The Immanity fishing boat Seagull, with her crew of fifteen,was bobbing gently in the sea. The crew had dropped the nets, and the two-mast sailboat was pervaded by a flurry of activity. Perched on top of the tallest mast, Eloi Aenarion was scanning the glittering surface of the ocean.
A blonde, slender beauty with green eyes, Eloi was a tricaster; meaning that she could cast up to three spells at the same time. It was her first assignment as ship escort, and it had been riddled with problems. First of all, the weather: elves mostly lived underground, and their skin got sunburned pretty easily. She had hoped for some cloudy days - at least at the beginning - but she hadn't seen a cloud in the sky since the trip had started. Normally, she would not tolerate the sweltering sun for more than a few minutes, but she had cast a spell on herself to repel the hated sun rays, together with more practical remedies such as white clothes that helped reflect the light, an umbrella of the same color, and some home-made ointment.
Another problem she had met very early on was sea-sickness. Eloi was 78, but she was from the interior of Elven Garde, thousands of kilometers away from the shore; that was her first time on a ship. It did not take long for her to notice that she really did not like the feeling of a bridge rocking under her feet. She had tried to resist and get used to it, but in the end the only way in which she managed to defeat her nausea was to cast another spell. That left only one magic for surveillance.
To give the ship some early warning in case of an attack, Eloi had used her last spell to launch sonic impulses in the sea, and then listen to the return echoes to detect submerged objects. This, however, also scared the fish, and so the crew had begged her to try a different method. And so she had started to use a spell that located spirits, because all living things contained a certain amount of spirits. Except Emperor Sora, because he was from a different world. The problem with that spell, though, was that its range was quite limited: only about one hundred meters. Also, because no elf had had any meaningful interaction with a siren for millennia, nobody really knew how to recognize a siren from spirit-detection alone.
Twice already, Eloi had been ready to jump into battle because of what she sensed underwater, but both times it turned out to be some really big fish. It had been embarrassing, but at least now she had some data to use as a reference. Technically, her orders were to simply call for assistance once the attack began, but Eloi had no intention of doing that. She was from the Aenarion family, and she was not going to just stay put and let a Flügel get all of the credit.
Suddenly, her spell picked up something again. Eloi tensed as she could make up at least three submerged contacts, all of a size comparable to a human. They did not seem interested in getting too close to the ship, but neither they were leaving. In the following hour, the number of mysterious presences steadily increased, until they were as numerous as the crewmembers. Sensing them surrounding the hull on all sides, the elf was about to snap, but forced herself to just keep waiting until she had a smoking gun.
She did not exactly notice when it started, but at a certain point the fishermen started to act strangely. It was only a couple of them at the beginning, but the strange behavior spread like wildfire. The men started to sigh and became unfocused, until they stopped any activity and began to stare longingly at the horizon, as if lovestruck.
Eloi was now certain that an attack was imminent. She dropped the early warning spell, and started to chant for a different incantation. Not a moment too soon, because a number of sirens chose precisely that moment to emerge and started to throw seductive glances to the already entranced crewmembers.
"Indifference!" the elf cried out as she completed her spell.
Eloi could not simply tie the man to their place against their will, as that would have been some form of conflict forbidden by the Pledges, but apparently making everyone on the ship emotionless seemed an acceptable way to counter seduction magic.
The men seemed to snap out of a dream and looked at each other, and then at the sirens, although this time with nothing more than confusion.
"Stay away from them, they are dangerous!" Eloi shouted, but the men just looked at her coldly. She cursed under her breath, as she realized that being under the influence of Indifference, the Immanity would be indifferent to her warnings as well.
The sirens frowned, exchanged glances on their own, and then started to sing. That seemed to be somewhat effective, as many of the Immanity seemed to grow more and more interested to the swimming beauties.
Eloi gritted her teeth. There were fifteen sirens, and each of them seemed to be targeting a specific human with a tailored, ad-hoc pattern of attack, while she had to counter all of them at the same time. She had no choice but to drop the sunscreen spell to cast another one
"Silence!"
A sphere of absolute quiet enveloped the hull of the Seagull, stabilizing the situation again. Sweating for the heat and the effort, Eloi allowed herself to smile in triumph. That moment did not last long, though, as the stalemate dragged on and on, and the spellcaster started to grow tired. Then, other sirens emerged, and tried to seduce her! By itself, that would not have been a problem, but the elf was already under a lot of stress, and this was the last straw.
