Chapter Thirty-Three
Atlantis
"Alright. So, how the hell do we get kraken blood and ink?" Emma asks the assembled group around her as she plants her hands on her hips in a resigned fashion.
Killian inches closer to her to brush her shoulder with his in silent understanding. She glances at him with a knowing smirk for a fleeting moment and then focuses back on the task at hand.
"If we had that mermaid bracelet we could dive down under the creature." Snow offers quickly before frowning.
"But we don't have it and it would take too long to go get it." She finishes.
Captain Nemo has been thoughtfully analysing them all for a while before he steps forward and speaks.
"The kraken will shoot its ink in order to immobilize its prey. If I can get close enough to provoke the creature I believe I will be able to obtain the ink." He says in a strong voice.
Killian nods at him in agreement.
"Aye. I think I can help you there. Two ships, twice the odds." he says grinning at the thought of another nautical adventure with Nemo as Emma tries to smother her smile at his enthusiasm.
"Okay. Then, I think it makes sense to divide into two teams; the captains get the ink, the rest of us get the blood." Then she turns to the remaining heroes.
"Ideas?"
Zelena tilts her head and smirks at the saviour.
"Well, we three have magic and the rest of you have sharp, pointy things. I'm sure we can make it bleed." She says with her snide smile and twinkling eyes.
Emma wants to retort but settles for smirking back at the witch as the kraken roars again, making the ground shake.
"Good point. Okay, Zelena, you go with the Captains to get that ink and give them some magical backup, Regina, David, you're with me."
Zelena carefully hands baby Robin over to Snow, who smiles and walks away with Belle and Hope towards their house. Everyone starts to walk away towards their tasks, but Emma grabs Killian by the arm and pulls him in close for a long, lingering kiss.
"To be continued, Jones." She says with a smirk when she pulls away.
"Bloody right, it will be. But first, let's deal with the Crocodile so I can give you my full attentions." Killian says with a sexy grin full of promise and Emma tears herself away to follow Regina and David.
OOoOoOoOoOoOo
About an hour later, Emma finds herself standing on the top deck of the Nautilus, Nemo's submarine, with David and Regina. They wait to get close enough to the kraken for Regina to 'poof' them on top of it. Nemo's voice comes through a speaker on the metal wall of the sail, behind them.
"I can't get much closer or I won't make it away."
Regina answers him with a frown.
"Hopefully, this is close enough. Make sure my sister gets that ink."
"Good luck, Captain." Emma says as she takes Regina's hand and reaches for her father's.
"Godspeed, ladies and gentlemen." They hear over the speaker before they disappear in a cloud of purple smoke.
Emma stumbles slightly when her boots meet the slippery surface of the kraken's (she is assuming) head. She looks at Regina's disgusted face as she looks down and then to David's worried eyes, meeting hers.
They look out to see the Nautilus speeding backwards towards the Jolly Roger in the distance and Emma swallows around the hard lump in her throat.
"The Captains will be fine, Ms. Swan." Regina says as David places a comforting hand on Emma's shoulder. She takes a bolstering breath, trying to ignore the stench of rotten fish from the Kraken.
The creature is so huge that it hasn't even noticed the three humans standing on it and Emma takes a minute to assess the best way to go about getting the blood. After a few seconds, she frowns.
"Uh, is it just me or does this things skin look incredibly thick?" she asks with trepidation and Regina and David look down at their feet.
David takes out his sword and gently pokes the kraken's skin, slowly increasing the pressure until he's pushing down with most of his weight. He pulls the sword away and there isn't even a mark.
"Well, that's a problem." Regina states obviously.
"So, what do we do now?" David asks, but Emma is already scanning her gaze over the creature.
"There!" she says and points towards the front of the creature.
"I think it's an eye. Should be a fairly vascular area; if there's any sense to this thing." She says, causing the other two to look at her in surprise. She takes in their sceptical expression and shrugs.
"What? I like medical dramas."
David and Regina smirk at her and then frown suddenly, remembering their task.
"If that's where we need to stab it, we are going to have to get out of here in a big hurry; it's going to see us." David assesses and Emma turns to Regina.
"That's where you come in. David can stab it, I'll fill the vials with blood, Regina, you get us out of here the second I'm done."
Regina nods in agreement and the three start walking towards the kraken's eye, even as the kraken itself creeps closer to the ships in the distance.
It takes several minutes of careful walking over the slippery skin for them to get close to the kraken's massive eye and they pause, a few feet away from it.
"Ready?" Emma asks quickly and Regina and David nod tightly.
David takes a deep breath and breaks into a run, Emma on his heels and Regina not far behind.
