"I'm a fool," the Governor muttered. "A blistering idiot. We should never have gone on this mission. I've failed Cogsborough."
"As if you cared about Cogsborough," Jessie snapped. "Those scientists are in danger, thanks to you."
"I have to cut some corners somewhere," he offered for a lame apology. "I assure you that I am a well-liked and effective politician, even if I have to be sort of dishonest every once in a while."
Jessie just rolled her eyes and shook her head.
"Guys, we can't start arguing," Lukas said, desperate to stop the fight before it even started. "Now's not the time."
"For once, I have to agree with Blonde Guy," Ivor chimed in. "We won't escape this situation if we won't work with each other. Ask the boss if he has any plans."
"Do you have any plans?" Jessie haltingly relayed the question to the Governor.
"No," was his crisp response. He slumped on the floor and rubbed his hands over his face.
"No!" Petra shouted suddenly, and yanked the Governor to his feet. "We are not giving up, Tiberius."
"Governor…" he mumbled.
"No, you're Tiberius until you get ahold of yourself. Because a mopey dude is not governing material. If there's one thing I hate, it's quitters. So we're not quitting. Everyone got it?"
"But we've lost," Tiberius whined. "The Kracken is captured. We're captured. There's nothing we can do."
Petra slapped him.
"Ouch!"
"I said I hate 's always something we can do, but if we waste time whining, we won't find out what it is. Jessie? Lukas? Ivor? Any ideas?"
Ivor shrugged. "No comment."
Lukas stepped forward. "The Stalex is taking us away from Cogsborough.I'll bet the rebel ragamuffins have a secret base that they're heading towards. They thought we were dumb for leading us to the Kracken, but the joke's on them if they're leading us to their secret base. And who knows? Maybe we'll find the portal home while we're at it. We can slip away, infiltrate their base, rescue the Kracken, and find that portal!"
Tiberius sat back down and grumbled something under his breath, obviously not convinced by Lukas's pep talk.
"It's an okay idea," Petra said.
"And it's our only idea," Jessie added. "I say we go with it."
They fell silent, the only sound being the quiet groan of the chain connecting the Captain Swan and the Stalex. The submarine was facing backwards, pulled along by its stern, and all that was visible outside the porthole was dark water. At the surface, the sun must have gone behind the clouds, stifling its light's attempts to reach the ocean floor.
"Did someone dump a slowness potion on that ship or something?" Ivor asked, complaining about how the Stalex was churning along, unhurried, above them. "How did that ever win any battles if it moves that slowly?"
"They're probably driving it at a snail's pace to give us time for moping," Tiberius griped, still sitting dejectedly on the metal floor.
"What a great role model," Petra said with a sarcastic eye-roll. "I'm sure you're a fantastic inspiration back home."
Just as Tiberius was about to retaliate, the Stalex's horn blared again (it seemed to have a knack for interrupting people) and the warship ground to a halt altogether. The somewhat abrupt stop made the Captain Swan lurch and bump against some rocks on the ocean floor. The cabin shook, and its occupants stumbled about, trying not to fall down.
"Are we there yet?" Jessie asked. "Can you see the bad guys' base?"
"We can't see anything out the viewport," Lukas said, pointing at the useless view of where they'd already been. Even though they couldn't see much, the gang could hear pounding and clanking noises overhead, muffled by the water.
"What's going on?" Petra asked, trying to see through the viewport.
"It sounds like some kind of machinery," Jessie said. "Maybe they're unloading cargo?"
"And their cargo is the Kracken!" a weepy Tiberius interjected.
"Put on some armor!" Petra snapped at him (a saying that meant the same thing as "man up"), still annoyed by his whining.
"Stop being so mean to me!"
Jessie ignored Tiberius's blubbering and paced the floor. "We're running out of time. But we're going to have to be careful."
"How so?" Ivor and Lukas, the only two paying attention at the time (Petra was busy berating Tiberius, who was becoming more hysterical by the minute), asked.
