Chapter 25
The Royal Guard, Menthuthuyoupi
The Royal Guard, Menthuthuyoupi, was awash in a sea of Chimera Ants. Like a wave breaking upon a shore, they streamed into the city of Peijing.
The Royal Guard, Menthuthuyoupi, could barely tell the difference between them. There were Ants of every size and shape, turtles and birds, reptiles and mammals, but to the Royal Guard, Menthuthuyoupi, the Ants were all the same regardless of their physical diversity. It did not matter to him whether an Ant resembled at cat or a dog, or anything else beyond or inbetween. To him, they were of equal utility, and their value to the King was the only quality worth attention.
He did not pay any more attention to the city than he did to the individual Ants. The only thing he looked for was where humans could hide. On those rooftops, in those doorways? If they emerged he would crush them, but the Hunters were not stupid. They wouldn't present themselves. They would have to be rooted out.
"Sir," someone said, and Youpi ignored it, moving onward, continuing his scan for humans. "Sir?" the same voice, more insistent. He wondered why whoever the Ant was addressing wasn't responding. Had they been attacked? He looked back, only to find a small Ant staring at him.
Was
he the sir? Menthuthuyoupi cocked his head, deciding to try out an answer.
"Yes?" he grumbled, and the Ant brightened up. So he
was the sir. Strange.
"The Squadron Leaders are thinking we should grab some humans," the Ant said. "Some of us are hungry, and they think some hostages will help bring the Hunters out. They're supposedly here to save these idiots, so-"
"I don't care," the Royal Guard, Menthuthuyoupi, decided, and the Ant blinked. "Do as you like."
"You… you're sure?" the Ant asked. Some of its fellows shifted. The group had spread out a little more, breaking into smaller squads, but still united as a spearhead. That appealed to Youpi. The streets of Peijing were wide, intended for motorized vehicles, and they accommodated the Ants with ease.
"Do as you like," he repeated, returning to his scan for Hunters. Without considering it, he grew several dozen more eyes across his body, and his field of vision expanded a hundred-fold. The action wasn't a conscious one; he'd just wanted to see more, and his body had agreed. He would have considered it interesting, but that required taking an interest in something besides the Hunters.
Buildings, buildings, buildings. Youpi quickly grew bored, trodding through the city. Where was the enemy? Where were the Hunters, the Watcher? Behind him, the Ants spread out, breaking into buildings and returning with squirming, screaming humans. Some were barely dressed, yanked from their beds. The Ants assembled them into a raucous cluster. Maybe the noise would draw something for Youpi to kill. The soldiers Neferpitou and the King had turned into semi-lifeless puppets paid no mind to the others humans, continuing to wander the street with their weapons held at the ready.
It was like the King himself was reaching out to crush the resistance in the city. Youpi smiled at the idea. The image was appealing. He guessed he was one of the King's fingers. Did that make sense? Did it matter if it did? Ants filled the air, born aloft by Hatsu or natural wings, joining Youpi in scanning the city for enemies. Menthuthuyoupi was joined in his solidarity as the Ants incursion into Peijing grew steadily louder, heralded by terrified humans and buzzing wings.
The Ants in the sky were the first to die.
Menthuthuyoupi realized it before any of the other Ants did. The eyes on his shoulders and the crown of his head spotted the lasso of smoke that dragged one Ant out of sight, over the lip of a nearby building, and his enlarged ears picked up the faint spatter of liquid that shortly followed.
"Up," he grunted. He considered leaping ahead, as Neferpitou had, but abandoned the idea after a moment. Better to let the humans come to him, if they would. If they persisted, he would give chase.
The other Ants realized what he meant and clustered up, taking safety in numbers. Still, more flying Ants died. Another four, drawn down to earth by smoke and sand and killed by unseen enemies. Menthuthuyoupi could not hear the psychic clamor of the Ants, but he was aware of it nonetheless. WIth impressive fluidity, the vanguard arrayed itself against the sudden assault.
Neferpitou had left to chase the Watcher herself, but if she had stayed, they would have been able to easily fend off this hidden attack, Youpi thought. He could have stayed behind to deter a counterattack and Pitou could have leapt to the roof to slaughter the aggressors.
She was too focused on the Watcher. She was obeying the King, but the decision to chase after the woman had been motivated by ego, not obedience. It had been foolish. As he wasted time chastising a Royal Guard that was no longer present with words he wouldn't have bothered to speak aloud, the Ants grew restless.
What had Pitou said, before she'd left? Don't lead, just keep the commanders alive. As Youpi watched with one of his many eyes, one of the Squadron Leaders snapped her long scorpion-like tail and formed the Ants up into several distinct rows, each with a hostage or two of their own. They advanced in a phalanx, waiting for a counterattack. Youpi was content to be the spearhead.
They had expected some sort of open confrontation, but it refused to present itself. A dart of sand was launched from a distant window, and Youpi watched it with disinterest as it soared past both his own head and a human hostage and buried itself in an Ant's eye. The creature screeched, the attack sending it stumbling back, but survived; the sand hadn't pierced its brain. Another one followed, larger and quicker than its fellow. The Hunter must have realized heavier projectiles would be needed to bring down Chimera Ants. Youpi was prepared to ignore it as he had the first, but as he watched it pass by, he realized that the Ants were important to the King. Not really as subjects, because the King held as much interest in them as Youpi did, but as extensions of His will.
Letting them die would be reducing the King's ability, however infinitesimally. That would mark him a failure of a Royal Guard.
With a snarl, Youpi sprung another arm from his shoulder, punching the spear off course. Most of it shattered; the tip pierced a hostage's kneecap, who let out a high-pitched keen. He shook the new limb, feelings its power. That had been satisfying. It had felt satisfying to protect property of the King. He felt something growling in his chest.
Enough of this, he decided. It was time to go on the offensive. The Squadron Commanders apparently agreed.
