Dan blanked for a moment after hearing her, he couldn't understand what she meant by Sticky Reefs turning red. One glance at the screen linked to her skill though, and he could feel the blood drain from his face.

  From further away in Sticky Reefs, he watched as the whole screen was turning red, it felt like a red flood consuming everything in its way towards them.

  At the same time, he remembered something that happened a few days ago, when they made it to Sticky Reefs, Ruby's skills didn't work on the weeds they got. They had thought that the weeds were some type of magical plants and her skills weren't high enough to control them. The true reason why that had happened was making itself clear, and he was finding it hard to accept; Sticky Reefs was a creature, and it was waking up.

  Dan's heartbeats went through the roof as his breathing started coming in short and tight. He felt as if the walls all around were closing in on him as the truth of what they were facing came crushing down on them, a being that was kilometres big was awakening.

  Fortunately, he didn't remain in that state for long as he felt his connection to the Voyager strengthen, with her sending him some reassurance mixed with barely hidden worry. Using those as a lifeline, Dan tried to pull himself together, bringing his breathing under control. He again had a new appreciation for Advantage, he doubted he would have been able to bring himself from that big of a panic attack if not for it. The, in all aspects, part of the skill was doing a lot of heavy lifting.

  After he was in a state to act, he first activated the Tier 2 Calming Aura; it wouldn't do them any good if the others were running around like headless chickens. With all the crew on the bridge calming down and their breathing falling to a normal range, he forced himself to speak,

  "Keith," Dan said, his mouth still a bit dry from the scare, "Update the others on the current situation."

  Keith didn't even hesitate, she just nodded and went to the speakers as she broadcast what Dan asked of her. At the same time, the Voyager continued with her full-speed retreat from the awakening Cthulhu below them.

  He connected to the auras, wanting to see how the situation behind them was. The first thing he noticed was how they had dropped the corpses behind them. Dan felt a twinge at the materials they could have had from those two corpses, but he knew that they needed to survive first.

  The second thing he noticed was how all of Voyager's appendages were now the metallic ones she usually used; she had dismissed the dark ones filled with bottomless mouths at some point in time.

  "Big girl, how are you feeling?" he asked gently.

  The Voyager again only sent back some feelings, she seemed to be calmer, not as angry as before but still stressed. Dan could see how not having those eldritch tentacles to worry about might have made things easier for her.

  They had a few seconds just for them, talking to and trying to calm her before finally returning to his crew,

  "How far are we from the borders of Sticky Reefs?" he asked.

  "Not that far," Freddie answered, "10 to 15 minutes at most."

  "Okay, we can do this!" he looked at everyone on the bridge as he said, "We just need to leave this area and then our safety is almost guaranteed."

  Those few moments while the Voyager pushed herself as much as possible while they headed to the borders were some of the most stressful they had been through. Especially with how, after a couple of minutes, the screen linked to Keith's skill turned completely red. Whatever it was that was under them, it had awakened fully and that only made the stress they were under mount.

  Worse, even the small stingrays they were passing were all acting as if they had rabies, constantly throwing themselves at the Voyager. They would try to get close to her, but as soon as they entered within the range of her aura, they would freeze, colliding with her at full speed. They weren't doing much damage to the ship, but it was enough that Dan feared what would happen if thousands of them started throwing themselves at her.

  Finally, the borders of Sticky Reefs were seen, marked by the disappearance of the blood red covering the whole screen and the calming blue just beyond it. Dan felt his heart calm down a bit, but like every other moment he had let himself relax, something happened.

  A deep, muffled almost explosion-like sound reverberated through the bridge. Dan shared a glance with the crew before he hurriedly connected to the Voyager's auras as he looked behind them. At first, he didn't notice anything, things looked just the same as they had the last time he looked. Dan thought for a second then asked the Voyager to link him to one of the long-distance cameras they had at the stern.

  Focusing on the further borders of the area, Dan saw them, huge stingers like the ones on the two rays they had just fought, except infinitely bigger and their numbers must have been in the thousands. Watching them flailing lazily just barely above the water, Dan didn't even have the capacity to feel shocked anymore, it was beyond his imagination. Fortunately, they were almost out of that area when he noticed those tails.

  Again, he didn't get to feel relief even for a couple of seconds before things changed. He felt his vision twist and he found himself pulled by the Voyager to one of the long-range cameras on the bow.

  "Voyager?" he asked in confusion, trying to understand what she wanted to show him.

  He noticed it before her answer came though, straight ahead and beelining towards them, three ships could be seen. That wasn't the most important detail he caught though, it was the flags that they were flying.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  A big blue flag with a golden crown at the top and below it, there was a minimalistic design of the bow of a ship as seen from the front. It was the ensign for the Imperial Navy, one of the last powers Dan wanted to meet at that moment.

  "We have company," he told Keith, "Three navy ships are right ahead, heading our way."

  "What should we do?" Freddie asked. Dan would be lying if he said he wasn't asking himself that exact same question.

  They could change their course and try to run from the Navy, either by going parallel to the awakening being till they reached its borders, or by lightly changing the angles of their path. For the first option, the monstrosity behind them was already awake, and who knows when it would turn its attention towards them. As for the second, the other party was far enough that they had enough time to change their course and intercept them.

