“Dad, stay back,” Adrian told Poseidon. “I canhandlethis.”
“Adrian, no!” Poseidon cried, but Adrian didn’t listen to him. He swam forward, trident in hand, toward the ragingkraken.
Stavros was still cackling. His laughter echoed and sent vibrations through the ocean as he floundered his giant tentacles about, utterly pleased withhimself.
He saw Adrian approaching, and chuckled. “What’s this? You think you can still defeatme,boy?”
Adrian didn’t answer him, only started jabbing his trident in the direction of the kraken’s tentacles. Stavros laughed harder, easily avoiding each stab. A tentacle latched onto Adrian’s trident, ripping it out of his hands and tossing it to the ocean floor. The tentacle wrapped itself around Adrian’s form, suction cups latching on. Adrian squirmed but found himself unabletomove.
Stavros squeezed. Adrian slowly felt the life being crushed from him as the tentacle wrapped tighter and tighter, preventing him from breathing, mashing hisorgans…
Then, in the distance, he saw a gray dot. Moona had returned— and she’d brought Celer, along with an entire army of merpeople, armed to the fins with tridents andspears.
At the sight of his rider being crushed, Celer charged. Celer smashed himself against the tentacle that was holding Adrian and bit down, hard. As a reaction the tentacle let go and Adrian pried himself off of the suction cups. He climbed onto Celer’s back, who swam downward. He reached for his trident on the ocean floor and rushed away before the tentacle could grab himagain.
With the help of Celer, Adrian was faster. He outwitted the tentacles and used his trident to stab into one, yanking it free from its host. He swung again, and another tentacle was injured, dangling on by a thread and causing blood to seep throughout theocean.
“Agh!” Stavros squealed in pain at his severed tentacles. The army distracted the kraken enough so that Adrian was able to swoop in and damage. Adrian cheered, feeling like they were makingprogress.
But as Adrian looked behind him through the red water, his heart thudded in his chest. The tentacles he’d just injured were healing as if nothing had happened. Within moments, the damage Adrian had done wasforgotten.
Now Stavros was angry. He reached out and grabbed multiple members of the army, opening his beak to consume them whole. Adrian was able to jab through the tentacle at the last minute, and everyone was able to swim free and escape, but like the others the tentacle merelyhealed.
Even with all of them fighting against Stavros, he was still too powerful. No one could get closeenough.
Adrian directed Celer around Stavros. He jabbed at the squid’s body and Poseidon directed the army to keep going for the tentacles, but no matter what injuries they dealt him Stavros’ wounds only healed quicker. He simply became stronger. The water was so red with blood it was turning a ruby color, but Stavros wasn’t weakened. He wasn’t even harmed in theslightest.
Adrian looked above him and saw the tell-tale shadow of a boat far above. Panicking, he directed Celer upward, where the two of them crashed out of the water and onto thesurface.
“Isa, I told you to go back!” Adrian roared over the sound of thestorm.
“I’m not leaving you! We can beat this together!” shecriedback.
“I can’t let you stick around and bekilled!”
“You have to trust me!” Isa screamed. “I haveaplan!”
Adrian didn’t want to put Isa in any more danger than she was already in. But if she had a plan, she was leagues ahead of the rest of them. “What do you want metodo?”
“Get him to the surface,” Isa shouted. “I need him as close to the boat aspossible.”
“Are you crazy!?” Adrianbellowed.
“Justdoit!”
Necessity left them no time to argue. Adrian dove Celer downward, and he circled the kraken trying to findanin.
The most obvious weakness Adrian could observe was Stavros’ eyes, which were clearly exposed. Celer rushed forward and Adrian raised his trident, jabbing it into the lefteyeball.
“Ah!” Stavros cried, more out of shock than pain. The trident had failed to puncture or wound the eyeball, but it turned red, so whatever Adrian had done had hurt. A tentacle swiped by to knock him away, but Celer quickly spun around and Adrian jabbed his trident into the eyeagain.
“Enough! Leave it alone!” Stavros wailed. He swum higher to get away from Adrian’spokes.
The soldiers noticed that Adrian was chasing the squid up, and they followed his lead. The two sides took turns jabbing each eye and keeping the tentacles at bay, leaving Stavros blinded and unable to do anything but back away, upward to thesurface.
The kraken finally crashed on the crest of a wave at the top of the ocean. It rocked Isa’s little boat. Adrian had to hang on tightly to Celer to avoid beingthrownoff.
“Now what?” Adrian cried to Isa as Stavros floundered about, blinking hisirritatedeyes.
