Aida woke up, disoriented. The boom of the Loded Peak drums repeated, adding to her disorientation.

She turned over in her bed, tucking her thin comforter more securely over her shoulders before furrowing her brows. The Peaks have furs, not blankets.

BOOM.

Aida threw the blanket off, suddenly realizing where she was. There shouldn’t be booming at a seaside village.

Dashing across the wooden floor, Aida threw herself through the balcony doors to see small gouts of fire spurt over the dark water, easily acting as beacons in the dim light.

What’s going on?

“Aida!” Aida turned at the shout to see Tera on her own balcony as well, her hair whipping in the wind. “We need to get down to the beach!”

Nodding to Tera, Aida spun back into her room without another word, snatching her jacket and wand on the way towards the door.

Dev and Abedi were already downstairs when Aida and Tera arrived, panting. Without a backwards glance, the four of them raced outside, sprinting down the narrow streets to the beach, dodging doors and bodies as everyone began waking up. As they ran, Aida started catching phrases and warnings flying through the air as villagers shouted, warning everybody to evacuate.

“Good, you’re all here!”

Jaret stopped them on the road to the beach and docks, throwing out a massive arm to hold them back. It was good he did, otherwise they would have toppled into the water; the water level kept rising with every wave that came in, splashing over their shoes. “Tera and Abedi, I’ll need you to come with me to form some more wavebreakers and help evacuate villagers. Aida and Dev, we need you on the water for search and rescue efforts - head that way, you’ll find Ashley and Brand getting a ship ready.”

“What’s happening?” Aida shouted over the waves.

“Eel attack.” Jaret’s face was grim. “Get to the boat - Ashley will explain protocol to you two. Go!”

Jaret pointed towards the docks, where Aida could see a fireball floating above Ashley’s head for light as she quickly unwound a thick rope from around a post. Above the fireball was another shadowy figure with his own fireball following him as he moved about on the deck of the boat, moving several items around.

Without further pushback, Aida and Dev sprinted towards the boat, shouting Ashley’s name as the boat moved towards the end of the dock. Her eyes flashed in relief as she yelled up to her comrade, and the boat slowed to a stop.

“You made it! Get on, I’ll explain everything on board.”

With a Mana Surge, Dev leaped aboard first, catching and supporting Aida as she stumbled her landing, and the other Strongholder steered the boat out towards the open ocean. Several fisherman’s boats passed them, returning towards shore, terrified expressions on the passengers’ faces flickering in the firelight.

“Dev, Aida, this is Naval Strongholder Brand, Fire element. Brand, these two are Dev and Aida, Water students from Maglica.” Brand nodded to them at Ashley’s terse introduction, though he didn’t take his eyes off from the horizon. He had jet black hair and dark eyes, and he was standing on top of a metal plate with a crystal center. The crystal was bright with swirling mana, throwing light all over the deck. There was a small wheel rising out of the metal plate that Brand was using to steer the vessel.

“Good to meet you two, though it’s unfortunate it’s under these circumstances. Have you been briefed on what’s happening?”

“No, Strongholder Jaret merely said it was an eel attack,” Dev responded. “What do you need us to do?”

“Look out for any displaced men, throw them a floater seed.” Ashley pointed to several canvas bags lining the walls of the ship, each bag loosely closed with a cord and with a water drop painted on it. “Our job is to get the men away from danger, and back to shore. Aida and Dev, conserve your mana - ocean water is more difficult to control than river or lake water, especially when you’re competing with monsters. We’ll try to scoop up as many men as we can to get back to shore each trip. Everybody take a side!”

Ashley crouched at the front of the ship so that she wouldn’t block Brand’s view as he steered, and Dev went to the left side of the ship, leaving Aida to take the right. She reached into a bag with the water drop on it, pulling out a seed the size of her fist. This thing floats?

“Found one!” Dev called over his shoulder. He tossed a seed into the water, and Brand slowed the ship down. Aida looked back towards her side of the ship, reaching out with her mana senses to try to detect any life in the dark ocean.

She understood why Ashley cautioned them to conserve their mana: the ocean was wild. There weren’t any fish around at the moment, so it wasn’t a matter of too much noise in the water. There was just so much power in the ocean itself, roiling and rumbling, refusing to be tamed.

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

There!

“I found one!” Aida shouted, lobbing the seed in her hand overboard. An exhausted hand reached for the seed, but it fell short, sinking into the water. Oh crap.

Before Aida could panic, a giant lilypad sprouted, scooping up the tired man as he lay choking on the massive leaf. “He’s on the floater!” Aida cried with relief.

“Good! Are there any others in this vicinity?” Brand came over to Aida’s side and aimed a harpoon with a rope tied to the end at the lilypad, hooking into the remarkably sturdy leaf. The man on the floater seed pushed himself laboriously to his hands and knees and reached for the rope, wrapping the rope around his body as if it wasn’t his first time. Brand began rotating the pulley that was anchored to the edge of the boat deck, slowly pulling the man out of the water.

