NERO

Thursday, March 15, 2018

After three miles of swimming hard and fast, I knew that trying to leave my pursuer behind wasn't going to work.

It should have  –  bolting was what we Milotica were best at, after all, and unobstructed I was usually hard to catch in the open ocean. Besides that, I was no longer wearing that bulky, cumbersome armor that had weighed me down for the past two and a half years. A modified human dive suit now streamlined my body nicely, and I shot across the seafloor like an oiled arrow, nothing more than a white, blue, and black streak to anyone who happened to see me jet by.

But every time I looked over my shoulder, the Gyarados was closer than it'd been moments before. It was those accursed dorsal fins  –  paired with his long, muscled body, he made for a powerful swimmer, and when he was close enough that I could see the sunlight glinting off of his fangs, I decided to change tactics.

Ahead, the seafloor became rocky and wrinkled; I shot over a ridge and kicked downward, searching for a place to hide. I was far from the warm shallows of the coastline now, and the topography here had lost the inviting warmth and color of the reefs. Instead, there were stretches of craggy rocks, black pits, and narrow ravines, with tired-looking flora growing up from the cracks, giving this wasteland an illusion of vitality. I spotted a hollow hidden beneath several clumps of bony coral, one big enough to hold a teenaged merman, and ducked into the dark interior.

Just in time, too: not fifteen seconds later, the Gyarados appeared, its great shadow moving across the ugly rocks and cooling the already chilly water. I pulled my colorful tail up beneath me as best I was able, hiding it from sight, and took a deep breath, stilling myself. Its feelers were out: from here, I could see the Pokémon's colossal head moving back and forth slowly, and its array of whiskers and antennae stood erect across its skull like a mane, aware of every twitch of the current. If I moved in the slightest, it would know, and Arceus only knew what would happen after that.

Bullheaded blackguard! I'd been chased by a Gyarados before, but somehow this one was even more persistent: unless they were starving, they were usually, too lazy to run down a single quarry. Like nets, they hunted wherever there were large groups of Pokémon that they could swallow in bulk. This one should have long since lost interest in pursuing a slippery Milotica and turned back — the fact that he was three miles out to sea, searching the cracks and shadows for blue and pink scales, was unbelievable. Being commanded by a human really did make a difference.

A debilitating nausea stormed up my chest, and for a moment I forgot about the Gyarados. Human... Yes, just like the one who'd taken Magdalene. My gloved fingers ached as they dug into the rock — the pain was the only thing keeping me from succumbing to full-blown panic. Magdalene, taken? Even after I'd seen it with my own eyes, the very idea that anything or anyone could capture Magdalene baffled me. Mag hunted things — things did not hunt Mag. It shouldn't have been possible.

So how? How had a human boy barely old enough to leave his wet nurse managed to trap her in one of those tiny round traps? Those Pokéballs. It was so ludicrous that art of me was overly certain that this was just a particularly bad dream.

But no — I was definitely awake, and Mag was definitely gone. Else I wouldn't have a Gyarados peeking into shadows for me. My fingers dug in harder, and the pain made my head swim — pain and wretchedness. I wanted to scream, race back for the coast, or both.

I could do neither. Not yet.

Breathe. I tried, but with each inhalation I only grew closer to outright hysteria. How had this happened? How had this day taken such a horrifying turn so quickly? Was it because she was so close to the shoreline?  Why had she been so close to the shoreline? She knew how dangerous it was to hunt near human ports: they didn't often take kindly to Sharpedo swimming around in their shallows. Had she been stalking prey?

Possibly — we would be heading farther south soon, and needed something to sustain us for several days. That went double for Jude, whose stomach had made a full recovery. Had Mag spotted game big enough to draw her into closer to land?

Whatever had happened, it had lured her straight into the arms of that human, and he'd wasted no time in sucking her into his Pokéball. And now... I despaired to think of what was happening now, while I was out here hiding in the middle of nowhere, being hunted down. That I'd allowed such a horrifying distance to be put between us in the first place put me on the verge of physical illness.

