Stewart, a diver-for-hire, and his team go to an isolated reef to explore an old wreckage underwater, but they find they are not alone.
The massive truck descended backwards on the slope of the beach with the boat as Stewart directed it and Cassie, his fellow crewmate, sat at the steering wheel of the vessel watching the rear. The boat started to lift off its trailer as it was pushed farther into the water until it began drifting away. Cassie started its engines once it was a safe distance away and drove it as close to the beach as possible without getting it stuck.
"All aboard! Whoot whoot!" She smiled.
"I didn't know trains could float?! We're coming, Cassie, Frank is parking the truck!" Stewart yelled as he laughed.
"Oi, don't hurt my ship's feelings! It wants to be a train badly! Maybe one day it will!"
Stewart clapped his hands still amused as ever. "Yeah? Maybe it'll love traversing the sea floor! First ever ocean express!"
"Screw you," Cassie smirked.
Frank walked from his parking spot on the beach to Stewart's position. He then asked, "Are we ready to go, Skipper?"
The nickname always made him smile.
"Aye, mate, if my scanners are correct, the wreckage is beyond the two pillars of rock on the east side over there," he said as he pointed to a rock formation a few meters offshore. "The owners of the vessel said that two years ago, the ship and all the crew disappeared fifty miles from this area, but no one ever found anything."
"You think this is it?"
"Sometimes when ships are in trouble, they stop sending signals long before they go down, especially if there's a malfunction in the system. If what I picked up on the sonar satellite is a ship, then there's a chance it could be that lost vessel. It's called Dawn's Gaze, said to be in blue lettering and the boat itself is mainly white. White and blue are hard to see underwater or from a normal satellite perspective which is why they may have missed it on top of, like I said, the signal being at sea, not shore."
As they were forced to swim a little before climbing onto the boat, Cassie had both feet on the wheel casually. "Took you blokes long enough. Having a fireside chat or something?"
"Shut up," Frank said playfully.
Cassie stuck her tongue out in response before heeding Stewart's gesture. "Alright, wrap it up, you two. Those pillars are where we will anchor."
"Aye, Skipper."
Cassie swung the boat around and headed to the pillars of rock standing among the beginning of a reef. They reached their mark in a few minutes and began suiting up with the bags of scuba gear they had placed on board before ejecting the boat from the trailer.
"Stew, you and Cass go in first. I'm going to stay and make some adjustments to my gear."
Stewart patted Frank on the back and sat on the edge of the boat with Cassie. Both looked at each other before nodding and fell backwards into the water. Twisting upright, Cassie activated the commlink on her end.
"Keep the boat warm for us, yeah?"
Frank scowled, "See you in a minute, Cassie, so I can kick your wee ass."
"First, you have to kiss it."
The man shook his head muttering something as the two divers started to move down to the clusters of coral and fish among it. The reef was vibrant with the sunlight shining through the water. No trash and no evidence of human tampering impaired its beauty. However, they did notice a few misplaced species.
Various small Aquatronian wildlife swam with their organic counterparts, most likely a transport of the breeds from the planet itself accidentally released them or, worst-case scenario, the transport crashed with the invasive species growing as any other lifeform would.
That put a slight damper on Stewart's hopes. What if the wreck was an Aquatronian ship instead? Not that it wouldn't be a cool find but it wasn't what he wanted. As they explored more of the reef, there was a faint outline several meters out that was slowly coming into view. Definitely a ship.
"Up ahead, you see that?"
Cassie answered, "Yeah, Skipper, I see it. Here's hoping Dawn's Gaze finally can see the light of day again soon."
As they made their way towards the sunken vessel, they both heard a whale-like whine, high-pitched in nature. They looked to their left to see a pod of bottlenose dolphins and, surprisingly, Aquatronian daggerfins. Daggerfins were like Earth's dolphins but covered in protective barbs against the various predators of their planet's oceans. They heard the baritone booming noises of the daggerfins resonate through the water as one floated vertically before spinning rapidly. A small whirlpool appeared, and the dolphins eagerly rode the temporary current like it was a roller coaster ride. Once the underwater funnel dissipated, the dolphins gave a delighted cry to the daggerfins who equally shared their playful banter before taking off to parts unknown.
Stewart and Cassie reached the ship's exterior, and the former ran a hand along the metal. "Dawn's Gaze was supposedly a shark vessel, hunted swordfish and tuna also. This looks human-made; I think this might be it."
Cassie said, "If this is it though, that kind of brings up another question. If they sank so close to shore, how come no one called for help? These ships over the past five years have had waterproof trackers and cellphones detachable from the console with days' worth of battery life. The crew was never found; no one called out from this location."