Satisfied that the man would be okay, Aida broadened her senses before shaking her head. Dev and Ashley had already recovered the man Dev had pointed out, and Ashley had taken her place at the helm, activating the gem again.

“Ready to move on?” Ashley called.

“Go!” Brand shouted back as he pulled the fisherman Aida saved over the edge. Ashley steered the boat forward, the wind picking up speed. Aida knelt down, closing her eyes as she kept her senses extended, trying to block out the distracting sounds of wind and lapping waves.

It was difficult, sensing for signs of life in the thick ocean water. Detecting mana from living beings in the air was easy, but there was just so much junk in the ocean: physical detritus, of course, but also so much other stuff - the water wasn’t pure like the streams in the mountains and the Lake at school, so it made it feel like she had to push extra hard to get her mana to extend to what her normal range was.

As the boat kept flying through the waters, Aida could sense a huge amount of activity up ahead - both above and under the water. The small flickers of light above the water - those were definitely Strongholders. But underneath the water - and this was where the ocean’s murkiness made Aida doubt what she was sensing - was a long creature.

We’re close to the fight. Opening her eyes, Aida stood up, casting her gaze towards the direction of heavy disturbance.

The jets of flame being shot into the water gave Aida a clearer view of what was happening - and it was more terrifying than she could have anticipated.

Gaping whale-sized maws with sharp teeth the length of a person lunged out of the waters towards a slim boat that deftly maneuvered over and around several fearsome jaws. There appeared to be three agile boats looping around the battle, each with two practitioners aboard.

Aida held her breath as she counted the number of snapping jaws, awed by the precision strikes of flame, ice, and glinting metal by the human attackers. Three boats, so six Naval Strongholders…but against five eels?

She shuddered. These beasts looked nothing like eels, and instead looked more like literal monsters of the sea - toothy beasts, stuff that inspired sailors’ legends of the terrors they saw out at sea.

“Are six Strongholders enough to fight off five eels?” Aida heard Dev yell.

“Six? There should have been ten out there!” Ashley shouted back. “Are there any other fishermen here?”

“None here,” Aida yelled. The boat began turning, heading away from the fight. “Wait!” Aida pointed back towards where the main fight was, certain she saw a grasping hand sink below the chaotic waves, uncertain if the man was still alive. Too much mana flowing in this area to tell. “Someone’s there!”

“We can’t go there, it will be too close to the eels,” Aida heard Brand bellow. He ran across the constantly rocking deck to where Aida was, surefooted with experience. He cast a critical eye over the chaos. “Can you use your water to pull them closer to us, out of range of the eels?”

“I can try!” Aida grasped out with her mana, wrapping around the man struggling to keep his head above the water. He was exhausted; his movements were sluggish, after fighting against the ocean for who knew how long.

She hauled him towards the boat, and was shocked by the monumental effort of dragging the man twenty feet closer. It was like the ocean itself was fighting her, refusing to relinquish its victim, rendering her control over water meaningless.

Suddenly, the exhausted man surged out of the waves, a column of water pushing him to the same level as the deck. Beside her, Brand reached out and hauled the man aboard before the water fell away.

“Thanks, Dev,” Aida gasped out as she recovered her mana.

Dev nodded tightly, his gaze sweeping the water. “Ironically enough, you might be better off conjuring your own water out here.”

“Okay, we’re heading back,” Ashley called to them as the boat steered back towards shore. “Keep your senses out for anyone else in need of rescue on the way.”

Aida made her way to Brand, keeping a firm grip on the boat’s railing so she didn’t get knocked about by the choppy waves. “Will the Naval Stronghold be able to defeat the eels?”

Brand’s face was grim. “We’ll see.”

“But Ashley said there was supposed to be ten Strongholders out there,” Aida persisted. “And Dev and I only saw six.”

Brand’s expression darkened even more. “We’ll talk more when we unload the villagers. Can you check on them, see if they’re all right?”

“Oh - of course.” Aida tripped her way over to where the three men were huddled, near the back of the ship. They all gasped out thanks as she fell upon them, examining their medical overlays.

Their bodies were weak and cold, their inherent circulation sluggish, so Aida immediately began massaging their limbs and bodies to encourage their blood to begin flowing again. “Ashley, can you make a fire for them to get them warmed up?”

A small fireball flickered into existence in front of them, casting the men’s tired expressions in stark relief. They all leaned into the fire, pressing their frigid fingers against the welcome heat.

“Is this eel attack normal?” Aida asked as she worked. The man she was working on shook his head.

“Eels only attack when we get further out to sea, but we’re quite close to shore. We know better than to venture beyond where the Naval Strongholders patrol.”

“And eels are solitary creatures,” the second man added. “I’ve never, in all my years on the sea, seen eels of that size work together to hunt.”

“So the five that are currently out there…”

“Absolutely unhinged,” the third man muttered. He caught Aida’s eye. “This was a completely unprecedented event.”