The feast came to an end the same way most do: people ate themselves into a food coma, then lingered just long enough to remain polite. Only one thing really stood out as anomalous: Corporal Claws didn’t return. I had informed her she could come back if she behaved, of course, but she’d told me she was busy experimenting, whatever that meant.
Just as I’d been finishing off my third pastry, she’d contacted me again, her thoughts clear even from so far away. Recalling the secret deal she’d offered, I shook my head. She wasn’t just a problem—the devious little rascal was the whole problem.
“No kidding,” Maria agreed, privy to the negotiations and my thoughts both.
As I opened my eyes and returned to the present, the last of Tropica’s citizens were departing. The mass of cultivators caressed stomachs, leaned on one another, and spoke in hushed tones, already recounting the food they’d just eaten. With a pulse of chi, I got Barry, Helen, and Paul’s attention, requesting their presence.
As the three walked over, I spun to face Borks and Cinnamon—my only animal pals that hadn’t left to meditate or sleep. I smirked at the looks on their faces. “You two know what I’m planning, don’t you?”
An enthusiastic ruff from Borks and a sharp nod from Cinnamon confirmed my suspicions.
“And what are you planning?” Helen asked as she, Barry, and their son reached us.
I waved a hand. “I’ll get to that. First, though…”
I’d told Bonnie to see me after the feast. She stood off to the side with slightly flushed cheeks, so I gave her as reassuring a smile as I could muster. “Please don’t think that anyone here is going to judge you for the ideal that caused your breakthrough. I mean, look at Barry—his ideal was accepting his pride and desire for attention. We still love him.”
Barry emphasized the point by spinning on the spot, taking a deep breath, and doing a lat spread.
“Yes, dear,” Helen said, patting his back. “We know you have a wingspan to rival the pelicans.”
Two loud honks came from above, and as I glanced up, I realized I was wrong earlier—not all of my animal pals had left. Bill and Pelly landed in a spray of sand. Mimicking Barry’s posture, they spread their wings. They had him absolutely crushed in width.
“Oh yeah?” Barry spun. “Can you do this?” He started bouncing his pecs in a hypnotic rhythm, his syrupy laugh rolling over the sand.
“See what I mean, Bonnie?” I gestured at Barry’s shenanigans with both hands. “You have nothing to be embarrassed about. I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m super proud of you for accepting a hard truth about yourself. Especially because you thought we might judge you for it.”
Her cheeks were still a little flushed, but a smile had made its way to her face as she watched Barry’s chest bouncing away. Helen’s subsequent look of disappointment only increased Bonnie’s amusement, as did the sparkle in Paul’s eye as he looked up at his dad.
Bonnie cleared her throat and took a slow breath, centering herself. “Thank you, everyone. It... It makes me really happy that I won’t have to leave. I—”
“Leave?” Maria interrupted. “Oh, honey... you’re integral to Fischer’s next adventure.” She shot her a wink. “I’m afraid leaving now isn’t an option.”
“Adventure?” she asked, her core humming. “What kind of adventure?”
I grinned. “Is Paul right to stay up a bit later, mate?”
“Up. To. him,” Barry answered, emphasising each word with the bounce of a pec.
“Really?” Paul asked.
Helen gave her husband some audacious side-eye. “Now that your father has offered, yes. But if you’re not back at a reasonable hour, say a couple hours before first light…” She punched a fist into her open palm and turned on Barry with a dangerous look—his pecs stopped bouncing at once.
“Wonderful,” I said. “We couldn’t have done it without Paul. Wouldn’t want him to miss it.”
“Miss what…?” he asked, leaning in.
“The transformation, of course!”
“Transformation?” My words had the desired effect, and he had to take a step so he didn’t fall forward. “What transformation?”
“We’re just finishing what we started earlier tonight, mate.”
He blinked, then his eyes went wide.
“Ah-huh.” I stretched, loosening my muscles. “We’ve got a boat to build, Paul, and there’s no chance I was gonna do it without you.”
***
“Steer hard to port!” I yelled, holding onto a rope for dear life as wind and sea spray assaulted me. “They’re turning the cannons our way! Lift Anchor! Prepare the boards! Walk the gangplank!”
When no reply came, I turned and pouted down at my friends.
“What in Poseidon’s salty beard are you doing, Fischer?” Maria asked, staring up at the pile of unassembled beams I was using as a stage.
