Sunken City
Sunken City
"Get the engines started!" A harlequin rabbit in a black leather bondage harness screams as she runs into the hidden sub chamber. "Gorelock's coming!"
"Prepare for a crash dive!" A black furred wolf in black bots, black pants and shirt, red vest and overcoat and red hair calls following the rabbit. "Eve and I put false reagent in some of his roller vats but it won't take him long to correct what we did."
"Brom, we need to be well on way to that sunken city when he regains control." Evelyn, a red vixen with tiger stripes calls to a badger in workman's leathers. "He knows we went to the library but not why. Any spy eyes lately?"
"A few, Eve, but I have wards in place to take care of them," Brom says with a nod as he throws a switch to begin flooding the chambers. "Why is Lore coming to, Fen?"
"I'm running out of hiding places," Lorelei states.
"Plus, Gorelock's playing with new torture devices," Fenryx relates. "Not on my slaves."
"Yo, boss!" An otter in leather calls to Fenryx. "Me and the boys can run interference if ye want."
"Alright, Jason," Fenryx says. "Just don't get caught. I want you with us when we explore the ruins."
Ten otters armed with sai run out into the hallway the wolf and company just came through and make their way through out into the complex on Jawbone Isle careening and crashing into just about everything. Director Gorelock, a tall gaunt elf, is running around hither and yon about the place checking on areas the otters have just been to raising a ruckus. Jason has a hollowed out clan strapped to his arm like a buckler that shows a skull with a shark fin in its mouth to represents the Dark Shark and its progress.
Once all the crew save the otters is safely in the sleek, shark shaped submarine, it submerges and travels to the bottom of its pen. From there stone doors to allow passage to the sea. After the Dark Shark clears the island, Jason and his team dive into water and swims to the sub; entering via the mouth of craft which opens to allow said passage.
Leader Gorelock, a slim and dark haired elven wizard, nearly drowns when he attempts to enter the secret sub pen of Captain Fenryx. He tries to contact the wolf with magic but gets an "At sea" message that frustrates him. a robotic female constructed life form of metal and glass sashays up to Gorelock with a glass dome of a head and tendrils of blue electricity arcing from her head to the glass like hair after a fashion.
"Something vexing thee, Master?" She inquires of the elf.
"Ah, Lillith, my dear, dear child," Gorelock says with faux affection. "It would seem, our knight-errant retriever is deigning not to speak to us. He went to the Lamented Labyrinthine Library of Lost Lore and does not wish to share what he uncovered."
"Do we know what he was looking for to begin with, Master?" Lillith asks plainly even as she strikes a sexy pose. "Evelyn is still listed as an alchemist-sorceress with us is she not?"
"I do believe she is,: Gorelock says. "And as such I can request a list of books she was reading can I not?"
"Allow me, Master," Litllith prompts to which Gorelock just nods. "Historical records of the Pirate Isles going back over millennia ago, surrounding environs included and references on sea monsters?"
"The sea monsters are probably Fenryx," Gorelock states dismissively. "But a history of the area is significant."
"Also, all material on someone named Einstein Moreau," Lillith reports.
"WHAT!?!" Gorelock thunders. "So that's what they went for..."
"Your orders, Master?" Lillith asks simply.
"That will do for now," Gorelock states coldly, "Report to my office in fellatio mode."
"By your command," Lillith states and then goes to comply with her orders.
Cruising at the bottom of the Sea of Scoundrels, as the territorial waters around the Pirate Isles, the Dark Shark has closed its mouth after welcoming the otter team back to the ship. Once the otters are aboard Brom stokes the engine to speed the sub on its way towards the sunken city. When they reach a familiar grotto, the wreckage of the Beacon of Purity is still resting on the sea floor from where the Dark Shark sunk her, what could be call a coral war machine walks out of what was the Beacon's stern and fires a coral buzz saw at the Dark Shark.
"Corallite Kill Guard," Fenryx observes, "Which begs the question of who made it first?"
"Father got the plans from somewhere," Evelyn admits. "The process he's claimed to have are his monster making techniques."
"Which includes us or at least our kind, Mistress," Lorelei states. "But if what Doctor Clock says is accurate Director Gorelock is liar in the creation of the process of making beast folk."
"Helga!" Fenryx calls into one of the speaker tubes at his command station. "You're on! Crush this toy!"
