Chapter 31: Dies Tenebris

If Morgana ever bothered to form a list of all the things she hated, she would find herself holding onto the end of a scroll as it unrolled across an entire room. And on that scroll would be such things as mermaids, humans, fish, beaches, warmth, sun, daylight, laughter, children, and anything remotely related to what was considered good in the sea or on the land. And at the top of that list would be five things written in dark bold splotchy lettering, as though she wanted to scar them into the parchment rather than merely write them.

Melody, for derailing her plan for oceanic domination and bringing about her chilling death.

King Triton, for causing said death by freezing her in a block of ice.

Ariel and Eric, for giving birth to the little fish tramp in the first place.

And last but not least, when her best laid plans went awry. Especially if it was because of someone else's meddling.

Which currently left her somewhere between broiling mad and chillingly pleased as she strolled down the streets of Eel Ectric City.

Chaos and terror abounded around her. The water was thick with frightened faces and panicked screams amidst the snarling and shouting of the sharkanian raiders as they snatched every merman, mermaid, and manner of fish folk in sight. They raided homes and buildings in packs, dragging out the occupants by force. Merfolk and fish were swimming helter-skelter as they tried to evade the nets, snares, hooks, and rough gray hands trying to seize them. The captured were quickly clapped in irons or rope or thrown into metal cages before their captors carried them towards one of a dozen large black whirlpools scattered throughout the city. Then they would be unceremoniously hurled in, the dark magic spiriting them away to whatever wretched fate awaited on the other side.

It should have filled Morgana with nothing but sinister delight to see the first stage of her grand scheme being put into action. Yet the horrified expressions of the city's inhabitants when they caught sight of her or the swarms of sharkanians around them did little to lift her sour mood. Her face was as cold and austere as the glazing of frost on her snow-white skin, growing increasingly jagged as her disposition grew darker.

All because of two fish. Two blasted fish that, ironically, followed her instructions about as well as she followed the Master's.

Morgana watched a sharkanian drag a screaming blonde mermaid out of her home. He shoved her into a cage before swimming off with his prize, following a group of four carrying a net filled with wailing fish. The mermaid flailed furiously in her prison, hitting the iron bars with fin and fist. She stopped when she saw her captor's hands gripping the bars and began directing her desperation onto them, pounding them for all she was worth.

"Hey! Knock it off!" barked the sharkanian. The mermaid ignored him and continued to batter his hands. He reached inside and grabbed her wrists, but it only gave the mermaid an opportunity to bite down hard on his fingers.

"Yow!" The sharkanian dropped the cage, clutching his bleeding fingers. The door flew open as it impacted the ground. The mermaid wasted no time making a break for it, swimming straight for the surface and away from the city.

The corner of Morgana's mouth curled in displeasure as she raised her hand, an eerie green aura surrounding her. A hand of ice shot out of her palm and darted after the mermaid. It latched onto her neck and flung her into the clutches of Morgana's tentacles before crumbling away. The mermaid shrieked as the tentacles wound tight around her, unable to move within their hold.

"Quiet!" snapped Morgana as she squeezed the mermaid's throat. Immediately she started wheezing and coughing as a chill seeped through her neck, rendering her once lovely voice a scratchy whispering croak as her lips turned blue.

Down the street five merfolk burst out of a home, bowling over the two sharkanians waiting for them with a net. Their optimism at escaping the net shattered when they saw Morgana standing in their path like a winter wraith. Before they could swim off, she swept a tentacle at them, sending out tendrils of ice that formed a cramped cage around them. The cage fell to the street, the merfolk pulling in vain at the bars of their frozen prison.

"You two! And you, fish fingers!" barked Morgana as the sharkanian trio collected themselves. She removed her tentacles from the mermaid she held, revealing a length of ice chain wound tight around her. Morgana grabbed the chain and hurled the mermaid back at the sharkanian who dropped her, bowling him over. "Slip up like that again and you'll be joining this lot in the Factory! Am I clear?"

The three nodded vigorously.

"Then get off your tails and move it!"

The sharkanians bolted into action, bumping into each other and fumbling in a scramble before grabbing their prisoners and swimming with haste for the nearest whirlpool, eager to get well out of Morgana's sight.

"Come on, this waaaaah!"

Morgana turned to see six merfolk put on their brakes as they saw her. Four of them had their wrists bound in chains, and the other two wielded sharkanian spears. No doubt the latter had rescued the former before they could be taken away, which only served to worsen Morgana's mood.

"Wrong turn, angelfishes!" she said. She raised her hand as the merfolk turned to flee, the aura around her swelling as frost formed on her fingers.

FWOOM!

A black ball went flying past her ear, exploding in the middle of the group. Instantly the merfolk were shrouded in a cloud of sparkling ink. It swirled around them as though it were sentient, entrapping each within a miniature cyclone. The hapless victims cried out as the spell caused their bodies to twist and contort. Bones disappeared, organs reformed, and hair dissolved as the transformation progressed. Their forms diminished, shrinking smaller and smaller as their tails were reduced to stalks and their arms regressed to little more than stubs. Their cries became hisses and coarse croaks as the spell finished. The ink dispersed to reveal six short grotesque polyps wriggling on the ground, hissing and snapping with toothless mouths and wide frightened eyes.

"Well, look who it is! My little sissy!"

Correction: there were six things Morgana hated more than anything in the world. The last of which she turned to see sauntering her way accompanied by three sharkanians carrying writhing brown sacks.

"Ursula! What are you doing here?" hissed Morgana.

"So sorry to cut in," said Ursula as she walked past Morgana and grabbed two of the polyps with her tentacles. "But you looked like you had your appendages full down here, so I thought I'd lend a helping hand. Or eight."

One of the sharkanians held his bag open for Ursula to stuff her newest victims inside, quickly twisting it shut before the mutated merfolk could escape.

Morgana clenched her hands, tentacles wriggling in irritation. How she wished they were wrapped around her sister's neck right then. "Keep your appendages to yourself! Now answer me–what are you doing here?"

"Same as you" answered Ursula, bagging another polyp. "Fishing for pesky little merfolk."

"You know what I mean!"

The scarred witch smirked. "Oh, you mean why am I in part of the city you still haven't cleaned out? Well, I finished with my half a while ago. I was getting bored, so I thought I'd come see if my 'little sissy' needed any help. Seems you could use it…as per usual."

A green aura appeared around Morgana, patches of frost growing on her hair and skin. She knew Ursula was trying to get under her skin just because she could, and she was doing a fine job of it. No doubt her pride was still stinging from the Master forcing her to go along with this plan. This was her attempt at insubordination for the sake of sisterly contempt.

The water temperature dropped sharply as ice formed in Morgana's hair. "Don't call me sissy! Not unless you wanna revisit being a sea witch on a spit! You're not supposed to be here! Your job is raiding the city from the north and capturing all of the merfolk–in the north! Last I checked, this is the south! So, unless you and your shark-men caught every last one of these fry, get back where you belong! That's an order!"

The smirk vanished off Ursula's face, replaced with one of nettled agitation. She swam up before Morgana, leaning in close to her.

