Heretical Fishing

Though the man was still getting used to his new body, not one of his steps strayed from their intended placement, each footfall even surer than…
, he thought, forcing himself to face that terrible truth.
All knew how calamitous it was to be contacted by the System, but only some understood just how terrible it truly was—he was one of the unfortunate few that had seen it firsthand. He hated cultivators.
them. And now he’d become one, doomed to go mad, get collared, or both.
He could come to terms with that, given time. He’d likely stop caring after he went insane. What he couldn’t accept, however, were the consequences for those he loved most. The cultivator who’d once been a man glanced back at them, watching their careful passage. His blood set to boiling.
His son carried his daughter, the boy’s muscular frame making hers look smaller still despite the many layers of blankets surrounding her. She should be curled up by a hearth. The sweet scent of medicinal herbs should be all around, their healing properties wafting up from a kettle sitting beside the fire. Instead, she was being hauled through a forest far from home, forced to breathe cold air that aggravated her already-weak lungs.
As if to confirm his thoughts, a cough escaped her, the harsh sound all the worse for having come from such a young girl.
His boiling blood turned to liquid metal, his heart a crucible, his fury the furnace. It grew ever hotter, threatening to consume him.
“Dad…?” His son’s voice seemed to temporarily snuffing the flames.
He focused on his son’s face. The lines of worry and stress he found there were, too many for such a young man to carry. The sight of him, almost brought back the flames, so he focused on something else. Mature as the teen may be, his eyes were still that of the boy he’d once been. Countless memories replayed in the father’s mind, his newly enhanced consciousness recalling past events with perfect clarity.
Regardless, it didn’t serve him. Not tonight, anyway. He had to get his daughter to safety. Then, perhaps, he could find an outlet for his anger. He hadn’t completely regained his composure, so he turned away, reaching for his instincts earned by decades of hunting and patrolling.
All he had to do was put one foot in front of the oth—
His step landed on something hard and curved. His leg slid out from under him, the object shooting forward as he crashed down. His enhanced vision witnessed it all in excruciating detail. The glass bottle, of a kind usually used to store wine, was dull beneath the forest’s canopy.
The bottle shattered against the base of a tree. Countless shards glimmered as they caught what little light filtered through the thick blanket of leaves. The sound was deafening to his amplified hearing, but it was nothing compared to the vibration that shook the world a moment later. At first it came from nearby, a single source of noise that vibrated through set his chest and abdomen. Then, it came from
, dozens, hundreds of others joining the chorus.
If he was alone, the cultivator might have remained there, content to let his powerful attackers end his life. He considered doing as much. Two faces flashed in his mind—not the teenagers they now were, but the children they’d once been: His daughter and her endless kindness despite only ever knowing illness. His son. Responsible, protective, reliable.
Their visages transformed, traveling through the years until they were at the present. His son’s harried face. His daughter’s sunken cheeks. The internal furnace flashed again, red, hot, all-consuming.
He forced himself to exhale, focusing on the soft hiss of air passing between his clenched teeth. The cultivator wasn’t alone. As expendable as he might be, he had two souls to protect, each more precious and unique than all the gold in the world.
“To the road!” he yelled, signaling his son with hand gestures in case the buzz was too deafening.
The boy nodded. Both dashed to the merchant’s trail they’d been shadowing. It was only ten meters away, but even that felt like an eternity to his enhanced senses, each trunk they passed providing cover from which an attacker could spring.
As he skidded to a stop on the well-worn path, he noticed an immense sense of discomfort at being so exposed, making the coals of his furnace spit and crackle.
he reminded himself. Better to be open for combat when facing so many enemies—which gave him an idea…
The cultivator reached over his shoulder and gripped a well-worn pole. Even so many decades after the war, it felt
, and as he held it forward, he channeled his fury into it. The spear glowed in the fading light, his madness made manifest. Hating how good it felt, he swept a circle around his children, the deadly tip of his weapon passing through trees like so many stalks of wheat.
***
Lost—perhaps more so than when he’d began—Teddy wandered. Far and wide he roamed, knowing neither where he traveled nor what he looked for.
… he growled to himself, sounding more crestfallen than intended. It came so easily to some, yet still evaded him, his core unable to find meaning in everyday life. This hollow feeling wasn’t eternal. It didn’t haunt his every waking hour. But always it lingered, ready to strike at a moment’s notice.
Only two events in recent memory had left him free of the self-inflicted torment: the wedding, and the battle to defend Tropica from Gormona’s forces. He considered them, his enhanced mind pondering each in search of answers. Both just confirmed what he already knew. He was a protector. He found great meaning in defending his tribe and seeing them flourish.
So he had thrown himself into the work of the Church of the Leviathan, thinking that caring for their young would give him that same satisfaction. How wrong he’d been. Watching over the baby lobsters hadn’t brought fulfillment. Within those walls, his mind had meandered, leading to ascension, yes, but also to death.