"We don't wanna get captured, right?" Jessie shrugged.
"Um...probably…"
"So we need a way to slip out of here before the ragamuffins come to take us to their dungeon or wherever they plan on keeping us."
"But there's water all around. We can't just step out of the Captain Swan and walk to where we need to go," Lukas said.
"Is now a bad time to mention that I can't swim very well?" Ivor piped up. Jessie and Lukas swiveled to stare at him.
"You can't swim?" Jessie seethed. "You never learned how to swim?"
"Well, I said I can't swim well," was his response. "Not that I can't at all."
Jessie facepalmed. "That would have been nice to know before you boarded the submarine…"
"Hmph."
Lukas threw his hands up in the air. "This is hopeless, Jessie. There's nothing we can do. We might as well just let them capture us, escape, and figure out where we want to go from there."
Jessie sighed. "What if we don't figure out a way to escape, though? Rescuing the Kracken will be easier without the ragamuffins watching us."
"If I had Water Breathing potions, this would be a lot simpler," Ivor said. "If only Tiberius had some kind of suit that would let people breathe underwater!"
"Tiberius has some storage chests here," Jessie observed, pointing at one of the metal coffers bolted to the floor. "Let's look inside, if nothing else."
"Shouldn't we ask first?" the ever-conscientious Lukas questioned.
Jessie looked over at Tiberius, who was still sitting in a corner and moping. "Nah."
The others shrugged and went to work on the first of the storage chests. Lukas pried it open, then he and Ivor rummaged through its contents.
"Find anything?" Jessie asked, looking over their shoulders.
"Nada," Lukas replied.
"Just a lot of hardtack rations. Ugh," Ivor tossed a handful of the dry biscuits out of the chest in disgust. They hit the floor like a bunch of pebbles and rolled into the corners of the cabin.
They moved on to the next bin (there were three in all.) In that one, they found some ropes, hammers, and wrenches-tools for repairing the Captain Swan if necessary.
"Third time's the charm, right?"
"Here's hoping." Lukas cracked the third chest open and rifled through it. "Oh. What's this?" He pulled out what looked like a glass box and held it out to Jessie.
She took it and examined it. "It's a glass box? Kinda looks like Axel's helmet." She tapped the glass, producing a pinging sound.
"Here, here, let me see that," Ivor said, taking the glass box. "I want to try something." He stuffed it on over his head.
"Ivor…?"
"It is a helmet!" His voice reverberated oddly inside the glass casing.
"What are you doing?" Tiberius questioned, stomping up to them. "Don't pick through my supplies!"
"At least we were actually acting on a plan by looking for supplies," Jessie snapped, putting on a glass helm of her own, just to spite Tiberius.
He glowered and clenched his fists. "And what is this little plan of yours?"
"We're gonna swim to the bad guys' base, rescue the Kracken, and maybe even find the portal home. No thanks to you."
"Give me one of those helmets," Petra requested, holding out open hands. Lukas set another glass box in her awaiting arms before stuffing the last one on, although he had a bit of difficulty fitting it on over his spiky hair.
"Well, I'm not going with you," Tiberius huffed, crossing his arms. "What you're doing is foolish and I'll have no part of it."
"We're fine with that," Petra droned. "Stay here and guard the Captain Swan or something."
"I'm not responsible for any stupid things you do out there," Tiberius warned.
"We know." Jessie narrowed her eyes.
"Let's go. I'm tired of dealing with him," Petra snapped. The others nodded and headed towards an airtight exit hatch in the back of the cabin. Ivor slipped out first, followed by Petra and then Jessie. Lukas stopped before he left and turned back to Tiberius.
"Thanks for everything," he said plainly, before joining his friends.
The first thing Jessie noticed about the ocean water was that it was cold. Way colder than she expected. The chill seeped through her armor and clothes, sending chills up her back. Nothing in the universe was supposed to be able to break through Star Shield armor...except coldness, apparently. The Captain Swan floated on its chain next to Jessie and her friends, making currents as it bobbed up and down that she struggled to avoid.
