🚀 go-pugleaf

[Continued From Part Two]

     Beautiful, beautiful Sabrina, Kayle thought, holding his breath.
Finally Kayle was able to give voice to the name. "Sabrina?" he almost
breathed. The girl looked up to him questioningly and Kayle had no more
words. Instead, he dug a freshly minted silver dollar - the kind that are
more mirror then money and kept in deep, dark vaults by numismatists - from
his pocket, handing it to his friend. She stared at it, confused, for
several moments before Kayle found his tongue again. "Look in it."
     Sabrina obeyed and her eyes widened. A breeze, independent of any wild
wind, played about her like a tame pet or thrall. Her every move, be it to
brush a strand of hair from her face or turn her head slightly, was
graceful and fluid suggesting that she now shared kinship with the little
playmate that breezed through her hair and smoothed her clothing. But the
biggest shock was the one which both Kayle and Sabrina immediately noticed.
A shard of crystal, perfectly cut and sporting dozens of faucets, was
firmly affixed to the middle of Sabrina's forehead. Kayle found that it
drew his eyes hypnotically - not that he had ever needed an excuse to study
Sabrina's face - and could not honestly claim that it diminished the
woman's beauty in any way. In fact, that and her grace had moved her from
being attractive to being utterly beautiful. It was an unearthly beauty...
poignant, distant, heartbreaking... and forever unapproachable. Had any
glass nearby been broken at that moment, Kayle would have just assumed the
sound to be his heart shattering into pieces.
     "Oh," was all that Sabrina could say as she stared at her reflection,
back lit by the cold moonlight. The woman fixed her eyes on the image of
her new diadem, staring at it in disbelief.
     "What's happened to me?" asked Grant, staring at Sabrina in shock. To
Kayle's disgust, horror was filling the man's eyes. Wordlessly, Sabrina
handed the coin over to Grant, catching his eyes once and then averting her
gaze from the sickened expression that she found within. Kayle tried to
move to Sabrina, to comfort her, but his body would not obey.
     "Oh my god, oh my god, _oh_ _my_ _god_," swore Grant as he stared at
his own reflection. Like Sabrina and Dianna, Grant's change dragged the eye
relentlessly towards the man. As someone who enjoyed being the centre of
attention, Grant might have found this to be a positive thing under other
circumstances. But not today. The coin showed Grant as he now was: stately,
imposing and full of good vibrations. Not to mention a few bad ones. For
Grant now reacted to every sound that even barely reached him. The smallest
cricket chip caused Grant's body to vibrate ever so slightly, while
Dianna's cry made the young man's body expand and contract eerily. Once
again Kayle found himself unable to look away from this person, and in fact
discovered himself reluctant to speak or even whisper. For surely Grant
would sense even the most noiseless of mutterings, his body betraying the
every word of the speaker. It was an irrational thought, but it was one
which Kayle felt with every fibre of his body.
     "Oh no," moaned Shyrose, as she looked at her friends, "I don't even
want to think about what happened to me." And naturally, that was all it
took to draw all eyes to her. Grant tossed the dollar to the young woman's
feet, hunkering to the ground to brood. With shaking find, Shyrose reached
down and snatched up the coin, wiping away a thin film of grit before
taking a deep breath and staring directly into its reflective surface.
     Once again Kayle found his attention drawn to his transformed friend.
His breath caught in his throat as Kayle examined Shyrose's new form.
Somehow her metamorphosis had taken away all certainty and filled her body
with nothing but limitless possibilities. She was no longer herself, but an
archetype... her form fixed but alternative, a lovely multiple-choice
conundrum which Shyrose now somehow embodied.
     "Damn..." she said, her polychromatic eyes boring into the coin's
surface. "What happened to us? What _happened_ to us?"
     "I don't want to be like this," moaned Dianna pathetically. Kayle
stood back, fighting his impulse to fear his friend. Sabrina scooped up
Dianna's unresisting form and gently rocked her, her own face echoing the
protest. "They changed us... they changed us on purpose!"
     "Who did?" asked Grant glumly, trying to find some enemy to blame this
on. Dianna looked over at him for a moment, before burying her face against
Sabrina's shoulder.
     "The fragments did," she whispered piteously. "They're marking us...
they didn't have to do this... this didn't, they didn't, they didn't, they
didn't..."
     "It's okay, Di, it's going to be okay," whispered Sabrina, her eyes
looking imploringly at Kayle. He was nearly rocked backwards by the glance,
but bit his lip and took a hesitant step forward. Then another and another
until finally he had reached the women, kneeling down beside them.
     "It's not going to be okay," replied Dianna, shaking her head
furiously, "They killed mom and now they're using us and when they're done
with us we're gonna die and they won't care they just aren't going to
care!"
     "Dianna," said Kayle softly, forcing himself to look fully into his
friend's eyes. He did his best to try to ignore the images that seemed to
flicker at the edge of his retinas, each of which promised to show a
terrible tableau from beyond the mortal world. "Dianna, listen to my voice.
Just listen, please?" Dianna nodded a very little and Kayle continued.
