Chapter Eighteen
Fallout
Gasping, Melody's eyes opened abruptly. A beam of light hit her, and her senses were overcome by the stunningly bright light. She shut her eyes quickly in pain, and after a few seconds, she cautiously opened them again. As her eyes fluttered open slowly, she realised that it was just the blinding sunlight. The smell of salty seawater was overwhelming, and she sat up, nursing her aching body from the battle in Atlantica. A humid breeze caused her hair to be blown in all directions. She pushed her sand filled hair out of her face and looked around at her surroundings.
The ship was in ruins, the wooden planks of the deck damaged, and various parts of the ship had been utterly destroyed. There was even a huge hole in the deck! Melody got up from the deck and scrambled to the edge of the hole and knelt down. She looked down into the hole. Down in the bilge of the ship, Maui lay in the wreckage of the deck that had broken and fallen away due to the impact when he had crashed into their ship. He was still unconscious, and had several bruises and cuts on his heavily tattooed body. Was that even possible? He was supposedly an invincible demigod! What had happened? Seeing him wounded reminded her of the first time she had met Maui when he had crash landed into the ocean back in Denmark.
Melody got back to her feet, musing how she was going to get Maui out of the bilge alone. Wait, speaking of alone, where were the rest? She looked around the deck, but her companions were nowhere to be seen. She rushed to the edge of the deck, and looked outwards. Elsa and Moana lay on the sand not far from the ship, having been thrown from the ship in the aftermath of the tornado.
Sand? Where were they? What had happened? She looked around. The ship had washed up on the shore of some sort of beach, and she couldn't really make out anything past what seemed like miles of sand. There were some trees far away in the distance that seemed like tiny dots, maybe they could find help there. But how did she and the others get to this place?
Everything seemed foggy to her. She frowned, trying to remember what had happened before she lost consciousness. Atlantica, yes, that was where she was when the war started. She had sped back to the palace after discovering the Major's deception to try to stop him from stealing the trident, and Tracy…Tracy! She had betrayed the team and formed an alliance with Kane! Tracy had hit her with potent black magic, and when she had mustered up the energy to give chase, everyone had already left, and the trident was gone.
She remembered leaving the palace and seeing that the war had stopped, and that the brainwashed mermen had regained control of their actions. No doubt the Major's doing. The army of menfolk must have served their purpose in his plan, and he had no more use for them, thus relinquishing his control over their minds. The aftermath of the war was horrible. Parts of the infrastructure of the kingdom had been damaged, some of the guards had been killed by the Major, and the brainwashed merfolk were trying to make sense of what they had done, while the Atlanticans were trying to restore order now that the battle was over.
Melody, having seen the aftermath of the war, wanted to help, but the retrieval of the trident was far more important. As she neared the surface where the Major's ship was, to her horror she saw Moana plunge through the water, unconscious and sinking. Already in her weakened state, she had used all of her remaining strength to bring Moana back to the surface for air.
Thankfully, Elsa was there to help her bring Moana back to their own ship. When they had finally gotten back to the deck, Melody had intended to go back with Elsa to help end the Major's quest once and for all, but she was still reeling from the black magic that Tracy had hit her with. Succumbing to her exhaustion, she had collapsed on the deck beside Moana, and the next thing she knew, now here she was, trying to deal with the fallout from the battle against Major Kane.
It still didn't explain how they had ended up wherever they were though. Melody looked around at her surroundings again. The midday sun was unbearable, and the sweltering heat was causing her to sweat buckets. Tropical weather. Rather different from where they had just been, near Denmark's waters. So how exactly did they end up in a completely different place? She wiped off beads of perspiration from her brow, and kept her hand on her forehead, trying to fit together the pieces of the puzzle. The trident! That was the answer! Major Kane had used the powers of the trident to manipulate the waters into sending them as far away from him as he possibly could!
"Ugh…"
Melody spun around to see Moana slowly getting up from the sand, and leaped off the ship. She landed on the soft sand, and ran over to help her up. She extended a hand to Moana, who took it.
"Where are we?" Moana asked, squinting and putting a hand above her eyes to block out the blinding sun.
"I don't know," Melody replied. "Are you alright?"
"Alright? Do I look alright to you?"
Melody looked at Moana. She too had a couple of bruises that had turned blue after her fight aboard the Major's ship. "We've all looked better." Melody stated dryly.
"Any idea as to how we ended up here?"
"Kane," Melody replied grimly. "He must have used the trident to banish us far away from him so that we would not be able to get in his way again."