"Bring down that building!" one of them thundered, and one Ant shaped like a lizard stepped up and fastballed a stream of light, pulsing and keening Nen, directly into the ground floor of the building the sand had emerged from. There was a dull rumble, and the light detonated, flash-frying the building's foundations. It groaned and collapsed like a wounded animal, and Youpi felt the thrill of the hunt.
That was a cool Hatsu. He wondered if he could do something like that.
An Ant screamed, and Youpi turned towards the noise. One at the back of the phalanx had been dragged back by a thick black swarm of insects, all of which were busy stripping away the creatures Nen and flesh. Its comrades beat back the bugs, but more were emerging every second.
This was an ambush, Youpi thought. This whole city was an ambush, and unless he acted it would steadily destroy the Ants the King had trusted him and Neferpitou with.
"You," he asked the Squadron Leader who'd had the building brought down. The Ant looked confused, and he realized it was because it was the first time he'd directly addressed
any Chimera Ant. "Get them behind me."
"Sir?" the Squadron Leader stuttered, looking flustered.
"I will shield them while you plan an attack. Right now, they're just dying. It's pointless." Youpi narrowed his eyes. "I will give you time to do better. Use it."
The Ant didn't hesitate. She barked some orders, and most of the Ants that remained, over ninety, sprung into action. Most took their hostages and clustered as best they could behind Youpi; the rest, numbering at least thirty, bounded off into the city, breaking from the main group. Youpi couldn't hear the silent voices directing them, so he focused on the situation in front of him instead. The Hunters were using projectiles, trying to bait them out. To deflect the attacks, many attacks, coming from many different angles, he'd need more arms.
He got more arms. Twenty more. No, thirty would be safer. His torso constricted a little, before his Nen generated more flesh. They were thin, whip-like, perfect for throwing aside lassos and spears. He was a shield for the King's will.
He was a shield. A knife flashed out of the dark, from beyond the lip of a nearby building. It was like a test. He slapped it away without effort, sending it back where it came from. He'd hoped to hear a cry of pain, but he was disappointed. His lack of catharsis sent out an arm hardened into a bludgeon to smash at the roof, dislodging concrete and sending up a satisfying crack.
He could attack and defend at the same time, Youpi realized. It would be child's play. If they could bait the Hunters out, somehow, they'd be easy victims, but the humans were completely unwilling to emerge. Why would they? They didn't want to die, and they wanted to pick off Chimera Ants. Both goals were better served from concealment.
It was enraging. He couldn't call it cowardice, even though it was, because it was undeniably effective. He couldn't use
En, not like Pitou could, so locating the concealed humans would have to be done the hard way.
Someone had made a mistake, sending the Ants so unprepared, but he couldn't dream of who. It must have been his fault, or Neferpitou's. Yes, she had left. This was entirely her fault.
Youpi shook his head. While he'd been absorbed in pointless thought he'd deflected another twelve projectiles. Were the Hunters irritated? They'd definitely increased the rate of their attacks. That was a good thing, right?
"Menthuthuyoupi." It was the same Squadron Leader, peering at him over a sea of her underlings. What was her name? It started with a z, but Youpi had never bothered remembering it. "How far can you strike?"
He considered, deflecting more sand and smoke and bugs. They stung, but only a little. Another pair of eyes grew to cover a near-blind spot he hadn't noticed until a lasso had almost crept through it.
"I do not know," he answered honestly, and the Ant laughed.
"Well, I guess we're gonna find out, big guy," she grinned. "Yalrop here has a pretty good
En," she continued, poking at a nearby Ant with huge, fish-like lips and a mantis-esque body. "A little over one-hundred meters. He's going to flash it, find the nearest Hunters, and we're gonna rush them. Even if we only grab one or two, that'll bring down their numbers by a lot. Can you cover us the whole way?"
A mobile shield. It was simple, but Youpi was sure he couldn't have come to the conclusion himself. He didn't have any experience in battle, like these Ants did. In that arena, bizarre as it felt, they were head and shoulders above him.
"Of course," he said. The projectiles had stopped, for the moment. The Hunters had to be reconsidering their strategy. Now was the best time to move. "Do it."
The Ants didn't give a signal; Yalrop just shouted, a massive effort, and his aura exploded out of him in a flash of magenta. It covered about three-hundred and fifty feet in an instant, and Yalrop quickly pointed with in several directions with three of his six limbs, one especially emphatically. Three groups of enemies then, one of which was closet.
There was no time to think. Over thirty of the Ants, including the Squadron Leader whose name Youpi wanted to know, charged west towards the closest Hunters. They wouldn't be fast enough on their own, Youpi realized, and so he sent several limbs out ahead of them as the others deflected yet more steel and sand bullets. There was a building there, about sixty feet away, and Youpi's arms broke through the walls and windows, sprouting eyes as they did.
His third arm found something. A Hunter was leaning against one wall, away from the windows, eyes half closed and nose twitching furiously. He held a thick knife in one hand, and a huge white dog lay next to the man, one paw resting on his knee. They both seemed entirely focused on something Youpi couldn't see; perhaps a smell.
Youpi recognized the man. This was the Hunter who had infiltrated the Nest all those weeks ago, made it all the way to the Queen's chamber before Youpi had ejected him from the structure with a single punch. He was sure his strike had killed the man. The human hadn't had time to direct his Nen. Yet here he was, seemingly little worse for wear.
The realization made him completely furious. The man's eyes jolted open, focusing on Youpi's arm, and the eyes covering it.
He started to say something, some profanity, before Youpi whipped his arm sideways with nothing but fury on his mind, trying to swipe the man's head off. The Hunter ducked, and Youpi's arm made a clean hole in the side of the building.
"
Kill him!" Youpi roared as the Hunter scrambled away, his dog at his side. The charging Ants leapt forward, breaching the building. "
He attacked the Queen!