Taking a giant leap, just before reaching the eye, David plunges his sword deep into the creature's eye socket and Emma stumbles slightly as the kraken jerks and roars. Dark green blood sprays out from the wound and Emma slides forward on her knees with two vials open to catch the precious liquid.
David yanks his sword back and more blood pours out. Emma scrambles to fill the vials amidst the blood spraying all over them.
"Regina!" she screams when the vials are filled and Regina rushes forward, turning her head away from the spraying blood, to grip father and daughter by the arm and get them away.
Regina's eyes grow large after a moment and Emma and David turn to look at her expectantly.
"It's not working!" she screams over another deafening roar from the kraken.
oOoOoOoOoOoOo
"I think it has taken the bait." Nemo's voice says from the speaker magically rigged up near the helm of the Jolly Roger. Killian raises an eyebrow at it but holds the red button and speaks back.
"Splendid. Now let's keep it at bay until Emma can get that blood." He says before concentrating back on steering the ship into the path of the kraken, but still out of its reach.
The kraken stops moving towards them suddenly and lets out a horrible bellow, making a chill run down Killian's spine.
"Emma…" he mutters under his breath, hoping that she is alright. He fumbles in his jacket for his spyglass and holds it up to see what's happening before he leans over to press the red button of the speaker.
"I can see something spraying out of the kraken, the three of them should be back any moment." He says, praying he's right. But after several minutes without them appearing on the deck of the Jolly Roger, as planned, Killian starts to get a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.
He steels his expression and turns the Jolly closer into the path of the kraken.
"Jones! What are you doing? You're getting too close!" Nemo shouts over the speaker but Killian ignores him as he steers his ship towards Emma.
oOoOoOoOoOoOo
"I think it's the blood. It's blocking my magic." Regina says as she wobbles on her feet.
"LOOK OUT!" David shouts as a giant tentacle come whipping through the air towards them and they all drop to their stomachs to avoid it. Emma loses purchase on the slippery surface and starts sliding down towards the front of the kraken.
"Emma!" David yells as he reaches out to grab her hand and misses it by millimetres. He watches in horror as Emma slides past the kraken's ruined eye and disappears off the front of the kraken's head.
Suddenly, Regina grabs David's hand and pushes them forward, along the same path Emma had just gone.
"Wha?!"
"Trust me!" she screams to him as they slide off the front of the kraken and fall several metres into the water below.
David and Regina manage to swim to the surface, avoiding a searching tentacle, to break the surface.
"Regina?" David calls and she makes her way over to him before turning to scan the area.
"Do you see Emma? Most of the blood has washed off of us, so I think I can get us out of here, if we can find her."
David's eye's focus on something over Regina's head and he pales.
"EMMA!"
Regina twirls around in the water to see a clearly unconscious Emma dangling from a tentacle wrapped tightly around her chest. David, having lost his sword in the fall, bobs in the water, clumsily grabbing for the dagger in his boot before swimming hastily towards Emma.
Regina uses a bit of magic to propel David through the water faster and he sinks his dagger into the softer flesh of the kraken's tentacle, causing it to slacken around Emma. He reaches out and grips Emma's arm and with some magical help from Regina, he manages to pull her sleeping form from the kraken's grasp.
Regina swims towards them as fast as she can but before she can reach them a familiar shadow falls and she looks up to see a rope, with a white circle at the end, fly over her from the deck of the Jolly Roger.
The kraken is swooping its tentacles around under the water, searching blindly for its lost prey as Killian pulls David and Emma from the water and Regina grabs hold of the rope ladder draped over the side of the ship.
As soon as Regina is over the railing, she flops onto her back and yells at Killian.
"Get us out of here, Captain!"
"With pleasure." He saying as he sprints back up to the helm after quickly checking that Emma is breathing.
Killian has a fearful eye on the kraken as it starts to turn its body and its undamaged eye, towards them. He wrenches the wheel and turns the ship to keep it in the creature's blind spot but his heart stops when a tentacle comes up and brushes against the hull of the ship.
The kraken lets out a horrifying battle cry as the water around them starts to turn black with ink. Several tentacles rise up from the black depths to wrap around the pirate ship and Killian looks down to the deck, at his wife, with sorrowful eyes.
Regina and David look up with wide eyes at the tentacles towering over the ship, about to smash them to splinters, but a harpoon comes whizzing past the Jolly Roger's sails to imbed its self in the kraken's undamaged eye, causing all of its tentacles to recoil with another howling roar.
"Time for that race, Jones. Get the hell out of here!" says Nemo's booming voice over the speaker and Killian wastes no time in doing just that as the Nautilus turns to come up alongside the Jolly Roger, opening up its cannon hatches to provide cover fire.