Soon, Eloi was in a sea of pain. The effort to maintain all of her spells was sapping her stamina. The sun was burning her skin, and the reflexes from the surface of the sea were blinding her. Eventually, she could not take it anymore and gave up on battling alone. Cursing, she stopped casting Silence, and switched to telepathy to ask for help.
The effect was almost instantaneous. The entire ship rocked violently, and Eloi fell on her knees as the vessel accelerated upwards. The sirens stopped singing and started to scream in terror, followed suit by the men of the crew. Grabbing the banister for dear life, Eloi's eyes went wide with shock.
Something that defied all laws of nature was happening. White geysers of water were erupting all around the ship, and the sea itself was thrown into utter chaos. The entire horizon seemed to split, before being recombined at a different angle. Eloi raised her head and saw the winged figure that was responsible for all those terrifying happenings.
Floating above the Seagull, Zeruel smirked to herself as she scooped from the ocean a hemisphere with a radius of circa 200m and lifted it in the air as if it was nothing more than a cup of wine.
Of course, knowingly scooping the ocean to capture enemies was against the Pledges… but Zeruel really had no reason to know that for sure. Following her Master's order, she had closed her eyes, and suppressed her sense of earing, smelling, and spiritual detection. Also, the telepathic message she received made no mention of sirens or of an attack, but was a mere set of coordinates.
All Flügel assigned to the task were present when Emperor Sora had ordered the elves on the ships to occasionally send a fake set of coordinates. It was not explained why, but she was more than smart enough to figure it out herself. It was to make impossible for the Flügel to know exactly whether or not they were actually taking part in a fight, and hence defeat the Pledges. Yet, Zeruel smirked. She could not know for sure, but something in her soul was telling her that she was. For the first time after millennia, she was doing what she was actually meant to do. She was fighting, and it was awesome!
The seagull, the sea around it, and everything contained in that space were lifted up to a height of about 500 meters. The upward acceleration had first shocked the sirens, but once they recovered, they had tried to escape by diving in the depths of the sea. That had been proven impossible, though, as an invisible barrier was keeping the hemisphere together, preventing them to pass through. The same barrier also continued above the surface, and so all attempt to jump in the ocean had failed. Any protest had been utterly ignored.
Then the scenery suddenly changed as Zeruel used her teleporting ability. The scoop of ocean was now surrounded by mountains on all sides, and was gently lowered in what appeared to be an artificial basin.
Now that neither the ship nor the sirens could go anywhere, Zeruel stopped suppressing her senses, and had a look to her prey. She gave an approving nod as she felt that the human crew had suffered no physical damage in the entire operation, although they all felt quite confused at an emotional level, and grinned with satisfaction as she counted 21 sirens prisoners. But then her smile froze, as her mind sensed the agony emanating from Eloi.
The Flügel teleported on top of the mast, where the elf was curled up on the floor, whimpering for the pain. Zeruel was appalled
"What have you done?"
Eloi glared at her "I have no obligation to explain myself to a Flügel!" she almost spat the last word
"Go away!"
Zeruel's narrowed her crimson eyes, and then the red head put her hand forward, aiming at the elf's face. Eloi felt her blood chill. Her brain was suddenly flooded with all of the stories she had read about the immense destructive power of the Sixth Exceed. The Pledges may be preventing the Flügel from killing her outright, but there were many ways to utterly obliterate a sentient being.
"Heal!" Zeruel stated in a commanding voice, and a feint glow enveloped the younger woman, healing her burns and restoring her supply of magical energy.
Soon, Eloi stopped contorting for the pain, and Zeruel teleported the entire Seagull. A nearby shelter separated from the sirens had been prepared for just that purpose. A tall cliff was projecting its shade on it, and the elf sighed with relief.
Zeruel gave the younger woman a worried look "Are you alright?"
Eloi blushed and frantically stood up "I – I didn't ask you to do anything!"
The Flügel sighed "Oh, wow… You are one of those!"
The elf blushed even further and leant forward, fists on her hips and trying to look menacing "W-What does that mean?"
Zeruel gave her a serious look "Listen, you silly girl. I don't know the story of your family with the Flügel… and neither I think it matters. That was the past… this is the present. And in the present, we serve the same Emperor, and we live in the same country. Whenever a citizen of the Empire is in trouble and I am around, I will come to help. Maybe you should start thinking what you would do in that situation"
Something in the Flügel's word hit Eloi deep inside. She failed to come up with an answer, and could just look as the redhead lowered herself on the bridge of the ship, where a mixed team of humans and werebeasts were checking on the crew members. After exchanging a few words with a buffalo-physician, Zeruel explained the fishermen that they should just relax and take some rest, and that they were soon to be teleported back to their harbor and their families.
