Maeve and Kakuja began attempting to find the black box, with little success.
Looking beneath a desk, Kakuja squinted into the shadows before eventually giving up. They raised their head, bumping it lightly against the underside of the console.
"Ow."
Rubbing the spot, they crawled back out and glanced across the bridge.
"Where is the black box supposed to be?"
Opening a cabinet, Maeve sighed. Finding nothing, she closed it.
"I'm unsure, I've never thought to look into, never thought I'd need it… Maybe we should have asked my father where it is, although I doubt he would have known."
Inspecting a corner of the bridge, Kakuja took a step back and tripped over one of the bodies they hadn't noticed on the floor, causing them to flop onto the floor. Rubbing their back, they mumbled to the body.
"Sorry about that…"
Standing, Kakuja glanced at Maeve, who was staring out the window into the water beyond. Hesitating for a second, Kakuja walked toward her.
"Something on your mind?"
Maeve turned slightly to watch Kakuja. A glum expression rested on her face, but it wasn't because of the bodies.
Kakuja knew that look.
Bringing a hand up, Kakuja played with their hair.
"Soooo, boys, huh? Too much trouble if you ask me."
Maeve's expression broke as a dumb smile twisted her lips up. Running a hand down her face, Maeve grumbled.
"Am I so obvious?"
Leaning against a console, Kakuja lightly shrugged.
"Maybe, or maybe we're such good friends I can read you like a book. Bonus points for picking the answer I like… But seriously, are you worrying about him again?"
Maeve rested her free hand on the back of an empty chair and idly turned it from side to side.
"How can I not? I… I wasn't worried about him; I wasn't worried more than usual when the Antarctica Crisis began. I know what Lauri is capable of, bar a Fallen Titan. I doubt anything of the Fallen Rank could stop him."
Maeve trailed off, her grip on the anchor tightening as she looked out the window once more.
"And then I heard Lauri had been sent to deal with the remnants of Whispering Legion, a Fallen Titan… and I haven't had a single good night's sleep since…"
Maeve fell silent as she got lost in her head.
Kakuja let the silence settle for a moment before asking:
"You think he'd lose to a Fallen Titan?"
Maeve immediately answered.
"Nah, I know he'd win. I just… I don't know if he'd live to tell me all about it. Maybe if I were there, if our cohort were there, myself, Lauri, Savina, Lily and Samuel. I know we five could take down a Fallen Titan and live to make jokes about it after. But Lauri doesn't have us; all he has is a group of Awakened."
Kakuja tilted her head slightly.
"You don't trust his team?"
Maeve shook her head.
"It's not that I don't trust them; I didn't mean it like that. Lauri picked them out personally. I'm sure they are great, amazing, it's just… It's just they're not…"
Kakuja finished Maeve's sentence.
"They're not you?"
Maeve froze as her vision grew blurred; she felt something wet gathering at the corners of her eyes. It took Maeve a moment to understand what was happening.
Tears.
Reaching a hand up to wipe away the tears, Maeve quickly looked away.
"I know how arrogant that sounds."
"It doesn't."
"It does."
Kakuja watched Maeve for a moment, a small smile tugging at their lips. Rather than argue or try to reason away her fears, they simply stepped forward and wrapped both arms around her, carefully angling the coral harpoon so they didn't accidentally spear her in the process.
"I'm sure he'll be fine, Maeve."
Their moon-white hair brushed against her arm as they looked up at her.
"If you believe he will, then I'll believe he will, too."
Kakuja squeezed her slightly.
"With both of us believing in him, what could possibly go wrong?"
Maeve knew the logic was entirely absurd and completely irrational.
And exactly the sort of thing Kakuja would say.
Maeve looked down at her friend. For a moment, she simply stared, tears still lingering in the corners of her eyes.
Then, despite everything, she smiled.
A small one.
The first genuine smile she'd managed in days.
Carefully, she returned the hug, wrapping her arms around Kakuja and pulling them close.
"Thank you…"
Kakuja didn't respond, choosing to respond with a tighter hug.
For a few precious seconds, standing amidst a bridge full of corpses at the bottom of the Antarctic Ocean, the weight pressing down on her chest felt just a little lighter.
Looking up, Kakuja asked.
"You sound like you know Lauri very well. How long have you known him again?"
Maeve chewed on the inside of her cheek.