Part of him wished for another attack to arrive, for Tropica to face some existential threat that required the use of his full power. It was objectively selfish. What kind of monster would wish, even secretly, for their friends to become imperilled?
Trapped in this endless loop of pressure and shame, he didn’t recognize the warning drone at first. Only when the other Buzzy Boys joined the chorus did Teddy snap back to the present. A threat. An enemy had arrived. And based on the original call, they were close.
A tiny part of the massive bear felt a pang of humiliation, acknowledging that this was just a convenient method of distraction. The rest of him didn’t care. Flooded with a desire to protect those he loved at any cost, Technical Officer Theodore Roosevelt barrelled forward, body glowing red and charging through trees like they were paw-high weeds.
Chi flared ahead. Young, lacking control, bolstered by a rage so deep it matched Teddy’s own. He imagined one of the Buzzy Boys being on the receiving end of it. His fury manifested, hair bristling, hackles rising to form reddened spikes whose luminosity bloomed across the endless storm of splinters, branches, and leaves cascading in his wake.
When he charged into the circular clearing, his limbs shattering felled trunks, the only thing that saved the cultivator’s life was that none of the Buzzy Boys were in immediate danger. And when Teddy caught the scent of the human bundled up in the arms of another, a dozen or more spears of shock that lanced Teddy from every direction.
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It… it smelled like
But her blood was wrong. She stank of sickness. He huffed a great breath, his heart breaking when he discovering the depths of her illness. Not just sick, but dying.
Teddy, shoulders hunched and head lowered, tore his gaze from her covered form to look at the cultivator. Again, sharp points of disbelief stabbed him from all directions, this time bringing the memory of pain with them.
The weapon and the face of the man that wielded it… Teddy had seen both before. It made a terrible kind of sense. Of course she was with one of those men, the same tyrants who had trapped and killed his mother, the deadly tips of their spears used with disgusting efficiency.
It no longer mattered to Teddy that his mother and the humans they’d stumbled upon had been playing out their roles; a mother bear defending her cub, a hunting party defending themselves. All that mattered was that this man, this cultivator, was one of them. The aura of sheer fury flooding from him proved how dangerous he was.
It was the logical part of Teddy that weighed these thoughts. Perhaps if it had occupied more of his mind, he’d have reconsidered his assumptions. Unfortunately for the cultivator, that portion of Teddy’s consciousness was but a seedling, a tiny whisper of growth surrounded by a forest ablaze. Each time a leaf grew, flames washed overtop, burning it away.
Teddy’s muscles flexed and bulged, his form expanding, filling with his desire to protect. His was the rage of a sleeping bear. Of a den mother who’d been backed into a corner. This thought drew forth memories of his own mother, and Teddy took an involuntary step forward, his forepaw doubling in size by the time it landed. Rocks crumbled. The ground shook. Teddy strode on.
The red spikes had spread from his hackles to create a mane, and smaller versions bunched around his elbows and knees. His canines, too, had extended, protruding from beneath his massive top lip, their tips crimson and casting light across the entire clearing. His head was the size of the cultivator’s torso. The rest of his body was proportionately engorged. Insensate as he was, Teddy still recognized how ghastly a sight he must now present. He rejoiced in it.
Let this spearman know fear.
The man, however, remained unaffected. He was crouched low, backing closer to the two adolescents, his spear a snake ready to strike. Though he was a cultivator, he’d not have stood a chance against the Teddy of before. This version, muscles bulging and claws sharp, could tear the man to shreds with a single blow.
But such an end was too good. Too clean. Teddy bounded forward, his paw descending sluggishly. The cultivator reacted faster than expected. He stepped back and his spear shot out, its deadly point twisting so that Teddy’s limb would find only its jagged edge. Too slow.
too slow. Teddy adjusted, batting the weapon down to the ground with a lazy flick that lodged the armament in the earthen floor. He watched for a reaction, for the man’s acknowledgement of the difference in their strength, but all Teddy saw was renewed rage.
The cultivator got even faster. He freed his weapon and circled his captives—for that is what they must be—in retreat, the spear ever lashing out, its tip glowing brighter as crazed fury radiated from him. Teddy beat aside every blow with the faintest shifts of his body, working to ensure the man knew just how futile his pathetic strikes were.
If asked, Teddy wouldn’t be able to say why he was toying with him. He hadn’t paused long enough to consider it. In his current state, he was nothing more than a bundle of muscle and instinct, for which he was thankful—it was bliss compared to the suffocating pressure and shame from earlier.
As the farce of a battle dragged on, Teddy grew frustrated with the cultivator’s tenacity, his annoyance strong enough to ooze up from his latent psyche and into his awareness. The man only seemed to improve. His intentions were more evil than initially suspected. It was the only thing that described the look in his eye, that of a predator refusing to abandon his kill.
After one particularly rapid exchange, in which the spear was batted aside so hard it almost broke against its wielder’s thigh, Teddy decided that enough was enough. His jaw ached to feel the parting of flesh and crunching of bone. A spirit beast he might be, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be pushed to violence. To threaten his friends was to invite death.
