NERO

Sunday, April 8, 2018

"Where are we?" Jude rasped.

"I don't know," I said honestly. After escaping the soldiers' trap, we'd punched hard west on Mag, all three of us: me, Jude, and our captured soldier. We were closer to the mainland, that was for sure, but other than that, I had no idea. Right now, we were resting on the floor of a giant kelp forest, which I'd had Mag clear before we'd gone in. Things were silent and still—save for the waving stalks — for the moment, but both Mag and I had our eyes and ears open, watching carefully for predators.

Had I been sure that we weren't being followed, I wouldn't have chanced ducking down into a kelp forest possibly teeming with predators, but I wasn't. It was nearing noon, and so far there hadn't been any signs of pursuit, but I wasn't praising my good luck just yet: back near Coralora, the soldiers had to had to have found the bodies we'd left behind by now, and were perhaps approaching the conclusion that the hole in their ranks we'd punched through had angled west, and therefore, that's where we'd gone.

Or not. Maybe we were home free. Or maybe they were coming after us. Or maybe they were simply regrouping, and planning a new formation: one that involved soldiers already stationed in this part of the ocean. I didn't know. I wanted to know. I turned and stared at our prisoner: he sat on a rock several yards alway, white-faced and miserable. Mag floated high in the kelp above him, one eye on him, and one eye on our surroundings: in her shadow, he looked even smaller than Jude. He hadn't said another word since we'd taken him hostage, and he was still shaking.

"Are you hungry?" I asked, turning back to Jude. He was lying in the shade, out of the moving shadows and sunlight, his face waxy and his eye still stained red. He was no longer exhaling blood, but I had no idea of what that meant.

"My head...hurts," he groaned.

"I know. A bite to eat might help."

"I don't...want...food...want...this...head...ache to...go away..."

I was encouraged that he could still be petulant. "We're going to have to see if it'll go away on its own. I don't...have any medicine."

His eye closed. "Kuma...would," he said pointedly.

I didn't answer that, just tore a hunk off of a leftover Octillery tentacle and gave it to him. "That better be gone by the time I get back," I growled.

"Where're...you...going..." Jude breathed.

"Not far. I'll be right here. Eat."

He didn't reply, just closed his eyes and groaned in pain. I got up, trying to swallow a spike of anxiety, and moved over to the soldier. He was watching Magdalene with an expression of hollow terror; he flinched when I spoke.

"She won't eat you," I said. "Not unless it's clear that you aren't cooperating."

It worked: his eyes flashed to me, glowing with intense desperation. I'd just turned from captor to lifeline. "I'll cooperate," he rasped.

"Are you sure? Even if it means selling out your comrades?"

That made him hesitate, and I watched his eyes shift as he weighted the pros and cons. They were green, his eyes, a shade lighter than the surrounding kelp, and they'd swollen to almost comical size in his eye sockets.

"I...yes," he said eventually. His voice continued to rattle in this throat. "B-but I don't know anything... I'm no one important, just another guy holding a spear... Gods save me, I just started!"

I squinted at him. " 'Just started'? You're wearing armor: you had to have been training with them for at least six months."

He was surprised I knew this: he gave me a searching stare before saying, "Well, yeah, but... I-I'm still new. I was just promoted from squire..."

"How long has it been since you were recruited?"

"F-fourteen months... I think." He was confused. "Why do you care?"

I ignored that. "What's your name?"

"Izri."

"Where did you come from, Izri?"

"Unovan seas. P-polar waters. My family group is there."

Unova... Where was Unova in relation to Hoenn? I thought it might've been northwest, but I wasn't entirely sure. "Describe the nature in which you were recruited."

"It...wasn't a huge affair. My father and I are hunters, but he wanted more for me. There aren't many family groups in northern Unova, see, and he wanted me to travel the world, find a woman, and settle down. So when the soldiers appeared, he thought it was a good idea..."

"So it wasn't by force."

"No, it was. My father was adamant, and the soldiers were...passive aggressive. Especially the lieutenant."

"What was his name?"

"Inora."

I didn't recognize that name. "Were you taken to a centralized location after you were recruited? For training?"

"Well... Yes and no. Most of my training took place during our march. But we went to this place... A gigantic underwater city called Alto—"

I flinched.