“I’m role-playing. Getting in the zone.” I planted my hands on my hips and looked down my nose at them. “What are you doing? Letting me down, is what. Did you not have improv classes as a part of your education?” I harrumphed, channeling every drop of haughty noble I could muster. “I’ll have to re-educate you when my new nation is formed. It’ll be my first action as God-King, lest this disgusting injustice occur agai—” I held up a finger, cutting myself off. “Never mind. My first action will be doubling, nay, tripling taxes. Then I can deal with educating children or whatever it was we were talking about.”
Maria, completely ignoring me for the last half of my impassioned monologue, rested a hand on Bonnie’s shoulder and gave her an apologetic grimace. “I’m so, so sorry. I wish I could say you get used to it, but he only seems to get worse over time.”
“Disrespect?” I gasped, covering my mouth. “Twelve years dungeon!”
“Yes, dear. I’ll get right on that in the morning. Until then, though, would you mind if we actually tried to build this thing? I don’t care if you’re the future God-King; Helen will still beat you with a spoon if you keep Paul out all night.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
I nodded slowly, a philosopher ruminating on the well-worded retort of an equal. “You raise a good point, Maria. Surprising, considering your good looks, peasant blood, and generally horrible demean—”
I had to bend over backwards to dodge the knee that came sailing toward my head.
“Hiiiii!” Slimes called on the way past, oozing out of Maria’s thigh to slap me across the face with a wet thwap. “I’m a boy!”
Ten minutes—and more near misses than I could count—later, a truce was reached. Maria and I shook on it, and Slimes perched atop our hands, jiggling to make it official.
“Now,” I said. “Where did I drop those plans…?”
***
It took less than a half hour to assemble the frame. Maybe I should have been used to it by now, but I still couldn’t comprehend how little time it took for us to create something so unbelievably large. It was far from the biggest ship I’d ever seen, but a yacht of this size back on Earth would have cost at least a few million—and that was for a used model. Over twenty meters long and six wide, there was more than enough room for what I wanted. I couldn’t wait to finish.
Even if the System didn’t take over, I had absolutely no doubt that we’d be able to make it seaworthy. To that end, I took my time with each nail, giving them the care they needed.
“He’s for sure showing off, right?” Barry asked. “Why didn’t he just use a regular mallet?”
“First off,” I replied, not looking up as I moved down a plank, hammering nails into place with tiny pillars of light. “This is way more efficient than a mallet. My chi is practically indestructible.”
“Indestructible?” Maria muttered. “Tell that to Claws...”
I narrowed my eyes at her. She just grinned back and shot me a wink, clearly happy her comment had been annoying enough for me to look her way.
“Now that I’ve got your attention...” She held up the length of string she was applying a black substance into. “How does this look? I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“I wanna say it looks terrible to pay you back for that Claws jibe, but honestly, you’re a natural.”
Paul, who’d managed to get the black tar in more than a few spots on his face, rubbed his fingers together, looking decidedly displeased with its sticky texture. “I thought chalk was supposed to be white? What’s wrong with this stuff?”
Maria and I blinked at each other, then burst into laughter.
“Guys...” Barry fought down a smile of his own as Paul’s cheeks flushed red.
I recovered first. “Sorry, mate. It’s caulk, not chalk. It’s used to fill the gaps on a boat and keep it airtight.”
“It’s Fischer’s fault, not yours, Paul,” Maria added. “He was clearly excited when he explained it, because he spoke way too fast. I’m surprised that you almost got the word correct, to be honest.” She elbowed him lightly in the side, unable to use her tar-covered hands. “Super impressive considering you haven’t had a breakthrough.”
He blushed even harder, but it was now pride, not embarrassment, causing the blood to rush to his cheeks. “Thank you.”
“You’re most welcome, mate.” With a single swing of my chi-made object, I hammered the final nail into place. “Another plank, please!”
Barry, Borks, and Cinnamon became a blur. They were my main helpers, and as the former lifted a stack, Borks opened a portal and Cinnamon started kicking wood through. I caught each length with ease, laying them against the frame and holding them in place with my chi. If I really wanted to be extra, I probably could have moved it all myself—but it was funner doing things with friends.
When the keel, hull, and bow were finished—the entire bottom of our boat—I went to start the deck, and Borks caught me entirely off guard. Focused as I’d been on the vessel, I hadn’t noticed Barry tying strips of cloth around the good-boy’s eyes—which Barry had torn from his own shirt, because of course he’d tear it from his own shirt. Borks repeated the same actions as before, but this time, with an absence of vision.