"Aye, aye, Captain!" The voice answers back at full volume.
Down in the torpedo room a lady wolverine is prepping the alchemical missiles she has developed for her lover Brom. She checks her figures again before looking over the magic viewing screen to see her target as the badger walks in from the engine room. On orders from on high she sends the first torpedo on its deadly way.
It streaks its way just as Helga designed it, towards the target. The corallite prepares another buzz saw to fire as the torpedo slips into the launch cavity. As the golem fires its payload it hits the missile and causes it to detonate prematurely crippling its offensive capability rather than outright destroying it.
Helga is actually pissed and disappointed in herself for not getting the one shot one kill she wanted for the first time firing her weapon. A second shot obliterates the target and the ship moves on. Brom gives her a hug and a kiss in congratulations which makes her smile but she is already going over the data of what just happened in her mind to do better the next time she is called upon to strike.
As the Dark Shark gets closer to the SunkenCity of the Krakatoa, Jason and his team are again deployed with their tridents. Using information discovered at the library of lost lore the team utilizes their weaponized tools to defeat the passive security in the form of trip wires and spatial sensors that detect incoming ships and sends minions to destroy them. But even when the alarms are tripped and troops sent they use grenades Helga developed to destroy them first.
Giant clams that have been modified genetically by the Krakatoa stand sentry at key points along the narrow channel leading to the city. Jason and his team use their own enchanted tridents to first pry open the shells and then stab and shock the clams to death. After killing the oversized mollusks they butcher them for later consumption as well.
The approach to their underwater city is so treacherous that most Krakatoa believes their home is impregnable. But they also think this world is so primitive that the idea of a submarine would not be conceivable, let alone constructed so when the Dark Shark arrives it is not perceived by the Krakatoa except as a figment of their collective imagination. Fenryx and Evelyn soon disembark in suits of shark leather armor with Fen wearing shark tooth gauntlets.
Evelyn and Fenryx swim to one of the outlying towers along the outer wall which connects to the main dome via tunnels and passageways between the towers like spokes on a wheel. They pass through a membranous doorway set in the top of one of the towers which is how the Krakatoa themselves and the crabbox and lobbox servants also pass into and out of the city. Many mental voices whisper what sounds like gibberish in the very minds of the invaders as they press on.
The interior of the city is devoid of water with walls and floors that almost feel alive in a techno-organic sort of fashion. Illuminated eyeballs attach to the walls by stalks like those of an insect or crustacean. Translucent membranes pierce the wall at regular intervals as they were doors of an eerie type.
Fenryx glances about with grim resolve as Evelyn shivers behind him. She takes out a crown of black meteoric iron with a crystal eye in its center as the whole thing looks like it came from some place weird. Evelyn leans against Fenryx nervously as she dons the alien mind crown.
"Getting anything?" Fen asks of Eve.
"Yes and no," Eve states with an annoyedly amused expression. "The maddening mental whispers kind of make sense. It's like I'm tapping int a hive mind."
"Collectice consciousness?" Fen asks to which Eve just nods. "So we're getting stray and partially formed thoughts."
"Pretty much, Evelyn admits."The whole city is practically a single alien entity."
"Any way can get some sort of map to this place?" Fenryx asks to which his love slave just shrugs her shoulders.
"Evelyn to Dark Shark...come in, Dark Shark," Eve says to the flawless pearl in a clam strapped to her wrist. "That's odd; I'm cut off from the sub."
"Captain Fenryx to the Dark Shark...Captain to the Dark Shark...Talk to me, Brom," Fen calls on a similar device on his arm. "Could the city be blocking our communications?"
"Definitely," Evelyn states. "I'm getting some annoyance from somewhere about our attempts."
"And it looks like they sent us a playmate," Fen growls as he sees a huge white ball bounce towards them. "I got a bad feeling about this."
Fenryx takes a fighting stance with the shark tooth katars as Evelyn cocks her hand paws into a pistoleer pantomime as she begins a short chant. Red energy bullets erupt from her finger claw and slam into the white ball. The bony sphere rolls back the way it came under the barrage of her offensive spell volley.
"I hope you can cast that again in case we need it," Fenryx states with a smirk. "I know it's one of your favorites."