The question was indeed a puzzling one. Unless there was a major accident that killed everyone on board, someone would have had the ability to gain access to a ship's ingrained communicators and use one. The new question that was starting to form was now what made the ship sink in the first place?
Stewart followed the exterior to a noticeable end and upon seeing a faded tint of blue, he started brushing off as much loose algae and other formations as he could. The first thing he came across was the blue letters DA.
"This is it! This is Dawn's Gaze! We found it! Can confirm blue lettering spelling D and A on the rear of the ship I believe."
"Good job, mate, you want me to contact the company?" Frank's voice came up on the comms.
"No, we need to find out why it sank now. Stand by."
"Will do."
Stewart and Cassie began to separate and explore the vessel to understand the layout and any oddities. As they did so, however, Stewart paused and slowly looked behind him into the blue and the reef nearby. Something felt amiss...but he didn't know why.
Frank played with his suit, noticing there was a dent in his oxygen tank. Scoffing, he tried to decide if he could just go to the truck and get a new one without Cassie yelling at him for touching her boat.
Suddenly, a shadow passed underneath him, and it caught the corner of his eye which he then paused what he was doing and looked over the edge of the boat curiously. If sharks were present, it was a fair concern. If they were hungry enough, they would attempt to nibble or overturn the boat if they got wise.
A splash behind him made him turn to see the tip of a fin disappear into the water. But what got him was the color didn't look like the normal grey. If he was mistaken, it was a gold color. No fish he knew of had a gold hue, especially reflective...
The boat shook and Frank tumbled, breathing frantically. It was hit again and was forced to drift and rock out of control. He gripped the side hoping whatever it was would become disinterested and leave. When it became silent again, he peered around the water.
With a sickening crack in less than a second, the boat was abruptly bent in half, crushing Frank with a plume of water splashing upward as it was dragged under. Ripples in the ocean were all that was visible.
As bubbles emerged from the slot of his mask, he saw a quick shadow pass him above. He immediately thought it was Cassie only to look around and find that she was not anywhere above or beside him but instead, he could see her fins as she was investigating the lower hull of the ship. Strange...
"Skipper, you might want to come down here," Cassie suddenly said.
Navigating down the side of the hull towards Cassie's position, Stewart lowered to be around her eye level. "Yeah, anything interesting?"
He soon paused with only the sound of his bubbles echoing in his ears when he saw exactly what she did. Claw marks, large and deep, had torn through the metal. It looked as though the ship never stood a chance and when they both scoured more of the hull half covered in algae and muck, it became obvious there were multiple claw marks riddling the exterior. They didn't look recent as the metal caved in was just as covered as the exterior itself.
"Frank, something with big rippers sank Dawn's Gaze." The radio silence made Cassie look at Stewart concerned. He tried to contact his friend again. "Frank, can you hear me? Frank?!"
A dolphin's whine made them look back to see a lone bottlenose crying out frantically.
"What's that dolphin yapping about?"
Stewart said nothing as he watched the dolphin looking at them, seemingly struggling to swim right. He noticed immediately its tail was bleeding like something tried to bite it. Then it dawned on him. "Where's the daggerfins and the rest of the pod?"
The dolphin was staggering in the water uselessly trying to go towards them when suddenly, it peered down. Both Cassie and Stewart followed when they instantly reeled backwards in shock as a large metal form snagged the dolphin, tearing it apart and scattering blood to spread around it. The dolphin's cries were antagonizing to hear, forcing Cassie to cover the portion of her head gear over her ears.
A giant whale-like metallic tail flung the blood outward before swinging around among the red cloud. A pair of orange optics blared through as it cleared out and both humans clung close to one another as they finally saw the creature. A bluish-green mermaid-esque being with a bot's upper half, covered in fins and donning a scaled fishy tail stared at them, visible fangs intertwined with each other like an anglerfish's jaws. As a piece of the dolphin slipped off between its fangs, Stewart and Cassie tried to back away only for the oxygen tanks to hit the hull.
"What the bloody hell is that?!"
Stewart was in awe at the creature and stuttered, "I-I don't know, but it doesn't look very keen on telling us its life story. Go!"
The man pushed Cassie into the largest rip in the hull as the Leviathan lunged at them. He followed through and was seconds away from having his leg bitten off when the creature hit the hull hard. Sediment and muck stirred from the impact off the dead engine room equipment. However, the banging didn't stop as growling was heard throughout the vessel.
