Everything was strange… but at the same time, familiar. The place might have been wrong, ugly, and evil… but she wasn’t unused to bad places. In her long life, she had seen plenty. She had also seen this exact situation thousands, if not millions of times – she and Ichi sitting down somewhere peaceful… and just being there. When she was down. Or hurt. Or simply overwhelmed. Head resting on her sister’s lap… getting gently caressed… with unspoken love and understanding. And yet, despite that love, it always felt like an echo of something… greater… something that neither of them ever experienced, and could only vaguely imagine… something she felt they all should have had, but… for some reason, never got…
She tried to focus on it… on the vague feeling pestering her mind but… brain started to hurt… why did it always hurt? There was no answer. There was never an answer. It was unfair. Was everyone hurting the same way when they thought too hard? Maybe… Or maybe they were just taking the pain better…
No. It wasn’t the time to focus on that… It wouldn’t go anywhere. But on the bright side, she figured out what was so strange about the situation. Their roles were reversed.
Kendall couldn’t recall a single instance when she was the one comforting, and Ichi the one getting comforted. It was always the other way around. Her big sister ended up on her lap… trying not to sob and not exactly succeeding… but that could have been just rain. Because why wouldn’t rain have a few hot droplets? Ni said it could happen sometimes.
The worst part was that she couldn’t help her in any way. Little one was so small that they could crush him by an accident in the darkness… All they could do was wait and look. Look into the darkness of valley of ruined houses. To be honest, Kendall was still flabbergasted at how many there were in such a small space… No, she shouldn’t think about the little ones that used to live here… she should think about her sister.
Pulling her tail a bit closer once the flames heated it up too much for comfort, she considered if trying to cover Ichi’s head, or at least eyes from the rain was a good idea.
No, it was bad – Ichi stared at the landscape, trying to spot any movement. She barely even blinked, which was honestly creeping Kendall out a bit… But at the same time, she understood. Ichi lost her little one and was desperately hoping that he would come back…
Kendall once hoped for the exact same thing.
But life had taught her that hope rarely pays off in anything other than pain… but she refused to learn that lesson. Because if… If it was true, then… then…
Then why live?
She exhaled shakily, pulling Ichi’s head a bit closer, which made Ichi glance at her with a raised eyebrow.
“I-I…” Kendall hesitated, struggling to find words to express what she wanted to. “I love y-you, sis,” she resigned, tracing Ichi’s forehead with her snout.
Ichi didn’t respond – just deflated and finally closed her eyes… which made Kendall even more resentful. About her own inability to do… anything right…
And so, they waited. Waited through the rainfall, powering through it just like their enormous campfire – its flames raging defiant against the storm, a beacon of warmth and hope in the darkness attempting to snuff it with all its might…
Something patted one of her toes. Initially taking it for just more water she decided to ignore it, until it repeated. And repeated once more.
Kendall finally graced the persistent itch with a toe wiggle and a glance… And saw it. A tiny, but unmistakable figure smaller than a finger was bothering her foot…
“Ichi… Ichi…” Kendall whispered, choking from anxiety as she shook her sister by the shoulder.
The bloodshot eyes looked up with absolute defeat. No strength, no conviction, no… nothing. Damn it, did she really have to force her?!
The answer turned out to be yes. Kendall manually lifted Ichi’s head by grabbing one of her horns and putting her other hand under Ichi’s shoulder. Kendall anxiously pointed at the tiny shadow pestering her. Ichi’s eyes took a few seconds to adjust…
And then, she sprung up and literally pounced onto him, swiftly lifting him up to eye level, flames illuminate his diminutive form. Ichi stared at him in shock, disbelief and… something Kendall was unable to describe. She poked the little human as if checking if he was real… it made him collapse to his knees, his face betraying pain and exhaustion not only of the physical variety.
“Pete…” Ichi whispered, gently caressing the soaked fur on his head with a trembling finger, terrified of hurting him with an errant twitch.
Slowly, gently, she pulled him closer, delicately nuzzling him with her nose. But what’s more important… her purr returned. A deep, almost thundering purr that defeated and broke through the barraging rain.
