Ainōryoku Sentai Nightmærangers #38 (Patreon)

Waterborne, Part 5

The gutters and storm drainage of the older parts of Metro Manila weren't the best, and after almost six hours of torrential rain, all low-lying streets were flooded. Willy skipped over this water as she continued to jet water from one end, following the semi-familiar course of EDSA, one of the major highways that people used to cross the city. Her lightweight ball of ice skipped over the water, bouncing off cars and the occasional drowned corpse. It wasn't just humans who had fallen unconscious. Dogs, cats, rats, birds… anything that could fall asleep, had. The route she was taking wasn't the most direct, but she didn't have her phone to check her location, and going down the major road allowed her to be sure of where she was relative to where she was going. She could feel the people who were still conscious along, their water churning cold with slush and ice beneath the surface, which was boiling and bubbling as it churned. They filled the buildings on either side of the avenue, and Willy had to keep pushing back their turbulence from her waters.

As she moved, the disgusting feeling of viscous, burning slime had slowly grown stronger.

It had been a long time since she'd had to travel alone. Tammy always accompanied her when she had to go somewhere, and she always went with Tammy when her cousin had to go somewhere. Even when she and Tammy had been separated, her cousin always made sure she was accompanied by someone. Now, though… she was alone. Nightmare Yellow followed her, but didn't really accompany her. Willy hadn't needed to go anywhere by herself since…

…since she ran away from home when she was seven.

No, not from home. From the house in Cebu where her parents and siblings lived. Home was where Tammy was. That place was no longer home.

The police had found her at the airport, trying to buy a plane ticket to Manila and not having enough money. Or any money. It had taken her two days to walk there, sleeping on the side of the road behind some bushes when she'd gotten too tired to keep walking in the middle of the night. The police had taken her back home, where her mother had cried and her father had lectured her about kidnappers because he had considered her too young to be frightened by stories of child molesters. She had stayed quiet except for when she had said yes and repeated what they wanted to hear and told them she would never do it again. Her mother had slept in the room with her sisters that night, and her father had been diligent in making sure all the doors were locked.

The next day, she'd taken money from her mother's purse and then took a taxi to the airport, where she had unsuccessfully tried to by a plane ticket to Manila. The police had been called and she had been taken back home again. This time her parents had been angrier. She'd gotten spanked, and lectured about trust and how she had broken it and none of it had been important.

It had been harder to steal money from her mother the second time, so she'd taken money from her siblings. It was just there, so they clearly weren't using it. Instead of trying to go to the airport, she had tried to get ferry tickets to Manila instead. It had been cheaper, but they had kept asking where her parents were, and eventually had called the police again.

She had been spanked a lot, and been confined to the room she shared with her siblings when she wasn't being made to do chores that she had never needed to do before. Sweeping the house. Watering the plants. Sweeping the garden. Cleaning the bathroom. Wiping everything of dust.

At the first opportunity, she had run away again.

Instead of trying to buy a ticket, she had tried sneaking into the ferry, since it seemed easier than trying to sneak into a plane. When that had failed, she had run before they called the police again, and had hidden until the ferry started pulling out of the dock. Then she had jumped into the water and swam to the boat, climbing onto it, and finally on her way to Manila…

It hadn't ended there. More police had been called, and her parents and her siblings had gotten angry at her, not that it mattered. But it had eventually resulted in her living with Tammy. And since then, she had never had to travel alone again.

Until now.

Willy hated it.

She hated it, so she was going to wake up Tammy and make everything go back to normal.

Above her, the monstrous shape that was Nightmare Yellow flew. The bubbles full of emptiness were back, and Willy was reminded that she hadn't eaten lunch yet. There was no ache in her stomach, since she had no stomach to ache, but the feeling was there, mild yet insistent, like wanting to drink more soda even you were already full. She restrained the feeling. Tammy had said good girls should practice moderation, and only drink when they were actually thirsty instead of because they wanted to. It was easier in this form, that didn't need to eat or drink or rest save for the limits of her mind.

It was monotonous after not very long. Save for the changes in the turbulence in the water when she struck or bounced off a stalled car that still had someone awake inside it, everything began to blur together into a boring haze. The water was thick enough in places that even with stalled cars on the road, she had no difficulty finding paths that were relatively clear enough for her to rocket along. There were no cars on the sidewalks, and the floating bodies were simple to bounce to at most roll over before she had a clear straightaway to propel herself again.

