[IC] The Rising Tide

[Platanus]

It was a shame to hear about how underrated the professional athlete's achievements were, but since Ikeda quickly jumped to Japan's current situation there was not much left for Jahho-Pekka to agonize over, concerning Ikeda's carrier. "My sensei's lived in Europe eversince he was a young student", he replied automatically, feeling unsure as to how much of the Arashidas' past he was allowed to tell without getting too personal, overdramatic, or sounding insensitiv. Fortunately for him, though, the subject quickly changed to rumours around Ikeda's absent from championships. "Should they not sound crazy enough for your taste, I am sure the two of us could come up with some wild ones to spread", he said again with his childish grin shining all over his face. "I'm sure my wife could contribute perfectly to the creativity." Nevertheless there was visible admiration in his grey eyes as Ken now explained how he had been doing, and what, for the past few years. "Man!" Jahho-Pekka chuckled, shaking his head, after which he had to brush away his dreadlocks from his face. "You see why we loved you, right? There is power in pursuing one's passion. Too few do it. No matter how crazy it is, as long as it hurts no one, that's the best thing to do for yourself, and for others." There were bits of the younger Jahho-Pekka leaking from the gaps between the words he spoke. He had to think of the time when he hated school, sucked at engineering, and had to convince his family almost on a weekly basis why he stuck with photography.

"Ja tämää on isin kissa!", the Fin completed his daughter's claim of him, waiting for his kitty to climb him up. "I guess no need to say that this one's mine?", he asked Ikeda with a goofy smile while bargaining in Finnish with the kitty at his leg. Finally he gave up and lifted the eight year old. Minkka smiled victoriously, as though she had finally tamed a vicious dragon which was now all hers to ride and soar with through the skies.

Minkka said "Let's go back to Mommy!"

"Mommy sounds good." Minkka looked at Ken to check if he had perceived how gloriously she was steering the giant. "Hi, Mommy", Jahho-Pekka greeted his wife, pointig to tge stranger in his company, like a mischievous kid bringing trophies back home after a long day of having played outside. While he bent a little to take the box Neve was holding, Minkka stuck two of his dreadlocks into Neve's closer ear, which gave both her and her brother a good laugh. Sticking isi's hair here and there was only one of their favourite experiments.

"That's because it's Ken Ikeda, from the MMA. Remember?", he gave Neve a hint before anyone else got the chance. Antti imitated "M.M.M.M...", and Minkka completed his theory, shouting "M & M" which resulted in both of them staring at Ken with great expectation in their eyes. It was not hard to see through how Jahho-Pekka was trying to stay the understanding father while his own excitement on the matter, and the urge to tell Neve all about Ikeda's more famous fights, and how he spotted him right before the entrance, were imploding. "MMA", he decided to correct the kids as a way of calming his own excitement down. "M & A", Antti had obviously decided to actively join the game. Almost pleadingly Jahho-Pekka looked at Neve to see if at least she knew what he was talking about.

[jennifer lost the war]

It has been a long time since Ken had spoken to a fellow American. He smiled warmly as he shook Nevaeh's hand. "Nevaeh," he said, repeating the name to make sure he got the pronunciation correct. "You managed to find your way to Finland to marry your husband and now you're here in Japan? I find that Texans either stay close to home or they end up travelling the world. There's no middle ground with you guys," he remarked. When she told him that he looked familiar and thought he was a wrestler he said, "well, sort of, but..." However, Jahho-Pekka ended up finishing the answer for him, which was followed by him attempting to teach his daughter how to say 'MMA'. Ken couldn't help but chuckle at the children's antics.

"Yeah, it's not wrestling specifically," Ken said, responding to Nevaeh and building on what Jahho had been saying. "But all fighting styles are welcome, so wrestling can often be a big part of it. I myself use a lot of Judo, so wrestling in a lot of my fights were inevitable.” He thought about some of those fights and found himself loathing how badly he fought back then. He unintentionally grimaced a little, before turning to look at a crowd of people in front of a small stage where somebody demonstrated basic kendo techniques with a wooden katana.

