Chapter 3

Saturday 4th July 1998

The past few days had been pretty quiet. No sign of any more weird monsters… Dakota had proposed that, perhaps, they were trying to prevent us from bonding with the Lokon weapons and we’d seen the last of them. Even then, there was still the mystery of what they even were… but of course, without any leads, we couldn’t really investigate that.

Our attempts to figure out who had sent us the weapons were also proving fruitless. We had at least focused it in on our school (the only thing that explicitly connected the four of us local team-members), but between our year group and all of the staff, we couldn’t narrow down a list of suspects. Bao had produced half a comprehensive list of everyone in our year but hadn’t been able to finish it. He then produced a Tamagotchi, which was apparently what had stolen his attention away.

I’d made sure to go to my local music shop and buy a large case that I could carry the sword around in. My cover story – I was proud of this – is that myself and some classmates are putting a band together. I’m putting my piano-playing talent towards the keytar.

My parents bought it.

My sister… not so much.

“Show me the keytar,” she’d insisted, trying very poorly to hide her pre-emptive smirk.

“It’s not mine,” I replied, “I’m borrowing it.”

“Right, but you’ve got the case, so it’s in there, isn’t it?” she chirped, trying to squeeze past me and get into my room.

“No, Zahid’s looking after it…”

I braced myself against her, then stomped right like a sumo wrestler when she tried to head that way instead.

“So why d’you need the case?” my sibling asked, as she awkwardly tried to clamber over me. What was she, a monkey?

“To carry it around…” I responded, realising that my cover story had more holes than a leaky bucket.

“From where? Zahid’s house? Then he should have the case,” Lucy continued, now trying to pass between my legs. “You’re hiding something. Is it a bomb? Or drugs?”

“No! Of course not! It’s a keytar-!”

“Muuuuum! Alex has heroin! Tonnes of it!” she sang downstairs.

“Okay, dear…” Mum called back up to her. Ha! Your exaggerations are your undoing, Lucy! While she was distracted, I zipped into my room and shut the door.

Obviously, she had brought it up again every single time we were in the same room. Her guesses at what I had in the case got continually more elaborate and outlandish throughout the week. And even then, somehow, she never guessed “top-secret super-powered glowing-blue sword” …

Thankfully, her being a little over a year younger than me meant she was still attending school while I had this extended summer break. She was out of my hair in the mornings when – after a not-unreasonable lie-in – I’d head out for “band practice” and make my way to Dakota’s place.

Things there had continued on the same. Other than the general lack of progress, we’d had some fun conversations and generally hung out. Grabbed some pizza one night, learnt that Kendal cannot cook but Zahid surprisingly can. Bao had offered to bring some of his video game consoles around but had forgotten over the last couple of days. It was all… normal.

Aaand that lasted until Kendal decided she’d been vigilant long enough, and that now was the time to go kayaking. More to the point, she wanted to take us along. A half-hour walk under the mid-morning sun brought us to the large local lake.

“Ta-da!” she declared, throwing her arms open widely as soon as it was in-sight.

“Yeah, we’ve been here before,” Zahid grumbled, shaking his head a little in disbelief at her overwhelming enthusiasm.

“I haven’t,” Dakota pointed out, walking ahead of the rest of us to look out at the scenery. The lake wasn’t an unreasonable size, stretching out beyond us and glistening in the sunlight. Alternating areas of grass and trees outlined it. A few other people were already out on the lake’s surface in kayaks. She took it all in with eyes full of joy.

“So, how does this work?” Bao asked, while swatting at the midges buzzing around.

“I dunno, this is my first time too,” Kendal reasoned, before spying the… boating centre? It had a dozen scarlet kayaks strung up on the side wall. “Aha! Let’s go there!”

“That works!” I chimed in. “Cos if that’s not the right place, we should probably report them for stealing those kayaks…”

Dakota chuckled at that, which brought a smile to my face. It was just a general gag, but suddenly all that mattered was her reaction and how happy it made me.

With triumphant steps, Kendal lead us to the building of kayaking, striding inside as though being driven by an engine of eagerness. The rest of us followed, trying to-

Oh, okay, see… Dakota, despite the fun she was having with us, was still keeping her duty in-mind. We had to stay vigilant, even if there was no sign of any more monsters. And until we could figure out a way of discreetly hiding our weapons (Optimus Prime trailer power, Bao called it; I refrained from commenting on that and outing myself), we would need to carry them with us at all times.

