A tall dark purple woman with wild dark rose colored hair, and a scar over her right eye stand on the deck of the ship. Her long coat flows with a breeze as it protects her from the cold.
“Hey, Tempest!” comes the voice of her assistant. A short, stubby, grey skinned man with white spiked hair, carrying a tray piled with sweets approaches her. “Or should I say, Director Shadow,” he salutes. “Thought you might be hungry.”
“It’s Acting Director, Grubber,” Tempest sighs. “Director King is not gone. He’s just missing.”
The short man walks up to her as he starts eating. “I know that Storm meant a lot to you. He did take you in when no one else would. But look at the facts. Director King left on a secret mission on his own, no one’s seen him since, and now you’ve been promoted.”
“I still question the council’s sanity of making me head of operations,” the Acting Director picks up a donut and considers eating it but just examines it. “This is a position for a scientist. Not a soldier.”
“Perhaps they wanted someone with a different take on everything we do here?” the man continues to stuff his face.
At this, the woman shrugs. “Maybe you’re right,” she goes to eat the donut. But stops letting the sweet slip out of her hand and into the water as she stares into the distance.
Grubber looks over the railing. “Well, that was a waste,” he goes for a cupcake only to drop the entire tray as a hand is thrown into his face. “Aw! I was going to eat that.”
“Give me the binoculars!”
“Huh? Oh!” the man was quick to deliver the item to his boss. “Here you go.”
The woman snatches the binoculars and looks through them.
Grubber looks up at her and then into the same direction she is. “Whatcha looking at?”
“There’s a jagged formation in the distance.”
“That’s what I lost my lunch for? It’s not so strange to see an island out her.”
“Except I’ve looked over the charts myself,” Tempest hand the binoculars back to her assistant and takes out a radio. “There are no islands out here. Acting Director Shadow to Bridge.”
“Bridge here, Director Shadow,” comes the response from the radio. “What do you need, Ma’am?”
“Acting Director,” the woman corrects. “And I need you to turn this ship around.”
“Ma’am?”
“Did I stutter!” she shouts. “Get us out of here, now!”
“Aye, aye!”
The ship starts making its turn.
During this, Grubber looks through the binoculars. Curious as to what his boss had seen. “What’s wrong?” he spots the jagged formation and takes notice that it’s sinking into the water.
“The formation matches descriptions from the journal.”
Hearing this, the grey man gasps as he looks back at her. “That journal?” he points to where the formation was. “You mean that’s…”
She confirms. “Yes. And if I’m right, on a ship in the middle of the ocean, without a single Maser on board is the last place we want to me.”
The ship is then violently rocked as something rises out of the water and Grubber was quick to hop into the arms of Tempest. Above them is a serpentine dragon. It matches tales of sea dragons from Japanese and Chinese mythology.
“Th-that isn’t him,” Grubber notes.
“No,” Tempest responds as she drops the short man. Just as the water dragon’s head nears them, a blue beam of light hits it from below it and the creature is dragged back into the water. “But that is,” she looks down at her assistant only to find him missing. “Grubber!?”
“Director!” his voice comes from over the railing of the boat. Looking over it, Tempest finds the grey man lying in one of the lifeboats. “Look!” he holds up a donut. “I still had one in my pocket!” he shouts before eating the dessert.
The woman sighs as she reaches out for her assistant’s hand. “I swear, if you weren’t Director King’s Nephew, I’d…” whatever she was about to say was stopped as Tempest spots a blue light growing brighter, and brighter. She takes out her radio. “Get us out of here!”
“Already on it, Ma’am!” the boat picks up speed.
“And radio the council! Tell them that Monarch has visual on Alpha! I repeat! Monarch has visual on Alpha!”
The boat rocks again as something bursts out of the ocean.
SKREEEEOOOOONNK!!!