“Whipping winds… Cover your ears.” Crackle warned. Between Enoki’s legs ze could feel what must have been the goat body lungs filling with air. Ze turned back from the sight of the loctors to see Crackle taking a breath so deep Enoki was finding it hard to breathe. 

With the mirror in hand, ze simply made hir ears disappear. Just in time as the words themselves vibrated through Enoki’s body. It was worse than being next to the speakers in a techno rave. 

“Four off starboard bow!” Every sailor froze as the words rang above any wind spells or booming cannons. 

Enoki returned hir ears to normal in time to hear the captain barking orders to change directions. Some of the mages cast more aggressive spells to startle the creatures. A task that was not proving to be easy. Enoki looked back into the mirror. The creatures became angry as one of the spells missed and hit a salt spike one was resting on. The one next to the spike swam forward, crashing into the slowly weakening magic shield. 

“Can a ship like this outrun those things?”

Crackle shook her head. “I don’t think so. Kraken would know better than me. We may have to try and escape the ship.”

“How much mage tack do we have on board?”

Crackle grinned. “Oh quite a bit. I saw En’mat buy extra by the docks. Something about your crazy plans.”

“She knows me so well.” Enoki put the mirror back in the pack and shoved the pack into Crackle's hands. “Get me near the bow of the ship.”

Crackle leapt through the air, avoiding water and debris with ease. Enoki focused hir mind. This was like playing pretend. When ze was a small child there were many times ze pretended to be a horse or a dog. Now ze just had to be a lobster with tentacles for legs. As she sprouted the needed appendages, Enoki silently ordered Threads to remove most of the clothing into a small cape fluttering behind hir. A marking so the others knew who not to shoot. Ze hoped. In the chaos of noise, Enoki was fairly certain ze heard En’mat’s sigh and Daikon’s laughter. 

Well. It was more like ze felt it. As Enoki opened hir eyes, small blue and gold threads of fire seemed to be lighting things around hir. There was no time to look or think about the threads as Crackle reared up and dumped Enoki straight into the water. Instinctively, Enoki tried to grab the side of the ship as ze took a large breath. The water hit hard and fast. For a moment the salt water burned hir eyes and nose. 

Only for a moment though. Without having to think about it, Enoki's body removed hir nose and adjusted hir eyes and mouth. Gills that could handle the water sprouted, allowing for a deep breath of relief. Without the immediate fear of drowning, Enoki forced the issue of copying what ze saw. The originally murky water was more clear now. The new senses were able to create an image of the loctors. The bird-like beak. The fanned blue green tails. The small pink and clear orbs on the underbelly.

Wait. Orbs?

Before Enoki could think about it more, the still larger loctor, the one that had been wailing on the ship the hardest, grabbed Enoki with its tentacles. This one didn’t have the orbs. Something was bothering Enoki from an early childhood memory. It was hard to focus as ze was raised out of the water. The breath of fresh air stung hir lungs. The rapid change was not something ze was prepared for. What was more interesting was Enoki could taste the magic in the air. As ze looked at the sky, Enoki could see orange strands coming down, surrounded with Daikon’s laughter. It was as if the literal sound of the laughter was dripping up the threads and gathering at the top. Churning into lighting, threatening to hit hir instead of the original targets. 

Enoki looked at the monster, not sure if it knew what it was doing or not, and lunged hir recently formed lobster claws at the retraining tentacles. With a screech its colors rapidly shifted and one tentacle fell away. Without hesitation, Enoki slashed at another tentacle, this time getting it in a tight grip, and closed the claws as tight as ze could. It screeched as the piece came off and fell into the water, its blue blood falling with Enoki into the pink water below.

The other three loctors turned away from the ship, now more interested in the fight against the smallest of them. One with the orbs went onto a nearby spike, separate from the largest who hadn’t moved from its perch. Enoki was glad that one of them was backing up. Now the second smallest of the quad swam over, trying to wrap and crush Enoki’s shell. Any cracks were quickly reformed. Enoki knew ze wouldn’t be able to keep this up for long. With so much energy tied into healing hirself, Enoki couldn’t do the second part of the plan which was to become bigger than the others. 

