Chapter 38

[The following chapter contains strong language. Reader caution is advised.]

Sunday 2nd May 1999

For all of Harmony’s talk of creating more monsters for us to fight, things had been surprisingly quiet of late. Only one incident had occurred over the past week or so, and even that (attack of the giant potted plants as we visited a gardening centre) wound up being underwhelming compared to some of our fights. The idea that Harmony was giving us a break as our upcoming exams loomed did cross our minds, but that seemed unlikely for an entity beyond humanity like her… present appearance notwithstanding.

Saturday had provided a break from the revision, hanging out and occasional monster fights, as I went with the family to visit my grandparents a few towns over. Dakota came with us, and unsurprisingly, Grandma and Grandpa both fawned over her. “Such a pretty girl,” Grandma said of her more than once (she’s not wrong!). We all spent the afternoon lounging in the lush garden out the back of their bungalow, basking in golden Spring sunlight and the eye-catching bloom of two dozen varieties of flower. Come the early evening, we made our way home, stopping off at a gastropub for dinner and getting back home as the sky darkened. Dakota stayed over at ours for the night – or in other words, I got to take my snuggle-buddy home with me – and with Lucy inviting herself into my room to hang out with us, it was past midnight when the two of us finally fell asleep.

Mundane, right? But it was really enjoyable… it felt like a break from the unease and tension, and now I feel bad saying that because it’s not like hanging out with my friends should be tense… Still, everything was tinged with slowly-building exam stress and discomfort with our situation. Hard to be peppy when you keep wondering whether you’re crazy or not. A change of pace really helped.

Feeling a little nervous about meeting up with my friends the next day, not so much…

Still, it was another sunny day as Dakota, Lucy and I walked the short journey from the Matthews household to Dakota’s abode. The world seemed bright and inviting.

“You two have it easy,” Lucy pronounced with almost Shakespearean bombast. “You’ve only got about two exams each. I’ve got fifty. GCSEs can go suck it.”

“We have more than two and you have less than fifty…” I reminded her. “But yeah, I guess you have it worse…”

“You get two whole months off, plus change, though,” Dakota pointed out. “We get… seven weeks? We finish exams and go right back to lessons…”

“Good point. I kinda feel better now,” my sister concluded chipperly, skipping ahead of us a little.

“Happy to help…!” I called out after her with 100% bona fide sincerity and not even the tiniest drop of sarcasm.

“Your house is gonna be in ruins by the end of summer,” Dakota told me in hushed tones. “She’ll burn it to the ground.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me…” I nodded. “I think I’ll move in with you.”

“Stop whispering sweet nothings at each other,” Lucy teased us, now walking backwards to keep her accusing eyes on us.

“We can’t help it, we’re star-crossed lovers,” my girlfriend replied in equal tease, before tilting her head slightly. “I wonder where that saying comes from…? Isn’t it Shakespeare?”

“I think so. Romeo and Juliet.”

It took a moment or two after I’d said that for it to sink in.

“That’s really not the best place to get romantic expressions from, is it…?”

“We’re star-crossed lovers with a happy ending,” Dakota clarified to Lucy. “And no feuding families.”

“I dunno,” I started while avoiding the notorious large crack in the pavement, “the other week I heard Neil muttering to himself ‘I mustn’t let my niece date that filthy Matthews boy… I’ll terminate him…’”

Dakota promptly doubled over in laughter that she was fighting a losing battle to contain.

“He doesn’t sound like that…!” she snorted from her hunched position.

“‘Sure I do’,” I continued with my best Neil impression, “‘why don’t you recognise your own uncle’s voice, Dakota? Why?!’”

That was enough to send her over the edge, falling into hysterics and coming remarkably close to losing her balance. I wrapped an arm around her for support.

“‘Keep your balance, you’re almost an adult now.’”

“Stohohop!”

“‘Is this some new word you kids are using these days?’”

This was even more fun than I could’ve imagined.

“Jus- Jus-!” preceded more raw, beautiful laughter. I stopped there, giving her a chance to compose herself and wipe away her joyful tears.

“You git…” she scolded me lovingly once she was capable of talking again.

“I try,” I smiled back.

“You two are so cute together!” another voice said ahead of us.

