‘I’ll take one guess,’Levi says, swimming up to me. He wraps himself around me until his big muzzle is in my face.‘Are you okay?’
I lean my forehead against his muzzle and take a moment to breathe. It’s been a crazy ride down here and in such a few hours, but I smile and rub my cheek against his.
‘Yes. I will be. I’m just tired,’I admit.
‘Hang on and rest. I got you from here on out,’Levi offers, and I would be dumb not to take him up on it. So, I climb up onto his back and lean up against his scales.
The Kraken blowing up has helped clear away the rocks, so we all make our exit through the tunnel, swimming for a few minutes until it widens, and we can look to JP, since it was a different way that we came in.
‘Can you still sense the portal?’Levi asks.
‘Yeah, it’s through this tunnel and on the next land mass,’he says confidently.
‘Then let’s go.’Levi starts moving but halts for a moment.‘If anyone wants a ride, hop on. I’m only offering once.’
Reaper comes up to me with two handles in his mouth, and my heart swells with gratitude.
‘Thank you, sweetie!’I pat his head and give him kisses before retrieving my glaives from him and shoving them back in my S.I.N. box.
Pretty much everyone takes Levi up on his offer except Knox, and Reaper, who has more energy than the Energizer Bunny. Even as a Leviathan monster, Levi is able to produce a few balls of light to help guide us through the tunnel, but it’s not an easy breezy trip with just one tunnel to go down. There are multiple choices, tight tunnels that we have to blast through for all of us to fit, and a few crustaceans we have to scare off.
‘Rez, how did you know you could do that to the Kraken?’ Knots asks after a few moments of silence, for once.
‘Honestly? I was trying to freeze time again, since I’ve done it before,’I admit shamefully.
‘How does one go from freezing time to blowing up a Kraken?’Moni asks, as she curls further into my curls.
‘Well, I guess one first has to admit that her mother passed on her Fate powers to her in a ceremony, so it makes her one too. Now I have to learn to tap into that power. I just have a gut feeling that I’m on my own to figure that part out,’I explain, rubbing my hands together.
Knots and Lynx squeeze a little harder around my waist as Ryker’s tentacle reaches for my fin.
‘You’re not alone. You have us,’Zeke tells me.
‘Always,’JP reiterates.
‘Think of it this way, if you need to practice learning Fate things, take it out on all the enemies,’Lynx chuckles.‘So if things go south, at least we can say it was Fated.’
I bite my lower lip to keep from laughing, but I can’t stop the wide smile from appearing on my face.
‘If I haven’t said it lately or enough, I love you all,’I tell them and send love down the link I share with Knox.
A moment later, I’m hit with a flash of screaming people all around us, and I reach for my head.
‘Rez? Are you okay?’Moni asks.
‘Stop!’I pant as I try to make sense of the flashes of images bombarding me. It’s nothing like what I’m used to seeing, where I can see what will happen and change it by altering a few things.
This is showing snippets of things I can’t even tell what they are, what part of time they are from, or who is involved, really. By the time the flashes are done, JP has me in his arms, and we are all on the ocean floor of the tunnel.
‘Rez?’JP’s chocolate eyes are filled with concern, searching mine as his hand pushes my braid out of my face.‘Are you okay. I saw those images too. What’s going on?’
‘I don’t know,’I admit, sitting up, feeling a little light-headed.
‘We’ve been going all day, and I’m sure I’m not the only one feeling it,’Ryker speaks up.‘Why don’t we call it a night and get some rest?’
‘I’m down for that,’Chester agrees.
‘Ohh. Then we can change back to normal and have our Nectar of Life before finishing The Gauntlet,’Moni approves.
