Aquata Cove Ch. 85

It's all Kaiken can do to keep from getting it or losing his weapon. Merrick's eyes is showing him a hatred he's never seen before. Merrick attacks Kaiken's trident left and right, before he does a lightning-fast whip of his tail, and-

-KNNNG-

Kaiken's trident is knocked clean off of his hands. The Triton looks to his weapon floating away, before he glances back, and Merrick points his harpoon blade directly an inch to his throat. "How can you just be here and purport to teach of something you have never understood??"

Kaiken looks at his seething son for several minutes, before finally saying something, "You realize that you have successfully disarmed me, Son."

Merrick blinked, before looking at both of Kaiken's thick, muscles arms, and hands, either one idle at his sides. He then notices a Great White Shark circling then, with the large, heavy trident in its jaws. Kaiken gives another signal, bidding the shark to come to him, "Back in the days of Atlantis," Kaiken said as he takes his trident back, "When two warriors duel over matters of personal opinion, the one with the true resolve is the one who wins the fight." His sharp eyes look upon Merrick. Merrick sighs as he bows and shakes his head.

"Age does not exclude learning, Son. Even I have more to learn than one would think." Kaiken admitted. "You are young, and you have chosen the wrong answer for a challenge that tests your heart. You are still able to learn, it will never be too late."

"And why is that? Why should I even bother...?"

"Would I waste my time on you if were for naught?"

All of a sudden, the shell slice tied around Merrick's left wrist begins to glow and vibrate madly, "What?" Immediately after, the shell on Kaiken's headpiece starts to blur and light up as well.

"MERRICK! MERRICK!" Comes a loud, frantic voice. They both turn to see a panicking sailfish merman racing their way.

"Halio?" Merrick said as he turns to him. Kaiken's eyes easily sees the intricate black symbol on his left arm as he comes.

'A Coshiton...?'

"MERRICK! Thank the Sea Mother you are here!" He said, panicking, "Razirah Ebba sensed your link, and she sent me to find you! We need you right now!"

"What has happened??" He asked.

"The Kenovani is under attack! The dark depths have opened up, and an endless school of Nalcious Eels have swarmed us! We traveled above a nest, Merrick! Us and another pod of Pisciens! It is a plague of them!"

"No!" Kaiken said before his tail kicks very hard.