"Uh, master," Eve coos as she clings to him seductively. "Remember I'm a sorceress and not a wizardess. What spells I know I can cast as many times as I damn well please. With some extras due to what was my natural bloodline legacy to the faerie lands."
"Your spell power didn't change," Fenryx says to comfort his love slave, "Just your form and our relationship."
Evelyn smirks and grabs his crotch as he presses her against a wall and holds her muzzle shut which both annoys and amuses her until she sees the procession. A quartet of lobbox, lobster-human hybrid centaurs, each with a nude human male in their claws are led past the canines buy a humanoid and humanized gray octopus as well as two crabbox, much smaller versions of the lobboc but crab like instead, per lobbox roughly snapping their claws and roughly fondly the rumps and genitals of their captives. None of the individuals of the procession perceive the canines and thus ignore them as they go past.
Both canines recognize one of the meant being tortured thusly is an old enemy: Admiral Edward Farquad. Through the pain he curses the monsters for their audacity to do this to a human, who are, as a race, masters of all they survey. Fenryx frowns and shakes his head which causes Evelyn to glare at him while subsequently squeezing his nut sack.
"He doesn't deserve rescuing," Eve growls. "We have more import things to do. You don't need to be the hero here."
"If that bastard is to die," Fenryx growls, "It will be by my hand and mine alone. I am willing to share much, love, but the honor and pleasure of his death is mine and mine alone."
"They have at least one central monitoring bubble station to see what they're doing," Eve prompts to at least partially get his mind back to the task at hand. "I also want to open a portal so the Dark Shark can dock."
A membrane door opens up near the canines to admit what look like a decidedly female look Krakatoa in humanoid form. "She" beckons the pair inside quickly before they are observed and reluctantly do as bidden as happy fun ball makes another appearance. The being identifies itself as Seeker 4 and that their race is completely androgynous.
What looked like breasts on the thing are actually biologically induced pockets containing extra dimensional space. Seeker 4 takes out another alien mind crown for Fenryx as well as goggles for both. Before either can ask why it is doing this, Seeker communicates with them telepathically; especially after Fen dons is crown.
<I know you probably have many questions,> Seeker 4 says telepathically. <Beings of my designation were originally created to explore and scout out other areas on the surface.> It turns to Evelyn, <Your brain anagrams are familiar to me even if tour body is not.>
"My father Gorelock is an elf wizard who has had contact with your people in the past," Evelyn says with sparks recognition in the Krakatoa.
<I see!> It mentally exclaims. <You were an elf girl at some point?> Eve just nods before it continues: <It would appear that project 69785 was perfected after all.>
<What do you know about that project?> Eve asks telepathically as Fen checks out the corridor they just came through via a suddenly transparent round section of the wall.
<That was quick,> seeker 4 observes. <You two must be magic users, although the male seems like more of a warrior...but to answer your question I...know little...>
<Are you alright?> Eve asks with some concern.
<In order...to...speak...with you...>4 says with trepidation. <Like this, I must...sequester my...thoughts from the...over mind. It is...taxing.>
<If I get this straight,> Fenryx interjects telepathically. <You know that the project that gave us our current terms existed but not that it was perfected?>
<Correct...Records are in control pod five which will also let you monitor any other part of the Ark.> 4 states and points to an elevator as a means of getting there. <Now, go! I can't keep them from seeing you much longer!>
Fenryx may not fully understand what it meant by its last statement but the indication that they need to be in that elevator going away from it, as it crouches down under the mental strain of having numerous information request demanded of it, is made abundantly clear as Evelyn also pleads for him to get going. The elevator takes them to a narrow corridor of steps leading to a ramping platform leading to another flight of stairs; all of which are made of transparent material that lets those traversing the corridor see all around them as they walk. However, the breadth of the corridor is only wide enough for them proceed single file, although it is tall enough for Eve to ride on Fen's shoulders easily.
Evelyn positions herself so she gives her master a boob hat which both annoys and amuses Fenryx who has to keep reminding himself that they have a mission to accomplish; so no quickie. Below them happy fun ball is rolling back and forth as if trying to figure out a way to get up to them. Fenryx is contemplating taking out a ranged weapon to shoot the thing but Evelyn uses her feet to massage his crotch as a way to encourage him to move forward.