"Of course, I know him well; I know him better than anyone; we've known each other since our Winter Solstice, same with the rest of our cohort."
"Yeesh, you've known each other that long and neither of you has made a move?"
Maeve quickly turned her head to glare at Kakuja, who quickly turned away to avoid her gaze.
"Relationships can be a delicate thing, my dear Kakuja."
Maeve's arms tightened around Kakuja's body, squeezing them firmly against her.
"Lauri and I have our own problems, our own hang-ups and differences… But I still love him. Maybe when we're reunited, when this whole Crisis is over, I'll finally tell him how I feel, and we can do something about the feelings in our hearts..."
Kakuja's face began to scrunch up.
"That's really pretty."
They gently slapped Maeve's shoulder.
"Very romantic."
Another slap.
"But you're crushing me."
Maeve blinked, exhaling. She released Kakuja, placing them back on the floor.
Kakuja rubbed their ribs suspiciously.
"I think I heard something crack.
Maeve rolled her eyes.
"I think you're exaggerating. Thinking about it, I think… I don't even think the black box is in this room, ah, that's it."
She pointed above them.
"I just remembered, they're mounted on the most easily accessible locations. The tops of ships, radar masts and the like."
Kakuja pouted.
"So what you're saying is. Have we been wasting time here the entire time? Ugh, such a pain. At least it gave us time for a nice little chat."
Smiling, Maeve opened her lips to say something when the sound of footsteps interrupted the silence. The sound of boots being dragged across water echoed through the bridge. Turning their heads in unison, Maeve and Kakuja's eyes went wide.
One of the bodies had just entered the bridge, no, not entered.
One of the bodies had just walked onto the bridge, water dribbling down its lips as it turned to face them.
Water streamed from its uniform and dribbled from its lips with every step. Its movements were wrong, as if something else was telling it how to walk – and it was doing a very poor job.
Maeve's hand shot up, the anchor slipping from her grasp and flying across the room. The chain wrapped around her wrist unfurled following after the anchor, yet the chain never ran out as more and more chain came loose.
The anchor collided with the corpse's body, causing a dent in the wall of the ship as the force of the anchor slammed the body against the wall. Instead of falling to the floor a moment later, the anchor remained in place, pinning the corpse of the crew member to the wall. Despite the impact, the corpse was unbothered, not even a sound escaping its cracked lips. Its hands wrapped around the anchor, attempting to push it away to little success – the anchor was frozen in place. Neither falling to the ground nor being pushed away by the corpse's scrabbling fingers.
Kakuja darted across the room, each step placed on one of the thin pools of water that still littered the floor. With each step, they moved a little faster, as if each time they came in contact with it, they moved a little faster.
Reaching the body, Kakuja raised their coral harpoon. The tip pierced through the body's gaping mouth, tearing through the back of their mouth and stabbing a hole clean through the wall of the ship.
Whatever was animating the body lost control as the corpse's spine was severed.
Tearing the harpoon free, Kakuja turned back to say something, but froze as their gaze travelled down the hallway the corpse had come from.
On their journey to the bridge, Maeve and Kakuja had seen hundreds of corpses. In the hallway leading up to the bridge, there had been no less than a dozen such corpses, except now there were more than a dozen, and now each one was moving.
The bodies lined the floor, walls and ceiling, a mass of crawling corpses moved through the water. Where they couldn't grab the floor, they grabbed onto one another, corpse pulling against corpse, all attempting to reach the bridge first.
"This isn't the best."
Kakuja jumped; they hadn't realised Maeve had moved to stand beside them.
Maeve released the enchantment of her anchor that anchored it in place. She was quickly wrapping the chain around her wrist that had come loose when she had tossed her weapon across the room. The loose chain seemed to disappear as it rejoined the chain on her wrist.
"We're one step closer to figuring out what sunk the fleet–"
As Maeve spoke, something struck the ship, sending tremors running all throughout the vessel. It occurred with such force that Kakuja had to grab onto Maeve's arm to steady themselves.
Holding Kakuja, Maeve glared at the hallway.
"Reinforce the barrier you created, hold them in the corridor for however long, and I'll–"
The sound of snapping caused Maeve and Kakuja's heads to snap toward the rest of the bridge.
Corpses were pulling themselves free of the restraints that had once served to keep them in place, safe from falling off their seats from the wild Antarctic waves.
Maeve swore.
"Oh for fu–"
A second tremor ran through the ship's hull, and this time the ship began to move.