The Flügel then took her leave and walked out from the shelter to the pier of the basin, where a solitary figure was standing.
"Nice job, Zeruel…" Jibril said with a smile "Any problems with the catch?"
"The elf tried to take on the sirens by herself and was in a pretty bad shape… she is fine now"
A nod "Good to hear that"
They both stared in silence at the basin for a few seconds. The sirens were doing their best to hide themselves at the bottom, but it was useless. The entire thing was only a couple of meters deep, and had been meticulously cleaned, meaning that the water was crystal clear; even a human could have easily spotted them.
"How was it?" Jibril asked
Zeruel did not need to ask what she meant, and grinned happily. "It was… incredible! After all of these years… The thrill! The power! The purpose! It was like a dream!" Just remembering it, made her heart race.
A smile "Looks like you had a lot of fun!"
The older Flügel blushed slightly and made an awkward smile "Yes… yes I did!"
"Good to hear that. I guess I will take over from here then"
The redhead nodded, and took one step backward "I will excuse myself then"
Jibril smiled, and Zeruel teleported away.
Remained alone on the pier, Jibril waited for a few seconds, before soaring above the artificial lake. One arm bent behind her back, she brought the other one to her chest, as she bowed politely. Then her voice boomed across the entire basin, magically enhanced to be perfectly audible even beneath the surface.
"Greetings! My name is Jibril of the Flügel, Exceed Order Number Six, Supreme Commander of the Imperial Military and Member of the Council of the Eighteen Wings. I request to confer with your leader"
There was a flurry of activity underwater, punctuated by splashes of water provoked by the sirens dashing back and forth, but eventually an agreement seemed to be made. A solitary siren approached the pier before emerging.
The siren had long wavy hair, of a beautiful forest green, eyes as blue as the depth of the sea, and emerald scales all on the lower part of her body. She was wearing a golden diadem on her head, and a host of bracelets on both of her arms.
"M-My name is Amira, Duchess of the Coral Reefs… I am the representative of this group, and I vibrantly protest for this violation of our liberties!"
Jibril literally looked down on the siren with a very unapologetic smile "You do? How adorable!"
"A-A-Also, the fact that you are addressing me in this way is demeaning!"
Jibril brought a hand to her mouth, and pretended to be appalled
"Oh, my! So impolite of me! I suppose you would prefer to speak in a place where our eyes are at the same level?"
Amira assumed an air of outraged virtue, and nodded vigorously "That would be the bare minimum"
Jibril smiled dangerously "Well… then it can't be helped"
You silly thing! This will be even easier than expected!
Jibril threw a tiny globe of light in the water under the siren. With a pop, the globe exploded, sending both the screaming Amira and a significant amount of water into an empty aquarium that was placed close to the pier. The explosion was violent enough that the siren lost both her diadem and a couple of bracelets. Jibril caught them in midair before they fell back in the water, then landed beside the aquarium and teleported everything inside one of the buildings that were lined up all around the basin.
"So… Is this more of your liking, Duchess?" the Flügel asked cheerfully
The shell-shocked siren looked around to assess the situation. The aquarium was now in a storage room; it was some two meters deep, and was shaped like a square with a 4 meters side. Amira's new location looked much more like a prison now, fact that she did not fail to notice.
"Y-You cannot keep me here against my will! The Pledges…"
Jibril leant forward with a predatory grin "Ooohhh? Was that a challenge? You… want to challenge me… a Flügel?"
Amira swallowed hard "N-not really…"
Jibril leant even further, her face looming above Amira's, so close that it almost forced the siren underwater "Then, what if I challenge you?"
The only answer was an afraid stammer
"Thought so" the Flügel smirked
Apparently satisfied, Jibril stepped away and gave the shoulder to her prisoner, letting the poor siren catch some breath.
"Then maybe we can settle this in a more… mutually beneficial way, if you catch my drift…"
Amira swallowed hard "W-what do you have in mind… Flügel-sama?"
