The jellyfish aimed straight for their heads. Sadie ducked and rolled just in time to avoid any tentacles.

“What are those things?” Sadie shouted over the alarms.

Fawkes swung at one with his axe. “Never seen anything like them.” His hit landed on the body, but the axe's head tangled itself in the strands. The jellyfish lurched, taking the axe with it. Fawkes let go to prevent himself from falling into the tentacles.

“I have,” Jiyu said. The icy-hot she fired at the jellyfish zipped harmlessly through them. She frantically searched her menu for another option. “Well, something like them.”

Sadie covered her. She swung at the tentacles of the nearest jellyfish and sliced an edge off before skirting out of the tentacle’s reach. The red dots running down the strands of its body moved faster and burned bright, agitated, or possibly hurt.

“Smaller ones exist at the edge of the Endless Sea. These must be Glitches.” Jiyu tried a fireball which the jellyfish deflected.

Of course. She’d been lucky not to run into any yet, but they were bound to show up at some point.

Sadie frowned. “But I’ve never heard of the other jellyfish either.” With the ghoul cytroll, she’d fought plenty of normal ghoul cytrolls before the event. She’d never seen jellyfish anywhere close to these while playing the game or researching monsters.

“They wouldn’t be. A pirate crew discovered them only last month. They don’t exist in the game as far as anyone can tell.”

Fawkes joined Sadie and switched to a two-handed great sword.

“Don’t you have any normal assassin weapons?” Sadie asked.

He hefted his sword. “I think this is a great assassin weapon.” Sadie stared blankly at him. “I study assassin skills and do want to join their guild, but I’ll stick to the big hitters in combat. Jiyu, do you know anything else about these things? Like how to kill them?”

Jiyu shrugged. “Not much. I didn’t read the initial report, but someone said they were a real headache to deal with. And that the crew only escaped them by diving into the water.”

“Well, we’re over magma filled land that’d burn you to a crisp, so that’s not exactly helpful.” Fawkes stepped forward sweeping his sword hard enough that he had to bring his arms over his back to their original starting position to stop the swing. He hit two, and the jellyfish shrunk back flailing the ends of their severed tentacles.

“Got any water tricks in those guns?” Sadie asked.

“Icyhot is the closest thing.”

Sadie looked around for any potential water near them and then remembered. “What about the storm? We’re on the outer edges still. Maybe going further in to heavier rain would have the same effect?”

“Worth a shot.” Jiyu shot a grappling hook at the jellyfish, but it went through their body and hit the deck. “God, I wish I had an electric crescent configuration, or anything electric. Then I could at least try to short-circuit it.”

“You take the wheel then.” Sadie stepped between the helm and the jellyfish. “We’ll hold them back.”

Jiyu scrambled towards the wheel and wrenched the airship towards the storm. The jellyfish appeared unaffected by the ship’s movement. One attacked Fawkes who rolled left to stand more directly in front of Jiyu.

All three jellyfish now pulsated red beneath their night blue shells. The red blared like a kind of morse code. Static shocks sizzled through the air, and Sadie’s hair stood on end.

The airship lurched forward as Jiyu sped them up bringing Sadie out of thought, and Sadie caught herself from nearly falling over.

“Are they talking?” Fawkes whispered.

“We should assume they’re coming up with a plan, yeah, but we should let them finish,” Sadie said, though everything in her screamed to attack.

“What? Why?” Fawkes stepped forward, and Sadie grabbed his arm to stop him. “We should break them up before they come up with a plan.”

“We know fuck all about these things except hopefully that they’re water phobic.” She pointed to the dark center of the storm where rain fell so thick you couldn’t see through it. “If we wait and let them take their time to think, it might improve conditions for us.”

A shock of electricity touched her sword hand. It tingled up her arm and vibrated in her shoulder. The shock was strong but not enough that she lost use of her arm.

Fawkes yelped at his own shock. “And wait to get shocked to death? Seems like a bad idea.” He stepped forward with his sword at the ready. “Trust me. If you think about things too long, you only give your opponent the advantage.”

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The pulses sped up, and the middle jellyfish began to burn a brighter red. Sadie gritted her teeth. She wished she could get rid of the nagging distrust in her mind, but every easy at the tip of his tongue answer pulled it back to the forefront. Maybe the ease was because he told the truth, or maybe he was a practiced liar playing some kind of long con. She wished Gate had access to the internet to check his latest explanation for his actions.

She stepped forward with him. Because he was right if the electrical charge in the air grew worse. After everything, she needed to trust he told them the truth and acted in their best interest. If she second-guessed him every turn, it would only slow them down, in a fight and in finding her mom.

“What’s your idea?” she asked.

“Charge and roll to the side slashing at the edges. If we catch them off guard and shorten their tentacles, it at least makes it harder for them to attack.”

Sadie nodded, and they charged. The jellyfish jumped in what looked to Sadie like surprise. Their tentacles wiggled as if unsure of what to do.

