Ch. 11: The Deep Blue

Drew revists a familiar place to retrieve his Sun Relic fragment.

"Hey, this isn't so bad!" I, Drew Berry, thought to myself. "Good thing I can hold my breath better now."
I took a look around. There was some land off in the distance, and something floating above me.
"Wait a minute." I thought. "This place seems familiar."
I swam to the top of the water and then looked around again. I saw a boat and an island.
"Woah." I said. "This is where we were a week ago!"
Then I thought for a bit.
"Wait..." I thought. "Somethings not right. Frank sailed the boat to the island, but now it's right here... Is this a simulation of where we were or something?"
I climbed onto the boat, and luckily there were no pirates on it. I looked around, and everything seemed the same. I walked to the captain's quarters and picked up the journal.
"Hm." I said. "I wonder if there's anything in this that we missed."
I flipped through the pages. Most of it was garbage but there was a certain page that caught my attention. I read it aloud...
"Day at sea thirty-three, voyage two. This... thing with four arms and horns tried to take the Golden Meteor from us, and said we'd all 'perish' if we didn't. We refused, obviously. He then said something about there being 'a single human with one' and 'it'd be much less difficult to take it from them'."
"Four arms..." I said. "He must be talking about Kobun! And the other person with a Sun Relic piece must be Xavier!"
I put the journal in my pocket and looked around.
After I had searched the rest of the boat, I jumped off into the water and swam towards the island(since I don't know how to use a boat and I can swim pretty fast). Once I got there, I tried looking for the ravine with the entrance in it. A bit of searching later and I found it.
"Huh?" I said. "That's weird."
I looked at the stairs that were originally broken, but they were fixed.
"When is this?" I thought to myself. "Did the pirates just get here or something?"
I continued questioning myself while walking down the stairs, opening the door, and going down the slide.
"Seems like the city isn't blown up." I said. "But... the city is..."
I looked around. The city was... corrupted. The buildings were maroon and covered with spikes and blood. It looked like I was standing at the gateway to the underworld. Also, the place was swarming with...
"Are those..." I said, "Akuma?"
Based on Frank's and Seth's description of them, I would assume so. The were also maroon-ish with large horns and fangs, and were about five to six feet tall.
I ran to one of the buildings, looked over the wall, and sniped one of them, killing them. This alerted some other Akuma, and they started running at me!
"Oh no." I said, sniping a few more so they'd stay away. There were about 15 of them. "This bow isn't suitable for close ranges!"
I shot a bubble arrow, which caught a few of them. Then, I shot the bubble, making it explode, which killed the Akuma inside of it.
"Nice!" I cheered. "That doesn't make any sense, but I'll take it!"
They got to me when there were four left. They clawed at me, ripping my shirt and some skin. I tried drawing my bow, but they kept knocking me down. One stabbed me with its tail in the leg, causing it to bleed. I needed a way to get some distance really quickly.
"I can't... go out like this." I thought to myself. "It'd be pathetic."
Just then, something weird happened. My body... became water, and the Akuma's claws went right through me. I then flipped backward, making me fly back away from the Akuma! My body then returned to its normal, fleshy self. I hastily drew back my bow, finished off the remaining Akuma, and patched up my leg with a bit of my shirt.
"Was that, a new technique?" I asked myself. "Nice!"
I decided to name my technique "Aqua Dodge", and progressed forward. My idea was that the Fragment is up where the second Sun Relic piece is, which was the giant tower. However, before I headed there, I wanted to explore the place since we never got the chance to. First, I wanted to look inside that room we went in for a bit to see if the interior stayed the same. I sneakily crawled over to it, and peered into the window. It looked almost exactly the same, but it had about five Akuma in it.
"Okay." I said. "So the only differences are the Akuma and the building exteriors."
I climbed to the top of the building using the horns that were sticking out of the wall.
"Before I explore the place, I need to wipe out all of the Akuma." I stated. "Best to do it from the rooftops."
I began to rid the Akuma...

Tanaka exited the building after what seemed like months. But, from what the others told JT, he felt like that was going to happen. Over the time period, JT learned a lot about himself, his element, and his weapons. He put on his armor, causing his claws to grow longer and sharper, and making three large claws come out from his feet. He learned new techniques and moves. He even figured out how to retract his claws, but most importantly, he grew as a person. JT no longer cried over small things, and could keep his confidence steady.
Tanaka walked out of the room, leaving the door open behind him.
"Well, I'm finished." Tanaka said.
JT stopped training and walked over to Tanaka.
"Wow, so you've done this TEN times?" JT asked, surprised. "That must take lots of patience."
"Ah, I'm used to it." Tanaka laughed. "Welp, she's ready."
"Where is she?" JT asked.
"She's in here." Tanaka pointed backwards over his shoulder. "Come take a look."
JT nodded, and he and Tanaka walked into the room. Inside was Lucy.
Lucy was wearing orange metal armor around her torso and on her head, and she was given a steel-plated tail. On the sides of the torso armor were pouches, which could be used for holding important supplies. Her teeth were covered by super sharp fangs made from metal, which were longer than her original fangs. Lucy's legs were also wrapped in armor to protect them. Lucy saw JT and ran to his side, panting.
"Oh my gosh!" JT shouted. "She looks even better than my drawing!"
JT crouched down and gave Lucy a hug. Tanaka laughed.
"Okay, I think Lucy and I should train together for a while and then go help the others!" JT requested.
"Sounds good to me." Tanaka said. "When you're ready, talk to me and I'll teleport you to the Amazon."
JT nodded, and he resumed training, this time with his loyal companion and friend...

