16 Chapter 15 - The Livestream

"The same nine undivided is used" in all the places of this hexagram, but the attribute of heaven should not always take the foremost place.

---Book of Changes

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Spade watched attentively as the shamans around them bustled about. Joyce stood up from her spot on the edge of the dock, putting on her flip-flops again.

"Problem now is just exactly when," a shaman said behind him in a slightly reproachful tone, trying to guilt her into putting the tracking machine back on. Joyce ignored them blithely.

"Would it matter?" Spade asked. He turned to shoot the shaman a glare. The shaman gulped and quickly skittered away.

"Can't believe you pulled a sword on Pania though, that was wild," Joyce said cheerfully. Spade shook his head.

"It's not like I recognized the thing. Looked like some weird dental thing. Anyways, you feeling up to it?" Spade asked.

"I guess so, just gonna roll with it. Think I should summon a storm just for the aesthetic?" Joyce stretched and waved as Kajio came back towards them with a bottle of water.

"Have something to drink, you're sweating a lot," Kajio said. "Why are you still using such heavy robes?"

"Thanks, but dude, it's been two days since you said that. I haven't even found a tailor yet," Joyce replied.

"We'll probably need to get closer to the Kraken," Spade cut in before Joyce could drag everyone down a rabbit hole she spontaneously dug. "They've gotten all the boats on lockdown, but just a motorboat would do if it could get us close enough, then you could back up to behind the wards."

Kajio gave him a long glance and nodded. "I'll get one ready, call me if you need anything."

Spade glared at any shaman trying to hover by and eavesdrop until they backed up. He turned to Joyce.

"Remember, it's Lord Meng Zhang. You have to invoke him properly and be respectful. Most importantly you have to send him back again. You can't just let him loose into the sea and peace out," Spade said. Joyce gave him a peace sign.

"I got it, are you sure you don't want me to summon a storm?" Joyce asked.

"I'm pretty sure it'll just make the video blurry," he deadpanned. The phone rang, and he quickly picked up.

"It's Kajio," said Kajio. "Keep the phone on speaker-phone and don't hang up, we can't afford a delay if you don't have time to dial."

"Good idea," Spade said, "I'll stay on the line."

A scream promptly rang out before he could say anything more, followed by a chorus of screams and sharply barked orders.

Joyce nearly spat out her water, whirling to look at the giant shape rising out of the water in the distance. A not-too-far distance, and way too many arms for that distance to be so close. Even if it were behind twenty layers of wards.

"Holy shit is that a mountain?!" she gasped.

"Kajio, Kajio it's here!" Spade shouted into the phone.

"Shit, I don't have enough time to circle over, you have to come meet me!" Kajio shouted back. Spade cursed as he caught sight of the smaller dock for motorboats a good distance away.

Even if they ran to a mid-way meeting point it wouldn't be fast enough given how quickly the Kraken was approaching now. Joyce glanced around with wild eyes at the harbor, catching a glimpse of Kajio's boat as it hit the water, and swerving to land on the motorcycle parked near the end of the dock.

"No. Kajio, drive at a forty-five-degree angle towards our direction, don't stop, don't slow down!" she shouted. Spade gaped, realizing exactly what she wanted to do.

"Joyce," he began, she cut him off as she reached up and grabbed onto his collar with slightly unhinged eyes.

"Drive," she ordered. He nodded blankly. They sprinted towards the motorcycle, Spade easily outpacing Joyce. He hurriedly swung a leg over the seat and started the engine as Joyce reached the bike and clambered on behind him, flip flops barely staying on her feet.

Spade hadn't done something so reckless since he was twelve and sneaking his way into a tank to retrieve a baseball and yet here he was, endangering a minor and a civilian.

Joyce jostled his back and he sighed. A blind rush of adrenaline filled his veins and he drove forth like a maniac. They hurtled down the dock in a beeline, startled screams sounding out as people dove out of the way.

Kajio's boat cut a frothy line through the waves, hair whipping into a ridiculously handsome face as the man turned to look at them in horror.

