The Seeker | Volume 2

About three hours after we all had left from Frannitz Harbor the thick layers of fog had already started to set over the gray ocean, since the clouds had covered the area above us. Admiral Kaelin's eyes narrowed as he struggled to steer his ship through the layers of thick fog, muttering and cursing to himself.

In the common area downstairs I looked out the tiny port window, scanning the indiscernible fog for any possible sights. Jake, who had remained silent up until now, finally cast his gaze away from the fire and spoke up.

"Do you ever blame yourself?" he asked solemnly. 

I turned around, slightly taken aback by his question. I raised my eyebrows and replied. "I don't know what you mean."

The young man's expression softened as he turned his gaze away from me, and back into the roaring yet calming flames.

"I do..."

After a few moments, he sighed self-deprecatingly. "I had a son..."

"He was taken by pirates, you hear? They sold him into the black market, god knows where he is now. My wife was a crazy person, who had this strange affiliation with blood and appendages...that's why I left her."

He suddenly turned his head, and his eyes widened when he noticed my missing pinkie finger. 

"How did that happen?" he asked, his voice now suddenly hushed into a whisper. I looked back at him before looking down at my pinkie.

"I had to give it to a cult, in return they'd give me some special bullets. But the bullets are gone now, and I haven't seen the cultists ever since." I explained. At this point I didn't feel any pain from the forced amputation, I almost forgot I sliced it off entirely. 

"Were they Nullifying Bullets by any chance?..." Jake's voice suddenly grew colder.

I felt a small pang of trepidation as I nodded to his question. At that instant, he shot out of his chair and approached me, placing both hands on my shoulders and shaking my body. "Do you know where Damien is?!" he asked, his voice now loud and exaggerated.

"D-Damien?...I do."

After I replied, Jake's breath grew quicker as he stumbled back onto the chair and placed his hand over his chest, listening to his frantically beating heart. 

"H-he's alive...my boy, he's alive!"

I suddenly deducted and put all the pieces together. Jake was Damien's biological father!

"But...why does he have wings, and you don't?" I asked, sitting across from him.

Jake's breathing began to slow, and his watery eyes stopped leaking tears. He met my gaze again, his expression taking a grim turn that offset me.

"Damien had a sibling in the womb. In this world where potions, Seekers and Gods roam around, we still managed to hold onto the quirks that we possessed. Damien's brother, we knew if he had a quirk...it gave him wings, tiny wings that we could see with magical abilities."

"When my wife gave birth to the two of them...I only watched one baby come out, it was Damien. The other baby disappeared suddenly, and I have no idea what happened to this day."

I fell silent, contemplating this revelation. If Damien's brother had a quirk but it's unaware of whether Damien did or did not, then possibly...Damien stole his quirk and killed him in the womb. But would he do such a thing? Was he so scared of the other person that he killed them in the womb and took their power or his own? Or was it intentional and he's actually really cruel...

"What if Damien killed his sibling in the womb? It's always a possibility." I felt my heart grow heavy as I said that. The possibility that the kind and seemingly pure Damien would commit such a malevolent and merciless act is out of his league, but with all the mystery books and movies I've watched, it was always titanic to question any possibility.

"No...not Damien," Jake replied, his voice filled with utter fear and inability to digest my possibility. 

I took a few steps towards Jake, who was situated in the chair. I watched his shaky hand bring a mug to his lips as he drank the slightly cold coffee sitting on the table that Admiral Kaelin had left. His eyes were wide and filled with an indescribable fear that even I struggled to look into without feeling empathy.

I sat on the chair next to him and carefully placed a hand on his trembling shoulder. "I'll find him and bring him to you, I promise..." I said softly, giving him a hesitant, reassuring smile.

...

On the deck, Ms. Usagiyama idly sat by, her white hair flowing gently in the salty breeze of the foggy ocean. She had trouble looking through the layers of gray fog, but she could surely sense something was adrift.

Her ears suddenly twitched as she leapt back with surprising agility, flipping onto the top of the ship! A large tentacle about 20 feet in length and almost as wide as the ship itself slammed onto the deck, causing planks of wood and debris to shoot into the air and off the ship, landing into the ocean and sinking into its depths. 

Her eyes widened with astonishment and adrenaline as the tentacle continued to writhe around wildly. Before she could anticipate another attack, another large tentacle slammed onto the ship from behind her, causing more planks to shoot up, one hitting her in the back of the head.

