The Dreamland Collection

A/N: I’ve wanted to write another Cthulhu Mythos story for a while now. Now I’ve decided to do it. These will be a series of Yusuke side stories for If Only in my Dreams. I think there will be five in all. And for the convenience of my readers I will be posting them all in one place as a collection.

Forward: Yusuke, Hiei, and Kurama were sent down into Earth’s Dreamlands in order to carry out a mission to rescue Koenma, but at the Gates of Deeper Slumber they were separated and washed away to the far corners of Dreams. It was a full year they found one another again and completed their mission. These are the chronicles of how Yusuke spent that year.

The Mystic Pond of Pnok By: boysluvcraft

Yusuke Urameshi was bound for Barharna on the Isle of Oriab. He had heard that his lost friend, Kurama had been there not too long ago. In all likelihood the redhead had already moved on, but still Yusuke held hope that he would find a clue in Barharna which would lead to his good friends whereabouts. That goal, however, was still a long way off, Oriab being one of the southern most places in Dreams. While at present, Yusuke was in upper reaches of Dreamlands. He had a long way to go and much land to cover in-between.

“There it is Pnok, (pa-knock),” Yusuke’s recently acquired blond headed companion, Ianto, pointed down the scree-covered slope, to where a bunch of wooden cottages and buildings were huddled around the edges the sizeable creek that was named Salt. Ianto explained, “They call the creek Salt because it runs out of the mountains’ natural salt caves and is indeed very salty. It’s the town’s livelihood too. They pan and refine salt from the creek and export it to the eastern timberlands.”

“That’s nice,” Yusuke responded to the history lesson he hadn’t asked for. He humored the blond, though. If not his maps and knowledge of the area, Yusuke would have walked right past the township and been resigned to another weeks worth of eating nothing but dried rations. Which brought Yusuke to more prevalent point, “They got good food down there? I’m starving.”

“The Pnokan’s make a fair stew,” Ianto told him, “Though, I’ve heard it’s a little bland-- but that’s okay, you can be sure there will be salt on the table.”

One the way down Ianto had told Yusuke of how he had come by this town some years ago, and of how quiet and lazy of a town it was. All of which only deepened the surprise when the two adventures arrived in town to find a happy- mad ruckus going on in the streets. The streets were packed with people, dancing, singing, and shopping at little makeshift stalls. People where dressed in bright colored costumes. Amateur acrobats performed for passers-by. And bands played merry music on every street corner to accompany the sounds of laughter and children playing.

“Hey, looks like we showed up just in time for a party!” Yusuke grinned, “I wonder which of these venders is selling beer.”

“There should be a sign-- ah, there the one with a picture of a wagon wheel and a dog,” Ianto pointed.

“Wagon wheel and a dog? How the hell does that translate into ‘bar’?” Yusuke frowned. His companion could only offer a shrug in reply. That particular system of symbols had been in place for so long, nobody really knew how they were decided. Yusuke snorted, “They were probably drunk when they thought it up.”

As Yusuke paced off the stall with the silly sign he could hear Ianto call after him, “Oi,” don’t spend all our money on booze-- and get me one too!”

Yusuke stepped up to the stall where a squat, hairy man with a shock of startling red hair was serving a pair of girls some pink foamy beverages in stone mugs. Looking at them made Yusuke’s mouth water-- the drinks, not the girls. He had found long ago that his tastes didn’t bend to feminine side. He’d prefer a man, especially if that man was about four foot nine and had short, spiky black hair. Ah, Hiei, Yusuke sighed in his mind as he probably did at least twice every day. Hiei with his adorable I-will-kill-you expressions and his sweet so-perfect-to-hold body. Of course whenever he thought of Hiei, by association his mind would also turn to his friend Kurama. Kurama with his beautiful face, and beautiful emerald green eyes, and his beautiful long red hair. His soft voice was always so comforting to Yusuke as were his firmly muscled arms which Yusuke recalled having once been held by.

The bartender broke in on his thoughts, “Need something to wet your whistle, son?”

“Boy do I ever,” Yusuke sighed exasperatedly as he banished thoughts of Hiei before an embracing situation could occur between his legs. He chuckled, “But I’ll settle for a couple of beers.”

“From Sweets or Salts?” The man asked.

“Huh?”

“Sorry you’re not from around here are ya’s?” The man explained, “Ya see we traditionally brew our beer with water from the Salt Creek. It’s good, has a little kick to its favor. But recently, people have been wanting salt-less beer so we’ve started making it from the fresh water at Sweet’s Creek over yonder. I don’t particularly like it, too yeasty, can‘t taste the hops.”

“I’ll take the Salt kind then-- two of them. I’ve got friend coming.” The bartender dispensed the beverages, these were purple in color, and Yusuke paid for them in coin. He took a sip of the beer, and indeed, it had a pleasant saltiness to it, just enough to add a slight warm tingle on his tongue.

“So,” Yusuke made a sweeping gesture, “What’s all this about? It a holiday or something?”

“It’s the Festival of Rejuvenation,” the man stated with a proud nod, “You see we’s got a genuine miracle here in Pnok and we’re celebrating it. You see-- ah but here, you can see for yourself. The parade is starting.”

Something was definitely happening. The mad clatter of bands united into playing the same odd song, something like a cross between Hail the Conquering Hero and Metallica’s ‘Sanitarium’. People were pushing and shoving to clear the streets. He spotted Ianto trying to worm his way through the crowd, bearing two steaming bowls. Only a few feet away, Yusuke reached out and caught the man by his sleeve and pulled him to the safety of the bar stall.

“Thanks,” Ianto panted, “for a second there I thought I was going to lose my lunch, literally, and yours too. I wonder, what‘s got them so riled up?”

“Bar-guy says it’s a parade for this Festival of Rejuvenation there’re having,”
Yusuke told him offhanded as he peeked at the bowls in Ianto’s hands. “What’d ya get me?”

“Seasonal Stew.” Ianto set one of the bowls down in front of Yusuke. “Festival of Rejuvenation, huh? I hadn’t heard of that.”

“Has something to do with a miracle-- ugh!” Yusuke made a face, “You weren’t kidding when you said this stuff was bland.”

“I remember it tasting better last time I was here.” Ianto frowned at the bowl on is lap. “What kind of miracle?”

“Don’t know,” Yusuke told him. “Hey, put some of your beer in it, makes it taste better.”

Their conversation was cut short when a girl called out excitedly, “Look here they come!”

The excitement buzzed in the crowd and a good portion of it seeped into Yusuke and touched his inner child. He vaguely remembered the parades of the Waking World; pretty girls wearing short skirts, twirling shining batons; big colorful floats; people throwing candy; the marching bands in bright uniforms, playing songs that reverberated in your bones, making you want to clap your hands and jump up and down. He wondered what sort of exciting things a Dreamland parade would have. The sounds of cheers and celebration came from farther up the road as the as-of-yet-unseen spectacle passed the people there. Yusuke was on the edge of his seat. It came over the hill…. It was donkey pulling a cart full of the elderly and infirmed, eight of them. There were no wonders trailing behind it, no floats, no baton girls, and no candy. That was it. As the lackluster scene came into view a great excited roar rose up from the crowd surrounding the two adventurers.

Yusuke leaned over to Ianto, “Am I missing something here?”