Kill him!"
That the Queen was now dead, killed by the King, didn't really matter; she had still birthed them, and this man had had no right,
no right, to hunt her. Youpi's arm watched as a half dozen Ants fell upon the man simultaneously, but he remained infuriatingly alive. Dancing among the Chimera, the Hunter and his dog whirled and slashed, bit and clawed, dodging dismemberment by inches every second and removing eyes and limbs in return.
He had gotten faster. Youpi's arm watched, fascinated, waiting for an opportunity to strike again. The Hunter had gotten faster, and maybe stronger. Had he been hunting other Ants, improving himself, while Menthuthuyoupi guarded the King? It was a remarkable idea, something that Youpi had never considered. Here, watching the lone Hunter grab one Ant's scything claw and drive it into another Ant's abdomen, he felt jealousy.
An opening presented itself as the Ants fell back to gather themselves, and Youpi struck again. He realized his body had been moving towards the building, and so seven limbs could attack instead of one. They came from every direction, some sharpening into blades and others growing dense. And yet, faced with seven different attacks from seven different angles, the Hunter remained calm. Youpi yearned for him to scream or cry, but the man, stone-faced, slipped past all but three of his limbs. One, his dog knocked away with snarl, and another, the man deflected with a blade.
But the last made it through, and slammed directly into the Hunter's shoulder. The blow sent him hurtling through the room, past a stunned Ant. A hit! Youpi was elated, even though the attack hadn't done much damage. If only it had been a blade, to cut the Hunter in two, but a nearly broken arm was still satisfying. The Ants surged forward, looking to take the opening and finish the man off. Before they could make it three steps, the room was flooded with smoke. Youpi felt his eyes sting, and heard the Ants yell in shock as they lost sight of one another.
The room filled with bullets as Pitou's puppet soldiers finally caught up with the Ants, and through the contrails they cut in the smoke Youpi perceived the Hunter moving from Ant to Ant with incredible grace, jamming his thick knife up to its hilt into the back of their heads and leaving the bodies to fall. He killed three Ants in that manner before Youpi, even further enraged, swung at him once more. This time, his blow struck the man in the gut, knocking the air out of him and tossing him clear out of the building.
The Hunter's dog followed him, transforming into a copy of the man as it slipped from one pillar of smoke to the next. The man spun in the air, catching sight of Youpi below him, and grimaced.
Die! Fall to pieces! Youpi struck at him twenty times in a second, trying to tear the Hunter apart with a barrage of limbs before he could fall another foot, but the man refused to die; even in midair he weaved through several attacks, kicked others away, and the few that would have slain him were turned away by smoke and sand. Youpi howled in frustration, feeling blood drawn by several blows spatter his face.
By all rights the Hunter should have been dead, but instead he was pulled away as another volley of bullets and several ranged hatsu tore through the space he'd just occupied. Not by smoke, but by an ownerless hand glowing with faint green energy. Youpi struck out once more and made contact, a blade slicing deep into the man's arm, only stopped by unreasonably stubborn bone. Just a foot higher and it would have been his neck!
As Menthuthuyoupi panted in rage, barely able to believe the Hunter had survived, several Ants barked a warning. His many eyes had already seen what had startled them; a tsunami of sand, completely out of place on the city streets, had broken from one of the nearby alleys and was roaring down the avenue, preparing to engulf him and the rest of the contingent. Youpi roared, redirecting his ire towards the sudden wave. He pummelled the sand with dozens of heavy punches, slowing it down. Ants came to his side, throwing energy, spitting water. One threw a car. Another slammed the street, raising up a thick wall of concrete that broke the tsunami's base. Their combined efforts stopped the wave in its tracks, leaving it creeping forward with only a fraction of its initial energy.
As the sand rolled to a stop, a man crested the top of the wave, staring out at the Ants over the impromptu beach. He was unlike any human Youpi had seen before, with stark red hair and blank green eyes. The human, no, certainly a Hunter, crossed his arms.
This was the man who had been manipulating the sand, that much was obvious. Tearing his head off was the equally obvious solution. Youpi struck at him with a dozen limbs, and every single blow was deflected by the man's sand, stopping them short or turning them away. The Ants at his side fell away, sensing that Youpi wanted the opponent to himself, or perhaps that the human was beyond them. One charged, and was instantly sucked down into the sand around the Hunter, vanishing without a trace.
Youpi couldn't understand it. Why couldn't he wipe the Hunter away? The human gave no motion, no indication of fear or stress or even interest. He simply watched as Youpi tried to batter through his defenses, his sand forming a perfect shield without fail. He didn't even deign to launch an attack of his own. Spikes, spears, scythes, hammers, nothing, nothing! Nothing came even close!
Menthuthuyoupi felt as though he were boiling over. Distantly, he was aware of the other Ants drawing away from him. They had been frightened off by the terrific heat he was beginning to emit. The boiling in his brain was steadily becoming a physical reality.
Die! Die!
"DIE!" He gave voice to the last command, trying to demand the world keel over and die and take this triple-damned Hunter with it, and his vision was wiped away in a torrent of black and red, his whole body convulsing with uncontrollable emotions. Every single cell vibrated with such intense heat and hatred that for a moment Youpi was worried that he would stop existing, that his anger would burn
him away instead of the man in front of him, but instead of the heat turning against him, it exploded out in a single glorious burst of passion.
The street exploded, and the city shuddered. The buildings around Youpi collapsed, blown away by his anger, and took the ones behind them down. The Ants behind him were tossed away, and the Hunter in front of him was knocked backwards, only prevented from going head over heels by his own gentle sand.
In the wake of his explosion, Youpi could hardly believe he had been the one responsible for it. He looked down at his hands; his body had returned to his default state. What had that been? It had been completely different from his bodies ordinary transformations. He stood in the center of a crater carved out of the street by his anger.