Rumi Usagiyama was sent forward from the impact, her head colliding with the ground. Admiral Kaelin suddenly turned around and caught sight of the madness ensuing in the back of the ship. In the hull, me and Jake heard the large crashing sound from above.

We instantly shot up the stairs and arrived at the deck, where we saw Usagiyama wrestling with one of the tentacles, landing numerous kicks and punches on the writhing appendage. 

I drew my handgun and shot numerous bullets at the appendage, the bullets shooting through the air and colliding with the slippery and slimy flesh. The bullets sank into the skin and remained there, but the tentacle didn't stop moving, the injuries only made it act more frantic!

I leapt back just in time to dodge the next tentacle, and I stopped firing bullets, quickly assuming the more it got hurt, the more its attacks would become more frantic and dangerous. 

Usagiyama leapt up high in the air before driving her hulking legs into the sulking, pulsating mass of the tentacle. Somewhere deep in the water, we heard an animalistic scream, a scream that was muffled by the depths of the ocean. 

A flurry of more tentacles shot up and assaulted the ship. Admiral Kaelin ran in and drawed his handgun, shooting numerous bullets at the oncoming tentacles. The bullets sunk into the flesh of the tentacles, making them flurry around more and attack more and more.

"Stop, you're provoking it!" I cried out as I ran to Admiral Kaelin and slapped the handgun out of his hand, the weapon flying out of his grip and landing in the ocean. Admiral Kaelin's eyes widened as he watched his weapon disappear.

"Hey!" He cried out in anger. Before he could do anything to address his missing weapon, a large eye the size of a blimp opened in the water, its crimson pupils locking on the two of us. I grabbed Admiral Kaelin's arm as I ran to the front of the ship and forced him to the steering wheel.

Admiral Kaelin already knew what to do. He grabbed the steering wheel and turned on the steam-powered boat, propelling it forward with supring speed unlike anything it's done before. It was almost like the ship knew of the danger that it was in. The mass suddenly came to a halt as the ship was pulled into place, the impact sending the two of us forward with a large jolt.

A large tentacle had wrapped around the ship, and was lifting it into the air. The ship rocked and tilted as the kraken in the water attempted to toy with the ship, but at the weight and sheer size of the ship compared greatly to the other ships in Frannitz Harbor back in Seraphis Kingdom, it was difficult for the kraken to do anything with it.

Usagiyama and Jake planted their feet on the edge of the ship facing the water in an attempt to keep themselves stable, but the impact of the krakens' movements made it difficult. In the water, a large mouth twice the size of the eye opened below it, the mouth possessing multiple layers of razor sharp teeth the size of the rocks that surrounded us. 

My head suddenly darted up on seeing the teeth, and an idea suddenly entered my mind. I picked up my handgun and fired numerous bullets at the rocks, the bullets striking the surface with efficiency, causing cracks and crevices to form where they struck.

"Usagiyama!" I cried out as the rock finally broke, the large spike of debris shooting upward from the explosion. She grinned with fury as she leapt up towards the now falling rock, before landing an ample kick to the rock, sending it downward into the creature's eye!

The impact was gruesome, causing the creature's singular eye to explode, a sudden flush of crimson and black flooded the surrounding ocean. The squid's tentacles suddenly turned into illusory fragments, fragments like glass. The fragments collected into a sphere of dazzling light that shone brightly, blowing away the numerous layers of fog, even parting the clouds above us, allowing the sun to pour in from above.

The ball of light suddenly dropped, and everything was set back to its previous state. The tentacle fragment ball had turned into a cube of pulsating flesh with numerous suckers on its surface that twitched and pulsated. 

"Is this a Seeker characteristic?" I thought to myself as I knelt down and picked up the object, its outside warm and wet, leaking a transparent yet yellowish ooze onto my hands. I suddenly got an idea, perhaps, if this was a characteristic, I could sell it at the next Silver Snake Committee meeting to make a profit! The meeting is tomorrow so I'll make due!

"What's that?" Jake asked as he approached the pulsating, cube-like mass in my arms. I looked towards him with a curious glance.

"I don't know what this is. I think it's a Seeker characteristic. If I were to sell it I could really make a profit." I replied, my eyes softening at the sight of the strange object.

"Huh...strange."