Fen runs up the steps to the platform with no incident as Evelyn observes the sea life around them. A titanic ammonite in its curved shell swims nearby as the occasional trilobite to crawls on the surface of the dome as well as over the corridor itself completely unaware of their presence. The lesser kraken grabs a trilobite for a snack before it in turn is eaten by an oceanic crocodile.
Off in the distance the pair can see the Dark Shark floating in a holding pattern waiting for orders from Fenryx. Fenryx himself is now very annoyed at their inability to contact their ship. Their determination; renewed; the pair make their way to the control rooms.
The passageway only appears unguarded as teeth like spikes come up from the floor at semi random intervals followed by pits suddenly opening up beneath their test. But while these subtle attacks occur at random intervals there is a psychic giggle precedes the attacks that gives the invaders to when they are about to take place. The failure of their traps to even inconvenience the canines greatly disappoints the hive mind which amuses Fenryx and Evelyn no end.
Barring the wolf and his vixen from entering the control room is a burly Krakatoa with violent hate in its eyes. A katana of red energy manifests in its clawed hands before it moves forth to attack. Fenryx jumps back just in time to avoid getting slashed as Evelyn prepares to cast a spell.
The martially minded monster throws a bolt of psychic energy at Evelyn that paralyzes her before she can get her spell off. But by doing that the Krakatoa provides Fen with a brief window of opportunity with which to strike; an opportunity Fenryx uses to open a gash in the octopus's side with his katar. Fenryx ultimately pays for that with a deep gash on his arm that opens despite being covered by armor which the blade bypasses completely.
Fenryx prays a short prayer to all the deities dedicated to nature itself, beseeching them for aid in taking out the unnatural thing before him. The Krakatoa tries its psychic bolt trick again but it fails to affect the wolf as he now exudes a nimbus of soft blue light. Another slash of its psychic blade fails to get a reaction as the blade bounces off as if it were using a dull ax to chop at a metal sheathed tree.
Fenryx's blows however are now especially painful for the thing to receive as the wolf starts to butcher his foe. The hive mind is horrified that one of its champions could fall so easily to the invader. Evelyn glares at the slaughtered aberration before kicking it between the legs; an act that provokes mocking laughter from the hive mind.
Once inside, Evelyn goes to work as Fenryx checks the monitors. A door opens in the outer ring of the SunkenCity allowing the Dark Shark to dock. But this victory is mitigated by a scene of horror that Fen calls Eve over to witness.
Farquad is impaled on an obsidian spike, held down by a lobbox as a crabbox snips off the human's scrotum and penis. The lobbox holding him pushes him further down the pole which opens a slit along his bottom. A Krakatoa uncovers a plate brought to him by a lobbox to reveal a creature of ebony exoskeleton resembling a weird cross between a spider, a scorpion and a horse shoe crab.
The creature, a kind of living too Fen and Eve learn from the hive mind, wraps its legs around the human's head like some obscene hockey mask while its tail wraps around Farquad's throat. This process is repeated for each of the men in turn as Eve suddenly feels the need to kneel in front of Fen and suck his cock. The hive minds reels from the mental processes of the pair as her performance of this sexual act disgusts the collective to its core.
Evelyn performs a bit of phallic worship, partially to try and unsee what she just witnessed and partially she got a wave of horniness hitting her un-expectantly. The fact that it repulses the hive mind only encourages her. On another monitor Fen sees Brom and Helga emerge with a new weapon that instantly smacks of something Brom would dream up.
Jason and his team soon join the badger and the wolverine carrying the same weapons as the former dwarves: sleek muskets with pump levers and a rotating chamber not unlike a revolver's cylinder holding shells. A horde of crabbox with spears charges the boarding party only to be brutally cut down by a fuselage of bullets. Fenryx rolls his eyes at this display even as the hive mind does the mental equivalent of yelping in pain.
<I'm a little busy to look,> Eve giggles mentally, <But what's Brom doing that's pissing off the hive mind?>
<He's got a new toy that he's playing with,> Fen explains, <Looks he's done some improvements to his original noisemaker.>
<What is it with him and gun powder?> Eve asks in an annoyed fashion.
<I don't know,> Fen retorts, <But it's quite effective...he's got an extra one with him and my hook swords.>
"FENRYX!" Brom's voice thunders over their communications, "Are you there, Captain? Can you here me?"