And I understood that. It made sense. But now we were lugging around what could only be described as the world’s largest suitcase, with all of our weapons inside. Really hoping I can get over this feeling of sticking out like a sore thumb quickly…

So, as the four of us followed Kendal into the building, we tried to keep our 6’-long case from looking too much like we were lugging a dead body around.

“We better meet the scariest monster out here,” Bao bemoaned, investigating his arm for insect bites. “Otherwise lugging this thing around is so pointless…”

“Should we really wish for a monster to appear?” I asked, to which Bao shrugged.

“Just a small one or something. One we can gang up on and splat easily.”

He paused, thinking for a moment.

“Maybe a midge. A super-midge.”

“Awh man, don’t go there…” I shuddered as the image of an oversized insect sprung to my mind.

Kendal returned to us, deflated, huffing before she spoke.

“Problem. We need a change of clothes. Y’know, in case we wind up in the water.”

How none of us thought of that beforehand, I don’t know…

“We have a change of clothes,” Bao pointed out. “If we get wet, we can just morph.”

“We need a better word, but he’s right…” Zahid reasoned, almost looking surprised that Bao had proposed something sensible.

“Rad!” Kendal beamed all over again, before darting back to the reception desk.

And of course, there we all were five minutes later, bobbing on the water in our kayaks all of three metres from the shore. Kendal had told the guy at reception that we’d all done this before: it made things more exciting, in her view. That meant we all had to figure this out together.

Naturally, Kendal was putting the most effort into it, and she got herself moving within moments. The rest of us all zoned in on her at once, watching how she moved the oars and aiming to copy it.

“Come on guys, it’s easy!” she cheered while accelerating off.

To be fair to her, once you got the hang of it, it was pretty simple. Not that I felt confident moving at her speed just yet, but gliding along in a straight line was a piece of cake. Dakota and Zahid rowed along either side of me at around the same pace.

“This is nice,” Dakota remarked, looking at the surroundings once again as we ventured further into the lake. “It’s relaxing.”

“You watch. Any minute, Kendal’s going to try and make this more extreme,” Zahid noted with… some form of smile on his face. It was slight, and probably in anticipation of being proven correct.

“Has Bao not gotten going yet?” I asked, trying to look over my shoulder without turning the kayak around (or over). As if he’d been waiting just for that remark, he capsized and submerged himself as soon as I looked.

“Aah! Bao!”

He resurfaced a moment later, life jacket doing its job. Spitting out water, he took hold of his up-turned kayak.

“I don’t like this anymore…” he whimpered.

“You can do it!” I shouted out to him regardless.

“It’s cold, man… I can’t…” Bao shivered while clinging to the kayak. “Let me go, Rose.”

“Oh god, don’t reference that…” Dakota sniffled quietly.

“There we go,” Zahid interrupted, his voice laced with amusement. “She’s trying to row backwards.”

“Guys! Guys!” Kendal was yelling as she hurtled back towards us. As I turned away from Bao to look at her, I couldn’t tell whether she was freaked out or exhilarated. “Monster! There’s a monster in the water!!!”

“Aaaand I’m getting back in the kayak…” Bao declared behind us (followed by a series of splashing sounds which I can only imagine were him trying to flip the kayak around).

Kendal sped past us with surprising control, before a huge vaguely-reptilian head broke the water’s surface, rising up on a tree trunk-like neck that kept going and going with a parade of barbed tentacles springing up alongside it. Fish-like fins flared on either side of its head, its jaws opened super-wide and it coiled back to survey us. Some kind of leviathan, or the lovechild of the Loch Ness Monster and the Kraken…

“Holy crap, it’s Gyarados,” Bao’s voice wavered behind us.

The creature let out a reverberating screech, and then thrashed its tentacles, forcing large waves out of the lake’s surface. Dakota, Zahid and I were rocked wildly, my heart racing as I tried desperately to stay upright. The waves turned my kayak around, pointing me towards the shore: I could see Bao now straddling his kayak, clinging on desperately as the waves hit him too, and Kendal reversing to the shore at breakneck speed.

