Of Trails and Snails | Ch. 20: Electric Blue (Patreon)

“Jack!” Mia reached out to grab him as the bubble broke free from the tracks and tumbled between the racing school of enormous fish. Her fingers missed by inches.

Jack’s head struck the strong material, dazing him for a moment. The girls stayed put thanks to their feet, though he imagined the sudden spinning wasn’t the best for their human ears.

“Fucking shit!” Skye screamed.

“We must remain calm!” Niamh barked. She withdrew her bo staff from her shell and turned her head from side to side.

“We. Are going. To drown!” Skye countered.

Mia squeaked.

The bubble turned again, but Mia and Skye were ready. They caught him as he fell—Mia grabbed his arm, Skye snatched his legs. It was an awkward position, but they helped him plant his feet near theirs, and he clung to Mia as he searched frantically for their next steps.

The water had gathered high enough to cover the heel of his boot. Between the short breaks in the parade of fish, Jack spotted the light on the surface rippling at least forty feet above them. If the bubble managed to fall away from the school, there was a chance it would float to the surface. But not if they took on too much water. And the damn fish kept moving to strike as if they were one of the eels, puncturing more of their only chance to stay alive.

“I will kill the fish if they destroy the bubble,” Niamh said.

“That’s nice, but we’ll sink! And we can’t breathe water, Niamh!” Mia shrieked.

“I can swim you one by one to the surface, then,” Niamh suggested.

“And then the other two drown,” Skye snapped.

 “What if you cast [Bubble] beneath this bubble, Mia?” Jack asked. “Would it lift us up?”

Mia shook her head. “Not if the fish and eels run into it. They’ll damage it, push it around, and I don’t know if my health can sustain all of us.”

“Noted.” Jack turned to Skye. “Could you use [Dark Passage] to get yourself out?” If Skye made it to safety, that was one less person to worry about. He could swim as fast as his legs would carry him, and that would leave Mia to Niamh.

Skye gritted her teeth and searched through the dark cloud. “I can’t see above the surface. I’d be lucky to get my head above water before I sank to the bottom.”

The bubble lurched again. Skye instinctively clamped a hand down on Jack’s shoulder, and Mia clung to his waist as they spun. When the bubble steadied, the water sloshed up to Jack’s calves. The water around them was finally clear of fish and eels, but they weren’t rising to the surface. Their protective sphere just sort of…hovered there. Their weight and the water were too much. They were running out of time.

We just need enough air for Niamh to get us out.

A ridiculous notion hit him. They didn’t need the whole bubble, just enough of it. Jack tapped Mia’s arms to let him go, and then quickly inspected the cracks, making a mental note of each one. He traced the material with his finger, starting at a puncture on one side, until he made it to the first puncture on the other. That left them with a little under a third of the bubble undamaged. That should be plenty.

“I have a plan,” Jack said. “We need to get this portion here turned upright, and then Skye needs to slice it off just above the breaks.”

“What?!” Skye looked gobsmacked. Which was understandable.

“If I’m right, you, me, and Mia just need to hang on to the edges from the inside, and it should create a kind of air umbrella for the three of us.” Jack illustrated his point with his hands, using one as the bubble and the other as the group beneath it. “We can slowly sink to the bottom while Niamh protects us from the fish. Once it’s clear, she can take us up one by one.”

“An air bubble.” Niamh nodded. “I should be able to move the last of the fish to the side.”

“Should be?!” Skye’s tone somehow stretched further into disbelief.

“Guys!” Mia pointed to their right. “Another group is coming!”

Jack pushed on the side opposite to the portion they needed to save, hoping to roll the bubble like a too-full hamster wheel. “Help me move this thing!”

Mia caught on, grabbing Niamh’s wrist and sliding around Skye until the bubble began to tilt. The dark surge was nearly upon them when they’d righted it.

“Jack! How are you going to hold onto the top while I cut it?” Skye demanded.

Oh. Shit.

“[Bubble] can work for that!” Mia said, taking her staff into shaking hands. “I’ll put one above us and one below. That should hold us together long enough to grab the edges.”

“There are way too many ‘shoulds’ in this plan,” Skye growled.

“The top layer won’t float away?” Jack asked.

“No! I can hold it in place with my magic,” Mia replied.

“Alright.” Jack took a deep breath. “As soon as you cast it, Skye can cut.”

“Are you ready, Skye?” Niamh asked. She kept her bo staff tucked under one arm, with the other arm raised as if prepared for a martial arts duel instead of a rabid school of fish.

“This is fucking insane,” Skye grumbled. She grabbed her greatsword and steadied it in her hands, eyeing the invisible line she needed to cut. “I’m ready.”

“Everyone else, bend down,” Jack instructed, crouching as low as he could. The plan would go south very quickly if Skye lobbed their heads off.