Menthuthuyoupi smiled. This anger was a gift from the King, no question. It was the tool he'd use to shatter the Hunter's bones and burn their bodies to ash. He looked up, and saw only the walls of the crater.
Sand erupted from the ground all around him, engulfing him in an instant. The Hunter was no longer happy to stay on defense: the man was definitely trying to kill him now. Was he scared?
"You should be!" Youpi shouted, and sand poured down his throat and crushed his eyes. It hurt, worse than anything he'd experienced before, but that only egged him on. He channeled the feeling, the frustration at the situation, his vindication, his yearning for the Hunter's death, and the lovely boiling feeling returned, though not as intense.
Menthuthuyoupi detonated once more, shattering the crater he stood in, and regenerated whole and unmarked. He laughed, a wild and joyous sound, and sprouted wings. The Royal Guard tore up into the sky, leering down at the Hunter who still hadn't budged from his position atop his mound of sand.
"Menthuthuyoupi!" Zazan! He'd finally remembered that name, the name he'd heard once or twice in passing. Zazan was the name of the Squadron Leader. He looked back at her with a face on his hip, and the Ant looked up at him with astonishment. "Can you hold that Hunter? We'll take care of the rest!"
Cooperation. Survival. The Ants here were instruments of the King's will, and Youpi was starting to realize that made them more than property. They were part of the King. They needed to be protected, the same way this sandy Hunter had protected his comrades. That was what had made them effective, and now, Youpi could serve the same role.
But better. He was a Royal Guard, after all.
"I won't hold him," Youpi said with a grin. "I'll kill him."
The Hunter smiled back, and Youpi's good mood evaporated. He roared, swooping down in a flurry of feathers and Nen. He flew in as close as he could, sprouting more limbs, a storm of punches; his chest exploded into thousands of needles, each dozens of meters long, but the Hunter's sand plucked each needle and snapped it with infinite tenderness, turned aside each punch with infuriating grace. Even now, even as he was, he couldn't penetrate the man's defense.
It was automatic and apparently infallible. Youpi roared, his body exploding once more, but this time he maintained his cohesion. The blast rolled over the Hunter's sand, turning it to glass and shattering it in places, but before he could be wiped away, disintegrated, the Hunter raised a hand and made a sign. A torrent of electric wind whipped up around him, turning aside Youpi's anger, and the Royal Guard gagged in fury at the dismissal.
"
YOU-!" he screamed, hammering through the glassed sand with both hands, desperate to strangle the Hunter and rip his head clear off. Before he could close his fists, a broad blade of sand shot out from beneath the man and transfixed his mouth; it broadened and neatly sliced off everything above his jaw.
Youpi didn't care. His head didn't contain anything important; he only had one to maintain his facsimile of a biped. His fists closed, but more sand-blades cut his hands off before they could squeeze life from the man, and for the first time the Hunter directly attacked. He kicked out, driving Youpi back by a foot with a powerful shot to the gut. The Guard rooted himself with tentacles that sprouted from his back and buried themselves in the ground, but he'd still given up precious space.
He'd given ground. He, a Royal Guard, instrument of the King, had given ground. That meant
the King had given ground.
Menthuthuyoupi screamed in frustration, feeling the Hunter's existence trail away from him, just out of reach, and boiled over once more. But this time, he was unwilling to simply let the anger wash away as an ineffectual explosion. He'd already seen it would be useless against this man. There had to be more. The King had to have given him more!
Control it. Youpi experienced an euphoric epiphany. Shape it! The rage didn't have to simply explode out! It had boiled him before, but that heat had let him shape himself, even if he hadn't realized it. If he could shape what was supposed to be a Royal Guard into a bomb, why not something more useful? Youpi narrowed his eyes, unconsciously striking away probes of deadly sand with more tentacles, and poured all of his hatred and frustration into his left arm.
"Piece of crap! Garbage! Sand in my eye!" he raged, picturing his arm swelling beyond his body. No, more than that would be needed. Blades, rotating drills, power, power, power! He needed overwhelming power, concentrated in a single point, not just uselessly spread: the power to decimate a city street, focused in one limb, on one target. That was what he needed, if he wanted to beat the Hunter's perfect defense!
The Hunter ripped at his body, his head, his legs, but Youpi refused to budge even as his skin and muscle was stripped away by scouring sand. He just roared in pain and determination, ignoring everything but his arm.
It morphed; it changed. His hand became a series of armored spearhead, each as thick as a spade and harder than diamond, and his arm coiled, muscles compounding upon muscle and twisting themselves to the point of self destruction, creating a living drill. His shoulder collapsed, holes opening up and jets of raw crimson ejecting from his body like the corona of a dying star.
The Hunter frowned, jumping back a step, but it was too late.
"
DIE!" Youpi howled. Every muscle in his body exploded as he lunged forward, his entire existence focused upon his opponent. A wall of sand, covered in buffeting wind and harsh static, rose up before him and he struck it with the force of a missile. There was resistance, confounding resistance for the briefest of moments, and then he howled once more, twisting his arm and ejecting Nen from every pore, and the wall shattered. His eyes caught the barest hint of sand becoming red and turning into glass before it was crushed, and then all he could see was the Hunter's surprised face.
Wide green eyes.
KILL THEM.
The drill made contact, and the Hunter was transformed into a grotesque corpse, completely twisted around Youpi's arm, flesh deformed, bones shattered. But instead of blood-
More sand erupted from the Hunter. Not warm blood and organs as he had expected but more
sand. As Youpi watched, unable to comprehend what he was seeing, the body he had so handedly destroyed fell apart and instead of a corpse, all he got was
more damn sand.
He crashed into the ground and stared at where the Hunter had been in confusion. Youpi's arm changed back to normal. The world around him was quiet. That had been the real Hunter. He was positive of it. There was no way it had been a clone, sand or otherwise.
