The harpoons groaned like dying beasts as the three Aerthos vessels strained against them.
Chains thicker than a man's torso rattled violently across the dark waters while the looming silhouette of the Red Maw flagship drifted closer through the fog like an approaching fortress. Rows upon rows of cannons lined its hull. One of them shifted, not toward the Aerthos vessels. Not toward the fleeing strike team. Toward the deck where the captured pirate and automaton lay bound. Emma's eyes widened.
"Brace—"
BOOOOOOM.
The chained pirate barely had time to widen his eyes before the cannonball erased half the deck in a violent explosion of fire and splintered wood. The pirate vanished instantly. The automaton beside him exploded into burning fragments of metal and flesh.
Sailors shouted.
Another cannon rotated immediately.
BOOOOM. BOOOOM. BOOOOM.
Three more rounds screamed toward the immobilized Aerthos vessels. Pihla sighed tiredly.
"Uh, rude."
Her third Resonant erupted outward and the world bent.
Invisible force erupted outward from her mind as a massive telekinetic barrier formed around all three ships simultaneously. Cannonballs struck the barrier and halted midair before violently veering sideways into the sea.
The impact alone created walls of water. Emma stood silently at the bow of the lead ship as ocean spray washed over his coat. He did not understand what was happening anymore.
The operation had been simple. Intercept the transaction, recover the artifact, leave. Their operation had somehow been discovered by the Red Maws.
He improvised—disguised the team, used the ships as decoys. Still, they walked into a trap. He changed the structure of the mission repeatedly to preserve the team and avoid exposing Aerthos involvement within Veridian territory. And still—another trap. Emma narrowed his eyes toward the flagship.
'How?'
Even after crippling the pursuing vessels, even after ensuring the Strike Team escaped, even after using temporal distortion to conceal their movements, they were still intercepted.
'How many more setbacks?'
Pihla's voice cut through his thoughts.
"I couldn't agree more."
Emma frowned slightly.
"Stop reading my thoughts."
"I told you, you think too loudly."
The flagship shifted closer.
Its hull resembled layered iron ribs stitched together by blackened steel. Crimson lanterns swung from chains along the sides while countless pirates moved across the decks like ants. At the center stood a massive man wearing an eyepatch and an open coat exposing a maw-shaped tattoo stretching across his cheek and neck. Yellow mismatched teeth gleamed beneath moonlight as he grinned.
Emma immediately felt it.
The Presence of a Saint.
The vice-captain of the Red Maw Fleet.
The pirate spread his arms wide.
"WELL WELL WELL!"
His voice thundered across the sea.
"Thought ye could run?"
Pihla clicked her tongue.
"He's ugly."
Emma extended his Flow Perception and felt the Verdidian authorities on the distat shoreline. They were closing in.
'I want to avoid casualties on our side.' Emma thought.
One of his crew shouted.
"Captain! What do we do?"
Emma thought for a while, considering all the variables before making his decision. Pihla read his mind.
"So much for keeping a low profile."
She closed her eyes and sent out a mental message.
"The message has been sent."
Emma glanced at her.
"And?"
"He's coming."
Silence.
Then Emma sighed softly.
"…Good."
Several sailors looked confused. Emma looked toward the chained harpoons connecting the ships. Then toward the massive flagship. Then toward his exhausted crew.
"Brace yourselves."
Emma raised one hand and the ships disappeared. He had stollen them. The distinction between where the vessels existed and where they should exist fractured apart. Space distorted violently around the three ships as the space they had occupied caught up with the time that was missing.
The harpoon chains slackened. The Red Maw pirates shouted in alarm.
"What the hell?!"
The vice-captain's grin widened.
"OHOHO…now THAT'S interesting."
He had expanded his presence.
The weight of his soul pressed against the ocean, against the sky, against the very fabric of reality. Emma suspended himself above the sea through sheer Flow manipulation. Temporal ripples spread outward beneath his feet. Pihla floated beside him with far less effort, telekinesis holding her aloft.
The pirate captain vanished. Emma barely reacted in time.
