Scene 1: The Salt Choir – Aboard the Vessel Whale Song

The sea rolled beneath them like a sleeping beast. Above, the sky was soft with silver clouds, the wind humming through coral sails rigged with biofiber threads. The Whale Song was not a ship in the traditional sense—it was grown, not built. Its deck pulsed faintly beneath bare feet, reacting to the crew’s mood.

Tadpole Slim stood at the bow, arms outstretched, humming a gentle rhythm of clicks and whistles. Her voice was a language in progress—a blend of dolphin cadence and whale moan. The sound carried through the air like prayer.

“Soon,” she said softly, her voice like tide foam, “we’ll speak to the sea like we once did. We will forget the steel inside us. We will remember the waves.”

The crew gathered loosely behind her. Not the Salt Choir’s inner circle—but hopefuls. A rough, mismatched bunch from a dockyard gang called the Gutter Current—mercs trying to earn their gills.

Their unofficial spokesman, a lanky man in patchy seal-hydra GEAR named Lop, scratched his chin.

“So, just to be clear, we take down a transport, don’t kill anyone, bring back the crates, and maybe—maybe—you give us a shot at… what? Evolving?”

Tadpole turned, eyes shining with bioluminescent undertones.

“Not evolving. Returning. You forgot how to swim. We’ll help you remember.”

Behind her, her Immortal Jellyfish Top shimmered in pastel glows, slow pulses matching her heartbeat. Below, her Dolphin Echo Cuirass flicked fins at her hips, part armor, part motion amplifier.

Lop looked back at his crew:

• Bassy (their brute, rocking a crab-shell spine rig),
  
  

• Juke (fast-talker with a manta-blade under his arm),
  
  

• and Yibby, who hadn’t spoken since touching tadpole’s hand during the briefing.
  
  

“Yo,” Juke whispered, elbowing Lop, “you sure we wanna be sea cultists?”

Lop grinned. “If the food’s good and the gear breathes underwater—I’ll worship a damn clam.”

The ship sang. Literally. A low, thrumming note vibrated through the hull as Tadpole Slim’s hand brushed the shell altar behind her.

“The transport is yours,” she said. “Make them see mercy. Earn your gills.”

Scene 2: Inside the Transport – Mandark’s Truck

A cramped, armored delivery van rattled down an overgrown road cutting through rusted port towns and forgotten coastline. Inside, the Mandark crew sat shoulder-to-shoulder, GEAR rattling with every bump.

Cuh adjusted his shark-vest, its gills twitching.

“Tell me again why we’re robbing a fish truck?”

“Marine drop,” Mandark replied from the cab’s intercom. “Couple crates. One job, one paycheck. Simple.”

“You said that about the sewer run,” Wavi muttered, tapping his Mantis Shrimp Knuckledusters together. “And I got foam-choked and drop-kicked by a bird-man.”

Soule, ever the hype man, flipped down his Lyrebird Mimic Gloves and threw a beatbox-style echo into the silence:

“Slime in the cab, shrimp in the fists,
We rollin’ so hard, we makin’ waves twist—”

“Soule,” Cuh grunted, “please shut up.”

Tye sat quietly near the rear, reading the glowing interface on his glove. The eel-fist still pulsed faintly, like it was syncing with something. Not sentient—but something out there was familiar.

“Something’s off,” he said finally. “Marine transport in a Bronze route? With no escort? That’s bait or blind luck.”

Mandark’s voice chimed in again. “Don’t overthink it. Just grab the crates and bounce.”

The glove sparked once, a static hiccup.

Tye frowned. He didn’t trust luck.

Sons and Shadows

“Luck is what the body calls it when instinct gets lucky. But the body remembers. And mine’s been remembering for far too long.”
– Dr. T. Zugun, Personal Log 039 – Date Corrupted

Scene: Neo-Pelt – Marine Simulation Chamber

The water surged and split with controlled fury. Inside the war dome, Platinum-clad trainees were struggling—limbs flailing in slow-motion currents while the two real weapons moved like dancers through death.

Kairos, the Undertow, was poetry in motion—his Abyssal Angler cloak making him vanish between ripples. A flash of bioluminescence—then a soldier screamed, convulsing mid-air.

Across the chamber, Luma, the Surge, blurred in a flicker of fin-edge and broken sound. She zipped past her mark, turning a metal pylon into a twisting wreck with a single Vortex Kick. Her helmet disengaged, revealing a feral grin.

Above it all, Director Veyra watched silently from a glass overlook, flanked by the lab’s newest head scientist, Dr. Elira Kove. The lights above flickered briefly—Zugun’s echo still hung in the code somewhere.

“They're beautiful,” Kove mused, adjusting the cuffs of her translucent lab jacket. “Efficient. Brutal.”

“They’ll need to be,” Veyra said. “Zugun’s bloodline just triggered a relic I buried ten years ago.”

Kove arched an eyebrow. “You're sure it’s his son?”

Veyra didn’t blink. “Same mitochondrial markers. Zugun’s prints on the glove. His son’s prints in it.”

A young intel runner stepped in, tablet shaking slightly.

“We’ve tracked him,” he stammered. “Tye Rome. He’s teamed up with a low-tier faction—The Mandarks.”

Kove frowned. “The junk dealers?”

“Not anymore. They just hit a sewer node and fried two of our Falconers.”

Veyra sighed through his teeth.

“And the Salt Choir?”

The runner hesitated.

“They’ve… started showing patterns. Naval test convoys rerouted. Missing drones. Whale song interference on our AquaNet frequencies.”

Veyra glanced down at the agents as Kairos placed his hand gently on a twitching soldier's head—like a prayer before blacking him out. Luma kicked another across the chamber and cracked her knuckles.

“Deploy them both,” Veyra said.

Kove smiled faintly. “Let’s see how long a Mandark can swim.”