The Tempest (Demon Lords 2C)

The Ocean King eyed Ryouta up and down. Frankly, this was the kind of attitude he expected from someone whose Digimon jumped straight to near overkill. "Seems the first matey's taking his turn playing cap'n, aye?" he asked, his voice taking on a mock piratical tone.

"Big talk coming from the King of Nothing," one of the Swimmon said, poking his head out from behind the ship. When the Ocean King turned to face him he yelped, darting right back behind the ship.

"And that's big talk coming from a minnow trying to play shark," the Ocean King rasped, knocking on the ship a few times for emphasis. As the Swimmon scattered, he let out a laugh. Nevertheless, his tone changed when the healing gale washed over him. "Glad to see there's still some honor among thieves," he joked, writhing his body as if to test its strength. Occasionally he contorted in a position that left him seething in pain, but for the most part he was better than the mess Valt had forced out of the waters.

His injuries settled, the Ocean King turned to answer Zachary's question. "Exactly. My home was taken from me, and I needed a place to call my own," he said.

"Yeah! Our place!" the Swimmon interjected. A chorus of "yeahs" sprang up from the school, although they promptly scattered as the Ocean King leaned in to get a closer look at them.

"You turned me aside. What was I supposed to do?"

"Because you were going to eat us! Which you did!"

"Had you not been such ungracious hosts, perhaps I would have been a little kinder."

"And look what happened. Now neither of us have anything. How's that feel, hm?"

"It feels . . . hungry. Almost like I should have myself a snack!" He waved his tentacles and writhed them, unhinging his jaw as far as he could. The Swimmon promptly bolted away in fear, pushing among one another as if desperate to avoid being closest to the Ocean King. In response the Ocean King simply folded his tentacles, scoffing. "It's too easy, really.

Anyway, you wanted to know about minions? They were . . . strange, really," he said. "They didn't have solid forms like most Digimon. In fact, I'm still not sure if I was just seeing things or not. Sometimes they were like clouds of ink wafting through the mist. Other times they looked like the shadows of my Gesomon, only to fade away when I looked at them too closely. Still other times they took the form of whatever Digimon I saw last. Almost as if they followed me. Sometimes there were was just one of them. Sometimes there were dozens. Sometimes the air was so thick with them I could barely see anything else. It was suffocating.

Once they came, she stole my home piece by piece. I'd hear her say how she's starved for months, and the next day my food supply would be frozen over. She'd wish for sturdy, solid walls like mine, and when I turned my back my cave, too, would be frozen. It could be as small as my shiniest pebble or big as my bodyguard. What she whispered, she would steal away like a thief in the night. And in each facet of the ice I could see the shadows, growing, waiting, longing.

It wasn't long before they emerged. And that was when I made a break for it. Like hell I would let them get their tendrils on me."

His explanation finished, he turned his attention to Ryouta. "Each loss burned more than the last," he said. "It was like all I could think of was taking back what was stolen. The more I wandered the seas, the more that need festered. Call it survival instinct. Call it compulsion. Call it simple fear. But a want became a need, and a need became a goal."

"And we paid the price," the Swimmon said, voices dark.

"How does it feel? Does it burn within you, too?" the Ocean King asked. The Swimmon fell silent in response. "Figures."

Immediately, the Swimmon turned to Amelie. "We can't wait any longer. Not like this," they pleaded. "Please, please, get sailing again. We can't spend any more time with this . . . this . . . thing! He's not sorry at all. He just passed his curse right back to us!" It seemed they were torn between their hesitance around the Ocean King and their promise to assist the Diplomat. Which would break first?

All the while, a single repetitive tone underlined the conversation. No matter who was talking it echoed from Ryouta's Digivice, just quiet enough to be unobtrusive but just loud enough to be heard. Three short beeps. Three long beeps. Three short beeps.

The Ocean King raised his tentacles to show he meant no harm, swimming a bit further away from the Diplomat, its crew, and its escorts. "Easy, easy," he said. "Just a bit of teasing among new friends, eh? Sovereigns above know if I actually tried anything, I'd be calamari rings in minutes. I just thought I'd try and break the tension a bit."

