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Ainōryoku Sentai Nightmærangers #36
🕑 Added 2022-02-06 00:00:02 +0000 UTCWilly stood still, not moving as the tentacle continued to rest on her arm. Something very strange was going on. While the turbulence of the water was familiar… it was missing something. The fog and mists were gone, as were the narrow, focused currents and rare blood-warm bursts of heat.
The massive predator, Nightmare Yellow, leaned down towards her, and she could feel the hot breath pushing rainwater over her skin, felt her very ice vibrating at the rumbling throat. Slowly, it let its weight settle on the ground, its segmented legs curling up around it. It pulled back its tentacle from her, and it turned its face towards the magenta array to the side. A different tentacle arose and crept towards the crystalline structure, mouths all along the tentacle's length opening and closing. It reached for the glowing magenta stone, but at the last moment drew back warily as the air around the structure seemed to bend strangely, long, thin stone growths that bore a strong resemblance to thorns crystallizing.
The plasma continued its strange song, even as its whirls and currents warmed in a way that was almost, but not quite, Tammy-like. It was a familiar turbulence in the waters that usually came and grew strong just before Jas lost control.
But then, Jas had already lost control.
For a moment, Nightmare Yellow looked back and forth between them, its multiple eyes moving independently on stalks as it examined the glowing plasma, the magenta structure, the now-sizable tree with branches heavy with mangoes, oranges, langka, durian, and pili nuts that was Tammy, the house to one side, the umbrella still being blown by the wind, and Willy herself. It settled back into its crouch, many of its eyes moving to look towards the road and the sky, though Willy saw one eye-stalk was still pointed straight at her. And while the bubbles filled with emptiness still churned, most of the turbulence in the water coming from it receded. Still, there was a pressure beneath the surface, and the bubbles full of emptiness were still there, rising up from the pressure.
Willy remained between Nightmare Yellow and Tammy. Now that Tammy didn't seem to be in direct danger, she tried to figure out what to do. It was clear that this rain had rendered her unconscious—hadn't Katherine said something about the news?—so if she could get her out of the rain properly, would Tammy wake up? The top of Tammy's canopy already reached fifteen feet tall and were still growing, fruits so engorged that they finally fell from their stalks and splashed to the ground. It wasn't the wild growth of the Thorn Thicket they had fought, but it was still considerable.
Reaching for the water she had generated, Willy began building, forming the water into ice in a circle around Tammy. She made it wide so she could enclose everything, claiming the water that struck her ice from the sky. There was some minor resistance that she had never encountered before, but nothing she couldn't overcome, and soon walls of ice were rising around Tammy in a cylinder. The rainwater would have pooled inside, but Willy claimed that water, adding it to her ice even as she generated more and more.
The walls caught the interest of Nightmare Yellow, who reached out several tentacles to prod the ice, but recoiled at the cold with a rumble deep in its throat. It stayed back, watching as its water lapped with small waves, as the cylinder grew and grew. Finally, when the walls rose above Tammy, Willy began the dome, moving the walls inwards into smaller rings until it all met in the middle, the dome of ice sealing shut.
Willy walked into the wall, her form fusing with the ice and came out the other side to the cold, slightly darker space within. While the ground still squelched with mud and grass, no rain fell inside, and Tammy stood there, dripping rainwater from her leaves. Willy exploded into cool vapor, filling the space within and letting her touch the surface of it all. In this form, she claimed all the water on Tammy's exterior, on the leaves and the little crevices of her back, on the ground and in the mud. She made all that water a part of herself, and when she came together again, the air was arid and Tammy was dry, the ground reduced to loose dirt.
Hesitantly, Willy stepped forward. Tammy was too big and too firmly rooted to shake, but she tried anyway. "Tammy," she called, her ice vibrating to form her words, which echoed in the still enclosed space. "It's time to wake up. You're out of the rain now. Please wake up."
