sword’s temperature entered his mind, it immediately heated up and his hand ejected itself from the searing pain. The blade clanked to the ground, rolling off to the side and stopping in a patch of dirt, still activated and giving a slight steam off the cold dirt below, at least for a few moments before it dissipated.

Are the blade’s properties… controlled by my thoughts? His next thought was a test to that theory: Can the blade retract itself? Nothing happened. He turned his head, approaching the blade in the dirt again. Could it not change shape? But it looks like it easily could? He mulled it over, picturing the sword retracting itself in his mind. It seemed simple enough. Then he blinked when he realized, the sword beneath him had just retracted itself. Jumping back as soon as it registered, Slater finally felt like he understood how this worked.

“This thing can read my thoughts when I picture them, huh…” He walked forward and picked up his weapon, turning it over in his hand, then giving a slight shudder as his face contorted to one of disgusted concern. That’s kinda creepy—

His focus on the blade was soon interrupted by spying Lillian’s hand waving from the corner of his eye, still peeking out of the third floor of the ruined building. Being reminded of his reason for doing this in the first place, Slater reactivated his blade and took aim at the side of the building right outside the hole, giving his sister enough room to hop on and slide down. He pictured it clearly, the blade extending rapidly over the river—The river, right. But, I still don’t understand this too well, what if the blade gets weaker as it goes on and dips and falls into the river?

Slater opened his eyes, assuming he had succeeded. Instead, he was greeted with the sight of his blade slumped over and dipped into the river, as he had imagined. Shifting his gaze to his intended target, he now could tell, even from thousands of feet away, his sister was making an exasperated face of disappointment.

He brought the sword’s edge back to its starting position, and this time did the exact stance he had before, but made sure to steel his thoughts to not trail off this time. He pictured it again, the extending blade penetrating into the wall. He felt in his hands the rigidity of the weapon being embedded in the stone. His eyes remained closed for a moment. Please have worked this time..! This sentiment echoed throughout his mind as all it let itself see was pitch black to minimize his accidental self-sabotage.

When he worked up the courage to free himself from his own mind. Light hitting his eyes, he was able to see the blue streak extending all the way to the other side of the river. With how long he had spent with his eyes closed, Lillian had already taken the bent metal pole she had to use as a handle mount on the makeshift zipline. To his relief, Slater watched her slide down, holding the bag of supplies no less, without issue. That did not stop him from wondering though, what would it look like if somehow he’d messed up and his blade had been curvy enough to make the ride bumpy—Shit.

The next thing Slater heard were the panicked noises, subdued to retain her dignity, of his sister now hopping up and down midair from the curves on the blade. She continued to speed up, until, in his panic, Slater wondered if she’d prefer it if the zipline wasn’t there at all.

She did not.

Her body flew forward, putting her feet first as she crashed into Slater and then the ground below, leaving her brother buried beneath her. She casually tossed the bent bar to the side, landing on her still on the ground brother’s head, bouncing off with a small ‘clink’ and falling to the side.

“Next time, I’ll aim for your head.” Lillian walked off, heading back down to the kayak, pulling something from the hull.

Slater lifted himself from the ground, scrambling to apologize to his sister.

“I didn’t mean to do that! I just—“ He stopped, looking at what Lillian had lifted from the boat he had been in. “The gauntlet?”

Turning to him, Lillian strapped it on her arm again.

“I didn’t want it to get in the way when I slid down the zipline, thanks for bringing it over!” She teased and flicked her brother’s forehead, walking past towards the new half of the city they now had access to. “Come on, we have to find a way to get out of this place. The sun will start to set soon.”

Brushing past the gauntlet situation, Slater put his mind on the current objective his sister had pointed out.

“Do we have any plan for how we’re going to find something?”

She turned back, putting a hand on his head.

“I have something for us to look for in mind.”