The world dissolved into a storm of red scales, flying sand, and raw panic. The Masiakasaurus's charge wasn't a mere run; it was a seismic event, each footfall kicking up geysers of grit that stung their eyes and clogged their throats.
Galit went left, his long legs carrying him in a zigzagging sprint. Atlas blurred right, his Mink agility allowing him to practically skate across the sand. Jannali dove forward and rolled, coming up with her spear held low. The dinosaur thundered between them, its momentum carrying it past, but its stiff tail, like a barnacled log, whipped around. Jannali had just enough time to raise Anhur's Whisper in a desperate parry.
CLANG!
The impact was monstrous. The sound was less metal-on-scale and more like a cathedral bell being struck by a cannonball. The force traveled up the spear, through her arms, and rattled her teeth. She was lifted off her feet and thrown backward, skidding through the sand for meters before coming to a painful stop, her headscarf askew and her arms screaming in protest.
"Jannali!" Galit's shout was torn away by another deafening roar.
The dinosaur, impossibly fast for its size, had already pivoted. It ignored her, its cold, intelligent eyes locking onto Atlas. It understood threat assessment—the crackling energy building around the Mink was a primal danger signal.
"Hey, scale-face! Over here!" Jannali yelled, scrambling up and hurling one of her Echo Boomerangs. It whistled through the air, carving a sharp arc toward the creature's eye. With a speed that defied its bulk, the Masiakasaurus jerked its head. The boomerang tinged harmlessly off its bony brow-ridge. It didn't even flinch.
Atlas used the distraction. He surged forward, Stormclaw and Thunderfang crackling with seastone-infused Electro. He aimed not for the thick body, but for the slender, muscular ankle. "Let's see you run!"
The Masiakasaurus didn't try to dodge. It lifted its leg and stamped down, not on Atlas, but on the sand directly in front of him. A wave of debris and dust blasted outward, blinding him. In that instant of vulnerability, the head shot forward on its long neck. Not a bite, but a spear-thrust. Those four horizontal front teeth, each as long as a cutlass, stabbed towards his chest.
Atlas crossed his maces in a desperate X, pouring Electro into the defense. The teeth screeched against the dark metal, throwing up a shower of sparks that singed his fur. The sheer, skewering force drove him backward, his boots plowing trenches in the sand. He grunted, muscles bulging, holding the nightmare jaws at bay mere inches from his heart.
"Get off him!" Galit's whips sang through the air. They didn't aim to cut, but to entangle. The sinuous lengths, coated with a disorienting venom, wrapped around the dinosaur's foreleg in a complex knot. Galit planted his feet and pulled with all his might, his own long neck straining. "Now, Atlas!"
The creature stumbled, just a fraction, its balance disrupted. Atlas disengaged and leaped back, panting. "Cheers… but that thing's stronger than a Sea King in a bad mood."
Their moment of teamwork shattered as the Masiakasaurus gave a furious, guttural shake. Its leg, corded with prehistoric muscle, simply flexed. The braided sea-snake sinew of Galit's whips, capable of holding a ship's mast, snapped with a sound like gunshots. The backlash sent Galit stumbling, the severed ends of his weapons coiling limply in the sand.
The dinosaur's head swiveled towards him. It knew a strategist when it saw one.
"Oh, you have got to be joking," Galit breathed, backpedaling fast.
It charged again, a straight, murderous line. Galit tried his "Kelp Forest" feints, darting to the side, but the creature was learning. Its tail lashed out, not at where he was, but at where he was going to be. The tip caught him across the ribs. He heard a sickening crack before he felt the pain, a white-hot lance that stole his breath. He was hurled sideways, collapsing in a heap, the world swimming in and out of focus.
"GALIT!" Jannali's cry was raw. She was running, not away, but along the circular wall, building momentum. "Hey! Fossil-fuel! Your breath probably stinks worse than a dead eel!" She launched her second boomerang, then the third, not aiming to hit, but to create a whirling, distracting maze of noise and motion around the dinosaur's head.
It worked for a second. The creature snapped at the shimmering wood, annoyed.
It was all the opening Atlas needed. He'd closed his eyes, gathering the storm inside him. When they opened, they blazed with a fierce, blue-white light. The air around him hummed, and the spots on his fur glowed like coals. He didn't just run; he vanished, reappearing in a blur of rust-red fur and crackling electricity directly above the dinosaur's back.