A large langka fell down on her head, cracking it and sending a large shard of ice tumbling to the side as the langka hit the ground.
There was no warmth.
Willy grew cold inside. Even away from the rain, Tammy still wouldn't wake up…
The walls of ice shivered before collapsing into water that she absorbed back into herself, the rain suddenly coming crashing back down. After the last time she had caused a flood, Tammy had told her that she should clean up after herself and take her water back in when she could. The ground was sodden still, but that was on the rain, not her.
The rain… the rain was the cause of this, wasn't it?
Then it couldn’t be normal. Some sort of chemical, carried on the water? That seemed very unlikely…
She held out one icy hand again, cupping it and catching the thick deluge of rain water. She tried to claim it, and again there was that resistance she had never encountered before now. Water had always fallen in her control as easily as willing it to come into existence from her mass for as long as she'd had the squatter in her head, but claiming this rainwater was like… like taking something someone was already holding loosely. It still came to her, but there was marked difference, just a hair more time and effort needed to pull it to her…
Will didn't have to turn her head to look from the water in her hands to the sky, dark and thick and grey, blocking off much of the sunlight.
She let the ice recede, and suddenly she was standing naked and cold in the rain, her vision limited to where her eyes were pointed. She reached out and patted Tammy's bark, a childish hope that this time she'd wake up.
But no. There was no warmth.
The little ball of water she'd made still nestled on top of Tammy. Even with the rain, little roots had grown into it, sucking in water, and it had noticeably shrunk. That was fine. If Tammy needed water from her, she could have as much as she wanted. Willy willed it, and the little ball began to grow again as it gained mass, wrapping around Tammy protectively. It was hard to concentrate on two bodies at once, but for Tammy, she'd manage it, even if the control was only limited to being aware of what was happening around her drone. With the water wrapped around her cousin, Tammy could see the house, the other Nightmærangers, the ground and the sky. If anything threatened Tammy, she'd see it and be able to shift her focus to her other body instantly to protect her.
She walked towards her discarded clothes and systematically began putting them back on, even if they were soaked and cold. She pulled them on regardless, claiming the water on her clothes and increasing their temperature to warm herself as she pulled on each one. Finished pulling on her shoes, she stepped towards the front door of the house until she reached the relatively dry area under the overhang and turned all the water in her clothes and in her hair to steam. It all puffed out in a burst of heat as she knocked on the door again.
Willy waited, rain striking her pants leg as the flow of the waters carrying some of the nearby slush and ice stilled for a moment, before starting up again, colder than before.
Eventually she knocked again. "Excuse me, but may I come back in?" she called out, trying to be heard above the rain. "I left my phone inside and I need to do research." Perhaps she should turn into water and flow under the door? It mean would she'd have to leave her clothes behind, and Tammy said she shouldn't leave her clothes lying around…
She heard the door unlocking, opening wide again. "Get in, get in, hurry!"
The water of the one behind the door was mildly scalding as Willy stepped inside, and the door was once more closed behind her. "Wipe your feet," Katherine's voice said, the voice equally scalding as the turbulence in the water Willy could feel from her. "We don't know what’s in the rain that's affecting people, but if it's some sort of chemical agent—"
"It's not," Willy said, correcting her as she looked around for her shoulder bag. Ah, there it was, right where she'd left it. "It's a supernatural phenomenon. Something with control over the rain is putting people to sleep." She bent down and opened her bag. Her phone was there, still dry, and she turned it on by pressing her thumb to the fingerprint scanner on the home button. It switched on, and she opened her browser, typing in what she was looking for. It didn't connect, of course, because she hadn't activated the cellular data yet. She did just that, then reloaded her search. "A chemical agent that worked on humans shouldn't work on Tammy if she's a plant, or on Kim and Jas if they're rock."
Willy soon found herself on the website of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration website. She turned her phone sideways and focused on the moving weather map on the right side of the webpage. The map kept switching between the same five frames of meteorological data. Willy checked the timestamps and grunted in frustration. The most recent was from half an hour ago. Shouldn't there be more recent data?