Kendall couldn’t help but smile. Hope was a good thing after all.
***
Ichi spent the night cradling him. Watching him. Protecting him. He slept in her palm, and she wouldn’t dare take her eyes off of him – not after what she just went through. The only way to be sure.
It was a miracle. He returned, completely on his own… She was eternally grateful, but at the same time… it infuriated a certain part of her. She couldn’t protect him. She couldn’t help him. She couldn’t even FIND him… He had to do everything himself…
Insulting. Frustrating. It made her feel worthless and… powerless. Because if with all that strength… power… experience… If with that everything she couldn’t even protect the one thing she cared about more than anything else…
No… Not ‘thing’. Person.
Sure. Whatever you want to call it.
How can you be this way?
Oh please… We love him, but we both know he is our plaything.
No, he’s not! Shut up.
So tiny, weak, fragile…
He’s perfect.
Never said he wasn’t. But we should definitely tie him up or at least keep him on a leash.
One more word and I will lock you in the corner again.
Hah! Good luck with that!
Ichi shook her head, dispelling the ugly thoughts. That she was even capable of… well, thinking them… sickening.
She exhaled, calming herself a little, and focused on her precious boy. Despite the dirt and other filth he managed to pick up on the way up… despite the wounds marked by the clotted blood… he looked so… peaceful.
Her right eye focused on the wound in his stomach. She was way too big to even attempt to help with that… but someone was going to die for daring to graze him. And it wasn’t a threat, nor even a promise – it was a new law of reality set in motion.
Conviction battled exhaustion and at least for now, remained victorious. She sighed but forgot to turn her head away… which caused her breath to envelop him. He stirred and moaned sleepily, returning to consciousness against his will.
Great – now she felt even more awful.
He yawned and began rolling over but stopped halfway through and grimaced with pain when his belly wound got compressed. His hand covered it instinctively and it made her pet his head on pure instinct.
Peter finally opened his tiny, weary eyes and looked at his cushions with a hint of surprise, before meeting her gaze.
“Good morning, dear,” she whispered softly. He rubbed his eyes and stretched, before his wound once again robbed him of that comfort. “Did… did I sleep here all night?” he finally asked, glancing at her palm.
“Yes.” Ichi nodded. “I wanted you to be comfortable and warm.”
“A bit excessive, but… thank you.”
Ichi curled her ring finger a little and he used it as a convenient spot to grab onto as he sat up. It soon also doubled as a convenient spot to cuddle into. Beyond cute, but regret thwarted anything resembling a smile from entering her face.
“I guess I have a lot of explaining to do…” he sighed.
***
“…and I just… pushed him…” Peter mumbled.
“Pushed… you mean you killed him?” Ni raised an eyebrow.
Peter nodded, trying not to look her in the eyes.
“That’s brutal, midget.”
“I know, I just…” He hid his face in his palms. “I… I didn’t mean to…”
“Yeah, whatever. He shanked you first. Still, I didn’t think you were capable of that.” Ni shrugged.
Kendall tried to give her sister a stern, scolding gaze, but it only resulted in a somewhat incredulous look from Ni.
Ichi though… She was quite happy. Or maybe satisfied was the better word. The universal law of ‘Touch Peter equals die’ was apparently self-enforcing itself already. Her only regret was that she didn’t get to squish, burn, or maybe eat the evil human herself but… you couldn’t have everything in life, now could you?
Realising how messed up that was, she shook her head slightly, dispelling the thoughts.
“Have you found anything while I was gone?” he finally asked, still massaging his temples.
“We were too busy looking for you,” Ichi responded.
“Yeah, WE were. You were busy having constant meltdowns,” Ni scoffed.
Both Ichi and Kendall looked at her in disbelief but refrained from commenting on the sudden audacity. It seemed that everything was returning to normal.
Peter took a few deep breaths, took a bite out of the meat piece Ichi gave him, wiped his face and suddenly… stopped moving. The first few times it happened were a bit scary, but they were all used to it now. It was not fear, or pain. He simply noticed something none of them did and got so busy analysing it that his brain turned off everything save for breathing to focus on thinking. And that breathing part was also on the very edge of tolerance.
