Amanda knew what it was then even before the shout went up and was repeated all throughout the ship.

“Kraken!”

She watched with horror as up from the deep swirling waters on the starboard side, one very long inky purple-black tentacle, came creeping over the railing, touching things delicately as it went, as if it were searching for something.

She could see the large suckers pulsating. The arm reached across the deck swinging this way and that. Some men ducked beneath it. Others leapt away to the side. Another wave crashed over them all. The crew were forced to grip whatever they could of the ship tightly. The tentacle kept searching.

Amanda waited until the bulk of the water was out of the way and then she made a made dash for the centre of the boat, just behind the foremast, where Sirius was. He was soaked from head to foot as was she. There was no hiding from the water now. Even the insides of her coat were wet.

Sirius turned to look at her with surprise. “I told you to stay inside.”

She shook her head. Then she looked out toward the Kraken. “As if it’s any safer in there.”

She watched as not far away Shiv telekinetically tried to push the tentacle back. For a moment she thought he was managing it but then the tentacle seemed to snap suddenly and it began to wave wildly up and down very fast. With a sharp crack it uncoiled in toward them, too quick for Shiv to deflect it this time. He was thrown to the side like a rag doll. The tentacle ignored him as it continued reaching further in. Shiv rapidly scrambled to his feet.

“All together!” Shiv cried as he found something to grab a hold of.

More telekinetics tried to force it back, but then more tentacles came.

Behind them, Neko and another water elemental were doing their best to keep the water at bay but they could only manage small sections.

Beside her, Amanda heard Sirius speak. “It’s no good. They’re too big and too fast and too strong.” He didn’t sound like he had given up though. She could hear a furious determination in his voice.

“I thought you said krakens were passive creatures?” she shouted at him over the roar of the storm.

He nodded as he drew his sword. “They are but we must have disrupted it. It’ll just be defending itself. Unfortunately, there’s only one way to force a kraken to back off once its engaged with a target. You go for the eye.” With that Sirius sprung forward with his sword drawn. He ran toward the starboard side of the ship. Directly toward the kraken.

“What?!” Amanda exclaimed as he sprinted past. “Are you insane?”

She had little time to do anything else though for right at that moment one large slimy arm swung at her from the side and she was forced to duck.

“Sirius!” she yelled after him. She couldn’t see where he had gone.

Above her head the tentacle had finally found what it had been looking for, the mast. Tightly, it wrapped its suckers around the foremast and began to tug the ship over even further.

Amanda glared at in furiously at it. “Don’t you dare,” she growled. She put her heat into it. She summoned a flame and sent it forth and into that slimy arm with no regard for who might see. Given Michael’s outburst the other day she was pretty sure they already knew what she was or would soon. And if they didn’t survive this encounter what did it matter anyway.

The tentacle withdrew, right back down into the water.

She could see Sirius now, standing by the edge of the railings, gazing down into the abyss, looking for the eye. She wanted to yell at him not to jump but she knew he was too far away to hear. Given he was below her though, she had gravity on her side. She found a spare coiled up piece of rope nearby which she tied rapidly on to the rigging. Then she shook the other end loose and after wrapping a piece of fabric around it so she wouldn’t burn her hands she took off down the deck.

A few feet away, Bob-bee in tiger form had his teeth embedded into one tentacle. Several other tentacles flailed around, not quite managing to get a hold of anything thanks to the telekinetics but nor were they being forced back. Other tentacles were being swung at with swords but it was like fighting a tiger with a toothpick. The one good thing though, was that all of the tentacles were currently in the air while all of the men were on the deck. There was a good separation between them and enough space out here that Amanda didn’t fear accidentally catching anything else on fire. Any extra heat could just be pushed up or out and away from the ropes and sails.

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Seeing Sirius still trying to gauge where the eye was, Amanda stopped her slide. A little too roughly for she quickly ended up on her arse. She wasted no time though. Eyeing up the first tentacle she didn’t bother being stealthy. She incinerated it. The kraken pulled back a charred stump as flakes of ash fell on to the deck.

She did the next one. And the one after that. Then three at once. She burned them all in great bursts of hot flame. But the boat was still tilted. She needed to find where it had the ship.

She looked down and saw Sirius staring back up at her. From here she couldn’t read his expression.

Then something black and slimy slipped its way over the railing behind him, wrapped itself around his waist and jerked him backward.

She screamed.

She slid as fast as she could down toward the railing. She looked over the edge. She could see nothing, not a sign of him in black swirling water below. But there was something else. As she stared right down she realised something was staring back. A big yellow eyeball with a dark black pupil.