Stewart and Cassie quickly maneuvered through the tight spaces trying to find a way to shore and lose their pursuer as they heard the hull being clawed through again. Stewart happened to see the claws breach and slice ruggedly through the metal determined to tear it apart.
"Swim! Go!"
"I'm trying!"
A bang from their right startled them as they moved up to the lower quarters. Various belongings were still among the ship but scattered in different directions. As much as Stewart would have loved to recover them, it was now crucial they survived above all.
They were swimming past a window when suddenly a burgundy-colored clawed servo barged through attempting to grab them. They both screamed, bubbles profusely leaking out, and pushed against the wall of the underwater room as it barely missed them. The hull threatened to cave as the new Leviathan hit its whole body against it. Once it was apparent it couldn't reach, the Leviathan backed out and roared at them, fins rattling in anger.
Cassie quickly climbed across the wall to another room, but Stewart met the red optics of the beast hissing as it left. The optics contracted and he knew what it sought. Like a hungry shark, it circled the outside always watching, waiting for him to screw up and expose himself for attack.
"Skipper!"
Stewart snapped out of his trance watching the Leviathan when Cassie grabbed ahold of his arm.
"We need to move now! What do we do?!"
Hearing Cassie panicked and looking towards him for an answer, he found he had none. There was no way to make it to the surface, not that it would matter, and there was no way to reach shore against something abnormally fast like a torpedo. They were stuck in the ship unless...
Stewart grabbed Cassie's arms and made her look at him. "I need you to listen closely. Swim to shore no matter what."
"W-what are you talking about?! What are you going to do?!"
"You're going to go to shore-"
"No, no, no, no!"
"-and go search for anybody who can help you. You are going to be fine-listen to me!" He yelled as she begged him, struggling against his hold. "This is out of our hands, Cass. Please, you have to go."
The woman was nearly sobbing, "I-I can't leave you. I won't-!"
"But you must. It's the only thing I can do to make sure you live. That's what I'm the captain for, right?"
Cassie flinched when a few more hits to the ship's exterior reminded them of the danger. She slowly nodded but not willingly. "Aye, Skipper."
"I'll miss you, Cassie. Now, we're going to go up to the ship's main deck and as soon as I make my move, you swim. Got that?"
She nodded again. Another bang from the burgundy Leviathan had them on the move as it hissed, following them even when they went into a blind spot. They navigated through the kitchen to the exterior where multiple nets and crab traps were scattered about. Many of them propped onto one another to form a makeshift maze that could aid in hiding the humans from being spotted but both knew the cages could collapse and crush them at any point in time.
Cassie and Stewart heard little movement or noises of the ship. That was a bad sign. Without knowing where their predators were, that left them open to-
A leviathan's head snapped its jaws though a hole between the traps right above them. Both humans were crawling on the deck to evade the bloodthirsty creature as it bellowed. Then the cages above started to creak from the weight of the Leviathan.
"Move!" Stewart shouted through the comms.
He pushed her to be in front of him as they swam, narrowly missing the cages finally breaking free and blocking the safety of the interior of the ship. Swimming through the maze of discarded traps, their hearts were racing as they could hear the Leviathan crawling on top of the mess after them. They hid in a space under a broken crane used to help bring in the cages.
"Cass, after I go out there, I'll lure them away and you go as fast as you can to shore. Ready?"
She shook her head instinctively.
He merely sighed, "Me neither."
Stewart instantly swam out and through the cages to open water before diving towards the bottom hull again. As he did so, Cassie waited a few seconds as she saw two shadows going over her position after her superior before leaving and heading to shore.
Stewart looked back to see both the bluish-green and the burgundy Leviathans diving after him. He slid into the nearest open pocket of the ship and grabbed whatever he could reach. When the monster lunged at him, he swung a chair directly at its face making it reel back with a snarl before it was replaced by the other that furiously struck the side of the ship.
As the creatures tried to reach him, he saw between the crevices of their movements Cassie heading out. He was about to smile when the dark red Leviathan paused and seemed to trace his eye movement through the mask. He was shocked that it was smart enough to do so and as soon as it spotted Cassie with a hiss, he protectively shot out regardless of the consequences at the burgundy one.
Meanwhile, Cassie knew her oxygen tank was getting low as a warning sign popped up on her interactive goggles. She had just enough to get to shore but as she swam with all her might, she got a dreadful feeling and turned around just for a second.