For a moment, Maeve was worried that the underwater shelf the ship was resting on had broken, and the ship, Maeve, Kakuja and the legion of animated corpses were beginning to slip down into the abyss. But this was not the case as the bow of the ship, the portion hanging precariously over the edge, had begun to lift upwards – this did not fill Maeve with any form of enthusiasm.
Hooking an arm around Kakuja's waist, Maeve picked them up off their feet.
"Time to go!"
Maeve hopped to the nearest table, jumping across the table, she evaded the nearest corpses as they reached out to try and grab her. Hopping from the table to terminal, Maeve moved her gaze to the glass that separated them from the murky waters.
Her eyes widened as she saw what lay in the waters beyond.
'Things can't ever be easy!'
Maeve brought her weapon forward, hurling the mighty anchor straight at the glass. Despite the glass on the bridge being reinforced – capable of withstanding tremendous pressure. It shattered as the Ascended weapon passed through it. The glass didn't have the chance to shatter outwards, as the moment its integrity was compromised, the Antarctic waters flooded into the bridge.
The corpses of sailors nearest to the window were slammed into their surroundings, thrown to the ground, unable to hold their footing.
As the water rushed to hit Maeve, she continued moving forward, unaffected as the frozen waters slid past her body. The unwitting Kakuja was not so unbothered as the freezing cold waters slammed into their body.
Maeve took a breath of the salty water, gagging as it filled her lungs. This time, it only took half a minute for Maeve to get used to the feeling of water being in a place it shouldn't be. When she managed to open her eyes to take in her surroundings, Maeve wished she had never opened them in the first place.
They had not been on the ship for a long time; Maeve had even been looking out the window within the last five minutes.
Yet the empty waters surrounding the ship were no longer empty.
Now the waters were alive – alive with battle.
Nightmare Creatures of all shapes and sizes tore through the waters – at first, Maeve had thought they were attacking Echoes; perhaps her father had sent reinforcements. Maybe he had even come to aid his daughter himself, but no, it was not the aid of Humanities Awakened.
Nightmare Creatures were battling Nightmare Creatures.
Thanks to her charm, Maeve could see it all perfectly. Glancing down into the abyss that lay below the ship, she could see that the dark waters were filled with blood, body parts and segments of bone as the Nightmare Creatures bit, slashed and devastated one another.
Maeve spoke, directing her voice to the pearl held in the space between her teeth and cheek.
"What's happening? Can you figure out why these Nightmare Creatures are attacking each other? They haven't even seemed to notice us."
Kakuja waited for a response. She shook Kakuja.
"Hey! No time to dawdle!"
Looking down at Kakuja, Maeve saw something reflected in their eyes.
A beautiful light, so attractive, so–
Maeve tore her eyes from Kakuja's.
Raising her head, Maeve saw it. How had she even missed it?
The Nightmare Creature that was the source of the light was, in a word, colossal. Easily the length of an evacuation ship, if not larger, its body resembled that of a colossal eel. A faint line of bioluminescence ran along its flanks, casting a soft glow across the abyssal darkness. Hundreds of bony protrusions emerged from its body, beginning as small spikes near the tip of its tail and growing progressively larger the closer they came to its front – if the creature even possessed a front.
Because calling it a head felt wrong – it was simply a giant set of jaws.
A vast, gaping maw large enough to swallow hundreds of humans in a single bite. Layer after layer of teeth disappeared into its throat so deep that Maeve couldn't tell where the mouth ended. She searched for eyes, but saw none. Surely it had some means of perceiving the world.
Then she noticed the final protrusion. The largest, nearest to the jaws. The immense bony appendage curved forward over the creature's mouth, and at its tip was a light.
The creature.
The jaws.
The teeth.
The danger.
All of it began to fade.
There was only the light.
Warm.
Gentle.
Beautiful.
The cold of the Antarctic depths disappeared.
The fear disappeared.
Anxieties.
Concerns.
Problems.
It all disappeared.
Her thoughts drifted away one by one, like pebbles thrown over the side of a ship, dropped into the deep.
Why had she been worried?
Why had she been afraid?
The light was beautiful.
She wanted to be closer to it.
Just a little closer.
Just–
The light within Maeve's Soul Core burst outwards, not the warm, inviting glow of the Nightmare Creature. It spread through her entire being in an instant, washing across her mind, body, and soul like a calm tide. Wherever it touched, the influence of the Nightmare Creature's lure was expunged.