It was eerily quiet in the ocean, with little more sound than that of the softly rumbling water and Jessie's own breathing in the stale air within the glass helmet. She paddled out a little and glanced around for her friends. In addition to being cold and quiet in the water, it was also dark, making it hard to see them.
"Guys!" she called. "Stay together, everyone. We don't anyone to get lost."
She heard swishing sounds behind her, and presently Lukas, Petra, and Ivor appeared in her line of sight. She nodded and spun around, then pointed at the huge wooden warship overshadowing them. It was moored at the foot of what looked like a giant white mountain sticking out of the ocean. An iceberg.
"There's the Stalex. Come on." She swam forwards, with the others tailing her. It took a long time to pass under the Stalex completely and reach the iceberg. When they reached it, they could see the empty net that had been holding the Kracken hostage, drifting uselessly in the current, and also a good view of the bow of the ship where it was just touching the iceberg. Jessie swam closer, interested. But the others were apparently full of questions.
"I thought the ragamuffins had a base!" Ivor said as the got closer. He had to shout in order to be heard...the glass helmets and water muffled his voice quite a bit. "Isn't that what that whiny Tiberius said?"
"Who'd moor their ship at an iceberg?" Petra grumped.
"Shouldn't the water be freezing in order to form an iceberg, anyway?" Lukas questioned. "I mean, I'm no scientist or anything, but the water would need to be pretty darn cold to form an iceberg that big."
"I don't know!" Jessie cried. "Why are you asking me?"
She swam upwards and watched carefully. There was a bustle of activity going on at the bow of the Stalex. A rope bridge had been set up, and scruffy ragamuffins and pirates were milling back and forth on it. They carried boxes and bags across the bridge, until they disappeared through a door-sized hole in the iceberg.
"Aha!" she exclaimed. "The base is the iceberg! They're hiding inside it."
"Impressive strategy," Ivor said. "No-one would suspect an iceberg."
"I haven't had any beatdowns in a while," Petra said with a smirk. "Let's go kick some ragamuffin tush."
"Agreed. We have to find a way to sneak inside of the iceberg. Any ideas, gang?" Jessie asked.
"You're always the one with the bright ideas," Petra pointed out.
"Not all the time," Jessie countered.
"We could attack some of the ragamuffins, steal their uniforms, and pretend to be scalawags like them while looking for the Kracken," Ivor suggested.
"No, no, that trick doesn't work. Someone always finds out."
"We could just plow through them to wherever they're keeping that octopus," Petra offered.
Jessie shot her a look. "That's not very realistic, Petra."
"It'll all I got."
"Wait a second," Lukas said, paddling forward. "I think I see something."
"Like what?"
"Down there." He pointed towards the base of the psuedo-iceberg. "I think I see some kind of sliding door."
"Uh...I think we're gonna have some trouble getting to that," Jessie warned.
The area around the secret hatch was a dumping ground. Pieces of smashed boats, sludgy waves of sediment, and other refuse was floating in the water near the base of the iceberg. Worse, currents stirred up the garbage-including heavy boat hulls and rusted iron propellor blades.
"Ha, danger. Pssh." Petra pulled ahead of Jessie and Lukas with bold, sweeping strokes, propelling her ahead much more quickly than they. The other three followed her, heading straight into the midst of the underwater trash dump.
"I don't even want to think about what's making up this sediment," Ivor complained as they swam along, waving away the waves of brown glop. "Probably mud and rotten meat and mold!"
"Yecch!" Jessie gagged. "Ivor!"
"What?" he whined. "I'm just stating facts."
"If I throw up inside my helmet, you have to clean it up!" She huffed angrily and paddled ahead, passing Petra. She was intent on reaching the metal hatch, about the size of a garage door, nestled in the ancient ice. It was a gunmetal gray in color, blending in neatly with the shadows falling over the iceberg's peaks and crannies. Lukas must have caught a glimpse of the sun reflecting off it to see it in the first place.