Not Lucy, though.

Harmony was stood a couple of metres away, flanked by four shadowy figures that could only be more monsters. In contrast to their menacing presence, she was swaying lightly without a care in the world.

“Don’t mind me, I can wait,” she chirped.

“No, you ruined the mood,” Dakota told her sourly.

“I was only complimenting you,” the fake girl shrugged, “but I guess you’re still mad at me, so that’s fair…”

“Can we cut the crap and get on with the fight?” I asked. “Since that’s obviously what you’re after.”

She smiled brightly at that.

“Excellent! Suit up, folks!”

As much as it felt demeaning doing what she ordered, I summoned my Lokon sword to my hand and blasted my gear on. Beside me, Dakota did exactly the same.

Harmony’s smoggy black entourage twitched in anticipation; coiled vipers ready to spring on command.

“Have fun!” Harmony cheered, and with that, our latest opponents sprang forward, their arms moulding into weapons. One with an axe head for a right hand reached me first, and the force with which it struck at my blocking sword sent me skidding back across the pavement. Its partner, wielding a huge broadsword blade, chased after me, leaving me barely enough time to slash out at it defensively. The arc of blue struck its body, but rather than knocking it back or slicing through it, it remained on the monster’s body as a neon blue mark.

For a second, the figure froze, as though reeling from the sensation.

I glanced across to Dakota, going toe-to-toe with a monster who had replaced both of its forearms with fearsome blades.

Then, attention back to my own fight. Both opponents were coming for me, so I opted for a blast of blue from the blade of my sword in an attempt to keep them back. The explosion of pure colour consumed my sight for a moment, but once it cleared, the two shadow entities were covered and immobile.

Dakota cried out in pain: dashing away from my two monsters for good measure, I saw she had a shadowy arrow lodged in her chest. My heart began pounding at the sight long before my brain got the chance to remind me that it could never be fatal to her.

A short distance ahead of Dakota, the fourth and final monster had its wrists together, with a sideways bow sprouting from the meeting point. Another arrow was manifesting.

An axe, blades, a bow…

Yanking the first projectile out of her chest with a primeval scream, Dakota then amassed searing green around the head of her spear and thrust it in the direction of her assailant. While it moved out of the way, part of the attack still struck its body, and just like with its axe- and sword-wielding kin, it remained frozen for a moment.

“I think we have to cover them in colour!” I shouted across to her.

“Already on it!” she responded in kind, before striking the blade-armed monster as it rose up to confront her for good measure.

I went to look back at my two opponents again, but was slashed by the large smoggy sword and sent sprawling. My torn skin – torn tissue and muscle – stung sharply for a few seconds, more intensely than any pain I’d ever felt. I screamed and wailed as it took hold of me until, as suddenly as it had emerged, the pain subsided. Blue spurted from the wound like blood, and it was like nothing had ever happened.

The monsters advanced on me again. Their fronts were now uniformly blue, but with their back sides not covered, they could still move.

Being on the ground, I had a disadvantage.

Planting the bottom of my sword to the road, I let a bubble form around me, sprouting from the tip of the blade. The monsters halted, weighing up the situation, and I took that opportunity to leap to my feet and dart around them. Without waiting to see how they would react, I slashed towards them, splattering them with more colour. I kept moving until I’d cleared a little distance; they remained frozen in place, showing me their half-covered backs.

A wave of green hit them from the other side, and the axe-wielder promptly smudged out of existence. The one with the large sword, a little further away from Dakota and slightly blocked by its now-defeated companion, evidently still had some of its body exposed, as it remained in-place.

“See if you can get mine!” Dakota called out to me. The blade-armed figure, now smothered in green, made a beeline for me immediately after, and I only just managed to block its attack with my sword.

We spent a moment at stalemate, each pushing against the other, before it raised its left arm away to stab at me. I let the blade’s blue glow expand outwards, forming a barrier between the two of us.

“Play fair, you’ve got twice as many blades as me,” I scolded my opponent, and then pushed off with my feet, revolving through the air like something out of a martial arts film and landing behind the shadowy being, back-to-back with it. Rather than taking any time to recover from the dizzying move, I span around with the barrier still on my blade and slammed it into the bladed monster’s back. The resulting burst of blue was enough to finish the job, and the frozen being smudged into thin air.