"Huh. Where's the rest?"
"Elsa's over there," Melody pointed at Elsa who was still lying unconscious on the sand. "And Maui's still on the ship, in bad shape."
"Oh yeah, and I think you forgot to mention, our favourite sea witch who isn't here with us," Moana said sarcastically. "Do you have any idea what happened to her?"
"I know, I was there when she made the choice to betray us." Melody was exasperated, partially because of the heat, and partially because Moana was trying to pick a fight with her again. "You don't have to rub it in."
"Yeah, I don't," Moana agreed. "Look at the ship," she pointed at their ship, which was a total wreck. "I think that's enough evidence to tell you that your judgement of her was way off, and now the rest of us are paying the price for it."
"Look, I'm sorry, but how was I supposed to know that Tracy was going to turn on us?"
"Oh, I don't know, maybe if you paid more attention the first thousand times and saw her for what she really was, we wouldn't be stuck here right now."
"Would you two just stop arguing for one second?"
Moana and Melody were interrupted from their heated conversation, and turned to see Elsa getting up from the sand, slowly standing to her feet.
"My head hurts enough without having to listen to you two squabble." Elsa dusted the sand off her face. She undid her french braid and tried to shake all the sand out from her undone hair. The heat was absolutely unbearable! The humid air made her feel like she was trapped in the world's largest sauna, and it was an extremely unpleasant feeling for her, since she very much preferred the cold.
"You're one to talk," Moana shot back. "You were the last one standing against the Major back on his ship, you should have gotten the trident, but yet, here we are."
"What do you care about the trident?" Melody cut in, vexed. "The whole reason you came on this mission was to satisfy your personal vendetta against Kane."
"Remind me again who invited you guys on this little quest of ours?" Moana glared back at Melody and Elsa. "Because I don't remember asking you guys."
"He did," Melody pointed towards the ship, where Maui was still lying unconscious in the bilge.
"Yeah, and look what happened?" Moana replied with increasing hostility. "He's hurt badly, the ship is wrecked, and we have no way off this-this… wherever we are! He was wrong to bring this team of misfits together."
"It sounds to me like you have a problem with misfits," Elsa had a tone in her voice that screamed annoyed.
"So what if I did?" Moana folded her arms. "Doesn't change where we are right now. I mean, how can things get any worse than this?"
Just as Moana finished her sentence, a loud creak came from the damaged ship, and the three girls turned around.
"Maui." Elsa started to sprint across the sand, followed closely behind by the other two girls. As they got to the ship, they realized that the ship was lopsided, and the side of the deck was too high up for them to reach. Elsa attempted to use her powers to form ice to propel her to the deck, but she couldn't feel the cold in her palms as usual. She looked at her hands. Her powers weren't working! "Guys," she turned to look at Melody and Moana. "My powers aren't working! I don't know why."
"You must be dehydrated," Melody offered a guess. "That's probably why your ice can't form. Not enough water."
Elsa nodded, realising that it made sense. She had a throbbing headache, probably from the dehydration, so that explained why her powers weren't working.
"Let's head to the other side," Moana said. "The deck will be within reach for us to climb."
The three girls ran around the ship to the other side, and climbed the side onto the deck. They made their way to the hole in the flooring, and saw that Maui had awoken, and was standing silently in the bilge of the ship.
"Maui!" Without thinking, Elsa leapt through the hole in the deck, and landed in the half submerged bilge. She looked up at Maui, who looked straight ahead with glassy eyes, not even acknowledging her presence.
"Is he alright?" Moana called from above, looking down into the bilge with Melody.
"I don't know!" Elsa replied worriedly. "He looks fine, but there's something wrong!" She waded towards Maui through the water, which rose to her thighs. "Maui, we're safe. The Major isn't here." Elsa placed her hand on Maui's, which was stiff. He continued to stare straight ahead, unresponsive to Elsa's touch.
"Elsa!"
Elsa looked up at Moana and Melody, who both looked bewildered.
"What's going on?"
"I don't know! He's not responding to anything!" Elsa said anxiously, and looked back at Maui. "Maui, please, you're scaring us."
Suddenly, Maui flinched, to Elsa's surprise. He looked at her, and she looked up at him anxiously. She could see that his eyes were still glassy, as if his mind was somewhere far away, but suddenly, the colour returned to his eyes, as if he were fighting to regain control. "Elsa? I'm sorry." he struggled to utter the words, before his eyes glazed over again.
"Maui?" Elsa was confused and upset. "What's going on?"