“Uh, maybe the people of Pnok celebrate their elderly… for their wisdom?” The blond groped for an explanation.

“Come on boys,” The bartender clapped the both of them on the shoulder, “If ya don’t hurry you’ll miss the miracle!”

As the cart pulled away the crowd flowed into the street to follow it down the road.

“Where is it going?” Yusuke asked the bartender as they too slipped into the tide of humanity.

“To Pnok Pond,” he responded.

“Pond?” Ianto interjected, “I don’t recall there being a pond here.”

“It’s new,” the bartender told them. “We had this problem a while back where the snow melting off the mountains would cause the Salt to flood and back up into the Sweet’s and then we’d have to send men nearly twenty miles up stream just to get proper drinking water.”

“The Salt and the Sweet’s merge a few miles down stream,” Ianto supplied for Yusuke’s sake.”

“Not no more, they don’t,” the bartender puffed out his chest, “Three years ago, we diverted the Sweets off into part an old dried up lakebed and formed Pnok Pond. Then we built a levy to keep the Salts from washing over that yonder hill when it’s in flood and flowing into the pond. You can see part of the levy up there on the hill-- we’ll be setting off some fireworks from there tomorrow night, by the way, if you and you boys are still here then. All in all, it was worth all the work, especially when we found out our new pond had magic.”

“Magic pond?” Yusuke pulled a cynical expression, “What kind of magic?”

“Oh, you’ll see boy-o,” he chuckled.

They eventually came to a stop near a pond that, other than the scores of people milling around it, looked just like any other pond; a murky green surface, a few trees around it, some buzzing insects, nothing special. The donkey drawn cart was parked near the edge of the pond, where a few younger people helped to unload them. One young person was standing on a soapbox with his hands raised, calling for all’s attention.

“Oh, people of Pnok, we have been blessed!” He called out and the crowd responded with their various amen’s. “We, Pnok, have been chosen for a miracle! Fore we, Pnok, celebrate here the Festival of Rejuvenation!!”

“Rejuvenation!!!” The crowd roared. At the same time the eight elderly people had joined hands and strode out into the murky waters of Pnok Pond. Inch by inch they disappeared, chest, shoulder’s, heads.

“What the hell are they doing?!” Yusuke shouted. He could barely be heard over the roar of the crowd. The calm surface of the pond was broken by large bubbles. “They’re drowning! Isn’t anyone going to do something this?!” He made to break for the pond, but their guide, the bartender, held him back with a laugh.

“Don’t worry yourself. Look,” he pointed to the pond.

The man on the box continued his speech, “We, Pnok, will live forever in youth and beauty!” Just then the bodies broke the surface and swam for the shore, eight of them. Yusuke counted. He sighed a breath of relief before sucking it back in as a gasp of shock. The eight who climbed out of the pond were not the eight old people who had gone in-- Correction, they were the same people, Yusuke could see the resemblance, but now the eight were young!

The eight joined in with the man on the box as they called out “That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die!”

To which the crowd responded with a deafening roar, “REJUVENATION!!!!”

Yusuke immediately whipped around to face his blond headed companion, who by the way, was looking rather pale and was swaying on his feet a bit as if he were on the verge of a swoon. Yusuke demanded, “What the hell is this?”

Ianto shook his head sending his long blond tresses swaying, “I-I don’t know. I mean, men have searched the world, sorcerers have dedicated and lost their lives in the pursuit of such a thing… none have ever succeed.”

“And then the friggen Fountain of Youth just shows up in Podunk Pnok,” Yusuke scratched his chin, muttering “Smells fisher than a sea-hag’s cunt.” Then more audibly, “You look tied, Ianto.” He turned to poke at the man who’d led them there, “Hey bar-guy, there wouldn’t happen to be any inn’s with an opening in town?”

“Not with the festival on, people have come in from all around to see the miracle. Everyone‘s been booked for weeks,” the hairy man replied before turning back to the festivities.

Yusuke shrugged, “Oh well, Ianto and I are used to roughing it, aren’t we Ianto?” He punctuated the statement by running a finger over one of Ianto’s yellow locks.

“Yusuke, don’t make it sound so dirty,” Ianto protested as the dark haired man took him by the hand and lead him away from the bustling crowd.

“Ah, cool it, I’m just playing with ya,” Yusuke gave him a foolhardy grin.

Yusuke‘s charms did little to lessen the blonds apprehension’s. “What‘s happening in this town… it‘s not natural. Elderly people spontaneously becoming young-- have you ever heard of such a thing?”

“Well, I had a teacher who could do it, but it only lasted a few minutes before she punned up again, ” Yusuke scratched his nose.

“A demon like you?” Ianto asked.

Yusuke snorted, “There are no other demons like me, and no. She was a powerful human psychic. Genkai. Ever heard of her? No? Well, she’s famous where I’m from. You don’t suppose all those old folks back in the pond were psychics too do ya?”

“That many in one place? No. I think I would have noticed…” he muttered, “Something wasn‘t right about them. It‘ like I can see them, but I can‘t.”

Ianto had a slight psychic aptitude, he couldn’t read from very far distances nor could he read very deeply, only hints, impressions. But it was still better than what Yusuke had. Since his passing through the Gates of Deeper Slumber he had been without his spiritual awareness, as well as the greater part of his demon powers. In addition to the complete loss of his spirit gun, he’d also lost a considerable amount of his demon strength, speed, and endurance. Because of that, Yusuke was nearly killed by a pack of spider-hounds during his first week in Dreams. He meting Ianto shortly after that and it had been a fantastic stroke of luck for Yusuke. The blonde’s near encyclopedic knowledge of the Dreamlands, plus his spark of awareness were usually enough to steer Yusuke away from unnecessary dangers. He may have steered wrong at Pnok.

“Listen, if it’s bugging you so much, I’ll go around, ask some questions, do a little digging-- might find out this whole things just some friggen hoax,” Yusuke shrugged. It seemed simple enough, but then again thing often do seem simpler in Dreams. “No big. While, I do that you can take out your maps and find us a good place to camp-- away from the town and very away from that pond. You think you can find a place like that?”

“Well, yes, but--”

“Thanks. See ya Blondie!” Yusuke gave Ianto a quick peck next to his ear before he took off.

“W-where are you going?” A flustered Ianto called out to Yusuke’s retreating back.

“Back to the bar,” Yusuke called back over his shoulder. “Just come and get me after you’ve staked us out some ass-space!”

“Hey!” Ianto cried out in indignation as he realized this meant he was to set up the camp all by himself. Yusuke didn’t stop. In impotence Ianto yelled, “You had better not spend all our money on booze!”

Truth was Yusuke’s mind was not on booze-- well not completely. He would relish another mug of that slightly salty beer. His retreat to the bar wasn’t just to dodge the work of setting camp either. Truth was that ceremony at the pond had bothered him more than he let on. It was as Ianto said; something wasn’t right about those young people who came out of the pond. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something… false about the whole thing. Oh, it was probably was just a hoax. Like, there was a secret tunnel under the pond where the old folks switched places with their grandkids. And the whole thing was a stunt to generate tourism-- like some friggen episode of Scooby-Doo. That man on the soap box had spoke of immorality and everlasting youth, and as far as Yusuke knew there was no way a human could do that and still stay human.