"Lets go!" Merrick says as he follows suit, matching his speed, while Halio shoots below them, out-swimming them and leading the way.

~~~

"RAHHH! HAAHH!" Samudra whips around endlessly around the horde. Nalcious Eels, everywhere, all of them slipping, biting, tearing into the merfolk. Nalcious Eels, one of the most vile, gluttonous animals in the ocean. Their blood-red eyes look for any living creature they can find, and rip them to shreds, regardless of anything. Even infants are indiscriminant with full-fledge savagery. Their body has thin spikes on both the top and bottom of their thin bodies. Orange spots align on either side of the body, leading from their eyes, all the way down to the tips of their tails.

Brishen points his spear as he, Penina, and their child are backed into a rock. "... Eaahhh! GHH!" Brishen stabs and cuts an eel down as it lunges at him, before whipping his tail and striking down another one.

"Gather! Closely!" Razirah Ebba called, the Scouts and the few meryins coming together in a small cluster.

"No! Do not gather yourselves!" Razirah Denizyr called out to them, seeing the Coshitons huddle together. "You make yourselves a larger target!"

"Hurry, together!" Ebba says. The non-combatants look in terror as one of the infinite eels jets for them. A paluga mermaid shrieks as one of the eels opens its jaws, right before a Capricorn bleats aggressively as it tackles it from the side!

"Ehh-ehh-ehh-ehh!" A second Capricorn circles the cluster of merfolk, with Ebba residing above them. Arnaav flinches and hides behind a sunfish merman as he squeals with fear, shaking as the endless monsters snapped their jaws at them, just barely kept at bay by the brave and surprisingly agile Capricorns.

"Now." Ebba closes her eyes, and claps her hands together. She focuses her energy directly below her, the links of the scouts and infants gradually entering a type of phase where the bonds are both strong and non-existent, extinguishing the very perception of their own presence.

"Fools..." Denizyr dismisses as he can only dodge and attempt to navigate through the horde.

Missiles of ice energy shoot and sew in and through the water, driving the eels away as Umiato turns herself into an aurora storm. She pants as her eyes try to distinguish from the many merfolk to the eels that easily outnumber them, both pods. She turns around, and gasps as she sees a particularly large eel jet for her, letting out a defensive scream before a three-pointed lance pierces RIGHT into it! A dark blue blur then cycles like a rabid disk until it hits the eel, slicing clean through!

"Kaiken!" Umiato says as her mate takes his trident back, "There are too many, we cannot-"

"We must get the non-combatants away from here quickly! The hunters and I will hold them off while you and the others leave!"

"Kaiken, there is no way!" Umiato exclaims, suddenly seeing several eels at once, "Look out!"

"Hhh!" Kaiken whips around, before a loud, raspy roar calls out as a savage sea serpent mermaid grabs the attention of the eels. She rips into one with her jaws, before stabbing into another with her hand pointed into a blade-like appendage. Two eels bite into her long tail, but she merely twists and butchers into them as if they are mere sponges.

"Lacerta!" Merrick says as he swims to her. The sub-intellegent mermaid turns to him, her needle-like teeth barred as she glares at him and recognizes him.

"S-Son..." Umiato breathes.

"Where are the others?? Arnaav, where is he?!" Merrick askes. Lacerta gives another illegible cry as she points to the invisible dome below Ebba, accompanied by the Capricorns. Merrick sees the face of the young otter among all of the chaos. "Right, please be careful!" Lacerta shrieks again before she lashes forth with feral fury.

"Son, why are you here?!" Umiato asks him, "It is not safe! I thought you were on the land-"

"Behind you!" Merrick grabs his mother, and ducks them down, before Kaiken bashes his sharp arm-fin into an incoming eel. "We'll have to fight them off! I'll try and call Guardian Leviathan at the first chance I get! If not, Triton Samudra or Adra Hecolt will call Guardian Kraken!"

"Who are you talking about!?" Kaiken demanded as he battles the nearby eels.

"The Coshiton Triton and his Son, Father!" Merrick answered, "They are here with us!"

"Ghhh!" Kaiken looks around, spotting a several different species of merfolk along with his own pod members, all of them fighting. "Tell your comrades to gather the scouts! Yours too! The hunters are doing all they can just to stay alive!"

"That will not work!" Merrick yelled as he whips around his father, striking at an eel, "There are too many we cannot outrun them! Tell Razirah Denizyr to focus his power solely on the non-combatants! NOW!"

"What will THAT do?!"

"Just do it!"

"Rrrrgghhh" Kaiken says as he blocks another eel.

"Denizyr!" Umiato calls out, spotting the large, thick grey merman, frantically trying to gather himself around the swarm of ravenous eels, "Look to the scouts and babies! Focus your attention on them! Hurry!"

"Noita Umiato!" Denizyr calls out, panicking as he tries to make his way to him, "I-I-I-I cannot- There is- I- Help I- GAHH!" A huge eel suddenly digs its fangs into his tail, "AHHH!"

"DENIZYR!!" Kaiken roars out as another eel launches at his throat! Denizyr screams out as third, and then a fourth eel digs into him, "DENIZZYYYRRR!" Kaiken looks in horror as a cluster of eels writhe around, as a red mist started to glow around them.

Rinami the purple mermaid feels a small impact inside herself as she watches the fellow mermaid fight to protect her, who also is hesitating from sudden feeling of isolation.

"No..." Kaiken gazes with complete terror as more and more of his members