“Kendal, get the weapons!” I shouted out to her as loudly as I could. A moment later, my kayak finally spun around, depositing me underwater. Thankfully, the lake wasn’t freezing thanks to the warm weather, but it was still abrupt enough to shock me. I returned straight back up to the surface and caught my breath. Dakota and Zahid were still just about upright; Bao was crying out in panic, while Kendal had made it to the shore and to the big black suitcase. Turning back to the towering beast, I watched it thrash around mindlessly. What was it aiming to do? Was it searching for the weapons…? It seemed to be doing nothing but make a load of waves… (I thought for a moment that this could be a child splashing about, but I refused to accept that a larger version of this could exist.)

“Alex, heads up!” Kendal shouted from the edge of the lake. I turned back to her, to see her stood with her bow in-hand and my sword in place of an arrow. She was aiming right at me.

“Wait wait wait-!” I screamed as she fired my weapon from hers. For the second time this week, I was convinced that my death was imminent. Thankfully (and obviously), that wasn’t the case – the sword shot past me and dove into the churning water like a Kingfisher.

“That didn’t work!” I called out to her; she scratched the back of her head and looked around in confusion.

Great. I was going to have to dive to get my sword now, wasn’t I?

Kendal turned her bow so its emblem port was facing her chest and was consumed in a momentary explosion of neon pink. With her battle costume on, she aimed right for me again with a glowing pink arrow forming within the bow.

“I’ve got this I think!” she declared, instilling little confidence in me, before launching the arrow along the same path as the sword. When it hit the water, it pierced through it, parting the water like something out of the Bible and burrowing right down to the lakebed. My sword was embedded down there like Excalibur. It was a long drop…

“Did it!” Kendal congratulated herself, before attempting to dock Dakota’s lengthy spear in her bow.

“Just- wait, Kendal!” Dakota yelped before herself being thrown into the water.

I turned my attention back towards the deep break in the water – even as the rest of the lake churned with the monster’s continual thrashing, the “walls” of the cavern remained still. The entry point of Kendal’s arrow had left a steep incline of static water; I swam towards it with my kayak, pushed it over the edge and onto the incline.

I wish I could’ve surfed down atop my upturned kayak and looked super cool… but I remained clutched onto it instead, and with no way to slow my rapid descent, I wound up flying face-first into the water-wall at the end.

“Owww…” I moaned as I collapsed to the lakebed. A few fishes swam up to the wall to investigate… which at least made me feel a little better. As much as my face hurt, this was a cool scenario.

Recovering myself, I grabbed hold of my sword and faced the emblem towards myself. As though on instinct, the weapon reacted and blasted my costume onto my body. I turned my attention to the surface – I could hear the others yelling to one another, and the monster continuing to screech, snarl and splash. How to get back out…?

… I hit the wall. I didn’t go through it, into the water. So, it only made sense that…

Moving right to the back of the canyon, I braced and then charged, sprinting back up the incline, Lokonessence-forged boots keeping me solidly treading on water until I returned to the surface and… continued running! On water!

A wave came along under my feet and toppled me over. Thanks for the ego-check, world.

Kendal had apparently worked out our new miracle skill as well, as she was dashing across the water and firing upon the leviathan. Dakota and Zahid were in their battle costumes too, gauging the best way to approach our new opponent. Back at the shore, Bao was just activating his costume, while taking in the whole situation.

Okay. Five teenagers versus huge serpentine tentacle monster. If these weapons are powered by raw creation, it was about time to get creative.

Running across the ever-shifting lake surface as best as possible, I slashed low in the air and used the arc of blueness it created as a stepping stone up in the air. Unfortunately, being no athlete, I couldn’t keep this pattern going, and simply tumbled back down onto the water. Growling a little in frustration, I instead tried to quickly “paint” a step into the air… but the slashes flew off as ever. This Lokonessence wasn’t making things easy for me.

Then again…

I held the sword right back and swung it in an arc that sent a heavy slash-blast towards where the creature breached the water. It struck the creature and blew another gap into the lake – our opponent roared out in pain and turned towards me.

“Good idea!” Dakota yelled out, before spinning her spear above her head to build up a furious green glow. Slowing the spin, she brought the weapon back down to her side and stabbed forward, forcing the gathered greenness out across the water’s surface. It too struck the Krakenessie (hey, there’s a good name!), this time making the beast draw back from us a little.

Bao was now back on the water, and he and Zahid were both trying to make their way up to the creature. In a defensive move, it started to lash out with its tentacles – while Zahid opted to hack and slice through them with his axe, Bao played a more mobile style, ducking and diving and taking quick slashes with his bladed tonfa when he saw an opening.