It wasn't a terribly long distance, but her arms and legs were getting tired by now. Dodge that sediment bank to her left. Avoid the mass of discarded boxes and broken crates on her right. It wasn't that hard…she was used to danger...
"Jessie?" One of the threesome behind her was calling her name. "Jessie? JESSIE! LOOK OUT!"
"What?" Jessie turned and saw a huge piece of sharp-edged metal drifting towards her in current. Her heart started thumping, and she struggled to swim away, but it was a giant chunk of metal coming in hot and the current was messing up her path, pulling her dangerously close-
"Help!" she cried, flailing her arms.
Someone grabbed her elbow and yanked her away from the current and clear of the oncoming chunk of junk. It sliced through the spot where she had been just a second ago. Gasping from the surprise of the situation, Jessie turned to face the friend who'd just saved her hide.
"Oh my goodness," she panted. "Thanks, Lukas."
He nodded, looking a little shaken himself. "Yeah...Yeah. Man, you were swimming so fast I couldn't keep up...geez, that could have been bad. Come on, let's get to shelter before anything else happens."
They approached the metal hatch, glinting in the low light. Petra wedged her sword into the small slat of space between the hatch and the frame, using it as a makeshift crowbar to force the rusty door open. To Jessie's surprise, the ploy worked. The hinges protested with a metallic screech, but the hatch popped open in a rush of bubbles and allowed the four friends to enter.
They landed on a tile floor as a jet of water sprayed through the open hatch. The water spilled across the floor, forming puddles that, before long, pooled into a slowly rising layer of water. It was already ankle-height by the time they'd composed themselves enough to stand up.
"Gaaah!" Ivor cried. "Somebody close that hatch before we drown!"
"I'm trying! I'm trying! I don't see you helping!" Petra and Lukas were struggling to shut the hatch against the flow of water exploding through it. Jessie rushed in to help, and between the three of them, they forced the door shut and cut the water flow off to a trickle through the leaky frame. The water flooding the hallway they were in was up to their waists by the time they accomplished that.
"Well gee," Lukas said, pulling off his helmet and stowing it in his Pocket, "that was a stupid building design."
"Tell me about it." Ivor was wringing water out of his soaked robe as best as he could.
"Where are we, even?" Petra questioned.
Jessie glanced around at her surroundings. The hallway was like a tunnel, carved out of ice. The ice in the floor had been mined out and replaced with stone slabs. The hallway wasn't long, which explained how quickly it had filled up when it was flooding, There was a door on either end of the hall.
"Looks like we have to make a choice," Ivor observed.
"I'll go with the one on my right." Jessie walked up to it and flung open the door. It didn't open to another room, as she had expected. Instead, it turned out to be an overfilled storage closet. Cardboard boxes and wool blankets fell out of it and bounced off of Jessie's head and shoulders.
"Ah!" she yelped, swatting them away. "Okay. Not a door. Second time's the charm, right?"
They slipped out of the hallway into whatever was behind the other door. It was a huge atrium, carved out of a hollow of ice. The temperature in the room lingered so low that Jessie's breath kept steaming up her helmet and she had to take it off in order to see properly. When she could see properly, she almost wished she couldn't.
Jessie and her friends had stepped onto a balcony suspended about five meters above the main level. The Kracken was lying in a shallow tank of water in the middle of the floor, tightly bound up by a net. Obviously the hooligans knew that octopi can slip through tiny spaces, so they were making sure that the Kracken had as little space as possible. Giant harpoons and improbably large fishhooks hung menacingly from the ceiling. Two ragamuffins strode up to the tank, watching the Kracken struggle in its bonds.
"Blasted slippery beast she is, eh?" Jessie heard one say.
