When it was time for lunch, Kada and Xard headed down from the mountain to join the other two. The nature wreckers looked like they had just bathed, so they’d most likely taken a quick dip in the natural hot spring that the group had discovered a few weeks back. Drim and Phon were at the campsite they had established near the front gate. It was a simple setup of two tents and a campfire pit with log benches around it that Drim had made for them. The two who’d become experts at manipulating terrain had teamed up to flatten the ground as much as possible, and Drim placed a soft moss beneath the area where the tents were erected. This made it fairly comfortable to sleep on, even more so than some beds.
The siblings shared one of the tents and the trainees had initially shared the other. Originally, the Drazahs had offered to pay for them to stay at a hotel in town until more permanent accommodations were built, but they had declined. Pox normally stayed in the Drazah tent but Kada would often claim him for the night. At the moment, he was curled up on the lid of the pot dangling above the campfire. Somehow, he was heat resistant like the rest of them for reasons they couldn’t understand.
“Man that sure was some fight today,” Kada offered her unasked opinion when she strolled into camp.
“You wouldn’t know what kind of fight it was if you had been working hard like you were supposed to. I saw the both of you watching us like we’re some kind of sideshow attraction,” Phon berated them as she picked up Pox off the pot and threw him at Kada. She then added more recently chopped ingredients to the soup she was making.
“Sorry about that, but it’s just so enthralling that we can’t resist,” Xard defended their clacking. “You can’t see anything like that anywhere else. Even special effects in movies can’t reach that level of intensity. A battle between Fiends is really something. Maybe we should record it and put it up online for the rest of the world to see. We could probably make some money if we sold it somehow, not that you two really need more of it.”
Drim sat up at that comment. He had been laying on one of the log benches with one of his arms draped across his eyes in a poor attempt at taking a nap. After a yawn, he suggested, “One of the scouts is probably recording it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we had a satellite dedicated to monitoring us at all times now.”
“Scouts? What scouts?” Kada asked while turning to Xard for answers, who simply shrugged in response.
“Do you two specialize in being oblivious or something?” The Vixens sighed before she closed her eyes. “Let’s see… oh there’s only 31 scouts today. That’s much less than usual. Maybe they’re finally getting some time off, or maybe the CP is getting bored with us since we’ve been less active lately. It’s not like it’s totally their fault that we are or anything…”
“Wait, does that mean someone’s been watching us bathe?!” the other girl yelled, wondering if she should cover her already lightly-dressed body in shame.
“Probably. I just teleport any of them away that are closeby when I go for a bath,” Phon was amused by her own actions.
“As for the money part… well, we actually could use a bit more of it honestly,” Drim chimed in. “We’ve spent the vast majority of it on supplies, but the good news is we now have everything ordered that we’ll need, well, that we could think of anyways.” On cue another delivery truck drove through the gates, following the beaten path to the giant pile of supplies to unload its haul, a rumbling reminder of the fortune steadily being drained away.
“Uhh… how much exactly did you spend?” Kada asked with clear worry in her voice.
The Slayer pulled up the tablet to his face that had been sitting nearby, after a second of looking through it, he answered, “Looks like about 95%.”
Kada let out a noise that could only be described as a death-cry and then sobbed, “So much for my grand plans for Kada’s Private Resort and Water Park.”
“Hey, that’s enough money that we could still live off of it for our entire lives if we lived modestly. It’s probably more than the average salary worker would make,” The Vixen concluded. “If you want to get rich then do it on your own merits. Plus, I would have stabbed you a whole bunch if you actually attempted to marry Drim to get our fortune… Same goes for you Xard,” she added, waving a knife in his general direction.
The gang listened to Kada’s new life crisis caused by these sudden revelations for some time while the food finished cooking. Once it was done, they settled in for a nice meal, but right when they were about to take their first bites a familiar whirring sound loomed overhead. “Ugh, really? Do they have to do it during meal time?” the redhead complained.
“They probably want to try doing it while we’re listlessly sitting around. They’ve tried every other time they can think of,” Phon was clearly annoyed, but more tired than anything due to the repeat nuisance. “Kada you’re up.”