Tumbling through the water, Enoki wrapped hir tentacles around the creature. It felt cruel trying to crush it like this. But this one was fighting hard for something. If ze could just have something to help. Anything.

And help came in the form of harpoons. The second smallest loctor suddenly let go, screaming under the water. Enoki looked to see Kraken and Noodles both swimming to attack. Kraken swam with speed Enoki thought was reserved for superheroes. Noodles, meanwhile, was swimming like they were bounding on land. Noodles true mouth opened and bit through the armor with ease, as if it was merely softened butter in a toddlers tight fist.

Enoki slapped the loctor away before turning to the first one, who had recovered from its tentacle being sliced off and was swimming back to the ship. 

*Oh no you don’t.* Enoki swam after it, causing Noodles to tumble through the water as ze whipped out the tentacles and grabbed the sweet fairnott. Ze focused on trying to get as big as ze could, feeling like water was being sucked inside to help make up for the size. Feeling more like a waterballoon than a monster, Enoki managed to wrap hirself around its claws and begin to crush them. Enoki didn’t want to kill the beast. But there wasn’t much of a choice if it was going to insist on attacking the ship. 

As ze tightend the grip, there was a strange smell in the water. Enoki looked at the ship. Some of the crystals looked and smelled different. Salt crystals were on the bottom like barnacles on the ships back home. Just like at the docks, some had little fish or debris trapped inside them. In this form none of those mattered much to hir. But there was one that smelled important. That was behind the shielding and in the same place that most of the attacks had been focused on. 

The largest loctor dove into the water, dropping some of the orbs from before on the salt spike. The pink and clear orbs.

Orbs that were on the underbelly of something that looked like a lobster.

More of those orbs were falling off and quickly being encased in the salt. Almost disappearing within it. And that salt had the same smell.

As the loctor stopped struggling, the realization hit Enoki hard. Ze let go of the now dead loctor. The largest one swam to Enoki, hovering around hir and dropping more of the orbs.

Wait. Not orbs. 

Eggs. 

These were all eggs and the salt spikes were their nests. Meaning…

*Sorry Ma’am. I like Daikon more than you and I told him he had to wait.” Enoki quickly pushed away from the loctor and swam under the ship. The small pull caused the dead loctor to tumble and get stuck to the bottom of the ship. Enoki focused on swimming upwards as fast as ze could and leaping out of the water. The mages hadn’t put on the shielding on the other side of the ship, allowing Enoki to fall down towards the deck, rapidly shrinking down and getting back to a humanish form, water squeezing out as ze did so.

As Threads quickly made a basic robe, En’mat ran over. “Enoki, what happened?”

Ze tried to speak, coughing out excess water as ze did. “Eggs. It’s their nest.”

“Where?” En’mat looked back to the sight of the confused loctors. They were trying to understand where the winner of the mate fight had gone. “I can mark them.”

“The eggs are inside salt crystals. I think some are stuck to the side of the ship.” Enoki ran over to the side, pointing at the former resting place. “That one definitely has some though.”

En’mat nodded, looking at it. “If I had the gods help I could mark all of them.” Her ears dropped. 

“En’mat. Let me help.” Enoki put hir hand on En’mat’s, interlacing their fingers. The spot where McStabby normally rested felt slightly warm against En’mat’s cool palm. “We don’t have to use the gods right?”

“You’re low on energy yourself.” She replied.

Crackle landed in front of them. “You don’t need as much if the mirror can show you right?” She pulled out the mirror sticking out of the pack. “If I hold the mirror so you can both see, will that be enough?”

The ship rocked as the now angry female thrashed at the ship with her claws. Enoki barely avoided face planting as En’mat caught herself on Crackle’s steady arm. 

“It’ll have to be.” Enoki said, turning around so hir back was to the starboard bow. “Come on En’mat. The gods can’t hear you but I can.”