"We've been through some bad times together, Di. Some really bad times.
Have we ever let each other down? Any of us?"
     To Kayle's immense relief, Dianna studied the ground as she thought
that over. "No," she admitted quietly. Kayle smiled slightly and continued.
     "We're not going to let each other down this time, Di. We're going to
get out of these woods and then we're going to go find some help. Powerful
help. The people with the brains and the contacts to figure out what those
fragments did to us. We can start with Aurora, they help superguys out a
lot. Maybe they can refer us to someone. Andy Awesome, maybe? You've always
wanted to meet him, right?" Dianna smiled a little, forgetting her troubles
for a moment.
     "Yeah," she whispered, "Everyone wants to meet him."
     "I'll bet," replied Kayle, tenderly, "And if he can't help us, why
then we try the other side of the street."
     Dianna looked up; Kayle was almost ready for it this time. "Magic?"
she asked.
     "Magic," replied Kayle, suppressing a shudder as he met his friend's
eyes again, "I've read about some pretty darned powerful magical folk out
there, but you probably know more than I do about that. In fact, if we do
go to them, we're going to need you in a big way. You could probably find
us a few, couldn't you Di? And we don't know what to ask them, or how to
act around them or even what they might want from us," he smiled again, and
was grateful to note that Dianna's mood seemed to be lightening somewhat.
"You can be our 'magical diplomat'."
     Sabrina's mouth shaped a 'thank you' that only Kayle could see; on her
new face the thanks seemed like a benediction from a power above. Dianna
sighed and leaned back, obviously still scared but no longer blindly so.
     "I guess this whole mess," whispered Sabrina to Kayle, "makes my
problems look small."
     "Problems?" asked Kayle, glancing at Grant worriedly. Of all the
friends, Grant had most often rejected Kayle's comfort and support. Maybe
it was some sort of gender issue for Grant, or perhaps he simply thought he
preferred dealing with troubles on his own. "What problems?"
     Sabrina sighed, and for a moment Kayle could remember talking to his
friend without the annoying urge to bow down before her. Not that he
wouldn't have if Sabrina had asked him to, mind. But her voice was the same
as it always had been, and Kayle gave silent thanks for such small favours.
"University and all that," she replied, looking distant for a moment, "You
know all the work I did in school and jobs, trying to make enough to go?"
     Kayle nodded. Sabrina had always been one of the better scholars in
the group.
     "I can't," replied Sabrina, with an angry toss of her head, "My whole
future, everything I planned just can't happen. Because I couldn't go to
school... and now that's twice as true now I've changed, isn't it?"
     "Hey, no it isn't," replied Kayle, maintaining a respectful distance
between himself and Sabrina, "I meant what I said to Di, Sabrina. We're
_going_ to get out of this somehow. And besides, it's not like the world
hasn't known about superguys just about forever, is it? There'll be a place
to fit in. Trust me on that."
     "Easy for you to say, you haven't changed!" spat Sabrina, an
uncharacteristic bitterness on her face. Kayle stopped himself just before
he could abase and ask forgiveness. Instead he simply sighed.
     "Yet," he replied quietly, once the adrenaline surge had passed. "At
least you've all gotten yours over with. Me... I have to wait for the
inevitable, don't I?"
     "I'm sorry," sighed Sabrina, putting her arms around Kayle. "I
shouldn't have snapped, I should've realised that you're going through this
just like we are."
     Kayle stiffened for a moment before getting himself to relax into the
hug. Why, he asked the universe, did Sabrina always wait for the worst
moments to do this? The night of her big breakup... the time when she'd
almost had a nervous breakdown from studying for too long without sleep...
and now, when she'd been physically transformed into a Petrarchian's heavy
dream. The timing simply stank.
     "'Scuse me," said Grant, clearing his throat loudly in the direction
of the pair. He was obviously annoyed, and his body's vibrations mirrored
that, twanging with angry, jagged spiked waveforms instead of the usual
rippling rounded ones. "But does anyone here except me remember _why_ we
were running in the first place?"
     "Oh my god, the Task!" moaned Dianna, scrambling to her feet in as
stately a fashion as one could scramble. The others followed suit,
unconsciously closing ranks around the untransformed Kayle.
     "Do we run or fight?" asked Shyrose, drawing all eyes. Dianna's brow
creased.
     "We can't do either," she whispered, shaking her head sadly. "You...
know what it can do, don't you?"
     Shyrose sighed and nodded. "That thing's tough. I don't really
understand, but I sorta saw what it was made of while I was changing into
it."
     "It's completely impervious," finished Dianna quietly, drawing
half-stares as her audience tried to reconcile voice to face. "And it won't
stop hunting us."
     "We don't have a hell(tm) of a lot of options here, Di," said Grant,
fairly buzzing with annoyed vibration, "Run or fight as I see it. If we
can't do either, then what? Lie down and wait for it to eat our spleens?"
     "I hear something!" cried Sabrina, her eyes widening. The others moved
back, away from the rustling bushes which they could all now hear.
     "I'm for running," said Kayle, "Who knows, maybe this thing's using a
bad brand of battery," he finished, with a weak smile at Sabrina. She
returned it.
