The word flashed in her mind. Pelican.

It was close. Too close for comfort. She needed to get out of there. Now. 

With a kick, alight with a cold and invasive fear, Wynona sent herself backwards, swimming as fast as her body would allow. She let the light fade from her hands, not wanting to attract its attention. 

Swimming in the dark was suddenly horrifying, the shuddering growl of the beast looming in the empty vastness behind her. Her skin crawled as she imagined, again and again, the phantom feeling of a tentacle curling around her ankle, or a fang sinking into her back.

With a shout caught in her throat, she grabbed hold of her shallow plateau and heaved herself out of the water, collapsing in the puddled clay, curling her legs away from the water.

Wynona ripped the goggles from her face, gasping as her eyes adjusted to the storm-darkened surface. The rain was colder now, and stronger, pin-pricking all over her skin. In the haze, not far from where she had spotted the shifting shadow of Pelican, two mechs sloshed through the water with fatalistic ignorance.

One was small, a support mech she’d seen plenty of in the papers. Its head was curved like a cone and it bounced in the water as if buoyed by a floatation mechanism, but it lagged behind its companion, easily moved by the current. The other mech towered overhead, close enough that Wynona could make out the silhouette of a person piloting from inside. This design was sleeker, sturdier, more aerodynamic. Built for speed, for offensive attacks.

Thunder tumbled overhead. Wyn stood and waved her arms wildly, trying to signal to the mechs. It was futile, but still she shouted, “Hey! Hey! Get out of there! You—”

The large mech held its hand out. With a mechanical blast, a metal rod slid from a compartment in its sleeve, the end pointed and ragged. The mech held it overhead, blank face watching the water. Wyn watched, heart in her throat, realizing two very crucial things at once: the first, that the rod was a harpoon, poised to kill; the second, the pilot of that mech was very aware of the fact that Pelican was snaking around nearby.

They were going to try and kill Pelican on their own.

“What an idiot,” Wynona breathed, tensing as the harpoon swung down with more power than she’d ever seen a machine make—

But Pelican was quicker. Its tail—or, at the very least, a fin that made up part of the end of its tail—rose out of the water, the movement sending waves of water rocking onto the plateau. Wyn paled at its size, large enough to cast a black shadow over her and the mechs. It hung in the air, free falling. For a moment, everything was horribly silent.

Then the fin smacked against the water, crushing the mechs beneath it.

Wynona stumbled back, hands glowing as they dug into the clay ground—as a wave rose up and crashed onto her with brutal force. Salt water blew up her nose, into her throat. She coughed violently, clinging to the rock for dear life. She waited for a second wave, but when no other came, she wiped the salt water from her eyes, watching as Pelican’s fin slipped beneath the surface, its monstrous drone reverberating in her chest.

She scanned the sloshing surface, her heart beating as if it weighed nothing, wild and erratic.

“H-hey!” she called to the lost mechs, all the while frantically wondering if she had just seen two people die, had just witnessed their final moments. But there in the water, not too far from her plateau, she spotted the smaller mech, bobbing like driftwood on the water. The cone of its face was smashed inward.

Wynona moved without thinking, springing into action. Pulling her goggles on to her face, she dove off the plateau, keeping to the surface. Gritting her teeth, and swallowing her fair share of water, Wynona fought to carve through the waves. Getting to the mech was difficult, but actually getting on top of it was worse.

Her fingernails dug uselessly against the smooth metal, scraped and clawed. Slowly, muscles shaking, she hoisted herself onto its arm. Wynona stood and wobbled. A rogue wave smacked into her. With a shriek, she stuck her hand out for purchase, fingers catching on the shattered glass of the mech’s face.

It burnt, instantly. Wyn hissed as she sat back on the arm, holding her quivering hand to her chest. It was bleeding. She didn’t need to look to know, warmth leaking across her palm. She couldn’t keep it from shaking. The salt on her skin just made it worse.

She had nothing to cover it with. If she’d been able to grab her overclothes, she could have torn some fabric free to stanch the bleeding, but… With a groan, her hand flew to her neck, where the orange scarf was tied around her neck. Wet and heavy and flush with salt water. She untied it with trembling hands, wrung it out as best she could, took a breath. This wouldn’t be pleasant.

Wynona wrapped it around tightly, the pain blooming. It had been a long time since she’d cut herself so deeply. Scratches and nicks she could easily manage, but this would need stitching. That is, if she lived through saving these idiots.

Careful, Wyn hoisted herself up, hands sliding along the rim of the mech’s face. There were books in her home, old and dusty and extremely boring, that had diagrams of mechs in them. Not the same, older models, but similar enough. There would be a failsafe mechanism, for cases where the pilot was incapacitated—

“Gotcha!”

Adrenaline pumped, Wynona’s fingers finding a divot in the metal. Her fingers pressed hard against it.

With a hiss, the face of the mech flew open, throwing shards of loose glass into the air.

Wyn pushed herself up, swinging her legs over, slipping into the cockpit, prepared to help—but she paused, eyes wide with surprise.

The pilot was a boy. Just a teenage boy—a kid—no older than she was. Pale-skinned, freckled, with a mess of orange hair. His eyes were shut, body lax in the seat. For a moment, Wyn was worried that he might be dead, but as she undid his safety belts, she was relieved to find he was still breathing. That was good. 

But, God, was he heavy. All dead weight, out cold. She tried and she tried—pulling at his arms, attempting to hoist him on her back—but it became quickly evident: she wouldn’t be able to lift him out of the cockpit on her own. 

