Chapter 15: Darkness and Light

Swillow led the charge as they wandered in the crimson settlement, which he called "Tandyar."

"Place is always ripe for the pickings. Can take anything you need from the market. Assuming you have some kind of physical assistance to it."

Lhyna whispered to Vanos, "I don't feel like she's a regular wolf. There's something extra about her."

"There is," Citrus said. Lhyna turned her head to see Citrus on the other side of her. When she slipped there, no one knew.

"Anyway," Vanos said as he took a few steps away. "How does somebody gain the nickname the Slaughterhound?" Vanos stared at Swillow, who slipped into darkness. Citrus ducked into the shade as well.

"We're known criminals in these parts. Swillow is my assistant. Too bad lately things are getting tightened up," Citrus said. "We've been done wrong by others, and do wrong back."

Vanos said, "Okay, and she's a Goddess of the Moon and I'm someone who sells ice cream."

"Why would you sell ice cream? Dires can barely eat that stuff without getting sick," Citrus said.

"Why does everybody keep asking that? Wouldn't you like it if you knew the person making your food was unlikely to be eating the food!?" Vanos asked.

Swillow said, "I dunno, I eat a lot of food. I mean, I have to eat like, twice as much as a normal wolf because I'm walking for two."

Vanos stared down at her fat belly. "I thought you looked big. I wasn't going to say anything in case I was wrong."

Blink. Swillow said, "Actually, I'm not pregnant. I have a Demon of Darkness called the Corruptor in my soul and he forces me to eat abnormally large amounts of food. I'm not fat, I'm a little pudgy."

Citrus said, "It's called fat, Swillow. You're fat." She slapped Swillow on the side, and made Swillow jiggle around, causing her to blush yellow.

Vanos said, "If she came to our shop, I bet we could fatten her up some more, right?" He glanced at Lhyna and said, "Right, you're not a family member." For some reason, he'd been hanging out with his family a lot. He needed to get a better social life, which he used to have, until all the fallout of the recent events.

Lhyna said, "Anyway, I'm Voto's goddess of the moon. I happen to go into my nightmare phase by night. You're saying the best way to a teleporter is via this routing?"

Citrus said, "No, I'm saying that we're not mugging you until we get to a teleporter. And that we're finding a teleporter. This might be the worst route to take, especially to cross planets."

Swillow said, "Speaking of which, how do you go from the moon to a different planet?"

"Classified information," Vanos said. "How do you go from one end of the continent to the other end of the continent?"

"Walking, mostly," Citrus said.

"That sounds easy," Vanos said and mentally slapped himself. Come on, he needed better comebacks. "Anyway, technically we went from one planet, to the moon, to a different planet."

Swillow gave Citrus a suspicious look. "Anyway, I've already dealt with my brother betraying me fourteen years ago. It was a dark day that day."

Citrus said, "Here we go again. Swillow, can you save the story? I'm sure they don't care to hear about it."

"It could be much better than their story."

"You've had time to rehearse, they didn't. Telling a good story can take many months, which you've had."

Swillow said, "Are we still talking about my backstory versus theirs?" Citrus shook her head, as the pack travelled. They went down an underground tunnel.

"This is the subway system," Citrus said as they got onto the main platform. No crimsons. It had been abandoned some time ago, indicated with by peeling paint and graffitied benches, and a stagnant air.

Swillow jumped down onto the tracks. Citrus casually jumped too, and Lhyna regarded him, but jumped as well.

Vanos said, "This place is abandoned, right? No trains coming?"

"No," Swillow said, "It's the platform they abandoned. These tracks are getting used, therefore, you better run."

After some heated, sweaty running, they got to the next, not abandoned platform, with a hundred crimsons.

Swillow lit her body on fire, and soared like a comet. Dozens of crimsons flew. Partly because she ran into them.

The others followed the literal trailblazer. "Aren't you guys afraid of getting caught, ever?" Vanos asked.

Citrus said, "Not a bit. These guys aren't that smart."