Teddy’s core shook. A feeling of rightness, one previously only glimpsed from afar, had come forth to greet him. It was there, just beyond his reach. He unhinged his colossal jaw. Even as it approached the cultivator, teeth poised to shatter everything in their path, the man showed not a hint of hesitation.
Teddy held back no longer. His maw crunched down. The spear’s shaft exploded. Splinters flew in all directions. Teddy stared at the cultivator’s face, waiting for the terror to show.
The bastard didn’t so much as flinch. Teddy’s terrible canines had missed him by only centimeters, yet his enemy’s only response was to retreat a step, still circling his captives. He raised both ends of the spear, his core poured out even more power, the essence seeming to come from an endless fountain of anger. The piece of wood with a head attached shone bright red, while the butt of the pole—only a foot in length—glowed a deep copper.
He raised the dual weapons like clubs, a sense of injustice joining his fury.
And the rest of him agreed. Teddy exploded forward, faster than he’d ever moved, his gaze pinned to the malevolent cultivator’s eyes as his deadly paw descended, aimed for the center of his mass.
He must have seen his death in that strike. The man’s gaze darted away, finally showing the doubt Teddy had been wanting to see this entire time. It wasn’t doubt, however. Bone-weary sorrow and regret flashed in the man’s eyes as he looked not at Teddy, but at his captives.
Something was wrong.
Teddy’s subconscious let out a roar so loud that his vision shook. But it wasn’t necessary; even in his enraged state, that reaction from the man was so far removed from the expected that he’d frozen his attack. His conscious mind took over, barreling to the forefront of his awareness.
Those eyes… they weren’t that of a predator at all—they were like a den mother, prepared to throw their life away if it had even a chance of helping their young survive. He saw it now with complete clarity. That same wild hair on the man, though his was cropped. The lines between eye and temple, visible when the father scowled and when the daughter smiled. The young man, too. Her brother? The father’s son.
This was no insane cultivator. Teddy’s mind spun.
He’d almost ended an innocent life. The father of the first human to show him kindness. Worse, he’d drawn it out, intending on causing the man as much grief and pain as possible before ending his existence. It would have been all too easy for Teddy to spiral.
His subconscious didn’t give him the chance.
His subconscious would not give him the chance.
It barged in, presenting all it had witnessed while he’d been incensed.
He hadn’t been drawing out the battle out of cruelty. Teddy made to reply, his thoughts focused on the myriad times he’d sought to see despair and understanding on the man’s face—but his own mind had a retort ready.
If suffering had been Teddy’s goal, he’d have actually injured him. His long claws could slice through rock; he could have bled him, ending his life with hundreds of shallow cuts. Even when Teddy had unleashed the killing blow, it had come from a place of compassion. As far as deaths go, it would have been painless.
he wondered, not seeing any possibility other than cruelty.
The answer was as instant as it was vague. An image of a raging bear appeared in his mind, its body covered in deadly spikes that glowed red. It took him a moment to realize it wasn’t just any bear—it was Teddy’s current form. He was even more terrifying than he’d originally assumed.
Realization struck him, then. Simple yet profound. Fear was the entire point. Aggression wasn’t some animalistic ideal for spirit beasts to leave behind. It was a tool, one he’d be foolish to cast aside.
It could be argued that prolonging the final blow was inherently cruel, but it was far more nuanced than that. Is it not worth it to cause one man terror if it meant countless others lived? To be seen as ruthless and brutal was preventative. It would, in the long run, lead to less death and destruction.
His core vibrated, even stronger than before. This was it. The path he’d been searching for. He opened his mind, ravenous for more truth. His subconscious obliged.
This was what it meant for him to be the protector—the role no other could provide as he did. The others had incredible power, of course, which it itself was a deterrent. Borks also had nightmare-inducing appearances, like his original form, and the weird little shape Fischer called a chi-wow-wow.
But none of them were as effective as this ursine version of Teddy. His legs were thicker than trunks. If he stood upright, his massive head could peer over the average forest’s canopy. That wasn’t even mentioning the spikes, claws, teeth, and ominous glow that shone from them. Teddy, in his current iteration, could strike fear into the heart of a boulder.
The awakened part of his mind had rejected any possibility of being seen as scary… but for his friends? His den mates? He would do whatever it took—and he would celebrate every moment, knowing it served them.
His core, whose vibration had been growing stronger, seemed to disagree.
Teddy understood. He’d told a lie—to himself and the universe. He wouldn’t enjoy it because it served them. Not exclusively, anyway. He enjoyed it because it was who he was. To safeguard was in his nature, and as much as he had tried to deny it, he was the protector.
His core quaked and power swelled all around, lighting the forest with orbs of faintly red light. They waited there, not yet moving until he acknowledged the final piece. He already knew what it was.
Teddy didn’t need to change. He could be both the friend and the protector, showing love to those who deserved it, and brutality to those who didn’t—both were, in their own way, kindness.
The orbs slammed down into Teddy. Everything went white.