"SULONG'S WRATH!" he roared, bringing both maces down in a devastating hammer blow aimed at the spine.
He never connected.
The Masiakasaurus, displaying a cunning that was purely General Bomba's, dropped flat to the sand. Atlas flew over it, his devastating strike hitting empty ground with a thunderous BOOM that sent a cratered shockwave through the arena. Before the sand could settle, the dinosaur was up. Its head, on that serpentine neck, twisted almost completely backwards. Those spear-teeth didn't bite; they snatched.
They closed around Atlas's left forearm, pinning the mace Stormclaw against his own body. It wasn't a crushing grip; it was a holding grip. The teeth acted like surgical clamps, locking the limb in place. Atlas screamed, not from pain yet, but from sudden, terrifying immobility. He poured Electro directly into the creature's mouth. It shuddered, scales smoking, but its jaw, powered by a will of iron, did not unlock. It began to shake its head violently, whipping Atlas around like a ragdoll.
Jannali saw it all from her sprint along the wall. Galit down, Atlas being torn apart. The plan, the defiance, it was all crumbling. A cold, fatalistic clarity washed over her. She wasn't going to get a clean shot. She wasn't going to save the day. But she could make it hurt.
With a final, desperate push, she launched herself off the wall, spear held in a two-handed grip above her head, a falling star aimed at the only target she could guarantee: the creature's exposed flank.
The Masiakasaurus saw her. It released Atlas, sending the Mink flying across the arena to crash into the wall with a sickening thud. It then did something horribly agile. It spun, and instead of meeting her charge, it simply raised one sickle-clawed foot and swatted.
The claw caught her across the torso, slicing through her crop top and carving four deep, parallel gashes across her stomach and ribs. The air was knocked from her lungs in a silent gasp. Her spear flew from nerveless fingers. She hit the sand and did not move, a dark, rapidly spreading stain blooming across the sand beneath her.
Silence, but for the heavy, panting breaths of the dinosaur.
In the balcony, Queen Ranava leaned forward, a faint, approving curve on her white lips.
Galit pushed himself up on one elbow, his vision blurry, each breath a knife-twist in his side. He saw Atlas, crumpled and motionless against the far wall. He saw Jannali, lying far too still in a pool of her own blood.
They had been so confident. They were going to handle it themselves.
Now, they were losing. They were broken.
The Masiakasaurus took a slow, deliberate step towards Galit, then another. Its muzzle was stained with Atlas's blood and flecks of burned flesh from the Electro. Its cold eyes held no fury, only the grim satisfaction of a task nearly complete. It lowered its head, those four spear-teeth pointing directly at his heart, ready for the final, spearing thrust.
They had survived the poison nut. They would not survive the pit.
*****
The black sand of Nosy Fady's hidden beach absorbed the midday sun, radiating a gentle warmth that contrasted with the cool gloom of the cove. The Consortium team moved along the waterline, a stark, mismatched procession against the cheerful chaos of the shore.
Charlie Leonard Wooley brought up the rear, his pith helmet tilted against the glare, his polished boots sinking slightly with each step. He fanned his face with a sheaf of papers from his overstuffed satchel. "I was, ahem, hoping we might first reconnoiter the local market," he puffed. "Procure some victuals that haven't been reconstituted from a tube. Perhaps find lodging that isn't a metal bunk. A real bed, with a mattress that doesn't double as an emergency floatation device!"
"We are too close to take breaks," Aurélie stated, her voice barely louder than the sigh of the waves. She didn't turn, her silver hair flowing like a banner behind her. Her eyes, sharp and gray, scanned the beach ahead with the focus of a raptor.
Bianca Yvonne Clark glanced back, her multitool holster creaking. She pushed her magnifying goggles up, leaving a smudge on her forehead. "Like, yeah, Charlie. We can eat after. Priorities, dude. The mission parameters are, like, ninety-eight percent complete!"
Charlie groaned, a sound of profound academic suffering. "My parameters require caloric intake and dorsal recumbency! A scholar cannot work on an empty stomach and a spine shaped like a question mark!"
Aurélie suddenly stopped. Not a gradual halt, but a complete cessation of motion, as if she'd hit an invisible wall. Her hand, which had been resting on the worn leather of her poetry notebook at her waist, fell to the hilt of Anathema. Her usual stoic expression fractured into one of complex, sheer bafflement.