It's fine I thought. She's not far. Three miles west. Maybe that boy is still in the water.

Maybe. Or maybe he'd taken a boat onto land, into a maze of hot stone pathways and dwellings that would be near impossible to navigate. And if he had, what were the chances that I would see my friend ever again? Big as the underwater world was, landside society was a thousand times more complex and confusing. An icy-cold shiver moved up my spine at the thought, and hard on its heels came a flash of self-hatred. Goddamn you, if you had just killed the boy when you'd had the chance... If I had crushed his throat immediately, or boiled his brains inside his skull, Magdalene would've been beside me right now. Instead, I'd thought to let the ocean do the dirty work instead, and now we were both paying for my foolishness.

I cast the Gyarados a despairing look as it peered into a deep overhang on the other side of the ravine. Give up, I begged silently. Give up, give up, give up. The sooner it left, the sooner I could return to the coast, and the sooner I could find Magdalene. Every minute I stayed here was a minute I lost closing the distance between me and my Sharpedo. Give up, damn you, just give up...

Something suddenly brushed against my tailfin. Alarmed, I turned my head slowly, careful not to stir the water with any strong vibrations. Peering into the darkness behind me, I found that I was not alone down here: four bulky, finned shapes bobbed in the gloom, mouths open wide. Growing from their gums were rows of serrated teeth, ugly as broken glass and just as sharp, and their scales were rugged layers of red and blue. Carvanhas. Was this their home?

The Pokémon at the forefront of the little group bobbed closer to me, opening its mouth wider — a clear threat to vacate the premises or else. Damn it, if only. I slowly turned my head back to the Gyarados and found it still searching, its shadow lowering towards a mound of rocks not far away to peer into a crevice. It looked nowhere near done with this search. Was it going to peek into every shadow until it was certain I was nowhere to be found?

A white-hot flash of pain flashed up my tailfin — I nearly crushed my teeth in an effort not to cry out. Slowly, I looked back and saw that the first Carvanha had lost its patience and had closed its mouth around my tail, my fan. When it released me, and nine plumes of blood rose up from my fin, reddening the water. At the coppery taste, the others came closer, looking hungry.

What's worse, I saw the shadows behind me shifting out of the corner of my eye — sensing stronger vibrations, the Gyarados had come around, and I could see its large, long body sliding by above as it moved down, coming close to my hiding place. Dammit! One way or another, I was about to get eaten.

Unless...

Carvanhas were known for being all bark and no bite: like a bully, they nipped you only if you let them. Deciding that my only hope was putting this to the test, I moved like a shot, lunging deeper into the hollow, right into their midst.

Thank Arceus, they left in a hurry, speeding out of the crevice as though I'd had a mind to put them on the dinner table. Away from one predator and into the face of another — the group of Carvanhas broke against the Gyarados, who was close enough cast the entire bottom of the ridge into shade, and regrouped behind him before shooting away into the blue.

The Gyarados raised its head as they flashed past, and I held my breath where I was still crouched in the shadows, half-fearing the ruse wouldn't work. But after several long moments, the Gyarados pulled itself from underneath the rocky overhang and undulated back into open water, following the Carvanha at a leisurely pace. Its shadow receded, and I watched it swim into view and then disappear as it moved after the small water-types.

It wasn't until it had faded into a smudge on the blue horizon that I finally let out a heavy breath and crawled out of my hole. Cautiously, I rose to the top of the ridge and turned in each direction, looking for threats, but I saw little save for an underwater waste. Thank Arceus. From what I knew, Gyaradoses had pretty poor eyesight, and used their antennae and whiskers to sense movement instead. A group of Carvanhas must've made as many vibrations as a single Milotica, as I'd surmised. That, or he was tired of looking for said Milotica, and wanted lunch. Whatever the case, he was headed away from me, which was all I cared about. 

That and Mag.