"What are you doing?!" Kajio's voice sounded from the cellphone.

"Driving!" Spade shouted back. They hurtled across the last few feet of wooden planks, shooting straight off the dock at a hefty 60 kilometers per hour.

Spade grit his teeth and pressed on the brakes hard as they shot over several feet of open water, carried by sheer momentum and a sudden rush of wind-spirits.

They hit Kajio's motorboat deck, wheels still spinning furiously as the wind-spirits forced the motorcycle to stop, keeping it from crashing straight into Kajio.

Kajio shouted something, sounding slightly hysterical he continued to drive forward at full speed.

Joyce fell off the motorcycle, crashing onto the backseat. Spade stumbled off, ears ringing with adrenaline and shock. He fared little better than Joyce, half-sprawling onto the backseat as well.

Joyce clambered into the front seat, grabbing onto Kajio's shoulder to say something. Kajio glanced at her with wild eyes as they bee-lined forward. There were only three layers of wards left now.

"Joyce, you have to start summoning!" Spade shouted. She whirled towards him with a glint in her eyes that couldn't mean anything good.

"We'll endanger Kajio if we do!" she shouted back. "We're going the rest of the way ourselves!" Spade nearly choked on his spit.

Kajio cursed loudly as they approached the last layer of wards. Joyce's hand clamped down on his arm. Spade stared into the eyes of someone who well and truly did not have any shits left to give.

"Jump," she snarled, and promptly flung herself off the side of the boat. Spade dived in right behind her, sword swinging wildly from his belt.

He faintly heard Kajio's scream from above them as they plummeted into the water. The water was cold enough to make him flinch, but Joyce seemed entirely unbothered as she reached out to make a grabby motion. Spade reached out to grab onto Joyce's outstretched hand.

'What the fuck?!' He tried to send through their mental link, only to receive a wave of satisfaction in return.

The winged-serpent spirit she'd banished writhed into existence beneath them at its full size, large enough to coil several times around a building.

'Our ride,' Joyce sent back. The winged-serpent smashed through the surface of the water, Spade barely clinging onto its back with one hand and Joyce with the other.

The spirit arched into the air, uncoiling into its full length as its wings beat down, propelling them a good twenty-feet above the water. Joyce managed to grab onto the ridges in the spirit's back with both hands, teeth bared and an entirely disturbing look in her eyes. Spade looked down to see Kajio gaping at them a short distance away, live-streaming cameras already in place.

They soared straight through the last layer of wards, less than fifty feet away from the Kraken towering above them like a giant wall. A terrifying giant wall with a lot of arms and huge, creepy eyes.

"Joyce!" Spade shouted. "Summon Lord Meng Zhang!"

"Give me the salt!" she screamed. He shoved it into her hands. No time to question her at this point, their lives were in the hands of the gods.

The winged serpent flew upwards until it was above the Kraken. Spade's stomach lurched at the momentum and the height, glancing wildly at the water below to calculate Joyce's possibility of surviving if she fell. Zero, probably.

Joyce freed up one hand, promptly slipping a little until Spade fisted a handful of the back of her collar. She tossed the open bag into the air, the salt fanning through the air.

"Lord Meng Zhang! I, Joyce Lee, the one who made a deal with you, not the other one, request your gracious and immediate assistance!" she shouted, at least seven words off the proper incitation and looking more like a drowned cat than a powerful spirit-sent. If Spade had a hand available to slap into his own face, he would have done so.

'Please,' he directed a silent prayer at the gods, 'take mercy on this fool and all the rest of us.'

The air around him rippled with energy that flattened him against the spirit like the aftershock of an explosion. Joyce's eyes blazed as she pulled on the fabric of their world until it made way.

The water churned as the Kraken's arms rose up towards them, larger than the highways that wound through Canton. Spade tasted the iron tang of blood from where his teeth had bit into the sides of his mouth.

There was a cascade of seawater next to the Kraken, and a giant head emerged, almost half the size of the Kraken's body. The Azure Dragon's full form was so large Spade couldn't see where it ended, or if it even ended at all. It was covered in blue-green scale in shades that seemed to make the ocean de-saturate to a bluish-grey, its horns and tendrils golden with spiritual energy.