"Let's get one thing straight right here, right now," she said, matching Morgana's cold glare. Ink leaked off her skin like smoke from dying flames. "You don't give me orders! The Southern and Northern Seas will melt before I take orders from the likes of you! The only reason I'm even going along with this plan of yours is because that shadow freak seems to think this 'strategy' you've come up with has some merit! But as far as I'm concerned, it's just another ploy set to blow up in your face like your sad attempts at potion brewing! I'm just tagging along till I find the opportunity to kill Ariel and that human–provided that by some miracle this plan doesn't fall apart first!"

She leaned in even closer, their noses inches apart as she jabbed Morgana in the chest with a sharp fingernail. "Am I clear, sissy?"

Jagged frosty crystals grew over Morgana's shoulders and arms as she restrained herself from putting an ice spear through Ursula's neck. She wanted to make her eat those words till she choked on them. It was always this way between them. Ursula flaunting her skills and inflated hubris, incapable of believing herself mistaken; and Morgana, the struggling sister overlooked by everyone, including their own mother. The result was a sibling rivalry as ugly as they came, both always looking for a reason to put each other down. And too often it was Morgana who came out the loser.

But not today. Not this time. Not if Morgana had anything to say about it.

"Fine. Be that way. But let me explain something to you." Morgana snapped her fingers at a passing sharkanian. "You! What's the status of the raid? How much of the city has been cleared?"

The sharkanian swam up and saluted. "The northern section of the city has been emptied, your maleficence. We've just finished rounding up the last of the residents in this section as well. As per your orders."

"Yes, those were my orders. Well done." She beckoned for the sharkanian to follow her, walking up to the threshold of a ransacked house as her tentacles brushed the frozen crust off her skin. She ran one icy finger along the doorframe, tracing over the scratch marks left by a mermaid's fingernails as she was dragged out. "Tell me, how many merfolk do you think lived here?"

"Four," said the sharkanian. "Merman, mermaid, and two younger males."

"And the house next door?" asked Morgana.

"Three mermaids. I caught them myself."

"I see. And how many would you say live in the entire city?"

"Thirteen thousand give or take, milady."

Morgana abruptly stopped her tracing, looking back over her shoulder. "How many did you say?"

"Thirteen thousand," repeated the sharkanian.

"Really?" She swam to his side, the water becoming colder as she approached. "Thirteen thousand…how intriguing. Where did you come up with that little number?"

The sharkanian picked up the peeved undertone in her otherwise inquiring voice. "I, uh…I got it from…uh…"

"You got it from the number of prisoners already sent through the whirlpools, is that it?" said Morgana.

The sharkanian only nodded.

"That's interesting…" Morgana wrapped a tentacle around the sharkanian's middle and pulled him close, draping one arm around his shoulders as she walked him down the street. "Because I have it from a reliable source that there are twenty-seven thousand living here. Are you sure you only caught thirteen thousand? Think hard now. Are you absolutely certain?"

"Y-Yes," stammered the sharkanian. He looked about as comfortable as a shrimp in a swarm of jellyfish.

"So, what happened to the other two thousand?"

"W-W-Well, I…I couldn't say for sure. Perhaps we…uh…"

Morgana stopped. She dragged a sharp fingernail up his chest to under his chin, making him wince as she forced his head to face her. "What happened?"

"A…a f-f-few might have…g-g-gotten away."

"Wrong," said Morgana, her voice now as cold as the frost spreading over her skin, distracting the sharkanian from the tentacle rising up behind his back. "More than ten thousand isn't a few. It's a lot, and they did escape. Now search that pearl-sized brain of yours and tell me why you failed to catch so many."

"B-B-But it's n-not our f-f-fault!" stammered the sharkanian from cold and fear. "R-Riptide was s-s-sup-p-p-posed t-to be c-c-catching them! T-There's no way w-w-we could've–!"

The thin veil of composure Morgana had been maintaining broke. A sharp icicle formed on her tentacle as it struck the sharkanian like a snake, stabbing him through the heart and instantly turning him to solid ice.

"That's right!" barked Morgana. "Riptide is supposed to be here!Just like you're supposed to be up north…Ursula!"

She whirled back on her sister, flinging the frozen sharkanian at her. Instinctively Ursula crossed her arms as her skin changed, becoming coated in hard scutes like a turtle's shell. The frozen corpse broke in half on her armored arms, driving her back as the halves sailing past to strike the polyp-carrying sharkanians before shattering to pieces. The three dropped their sacks, spilling the poor unfortunate souls out onto the ground. Immediately they scrambled about trying to catch the prisoners before they could wriggle away.

"You think these idiotic fish eaters were actually going to capture every last one of these guppies!?" Morgana yelled at the top of her lungs, slapping a tentacle down on the ground. Instantly ice spread out in a thin sheet, freezing the polyps in place and eliminating their chance for escape.

"Of course not!" Morgana grabbed one of the polyps by the neck, ripping it free of the ice. "I anticipated a thousand or two slipping past at least! It's inevitable for an ambush like this, and it's why I wanted that gluttonous gargantuan here to pick them off and scare the rest into staying put! Just like how Undertow was supposed to be doing the same, you're supposed to be in the north to catch any that get away from here, and I'm here to catch the ones that slip through your fingers!"

The polyp in her hand started turning blue as it grew cold. "Yet here we are at the end of our time, and the plan's gone halfway to the Pit! Riptide hasn't shown so much as a scale of his hide! Undertow's thawing out after I caught him eating the prisoners! And now you're here quibbling with me over following orders while the north city is unguarded! Meanwhile the Atlantican soldiers are getting closer with every second! If anything's going to make this plan blow up, it's morons like you who can't do what they're told! Now we've lost over half of these sea slugs! All because of three blithering idiots who don't know how to follow orders!"

"Maybe we lost them because you couldn't make a plan to catch sand if you were standing on a beach!" snapped Ursula, her skin returning to normal.

"The only thing you can catch is a stabbing in the gut!" responded Morgana. "You couldn't even snare one little mermaid that came begging to you on hands and fins!"

Black magic ink formed in Ursula's hands. "You'll be the one begging in a second!"

Ice began to grow in earnest over Morgana, sharp cold icicles growing out from her spine and shoulders as she threw the polyp aside. "Make me!"

Ursula's body grew larger, teeth emerging around the suckers on her tentacles. "With pleasure!"

The two advanced on each other, leaving respective trails of ice and ink their wakes. The sharkanians grabbed the last of the polyps and swam for cover in the abandoned homes, not wanting to be caught in the crossfire if the sisters went at it in earnest. Ursula was almost twice Morgana's size now, her skin turning hard and dark. An icy javelin formed in Morgana's hand as she pulled back to throw.

She immediately forgot about that, however, when her eye caught a glimpse of a black portal forming overhead. A portal ringed with electricity.

Morgana reacted just in the nick of time. She stabbed her javelin into the ground and pumped her magic into it, putting a wall of ice in front of her as a bolt of lightning came crashing down between the sisters. The ice wall cracked but held against the shockwave and spray of red-hot debris the lightning threw out.

Ursula was not so lucky. With nothing to protect her she was blown back as red-hot sand and molten glass peppered her skin, hissing and spitting as it burned. She writhed and shrieked in pain, desperately rubbing the igneous debris off her skin as she shrunk back to her normal size.