"I can now, Brom," Fenryx says back, "Did you have any trouble docking the Dark Shark?"
"None at all, Cap'n," Brom says amicably, "We're sending Jason and his team to you with my latest invention and your hook swords."
"Good, I may need my old friends sooner than later," Fen states.
<I hope you're referring to your hook swords,> Eve teases.
<Ride me,> Fen mentally growls.
<Yes, Master,> Eve says as she impales herself along his length, <Mind if I look for an archive of what we came for while I do so?>
Fen just gives Eve a kiss as she wraps herself around him to squeeze her inner walls upon his invading member. Eve mentally searches the stored database for references to Moreau. She is surprised to learn that his still living head is in a kind of museum near their current position rather his brain is in a jar of fluids that allows him to interact with the world in a limited capacity.
Eve is anxious to visit this museum, and admittedly Fen is too, but Fenryx is unwilling to move from their location until Jason arrives with his stuff. Admittedly though what he is more anxious to handle his hook swords than Brom's new rifle. While Eve works to get Fen hard enough that they get knotted two things happen simultaneously, neither of which is encouraging.
A transformation begins to take place in the chamber where Farquad and his men are impaled. The skin of the humans begins to turn ashen gray like the krakatoa as the tool strapped to their faces fall off and skitters away. One by one the humans die or slowly become more like their captors in every way.
Farquad's own indomitable will to survive if only to spite his many enemies so he may take personal vengeance upon them keeps him alive. In fact his hatred feeds the transformation into a Krakatoa and speeds its rate of activation. As a weird side affect its convoluted hierarchy upon themselves and their slaves.
Happy fun ball is delighted when Jason and company happen upon the level it is rolling around if only momentarily. Fenryx gets very impressed with Brom's toy when the otters use them to shoot whatever happy fun ball into dust. The thing is shot through with so many holes that it just collapses into a fine powdery ash that the city's internal filtration system just blows away.
Seeker 4 directs them where to go; although it gets somewhat embarrassed as Jason and company molest it in passing. Evelyn glares at Fenryx as they get knotty but does nothing else. Fenryx warns Jason about the traps which set him and his buddies to work disabling said traps.
While Fen and Eve merely disappointed the collective when they were able to avoid the traps it's horrified at the fact that the otters can wreck said traps and do it as easily as they can. After a short while the city decides to suppress the traps and allow the otter team passage after their last resort trap of flooding the chamber turns out to be its least potent weapon against the invaders. When a lesser kraken grabs Jason for a meal the otter rogue harpoons it with an explosive lance that detonates after it hits.
Jason and his team move past membrane into the area where Fenryx and Evelyn are stationed with evil smirks on their faces. As one the team salutes their Captain while the collective is at turns pleading and demanding that they leave the city. Evelyn mentally fires back in a snide manner that they will leave when they get the information they came for.
"Here ya go, Cap'n!" Jason beams as he hands Fenryx first his hook swords and the new rifle that Brom designed. "Where to now?"
"We're going to visit a museum," Fen states then gives the otters the evil eye, "Don't touch anything, don't try to palm anything. I'm relying on Evelyn to keep us out of trouble so unless she says it's safe to touch..."
"Don't touch it," Jason says to finish Fen's command, "We already saw a bunch of weird stuff, boss, neat, but weird." Then he turns to Evelyn. "You feel up to examining a bunch of stuff, boss lady?"
"Try to keep it within reason, boys," Evelyn coos as a disc of latticed metal fibers large enough for the eight of them to stand on forms in front of them before she gives the otters a look: "Affix bayonets, I don't like what this looks like."
Neither Jason nor any of his crew questions the vixen; they don't need their Captain to confirm the order as it just makes sense. Fenryx shoulders the new rifle, adds the ammunition pouch to his belt and takes up his hook swords. His selection of weapons actually confuses the hive mind as it tries to reconcile the fact that this is essentially a Western style Pirate wilding Eastern style weapons with a semi advanced firearm as a ranged option.
The disc the group is standing on descends at an alarming rate but the furs had braced themselves for this and thus arrive in the center of the museum without losing their footing. Hundreds of brains, each in its own jar, forms columns from floor to ceiling in a veritable forest of preserved minds with what the furs perceive as enchanted lanterns between each jar that alternate through a series of colors randomly providing a kind of weird illumination for the entire chamber. The floors and walls of the chamber are glass displays the Krakatoa have performed in the past.
