July 21, 2009
Miguel's Farm, Unknown, Nigeria
Even in the tiny living room of their quaint little home, Money and Miguel could hear the rapid-fire Spanish of their parents arguing in their bedroom. The boys, eight and fourteen, ignored the background noise, and remained fixated on their favorite pastimes. Miguel had lost count of how many sets of push-ups he'd done so far today, and Money had lost count of how many times he'd lost to Galamoth on his GameBoy.
"I thought we were supposed to only speak English this week," Money sighed in their native language.
"You know they never mean that," Miguel grunted.
A slap, followed by a body hitting the floor interrupted them. It was an alarm clock that preceded footsteps thundering downstairs. Money hid his GameBoy underneath the couch and Miguel shot up to meet his mother at the parlor's doorway.
"Get up, it's time!" She scolded.
"Just me today, mama, por favor."
"English." As usual, the boy's pleas went unacknowledged.
~
July 6, 2022 - 10:21am
Miguel's Farm, Unknown, Nigeria
"Monika, listen carefully," Money growled at the sea of blooms rushing them, "I know you're going to be scared, but we only have a few minutes to save my brother."
"Isn't he…?" she trailed off, frozen by the sheer number of blooms before her. A dozen or two, she could handle. But anything more instantly put her back in the Garden, no matter how many times her and Tamara fought off hordes together.
"He is. I can bring him back with my technique if it's within the next ten minutes. I don't have time to explain it, but I'm gonna go full offensive, and I need you to stop them from hitting me."
Monika said nothing. She could see only the mass of blooms swelling up to them. They had a vaguely humanoid shape, with black wrappings covering their bodies.
"Monika!" Money called her again. "For fuck's sake, this is my brother!"
Nothing. He knew he couldn't blame her. The fear and shame she subconsciously associated with blooms couldn't be undone in a week, let alone an instant. And it didn't help that her relatives helped themselves to the catastrophic family reunion that created this situation. If she were to join this fight, it would have to be of her own accord.
Agitated, the boy ran into the horde with his wraith in tow. The creatures swarmed the two of them in response. Money and Jump pecked at their opponents while dancing around them, careful to avoid being hit. 87, 88, 89. They were close.
Oh, so close, when a single bloom jumped up and kicked Money in the chest. It wasn't powerful by any means, but it staggered the boy and disrupted his count. He cried, scrambling to his feet and charging back at the herd surrounding Jump.
A group of the creatures broke off to swamp Monika.
"Life or death situations are like being submerged in water. The deeper you go, the stronger a swimmer you become. If you go deep enough, you'll either be crushed or make it to the other side. Do you get what I'm saying? Under pressure, maestros are at their strongest, or weakest."
Tamara's words slapped her back into reality. Instinctively, she struck the blooms, amped by her explosive atma.
"Even when she's not here, she's saving me. I haven't changed."
Still petrified, Monika spread her atma out in a web, weaving it slowly around the blooms before she let it explode and the crowd around Money. The boy nodded at her and raised four fingers.
"Four minutes." She'd wasted six.
With his counter resetting, the farmer knew he couldn't afford to keep messing up. Luckily, the blooms focused on Jump who couldn't reset the counter by being hit. A bloom jumped at him but dissipated as Monika blew it up just in time. Her widened eyes peered into some place he could not see. She was either confronting her fear, or drowning in it.
The boy resumed his assault, wary of the explosions and countless assailants around him. Meanwhile, old memories resurfaced.
~
Miguel kept Money behind him, relentlessly assaulting the blooms that jumped out of the darkness of the pit.
"This is my love, manito. One day, it'll be our last day down here. It's our duty to keep each other safe until then, okay?"
"What about after?"
"After?" He put a hand on his little brother's head. Their matching white singlets were stained with all sorts of matter. "I'll be the strongest maestro ever. I'll keep us both safe."
~
Money roared. The thought of his big brother dying for real made his stomach turn. It wouldn't be fair. If he failed Miguel the one time he needed him, it just wouldn't be fair at all. His counter just needed to reach 100.
