The rancid water dissolved the creatures that were unluckily within the range of its sprinkle. It was more like acid than water and the foul fishy scent made me retch.
Tethys slightly moved past the moon like a flying ship owned by ghost pirates. Lunar light scarcely graced the night. We kept our distance until we could come up with a plan.
"Where can we find the bijou?" I asked Seagar.
"Her bijou is the sea. We have to find the Pearl of Metis and return it to the Clam of Oceanus so that she could return safely to the sea. Ironically, for now, water is the last thing that would save sea creatures," he explained.
"Can you explain in more detail the things that we need to get?"
"The Pearl of Metis is the right of sea creatures over the ocean. Three centuries ago, Tethys and Icarus were ruling the wrong habitats just as how they are now, therefore, Metis bestowed Tethys a pearl to descend into the ocean and an egg to Icarus in order to bring Homra city to the sky."
"So it's like a temporary pass?"
Seagar inclined his head forward. "Exactly."
"But why didn't Metis just switch them? He's a God isn't he?"
The merman scoffed, rolling his eyes. "Gods are egotistical beings. They won't admit they made mistakes. They would merely hand over a bandaid and demand that you be grateful for the fix for the shit they stirred up."
"Smoyie!" The sprout shouted. A shiver of sharks treaded agilely toward Tethys.
Their bodies were divided horizontally into two segments by what seemed like a boat's steering wheel that continuously spun as they advanced. The wheels didn't seem to be from an accident, but rather, it was more of a connatural formation. Their tails burned in luminous blue fire while their eyes and mouth glowed in the same hue.
"Shouldn't we do something?! Hey!"
"She can handle herself, trust me…" Seagar opposed. He slowly backed away with wide eyes.
The sharks clamped on her rotting flesh using their serrated teeth like bear traps in the woods. Tethys bellowed; her movements were sluggish. The hairs on my shoulders and neck stood as we became an audience to this butchery. Aki and Smoyashi glanced at each other and nodded, cuing that they had an internal arrangement that they did not bother to include us in...again.
I might as well ask.
"What's the pla—AHHH!"
Aki, without warning, shot up to the direction of the moon. I held on to his fur with the desire to yank off some it as revenge, but at the same time I didn't want to or else I'd fall.
Smoyashi hurled heated balls of light like it was in a snowball fight. The sharks flinched at first hit then were blasted away at the succeeding assaults. It was an air raid.
The predatory fishes pulled away from the whale, picking up a new objective: a tit for a tat.
"Let's fall back!" I cried. Aki growled like a horse that neighs in front of a distressing circumstance. Woefully, I was the horseback rider that lacked the skill to stick to his back.
"Smoyashi!" I flailed my arms upwards to the sprout that was in equal shock. The distance amongst us augmented fast.
"Someone catch me, damn it!"
My voice shattered like glass from almost reaching the soprano tone. The banshee descended like a parachute right above me. I held onto her measly garment. Her maniacal screams deafened me.
"Are you here to save me or to tell me I'm going to die?!"
She smiled, her bloodied jagged teeth mocked me.
"What? Is that a yes?!"
The sharks plummeted, hounding Aki and Smoy, yet despite a horde of meat-lovers coming to get them, they aimed to save me from my doom.
Spheres of light flickered in the night sky, dispersing into miniscule glitters once they clashed against the predators. Aki was sandwiched between saving me and whipping them with his tail that was already bitten twice.
Death was the dead end or so I thought. A screaming tadpole snatched me from the Grim Reaper's grasp. It was gold and bright like a shooting star. Its tail twinkled like a sparkler in the new year. I vanished from the banshee's view, the stretch of her wail could no longer accommodate the space created.
"What are you doing? I can't see!" He complained. The tadpole was almost the size of me. I clung to him unwillingly.
"Why are you going so fast? Slow down!"
"I'm supposed to go fast because I'm carrying Icarus' egg to keep Homra city from sinking!"
By this time, I had the right to believe that I wasn't going to see Aki and Smoyashi anymore with how fast we were going.
"Homra city already sank!"
The profound information caused the tadpole to make an abrupt stop. He gawked at me with his eyes that had two layers of irises: blue on the outer circle and purple on the inner.
"Huh?"
We were too still. Too still for our own good. Due to our stillness, gravity took the chance to haul us down. The tadpole was ignoring it.
"What do you mean by that? Why did Homra fall?"
Our landing wasn't ungraceful or grotesque. Before our bones and flesh separated like a castle of cards, we stopped an inch from the ground in the middle of an eerie swamp.
"Can you go back to where you found me? I'll show you." I was torpedoed for like miles away.
"I don't know where I found you, I have been circling Gibborim for thirty-three appearances of blue moons. I based my years on that."
My temper sizzled like an egg on a pan. "Then try to estimate! My companions are going to get eaten by flying sharks!"
He scowled at me. "I don't know where you came from but there's no such thing as flying sharks now. That was centuries ago."
"I haven't heard of flying tadpoles either…" I muttered.
He was ready to give me a headbutt but I was the ball in the game of tennis between Lady Luck and Lady Mishap.
A squeak behind the bushes tapped our attention. The ruffling was harsh like a tiger had waited all his life for this day. A tiny dolphin leaped out like a rabbit, clear evidence for the nihilist. The dolphin that carried the aurora borealis on its skin grunted like an infant before floating like a UFO.
Convinced that I wasn't bluffing, the tadpole crashed its head against my knee, making me fall over his back.
"Okay, so you're not lying."
"I wish I was but truthfully, I'm just as confused as you are."
He snorted. "Don't fall off."
"What do you–"
Within a second, we transitioned from one place to another in one huge literal sneeze. We were back to where we first met. The scenario was the same as when we left it, except, Seagar was missing.
"Hold on tight!"
"Like I have a choice!" I groaned.
He heated up like a wheel grinding against the rough road. He shot from one shark to another— knocking them out one by one in one blow. Smoyashi's arms went limp from the sight of rescue. Aki managed to bite off some flesh from the shark before letting the deadly fish go.
The view of Tethys becoming a living corpse smacked the tadpole with a bar of despair. His tight expression loosened as the truth unfolded right there.
"Oh crackpot."