‘Great, because we’re rubber and your glue. Whatever you say, bounces off of us and sticks to you,’Lynx cackles back.
CHAPTER 47
Crack’n the Kracken
Rez
Iswear my bestie is gonna get us killed faster with taunting the biggest appetizer I’ve ever seen. I mean, I’ve seen octopi before, but nothing like this. This thing is so big that most of its body is out of the water, with a head shaped like an armored arrow, and twelve long arms with suckers waving about like an inflatable tube man. Its two massive eyes may be as large as Moni in her large form, and I swear its mouth reminds me of my old zoology class pet, Fluffy the piranha’s mouth, with those razor-sharp teeth. Can an octopus have twelve arms? Wouldn’t that make it a dodecapod?
‘It’s a Kraken, not an octopus,’JP corrects me.
‘What’s the difference?’I ask, dodging a tentacle as it sweeps out, causing us to break apart and split up.
Levi, being as massive as he is, seems to be the bigger target for the Kraken.
‘Octopuses are small, have eight arms, are smart, and have a beak for a mouth,’JP continues to explain as I look up at the monster before us, as it focuses on Levi.‘Oh, and they normallydon’t attack unless provoked,’he adds before sending a water spear into a tentacle, causing the Kraken to jerk back in pain. Levi takes that opportunity to strike, tearing a chunk out of the mid-section, causing blood to cloud the water.
‘If I ever get out of this world, it will be a wonder if I don’t have PTSD from all this blood in the water,’I shout, feeling nauseous as a chunk of meat floats past me. I don’t even want to think where that came from. It could be from any creature that we killed down here or the fresh one thrashing in the water before us.
The damn piece of meat distracts me from a tentacle that comes out of nowhere and sends me tumbling through the water, barely seeing the fast-approaching wall. Even in water, the hit hurts and leaves me disoriented for a few moments. Once I can see straight, I turn back to face off with the Kraken and find one tentacle covered with Zeke’s tar, completely slowing it down. The Kraken even tries to use its other tentacles to brush off the tar, which allows Levi the opportunity to attack and cause damage.
‘Hey, it seems if we attack its tentacles, it’s a distraction for it, so that Levi can take it down,’I point out the obvious.‘Zeke’s tar has already taken out two.’The one tentacle that came to help has now found itself covered in an ongoing tar invasion.
‘Well, you heard her,’Knots shouts.‘Take them out, and someone get over here and throw us on one.’I can hear the frustration in his voice, but I decide not to comment since they have been working so well together.
I swim over and kiss both of them on their heads before throwing them towards the Kraken as hard as I can. It’s the perfect throw for them to stick to a tentacle, and I do a fist pump as they start sawing through immediately.
‘Moni? Ryker? How are you guys doing?’I ask, giving them a fast glance.
‘We have a small hole, but not big enough for all of us to get through,’Ryker reports back.
‘Keep up the good work,’I praise as I swim off for the closest tentacle. One of the coolest things about this form is the fact that I actually have access to my S.I.N. box. Finally! So it’s easy to pull my glaives as I approach a tentacle that Knox and Reaper are shredding up, but before I can attack, something velvety and squishy hits my back, knocking my glaives out of my hand.
Fuck.
I try to dive for them, but I’m yanked back and moving before I can tell what’s happening. I pass Reaper, Knox, Chester, and Zeke before I find myself underneath the colossal beast, where its tentacle is shoving me towards a massive beak.
This thing hasTWO mouths?
I try to wiggle, roll, and yank myself free, but it’s no use. I have a feeling it won’t do that until I’m already inside that honker. Its beak opens, revealing an empty, dark abyss, and my mind goes blank as I try to think of anything else I can do.For Flipper’s sake, I’m a fucking Fate. I mentally roll my eyes at myself, remember I have new powers, and I should have thought of this sooner.
I just need to tap into those powers. I froze time before; maybe I can do it again. Throwing out my arms, I cross them at the wrist and focus on the dark abyss of the mouth, and without a second thought, whisper:
“Gather all in the dark abyss,
Crystallize and harden thy mist.”
The water around me warms significantly for a second before everything pauses. I’m still wrapped up in the tentacle, but we’ve stopped moving. I’m inches away from the mouth and ugly beak, so close I could lean forward and touch the razor-sharp edges. The red mist and blood around me slowly start to lighten, as ifthere’s a lightbulb turned on inside it and moving, gathering in front of me like a blob.
As the heat continues to grow, the redness completely disappears, leaving it bright white and warped into a spear with multiple barbs. Without a thought, it flies into the dark abyss of the Kraken’s mouth. Suddenly, cracks appear all over its body, down the tentacles, including the one wrapped around me, and white shines through.
Fuck, this thing is going to explode.On instinct, I think of everyone and apply a thick shield around them just as I hear someone shout,‘She’s gonna blow!’
‘That’s what she said.’
I’m knocked back as a white light blinds me and sends me tumbling back through the water. With a ringing head, I’m finally able to see straight enough to see that our Kraken is no longer an issue.
‘Damn, who did that?’Chester asks as he joins Moni by the uncovered entrance.