Swillow said, "Their technology is cool." She got up the flight of stairs. "No way you'd see this stuff in Canida."

This street bustled too. Swillow set herself on flames again, and more crimsons flew. Some, first class. Into trash cans.

Citrus said, "Alright, we need to go northbound, towards the sun. Then we can take a dip to the left."

"Towards the sun isn't actually north," Vanos said. "You mean forward." Citrus growled in his face and he backed up. Lhyna shook her head at him. "Keep causing problems."

The trek continued. Sometimes they took to the shadows. Keeping out of plain sight maintained priority, except when Swillow got hungry. Then in the back alley she'd go and drain a victim.

Vanos had never seen that kind of magic before, and when he first saw it, he asked, "What are you doing?"

"I'm using dark magic to siphon energy from their bodies." Vanos shivered, and Swillow laughed. "It's only Void Magic."

A Void wolf wasn't a wolf Vanos could stay with for long. He heard about Void creatures, and their abilities to drain others dry. Swillow at least kept her victims alive, maybe only to feast on them later.

They tasted salty air, as they came onto wooden planks. It was a dock. "We're here to take a boat," Citrus said. "We're going to take it to Canida. After we raid Canida, we go elsewhere, got that?"

Vanos stared at a large collection of boats at the pier, and saw all the individuals. "How are we supposed to take an entire boat?"

"Not any boat," Swillow said. "A flying boat." She pointed to the largest ship, which had been at least a hundred feet tall. Masts came down in the Tandyarian flag colors of deep red with a purple dot. It had a wind turbine at the bottom, and was docked right above the water.

"Okay," Vanos said, "How are we supposed to take an entire, flying, boat?"

Swillow said, "Without getting caught, I'd think." Vanos and Lhyna gave her skeptical looks, and she said, "Don't worry. I've got a idea on what to do. You all simply need to cause a distraction."

***

Vanos was sent out. He stood out in front of a shop. "How am I supposed to distract anybody?" He laughed.

Some looked at him, surprised by the laughter from the Shrieks. He realized he had something that he didn't know was an advantage, his laughter.

He looked at Lhyna. "You, use a Flashbang."

Lhyna summoned a ball of light in her mouth and placed it down. Vanos waited for it to go off. Piercing high pitched noise ran wild in the air, as did light. Citrus used a spell to shade her eyes, before she ran onto the ship.

A couple of bodies flew overhead from the ship and flopped into the water. Time to depart.

The flying boat came with two more bodies. Swillow and Citrus. They fell to the water, and flailed around.

"You guys were supposed to take the ship!" Vanos said, as he stared at the crowd. "Who's gonna save us?"

Swillow freaked out, but Citrus kept calm. "How about you saved yourselves? One of you is a goddess, right?"

Lhyna said, "I can't use my powers that well anymore after Nightmare took over! Otherwise I wouldn't have gone into a wormhole, I would have heard it coming right away."

The crowd came down onto the two wolves. This was not ending well for them. The crowd grabbed at them, and held them down, until police arrived to deal with the situation. Maybe the sentence wouldn't be long?

No, Vanos stared out at the cowards in the ocean. They swam to safety, avoiding the coast. This land was only planks.

Vanos jumped on Lhyna and their combined weight shattered the planks. Sudden descent, and water surrounded them both.

Vanos rose again to the surface, and spat water out like a fountain. Crimsons got down and reached their hands out to scratch at the wolves. Vanos stuck his tongue out.

Lhyna swam underneath the planks. Only light came from the gaps between each plank, meaning there was still plenty darkness. "Come on Vanos, I think this is the way." Her body began glowing, as a beacon. While risky, the strategy allowed both sight.

Vanos swam and followed her without other options. Temptation seeked him. After swallowing more water, he spat it up at some crimsons.

Bullseye, because he actually nailed someone in the face with the water blast. Satisfied, and smirking, he kept up with Lhyna.