“They had freezers there… working freezers,” he mumbled to himself.
“Freezers… You mean those things that make stuff cold?” Ni asked.
“Yes.”
“And? What about them?”
Peter looked at her in a way that usually directly preceded intense roasting. Ichi braced herself as to not shake too much from laughter.
“You…” he suddenly cut himself off. “They are still working, right? But they need electricity for that. Yes?”
“I’ve seen some of these wind turbines in the mountains up-north.” Ni gestured behind her. “They’re still spinning.”
“Cool but consider this – it takes one windless day for everything to unfreeze. Sure, those days might be rare, but… would you believe there wasn’t even a SINGLE such day for decades?” he mused.
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“I mean…” Ni scratched her chin. “It could happen, but… wait, you’re saying that they’re storing energy somewhere around here?”
Ichi’s eyes darted towards her sister when he nodded. Unable to decide what surprised her more – Ni’s competence or Peter’s restraint – she decided to actually focus on what they were talking about. After all, if Ni could grasp it, she certainly could as well.
“So, a bunch of those… batteries? Like those under your desk at home?” Ichi chimed in.
“No, absolutely not.” He shook his head. “No one would be stupid enough to stack that many power cells in one place… even me. The place would have burned down within a year, and that’s if they were lucky.”
Ni snorted at the slightest hint of grimace that appeared on Ichi’s face.
“So they have one of those things that… pump the water up, right?” Ni prodded.
“Possibly. Go up the river and check. If there’s nothing there… we might be set,” he replied, leaving Ichi even more confused.
***
Ichi has become the anti-Kendall. Not on the ‘cruel-kind’ axis thankfully – while Kendall refused to touch him, Ichi refused to let go of him.
When he wanted to go somewhere, she would carry him. When he ate, it was on her palm. When he worked on the 3D model, she insisted he sat in her hand while she lay right behind him. He honestly thanked gods real and fake that she finally got convinced to at least turn around when he peed.
It was excessive to the point of exhaustion, but on some level, he appreciated it. It prevented him from focusing on… that.
No, don’t think about it. He had too much to do to focus on pointless trauma now…
He fed the program a few more photos and old satellite maps, making the fan live out his helicopter fantasy for the third time today and...
The computer died. It ran out of power, despite being connected to the…
It hit him that the generator rumble was missing. His eyes wandered along the cords and found nothing. And not in the ‘good nothing is broken’ sense – his eyes were assaulted by the egregious lack of generator.
Huffing from frustration, he turned around to face the most likely culprit. “Where is the generator? That noisy, yellow box that…”
“I know what a generator is,” she scoffed with a hint of annoyance. “I don’t know. Didn’t touch it.”
“Really? Love, you broke half of my shit, you don’t have to hid…”
“I DIDN’T touch it,” she stressed. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen it since… you know, you got kidnapped.”
Before he could inquire any further, the implications of her words hit. They stole the fucking generator…
Facepalm. Moan of pain and frustration that concerned her. What to do… There was only one sensible… No – one not completely ridiculous course of action.
“Ichi…” he whispered. “We have to go and get it back.”
***
“Here?” Ichi asked, moving her hand a bit further from her chest to let him see better.
Peter looked around and scratched his head. The district was… familiar? Maybe? Problem was, EVERYWHERE was ‘maybe familiar’. Not because he knew the city, but because it was all nearly identical rubble and roads dotted with endless thigh-deep pawprints.
The fact that he couldn’t see anything while running away didn’t help with backtracking either…
“I don’t know…” he huffed, then considered something. “Put on me on the ground for a bit.”
Ichi squatted and lowered her hand until he was roughly at his usual eye level. He tried to get off her hand, but her thumb pinned his legs into her palm. He raised his eyes with annoyance and met a stern, unapologetic gaze that made it clear he wasn’t going anywhere, and that it was non-negotiable.
Once again, his subconscious wondered how insane he must have been to be annoyed by an angry Titan, instead of terrified to the point of fainting.
