This is a Side Story chapter for Operation: COSMIC, starring Sector L and featuring Wavetale as a crossover!
Some time ago people had discovered species of monsters that had existed for years, even with the theory or possibility-
WHAT?! No, I'm not talking about that dead Undertale fanon, I'm talking about the oceanic platforming game! I was afraid the titles were too similar…
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Kids Next Door mission…
Operation:
W.A.V.E.T.A.L.E.
Wavebound
Ally
Vows
Enemy
Terrorists'
Abolishment
Liberating
Energies
Loading transmission…
Five days after the dawn of the new year, the Kids Next Door were called to fight in an intergalactic war with the Vil Galaxy Empire. Sector L chose Aquaria as their assignment; the water-type sector never visited the oceanic world, so they saw it as a great opportunity. "But I kind of thought we'd get attacked by anglerfish AFTER reaching the atmosphere!" shouted Nora Asahina.
Sector L piloted the H.E.R.M.A.N., a hermit crablike craft, and fled from a squadron of angler-like ships. They were driven by Piscsiss Volanns, man-sized fish of black and light-green scales. The insides of their ships were flooded for them to swim, steering them with motion controls. One by one, the Volanns lunged at the H.E.R.M.A.N. and sank the ships' fangs into it. The shell was strong enough to resist each bite, but Mack Strongarm could see the shield's energy depleting. Massimo Scorfano controlled the H.E.R.M.A.N.'s right claw to reach up and clench an anglership, crushing its neck. "Eat that!" Massimo taunted, releasing the angler as it steered into a crash. Formerly an Oceana operative, Massimo was a tall Italian boy with curly red hair, a big round nose, and large teeth with two gaps.
Madeleine, a 5-year-old Mermage with black hair and a pink-gold tailfin, stuck her Seacorn Staff into a slot to transmit Fire Spells through the shell's tip. She managed to shoot one Volann down and injure the other, but a third ambushed and snapped the tip off with its jaw. "Honestly, don't you guys know anything about space combat?!" Mack panicked, focusing laser fire on two evasive Volanns.
"Of course we don't, we thought we'd be fighting on the sea, ribbit!" argued Lulu, a frog girl with puffed, freckled cheeks, dark-green hair in a large knot, and a yellow karate robe.
"Well, you can at least do this: shoot your tongue out on my cue." Mack whirled the ship around with sudden force, "NOW!"
Lulu slammed a button that shot a tether out of the H.E.R.M.A.N.'s front, piercing an anglership in the throat and electrifying it. "That got 'im! AH!" The ship rattled as two anglers bit them.
"They got our engines!" exclaimed Erin Horvitz, the Sector Leader defined by big blue square glasses, brown hair in a ponytail, and buckteeth. "I'll try to boost us free!" She stomped the gas and flared the engines up!
Inevitably, the Volanns crunched through them like coral. "MAYDAY! WE'RE GOING DOWN!" Mack screamed.
"At least we're close to the planet!" Nora yelled. "We're going for a splash-landing!"
"Wait… that isn't the planet!"
…
Sigrid hadn't had many catches today. The black fog continued to creep over the sea and their Sparklium supplies were running low, ever since those invaders arrived. Most of the fish were being taken by the darkness. Too downtrodden to surf, she merely strolled along the sea solemnly, only sharing her gloom with the shade at her feet. "…?" Hearing a distant whooshing sound, Sigrid saw a ship descending towards the fog. Urgency became her as she swiftly glid along the surface.
The H.E.R.M.A.N. submerged and floated forward a good distance before slowly stopping and resurfacing. Sector L climbed to the roof, surveying the sea of dark fog. "Aquaria's… a little scarier than I thought." Lulu quivered.
"This isn't Aquaria." Mack said. "That's Aquaria." He pointed at the great blue planet looming beyond the thin, circling clouds in the murky sky.
"Then… what's this?"
"We're on Aquaria's moon."
"MOON?!" Erin grabbed her throat. "…Wait, I can still breathe."
"It must have its own ozone, judging by the clouds. Lucky us, huh?"
"Shouldn't moons have, like, craters or something?" Nora asked.
"Some moons essentially look like small planets. Let's just get the ship fixed; I have the materials to build a new engine. Massimo, care to help take apart the broken one?"