"What?" Youpi asked, and then someone punched him in the face.
It didn't hurt. The blow was pathetically weak. The fact that he'd been punched at all, so mundanely, harmed him more than the fist ever could have. Someone had punched the King's Royal Guard square on the chin; someone had struck at the King.
Youpi's furnace reignited, his skin burning orange. His eyes, flaming red, fell upon the man who'd punched him, emerging from the sand. He'd been hidden below the other Hunter. Shirtless, with long white pants and stupid hair, fucking
stupid hair, sitting on top of his head like a crushed car tire.
And a cocky grin. The grin sent Youpi over the edge. As he roared, reaching out, the man turned on his heels and fled. For a human, he was incredibly fast, accelerating from a standstill to full sprint in less than a heartbeat. Youpi's hand fell short, and so did the blades his fingers shot out after the man.
Youpi stopped thinking and threw himself in pursuit, but his senses reasserted themselves before he made it ten feet. He wasn't a beast, chasing after every irritant. He was a Royal Guard. The Hunter probably wanted Youpi to chase after him. That's why he had punched him, that's why he had run. But the man wasn't a threat. His punch hadn't done any damage. All he had was speed.
Youpi would better serve the King by staying with the rest of the Chimera, not by chasing after someone for stinging him. That was what Pitou had done, which was what had landed them in this situation in the first place. The logic slotted itself into place like two simple but beautiful puzzle pieces, and the Royal Guard smiled, turning his back on the Hunter.
His insides were still boiling with anger, but that was alright. No, it was great. There were more deserving targets. Like that bastard with the sand.
Where was he? Nowhere in sight. His attacks had stopped as well. Where were the rest of the Ants? Still fighting. He couldn't see any on the street anymore, but he could hear the sounds of battle close by. He needed to return to them, and continue to shield them.
Youpi set off towards the battle, his long stride cracking the concrete under him. He'd almost reached the sound when a sudden voice startled him.
"Adding Interest!"
An eye popped out of the side of his head, searching for the voice, and found itself staring at a small, chubby calculator-person.
What was it? Youpi continued to watch as he cut through a building, concrete and drywall shattering around him as he bulldozed past it. He hadn't detected it until now: the thing had been completely silent. When had it latched onto him? Was it a weapon? A bomb? He struck at it curiously, and his arm sent the creature spinning away… but the thing returned undamaged, still smiling cheerfully.
Youpi unhinged his jaw and bit down on the cherub with enough force to slice clean through steel, but his teeth just sunk into the thing as though it were rubber. It gave no sign of pain or distress, and Youpi let go after a moment, watching the teeth marks he'd left vanish without a trace.
Now,
that was irritating. As if to mock him, the thing spoke just a second later.
"Adding Interest!" it chirped, swelling slightly, and Youpi resolved to ignore it for now. It wasn't doing anything except being annoying. Perhaps it was just the worst Hatsu ever invented.
He finally came upon the battlefield, only to find it was nothing of the such. There were only a dozen Ants here, moving through an intersection and exchanging hatsu and insults with two distant Hunters, both scurrying from rooftop to rooftop like frightened grasshoppers. One of them was a commander, but it wasn't Zazan, so Youpi didn't know its name.
"Hey!" he yelled, and one of the Ants turned with a questioning look. A knife bounced off the hard shell on its back; Youpi had accidentally saved its life. "Where is Zazan?"
"Gone," the Ant shouted. "The sand separated us all; no one knows who's where now. Everyone's scattered."
That was bad. Really bad, actually. If the Ants were scattered so bad that even their telepathy couldn't turn them around, the Hunters could just pick off small groups of them instead of having to engage the whole army at a distance, which was probably exactly what their plan had been the whole time. Youpi couldn't admire humans, but he could acknowledge their plan was effective.
His attention turned to the two Hunters harrying the Ants from the roof. One was huge and stocky, hefting a large pipe, and the other was short and dark, his face covered by a tall hood. Any attempt to approach them was turned away by swarms of killer insects and smoky humanoids armed with knives and firearms, but the Hunters couldn't seem to put down the Ants in the intersection regardless, only hem them in. It was a stalemate.
Until Youpi had arrived, anyway. Since spotting him the Hunters had unmistakably begun drawing back. Apparently, fighting
him wasn't part of their plan. They were about two-hundred feet away. Youpi drew back an arm, the limb liquefying and stretching like a hose, trailing far behind him.
"Adding Interest!" his constant companion squeaked, and swelled once more. It was becoming a respectable size now. What the hell was interest anyway? Youpi concentrated, shoving his irritation, lingering rage for the Hunter with the dumb hair, hatred for sand, and pure contempt for the two Hunters before him down his arm, picturing it coursing through the limb like bloody water.
The end of his arm expanded, transforming the limb into a long flail. Youpi roared, swinging it over his head, and to the Hunter's clear and satisfying astonishment the lengthened arm covered almost the entire distance to the two men. They leapt aside as it smashed down between them, crushing the roof beneath it like tinfoil.
Youpi had missed, but that was okay, cause he hadn't needed to hit. He roared in laughter, his entire body shaking with mirth and hatred. Without his explicit command his hand, blown up like an explosive balloon and glowing with an inner crimson light, detonated. The blast gutted the building and sent both Hunters hurtling away like dull confetti.
That had worked. He'd done it! He'd sent his anger into the right place, at the right time, and it had worked! Youpi had never felt so elated in his life, not even when he'd set eyes on the King. Was that a bad thing? It was beyond him to know.
Unfortunately, two whips of sand caught the men out of the air before they could fall, and Youpi's elation turned to rage once more. That piece of shit. The Sand Hunter couldn't let him have a single moment of satisfaction?
No! He grinned. That was good! Anger was good! Disappointment was good!