"Hhh?!" Brishen suddenly feels... Different. Alone... He looks at his shell necklace, which up until now has been glowing and vibrating, before it stopped... "No, Denizyr!" He looks up, and spots almost a dozen eels digging into a dark red fog above them, "The pod... Where is the pod..." He asked, taking a moment to fight back two eels at once. He circled and whipped his tail to slash apart them, with his family shaking behind them.

"I cannot... Feel anyone..." Brishen hushed, turning to his translucent mate, who is also looking at her fragment, and then looking at him with a clueless look, "Is this... Is this what Merrick felt?"

"Brishen... What is going on?? Is the Razirah..." Penina asks with a dawning look of fear.

"Fah... Father?" Brishen's daughter asked, "I feel alone..."

"Denizyr... Has perished..." Brishen said as he backs up to his mate and child, "When the Razirah has perished, his ties to the entire pod is severed..." He said, looking up at the crimson frenzy, "He was always a stern one, but this..." His eyes glared with tearful anger.

"DO NOT STOP!!" Kaiken roared as he started to race around, lashing and cutting down eel after eel, "WE ARE STILL TOGETHER! WE WILL SURVIVE THIS!!" He strikes and kills another eel as he commands his hunters, "KEEP FIGHTING!"

Rinami screams as an eel opens its jaws, and grazed her back! "Adra Savarna, help!" She cried blindly.

"They are panicking!" Kaiken said to himself, "They are losing focus, without Denizyr... They will..."

"I... I do not know what to do." The fighting mermaid covering Rinami said, her core shaken completely as another Piscien comes to her aid, "Denizyr is gone... W-We are no longer connected... We are alone!" She hyperventilates as the blood-shot eyes of the monsters dive and swerve around her, "We will die!" She shrieked as an eel opens its jaws to her face!

"NNHHH!" A hammer of a fist bashes into the eel, knocking it away from the three Piscien merfolk, seeing a mighty walrus merman with a garish black symbol on his back and one of his tusks broken off as he grabs and crush the eel after eel, "Crying in terror when things look scary... Are you legal merfolk really that complacent and pampered?" He growls.

"HHH!" Rinami is suddenly grabbed and swept away. She can only see a cloud of black following her as yellow-pale flesh holder her, while a squid mermand propels himself with his tentacles. Deilan focuses on a single spot.

"HNGH!" Brishen holds an eel at bay, his arms shaking as it bares down on him, before another eel crashes its teeth onto his spear, pushing him down, with only his own body between the eels and his family, "NNnnnnnooooo!"

"Brishen!" Penina calls, too scared to move as the green merman fights with everything he's got.

"I cannot..." He grunts, his arms burning like crazy as a third eel lunched at his weapon, "RNNHH!"

"RHH!" A shiny, metal blade then pierces into one of the eels, before Merrick dives down, and whips his tail at another eel - his fins are no where as sharp as a regular Navyn Tail because of his mother's genes, but he can force them back. Merrick jams his hand into the gills of an eel, making it cry out in rage, "Mindal! Now!"

Brishen gasps as he looks, and sees a manta ray merman swoop in, and takes Penina holding the child in a fast glide. "Penina!" Brishen reached out.

"FOCUS!" Merrick yelled as he drives the hook of his harpoon into another beast. He looks to the swarming horde, all of them, then to the trench where they are pouring out, like a bonfire on a forest, streaming up.

'I... I came back to the ocean... To forget the land... I wanted to leave everything behind... Including my love...' Time slows around him as he gazes into the mass of death before him, 'I... Still don't know what I want to do... If I want to die, this is as good an ending as any... Adam... I am sorry...' His eyes give a glimpses of tears as he closes them, taking a breath, and looking up, 'I hope you can find another man to make you happy. You will not miss me, but I...' He huffs as he pushes down his emotions, 'I will miss you, on the Shores of Light... Because I will not survive this... I love you... Adam...'

Time moves faster again, before Merrick whips up, and darts around to let an eel crash its head into the reef rock, before stabbing it's head. He takes a sharp breath, and lets out a shrill roar at another eel coming at him, before jetting up at it, and piercing it with his harpoon!

An orange Navyn merman holds two of the meryins as he tries to dodge the eels, looking wide-eyed as another eel aims for him, before a massive crab claw bashes into it, spotting a simplistic symbol on the crab mermaid's abdomen. Before he can say anything, the crab mermaid scuttles in front of him, as well as several different species of merfolk surrounds him, before spotting Rinami being delivered by a squid Holsien, and then seeing Penina coming from a flying manta ray.

"Brishen!" Merrick yells.

"Lets go!" He said as they both evade a pair of eels. Brishen flips his tail and guts into an eel, before Merrick incapacitates another one with his weapon, and kills it. Brishen clenches his jaws as he puts his whole arm down the throat of another eel, before making a blink-fast jerk motion, and his arm-fin cuts the eel from the inside!

Brishen takes out a dagger made of a rock handle tied with a sharpened sea-carp scale. On instinct, Merrick lets fly his harpoon into an eel's head, and instantly kills it, before his hand grasps the scale dagger, and twirls through three eels to take his weapon back.

