Chapter Twenty Three: the truth of Radin's curse.

"a curse is an evil omen applied to somebody, that's the immdiate thought... but is it always this same way?"

-emperorwolf

Radin sat on the couch with Carl, who had Surus on top of his head, and the three of them were watching the live feed as Zenef, Collin and Bailey headed down to Agnak.
"well," the little otter chuckled "guess it makes sense why nobody found it 'til now."
the leopards nodded in agreement, Carl doing so slowly for Syrus' benefit "yeah Sy, nobody'd think of looking underwater." he said to his partner as he reached up for Syrus to move him.
Syrus clung to the big Leopard's paw and was moved down to his shoulder.

a silvery spark flickered behind Radin's left ear.
"Radin," Syrus immediately spoke of it "grey flame near your ear."
the young snow leopard panicked and quickly formed a prayer sign with his paws as if to ward off his own curse, and the flame extinguished itself.
he blew a sigh of relief "thanks... guess i must be excited or something."
"well, it is a whole new country full of people even bigger than you two." Syrus commented with a smile.

the two leopards laughed at that, Syrus had a point, that did sound exciting!
"it'd be like we were seeing things from your point of view if we went there, wouldn't it, dad?" Radin asked, his gaze locked on Syrus to show which of his fathers he was adressing.
Syrus considered the words and nodded thoughtfully "huh. i guess so... but i bet you'd both freak out."
they eyed him with their jokingly predatory gaze.
"what's that supposed to mean? you tryin' to insult us, little otter?" Carl queried.
"oh, just that Bukis are used to having something bigger than us, but you Gikis aren't, so you'd panic and everything 'cause you aren't used to that."
they nodded, Syrus' logic was sound.

then, a thought emerged in Syrus' mind
"hey, Radin?"
"yeah?"
"why exactly are you cursed?"
the snow leopard fidgeted uncomfortably, and Syrus panicked, throwing his webbed paws to his forehead "agh, i'm sorry! i shouldn't've asked!"
"no... it's okay..."

Radin stood and started breathing deeply, and the chrome flames reappeared.
the flames spun and weaved themselves, forming a fiendish outline complete with firey wings and devilish horns around Radin, and his eyes went yellow.

Carl and Syrus went wide eyed, shocked speechless.
"i'm... not normal... the curse is actually...." Radin wrung his paws in anxiety "... more of a seal..."

as the screen continued showing the descent to Agnak through the ocean, the snow leopard explained himself.

"my dad was a regular person, a snow leopard Giki... but my mum..."
the chrome flames died down, but Radin's eyes retained their ominous yellow glow "my mum was a demon."
they stared at him in disbelief.
"s-so..." Carl spoke in a frightened tone "wh-what does that make you?"
Radin shrugged "i can't remember the name."

""THERE IT IS!!""

they all turned back to the Tv just in time to see the outline of the submerged city getting clearer.
Radin quickly sat back down and all three of them eagerly watched to get a good view of a city of titans.
Carl grinned "everybody needs to see this, we can talk about what Radin is later, for now we gotta get a look at that city!"

---

they were slowly reaching the coral shield, and beyond that lay the imposingly massive city of Agnak.
Collin and Bailey touched the barrier first, and they could see a huge crowd awaiting them.
"Z was right, they did know..." said Collin through his respirator's built in radio "but as to how, i ain't a clue at all."

Zenef recieved the answer from Alpha.
"it's because they're rather advanced, they detected us coming long before we even entered the water..."
he relayed it to the two giant canids.

suddenly the coral parted, and a metalic pathway extended up to them, passing through the barrier of light and into the ocean surrounding them.

"guess we go down..." Bailey said cautiously, and the trio slipped through the membranous wall and were greeted by an unexplainable atmosphere and a blue sky filled with wispy white clouds above and around them.
below them was the overscaled city and its appropriately scaled populace, waiting patiently, and with broad, excited grins on their faces.

Zenef, once again on Bailey's shoulder, removed his respirator and stared in amazement.
"oh wow..." he breathed, taking in the gorgeous venice-like city below "this place... its all one huge piece of art!"
"no kidding..." Bailey whispered, equally enthralled by the magesty of the buildings and archetecture.
water flowed freely around the city via aqueducts, rivers, and fountains that only added to the beauty of the artistic city.

Collin said nothing, but something seemed to be bugging him.
as they travelled down the ramp to the city he seemed to get increasingly anxious, until he was actually physically, and visibly, trembling from it.
"Col? are you okay?" came Bailey's concerned question.
the white lupine's eyes were turning a glittering ruby colour reminiscent of Beta's.
"i... no, i'm not... i can... i can feel something strange nearby..." he replied, confused and nervous at the same time bringing him to be surprised when a familiar voice called out from the titan crowd below.