Swimming for miles wouldn't work. He'd exhaust himself and drown. Could Lhyna exhaust herself.

"How good's your cardio? Because we might be swimming for a while," Vanos warned her. Lhyna grinned.

"My main home has almost no air. I think if I can operate there rather well, I should be fine here, right?" Worked for Vanos, it worked in general. They padded their way underneath the pier. "I'll carry if you that's what you're asking."

Vanos blushed as she implied she knew he couldn't make the trek. "If I need help, I'll ask for it. I'm not that stubborn."

"That's what you say," Lhyna said. "We'll get back to the coast, and then we'll try to find some other individuals, alright?" Vanos nodded. Lhyna grinned at him.

The ocean grew angrier. It was almost like it felt insulted. Stormclouds rolled in, seemingly from nowhere, and within thirty minutes, it rained on the land.

*

The coast turned muddy.

Ahead them awaited a derelict town. This place had been littered over. Graffitid. Desecrated even.

Lhyna said, "This must be the bad part of town. We need to find a shelter and quickly." Vanos, who was winded from all the swimming, nodded meekly at that order.

The duo spotted a house with broken glass. Risking being seen as an intruder, Vanos stared into the windows. "Nobody seems to live here right now." Pitch black on the inside, without any furniture, seemed like a good candidate for abandonment. Vanos walked in.

Lhyna made herself glow again. It drove away the darkness as they settled down. Plus it marked their territory. Anyone who took a quick look inside knew that someone occupied.

"Squatting is illegal, you know," Lhyna told him. "We can't stay here for long. I have a feeling this storm won't pass until, until, until I do." He looked at her. "The darkness is coming, and I can't keep myself contained."

"What are you, or what is she, going to do when she emerges?" Vanos asked. He was trapped in the room with a potential enemy.

"She won't kill you," she assured him quickly. "You may suffer nightmares. Responsible thing would be to lock myself up, except I can teleport."

"Teleportation magic still keeps bindings," Vanos said. "I can find a way to make a pair of cuffs for you."

"She's incorporeal," she said. "That means she can slip them easily. Actually, I think I could too. We don't exactly have big enough thumbs."

"Thumbs make cuffs work?" Vanos asked. He stared down at the small thumb or thumb sembling he had from his dire family. He couldn't figure it out.

"Yes, if you snap your thumb, you can slip cuffs. Dislocating works as well, and is less violent. I think you should use a stockade or something."

"Does this look like we're in the past millennium?" Vanos asked her, and she only shrugged. It was merely a suggestion. "Maybe we could pin you under a rock."

"Still not physical," she said. "I think we'll have to ride this out. I'm going to go, and you can stay inside, and when I can, I'll come back."

"No," Vanos said. "I'm going to find my own way back home, even if it takes me several days. I'm coming back before the end of the month."

"You and what army?" Lhyna asked. "You're not going to beat her, and you may not make it within the time frame we need."

Vanos whipped out the goblet. "I think I've got a trick to do. This took us all the way from a planet to the moon, right? Not even its own moon."

"Voto and Vytyl are a great distance apart. You'd need a skilled space navigator," Lhyna said. She shook her head. "I wouldn't risk it."

Vanos said, "I could hit more wormholes. I could get lost in space for too long. I could do something else stupid." He trailed off and said, "It is a bad idea, never mind." He curled up on himself.

Lhyna came to him. "I don't know what you can do. I don't believe in you, and I think I'll have to fix this myself, okay? You need to run, Vanos. Make sure she can't get access to it, and I'll find you at the end of the month."

Vanos hated the idea of being stuck to the sidelines. It made sense, and he figured she'd retrieve him eventually. He'd have to seek her out.

"At the end of the month, I'll meet you at Canida. Stop by the border, and I can get to you. They allow any canine," Lhyna said.

Vanos nodded. "That trip won't take long right?" She giggled nervously and he said, "Well, I guess this is gonna suck." Lhyna gave him a quick look of patheticness. She sauntered off into the rain, leaving him alone at last.