escape part2

The Games We Play​

Escape (Cont.)​

"Why did I even bother investing in Luck?" I muttered to myself, sitting back with a sigh. "Should have just kept the damn points. I could have had Bai Hu's next technique by now, but no…had to push my literal goddamn luck. Shit."

To the great surprise of no one—or, at least, no one who knew me—Ziz had apparently decided to stretch its wings a bit in a display that had filled me with terror. Despite how far I'd flown from Vale during the chase, we were all but in spitting distance of it for a creature of Ziz's size. If I'd woken the beast up, if I'd set it upon my town…I'd never forgive myself. I also probably wouldn't have had to worry about it for very long, granted, because I'd have turned the ship around to face the beast, even knowing I'd probably accomplish nothing.

I sent off praises to every God I had ever heard of when it didn't fly in that direction, appearing apathetic to everything around it. I didn't even care, in that moment, that it had chosen to fly in my direction instead.

And then it had picked me up, scooping the whole of the White Whale up in a single set of talons, and took to the sky on thunderous wings. Beneath it, I was cut off from the light of the sun, plunged into darkness by the creature's titanic body and even larger wingspan. I'd considered resisting, contemplated ways to try to run and escape, but nothing I'd done had made Ziz's grasp so much as budge. When I'd put the whole of the ship's power into trying to slip loose and escape, it had accomplished nothing but making Ziz tighten its colossal grasp, making the ship groan and warp.

I'd considered unloading all of my weaponry at the beast but hesitated, completely certain it would do absolutely nothing but maybe convince the creature to kill me that much more quickly. Purely out of a desire to prolong my life, I'd waited.

And waited.

And waited.

In Ziz's clutches, I watched the world go by beneath me. Despite its size—or perhaps because of it—it flew impossibly quickly, faster than anything I'd ever even heard of. In what seemed like minutes, land turned to sea, though it should have taken me an hour or two to get that far. I spent a while staring down at the shifting depths of the ocean, at the waves below, and it was…

Boring. Surprisingly peaceful, perhaps even beautiful, but after a while, really dull. The Gamer's Mind kept me calm in any situation, so fear was never anything more than a momentary distraction, blunting the terror of even such a creature's presence. Even beyond that, though…it sounds odd—or maybe even impressive—but it's like…it's like knowing someone is out there and any minute he could come in and kill you and there's no way for you to stop him or reason with him or do anything, but he's taking his sweet-ass time about it.

The first few minutes of that were really nerve-wracking, even calm as I was; the simple knowledge that my life was a toy in someone else's hand, to be crushed and discarded. Even if that didn't fog my thinking, didn't make me panic, didn't get to me directly, it was a fact that I knew, considered, and had no way of refuting.

Then half an hour had passed and still nothing had happened. I'd distracted myself, found things to do. I wrote a few things on my scroll that I realized I'd never gotten around to doing. I wrote a will, though I had no way of making it official and it was unlikely anyone would ever find it. I wrote letters, too, just on that off chance, apologies and last words to my friends and family. I sighed and ruefully wrote a list of the things I regretted not doing, just to keep them in mind, and then a list of things I would do if I somehow survived.

Then an hour had passed and still nothing had happened. Levant stayed by my side through it all, gaze more curious then frightened, whilst Crocea Mors was unshakable as ever. Between them and the Gamer's Mind…it's really hard to be worried while feeling calm and being surrounded by friends who just weren't. I browsed through my scroll even though I was far out of range. I read my emails, mostly stuff from Blake after our last exchange, and then played some games on it. None of them took me very long to complete, sadly, because of my enhanced Intelligence and Wisdom made the solutions rather obvious once I got the hang of it, but it was a good distraction. I kind of regretted not downloading any books onto it or anything but the built in games, really, but what can you do? Live and learn, I guess, though I wasn't sure that was applicable to this situation.