"—Mare, which Lieutenant Inora told us was the central garrison for the Army. We picked up orders and extra troops there, and then set out again."

"For where?"

"Some place in Johtonese waters. I don't remember the name."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I was just a grunt, I didn't ask questions."

"What did you hear?"

He shifted uncomfortably. "Lots of stuff. We were looking for something. We were looking for someone. We were looking for several someones. We were looking for information. I don't know. It all seemed too complicated for me."

"Did you find what you were looking for?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. We kept moving all over the place, training, helping Pokémon, freeing captured merfolk from nets, that kind of stuff."

"Did you overturn boats and drown humans?"

Now he flinched. "Yes."

I moved on. "Why did you wind up in Hoenn?"

"The same stuff." He hesitated, and something in his eyes changed as he stared at me. Something like ill realization.

"What?" I prompted.

"Whe... When we reached Coralora," Izri said lowly, "Captain Festus became our local commander. We were tasked with protecting the immediate region from threats, and to also establish strong ties with the local community for the purposes of gathering information. Like..."

"Like?"

"On gems, strange, ancient relics held in high esteem by local merfolk. Secret spaces, like trench-deep caverns or hidden tunnels. And merfolk with unnatural abilities."

"Why would your comrades be interest in merfolk with unnatural abilities?"

"I don't know," he said softly. "But you're one of them, right? That's why Captain Festus sent us after you. And that's why those other guys... I thought what they said about that cyclone was crazy, but..."

So Captain Festus was still alive, while Izri was trending towards death: this wasn't to say that the rest of Festus's underlings — especially the ones who'd witnessed the cyclone — couldn't figure it out, but one less person on the planet that knew about the significance of my water-shaping was a step in the right direction. I was going to have to let Mag have him, sick as that made me.

And what does that matter, Nero, if Mag eats Izri? Captain Festus knows, and he'll tell Titus.

I tried not to think about that. "How many soldiers are currently in the Hoenn Region?"

"I don't know... A lot." Izri was scrutinizing me with new eyes, and I didn't like it.

"Estimate," I snapped.

"Several hundred? Maybe more."

"And you've heard this from other soldiers?"

"Yeah. Camps near.... What was it called? Triteloch. And Silin."

But not Delphirius. "And what's their plan?"

"I don't know. To find whatever they're looking for. You, and whoever else is on their list."

"And where is Titus?"

"Who's Titus?"

I gave a thin smile. "You haven't met — or heard of — your supreme commander?"

"No. I just do as I'm told." Pause. "When did you leave the Army?"

My slight smile vanished. Just then, Mag moved, jetting further into the kelp. A ways behind Izri, a shadow flashed between the stalks of kelp: a Huntail, turning tail in a hurry. Two more slithered about in the dark, though, eyes straining over to me and my captive.

I shot up. "Up," I said to Izri. "Looks like we need another rock to hide under."

***

We left the kelp forest behind and continued west, closer to the mainland, and shallow waters. Usually that meant more sand and fewer predators, but not here — as the vast glut of land approached, the seafloor seemed to sink further and further into oblivion, with the mainland forming a fathomless wall barring us directly from the west, not unlike the high cliffs surrounding Coralora.

Rock rose in strangely-shaped columns from this unfriendly terrain, some of then pushing up high enough to form small islands that poked just past the surface. A few Huntails lurked down in the shadows, swallowing smaller Pokémon in their huge jaws, but besides that, the sea was empty and dark, which made it a perfect place to hide.

And I found a good hiding place: two columns of rock rose very close to enough other, and one kinked and bent into the other, forming something of a cave in between. There was enough room for Jude, Izri, and I to sit comfortably, though I wouldn't use that word to describe the way the young merman rested on his tail. While I settled Jude, he eyed Magdalene, who lurked outside, watching him with a red, marble-like eye.

"What are you going to do with me?" he asked eventually.

I leaned away from Jude. "Ask you more questions."

"And...then?"

"That depends," I said vaguely.

He looked to Magdalene again, and I wondered, once more, about that: it occurred to me that I didn't actually know if Captain Festus had put the pieces together like Izri had. Festus had originally sent his soldiers after us because of Mag — was it possible that he still simply wanted to put an end to my Sharpedo? But he was burned in your cyclone. And apparently, he'd told Izri and the rest of his soldiers about the experience. So... Does the Captain know I'm the fire one or not? If he did, there would be no point to killing Izri. If he didn't...there was.