“[One With Water],” Niamh whispered as she bent forward.

Mia leaned back and cried, “[Bubble]!” Two sheets of hundreds of tiny bubbles appeared above and below their container.

Skye pushed herself to her full height and lifted her sword just above the damage line. “[Tornado Hold]!”

Three things happened at once.

First, Skye’s Skill resolved, and the new seam allowed water to pour inside. Second, Jack jumped up to grab one of the sides just as Skye steadied the other. Third, the next school of fish arrived.

The fish at the lead’s mouth touched the lower segment of the bubble, and Niamh murmured, “[Flurry].”

Mia’s [Bubble] blankets popped, and the sliced section fell free.

In the water, Niamh’s normally dark color palette pulsed with electric blue streaks that flowed through her hair, her eyes, and patterned her shell like long, clawed fingers. She launched forward and struck the fish’s eye with one end of her bo staff, then twisted her wrists and slammed the staff’s other end into its gills, forcing the fish to veer away from the Party.

The desperate sound of Mia’s water-choked cries made Jack’s heart stop. He looked down and slashed an arm through the water, fingertips brushing hers as she fell. She was sinking with the remnants of their container, her eyes wide and her mouth gaping. One hand clung to her staff while the other stretched fervently towards him.

“Mia!” Jack shouted.

“Jack! Do NOT let go of this thing!” Skye reached across the dome, snatched his shirt, and held him steady. “It’s too damn big for me to hold by myself!”

“But—”

“Just let me fucking think!”

They didn’t have to. Niamh’s glowing silhouette sped through the water from the agitated fish to Mia’s sinking form. Niamh grabbed Mia underneath her arm and swam upward. The powerful foot beneath her shell kicked and rolled a lot like the mermaids that Mia fancied the underwater girls to be.

They broke the surface beneath their small refuge, and Mia gasped for air. Jack and Skye each took one of her arms, still clinging to their improvised umbrella with the other.

“T-thank yo— Niamh!” Mia choked. “[Shield of Uayeb]!”

The iridescent bubble that formed around them popped faster than Jack could blink. Niamh was suddenly at the vanguard, slamming her bo staff upwards and into the roof of the fish’s mouth that had destroyed Mia’s bubble. The staff’s golden post pierced the fish through the head, releasing a cloud of blood around them.

Mia coughed as another fish swam around its impaled companion. It opened its mouth, baring two rows of sharp yellow teeth.

Niamh rotated her staff, pulling it free from the first fish, and plunged it behind her, striking her new foe just behind the eye with a muffled crack!

“Did she just break its skull…?” Skye murmured.

“I think so,” Jack mused.

At last, their half-bubble sank below the fish swarm, below the raging Niamh, and out of immediate danger. Mia’s breath steadied as Jack and Skye held her, and they watched the battle continue up above.

“I hate that she has to come get us,” Skye whispered.

“I know,” Jack replied.

“And I hate that she’s a good fighter.”

Jack smirked. “I know.”

“She looks beautiful, though,” Mia murmured, her voice still hoarse from taking on water.

She really did. The brilliant blue blur that moved between the fish was hypnotic. Her blows struck fast and true, launching one fish out of the water, then piercing another straight through the eyes.

Jack’s feet touched the ground, and Mia was able to lower her arms. The dark school above them had thinned out to maybe a dozen fish left. It seemed they’d caught on after the number of dead fish grew to five, changing direction and instead making a wide berth around the floating Niamh, who held her bo staff ready. Jack stole the chance to look around.

Tall plants with huge leaves danced in the water’s current around smooth, colorful stones at their bases. But, thankfully, it seemed, there were no other predators in sight.

Niamh descended to their tiny safe house and floated just outside of the dome. She’d left her mask on, but Jack surmised that she just hadn’t had time to take it off.

“Can you hear me?” Niamh asked.

Jack and Skye nodded. Mia gave her a thumbs-up. Jack chuckled softly.

“Hold tight to the bubble and to one another. I can bring you all up at once.” Niamh gestured between them. “Make space for me.”

Skye grumbled an incoherent reply, but shifted to the side. Niamh situated herself in front of Mia, while Skye and Jack linked their arms with her as they had before. Niamh propped her bo staff against the bubble’s ceiling, lodging the edges between its frame. Then she launched upward.

Jack was happy to finally help somewhere and started kicking.

“Stop,” Niamh said. “You are setting it off balance.”

Oh. “Right. Sorry.”

“Save your energy, Jack,” Skye said, glancing over her shoulder. “We’re going to need it.”

Jack followed her stare. He couldn’t see the dome of Pomacea’s underwater visitor center anymore. Faint glimmers of light in the distance could have either been luminous whirligigs or shiny rocks with the same effect.

Either way, they had some serious walking to do if they were going to make it back in time for the next turtle.