“Ehhhh, why is it always me?” the chosen one whined. “Just because it’s easiest for me to do, it doesn’t mean I always want to do it. I’d rather just sit here and enjoy my soup, thanks.”
“Let’s see where they aim for this time,” Drim interjected. “If they target us, I can easily take care of it with my vines.”
“No no, regardless of where it goes, it should definitely be Kada or Xard either way as punishment for slacking off earlier,” Phon rebuked. “And Xard did it last time since Kada was in town. Besides, she's the one who wants the blasted things. She should always be doing it in my opinion.”
Kada continued to try to push the responsibility onto someone else as the noise got louder. It belonged to a CP skycraft that was flying overhead and would streak across the compound at any moment. Skycrafts were flying machines in the same vein as helicopters but only moved forward using propellers or engines to allow for more speed.
Currently, they were almost exclusively used by the military with a very miniscule number of smaller crafts that were privately owned. No public form of transportation using them had yet to be established, though there were allegedly plans for an unspecified time in the future. The Drazahs had been the first to use them in a practical application to drop their bombs, forcing the rest of the world to catch up quickly.
Since they were almost all for military use, the flying machines never had an official name applied to them. Rather, each one had its own code name for the model of the craft. The public consensus had landed on calling them skycrafts. Originally, there had been much debate on what to call them, even with some coming up with silly names such as ‘airplanes’, but those were swiftly shot down.
A few days after they had moved back to Bisomote, skycrafts routinely began to fly overhead. Nothing happened with them the first few times, likely either just scouting or testing to see if the Fiends would be hostile towards them. After two days of this, they dropped their first bomb on the compound which had definitely caught the group off guard. They had managed to get Kada under it in the knick of time to melt it before it hit the ground.
Since then, at varying times and frequency, a skycraft would fly over and drop a random number of bombs on the compound. The pilots had tried at all times: when some were sleeping, when some were in the bath, when one of them was off on a job, when Drim and Phon were fighting, when Kada and Xard were working on the mountain, and now when they were eating.
The first few after the initial bombardment had been very easy to deal with. They had Kada use the existing bomb to melt any that were falling. Once the liquid splattered onto the ground, she would reform them and add them to her growing pile. Unfortunately, after a few days, their tormentors started to wise up. They began dropping bombs made up of randomized mixtures of metal. Each one was unique, even in the same bombing run. This meant that Kada couldn’t melt any new explosives with the ones she already had.
She could still use her Curse on the mawhging things but would have to touch them directly. Despite her protests, the others did their fair share of bomb catching too using their own techniques. Drim would use a slew of vines to slow down and nab them, Xard would get under one and stop its momentum, and Phon would teleport herself onto a shell as it fell, grab it, then teleport back to the ground.
On one occasion when she was completely alone, rather than teleporting the bomb, The Vixen had teleported the pilot to the ground before they could release their payload. This caused the skycraft to crash into one of the nearby mountains. After a severe scolding from her brother, and several hours of forced solo cleanup by hand, she was never allowed to use that tactic again.
Even after this new bomb had been released, the group was still nonchalantly bickering over who would take care of it. But before they reached a consensus, Phon got fed up and covered her eyes. Kada vanished from the group, and Pox, who had been sitting on her lap, fell a few inches onto the bench. She reappeared directly below the bomb, falling on her butt since there was nothing to support her now. “Could you at least let me put my food down first!” the distant girl yelled back at them, just barely audible, still holding the bowl filled with her lunch.
Luckily for her, it was just one massive bomb today rather than several smaller ones that she’d have to chase around. It was a wonder why they even tried the bigger ones at all anymore since the size didn’t matter if they never hit anything. Once, the Fiends had let a smaller one hit the ground intentionally, to see the scale of damage. It had left a decent sized crater, but they had repaired it easily enough. This eased their fears, so they wouldn’t feel too bad if they missed one now and then, and only really panicked when they targeted the supply stack.