“Dakota, wanna get closer?” I shouted out to her across the fluid battlefield.

“Huh…?” she shouted back. What was confusing about-

I felt my still-wet cheeks grow hot.

“The- the monster! Wanna get closer to the monster?!” I clarified frantically; my teammate spent no time revelling in this enlightenment, simply nodding firmly.

We sped across the lake’s surface as it continued to shift beneath our feet, making our way towards our allies and the titan we were fighting. Smaller tentacles burst out of the water just ahead of me, and I slashed without even thinking: the blade cut through them like butter, and the ends fell away and faded into the air while the remaining stumps sunk away again. Continuing my journey, I turned quickly to check on Dakota, who was gracefully working her way around the tendrils and using her spear almost like a part of her own body.

Damn it, I was the only one who sucked at this…

Soon enough, all four of us had made our way to the main body of the beast, which of course meant we were surrounded by a swarm of new tentacles as well.

“I know this is a really dire situation and I’m sorry I wished it would happen, but can I just say how cool it is that we can walk on water?” Bao blurted out, before striking out with one arm to slice through a tentacle.

“Think we can climb it?” I asked, looking up at the creature’s head as it stared down at us. We had to try something…

“Wait… where’s Kendal?” Zahid asked.

Huh. Good point. She was with us on the lake a minute ago.

The four of us looked around. Sure, it was hard to see past the swarm of tentacles, but there was no sign of her.

Suddenly, the monster roared louder than before – we looked up in unison, and saw one, then two, then half a dozen more pink arrows buried all over its head.

Of course: Kendal was our long-range fighter.

The beast’s huge serpentine neck began to sway around in pain, as an ever-increasing number of arrows struck its head.

“We should probably… just join in,” Dakota suggested. “Bao, we’ll tackle the tentacles. Alex, Zahid, cut it down.”

“You’ve got it!” I responded; Dakota and Bao turned back towards the now-frantic mass of tentacles, while Zahid and I primed our weapons and took slash upon slash at the beast.

Maybe there was another way to defeat this thing that we missed, but ultimately our first team battle turned into a one-way war of attrition. Our attacks overwhelmed the beast, and with one final gurgle of a screech, it toppled off to the left. Its body smudged away before it ever hit the water, its descent slowing the more it erased itself.

With our line of sight cleared, I could just about make out Kendal stood atop the roof of the boating centre, waving her arms around. Her victory cheers faintly reached us.

“Damn… we need Zords for a battle like this…” Bao panted, sitting down on the water’s surface. Zahid simply walked off, beginning his journey back to the shore. With a ‘huh’ beneath his breath, Bao turned to me.

“I don’t think he got that reference.”

“I didn’t get that reference,” I informed him.

Still worn out, we made our way to the shore, each of us retrieving our kayaks as we did (I had to venture back into the canyon to get mine, and I managed to slam into the wall a second time). Kendal was grinning ear-to-ear when we reached dry land, bouncing on the spot.

“I officially love kayaking!” she declared. The rest of us all responded with various degrees of dismay. Ultimately, we managed to convince her to leave it there for today – we all needed a rest after the battle. The kayaks were returned, and Kendal glumly tapped her bow against the water’s surface in a thankfully-successful attempt at returning the lake to normal. I joined in to erase the “dent” I’d left myself. Taps seemed to be the easy way of undoing things Lokonessence did.

As we began the journey back home, Bao snapped his fingers.

“Oh! Right! Guys, I noticed something weird…”

“If you say ‘this strange tentacle monster’, I swear…” Zahid shook his head.

“No, no… but I mean, it’s sort of the opposite…” the shorter guy observed. “No one else reacted.”

… huh. He had a point. Nobody had run and screamed in panic. Nobody had reacted in any way, shape or form to the presence of a giant animal in the lake, or to a bunch of people running around on the water.

“Whoa… we’ve got a Someone Else’s Problem field…” I observed.

“I get it but I bet you’ll have to explain to everybody else,” Bao told me with a nudge of his elbow.

“Oh, right…”

Of course. There’s me getting a little excited…

“Basically, no one else notices us or the monsters. We can fight without disrupting people’s lives,” I explained to the others.

“Hmm…” Dakota pondered, thinking deeply. “This keeps getting weirder.”

Another piece of the puzzle, at least. And hey, we’d learnt that and two other things: that the monsters are still around, and that kayaking is a lot easier when you’re not being attacked by a Krakenessie.