"Aye-aye, Capitano!" The Italian took a wrench and dove backward in the water, morphing into his Fishman form, with cyan skin, wavy red hair, and a tail. He got to work in taking apart the engine… when a black mass grabbed his tail. "AAAH!" He whipped out his Spear of Silenzio, a conch-headed spear that would shoot out via a spring and twist into the black mass. He managed to shake free and resurface, scrambling onto the ship. "Guys, there's something down there! It…uh…"
His teammates were looking at their own monstrosities: large, four-legged spiders that seemed to be made from the black fog. One stretched its leg to latch the H.E.R.M.A.N., but Nora Water Sliced it off. The other spiders latched it and shot globs of their substance. Nora, Madeleine, Erin, and Lulu divided to fight them. Nora swam about underwater to confuse her target. She got directly below and shot straight up in a cyclone, drilling through the head of the spider. Erin rode a Bubble Board under a spider and blew a strong Bubble Beam to splatter its head. Madeleine cast Fire Spells over the next spider, but it stayed strong and swat her away with its leg. Madeleine was slowly enveloped by a glob of it as a consequence. The same fate befell Lulu in her attempts to karate kick a spider.
"Okay, this isn't working!" Mack panicked as he shot a rifle at a mass of blobs trying to climb the H.E.R.M.A.N. from the sea, Massimo assisting him. "They just reform! We need a way to put them down for good!"
"Do you have anything that shoots electricity?!" a girl's voice called. "You need electricity to beat them!"
"Oh!" Mack hurriedly grabbed his T.E.S.L.A., a wide gun with three claws around it. "Wait, who said…"
A girl came surfing on nothing but her own feet! She had aquamarine hair in an upward ponytail, a white top over a brown shirt with thick brown cargo shorts, a satchel, orange worker's gloves, a large communicator above her right ear, and a gold clamshell necklace. She was tall and lanky, and as she closed in on Lulu's spider, she flew into the air and struck it with an electric net! She thrashed it with a swift combo before the spider dispersed, freeing Lulu along with an orange sparkly jellyfish. "Ribbit?!"
"Whoa!" Massimo gaped.
Mack fired small, homing electric spheres from the T.E.S.L.A. to destroy the creatures around their ship, afterwards targeting Erin's spider. Nora was slicing up her reforming spider, but the surfing girl would come to finish it off. Nora was left awestruck as she landed back on the surface and surfed to take out the next spider. Madeleine would then finish off her own spider with a Jelly Zap spell, projecting magical jellyfish tentacles to electrocute it!
The seven kids regrouped on the H.E.R.M.A.N.. "Wow, thanks a lot, Miss!" Erin beamed.
"Yo, what is this thing?" Massimo held up the end of her hoop-shaped staff.
"A Spark Net." She pulled it back to switch it on. "I use it to catch Sparklium and fight the Gloom."
"Gloom? This black stuff?" Erin asked.
"Yeah. Let's go to my island before I tell you about it, it's not safe out here."
"But we gotta fix the ship!" Mack insisted.
"Mack, the fog's getting closer…" Madeleine said worriedly. "Can we get the ship back later? Or at least find another one?"
"Y-Yeah… sure we can." The girl replied.
"You don't sound sure of yourself." Mack said.
"We just need to find Sparklium. Do you guys have boats or something?"
"We can just swim!" Nora fist-pumped. "Let's go! I don't wanna get gloomed!" (Play "Oceans" from Wavetale!)
Their new friend leapt onto the sea and glid along it. Erin rode Nora as she swam after her with equal speed, Lulu rode Massimo, while Mack pedaled the flying bike he got for Christmas and treaded over the surface. They cut cleanly through a gap in the fog as the sea became wider and the sky brighter with a peach-colored sunset. "My name's Sigrid, by the way!"
"Hi, Sigrid! I'm Erin!"
"Nora the Destroya! Just kidding. Nora's fine!"
"She destroyed my kidney, that's for sure. I'm Mack!"
"Massimo!"
"I'm Madeleine!"
"And I'm Lulu, ribbit!"
"We're Sector L from Earth's KND! We came to help with the Vilgaxian invasion."
"It's about time. Those guys have been stealing our Sparklium."
"You mean the stuff you said we needed?" Mack inquired.
"Well… that's kind of the thing."
An archipelago was coming into view. Sigrid led them to an island with a clock tower, Ferris wheel, and lighthouse, though all were divided by the sea. "Welcome to Strandville!"
