Bro-aht thrust his tusk against Ecco gently, commanding attention as they swam. "Well, what now, chosen one?" he mocked.

"Silence!" Glacier shouted. "Let him have his moment. This was a blow to him."

The pair of Orcas said nothing in the dolphin's defense as they left the Asterite's home, swimming level with the dark bottom of the ocean, yet not coming up for a breath. They simply kept the entity's word of luck with them, along with their newfound strengths.

All the help the Asterite could give the cetaceans that swam with Ecco was the same power that he had given Ecco...each could swim faster, use sonar in great blasts, and breathe without the aid of the surface...all in hopes that it would aid them further against the creatures.

Ecco, leading the way, stared ahead into darkness as blank as his own mind. All he could think about was the memory he had of the Big Blue's final minutes under the ice, the mournful song that he released when at last he left the world...the tears the dolphin shed as he took the whale's words with him in his search for his family.

You surprise me even today, great one...you've helped me before...and all along you had hidden one of the greatest secrets of singer-kind. Is there no one that can help us now?

"Ecco?" Biransa cut in the silence, interrupting the dolphin's train of thought. "Pardon me, but where are we going?"

The dolphin looked around the darkness of the deep waters. "I don't know...maybe we should...AAH!"

"Look out!" Scaroth shouted as the singers scattered, allowing a very large shadow to pass between them, leaving a torrent of water in its fast wake. "What was that?"

"Giant squid?" Glacier offered. "It gets quite dark here, I wonder if we're not in the creature's domain."

"It was bigger than squid," Bro-aht panted.

Ecco sent a blast of sonar down, then his eyes widened. "It's coming back!"

Almost at his word, the giant shadow turned as swiftly as it could toward the singers. Scaroth attempted to stay in place, and the narwhal faced the creature as he swam next to him.

A giant, narrow mouth opened, attempting to capture one of the singers. In a flash, Ecco rammed its head, throwing it off-course from its charge. A long blast of clicks and moans were a reply from the creature before it started to rise again.

As the singers sent their echoes above, staring in silence at the shadow, Glacier finally spoke up. "Not a giant squid, but certainly close. That, I believe, was song we heard."

"Ah, a meal..." Scaroth smirked.

Ecco rolled his eyes. "Come on, let's see." As a unit, the five cetaceans followed the massive wall of shadow, soon revealed as gray flesh to the sun. A light grunt was heard as the singers observed the creature blow at the surface, its great, square, scar and sucker lined jaw moving like a boulder.

"Sperm whale," Biransa chuckled. "I knew we shouldn't have lingered in the deep waters."

The creature's eye turned to face the small legion of singers that beheld it. With a small groan of song, the creature boomed with laughter. "Are you the ones that cost me my supper? I didn't know that Orcas could dive so far."

"We don't..." Scaroth muttered as Biransa chuckled.

The whale lingered at the surface as its eye continued to observe the others. "I've never seen one of you before..." he said to the narwhal. "And you are more pale than the bleached coral," he observed of the beluga.

Ecco swam in front of the eye, bowing his melon so that his stars shone. "I apologize on behalf of my friends, we did not know that you hunted near where the Asterite called home."

The whale smiled. "Ah yes, of course. I often dive both to eat, and to catch a little of the Asterite's tales of the sea. He has become a friend of mine. But tell me, why is such an unlikely pod here in these waters?" As he said "unlikely", the eye turned to gaze at the two Orcas.

"It's something of a long story," Ecco replied.

The whale laughed. "Then leave out the part about the seers and the arctic paradise, I know that tale. Tell me what the great Ecco, a tusked singer, a white singer, and two Orcas have to do with it."

The pod was surprised...the whale had overheard the Asterite's explanation. Ecco proceeded to tell his part of the adventure, and also let the others tell what they could as well. When the tale was over with, the whale chuckled heartily, letting the others swim alongside him as he started to sidle in the water.

"Something quite interesting, yes...I've heard rumors sung of these bloodthirsty creatures, but yet thought it was only fear that the seas would be overtaken again. The tale of the seers is well-known to my kind. As for my name, just call me Sawtooth. That's what the squid call me," he laughed.

Biransa swam ahead a little faster, weighed a little by her calf and full of need for exercise and curiosity. "Why is it that your kind knows of this secret? I thought only the whales with a sieve for a mouth sang of it."

"Well, little one," Sawtooth chuckled, "I have heard just as many stories of the sea as any of the Singers of the Craft, as we call them...we match their size and their knowledge, but we lack their ability to sing the tongue of the ancients. With help from the Asterite and pods upon pods of those whales, I even have memorized the Keystone Song."

This stopped Ecco dead. "You know the song, Sawtooth?"

The whale nodded his massive head. "Yes, but I can never sing it as well as they do. I haven't even dared to traverse those fearfully icy waters to find this...this paradise of yours."

"Good, you're useless, we can eat you now," Scaroth smirked as his jaws bumped against Sawtooth's flank, but the whale simply laughed.

"I fear no Orcas. Even if a pod tried to overtake me, I would dive and lose them, for they can never follow me. You are admirable, warrior Orca, but you and a pregnant female are no pod to be feared," he laughed again.

Ecco rolled his eyes. "Only a sperm whale can sing with half the wisdom of other whales and half the lust for jokes as the dolphins..."

Suddenly, the whale stopped, and his eyes pivoted to search around him. A few clicks were sent out into the misty ocean gloom. "Little ones...what is the thing that approaches us?"

The cetaceans turned to where Sawtooth was referring. "Oh no..." Bro-aht muttered.

Scaroth snarled as one of the green beasts sidled near, grinding its jaws...and not weakening. "It followed us!"