The sirens went off first.
Not the gentle wail of police or ambulances, but the old harbor klaxons—massive, rusted horns that hadn't sounded since the Cold War. They wailed across Lübeck like the cries of some iron whale, rattling windows and sending gulls screaming into the sky.
Greta shoved through the institute's double doors and stumbled onto the pier. The morning calm was gone. Dockworkers pointed toward the bay, their shouts drowned beneath the horns.
The water was heaving.
Not waves—no storm, no tide. The sea itself buckled as if something beneath were trying to breathe. Dark shapes moved just under the surface, too large, too quick. The gulls swirled in panicked spirals above, refusing to land.
Greta clutched the rail, her pulse racing. What is it? she demanded inwardly.
Her Guardians answered as one, a chorus of fear. An old hunger. It should not be here.
The surface broke.
A bulk of slick flesh erupted upward, spraying saltwater across the pier. At first Greta thought it was a whale, but then she saw the eyes—too many, glowing with a faint, sickly green. Its mouth was a vertical slit lined with plates of bone, snapping open and shut like an industrial press. Metallic wires glistened among its flesh, as though machines had been grafted into its body.
The dockworkers screamed. One bolted for the street, another dropped into the water in panic. Greta's legs trembled, every instinct screaming at her to do the same. She could run. Pretend she saw nothing. Be normal.
But the voices would not let her.
Greta, Olrick rumbled, let us out.
Her throat tightened. If she summoned them here, in front of all these people, her secret life was finished. But if she didn't—
The beast slammed against the pier. Wood shattered, crates toppled, ropes snapped like thread. A dockworker was thrown into the air, landing perilously close to the snapping maw.
Greta's decision made itself.
She pressed her palms to the rail and whispered, "Kommt heraus."
The harbor exploded with color.
From beneath the pier, seven shapes surged upward in a flurry of spray: her Tintenwächter. Tilo, bright yellow, darted ahead like a spear of light. Olrick, the great green brute, rose with arms wide. Two of the smaller ones crackled with electricity, their tentacles sparking against the morning air.
The dockworkers froze, too stunned to scream.
Greta stepped forward, heart hammering, as her companions circled the monster in the water. She could feel them in her head—every tentacle, every strike, as if they were her own limbs. Their courage poured into her veins like fire.
The battle was chaos. The leviathan snapped at Olrick, but he wrapped two thick arms around its jaw, holding it back with impossible strength. Sparks flew as the electric twins lashed its side, sending arcs through the grafted machinery embedded in its flesh. Tilo darted into the creature's mouth, distracting it with rapid, slapping strikes.
For a moment, Greta dared to hope.
Then the beast roared—a sound like iron scraping against the seabed. Its body convulsed, wires tightening, machinery grinding. With a sudden surge, it flung Olrick aside, snapping wooden pilings like matchsticks.
Greta felt the pain as though it were her own. She dropped to her knees, clutching her head, gasping. Her Guardians were strong, but this…this thing wasn't just alive. It was made.
And somewhere, watching from the shadows of Lübeck's warehouses, someone had made it for a purpose.
The leviathan lunged again. Greta's Guardians screamed through her mind, begging her to act, to command.
She rose to her feet, her hands shaking but her voice clear.
"Alle zusammen!"
The Tintenwächter obeyed.
They struck in unison, tentacles entwining, electricity crackling, ink blasting into the monster's eyes. For a brief, shining moment, Greta stood at the center of it all—commander of an alien army, her voice carrying across the water.
The beast thrashed, bellowed, and finally, with a shudder that rattled the docks, sank back beneath the harbor, leaving only black foam and oil slicks behind.
The silence afterward was worse than the battle. Dockworkers stared. One crossed himself. Another whispered, "Was ist sie?"
Greta swallowed hard, pulling her cap lower over her eyes.
She had saved them. But now, there was no going back.