He found his way back to the bar-stall and found the squat, red haired man was no longer tending it. In his place was a young woman in her early twenties. Yusuke swaggered up to her.

“Hey darling, ya mind fixing me a glass of that Salt beer?” He tossed a coin on the counter.

“If that’s what you want,” She dispensed the drink with a distasteful frown on her pretty face. As she did so, Yusuke couldn’t help but notice the care she put into the task as if she was afraid by death to spill even a drop. Reasonable, Yusuke thought, it was damn good beer. It’d be a shame to waste it.

Yusuke also noticed her hair was the same shocking red color as the bartender’s he’d met earlier. On impulse he asked, “Hey, that other guy running this place, he your dad or something?”

The women threw him a sly smile, “Actually, I’m his mother.”

“You‘re kidding,” Yusuke squeaked with raised eyebrows.

“I know, with a mom like me, you’d think he’d have turned out prettier, right?” She said missing the point of Yusuke’s shock.

“So, you, um, took The Dip huh,” Yusuke said awkwardly.

“The Dip? Oh! You mean I went into the pond. ‘The Dip.’ I like that. We should call it that for now on,” She smiled at him in way that would make most men crumble to their knees, it only made Yusuke uncomfortable. She continued, “Yes, I took ‘The Dip’--as you call it-- a season ago. Just in time too, I was nearly at deaths door.”

Yusuke muttered, “Yeah, good thing, dieing sucks, I know.”

“What was that?” the women asked.

“Nothing,” he covered. “So it really works huh? This magic water?”

“You disbelieve your eyes?” The woman held her arms out to her sides as if challenging him to deny her standing there. “Ha, the town’s elders did not believe it either on that day when Old Man Sims stumbled into town, soaked to the bone from having fallen into the pond while fishing, and not so much the Old Man anymore! That was season’s ago. Since then all the elders have taken ‘The Dip.’”

“It‘s not that I don‘t believe you,” Yusuke lied, “It’s just… well I’ve got this grandma and she’s a great lady, but she‘s… ya know… knocking on Heaven’s door. I was wondering-- No. I guess only locals are allowed to use the water’s right?”

“Non-sense,” the woman smiled, “It is actually the hope of our town that people should come from far and wide to share with us in our miracle. That is why we planned this big festival. Ah, but I see on your face you think we are trying to sell something to you. I will not deny that the town may make a decent profit off our visitors, what with renting of rooms and the serving of food. But I tell you the miracle will not cost you a penny. Your grandmother is welcome here-- and don‘t worry I will not tell her what a naughty boy you are.”

“Huh-what?” Yusuke chocked on the dregs of his beer.

“Well, I could have sworn I heard you say something about sucking,” She clicked her tongue, “My son will come and take over my shift in an hour, perhaps then the two of us could get together at the pond and… talk of more miracles.”

“Oh, um, I’ve got someplace I‘ve got to be right now. Sorry,” Yusuke made a hasty retreat from the counter. In the process he accidentally knocked over his mug and the remains of his bear sloshed over the counter.

“AH! You clumsy fool!” The woman cried out, jumping back from the spill as though it were acid.

Yusuke took it as his chance to escape unmolested. After that Yusuke prowled around the town for a while, chatting with locals. In the process he managed to stumble onto the local food market, which he found much to his likening and decided to buy some fresh things for dinner. He was in the process of paying for his items when he was spotted by an agitated blond.

“You said you’d be at the bar,” Ianto stated shortly.

“Sorry bout that-- but hey, I didn’t spend all our money on booze. See,” He hefted up his coin purse, giving it a jingle to show that there was indeed money inside.

“Well, thank goodness for that,” Ianto said dryly, “I’d hate to run out of funds in this area. Short term job opportunities are hard to come by-- unless you count prostitution of course.”

Yusuke was taken aback by the matter-of-fact tone in which the blond mentioned the taboo profession. He gasped, “You’d whore yourself out for money?”

“Of course not!” Ianto declaimed. Then as a spark of mischief danced behind his eyes, he glanced Yusuke up and down. “I wouldn’t whore myself out.” With that he spun on his heel and marched away, calling back, “Well come on, I’ll show where we’ve camped.”

For a moment Yusuke could only stand and stare at the man’s retreating back and swaying ponytail. A grin slowly spread over his face, “Oh that was not a joke I just heard form Ianto ‘the walking textbook’.”

“What, you don’t think I can be funny?” Ianto snorted as Yusuke caught up and threw an arm over his shoulder.

“I didn’t think ya had it in you,” Yusuke grinned, “I guess I’m rubbing off on you.”

“Rubbing off on me?!” Ianto squeaked as a blush colored his cheeks.

Rubbing off, Yusuke’s juvenile mind quickly picked up the mistaken double entendre. His laughter came out in guffaws and snorts. “No, that’s not what I meant. I meant--” His hysterical laughing interrupted his speech. Had they not already passed out of town, Yusuke surly would have drawn unwanted attention. “I meant my personality is rubbing off on you. You know like, um… screw it. Never mind.” He chuckled, “Oh, my side hurts.”

After a few minutes of walking the two arrived at the spot Ianto deemed suitable for camping. It was not so much a clearing as a place where the trees had thinned and the bush had been cleared away down to the forest’s dirt floor. Yusuke spotted their tent where it was strung up between two trees. It sagged a bit in the middle from having been pitched by only one person. Some feet away, nearly central to the barren area was a shallow fire pit with enough wood to get a cooking fire started, though they would need to gather more before the night was out. Their cooking gear was already set up there, much to Yusuke’s pleasure. He had been looking forward to cooking some real food.

“Look it’s got no eyes,” Yusuke held up the fish he’d bought from the market. “Guy I bought it from says it’s a blind cave-fish. Said they wash out of the salt caverns when the Salt is in flood. Never ate a cavefish before. Looks good though; plump, not a lot of bone to pick around, scales are so soft it’s almost like skin.”

“They’re tasty,” Ianto assured him, “However, I would put that salt shaker down if I were you. Those things live in salt, remember.”

“Oh yeah,” Yusuke put away the aforementioned item. He was glad his companion had brought it up. It would have been a shame to ruin his meal by over-salting it. Especially because he wasn’t sure when he’d have a chance to make something this good again. He was making fillet of fish wrapped in corn husks with garlic, pepper corns, and sliced lemon, and slow roasted over an open fire. These back country area’s of Dreamlands where notorious for having ridiculously limited cuisine. Yusuke felt incredibly lucky that the Pnok market had such a rich variety of food stuffs. It shouldn’t have been that surprising though Pnok was in a prime location, with thick forests to the east, rich mountains to the west, and both salt and fresh water sources and the bounty that comes with such. It was a wonder that the area was not thriving with people.

“Why aren’t there more people living here?” Yusuke asked in a manner that seemed sudden to one not privy to his mental processes.

Ianto glanced up from where he was warming his hands by the fire with a shrug he said, “Pnok hasn’t been settled but a quarter of a century, cities take time to grow.”

“Twenty-five years, huh, that’s all?” Yusuke hummed, “I guess that’s pretty young for a town.”

“Extremely young for a town in Dreams,” Ianto affirmed, “But there are many such young towns these days. For long and long no one was brave enough to settle new areas, afraid of what unknown elements might exist in those areas. It was far safer to dwell in known and ancient cities.”