The fog clouding her thoughts vanished.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Maeve allowed herself a moment to focus her mental state. Opening her eyes, she smiled.
'Thank you, Lauri.'
With her mind freed from the lure's influence, Maeve finally saw what was happening, the reason why it seemed two swarms of Nightmare Creatures were at war.
Something else was occupying the abyss.
At first, Maeve struggled to comprehend it.
It looked like a flower.
A colossal, ghostly-white blossom blooming in the darkness beneath the Antarctic sea. Countless petals spread outward from a single central point, their pale forms drifting through the water with an almost ethereal grace.
They looked delicate – they were anything but.
Several of the enormous petals had wrapped themselves around the eel-like monstrosity. The vast ribbons of white tightened around its body, attempting to bind it, but each time the Nightmare Creature thrashed and twisted free. Its colossal jaws snapped shut on the petals, tearing chunks from them, while its bony protrusions ripped through the pale petals.
Yet the flower never stopped moving.
Never stopped reaching.
One of the gigantic petals had coiled around the sunken evacuation ship.
Maeve's eyes widened.
This ghostly white blossom was what had lifted the ship whilst they had still been aboard.
The petal suddenly snapped through the water.
The movement was terrifyingly fast. The ship was dragged with it like a child swinging a stick. The wreck slammed across the opposing Nightmare Creature's face.
The impact sent tremors through the nearby waters.
Metal screamed as the ship was torn in half by the exertion.
The vessel that had carried thousands across the Antarctic waters simply ceased to be a ship. One moment, it was intact; next, it was two shattered sections tumbling through the abyss amidst clouds of debris and twisted steel.
Maeve stared.
The ship had survived countless voyages across Nightmare Creature-infested waters, sinking to the bottom of the ocean, and it had just been destroyed as collateral damage between two beings so powerful that it barely seemed to register as a weapon.
For the first time since seeing the creature, Maeve understood something truly horrifying.
Maeve had inherited Storm God's lineage from her father, offering her an affinity to revelations and enhancing her intuition. So when Maeve made an assumption, it was more often than not an assumption she could trust.
"Kakuja, we need to get out of here. That eel thing, I think it's a Titan, a Fallen Titan. Command didn't know about this? Maybe with Winter Beast's storm messing with the instruments, or because of the Nightmare Gates disrupting the technology, ah! This is bad, we need to–"
Something pulled at Maeve's side.
Maeve's eyes went wide as Kakuja pulled free from her grip. Drifting away in the dark waters. Maeve turned to look at her friend, at first confused, but fear etched its mark on her face as she saw something reflected in their eyes.
A bright light shone from their irises.
"Kakuja!"
Maeve roared.
Kakuja's foot rested on something solid, a wall of water under their foot. They kicked off, coral harpoon aimed straight at Maeve's neck. Maeve twisted, bending the space around her to shift backwards. The harpoon cut a groove across the bone that made up her breastplate.
"Damn it, Kakuja! Don't you dare!"
Kakuja's lips parted, but before they could say a word, Maeve rammed the tip of her anchor into Kakuja's chest, knocking the air from their lungs. Before Kakuja could recover, Maeve was already on them. Swiping the harpoon from Kakuja's loose grip, Maeve tossed it aside.
Moving behind their back, Maeve wrapped her arm around Kakuja's neck, catching them in a headlock. Unable to reach Maeve from her position, Kakuja attempted something else. Blue sparks began to flow from Kakuja, beginning to coalesce in a spot near them.
Maeve grumbled something under her breath. Spinning Kakuja around, she caught a handful of the seaweed that made up the chest of Kakuja's armour and slammed the anchor into their face – Kakuja instantly went limp, blood leaking from one nostril.
Grimacing, Maeve grabbed Kakuja's wrist.
"Sorry, buddy. I promise I'll make it up to you somehow. Maybe ice cream? You like ice cream, right?"
Maeve began to ascend, pulling the unconscious Kakuja with her.
With Kakuja brought under control, Maeve cast her focus back to the clash of titans – not that they were both titans. Maeve's intuition was only telling her that the colossal eel was a titan; for the billowing petals, Maeve's intuition was telling her one thing and one thing only.
To run, flee back to her father with her tail between her legs.
And Maeve was in no position to disagree with that assessment.