  "Continue ahead, turn 30° to Starboard," he finally said through gritted teeth, "We will force our way through if we have to."

  "Okay," Freddie said after staying silent for a split second. Dan was sure that Calming Aura was doing a great deal of heavy lifting there.

  As Dan had expected, and wished wouldn't happen, the Navy's ships changed their course as they started taking a path that would have them cut the Voyager off. Dan clenched his hands as he said,

  "Activate the LRAD on the bow. Connect me to them."

  "It's ready," Diana said.

  Dan took a deep breath, calmed himself, and went through what he was going to say in his mind a few times before activating the device and saying:

  "Navy of the Empire, this is the Voyager speaking, we are letting you know that if you stand in our path, we will take it as a show of hostility and respond in kind, stand down."

  Dan and everyone on the bridge fell into silence, waiting for the reply from the Navy. It was a tense few moments before a voice sounded from the ships.

  "This is Vice Admiral Quinn from the Imperial Navy." The man had an authoritarian tone and bearing, the voice of someone used to having his orders followed. "By the power granted to me through the fact that you are on Imperial waters, we ask you to introduce yourself and what power you represent."

  "Again, this is the Voyager," Dan answered, "We are from Earth. As you most likely can see, Sticky Reefs behind us is awakening. If you're going to stand between us and getting away from this area, then we can do nothing but take that as the show of hostility it is."

  He was really hoping that this could be solved without turning to violence. No matter how tough he was speaking, he didn't want to try their luck against the Navy. He doubted the few pirates they had been against would hold a candle to the small 3-ship fleet in front of them.

  "We've noticed the awakening Behemoth behind you," Quinn's voice sounded again, "It is one of the reasons we are stopping you like this, we need to know what happened, especially since you're coming from there."

  Dan didn't like how things were turning, he felt that at any given moment the situation could turn south and real fast. He first turned to Keith,

  "Contact Marcus and the others and tell them that we might have a fight ahead of us."

  Seeing her relay his order he turned to the matter at hand. The man's words got him wondering whether all this happened because they were hunting those stingrays, or because of something else. One thing was for sure, they most likely were the reason the area came to life in the first place.

  "We were resting in the area when it started acting weird. We were attacked by two of its bigger inhabitants and decided to leave after dealing with them. We have no idea why Sticky Reefs came to life."

  "Letting you through isn't that much of a problem." Quinn took a while to answer this time. "That would have me send one of my ships with you to escort you to a place where we can make sure all you told us is the truth, unfortunately though, I can't do that now."

  "Why is that the case?" Honestly, Dan didn't even find the thought of having an escort good, but he knew that he had to act that he was interested for now.

  "We need all the power we can get to deal with Sticky Reefs," Quinn said, "The last time it woke up, it erased many islands from the map and destroyed even more coastal towns, that's all without mentioning how the creatures under its control are going to destroy the surrounding ecosystem and routes. We need to do our best to stall for time before reinforcements arrive.

  "Besides, Sticky Reefs is most likely after you, it usually goes after what woke it up till it destroys them, or finds a sufficiently good enough meal. If my guess that you were the ones waking it up is true, even if we let you through, you could still end up pursued by it."

  Dan found himself opening and closing his mouth repeatedly, unsure of what he had just heard. He felt that there was a good chance that the man was just making shit up as he went, but what he was saying was so concerning that even the mere possibility of it being real was too dangerous to ignore.

  And it wasn't just their safety on the line, Dan didn't want to live knowing that he was the reason a coastal town or two were destroyed, he was sure none of the others would want that too.

  "Dan here," Dan asked after he motioned for Keith the walkie-talkie she just used, "What do you think we should do? What is their aim? Over."

  "He's leading to something," Marcus's voice came through, "Ask him what he means with this. See if what he brings up is acceptable for us or not, and don't let him have you agree to going anywhere if you didn't bring it up, always make those choices yourself. Over."

  Having another perspective was more than welcome, Dan felt that things were leaving his area of expertise fast, and he was worried about what he could put his crew through.

  "And so?" he said after calming his voice, "What is it that you are leading towards?"

  "We wish you could help us stall for time," Quinn didn't even hesitate to answer, "We will use you to take the Sticky Reefs on a wild hunt before the reinforcements arrive. After that, you would be free to leave."

  Dan didn't even need someone to tell him how bad that was for them, they would be under the mercy of the Navy before their reinforcements even arrived, and when they did, they would truly be done for. If they couldn't run from three ships, what made them think that they could escape even more?

  "Wait!" Dan was about to say something when Keith suddenly shouted. She then ran to a corner where a familiar book was, it was the one that they had brought from Windy Cliffs Village, the one that came with the map.

  Dan waited as she flipped through the book fast, stopping on a page and reading it again and again. With a final nod to herself, she ran back to him,

  "I have a plan," she said as she showed him the page she had opened the book to, "We can use this!"

  On the page she opened, Dan saw the picture of an octopus-like thing, its tentacles and part of its body above the water, a Kraken!