“We should check that out!” Ken said, pointing in its direction. “Or maybe we should check out one of the tours. I think those are inside,” he continued, referring to the nearby Buddhist temple, which had been standing since the feudal era. He smiled, looking forward to the rest of the day with his new friends, but he suddenly caught sight of someone at the entrance from the corner of his eye. It was the detective he had knocked out earlier, accompanied by a few officers. They were looking for him and they had probably gotten a tip that he might be here. Ken took a deep breath and tried his best to hide his anxiety. “Maybe the tour, right?” he suggested, thinking it’d be safer in there. “That sounds like fun.”

[Izkripp]

The crash he heard through the door shook Robert. Something was in there with Gaia or maybe Gaia was awake. He couldn’t believe that she was actually awake; someone had to be in there with her. His attention turned to the girl that was in his company until just a moment ago. She had to have been involved. She knew that there was someone on the other side of the door. That is why she was so adamant about getting through. That had to be the reason, right? He reached up to the vines that blocked his way and pulled on them. They resisted him at first, but then broke away after he stopped supporting their life. After the door way was clear he pulled the key from his pocket and unlocked the door.

When he entered the room shock took over his face. The place where Gaia normally hung was now empty. Instead the floor just below was covered in the vines and moss that had once been on her. Gaia on the other hand was no where to be seen. He ran to the broken window to if she had really jumped or had just climbed out. It was insane to think that she would jump from the top of the building. No one could survive that fall without some form of equipment to help them. When he looked out the window he was amazed at what he saw.

---

Gel’Linnea fell through the air to the ground below. She felt alive again finally. The wind was pulling on her hair and she could feel the heat rising to meet her. This planet was alive, unlike the room that she was in earlier. As she fell her hand went to her side to find her pouch. She froze instantly. It wasn’t there. She turned her attention to the ground that was getting closer by the second. How was she going to break her fall now? She scanned the area and found what looked like a tree. She focused all of her energy on the tree that was below her. Reaching out her hand to it, root like growth formed from her arm and hand making their way to the tree. At the same time the tree’s branched moved with loud pops as the branches were not as pliable as they were when it was a sapling. As soon as the root growths touched the tree the tree started to grow larger rapidly. The roots broke free of the cement walk way and the asphalt road that were placed on top.

The people that were on the ground moved out of the way quickly. Some had noticed the girl jump from the window after the chair she had thrown landed on the sidewalk below. Other people around had not notice anything until the tree started to grow abnormally. The tree grew up until it engulfed her and then started to collapse quickly at first and then slower breaking her fall. Finally she rolled off one of the branches and safely landed on the ground.

Her first reaction was amazement. She was amazed that she was able to survive that with no injuries. Luckily for her, her ability to control plants hadn’t faded in her hibernation. Suddenly fear came over her as something bright and loud came was coming at her quickly. Raising her hand the roots of the tree responded and broke through the road stopping the truck. Opening her eyes finally she looked around. There were strange creatures all around her, they were strange, but they looked somewhat like her. They all spoke, or at least she thought they did, to each other in whispers and shouts. The ride of the truck opened and another one of the creatures came out of it. This one wasn’t quiet. Instead it was yelling at her. As it got closer she figured that this was one of the males of this species and he didn’t seem friendly. She backed up to the tree and placed her hands on it. Breathing heavily and somewhat scared she rooted herself to the tree.

Searching through the tree’s veins she found seed pods forming on its branches and other trees whose roots touched. “Frei na namitu!” ”Stay Back!”She wanted the creature in front of her to stand back, but her speaking on seemed to anger him more. Taking a breath she made the tree drop its seeds. The few that fell through the cracks to land on the earth sprouted. The tree’s whose roots reached the tree she was at all started to grow out of control. They ruined the roads with their roots and shook the foundation of some of the buildings. At this point most of the creatures were running from her now. Good. Unrooting herself from the tree she picked up the seeds that hadn’t sprouted. Now was a good time to make a break for it. She looked around trying to find the best means of escape. Having no clue how to get out of this strange environment she just started to run down on of the streets hoping she would find her way out eventually.