I closed my eyes briefly, refocusing. "Are you paying attention?" I said icily. Izri straightened.

I spent the next hour grilling the merman on everything he knew about Titus's Army, to the best of his ability, on penalty of death by Magdalene. Being just a run-of-the-mill grunt, Izri didn't have much more to tell me that he hadn't already, but as I began to put all the pieces of information he'd given me together, I seesawed between growing horror and relief: Titus's Army was growing rapidly in size, and only a partial — but sizeable — branch of his force had been sent into Hoenn waters to look for hidden caves, precious relics, and merpersons of interest, as he'd said before. But if what Izri told me was true, the Army had not yet discovered anything of note: looking and training, Izri said, that's all that his small part of the Army seemed to be doing at the moment.

And this made sense to me: if Titus had gotten all the pieces he needed for the ceremony, wouldn't he have recalled all of his forces back to Alto Mare by now?

The bad news was that they were moving west: towards Slateport City, towards Delphirius. Izri had heard talk of Captain Festus choosing men to join a force that would be stationed out there, further expanding their search. And this time, after striking out in Coralora, Silin, and Triteloch, they would catch a break: they'd reach Delphirius and find Kuma there, and judging by the way they'd tried to pin in me and Jude, they wouldn't treat her with a soft touch when they discovered what she could do. I grew ill at the thought.

Be happy you and Jude won't be there when it happens. It would be about a hundred times worse.

Almost as if the thought had awakened him, Jude suddenly cried out, gasping. "Nero!"

I turned to him quickly, and tasted blood on my gills. "I'm here. Hold on, let's sit you up—"

"My...head..." What came after was a garbled screech — as I lifted him into the light, the taste of blood grew stronger, and with horror I found that his eye had turned red, and was weeping a stream of visible, bloody tears.

Damn! "Mag, watch him!" Without another word, I gathered Jude in my arms and shot for the surface. When we broke through, I swung around in a full circle until I located one of the tiny islands created by the pillars, and towed him over. There was a Jude-sized cleft worn into one side — I hefted him into it, and then tilted his head back.

"Hold this over your nose," I instructed, pulling up the hem of his blue robes. Groggily, he did as I asked, and I felt chilled as a stream of red escaped from his eye, racing down to drip from the lobe of his ear. I held his hand as he groaned in pain, squeezed it so hard that I came close to breaking his fragile bones.

It's getting worse. I knew that already, but it still came as a cold blow, right to the heart. Colder still because I didn't know how to stop it: it was something inside, something fractured or torn after he'd taken that punch to the face, something that couldn't be healed with positive thoughts or even a needle and thread. And wounds like this were such a lethal thing underwater — the power of diffusion would draw every drop of life blood Jude had from that fracture or tear inside, out through his good eye, his nose, his mouth, until one day he was simply dead. I squeezed my hand around his tighter, and tighter.

Arceus, how do I stop it? What do I do?

Kuma would know.

I cast the sky a drawn, helpless look.

Yes. Yes she would.

The decision was a ball of lead right where my heart should be, heavy and painful, and I didn't want to make it, or even think about it. Not knowing what I knew, not seeing what I'd seen: the soldiers, the crossbows, the information from Izri, knowing that it was heading for Delphirius right now, and if they found me and Jude and Kuma there, all at once...

But it was too late. Because deep down, the decision had already been made. I let out a ragged breath, and felt a frustrated tear escape from my eye.

"All right," I whispered. "Fine, Jude, fine — we'll...we'll do it your way."

He groaned: his eye had closed, but was still leaking blood. "What?" he moaned. "What'd...you say I...didn't...hear..."

I kissed his forehead. "Nothing," I said, more loudly now. My heart was beating a rapid staccato against my ribs, and my lungs suddenly felt full of water. "Can you stay here a minute? Keep that over your nose."

He said nothing, and I pushed back, worried only for a second that I was leaving him behind. Mag would be watching him in a minute.

I dove, headed back down for our cave. Mag was rapidly pacing around it, and bore up when I came down.

"Jude's at the surface, resting," I told her. "Go and watch him."

She scrutinized me as I ducked into the cave, grabbed my bag, and pulled free one of our spare shirts. In a flash, I had it wrapped tightly around Izri's face, and he cried out. 