My relief died; the powerful anxiety returned, and my mouth flattened into a grim line.

I pointed myself west, back towards the coast, and launched from the top of the ridge, shooting through the water like a lance. But not five minutes later, I had to stop; my tailfin was boiling in pain, and a glance over my shoulder showed a trail of red floating out behind me in the water, thickening the farther I swam. Hissing profanities under my breath, I finally slowed, turning into a gradual, banking circle until I wound up behind a boulder studded with barnacles and tube worms. As I floated down onto the sand, I left a languid spiral of red floating high above on the current.

That stupid Carvanha had done more damage than I'd thought: the bite marks on my tail were bleeding profusely, and now that I took a moment to focus on it, damn did it hurt. The Pokémon must've nicked a small artery somewhere, because the blood was blooming from one wound as though driven by a pump, and it didn't look like it was going to stop anytime soon. Luckily, I had some cleaned kelp in my pouch, but as I banded it around the bite marks, I had to stick my knife between my teeth to keep from spitting.

Shut up. You deserve it. Yes, every pinprick — if I hadn't decided to split up this morning and let Magdalene hunt alone in shallow waters, I wouldn't be bleeding from half a dozen wounds, and she wouldn't be trapped in a Pokéball, her fate in the hands of a human that would be pitting her against fellow Pokémon in barbaric fights to the death.

And, with another sting of self-hatred, I realized that that wasn't even the worst of it: that boy knew I was mer.

I was more than certain of it. Either during the tangle with the Dewgong or my flight from the Gyarados, he'd noticed my ability to breathe underwater, my tailfin, or both. Whether or not he believed what he'd seen didn't matter —   leaving his memories of an encounter with a mer was a cardinal sin, period, and by leaving him alive, I had endangered the entire underwater community. Situations like this had led up to the Cataclysm: mer thinking that humans were harmless, that them knowing of the merfolk could do the world of the sea no harm.

They'd been wrong, dead wrong, and they'd paid for it. And I was about to make the same monumental mistake.

I finished tightening the bandages and pushed up from the seabed. All the more reason to find him, I thought grimly. All of these problems began and ended with this boy; when he was dead, everything went back to normal.

I gave a hard kick, getting ready for a rapid swim back to the coastline, but another sudden thought stopped me in my tracks: What about Jude?

I cursed vehemently. Arceus above! That's right, he was probably wondering where we were by now, and where the food was. My stomach was posing a similar question — it let out a low rumble, reminding me that I hadn't eaten since late last night, and that it was now early afternoon. Not now. I glanced east, the direction that Magdalene and I had come from early this morning. I'd told Jude to stay put until we came back, but I'd promised to come back in three hours. It had now been at least five hours since I'd left him, and knowing him, he was growing worried, probably enough to stick his nose out and contemplate coming to find us.

I spun, glancing west, towards land. Magdalene. Pokéball, trapped. And a human, carrying memories of me around in his skull. It seemed like the more pressing matter —  it was the more pressing matter —   but how long would it take to search for her, find her, rescue her, and end her captor? Especially considering that I had no idea of where the boy might've taken her at this point — it had been more than half an hour since I'd been chased away from the coast, and anything could have happened during that time. What if the boy was no longer in the water? What if I couldn't find him? I could be gone for hours, and Jude wasn't one to wait around for long. Weak as he was, if he came out of the cave and started looking...

God damn it! It killed me inside, but I kicked east, heading towards Jude. Ten minutes, I thought as I accelerated; the ocean flashed by me in a blue-green blur. Ten minutes, and then I'll head back for the coastline. I would tie Jude down for the night, and then hunt that human down. Hopefully, if everything went well, I'd have my friend back before midnight.

But I despaired a little. Because when have things ever gone well for me?

***

Sometimes I hated being right. Just as I'd thought, Jude was up at the mouth of the underwater cavern when I reached the island where we'd camped last night. He was greatly relieved to see me.

"Finally," he exclaimed. His mouth was pulling hard at the side — I noticed even through his mask. "You're...okay! I...thought..."