Evelyn nearly faints at one of the experiments that "greet" the team walking down the ramp to the chamber proper with a shriek of pure terror eliciting from her muzzle. The creature that causes this extreme reaction is something that can only be described as a bio-mechanical walker tank with an anthropoid like chitinous body and legs, a tail like a scorpion, crushing crab claws and a radome compound eye that seems to look at the intruders balefully. Something about the thing suggests that it's merely deactivated; not dead.
All the experiments that are almost complete are almost complete, which are the majority of the displays as far as the team can discern, give that same feeling as if nearly half of the displays of organic war machines could simply wake up and get released if the hive mind were so inclined. Below their feet is a kind of aquarium in which a cubic jellyfish of massive proportions swims up towards them as the nucleus within the box glows and angry red. Its the jelly that puts the otters on edge as each tentacle terminates in a razor toothed shark like mouth.
"Keep sharo, everyone," Fenryx commands, "I don't like how this smells."
"We just need to find, Moreau," Evelyn says, "I can interview him and then we can go." Then she sees a slug as big as their sub with three eyes and three tentacles. "Father has something just like this in the labyrinth back home."
"Yeah, I've met it," Fen says with a sigh, "Are these minds categorized in any way or even labeled?"
"Labeled; yes; organized? Not in a manner I can perceive but there is some organization to it I can see that much," Eve admits.
"Lady Evelyn," Jason calls as he and his team stands in front of an empty glass wall, "Do you know what's supposed to be here? Or this just a display case for a future experiment?"
"Keep a sharp eye out, Jason," Eve warns, "Those walls are for us."
"They still want a sample of what Moreau was doing for them," Fenryx states to which Eve just nods. "Is Moreau's brain near here?"
"It is actually," Eve says as she moves in that direction. "Unless you want to be put under glass keep a sharp eye out for anything that could capture us."
"Like those!" Fenryx growls as he points out creatures that look like a combination of stag beetle and spider flies towards them.
Fenryx quickly switches to the new rifle and joins Jason and the other otters blasting the capture critters into spare parts and pools of ichors. Evelyn polls the minds in the columns of the area to find out which is Moreau himself. Moreau's mind recognizes the daughter of his murderer and initially decides to keep quiet until he realizes that she too is one of Gorelock's victims and opens up to her mind.
<Long time, no see, Evelyn,> Moreau telepathically sends to the vixen, <What has your father done to you?>
<Perfected the method you started and used it on me,> Evelyn mentally states. <What was your initial reason for creating the process? I really would like to know. Father would never tell me, he just taught me how to use it.>
<My daughter and wife loved animals and thought there was potential within them," Moreau states, <But her brother Gorelock just wanted a new source of soldiers capable of beating back humans, dwarves and stronger armies.>
<What happened to my Aunt and Cousin?> Evelyn asks. <Father never speaks of them.>
<Actually, my child,> Moreau says lovingly, <Forgive me, daughter, I had forgotten what was truly important. Your mother and her brother Gorelock were very close.>
<Gorelock is actually my...Uncle?!> Evelyn inquires with disbelief. <But why was I born an elf and not a half-elf?>
<Gorelock is very good at manipulating and mutating bloodlines,> Moreau says, <That's why I recruited him to help me. I never thought it would mean my death. But it looks like he perfected the process. Are all the males behind you the result of the process?>
<Yes, father, I personally made the wolf,> Eve admits, <Uncle made the otters and he used the wolf to make me what I am now.>
<Controlling bastard,> Moreau growls, <Watch out for him, daughter, he killed me so I wouldn't turn the beast folk against him.>
<And then he modified my memory to make me think he was my father,> Eve growls ruefully as shakes her balled fists, <I'll make him pay, I swear it!>
<Live, daughter, this is all I ask,> Moreau says calmly, <You are already betraying him by how you and Fenryx are operating. Continuing to defy him, living by your own code will be enough as I know it will piss him off to no end.>
<So the fact that most of the beast folk are loyal to me rather than Gorelock is the vengeance you want?> Fenryx asks of Moreau with a mental smirk.