[Rina]

“…Would he happen to be from your planet?”

There wasn’t a look of surprise written on Elysia’s face as she looked at the man. The amusement she carried or even anger wasn’t even present. There was nothing but a blank expression on her face. Her teachers from years past would have been proud of her at that moment who spent countless amount of time trying to reign in her emotions to an acceptable range to be able to graduate training. The expressionless void she wore now on her face would have surprised any wish or goals they had for her.
However it wasn’t the self-control she held that allowed her to be the way she currently was, she didn’t have that much self-control even if every ounce of it was squeezed out of her from her whole adult life. She had no idea what she was supposed to do. Something was seriously wrong. A prank would never go this far and if something was malfunctioning, they would have done a release to take her out of the program.

There was no way for this simulation to be salvaged. If those observing her simulation won’t release her, she had no choice but to do it for herself. There was no way the man knew who she was much less the government. Elysia wasn’t sure how things slipped up and went this far to cause this problem but just the same way she came here, she would leave too.

There wasn’t a physical means to leave the simulation. They did so in the past which allowed far too many people to leave too early too quickly instead of letting them fulfil what they were required to do. There were only three ways for her to leave. The first one, which from what she has seen so far wasn’t an option for her, was to accomplish the mission that was set out for her. Failure, either by death or a simulation gone so horribly wrong that it couldn’t be salvaged was the second. The later one was faulty for some reason unknown to her while the first one was never a choice she would take purposely unless for a heroic reason. She was too prideful to end the simulation by ending her life, even during one of the tests during her first week of training to become a warrior when the students were forced to go through the simulation for seven hours while facing their worst fears for what felt like a week inside the simulation which overtime was easily dubbed as ‘death week’ since so many students decided to take the easy route out of the simulation only to later learn that they would be sent back in and would have to start the seven hours again. Elysia might be overly rash and hot-tempered but she wasn’t a coward and was the first person done with the simulation, not having to repeat the process.

No, she wouldn’t soil her reputation in the simulation by taking that route but that left her with one more option. Meditation or sleep. Sleep of course was out of the question but mediation might work. Although emotions were expressed in a similar way as those on Earth, it wasn’t a fluid change between emotions seen in most humans. Instead, if not under control it would be a force that could quickly switch from pure euphoria to extreme rage in a moment. Knowing that the unpredictable sudden changes in emotions could be problematic in a society aiming for perfection, meditation was an important, if not a mandatory part of each Ryton’s life to keep peace in the community. Luckily just as how chaotically quick emotions can be altered, turning off such emotions was something that was just a quick flip of a switch away for Elysia. Granted, keeping herself in check was a completely different story.

Taking a deep breath in, Elysia closed her eyes and as her mind emptied with the same void that was written on her face she breathed out.

Nothing was happening.

Taking another breath in and out. Elysia kept her mind steady on her breathing. By now there should have been a slight hum of the simulation machine reassuring her that she was freed from the false reality but yet again there was nothing besides the man’s voice droning on. She could feel herself edge away from her calmness as the voice continued, bit by bit chipping away her focus. She wanted to scream at him to shut up. She was tired of that man and his alien theories. She needed to find out what was happening and why she was here in the first place.

“I need to know how the hell you got here and why you’re here in the first place…”

Her eyes shot open as looked at the man, the same steady gaze written on her face. She knew how she got here, that is at least she thought she knew. However the more she thought about it, the more she knew she couldn’t remember the face of who was running the program much less anything else that happened to her prior to that point. Was she even in the simulation?

Come on Elysia, think. What is the last thing you can remember prior to this point?
Let’s see I met Gilgamesh, check.
There was the children, check.
Walking down the street in the city, check.
But what happened before that?