"Merrick!" Brishen comes up beside him, and quickly wraps a rope of razor sharp thorns around Merrick's other arm, with a finely sharpened carp scale to cover over his arm. Over the years, Brishen has become extremely inventive with tools and weapons, really earning his title as the Theros Hunter. "You cannot survive on your movement alone."

"I have for this long!" Merrick says as he spins, and rips into an eel with his arm of thorns.

Umiato grits her teeth as she guides a cold current around her, focusing her state of mind into an unfamiliar hostile sense in order to fight. She never likes to fight in danger, she has always chosen to be the shield for her pod. They are scattered right now, she is unable to make any kind of wall shell to safeguard the others.

Her eyes look to the sandy bottom, and gasps lightly as she sees the non-fighters being gathered together.

The Coshitons surround them, while the glowing Capricorns evade and drive away the eels. More of the young ones and the non-aggressive Pisciens were being herded into the circle of rogues as Ebba swims to the top of them.

"With what little we have," She says, "We WILL protect you!" An eel attempts to tackle her, only to have a narwhal mermaid stab it with her own spiral tooth, which was broken off of her head a long time ago, and now is used as a saber. Arnaav looks up from the cage-like structure of his allies at the swarm, shaking with terror as he watches them all.

"They are safe..." Umiato breathes, before gasping, and swimming up to evade an eel. "What must we do to end this??" She asks as shards of ice orbit her arms. She looks in grieving anger as the eels start to dart and wriggle at her, "EnnnNNAAHHH!" Her beautiful voice echoes as she spins and lets out a wave of freeze, instantly solidifying and shattering the eels, like a destructive pearl-like nebula. The wave of her power sweeps over a mermaid, dusting off of her safely, instead destroying another eel.

An eel swoops in, and closes its jaws on a Navyn, along with another eel taking a bite into him!

"No!" Roin says, reaching out, before narrowly dodging another eel, he swims faster up, before he is tackled by the jaws! "AHHH! NOOOO!"

"ROIN!" Samudra yells out, but watches helplessly as the dolphin merman is eaten alive. His insides dive tragically as he watches his ally disappear in a mixture of blood and elongated bodies. Roin was always an obnoxious type who never regretted killing one of his own kind, but he still deserved a chance!

Samudra growls lowly as an eel suddenly tackles onto one of his heavily plated arms. He glares darkly as he turns his trident to the chewing beast, and slays it in a single strike.

"Hhemm... Eeeng!" Arnaav shakes as he looks up, quivering madly as he looks onto the onslaught. There's so much blood, both from the fighting merfolk, and the countless eels. Looking over the crab mermaid's shoulder, he gasps as he sees Merrick! He's fighting up there, beside an emerald green merman! "Merrick!" On one hand, seeing Merrick gives the otter confidence as he watches Merrick's skillful conduct, looping and striking like it's nothing. But on the other hand, he's up there! He could be killed!

Trembling from head to paw, Arnaav takes his survival knife, and his dagger, and climbs up from the crab. "... Arnaav?" His little footpaws then pushed himself up from the safety of the others.

"Arnaav NO!!" Ebba shouted after him.

"Heehhh! Ahhheehhh!" Arnaav frantically makes his way through the eels, swiping occasionally around and on him, getting only eye-hits on the eels that come near him. He cries and pants loudly with fear and deafening shock as he swims faster and faster, the foul stench of blood everywhere around him and stinging his eyes. It's not long before that blue and pearl Triton turns around and looks at him, "Merrick!"

"Arnaav!!" Merrick gasps as he whips around, and kills off a following eel, "What are you doing?! Go back!!"

"You will be killed! Come with m-" He squeaks in terror as he ducks his furry head and puts his arms around Merrick, before Brishen cuts down another eel.

"You are too young to be here!" Merrick gasps as he growls, putting his arm around the otter, and striking away from the on-coming eels. Arnaav scurries up, and screams as he sinks his knives into an eel, tearing into it like twin fangs.

"He can fight! We will watch after him!" Brishen said.

"Arnaav, damn it!" Merrick growls as they keep fighting.

"We are getting nowhere!" Vanora says as her glowing yellow power form protective ribbons with cycling spikes of venom, "Why as Samudra not called the Guardian yet??"

"He is trying, Mother!" Nerissa answers, watching her father from afar fight against a bunch of the eels gnawing unsuccessfully onto his mighty, rock-hard body, "But he cannot gather his focus enough to call ti! And Brother is still unconscious with the others!"

"This is madness!" Vanora fights as she lashes out with an arm of long thorns, taking extreme care that no merfolk is scratched by the spikes of her light, "They are going tire all of us at this rate! HH! DAUGHTER!!"

"WHA-" Nerissa turns, before they see a flash of white, and a huge block of ice incases an eel.

Savarna pants with panic as she whips around and around, her hands shining with light as she instantaneously freezes each eel as it comes to her. "M-Mother! Where are you?? Mother!" She cries out, seeing nothing but the Nalcious eels circle around her.

"Arctic Veil!" Vanora calls out, "Master your fear! Do not let it consume you!"

Savarna is unable to hear her, breathing out constantly as she tries to stay alive.

Brishen grunts as an eel bites his arm, and forces him backward!

"Brishen!" Merrick calls out, darting around.

"STOP! Look after the Amnien!" Brishen said as he takes out yet another short blade, and begins to fillet into the eel, "I will be fine!" He yells while being taken deep into the frenzy.