"Okay, Roxy," she whispered to herself, her voice vibrating in the water. "This shouldn’t be too hard, you have done worse things, she swims past the fishes like you own the damn sea."
Though it was easier said than done.
She looked down at her tail. Then grabbed a dark grey silk shawl from the wardrobe and wrapped it tightly around her waist and tail, dimming the pink to a dull, muffled color.
She took a deep breath and then kicked off.
The speed was intoxicating.
As a human, swimming had been a struggle due to the constant need for air. As a rmaid, her body sliced through the water with zero resistance. A single flick of her hips sent her rocketing forward like a torpedo.
She dove straight down, hugging the side of the volcano to stay in the shadows.
Below her, a patrol of Shark-Riders glided past, their electric tridents crackling.
Roxy pressed herself flat against the black rock, her heart hamring against her ribs. She waited. Her eyes, adapted to the dark, tracked their heat signatures.
They passed.
"Too easy," she smirked, pushing off the rock.
She wove through the city like a phantom. She ducked under the massive suspension bridges, hid behind the glowing algae tubes, and spiraled around the ventilation shafts. She felt agile. She felt powerful. She felt like a spy in a high-tech thriller.
She dodged a pair of gossiping nobles near the West Gate.
The city lights began to fade behind her. The comforting hum of the thermal vents grew quieter. The water grew colder.
She reached the periter.
Beyond the last spire, the ocean floor dropped away into the true Abyss, the jagged, unmapped wasteland that surrounded the city.
Roxy didn’t hesitate. She shot into the darkness, putting distance between herself and the spires.
She slowed down, hovering in the open water, looking back at the distant glow of the Spires. It looked like a galaxy of stars far below.
"I did it," Roxy breathed, a bubble of relief escaping her lips. "I actually escaped."
She turned around to scan the path ahead. She needed to find an updraft, sothing to take her toward the surface.
She froze.
Directly in front of her, blocking out the faint bioluminescence of the distant plankton, was a wall of teeth.
Fuck.
It was a Leviathan.
It was an armored, prehistoric nightmare. It had the body of an eel, the head of a T. rex, and scales that looked like rusted iron plates. Its eyes were milky white, blind but sensing.
And it was sniffing her.
Roxy’s soul left her body.
[Alert: Class S Entity Detected. Ancient Leviathan.]
[Status: Hunting.]
The Leviathan let out a sound, a grinding, tallic screech that vibrated through Roxy’s skull. It lunged.
Roxy reacted on pure instinct. She didn’t think; her tail did the work. She flicked her hips and shot upward, narrowly missing the snap of jaws that could have swallowed a bus.
The water pressure from the creature’s movent spun her around like a rag doll.
"Go, go, go!" she scread at herself, righting her body and swimming faster than she had ever swum in her life.
She aid for a cluster of rock pillars to her left, hoping to lose it in the terrain.
The sound ca from the left.
Roxy banked hard to the right.
Another Leviathan erged from the shadows. This one was even bigger, with jagged spines running down its back. It cut off her escape route, forcing her to dive.
"Two?!" Roxy yelled, her panic rising. "How? I’m miles from the nesting grounds! How did they find so fast?"
She dove toward a crevice in the floor.
A third Leviathan rose from the mud, its mouth open, creating a suction vortex that pulled her in.
Roxy scread, clawing at the water. She was trapped.
Top, Left, Bottom. They had boxed her in.
Fucking hell, she cursed internally.
They were waiting, she realized with a jolt of horror. They were waiting for soone to leave the city.
Roxy shouted, swinging her frying pan wildly as the first Leviathan closed in. As if that would help her situation in tis like these.
The first beast lunged. Roxy dodged, but the tip of its snout grazed her side, sending her spinning into the rock face.
She hit the wall hard. Her vision swam.
The three monsters circled her, closing the net. They clicked and hissed to each other, communicating. They were going to tear her apart.
The largest Leviathan opened its jaws. It lunged for the kill. A shockwave hit the water.
A blur of black slamd into the side of the attacking Leviathan, knocking the massive beast sideways and crashing into its pack-mate.
Roxy blinked, stunned.
The figure moved with terrifying speed. It grabbed the second Leviathan by its dorsal fin and slamd it into the rock wall. It spun, unleashing a sonic roar that made the third beast recoil in pain.
The Leviathans, realizing they were facing an Apex Predator that outclassed them, shrieked and scattered, disappearing back into the dark.
Silence returned to the abyss.
Roxy pressed herself against the rock, trembling. She gripped her frying pan with white knuckles.
The figure turned slowly.
It was a rman. So I had been caught. That was the first thing she noted.
Roxy stared.
He looked like Caspian. He had the sa sharp, aristocratic features, the sa powerful build, a different color of hair, though that floated in the current.
But he was... darker.
Where Caspian’s tail was indigo, this rman’s tail was black, scarred with white lines of old battles. Where Caspian’s eyes were golden suns, this rman’s eyes were blood-red rubies.
He had a jagged scar running from his temple down to his jaw, giving him a dangerous, rugged look that made Caspian look like a choir boy.
He swam closer, stopping just a few feet away. He lood over her, his presence heavy and suffocating.
Roxy swallowed hard, raising her pan. "Stay back! I have... a weapon! And I know how to use it!"
The rman looked at the frying pan. Then he looked at her pink tail. Then he looked at her terrified face. A slow, toothy grin spread across his face. It was sharp, predatory, and undeniably charming.
He didn’t bow. He didn’t introduce himself. He just floated there, exuding pure, unadulterated danger.
"You managed to attract three Ancient Leviathans in under five minutes," the stranger noted, his voice deeper and raspier than Caspian’s. "And you tried to fight them with sothing so useless as that."
He leaned in, his red eyes dancing with amusent.
"For my brother’s bride," he purred, "you are a bold one."
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