“This is fucked up,” Troy murmured.

“That is Yrevia talking.”

“Some may take this seriously but others will say this is a joke,” Fatima commented. “Not everyone believes in things like this.”

“It’s the president speaking. This, for sure, will earn a lot of fuss.”

“They will. Sooner or later, Yrevia will start showing what she is capable of. She was in pursuit of power before and she will still go after it today. She is unstoppable...unless I got my powers back.”

“So what are we going to do?” Troy asked.

“Stop her at all cost. Goddess Aesercean called for my help and that’s what I’m going to do.”

“What about your power?” Fatima turned to her.

“That is the problem...I don’t know how to get it back or if it will ever get back.”

“We can work on that. Let us see what we can do.”

“Hey, you should see this,” Troy called pointing at the monitor with newly intercepted news. “Five of our ships sank.”

“She is getting started.”

“If she is fighting for the ocean. Why did she take down those ships, how about the oil spill?”

“In situations like this, the Faunaceans use species from Marinobacter, Oceanospiralles, Pseudomonas, and Alkanivorax families to decontaminate or bioremediate oil spills,” Asceia explained. “If she sank five ships now, I don’t know what will be next.”

Troy sighed. “So what is our plan now? We can’t wait for the next warning.”

“Let’s go to Epifanio first. I want to know what Yrevia wants with him.”

••°°••

MINUTES OF PREPARATION, the team, led by Fatima, took off to visit Epifanio. With the connections of the Wave Foundation, they were able to use a private plane and quickly flew to Luzon. Up in the air, Asceia was sitting beside a window. For the first time, she saw the sky and the land from a bird’s eye view. Though she experienced this before as she tapped into her kind’s mind in an airplane, still the experience was different to have it personally. The clouds were like a sea and they were on a boat sailing through it. While she was busy admiring the beauty of nature, her attention turned to Troy, who was directly in front of her, and busy working on his laptop.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I just finished digging into Epifanio’s life. Now, I’m going to start working on finding Herozoan.”

“Why are you still looking for them. You might get tracked and this whole operation will be blown off.”

“Because something is not right. Part of me is happy that they stopped chasing you but another part of me is curious why did they just stop all of the sudden when they were so hell-bent on catching you even if they were so exposed.”

“Maybe they kept their tracks covered and clean, so no one can get them now.”

“That’s what I thought too---”

“Listen up, we’re close to our destination,” Fatima said as she stood from her seat and a muscular man with a cold expression came and stood beside her. “This is Marko, he is the head of the team and will handle the operation. Asceia, you will go with them, Troy and I will remain in the car to be your lookout.”

“What? No...I can’t leave Asceia,” Troy protested.

“Yes, you can.” Fatima shifted her attention to Asceia. “Do you need him for the mission?”

Asceia just shook her head while looking at Fatima. But she spoke in Troy’s mind, “you’re much useful inside the car with your skills. If I wanted a lookout, I would feel safe when it’s you.”

Troy smiled and nodded. “O...Okay. I’ll stay.”

“Good. Okay now, before we land. I’d like to update you all with the details of this mission.” She turned her tablet’s screen to show them the man. “Again, this is Epifanio Dela Cruz, our target.” She swiped the screen. “He is one of the richest men in the Philippines and known to have many connections. He was a busy person and his schedule was always full. But unexpectedly, after his encounter with a sercean, he ditched all of his meetings and schedules and went on a vacation. He closed a resort to his own and his family and men. Our mission is to gather as much as intel to understand Yrevia’s plan.”

“So we’re heading to a beach, right?”

“Yes...Okay, we’re set. Everyone, we’re landing in a few minutes.”

••°°••

THE SUN HAD set and the moon owned the sky, the sea breeze was cool and it was lingering on Asceia’s exposed skin as she was wearing a two-piece. She walked the shore of a white-sand beach filled with tourists partying around bonfires and beautiful lights. Beside her was Marko, who was only wearing summer shorts and exposing his well-built body that captured the women and men’s attention. They were both heading to the resort’s boundary. While they were blending in with the humans, the place was filled with a mixture of laughter, talk, and shouts of people. And Asceia was using binoculars to surveil the nearby beach resort that was absent from any presence of tourists.

“How far are you from the target?” They both heard the voice of Troy through the earpieces they were wearing.

“Five minutes away from the position,” Marko answered as he kept on glancing at the ladies they encountered along the way.

Again, Asceia look through the binoculars and this time, she saw a man walking towards the water from the next beach. He was the first one she spotted for how many minutes of monitoring. He was dragging something. Looking at his face, she immediately knew that it wasn’t Epifanio. “Tell them we saw one, probably a guard of Epifanio,” she telepathically said to Marko.

“We got one...a guard. He’s heading to the water dragging something. What is that, Asceia?”

She checked it again “A tube and an engine with a very very long extension wires.”

“Yep, it looks like a tube and engine,” Marko said while nodding  “He’s putting the end of the tube in the water...oh it’s a siphon tube.”

Asceia watched the man turn the machine on and noticed how the tube moved in an undulating manner. “He’s siphoning seawater.”

“They are collecting seawater.”