“The fall.” Elysia whispered as she remembered the sound of glass shattering seconds after Skylar started to recite poetry the last time she saw her. She couldn’t remember falling out of the building but that had to be what happened as she remembered seeing the ground outside quickly approaching her before being swallowed up. What exactly she was swallowed up by, she couldn’t remember. Was it the ground? Herself losing consciousness? Maybe it was even Skylar’s doing before she reached impact.

Whatever happened, she knew she had no idea what exactly happened after seeing the ground approaching. Was she dead? Maybe she was in a comma? Could Skylar induce a comma and control the visions she saw inside? That seemed impossible but she learned that ruling out the impossible wasn’t always the wisest when dealing with poets. What if the man was true and she was at Earth. Was Skylar strong enough to banish her to another world? It would explain why she wasn’t able to reach the database with her enhancement. As thoughts, questions and possible theories swarmed her mind there was one concrete thought that she knew had to be true.

“Skylar.” Elysia said with venom in her voice as she slammed her balled hand down onto the armrest which followed by a thud. Using her true hand, she was able to feel a slight throb come from her hand once it made contact with the hard plastic. Death, Comma or Skylar’s doing, she knew she had no choice but to go along with the man unless she wanted to act alone.

“It has to be him, there is no other way I can think about how I got here. I cannot answer how I got here since for some reason I too don’t know that answer but if we can find Skylar, I know that he will know and I will make sure to get it out of him this time. Believe me or not but that is the truth.”

[jennifer lost the war]

“Sir, the public increasingly becoming aware of the presence of aliens. We have failed,” an agent said to Connor Murren as he closed the door to his office.

“Well…,” Connor, the head of the CIA, began. “That happened much sooner than expected,” he said without concern and without looking at the agent. He had his sights on his computer screen, which demonstrated where aliens were reported being seen and the reports were scattered randomly across the globe.

“We’ve also heard that Gilgamesh is conversing and possibly assisting one of the aliens, against your orders.”

“Not necessarily,” Connor replied. He looked in his late thirties, with short, dirty blonde hair and light blue eyes. “All I told him about the aliens is that we would handle it. His only job is to take care of high level poets. If he thinks an alien would help him, then so be it.”

“Don’t you think he should have notified us? Keeping it a secret from us seems traitorous.”

“This is why nobody has ever hired him to do anything other than kill poets. Just keep a close eye on him.”

“Okay, but we still have to handle the alien invasion. Everybody down stairs is losing their minds,” the agent said.

“Who says this is an invasion? Have you read descriptions of some of them? No two aliens look the same. None of them are the same species. In fact, I’ve heard that some of them are fighting each other,” Connor explained.

“But they all came at the same time. This is clearly coordinated,” the agent replied, shaking his head slightly in disbelief.

“It is coordinated. Just not by the aliens,” Connor explained. “I said from the beginning that the poets would use the chaos to make a move and now I’m convinced they started this. I don’t know how, but it looks too perfect to have gone any other way. So tell your buddies to stop playing into their hands by losing their shit. Military and police forces have likely already been mobilized. Our plan is the same. Find out what the poets are planning and keep an eye on Gilgamesh. His findings will be important.”

“With all due respect, I think they’re justified in ‘losing their shit.’ Invasion or not, this is easily going to be the most catastrophic event in history. What happened in Japan twenty years ago won’t compare to this. The world will never be the same. I know you know that, yet you seem unconcerned.”

“I’m not unconcerned. I’m trying to remain vigilant. I hope you’d do the same. This is what we’re trained to do,” Connor said, taking a deep breath. It was true. Whatever was going on involved absolutely everyone and it will take everyone to stop it. “Let Gilgamesh know that the aliens are all different species.”