He did the next best thing and tried to gage the surroundings, attempting to map the – now huge – rubble onto his hazy memories. It went about as well as one would expect. After a quick gesture and a mild case of vertigo, he again found himself where he belonged – right next to Ichi’s heart.
She and Kendall marched through the ruined city, scanning for any and signs of… of…
Of…
He didn’t need to scan anymore… but at the same time, really, really wished that he had to…
A red trail on the ground, going across the street, carefully avoiding both obstacles and paw-shaped ponds alike. Even washed and diluted by the night rain, it remained visible for all to witness… A testimony of his crime…
It ended near a mildly damaged block and disappeared between the rubble opposite to it. He pointed at it, and Ichi followed it without a word. She understood.
What for tiny him was a labyrinth at night, for her was an alleyway with mild tripping hazards. After the third turn, the red trail disappeared in a car tunnel… or rather, in a small, pedestrian passage right next to it that looked like a maintenance tunnel.
“It’s here,” he announced flatly.
Ichi paused for a second, eyeing the passage. “Too small for me.”
“Wow, how did you guess?” he huffed. “I need to go inside.”
“Absolutely not,” she snapped. “There is no way in hell I’m letting go of you, at least until we get back home.”
“Oh, come on Ichi!” he pushed against her once again pinning thumb.
“No.”
“Aren’t you forgetting that it’s my decision to go or not go anywhere?” he grumbled with an annoyed expression.
She lifted him to her eye level. “Aren’t you forgetting that any degree of your freedom is purely my good will?” she asked, drilling him with her signature gaze.
In that moment Peter felt… fear. A sliver of what he felt when he first met her invaded his mind, making him tense up and lightly curl into himself.
Her own words hit her about two seconds after uttering them, making her clench her jaw and facepalm. “… Sorry… I didn’t mean to say that…”
The apology didn’t make him feel much better though – the fact that this thought was high enough to surface at all was… concerning. And maybe… maybe a tiny bit sobering.
“Would it help if I had a rope tied around my waist for… safety?” he asked quietly.
Ichi exhaled through her fingers and slowly nodded. “Yes… That’s a good compromise.” she sighed, fighting against herself.
And so, they did – Kendall handed them the rope she was carrying in a pouch along with his other basic tools. Waist alone wasn’t enough for Ichi though – she made another circle under his armpits, tied everything herself, and only after several tests involving hanging him in the air was she… well, satisfied was too strong a word – she deemed it passable.
Struggling a little because of how feverishly Ichi held the rope, he stepped into the tunnel, determined to return to the very place he so desperately escaped less than a day ago.
Wondering how likely they were to open the door while the entire district was shaking with Titanic steps, he knocked on the door… and predictably, got no response. So, he did the only thing any self-respecting idiot would do and refused to get the message. Another knock.
After the fifth time, someone finally answered the door after an audible scuffle. The middle-aged woman slammed the door open, eyed him with pure hatred for a split second, and pounced onto him, fists flailing.
Peter was never a good, decent, or even a passable fighter, and so without the life-or-death adrenaline rush found himself getting his ass handed to him as both he and several people on the other side of the door screamed at once.
As it turned out, the rope was a fantastic idea, as he probably wouldn’t be able to escape the crazed woman otherwise. Ichi pulled him out, but not alone. The furious, anguished, and eerily silent woman latched onto his legs and – after a bit of grating over the concrete floor – now dangled several meters above ground along with him. Just in a far more precarious position.
Without saying a word, Ichi grabbed the woman and…
“No! Ichi, no! Don’t kill them! Please!” he yelled desperately.
Miraculously, his plea was heard, and the woman remained merely a prisoner, instead of a stain.
“Bù, qiú nǐle! Fàngguò tā māmā ba!” Zhou screamed, running out of the tunnel and freezing at the sight of two dragons staring straight at him “Duìbùqǐ! Wǒ wéi suǒyǒu shì gǎndào bàoqiàn, dàn wǒ qiú qiú nǐ……ráo nǐ māmā yī mìng,” he continued shakily, prostrating himself on the ground.
Ichi blinked and shakily exhaled, trying to remain calm.
“I have no idea what they’re saying,” Peter admitted, slowly rotating like a Christmas bauble.