"What are you doing?" His breath abruptly left him in a cloud of bubbles, and the chords in his neck tightened in panic. "No, please!" he screeched. "I answered your questions! You can't kill me! Please! I'm begging—"

I punched him in the throat. Not hard enough to splinter the cartilage, but definitely hard enough to shut him up. He gagged, and I seized his shoulder and pulled him out of the cave. "I'll be less than fifteen minutes," I growled at Mag. "Be ready when I return. We're going back to Delphirius."

***

I pulled Izri along in a vice grip, which was doing nothing to stop his blubbering. I was feeling intensely ill, almost dizzy — my body seemed convinced that I'd just made a horrible decision. I hoped it could take more, because I was about to make another one.

I need just the right spot... With terrain so unfamiliar that it would appear to not occupy the same part of the ocean as the cave at the pillars. Right now, things were still dark and rocky. I needed sand and sun.

A high slope appeared, and at the top, I found what I'd asked for. Not sand and sunlight... But it was certainly different from the gloomy depths we'd left behind. But in a very sobering...unpleasant way.

Stretching away from us, far off into the distance, was a field perhaps two miles long, filled end to end with a thick, uninterrupted carpet of garbage. Bottles and tires, blocks of metal, rotten wood, worn paper and plastic, bags and boxes, containers, old shoes, broken computers and televisions... On and on it went, just a staggering amount of rubbish rotting the seafloor, darkening the waters above, turning it foul.

I swept my head from side to side, almost unable to believe that it was real. But the stench of it — or taste, the two senses got muddled underwater — could not be denied: it lined my tongue and palate with the taste of decay and rot. My throat buckled in a gag, and pressed a hand to the gills on my neck, hoping to stifle the smell-taste. It didn't work.

Behind me, Izri squirmed uncomfortably. "What is that?" he rasped. "What's happening?"

"Be quiet." But I could understand the thunderstruck note in his voice: the sight of all of this garbage was appalling. I'd seen many dumping grounds in my short lifetime, but nothing like this. This much trash in one place... If it hadn't been before my very eyes, I would've thought it nonsensical. How can humans possibly produce this much trash? And how had all of it found its way here? Did they dump their rubbish here regularly? What, do they not have enough holes on land to bury their garbage in?

But gross as the sight was, it did present a fantastic opportunity to scavenge for useful supplies before we left the area. I glanced over my shoulder at Izri, who was coughing at the smell-taste in the water, and pulled him forward. On the way back. Have to do this first.

We skirted around the edge of the field, and as we went, I couldn't help but study the mountains of garbage as we passed by, still blown away by the sheer amount of it. And something else—a place this striking, hadn't I heard about it before from someone?

Simeon, right? After we'd first met... Or had that been Cora? Cora, yes. She'd spoken of this place, in what context I couldn't remember... But hadn't she called it Litter's Seamount? Where humans threw their trash, and where merfolk found their treasure.

It was a fitting name and a fitting stigma, because indeed there was a mountain of litter here, and merfolk rummaging about around it: I began to pick out moving bodies as I pulled Izri along, a merman here, an old merlady there, and a couple of kids beyond, each armed with baskets or containers into which they tossed stuff they plucked from the layers of waste. They also wore cloth masks, probably to ward off inhaling floating pieces of plastic, which I tried not to think about. I wondered if they were part of a central community. Cora had said there was one near Litter's Seamount... Silin? I couldn't remember.

As we passed over another dune of trash, I spotted something shiny and sharp lying atop a plastic bag. I paused to snatch it up, and then we continued on.

Gradually, the fields of garbage threw thinner, and the water cleaner—my gills cried out in relief as the light strengthened, and real, unblemished sand appeared beneath us. I studied my surroundings. Yes, here. Just a little farther.

"Just a little farther" brought us right to the edge of a large encampment.

For the second time that day, I could scarcely believe my lying eyes. But yes, it was there: seated at the bottom of a seagrassy depression was a long spread of tents and pavilions, flags and banners, crudely-made fences and latrines. Soldiers in red armor thronged in the spaces between, shouting orders, toting cargo, sharpening and forming weapons, setting up tents, trading with civilians.

