Chapter Text
“Not long ago, there lived a wicked king and queen. They were in charge of a flourishing kingdom, with gardens and farms their subjects tended with care and a niece and nephew adored by the land.
“But the king and queen were granted a terrible gift. A storm, the ability to befall their kingdom with rain whenever they wished, if they could keep control of it.
“They couldn’t.
“The king and queen ruled their kingdom by fear, speaking without regard for their subjects, flooding the villages and striking the homes of any who spoke against them. The king threatened their neighboring kingdom’s loved ones and treasures to control alliances, and the queen spoke over and drowned out the voices of any who dared challenge them.
“As the years went by, the subjects maintaining the kingdom fled, and the castle fell into disrepair. The neighboring kingdoms created walls to invite refugees and hide from the looming storm of the king and queen’s presence. Soon, their fields were empty, their flowers withered and decayed, and their knights gone to fight for better worlds.
“When the queen realized this, she accused her husband in a furious rage. She said he chased the other kingdoms away through his threats and rigidity, and he said she scared them off with her booming voice.
“The king and queen their lightning powers on each other, destroying the remains of the ruined castle around them and scorching the land that was theirs to help thrive. Their battle raged for hours and the storm loomed across the ashened, barren kingdom, and at the end there was no sign of the wicked king and queen, or what they had once ruled, left.”
“What happened to the niece and nephew?”
Ash startled out of the story as he glanced at the pale green lizard yokai sitting across from him, their elbow resting on their knee. “What?”
“At the beginning.” Kody explained. “You always mention a niece and nephew at the beginning, and by the end they’re always gone. What happens to them?”
“Kody!” Talia glared from beside Ash.
Ash chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m still working on that.” He admitted.
“Ooh, I’m so excited!” Keef exclaimed, laying on her stomach on Kody’s left with her legs kicking idly behind her, her chin resting in her braced hand. “I wonder how the king and queen got their magic, like, was it just from the sky? Did someone give it to them?”
“Um –“
A sharp clap interrupted him. “We got time for a race! Who’s in?” Talia declared, on her feet and glancing around the circle.
“Oo, me!” Keef shot to her feet, her hand flying up and making Kody’s arm raise in defense. “I’ve gotta beat you one of these times!”
Leo chuckled softly from the other side of Talia, his lion teeth pressed together in a gentle grin. “You’re going to hurt yourself with the stunts you keep pulling.”
“What? Come on, I live!” Keef rolled her eyes, her fingers fidgeting with the string of her necklace, the water phoenix emblem attached flipping between her palms.
A flicker of sharp movement caught the corner of Ash’s eye as Ink signed from its place on the stool. “I’m going to remember that when I’m healing your broken bones.” He translated.
“HEY!”
Leo laughed softly as Talia glanced around the hotel room floor. “So? Leo? Ink? Kody? Ash? You in?”
Ash chuckled as he started to push himself up. She was going to hate this. “I’ve gotta make sure we’re ready for our heist.”
Predictably, his little sister groaned. “Come on! When are you not getting ready for this and that! I’ve gotta make sure I’m still faster than you!”
“Considering the silverfish situation, I’m pretty sure you still are.” Ash pointed out, lifting himself up. He had no interest in reliving that again.
“…that was weird, right?” Kody spoke up, making the group turn to look at them. “Yokai on the surface without a cloak?”
Keef raised an eyebrow. “Yeah…but we go to the surface without a cloak.” She pointed out.
Ink’s tentacles moved in sharp signs, and Ash quickly refocused to translate. “From what I can tell, we’re the exception, not the rule on that one.”
“It’s just odd, right?” Kody said. “Or maybe I’m overthinking it.”
“No, you’re right.” Ash said quickly. “It’s strange…but I don’t see what we can do about it.” Leo winced in Ash’s peripheral as he got to his feet. “I guess, just…keep your eye out for uncloaked yokai. They might just be outliers, but if something’s going on we should know.”
The Nightshift nodded.
“And now that we’ve got the serious talk out of the way…” Talia said, because she was nothing if not impatient.
“Race! Race! Race! Race!” Keef cheered.
Ash was about to disappoint his sister more when Leo’s paw landed on his shoulder, a soft smile on his face. “You prepare. I’ll join them.”
Ash nodded in thanks, his own smile softening in return.
