“Becoming one with the Kraken? That’s…easier said than done…” Ver said, watching as Lily’s flames disappear into the blizzard. However, she’s right. If Ver didn’t come out of the portals ready to fight at the highest level, both herself and the Kraken would be completely frozen the moment they entered onto the battlefield.

Letting out a sigh, Ver turned her attention inward, drawing the flow of her consciousness until it pooled over her right eye. A pulsing pain exploded from it, and suddenly, she found herself bathed in a white light before a gentle warmth surrounded her.

The ground underneath her boots felt soft, and the sounds of crashing waves filled the air. Ver scanned around, and she appeared to be alone on the beach until the gentle tapping sounds of footsteps came from behind her. A little girl with short dark blonde hair and a red wooden bucket waddled her way towards the water.

She was absolutely tiny, though her sassy spirits still showed through from the way she carried the wooden bucket like a boss.

She walked straight through the older Ver’s body before heading into the water, the waves brushing up to her ankles before retreating and leaving her footprints into the sand.

“Why am I seeing this…” Ver asked, moving forward and following the kid into the water, as everything in her memories came flooding back. When she saw this beach, she knew instantly of where it was, and when it was.

It was the day that changed her life, and also the last day she had been to that beach. For children of the great Vaughan family, they are allowed to develop through free play and exploration in order to ‘stimulate’ their mind and body the best they can. However, the paradigm shifts rapidly the moment they awoke their Wave abilities.

From then on, they became tools for the good of the family.

Baby Ver dropped her bucket and let it float beside her as she dipped forward and started swimming in the waves. She always was a good swimmer, ducking in between waves and avoiding the dangerous currents with ease, and her little body acted almost like a buoy of sorts.

Then…it happened.

Something bit and latched onto her feet, and baby Ver started panicking. She tried kicking her feet out and around in a frenzy, trying to knock away the unknown, yet it latched on with such determination that it started to frighten her more and more.

Baby Ver started screaming, but the timing of the Waves drowned her voice. She started grasping for the bucket, pressing it down into the water and scrambled back towards shore, but all of a sudden, mere dozens of meters felt like an eternity away.

She had been swept up by an ocean current, and she was taken further and further away, almost as if the thing that latched onto her feet was the culprit of it all.

“Help…me! Help me!” Ver called out, tears in her eyes and voice breaking, “Help me! Mom! Mom!”

Suddenly, through the cold harsh ocean waves, a firm hand grasped onto Ver’s wrists, and it lifted her up through the Waves.

“Help…help…” Ver swung her arms in a panic, when a warm embrace wrapped around her body and picked her up. It smelled like Ben, and his fluffy hair filled her face.

“It’s okay…I am here.” Ben’s calming voice came through as Ver broke out in a cry in his arms, “Everything’s going to be okay…I am here…”

As it turned out, there was nothing but a tiny bite over her ankles, and the bleeding stopped soon after, leaving only the sting of the ocean behind. Then, days later, Ver started manifesting the powers of the Kraken over her right eye.

“Why are you showing me this?” Ver asked, turning around and suddenly becoming embraced by the darkness that swallowed the beach and the ocean whole.

“That was what you saw and felt when we first met.” The Kraken replied, its glowing green eyes emerging from the darkness and lighting it up like a pair of lanterns.

“I remember everything about that day.” Ver said stubbornly, “That was the last day I was happy.”

“Was that really true?” The Kraken asked, sounding amused as Ver crossed her arms and looked away.

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“No…not really.” Ver said, thinking about all the adventure she had throughout the years, before she took on the job to obtian the Token, “But as much as I have gotten strong thanks to you! I could have become strong without you.”

“Maybe.” The Kraken said, his rumbling voices slowly quieting down.

“And I used to hate you too.” Ver said, pointing a finger at those pair of green eyes, “But now…I just decided to use you, for my own good.”

The Kraken didn’t respond, and more eyes suddenly appeared besides the two. That was enough light to illuminate the entire shared space between the Kraken and Ver, and it looked far larger than what she had thought before, with countless numbers of tentacles whirling underneath the titanic body, which is covered by hard slimey shells.