I finished clearing out the Akuma around an hour after I started. I would've finished earlier, but I forgot that Frank told us that you have to cover the cracks they spawn out of, or else they will keep on coming. I concluded that putting a bubble over the cracks will make it impossible for the Akuma to spawn. Also, my leg stopped bleeding, so that's cool. I was going to walk over to the tall building, but I wanted to confirm something first.
I walked around, looking for this quote unquote "safe zone" that the pirates went to. After not too long of searching, I found a metal hatch in the ground. Haphazardly, I tried opening the hatch. Unfortunately, there was an electronic lock.
"Crap." I stated. "Wait! I can just shoot it off!"
I stood back and pierced the lock with an arrow. The lock short circuited and the hatch popped open. Inside was stairs leading to a lit up room. I stepped in and walked down the stairs.
Inside was fairly large, but there wasn't much out of the ordinary: boxes of non-perishable foods, jugs of water, etc.. There were a few things that caught my eye, though. The first was a wall with a few first aid kits hung on it.
"Those could come in handy." I said.
I walked over to the wall, took a first aid kit off of it, and opened it up. Inside were some rolls of elastic bandages. I wrapped some around my leg that was injured. I was about to shove a roll of bandage in my pocket for Frank (and I guess Seth), but I remembered that I wouldn't be able to give them to him. I figured they'd come in handy just in case, so I took them with me anyway.
The second thing that interested me was a door labeled "Captain's Stash". I walked over to it and opened it. Inside was filled with gold and jewels, normal pirate stuff. It also had a desk on it, sprawled with loose pieces of paper. I walked to the desk, while shoving gems and gold into my pocket on the way. I also took a diamond-crested dagger, just in case I were disarmed, per se. I sat down at the desk and looked at the papers. Most just had ration numbers and successful raids, but one of the papers had something peculiar on it.
"Thought I saw a second meteor today." I read aloud. "Spotters say it musta landed south, near the Antarctic. We tried chasing it, but another boat tried attacking ours, and we got sidetracked. Don't know if it landed in the water or the land. All we know is that it landed somewhere near northern Antarctica."
That's all the page had on it. I thought for a bit.
"That must be where the fourth Sun Relic piece is!" I concluded. "That doesn't really tell us much thought, only that it's on or near Antarctica."
I shoved the paper in my pocket and walked out of the room, so I could look at the last thing that interested me. It was a highly detailed pyramid-shaped rock with a button on the front. I pressed it, and the tip of the pyramid emitted a portal. I put my head through it to see...
"This is... the island?" I said to myself. "That means those friggin' pirates are still alive!"
Angrily, I shot the teleporter with an arrow.
"How could those uncivil pirates find something like this?" I thought to myself.
I grabbed a can of food, popped it open, ate its contents, and left the safe zone.
I ran to the middle of the place, where the big building was. I figured the fragment would be in the same place that the piece was at. My plan was to run past all the Akuma and quickly grab the Sun Relic fragment. If I was caught out, I could always Aqua Dodge out of a bad spot.
I barged open the door.
Inside was a whole lot of Akuma. I ran past them, climbing the stairs, then ran past more, then climbed more stairs, etc., until I got to the top floor, grabbed the Sun Relic fragment, and was teleported to everyone else.

Drew teleported to his section of the room. Everyone turned to him.
"Hey, you're alive!" Seth laughed. "You don't look very hurt, either!"
"Could be worse, I guess." Drew shrugged.
"What was your area?" John asked.
"It was the place we went to last week." Drew explained. "It was the same except there were Akuma instead of pirates and the buildings looked different. Here I found something you guys might want to see."
Drew pulled out the loose paper he got from the safe zone, and a few pieces of gold fell out of his pocket when he did so.
"Drew!" Anna shouted. "Are you really that greedy!"
"I only took a little bit!" Drew shouted back. "I was planning on sharing some anyway! Besides, I was taking it from those pirates that tried to ki-"
Drew's yelling was interrupted by Scarlett's door opening.
Scarlett gulped.
"Good luck, Scarlett." Tara affirmed.
"Yeah, good luck." Frank added.
"Ooh I wonder what Scarlett's area will be!" Brenden said.
"Well, let's get this over with, I guess." Scarlett said.
Scarlett grabbed her daggers, stood up, sighed, and stepped through her door, which shut behind her.
Inside was an airship, miles in the air!