78, 79, 80.
Monika continued to throw her atma at every bloom she could see, failing to hold off the swarm. The sound of the hellish landscape around her brought forth a wicked grip of immobilizing fear. Her heart pounded and breaths quickened as she simultaneously battled the urge to run away. As if her legs would have worked. She should have been depleted a couple minutes ago, and was well on her way.
97, 98, 99. Barely one minute left.
The girl spread out a massive wave of potent atma, clearing the horde around her and Money. Momentary relief. A smaller bloom jumped up from the pile of dissipating carcasses behind the farmer. Time slowed to an agonizing crawl. The young Rose's scarce threads of atma reached out to the assailant while Jump slowly started rematerializing. Neither effort would reach the creature in time. It was over.
Or, it would have been, had a .51 caliber bullet not obliterated the thing's legs mid-kick. The sound of the gunshot drew both Money and Monika's attention to the sky. Niko Rose's dark expression was indistinguishable from that distance while her wings shone brightly in the morning sun. Without acknowledging those on the ground, she took aim with her rifle and continued firing at any bloom in sight.
"Don't get confused, I'm not your savior. If you or the bloom boy die from our machinations, it'll violate ojisan's Contract with Tamara," she thought to herself.
She'd been against this plan from the beginning, and had been punished for suggesting something more covert; loosing a horde of weaker blooms while their targets slept. Still, she tagged along because she wanted to see the kind of girl her cousin had become. Strong, but simultaneously lacking something, she decided.
Money snapped back to focus immediately, squashing the writhing legless bloom on the ground before him. 100. His wraith materialized by itself, its typically featureless face now bearing a blocky white question mark.
"Redeem," he said.
The wraith unraveled itself, revealing a green spotted mushroom. The farmer rushed to his brother's corpse while Monika slowly started backing away from the fight. She couldn't believe that barely 10 minutes had passed. Money opened Miguel's mouth and stuffed the mushroom inside for it to slowly dissolve.
Miguel's eyes shot open.
"Manito…what's the situation?"
Monika continued to shape the remaining crumbs of her atma to cut down blooms with her cousin's help. It seemed like an exercise in futility.
"Maybe my atma trait isn't enough to win this…but if I use my technique, I'll…"
"I've got it from here," Miguel rested a hand on her shoulder. With a renewed energy that would've impressed the Nazarene, the farmer stretched, then clasped his hands together.
"Stay very still."
Battle Arena: Formation X
He erected a familiar pink barrier spanning the whole farm. The half-naked man struck a front lat spread pose, resting his hands near his waist and puffing out his chest. A moment later, pink chains wrapped around each bloom and tightened, extinguishing each and every one in an instant.
"Money!" Miguel called for his brother to catch a falling Niko who he'd intentionally caught in his technique. He wouldn't let real harm come to her, but she had killed him, after all. A little retaliation zap was nothing.
"I thought you couldn't use your technique?" Money asked.
"The anti-barrier anchor must've been on one of those helicopters. I felt the pressure on my atma release just before..." Miguel turned to look around. The farm was almost entirely destroyed as fire spread through the crops. Only their house remained intact. He couldn't help but laugh.
"What's funny?" Money asked.
"He's in shock…"
"You did good, Money."
"But the farm…"
"Bah! I always hated this farm. I will miss Bambi, though." Miguel grinned. He was uncharacteristically chipper, especially for someone who died. Maybe it was Money's magic mushroom. Maybe he'd seen something on the other side. Maybe he'd just had the best nap of his life, they'd never know.
Niko pushed herself out of Money's arms, scrambling to her feet. The pain of being on the receiving end of Miguel's technique, and seeing what happened to all those blooms in the blink of an eye just affirmed her opinion of these men.
"If these are the kind of people Monika's been spending her time with, I don't doubt she'll find whatever it is she's lacking."
She eyed her cousin, who'd fallen to her knees. The two Roses stared at each other.
"Not bad, Momo." Before Monika could respond, Niko sprouted wings and flew off. Momo. A nickname from a time long gone.
Monika wept.