Salt burned in every breath.
The koi had never belonged in seawater—his body screamed it with every beat of his gills, every sting along his crimson scales. Harden worked tirelessly, layering invisible armor along fragile tissues, keeping the brine from eating him alive. Still, pain whispered at the edges, a constant reminder that this ocean beneath the mountain wanted him gone.
And yet, here he floated—alive.
[Host vitality: 100% restored]
[Note: recovery complete. Healing slowed under osmo-shield strain]
He flexed his fins, strength returning, though the water still gnawed. Against every insult of salt, his body had mended.
But triumph didn't come. Frustration did.
He had spent hours—maybe days, time dissolved easily in the endless dark—pushing Sense outward, searching for a draft, a tunnel, anything besides the narrow wound he had fallen through. The cavern mocked him with silence. No exit. Only stone, brine, and the shaft above that gaped like a predator's throat.
It was the only way out.
He tilted upward, gills quivering. Levitate pulsed faintly. He could call it now, steady for moments at a time, but it was not flight. Only a thin refusal of down—not enough to carry him alone. Not without Brandon. Not without Frostwing.
He thought of Frostwing's cold wings cutting storm air. He thought of Brandon's steady hands and his vow of alive. If either were here, doors would open. Alone, all he felt was the weight of failure pressing like the sea itself.
Try again.
He coiled and Bounced—once, twice—slamming himself against the shaft wall, begging for the impossible miracle that had once hurled him skyward against the White Dragon. The stone answered only with bruises. He fell back, salt swallowing him.
[Bounce: ineffective]
Sense reached outward—Brandon's aura was still too faint, Frostwing's spark thinner still. Alive, but far. Out of reach.
Rage trembled through him. They're out there, and I'm wasting time here. Useless again.
His chest clenched—and something clumsy escaped him. A burp, wet and awkward. A bubble slipped free and drifted upward. He blinked. It was large. Larger than any he had made before, swollen by pressure and stubbornness until it could almost fit him inside.
It popped on the ceiling of water above, fragile, pointless.
But the spark had struck.
He dove deep, until pressure ached at his fins, then forced another bubble up. Bigger. Rounder. This time he pressed into it, and the bubble held. It wrapped him like a glassy sphere, buoyant. He wriggled, and it rose—slow, clumsy, but upward.
His eyes widened.
It burst on the cavern wall. He sank again, sputtering.
But the spark had taken root.
Again.
He dove, burped another bubble, wriggled inside, rose. Burst. Dove again. Burped again. This time he used Bounce against the bubble's inner skin, steering it like a trampoline toward the shaft. The bubble wobbled, then burst on a jagged edge.
Dozens of attempts followed. Each collapse left him scraped and gasping. But the spark kept burning.
Finally, after one ragged trial, the System spoke:
[Creativity Detected]
[Skill Evolution: Bubble Control]
[Status: unstable]
The koi froze. Then a laugh bubbled up with the water. A new skill—not born of grief, not of accident, but of his own ridiculous persistence.
I made this. Me.
He dove again, burped a bubble, and this time pressed Harden outward, shaping the fragile skin. The bubble resisted. Harden reinforced it. He layered Levitate inside, steadying the wobble. Together, they worked.
The bubble didn't pop.
Slowly, it rose. He bounced gently within, steering clear of stone. The shaft narrowed, but the bubble held.
For the first time, he rose by his own invention. Not borrowed power. Not miracle. Accomplishment.
When he had been human, nothing he did had ever been enough. Parents, teachers, classmates—they had agreed: useless. A waste. He had believed them.
Now, as his bubble rose, he wanted to scream into the mountain—
I am not useless.
The shaft stretched black and endless. Once, twice, he scraped close and steadied it with Levitate, refusing to let it burst. At last, the black broke.
The bubble burst into misty air. He emerged gasping. Mist curled thick as ever, clinging to trees and stone. But the Lightning Bees were gone. Only silence.
For a moment he drifted, panting in the haze.
Ideas don't come once. They come in pairs.
He burped again. Not one bubble, but dozens. Tiny spheres flickered like glassy stars. He pushed Sense into them, scattering his awareness. Each bubble became an eye, a fingertip, a scout.
They spread into the mist.
[Skill Extension: Bubble Sense — active]
Through them, he felt movement. Familiar presences. Brandon—bloodied, stubborn, alive. Frostwing—her cold spark frayed but burning. Both still fighting.
The koi's chest ached. They were alive, but barely.
He twitched his fins. Levitate stirred. He could not fly, but he could refuse the ground. He leaned into the bond, into his bubbles, and surged forward.
Toward Brandon. Toward Frostwing. Toward the fight still raging in the mist.
I'm coming.