Natural Enemy 1-6

“Das a good one, Kai.”

The hammer was steady in his hands, each tap of the head on a nail a simple rhythm as he nodded his head. “Thanks, Chief.”

A heavy hand met his back, Kai holding back a grunt at the basketball sized palm patting him hard enough to almost knock him forward. “Ya almost done with this dock, Imma leave you to it then.”

“Gotcha, Chief.” 

Kai didn’t bother to look over his shoulder till the thudding footsteps of the chief faded. Finally, he risked a peek, relief filling him as the seven foot-tall giant that Lani called a dad was already busy giving orders to someone else working a good distance away. Whew.

Chief Makani may have been island-built, sun-built, and laughter-built but the man was scary even when he wasn’t serious. And Kai had gotten to see the big man as serious as ever the next morning after the storm, the Reef Wall of the village the first to find him bruised and sleeping on the sand. It hadn’t taken him long at all to figure out what Kai had been up to the night before and he definitely wasn’t happy about it.

Neither had Auntie Loa either. He promised he wouldn’t tell her. Thing was, he couldn’t blame the chief for that either, because he probably hadn’t. The village only had a few thousand people on it, anyway, so trying to keep a secret that obvious was already dead from the jump.

And that was before his board had washed into shore a few hours later.

‘KAI-BOYO!’ He winced again, the memory of her yell a week ago still fresh. If he hadn’t been beat up already, he would definitely have gotten a bruise on the head from one of Auntie’s ladle hits to remind him how dumb he was.

Anyway… Kai let out a breath between gritted teeth. Back to work.

Thin and cold between two fingers, he held the next nail tight and steady as he drove the hammer in again, tongue sticking out the side of his mouth as he tried to keep focus on his work fixing up one of the side docks. C’mon, don’t mess up.

Hammering wasn’t hard to do. He just had to be more careful than most, a simple careless tap from him was enough to wreck the nail if he wasn’t careful and he wasn’t sure they had enough to be wasting them like that.

Either way, his hammering joined the chorus of work all around the village as the island healed itself, the people coming together to stitch up its wounds. Everything from re-thatching roofs stripped bare to repairing wooden walls and even righting boats that had been knocked over, everyone worked hard under the humid sun to restore the village to what it was.

And they were almost done, too. 

Even the ocean, after its big, screaming super-charged tantrum, was back to being a lazy sheet of blue, with the video-game colored sky as innocent as ever alongside it. He could almost believe that it hadn’t tried to suck him under just a few days ago.

Side dock detail wasn’t his first job over the past week. He’d done plenty more to help; everything from hauling the fallen palm trees that were heavier than they looked, bark rough as it bit deep into his shoulders and even weaving new nets with Uncle Haku and the other fishermen, fingers moving clumsily through new motions.

It was better to work than it was to talk, and he was thankful nobody had tried to make him do much of the second. After that thing in the water — that feeling of wanting to just… let go, to melt back into the current like salt in Auntie’s cook pot — he didn’t trust his own power as much, the hum under his skin feeling like a lie. All it took was remembering how it wanted him to dissolve into the water, and that was enough to keep him off the surf and his powers firmly locked down for the past week.

So he worked. 

He used his muscles, the normal ones, the ones made of meat and bone that got sore and reminded him he was solid.

The memory of that crazy charged storm, of the drowning green-dark and the voice of the Elder blaring in his skull; well, it was already starting to feel like a bad dream. As long as he let it fade and didn’t pull it back up, he was sure he’d feel better soon. S’alright, brah. For some reason, the voice in his head sounded like Mako fresh off a perfect barrel. Just a bad wipeout. You’re good, water-cuz.

Kai let out another sigh, shaking his head as the hammering continued with another set of nails cold in the space between his fingers. The sun was hot on his neck, baking the tension out of his muscles as he tried to ignore the not-so-fresh scent of fish guts and drying seaweed cooking together in that same heat.

One hand came up to wipe his forehead and let sweat fall, only for the water boy to pause for a second. Hammer frozen atop his skull, blue eyes blinked up, eyebrows rising slow with them as he saw something well past the horizon and getting closer.

A boat.

Yeah, a boat, but not a fishing boat or a canoe or one of the few tourist charters that always made their way over twice a year for the Great Wave Festival and packed the village almost twice as large as it usually was.

This one was wrong.

It was too big, for one.