From out of the portal dropped Remora, landing in a crouch where the lightning struck. Her scythe was draped over one shoulder, the blade crusted with cauterized blood. The gold-hemmed cloak settled as she rose, revealing the now porcelain white mask beneath her hood. If looks could kill Morgana would have bet years from her second life the sheer magnitude of spite Ursula was directing at Remora could have dropped a seaclops dead in its tracks.

"Shut up, Ursula!" snapped Remora as she stood.

"You! What are you doing here!?" growled Ursula as she swatted the last of the sand off her, red blisters dotting her skin.

BRZAP!

An arc of golden lightning shot off Remora's scythe and struck Ursula, lighting her up like a star and sending her shooting backwards. She struck the side of a house and fell forward, lying still on the ground.

"I said shut up!" Remora lowered her scythe, scratching the evidence of her latest victims off the blade with a fingernail. "Next time you open your mouth I'll rip your jaw off!"

Normally Morgana would be just as frightened of Remora as any member of Maelstrom with half a brain and a rank lower than Riptide. It took very little to stir her wrath. She had a temper to match Triton and a tenth of his willingness to restrain it. Yet the appearance of the witch here did not fill Morgana with dread. Rather, it made everything fall neatly into place. She walked around her cracked wall, the fractured structure collapsing to pieces.

"Well this is new," said Remora, burying her scythe in the ground as Morgana approached. "Not hiding behind your ice or swimming off to cower."

"If I was going to hide from you, I'd need a reason to first," said Morgana.

"That's an easy fix," replied Remora, running her hand along the handle of her scythe and making Morgana stop. She was relieved, however, when the scythe broke apart and returned to Remora's robes.

"Let's cut to the chase," said Morgana. "Were you successful on your end of things?"

Remora's response was to reach inside her sleeve. Morgana immediately tensed, worried she was about to find herself on the receiving end of a knife or needle. Instead Remora pulled out a piece of Manta's spear, the crystal fractured through with hairline cracks.

"Remember who you're talking to," Remora said, tossing the crystal shard to Morgana. "I turned that place into a mass grave hours ago."

"Looks like you had more trouble than I anticipated," said Morgana, gesturing to Remora's mask as she caught the shard. "Either that, or you removed your limiter for the fun of it."

Remora snorted, more amused than offended. "It'll take more than that wanna-be warden to make me sweat. His toy put up more of a fight than he did. But nothing I couldn't handle. I got his and everyone else's heads with enough time to prepare a 'gift' for Triton as well."

Morgana resisted the urge to swallow as Remora chuckled. There was a reason she wanted Remora to deal with Abyssum. Her lust for violence combined with that raw magical power and fighting skill made her the perfect agent for mass murder. However, it also made her a poor choice for abductions because she had a habit of bringing the kidnapped back with pieces missing. Having seen firsthand what she did to the sharkanian army and then Emperor Sharga–not to mention the prisoners she took for her own experiments–she could only imagine what sort of "gift" Triton would find.

"What about Riptide?" Morgana asked. "Where is he?"

She could tell that Remora's expression changed to a frown under her mask. "The Master sent him off to take care of your sister's loose ends from the marina."

"What loose ends would…oh. Those loose ends!" Morgana handed the shard back to Remora. "That explains it. Well, since you're here to take his place, I'm hoping you've got some plan for capturing fourteen thousand merfolk before Triton's army gets here."

"I'd only have a plan to capture them if there were any left to capture," said Remora.

Morgana furrowed her brow in confusion. "What do you mean?"

Remora folded her arms smugly. "I caught them already."

"All of them?" said Morgana, brow now arched in disbelief.

"All of them. On their way to the ships as we speak."

"In one piece?"

"For the most part."

Morgana folded her own arms, not prepared to believe Remora's claim. "And just how did you pull that off without me noticing? I know the sort of screams you can get from merfolk, and I haven't heard any of those."

Remora's response was to nod towards Morgana's tentacles. Morgana looked down and saw a small mechanical insectile device no larger than a hermit crab beside her. Its six legs clinked as it moved about, carrying a hexagonal yellow crystal on its back. Remora waved her hand, sending it skittering towards Morgana.

"What is that thing?" asked Morgana, moving to swat the thing away with her tentacle.

She got her answer when the machine leapt onto her tentacle and dug its sharp legs into her skin. Then it delivered an electric shock that made her hair stand on end. Morgana let out a sharp yowl and flung the device away, clutching at her now numb tentacle. The device landed on Ursula's stomach, who was just coming out of her electrically induced nap. Immediately the thing latched itself onto her and blasted her with electricity, causing her to light up like a Christmas tree.

"One of my side projects," said Remora as Ursula convulsed on the ground. "Had a toy like it as a kid. I just improved on the design."

"I find it hard to believe you were ever a kid," said Morgana.

"Simple to control, powerful for their size, and as cheap as they are easy to make," continued Remora, ignoring the remark. "One crystal for the power, add a few pieces of metal, cast the magic, repeat as necessary, and voila! An army of mobile lightning bolts ready to go!" She snapped her fingers and the bug stopped electrocuting Ursula.

"And does this bugleave its targets alive?" asked Morgana, watching her sister steam like a pot of stew.

"For the most part," said Remora "And that's not all."

The crystal of the stun bug turned dark, and a black portal appeared beneath Ursula. Slowly she sunk into it, the portal closing up as one last lingering tentacle slipped in.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" said Remora. "Subjugator and abductor all rolled into a neat metal package."

"Is that how you caught them?" asked Morgana, wriggling her now tingling tentacle to try and restore some feeling.

"Scattered around the city before you and the fish started," said Remora. "I've had heaps of them laying around. I was just waiting for the right opportunity to use them. Your escaped merfolk barely made it a quarter mile out before they were swarmed."

"Some prior notice would have been nice," said Morgana.

"Doesn't matter as long as we get results."

"All the same, I don't like anyone messing with my plans without my knowing." Morgana ran a hand through her hair as she turned to leave, forming a layer of frost to keep it in place. "We're done here. Signal the sharkanians to leave and–."

SHING!

Morgana stopped walking just short of clotheslining her head off on Remora's scythe. The blade was pressed perilously firm into the soft skin of her throat, threatening to draw blood if she so much as swallowed.

"Hold it right there." Remora kept the pressure on the witch's neck as she walked around to face her. "I've got a few things of my own to say before we wrap up here. Just so we're absolutely clear about where I stand on this plan of yours."

Morgana's eyes shifted back and forth between the scythe and Remora's mask as the witch spoke. "For once the Master and I are in agreement about your usefulness to us. This scheme you've cooked up might actually have a chance at succeeding. We also agree it's arrogance like your sister's and Undertow's that'll tear this plan apart, not interference from the Alliance. It works so long as everyone plays their part, myself included."

The scythe morphed into a sword, the tip pressed in the hollow of Morgana's neck.

"But don't think for a second this changes things for you," continued Remora threateningly. "My crew and I will play the roles you assigned us. But the only one who orders us is the Master. If we go along with this it'll be because he wishes it, not because of your orders."