"Long Meng Chang!" Joyce called out, waving at it wildly. One giant pupil flicked towards them, its size making the movement seem like a giant meteor had abruptly swerved at them. Lord Meng Chang gave them a faintly amused glance before turning its attention to the Kraken's angry movements.

The Azure Dragon opened its jaws and lunged, sinking its fangs into the Kraken. The Kraken's arms coiled around the dragon's head, squeezing with deathly force, but the dragon had its prey exactly where it wanted it.

The first two five-clawed talons of the dragon rose out of the water with a resplendent splash as it began to physically tear off the Kraken's limbs, golden claws tearing through like a meat cleaver through a chicken thigh.

The two spirits crashed downwards into the ocean, sending up giant waves of water that remained contained within the sphere of energy that had settled in around them. Spade faintly felt a tinge of relief that at the very least there wouldn't be a tsunami.

The winged-serpent soared closer to the water now, winding downwards at a breakneck speed that made Spade dizzy with vertigo. Beneath the water, the cries of the Kraken were drowned out by the dragon's growls as the Azure Dragon tore the Kraken apart.

Spade stared at the giant forms writhing below, head entirely blank. What the hell were people even supposed to think or feel when something like this happened? You see the world you see for your whole life, and then you see something completely unimaginable. The Kraken flailed, disintegrating as it was ripped into giant pieces, black blood disappearing into the water.

From the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Joyce smiling.

The Azure Dragon's head burst out of the water less than thirty feet away, spraying them with what seemed to approximately 18 gallons of seawater as the dragon towered over them. It let out a roar of victory, sending shockwaves through the air and water and nearly deafening Spade.

The dragon turned its pupils towards Joyce expectantly. She looked back in confusion.

Spade smacked her shoulder blade. "You have to open the gateway so he can get back!" he shouted.

"Oh! Right, shit," Joyce gave the dragon a thumbs up. She closed her eyes, squeezing her brows together in concentration as energy rippled through the air, nearly knocking the winged-serpent out of orbit. The Azure Dragon gave another deafening roar and dove into the waves again, disappearing completely.

The winged-serpent made a 180-degree turn that nearly flung both of them off, before actually bucking them off as it passed the first layer of wards to where Kajio and his camera were waiting. It promptly did a few more barrel-rolls and disappeared as well.

'That was so unnecessary,' Spade thought in dismay as they crashed into the waves. They surfaced with unnatural buoyancy. Spade glanced down.

"Joyce, are you using water-spirits to swim?!" Spade asked in horror. She ran a wet hand through her dripping hair and spat out a mouthful of water.

"Bro, I can't swim," she said. The buoyancy increased to trampoline proportions as the water-spirits punted them out of the water and onto Kajio's boat.

"Ow, fuck!" Spade winced, cradling his elbow and the portion of his ribs where Joyce had landed on top of him. Joyce clambered into a sitting position, meeting the disbelief in Kajio's eyes as he lowered his live-streaming equipment.

"I'm putting the live-stream on pause until we get to shore," Kajio said in a faintly trembling voice. "You look like a drowned cat. I'll turn the camera back on when you're a little further away from it."

"Nice nice nice," Joyce wrung half a liter of water from her hair. She took off her robe and wrung out another two liters.

Spade groaned, smacking his head into the handle of the motorcycle as he got up. "What are you even planning to do when you get to shore?" he said, instead of the string of curses at the back of his tongue.

"I'm gonna announce myself and then make a recruitment speech," Joyce said, "What about something like 'Take control of your future, become the best you can be. The few, the proud, the Flying Dragons'?"

"How about something a little less obviously propaganda-style?" Kajio suggested, pointedly ignoring the water-spirits curiously swarming his boat.

"How about 'Make a difference, serve your community, join the Flying Dragons today!' Or what about, 'A better world, a better you. The Order of the Flying Dragons, now open to recruitment." Joyce said.

