On the bridge of the Shuigang capital ship, King Dail watches in horror as the sky turns pitch black, the only objects visible being the terrifying majesty of the Bakunawa and the relatively diminutive glowing form of the Holodragon. Knowing his crew's morale is at stake, Dail tries to think of something reassuring to say, but no words come to mind. Thankfully, the silence is interrupted by the radio operator informing Dail of an incoming transmission from General Gong.
"General," Dail greets once the connection is established.
"Your Majesty," Gong replies. "Looks like Team Avalice weren't able to prevent Corazon finding it."
"I'm sure they tried their best," Dail assures.
"I'm sure they did," Gong agrees. "Do we know where they are right now?"
"Lilac and Milla have returned, both severely injured, both recovering on Neera's ship," Dail informs.
"And Carol?" Gong asks.
Dail takes a moment before answering. "Doing what is necessary."
Neera returns to the bridge of her ship just in time to receive a radio call from both King Dail and General Gong. "General, Your Majesty," she greets.
"How are Lilac and Milla doing?" Dail asks.
"They'll both make full recoveries," Neera assures. "Our concern now is assisting Carol any way we can. I can't begin to imagine what's going through her mind right now."
Sat atop the Holodragon, Carol cannot take her eyes off the terrifying form of the Bakunawa, her thoughts consisting of one single phrase: How can I win this?
"Now you see what I'm truly capable of," Corazon announces via the Bakunawa's external speakers. "With this machine, this weapon, I will finally take our clan, our family where it belongs: on top of the world. Surrender now, and I'll make your death instant."
Carol snaps out of her stupor and returns to reality. "A Tea never surrenders!" she cries, seemingly in vain, as her voice cannot get close to the volume of the Bakunawa.
But Corazon doesn't need to hear it: she knows exactly what Carol would say. "Noble, but foolish: there is no way you can win," she replies with perfect timing.
"We'll see about that!"
With a proud and noble roar from the Holodragon, Carol accelerates to top speed, flying directly at the Bakunawa. The gargantuan serpent unleashes a fearsome roar of its own in response, Corazon counter‑charging the much smaller Holodragon, aiming to engulf it in the Bakunawa's gaping maw, or to simply ram it out of the sky.
But Carol is no fool: at the last second, she pitches the Holodragon into a tight roll, flying upside‑down under the Bakunawa itself. As she flies along the serpent's body, she unleashes a powerful Dragon Beam, raking it along as much of the body as she can.
The beam tears armour scales from the underside, but the damage is cosmetic only.
Cursing, Carol narrowly avoids being swatted out of the sky by the tail, then takes advantage of the Holodragon's greater agility and loops around for a second attack run. Once again, the Dragon Beam rips armour scales from the Bakunawa's body, and once again, the damage is purely cosmetic.
"Are you going to attack at any point?" Corazon mocks, laughing manically as Carol retreats a short distance to reassess her options.
The Dragon Beam isn't working… There must be a weakness on it somewhere… Carol charges in for a third attack run, but instead of firing the Dragon Beam, she rakes the Bakunawa's body with repeated Fire Storms. Once again, the attack tears more scales off, but doesn't penetrate the hull.
Suddenly, Carol spots something. Is that an access hatch? Looping the Holodragon around, Carol aims directly at the access panel, and unleashes a Dragon Blast directly at it.
The blast punches straight through the hatch, opening a way into the Bakunawa.
"Yes!" Carol exclaims, pulling the Holodragon up and looping around the serpentine body. Moments later, she's heading back towards the open hatchway. "Pangu, when I jump off, pull away and return to the fleet."
++I do not recommend that course‑++ Pangu begins.
But Carol's not listening. Piloting the Holodragon as close as she dares to the Bakunawa, she slows down to make her landing smoother, then leaps off the Holodragon, landing on the hull in a roll. Initially, it looks like her aim is true as she heads directly for the hatch, but as the Holodragon pulls away and accelerates, the Bakunawa bucks, throwing Carol clear of the hull.
Twisting in the air, Carol realises that she's going to fall past the Bakunawa and plummet to the ocean below. I only have one shot at this. Unclipping the disc from her belt, she takes aim and throws it at the open hatch.
Luckily, the disc is on target.
As the disc passes through the hatch, Carol hits the button on her teleporter.
Half a second later, she slams hard into the deck inside the Bakunawa and slides to a halt.
"…that hurt."
In the cockpit of the Bakunawa, Corazon violently disables the intrusion alarm. Should have expected her to get in; she is a Tea. At least now I can try out the internal defences.
Carol stiffly pushes herself onto all‑fours, fighting back her rising nausea. With considerable effort, she manages to avoid vomiting. I think I'm getting used to teleportation. As her nausea fades, Carol rolls over to sit, taking the opportunity to check herself for injuries. Aside from some inevitable bruising, I appear to be OK. Satisfied she's uninjured, Carol checks her stock of crystals. OK… one more pair of my own, and two regular pairs I stole from Lilac, and… are these supercharged‽ No way I can use these! Carol is about to discard the supercharged crystals but thinks better of it. Hmm… I'll keep a hold of them, just in case.
Carol transfers all the regular crystals into one hemp bag, leaving the supercharged crystals in the other. With the bags clipped to her belt, the wildcat gets to her feet and attempts to get her bearings. I should really have studied those details Brevon sent to Corazon better. After a few moments of careful consideration, Carol selects a direction to proceed.
Less than a minute later, she hits a dead‑end. I went the wrong way. Turning around, Carol finds her path blocked by a cephalopod robot that bears an uncanny resemblance to Pangu and Syntax, but with a black‑and‑blue colour scheme that matches the Bakunawa itself. "Friend or foe?" she asks.
All intruders must be destroyed, the cephalopod answers, approaching Carol with its twin tentacles reaching to capture the wildcat.
"Shoulda guessed," Carol sighs, drawing Coral's sword and charging.
The fight doesn't last long: the first swing of the katana cuts the tentacles to half their original length, and the second cleaves the casing open. Crippled, the robot crashes to the floor.
"That was easy," Carol shrugs, sheathing the sword and resuming her advance. Don't get cocky: it'll only get harder from here.
Corazon watches the first robot fall with disappointment. There must be better defences than that… Turning to the console, she taps in a few commands. Ah, that's more like it!
As Carol makes her way through the Bakunawa, she encounters increasing resistance as Corazon engages more of the superweapon's internal defences. At first, the younger wildcat meets singles or pairs of robots, all of which are easily and swiftly dispatched, but after only three chambers, she's fighting entire squads. With a mix of floating cephalopods (both armed and unarmed), bipedal wielders of blades and pistols, and low‑slung chargers festooned with brutal spikes and sawblades, Carol's battles become harder and more frantic with each chamber.
By the seventh chamber, the number of robots in each wave hits double figures. Unable to spare a moment to recover, Carol taps into every reserve she has and pushes on through the chambers until she gets to the twelfth. Exhausted and panting hard, the younger wildcat enters the chamber to find no less than thirty robots ready and waiting for her.
But the robots don't attack immediately.
"You're more tenacious than I anticipated." Corazon's voice echoes around the chamber.
"Yeah, well… someone's gotta stop ya," Carol replies defiantly, taking advantage of the break to get her breath back.
"You're welcome to try," Corazon replies. "Know that if you do, you'll end up the same way as Coraline. Then again, you'll end up that way anyway, whether you challenge me or not."
"Then I'm going out fighting!" Carol cries, charging at the robots.
"Kill her," Corazon orders.