X let out his breath and shot the grappling hook into the fleshy walls of the creature’s mouth. Frost began to spread across the tissue, emerging from the wound. The humongous creature cried out in pain, and more water flooded inward. X shifted his other arm into a mass of wires similar to the ones he had created to connect with the ship. He reeled himself towards the wall of flesh, aware of the fact he had struck at least one nerve with the freezing blade.

  X shoved the mass of wires into the massive creature’s flesh, wires shifting like snakes as they connected to the creature’s nerves. X opened his mouth to scream as he began to feel the creature’s pain. His mechanical eye glowed the color of flesh, and he finally stopped screeching when he pulled the freezing blade from the creature’s flesh.

  “I’m going to direct us towards the prison ship!” X shouted to Myriil.

  “Okay,” Myriil shouted back. “I’ll tell the people on the submarine!”

  X peered through the creature’s eyes. He didn’t see the ship, so he moved his awareness to the general surroundings of the creature that he now recognized as a colossal whale. He quickly discovered that the whale was moving away from both the boat and the town. He sent a signal down his arm and into the whale’s nerve, and it quickly traveled up to the beast’s brain. It began to turn itself around, and X pumped his fist.

  “She’s started moving!” X shouted to Myriil.

  “Great!” Myriil shouted in return. “How are we getting out of here?”

  X thought for a moment. They couldn’t free the submarine and control the great beast concurrently. X had no idea how he would get the submarine and the three of them out. But he still had the beginning of a plan forming in his mind.

  “Bad news!” he shouted, “I have no idea! I think we should just grab Mai and ditch the submarine altogether!”

  “Got it!” Myriil shouted before disappearing down the submarine’s hatch.

  X waited a few minutes before Myriil reemerged with Mai following shortly behind. He quickly separated Myriil’s blade from his grappling hook, holding it with a small extension connected to his upper arm. He launched it towards the submarine, shouting “Grab hold!” to Myriil and Mai. They grabbed hold, and he pulled them back. It was a bit of a struggle, considering their combined weight was more than his weight somehow.

  X continued to guide the whale towards the prison vessel as he reeled in Mai and Myriil. Through the great beast’s senses, he heard screaming from the people on the ship as the whale began to emerge from the water. He barely noticed the submarine disappear in a flash of light. He sent electrical pulses to open the creature’s enormous maw, continuing to push it forth so it would swallow the large ship.

  * * *

  Mai watched as flesh-colored light came from X’s typically blue cybernetic eye. The creature’s mouth opened and in came a large wooden ship, with three large sails. She could hear screams echoing as people realized they might be swallowed. She and Myriil were holding somewhat desperately to X’s arm. ‘Mike better be on that boat,’ she thought.

  “Stop holding the rope, grab onto my arm instead,” X commanded as the boat rolled across the shallow waters that filled the creature’s gullet.

  She quickly shifted her grip and X launched his grappling hook across the great distance between the wall of the creature’s mouth and the boat. X had managed to position them high above the top of the ship. She watched as a smaller grappling hook emerged from his forearm. ‘Where do all these parts come from? And how do they all fit in such a small space?’ The smaller grappling hook had a sharp point sticking out of it, and would likely invert itself using some tech Mai had never even thought of before to clamp down on its target. The smaller device rotated around X’s forearm and angled itself towards the roof of the creature’s mouth. His other arm was still occupied with the creature’s nerves. Until he let go.

  Suddenly, they fell, guided by the larger one grappling towards the ship and held up by the smaller one. Mai felt this would probably not go very well, seeing as they were held up by the smaller one, but it was actually a pretty smooth ride. Until someone started shooting fucking rotten anchovies at them. Even Myriil showed revolution at the horrid smell. X seemed unfazed, but he could probably turn his smell on and off. Mai thought about pulling out her katana and fighting against the offending party, but she didn’t want to waste her abilities. It was disgusting, but she pushed through.

  Eventually, they landed on the ship, and the large crustacean-esque man put down his rocket launcher-shaped device. Anchovies spilled from the firearm. Mai and Myriil stood on either side of X as his hands reconverted to hands.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “We’re here to save a dumbass,” X said.

  “I wouldn’t call him that,” Mai said. “I would’ve called him a friend.”

  “I agree with X actually,” Myriil responded.

  “Doesn’t matter!” X barked back at them, “Do you have one Mike Stevenson among your prisoners?”

