"STEP ON IT!" They all yelled at Tundra, "WHAT DO YOU THINK I'M DOING?!" He slammed on the throttle. The giant sea monster was keeping up easily. "Crap, crap, crap!" Kala started to control the water around the sea monster to try and slow it down, but the sea beast roars knocking Kala down, she slips and almost falls out of the boat, but luckily for her; Hirune being pessimistic was already expecting something like that to happen and had the Devourer Jaws ready. She stretches the jaws, and they catch Kala by her tail.
Kala yelps in pain but doesn't complain as Hirune pulls her back onto the boat. "That hurt, but I appreciate it," she mumbled while rubbing her tail. Hirune rolled her eyes and stared at the sea monster, then she saw that they were still headed towards the Triplets of Red Peaks, and the sea near the triplet red peaks had a lot of long rocks sticking out of it. "Tundra find the tallest one of those rocks and circle around it! I've got an idea!" Hirune yelled while focusing on keeping the jaws in her hand. She wasn't sure if her idea would work since she didn't know how far the Devourer Jaws could stretch. But it was certainly worth a try. She felt Tundra turning, the sea monster catching up. Hirune stretched the jaws towards the spiky rock, and made it bite down. "Keep on circling until I tell you to stop!" Tundra kept on circling around the rock for 3/4, "stop!" Hirune yelled as she yanked back the jaws with all of her strength breaking the rock. The sea monster roared as the rock crashed into its back, then it blasted a large shoot of water at them, it seemed like a pathetic wave for a split second, then it seemed like a huge wave that was about to engulf them beneath the water.
They were all visibly shaken, then Ellen finally did something. She held her hand up at it, and a tiny pitch-black piece of void with a singularity point appeared in the wave. Rippling it, then spiraling it into itself, droplets of sea green water being separated from the blood flying all over the place. It was an ethereal sight to behold. Then Ellen quickly made the black hole disappear, causing the water to turn into a heavy rain for a moment before suddenly splooshing back into the ocean. A bunch of water splashing on them as they completely ignored Hirune's cries in pain from the water getting all over her left hand.
Tundra turned back towards the Triplets of Red Peaks. They were all still in awe of what they just saw. Besides Ellen and Hirune, Ellen because it was her power, she'd obviously seen something like that before. And Hirune, half due to her hand burning alive, and half from wondering why Ellen hasn't done this in front of them before. Sure, black holes are dangerous, but if she could make one so small that it didn't do anything to perturb them then why didn't she just use a black hole on the sea monster earlier?
Which thinking of the sea monster, why did it stop chasing them. She stared at Ellen, her brow obviously in a cold sweat as she could tell Hirune was getting onto her in some form of way. Hirune stared back into the ocean, trying to see if the sea monster is after them again.
Then all of the sudden the shadow jester appeared again, "AAAHH!" Hirune jumped a foot into the air, holding her hands open in front of herself. They all looked at her, she quickly pretended to be holding her left hand in pain as if sea water got on it. They all rolled their eyes and looked away. She stared at the shadow jester for a moment, looking grumpy. Why was it here all of the sudden?
Then the shadow jester pointed down. 'Down? What could that have to do with any-' Hirune's train of thought got caught off as she quickly yelled, "The sea monster is below us!" She stopped for a moment, they all looked at her panicked, besides Ellen. She seemed calm, too calm. Hirune shook her head ignoring that thought. She couldn't be suspicious of Ellen right now; she had to focus. "Kala send us into the air with your waterpower things, I don't know the name! Tundra gives Ellen the wheel and freeze parts of the sea behind us randomly!"
Kala quickly lifted the boat high into the air while groaning in exhaustion. Tundra stood up quickly and looked down to see where he should freeze. Ellen slowly went and sat in the driver's seat and started to slam the pedal in. Hirune looked at Ellen, she walked closer and sat near her. She didn't say anything to her or give her a look filled with sass or suspicion. Instead, she just stared at her, then looked away knowingly. Hirune could tell by now that Ellen was something special, she just had to figure out in what way she was special.