Maui did not respond or look at her, but instead looked up at the hole in the deck. Crouching, he poised himself for a huge leap.
"Move!" Melody realized what the demigod was about to do, and scrambled away from the hole quickly, pulling Moana with her.
Maui rocketed out of the bilge into the air, and landed heavily on his feet on the deck. His eyes still glazed over, he walked past Melody and Moana to where his fish hook was, and picked it up.
"Maui! What are you doing?" Moana cried out, seeing her best friend in a hypnotized state for the first time.
Elsa raced up the stairs of the bilge hurriedly and burst out onto the deck, joining Moana and Melody. "Maui! Can you hear me? Maui!"
The demigod remained emotionless, as if having not heard his friends call out desperately for him. He looked out beyond the ocean at the horizon, head cocked, as if listening to someone, although there was absolute silence except for the crashing of the waves. Then, with his fish hook in hand, Maui shape-shifted into a large brown hawk before the girls' eyes, and flew over the ocean and away from the girls, to their horror.
"What just happened?" Elsa broke the silence after what seemed like forever.
"Kane," Melody uttered the dreaded name. "He did this. He controlled the mermen army down in Atlantica, and now he's doing the same to Maui. I recognized those glassy eyes. His mind is being controlled by the black magic."
"What are we going to do now?" Elsa asked.
"I don't know," Melody bit her bottom lip. "Maui's gone, Tracy's aligned herself with the Major, and we're shipwrecked here. I don't know what to do."
Moana turned to walk away without saying a word, and Elsa and Melody noticed.
"Hey! Where are you going?" Melody called out after Moana. "The team has already fallen apart, don't leave us too!"
Without responding, Moana jumped back down onto the sand, and walked away, leaving Melody and Elsa on the deck, upset and confused.
"What happens now?" Elsa looked at Melody, who had an empty expression on her face.
"I don't know."
All evidence pointed to the fact that their mission was over. They had failed.
###
"Sir?"
Major Kane gazed at the trident, mesmerised by the mystical weapon that he had heard and read so much about, ignoring whoever was calling him.
"Sir!"
Looking up in exasperation, he saw his right hand man, Santos, standing before him. "What is it, Santos?" Kane asked, vexation in his voice.
"Look," Santos pointed a finger at the horizon, and Kane looked where his right hand man was pointing. The glowing sun was setting against crimson red skies, and a couple of small clouds were layered over the sun, scattering rays of light in all directions. Against the setting sun, a large brown hawk was flying towards the Major's ship, its wings flapping steadily and consistently like clockwork.
Major Kane narrowed his eyes. "Finally."
The brown hawk landed on the deck heavily, causing the ship to be rocked back and forth on the water. Some of the mercenaries on the deck, including Santos, lost their balance. Looking straight at Kane, the hawk moved towards him, claws digging into the deck with each step. As the large creature approached him, Major Kane stood his ground, unflinching and with no trace of fear in his eyes.
Tracy, who was sitting on some crates at the side of the deck watched as the hawk approached her new ally. She looked amused as she watched the events unfold before her eyes. After the Major had banished the warriors to the Mozambique Channel in Southeast Africa, the cold fog that Elsa had created slowly vanished, and he had commanded that they continue on their voyage. As the ship moved off, Kane had sat on the deck in solitude, concentrating hard in conjuring up a spell with the help of the snake totem. Tracy had witnessed him intensely utter words in a language that she did not understand. The black magic that Kane was practicing was way out of her league, and she could only watch and hope that she would reach his level of expertise someday. After all, that was the main reason why she had decided to ditch her old team in favour of joining the Major: to embrace her identity as a sea witch and learn to better control the dark arts.
Still clutching the trident in his right hand, Kane clenched his left fist, and the snake totem on his ring finger glowed red. "Stop."
The brown hawk stopped before Kane, obeying his command, eyes glazed over. It shapeshifted into the form of a man, carrying the fish hook in hand, and stood tall in front of the Major with no trace of emotion.
"The great Maui," Kane sized the compliant demigod up. "Not so tough anymore, is he?"
"He always seemed like a big softie to me," Tracy got down from the crates that she had been sitting on, and walked towards the Major and Maui. "What d'you want him for anyway?"
"Have you ever heard of the heart of Te Fiti?" Major Kane glanced over at Tracy, who looked baffled.
"Yeah, you mentioned it back in the Agrabah marketplace. But what is it?"
There was a slight twitch in Maui's expression, as if some part of his consciousness had reacted to the Major when he mentioned the heart of Te Fiti. After all, he knew all too well what it was, having been entangled in a quest concerning the heart of Te Fiti two years ago, as well as a millennium before that.