Frankly, the Fiends weren’t too worried anymore when it came to the poorly aimed bombs and their own safety. Rather, their concern was more for their already unfriendly neighbors, not wanting the town’s residents to be shaken up by the explosion and the noise that came with it. The newest bomb probably wouldn’t cause damage to anything important, but it would be beyond disturbing the peace. The group had wondered how the CP was causing so much chaos without suffering endless complaints and accusations from the citizens of Bisomote, until they noticed a circular that their taxes had been reduced to next to nothing for the duration.
Kada took a good look at her food and filled a spoonful, likely deciding if she could eat all of it in time. She quickly came to the conclusion that she couldn’t and placed it on the ground instead. The woman then bent her whole body, huddling over the meal like a mother protecting her child. Her body tightened up when the bomb hit her back. The tip of it melted, followed by the rest as it fell onto her skin. Liquid explosive then splattered in every direction. When it was done, Kada sat back up in the metal slop and resumed eating her lunch.
After she was finished, she reformed the giant hunk of mass destruction, hoisted it up, and carried it back to the campsite. By the time she made it back, she was gasping for breath and dripping with sweat. The trainee, who had worked through her lunch, clunked the bomb down onto the ground and sat on it to take a break. She said aloud, panting between each word, “That thing was mawhging heavy, couldn’t you have been nice and teleported me back?”
Phon didn’t look at her and instead reached over into the cooler next to her bench. She pulled out a chilled drink, undid the top, and stretched out her arm, reaching in Kada’s direction. Just as the thirsty woman began to lift up her own arm to grab it, The Vixen let out an extremely fake sounding yawn and jolted her arm. She put the drink to her lips and chugged it down in one go.
“Man that hit the spot,” Phon grinned after she exhaled dramatically. She then finally turned to Kada and acknowledged the complaint. “It’s good exercise for you. Plus, if you learned how to control your Curse better, you could just melt it and make it follow you back, yes?”
Kada whined for a while over this response until Xard asked her, “So what’s this one going to be?” He was referring to the side project the most artistic among them had been working on. Since the bombs had been constantly piling up, Kada had taken the liberty of giving them a use. In her spare time, which she didn’t have a ton of, she’d spent it building a hut composed of the bombs behind their tents. The crazed carpenter had finished the main framework of it a while ago and had since moved on to making them into furnishings.
“Hmm…” the girl pondered as she stared down at it. “Maybe a nightstand… Oh, or a toilet! It would be nice not having to squat or go into town. Maybe I could morph it into a decently shaped toilet and build an outhouse around it. I don’t know how to do plumbing or anything, but I can definitely make a hole.”
◆◆◆
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
After lunch came hands-on training. This normally fell on Phon who would teach the rookies close-quarter and hand-to-hand combat, but she had housekeeping she needed to take care of that day; most notably organizing all the new supplies that had been delivered in the past few shipments. So it fell on Drim to instruct them for the afternoon. He mostly taught them survival skills, along with training them to use a bow. Neither of them had any plans to use one permanently, but it definitely helped refine their general accuracy, technique, and patience during combat. He would also take them hunting on occasion as well.
That day, though, he was teaching them all about fire—how to make it using natural elements such as handmade bows or flint, how to properly build and maintain one for long use, and how to cauterize a wound. The last one wasn’t really for their benefit. As a Fiend, due to their natural healing, any wound that would warrant cauterization would probably kill them outright. This was more in case they needed to patch up a Lesser or a human. They both seemed appreciative that Drim had used his own body for them to practice on.
When the sun started to set, Kada and Xard headed to town to pick up dinner and other supplies while their teacher went to the hot springs to soak his body after a tough lesson. He didn’t get moments to relax like this often, so he’d probably make it a long one. This was due to the CPs annoying interference in their lives. They always needed to have at least one conscious person at the main compound at all times in the event of an airstrike.
The Drazahs tried to have one of the two of them always be present even though Kada was the main employee to take care of the bombs, but both were forced to be gone on rare occasions. This was why the two of them saw each other so little lately, since one of them was usually always either busy with training the new recruits or off on a job. At night, they would trade off keeping watch, so they never slept at the same time. Phon would usually go to bed immediately after dinner and trade with Drim in the middle of the night.