“Really, what’s different about now?” Yusuke asked idly as he finished his preparations on the meal and made to put the fish over the fire.

Ianto looked at him as though it were the stupidest question he‘d ever heard, but then he remembered that Yusuke was new to the Dreamlands. “Those were the Bad Times, Yusuke, when the Great Old Ones, their kith and kin held reign in Dreams. Back then the woods were alive with ghasts and the skies with gaunts, along with other horrors that description can not bear. There were unspeakable cults who worshiped Yibb-Tstll, and Mnomquuah, Oorn, the Crawling Chaos Nyarlathotep, and of course the lord of them all; Cthulhu, the madness that seeped down from the stars and sleeps in sunken R’lyeh. They seemed to lurk under every rock. If a man, woman, or child went missing it was safely assumed that they had fallen prey to those deviants. In that case death would be a blessing, the things those cults did….

“What changed things you ask? Two words; Titus Crow. A man of the waking world, he was a mystic and traveler through time, space, and dimensions-- or so legend has it. He and his comrade Henry-Laurent de Marigny came to the Dreamlands armed with technologies from the Elder Gods themselves. They destroyed the Fly-the- Light that haunted Dylath-Leen, shut down the engines of nightmare that feed Cthulhu’s dreaming mind, and defeated Nyarlathotep at the Gates of Deeper Slumber. These things utterly disrupted Their hold on Dreams and allowed these peaceful times to come.”

“Wow, that’s quite a story-- the parts of it understood that is,” Yusuke muttered as he removed the fish from the fire and checked that it was cooked through. It was. He divided up the portions onto a couple of tin plates along with some mixed vegetables he’d boiled in a pot. “So these guys just show up and-- here ya are, eat up-- and suddenly Dreams are all nice?”

“Thanks,” Ianto took the offered plate, “It wasn’t like that-- in fact I still wouldn’t describe Dream’s as ‘nice’, better maybe. No it took time to weed out all the dark cults and things. Remnants of those Bad Times still pop up now and then, but not the all out infestation that it was-- Whoa! That’s some good fish. I was suspicious when I saw you putting lemon on it, but that’s really good!”

“People don’t put lemon on fish in Dreams?”

“Lemons are only used in sweet things and drinks.”

Yusuke tisked, “What have you been eating all these years?”

“Ah, forgive me fore I did not know any better,” Ianto said, a smile touching his lips.

For a moment all talk of strange dark gods from the ends of time and strange unholy miracles from new ponds was forgotten in the warm bubble around the campfire, with the smells from exotic food in the air and the sounds of laughter from two fools. After a time their chatter died down, as did the fire allowing the cool of the night to creep in no the duo. But the day’s exhaustion had already set on the two, so they put out their fire in preparation to bed down. As they crawled into their shared bedroll-- they shared it because two bodies kept warm better than one-- Ianto asked fugitively, “Did you find anything out about that pond, by the way?”

Yusuke told him what he’d gathered form the young/old lady at the bar; the story of the so-called miracle’s discovery when Old Man Sims fell into it and came out Young Man Sims, that all the town elders have used the pond, and of their plans to “Share the miracle with the world. Yusuke finished by saying, “At first I thought it was some publicity thing to draw tourism, ya know. But now it sounds like some freaky cult thing.”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Ianto sighed from where he lay next to Yusuke. Yusuke sat up and leaned over Ianto so he could see his face. There was definably trouble written on his delicate features.

“Why do you say that?” He asked.

“It was something that happened at the ceremony,” He muttered, “Those lines they said as they rose from the waters, “‘That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die.’”

“What does it mean?”

“No body knows what it means exactly,” Ianto told him, “But those same lines have appeared in many places throughout history usually in correlation with trouble… bad trouble.”

“Your scared,” Yusuke cooed, “Don’t worry I’ll protect you!” Yusuke howled as he grabbed Ianto roughly around the waist and pulled him into a viscous bear hug.

“This is serious!” Ianto yelped as Yusuke mauled him, “Knock it off!”

“You like the attention,” Yusuke growled, digging his fingers into the soft flesh under his arms. Much to Yusuke’s surprise and delight this caused the smaller man to arch his back and howl. Yusuke thrilled, “Ianto… you’re ticklish!”

“No no, please stop,” Ianto begged hysterically.

“Oh no, never! This so too much fun,” Yusuke continued to assault his companion.

“Yuuusukeee,” Ianto whined. Then he gasped and his eyes widened. Immediately Yusuke stopped moving his fingers. There was a sound outside, just beyond the edge of their camp.

“Yusuke,” Ianto whispered griping the demon’s strong forearm.

“It’s okay,” Yusuke whispered back, just the barest breath of a sound. “I’ll just pop outside and take a look. Kay?”

Yusuke plucked up his hunting knife from where he’d rested it next to the bedroll and slipped silently out of the tent. Reason told him it was most likely an animal that strayed close to their camp, but then again reason doesn’t always hold sway in Dreams. That’s when he saw it, a quick shadow dart from one tree to the next. No animal this, it walked on two legs. Yusuke growled deep in his chest and stalked towards the shadow. Crouched low, he sniffed the air. He smelled wood, dirt, and fish. That was odd; he would have thought that the smell of their dinner would have dissipated by then. He put it aside. He had bigger fish to fry, so to speak.

He saw the shadow again-- it seemed farther away? Was it leaving their camp? Why would it leave? And on the token why was it there-- drawn by the sounds of Ianto’s ticklish laughter? Unlikely. Yusuke’s pondering was suddenly broken by a sharp cry. That scream, it as Ianto. Yusuke rushed back to the tent, cursing himself. That’s way the shadow was moving away from the camp, to led him away. And he fell for it. He left Ianto alone.

Yusuke rushed onto the campsite, ready to rip someone’s throat out, but he found it empty save for a small pile of camping equipment and a torn damp piece of cloth stung between two trees which was once their tent. Yusuke hissed, “Ianto?” No answer. “Ianto!!” he screamed, but nothing answered but silence.

Minutes later found Yusuke tearing through the woods like a rabid wolf on a warpath. He was headed straight for the town ready to bust some heads, but then another notion alighted on him. It was just a feeling, but Yusuke always had luck with his feelings before. He changed his direction, this time heading to Pnok Pond. He had no idea what he would find there, or even what to expect. Which was probably a god-send because no sane man could have expected the sight that greeted Yusuke when as he came up on the bush, beyond which lay Pnok Pond.

At the edge of the pool was a group milling around as any group of people would do-- except these were not people, or at least not human. They where basically human in shape, two arms and two legs attached to a trunk with a head, but that was were the similarity ended. They were long and gangly, covered from head to toe in dull gray scales. The looked a lot like a bipedal tuna. They had sharp hooked claws on the ends of their webbed hands and feet-- and now that Yusuke was looking he realized that only the ones who standing had legs. The seated ones had long whip-like tails, like an eel. Also eel-like was the vast multitude of needle teeth within their wide silted mouths and their bulging sulfurous yellow eyes that seemed to glow under unwholesome moonlight.