"Our element of salvation." Kane replied cryptically.
"Huh?" Tracy asked, still puzzled. There was still so much that she didn't know about magic and the black arts, and she was counting on the Major to enlighten her and show her the way to becoming a true sea witch.
"More than a millennium ago in the South Pacific, a goddess called Te Fiti was responsible for the creation of life and nature, and took on the form of an island. Her heart was the key to manipulating creation. However, this demigod here-" Kane pointed the trident at Maui, who continued to stand still, his eye twitching slightly while awaiting his new master's command. "-stole the heart from Te Fiti, and without her heart, the goddess became a lava demon, placing a curse on the world. If the heart wasn't returned to her, the world would slowly crumble into disaster and be destroyed eventually. After a long battle between the lava demon and Maui, both he and the heart vanished for a thousand years."
"I don't get where this is going." Tracy said impatiently.
"Patience. A thousand years later, enter your good friend Moana," Kane glanced at Tracy, who scoffed. "The life force of the ocean chose her to return the heart of Te Fiti, and presented her with it. She knew that she could only return it with the help of Maui the demigod, and sought him out. Together, they returned the heart and broke the curse that the goddess had placed on the world a thousand years ago, and the earth was saved. You remember two years ago when the earth's waters gradually became choppier and the marine life started to die? And then suddenly it all stopped and returned to normal?" Kane asked.
Tracy nodded. She remembered when the seabed in the Dark Zone where she lived had started to tremble and cause all sorts of quakes, and that she and her wretched relatives had no clue as to what was going on.
"That was the curse. And our brave heroes broke it." Kane continued. "And I have reason to believe-" he glanced at Maui again, whose expression appeared tortured as he was forced to listen to Kane recount the story. "That if the heart were to be stolen yet again, Te Fiti would descend into a rage. The curse's effect would be accelerated, and the world would crumble in a matter of hours."
"But…" Tracy was shocked and dumbfounded. "Why-"
"Why do I need the heart when I have the trident?" Kane finished her sentence. "Melting the ice caps would only do so much damage. But if I steal the heart, earthquakes, typhoons and tsunamis on scales that the world has never seen would cleanse this planet and wash away the scourge of humanity."
A shocked Tracy kept silent. That was not what she meant when she had asked why. She wanted to know why he was so hell bent on destroying the earth, but he had assumed that she knew of his reasons, having already descended into madness beyond reason and rationalized his intentions. This was way above her pay grade. All she wanted was to learn how to harness black magic more efficiently to be a real sea witch like her family members. All this, this was genocide he was talking about! It was too much for her. Kane was a monster. Maybe she had made a mistake.
"Now," Kane turned his attention to the brainwashed demigod. "Bring me the heart of Te Fiti."
A strained look appeared on Maui's face, as if he was trying to fight the mind control. His body twitched as he attempted to resist the Major's command, trying to raise the fish hook in his hand to attack Kane.
"You're trying to fight," Kane mused, impressed by the demigod's strength of mind. "So you actually have brains to match that brawn. Your mind is much stronger than I thought, but that won't save you." He clenched his left fist and the snake totem glowed bright red.
All of a sudden, Maui stopped twitching and struggling, and his eyes were glazed over again. He stood upright again like a compliant soldier in Kane's army, no longer able to fight the Major's influence over his mind.
"Now," Kane whispered, leaning closer to Maui, his demeanour dark and ominous. "Bring me the heart of Te Fiti."
Maui turned his back to Major Kane and in a flash of light, shape-shifted back into a brown hawk. Taking a great leap, he catapulted himself off the deck and into the air, flapping his gigantic wings with great force. He flew away from the Major's ship, and off into the sunset to retrieve the heart of Te Fiti once more.
"Once I have the heart," Kane said in a normal tone, watching as the brainwashed demigod flew off to fulfil the next stage of his quest. "Then we'll be ready for the last stage of my crusade. The end is near." He walked away, trident still in hand, leaving a dumbfounded Tracy to process what she had just seen and heard.
Writer's Commentary:
This chapter is kind of a new low for our heroines. Major Kane stole the Lamp of Jafar from Agrabah. He stole the trident from Atlantica. Tracy aligned herself with Kane. And now, Maui is being mind controlled, leaving the three girls shipwrecked in a place they don't even know. Things are looking incredibly bleak for the warriors, as the team is in ruins. It looks like their mission is over, but is it really? Are our heroines really going to give up?