"Supernatural? A monster is causing this?" a new voice said. "Is it that thing outside doing this?"
Willy looked up from her phone. Kim's father Milo was there, looking serious, his water surprisingly tranquil despite all the ice floating in it. She hesitated, but he was one of her hosts, and Tammy had told her she should be polite and respond to them when they made conversation. "No, I doubt Sanny is causing this," Willy said. "She can only affect animal organisms. Jas, Kim and Tammy are currently not made of animal cells, and so should be immune to anything she does. Sanny also doesn't transmit her effects through rain."
The man frowned. "Are you sure?"
"Reasonably sure," she said. "The rainwater isn't reacting as it should, and Tammy isn't waking up." Willy stared at her phone, reloading the website, but there was no new data—
"Wait, that's Sanny?" Katherine exclaimed. "Really?"
Outside, thunder rolled, loud and close, and the lights flickered for a moment. Her first instinct was to check if Tammy was been struck… but no, the part of her she'd left behind showed that Tammy was safe, even if Nightmare Yellow was looking agitated, body and eyes turning this way and that, a hot current running through their waters. Then there was another flash, instantly accompanied by another, louder burst of thunder. Then another. And another. Outside, Nightmare Yellow roared in many voices, as if answering the lightning, which lit up the sky, arcing across the clouds as inside the house, the lights flickered…
Willy put her phone back in her bag and made to go outside again. If she wasn't going to be productive, then she should go back to guarding Tammy.
"Oh no, you're not going outside again!" Katherine said, pointing at her but keeping her distance. "You're the only one's who's managed to go out into the rain without passing out. We need your help. How are you doing it? Is it one of your powers? Can you wake up Kim? And the others? Can you wake up Ryan?"
Milo glanced towards Willy as well. "Can you?" In the cold, turbulent waters, little patches of sunlit warmth dripped.
Willy considered the questions. "I'm not. No. No. No. No," she answered concisely.
Katherine blinked. "What?"
Willy glanced at Milo, but he didn't seem to understand either. Weren't they listening? A hot current of annoyance flowed through her. "I'm not. No. No. No. No," she repeated.
"What does that mean?" Milo asked.
"I answered your questions. I'm not. No. No. No. No," she repeated again.
Katherine made a sound as very large bubbles appeared in her water. "Ugh, you're as hard to talk to as babe said, and Tammy's not here to make you talk like a normal person."
"Tammy's outside," she corrected. "She's just sleeping. I need to wake her up, we're going to be late for the get together."
"That's what you're worried about?" Katherine said, the bubbles filling with steam as a hot current started to flow. "Don’t you get what's going on here? The whole city is falling asleep!"
Yes, that was obvious. Willy just stared at her, irritably trying to push back the turbulence from her waters that tried to intrude.
"Katherine, why don't you go and call your parents again and tell them that you're all right? After those roars they're probably worried," Milo said. His waters were still mostly calm on the surface, though underneath bubbles, ice and currents of varying temperatures flowed. "I'd like to speak to Willy alone for a moment."
Katheine glanced at him and nodded, but there was another burst of hot water as she glanced towards Willy. "Yes, Tito Milo," she said, walking past Milo and into the rest of the house, presumably towards where the phone was.
Milo glanced over his shoulder at Katherine for a moment, before he turned to regard Willy. "Willy," he asked, his voice full of that tone teachers and school administrators sometimes used on her, "have you been diagnosed with anything?"
She knew what he was fishing for. "I'm a special child," she said. "Tammy said so."
Milo nodded. His water didn't change. "How are you special?"
"I probably have what is nowadays known as an antisocial personality disorder, with traits closely corresponding to what is commonly but not officially referred to as secondary psychopathy, or sociopathy, according to Tammy, and might possibly be on the autism spectrum. However, Tammy doesn't understand enough about the subject to tell me conclusively," Willy said.