"guys! you made it!"

the trio looked at the voice's origin, and were all surprised to see Norido, Oriado's 'brother' among the crowd.
as a titan.

Bailey's jaw dropped "u-uncle Norido?!"

the now titan-sized blackfurred panther smiled warmly up at his nephew "how're things topside?"
"forget that! how're you so huge?!"
they reached the end of the path, which hung eye-level with most people in the crowd, who had moved aside to let Norido to the front "oh, just something i was created with."
Collin nodded sheepishly "this is your genetic-error, like Oriado's hermaphroditism?"
"correct, little wolf."
the red light in Collin's eyes intensified, engulfing his pupils and sclerae, and the air around him began to ripple like a heatwave.
"you might wanna step back."

Norido ushered the crowd back as Collin leapt off the ramp into the air, easily more than five storeys off the ground, but that changed quickly.

the air exploded out as he was suddenly expanded to titan size, the crowd watching in awe as he lingered in the air a moment, his newly-gained black and red aura radiating off him like a fiendish flame somehow doing very little to make him seem dangerous.
in fact, it seemed to make him even more accepted by the citizens all around whose size he now shared.
"pretty nice trick." Norido commented

Collin seemed to blush beneath his snow-white fur "w-well... i didn't do it on my own... i guess you could say... somebody taught me how to do this..."
Norido nodded "we know, this is a side-effect from being posessed by the Bedlam entity, leading you to become Bedlam yourself for a short while."
Collin bit his lip and turned his head away "i'm not proud of what i did when that happened."

"nobody's holding it against you!" called Bailey from behind him, his enthusiastic voice accompanied by a comforting tone "besides, you've always said you'd never hurt me, and you never have, not even when you went all red and crazy!"

"Bailey..." the wolf turned and smiled with his now blue eyes locked on the little wolfdog. "i can't even think of hurting you, i'd sooner--"
"sooner eat a flaming brick, i know." he grinned, and put out his paws "now how about lifting me off this ramp?"
Collin delicately scooped up his master into his paws, and squinted to see Zenef still on the shoulder of the wolfdog. "maybe put Zenef somewhere safer. we don't want him getting lost here, do we?"
Bailey chuckled, and Zenef clambered down to the pocket on Bailey's shirt, going out of Collin's sight.

with Bailey and Zenef now safe, he turned back to norido "so, how 'bout a tour?"

the panther smiled "everyone was hoping you'd ask!"

after a short explanation that he would need to translate for them, as Agnakans had their own language, Norido lead them on a tour of the beautiful city.

they were shown cafes, parks, museums, galleries, and were given a gondola ride through the waterways that acted as a regular road for the city.
what surprised everyone was that Zenef was able to read the text on Agnakan signs and storefronts.
he explained it was "thanks to Alpha", but this didn't satisfy Collin.

"but you two aren't synchronised right now, you aren't channelling him... how can you be able to read that?"

"he is becoming more... awake... to the skills he inherited from me, from 'the emperor'..." Alpha appeared and answered, sounding bored dispite the beauty of their surroundings.
Norido smirked "hello there... been quite some time, wolf."
"'spose it has... panther."
Norido's expression became serious all of a sudden "you know... we've been working on a rig to repair you, wolf... to make you your old self again; no more ebony and gold ghosts, just the one, legendary wolf that saved--"
"no." Alpha growled "if you revive my old self, we'd lose Zenef."
"why?"
"i'm not posessing him like some ghost," he declared "i'm inside him because he's my reincarnation."

the atmosphere around them became tense.

Zenef cleared his throat "well, what if you repaired Alpha and Beta? they're kinda half-half right now..."
the gold spectre looked thoughtful "make the two of us whole, as we were five years ago, but living as two? remaining 'Alpha' and 'Beta', but also as two full-fledged 'nine-ninety-nines' in our own rights? ... you might be onto something there, Zenef."

Norido grinned again "we can do that! it'll take a few weeks of adjusting the device, but we could do that!"

Bailey laughed and prodded the canine in his pocket with his finger "sounds like a plan, eh Zenef?"

"can't argue... Alpha being the full soul, and Beta being the fully-fixed D... D..." he stopped a moment "what was it? Dis.. Disgy? Dizo? Dizzy-oh?"
Alpha sighed "i think you mean DSBIWO?"
"yeah!" he laughed embarrassedly "that thing!"

(Next Chapter: ultimate supreme... monstrosity?!)