Remora walked up to Morgana, not letting up on the sword's pressure. "You, on the other hand, will obey my orders. You, Ursula, the sharkanians, Richard, Riptide, and every other wretch taking part in this. Plan or not, the Master tasked me with keeping the rest of you in check. I say swim, you say how far. I say bleed, you say how much. Step out of line, and I'll put you back however I see fit. Understood?"

Morgana managed a swallow, feeling the point of the sword just break her skin. "Indisputably."

"Good." Remora removed her sword and waved it at the wall of a house. A lightning bolt shot out and struck the wall, forming a dark portal. "Report to the Master, then see to Ursula. She'll be waking in an hour or so. Make sure she's ready for tonight."

"And if she refuses?" asked Morgana.

"Repeat what I just told you. If she still won't, I'll deal with her personally."

Morgana nodded. Ursula might not obey her, but she would not dare defy Remora. "And you?"

"I have business of my own here, and nothing that concerns you," warned Remora. "Now get your tentacles moving while I'm still in a good mood."

Morgana had her curiosity about this business of Remora's, but thought better of prying. She had gone this long in her presence and only had a pinprick of blood to show for it. Best to not push her luck.

Without another word she swam to the portal, glancing back over her shoulder at Remora before moving through. No, she had not forgotten her place in the hierarchy of Maelstrom. But as long as Remora danced to her tune, she hardly cared who was pulling the strings. All that mattered was that this dance continued through its motions to its inevitable finish.

A finish with her tentacles around Melody's neck.


Remora traced a finger along her sword as the portal closed behind Morgana. She hated to admit it–really, really hated to–but she did believe Morgana's plan could succeed. She herself had never been one for long thought-out plans and games of chess. Her idea of checkmate was cutting the opponent in half. Brute force had been her tactic for ages, and it served her well. If it were up to her, they would have already charged into the Alliance and massacred everyone.

Except for Lara. No, she was going to plan something special for her. She was going to take her time destroying that girl. Her hands started to tremble with anticipation as she considered what to do to her first. Flay her with a scorching knife? Saw her fingers off piece by piece? Hit her with bolt after bolt of lightning until her blood boiled like a pot on the kettle? Whatever it was, it was unlikely to satisfy her need for revenge. No amount of suffering she inflicted would–.

"Commander Remora."

The witch was jerked out of her thoughts as a large sharkanian with a scarred face and blind left eye swam to her. She recognized him as one of her hand-picked sharkanians, once a prisoner of Sharkania and now her underling. Like her and all her underlings, he had a unique and twisted love for inflicting pain and spreading fear. Having such a common ground with her minions made them so much easier to work with.

"Karius," she said as she faced him. "Since you're showing your face, I'm assuming you found them?"

The sharkanian turned and whistled three sharp notes before he spoke. "Caught them hiding in some sort of art gallery. Shocked Sawtooth and Braggart unconscious, but nothing we couldn't handle."

From an alleyway came five sharkanians, all as battle scarred as their superior. One held a mermaid with deeply tanned skin and short black hair that contrasted with the bright pink of her tail. Her darting green eyes locked onto Remora the moment she saw her, pupils dilating with terror when she noticed the sword. She squirmed in the sharkanian's grip, arms held behind her back.

The other four sharkanians had their hands and fins full restraining a smaller version of the deceased warden of Abyssum. Little Evil, or Alfredi as he now called himself, was not so little anymore. He had grown to more than four times his original size over the years. He towered over the sharkanians, his muscular physique enabling him to resist their efforts to pull him along by the chains tied around his arms and torso as his electrical whip-like tail thrashed to escape its restraints.

"Let go of her, you scumbags!" shouted Alfredi, flinging one of the sharkanians into the wall of a house as he jerked towards the mermaid. The sharkanian hit his head hard on the stone, slumping unconscious to the ground.

Remora nodded towards the prisoners. "Karius."

The sharkanian said nothing. He simply returned the nod, swam over to Alfredi, and punched him in the gut. Alfred barely bent over wheezing, the wind knocked out of him. At least, it seemed that way until he shot up slammed the top of his head into Karius' face. The sharkanian reeled back, clutching his now bleeding nose.

"That the best you got, shark?" Alfredi spat defiantly.

Karius lowered his hand, beady black eye narrowed angrily. He advanced on Alfredi, reaching for the toothed knife at his side.

Remora's sword transformed into her scythe. She hooked the blade into the crook of Karius' elbow, stopping him instantly. "No. He's mine."

Karius quickly moved aside. Remora stuck her scythe in the ground and walked straight up to Alfredi, arching her head back to look up at him. She barely came up to his midsection he was so tall.

Alfredi eyed her up and down, mostly the later with the height difference. "Who're–HURK!"

He was cut off when Remora delivered a punch to his midsection, though calling an electrically charged fist that bruised Alfredi's spine through his stomach a punch would be akin to calling a lightning strike a static shock. Alfredi doubled over as his stomach and lungs gave up their contents. Remora immediately whipped her leg around in an arc, slamming her heel into the back of his head. Alfredi went face first into the street and into unconsciousness.

"Weak," sneered Remora, calling her scythe to her and using the tip to turn Alfredi's head to the side. "Just like your father. And to think he named a piece of crap like you Little Evil." She looked back to the mermaid, cracking her neck side to side. "Now then…Gabriella, isn't it?"

Faster than anyone could blink Remora transformed her scythe into a length of chain and whipped it around Gabriella's neck. With a sharp tug that caused every vertebra in the mermaid's neck to pop Remora ripped her out of the sharkanian's clutches and into her own, hand wrapped around her throat. Merciless eyes bore into frightened green ones from within the mask, restraining herself from the urge to snap Gabriella's neck as she felt her pulse race beneath her fingers. Her mask's misleading smile fragmented away to reveal just her mouth, twisted up in a true villain's smile.

"Pay attention and start lip reading, mermaid, because your life's going to depend on it," said Remora. "My name is Remora. Last night while you were all off in la-la land I obliterated Abyssum and every soul in it, including that puny warden your boyfriend here calls dad. If you need proof…" She produced the shard of Manta's spear from her robe, holding it up to Gabriella's face. Clearly she recognized it, as her eyes went wide with shock. "Don't think I won't do the same if you get smart with me. Got it?"

Gabriella nodded vigorously.

"Good girl." Remora patted her cheek before roughly shoving her away, sending the mermaid rolling as the chain unwound from her neck.

"Normally I'd be happy with putting you and this weakling out of your misery, slaughter the last stragglers, then go home and torture someone who can actually scream." Remora grabbed the out cold Alfredi by his topknot, hoisting him off the ground. "But lucky for you I'm in the mood for a game, so we're gonna play one. Here's the rules. In a bit I'll start counting. You have till ten to tell your sweetheart here that you love him–using your voice."

Gabriella's face turned pale with confusion and despair.

"And I don't mean some half-cocked wheeze or whisper!" continued Remora. "I want them to hear you all the way on shore! If you can say it before I finish, I'll give him back to you. Then you can swim back to Atlantica and tell that decrepit king you all revere so much about what happened here. But if you don't…"

The chain transformed back to a scythe, which Remora placed against Alfredi's neck. "I think it's self-explanatory. So, start talking or you're next. One…"

The mermaid's hands flew as she signed as fast as she possibly could. 'Please no! Please! I'm begging you, don't hurt him! I'll do anything! Just let him go! Please!'