None of those would likely have been a problem if she had traveled as a rushing wave of water, but Tammy had told her not to do that the one time she had practiced it. It had generated too much water that she couldn't efficiently recover on the move, and made a mess besides. Tammy said good girls shouldn't make messes that other people would have to clean up—

Above her, the rain suddenly ceased, and for a brief moment Willy wondered what happened as the sky brightened, the clouds getting thinner…

Then she felt the ripples in the water she was skipping over, felt the vibrations in her icy shell and interpreted it as sound just as she saw the spray and waves being blasted in the water ahead of her. The wind suddenly roared, and her lightweight little ball of ice was sent into the air, her water jet sending her tumbling before she cut it off and filled the vacuum inside her with ice to increase her mass to better resist the wind. She slammed into the roof of a car, denting it rather deeply as ocean-like waves crashed over the other cars. Even with all her mass, she felt her herself shifting on the dent she had made as the air pushed against her, and she collapsed her form, filling the dent while remaining ice, reducing her profile as a dark blur flitted across the sky, leaving a turbulent wake in the water…

And then the wind was past, leaving a bright but still cloudy sky and lapping waves in the water flooding. Willy waited in case the dark shape—probably the bird she had been warned about—returned, distantly hearing its rapid, thunderous wingbeats.

Behind her, she head Nightmare Yellow roar angrily before abruptly cutting off, and there was a crashing splash as the tentacle, multi-eyed monsters crashed into the road, crushing a jeepney that had crashed into another car. Flesh burst in an explosion of gore and snapping bones at the impact, the wings that had been supporting it in the air breaking. Blood and other fluids mixed into the water, and more spilled out as it flailed and its mutilated flesh caught and tore more on the remains of the jeepney. Heat, turbulence, and bursting bubble of steam churned the waters wildly, which Willy pushed back with impatient annoyance as she reformed back into a ball and hollowed herself out again. She took a moment to sight down the road—the waves hadn't settle yet, but that didn't matter—and get ready to blast another jet of water from her surface—

Turbulence in the water, and gales of wind in the air.

Willy was sent flying once more, thankfully at an angle towards the direction she wanted to go, along with a massive wave of water displaced by titanic wingbeats. Windows cracked and cars were inundated with water, floating bodies heaved with the waves as the giant bird landed with an explosion of spray. Without eyes, orientation or the fact she was tumbling didn't affect Willy's vision or field of view, so she had a perfect view of the bird's head darting down and start ripping the innards spilling from Nightmare Yellow's twitching form. Droplets of water kept flipping up into the air as the three-story tall bird moved with light, rapid movements, bursts of wind exploding from it as it did, it's thick feathers

It had only time for three or four pecks before Nightmare Yellow exploded into violent motion. Guts and trailing innards that were being ripped out of its guts suddenly snapped up, wrapping around the sparrow's head, spiky, triangular teeth erupting from the flesh of the still-glistening entrails. It dug into the thick, protective fluff of feathers as well as parts of itself as the bird reared back in surprise at the sudden attack. The mouths on Nightmare Yellow's tentacles all opened wide as it started to wrap around the bird, which started leaping and flapping its wings, trying to dislodge the clinging attacker. Wind blasted in all directions, and Willy took advantage of it, letting out a jet of water as another gale sent her tumbling. Soon she left the two would-be predators behind, Nightmare Yellow's roars and the howling gales of wind slowly fading behind her.

They weren't important. Only Tammy was important.

Eventually, the road began to rise, and there was less water and fewer stalled cars on the road. There were even a few cars driving around, moving slowly and with their headlights on and windshield wipers moving very fast. They moved slowly as they tried to avoid fallen motorcycles and bodies on the road through the hindered visibility of the rain. Willy was able to avoid them easily as she slid on the road on her frictionless surface.

At the intersection of EDSA and Ortigas Avenue, Willy turned left, sending out a second jet of water to help counter her momentum. The traffic lights on the intersection were simply blinking yellow though that didn't really mean anything, and there were stalled cars and a huge mess of fallen motorcycles and bodies,. In the middle of the intersection where the unconscious bodies of traffic police, passed out in the middle of trying to direct traffic and most likely making it worse. The few cars moving around ignored this, trying to navigate around the blockage of the road. Willy blew past it and stated going downhill again. She actually started rolling down the slope, and Willy cut off her water jets, just letting the flow of gravity take her, her frictionless surface letting her slide over the asphalt top of the road, bouncing obstructions on the road. Ahead of her was the municipality of Pasig, with its polluted river made famous by an old song. The river itself was bloated and flowing rapidly, already threatening to overflow its banks.

