The dark grew more so as I felt their eyes linger on the door I stood before.
"Come in, Swordfish. Don't be shy…." The Elder said.
I reached up for the handle with cold hands and pulled it open. The lights were off. The desk once covered in papers and otherworld paraphernalia was thrown to the side. Left in splintered pieces across the floor.
Ihaka kept his eyes low. I could hear his tears drop like rain outside a window.
"What is this…?" I muttered. "Are you not the Elder of these people? What Government does Ihaka speak of?"
"My Government, of course. I work with the Sunlandian Magisters Island Outreach Team. That's how I got lost at sea…. That's how I was saved by these people. I came here as a young man. Fresh at my job. I stayed long enough to integrate myself in the most powerful position. Here I can unify this untouched Island with the world's greatest superpower. Trade makes the world go round."
"You've never told me this…." I said, eyes bouncing between Ihaka and The Elder.
The Elder nodded. Without his Elder Hat, his balding head gleamed in the dark. "Naturally. A man of your stature and power….. with your history. I heard whispers…. The OceanLord disdains worldly powers as they do him. As do the gods. So to maintain our allyship, I withheld information. Does this bother you?"
"And your research?" My adrenaline leaked slow into my limbs as if to tell me through a hormonal language, "Get ready."
"Rare species of seaweed borders this island. But it's sacred to these people. With our allyship we can make trade. We can further our symbiotic relationship." The Elder adjusted his robes. They were the color of the sands, littered with patchwork designs and rank insignia. Doused in sweat around the armpits. Globules of it dotted his dark skinned forehead.
Ihaka was still as stone. Muscles flexed till they were completely taut.
"My friend, now is not the time for paranoia or panic. You have a daughter. You are tied to this island in the most beautiful of ways. Rest, stay a while. Raise your child and watch the island grow with her." The Elder's teeth stood out in the dark as he smiled.
Ihaka looked up for the first time. Eyes fastened on The Elder like a shark on a fish.
The Elder eyed him, "Ihaka…" He said as if to condemn whatever he was thinking.
My old friend looked unlike himself in those moments. Like years of stress, anger and discomfort were literally pushing against his flesh from within.
It took me a second to realize in the darkness that my metaphorical analysis was blending with reality.
His skin was shifting.
His tattoos were... glowing?
"I won't let you enslave my people."
The Elder smiled, "Too late."
"Wha—" Before I could question what was happening Ihaka's glowing tattoo's reached their apex in luminescence before letting off a burst of energy.
The explosion blew up The Elder's home and sent us all flying in different directions.
I flew back the way I came in a blur, crashing into the sands and rolling like a tumbleweed all the way to the island coast.
The smell of seawater was thick on my nose. My aura flickered— damaged by the blast.
I exploded to my feet at the first sound of movement and scanned the darkness but ultimately, I was only a man.
And man was at his weakest away from the sun.
I raised my hand to the sky. Clouds collected and I sent a bolt of lightning upward, supercharging the cloud and shining stormy light on the island.
In blue flashes I made out the shapes rising from the village huts.
They were massive. All over eight feet tall with skin as thick and hairless as fresh leather. Some were still shifting as it began to rain. They shook and strained as their heads expanded to bullet points and their mouths bled with the growth of endless serrated fangs.
Fit with white underbellies and dark blue backsides. I didn't need to see the bladed fins growing from their backs to know what I was looking at.
The Island. This place I called peace…. It was home to a clan of WereSharks. And Ihaka's explosion awakened his sleeper agents with a vengeance. Their deep black eyes fastened on me as I stood with the wild oceans at my back. No more was the welcoming and warm island people. All that stood before me were beasts—
In all my shock and disbelief the ground shook. A massive shape moved beneath the sand in a blur. A fin protruded from the earth, cleaving through the island path as it reached me.
I was just beginning to consider Kaia and our child when Ihaka exploded from underground. Like the other WereSharks, he was gigantic. Bigger than the others by a foot and a hundred pounds with a massive hammer head. He shed his clothing. His moko tattooing glowed a brilliant shade of aquamarine and descended on me with him like lightning.
