The moment the megalodons turned on their tamers, the sea descended into carnage. The pirates had always relied on fear and chains to keep the beasts in line, but now those bonds were shattered—and nothing could stop the frenzy.
Colossal bodies slammed against the hulls of their ships, each impact shaking wood and steel until planks splintered and iron plates crumpled like paper.
Cannons roared, hurling fire and smoke into the waves, but the megalodons darted beneath the surface, their massive tails lashing with the force of tidal waves.
One surfaced in a spray of red foam, clamping its jaws around the deck of a brig. With a sickening crack, half the ship was dragged under, pirates screaming as the sea swallowed them whole.
"Hold the line! Fire, damn it, fire!" one captain bellowed, but his command was drowned beneath the wails of his men as another megalodon tore through their hull.
Blood slicked the waters, staining the Red Sea darker with every heartbeat. Severed limbs floated to the surface, bobbing between broken barrels and shattered masts.
The pirates fought, but it was a slaughter. Their ships, built for raiding, were too slow, too fragile against predators of such magnitude. Rifles and sabers meant nothing when the sea itself turned against them.
Amid the chaos, Illya slipped away. Her great form shimmered and fractured, nanobots peeling back like scales of liquid metal until she shrank into her smaller shape. Sleek, silent, and unnoticed, she swam in the shadow of a fleeing ship that cut toward the heart of the Red Sea.
The rebellion would spread like wildfire. News of this betrayal, this loss of control, would reach the ears of the Pirate Queen soon enough. And if Illya allowed that to happen, everything she had fought for, all the blood and fury, would be for nothing.
The captains stationed along the outer edge of the Red Sea were little more than C-ranks, placeholders meant to keep order rather than wage war. The commanders were stronger, B-ranks, while the fleet captains that answered directly to the Pirate Queen carried the weight of A-rank strength.
By that measure, Commander Iris would be stationed deeper, in the inner circle, where the flow of coin, contraband, and slaves converged.
But Iris was not alone. Including her, five B-ranks guarded the vessel she commanded. For Illya, herself a B-rank, to confront them recklessly would be suicide. She would have to tread with care, striking only when the time was right.
"Captain, we've suffered major losses," a crewman gasped, clutching the bloody stump where his arm had been. His face was pale, his voice trembling with pain and dread. "If we return to Commander Iris like this… she'll kill us herself."
"Better to face her wrath than to be torn apart by those mutants!" the captain snarled, slamming his palm down onto the command lever. "Full speed ahead!"
The ship's engines screamed to life, straining at their maximum output. The battered vessel cut across the crimson waters, leaving a frothing trail of foam in its wake.
None of the pirates spared a thought for what clung to their hull, Illya, her nanobot form fused with the ship's plating. To their eyes, she was invisible, a shadow riding the very bones of their vessel, carried ever closer to the heart of the Red Sea.
The megalodons surged after the fleeing ships, their massive bodies cutting through the crimson water like blades.
But as the predators closed in, the pirates dropped their anchors, letting the iron weights crash down into the sea.
The chains tangled around fins and jaws, buying the ships just enough time to cut themselves loose and escape.
Only three vessels broke through into the inner circle. Out of the hundreds that once patrolled the Red Sea, the rest had been torn apart, hulls split, crews devoured, their blood staining the waters in vast spreading clouds.
When the mist finally parted, a colossal ketch loomed ahead, its sails black as night. Flanking it were caravels, bristling with rocket launchers, each the size of the survivors' battered ships.
"Request communication with Commander Iris," the captain ordered, sweat dripping down his brow as if he already feared the reply.
"Aye, captain," a crewman answered, fingers flying over the console as he transmitted the signal toward the ketch.
BOOM!
The ship shuddered violently as a thunderous explosion rocked the hull. Smoke and splinters filled the command room. The surviving pirates scrambled to their stations in confusion, only to see fiery streaks cutting across the waters. The caravels had turned their cannons on them.
"What is the meaning of this?! Why are they firing at us?!" the captain bellowed, veins bulging at his temple.