Talia and Keef raced out the door, Ink and Leo at a slower pace behind them. The door shut with a slight slam, jolting Ash’s muscles and making him flinch. He turned back to where his bag rested on the wall and got to work making sure it was stocked as Kody lingered in the corner behind him.
Talia tore across the rooftops, feet pounding against cement in time with the drum of her heartbeat in her ears. Keef’s combat boots hit the ground hard and heavy behind her and just a little to her right, the runecaster racing to catch up.
Talia hit the edge of the roof first, slamming into the lip of concrete and her bones rattling with the impact. She breathed out a barking laugh as she crouched over the parapet. “Ha! I win I win I win!”
Keef slammed into the edge beside her, her shoulders heaving for breath, and they both dissolved into breathless laughter as they crumbled against the side. “I will get you!” Keef laughed, pointing at her. “One of these days!”
As they recovered, Ink and Leo caught up to them. Ink perched on the parapet of the roof, octopus tentacles curling around and sticking to the concrete, and Leo went in for a hug. Keef flinched and Talia gripped the edge of the roof between her fingers. “No hugs please!”
Leo backed off quickly, his round ears turning to the side as he drew his paws to his chest. “Ah, sorry! My bad.” Talia loved Leo, but he had a habit of forgetting boundaries.
Leo’s gaze flicked to where Ink had perched, and he raised a thick eyebrow. “Ink? Are you okay buddy?”
Ink signed back, and Talia remembered with a flash of frustration that she needed to keep up on her ASL. By the uncertain waver in Leo’s translation, so did he. “I think I see turtles over there. Uncloaked yokai.”
Talia’s eyebrows knitted together in confusion and she followed Ink’s gaze across the rooftops, perching on the ledge herself. “Turtle yokai? Uncloaked?” She squinted at four green shapes on a rooftop, each masked with different colors and shells curving down their backs. “Yeah. They’re…on that roof over there.”
“More uncloaked yokai?” Leo said from behind her. “We should probably tell Ash.”
A hint of impatient frustration flared in her chest as she glanced back at the fidgeting lion mutant, his pearl earring hanging from his airplaned ears. “What’s that gonna do?” She asked. “If they’re verbal, we should get them to tell us what’s up.”
Dark blue-gray flashed in the corner of Talia’s vision and she looked to Ink as it signed, Leo’s translation uncertain but uncorrected. “If we need to find out what’s going on, we can do so through safer methods than ambushing some yokai with who knows what kind of mystic powers.”
“Ooh, do you think they have new ones?” Keef said, like she hadn’t heard any other part of the conversation. “I guess we’ve never fought turtle yokai before, what kind of powers would they have? Maybe, like, super resistance or something?”
“Did you hear anything I just said?” Ink signed, and though it was hard to convey tone with an octopus yokai that rarely looked anything but bored, it still felt like it already knew the answer.
Talia snickered. “She heard mystic powers.”
“We should go back and tell Ash.” Leo said, re-railing the conversation.
“We’ll lose these guys, then, and who knows when we’ll find another uncloaked yokai to question?” Talia argued.
“We’re even-numbered,” Ink reasoned. “If they outmatch us, we don’t stand a chance. And none of us come close to the size of the big one.”
Before Talia could answer, a flicker of fire lit up the dark rooftops, and she glanced over to where the smallest turtle had somehow ignited something with orange flames.
Stars danced in Keef’s eyes like the flames that had captured them. “I don’t know what you guys are doing, but I’m going to find out how they did that mystic flame! I’ll be right back!”
Panic struck Talia’s heart and dissolved quickly into hot frustration as Leo uselessly reached a paw out. “Keef, wait! What if you get hur…” He sighed. “She’s gone.”
Leo turned back to Talia and Ink, tail drooped. “I’m going after her. Can you two go back and tell Ash? If we’re not back in about 30 minutes, come and get us.”
Protective anger flared in Talia’s muscles as she stepped forward. “What? No, I’m not leaving you two to deal with them by yourselves.”
“I’m not going through the Hidden City alone.” Ink’s signs whisked by in her peripheral as Leo translated, and Talia relented.
It was dangerous to leave Leo and Keef to handle these yokai on their own, yes, but Ink had a reputation in the Hidden City and it could get it in trouble if it was alone. Ink needed her as much as they did. Talia sighed. “Fine, I’ll go with Ink. But message rune if something happens.”
Talia slipped into the shadows, Ink presumably a step behind. Something better not happen.
