Pretend

Ryoko sat calmly, listening to the rhythmic, muffled clack of the rails. Her eyes skimmed across the page of her book, but she had more attention on the peripherals of her vision than the words on the page. She took note as a man with a blue longcoat and black hair entered the car. She glanced up as he passed, noting the grey hue of his eyes, and the light stride of his walk, despite his height.

He wasn’t the oddest person to enter the car, but the way he scanned the room and paused for a moment to think of his choice of seat stood out to her. She was mildly surprised when he sat down on the same bench as her, just within arms reach. She kept “reading” her book, turning the page despite failing to remember half the words she’d seen on the previous one. It was one of those nostalgic romance novels, set in the time before the world went away. She wasn’t really a fan of them, but it had been the only choices on the spin rack at the station. This one, at least, had a shirtless hunk on the cover to appreciate.

“Long trip, this.” The man in blue leaned back, crossed one leg at the knee, and draped his arms on the back of the bench, till his hand was almost touching her shoulder.


Ryoko glanced sideways at him. “Yes.”

“You’d think they would take a straighter path to get to Orsen, but no, let’s cut all the way around the marsh.”

“There’s a Farrolin tribe in there.”

The man frowned in thought. “Ah. Right. Those folks. Somehow they find their way into every puddle.”

“They were here first.”

“Yes, and we provided the pipes to let their communities grow. You’d think they would accomodate us thusly.”

“Sacred land, I heard. This was one of their earliest settlements.”

“Hmm. I suppose.” He looked towards the back, opposite the door he entered. There was only three cars left on the line, all filled with cargo. Unfortunately, that meant you couldn’t hang out on the back car balcony and watch the land slide away.

He noticed her watching him watch the door. He smiled. “So what are you on this trip for?”

She returned a prim smile of her own. “Not getting hit on.”

He chuckled, and motioned at her. “Wearing that?”
She glanced down. She supposed the pleated mini-skirt was a bit on the short side, but that was for practical reasons. It was still a drab brown color and her dark grey top wasn’t the most flattering fit. “Some guys are into anything, huh?”

He chuckled again. “Just giving you shit. Also not hitting on you. Just making conversation.”

She raised her book and matched his mirth with a smirk. “Next time, bring something to read.”

“You’re not even reading that thing.”

She let out a small, semi-dramatic sigh. “How could you tell?”

“Just a hunch.” He said. He paused, and glanced out the window. She glanced as well, but snapped her eyes back to him first. The first of several tunnels was coming up fast. The car had some lights on already, so they wouldn’t be cast in full darkness. But she felt her body start to tense.

Something was going to happen. And this man was going to be a part of it.

He glanced back at the cargo door. “To shield or to pilfer?”

She said nothing, but her hand instinctively curled around air. The tunnel was almost here.

“I’m sorry?”

He smiled again. “You know what I mean.”

The tunnel arrived. The car dimmed. The soft lights didn’t compensate for the sudden drop in overall light. It was enough to distract most people as their eyes took a moment to adjust. She didn’t wait and acted instead. The sword flashed into existence in her hand, already drawn, as she positioned it against his neck. But the man was already flowing out from the seat.

He exploded into a roil of thick mist, rushing around her blade. Ryoko sprang back with cat-like grace, on her feet, sword leveled at the mass, blocking the path to the cargo door with her body. The cloud surged at her. She swung deftly, slashing and stabbing at the thickest part of the mass with surgical precision. If the still-humanoid form in the center of the cloud had had any solidity to it, she would have perforated five major organs in one tenth of a second. But it seemed this particular Elemental was a full Shifter. Her blade hit only vapor.

In return, the man of mist blasted her with a gale-force rush, flowing around her like a terrible wind. She planted her feet and held her ground, closing her eyes and gritting her teeth. The rush lasted only a couple seconds; the moment the pressure let up, she whipped around and hurled the blade like a javelin at the door. The man of mist had started to coalesce again, but she threw the blade too soon, and it tore through his cloud without striking anything solid. However, she thought that might be the case, and so had aimed for the spot beyond him. The blade hit the latch and opened the door suddenly, and a rush of wind sounded as the door was yanked open. The cloud started getting sucked out the door, billowing past the outer wall of the car beyond.

The blade vanished and reappeared in her hand as she reached for the main mass of the mist. The man was forcibly pulling himself together, staggered by the sudden scattering of his elemental form. He had to become human again, lest the winds splash him off the train.

As he solidified, Ryoko grabbed him by the collar, shoved him against the outer wall of the cargo train, making sure his body was half-hanging off the tiny connecting walkway. It was easy enough for her to do one-handed, as she brought the blade back up to his neck. She was stronger than she looked, and he was lighter than he looked.

She gave him a hard glare. “Shield.”

He grinned back. “Pilfer. Nice move there.”

“I know.”

And then, they exited the tunnel, and the sudden brightness made her wince. She felt her fingers slip on moist air, as the man quick-shifted out of her grib. She whipped her sword down to slash at him, but he nimbly managed to maneuver himself out of the way of the blade, dash back into the other car, and slam the door shut on her. There was a small metallic thunk, and he waved at her with a spindly wiggle of his fingers. She stepped forward and tried to open the door, finding it locked. She cursed. She cursed again when she saw the man wrench open a window on the side, pour his mist form out, and shoot past her to reach the cargo car from the side window.

