“You’re the ones who rocked up early and I’m not shifting my schedule,” Jason said.
“If you’re not on a monster hunt, you don’t skip training,” Farrah added. “You can either join in or stand around and complain.”
“Bugger it, I’m in,” Cotsworth said. “I want to see what kind of routine you get up to.”
The Directors of Tactical Operations for every Network branch in Australia had descended on Casselton Beach to discuss a nationwide training program. They arrived three hours early, which was how they ended up trailing along behind Jason and Farrah.
“Who are they?” Koen Waters asked Jason. He inclined his head in the direction of a gaggle of teenagers holding up phones. Around half of them were wearing uniforms from local private schools.
“High school students,” Jason said. “They started filming us last week. I had Shade check them out, but they’re just putting our training up online. We make sure not to show them anything too outlandish. Are you going to join us?”
“No, thank you,” Koen said. “I have my own routine.”
“Well, if you’re just hanging about, take the others and try out that food truck over there,” Jason advised, pointing. “I recommend the kimchi fries.”
That evening, the assembled Network personnel were gathered in the media room of the houseboat.
“Can I buy one of these chairs off you?” Cotsworth asked, luxuriating in the cloud furniture.
“No,” Jason said. “Technically, they’re not chairs. They’re part of the houseboat, which is not technically a houseboat.”
Behind him was a screen with paused footage from one of his most recent forays into a proto-astral space.
“I know you’ve all been analysing the way Farrah and I fight, but tonight, we’re going to go over that together, along with comparisons of our approach versus the standard Network tactics. We have two goals to achieve before you leave at the end of the week. One: build a framework to train your future tactical units to include strike teams specialising in the elimination of high-rank dimensional entities. Two: develop a retraining program to establish those specialist teams using existing tactical personnel in the short term.”
He sent a mental command and the media player produced by the houseboat produced an image.
“We’re going to start by looking at Farrah. In the fight we’re about to watch, observe how many different essence abilities she uses and contrast that with your standard tactics. Note that instead of using her abilities to occasionally supplement attacks, she chains abilities, one after the other…”
65
FLEMISH BAROQUE
In the office at her restaurant, Erika was talking to Jason through an incarnation of Shade. After weeks of such communication, it was starting to feel normal, which, when she thought about it, was rather concerning.
“I told him you had costume contact lenses,” Erika said. “What was I supposed to say? That your eyes changed when you became a gestalt entity of body and spirit? I don’t even know what that means.”
“Well,” Jason said, “it basically means that… actually, I'm still kind of figuring it out.”
“When will you be back?”
“Not until I pick up Emi at school. Will you be coming to the houseboat for dinner?”
“Yeah, although I’m concerned about bringing him to the houseboat. Ian hasn’t forgiven me yet for making him go home and give up the cloud bed.”
“You know that you’re welcome to keep staying here.”
“I just want to maintain some normalcy,” Erika said. “Is that so bad?”
“I get it,” Jason said. “I just know from experience that when you stop obsessing over normal and give yourself over to magic, life gets amazing.”
“You realise you’re starting to sound religious when you talk like that.”
“Speaking of religious, did anyone tell Great Aunt Marjory about magic yet?”
“No, and we’re not going to,” Erika said. “If she finds out that you came back from the dead, heal the sick and can walk on water, she is not going to keep the secret. Will anyone on talkback radio believe her? Probably not, but she’s already intimated that the devil sent you back. I don’t want her roaming around town yelling ‘false prophet’ at passers-by.”
“That’s fair.”
“You know, Jase, what you said about giving over to magic. It’s not all good. It’s getting harder to go around living my life with everything I’ve learned. How do I treat everything as normal when I know about teleporting, secret monsters, and alternate worlds? You’re a sorcerer. It suddenly hit me the other day that you can cure cancer with a literal magic spell. How am I meant to go around living an ordinary life like that?”
“You’re not. There’s a clock running on ordinary life for everyone. The difference is that you get a head start, with the time, knowledge and resources to get ready for it. I’ve just been waiting for you to accept that so we can move on to the next step.”
“Like Taika.”
“Exactly.”
“How’s he doing?”
“He’s monstering it,” Jason said. “I don’t know who taught that guy to fight, but he can fight. A lot like Farrah, actually, so she’s helping him adapt to his new strength and speed.”
When they had discussed essences with Taika, he had opted out of the combination Jason had picked out for him. After discussing his options, he had forgone the renewal essence and the immortal confluence it would bring. Instead, he had picked out for himself the more economical combination of might, swift, and bird that produced the garuda confluence.
“Garuda is the devourer of snakes, bro. That’s hardcore.”
“I hope there’s more to your decision than that,” Farrah had told him.
“Bro, Garuda is the fastest and strongest warrior there is. Speed, strength, skill. No offence, but those powers you picked out would just make me the big, tough, slow guy. I don’t want to accuse you of looking at me and immediately thinking that, but you looked at me and immediately thought that.”
“That’s the kind of reasoning we wanted to hear,” Farrah said approvingly. “Also, don’t call me bro.”
Farrah had been concerned that the bird essence might produce some abilities that were less combative and more like the power to talk to birds. That was fine when there were intelligent, magical birds flapping about, but seagulls were less likely to be a combat asset and more likely to keep asking for chips.
Jason had traded with the Network to obtain the much rarer wing essence for Taika. The resulting combination would still produce the garuda essence, with a result in line with Humphrey. He also had the might and wing essences leading to a supernatural creature confluence, in his case, dragon.