All at once the group came to attention. Yusuke thought he’d been spotted, for a second. But no, they were looking the other way. There was a group of people headed toward the lake, humans-- young humans. As they came closer Yusuke watched the tuna-people. The ones who had be sitting, the ones with tails instead of feet where rising. The flesh on their lower half shimmered, melted, and flowed, reshaping itself into at pair of bony legs. They can change their shape, Yusuke realized with a shock, which was quickly turning to horror as the human party drew nearer. He recognize a number of them form the group of young/old people who had taken ‘The Dip’ that afternoon. And one of them was the red haired woman from the bar. As they approached the pond their shapes began to shimmer, melt and flow. Human party was not human at all!

That was not the part that sent a wave of terror racing down Yusuke’s spine. He was a demon after all, and used to seeing all sorts of genotypes. What really scared him was the struggling blond haired bundle which was slung over one of the creatures backs. Yusuke was relieved to see he was alive. He was hurt though. Even in the dark Yusuke could the dark red streaks running through his long yellow locks. The tuna-person who was carrying him stopped at the edge of the water and dropped him. Ianto landed in the shallow water with a curse and a muddy splash. The blond made an attempt to regain his feet, but he had difficultly finding purchase in the mud slimed shallows. It was a pointless effort in any case. The tuna-people had already ringed him in on three sides. The only direction open to him would have taken him deeper into the pond.

Out there, not twenty feet from where Ianto crouched, something broke the dark glassy surface of the pond. A bump of flesh with a spinney fin; the back of a fish. Neither Yusuke nor Ianto had to guess what kind of fish. That spine, peeking up like a sharks fin, rushed toward Ianto with incredible speed. Into the shallow waters, the creature reared up before Ianto. It was the same as the others, but thinner-- deathly thin and its skin was paler too, so much that it looked almost transparent. Even from the Yusuke’s distance, he could see the creature’s bone and stingy muscle though at pale grey-green skin. Was the thing sick or… malnourished?

“Ianto!” Yusuke called out in a rush of panic as he hurtled forward, unmindful for the danger he was running toward. The group of tuna-people turned, hissing between razor teeth, and threw up clawed hands ready to attack. Yusuke plowed right through them and drove on into the water where he snatched up his blond haired companion. Hooked claws reached to ensnare him, but grasped only at air. Yusuke had gone.

Some many meters away Yusuke paused in his flight. He looked down at the blond in his arms. He was shaken and looked somewhat disorientated. He had been clinging to Yusuke’s shoulders so hard there were sure to be burses there. Yusuke gave him a reassuring squeeze and a shake. Then, Ianto looked around as if finally taking in his surroundings.

He gasped out, “W-where are--”

“Away from that place-- but not far enough. Come on,” Yusuke placed him on his feet, but kept hold of his hand as he encouraged the blond to walk with him quickly.

“You’re very fast,” Ianto was referring to the speed at which Yusuke had escaped the pond.

“Yeah, it’s a demon thing. I used to be faster. Damn it, a one time I could have plucked you out of there before those things knew it and then destroyed them all with my friggen finger,” Yusuke bitched. “Crap! Where the hell did those things come from anyway?!”

“This is just conjecture, but I’d say they came from the pond,” Ianto said dryly, some of his usual composure returning to him.

“The ponds only been there for three years, remember what bar-guy said?” Yusuke grunted, “They diverted the Sweets into some old dried up lakebed-- wait a second.”

“What is it?” Ianto urged him.

“Well, I think remember something I saw on animal channel when I was being too lazy to look for the remote,” Yusuke frowned and then moved on before Ianto had a chance to ask what a remote and an animal channel was. “There are these things called lungfish, I think. They survive dry seasons by become a doormat or something.”

“You mean dormant!” Ianto exclaimed, “Yes, those things probably lived in that old lake before it dried up, oh maybe a hundred years ago or longer. They became dormant, and then Pnok filled the pond with water and--”

“And then they came back to life, like a friggen bag of freeze-dried sea-monkeys.” Yusuke picked it up, “Those things can shape shift so that explains how they can do that old to young thing-- but why the big show? And what happened to the real old folks?”

“Yusuke,” Ianto hesitated, “If you were a giant carnivorous fish who’d been asleep for gods know how long, what would be the first thing on your mind?”

“Taking a leak?” Yusuke said, “No, I get it, shit. You think they--”

“Ate them, Yusuke.” Ianto continued, “I think there shape shifting is dependant on consuming the genetic material of the creature they’re impersonating. Otherwise they could be anyone and wouldn’t need victims brought to them. That could also explain how they are able to take the younger form of a person. It’s genetic memory.”

“Pretty clever, make it look like it’s the friggen Fountain of Youth and every lady who thinks with crows feet will be diving into those waters,” Yusuke shuttered. “That lady said they wanted to draw people in from all over Dreams.”

“Goodness, didn’t you say all of the town’s elders had gone in there?” Ianto gasped in horror, “Those creatures must be running the town itself. How many do you think they’ve taken?”

“Don’t know,” Yusuke shook his head, “It could be all of them for all we know, but… maybe not. Damn it, what if there are still innocent people in that village that don‘t know this is going on? If there are, we have to warn them and stuff. But, shit how do we know who’s human and who’s a fish-freak?!”

“As much as I hate to admit it, Yusuke, I don’t know everything,” Ianto snapped, “But there is a place where we can find some answers… hopefully.”

“Where?” Yusuke demanded.

Ianto pointed ahead to where the woods thinned and the structures of the town sprung up. He uttered, “The City Hall of Records.”

The two had no problem finding the correct building. Being an important city government building it was in the center of town, a stout stone crafted building, just opposite of a weathered wooden clock-tower and adjacent to the towns church-- temple, or whatever it was the Pnokans called their house of worship. The two found a long narrow window on the shaded side of the building, the perfect place to break and enter without being seen. And on that note Yusuke asked Ianto as he hefted the smaller man up on his shoulders so he could reach the window, “I would’ve thought those things would be prowling around here looking for us, but I ain’t seen nothing.”

“I’ve noticed that too,” Ianto said as he placed his palms flat on the glass and began to gently giggle the pane. “I suppose we should be relieved they’re not pursuing, but it makes me nervous. I can’t image what they are up to.” In a moment there was an audible click as the widow’s lock jostled open. He slid the window open and climbed inside. He turned to give Yusuke a hand up, but the demon had already hoped up to the window ledge.

Slightly startled Ianto smiled, “I guess I’ll have to get used to surprises, if I’ going to be traveling with a man such as you.”

Yusuke snorted in good humor, “You got a few surprises yourself, Blondie. Don’t think I didn’t notice how easily you broke into this place. You’ve done this before haven’t you?”

Ianto shrugged as he scanned a wall of file cabinets. “You ever have a late liberty book in Dylath-Leen? Their buildings close at sundown and believe me the late fees are killer.”

He opened a drawer that he deemed to hold some significance and riffled though the papers inside. He pulled a file out, seemingly at random, opened it, and scanned it before tossing it onto a worn old table that sat in the middle of the drab little room. Ianto immediately moved to another drawer and repeated the process. He did this, maybe six or seven times, in a haphazard frenzy before a piece of paper came into his hand that made him say, “Ah-ha!” He flew over to a shelf of big, dusty, worm eaten books. His fingers danced over them like piano keys before he touched the one he wanted. After that the tugged it form the shelf to toss it unceremoniously onto the now paper cluttered table.
He flipped through the pages. It was a ledger of some sort, just columns of words and numbers that wouldn’t have meant anything to Yusuke. Occasionally he stopped to riffle through the papers on the desk. Then he found a page he must have liked because he tapped it with his finger and promptly closed the book. He carried the thing over to one of the two doors in the room. He tugged on the handle and didn’t look surprised to find it locked. Without hesitation, he hefted up that great big book and brought it down on the handle, snapping it off with a dull thud.

