A quake ran through Scarlet’s bones as all of Rachel’s black flames, crimson lightning, and polluted energy around the space extinguished, and her spirit began to weaken. Thick, glowing blood stuck to her clothes, and there was slight damage to her clothes, but she couldn’t see any puncture holes in her skin.

  “No! No, no, no! Rachel, you can’t… Rachel!”

  She’d been invincible only a moment ago, and fear gripped her belly as she picked the fallen hare up, uncertainty gripping her when Rachel’s hammer vanished in sparkling white light.

  “Little Fang? Scarlet, talk to me!”

  “A-Astra! Astra, what do I do?! Rachel—I think she was stabbed! Maybe she was poisoned!” She looked through the walls, searching for a solution as the burning building became more unstable, no longer mixed with Rachel’s corrupting powers. “Maria’s too exhausted to heal her right now—she’s barely standing, and…and Rachel’s—everything—she’s so weak all of a sudden! She’s losing blood! What do I do?!”

  “Aye, if Rach is in trouble, uh…”

  Saint Barbara’s soft yet decisive voice came over the channel. “Carry her to the medics on the largest ship, Scarlet. What about Relica?”

  Shadows embraced her as she teleported into the open air, vision scanning the field and looking for anyone who looked like a doctor on the distant ship with her enhanced eyes.

  “These knights and a wizard showed up to save Relica—Rachel sent one flying, b-but—Rachel was so strong, and then she collapsed out of nowhere!”

  “Breathe, Scarlet,” the Army legend urged. “You can’t help Rachel if you’re panicking.”

  “I know, I know!” she cried, teleporting higher and holding the hare tighter against her body as they began to fall again. “All of them but one got away—wait, I see it!”

  “It’s hard to hear you over the wind,” Barbara returned as a few shadow skips brought her onto the deck of the ship, a flurry of activity; in the distance, she saw Selvaria’s giant fin dip below the surface of thrashing waters. “MI6, I assume. Astra, if there is someone we can question—”

  “Already ahead of ya, Major!”

  Scarlet supported Rachel’s head while jogging to the medical crew on the uneven boat, bringing a stretcher. A young man held out his hand as she neared, a faint green light illuminating it as the magical healer assessed her condition.

  “Make room! Make room… Shit.”

  “Is it bad?!” Scarlet whimpered, fangs biting into her bottom lip. “Her insides look bad!”

  Barbara’s cool tone helped soothe her turbulent emotions.

  “What’s Rachel’s status? Keep right and follow the sea monster; she’s spotted something.”

  The doctor offered her a forced, encouraging smile, speaking through the channel they were on as Barbara finished giving orders. “She’s not great. I can’t see any wounds outside her body, but inside is another story. That being said, I, umm, I think with some spot treatment and over a few days, there will be an improvement.”

  He ran his glowing palm over the areas where her clothes were ripped, closing them with some visible effort. “I know it doesn’t sound scientific, but her spirit needs time to rejuvenate. I don’t know how, but she’s holding on.”

  Scarlet’s focus darted to the sky. “The moon! We need to keep her in sight of the—ack!”

  She bit her tongue as a worried voice took over Astra’s coms. “Is my daughter alright?! What happened?!”

  “She’ll be fine, Ms. Park,” Barbara insisted, the mother’s husband heard nearby.

  “Let’s let them do their jobs, Molly.”

  “I want to hear it from Scarlet! Scarlet, is… How is she?”

  Swallowing the lump in her throat and trying to block out the shouts and sloshing sea, Scarlet looked over the unresponsive hare. “She’s…breathing shallowly, but they say she’ll pull through in a few days with some healing. Maria should be fine tomorrow evening to help…maybe.”

  “Thank goodness… Please, Scarlet, stay by her side. I’d feel a lot better if you were with her.”

  “I will…” Scarlet sniffed, heat rising in her throat at the emotion in the woman’s voice. There was something she could do; she could stay with Rachel and support her.

  “Thank you for being there for my daughter… Thank you, Scarlet.”

  Saint Barbara cleared the airway. “Ahem. What is the status of the knight Rachel attacked?”

  Lt. Mateo’s gruff voice came over the channel. “In a damn rough shape on first inspection… Burns I’ve never seen before, and most of his gear’s rusted straight through. She must have sent him through three or four buildings, at least—the guy looks like he became a human meteor—but he’s still breathing…somehow.”

  “Call for a medivac immediately! Load him on the helicopter. We’ll question him when he wakes up. What the hell is the UK doing here with a terrorist like Relica? Dammit. This went from a simple gang war to terrorism and foreign military affairs.”

  Remembering the fairy in her pocket, Scarlet panicked and gently extracted her. “Oh, umm, please be okay… Did I hurt her?”