"Two…three…" continued Remora. She could see the panic take hold as the mermaid's signing became unintelligible, her entire body trembling. It was delightful. No doubt there would have been tears coming from those eyes if they were on land.

"Tick-tock! tick-tock! Speak up or else his head comes off!" Remora sang, tilting her head back and forth like a metronome.

Immediately Gabriella started mouthing, "I love you" as fast as she could. She was practically gusting the words from her lips as she tried to find a voice that had been mute her entire life. All she produced was agonizing silence.

"Four…five…" continued Remora, now lolling Manta's head side to side in time with hers.

'I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you!' continued Gabriella.

"Six. Better hurry up."

Small choked sounds started coming out of Gabriella's throat as Remora secured her grip on the scythe.

"Seven…" Remora lifted Alfredi up to eye level.

"Aa…aa…ai…I…" choked Gabriella.

"Eight…"

"I… I lll…I llloo…lllooov!" Gabriella paused as she coughed, her throat unused to the sensation of speech.

"Nine…!" Remora pulled back the scythe in preparation for the deathblow.

Gabriella went white as a sheet, her heart actually skipping a beat. Then she pulled in the deepest breath she possibly could for one last attempt.

"I LOVE YOU!"

Remora stopped just as she started to swing. It was barely worth calling the voice of an angel, let alone a mermaid. It was off tone, slurred, and choked up with her desperate sobbing. But for the first time ever Gabriella spoke without using her hands, and loud enough to be heard three blocks away.

"Well, well! She can talk!" Remora lowered her scythe, the weapon fragmenting and returning to her robes. "Sounds like a dying cow, but sounding good wasn't part of the rules. Congratulations, mermaid. He's all yours."

She grabbed Alfred's neck and tossed him at Gabriella, turning to walk away. The mermaid rushed in with outstretched arms to catch him, her eyes now filled with hope rather than harrowing fear.

SSZZZRRRRACK!

Remora spun around, lightning arcing out from her gauntleted hand and striking Alfredi in the back. He awoke instantly, screaming in paralyzed agony as the lightning tore through his body. A white ball of light appeared where his heart would be, pulsing wildly as the organ raced. Remora yanked her hand back as though pulling on a rope, ripping the light out of Alfredi and into her hand.

"No!" screamed Gabriella, grasping onto Alfredi as she caught and lowered him into the sand. She cradled his head in her arms, his eyes vacantly dark and body cold. He was dead.

"Ha ha ha! Ah-ha ha ha ha! You fell for it! You fell for it, you stupid fish!" hollered Remora, bent over clutching her stomach as she laughed herself breathless. "You should've seen your face! That was priceless! Ha ha ha ha! I wish there were two of him so I could do it again! Ha ha ha!"

"Wh-why?" sobbed Gabriella. "Oo…you said you would…" She paused, trying to form the words. "Let us go!"

"You should've paid attention to the rules! I said you'd have him back!" Remora shoved the glowing orb into her sleeve, her gauntlet fragmenting and retreating into her robe as her mask fully reformed. "I never said he'd be alive!"

She stomped a foot on the ground, causing golden electricity to arc over the sand as she formed a new portal. "We're done here. You lot, get swimming! I want every sharkanian and captive out of this city in the next twenty minutes! Anyone who falls behind gets left behind!"

"What about this one?" asked Karius, eyeing Gabriella mourning over her dead love as the other sharkanians swam off to spread the word.

"Leave her," said Remora as she walked to the portal. "She's not worth it. I've got what I need. Besides, someone has to tell Atlantica what happened here. A deaf mute as the only witness…has a twisted irony to it, don't you think?"

The sharkanian smirked. "Aye, that it does."

Remora was about to step into the portal when she stopped, looking back to Gabriella. Her eye caught the glint of gold on her left hand, a simple ring with an emerald set between three white pearls. An engagement ring, no doubt.

"Karius, how would someone who can't hear or speak communicate?" asked Remora.

"With sign language, like she does," replied Karius.

"And if they don't know it?"

The sharkanian had to think a moment before answering. "I suppose they'd have to write everything out."

"And how many hands do they need to write?"

Karius cocked his head, but he quickly picked up on her hint. His mouth split completely in a grin, revealing sharp jagged teeth as he swam back towards Gabriella. "Just one."


"Brace for impact!"

Captain Filipe Fredrick Isenbard clung to the quarterdeck railing of the Sailwing as the wake from the massive orange fin swept what was left of the Andromeda's aft section into its side. The hit jolted the galleon like a bull charging into a hay cart, almost breaking Filipe's death grip on the rail. A wave shot up and swamped the decks, sweeping off anyone and anything not secured. Cries carried over the roar of water and splintering wood as men were thrown out of the masts and riggings. A cannon broke from its hold, one of the ropes wrapping around a sailor's ankle. His fingernails left long claw marks as the cannon rolled across the deck and jettisoned off the opposite side, dragging him with it. The lookout was ejected from the mainmast's crow's nest, flailing and screaming in air until he struck a crate floating in the water.

The searing pain in Filipe's wounds would have made him yell were it not for the seawater threatening to rip him free. It howled in his ears, forced into his mouth and nostrils by sheer force. His thigh stung with the salt while his shoulder felt like it was being shot again and again. Yet still he clung for dear life, knowing only death awaited him should he lax for a moment. It felt as though he clung to that railing for hours before the water relented, when in reality it was little more than a few seconds. He coughed and hacked, clearing his throat of seawater and blinking it from his eyes.

How had everything gone so wrong so quickly?

It was supposed to be a simple escort. King Eric commissioned two of Seahaven's navy patrols to transport Filipe and his crew safely back to Glowerhaven. Five ships departed with the Sailwing–the Sovereign, the Intrepid, the Valkyrie, and the Andromeda. All were imposing triple-decked war galleons, bristling with cannons and experienced seamen. It was a sight that would make even the most battle-hardened pirate turn tail and run, these five magnificent vessels sailing together.

But it was not pirates that were assaulting them. It was something much more dangerous. Much more alien. Much more ferocious. And much, much larger.

The attack happened without any warning. Out of nowhere the Intrepid was pulled completely under, taking all hands with it before the beast proceeded to rip the bottom off the Sovereign. Neither ship had time to even think of untying the longboats. All that rose from the water was the air escaping the ships mixed with the last drowning breaths of their crew. Then the Andromeda was split in half when the monster came around and charged through with its fin. The Sailwing and her sister ship Valkyrie were all that was left now, and of the two only the Sailwing was seaworthy. The Valkyrie had lost its mizzenmast to the monster's tail, and its rudder had been reduced to kindling.

"Men overboard!" bellowed the captain as he clutched onto the sterncastle rail, watching as survivors of the Andromeda swam for his ship. The broken aft section scraped down the side of the Sailwing, tearing off port covers and cracking boards. "Get ropes in the water! Load the cannons and reduce sail! Skipper, forty degrees to port! We'll broadside the bastard and light it up in one pass!"