“Okay, what the hell are you up to?” Yusuke asked, at last tired of watching his companion’s seemingly erratic behavior.

Ianto smiled as he slipped into the now unlocked room. He came back seconds later with a large, rolled up, tattered and yellowed piece of parchment in hand. He informed Yusuke “This is what I’ve been looking for. Appendix 86.”

Indeed that was what it’s label read: Appendix 86. Though that hardly answered Yusuke’s question. Ianto used Yusuke’s knife to remove the seal from it and then unrolled it on the table. He explained, “It’s a historical map of the area, a reproduction actually. You can tell form the water mark here next to the date. My, I’d say the information on this map hasn’t been valid for the last three hundred years. The Salt and the Sweet’s Creeks were probably less than a little trickle in ruts on the mountainside.”

“This big lumpy blue spot, here is the old lake, then?” Yusuke pointed to the map.

“It is,” Ianto nodded, “Lake Heylr… hmm, I’ve never heard of it. Shoot. I had thought that if I found out the name of the lake, I’d be able to connect it with some ancient legend I’ve read, but… Heylr? Shoot!” In a rare display of agitated aggression he stabbed the knife into the map, right in the middle of the lake.

“Hey,” Yusuke leaned down seeming to examine the length of the knife as he spoke, “Wasn’t that the name of that place where the Cat-lulu guy lives?”

“It’s Cthulhu,” Ianto corrected, “and he is imprisoned in R’lyeh.”

“Yeah, that’s what I mean,” Yusuke beckoned Ianto to look where he was looking. There, mirrored in the broad side of the knife where it stuck out of the map next the scribed words ‘Lake Heylr’ read ‘Rlyeh.’

Ianto gasped and Yusuke cocked an eyebrow, “I take it that’s more than a coincidence.”

“Reversed spelling,” Ianto mused as if he hadn’t heard Yusuke. “I suppose that could be considered spiteful naming. But they were in the water so… hmm.”

“Dreamlands to Blondie,” Yusuke mimed knocking on his head, “Care to let the rest of us in on this little discussion.”

“Oh, of course,” Ianto cleared his throat in embarrassment. “Deep Ones is what we call them, those part-men and part-fish minions of Cthulhu. A long time ago, there was a sect of Dream’s Deep Ones who turned from the worship of Cthulhu. For such they were banished from the oceans and cursed that should they ever dare to touch anything of that realm, the waters should melt their flesh, bone and all until they were nothing more than puddle of foul corruption. There was more, a cryptic clue as to where they found their new home after they left the ocean. ‘They named it in spite of the seat of their vengeful lord.’ Cthulhu being the lord and his seat is R’lyeh.”

“And the opposite of R’lyeh is Heylr,” Yusuke finished it, quite proud of himself for having noticed the similarity. “So, now we know who these freaks are, what are we gonna do about it?”

The discussion would have continued, but at that moment the night was pierced by a sharp scream. More cries followed shortly. Yusuke rushed to the widow and cursed between clenched teeth, “Shit!”

Ianto was right behind him and gasped at what he saw; hordes of tuna-people in various stages of metamorphous where pouring out of inns, hotels and residences, taking with them the masses of terrified populace. It was absolute pandemonium out there as the people of Pnok struggled against their half-familiar abductors. Men where confronted with old friends and neighbors, not able to tell if they were authentic or atrocity. Husbands reached for their wives, only to find slime covered claws grasping back at them. Yusuke even spotted a partially-Piscean granny dragging a pair of children away, netted in the handmade wool shawl. They were taking them to the pond, Yusuke realized, mass converting.

“We got to stop them!” Yusuke lunged for the window, but Ianto’s arms thrown around his waist stopped him.

“There’s too many, Yusuke, even you can’t take them all!” Ianto pleaded.

Yusuke stopped, knowing that Ianto was right, yet his muscles still tensed. He growled, “We can’t just stand by and watch all those people get turned into fish food.”

“We can’t stop them either,” Ianto bit out, “It‘s not possible! We need to, I don‘t know, get out of here and find help. We could get word to King Carter--”

He almost had Yusuke calmed down and thinking, when a shrill scream diverted his attention. There was little girl, no more than eight years of age, stumbling and retreating down the ally before them. A tuna-man was right on her heals, hooked claws stretching to reach her. Without a backward glance, Yusuke soared out the window, landing with his two feet in the middle of the creature’s spine. It gave out with a sickly crack.

“Ya okay?” He went to the child, but the kid looked past him.

“Aunt w’Rosy!” She beamed and rushed past him toward a pretty, young woman framed in the ally behind him.

“Come here Alice. Come to Aunty,” the woman crooned. Yusuke couldn’t help but notice how she was in full view of the marauding tuna-people, yet they did nothing to molest her.

“Kid don’t!” He cried out moments before her eyes bulged sulfurous yellow and long hooks emerged form her fingertips to ensnare the child. Yusuke flew at her fist-first. The blow sent her spiraling through the air to land limply several feet away, like wet sack. Individually the things weren’t very strong or fast-- compared to Yusuke that is. They might prove a problem for regular humans. Not a second after ‘Aunt w’Rosy’ hit the ground, two more half-morphed tuna-people converged on Yusuke, one throwing itself on his back and the other moving to slice open his belly with its razor sharp claws. It missed him by a long-shot as Yusuke fainted back away from it. In the same fluid move he grasped the forearm of the one on his back to flip it off his person. By the time he’d done that, Aunt w’Rosy was back on her feet and three more tuna-people where closing in on him. And to make matters worse the little girl he had been trying to save had run off into the shadows. He could only hope she had found herself a hiding place from this maddens.

“All right, you fish-assed bastards come and get it!” Yusuke called out as he prepared to fight. And fight he did; kicking, punching or grappling every scaly face that came close to him. But to no avail, it was as if for every one he knocked down three more showed up to take its place. Or maybe, there were fewer than it seemed and they were tag teaming him. Two creatures lunged at him at once. He grabbed one with each hand and was about to smash them into one another, when a third sprung up in his blind spot. He cursed, “Shit!”

The creature was about to sink its scythe-like teeth into his shoulder, when out of nowhere… a book! A big fat volume crashed down on the things head, knocking it silly. Left and right his assailants were being struck down by that hale storm of books.

“Oi! Take that ya fishy bastards!” The blond in the window called out before striking down another tuna-person with a thick tome.

Yusuke disposed of the two tuna-men that were occupying his hands as he laughed to his companion, “Hey, is that what they meant when they said ‘knowledge is power’?”

Ianto opted not to answer that as he hurled another book down at a tuna-man trying to sneak up on Yusuke. It saw it coming and dodged, but in doing so, left itself open to the sidelong kick Yusuke delivered to its face. At that point Ianto dropped from the window, his hunting knife in hand. Yusuke took this as a sign that the blond had run out of books. He slashed at one that came too close to him, not causing any damage, but still driving the creature off.