Trading? Yes — my eyes caught on several moving bodies near what had to be the mess tent, and it took me a second to realize one merperson was not in armor, but normal robes. It was an older man, and he carried in two hands a large containers filled with something or another. He also wore a mask — had he come here from Litter's Seamount? Had he been out there scavenging things for the soldiers? Why?

They must've had some kind of arrangement, just like the arrangement for protection that Captain Festus had with the merfolk of Coralora. But to what end?

We were tasked with protecting the immediate region from threats, and to also establish strong ties with the local community for the purposes of gathering information. On gems, strange, ancient relics held in high esteem by local merfolk. Secret spaces, like trench-deep caverns or hidden tunnels. And merfolk with unnatural abilities.

I backed up a pace, taking Izri with me, and we moved away from the camp until we reached a shelf. There was a thin kelp forest at the bottom. Perfect. I pulled him down.

"What was that?" Izri asked. "I heard voices."

I said nothing, and guided him down until we hit sand. Then I bit my fingers into his arm, so hard he cried out. "Kneel," I said.

All color fled from his face as he obeyed. "I did as you asked," he said shakily. "You said you wouldn't hurt me if I cooperated!"

"Give me your hand," I commanded.

"What? No... No!" he screeched as I tried to pull open his fingers. "No, please! This is sick! If you... I-if you... I-if y-you're g-going to kill me, just bash my h-head in! Please do-don't cut my wrists, I don't want t-to go slow..."

I gave an exasperated growl, but managed to get it into his hand. His protests abruptly died, and he frowned. "What's... Is this a knife?"

"No, but it'll do." It was actually a jagged shard of glass, one that had already managed to prick one of the young merman's fingers. "Use it to cut yourself free."

His eyes were covered, but his mouth gaped up at me, amazed. "You're letting me go?"

I didn't respond — saying yes would seal the decision in stone, and I didn't want to think that I'd done something so risky, not after I'd already made one bad decision. But Izri was right: I'd promised not to harm him if he cooperated, and I had. Letting Mag bite his head off after he'd given me honest information on Titus's Army would possibly give me nightmares for years.

We were at least two miles from the cave out here: he'd been blindfolded the entire way, so he wouldn't be able to backtrack. I'd given him a weapon, so he'd eventually be able to cut his way free. And there was an encampment nearby that he could go to for help. I was treating him about a hundred thousand times better than his dead, headless comrades, or Captain Festus.

But he's put it together. He'll tell Festus. Festus will tell Titus.

I felt that lead ball in my gut again, and ground my teeth against a welling sense of despair. Doesn't matter. Festus knows anyway. Titus knows anyway. And even if Captain Festus hadn't known and I'd killed Izri... With the amount of bad luck I'd had recently, we probably would've been found out anyway sometime down the line. It was over. I knew it. Jude had known it since we'd left Delphirius, since before we'd left Delphirius.

Jude.

"Goodbye," I said, and backed away.

"Wait!" Izri swung his head back and forth. "You...you're really just going to leave me out here?" I didn't respond, and his voice ratcheted up to a screech: "Hey! Hey!"

"Ho!"

I stiffened. Damn!

The voice came from directly overhead, and before I'd even looked up, I knew that it belonged to a soldier. And he wasn't alone: the merman who'd spoken out, old and bearded and floating at the top of the shelf, was accompanied by a group of younger compatriots, all armored and armed. Two had crossbows — they were at rest, but loaded, and the arrowheads glinted in the strong light.

The bearded soldier, clearly the leader, pointed accusingly down at me, his face and voice thunderous: "You there. Identify yourself! What are you doing with that soldier? Is he bound?"

My jaw opened, more with panic than an actual intent to respond. Suddenly, I was caught in a terrible trap. Run. But bolting was more or less a silent admission of guilt. Stay, talk your way out of it. With Izri here, clearly a fellow soldier, bound and blindfolded? He would tell them what Mag had done to his comrades back at the atoll. And more — he'd tell them that I was one of the people of interest Captain Festus and Titus had been—

"Help!" Izri screeched. "He's the one with the Sharpedo! Captain Festus has been looking for him! Please help!"

In that moment, I was very sorry that I hadn't let Mag bite his head off. They won't know what he's talking about. They'll think he's rambling. But the leader's brow crinkled, and I could see the realization fill his eyes from here. He knew. Word had spread between these military communities very quickly. I was screwed.