BOOM.
The pirate Saint appeared directly before him midair, his fist colliding against Emma's blade hard enough to split the clouds overhead.
Shockwaves exploded across the ocean.
Entire sections of sea collapsed inward beneath the pressure.
Emma slid backward across empty air.
The pirate laughed wildly.
"You use the Wheel too!"
Emma's eyes narrowed instantly.
Emma did not answer. He attacked.
Time slowed. The world became molasses. Emma's blade sang through the air—
The pirate moved.
Not fast. Differently.
His Trait was also the Wheel of Fortune, but his expression was unrecognizable. Emma's blade passed through empty air and the pirate's fist connected with his ribs. The pirate laughed.
"Surprised?"
The pirate's usage barely resembled time manipulation at all.
Then Emma understood.
The man wasn't stealing moments, he was displacing sequence. Cause and effect themselves were being twisted apart with Time being the medium.
The pirate grinned.
Suddenly Emma's body lurched violently sideways before he even saw the attack.The pirate had removed the interval between intent and impact. Emma blocked barely in time as another blow detonated against his sword.
BOOM.
The flagship split apart along one side from the resulting shockwave. Pirates screamed as entire cannons exploded. Emma retaliated instantly. He slowed localized time around the pirate Saint while accelerating himself through stolen temporal intervals. His blade flashed.
The pirate twisted unnaturally. His own control over time gave him resistance to opposing temporal authority. He moved through the frozen moment like a man wading through shallow water. Emma then stole time from the space between them, compressing the distance to nothing. His blade bit into the pirate's shoulder.
Blood sprayed across the air.
The pirate laughed harder despite the wound.
"THAT'S MORE LIKE IT!"
Pihla descended on the first damaged vessel like a meteor. The other pirate ships approached rapidly from the sides while cannons charged with crimson light. Then several suppressive artifacts activated simultaneously.
Pihla immediately felt it. Her Presence weakened.
'Not good.'
Three figures emerged atop the enemy vessel.
One Saint.
Two Vortaries wielding Grade Five artifacts.
Pihla sighed dramatically.
"Wow. You boys prepared all this just for me?"
The Saint—a woman with pale hair and dead eyes—aimed a long rifle toward her. The moment she fired—Pihla's thoughts imposed themselves upon reality. The bullet stopped, then reversed direction instantly.
The Vortary beside the sniper exploded apart in a spray of blood.
The second Vortary activated his artifact immediately. Black chains erupted across the battlefield and wrapped around Pihla's limbs.
Another artifact. Another suppression.
Pihla's smile faded slightly.
"Oh." She managed to free one arm. The Saint fired again.
And again.
And again.
Pihla used her free hand to defelct the shots with her naginata, each shot carrying enough force to obliterate sections of the ship behind her. Explosions erupted across the deck while sailors scrambled desperately. Pihla narrowed her eyes.
'Annoying.'
By now all canons were aimed at her and her strenght was sapped such that she didnt think that she could block all the shots. So, she reached deeper, beyond thought.
Into the Notion that...Thought was not merely communication. Not merely memory. Thought was direction.
Intention.
And the intention that the chains could not hold her because chains could not hold thoughts.
The chains around her shattered instantly. The sniper Saint widened her eyes.
Too late.
Pihla crossed the distance instantly. Her dead expression shifted from confidence to horror as she appeared directly before her.
"You're a long-range fighter aren't you?"
The Saint tried attacking but she dodged and whacked her in the throat with the shaft of her weapon. The impact folded hher body backward violently.
She grabbed her face and slammed her through the deck of the ship hard enough to split the vessel nearly in half.
BOOM.
Water surged upward and the pirate ship began sinking immediately.
Elsewhere—
Emma and the vice-captain tore across the sea like comets.
They ran across water, glided through the sky, collided again and again with enough force to rupture the atmosphere itself. Cannonfire erupted around them constantly. Some exploded midair from shockwaves alone. Others struck the ocean and created towering geysers. The pirate laughed madly throughout it all and Emma could feel it now.