The biggest ship he’d seen since he got to the island, cutting its way through the calm blue water with a wake that looked sharp and angry. The sails were a pristine perfect white, four of them snapping in the wind as they made their way over to the main dock.

On all four of those sails, painted in a bright blue, was a symbol, some kind of bird holding a bone. Above each symbol was a single word; Marine.

Kai’s hands dropped down, hammer and nails both slipping from suddenly-numb fingers. One by one, they clattered against the wooden planks at his feet as the world in front of him — the bright sunny peace of Kahiau — tilted like a bad wave; the sound of the lapping waves, the smell of sea salt, and the warmth of the sun switched off like someone pulled the plug.

His chest tightened, breath picking up even as air refused to reach his lungs.

Marines. Kai knew about Marines, the stories the villagers told over meals and in hushed voices enough to give him more than an idea. Chief Makani, as much as he wore a smile, damn near spat every time someone brought them up, the rest of the villagers wearing quiet frowns when they were mentioned too. Corrupt, cruel and likely to cuff you like a criminal if they felt disrespected, they were no protection from the threats of the West Blue.

No, from what the Chief said, these were the guys who showed up after the pirates left to tax you for being robbed. More than anything else, they were a gang unto themselves. What else would you call people who took “protection money” and called it justice?

They were coming ashore; three of them in white uniforms, and matching hats. The only thing they had on that didn’t match were the boots; the black footwear polished to a mirror shine that sounded off loud as they marched on the main dock.

His lungs were empty sacks, almost vacuum-sealed as greasy sweat, cold as ice, broke out on his forehead and under his arms, enough to paste his shirt to his skin. Flash.

Red and blue lights dancing on the white walls of a living room in Lauderdale.

The sounds of shouting from voices that were used to being followed, accompanied by the bark of angry dogs egged forward.

The front door splintered inward, the sound o-

His body was already moving, the nails at his feet skittering and rolling away behind him as he scrambled. No thought or choice or plan drove him as he pushed forward, Kai doing what pure animal panic could as the old him took the wheel. The same old him with the blind instinct that had kept him alive for two streets on the streets of Fort Lauderdale and the same reflexes that used to make him flinch every time a car backfired.

Kai dropped off the side of the dock, his bulk slipping through the gap between the pilings as he fell a few feet and landed in the shadows beneath. Hands and knees met the ground in a hard drop, the cool damp sand a shock against his skin.

His back pressed against thick, seaweed-covered wood, the smell of salt and rot and low tide filling his lungs as Kai made himself as small as he could, knees curled tight to his chest. As hard as his heart was pounding, it was a hammering in his ears loud enough anyone near him had to hear it, the vibration likely shaking the dock above him like it shook his fingers.

Not them. Kai squeezed his eyes shut so tight they hurt, the pictures in his head still there and always there. Uniforms and boots and the flat empty look in their eyes as they came through the door armed and ready. Not the same guys. Different uniform. 

The old him wasn’t listening, though. Shut up. It couldn’t afford to listen and wouldn’t even if it could. Two years of dodging flashlights and eating out of trash cans had made that voice loud and strong. Uniforms, badges, guns, all the same.

Dust and sand drifted down as wood planks creaked above his head, the weight of three sets of footsteps enough to send bits into his hair. “Another backwater…” 

The voice was flat, bored more than anything else. “I swear, command just spins a globe and points somewhere for us to go count coconuts.”

“You’d rather be fighting pirates?” Another voice snorted, a younger one from the way his voice cracked a little on the last word. “I’m fine with the easy life, ‘specially out here.”

“You say that now, kid.” The first one spoke again. “Give it five years in West Blue with nothing but paying off the damned mobs and dealing with patrol.” He spat on the ground, a heavy phlegmy load by the sound of it. “You’ll be praying for a dumb pirate to shoot up just to break the boredom.”

A third laughed with a voice like gravel as the footsteps stopped, right above him. “Yeah, yeah, ‘e ain’t wrong. Least a pirate got loot you can keep.”

“Ay, officers!”

Makani’s voice sounded out from the distance, heavy footfalls almost managing to drown out the Marines shushing each other.

Kai cracked one eye open just a slit as he let himself peek up, managing to spot someone through the freshly paced planks above. The Marine right above him, the one with the bored voice, was a bearded man with a face lined by the sun; nothing but a clipboard in his hands

A clipboard.