Another nod. "Have you been to a doctor about this?"
"Tammy took me to some doctors," Willy said. "But she stopped after she realized they weren't really helping and were upsetting me." They didn't go to any anymore, although Tammy still read what she could, even if she clearly found it hard to understand. Tammy said if the doctors weren't helping, than Willy should just be a good girl, and everything will be all right.
"Tammy? Not your parents?"
"My parents live in Cebu. They're too far away to take me to see doctors, so Tammy does it."
"I see. Tammy is very important to you, isn't she?"
"Yes." Tammy was the only important thing. Tammy was the only one that mattered in the whole world… "I know what you're doing. You're trying to manipulate me to a course of action by making it seem like something Tammy would want me to do. I'm fourteen and a possible sociopath, not an idiot. Teachers keep trying that when they try to talk to me alone. It's annoying!" That last came out almost as shout as heat that had been building up in her suddenly exploded into steam.
"I see," Milo said. "I apologize. Then how about this: I would like to help you so we can reach a mutual goal."
"What goal?" Willy demanded, trying to cool her waters. That shout had almost been a tantrum, and good girls shouldn't have tantrums.
"You want Tammy to wake up. I want my sons to wake up. If you can find out how to wake up Tammy, maybe that can also be used to wake up my sons. So tell me what you need to wake up Tammy and I'll assist you as best as I can."
Willy tilted her head thoughtfully. "I need to find the source of the rain," she said. "Water spreads outward from a central source over the path of least resistance. If I find the source of the rain, I'll find the thing with power over the rain that's causing Tammy to sleep."
Milo nodded solemnly, taking her statement at face value. Some of the doctors had been like that, listening and taking notes and getting information. Those doctors had been the ones Tammy had taken her to the most, and sometimes still called or emailed, even if she had stopped taking Willy to them. "I see. Excellent reasoning. However, I must ask, for the sake of argument, why you think it's the rain itself rather than something added to the rain?"
Yes, this felt very familiar. This sequence of asking and listening was an old rhythm, and Willy went with it. "Because I was out in the rain," she said. "I felt it putting me to sleep. It worked too fast for a topical agent absorbed through the skin, it happened too fast to have been caused by something I took in when the water hit the ground and aerosolized, and the means by which I woke up shows me that it wasn't a chemically induced effect."
In the man's waters, a current flowed, fast and narrow and direct. "Could the means by which you woke up wake up Kim and Tammy?"
"No," Willy said. "If it would have, they'd be awake already."
Outside, more flashes of lighting, one after the other, the windows flickering with light and a constant, rumbling thunder. Nightmare Yellow responded with another roar of challenge, and Willy hear wings opening, wingbeats sending raindrops hitting the ground in waves as the predator rose up into the sky. At the noise, Milo's hand went to the small of his back, and something cold and still fell over his waters.
Willy looked through the piece of herself she'd left behind. Nightmare Yellow was rising to the air, mouths all open and teeth bared, the wind curling Tammy's branches and causing the many fruits growing all over her to fall off and splash on the sodden ground. The clouds above were flickering with lightning flashes and—
She frowned. There was something up in the clouds, something long and sinuous that flickered and glowed…
The shape flared with light immediately followed by lightning, and Willy dismissed it from her considerations. Lightning. The monster in the sky was only manifesting lightning. Its recent appearance, well after the rain had started, along with the fact that the rain hadn't included any lightning before now, made it unlikely this was the monster she sought. Not completely impossible, but very low on the scale of probability.
"Is that something we should be worried about?" Milo asked, hand still on the small of his back.
Willy shrugged. "I don't know."
"Shouldn't you find out?"
"No. It's not likely to have been what caused Tammy to fall asleep." Yes, so like the doctors, trying to get her to do irrelevant things.