"Rudder chain's damaged, captain!" shouted the shaven-headed skipper as he struggled to budge the wheel left. "I can move her starboard and straight, but she's not going port!"

"You don't get it that way before it comes back the only place we'll be going is straight down to Davy Jones' Locker!"

A soaking wet sailor scampered up onto the deck sputtering and coughing. "Cap'n, we're takin' on water! That hit put leaks 'n the magazine an' cargo hold! The pumps're goin' but it's all we c'n do t'keep her afloat! Another strike like tha' an' the hull will breach!"

The captain bit back a curse, pounding his fist on the rail. His teeth ground on each other as he frantically tried to find a plan of action that ended with them all coming out of this alive. "Skipper, do what you have to but get us in firing position! You, get below and tell the men to save as much of the munitions as possible! Move all the powder to the gallery and load the–!"

A pointed blue tendril burst through the Andromeda's aft section, thick as a man and coiled with muscle. It lunged for the Sailwing'scaptain and wrapped around his body, constricting like a python. His bones snapped like dry twigs under its crushing embrace, squeezing blood out his nose and mouth. Before he could register surprise it hauled him off, disappearing into the water below save a trailing cloud of red in the waves.

"Captain!" cried the skipper as he ran for the rail, grabbing a free rope and quickly tying it to the wheel. "The captain's overboard! Captain overboard!"

The amount of adrenaline that hit Filipe's system made him forget about his gunshot wounds entirely as he realized the sailor's intention. He ran/hobbled up the stairs two at a time. He lunged at the skipper as he set a foot on the railing, tackling him to the deck.

"Get off me!" hollered the skipper, flailing to get out from under Filipe. "Lemme go! The captain's overboard! He needs help!"

Filipe sat astride the man and grabbed his shirt, shaking him roughly despite the pain returning to his shoulder. "Pull yourself together, sailor! He's dead! Dead! You saw what it did to him! There's nothing you can do for him now! You dive in and that thing'll take you next!"

A scream tore into their ears. Filipe and the skipper looked to see the sailor from below decks clinging to the railing by his fingertips, a thinner tendril wrapped around his waist and trying to pull him into the water. Two of his crewmates grabbed his arms as he lost his grip, turning the sailor into the rope in a life or death game of tug of war. It seemed they might succeed in saving him, but that hope was dashed when two more tendrils appeared and grabbed the men, pulling them all over. Their screams were cut off as they splashed into the water, never to surface again.

"Jackson! Peter! Finn!" The skipper all but threw Filipe off him as he scrambled for the railing, leaning far over the side. He reached for a rope but stopped, hands clenching up into fists and then pounding on the rail in hopeless frustration. "Damn it! Damn it all to the Pit! Why is this happening!? Why!?"

Filipe got to his feet and staggered over, draping himself onto the rail by the skipper. The wreckage of the Andromeda was sinking now, the fractured bowsprit slipping below the waterline to follow the rest. The captain's tricorn hat floated in the water, the only trace of his existence. But where were the Andromeda's men? The ship had a full crew on board when they left port, but there could not have been more than ten rescued out of the water.

He got his answer when a group of men tried to haul up a pair of sailors that made it to one of the rescue ropes. They had them halfway up when two of those blue tendrils reached up and bashed their heads against the hull. They were then ripped off the ropes and tossed up into the air, only to be snatched and slammed into the side of the ship. Again and again it smacked them against the hull, only pulling them down after the sounds of breaking of bones had stopped. Filipe felt sick. He saw cats treat mice with more compassion. If this creature were only interested in them as food, it would have taken them under already. It was playing with them, torturing and terrorizing its food before sating its hunger. Only the sea knew what it did to the men underwater.

He looked out over the ship. The men's hopes had disappeared over the side along with their captain, leaving chaos to lead in his stead. The rescue ropes lay slack and abandoned as there was no longer anyone to rescue. Half the rigging crew was trying to reduce sail while the other half were lowering it, hoping to still make an escape despite the ship's naturally slow speed. The skipper was still at the rail beating on the wood and cursing their fate. By the mainmast a group of sailors had collapsed to their knees, clasped hands pressed to foreheads as they prayed for salvation.

"We're dead!" muttered the skipper. "We're dead! We're all going to die!"

Filipe reached inside his shirt, producing a brass pocket watch. The inlay was faded and scratched from years at sea, salt from spray encrusted around the lid. He popped it open, baring a spotless glass cover over a perfectly working clock. The clock itself was not what was important though. What was important was the two names scratched inside the lid.

Marisol and Bella. His wife and daughter, waiting for him in Glowerhaven. Waiting for him to come home. In a few hours Marisol would have dinner on the table, and she'd be going to Bella's room to fetch her. Of course, Bella would already know supper was ready. Marisol's dinners would permeate the entire house with delicious smells that whet the appetite. No doubt their daughter spent all day drawing again, filling yet another sketchbook with whatever imaginative creations her eight-year old mind could produce. Her fingers would be black from the charcoal, yet she would still forget to wash them before she sat down to eat.

Filipe grit his teeth. Not here. He was not about to die here. Not until he saw Bella grow into a woman and start a family of her own. Not until his and Marisol's hair turned white and they saw their grandchildren gathered before the fireplace on a winter's night, or ran about the meadows on a warm summers afternoon. There was still so much for him to do with his life, and he would not surrender it to this beast.

"No! We're not dead yet!" He snapped the lid shut and stowed the clock away, pushing himself upright to straighten his jacket. "All hands make ready for battle! The Sailwing is now under my command!"

"And who are you!?" shouted back one of the ship's native crew.

"Captain Filipe Fredrick Isenbard of the Glowerhaven navy, that's who!" He placed a foot on the rail, standing proud for all to see. Funny, his leg did not hurt in the least. "Now all of you tune your ears and listen up! I don't know about you, but I'm not about to become this thing's dinner without a fight! So if you want to live to return to your homes then quit scampering like ship rats and get to it! Empty the magazine! I want all cannons loaded on maximum charge! Set swivel cannons with spider shot and lower masts to full sail! You, go below and get anyone able bodied to dump as much cargo as possible, and release the anchor away! Bring up the armory! I want swords, harpoons, anything we can use for weapons distributed immediately! Raid the galley for the knives if you have to! Skipper, you're first mate now! Bear hard to starboard and take us into shore!"

"But that's three miles away!" exclaimed the skipper in despair, still staring down at the water. "And the reefs are too shallow! We'll never make it! It'll get us before then!"

"If we don't try then you can be sure it will!" snapped Filipe as he strode over to him, grabbing the man's shoulder and spinning him around. "We're sitting ducks out in this deep water, but anything that big won't be able to follow us in the shallows! So you want to stand there and die, or get on that wheel and maybe survive this!?"

The skipper stared blankly at Filipe with dead eyes. Then his eyes hardened as life returned to them, straightening his back as he threw a sharp salute. Such was the effect a worthy commander could have on a ship's crew even in the direst of times.