I looked up after the third hour, saw that I was still over the sea, and sighed. I probably should have abandoned ship the moment Ziz had seized me up and just walked back to Vale or something, but I'd been hopeful, stubborn. I'd wanted to save those people so bad I'd tried to wrest the ship free and by the time I'd given up any chance of that working I'd been out at sea. And now…

Well, maybe if I climbed out I could swim somewhere? If I could get to shore or something, I should be able to contract with a Water Elemental. The mission would be a failure, but there was a chance I'd get home alive. Of course it was more likely I'd just be eaten by water faring Grimm, but…

I checked my Map again to determine where we were and then looked to my World Map to try and make a rough guess as to where I was going. Southeast, roughly, though that could lead anywhere. With a sigh, I decided to wait in the hopes Ziz would hit land again—and hopefully not attack anyone. I considered going to sleep but…no, I'd rather be awake for this. Especially since there was an off chance of there being an opportunity to escape, however slim. I waited, relaxed as best I could, and watched the world go by.

And then we abruptly made landfall. Ziz set down suddenly on a shore I didn't recognize, walking inland with steps that must have shaken the world. I was about to rise, ready to leave and face…whatever was coming, but was knocked back into my seat before I could even do anything. The entire ship shook as a horrible ripping sound tore through it and I held my breath as if he might hear me. There was a long moment of silence, a tense moment as if I was being judged—

I was suddenly flying. Not like Ziz had taken to the skies again or like I was flying the ship. Like I'd been thrown, tossed aside like worthless trash.

It took me a moment to realize that was exactly what had happened and I scrambled with the controls, trying to control my flight and, more importantly, my descent. Half my controls didn't work and the rest seemed sluggish to respond, but I managed to turn a chaotic tumble into a wobbling, uncontrolled landing and survive it with an exhausting use of Aura Crash. I was smashed around a fair bit as the ship tumbled and felt my MP drain as I tried to keep it together despite it all. When at last the ship settled and rocked to a halt, I just…sat for a moment, stunned and amazed that I was alive.

Then I got out of the seatbelt to figure out what the hell had happened. Figuring that one out had turned out to be pretty—there was a giant hole in my ship. I stared at it disbelievingly for a moment before Lunging my way up through the exposed bowels of the craft so I could take a look around outside.

Several kilometers away, Ziz rose into the air and flew a ways before diving into the sea in a move that flooded the beach he'd been on. I watched for a minute, but when he didn't emerge I turned my attention back to the mildly pressing issue of the hole in my ship. Swearing to myself, I knelt down and put a hand to the hull, feeling Crocea Mors within it. I felt her map out the damage in my mind, compared it to the blueprints in my head, and—

Was torn from my thoughts as Ziz erupted from the sea with a deafening shriek. Clutched in its talons was a bleeding blue creature that would have been large if it hadn't been in Ziz's hands. It took me a minute to realize what I was looking at.

"Oh, you've gotta be fucking kidding me!" I snarled—quietly, in fear that it might actually hear me. "You dragged me across the fucking world because you were hungry!?"

Ziz casually tore off the whale's head, scarfing it down absently before slicing the creature neatly open to draw out the softer squishier bits. I wasn't sure why it was bothering, since it couldn't possibly need it—there was no way a creature that size, or any of the larger Grimm, survived on conventional biology. Maybe it was bored or it was an Aura thing or it just liked watching large things die; I didn't know.

What I did know was that I was pissed the hell off.

"Hey, here's an idea! Maybe you should have checked to make sure you liked to taste before carrying me off to…where the fuck am I!?" I snarled again and stomped on the ship's hull. "You flying feathered fuck. We're gonna have words about this when I'm leveled up!"

I growled to myself as I calmed unnaturally, well aware there was nothing I could do about the Grimm right now. For its part, Ziz had finished scarfing down the rest of its snack and was preparing itself to dive back into the ocean for more. I looked around and had no idea where I was. I looked down at my ship and had no idea if I could fix it.

And then I sat down on the hull of my ship and put my head in my hands.

"Fuck." I said, trying to put all my anger and frustration into that one word.

I gave myself a moment.

And then I got to work.

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