"Keep it up!" he roared at the sand as it drew the Hunters down to safety in the ruins of the building. "Why not?! Keep making me angry! Angrier! More and more and more!" He took a step forward. "Keep it up so I can blow you to bits!"
"Adding Interest!"
Youpi didn't think. He just grabbed the thing and started slamming it into the ground, over and over again. It didn't make any sort of impact on the street, so he started stomping on it as well, creating a satisfying crater.
"More and more and MORE AND MORE
AND MORE AND MORE!" he grew louder with each slam, pouring more and more hate into his arm, into the damn calculator, into the city, into the universe, trying to drown all of creation with his scream and his blinding anger. He felt sure that if shouted loud enough, dug deep enough, he could wipe away the whole forsaken city with a single, perfect expression of frustration and malice.
He threw the Nen creature away and struck out with a flail-like arm again, determined to reduce the pile of rubble the Hunters had taken shelter in to ashes. His blow landed like an artillery strike, and Youpi blew out all his hatred at once. His arm erupted, the explosion wiping away the remains of the building.
There was an echo, somewhere out in the city, of a blast of almost equal might. Youpi cocked his head, drawing his arm back as he grew more eyes to see if any Hunters would emerge from the blast zone. There was no sign of life… but the humans were quick and quiet. He couldn't take that for granted.
"Wow!" the voice emerged from behind him, and Youpi's eyes focused as a man stepped out of one of the empty shops on the corner of the street. He didn't recognize this Hunter; it was a scruffy looking man in dull, old robes and a turban. "That's pretty impressive!" A tide of sand followed close after the man, surging around his heels.
Was this the
real Sand Hunter, or was the bastard just protecting him from a hidden space? The latter seemed more likely: it seemed to be the man's main tactic. Youpi sent an exploratory blade out, trying to cut the man in half, and the sand rose and turned the blade aside. He spat in frustration, his tongue transforming into an immensely long and thin spear. The spear managed to slip past the sand, to Youpi's surprise, but instead of punching through the Hunter's throat the man's hand blurred up and slapped the attack aside.
It hadn't been a strong one, but the motion was still shocking in its speed and surety. This was someone to take more seriously.
"So," the man said, drawing closer. He'd just kept up a steady stride, calmly drawing closer and closer to Youpi. He was less than thirty feet away now. "How do you do that?"
Was a Hunter trying to talk to him? That didn't make any sense. The human was probably speaking to an unseen ally. Youpi struck out again, and the Hunter danced aside, the sand not bothering to defend him this time.
He could have hit him that time, Youpi realized. But the Hunter was sapping his anger and replacing it with confusion.
"Adding Interest!"
That piece of shit! He must have been doing it on purpose, trying to weaken him! Youpi roared and exploded forward, quite literally: his back detonated and propelled him forward with the force of a missile. He tried to clothesline the man in half, his body becoming one giant blade, and the Hunter-
Ducked.
Just ducked, as though he was stepping under a low door frame, his hands shoved in his pockets.
That wasn't possible, was it? No human could have just ducked that kind of attack. That wasn't possible. Youpi turned, trying to fix his mistake and crush the human with a single punch, and the man just skipped to the left, the passage of Youpi's fist ruffling his hair. He hopped, dodging the shockwave that destroyed the street, and landed behind Youpi, several bladed tentacles that would have cut him down waylaid and pinned by sand.
"I know you
can talk," the man said, pacing around Youpi's back. The Royal Guard was too shocked to attack. What was happening? Something was wrong. "So c'mon! How are you doing that?"
Youpi swung again, four limbs at once, a wall of violence that nothing could slip through, and the man dove into the ground as though it were water, leaping up out of the concrete after the whips passed over him. "The way your body keeps changing, it's like you're made of putty or something. How are you doing that without losing yourself?"
"Adding Interest!"
He skipped past another attack, and the sand saved him from several more. It seemed impatient to Youpi. "You obviously don't have a brain, not in the normal way. Is it spread out through your whole body? It almost seems like your cells are independent… but if that were the case, would you even be conscious?"
Youpi screamed in frustration, blowing away the man and the street, but he just rolled to his feet without a care, his hair even uglier than before. "And that explosion! What's generating that heat? You're destroying yourself and putting yourself back together at the same time: what gives you the guts? I've seen you can direct it, but is it only out, or could you keep it confined? You're like a living reactor!"
The man was almost sparkling with enthusiasm. Youpi wanted to throw up. The urge to kill was completely overwhelming. He was forgetting all about the other Ants, Pitou, the distant explosion, even the King. Murder was becoming his existence.
"Silent treatment, huh?"
"Shut up!" Youpi flailed in frustration, begging his body to just erase the irritance, but the man continued to hop, skip, and duck past everything the Royal Guard threw out. "Shut up and
die!"
"Listen." The man came to a stop, holding up a finger. "You answer-"
Youpi threw a punch larger than the human's torso, but a wall of sand rose up before the man and swallowed his arm. The human poked his head around the barrier, not missing a beat. "-one question, just one, and I'll leave you alone, okay?"
Leave him alone? That didn't make sense either. Nothing was making sense. This was a Hunter; Hunters killed Ants, or tried and failed. The sand was trying to crush his arm at that very moment.
"Adding Interest!"
"Not happening," Youpi grunted, yanking his arm back and leaving most of the limb behind. He tried to calm down while retaining his anger. The paradox hurt his head a little, but who said his mind had to be the same as his body? Surely his cells could retain their rage while he kept cool. This Hunter needed more consideration.
"How about a trade then?" the Hunter said with a grin. "You answer one of my questions, and I'll give you a free hit."
Patronizing.
Patronizing! What a piece of shit! Youpi almost threw another punch, but he'd finally come around to accepting that no matter how angry he was, simply hitting the Hunter was out of the question. The human was too fast, completely unreadable in his movement, and could pass through the ground anyway. Any attacks that overcame all those factors were turned away by the sand that crept around the Hunter's feet like a doting dog.