Ichi glanced at him, then at the trembling boy, and unconsciously licked her. “I… I feel like I should know, what he said, but…”
“Wù jù, xiǎozǐ. Fú hài rǔ,” a voice from behind suddenly whispered.
A whisper, but strong enough for Zhou to hear. And it apparently originated from Kendall.
***
“Be not afeard, dram one. We shall do thee no harm,” Kendall whispered, remembering words she hasn’t spoken in thousands of years.
She suddenly felt gazes on her. Thankful, confused, shocked and…
“What?” the small human on the ground asked.
“Prithee, be not afeard,” she repeated. “We art not h’re to harm, we has’t cometh to reclaim what is ours.”
The tiny creature looked even more bewildered than before. Was she remembering wrong? Or maybe she just chose the wrong language? It wouldn’t surprise her, all things considered, but…
“Grandma! Come, please! I need you!” the human yelled into the crevice.
Only silence followed – at least from her point of view. And yet, after about half a minute an old, miserable human waddled outside, looking precariously close to falling over, or even collapsing into itself.
She fought the urge to comfort it and merely kneeled in front of it, which nearly made it… her fall over. From up close, she could definitely tell that it was a woman.
The granny looked up at her the other human Ichi was holding and then addressed Ichi – without fear and maybe even a hint of… defiance? “Oh, great dragon. Please, take me instead of her. Her children need her, and I have already lived long enough.”
Ichi blinked and slightly shook her head, then glanced back at Kendall.
“We just want to taketh the…” Kendall hesitated, looking for a proper word, before deciding she didn’t know one. “…yellow box thee took. Yond’s all.”
The old woman looked at her with genuine surprise.
“I don’t really get what he is saying,” said the younger human. “It’s like a…”
“It’s an old version of Chinese,” the old woman cut him off. “Very old. Most of the words he said are archaic and… by more than centuries.”
Kendall needed a few seconds to process her words and decode their meaning. Language… changed? It registered as a bit bizarre, but again… It wasn’t the first time when tinies talked differently than she expected…
At the very least, she guessed the language correctly.
“Canst thou return it?”
“Uhmm… What do you desire, oh great dragon?” the old woman asked.
“Yellow box. We have need of it again.”
“Yellow… Zhou, bring that generator over here, quickly!” the old woman snapped at the boy.
As he ran back into the crevice, they stared at each other in an almost eerie silence. That is, until Peter coughed to get Ichi’s attention.
“Could you maybe un-pedant me, love?” he asked, his face slowly spinning away from her again.
“Oh… right, sorry,” she mumbled, lifting him up onto her palm.
Kendall noticed that the old woman was glaring at him hatefully but quickly lowered her eyes once she realised Kendall was looking at her.
“I prithee forgive us. We are all repentant,” Kendall spoke quietly.
With a look of genuine surprise, the granny raised her eyes. “He killed one of us.”
“What did she say?” asked Ichi.
Kendall quickly reprogrammed her thoughts to comprehend her again. “S-she said t-that… Peter k-killed one of t-them.”
“Tell her then that they are lucky any of them are alive after kidnapping him,” Ichi hissed with bared teeth.
Kendall opened her mouth, but no sound left it. She decided to make the message… less violent. “He did defend himself. Thou canst not fault him for that.”
“Great dragon…”
“You better be silent,” Ichi cut her off. “Or I will stop being so merciful.”
They of course couldn’t understand each other, but granny grasped the message and stared at the ground right in front of her with a pale face. Frustrating, but Kendall couldn’t do anything to remedy the problem… as usual…
Ichi was just too stubborn in this state.
Zhou finally returned, struggling with the familiar yellow box Peter sometimes used to… make annoying noises.
“It’s here. Intact. Please, return my mother, I beg you!” the boy pleaded.
Kendall passed the message to Ichi, and she glanced at the smothered, still struggling woman in her fist. She considered something for a few seconds, before her right eye encountered Peter’s gaze. Ichi rolled her eyes and reluctantly placed the woman on the ground – far less gently than Kendall wished.