"Aye captain! Hard to starboard!" He marched back over to the wheel, barking out Filipe's orders with vigor. "You heard the man, lads! Full sail and slip the anchor! Get the magazine emptied and cannons loaded on the double! Empty her out to the bare bones, and signal Valkyrie to follow! Quick's the word, sharp's the action! If we're going down, we ain't doing it sobbing like a pack of scared whimpering dogs! Put your backs into it! "

The ship came back to life. Men poured out from below, handing out weapons to sailors before climbing into the rigging, dropping the sails to full. The gunners ran back and forth loading the six swivel cannons, stuffing the bizarre chain-covered spider shot down the barrels. The cannons could be heard rolling below deck as they were loaded and moved into firing position. Food, water, tools, lanterns, and even clothes were being thrown out the gun ports. On the poop deck someone was using a metal mirror to flash their intentions to the Valkyrie. Already the ship had caught on, gun ports opening and losing whatever they could afford to over the side as her sails dropped. A grating rattle of chains and a splash heralded the anchor being let go, sentenced to corrode to grit on the bottom of the sea.

Filipe now saw that Seahaven's naval expertise was more than notoriety. The Sailwing's crew had the sails down and every man armed with some sharp or bladed implement before the last cannon was loaded. Already the ship was turning for shore, pushed on by a gusty wind that appeared from the south. Fortune was in their favor.

"Captain! It's back!" shouted a lookout from the foremast. "The beast's back!"

"What bearing?" called the skipper.

"Nine hundred meters straight off the port side! Speed is forty…no, fifty knots!"

"Can you see what it is!?" shouted Filipe.

"No good! Glare's in the way! But whatever it is, it's huge!"

Filipe looked out in the direction given. There was that monster's orange fin again, raised in full and racing towards them. Some long filamentous appendage was arced back over it, trailing in the wake as it cut the water. It was going ram them as it had the Andromeda.

"This is it, lads!" Filipe called out. "Fire on my command! Tie yourselves in and brace for collision! If you end up in the water keep hold of your weapon! If it grabs you then lay into the blaggard with all you've got! Ropes over the side now!"

The orders went down into the belly of the ship. The smell of lit fuses drifted up to the deck as men flipped the ropes into the water lest anyone fall in. The fin grew closer, keeping on a straight course for them as it cut through the water like a knife. The swivel cannons all turned to port, tracking the approaching monstrosity.

"Hold!" hollered Filipe as he wrapped an arm around the railing. Part to secure himself, part to keep the men from seeing him tremble.

"Six hundred meters!" shouted the lookout. "Five hundred! Four hundred!"

"Captain…!" said the skipper nervously.

Filipe raised his arm. "Hold!"

"Two hundred meters!"

The crew started fidgeting anxiously as the beast continued its charge. One of the gunners moved to light his cannon but was stopped by his crewmate.

"One hundred meters, captain!"

Filipe lowered his arm. "Fi–!"

The fin suddenly arched up and dove, dipping beneath the waves. For an instant the creature's back rose above the waves, blue-gray with black triangles flanking its spine. Then that too submerged, leaving only a traveling wake that washed into the side of the ship, barely nudging it.

The sea went quiet, speaking only in rolling swells and the creaking of wood. The sailors spoke in hushed whispers, all surveying the waters for some indication of where their attacker had disappeared to.

"Where's it gone?" Filipe called up to the main mast.

"No sign t'port, cap'n!"

"Nothin' to starboard either!"

"Valkyrie's signaling the same, captain! It's vanished!"

"Maybe the cannons sacred it off?"

"Either that or it's not hungry anymore!"

"You think it's gone?" asked the skipper.

"No," said Filipe, shaking his head. "I wish it were, but I don't think it would give up that easily. Predators don't just abandon wounded prey. It's planning something. Knife."

He accepted the blade from the skipper and hobbled over to the port rail, carefully peering down into the water with knife tightly in hand. All he saw was the depths below, the blues fading away to gray and darkness in the deep. The same color as…

The realization crushed Filipe's hope like a candle under a boot.


Thirty-six miles northwest of Glowerhaven in the middle of the ocean was a cluster of small rocky islands. They were known in Glowerhaven as the Forlorn Isles. These small spits of land were completely uninhabitable. Nothing but barren rocks beaten smooth by the endless years of waves and stained white by countless generations of seabirds. Useless to mankind they may have been, but they were by no means useless to the sea life. Every spring thousands of seals and sea lions congregated there to pup. The young grew fat on their mother's milk while the adults fed on the bountiful schools of sardines, mackerel, and anchovies that frequented the waters. It was a gathering like nowhere else in the Alliance's domain. A man could not put a foot down without stepping on a seal. A good thing to, for mother seals could be vicious when defending their young.

And with the seals came the sharks. Not just any sharks, but great white sharks of formidable size and ferocity. Sharks large enough to swallow a child whole and bite through the side of a longboat. They were drawn to the islands by the promise of plentiful tender young seal meat. They were as legendary as the rocks themselves.

Yet it was not their size or voracity that made these sharks famous. It was their hunting method. Slow and cumbersome seals and their kin may have been out of water, but in it they possessed all the agility and speed of a swallow on the wing. To chase them down in open water was an exercise in futility for a shark, for the seal could easily outmaneuver such a large animal.

To catch such swift prey, the sharks developed a brutal and brilliant solution. They waited for the seals to head into deeper waters to feed, hounding the schools of fish that passed through. The sharks then drifted down to the bottom, cruising through the dark depths to make use of their countershaded bodies. From below they watched, quietly biding their time until the moment was right to attack. Perhaps a seal strayed too far from the group, or it injured a flipper during the hunt. Whatever the cause, that was when the sharks struck in a spectacular manner.

And when they did, victory always went to the shark.


Filipe ran to the other side of the ship, all but slamming into the rail to stop himself. He cupped his hands around his mouth, shouting to the Valkyrie as though he wished for the entire world to hear him.

"Below!" he bellowed. "It's below you! Get of the ship! Get off the ship now!"

A massive dark something raced up from the deep and hit the Valkyrie's underside with the force of a tsunami. The galleon was lifted high into the air atop a column of roaring water, tipping onto its side. Sailors fell screaming off the sides or clung to whatever purchase they could find.

Up, up, and up rose the Valkyrie. In a second it was taller than the main mast of the Sailwing, and still it went up. One hundred feet. Two hundred. Three hundred. Within seconds it was a full four hundred feet in the air. Only then did it stop. The main mast broke, unable to bear its own weight at the odd angle and after such a punishing climb. It snapped the ropes like knotted hair and plummeted into the sea, crushing the sailors below.

Then the water began to fall away, revealing the beast that hunted them. Its body was serpentine, colored blue-gray with black triangular marks running down along its spine. It had bright orange dorsal and caudal fins like an eel, the sparse electric blue spots all but faded away as it approached maturity. The giant spiny fin that had terrorized the sailors and countless others adorned the top of its head. A long filamentous tendril over three hundred feet long tipped with a pearl-like orb large enough to hold a horse preceded the fin, arced back over it. A pair of orange-rayed fins flanked its head, which was some strange combination of dragonfish, eel, and shark. Its jaws were clamped around the Valkyrie's hull, as though the galleon were little more than a chew toy. Enormous yellow eyes faced forward, staring down at the Sailwing and her petrified crew. They glowed like the moon, casting a predatory light. From the other side of the Sailwing its tail lifted above the waves, showing how its dorsal and caudal fins came seamlessly together. Five humps rose up from the water, scales and orange fins sliding through the water like a snake.