The rainwater was strong with the feeling tainted slime, and she had no doubt the source of the rain was nearby. It was not unlike the echoes in the water when someone was controlling a drone, weakly causing the same turbulence in a different place and reinforcing each other because of it. Willy let herself slow down, skidding over the ground until she bumped into someone collapsed on the road. She could feel the slush and ice coming from the residential areas on either side as she grew, forming limbs and a head, the two little pellets of water inside a hollows to simulate her inner ears helping her balance. Her feet were frictionless, but she was used to that, letting her soles sink and contour to the textures of the ground she stood on to give her some traction.

It was an imperfect solution, but it gave her time to find a dead body with shoes that had high support. She made sure the body was dead, cold and not breathing before she took the shoes—she didn't need the socks—and slipped her feet into it, filling the space and fibers of the shoe with water that she froze solid, anchoring herself to the footwear. Normally this wouldn't necessary, but with the rain, unless she reverted to flesh and blood feet, she wouldn't have much, if any, traction with which to walk. At least this way it wasn't stealing. They were dead, after all.

With her new shoes, she walked across the bridge over the swollen river, careful to not slip. While it wouldn't really hurt her, falling into the river and needing to propel herself towards shore again would have been annoying, and a waste of time. fortunately, she reached the other side without incident, and found herself at a minor intersection. There was a small outdoor and indoor market in one corner, unconscious people fallen around now-soggy produce. Deeper inside, she could see movement as people stayed as far away from the openings and the rain as they could. There were very few conscious people left there, and the ground was littered with bodies. Every once in a while, as the rain gusted, one or two people would suddenly sway and collapse, falling asleep where they stood.

Willy ignored them, trying to get her bearings before turning towards the road that turned to the right. It was in the direction that she had estimated the center of the rain was. The streets were crowded with the unconscious and the things that had been riding. There were crashed jeepneys all over, which had impacted onto cars, walls, other jeepneys, stalls, tricycle pedicabs, motorcycles and other things that had gotten in their way. The water was ankle-high, gushing out of the gutters and sewers. Around her, she could feel more turbulence from those still awake. She passed by a grocery, the edges of the glass door stuffed with now-soggy cardboard while the water inside whirled and churned and bubbles of steam popped while geysers of burning water exploded violently.

She passed through the obstructions on the road, turning parts of her body into viscous water so she could squeeze past the vehicles blocking the road. Willy ignored the staring from the people still conscious in the cars she passed, from the cramped and crowded homes on either side as people watched her through their windows, waters whirling and bubbling and cold. Not important. Up ahead, she felt more turbulence, full of currents and swirling and cold currents, all pointless distractions. With every step, the turbulence of the viscous, burning taint grew incrementally stronger.

Willy saw the rat, of course. The size of a motorcycle, its fur completely sodden and wafting trails of steam and hot vapor, it stood in the middle of the road surrounded by crimson water and gory remains. Its oversized incisors gnawed, cutting and chewing meat and bone as it ate the flesh of one of the bodies on the street, snapping bones to suck out the marrow. Its waters bubbled vacuum as it ate seemingly ravenously, tearing through the feast of flesh before it. Its head snapped up quickly as she drew close, the fur around its mouth caked with blood and unidentifiable crimson meat. With moved with fast, jerky movements as it looked directly at her, a hot geyser already beginning to build up pressure within it..

It wasn't important, so she ignored it and just walked past, kicking aside torn, blood clothes and the gnawed bones lying hidden or half hidden under the water. It snapped at her, chisel-like teeth scraping over her icy arm and shaving off a spry of ice, before it locked its mouth around Willy's wrist.

Willy had just been about to turn her arm into water to escape from this minor inconvenience when her water suddenly exploded, a geyser appearing out of nowhere and filling everything with steam She stumbled, bubbling in surprise as the steam rushed forth in all directions in a wave of turbulence just as the rat slammed into her, it's paws clawing at her as its jaws opened wide. Willy, still surprised and suddenly disoriented her waters obscured by steam, her clear thought compromised, stumbled and fell, her ice striking the water and then the asphalt beneath it. As she lay there, trying to pierce through the steam that made her head hurt and burn hot, even though neither should have been possible, the rat exploded, steam and hot water exploding from it in a rush outwards in all directions, including into the sky. The mist blocked her view as Willy struggled to push out the foreign turbulence invading her waters.

The rat's jaws opened wide, threads of viscera still trapped between its teeth, and lunged towards her throat.

There was a snap as Willy's head broke clean of her shoulders as the rat bit and chewed, snapping her body to pieces and tearing her innards apart.