[02] Sinking Ship!

[Kaden]

While he had no problem risking his own life to save someone else’s, Kaden had not been properly prepared for the freezing cold water that he had half waded into. Once he was numb from the waist down, he imagined it would be easier to deal with, but getting to that point was a slow, painful process that not many men would welcome. Since encountering the mother in the hallway, Kaden had managed to get himself waist-deep in his first rescue attempt. He stopped when he heard a voice from behind him.

“Son of a bitch, that’s cold,” came Alex’s voice.

Half-turning, the courier saw Trafford slashing through the water after him, and looking about as comfortable in the process. Giving the street performer a quick nod, the courier turned his attention back to the task at hand. The hallway they were in took a sharp turn and ran smack into a large, metal door. As he reached for the handle, Kaden could only hope that was what he had been looking for.

As he raised a ki-charged palm at the door, though, Kaden ran into a snag in his plan. The doors had been closed to keep water from coming into the ship. Once he blasted it open, he wouldn’t have any way of closing it back up. Running a free hand through his hair, the courier decided he didn’t have a whole lot of choice. As Trafford came to a halt beside him, Kaden loosed a bolt of bright blue energy.

The sickening screech of metal-on-metal filled the hallway as the handle was ripped from its proper place in the wall. Almost immediately, the door flew open and water cascaded outward, knocking both would-be rescuers off their feet. Thrown into the wall behind them, both were slow to recover.

“Really thought that one through, huh?” Trafford said.

“Could have been worse… I guess.” Kaden replied as he started making slow progress against the flow of water.

His hands shaky and numb with cold, Kaden had a difficult time finding purchase along the hallway to help pull himself forward. He watched his hands nervously as he trudged onward, worried that a slip would send him flowing back to where he started. Wasting that kind of time wasn’t exactly what he had been looking to do. Unfortunately, that was almost exactly what happened.

Caught in the water’s current, something came shooting out of the doorway, clipping the courier and knocking his feet out from under him as it went. Swearing turned out to be particularly difficult with a mouth full of sea water. Thrown back into the wall he had started at, the courier got a good look at what had hit him.

“Oh shit… that’s a person,” Trafford voiced Kaden’s thoughts.

Reaching down, Alex righted the girl and pulled her face out of the water. Through chilled fingers, he tried to check for a pulse or a heartbeat, but it didn’t take long to confirm that neither were present. Thrusting his own fingers against the girl’s neck, Kaden checked for himself. That, of course, produced no different results. As water continued to pound against him, Kaden cast a glance at the door he had broken.

“Well this went well,” he started. “Found a dead girl and made sure the ship’ll sink faster. Good job.”

Leaving the dead girl where she lay, Kaden began pulling himself to his feet when Trafford suddenly thrust a hand towards the door the courier had blown open. As Alex clenched his hand into a fist, the courier watched as it suddenly took on a shimmering orange glow. Then, to the courier’s amazement, it slowly shut and the entire frame warped slightly to keep it in place.

“That’s one problem taken care of,” Ace commented as his hand fell back to his side.

“I thought no one could manipulate metal like that,” the courier said slowly as the glow of his Sight faded from his eyes.

“I can do more than just metal,” Ace clarified.

“Crazy…” the courier was temporarily lost in thought as he eyed the door. “I guess it didn’t look the same as Vad’s…”

“Ahem,” Alex cleared his throat, bringing Kaden back to the present. “So, you can… what? See how people’s abilities work?” the performer feigned nonchalance.

“More or less,” the courier replied. “It’s not perfect though.”

Before Trafford could comment, Kaden began moving. His attempted rescue having resulted in complete failure left him… disillusioned with the idea of being able to save the people who had already been caught in the watery bowels of the ship. A small pang of guilt played at Kaden, but you he told himself that you couldn’t abandon people who had already drowned.

“I think we should get above-deck,” Kaden told his companion.

“Done playing hero already?” Alex quipped.

“Something like that,” the courier replied and cast a glance at the girl who was still floating in the water. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to help very many people.”

“Yeah…” was all Trafford said.

With a mutual nod, the duo waded back the direction they had come. It started as a slow, cold trek until something new came to the forefront of Kaden’s mind. As frustrating as the never-ending carousal that was his mind could be, it usually kept him from being bored. There always seemed to be something to mull over.

“Hey, do you know Sophia?” the courier asked.

“The girl wearing that blue-and-white number?” Trafford confirmed. “Kind of. We’ve run into each other a couple times. Wouldn’t really say I know her, though.”

Instead of verbally responding, the courier simply nodded. The priestess had seemed a little off, though she certainly hadn’t said as much. It troubled Kaden in ways he hadn’t expected. Of all people, he assumed he would have been able to count on her support in a tough spot, but maybe he had been too quick to think that. Between her demeanor and Sage snapping at him, the courier was quickly beginning to question… a lot of things. Fortunately, something was about to take the courier’s mind off of that.

As Trafford and Kaden rounded a bend, they saw stairway with a signed that claimed it went to the upper-decks. Between them and their ascension, though, stood a door and a burly-looking man trying to close it. Kaden vaguely recognized him as the man who had knocked him upside the head with a shovel upon his arrival on the ship. The fact that he was trying to shut in the two ki specialists didn’t sit particularly well with either of them.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Kaden yelled at him. He tried to move quicker towards the door, but lost his footing in the waist-high water.

“Too much water’s comin’ in. Gotta seal ‘er up!”

“With us still on the wrong side?” Trafford asked.

“Them’s the brakes. Sorry, kids.”

The sheer, unrepentant callousness poked at Kaden in all the wrong ways. Pulling himself to his feet, he continued towards the door, but it quickly became apparent that neither he nor Alex would be able to reach it in time to physically stop the man. Though, the courier wasn’t sure whether or not they’d be able to do that anyway… he was a big guy.

“You mind holding the door?” Kaden asked Alex.

Responding with a wave of his hand, Trafford weaved a sheath of psychokinetic energy around the door. Immediately, despite the large worker’s efforts, the door stopped. Struggle as he did against Trafford’s hold on the door, it wouldn’t budge. Raising a hand of his own, Kaden let fly a blast of cerulean ki that crashed into the man’s chest and hurled him down the remaining length of the hallway.

“A little overzealous, are we?” Trafford asked as he eyed the smoke rising from the burly worker.

“He should still be alive,” the courier replied. “Besides, he was asking for it. Now… there should still be something we can do to help upstairs. You coming?”

“Well it’s either that or stick around to watch the water rise.”

A good point.