Bianca nearly walked into her. "Whoa! Like, what is it?" She followed Aurélie's gaze, and her own eyes widened behind her goggles. A grin, huge and genuine, split her grease-smudged face. "That's… that's like, her."
About fifty meters down the beach, a scene of bizarre normalcy was unfolding. Marya Zaleska stood in the shallow surf, her Heart Pirates leather jacket unzipped over a casual shirt, denim shorts dark with water at the hem. In her hands was not the dreaded, soul-severing Eternal Eclipse, but a simple length of bamboo. Before her, a petite girl with silver hair tied in a practical braid mimicked her stance with intense concentration.
Bianca's feet instinctively shifted to run, a joyful reunion already playing out in her mind. Aurélie's arm shot out, a bar of iron across her chest. "No."
Bianca stumbled, looking at her leader with confusion. "Like, what? Why? That's her! Mission, like, accomplished!"
"She is teaching," Aurélie said, her brow furrowed. The sight seemed to disturb her fundamental understanding of the woman they hunted. The ruthless, Void-touched daughter of Mihawk, the rogue agent who had slipped the Consortium's leash… was patiently correcting a child's grip on a practice sword. "We do not know her present state of mind. Her allegiances. Wait here. I will approach alone. I will signal you."
Before Bianca could protest, Aurélie began walking forward, her movements slow and deliberate, each footfall silent on the damp sand.
On the beach, Marya was demonstrating a basic parry to Eliane. "The force comes from the ground, up through your legs, into your core. The arm is just the channel. It's not a block; it's a redirect. You are moving the opponent's energy away from you." She demonstrated with the bamboo, a fluid, minimal motion that spoke of ingrained mastery.
Eliane nodded, her blue eyes wide, soaking up every word as if it were a rare spice.
Nearby, perched on a piece of driftwood, Vesta Lavana had been a storm of frustrated creativity, her rainbow hair seeming to droop. Suddenly, she exploded to her feet, a crumpled piece of sheet music held aloft in a triumphant fist. "I HAVE GOT IT!" she announced to the sky.
Marya and Eliane both looked over, waiting.
Vesta beamed, her violet eyes sparkling. "The chorus! The lyrical pivot point! It's about the moment the storm breaks and you see the first star! Not hope, but… the acknowledgment of a witness!" She plopped back down, immediately consumed again, Mikasi—now in the form of a sleek electric guitar—emitting a hopeful, searching chord progression. She was utterly oblivious to the world.
Marya gave a faint, almost imperceptible shake of her head, a smirk touching her lips at the songwriter's passionate outburst. She and Eliane returned to their training.
Further out, where the waves broke, Jelly Squish was engaged in an epic, splashing duel with a large, indignant crab. The crustacean was clamped firmly to his gelatinous backside. "Unhand me, you salty snack!" Jelly giggled, bouncing in place. "This is a battle for the ages! Bloop!" He leapt, a wobbly azure arc, and cannonballed into a deeper wave, the crab still clinging on.
It was then, in the middle of explaining weight distribution, that Marya froze. Her golden eyes, which had been calmly focused on Eliane, lost their focus. The easy smirk vanished. Her head turned, not with alarm, but with the slow certainty of a compass needle finding north. She was looking directly up the beach, to where Aurélie was now about twenty paces away.
Eliane lowered her bamboo sword. "What's wrong?"
Marya's voice was low, devoid of panic but layered with a sudden, heavy readiness. "Go stand with Vesta. Now."
Eliane looked up, her young face clouding with concern. "Why? What is it?"
"Don't worry," Marya said, her eyes never leaving Aurélie's approaching form. She slowly, casually, let the practice bamboo drop onto the sand. "I just don't want you getting stuck in the middle of grown-up talk."
Eliane, sensing the shift in the air, nodded. She scampered across the sand to Vesta, who was now scribbling furiously, muttering about "harmonic minor lifts."
"Vesta," Eliane whispered urgently, tugging on the musician's colorful sleeve.
"Shh! Sky-rainbow metaphor… needs a better verb…" Vesta mumbled, strumming a discordant note.
Marya stood alone now, the waves washing over her boots. She made no move to draw Eternal Eclipse. She simply waited, her posture relaxed but rooted, as the woman she hadn't seen in years, her former mentor and now her pursuer, closed the final stretch of black sand between them. The cheerful chaos of the beach—the music, the splashing, the earnest training—formed a surreal backdrop to the silent, heavy understanding passing between the two swordswomen in the surf.
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