"First of all… I think that these belong to you" the Flügel said gently while offering the siren the diadem and bracelets that she had just lost. Amira seemed too afraid to take them from her hands, though, and so Jibril simply let them fall into the aquarium, before taking a few steps back. After a moment of hesitation, the siren recovered her possessions.
Jibril started to float at about one meter from the floor, crossed her legs, and assumed a very dignified posture. She looked like she was sitting on an invisible, floating throne.
"You know, I really want to believe that this entire conflict was actually some kind of big misunderstanding that can be solved peacefully… So why don't we have a little chat, and try to understand each other?"
Amira crossed her arms and turned her nose up "There is nothing to understand! You just kidnapped us!"
Jibril was nonplussed "Because you attacked an imperial ship"
"We did no such thing!"
"Yes you did, and it definitely was not the first time"
"Nonsense! We were just minding our own business, while you attacked without provocation!"
"That's a lie"
"You were not there!"
"We have many witnesses"
"That are all on your payroll, so that means nothing!"
"We also found more than enough traces of seduction magic in the fishermen's bodies. Only sirens could do that"
"That was self-defense"
"No, that was not self-defense. You attacked the ships"
"You have no proof!"
Jibril repressed a smile
So you don't deny that you attacked our ships anymore, but you just say that we cannot prove it. Good, that makes it easier…
Jibril knew that, on Earth as on Disboard, power makes right. And propaganda is a form of power.
"Oh, really? And what were you doing so close to the surface to begin with?"
"It was perfectly justified because of the action of the people of the surface"
Finally, we are getting somewhere!
"Which actions?"
Amira looked at her in disbelief "What?"
"Which actions are you talking about?"
"Are you playing dumb with me?"
Jibril shrugged "I really am not. I am just curious"
"I categorically refuse to give any information to a hostile power!"
Jibril shrugged again
"You don't want to talk with us? Fine. All I need to do is to bet an exchange of information, and then defeat you, really…" the siren deadpanned, and Jibril smiled internally
At the end of the game, the only thing that matters is power. And the will of using it
"…but the Emperor wants to try to solve this diplomatically first, if possible"
Amira nodded slowly, clearly not getting what Jibril was getting at. The Flügel rolled her eyes.
"Would you deliver a message to your ruler, if I give it to you?"
This said she handed over to the siren a metal plaque inscribed with Sora's offer to establish diplomatic relations and start negotiations. The Duchess jumped at the chance that was being offered. Few minutes and one teleportation later, Amira was in the open sea, swimming vigorously towards her capital at the bottom of the ocean.
In the following days, the number of sirens taken prisoners increased dramatically. At the beginning, the attacks on ships also kept increasing but then dropped abruptly. The enemy high command - that Sora called Bottom Command – had clearly decided to suspend that form of attack and switched to kidnap the inhabitants of the coasts; mostly girls.
Both Sora and Jibril had expected this to happen, but to defend the entire coast of Elkia was much more difficult than protecting the relatively undeveloped shipping lines of the Empire.
That did not, however, meant that they were not going to try. The same system of lookouts and partially unaware Flügel scooping up large swaths of ocean, that worked so well in protecting Immanity ships, was expanded to include larger and larger parts of the coastline.
The program to defend the coastline started with deploying werebests and elves lookouts in the major coastal cities of Elkia, and then expanded the coverage to gradually smaller ones. To avoid leaving the smallest villages and hamlets completely without protection, a system signals consisting of bonfires, mirrors and loud horns was put in place. To help protect the population, residents were advised not to get too close to the shore by themselves, and a curfew was put in place during night hours. Whistles were issued on a large scale, and a short list of signals based on a simplified version of the Morse Code was quickly established.
The transportation of the ever-increasing number of lookouts to Elkia required the Flügel equivalent of a strategic airlift. More teleportation was then needed to provide accommodation and supply for the lookouts. Originally, they had to settle for little more than some tents, or the hospitality of the locals, but more permanent constructions were quickly put in the works. Mostly by the citizens of Elkia, but with support from the other region of the Empire.
The werebeasts and the elves were moderately committed to the assignment, while the Flügel were ecstatic. Avant Heim itself was put on a patrolling orbit along the coast of Elkia to act as an observation satellite, and the best sensors available were placed on it.
That day, Jibril was sitting on the banister of the balcony, staring longingly at the horizon. She was on reserve. Raphael was inside, as chief of staff of the Flügel, together with many of her sisters. Jibril knew that they were organizing the airlift and combat air patrols, and she was dying to know what was going on. But she could not hear their words, or feel their presence, as she was suppressing most of her senses. She sighed. She knew that it was necessary, but that did not make her feel any better. The best way of using time in those circumstances was reading, of course. And she did just that. For a long time. But then she had been hit by a completely irrational pang of melancholy, and that's why she was now starting at the horizon.