Filipe froze with fear save the visible trembling of his legs. He knew what this monster was. Every sailor did. They had since before man first took to the seas. They were a seaman's worst nightmare. Worse than kraken, worse than seaclops, worse than sirens, sharks, sea witches, and all other manner of monsters save perhaps one. They grew to impossible sizes, large enough to wrap around ships three times over. They ate everything and anything that moved. The merfolk spoke of their nests being littered with shipwrecks, but never with bodies. Those never made it to the bottom, instead disappearing down the beast's throat. This was a true leviathan of the deep. A creature as much the stuff of mythology as it was of nightmares.

A giant sea serpent.

Riptide growled as his jaws clenched, biting down on the Valkyrie. The ship's hull groaned, cracked, and then gave way, splintering under his titanic strength. He shook his head vigorously, raining down water and wreckage in a shower of wood, metal, and bodies that sent the last of the Valkyrie's crew to their deaths. He gnashed his jaws, crushing up what was stuck in the long sharp teeth filling his mouth, each tree times as long as a man.

Then he came for the Sailwing, charging through the water straight for them.

"Fire! Fire at will!" screamed Filipe.

The cannons sounded at once with thunderous report. The Sailwing was momentarily lost in a sulfurous cloud of gun smoke as a hail of cannonballs flew at the serpent, striking him all over.

But the gaping wounds the Sailwing and her crew hoped for did not come. Against wooden ships and castle walls the volley would have been lethal. But against a scaly hide that could withstand the crushing tons of pressure in the deepest abyss, the armaments were no more effective than slingshots. The cannonballs either bounced off or shattered, leaving Riptide unmarked as he continued speeding towards them.

"Swivel cannons for the head! Aim for its eyes!" shouted Filipe as he raced for one of said guns. Knocking the gunner aside he aimed the miniature cannon at Riptide's head as the others fired, sending four smoking shots arcing out over the water. The shots struck his head but missed his eyes, the scales on his head proving as impermeable as his body.

Filipe lit his cannon, sending the shot up and shy of Riptide's left eye. It shattered on contact, spraying the beast's sensitive organ with shrapnel. Riptide stopped immediately, rearing up screeching and shaking his head in distress. A round of cheers went up from the crew as they set to reloading. They now had a target.

"You insects!"

The cheers died immediately.

The beast focused onto Filipe, his eye opening as all his attention was brought onto the terrified captain. A loud threatening hiss issued from his shuddering mouth, his left eye marred only by a reddening irritation. "You puny little sacks of meat! That stung!"

The color drained from Filipe's face. It talked! The monster talked!

And it sounded pissed.

The tendril atop Riptide's head swung around and then came down like a whip, smashing through the Sailwing's masts in one go. All three snapped like toothpicks, flying off into the water complete with screaming sailors.

Riptide opened his mouth wide and roared, revealing a set of pharyngeal jaws at the back of this throat. A long pointed blue tongue thicker than the main mast writhed about inside, suddenly splitting into twenty separate tendrils. His breath blasted the ship like a hurricane, making it pitch violently to the side. The overwhelming stench of rotted meat and fish made everyone's eyes and throat burn.

Filipe fell to his knees, transfixed by the impossible creature before him. He could hear nothing except ringing in his ears, deafened by the roar and cannons as Riptide lowered his head towards them. The cries of the crew as his tongues began snatching them off the deck and tossing them down his gullet were distant echoes. He had sight but saw nothing, hardly noticing when the skipper was snatched off the deck and tossed into the serpent's maw, messily devoured by the second set of jaws. He barely felt the ship shudder when Riptide threw a coil of his body around it, crushing the hull with one powerful squeeze as his antenna began beating the other half to splinters.

Hope had left Filipe entirely. Against this monster there could be no victory. Not with one ship. Not with ten. A hundred ships could have escorted them, and it would have amounted to nothing. What could men, ships, and gunpowder hope to do against such a creature? Now he resigned himself to his fate, waiting for death.

He pulled the watch from his shirt, popping open the lid to stare longingly at the names scratched into it. His last thoughts before Riptide struck down on the Sailwing was a wish to hear his daughter laugh one last time. He closed his eyes and waited for the end to come as the powder magazine ignited, consuming the ship in a fireball as Riptide's jaws crushed down.

And then the noise stopped with a flash of heat. The motions of the ship stopped. The smell of rotted breath, blood, and gun smoke vanished. The air became still and quiet save the sound of waves lapping onto sandy shores.

Filipe opened his eyes. He was no longer on the ship, nor was he at the gates of the Otherworld. He was kneeling in the middle of a scorched circle of sand on a beach. Before him lay the endless horizon of the sea, unbroken across his view.

He stood and immediately fell to one knee as the bullet wound in his leg flared with pain. This was not a dream. The pain was too real for it to be one. But how was this possible? One moment he was on the ship with that monster coming in for the kill and then…his brow furrowed as he tried to remember what happened. He remembered departing Seahaven. He remembered sailing north towards Glowerhaven and home. He remembered the sea serpent ripping their ships to splinters, and then nothing. Whatever events brought him to this beach was replaced by a blank emptiness in his memories, like pages rent from a book.

"Turn your eyes here, captain."

Filipe whirled around to find himself facing a large raven atop a perch of glass. The bird's four eyes burned with fiery light as his feathers flickered with tracings of flame. Filipe would have recoiled or lashed out had his body not abruptly lost the will to move. In fact, he lost the ability to even think as he stared into the raven's eyes, their glow hypnotizing him.

"You were thrown from the ship when the monster struck," said the raven. "You swam to shore as it feasted. You will tell this to your king and speak nothing of me."

"I will speak nothing of you," said Filipe, not understanding why he was so compliant to the raven's demands.

"You will remember nothing of me," added the raven.

"I will remember nothing of you," agreed Filipe.

"Good." The raven paused for a moment then spoke again. "Then you will resign your post and go home. See your wife and daughter. Take your family and travel far from the Alliance and the sea."

"I will take them far away from my kingdom and…the…sea…why?"

The raven's feathers ruffled at Filipe's question. "What?"

Though hazy and numbed, Filipe patched together enough of his psyche to press on. "Why…must I…leave…my…home?"

The raven swung a wing at Filipe, showering him with sparks. His eyes became blank as he fell into a hypnotic trance, the wounds in his shoulder and leg healing over. The raven watched as the captain walked away, headed for the nearest road to Glowerhaven.

"Because, Captain Filipe Fredrick Isenbard," he said as his body crumbled away. "I'll not deprive another child of their father."


A/N: At long last, Riptide rears his head above the waves. The colossal sea serpent has laid waste to five of Seahaven's finest ships with ease as Morgana and Remora capture the populace of Eel Ectric City in its entirety. Meanwhile, Triton continues to fly towards Abyssum, not knowing he is already too late. What sort of terrible welcome has Remora prepared for him? Find out in the next chapter!

DISCLAIMER: I do not own "The Little Mermaid," Disney, or any of its associated characters and intellectual property. Everything else, however, is mine =)