Even now, building a random boat in the early hours of the morning, they were training.
“Good boy, Borks,” I said, earning a vigorous tail wag in response.
His dedication lit a fire within me, and I increased my speed, showing that I was also willing to push myself. As the rest of the deck came together, a somewhat-unwelcome presence reached out to me, and a certain otter once more offered a trade deal. I had to expend some chi so no one realized we were chatting—it took a surprising amount of will. Which, in retrospect, might have been one of the reasons Claws chose that moment to reach out.
Engrossed as I was in the negotiations, I didn’t realize I finished the deck, and my next step would have taken me head-first into the beam acting as a makeshift mast. Fortunately, Cinnamon stopped that from happening. Unfortunately, she did so with a roundhouse kick of immaculate form.
I tumbled backward over the now-complete deck, coming to land at everyone’s feet. Maria shot me a wink, then turned a predatory look on Barry.
He looked at her in disbelief, then his head drifted down to me, disbelief becoming frustration. “Are you serious, Fischer…?”
“What did I do? I just got boopity-bopped on the noggin! I’m the victim here!”
“If you’d have hit that beam, it would’ve snapped in half!”
“That’s not necessarily true.”
Barry raised a brow.
“It might have ripped out and shattered the deck instead.”
He blinked at my words, baffled. “That’s even worse!”
“Are you forgetting something Barry?” Maria interrupted. “It’s time for you to dance, monkey.”
Barry’s core railed against whatever she was ordering him to do, and he stood there in stillness for a long moment, but his honor won out in the end. “Do I really have to sing, too?” he asked, taking a wide stance.
“You remember the words.”
“... If I say no, do I get out of it?”
“Nope. If you’d lied and said no, though, I was going to have Slimes give you non-constructive criticism.”
“Would Slimes really do that?” I asked. “He seems too... kind.”
Said familiar jiggled from Maria’s shoulder. “Even if it caused a complete breakdown of someone’s emotional, mental, and spiritual wellbeing, I would happily tear them down if it made my dearest Maria feel even an ounce of joyyy!”
Bonnie and I shared some side-eye, and I mouthed don’t piss off Maria. She nodded seriously.
Barry sighed again, this one seeming to empty every last bit of air from his lungs. When he breathed in, it was slow and deliberate, his stance widening. The look he gave me almost made me feel sorry for him.
“Don’t blame me, mate. You took a bet that relied on me having spatial awareness. I mean... have you met me?”
Maria cleared her throat. “No talking to the monkey until he’s finished.”
I wondered at the second use of the word monkey, but the question was answered before I could voice it. Barry hopped from foot to foot, his arms going up and down in the approximation of a chimpanzee, and a song—whose lyrics were as inspired as they were ridiculous—flowed out.
After the verse looped back around and Barry started from the beginning, I leaned toward Paul. “How many times does he have to do it...?”
Paul grimaced. “Until sunrise...”
“Sunrise? Why would he bet that?”
“Because I trusted you!” Barry stopped mid-sentence, pointing a muscular finger—seriously, who has muscular fingers?—at me. “In what world would you accidentally destroy your own—”
“Hey!” Maria interrupted, enjoying this entirely too much. “You accepted because you wanted me to lose, which would have had me singing until dawn! Less speaky, more dancey! You know the way out, so unless you want that, no more talk.”
Barry’s eye twitched, his lip joining in as he was forced to make an impossible decision. Eventually, he nodded, looking like he’d agreed to eat dirt. “Fine. Let’s get it over with.”
Maria whirled and cupped her hands to her mouth. “Claaaaaws!” she sang in a chipper tone.
With that one word, his fate was sealed.
Barry scoffed and rolled his eyes. “There’s no way she actually heard you from over the mountains, so can we stop this farce and pack the boat with caulk? We might as well make progress until—”
The southern horizon lit blue, and not even a half second later, a bolt of lightning cracked.
Barry’s face fell. He turned to Maria. “This is gonna hurt, isn’t it?”
“Good chance.”
“… Can Fischer shield me?”
“Yeah, can I?”
“Hmmm.” She tapped her chin. “I’ll allow a single layer.”
He’d likely have protested that concession. Pleaded his case for more layers of shielding. But there wasn’t any time. Instead, he turned to face the lightning and planted his feet, accepting his fate as a jagged blue line tore through the sky toward us.
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