The constant concessions also limited the jobs they could take, forcing them to do ones they could get to and back from in a single day. Only once had Drim stayed overnight, forcing the rookies to join in on the lookout duties and briefly reduce their training. The situation had also made it nearly impossible for the group to spend time focused on team-building since they were limited to what could be done at the compound. The whole ordeal had become quite the hindrance to the siblings’ overall plans, making training Kada and Xard their main focus for the time being while they looked into ways they could alleviate the situation permanently.
After he was done with his bath, Drim decided to take a stroll around the perimeter. He could tell that the others weren’t back yet due to the grass he’d planted, and the quiet walk was something he liked to do when he had time to kill. The Slayer really gained nothing from patrolling like this besides his own relaxation. It was entirely for the benefit of the scouts. They hadn’t dared enter the compound yet since they’d begun the surveillance, and the leader wanted to keep it that way, hoping that the occasional display of caring about security was helping in that regard.
When he got around to the gates at the front, he noticed that his trainees had just passed the compound’s threshold and decided to catch up with them. “Ahh, hey Drim… Sorry, by the time I noticed, she had already done it,” Xard sighed. He was referring to the tied grocery bag swinging around in Kada’s hands as she walked, an unsettling sloshing coming from inside.
Drim let out a sigh of equal measure. “Whatever, I’ve stopped caring at this point. The food comes out just fine and I’ve definitely eaten worse things even if it stayed in that form.”
“Yeah, the impact of it has definitely lessened quite a bit,” the redhead agreed. “It’s still mildly disturbing knowing that my food was a puddle of goop earlier… Oh yeah! Something I have been meaning to ask you, Kada. How does stuff you melt and mix come back out normal when you unmelt it?”
“Hmm… not completely sure on that myself, but I do have a theory,” the melting maniac responded. “I think the molecules of the melted items must have some form of memory factor. That way, when I resolidify them, they go back to normal. Unmixing from other stuff is probably just an extension of that. I think that’s why it’s such a struggle for me to reshape and control stuff, since it naturally wants to go back to how it was.”
Phon was waiting for them back at their campsite. She was sitting on the ground, leaning her back against one of the benches with her arms resting on it, and staring off into the distance. Her yo-yo’s string was around her left middle finger, but the toy itself was resting on the ground. Kada set down the bag when they got there and didn’t even untie it before unmelting everything. A stack of pizzas ripped out of the bag, topped with a few bottles of sodas and various other snacks and daily necessities. She then turned to Phon, who hadn’t shifted her gaze at all, and declared, “Dinner’s here!”
The food-bringer was clearly weirded out by the lack of response and shuffled over. “Hellooooo, not hungry?” she inquired, waving a hand in front of Phon’s face. The woman then gasped, turned to the others and started to yell, “Guys, I think Phon might be de—” Kada was cut off by a vine wrapping around her mouth.
“Be quiet, she’s sleeping,” Drim ordered before releasing the floral gag.
Kada looked back at the sleeping Vixen and commented, “So she sleeps with her eyes open, huh… that’s… that’s weird.”
“Makes sense when you think about it,” Xard added. “Her Curse activates whenever she closes her eyes, so falling asleep must be pretty tough.”
“Yeah…” the girl’s brother lamented. “Right after we got back in contact, she wrote to me often about how hard it was for her to sleep, to the point that she was basically an insomniac. The fight earlier must have worn her out, which is why she’s sleeping so early, but it seems her habits have gotten much better. It may be at the point where she doesn’t even need the blinders anymore.” Drim noticed the confused looks of the others, so he went inside his tent for a moment, grabbed something, then returned and showed the other two.
The object was a similar design to swimming goggles but with no straps. They also had a strong black tint, similar to what a welder would use. “I had these made for Phon as soon as I could. It was a bit hard as a child to get someone to take my request seriously, though. This is actually her second pair since her face got bigger with age. These ones were made by Nathym and are a bit more advanced than the originals. Basically, they’re blackout goggles, but emit a tiny amount of light, just enough so her Curse doesn’t activate. These also stick to her face on their own so there’s no need for straps.”