"How do you know?" Yes, there it was, the same leading question. She felt the beat again, the boiling, steaming anger. She knew better than to say that she didn't know. As if something about admitting to the act of ignorance somehow gave them authority over you, even if they didn't know themselves.
Only Tammy could tell her what to do.
"I know because I do," Willy said instead. Give no explanation. Only Tammy deserved explanations. "It's not part of the information I need to know. I need to know the source of the rain."
Milo gave her a long look, and his waterers churned and swirled, went hot and cold and warm and bubbling. "Why don't you go to the sala?" he suggested. "The news is currently on, and information from other areas is starting to come in. Maybe you'll hear something that will spark an idea."
Willy frowned, glancing at her phone. In her experience, the news reports to be found on TV simply regurgitated what could already be found on the internet. On the other hand, they had more staff to search the internet, and searching for information with her phone was slow. "Thank you," she said, turning and heading towards the room in question.
"Please wipe your feet properly first so you don't leave any rainwater that will put people to sleep," he added. "I'll get you some paper towels and a trashcan to put it all in so that you can dry yourse—"
Willy turned into water, seeped into all her clothes, claimed all the rainwater that had dripped on her, pulled them into her, and then changed back, completely dry. This time she'd made sure there was sufficient ice supporting her underwear so it didn't sink into her body.
"Please use the towels anyway, just in case," Milo said, looking unimpressed, his waters only swirling slightly.
Willy sighed. Ugh, hosts. "Yes, sir." Tammy said good girls should go along with a host's eccentricities, not that anyone seemed to invite Willy more than once. In fact, this place was one of the few that she had been to several times already…
She went to the sala, still occasionally checking her phone, and Milo soon joined her with a trash can lined with a plastic shopping bag from a local grocery, and an already open package of paper towels. Willy made a show of wiping herself, even if it was a waste of paper because the towels came out completely dry, as she listened to the news program, which kept interrupting itself with announcements of the news show's name.
"—not go out into the rain," the newscaster said in an even voice. "Even a drop of water on skin will render a person unconscious, and so far all means of waking an unconscious person have failed. A state of emergency has been declared for all areas of Metro Manila where it is currently raining. The government urges everyone to stay indoors for the duration of the emergency and to not go out. People are urged to avoid taking baths in case the ground water has seemed into the water supply."
The camera angle shifted, focusing on the other newscaster. "This just in, hospitals and local government units are reporting that sleeping people who have not been in contact with the rain are not waking up…"
Willy finished wiping, sat and listened to the news, even as she did her own searches of satellite weather feeds as Milo left. Monsters appearing in large numbers soon after the start of the rain, estimates of how many were dying from exposure, shaky cellphone videos of local mayors and barangay captains asking people to stay indoors, estimates of how many were dying from being asleep in flood-prone areas, shaky video of a giant brown bird flying through the clouds and sending the thick clouds whirling, estimates of how many were dying from being swept away by flood waters while unconscious, an announcement that all flights had been cancelled due to the weather and monsters flying in the air, a mention of how heavily congested the traffic was especially because some people had fallen asleep on the wheel either naturally or because of rain water seeping in…
She ignored all those unimportant things. A map, she needed a weather map, something to give her an idea of the extent of the rain…
After what seemed like forever with her own waters churning impatiently, the news finally transitioned to a man standing in front of an animated map of the Philippines, talking about the weather.
"—seems to have stalled to a stop above the National Capital Region, despite continued prevailing winds," the weatherman was saying as Willy lined up her phone and took a picture. "There are also no opposing high and low pressure areas to potentially stall the weather system. I've never seen anything like this, Kabayan—"
Willy looked at the map she'd taken a picture of. It showed a slightly off-round circle of weather, the edges seemingly to have been pushed by wind. Unlike most depictions of weather systems she had seen, it wasn't moving, wasn't spinning on itself. It just lay there like someone had dropped hotcake batter on a frying pan that hadn't been properly level.
Opening her browser, she began comparing it to a map of the city.