“C’mon, c’mon—hey, wake up. Please wake up, wake up, wake up.” Wyn shook the boy by his shirt, violently, but he was out cold.

An angry wave picked them up and tossed them, sending them spinning like a top across the water, water dumping into the cockpit. They had to hurry. It was buoyant, for now, but Wynona questioned how long it would take for a wave to completely capsize them.

“Sorry,” Wyn huffed, raising her bandaged hand. It came down hard, making contact with the boy’s cheek. Wyn drew her hand away, clenching it as pain burst through it. “Shit.”

The boy coughed, waking with a start. It was like someone had stuck electric cables into the back of his head, his eyes all wide, body tensing, alight with consciousness.

“What?” he asked, eyes flying around the open cockpit, rain dripping from his round face. His words stumbled, confused. “What’s going on?”

Pelican’s drone vibrated beneath them, a new sense of urgency coiling in her stomach. If Pelican spotted the mech on the surface, it might think it was still a threat. It might come back to finish them off. And they wouldn’t survive a second attack.

“I’ll tell you if we live,” Wyn huffed, hoisting herself out of the mech. “Can you stand?”

“Y-yeah, yeah.” The boy’s movements were stuttery and frantic, the byproduct of waking up in a suddenly life-threatening situation.

Wyn lowered herself onto the mech’s arm. “Can you swim?”

The boy didn’t answer, squinting against the downpour. “Where’s Loch?”

Loch. Wynona assumed he meant the other mech, the one that had gone under and not yet resurfaced. Not a good sign. A new kind of worry wormed inside of Wynona, but they didn’t have time for this. Hoping she wasn’t about to drown the guy, Wynona grabbed the front of his uniform, prepared to throw him in—act now, questions later—but he fought against it.

“Wait!” he shouted.

“Are you crazy?!” Wynona glared back at him, ready to use any means necessary to get him in the water, but stopped when she saw how desperate he looked. Despite the danger, they were wide with a different kind of worry—not for his own life, but for the life of another. The boy looked at the spot the other mech had been and said in a trembling, panicked voice, “He’s my brother—”

“I’ll get him.”

The boy looked at her again, questioning.

“I’ll get him,” she said again, not sure if she could; not sure if there was still a living person left to save. “You get to that plateau. Just—swim fast. And don’t stop for anything.”

The boy nodded. Wyn released his uniform and watched him cannonball in. When his mop of wet red hair resurfaced, paddling clumsily, Wyn dove in past him, making for where his brother had vanished.

She was able to find its approximate spot by the bubbles that were roiling to the surface, drifting up, assumedly from the cockpit. She didn’t know much about these larger mechs, but she knew enough to be sure that its oxygen supply would be limited underwater. And there was no way the mech had gotten away from Pelican’s attack undamaged. Most likely, some part of it had been breached and the air was escaping. Every bubble that blipped to the surface brought the pilot closer to suffocating or drowning.

Based on how long it had taken to help the boy in the buoyed mech, Wynona didn’t like their odds.

But still. She filled her lungs with air, held them in her aching chest, and slipped beneath the waves.

Everything was dark. The pressure increased the deeper she dove, pulsing gentle but painful in her ears. Not so far off, the bloated sound of Pelican’s body gliding through the water could be heard. She didn’t like that one bit: the idea that it could come out of nowhere, that she could be devoured or caught up in its current, powerless to stop it. That being here, diving ever deeper, could mean the end of her.

The vibration returned to her palms as she considered using her magic to light her way, but it felt too risky. If Pelican caught sight of it, they would both be dead.

Wyn could hardly see her hands where they floated in front of her. In the pitch dark, she thought of living. Of breaking the surface and bringing the boy to town where he could be passed off to the Slayers. Of telling him there was nothing she could do. She had tried, hadn’t she? Wasn’t that enough?

Wyn shut her eyes. Guilt ate away in her stomach. “He’s my brother,” the boy had said. Like it was really the end of the world to lose someone.

She thought of the boy, and she thought of her mother. Imagined, for a sparking, ugly second, that she was really dead, as everyone promised she was.

Wynona held her breath in her lungs. Everything ached.

Concentrate. Warmth thrummed in her fingertips. Building. Surging, gently. She felt it’s light before she even opened her eyes, and when she did that, she saw a small glint ten feet below. Light reflecting on dark metal.

Wynona plunged deeper, a renewed sense of purpose and fear coursing through her. The mech looked like a dead giant, body propped limp and angular against the clay mounds. It made her feel the same as when she’d swim over the sunken boats that scattered the sea floor, a reminder that the ocean could take as quickly as it gave. Moments ago, the mech had been a contender, a beast made by man, but now it was still, nothing more than a shell.

It’s glass face was cracked in spots, reflecting her face in fragments as she pressed her hands to it. Inside, past the glare, she saw a man, outlined in her bluish light.

There had to be a way inside. Wynona felt along the rim of the cockpit, anxiety a cold wash in her veins as she realized there was no fail safe latch. Her stomach twisted. This was a different model, newer, rarer; a model she knew nothing about.

The man was stuck inside, and by the sounds of things, the mech was filling with water, though she couldn’t tell how fast or where from. Not that it mattered. If the water didn’t kill him, the lack of air would, eventually. One way or another, he would die.

Wyn looked at her hands where they pressed to the glass, useless. Frustration welled, mixing with her fear. Could she do something? Anything? She’d only used her magic for diving, but…