“I must be going insane,” he shouted over the fray, “fighting when by all rights I should be running.”

“It’s cuz I’m rubbing off on you,” Yusuke grinned.

“Now is not the time to discus your private habits!” Ianto tossed back.

Yusuke couldn’t help a massive grin. Ianto told a joke-- an immature, dirty joke-- and during a life or death battle at that. Yep, he was rubbing off on him alright. Back to matters at hand, Yusuke took enemies out three at once with a well placed roundhouse kick, subsequently leaving a gap in the crowd. Before it could close, he snatched at Ianto’s free hand and howled, “Now, we run!” He hauled him through the gap.

All over the streets people were fighting, fleeing and falling. Yusuke’s protective nature shouted at him to rush to their aid, rescue them. But they were everywhere all at once. It was imposable for him to help them all, however he may try. He pulled a clawing tuna-person off a screaming woman and tossed it into another charging creature. Both were sent flying into a stack of beer barrels. The barrels busted and their contents washed over the creatures-- and melted them! Yusuke suddenly remembered how the bar-woman-- slash; tuna-thing-in-disguise-- reacted to his spilled drink, like it was acid. Because to her it was! Oh, what a horrible existence, Yusuke thought, to be unable to touch a drop of beer. Ha sucks to be them!

He grabbed up a keg marked Sweet’s Beer as another tuna threw itself at him. He smirked, “This one’s on you buddy!” Which would’ve been really cool had the beverage it’s the desired effect and melted the creature. It didn’t. Instead the creature just looked perplexed for a second before it hissed and lunged for his throat. Just then a stream of purple liquid splashed on the creature. It mewed in agony as its skin began to melt. Yusuke looked to where the lifesaving fluid had come to find the red haired bar-man standing there with mug in one hand.

“It’s the only Salts beer that does it, apparently,” the man informed him. “Oddest thing isn’t it?”

“Yeah, damned handy though,” Yusuke panted. All the fighting had left him winded. He silently cursed his endurance for not being as much as it used to be. “You wouldn’t happen to have about a thousand more gallons of the stuff would you? Ya, I didn’t think so.” Yusuke started and looked around in a panic, “Ianto?!”

“I’m here,” the blond shuffled around the corner of a building.

“Dang it, Ianto, get over here where I can protect you!” Yusuke yowled at him.

“From what?” Ianto made a sweeping gesture and for the first time Yusuke realized the streets were empty and quiet. If not for the handful of fish-corpses that littered the ground, no one would have guessed that just moments ago the town had been under siege.

Ianto told him sullenly, “They’ve gone back to the pond and taken the people of Pnok with them. I’m sorry Yusuke, but I told you….” The blond winced and cupped a wound on his side that Yusuke had not seen him receive. It wasn’t big, but it was deep and bleeding a lot. Yusuke felt bad. He’d let Ianto get hurt over his stupid hero antics and for what? The things got away.

“No,” bar-guy looked around suddenly noticing the stillness for himself, “My mother… I haven’t been able to find her since this thing started. I gotta find her.”

Ianto, bless his heart, stopped him with a pale hand rested gently on a hairy forearm, “I’m sorry, your mother’s been dead for a season. The young women you’ve been living with...she was an imposter. She was one of them.”

“NO!” The man shouted, angry tears rising in his eyes, “You lie!” For a second Yusuke thought he was going to hit the dainty blond. “You can’t KNOW that!”

“She had red hair and was wearing a green dress was she not?” Ianto asked holding his wound more carefully as he moved.

“A green dress with blue and grey lace, aye,” the bar-man answered, “I gave that dress to her on her birthday. She wore it so often the lace had begun to fray on the sleeves.”

“I am so sorry,” Ianto shook his head and pointed down the street to a crumbled fish body, sheathed in a human’s dress.

“No…” the bar-guy ran to the body where it lay. A long vertical slash ran from the length of its belly to its throat. It had revered completely to its true form in death, but the dress remained. It was ripped and stained with greasy green-grey blood, but still the man recognized it; the pattern of the woven fibers, the tasteful layers of lace, the frayed bits on the cuffs and neckline. And over the place where her right breast should have been was a brooch, his mother’s pride and joy, shaped like a beetle with twin jewels serving as its wings. It was one of a kind, handed down to the women in his family for six generations. She was going to give it to his wife one day, when he found one. Seeing it pinned to this monster… he could never image seeing it on a woman he loved. The bar-guy chocked on his agony, “W-when she spoke of going to the pond, I encouraged it… I-I let them take her. I was such a fool!”

It’s never easy watching a grown man cry, Yusuke knew. He could feel the man’s pain like it was his own. He felt like he should say something, anything, but what? Yusuke had never been good with words, especially when tact was required. To make it worse he knew that this was not an isolated tragedy, but one that was consuming an entire town. If left unchecked, it would spread to the rest of Dreams. And he, Yusuke Urameshi was helpless to do a damn thing about it. The idea pissed him right off.

“Come on,” he grunted to Ianto, pulling him along.

“Where are we going?” Ianto asked the enraged demon, even though the answer was already clear. They where headed in the direction of Pnok Pond. “You intend to challenge them again, don’t you? Yusuke, you can’t--”

“Listen,” Yusuke turned on him, “if you’re scared, I understand. You can run if you want to, but I can’t, damn it. Someone’s got to end this… put those damn fish-ass bastards in their place.”

Ianto swallowed and then in an even tone, he said, “If you’re so intent on this… this, then let’s at least take a quicker route. Come. We can take the old mill road. It doesn’t really go anywhere now that the mills have been moved, but it should take us close to the pond-- I think, near the Salt Creek levy.”

A smile touched Yusuke’s lips for a moment, noting how Ianto ignored the permission to leave. Ianto lead him from the stone cobbled main roads to a disused dirt road that was half consumed by weeds and tree roots. A handful of short minutes found them on a hill overlooking Pnok Pond where the air was cold from the spray off the levy and smelled of salt. Ianto wasn’t kidding when he said the old mill road would be faster. Below he could see the hoards of tuna-people at the pond with their forlorn victims in tow. They had come by the main road and even with their head start, where only now arriving.

The pond which was once as still and as flat as a mirror’s surface, was now vibrating with the un-wholesome life that seethed below it. Upon seeing this, the town’s people renewed their struggles, in vain however. They screamed. At least, Yusuke assumed they were screaming. All he could hear was the damned water rushing behind the Salt Creek levy.

“Wait a second, I‘m an idiot!” Yusuke gasped as he turned on his heel and ran up the hill.

“I’m not going to argue with that, but where are you going now?” Ianto called as he followed.

“The Salt’s beer melted them,” Yusuke explained, “You didn’t see it cuz you were somewhere else, but it melted them. Sweet’s kind didn’t work like that though, it’s cuz it ain’t the beer. It’s the Salt!” Yusuke exclaimed as the threads came together in his mind. The sudden decline in the use of salt in a salt town; the bar woman’s reaction to the salt beer; and the words from the legend that Ianto told him, “banished from the oceans… cursed… if they touch anything of that realm… waters melt their flesh….” Ianto had been confused over seeing those creatures in water, because they were supposedly banished from the water-- no the ocean-- salt water!