I made my way through the cracks in the high-standing rocks towards him. We'd made a temporary abode of this island's deep tide pool — it was a scraggly, unfriendly place during high and low tide, the rocks roughened by the sea into sharp edges that tagged my skin as I wove through them. I was hoping that this, as well as the island's remote location, would prevent any curious wanderers from venturing too close to the pool, a deep, vertical channel of water that opened up to a small cavern far below. It rippled with warm sunlight during the day, but was pitch black at night, and as I joined Jude in the rocky throat of water, shadows induced by the sunlight cloyed around me, turning the water into a dark and unloving place. In his hood, mask, and long robes, Jude resembled a watery spirit floating in the gloom.

"What took...so long?" he demanded, closing my arm in a painful grip. "I thought...something...happen—"

"I'm fine," I assured him. The merboy was panting heavily — he'd been talking way too fast, and the scars at his mouth were making his tongue fumble, I could tell. I led him down to the bottom of the cavern, sitting him down on the bed of kelp I'd fashioned for him last night. We were not alone: several water-type Pokémon had washed in with the high tide, and were exploring our temporary home. One of them was a Chinchou — the Pokémon came to graze on a mossy patch of wall nearby, and by its light I was able to see Jude's face clearly, including the web of hardened flesh stitching his left eye shut. I swallowed — the sight still bothered me, even after all this time.

"Where's...the food?" he complained. "Hungry."

"Jude," I said.

My voice was grim, maybe too grim; worry swallowed his face. "What...happened...?" he demanded. "Are you...okay?"

Pain made my jaw ache; experiencing it had been bad enough. Having to explain it made me feel twice as wretched. I closed my eyes a moment to rally my strength.

"Magdalene," I rasped, trying to smother the sense of loss her name gave me. "She's been captured by a human."

I related to him what happened early today — the human, the Gyarados, the damned Carvanhas — and Jude's eye widened, falling to his hands in shock. The Chinchou passed by overhead, illuminating the angry red lines spiraling around my brother's fingers as he twisted them anxiously together — they like like they were locked in the grip of blood-red vines.

"Did you go...after...?" he started after I finished.

I looked away. "Not yet," I said in a rush. "After I ran, I didn't have a chance." Shame fevered my face — I still couldn't believe that I'd had to run away. I also couldn't believe that Magdalene's was still walking and talking. He saw you. He knows. What a sorry mess I'd made of a situation that should have been so simple, and I'd abandoned one of my closest friends in the process. The knowledge made me feel filthy.

Jude rose and circled around me, slowly winding his tailfin around mine. His scarred scales were rough like Magdalene's skin, and as I turned to look at him, and saw a deep sorrow in his eyes. I was saddened too, suddenly, not because of Magdalene, but because of Jude — because of the darkness I saw underneath his sadness. It had been there since he'd come out of his slumber, a heavy tiredness that made him seem more dead than alive, more old than young, more mellow than energetic, as he used to be.

I shook my head. Enough. You're imagining things. He's just depressed because of what's happened to Magdalene. You are too. I squared my shoulders and rose, using my tailfin to push off the floor of the cavern. Jude remained below me.

"What...are you...going to do?" he asked me quietly. "Are you...going to...?"

My fingers curled into fists. "Yes," I interrupted him, circling the cavern. A Lumineon ducked as I passed her, ushering her young down and away from my distraught movement. "I'm going to head back to shore, see if I can track her down. I remember the port where she was hunting earlier today — it's possible that the human that captured her is still nearby."

"But what if...?"

"Then I'll go inland," I said, setting my jaw. The prospect frightened me — any situation involving mingling with humans, and perhaps getting caught, did. But I didn't really have a choice, not really. Not once had Magdalene ever abandoned me in the time we'd been together. I was going to be of a similar record.

Now Jude rose from his bed of kelp. "I'm going...with you," he said. There was a determined gleam in his eye, and a lance of pain went through me. I should have known that he would say such a thing.