Then the boat hit the ocean hard, water splashing all over the place. Hirune stood up and looked at the spots Tundra was freezing around them. She looked at the shadow jester and saw it pointing left. She tried to bring the Devourer Jaws out again but all that came out were the nails. She looked at her left hand, why weren't the jaws coming out? She looked at Ellen, "Why aren't the jaws working?" Ellen glanced at her, trying to mostly keep her eyes forward to not lose their route, "I know that you know that there's something special about me now, but I can't disable powers or anything of that sort."
Hirune looked at her hand again, then back at the sea as the sea monster got closer. She yelled loudly, as she raised her hand into the air and violently slammed it into the boats railing as if it was a broken TV remote. She started to pant heavily as they all looked at her concerned. Tundra took a step towards her concerned, Kala took a step away, and Ellen just stared at her in horror. They all reacted in different ways, but they could all tell that Hirune was not okay in the head by now.
Hirune tried to force the jaws out again, but only a small pair of jaws came out of her nail. She rolled her eyes in annoyance. Then stretched the jaws towards a chunk of ice Tundra was making and flung it at the sea monster. It hit the sea monster in the eye, and it whimpered in pain. Turning away slightly, but Hirune wasn't done. She couldn't even feel her hand anymore from how hard she slammed it into the side of the boat and how much water was on it. She flung another chunk of ice at it, this time hitting it on the side of its head, penetrating through it a bit.
The sea monster roared and turned the other way, swimming away. The shadow jester then hopped off of the boat on front of her, curtseyed and bowed in midair, then diminished into a dark liquid into the ocean.
Then the consequences of forcing her powers out caught up to her, and she lost consciousness.
She woke up in the same dark space she woke up in before she met Ellen, Tundra, Kala and Clint. Instantly recognizing the rooms ethereal lighting. She then looked to her left and saw Namulenza leaning on her arms that are rested against the arm rest of the throne Hirune is sitting on. Yet she seems to be lacking her left hand, as she a held her head up with her right hand.
"So, would you like to explain why you forced out more power than you could contain?"
She stared at her, mildly confused. "I mean, I didn't think it was that bad, but judging by your hand it seems like it's a huge deal."
Namulenza pumped her hands up and down in annoyance, letting out an annoyed moan. "Yes! Yes, it's a big deal, there's a reason why I limit the amount of power you can borrow! That's the whole point of my limit. If you feel like it's so necessary to use that much power, go look for more shards of my artifact!" She shrieked, finally freezing her hands, her metacarpals and phalanges visible through her skin.
Hirune stared at her, her cheeks suddenly puffed up from holding back a laugh, "I'm sorry." Namulenza rolled her eyes and stomped away but then turned around.
"By the way those red lights on the chandelier allow you to gain knowledge as to how to rank up into certain routes."
Hirune stared at Namulenza, "Wait there's routes?" Namulenza stared back at her, "Wait Ellen didn't tell you?" Hirune shook her head in confusion. Namulenza all of the sudden seemed annoyed out of her mind again. "If I had a physical for- Nope, it doesn't matter. Listen up Hirune," Namulenza snapped and shadows wrapped around her and changed her dress to a business outfit, with the most basic glasses you can think of, and a pointer stick. She now looked like a teacher.
Hirune stared at her for a moment, "Good morning Ms. Namulenza, what's our lesson today?" Namulenza chuckled, "Today's lesson is power routes! There are 8 routes where you can choose to lead your powers towards. You can gradually increase your progress towards multiple routes, but if you progress enough in certain directions, other routes get blocked. That's how your powers can be specialized for your preferences! It also means if you use them right you can lead yourself into a special rank that you may know of. Ranks being used to determine how close you are to a certain degree of power. Does that make sense?"
Hirune nodded. That made a lot more sense than any of the explanations Ellen said. Namulenza nodded, "Well that's todays lesson. Have a good day of your day, class is dismissed." She said as Hirune regained consciousness.
She looked around and saw they parked the boat at the Triplets of Red Peaks. She looks up and sees that the peaks, as described by the name, are red, but the left peak has a first quarter half-moon shaped hole in it, the right peak having a last quarter half-moon shaped hole in it, then peak in the middle having a sun shaped hole in it. She couldn't help but wonder what these peaks could be hiding.