“You had never seen my story, have you?” The Kraken asked, suddenly lowering its head to Ver’s level.

“I have read about the tales of the legendary monsters.” Ver said.

“Do you know why we are no more than legends?” The Kraken continued, and Ver thought for a moment before shaking her head.

The legendary monsters were tales of the old. A relic of the ages long gone, and a realization of what the Wave enabled nature to do. They were nexus of power, where life forms arose to act as spirits of the Wave. They were the Wave itself, and they were power.

Which was why they were valuable.

“We were hunted.” The Kraken said, its tone saddened much to Ver’s surprise, “We were hunted ever since the age of the First Savior. We were hunted to make weapons, to use as war beasts, and to be slaughtered and converted into your precious tools.”

“Wait…where are the others?”

“I am the only one that’s left.” The Kraken replied, “All I was ever good for, was to regenerate and survive. So I watched as all of my friends got murdered one after another over the millennia. It started with the First Savior, then, we were used to wage wars over the water by the Second Savior and his Water Elf allies. When the demons came, they sought to harvest our power…”

“I…I am sorry, for what its worth.”

The Kraken shook its head slowly, suddenly bringing Ver to the depths of the ocean, as a tiny black blob floated through the endless blue. Then, it approached the surface of the water as it neared a pair of paddling feet.

The feet of baby Ver’s.

“That was all I was.” The Kraken said, “A blob of the original legendary monster, hoping to cling onto a baby human girl to survive.”

“So…you were in there…” Ver said, sitting back down, “I didn’t awake your power. You were in me all this time…”

“I was growing with you all this time.” The Kraken admitted, “Just like how you inteded to use me, I had already been using you all this time to recoup my strength. However, I did not realize the condition of manifestation tied me to you forever...When all you do is surviving, you ”

“Why did you make it sound like a bad thing?” Ver laughed, “You owe me for rent!”

“You truly were insufferable as a little kid.” The Kraken scolded, “Obsessed over such things like love, acceptance, and social value!”

“Not you being there have anything to do with it. Oh wait, you do!”

“But after all these years, I came to accept you as my host, and…me as your manifest.” The Kraken said, leaning forward until its slimy nose was inches away from Ver’s hands, “From seeing you, I realized that I still have my goals and my dreams.”

“You never told me anything like this.” Ver said, reaching for the Kraken’s nose before placing a hand into the slimey fluid, “Yuck.”

“The woman that tried to hunt me down and exterminate the last of the legendary monster kinds…I want my revenge against her. And in order to do that, I need to become stronger than I ever was alone.” The Kraken said, “As counter-intuitive as it is, becoming a Manifestation for a talented human may have been my only choice.”

“Who is her?”

“The Deathless. A member of the Ten Heavenly Pillars.” The Kraken said, “I have laid everything bare for you, little one. In order to defeat our enemies and accomplish our goals, we have to align our hearts. We must become…one.”

“Well…I was thinking things could just end after winning the Ethereal tournament for me.” Ver said, standing up and pressing the Kraken’s nose back, “But it looked like you have got another job for me.”

“It’s almost like you used my powers for years as a mercenary.” The Kraken chuckled with earth-rumbling vibrations.

“Almost.” Ver said, smiling, “But nope. It’s not going to happen like this. We cannot become one.”

“Why?” The Kraken asked, stunned.

“Because I don’t even know your name yet.” Ver said, squeezing her hand into the Kraken’s nose.

“My name…was Shra’Ahk. The last time someone called me by that name…was when my beloved friends perished and asked me to flee…”

“And my name is Ver.” Ver said, floating up to the eye-level of the Kraken, “After this battle, I will introduce you properly to all my friends.”

“Don’t be silly. I am just your Manifest, Ver.”

“No.” Ver shook her head, as her body slowly started to melt into the Kraken’s body, “You will be my friend too. And a co-worker, and a tool I use, and my manifest. After all that you have done to me, don’t think you can just throw your squid hands up and walk away.”

“Very well, Ver.” The Kraken said with delight in its tone as it embraced Ver’s body with its countless tentacles the same way Ben did when lifting her out of Water, “Let us become one, and battle on.”