"Captain!" the crewman cried, his voice breaking. "They denied our request! A message came through… they said..." he swallowed hard, terror flashing across his face. "They said there's a traitor among us. That we're… excommunicated."
The words had barely left his lips before more explosions ripped across the deck. Fire and shrapnel tore through bodies, men screamed as the floor beneath them collapsed into flame.
Those who had narrowly escaped the jaws of the megalodons now met their end at the hands of their own comrades, burning, drowning, and dying to the thunder of missiles.
"Right… the enemy has Stellar Path shamans," Illya muttered to herself, her voice calm despite the chaos. "Looks like a sneak attack won't be possible."
Her nanobots rippled, shifting and weaving together as her form reconstructed in midair.
"Someone survived! Fire again!" a voice bellowed from one of the caravels.
BOOM!
Another missile thundered across the sea, the shot exploding against the rising figure. Flames and smoke swallowed her silhouette.
The pirates leaned over their rails, peering into the haze, waiting to see charred remains fall into the waves.
"…What the hell?" one finally whispered.
The smoke parted.
Illya stood suspended in the sky, as though an invisible platform held her aloft. Her cloak billowed behind her, catching the sea breeze.
Her raven-black eyes burned like voids in the heavens, unyielding, endless, and cold enough to freeze blood in their veins. The very sight of her felt unnatural, as if gravity itself bent to her will.
Her voice, carried by the wind, cut through the crackling fire and crashing waves.
"Commander Iris. And Cooper, the betrayer. Surrender now…" Her tone was neither threat nor plea, but a verdict. "…and I swear no one else here will die."
Commotion rippled across the caravels like fire through dry grass. The name "Cooper" struck the pirates harder than the cannon fire ever could. Captains leaned over their rails, voices rising in heated panic.
"Ain't that the one the commander's been sheltering?" one captain muttered, his voice sharp with unease.
"Why worry? It's just a woman," another snapped back, forcing bravado into his tone. "We can take care of her."
"You fool!" the first roared. "She took a missile to the face and didn't flinch! That makes her at least a B-rank meta—only the commander can handle someone like that!"
The argument spread like a storm until another captain silenced them with a bark:
"Enough! The commander's orders were clear—shoot her down!"
Crews scrambled to their posts, rocket launchers groaning as they turned skyward. The air thickened with tension, the scent of oil and smoke hanging over the fleet as dozens of barrels locked on the lone figure floating in the sky.
Illya's gaze swept over them, calm, unbothered, her eyes reflecting the black depths of the void. A smile touched her lips, not mocking or joyous, but the expression of someone unburdened at last.
"I see…" her voice carried, smooth and steady, even over the roar of engines and crashing waves. "…so be it then."
The air thundered with rockets as dozens of projectiles tore through the sky toward her. Yet in the instant before they struck, Illya vanished—erased from the air as though she had never been there.
A blur reappeared in front of one of the caravels. Feathers shimmered into existence, wings slicing the wind with predatory grace. A peregrine falcon.
She streaked forward faster than the eye could follow.
CRASH!
Wood splintered, steel groaned. A jagged hole ripped open in the side of the ship as Illya pierced clean through, her passage leaving two crewmen torn apart in an instant, their blood raining across the deck.
"Stop using the rockets! Get the nets—she's a transformation-type meta!" one captain bellowed, panic cracking his voice.
But even as the words left his throat, the sea itself rose to betray them.
From beneath the doomed vessel, an abyssal maw opened. Two colossal rows of jagged teeth, glinting like spears, swallowed the ship whole. The caravel vanished into darkness with a shriek of rending wood, swallowed in one impossible bite.
A Megalodon.
Gasps erupted from the surrounding caravels. Pirates stumbled back from the rails, eyes wide, throats dry, the stench of terror clinging to them. Their weapons trembled in their hands, but none dared to fire.
The monstrous shape slid back beneath the waves, the ocean closing over its back with eerie calm. Silence crushed the fleet.
Every pirate felt the same suffocating truth in their chest, they weren't hunters anymore. They were prey.