"Aye, that she is," his companion replied. "The beast nearly slipped free of the nets while we were bringing her into the base. Of course, she was a lot easier to deal with after one of the guys drugged her with a weakened poison potion."
"Nice and sleepy, right? So she could be moved into the tank without protest, right?" he asked.
"Yes," the other snipped, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Does your boss have his asking price yet?"
"Well, he's not sure just how valuable this varmint actually is."
"What...How can she not be valuable? The Kracken is extremely rare. We wouldn't have even found her if it weren't for that cobblestone-brained Governor of Cogsborough and his friends who led us straight to her."
"Ha! What a bunch of idiots!" the other guffawed.
Jessie heard Petra make a barely-contained growling sound behind her. She looked over at Petra and shook her head, warning her not to try anything rash.
"Anyway, the legends say that this brute has a giant diamond for a heart and liquid gold running through its veins," said the first ruffian.
"Oh-hoo-hoo," the other cooed, rubbing his hands. "Sounds delightful."
"We'll know for sure if that's true once the scientists cut it up. Then it can be stuffed and your boss will have a nice trophy...If he's willing to pay for the monster, that is."
"I'm sure he'll be amenable to the idea once he hears about the diamonds and gold. Say, how did you manage to acquire a team of scientists?"
"Oh, just a bunch of marine biologist blokes who defected to our team as soon as we showed them a fistful of cash. We pay 'em a lot better than that stuffy old Governor ever did."
Someone ran up to the conversing ruffians, looking excited to tell them whatever news he was bringing. "Boss says it's a deal!"
"Super!" The other guy high-fived him, then nodded at the first ruffian. "Sold."
"I'll go get the biologists." He turned and started to leave.
"Hey!" the other guy called after him. "Tell them they don't have to be worried about being humane."
"Ha-ha!" the departing ruffian laughed as he disappeared through a door. "No fear."
The remaining two hooligans also wandered away, dispersing to other parts of the base and leaving the Kracken alone in its tank. The huge octopus had stopped writhing. It sat dejectedly in its confines, seemingly resigned to its fate.
"Those biologists are gonna be over here in a matter of minutes," Jessie gasped. "We have to do something before they come."
"Remind me again how we got into this mess?" Petra complained.
Jessie ignored her and looked over to Lukas for help. He was leaning over the railing, trying to look for a plausible way to get to the main floor below.
"We could jump from this balcony," he said, listing their options, "but that would result in fall damage. We don't have any ropes or cords to rappel down there. I don't see any stairs or ladders."
"Anything soft we could land on?" Jessie inquired.
"No...uh...hey wait, look. A stack of crates." Lukas pointed to a pyramid of extra storage crates stacked up near the balcony. It looked like a two-meter drop, at most, from the balcony to the tallest crate.
"We could jump onto the topmost crate and then climb down from there using the rest of them," he continued. "They're stacked up like stairs."
"Yeah," Jessie agreed. "Let's do that."
They used the crates as basically an oversized staircase, hopping from one crate to another until they reached the floor. Then they ran up to the Kracken.
It shied away from them as they approached, obviously not trusting them.
"Hey, hey, hey," Jessie soothed. "It's all right. We're not those mean ruffians. We're not gonna hurt you."
"It can't understand you, Jessie," Ivor grumped.
"I'm not so convinced of that," Jessie retorted. She waved to the octopus, like she had in the Captain Swan. In response, the creature lifted a tentacle as best as it could and waved back. Jessie smiled.
"We're going to help you, I promise," Jessie said to the Kracken. "So don't panic when I take out my sword." She pulled out the sparkling diamond blade. Despite Jessie's assurance, the octopus still looked startled at the appearance of the weapon.
"We won't be bothering you for long," she continued. "I'll just cut you free and you can escape or break your way out and we'll find the portal home and you won't have to deal with annoying humans anymore."
The Kracken abruptly perked up when Jessie mentioned the word "portal."
"What?" she asked. "I just said 'portal'...why so surprised?"