---

Gilgamesh watched Elysia’s face carefully as she thought her way through his seemingly simple question, but a response didn’t come as fast as he would’ve liked. At first he thought she was searching for another excuse, but he spent a lot of time interrogating people to know that the look of confusion on her face was genuine. She repeated the poet’s name and slammed her fist onto the armrest before explaining that she had no idea how she got to Earth and only the poet named Skylar would know the answer. A poet capable of sending another person to a different planet, Gilgamesh thought, how is that possible?

“We’ve just received a report from the CIA. They’ve discovered that thousands of aliens have somehow made it onto Earth and they’ve yet to discover at least two of them being of the same species,” one of Gilgamesh’s soldiers said. “Which means it’s unlikely they’re all from the same planet,” he continued, glancing quickly at Elysia as he said it.

Gilgamesh grunted and then chuckled cynically. That’s absurd, he thought. “And what do you make of that?” he asked Elysia, hoping that something about that information would either jog her memory or lead to a logical conclusion about her predicament.

“They also said that the mission to hide the aliens from the public has been abandoned. The aliens are running rampant and many are hostile. Connor said to continue with our mission but to be cautious,” the soldier added.

“What did the fool think we were going to do?” Gilgamesh asked rhetorically before the jeep came to a screeching halt. Several yards away, a creature on all fours and twice the size of a full grown wolf stood facing them, baring its fangs. Its skin was leathery and teeth were massive. It had claws the size of daggers and its shoulder blades protruded out at an abnormal length. It had no eyes. The soldiers were frozen into silence. “Do you speak?” Gilgamesh shouted at the creature. The creature merely roared viciously in response and showed no indication of moving out of the way. “Kill it,” he said with distain as he stepped out of the jeep. His soldiers took their rifles, stepped out of the jeep and began unloading their clips into the creature.

---

Elise dashed out of the elevator and through the apartment exit, looking frantically around for the creature that had jumped out of the window. I don’t know how it could have possible survived, she thought as she stood where she could see broken glass. People were staring at the location with fear and the cement on the sidewalk was destroyed. It looked like the roots beneath the cement had broken through somehow. It can control plants, she concluded, understanding now why Dr. Plant had shown interest in the creature. But it was nowhere to be found.

“Where did the creature that did this go?” She asked one of the civilians nearby. Some of them pointed and she could see a green figure running down the street. She ran after it as quickly as she could. It doesn’t just manipulate plants, it looks like it IS one, Elise thought as she got closer to it. “Wait!” she shouted. “I can help you! There’s a park down there!” she pointed as she shouted. “There’s water!” Does it understand me? “Water!” she continued to desperately point in the direction of the park. It was about two blocks away from where they were.

Fighter jets flew hundreds of feet above them, heading in the opposite direction. It was a rare sight and although she wanted to look back to see where they were headed, she didn’t want to divert her attention away from the creature. A few moments later there was an explosion quite a distance away from them and screams of terror. She was sweating now and nervous. “What in god’s name is going on?” she huffed between intakes of air.

[Rina]

“What did the fool think we were going to do?” Gilgamesh asked rhetorically before the jeep came to a screeching halt. Several yards away, a creature on all fours and twice the size of a full grown wolf stood facing them, baring its fangs. Its skin was leathery and teeth were massive. It had claws the size of daggers and its shoulder blades protruded out at an abnormal length. It had no eyes. The soldiers were frozen into silence. “Do you speak?” Gilgamesh shouted at the creature. The creature merely roared viciously in response and showed no indication of moving out of the way. “Kill it,” he said with disdain as he stepped out of the jeep. His soldiers took their rifles, stepped out of the jeep and began unloading their clips into the creature.

“An alien from different planets you say?” Elysia said with a raised eyebrow. Sure, she could see Skylar somehow bringing her to earth. However even though he was a strong poet, he didn’t seem capable enough to send all those being to earth. “How in the hell did you all accomplish this mess. This doesn’t sound like something Skylar would do. Sure, maybe he’d do something like that on my own planet to screw with us. However not on Earth, I don’t see a reason why he would do that.” Who was behind all of this and for what purpose? Was it a high powered poet on Earth or something else? Although she heard of some of the things poets were able to accomplish in the past, nothing seemed to stand close within Ryton’s history to the events that were taking place here. How could a single being out of countless species be able to be brought here and what was made each of the beings unique enough to be chosen out of the whole population? Out of all the citizens on Ryton what made her unique enough that she would be chosen?