The Swimmon scowled at him, but turned to Zachary and nodded. "You're right," the lead Swimmon said, though it was clear from his tone he wasn't thrilled about it. "We don't trust the Ocean King. But if something even bigger and tougher pushed him to this, they might come for us next. And there's no way we'll be able to fight them off. So I guess we'll all have to deal with each other."

"Atta boy! Put 'er here!" The Ocean King reached out a tentacle for a shake. As the head Swimmon swam up to shake his tentacle, the jaw at the tip promptly gnashed at it. As the Swimmon scattered the Ocean King laughed, before pulling him closer and giving him a gentle fin-shake. "See? All nice and friendly."

The Swimmon did not hesitate to turn away, swimming back over to Ryouta. "We haven't heard her. But we sure were getting angry back there . . . and if what the Ocean King's saying is true, and if the other guy up on the boat's right, then that's how she gets you, isn't it? I mean, if it was just the Ocean King, he'd probably just be messing with us. But I don't think the other guy'd just lie like that, right?" they explained.

There could be time to debate later. For now, it was time for action. Ophanimon was sending SOS signals, and the group's top priority had shifted from investigating to rescue. The Ocean King folded his arms, nodding. "Well, I'll let you take care of that one," he said, spreading his tentacles wide. His two frontmost tentacles chomped down on some thick clumps of seaweed, anchoring him in place with ease. "I'll keep your post here so you don't get tangled up. God knows if someone doesn't, you'll get lost to the tides. You guys sticking around, too?"

"Leave you alone in our home, and get caught up in a dangerous rescue mission? No on both accounts," the lead Swimmon said. He gestured with a fin, guiding his school back towards the Ocean King. "We'll stay right with you in the reef. I'm pretty sure the big, scary dragon guy'll just eat you if you do anything fishy." Immediately, every Swimmon turned to the leader, who promptly face-finned. "Aw, now I'm doing it!" he whined, exasperated.

With their forward base now manned and their course now charted, all the Diplomat's crew needed to do was find Ophanimon. Easy, right?

The Swimmon set upon the bags of food like demon possessed, tearing each to shreds before getting to the food within. The Ocean King wasn't far behind, scooping whatever food he could out from the edges of their feeding frenzy. It didn't seem like the solution was as perfect as Ryouta had intended. Yet, unfortunately, Amelie was likely right. There just wasn't time to waste thinking of the perfect way of solving the Swimmon and the Ocean King's dilemma. They simply wouldn't be able to juggle it with investigating the distress signal. Another trio of beeps, this set faster and more frantic, would serve as a reminder of that.

Fortunately, the party held on to their winning strategy from earlier. Valt would take point, and the Diplomat's crew would follow behind from a safe distance. With Valt equal parts heavyweight and scout, it was unlikely anything would be able to get the drop on the group.

The initial sail towards the Dark Area had marked a shift for the dangerous. Each nautical mile they sailed lead to rougher tides, thicker glaciers, and stormier winds. Surely sailing back to safety, thereby retracing the path they took to diverge from Ophanimon, would have the opposite effect, right?

Unfortunately, it wasn't to be. The first leg of the journey was every bit as stormy and unpleasant as its most recent stop had become. Stretches of ocean where the Diplomat once sailed across smooth seas were now like miniature tempests, waves battering its hull from every side. The sound of thunder echoed from all around, and lightning flashed so rapidly that the sky barely had time to darken between strikes. Worst of all was the ice. Unlike the broken glaciers that marred the seas by the Ocean King, the water here had solidified into a single, sheer sheet of ice. The waters before Amelie and her crew was frozen as far as the eye could see, to the point where even the waves were smothered beneath their surface.

Fortunately, the Diplomat's iron prow was built just for situations like this. Were Amelie and her crew to press onward towards the ice instead of swim in a different direction, she would be able to break through at least the first layer. Would the ice become too thick to fight through as it stretched inwards? That would be hard to say. At least to Valt's eye it would appear to be a single, uniform thickness throughout. Were he to search for a way around the ice, he would find it stretched for hundreds of yards in all directions. The Diplomat would need to break a hard turn east to do so, and who knows how far it would spin them off course?

All the while, a low, growling thought echoed through those still present on the ship.

Why do you seek me? Do you so badly covet what little I have?