The flames the smallest turtle had summoned flickered away as Keef got closer, revealing a chain that spilled out of an orange handle and had a spikey ball of some sort on the end beneath it. She didn’t remember the name.
“Not bad, not bad.” The biggest turtle, red-masked with a large spikey shell down his back, grinned. “But check out these puppies!”
He smashed his tonfas together and they lit up in a red flash. “Tonfa-power-jitsu!”
“Woah..” Keef breathed as she jumped down to the rooftop, excited electricity running through her veins. She bounced on her feet as she flapped her hands, glancing around the turtles as mystic energy buzzed in the air. “Hey! Wow, that’s cool, is that some kind of construct magic? Or, wait – is that coming from you, or from the weapon? I can’t tell!”
Keef turned to the orange-masked turtle that had summoned the flames earlier, and a blue-masked turtle leaning on his sword. They buzzed with equally confusing mystic energy. “Wait, your weapons are mystic, too! Ooo, what’s yours do?”
Keef reached for the blue turtle’s sword, and he flicked her forehead back with a raised brow. “And you are?”
Oh, right, introductions. She forgot about that. “Oh, yeah, sorry. I’m Keef!” She grinned, still flapping her hands with excited energy.
“Woah, you’ve got fins!” The orange-masked turtle pointed out, pointing to the fins on her jaw where most people’s ears would be.
“Are those gills?” The biggest turtle asked, pointing at her neck with a bandaged hand.
“You appear to be some sort of water…mutant…thing.” Keef glanced at a purple-masked turtle, whose chin was nestled between his fingers as he squinted at her, in equal confusion. A mutant?
Before she could ask, the metal staff he held caught her eye. “Wait, your weapon isn’t mystic!” She realized, a dull lull where buzzing mystic energy had surrounded the other three. “Why is that? Emotional suppression? Nullification? Lack of training?”
The blue-masked turtle once again reminded her that boundaries were a thing as he waved a hand in front of her, prompting her to take a couple steps back. “Okay, slow down there, amigo.”
Keef opened her mouth to say something – she wasn’t sure what, probably apologize – but was interrupted by Leo landing on the edge of the roof. “Keef? Are you okay?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah!” Keef said, turning to see him standing on the lip of it, tail twitching behind him.
“Who are you?” The biggest turtle asked.
“Oh, right!” Keef kept getting distracted. “This is Leo, my best-friend-slash-brother!”
A wave of amusement rippled through the turtles, and the blue-masked one raised an eyebrow as the others snickered. “Leo, huh?”
Leo’s ears flattened uncertainly as he fidgeted with his paw. “Yeah?”
A giant grin stretched across the blue-masked turtle’s face. “We’re name pals!”
“Name…pals?”
“Yeah, bud! We have the same name!”
“Oh.”
Leo stared at him for a moment. The other turtle stared back.
“Oh!” Leo brightened, his ears turning forward. “Name pals!”
“Fascinating!” Purple mutant exclaimed, leaning forward as Leo hopped down from the ledge. “You appear to be some sort of partial mutant! How did this occur? Was the mutation process interrupted? Was there an abnormally low amount of ooze in the oozesquito?”
“Uh…” Leo stammered.
All of those words zipped right by Keef’s brain, her attention instead captured by the concentrated mystic buzz of something the turtle held behind his purple shell.
Keef squinted. “What’s that?” She asked. “It’s glowing mystic.”
“Ooh! How can you tell?” Orange asked, eyes glittering curiously.
“I can sense mystic stuff.” Keef explained eagerly. “Disguised yokai, mystic objects and weapons, all sorts of stuff!”
“Ooo! That’s so cool!” Orange said, sending a rush of glowing warm pride over her.
Purple cleared his throat, cutting in, and held up the crystal he’d initially shielded behind his shell. “Ahem, yes, I was getting to that. This crystal, combined with the elements –“
“Get to the poiiint,” Blue Leo drawled, cutting him off.
Alarm spiked in Keef’s chest as she glanced between them. “What? No, don’t get to the point! Please explain this!”
Purple lit up like the sun.
“Are you asking me to tell you all about my most recent achievement!?” He asked, eyes shining and voice pitched in excitement.
Keef nodded rapidly.
“Oh, I have waited for this day all my life!” He grinned, shaking his fists eagerly.
“Dramatic, much?” Blue commented, which earned him looks from Orange and Red that made Keef think he wasn’t much better.