He straightened up. Menthuthuyoupi was a Royal Guard. There had to be more to being a Guard than hitting things. Someday, there could be a threat to the King like this man, something that force alone wouldn't fix. He needed to learn cunning, the same cunning Pitou and Pouf were capable of. Otherwise, he'd be useless if that day came.
Youpi couldn't be useless.
"One question," he said, unable to believe the situation. He shoved that disbelief and indignation down, fuel for the fire. If the Hunter was being honest, he'd need to make sure the one hit would be the last one.
"Nice." The Hunter smiled guilelessly. "I'm Ging, by the way. Ging Freecss. You probably don't care about that, but people tell me I don't introduce myself enough. Do you have a name?"
"... Is that your question?" Youpi grunted, and the Hunter laughed.
"If you want it to be. I bet I can figure the rest out once you're dead."
Arrogant. Youpi imagined it would be a greater pleasure than any before it to reduce the Hunter to ash. But patience. Patience. The man might have been lying, but they had a contract of sorts now. How the Hunter held up his part of the deal would be necessary information, especially since it was obvious he couldn't harm Youpi on his own. If he could have, he
would have by now.
"Menthuthuyoupi," he said.
"Long name."
"I didn't choose it."
Youpi struck out, and the blade his arm had become punched through the man's chest. The Royal Guard blinked. He hadn't really expected that to happen.
Even impaled, the man refused to flinch. He didn't scream like most humans did when they were injured. He just took a firm hold of Youpi's arm-blade, Nen sliding around his fingers in an intense current.
"As you can see, I'm a man of my word," he said, backing up and carefully sliding Youpi's arm out of his chest. Youpi, who had been a creature of pure instinct until perhaps ten minutes before, was too surprised and intrigued to resist, to transform his arm into clinging barbs; he wanted to see what this Hunter, this enemy of the King, would do next. The blade cleared the Hunter's chest, and Youpi realized that the blow was clean. Too clean. The hole left behind barely bled.
Nen was in many ways still a mystery to him, but it was still obvious what had happened. The Hunter had copied him. The man had shifted his insides around to make a blow clean through the chest a painful inconvenience instead of fatal.
Was that even possible for a human? Stupid question. If it could be done with his Nen, why couldn't this Hunter do it with his?
"Adding Interest!"
The words brought Youpi back to his senses. This man was ruining him, he could feel it. Since he'd been confronted his rage had been leached out and replaced by curiosity. That could be helpful later, but for now it was making him stand around like an idiot. He needed to be killing Hunters, not talking with them.
He struck out again, once more without warning, but Ging Freecss didn't let Youpi impale him once more. The Hunter danced back with a gentle grin.
"It was good to meet you, Menthuthuyoupi," the Hunter said. The Royal Guard stalked forward, looking for an opening. "Maybe we'll have a chance to have a real conversation before this is all over."
"If we meet again, it will be for the last time," Youpi promised. He could chase after the man, but it would be a waste. If he couldn't hit him, what would be the point of catching him?
"Adding Interest!"
"Well, you're probably right." The Hunter sounded disappointed. "Especially if you don't get that thing off."
Youpi smacked the thing hanging over his shoulder on habit. "This? It's useless."
"Nen is never useless." Ging grinned. "I think you have about… fifteen minutes. Maybe less, if you exert yourself. Past that, and you're doomed."
"You're lying." The man wanted to intimidate him into leaving the city. It was too obvious. The Hatsu hadn't done anything except grow since it had attached itself to him. It was as frightening as the human's the King stocked the palace with, frail girls and old men.
"C'mon, I let you stab me," the man groused, continuing to skip back away from Youpi. "Doesn't that buy me anything?" It did, but Youpi didn't want to the let the Hunter know that. What kind of disgusting thought was it, to believe a human without proof just because of his actions?
So instead of being honest, which was the only thing Youpi had known how to be that morning, the Royal Guard lied.
"No. Just a hole in your chest." Youpi grinned, and the man laughed.
Was this a conversation? There was something fun about it. It was like a fight, but with words. Was this how Pitou and Pouf looked at talking? No wonder they did so much of it, if that was the case.
The Sand Hunter crested a nearby roof, looking down on the both of them. "
Ging," the man said. The way he spoke reminded Youpi of the King. "
Enough."
The Hunter hesitated, and then leapt up to the roof. Youpi considered cutting him out of the air, but the promise of sand kept him still. What would be the point of wasting energy on attacks that wouldn't reach, especially if the Hunter was telling the truth about his strange little stalker?
"Go back to the palace, Menthuthuyoupi," Ging called down as the Sand Hunter watched them both with pale, cold eyes. "Go back to your King. Your comrade is probably dead by now; the King will need all the Guards he can spare."
Youpi tilted his head. "Pitou?" he asked. "Impossible." But there was a seed of doubt inside him, another alien feeling nurtured by the curiosity the Hunter had planted inside the once flawless Royal Guard. Pitou was flawed too, and had gone off on her own against the Watcher. Could something truly have happened to her, separated from the other Ants in this city had eaten more of them than any of the Ants had dreamed?
"You know I won't let him go."
"If you can keep him here, you're welcome to," Ging said, crossing his arms to mirror the Hunter at his side. Youpi had forgotten how fractious humans could be; the two men clearly weren't friends. "I want to see if he can even make the decision to leave."
The Sand Hunter didn't respond to that. He just gestured, and a thick limb of sand surged out of the gourd on his back, exploding around him and down towards Youpi. The Royal Guard was forced into defense, falling back as the street ruptured under the pressure of the attack. Limbs of sand chased after him, and for every three Youpi smacked into dust another five appeared.