"You won't ruin my people! You or your greed-tainted governments across the seas!" Ihaka's voice boomed as he threw a massive handed punch into me.
I brought my hands up, blocking the blow— stunned by his exponential growth in strength that sent me flying backward.
I moved so fast I skipped like a rock on the ocean surface. The waters pressed and sliced at my aura as I tried to get my bearings.
The people— no, the beasts of the island let off warrior cries and roars before diving into the ocean to give chase.
As I flipped and rolled across the waves, I could see them swimming beside me at ungodly speeds. Dipping and diving beneath the waves. Chanting. Hunting.
As I slowed the waves swallowed me and pulled me underneath. Into deeper darkness littered with bubbles as shapes blurred and circled me.
"I'll die before I let my people— MY ISLAND, be turned into a breeding camp for foul men like you! I was wrong. No one can help us. None of you know what the Trenches below hold. What comes for us. None of you ever will! If the secret must die with us then so will the surface world!" Ihaka spoke from seemingly everywhere.
I focused my energy. Lightning danced at the tips of my fingers and spread across my whole body before exploding into a pulse wave of energy.
The dark illuminated, showing dozens of WereSharks circling me. Moving like serpents beneath the waves.
The closest of them were blown back and ripped apart by my blast. Now covered in steaming glowing lacerations where my lightning hit.
[+3000 EXP]
It let me see the others. They were coming.
The first came at me headfirst. A black skinned shark-woman with two back fins and outstretched hands as sharp as needles. Somehow I recognized the old predatory grin on her sharkish face. It was the old woman smiling when I first arrived.
I sent a blast of lightning at her.
At blinding speeds— before I even sent the blast, she spun and swung her tail. A flurry of bubbles and forced waves slowed my blast and stopped it from reaching her.
Someone crashed into me from behind, wrapping their hands around my throat. As if I wasn't already unable to breathe.
I focused my Aura around my elbow, sharpening it. Shaping it into a fin like their own before driving it into my attackers ribs.
"ACK!"
I could feel the Sharks warm blood entering the cold waters surrounding. It dove deeper as it held me, trying to bring me down until the increasing ocean pressure cracked my aura like a shell.
I drove it home again. And again. The sharks grip loosened. I threw my head back, knocking teeth out and forcing a release.
Just in time for the black shark-woman from before to come up from below. Somewhere even deeper. It spoke to their durability.
I let her tackle me out of the water, bringing me to the surface. To air. In a flash.
I inhaled as she bit down into my shoulder. My aura strained. The storm cloud that followed my every move sent a blast down below.
It hit us both. Supercharging me and blowing the arm off my attacker. With the blast my (Lightning Shroud) was active and my powers blossomed.
"YOU PARASITE!" Ihaka rose from the waters like a deep sea titan.
He slashed at me.
I leaned left as I fell back to the ocean, knowing gravity and motion would carry him past me.
As it did, Ihaka spun, slamming his thickly muscled tail into my chest.
My aura remained. But I still flew backward, skipping across the water again. Everywhere I hit, arcs of lighting like glowing tree roots spiraled down into the ocean, exploded fish and setting coral and seaweed ablaze.
Ihaka's glowing frame swam parallel to me from below, unbothered by the damage. The rage so pure and untainted in his black eyes it was almost unnerving. It mirrored the burning deep sea world he swam through to keep up with me.
He rose up and caught me by the leg, stopping my roll as he lifted me, shrugging off my lightning and threw me into a Tangent.
In one instant my world went from dark stormy oceans and WereSharks to deep humid jungles and Vulture-Gecko's.
More damned Lizards.
DING
My System screen opened, delivering the same message— the same mission, you always got upon entering Tangents. The pockets into other worlds. Worlds full of Monsters. Trapped and hungry.
(Unite with your Allies and slay the Elven Dino-King!)