Fatigue.
The suppressive artifacts scattered throughout the battlefield were working.
The longer the fight continued—
The weaker he became. The pirate noticed too.
"Is my little cunt getting tired?!"
Emma said nothing.
The pirate slammed both palms together. A temporal distortion erupted outward violently blasting Emma back. He caught himself midair when he noticed that entire sections of sea folded unnaturally into geometric structures.
Emma's eyes sharpened.
'The ocean…'
Pressure was building. Something enormous disturbed the surrounding waters.
He heard an explosion behin him then Pihla's voice entered his mind.
"I demolished two of the ships."
"Good."
"You don't sound so excited."
Emma blocked another strike.
BOOM.
The vice-captain grinned savagely then slammed Emma down to what remained of the destroyed flagship. He put his hand on Emma's face. Emma felt it immediately.
Temporal theft.
Emma felt the pirate's authority digging beneath flesh and soul alike, trying to uproot the continuity that defined Emma Gable as "present."
Emma released his Presence in order to repulse the pirate back but the pirate had done same and was attempting to crush him with the weight of his soul. With the Presence dampening artifacts, Emma was at a massive disadvantage, his existence flickering violently.
Then—
The horizon brightened and everyone paused briefly.
Sunlight?
No.
Impossible.
It was still the dead of the night yet something glowed in the horizon beyond.
A massive golden light slowly rose upward from the sea and beneath it—an island moved. At first it truly resembled landmass. Dark.
Jagged.
Covered in coral, algae and other starnge flora. But then it the "shoreline" rippled and the "mountains" breathed.
'He's here.' Emma thought as the pirate tried harder to steal his time and erase him. So, Emma stole himself. His existence vanished instantly from the pirate's grasp.
The vice-captain staggered.
Confused.
Exposed.
Pihla smiled.
"A clear shot."
She raised one hand and made a flicking motion. A devastating psychic blast erupted across the battlefield directly into the pirate Saint's mind.
His scream stopped halfway.
Blood poured from his nose, ears, and eyes simultaneously. His thoughts shattered. His consciousness collapsed inward like broken glass. Emma reappeared beside him instantly and stole the falling body causing the pirate to vanish from existence.
"There, now you have your hostage." Pihla said
"The Veridian authorities are getting close." Emma said staring toward the approaching "island."
''But they know Dante is here dealing with a Seabeast so we use his name as cover for the operation. That's actually believable." Pihla said.
Below them—
The surviving pirate crews still prepared to fight despite the destruction around them.
The 'island' rose from the sea like a mountain waking from sleep.
A fish.
An Angler Fish, its body a mass of jagged edges and bioluminescent growths. The "sun" was its lantern—a glowing orb attached to a stalk that protruded from its forehead.
The pirates saw it too. Their confidence faltered.
"What—"
The fish jumped. The entire sea lifted upward as a colossal creature erupted from beneath the waters. A tsunami formed instantly around its ascending body. Its maw opened wide enough to swallow entire fleets.
And before it—a tiny figure hovered above the ocean surface.
Dante.
He was tiny compared to the beast—a speck against an island. But his Presence was not tiny. It was absolute.
He inhaled.
And roared.
The sound detonated with enough force to physically shove the sea beast backward through sheer pressure alone. The creature crashed back into the water and the resulting tsunami rose toward the battlefield like the end of the world. Emma's eyes widened and he quickly stole the time from the wave's impact. The water hesitated, suspended, then collapsed back into the sea.
Around them, stunned pirates and sailors alike stared in disbelief.
Dante landed on the water's surface, his feet touching the sea as if it were solid ground.
A light began to glow beneath him. Growing brighter and brighter and brighter still.
The monster was surfacing again.
Emma immediately grabbed Pihla.
"We're leaving."
"I thought you'd never ask."
The two moved as fast as thier Saintly speed could carry them as they hastily evacuated the parameter.
Behind them—
Dante laughed, a savage, exhilarated sound. And beneath the ocean—
Something enormous began to rise.