As Youpi retreated, he found himself looking inward. By now, he couldn't deny that the assault was a failure. The Hunters, so much more experienced at battle than any of the Ants, had stretched the Ants out across the city, separated their two most powerful enemies, and painfully bled them. Youpi wasn't harmed but for some irritating thoughts and a more irritating companion attached to him, but dozens of Ants had died by now. So had Pitou, if the Hunters were somehow, impossibly, telling the truth. If that really was the case, and no matter how ridiculous it sounded it
could be, because the Watcher had certainly hurt Neferpitou before, then Youpi had an ironclad duty to run.
A humiliating duty, but one he couldn't deny. Leaving the King with only one Guard would be completely unacceptable. And irresponsible, almost as irresponsible as chatting with an enemy for over a minute just because he'd been stupid enough to take one of Youpi's blows without flinching.
So that was it, flee. Was that really the logical option? Or was he blinded by his horrible, sapping curiosity? His rage had guttered out, but would rekindling it be the actions of a Guard, or a fool?
Youpi didn't know. Youpi doubted. Menthuthuyoupi didn't feel fear, but to the Royal Guard who had felt nothing but obedience and dull anger until today, uncertainty was just as poisonous.
There was more than just sand assailing him now. Smoke, blades, insects. Other Hunters were trickling into the battle, trying to bring him down with weight of fire, attacking from every side. Had they even killed one? If not, the whole assault had been pointless.
No, Youpi realized. Not pointless. He'd learned something about the enemy.
He'd learned something about himself. More than he could understand right now, being bombarded by the enemy, his consciousness stretched across hundreds of attacks. Sand engulfed him, turning the world black and attempting to crush him.
To Youpi's eventual shame, it was that epiphany that decided his retreat. Not the King possibly being short a Guard, not the failure of the assault, not even the odds steadily mounting against him as four Hunters became five, all doing their best to bring him down as Ging watched. The understanding that he had become more than what he was that morning, and the yearning to preserve and explore that new version of himself.
He burst free from the sand cocoon. Not towards the Hunters, but up, high into the sky, carried by exploding wings and determination. As he soared skyward, he rained parts of himself down on the Hunters below, each exploding upon impact. One sent a a thin Hunter Youpi didn't recognize flying, but the others were stopped in their tracks by the Sand Hunter. That was fine. They'd been distractions, not true attacks. Youpi took the reprieve from the sand as a chance to grow yet more eyes and ears, so many that even his concentration almost collapsed under the avalanche of information.
He couldn't use
En, but this was almost as effective. Hanging in the sky above the city for a frozen moment, the second before gravity reasserted itself, Youpi picked out the remaining Ants across Peijing. There were only about forty left, less than half of the group that had set out.
Extensions of the King, he thought. He couldn't leave without them.
He grew more wings, trading weapons for speed. His legs folded in, replaced by jets of Nen. Rage (who was he even angry at now? Pitou? Ging? Himself?), and something else, shaped his body quicker than he'd ever managed before. Fighting the Hunters wasn't his goal anymore. Now, he had to run as efficiently as possible.
"Adding Interest!"
Youpi broke the sound barrier in an instant, tearing down and through the streets of Peijing and scattering the residents that hadn't been smart or brave enough to flee the battlefront in his passing. The next minute was a blur. He plunged into groups of Ants, some as few as two and one as large as fifteen, and shared his revelation as he went.
Retreat! Retreat! The call came from him at first, but given the command the Ants quickly carried it farther with their telepathy. Some resisted, but none of them challenged him. Like a tide reversing, the Chimera Ants steadily poured out of Peijing, harried by Hunters along the way. Some carried hostages as they went, but most simply fled as fast as they could.
It was a failure of a battle, Youpi reflected, but it would have been even worse if these Ants had stayed and died. As he soared above the retreat, he felt an absurd pride. These Ants were moving at his will, the King's will through him.
Sober as it was, it seemed like the only thing he'd actually accomplished this morning.
"Adding Interest!"
The thing had kept chattering the whole time. When Youpi focused on it, its size shocked him. The once diminutive cherub, no bigger than his fist, had grown twice as large as him, following him around like a disgusting blimp.
Fifteen minutes, Ging had said when he urged his retreat. The man
had been lying; it hadn't been nearly that long. But something bad was clearly happening. Youpi wasn't smart, but he didn't have to be to understand that something that was attached to him
growing like that couldn't be good.
No, that hadn't been all Ging said.
Unless you exert yourself. How much Nen had he been using? More than in the rest of his life, probably combined. His supersonic flight, the jets of Nen replacing his legs, the sensory overload that had nearly overwhelmed even his indomitable mind…
The Hatsu fed on Nen, Youpi finally realized. It was obvious and horrible. The Hunter with retarded hair had tagged him with the perfect counterweapon.
Nen is never useless. But if that were the case, what would happen when it was full? An explosion? That would have been his only conclusion
before, but now he was aware it could be something far worse. What if the creature turned him into a puppet, as the King and Pitou could humans?
He was thinking too much. Youpi missed the simplicity of thought he'd enjoyed less than a half hour before. That had been clean and easy. Now he was questioning everything, and suffering for it. But no matter how many thoughts he entertained, they all led to the same solution. He had to get this off.
At the edge of the city, Youpi returned to the body he'd been born in, and plummeted into Peijing like a dull red missile. He entirely destroyed a military checkpoint when he landed, reducing one unlucky puppet soldier to paste and crippling another, and was running before his body had finished adjusting to the shock of impact.
Am I a coward? The thought followed him as he tore the earth apart under him, the palace in the distance growing larger every second.
Did I make the right decision?
Youpi wasn't smart enough to know, or so he believed. But the King was. When the King judged him, as He inevitably would, He would make the right decision. He would be able to tell Youpi whether he was a coward who should have sold himself as dearly as he could, or a Royal Guard who'd done their best to protect the King and His subjects.
It was a comforting and true realization. As Youpi fled from the city that had taken so many Ants and given him so much, it finally put his mind at peace.