<Exactly!> Moreau retorts. <It will mean besides the fact that he killed me for control of the beast folk; he still is denied what he really wants. It will mean the control mechanisms he wanted in the process failed and domination is still a dream rather than a reality.>
<Thank you,> Evelyn says mentally, <You have answered so many questions...>
The floor shifts violently.
"What the yiff is going on?!" Jason yells.
<The city ship is taking off,> Moreau broadcasts telepathically. <Get back to your ship before this one gets out into outer space. Live!>
"Jason!" Fenryx yells. "We're going back to the Dark Shark! Pronto! We've got what we came for."
"Right," Evelyn agrees. <Good Bye, Father.>
<Good Bye, Daughter,> Moreau states.
"Captain!" Brom calls over the communicator, "Something weird is going down: The whole city is shaking!"
"The city is also an airship, Brom," Evelyn calls back, "And a high flyer at that. We may have to make a crash dive from a great height."
"Actually, I have something to counteract that," Brom says with self satisfied pride, "I'm going to need a few minutes to prepare though."
"It'll take us a bit to get to you," Fenryx states, "Get working on you special project."
"Aye, aye, Captain!" Brom yells before they close the connection.
The tank from earleir breaks out of its display to position itself to block the beast folk from escaping. The move is actually of no surprise to those they that the collective wants to makes a display of. Lightning arcs out from the things tail which forces the team to scatter for protection.
Fenryx has his hooks swords out as he makes a beeline for the monster. Evelyn takes out a blue glass ball that she loads into a sling. Jason and company just aim their rifles and fire away.
A javelin of pure energy lances out from the monster's stinger to target the vixen only to hit an invisible force field that stops the attack cold. Evelyn throws her glass ball towards the scorpion tail only to have the shot blocked by one of the claws. Ice forms on the interposing limb as the glass ball contained a concoction of freezing liquid.
Bullets from the otters shatter the ice encased limb just as Evenlyn had intended. Fenryx leaps up to use his hook swords to latch onto the wounded limb and from there swing up to the top of the body of the beast. Evelyn loads a brown glass ball into her sling as the otters reload.
Fenryx uses his hook swords to tear the compound eye radome to shreds, an act that paralyzes the monster. Evelyn targets the radome with her next shot which coats the top of the thing with suffocating mud. She follows this up with another blue ball that ices the mud and effectively kills what passed for a brain inside of its body.
The collapsed corpse of the living war machine crashes the glass above the weird monster jellyfish and makes a bridge over its cage. Jason and company stab the tentacles with their bayonets as the team makes a fighting retreat. Evelyn gets the disc to take them back to the control room with a few spells in rapid succession.
On the way up, Fenryx uses healing magic to patch up the otters who had taken powerful hits to their health. The hive mind is amazed at the concern Fen feels for his subordinates but Eve just smirks as this is one reason why they are loyal to him as the wolf is a compassionate commander. Blue skies is all there is to see when they can perceive their outside surroundings again, a fact that worries them all.
The trip to the Dark Shark is quick and uneventful as a slide opens up to allow passage. But before the team can get to the slide the new and improved Farquad wants a few rounds with Fenryx. Farquad levitates rapiers around himself that he uses to engage Fenryx in an attempt to wear down his defenses.
Much to the annoyance of the newly minted Krakatoa commandant, Fenryx is able to parry most of his thrusts and two discs of pure aquamarine energy block those he fails to parry. Evelyn giggles as she directs the shields to protect her lover. Farquad is livid as sends the rapiers hurtling towards her but his angry tantrum is thwarted by Jason and his crew who willing sacrifice themselves to protect their mistress.
Farquad is fuming but Fenryx is furious as his attack upon the Krakatoa with is undertaken with righteous rage in his heart. Deeply wounded, Commander 9, as Farquad has been renamed, is forced to teleport to safety but not before once again vowing vengeance. Evelyn and Fenryx escape as the bodies of Jason and his band of brothers, as he liked to call them, recede into the floor with a snide thanks for the specimens chimed into the heads of the retreating canines.
Once back at the Dark Shark Helga blasts a door for the sub to escape with torpedoes only to find out that they're thousands of miles above sea level. While everyone braces for a crash dive, Brom calmly throws a few lever. Instead of falling to the sea a great balloon materializes above them transitioning the submarine to a zeppelin that just floats away as the Krakatoa complex continues to rise into the atmosphere above them towards outer space.