“Sirius!” she yelled. Where was he?

She looked out along the length of the ship and from this angle she could see what had them stalled and stuck in place. A thick dark tentacle, the thickest of them all so far, had wrapped itself around the rear of the ship and was tugging them over. She saw something else as well. A dark shape moving fast through the sky, with feathery wings and hooves, a pegasus.

But it made no sense. How had Ghost gotten out here?

On top of him sat two riders. One with a slight build and silver blonde hair. She recognised Pierre, the quickfoot. He carried a sword. Behind him sat a bigger man with jet black hair and dark coat, Sirius.

Amanda breathed a sigh of relief and decided not to question how the pegasus had gotten out of his stall. Surely Benny hadn’t summoned a live animal?

There was little time to relax however for the kraken still had their ship and out to her side more tentacles were quickly rising from the water. Amanda fixed the fire in her mind onto the tentacle that held the rear of the ship. She used her hands this time, they helped with precision. Around one fist she summoned a flame and then with her mind she pushed it out in a straight line right into the last remaining tentacle. She roasted it like pig on spit. The fire burned so hot she could see large bubbles forming on its skin. And despite the heat and flames she knew she had left not a mark on the wooden deck below.

Finally the kraken retreated. The ship righted, although it still rocked with the movement of the sea.

She turned to face the crew, and found them all looking at her with fear.

Then between them and her the pegasus landed on the deck and she realised it wasn’t Ghost after all. Once Pierre and Sirius had dismounted the animal shifted form and a moment later Bob-bee stood where before a pegasus had been.

“See I can shift into the right end of a horse,” Bob-bee quipped in a light-hearted, relieved sort of tone.

Sirius laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “Bob-bee, that wasn’t a horse.”

They got little more time than that to relax however for no sooner had Sirius spoken than there came another large jolt to the ship.

But no tentacles wrapped their way around the ship this time. This jolt had came from underneath the ship.

“We need to get out of here!” Sirius yelled to the men.

They scattered, all running for their posts. Adjusting the sails, retying anything that had come loose back down. Water elementals and telekinetics alike attempted to tame small portions of the wild, raging, sea.

Amanda leaned back over the railing of the ship and tried to see the kraken but it was invisible, hidden beneath the waves.

The ship rotated and facing with the wind at its front, began to move. But not in the right direction. Above them a new tentacle reached up, lifting higher and higher into the air. There was no doubt that in a moment it would come crashing down onto the ship and drown them all. Amanda lifted her hands ready to defend them once again.

But there was another problem forming right before them. A new wave, larger than any they’d yet seen threatened to take whatever the kraken left behind. They were trapped between the two with no way out and the wind against them. Amanda could fight the kraken but she could not fight that much water.

The sails flapped uselessly in the breeze.

But as Amanda watched the sails she had an idea. It was what Benny had said about hot air balloons. The heat makes them rise just like the wind pushes the sails on a ship and right now with the angle the wave was putting them at the sails weren’t facing north, south, east, or west. They were facing up.

From where she stood near the railing at the front of the ship she could see almost all of the sails. Get a little further back though and she’d have a perfect view. Glancing up at that tentacle there wasn’t enough time to do both but maybe if she was fast enough and her blaze big enough… but she had to do it from where she was and without burning the sails. It would take everything she had, every ounce of precision with not a bit to spare, but she had to try, or they were all doomed.

Hooking her legs over the railing for balance she raised both her hands this time. She gave one look at every sail, making sure she had a good vision in her head of what they all looked like. One mistake and the whole ship could go up in flame. One mistake and the sea would claim them for herself.

She tuned out the yelling and crash and the roar of the sea. She focused on the sails. The way they moved back and forth. That too raised the difficulty. But she found a beat and in time to the wind she crafted her flames, molded them into balls, tight and hot but not so hot to catch the sails alight and just far enough away. She heated the air around them too, the stuff out to the sides. She made little firestorms that sucked more in, pushing as much hot air as she could into every spare inch of every sail.

The direction of the ship started to shift.

The wave grew more vertical, its tip began to foam.

The kraken’s tentacle started to slow its upward movement.

Balls of fire lit up the sky like a war zone. Up above the clouds reflected amber and gold on a dark grey canvas.

The kraken’s arm gleamed in the light as it reached it’s highest peak.

The ship picked up speed. It surged forward. Up up up, out from under the kraken. Up the entire height of the wave. It shot out the top, momentarily airborne, like a burning missile, skimming above the water so high that for a moment they really were flying.

Then they crashed down, hard.