  “Is that…a person?” the doctor mumbled, carefully holding the tiny young woman in her hand as the other man checked her condition. “Heavy bruising…and a hairline fracture on her left leg, but we should be able to clear that up. She’s also a bit malnourished—”

  “Sugar!” Scarlet interjected.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Sugar,” she hastily insisted. “Fiona needs sugar to live.”

  “Hah. Well, we have a moon bunny and sugar fairy, huh?”

  Scarlet swiftly shook her head. “She’s a hare, not a rabbit—it’s important!”

  “Okay! Okay! Help me get a place set up so we can treat her until we can move to a better location.”

  Holding Rachel’s arm to stop herself from shaking, Scarlet stabilized her as the pair lifted her up on the stretcher to bring her to a place that was out of the way from the general bustle on the deck. She was thankful that the fairy would recover from the rough treatment she’d received, which made all of this easier to swallow.

  Maria would be able to do more tomorrow, no doubt. The kids were all saved due to them buying enough time for Rachel to get back. Hopefully, Selvaria would capture the submarine before they escaped because she knew Rachel would be pissed if the woman managed to get away.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Still, the mystery about what happened to the hare and how she’d gotten so insanely powerful in less than twenty minutes was the buzz of the radio as the various combat zone activities died down, turning their sights to the rolling sea and leviathan.

  Whatever weird technology the UK submarine was using was messing with all the radar equipment, and a new type of decoy device was making locating the vessel impossible by standard methods. The blockade had kept them in deeper waters, but things weren’t looking good.

  ?????

  Selvaria breathed as she jogged down the alleyway to the beach, trying to pace herself. Power flooded her body when Rachel came through, giving her all sorts of new goodies she hadn’t had a chance to go through—she was Level 8 now!

  “In and out… In and out… Slow… Why am I so heavy on land?” she cried before stumbling and falling down the stairs to the beach as the tiniest bit of emotion touched her voice.

  Spine spikes digging into the concrete and sand, she lay there for a second in a daze. Had she imagined it?

  “Hello? Damn.” Voice as monotone as ever, a new sense of hope filled her with the prospect of expressing emotion again. “Well, dust yourself off, and go get some swordfish.”

  Forcing herself up, she continued her jog to the sea as a blast of noise brought her spinning in a circle to see a black meteorite punch through four buildings to explode against the park to her right.

  “Huh. Probably Rachel. It’s her style,” she huffed, returning to her jog. “In and out. In and out.”

  A tear came to her eyes as she made it to the water; she was already pooped after all the previous exercise, and getting back up to the street had been a chore with how fast Astra’s drone was, but now she was back in her element!

  Diving into the waves, she felt as if chains binding her to the ground broke free, and a powerful beat of her caudal fin propelled her away from the shoreline, spaying the beach. Weaving left and right, she grinned as the ocean opened up before her, and she entered deeper waters.

  [Creature of the Fathomless Void: Activated]

  [Feats Augmented to Kaiju-class]

  Body expanding, her fangs glistened as her sharp underwater vision penetrated the blue, yet she slowed to a stop as hundreds of weird sonar pulses pinged off her senses. Slowly rising to the surface, she observed the weird sight. In the distance, she found something that couldn’t be right: hundreds of submarines moved through the waters. It was impossible.

  A spark of realization came when a torpedo went straight through one of the subs and went out the other side: they were decoys. A grin spread across her monstrous mouth at the easy solution.

  Dipping back under, her tail flung water in a geyser as she picked up speed, heading right for the war zone. Excitement spurred her on faster when the military ships moved to follow her lead. If they were illusions, then all she had to do was act as a monster torpedo.

  [Water Pool - Advanced to D-tier]

  She lowered her head upon nearing one, passing right through it, breathing in deeply upon getting into a good position, her plates lit up. Electricity ran along her back up to her mouth as she pulled in liquid, charging and condensing the particles with the static bouncing around her jaws.

  The submarine illusion she was hiding inside fizzled out, energy destroying whatever device had created it, revealing her as the bulky vessel vanished. She breathed the shimmering, aquamarine laser at a sweeping angle to pass through dozens of fake subs.

  [Kaiju Breath Augmentation - Ion Cutter]

  She laughed as she continued to search for the weirdly elusive submarine, her [Water Pool] increasing her size and Power with every second she spent in the ocean.

  [Water Pool - 57%]

  [Water Pool - 58%]

  [Water Pool - 59%]

  All of the submarines split off in different directions, the crew probably in a panic as she bullied their retreat. Her aim was becoming better as she discovered where the illusion devices were located on each sub, allowing her to direct her Ion Cutter to take them off the field.

  [Leviathan Sense - Advanced to C-tier]

  Yet, as she neared deeper waters, ready to follow these villains to their lair if need be, Selvaria came to a sudden stop, sniffing the water as she caught onto a synthetic smell she hadn’t picked up a moment before.