Suddenly, the door opened, startling her. She really was not used to human-level sensorial inputs, and she did not like it one bit. She perked up, though, as she recognized the visitor.
"Master!"
Sora gave her an apologetic smile, took her hands and kissed them
"Good morning, my LAD. Thank you so much for accepting being on reserve"
Jibril shrugged away his concerns "Do you have anything for me?"
Sora handed her a piece of paper, showing a portion of the coast of Elkia. Four points had been drawn on the map: two were on the coastline, about 100 km apart, and another two were in the sea, about 1 km offshore from the first two.
Jibril brought a hand to her cheek in a bashful act
"Ara ara! Such a large stretch! This time I may actually be forced to use 1% of my power!"
Sora smiled gently at her "Will you allow me to accompany you, my LAD?"
"Of course, Master!" She beamed while handing Sora the edge of her clothes "Grab my garment!"
The young man complied, and they teleported at a relatively high altitude, right in the middle of the coastline showed in the map. Jibril bowed politely, as if she was in front of a huge audience, then started to summon her power. Crackling arcs of energies began to dance all around her as she started to chant.
"My name is … Jibril!" she boomed across the sky "Hear my voice, and heed my command! Seafloor… RAISE!"
Jibril raised her palms in an imperious gesture, and the entire coastline started to tremble. Everywhere on a front of 100 km, the sea started to bubble and turned white as it was completely covered in foam.
Then, some 1000m from the coast, a huge wall of mud emerged from the surface of the sea, in the areas where Jibril had pulled up the seafloor. The main stretch of the wall was connected to the shores by two shorter perpendicular stretches that created a huge, natural enclosure. The barrier was some 5 meters thick, and grew up to 10 meters above the crest of the waves. No triton could jump above it.
At the beginning of the crisis, the tritons had started to attack major populated centers, where it was easier to find preys in the water, but had to move to more isolated areas when lookouts had started to protect the large cities. However, the effectiveness of imperial defenses was rapidly increasing, owing to a very quick reaction time. The number of captured tritons had been increasing steadily, while the number of successful kidnaps was reduced correspondingly, relegating the attackers to smaller and smaller hamlets.
Analyzing the pattern of attacks in the previous weeks, Sora had come to the conclusion that the Bottom Command would try to saturate the defenses by launching one massive wave of attacks spread on a front as wide as possible, so that it would be impossible to send a single Flügel to deal with all of them.
It was still not possible to contact the leadership of the sirens, so it was impossible to be sure of their motivation. However, Sora believed that if the attack was successful – even in case of heavy losses – it would have boosted the moral of the enemy, and other saturation attacks would quickly follow, making the conflict enter a new phase. But if the attack was decisively defeated, then it was unlikely that the enemy would have tried it again. Rather, it was possible that the Bottom Command would more or less renounce attacking the coast in forces, and just tried to use the hostages as bargaining chip to achieve whatever objective was trying to achieve.
Sora wanted at all cost to defeat the incoming attack, and that was the reason why he had asked Jibril to stay on reserve, and just wait. He had felt horribly to ask her to do it. Even more because he could not explain her the reason because of the Pledges. He knew it was unavoidable, because nobody else but Jibril could do it, and he also was sure that she would understand. Still, he felt awful to keep her on the sideline while all of her sisters were having their best time in millennia. And what if his analysis turned out to be wrong? Just thinking about it had made him shiver every time.
More than anything, though, he had missed talking with her. He had been completely focused on the crisis, and even when they did manage to meet, they were both too wary that some information would filter and ruin everything. But now, it was over. He already was receiving reports from lookouts, spellcasters and Flügel, all saying the same thing. The entire attacking force of roughly 2000 tritons had been trapped in one single swoop.
Jibril could now stop suppressing her senses, and was being flooded with information. As she could finally piece together the events leading to the operation and the significance of her achievement, she felt a wave of unadulterated triumph flowing through her entire body, and she punched the air with a scream of joy. Beside her, Sora beamed with pride "Did you see that?" he shouted across the entire telepathic network "That… is my girlfriend!"
Still excited by the fight, Jibril laughed, grabbed his face and kissed him.