“Just the archer left!” Lucy’s voice called out from somewhere nearby, but I was too busy regaining myself to look where.

“On it!” Dakota yelled back from my right. I turned around in time to see her charging towards the bow-handed entity. Fully prepared, it fired an arrow straight for her, which, of course, she anticipated and avoided with a sharp lunge to the right, closer to me. As soon as she landed on her right foot, she spun on it and unleashed an arc of green from her spear, striking the archer and freezing it up. She planted her left foot down firmly to halt her spin.

Fully-recovered now, I ran in an arc to quickly get to the archer’s back, charging my sword up all the while. The decisive blow was struck with so much force that I almost stumbled over, but as with its fellow monsters, the final shadowy being disappeared with its body coated in blue and green.

I remained in place, trying to catch my breath, as applause filled the air.

“Beautiful!” Harmony hollered. “You two are so good!”

“Please… piss off…” I grunted back at her.

“Since you said please…”

She said nothing more. It seemed that she’d completely disappeared.

“She creeps me out,” Lucy remarked, sat on the nearest street sign. “I know you told me she’s unsettling, but… eesh.”

“And Kendal made out with her once,” Dakota told my sister, while dispelling her costume.

“… she didn’t mention that…”

Said like she’d discovered tantalising blackmail material.

“Guess you’ll have to ask her how she compares,” Dakota suggested playfully, while continuing off in the direction of her house. Likewise cancelling out my regalia and sending my sword away, I followed after her alongside Lucy.

That bright Sunday morning continued on like everything was normal.

…

“Did… did you notice it too…?”

So I asked Dakota as we sat on the sofa, awaiting the imminent arrival of our friends while Lucy clattered about in the kitchen.

“That three of those things were using the same type of weapon as the others? Yeah, I noticed. The last one was probably Harriet, too… like the time she turned into the video game knight thing.”

“… good shout…” I noted, surprised by how much sense that made. I’d not considered Dark Harriet at all.

“Do you think she’s weighing up how we’d fare fighting each other…?” Dakota asked me, clearly uncomfortable with the idea.

“Or it’s… do you feel weird at all, hanging out lately?”

Better to scope out the subject, try and make myself seem as reasonable as possible in the matter.

“Not like ‘I hate these guys now’, but feeling like… everything’s a bit stressful and off…?”

“A little, yeah…” she nodded. “I’m trying not to let it get to me, though. They’re still my friends, and we’re all struggling right now.”

“Yeah…” I said. Of course me fretting over it was stupid…

“Alex…”

She put her arm around me, holding me close.

“If it’s making you feel bad, it’s okay.”

“It’s not…”

“It is,” she assured me softly. “I understand-”

“You’re taking it rationally and I’m just being fucking stupid…”

She said nothing for a moment, before putting her right hand to my cheek and turning my head to look at her.

“You are not stupid, Alex. And yes, I’m being rational. Because I know it’s stressful for them, too. You shouldn’t be ashamed of how you feel. You can’t help it.”

“Why is that okay…?” I whimpered.

“What matters is how you act. Don’t let it beat you, Alex. Remember how happy being with them makes you. That’s what I do.”

“Alright…” I muttered in response, feeling very exposed and not much better for her advice.

A knock on the front door was almost perfectly timed, and the sound of it opening followed a moment later.

“Wassup guys?” Bao’s voice called out from the hallway before the door shut. “If you’re there. I mean, in the living room, obviously you’re somewhere in the house or else the door would be locked…”

“We’re here, Bao,” Dakota giggled, still looking me in the eyes.

“Hey! Oh, am I interrupting a couple moment…?” he asked, clearer now, presumably stood at the living room door (I was still looking back at Dakota).

Okay. Just be light, I thought. Be fun and try not to let the uncomfortable feelings dictate how today would go. Bao was my friend. Let’s be fun.

“‘Not if I have anything to say about it,’” I spoke in my Neil impression.

Dakota’s face creased up as laughter grabbed hold of her.

“Why are you impersonating Ainsley Harriott…?” Bao asked with the utmost confusion.

… I guess it really doesn’t sound like Neil…