A chill spread to her very extremities. Memories cascaded in. Oxygen was suddenly scarce, making her gulp in one lungful after another.

"Well, well," Dilip said, feet crunching glass as he came to a stop right in front of her. "I didn't expect to see the pretty little mermaid here today."

He sported a bulletproof vest over a beige shirt, and his hair was styled into brown spikes. His whole manner was unruffled—a striking contrast to the death and destruction in the lab. She struggled against her captors.

He smiled. "Still very feisty."

"How did you know?" she hissed, forgetting that he wouldn't understand.

"Your language sounds so alien...Anyway, isn't it ironical that you arrived right where I wanted you to be?" He paused, the smile intact. "Although this is needless destruction. I'm also curious what exactly you're planning. We do have an idea."

Manta grunted, apparently putting up a fight to free himself.

Dilip turned to his soldiers. "Neutralize the merman there. We have enough male specimens here."

Even as Dea shrieked in rage, a shot sounded. Sagari winced. Then all was still.

Dilip's eyes flitted to Sagari, and he issued his next command, "This female here seems to be the leader of this operation out of what I've seen. We don't want her trying anything. Knock her out for now—she might come in useful."

"Yes, sir," a female soldier said and spoke into a mouthpiece, seemingly requesting a knock-out drug.

"No need."

"Sir?"

"Just hit her on the head like they do in the movies." He let out a chuckle. "She'd live if she's lucky."

All it took were two sharp blows from the butt end of a human firearm. The merwoman slumped against her Cypod.

Dea realized that she was shaking. Manta is dead. Sagari would be tortured. She'd die of asphyxiation if she doesn't wake up. And Ribbontail...

The thoughts cycled in an endless loop while a buried shard of her soul awakened. Her chest constricted. You drove them to this. And you're alive while they paid with their lives. As pain seared through her heart, the world darkened, swimming in and out of focus.

"So, where were we?" Dilip turned back to her. "I'm surprised they sent you on this mission. Of course, ever since you escaped, I knew you merpeople would launch a rescue operation, but I didn't expect you here. There's also been an incident near a coral atoll, where we've been running some...fishing operations. Makes me wonder..."

She slowly recovered from her momentary breakdown. Hate swirled in the maelstrom within—not just directed at the monster before her, but at herself.

Suddenly, an incoming message agitated one of the humans. Rapid-fire communication took place—too unclear for translation. On the far side, two more soldiers came running in through the main entrance. A loose light flickered and dimmed a section of the lab.

"What is it?" Dilip snapped.

"There's been a secondary breach, sir," the man said in a troubled tone. "Seems to be reinforcements, but there are human fighters. We don't know—"

"What? That's absurd. How many and where—"

A crash ruptured the quiet, and a small force burst into the lab, guns blazing. Eyeballs swiveled, and hands clenched on firearms.

Dea gasped.

It was a motley bunch of individuals, some on legs while others sat in Cypods. Blue smiley faces were scrawled on some of the helmets. Leading the merpeople was a familiar figure—daunting once upon a time, but now evoking the opposite effect in her.

He wore a black exoskeleton, not unlike the military carapaces. Through the dark glass of his visor, she spied a telltale curl that rested on his frowning brow. The sight of him jolted every fiber of her being. Anuk.

His eyes met hers ever so briefly, and the last remnants of her inner force field deteriorated. A dizzying range of emotions consumed her—from relief to overwhelming remorse. She suppressed a sob.

The dramatic entrance appeared to still time, suspending all motion, as brains raced to process this new development. Then everything happened at once.

Both sides opened fire while diving for cover. Muda grabbed a soldier she encountered and rammed his head on the Cypod's side as if he were a mere ragdoll. A human woman heaved a peculiar gun and shot what appeared to be tranquilizer darts.

As two soldiers whisked Dea further back, she craned her neck in time to see Anuk head-butt a soldier and use him as a shield. Then he slid into a floor skid, shooting two in quick succession before disappearing behind a column. Every single move displayed precision and agility—enhanced by the exoskeleton.

The whole team seemed to engage in non-lethal attack, aiming to incapacitate the enemy. They must be Endera.

It soon became obvious that Dilip's soldiers were fewer in number, on top of being worn out from the battle with the Stingrays. Dea's captors released her in order to join the fray. She ducked when a stray bullet hit the table in front and sent a chunk flying off. A fragment struck her forehead, causing stinging pain, which made her realize she had no helmet on.

Suddenly, she tuned into the human shouts and recognized Dilip's voice. Her head snapped in his direction to see him escape through an inconspicuous door.

She hesitated for an instant.

Then she covered her head with her arms and hurtled after Dilip. A stray bullet glanced off the carapace segment on her forearm. The Cypod wheels brushed past a fallen form. She stopped, and her eyes flitted down.

Manta's body lay spreadeagled on the floor, a meter away from his Cypod.

Waves of shock threatened to pull her under again. He was very much alive just minutes ago, and he wanted to protect her. Now he was just another casualty of war. Did he have family? She shuddered at the thought of them going through what she did—the slow agony of loss. Guilt crippled her.

A bullet whizzed past, just inches from her shoulder, and a voice roared, "Dea!"

She spun, heart jouncing in her chest.

Anuk was nearer to her, positioned behind a column, but relentless fire made it impossible for him to get closer.

"Dea, get to cover!" he yelled.