Ryoko realized she’d just been feinted. She whirled and banged on the door of the cargo train.

“Shit.” They hadn’t given her a key to the car. If there was trouble, a guard was supposed to--

There was a hasty jangle of keys in a lock, but then there was a loud thump against the door, and a masculine shout. She sighed, dematerialized her blade, and held her hand against the locking mechanism. She then rematerialized it, wincing as the emerging metal displaced the lock with a jarring shriek. She kicked the door open, though it stopped part way as it stopped short against the body of the knocked-out guard.

Ryoko was small enough to slip through the cramped entry. A quick check on the man at her feet told her he was still breathing, but that was all she had time for. She wasn’t here to administer first aid.
She lunged into the cargo hold, where three other men were knocked sprawling. The living cloud whirled around the room, using puffs of dense air swipe aside coverings and knock open loose lids. The windowless car had three fluorescent tubes lighting the hold, and they flickered slightly, giving the mist man an eerie quality of a frantic ghost. She could see more of his mass pouring in from the ceiling; he must have gotten in through a roof vent.

His frenzy of searching came to a quick end as the last of his cloud coalesced to him. He settled on an unassuming wooden crate, filled with packing straw. Ryoko swallowed hard. It’s unassuming appearance was ruse, of course. Beneath the cheap exterior was a black box that could only be opened with a very special key code.

But the man didn’t need the code to just steal the whole thing. Ryoko readied her sword for another throw as the man started to solidify. He glanced at her with foggy eyes forming in the wisping head-shaped mass. He glanced back at the box, his hands clasped around the sides. Then he glanced up at her.

“That’s right. Go solid, I spear your skull like a martini olive. Stay misty, and you can’t even pick that up, can you? Guess you’re cornered, hmm?”

He shrugged and stood, letting go of the small crate. He put his arms up and waited. She gave a nod. “Step away, and I won’t throw this immediately.”

He solidified after taking three long side-steps to the opposite line of crates and boxes. “Whelp. Not my brightest move.”

“Should have just jumped these guys right off.”

“Figured I’d see what kind of super they had guarding first. Just a Weaponer. This must not be as high-grade a heist as I thought.”

“And yet, you’re still stuck. I’m not the cops, so you want to run, run. You want to stick the ride out, I’ll have you guarded. Either way, you’re not getting your hands on that device.”

He shrugged and chuckled again. “Think I’d rather not have a police squad waiting for me upon arrival.”

“Smart.”

“Just one thing before I go.”

She hurled the sword just as he started to surge forward into mist. He was fast. He let out a cry just before his voice gave out, as she clipped him mid-transformation. But then, he was fully in his cloud form, and seemingly none the worse for wear as he surged forward. He enveloped her fully, blinding her, funneling himself into her mouth and nose to try and choke her. The sword flashed back into her hand and with a burst of strength and speed, she whirled, using the flat of the blade generate a short gust to blow him away. It didn’t work. He clung a thick cloud to her head like a glob of glue. She forced him out with a hard cough, closed her throat, and kicked backwards, leaping to the edge of the car. She struck in a high arc with her sword, destroying the middle light, and touching the metal. Electricity shot through the blade and down her arm.

She had no idea if this would work at all, but Elemental Shifters tended to be weak to other “elements”. It didn’t really make a whole lot of sense to her scientifically, but these strange powers weren’t exactly obedient to the laws of physics. She couldn’t remember how the classical elements were supposed to go, but she very vaguely remembered a video game from her youth, where lightning had been effective against aquatic creatures.

She grit her teeth and held on as an arc of lightning shot off her body and scattered into the cloud mass. Her body spasmed, her very teeth seemed to vibrate, and her pixie-cut hair crackled as it stood on end to form a short afro around her head.

There was a loud hissing, and the mist surged away from her. Her body was locked up, unable to let go of her position, but she simply dematerialized the blade, cutting the connection. She dropped to the floor, took a few raspy breaths, and got back to her feet. She was deceptively resilient as well.

The blade appeared in her hand as the crackling mass of mist re-coalesced into a human form again. He groaned, disoriented. She picked him up by the collar and hauled him to the door. “W-wait…” His voice was raspy and he pat at her side weakly.

“You had your chance.” She opened the back door, and with one hand, chucked him off the side of the tiny walkway. She leaned over to watch as his body struck the ground, exploding into a cloud. She let out a sigh of relief as his cloud form stayed put, quickly fading into the distance. She went back inside and checked on the guards. They were all concussed, but all four were coming too. She went back to crate and checked it over. No damage had been done. The man hadn’t slipped anything onto the case.

Within a few minutes, she was back at her seat, holding her book on her lap, not bothering to read it. She just watched the passing landscape out the window. The car hadn’t had many people before, but they were now giving her a wide berth, rows of empty seats separating her and the other passengers. Thankfully, none of them had been hurt.

That hadn’t gone too badly, all things considered, but it could have gone far better. A thought whispered in her mind that she should have gutted him while he was solid and disoriented. She bit down that thought with an inward snarl. She wasn’t that kind of person. Even in this world of strange physics and insane super powers, she wasn’t going to be that kind of person, no matter how much she was tempted.

She let out a small breath and decided to go back to half-reading. Surely, that man of mist wouldn’t be the only one to make a go at her charge. Seven more hours to go on this ride. If she was lucky, she’d manage to pretend to reach the end before she was interrupted again.