"No," I said.

Frustration pinched his face. "But—"

"You aren't strong enough yet," I said harshly. "If I go on land, I'll be inducing a Drought out of cycle. You can barely hold yours when the neap tide comes in."

He was stubborn. "So? I can still...try."

"The only thing you'll be trying is those new exercises I showed you yesterday. Once I bring Magdalene back, we'll be abandoning this place, and I need that tailfin of yours ready to head down the coast."

"Nero," he protested. "I can...help."

I swam down to him, capturing his shoulders in my hands and staring him straight in the eye. "No. Don't argue. You can help by staying here and staying safe until I get back, understand? And you can help by working to get yourself strong again." I took a breath, hating to crush him, but forced the next words out: "Otherwise, you're just going to get in the way."

He looked away, but not before I saw the anger in the lines of his face, the irritation. I understood — after all, once upon a time, he'd been the reckless one, shooting off towards danger, adventure, the unknown, or all three and dragging me behind. Now the roles were reversed, only he had to stay behind, sitting quietly in the dark. It had to be killing him.

But his frustration gave me hope. His adventurous spirit was alive and well, trapped behind all those scars. He was the same as he'd been before Alto Mare, just more resigned.

"Fine," he said finally, on a heavy breath. "I'll stay."

I hugged him, silently promising myself to take him on a fun outing after I got back Magdalene. "Thank you," I said. Pushing from him, I dipped down into a nearby corner, where I'd stashed some of our things: a small bag that held some spare clothes, bandages,  and a parcel of pickled Magikarp eggs and brown algae. I took a handful of the eggs before pushing the rest of the stuff into Jude's hands, including my knife: I didn't need the weapon, but I did need to refuel for the swim back.

"Eat while I'm gone," I instructed him. "I'll bring more on the way back."

"How...long...?"

"I should be back in less than two days."

My words depressed him. "Two days...?" He grumbled, slouched and looked put-out. I pursed my lips. Yes, there wasn't much to do here at the bottom of the tide pool, and even after he'd gotten hurt, Jude wasn't the type to sit around and do nothing for long.

"All right, how about this?" I said in a compromising tone. "If I'm not back in two days, then you can come looking for me. Okay?"

That cheered him up — he sat up a little. "Okay," he agreed. "I'll save you...just like...old times..."

I tried to smile, but it was hard - now wasn't the time for memories. Shooting back up towards the mouth of the cavern I said, "But not a second before then, mister. You stay here until that sun passes overhead twice. Okay?"

"Okay," Jude said, sour again. But he waved up at me as I spiraled up into the light. "Be...careful!" he called after me. "Don't get...eaten!"

He was referring to our previous encounters with ravenous Pokémon during our travels. I grunted a little as I swallowed the eggs and soared out of the tide pool, speeding back into open ocean. I didn't care about any threats skulking about the great blue today.

All I wanted was my Sharpedo back.

(Ver. 3.0)

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Featured Artwork: Jude

Oceanic Trivia: Basic Facts About the Ocean

Courtesy of National Geographic.

- The oceans cover more than 70% of the Earth's surface.

- They hold about 321 million cubic miles of water (97% of the Earth's water supply).

- Seawater is, by weight, 3.5% dissolved salt; the saltiness is thanks to chlorine and sodium ions from rainwater runoff.

- The ocean is partly responsible for the mild surface temperatures that make our planet habitable — it both absorbs heat from the sun and redistributes it across the globe via oceanic currents. This movement of heat is also responsible for global weather patterns.

- Half of the world's oxygen comes from the ocean, more specifically, small organisms known as phytoplankton that are autotrophs and produce oxygen as a by-product of photosynthesis.

- Life is present in the deepest parts of the oceans, where hydrothermal vents allow for organisms to survive via chemosynthesis (like photosynthesis, except chemicals are used to produce energy instead of light).

- More than 80% of the ocean is unmapped and unexplored.