"How about this? Read this and try to say it right," Kajio said, handing her his phone. She squinted at the screen and handed it to Spade.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for your courage in the face of an unprecedented incident. The Kraken has been subdued with the help of Lord Meng Zhang, the Azure Dragon. I, Joyce Lee, of the Order of the Flying Dragons, invoked the aid of Lord Meng Zhang with my rightful powers as a spirit-sent. With the blessings of the gods, the crisis has been resolved and Lord Meng Zhang has returned to the spirit realm. In light of this incident, the Order of the Flying Dragons sees the need to expand its Canton chapter and will be open to applications as of tomorrow at noon. We can be reached by phone at 317-690-5453. Thank you." Spade read. He looked at Kajio.

"Did you write this just now?" he asked. Kajio nodded, glancing at the crowded dock as they approached.

"I can't remember all that," Joyce said, "Can I go off-script?"

Kajio sighed. "Stick to the general gist of it." He squinted. "Is that Taeyun? Why is he here?"

"I don't know, guess I should wave though," Joyce said, promptly waving at a frowning Taeyun and Helang before anyone could stop her.

They pulled up to the dock, people falling silent to watch them with a mix of apprehension and shock. Kajio stepped gracefully onto the dock, helping Joyce up in hopes of keeping her from crawling on with her hands and feet like a monkey-spider mutant with bad depth perception.

She had lost her flip flops somewhere along the way and her outer robe was slung over her shoulder, half the insignia visible from behind her arm. She looked enough like a mess than Kajio seemed hesitant to start a live-stream.

Spade jumped onto the dock, a hand on his sword as he scanned the rapidly-backing-away shamans for anyone who would make a move.

Kajio gave Joyce a sharp poke when she didn't say anything, choosing to silently drip onto the wooden planks. She nodded and turned towards the crowd, giving Pania a thumbs up when they made eye contact. Pania didn't look amused. Kajio backed away, readying the camera.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for holding out with us despite that whole thing with a giant octopus. The Kraken's gone now, don't worry about that."

Despite Kajio's wince, Spade didn't think this could've played out any better.

" I, Joyce Lee, of the Order of the Flying Dragons, asked Lord Meng Zhang for help with my rightful powers as a spirit-sent. He's back already, sorry if that scared anyone, it was kinda sudden. So anyways, the Order of the Flying Dragon's hiring now, call in starting from tomorrow at noon, you can call Spade's phone at – Spade, what's your number?"

Spade closed his eyes in exasperation. "317-690-5453," he grit out.

"Yeah, that's the one, guys. Call us!" Joyce waved cheerfully and promptly started walking forward. The crowd nervously shifted to let her through, shamans staring at her in a mix of horror and disbelief.

Spade quickly followed, Kajio turning off the live-stream for good and heading back to park his boat properly. No one tried to say anything to them, not even Taeyun, who watched them go with a cold glint in his eyes.

They walked straight through the harbor, dripping the whole way. They rounded the corner to where an alleyway where Spade had found an ice-cream vending machine last time, Joyce fishing a handful of coins out from her pocket. She frowned.

"Damn, I only have a bunch of one-centers," she complained. Spade pulled out the coins in his sleeve. A handful of one-centers and five-centers stared back at him mockingly.

"I don't have enough either, and my wallet..." he felt for it. "Shit, I left my phone and wallet on Kajio's boat." Joyce groaned, sitting down the floor to wring out the cuffs of her pants.

Kajio rounded the corner with his motorcycle, looking rightfully irritated within an inch of his life. He'd get used to it soon enough, Spade reasoned. Kajio flung Spade his belongings.

"I don't know what the hell any of that was, but the live-stream was a success," Kajio said flatly. Joyce beamed at him.

"Nice! Thanks, Kajio, you're awesome. Spade, can I get some money now? I want to have some ice cream," Joyce said. Kajio and Spade shook their heads almost in unison.

"Come to my house," Kajio said in a deeply resigned tone, "You'll need a change of clothes. And some shoes. You can have something to eat there."