"Seize him," the older soldier echoed, but the words came to me in a thin echo — I'd bolted before he'd opened his mouth, kicking into the highest gear that I had. Nowhere near close to Mag's top speed, but it turned the passing ocean into a runny tunnel, and as the landscape whisked by below me, I was certain that I'd left them all in my wake.

Then something sped by my fluke. Something long, sharp, and fast.

It was a bad idea, but I spared a glance behind me, and found all kinds of bad news — these soldiers had reacted to their leader's command a lot faster than I'd expected, and three of them dogged my tail, rapidly closing a gap between me and them that spanned only half a dozen tail-lengths. And little wonder: two of them were Miloticas, and the other was a Gyaradon.

The Miloticas both had crossbows, and one was taking aim.

Are they trying to kill me? That couldn't be — I was what they were looking for, and Titus would be hugely displeased if they brought him a corpse. No, they would probably try to hobble me — that's why the previous arrow had been aimed at my fluke. No working tailfin, no escape.

I looked back again. The Milotica was lining up his shot. Cursing, I cut down hard as Litter's Seamount appeared beneath me again, diving down and snaking through the hills of garbage. I heard shouting behind me, but not individual words — I focused on rapidly moving my body, preventing it from becoming a large target. I saw red metal out of the corner of my eye, and swerved again as one of the soldiers appeared in my peripheral vision. The garbage disappeared, and I plunged down a slope, sweeping over a mass of barnacle-covered stones and breaking out into open plain.

I shot out across the sand, straight as an arrow, and took a second to take another look over my shoulder. Despite my efforts to dissuade them, the soldiers were still right behind me, and drawing closer. Clearly, they weren't going to go home unless they were made to, either by Mag or by fire. And since there was no way I could lead these guys back to where Mag was watching Jude...

I peeled off the glove of my left hand and turned onto my back, gritting my teeth as pressure and boiling water gathered around my exposed palm. The three soldiers approached me in a line, but two broke off in opposite directions at the last minute, shouting a warning to the third. He wasn't so lucky.

He was consumed in a rapturous, burning twister, one so intense that it actually seared the sand beneath, turning it black. I watched the soldier inside scream and...disintegrate, turning to ash as quickly as a fallen leaf in a fireplace.

What? Horror flashed through me in a sharp bolt. What the hell was happening? I'd meant to burn him, not—

Movement out of the corner of my eye — one of the other soldiers, coming around the cyclone, making a beeline for me. I turned towards him, trying to redirect the immense pressure of the cyclone in his direction. It worked — the boiling twister grew stronger, and he was pulled into its scalding arms. The fury of the water drowned out his screams, but I could see the burns leaping across his skin like a black plague, and felt the color drain from my face, and my gorge rise.

Control it, Nero! In the hands... The control is in the hands! The control is in the—

Suddenly, I couldn't see the soldiers anymore. Something blocked my vision, sweeping across my eyes in a red tide.

Blood. It was coming from me.

I knew because I could see the source — a lethally sharp arrowhead, punching through the meat of my shoulder. It had come from behind — I looked and saw the third merman there, and saw his curled lip and empty crossbow a second before he was swept up by the rage of my underwater firestorm. I was sucked in a second after that. I'd lost control of the twister — seconds after the arrow landed, I'd lost all feeling in the arm I used to command it.

There was a period of violent chaos, and when I came back into a lurid focus sometime later, I was floating on my back, staring up at the surface. I was immersed in a cloud of blood, but even so, the pain came slowly, like a glass filling with liquid — it built steadily, until it reached a threshold where it finally overwhelmed the numbing effect of the shock. Then I felt it, and it was explosive and hideous. A twisted, traumatized scream came out of my mouth. I flailed, and my fingers found a rock. I dug in, kicked, and screamed some more. Then I tasted smoke... Smoke? Something burning. Something blurred in and out of my vision: my naked hand, lying lifelessly on the sand, searing a black handprint into the seafloor. Where's my glove? My hand was still on fire. I needed my glove... I needed...

Kuma. Oh God, Kuma, please, make it stop. Kuma, please!

Kuma wasn't there.

Mag. Where are you? Mag, help, please!

Mag wasn't there either. But the soldiers were — their shouts were slowly breaking through the agonized storm raging between my ears. They were close, getting closer.