Zhou ran up and hugged her, tears rolling from his eyes as a stream of shaky whispers left his mouth.
Ichi picked up the generator and briefly examined it, before bracing herself to stand up.
“Wait Ichi!” Peter yelled, making her pause mid-motion. He quickly turned around to the three humans on the ground, thought about something, then addressed Kendall. “Ask them If they’ve seen a Jaeger around here.”
Kendall considered his words, trying to figure out how to translate that. “Dost thou know where the… great man of metal doth lie?”
“Metal man?” the granny asked.
“The mighty thing wrought to do battle with monsters,” Kendall specified.
“Ohhh… You mean the Jaeger…”
Peter coughed to get Kendall’s attention again. “Tell them that we will take them to the continent if…”
“You have to be joking,” Ichi cut him off.
Slowly turning to face her angry grimace, he put his hands together in a pleading motion. “Look, they will die if we leave them here. It’s only fair that…”
“Fair?! They’ve tried to kill you, they did…” She pointed at his hurt belly. “…this… And you are saying it’s ‘unfair’ to not care?”
“They have a small child with them. Too young to even walk. It will die as well.”
She hesitated, her gaze becoming more doubtful than angry. “They shouldn’t have kidnapped you.”
“Well Ichi… I have a tendency to like my kidnappers, now, don’t I?” he asked, cocking his head a little.
Ichi turned away from him, hissing venomously, which made the tinies on the ground cower in fear.
“Fine!” Ichi finally scoffed. “But I won’t be carrying them. Understood?”
Peter nodded and gestured at Kendall to continue.
***
“What do you think?” asked Ichi.
“Hard to tell. They could very well connect with others underground,” Peter admitted, trying to guess the cable layout.
It was difficult, to put it mildly – with no schematics to back himself up, and no idea if the standards used by another country decades ago were at all comparable with the ones he was familiar with.
Still, it was their only option, aside from randomly searching for it. But he knew it was there. Unquestionably.
Ni’s little escapade resulted in her finding some more ruined towns, a broken dam, and a whole lot of snapped wind turbines… but also, a very distinct lack of water reservoirs. And it meant one thing – energy storage was handled differently.
Ichi continued her trek uphill until reaching the local peak, letting him take a look at the entire area. Everything about as desolate as he had come to expect – no gras, dead trees, ruined buildings in the distance, rows of broken wind turbines with the rare few exceptions somehow looking even more battered than their destroyed counterparts… but then again, the ones still working were relentlessly spinning for decades, so wear was to be expected.
But as he was turning away, something caught his eye. An almost invisible valley between hills, roughly in the middle of the wind farm.
“There. Let’s check there.” He pointed at it.
Ichi instantly picked up the pace. Quite the trek, even for her, and so for the first time today, he got a moment to think. And it resulted in an… unsettling question surfacing. “You wouldn’t really… kill them… right?”
There was no answer. Just more thumps, more heartbeat, more wind… He glanced up and only saw her dewlap – she wasn’t even looking at him.
“Ichi…”
“I’m thinking!” she cut him off. “I… I really wanted to… But at the same time, didn’t. Before you spoke, I was considering a compromise of… just pulling one arm off and leaving it at that.”
His eyes widened in shock, before he hesitantly turned away, looking into the distance… at the toxic sea… “Never do that. Please.” he pleaded. “No killing… no hurting.”
“I will try,” she agreed.
“No. Not try. I want you to promise me.”
She suddenly stopped, taking a big breath. “Why? What would that change?”
“Because I know you keep promises. So promise me that. Please.”
Ichi clenched her jaws and exhaled loudly. “I promise,” she almost hissed.
But no matter how she said it, the only thing that counted was that she did. And they both knew it. He kissed one of her fingers as thanks, making her resume walking. Soon, they arrived at the destination. Exactly what he hoped for.
Rows of metal containers stacked on top of each other, surrounded by cables and a very distinct hum of pumps and electricity. Vanadium flow cells.
Almost home-free now. It all hinged on what condition the wreck Ni went to retrieve would be.
“I will disable the power first. Then, you will put as many of those boxes in a bag as you can. Carefully, understood?”
***