She stared with a scream as Stewart was torn in half and each piece of him was devoured by one or the other Leviathan. Noting it was only a matter of time before she was caught, she swam with all her might towards the shore, past the reef that no longer was gleaming with its life that instead hid among the coral just as scared as she was. Shore was close now, so close she almost whimpered in glee until a Levithan suddenly whipped in front of her and growled.
It was a new one, a gold color with green highlights and optics. It bared its fangs at its prey as it floated in place to prevent her from leaving the water. Cassie tried slowly swimming backwards until she was grabbed from behind by another Leviathan that she couldn't tell whether was smirking or just naturally had the mouth structure that could be mistaken as such. She tried desperately to wriggle out of its grasp, streams of bubbles pouring out from her fear.
The Leviathan merely snarled before taking off back towards the open ocean with her. The other followed and she gripped its claws helplessly a few minutes before it abruptly let go, spinning her in front of it. She felt dizzy but remained alert to the matter at hand. Breathing frantically, she watched the two Leviathans circle her like they were taunting her inability to leave, blocking any way out.
Cassie didn't know what to do, but a weird noise around her started to grow. She got an odd feeling and peered downward only to gasp as she saw hundreds of Leviathans circling below her like piranhas, mirroring the two guarding her. She couldn't tell how many there truly were, only that escape was impossible and there was an even large shadow far beneath the circling hive. It was hardly noticeable but there was an outline of something giant moving slowly down in the depths. Then she heard a deep roar the reverberated from said depths.
Sharks, whales and dolphins in the distance all seemed to be fleeing from the area as quickly as possible. The ocean sometimes had seldom life near the surface, especially as far out as she was with the Leviathans but that was an indication that this hive was feared even by the ocean's greatest natural predators.
The roar sounded again, and Cassie peered back down only to find the vortex of Leviathans slowed and no shadowed figure was seen. That sent her into an even worse panic. She fled instead upward to the surface and breached the cold air. She waited a second to see what the Leviathans would do but none of them attacked. What were they waiting for?
A ship horn rang out and Cassie saw that the ship coming close was a fishing vessel. Frantically, she pulled out her mouthpiece and mask and screamed at the top of her lungs. But it dawned on her if a single Leviathan could rip through a ship's hull...what would a swarm of them do?
A man happened to look up as she stopped screaming and instead began to yell out. "Leave now! Please! Leave! Save yourself!"
The man pointed and a few other crew members came to the side. They sounded like they were trying to call back to her but before she could decipher what they said, something brushed against her leg. The tip of a ginormous fin barely poked out of the water's surface. Two more appeared behind her at the same time, all the same color. Slowly looking at the identical fins and following them as they crept towards the ship, she eyed the sudden shadow beneath her. All three fins came from the singular shadow, and it was only then that she pieced together that this wasn't three Leviathans. This was their leader. The giant Leviathan beneath her was their queen.
The ship still pressed forward, and Cassie only held her breath when a massive Leviathan, larger than any Combiner or Cybertronian titan she had ever seen, leaped out of the water covering her in darkness as it blocked the sun briefly before slamming directly onto the unprepared vessel and toppling it with ease. The giant crest of its head almost looked like a natural crown, emphasizing its power and size in comparison to the Leviathans she had seen previously. It was like watching a god rise from the sea itself. As it sank back into the water with its colorful tail raised up and going down, Cassie didn't see the ship rise and knew the worst had happened all in the span of a few seconds.
Placing her mouthpiece back on, she dived back down only to witness the swarm of Leviathans catching the survivors in their jaws as the queen dragged the ship down to the dark abyss with an echoing roar. Millions of bubbles and dead bodies littered the sea as the feeding frenzy continued. She was so preoccupied with the sight, she barely noticed the Leviathan behind her until she heard another roar.
Turning quickly, she found herself face to face with the same bluish-green Leviathan that had attacked them at the wreckage of Dawn's Gaze. She stared into its optics, and it stared back into hers through her goggles.
Cassie shook her head. She didn't want to die; she didn't want any of her friends to die. She was crying but no one could see her tears. Helpless and pleading on deaf ears, she didn't know what to do. Knowing her life was done for, she didn't fight the water to try and swim anymore. She slowly sank as the Leviathan watched her give up.
"Skipper..."
In a flash, the only thing she saw last was rows of sharp teeth engulfing her and heard an ear-shattering bellow at the same time.
AN: I bring you the Leviathans, one of Aquatron's deadliest creatures. Like mermaids, they have a cybertronian-like upper half but a metal fish-lower half. But unlike the stories of maidens of the sea, these things don't reason with prey and have no qualms in killing everything. The Leviathan Queen is the most brutal, using her size to destroy what her hive cannot usually.