Drim placed them on her face and then added, “Even if she doesn’t really need them to sleep anymore, I’d still prefer she wore them so she doesn’t get anything in her eyes.” He then picked up his sister and carried her into their tent. Afterwards, the three conscious Fiends sat down and enjoyed dinner together, making sure to save some for Phon to enjoy when she woke up.
In the middle of eating, Kada wondered, “So how did you guys get back in touch anyways? Weren’t you on like opposite ends of Rathe?” She had asked all of this with her mouth full, so it was hard to understand, but legible enough to get the gist.
Not being a savage, Drim chewed his food properly and swallowed all of it before responding. “Hand Guy,” was all he said before picking up a new slice of pizza and biting into it. The boy made it about halfway through before he noticed the looks the other two were giving him. “Wait, have I seriously never told you two about Hand Guy before?” The other two shook their heads slowly in response. “Huh, that’s weird. It’s not like we were keeping it a secret or anything.”
The leader went back into the tent again, and returned with a pencil, a piece of paper, and a roll of tape. He wrote ‘To Kada’ on the paper, then picked up Pox who was munching on an empty pizza box. Drim taped the paper to the back of the animal’s head, lifted him up, and asked, “Can you deliver this for me please?” A hand appeared from behind Drim’s back, grabbed Pox, then slunk away into the shadows.
“For you, miss,” an unexpected voice bellowed from behind Kada as the fluffy package appeared from over her shoulder. “From an uncouth gentleman, who belittles my divine services so much that he would use them for a mere demonstration.” The woman took Pox and shivered as the hand over her shoulder slid back out of existence.
“Sorry about that,” Drim apologized to the dim sky. “If you can hear me that is… So yeah, that’s Hand Guy. A couple of months after the Cosmic Boon, I wrote a letter to Phon explaining that I was okay, along with where I was staying at the time. After realizing I had no idea where to send it, I was just about to tear it up. Then, a voice called out to me, ‘I can deliver that for you,’ and it took the letter. I didn’t hear from him again afterwards, but a week later, a letter showed up from Phon. Since then, any time I’ve needed something delivered, he’s done it for me.”
“I don’t know if he’s a Fiend or what. Just now, I couldn’t feel his feet touching the grass, and this is the first time he’s mentioned the word ‘divine’ at all. It also seems he only offers his services to me. Phon tried to have him deliver something too but got no response, and I could find no mention of him from extensive research. What I do know is that I’m eternally grateful to him. I doubt I would have found Phon again without him. There’s a big chance none of us would even be here right now otherwise.”
“What a heartwarming story-” Kada smiled for a moment before shivering again. “-that is super creepy and disturbs me to my very core. Seriously, what the hell?! Does this mean that guy is stalking you at all times?”
“I have to agree with Kada on this one, it’s pretty freaky,” Xard added, scanning around to try and find any indication of Hand Guy. “I already know the answer to this because it’s you, but have you ever considered using him for nefarious purposes? Like, you could have him deliver a bomb or something. I’m guessing he could bypass even the tightest security. You also just demonstrated he can deliver living things. It’s possible we could use him to infiltrate somewhere even Phon couldn’t reach.”
“Err, I’d rather not run the risk of falling out of his good graces,” Drim replied, scratching his cheek from being caught a little off guard by these questions. “Anyways, if you guys are done eating, let’s move on to the last training so you two can head to bed.”
Curse training took place every night after dinner. Drim was in charge of overseeing this since Phon was just plain bad at it. She seemed entirely unable to empathize with how others view and control their Curses. On the rare times she had to fill in for her brother, she’d simply follow instructions left by him. It definitely wasn’t something that could be taught easily either. Since every Curse was different, each person had their own specific needs on how to cultivate it.