The octopus gave a start at the word "portal" again and started to point at a door with a tentacle.
"Are you trying to tell me something about the portal?"
The creature pointed even more earnestly toward the door. Jessie was baffled. The door didn't look any different from the other ones on the main floor. Was it possible...No...It couldn't know, could it?"
"Is it through that door?"
More earnest pointing.
"Should I really trust an octopus for directions?" The absurdity of the situation was only growing.
The Kracken gave Jessie a pleading look.
"Well, you are an ancient creature of the endless mystic ocean," Jessie conceded. "I guess you would maybe know something like that."
A door on the far end of the room blasted open and a troop of biologists in white labcoats marched into the room. They gasped when they saw the four strangers with the Kracken.
"Hey!" they yelled. "Sheath that sword! Don't you dare lay a finger on that creature!"
"You're the only ones who are going to hurt the Kracken," Lukas spat back, "and we're not going to let you."
"You're just a bunch of nerds in lab coats," Petra boasted, showing off her enchanted golden sword. "We aren't afraid of you!"
The scientists pulled out swords of their own and got ready to charge at the intruders. "Are you afraid of us now, punks?"
"Not as afraid as you'll be of the Kracken," Jessie replied, and she deftly cut through the net with her sword.
The scientists stopped dead in their tracks as the Kracken shook off the shredded net, pleased to be free of its bonds.
"Oh, snap," Jessie heard one say.
The Kracken lashed out with its tentacles, smacking the entire group of eight or so goons into the wall with the door they'd come through. Enraged, it thrashed and kicked, its tentacles snapping through the air like whips. Obviously, it wanted to go the route of breaking out of the stronghold.
When one of its huge muscular tentacles crashed through a south wall, reducing it to rubble in seconds, Jessie spun around and took one horrified look at her friends.
"RUN!" they all screamed, and took off for the door that the Kracken had been pointing at earlier, as the angry octopus smashed up the room in a bid for freedom. They just about battered down the door in their haste to leave. They all slipped through just as huge chunks of ice started to break off from the ceiling and crash to the floor.
Jessie, Petra, Lukas, and Ivor took off down the wide hallway that the door opened up into, not stopping for anything. The whole structure was creaking and rumbling underfoot...the Kracken's rage was rendering it more unstable by the second. Down the halls and down a staircase the group went, as pieces of ice shook loose from the ceiling and rained down around them. They tripped and fell down the last staircase, scrabbling around on the floor. At the end of the room, a wonderful sight greeted them. It was a blue portal with a frame of gold blocks and lapis, swirling peacefully like it had been waiting its whole life for this moment to be useful.
"Score!" Jessie hooted, scrambling to her feet. "Okay, everybody i-AAAAH!"
The iceberg completely collapsed, breaking the room apart around them. Water gushed in from all sides, sending Jessie and her friends...and the portal...scattering. Jessie gagged as she got a mouthful of salty cold water, as did the others. They clawed through their Pockets, whipped out their helmets, and shoved them on before they drowned. Lukas grabbed Jessie's hand and they fought the current to reach the portal, slipping through. Petra followed afterward, and Ivor was shot through the portal on a final jet of water blasted by the Kracken.
Jessie and her friends were thrown out of the portal into the Portal Hallway, minds reeling. She, Lukas, and Petra leaned over and rested their hands on their knees to catch their breath. But they didn't even have time to say a word about their adventure or wonder aloud what had happened to Tiberius before Ivor came careening out of the portal on the jet of water and flew across the hall, disappearing through the portal opposite the one they had just come through.
Petra took one look at the portal Ivor had just accidentally traveled through and pulled off her glass helmet in disgust. "Oh, no! Not again!"
The threesome ran after Ivor, starting the next part of their crazy portal party...
A/N: And Part 1 is now a wrap. Thanks for tagging along! :3 Join me in October for the next arc, in the Monsters and Ghosts World!