“It’s salt that kills them.” Yusuke grabbed Ianto excitedly by the shoulders, “And we got a shit-load of the stuff right over there!” He pointed up to stone and earthworks that held back the Salt.

“Of course, how did I not see that,” Ianto whispered to himself. Then to Yusuke he said, “But how do we get the salt water down there? I know that gravity would carry it down the hill, but we would have to break the levy first. We have no way of doing that.”

“Yes we do,” Yusuke told him as they approached the levy. There he found as he had expected, a small, yet extremely well water-proofed shed. He pulled back the tarps and opened the door to show Ianto what was inside.

They were wooden crates with a simple legend stencil-printed on the side. Ianto had already smelled the black powder, making his reading of the letters redundant, “Made in Ilek-Vad: Fireworks.”

“Yeah, I remembered bar-guy saying something about them shooting fireworks off up here,” Yusuke smirked.

“They have so much,” Ianto was stunned.

“Yeah, I guess they wanted make sure they had enough for a grand finale,” Yusuke drawled as he began to unload the first of the explosives.”

“It would have been more than grand,” Ianto snorted, clearly finding something amusing about the whole thing. He explained, “These people obviously didn’t know what they were doing. These are Ilek-Vad made fireworks, they‘re… powerful.”

“You think they can put hole in the levy, then?” Yusuke asked.

Ianto laughed, “Ha, there’s enough here to here to send the flipping thing into orbit!”

“’Flipping thing?’” Yusuke tittered at the other man’s choice of words.

“Yes, yes, I know. You are ‘rubbing off on me’, insert masturbation joke here, yada-yada.” Ianto waved his hand flippantly. “Let’s move it already-- you see, they are almost at the pond!”

And that they were. All around the pond, tuna-people were dragging the kicking, screaming people of Pnok over the muddy shores and into the murky shallows. Meanwhile up at the levy, Ianto and Yusuke franticly placed the explosives along the base of the earthworks. Yusuke jammed the last of them at the end of the levy and then groped in his pockets for his flints-- or firestones as they were called in Dreams. He didn’t have them. He realized with dread that he’d left them in camp, next to the cooking pots.

He quickly asked Ianto, “You got some firestones?”

“No,” Ianto answered wide eyed, “I left all my things are in the camp when they dragged me off. Why, I wouldn’t have shoes right now if it hadn’t been so cold tonight. The shed perhaps! I‘ll go see if there‘s a set in there.” Ianto rushed for the little outbuilding.

Yusuke almost went to follow him, but he caught sight of the commotion at the pond, where even now the spectral tuna-things were rising from the depths to claim their floundering victims. Impatiently he called out, “Ianto, where are those damned firestones!”

“I can’t find any!” The blond burst out, nearly frustrated to tears.

“Damn it!” Yusuke cursed, his face heating up with rage, frustration, and shame for his impotence to stop the whole thing. In his fit he nearly bolted down the hill to confront those creatures, heedless to the fact that as he was with less then his normal power and so very out numbered, he would surly be killed. But just as his tightly coiled muscles were about to spring, Yusuke found himself tackled to the ground by his blond headed companion.

“Don’t go,” Ianto chocked, his fists bunched in coarse material of Yusuke’s shirt where he buried his face. “They’ll kill you. You can‘t die you--”

“I don’t care, damn it,” Yusuke snarled. “Let me go, Blondie!”

“No!!” Ianto lifted his face so Yusuke could see the tears staining his cheeks red and blurring his pale Atlanta-green eyes. He gasped “You can’t die, you… you haven’t found Kurama or Hiei yet.”

With the utterance of those names, Hiei… Kurama, Yusuke’s body went slack. That’s right if he let himself get killed here, he’d never see them again, never get the chance to tell Hiei that he loves him-- or figure out his confused feelings for Kurama. But could he just walk away from what was going on in down in that accursed pond? As fate would have it, Yusuke would not be required to make that decision. At that moment a friendly, if not a little red, face came puffing up the hill towards them. It was bar-guy.

“If I did I not hear correctly from your shouts,” he said fishing in his pockets, “you are in need of firestones?” He held out a set of the precious stones.

“Ah-ha, I could kiss you!” Yusuke cheered-- and then he did. He quickly took the stones from the stunned bartender and rushed to the nearest fuse and struck it. He turned as the fuse sizzled and burned away. He called, “Run for it!”

The three of them scrambled for the distant tree-line where they dove headlong into a shallow trench just as the hissing ceased. The ground trembled beneath them as levy erupted in a grand ball of fire and hurled dirt. Down below tuna-things and human victims alike stopped their scuffles to look up at the crumbling hillside. Then in a rumbling wave, the water’s of the Salt rushed down the hillside, spreading out as they went. For all the noise the water’s made as they left the levy, it was only two inches deep by the time it washed down to the pond. That however, was more than enough. The Tuna-creatures shrieked in pain as salt laced water lapped around their ankles. Their legs gave out on them as the flesh down there dissolved into green-gray slime. The townsfolk, once struggling to escape, latched onto their would-be attackers, dragging them down into the cleansing waters. And as for the ones still resigned to the pond, it was a fair bet that they too were destroyed. If the thick layer of foul green-gray scum that bubbled atop the pond was of any indication.

Even the scum had dissolved by the time the sun rose and found our two adventurers sitting atop the embankment overlooking Pnok Pond. The bar-guy had already gone down to join his fellow Pnokans where he was greeted as a hero. Yusuke and Ianto opted to stay back. It had been a long night and the two were drained in more ways than one.

“Hey,” Yusuke spoke at last.

“Hmm?” Ianto responded lazily.

“Um,” Yusuke said awkwardly. He felt as though he should say something to the blond after everything that had happened to them that night; the running and the fighting, the confusion and terror, seeing all that loss and the gruesome victory-- He never could have done it alone.

Ianto stood abruptly, “We’ll need to restock our supplies and procure a new tent if we want to be on our way before the day is wasted.”

“Ianto…” Yusuke interjected

“Now, I know you must be tired, I am too. But if we dally so, I swear we shall never see Barharna.” He turned to give Yusuke a hand up, a warm welcome smile playing on his lips, just for Yusuke. Yusuke took his hand, deciding that nothing needed to be said. The two found the things they need and slipped out of town with little notice paid to them. Which was all well and good for them, they didn’t need to be held up with fanfare. They were Barharna bound.

The Mystic Pond of Pnok-- END.

Character Profile (cuz I’ve neglected to mention it in the this story)
Name: Ianto. Pronounced (yawn-toe). OC. Named after Torchwood character because like his namesake he’s mainly there to provide information and serve drinks.
Height and Body Type: About five foot in his thick socks and slender.
Facial Type: ‘Cherubim’ in the Neo-Classic sense, not Rococo The difference is between looking 14 and 4.
Hair: Long braided and blond. Blonds have more fun ya know.
Eye Color: Atlanta Green aka the coke bottle color.
Fashion: Typical of Dreams. Loose shirts and jackets over trimmed leggings. Prefers grays blues and cream colors.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed this story, the first in five that I’ve planned-- loosely planned. Like this one they will be mysteries of sorts. It’s about time Yusuke earn the title “Detective”. There will also be some development in the relationship between Ianto and Yusuke. See ya next time.