For Xard, they had initially worked on his ability to contain energy. Drim did this by repeatedly attacking him and then having him hold in the energy for as long as possible. Once he could contain a large amount of energy for an acceptable amount of time, they moved on. He was now working on controlled energy input and output. This was achieved by placing both of his hands on various objects.
Under each finger on his left hand was a mobile device belonging to one of the Fiends, and under his right hand was a bell. The training worked by having all the devices set to vibrate constantly. Then, Drim would instruct him to absorb energy from only one of the devices, causing the vibration to temporarily stop. Xard would then place all of his fingers on his right hand on the bell, except for the one instructed. He had to release the energy from the raised finger so the bell wouldn’t ring. It was clear that the redhead wasn’t entirely confident of the efficacy of the training, but Drim reassured him the intended result would become apparent soon.
Since Kada had been a Fiend for a few years, she was definitely much more versed in using her Curse. The woman had mastered the basic fundamentals of melting and unmelting to the point where the only thing that could be improved upon was how far she could radiate it. However, no matter how much they trained, she barely made any progress on that front. She was also quite good at the compression of stuff in a liquid state, so instead, they had decided to focus solely on reshaping things when turning them back into a solid.
Essentially, she had just spent the past month playing with rocks. The girl would melt one then do her best to reshape it and then resolidify it to cement the new form. They had gone through the basic list of shapes starting with a sphere. Since it had no definition, they had assumed it would be simple, but it proved to be one of the more challenging ones for her. Surprisingly, Kada excelled at making cones. After a bit of testing with each one to judge their difficulty, Drim had her working through them all from easiest to hardest until she mastered each one.
She would also end each night with trying to move a liquid rock as far away from her as possible until she was unable to control it anymore. This was to work on her overall range of control. Her radius was actually quite far for being able to melt a material that was a duplicate of one she was touching, but being able to control it was an entirely different endeavor. On occasion, the instructor would have her work on melting only one piece of a material from a bunch, but that was low on the priority list.
After they finished training for the night, the three of them sat and chatted around the dying campfire. Before Phon had fallen asleep, she had prepared a dessert to be cooked in a pot-oven on the coals of the fire. They were enjoying it while Kada attempted to get the other two to tell ghost stories with her, but neither of them would take the bait. Eventually, she gave up and retired to her bomb-hut with Xard heading into his tent soon afterwards. This left Drim alone to begin his routine watch in the dark.
He enjoyed the time by himself, reminiscent of all the nights he’d spend camping out in the wilderness, lages away from the nearest human. The Slayer would use the peaceful nights to either read something or train on his own. Since he needed to be quiet for it, his training usually consisted of simple strength exercises or Curse refinement. The most common exercise he did was to summon a bamboo ladder that stood straight up towards the sky. As he’d climb it, the bottom rungs would vanish and new ones would be replaced at the top.
For his Curse training, he’d usually either research up on new plants and try to make them. Otherwise, he would look up an encyclopedia of common ones, then run down the list of them and make them one at a time. The botanist did this to keep the memory of each flora and how to make it fresh in his mind, not wanting to be stuck in a situation where he needed a particular plant and not remember the specifics of it. A lot of time was spent developing ways he could utilize or weaponize the wide array of vegetation in creative ways as well.
The time passed pretty quickly, and it was nearing the end of his shift, but he became too tired to keep doing anything productive. So he simply laid on the grass and looked up at the stars, doing his best not to fall asleep. I remember this view, but I don’t think I ever took the time to stop and appreciate it until now. A familiar voice filled his head, snapping him out of his relaxed trance.
“Oh, you’re finally awake,” Drim muttered with a hint of annoyance. “You were asleep for quite a while this time. Guess that’s what happens when you pull something stupid like that,” the boy grumbled while he sat up and stretched.
Listen, Drim. I—
“Shut it, will you?” the annoyed son hissed. “You’ve already ruined the mood, and I’m too tired to deal with you tonight.” He headed into the tent to find Phon already awake, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Drim laid down in the sleeping bag next to her and quickly drifted off to sleep.
Discord, , and Amazon Release (Pending), can be found on the Fiends For Hire .
Would Kada melting your food beforehand bother you?