The news about the aliens being hostile didn’t surprise her. Without counting the predisposition certain species might have for each other based on the past or current wars, there were other factors to consider. Although her specialty wasn’t in space travel, she heard bits and species from others to know that many didn’t think and act like those from Ryton nor like those from Earth. Sure, there were a few species that just wasn’t on par concerning technology or morals which was understandable seeing that many of the other species were not as old as those from Ryton. But other species were dangerous and barbaric in nature. With animal like in instincts, reasoning with them was usually impossible to do.

As the jeep came to a halt, Elysia focused on the alien in front of them, hoping to retrieve some data about the being. “Crap, I’m on my own.” Elysia muttered with distain as she remembered that she was unable to reach the database. She’ll have to find a way to fix it later, if she was lucky maybe she could find a way to use Earth’s technology and either reach Ryton’s database or even use Earth’s database if they had something like that. However that would have to be something she worked on at a later time.

As she pulled out her gun, Elysia flicked her thumb to the right and switched her ocular enhancement. With her target focused, Elysia joined into the fray as she watched for any sign of a weak spot. There was no eyes to shoot to blind the creature and the leathery texture concerned her as the soldiers took aim. Would there bullets be enough to stop it? How will the creature fight back if it is able to? Joining in with the soldiers, Elysia began shooting as she watched with caution, wishing she could pull up data on the creature.

[Izkripp]

She ran down the street frantically trying to figure out this alien planet. Why was there not much plant life? Had she landed on a planet that did not rely on the life of its plants? As her feet hit the cold ground she tried to block out the taps she could hear with every connect. As she ran she could see other creatures like the ones before, but they did not seem to notice her as much. She stopped running to stare at them. They all moved as a group from one place to another without looking up or at each other. They were so concerned with the little things they held in their hands. She started to notice then that the big things that were bright also moved in the same fashion. She could predict were they were going except for every now and then one would turn down another path and another would join in.

A shout caught her attention quickly. She looked back at the female of the species. She seemed to be yelling at her. Gel’Linnea took a step back from her. She did not understand what she was saying, but from her body language she did not seem to be angry. Still… she slid her feet back preparing to run away if the need arose. She watched her motions; she seemed to be pointing for her to go somewhere. Gel’Linnea looked away from the female for a moment in the direction that she was pointing. There did not seem to be anything there that was different than any other place.

Suddenly a new sound ripped through the air above them. She looked up to the sky at the things that flew over head. Her eyes widened as she saw the scene that was unraveling before her. There was something wrong with this planet. Gel’Linnea looked to the female that was in front of her. She seemed to have the same reaction she did. So this was not normal.

Quickly and gracefully Gel’Linnea made her way to the female and took her hand. She was somewhat surprised to find that her hand was so much warmer than her own. Her people were more plant based, so they tended to be cooler than most animals. “Fuuha” Come She said before she pulled the girl along with her in the direction that she had pointed. Gel’Linnea pulled her along in a run.

They weaved in and out of traffic and crowds until they got to the park. Gel’Linnea did not release the females hand as she walked into the park. Once they were far enough in that she was comfortable Gel’Linnea released the woman’s hand. She walked over to the water and placing her feet in letting the cool water wash over her. Now this was much better. She let her feet sink into the soil and branch out. She was rooted into the ground now. As she absorbed the water the light blue marking on her skin became more visible. The nutrients from the soil made her skin become more of a healthy green color, at least for her people. Now that she was feeling better she looked to the female again. Her eyes were still changing colors from a dark brown to a sapphire shade of blue.