As she rushed forward, her body sped up, and her sword grew lighter thanks to—she assumed—a level-up in skill, whether on herself or her sword. She pushed harder and felt a smidge of force push beneath her feet. It wasn’t nearly as strong as her jump shoes, but she grinned at the return of a similar feeling.

She switched her sword to her left hand and dove to the right. She sliced at the tentacles of the rightmost jellyfish. She thought she missed at first when she felt no resistance, but the jellyfish emitted a high-pitched, strained ring. She rolled to her feet, but before she could attach again, a jolt of electricity knocked her back.

A buzzing noise followed making Sadie drop her sword and cover her ears. The electricity in the air crackled and pricked her skin all over; her body felt like scratchy audio.

She managed to look up long enough to glance at the storm. Its pitch-black shadow loomed over them now, and the rain pelted her skin. Almost there. They just needed to distract the jellyfish from Jiyu a little longer.

The jellyfish backed away from the storm, and one bolted for Jiyu, clearly thinking the same thing.

“Fawkes!” she called, but she didn’t need to. Fawkes jumped between them; teeth clenched in pain from the same shocks now going through her body. He cried out as he swung his sword back and forth. It pulled its tentacles in and rose above him.

Sadie shut her eyes for a moment to try to regain her balance, but in a moment all the electricity seemed to sap from her body. She opened her eyes, and only one jellyfish remained on deck. Its head pulsed in time with her heartbeat. It spun around slowly with its tentacles curled up underneath but gained speed with each turn.

“Find cover!” Fawkes yelled, but it was too late. The jellyfish unleashed its tentacles outward, and a red pulse ripped across the deck. The shock knocked Sadie flat to her back, but it numbed her body to the point she didn’t feel the fall.

Dazed, she tried to rise to find Fawkes and Jiyu, but her body wouldn’t obey. She needed to make sure they weren’t hurt, but she couldn’t even look to the side. A jellyfish appeared above her blocking everything else in her vision with its tentacles. One touched her forehead, and the world went black.

Her head buzzed making it hard to think about anything other than the noise. A pulse started at the center of her forehead and pushed downwards like it was digging into her brain.

Sadie fell into the kitchen. Her kitchen. From back in DC with its always filled sink and uneven table held steady with one of Dad’s old college math textbooks. She, a younger she, squeezed into the gap between the fridge and the dividing wall. Her parents arguing filled the room.

When was this? A year ago? Two? She was unsure.

Sadie tried to call out but nothing came. She tried to move but couldn’t.

“You can’t spend all your time playing that stupid game, Ed,” Mom said.

“It’s not stupid, and you play it too!” he shot back.

“Not when there are chores to do. A kid to feed.” A calm ice settled over Mom’s tone.

“People have started making serious money with this game,” Dad pleaded. “Even more if you can join a Brink guild and participate in Sky Fortress raids.”

The scene paused and then jerked away back into the dark before the argument finished. It flipped through memories so quickly she couldn’t keep up. She landed briefly on a memory of her receiving her yearly birthday loot box from her dad a few months ago, earlier than normal. The memory flipped away again.

Back in the same kitchen, Mom frantically packed their essentials. Sadie stood in the foyer. “Where’s Dad? He didn’t pick me up from school.”

“Dad had to leave suddenly for a family emergency. We’re going to take a trip ourselves.”

Confusion swept over Sadie just as fresh as that day and the quick realization that Mom wasn’t telling the whole truth.

The darkness reached out, pulling the scene back in. Her memories flipped even faster. The car ride to Iowa. The breakup text from Meera. Asking where Dad went for the hundredth time, and Mom, face crestfallen, saying he walked out on them. Yesterday when she received her early access invite. When she broke into Mom’s room when Ben hacked into their home.

But it didn’t stop at her real memories, it dug into her game memories too, working into her very essence at the same time. It felt like her soul was split in two and being attacked from all sides.

And then it stopped.

The dim light blinded Sadie, and she gasped taking in what felt like her first breath in minutes. The jellyfish atop her pulled away, but she still couldn’t move. It skirted out of vision, and a shadow fell over her as the rain continued to fall.

Sadie worried the rain would amplify the paralysis somehow, but instead, every drop eased the tension in her skin. Her fingers wigged, and then slowly her arms.

She turned her head, and both Fawkes and Jiyu lay under cover of one of the air balloons, partially protected from the rain.

The jellyfish were no longer in sight, but the storm shoved the airship in a different direction every five seconds. She tried to stand, but the movement made her stomach lurch.

Instead, she crawled forward to the controls. They needed to course correct and get away before something else decided to attack them while they were in this condition, but every inch strained her mind.

While her body recovered, her mind wanted to short-circuit.

After an agonizing minute, she reached the controls. The storm distorted all sense of direction including the map underneath her.

It took every muscle fiber in her body, but she reactivated the autopilot. The airship veered and maintained a course, but it did nothing to help the turbulence from the storm. Or the chance of hitting one of the floating peaks without a manned pilot, but at least the airship headed in the right direction.

And then she passed out.