Chapter 12: O Captain! My Captain!

Marine stood before Ardin as she started to generate some air around her. "Ardin, I don't want to have to do this to you."

The feline lunges at her claws first only to be cut off from a cyclone around her.

The raccoon then directs the air at him attempting to extinguish his flames.

"Don't bother!" He blasts her with his flames sending her off the ship remains and into some sand.

Marine stands up slowly as she looks around at the sand. "Wait a minute,…" She runs some of the sand through her fingers. "That's it."

Ardin lands behind her growling. "You think this is going to save you, multi-mover? There's not earth here to help you." He surrounds the area with a ring of blue flames.

The raccoon uses her power to generate a whirlwind around herself lifting the sand around her.

"What!? Where did you go!?" He fires his flames around him repeatedly to no avail. "I know you're here!"

Marine then uses her own flames firing them at him.

Ardin blocks her blast with his own fire. "You can't stop me!"

"That's what you think!" She covers him with sand and fire simultaneously.

"Gah! What are you doing!?"

Marine then brings down the sand and fire revealing her opponent encased in a glass prison.

"Clever girl. Entrapped me in a prison made of my flames and failure."

"You only failed because you let yourself fail, Ardin."

"That makes no sense."

"Ardin,…you didn't have to do any of this. You could've easily stayed where you were and not be in a worse situation than you were before. You did this to yourself."

Ardin growls at her. "I would rather be here than back to my prison."

"You mean here in your current prison."

He looks down sighing. "Now I see what you mean."

Marine starts to walk away.

"You're just going to leave me here?"

"There's twelve more of you, right? One of them is sure to find you." She leaves the cave blocking off the exit with a rock.

During this, Tails had reattached Gemerl's arm. "Good as new."

Cream looks around the abandoned ship they were on. "Tails, do you think maybe this boat could take us home?"

"It could, but we'd need a way out. There's no getting this thing through a rock wall."

"Not unless you have me." Marine walks over to the rock waving at them.

"Marine!"

Cream and Gemerl look over seeing her. "Hi, Ms. Marine. Did you stop the bad man?"

The raccoon nods her head yes. "He won't be an issue anymore." She then proceeded to separate the rock wall in front of her clearing an exit to the ocean for them.

Gemerl flies behind the ship and pushes it through the exit.

Marine leaps up onto the ship. "Now that was some adventure, wasn't it?"

Cream smiles lightly. "It sure was different. I don't know how my mother will feel though."

"I can help explain it to her."

Tails nods. "Let's just focus on getting home. We got a long way home from here."

"Right." The raccoon walks up to the bow of the ship. "This may be the end of our adventure, but this only the beginning of our struggles."

"How so?"

"There's thirteen of them total, meaning there's twelve of them left now. We need to find the others."

Cream and Gemerl look at each other.

"Cream, take the wheel." The fox walks up to Marine. "Don't worry. As long as you have your loyal crew, we can handle whoever these enemies are."

Marine smiles placing her hand on Tails' head. "Thank you, mate." She gives him a little kiss on the forehead.

Tails blushes some smiling and laughing a bit nervously.

Meanwhile, in an undisclosed location, a man in a black hood was seated in a throne among twelve other seats.

Two other hooded figures bring a barely standing Ardin to her.

"Hello, number eight. I see you had your struggle with Marine."

Ardin bows before him. "Forgive my failure, master."

"On the contrary, you succeeded in your task."

"What?"

The master walks over to him taking the Chaos Emerald from his possession. "You kept this with you the whole time. This is what we needed."

"So I didn't fail after all."

"You also found us a worthy opponent. You know what that means."

Ardin then looks up at the cloaked figures. "Number five? Number seven?"

The master snaps his fingers.

Both cloaked figures grab him dragging him away. "Wait, what are you doing!? Master!"

"Sorry, Ardin. We've found a replacement for your position." He then places the emerald into the gauntlet he wore. "One down,…six to go."

End of A Captain's Tail

Marine will return.