  A thin man approached. His facial hair was unkempt. It was as if he wanted to grow a beard but could not. He wore an eyepatch and had a black bandana on. A massive trenchcoat hung from his shoulders. He was by far the smallest man on the deck and was human.

  “Mike? That guy’s a riot!” the man said. “‘e reminded me o’ this kid I met a week-er-two ago named Micheal. He’s the one that started me on this ‘ere path of riots and mutiny.”

  “Are you not the warden of this ship?” X asked the man.

  “What? No! We went ‘n’ had a prison-break-slash-mutiny yesterday when Mike came aboard! Oh, wait! Almost forgot to give ya me name. I’m Steve.”

  “So are you the new captain of this vessel?” Myriil asked Steve.

  “Hell no! That would be Monsieur Breadbeard over there!” Steve pointed to a mountain of muscle, with an intimidating demeanor. His pirate hat was adorned with a skull-and-crossbones emblem, and he had a hook for a hand. If his beard were black instead of made of bread, he would’ve been the most stereotypical pirate Mai had ever seen.

  X facepalmed and muttered under his breath. Myriil looked shocked. Mai simply broke out in laughter. His beard literally looked like it was made of sourdough. Breadbeard made a drawn-out grunting sound and Mai stopped laughing.

  “Come ta think of it, I kinda did organize the whole mutiny,” Steve seemed lost in thought.

  “Just bring us Mike,” X said, his face still in his palm.

  “I gotcha!” Steve said with a thumbs up before disappearing below deck. He quickly returned with a stumbling, tipsy-looking Mike. He also had a black eye.

  X walked over to him. “What the hell did you get yourself into, Mike?”

  “So I was walking *burp* and then this guy comes along and says to me that I’m trespassin’, so he puts me on this boat with these guys,” Mike said before spitting on the ground. His face began to turn green. “Then we did the mutiny against all of our captors *burp* and so I’ve been drinking, and gamblin’, and fightin’ with some folks *burp* and I learned that I can’t hold my liquor when I’m on a boat ohshitnotagaincrap,” Mike threw up on the deck. “Did I mention I’ve been drinking?” Mike asked with a tipsy smile.

  A needle emerged from X’s palm. “You are a fucking idiot,” X said as he slammed the needle into Mike’s neck.

  Mike screamed as a fluid was drained from X’s hand into Mike’s neck. X removed the needle and Mike kept screaming as he put his hand on his neck, covering where X basically slapped him.

  “WHAT THE HELL MAN WHAT DID YOU PUT IN MY NECK THIS STINGS LIKE A GODDAMN BITCH WHY WOULD YOU STAB ME,” Mike screamed.

  “Oh my god!” exclaimed Mai as she watched the exchange.

  “It’s the cure to drunkenness. I synthesized it earlier. You should have a hangover in about 3 seconds. Then that will go away too,” X said.

  “When did you have time to synthesize a cure for being drunk?” Myriil asked.

  “And why?” Mai added.

  “I always have one handy in case of emergencies. It’s a process that I set up to be automatic within my body. Whenever one goes bad I begin resynthesization,” X said.

  “You know what? I’m just not going to ask anything else. Keep your secrets,” Mai said.

  * * *

  Mikayla walked through the halls of a hospital on a modernized world. Her soul ached from the realmwalking, and she limped from the metaphysical backlash. Blood leaked from a mysterious wound on her head. She was tired. Murgul was probably right about her need for rest; but she only cared about saving Micheal–the prime. Her prime.

  Someone called out to her, asking if she needed care. She ignored them. She would be fine. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she convinced herself. She pulled out her phone and looked at the cross-realm tracking app she had installed. It barely worked, but she managed to get a connection. She walked past several beds, and a couple of doctors tried to stop her, before she reached the one that was nearest to the signal she was receiving.

  “Ma’am! You cannot be in here!” a female doctor shouted at her.

  Mikayla gasped for breath before stating, “I.. I’m going to see.. see Malcolm.”

  “Ma’am, you can’t do that. He’s in a coma!” another doctor shouted, this one a man.

  Mikayla violently pushed a curtain to the side, revealing a white man in his mid-20s with blond hair, wearing a hospital gown. Doctors continued to shout at her. Security guards tried to pull her away. But she got close enough to whisper to him, “Roll the die.”

  Mikayla realmwalked away. A few doctors screamed at the bloody spectacle.

  Malcolm’s eyes shot open.

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