The urgency in his tone snapped Dea back to attention. She resisted the impulse to dash to him. The rational half of her desperately wanted to protect him from Manta's fate—a very real fear that squeezed her to the core, merciless and agonizing. The other half was driven by blind instinct—he was her safety net when there was no one else to break her fall. Yet, there was no future if Dilip wasn't stopped. After one last glance at Anuk, she resumed her pursuit of Dilip.

When she slipped through the steel door, the thunderous noise receded behind her. She expected an emergency exit, but it seemed to be a utility corridor with another door at its opposite end.

Dea raced through pools of light, past two storerooms. Faint Mermish shouts registered in her head for the first time, and it took a second to realize they didn't issue from the battle behind her. The prison tanks must be close by!

At the end of the passage, she wrenched open the door.

In the darkened room before her, steel tubes towered up, connected to large pipes. The tops emitted a ghostly fog that drifted down, stained purple under the eerie lighting. Shadows pooled in nooks.

A chill swam down Dea's spine. She couldn't shake off the feeling that this was a graveyard of metal coffins, shrouded in gloom and ethereal mist.

As if on cue, Dilip materialized like a malevolent spirit. She stiffened, and white-hot anger jetted up.

His lips quirked into his perfect smile, and he uttered a few words. Now that her helmet was out of range, no translated speech trickled in from her earpiece. She dug a hand into the tiny crevice in the Cypod seat, where she had stashed her ogi.

"You will pay, Dilip Goonewardane," she said through gritted teeth, and the ogi repeated the words in Sinhalese an instant later.

"Well, I just dispatched a distress call." Dilip checked his watch. "Reinforcements will be here any minute and slaughter your little force. I do wonder about those humans—fighting alongside you creatures. Could be that pesky organization snooping into our affairs..."

Her voice fired out, unnaturally shrill, "What is this place?"

"This is a cryogenic chamber. We keep some bodies preserved here for future experiments. These are insulated containers filled with liquid nitrogen."

"You're sick," she spat.

Dea didn't wait for it to be translated. She charged.

He stepped to the side and disappeared behind one of the cylinders. "You're quite something, little mermaid."

A second later, she swerved around it, but only purple fog met her eyes. The stillness almost made it seem like he was nothing but a hallucination.

She sped along, eyes darting to the shadows. Then she unleashed a series of clicks.

The echo-image gave her prior warning, but it was too late to act. Dilip's kick struck the upper part of the Cypod and toppled it.

Even as a shriek built up in her chest, she hit the floor, the impact knocking the breath out of her.

"This is really unnecessary." Dilip stood over her. "I tried to give you a chance—"

"I don't need it, a-hole," Dea snapped. "Burn in hell."

She lunged at him to tackle him to the floor, but he was too quick. He let out a chuckle and swung his foot at her. She rolled away at the nick of time and bumped against a cylinder. The cold seeped in where her head touched it.

Without warning, the door crashed open, the noise shockingly loud in the silence.

Dilip jerked, alert eyes flitting in its direction, though the metal tubes obscured it from view. A dark phantom emerged from the mist, gun in hand. Dea's heart leaped.

"Get away from her," Anuk said in a deadly whisper.

Dilip darted behind a cylinder, and Anuk's shot twanged against steel.

"I thought I saw you back there, Abeykoon," Dilip said, injecting venom into his words. "Very curious I should run into you here. You work with those rebels...I should've known."

Anuk crouched down next to Dea, sharp eyes aimed in the direction of his adversary. "Are you okay?"

Her voice quavered as words tumbled out, "Why would you come help me? You should hate me—"

"Because I want to."

The simple utterance wreaked havoc in her—then the danger of the situation jostled to the forefront of her brain. "He might have a gun!"

"I know."

"Anuk, he's called reinforcem—"

A bullet whizzed mere inches from them, deafening in the enclosed space.

Anuk jerked up, cursing under his breath. That was when Dea noticed that his armor was missing on one side.

"So tell me," Dilip's voice said, echoing in the space, "how do you know the mermaid?"

Anuk inched slowly around the cylinder, gun at the ready.

"You can't get to me that easy, Abeykoon." A laugh sounded. "So? I'm curious. What's your connection with her?"

"I care about her," Anuk said, the words carrying in the silence. "And I won't let you touch a hair on her head."

"So touching. Are we fighting over a girl now? Brings back memories..."

"This isn't a damn exam or who's head boy, you sick f—"

Another bullet shot by just as Anuk flattened himself behind a cylinder. Dea slowly crawled to her Cypod and grabbed the ogi. Her echolocation was short-ranged, but with the ogi's sonar, she could spot Dilip's location.

"Dea, get back," Anuk barked in Mermish. "Get behind—"

Dilip pounced at her from the shadows and picked her up, pinning her arms in a body lock. She screamed.

Anuk leveled the gun but froze an instant later.

"Drop your weapon or I shoot her!" Dilip yelled.

There was no hesitation. Anuk's gun fell to the floor, and a resounding clink rent the air.

Anger flared up and clouded her mind. If there was one thing that weeks of combat training taught her, it was how powerful a tail could be—the weapon that orcas used to stun prey. She raised her tail and dealt a powerful blow to Dilip's legs.

What happened next was almost too fast to process.

He stumbled back, releasing her. Dea thwacked down, and pain blossomed on her hip. Dilip's face contorted with rage. He aimed his gun at her head.

"No!" Anuk flung himself into the line of fire just when Dilip pulled the trigger.

Animal: Sea Otter

https://youtu.be/FukcZF9ARy8