  Her glowing aquamarine eyes penetrated the blue to an inconspicuous place where no submarine sat, but now she saw a shift in the current. Something big and unseen was there, moving slowly so as not to draw attention to itself.

  Ho-ho! You thought you were tricky, but you can’t fool a kaiju of the sea. Found you!

  Mouth peeling back, she changed course, heading right for the vessel she knew was there; electricity sparked along her spine as torpedoes shot out of nowhere to sink her. They didn’t know who they were dealing with.

  Ion Cutter ripped through the straight-moving projectiles, exploding and disrupting the cloaking field around the submarine as her beam cut a thin line up the hull; it wasn’t powerful enough to destroy the armor, which was fine. It was more fun this way.

  Making it to the tail of the vessel, its propellers increasing their speed, she flipped around in a somersault, blade-like fin cleaving it in two. Alarm bells rang off in her head as multiple hatches slid open, dumping a ton of little balls around them that released high-pitched shrieks.

  Wincing at the brain-rupturing sound, she backed away as Saint Barbara’s torpedoes finished the job, exploding against the hull and sending a concussion of displaced water to disrupt the noisy devices as flashing lights suddenly blinded her.

  “You’re so annoying!” she snarled, rubbing her eyes before charging forward, only seeing vague outlines of the submarine. “You’ve already lost! Just give up already…”

  Using all her strength, she forced the damaged sub up to the surface, its crew sealing off the areas that were blown open. She’d found MI6’s escape sub. No villain was getting away from her! Only…she discovered a little problem once she got it above water. There was a big, open, empty compartment.

  She transformed into her human half as the US ships pulled up to board and rescue any survivors. Entering through one of the openings they hadn’t managed to seal in time, she shut it herself to keep the tube from sinking back down.

  Looking up from her underwater position, she saw a young man trapped and unable to get to a safe location; he only had a limited amount of air. It was right out of the scene of a movie!

  Dun-dun. Dun-dun. Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun…

  “Boo!”

  “Aaaah!”

  Poking her head up through the water while showing her sharp-toothed grin, the man flipped out on sight, flailing and trying to climb onto one of the bunks that wasn’t submerged to use as a barrier.

  “Get away from me!” he shouted with his posh British accent.

  “Hehehe. Chomp! Chomp! Where is the terrorist? Maybe I won’t eat your toes first. Yeah, because, eww, that’s gross, but I do what I must for the mission.”

  “What?! You talk?”

  “Of course I do. Now spill, villain, before I open a new hole. Hmm?” She punched the nearby wall, indenting it. “Hmm?”

  “I won’t talk!”

  “Haaa. Thought not… Guess I’ll look around.”

  “Wait, you can’t—”

  His voice faded as she ducked under the water and circled back to the large open hatch, rubbing her chin as she watched the feet of the crew, kicking to stay afloat as the place filled w ith water. There was no doubt in her mind that there had been a second sub, which probably had invisibility, too.

  Darting out of the vessel, she rubbed the back of her neck with a low groan, sending bubbles above as she looked into the deep blue. Her sensing range wasn’t that big for picking this thing up yet, and they proved good enough to avoid detection thus far.

  Shoot. I guess the bad guy did get away… Rach is going to be pissed.

  “Haaa…”

  Launching up to fly out of the water and land on Saint Barbara’s deck, her stomach squirmed as she left a small indentation in the steel upon landing, barely able to keep herself from tumbling off again.

  Liquid absorbing into her body, Selvaria was happy to see her more grown-up figure was back after absorbing so much seawater. She saluted the captain with one hand as the other kept her stable.

  “Captain, I’ve come to report!”

  “How many survivors?”

  “Oh, uh, probably a bunch, but Relica, Adele, and the main villains seem to have gotten away in a mini-sub with cloaking technology, Ma’am. I don’t know if I’ll be able to find them. I don’t know when they left, but probably a bit ago. Orders?”

  “Dammit,” she whispered, staring over the slowly sinking submarine. “A mini-sub while the main one caused all these distractions. MI6 pulled a fast one on us. Rescue the crewmen as prisoners…this is far above my pay grade. Protocol says we need to prioritize their lives, but once you’re done, do a—Selvaria?”

  “Uh…I’m not…feeling so good.”

  Her vision swam as the saint put her finger to her ear. “What do you mean you’re feeling dizzy, too, Astra? Maria collapsed? Scarlet’s fine… Astra? Shit. I want medics and eyes on the mythickin!”

  “Ugh…”

  It was all she heard as Selvaria’s eyes rolled back, and she fell over the deck and into the ocean, mind slipping into the endless sea. At least she’d done good this mission. She’d made friends. They wouldn’t leave her at the bottom of the ocean…right… Right?

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