“What is this music?” Tadpole Slim tilted her head, glowing tendrils of her jellyfish top pulsing with irritated confusion.

Soule sat bound but cocky on a silk-woven coral throne, bruised but grinning.

“That? That’s a sample from my next mixtape—working title: No Air, No Problem.”

Tadpole’s fingers twitched. Her gear responded with a flicker of red across her collarbone.

“Why do your words bend so strangely?”

“I call it flow.” Soule smirked. “You might call it… a vibe.”

She paced in circles, her emotional state registering in her gear’s fluctuating glow. “The crates you stole. Where are they?”

He whistled casually. “Even if I did know, you think I’d hand ’em over before the chorus drops?”

Tadpole’s hand trembled. “You’re trying my peace.”

“Better than trying your cooking.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“—which I’m sure is lovely, for the record,” Soule added quickly.

Scene: The Club – Aftermath

Gilashot crouched by the charred remains of the DJ booth, scanning with a modified ocular lens.

“Residual voltage discharge. Same signature as the glove,” she muttered.

Dustwalker examined the crushed metal plates. “And here—marine GEAR impact patterns. Salt Choir.”

Kairos and Luma emerged from the alley smoke, disdain obvious.

“You track chaos,” Kairos said, “but you never seem to stop it.”

Dustwalker didn’t even glance at him. “We’re not cleaners. We’re hunters.”

Luma kicked a broken speaker. “And your prey’s already vanished.”

Gilashot stood. “They took the loud one. Soule. Left the club in pieces.”

Kairos picked up a shard of coral-thread wire. “Then we follow the tide.”

Scene: Mandark’s Lab

Martinaz stitched Wavi’s shoulder with auto-thread, muttering numbers under her breath.

“You should have passed out from this wound. Body is inefficient.”

“I’m inefficient?” Wavi grunted.

She blinked. “Comparatively.”

Across the room, Mandark spread Eclipse Hide’s layout across a holographic map.

“Vertical cargo drop. We enter during a GEAR swap-out cycle. They recalibrate their synth-net mid-shift. That’s our hole.”

He tapped a glowing node labeled Sub-Level 7.

“That’s where Zugun’s data logs are. Where he could be. Everything.”

Wavi stood, fists clenched. “And what about Soule?”

Mandark met his eyes. “It’s all one ripple, hermano. They just don’t know the wave’s coming.”

He pressed a key. A false trade signal pinged out—a decoy location.

“Wayfarers will come for the crates. And while they swim, you two—” he gestured to Wavi and Cuh “—go rescue the current’s heart.”

Scene: The Salt Choir Vessel – Nightfall

Tadpole knelt in meditation, her body floating just above the chamber floor, bioluminescence trailing from her skin like drifting memory.

Outside the hull, shadows moved.

Cuh and Wavi surfaced silently, cutting through the kelp perimeter like ghosts. Their suits—stealth-stitched by Martinaz—mimicked cuttlefish pulse patterns.

One guard turned—Cuh struck, silent and swift. The body fell with a dull splash.

Wavi ghosted into the inner corridor.

Soule’s voice echoed faintly.

“Y’all gonna keep the restraints, or are we gonna do a trust exercise?”

Wavi smashed through the coral latch. “That’s your idea of a distress signal?”

“Timing’s perfect,” Soule grinned. “We got company?”

Footsteps. Screams.

Urchin guards rushed in, but Cuh intercepted, using his shark-vest’s impact wave to scatter them like driftwood.

A robed figure stepped into view—Elder Kho, one of Tadpole’s oldest advisors, his head wrapped in ceremonial coral and his gear glowing with a soft, dangerous pulse.

“You will not leave with the firebrand,” he intoned.

Wavi didn’t pause. “Wrong tide.”

He struck. Mantis knuckleduster met ancient armor—and won. The elder dropped, gasping.

Wavi leaned in, voice low:

“Tell her where we’re going to Eclipse Hide. And this was personal.”

Cuh and Soule pulled back. The alarms lit in sickly blue as Tadpole’s eyes snapped open mid-float.

She screamed.

The ocean answered.

Scene: The Whale Song – Moments Later

The Wayfarers hovered beside Tadpole.

“The crates were empty,” Barracuda Lancer said, teeth clenched.

Tadpole stared ahead, fire in her veins.

“They took him. They broke the wave. And now…”

She turned, eyes glowing like storms.

“Now we drown them all.”