Get up. Get up right now, Nero! Get out of here!

But the arrow, the goddamned arrow — half of my body felt dead, unable to function around the trauma raging around my punctured shoulder. Just lifting my head elicited a scream — I beat my fist against the seafloor as I struggled to look up, see. I couldn't — my eyes were open, but the pain rendered me all but blind. But the vibrations in my lateral lines grew stronger. Closer. Closer. Get up!

I tried to push up again, and a red bolt of agony struck my shoulder. "Mag!" I screamed. "Mag, help me!"

"There!" Words now, only yards away. "He's hit!"

"Be careful!" came another voice. "He's dangerous! He's already killed—"

I ripped off my other glove with desperate teeth, and sent a blast of underwater fire in the direction of the voices. There was a short, sharp scream, and then all was lost beneath the fury of a boiling sea. In fact, the wave was so strong that it lifted me up and sent me sailing through the water, until I wiped out a ways away. It was too much for my shoulder — the flight wrung another agonized screech out of me.

"Mag! Mag where are you? Help me!"

Nothing. I moved right myself again, and my eyes threatened to roll back into my skull. Stop screaming. Get back to the columns. I was past Litter's Seamount, wasn't I? I couldn't be far, now. Three minutes, and I'd be back in dark, deeper waters. I'd be able to see them, and then when I long-called, Mag would actually—

What about Jude?

I couldn't think about him or anything else right now — I just focused on getting up, getting mobile, struggling to paddle with my tail and only one arm. The delirium intensified as I went five yards, ten — the crossbow arrow sticking through my shoulder glinted in the harsh sunlight, mocking me. I managed to get my eyes over my shoulder, and almost passed out at the sight of the red smog trailing out behind me. As good as an underwater beacon!

But it wasn't just that. The soldiers. They were still coming.

I could make them out now — moving, far off shadows that were closing in, shouting at one another. These were fresh faces, whole and un-scorched — they must've come along after the ones I'd boiled had backed off. There were at least twenty of them.

Twenty. The number moved through my skull in a dull pulse, and I felt pressure build up on my neck and on the backs of my eyes. How many had crossbows? Could Mag and I take that many, when both of us were already riddled with arrows? How many more could she endure before she finally lost too much blood?

What do I do? I was leading twenty soldiers straight to our cave... But someone had to be alive to keep Jude safe. They would kill Mag on sight, but she was stronger than I was. Whereas they wouldn't kill me...

The waters chilled, and beneath me, the seabed dropped away into the deeper parts of the water column. I was getting close. I had to decide. Deliriously, I scanned the seascape, looking for help, an answer. About a hundred yards off, I spotted a long, black crack running along a higher shelf. A ravine?

A trench.

All at once, I knew what I had to do.

And so will she, I thought as I swam crookedly towards the giant splinter in the rocky seabed. I said it before I left with Izri. She'll protect him and get him there safely, and you'll figure things out here. And that's what I wanted, right? For everyone that wasn't me to stay safe, stay alive. This was how.

But I didn't feel reassured. In fact, I felt like Arceus was laughing at me again.

I reached the top of the trench. It opened like a broken-toothed mouth, and it was dark. So thick was the blackness that I could barely see five yards in, let alone the bottom. And who knew what was hiding in here? Many water-types liked hunting in near-total darkness. It would be just as well if I went in and—

"This way! He's turned!"

The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. Without another moment to gin myself up, I kicked down into the darkness, sticking out my good hand to feel my way down. The rocky walls quickly closed in on me, narrowing the path down into a razor-thin choke-point. But I was just skinny enough to poke through — there was a wider, black chamber on the other side, with room enough to twist around, and I did. The brighter water above me was red — my blood was going up like chimney smoke. It's what I was counting on.

A shout: "There! There's the blood! He's gone to ground!"

Come get me, bastards. Seconds later, I finally passed out.

--

Author's Note

Okay, guys, this is where FLOOD gets kinda jacked.

I had to revamp my planning for the story the other day, and I fear this version of the outline isn't as strong as the last one. Hopefully as I continue writing it, it'll all turn out all right. More important is the chronology, though: next week's chapter is a Nero chapter, and then there's a slate of Darwin chapters, and then a Nero chapter... I think it turns out okay, but it still feels kinda outta whack.

If you wind up feeling the same way... Sorry. ):