     "Now you're talking," said Shyrose, turning around. She stopped short.
"Um, guys?"
     "Yeah?" came the reply.
     "That thing's coming from the... um, let's see that star's there so...
the northeast, right?"
     "Yeah..."
     "And there's nothing but open country to the one side, and a cliff
face to the other, right?"
     "Yeah."
     "So we want to go southwest, right?"
     "Right."
     "What would you do if I reminded you guys that there's a river that way?"
     "*Groan*."
     "Thought so."
     "Swim?" asked Kayle, glad to note that his feelings of unworthiness
were beginning to subside.
     "Sounds like that's our only choice," replied Grant, creeping forward
to look into the traitor river. Sabrina listened carefully.
     "Listen... it's almost on top of us!" she cried. Dianna shook.
     "I wish there were some other way," she sighed softly, closing her
eyes. "Some faster way... I'd sell my soul for a boat..."
     "It's not too cold," said Shyrose, dipping a toe into the water, then
grinning ruefully, "And I'm not exactly going to get my clothes
waterlogged, am I?"
     "I'll start off," offered Sabrina, slipping into the cool night water.
"Hopefully my powers respond to synchro as well as they do ballet."
     "Right, I'll just WHOA!" cried Grant, as he made to slip in behind Sabrina.
     "What? What?" cried Shyrose, glancing over her shoulder. Somehow, the
sight of the Task pushing its way through the bushes completely failed to
surprise her. "It's here, get moving!"
     "It's a _ship_!" cried Grant, looking at the speedy craft that was
making its way down the river. To their great confusion - not to mention
relief - the large ship slowed to a stop right in front of them, and a head
poked over the plexiglass shield.
     "Hop in, kids!" cried the newcomer, gesturing for them to board. The
pack wasted no time in complying, and once the last of them had jumped
safely onto the vessel it sped off, just before the Task could follow suit.
The captain whistled as he piloted his ship down river, turning to regard
his passengers. He was tall, gaunt, and seemed so skeletal one would
imagine he might break in a strong enough breeze.
      "We can't thank you enough," said Sabrina brightly, smiling at the
man. To Kayle's surprise, their rescuer did not flinch nor react to the
woman's new appearance in any visible way. "Mr...?"
     "Aaron," replied the boatman, grinning. "Charles Henry Aaron. From a
long line of Aarons... ever hear of any? There was Christine Henrietta,
Chad Harcourt, Crystal Helen, Julio - he was always the black sheep of the
family. We'll never let _him_ into the family business, let me tell you
that!"
     "Um, no, I've never heard of them..." said Sabrina, uncertainly. Mr
Aaron grinned at her.
     "You're young, yet. It's usually those who've gotten on in years who
get to meet my family. Hm, you're going to ask me about my family business
aren't you?"
     "Well I wasn't planning to," began Sabrina.
     "Excellent, gotta encourage curiosity in today's youth or they'll turn
into a TV generation of maple syrup on pancakes-for-brains won't they?"
smiled Aaron, clearly having not heard Sabrina. "I like you young miss, so
I'll tell you. We're all boat pilots! Every last one of us. Well, except
for Julio... he changed his last name and went into singing. We've been
doing it... why, it seems like about forever."
     "Okay..." replied Sabrina, looking lost. Charles Henry Aaron turned
his smile on Dianna.
     "Oh, and message received," he said with a wink to her. "Feel free to
call anytime you need."
     "Message?" echoed Dianna quietly, looking lost. Aaron shrugged his
shoulders good naturedly and went back to piloting his boat. After a time,
he pointed out over the bow.
     "Ah, we've got a shortcut coming up!" he smiled, gesturing to a dark
cave into which the river flowed. Grant stared at the rock for several
moments before turning to Aaron with a disbelieving look.
     "_That_ isn't supposed to be there!" he protested, crossing his arms.
Aaron chuckled.
     "_That_ is most certainly supposed to be there. And it's suggested
that we be here. Everything else is up for grabs, as it should be. Things
should always be a little uncertain, or they make darned bad stories. Trust
me that we want to go into that cave and take a little short-cut that I've
gotten good and used to."
     "Where does it lead?" asked Shyrose, cocking her head. Aaron shrugged.
     "Oh, Hell(tm), I don't know," he replied, offhandedly. Just as the
vessel's prow entered the cave, Aaron popped a CD into a built-in player.
'Come Sail Away' began blaring from hidden speakers.
     "I hate this band," muttered Grant.
     "You have no taste," replied Aaron, "And I _certainly_ hope that no
one is planning to renege on the toll."
     "Toll?" echoed everyone present.
     "Too late now, here we gooooo!" cried Aaron, as the boat plunged into
the cloying blackness of the cave.

          TO BE CONCLUDED IN SPOTLIGHT ON... #27

***
As usual, this story is trademarked, all rights reserved 1996 to
Frobozz/Chris Angelini (email:cangelin@uoguelph.ca homepage:
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~cangelin). Everything alluded to is intended as
satire, and no trademark infringement is intended or implied. Warg!