“Ay, officers,” Chief Makani boomed, the man’s bulk making the smaller side dock creak louder with his added weight. “So, what business can I help you with on Kaihua?”

“Just a routine census update, Makani.” The clipboard holder clicked his tongue loud. “Standard business around this time. Gotta keep the maps current with the books for tax time. So, any new births? Deaths?”

“We had a storm last week.” The chief’s voice was tight, strained enough that Kai knew something was up with him. “A bad one. We were lucky. No one was lost.”

“Good for you.” The Marine made a little tick mark on his paper. “Now, any… unusual occurrences? We’ve had reports of one of those Devil Freaks over in these parts.”

Devil Freaks…

The way the man said the word was enough for Kai to remember things he didn’t want to again, his breath held tight. The silence above him felt longer than anything else in the world as Makani stood there without a word. Don’t… please don’t say anything. 

“No.” Makani’s voice was as calm as he’d ever heard it, even if it was much quieter. “Nothing unusual here. Just fish and coconuts.”

Relief washed over him, a wave almost enough to buckle his knees. Clenched fists splayed out in the sand as a breath hissed out, shaky and silent through his teeth.

The Marines were there for an hour.

An hour that felt like the longest that had ever been while Kai stayed crammed in the darkness under the dock. They sat on the edge of the side dock, three sets of legs with their polished black boots dangling just a few feet from his face. 

The smell of tobacco smoke drifted down, cheap smoke suffocating as they talked over each other back-and-forth. “Anything good on the wire?” 

The older one took a long drag from his cigarette at the younger one’s question before he answered back. “Not on your life, same old… same old shit. Those damn Barrel Scraper idiots hit a settlement up north, small time.” He clicked his tongue. “And Captain Brogue had to deal with another Devil Freak over on Milo.”

Kai’s blood was ice again as that word hit his ears.

That word again. Devil Freak.

It wasn’t Conduit, but it felt no different when it left the Marine’s mouth. He heard the same heat in both words, same thing with “Bioterrorist”. Every time on the news and on the street, whenever it left that DUP lady’s mouth on the news. All the same weight and all the same poison flying hard into his face like a slap. 

“Oh yeah?” The youngest of the Marines laughed out loud for a second before coughs took the humor from his voice, smoke too thick for him too. “W-What’d it do?” 

“Some kind of animal-thing. Who knows with those freaks, anyway?” The bearded captain’s voice drifted down with a scoff. “All purple and striped even before he turned into a giant lizard, started tearing up the docks ‘cause some fisherman kicked its favorite stray cat or some stupid shit like that.”

The older Marine chuckled, nothing kind about the laugh that left him. “Little demon couldn’t have been more than fifteen. Crying his eyes out the whole time they were shooting at him.”

“Did they get him?”

“Nah.” More smoke drifted down in a thick plume as the man let out a breath of air. “Reports said he was too fast. Slipped into alleys and climbed off. Apparently, left a hell of a mess, though. Least I ain’t have to be part of that paperwork.” 

Something spun down from the dock, a tiny meteor that was a spent cigarette butt, and landed in the clear, blue water right in front of Kai.

Hiss.

It went out with atiny, ugly death.

“Waste of ammo. Waste of a damn time. If you’re gonna kill it, then kill it.” The man clicked his tongue again. “Unless they’re wearing white, those freaks are too much trouble. Should just stick ‘em all on one island and let ‘em kill each other. Save the rest of us the headache.”

The younger one laughed like that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard as they all pulled themselves back to their feet, the wood groaning under their combined weight. 

“I’m ‘ungry.” The third one finally made himself heard again. ‘What about you two?”

The oldest groaned. “I’m starving. Cook better have made something with meat in it.”

“With our luck, it’ll just be stew.” With that from the youngest, they walked away. Their boots thumped off the dock, getting fainter and fainter with their laughter as they faded into the windy distance as the sun began to set.

Kai watched the tide come in, still not moving as the water crept closer and closer to his hiding spot. The blue lapped right at his ankles, cool and persistent. Blue eyes stayed down, staring at the floating cigarette butt, bobbing in the water, slowly disintegrating against the force of the ocean.

Kai closed his eyes, and in the darkness, he could still see the white uniforms, the sound of the boots loud as ever as he clenched his fists tight.

Devil Freak.

Water began to bubble, a slow surge but still there.

…Fuck the Marines.