"What an ironically fitting name." Mack remarked.
The group slowed as they climbed on the small beach. "Your waterbending's incredible, Siggy!" Nora praised. "You slide on the water like a bar of soap! I can barely even walk on it!" She tried to do so, aiming her hands to focus chi and "harden" the water as she walked on it. It shouldn't be much different from using basic water attacks, she figured, but the liquid gave way and forced her to submerge. "Ugh! I wanna run across water like a ninja!"
"Instead, she slips on the bar of soap." Mack smirked, Massimo and Madeleine snickering.
"There's probably a spell that can help you do that." Madeleine said.
"That wouldn't be the same! How do you do it, Siggy?!"
Sigrid laughed. "It might be because I'm not waterbending. Take a closer look." She pointed at her feet.
The operatives knelt and observed. Sigrid's wavy-haired shadow seemed to be cast strongly. …The shadow waved. "IT MOVED!" Nora gasped, the others sharing her reaction.
"You're a shadowbender!" Mack exclaimed.
"Bingo." Siggy said, her shade thumbing up.
"Wow…" Massimo already liked her weapon, but this girl got cooler by the minute.
"Shrimpy! There you are! Why'd you run off on me like that?!" an elderly voice shouted.
A portly old woman approached them. She had yellow glasses, a brownish-red sweater with white zigzaggy stripes, an open brown vest, and black pants and shoes. "I saw these kids crash-land in their ship, Granny. I had to come help them."
"Hrmmm…well, I didn't have dinner ready for this many guests."
"We packed our own food, don't worry." Mack smiled.
"Not a polite bunch, I see."
"Hehe, we're sorry." Erin blushed. "It's nice to meet you, Siggy's Granny."
"Call me Mrs. Skagerak."
"We almost got eaten by black goo spiders!" Lulu shuddered. "What is all this stuff?"
"Gloom. It's a plague that has cursed this moon for eons. It's the job of our people to pacify it, or it will fester and rain down on Aquaria. We harness the chi of Sparklium and power Sparkcasters to do this, but lately, those blasted aliens have been taking our Sparklium… and even some samples of gloom. Just what are they planning?"
"We'll get the Sparklium back for you!" Erin declared.
"Yeah!" Lulu hopped. "We'll give those invaders the old 'Bang! Zoom!'" She punched and kicked the air. "'Straight to the moon!' Except in reverse!"
"Heh heh. At least they got spunk, eh, Granny?"
"Harumph. Well, why don't you help scrounge some Sparklium up around here? You'll need it to clear a way through the fog."
"Shouldn't be a problem." Mack said. "What's Sparklium look like?"
"Jellyfish out of water." Sigrid answered. "They're blue and orange. They tend to get up to high places."
"Then let's get climbing!" Erin cheered.
"I call the Ferris wheel! Come on, Erin!" Nora carried her leader to the Ferris, but it seemed inactive. And worse, there were globs of gloom on several cars. Erin used Bubble Bouncing to climb a "stairway" of open cars. From there, she could Bubble Board toward the center of the wheel, then to an available car across from it. As she climbed the ones above that, she found small orange Sparkliums under the seats, capping it off with a large blue one on top!
Massimo followed Sigrid to the clock tower. The clock itself was large with several platforms leading up it. "I don't see a ladder or anything."
"We don't need one." Sigrid smirked. "See those electric ledges?"
"Yeah?"
"Watch." She cast her net as its electricity linked to the ledge and pulled her straight up.
"Whoa!" Massimo dove under and jumped out, shot his spearhead, and latched the ledge to pull up. But by the time he made it, Sigrid was already several platforms up, making high leaps after each reel and collecting the Sparklium along the way. Massimo hastened to catch up, but Sigrid would simply leap back down to him. "Heh heh…and I thought Nora was fast! Is it 'cause we're on a moon you have, like, low gravity? Actually, I think I am jumping a little higher than—ow!" He jumped and bumped his head on an upper platform.
"Heh heh! Low gravity or not, it takes getting used to. I'm just good at my art. If you want, I could add a little Sparklium to that weapon. It'll help with getting around here, that's for sure!"
"Heh, well, I don't just let anyone modify my weapons. Except for Mack, but he's my buddy. Y-You can be my buddy, too, if you want, it's just like, um…"
"Heh heh heh! Okay then, buddy." She left him with a humored, but perplexed smirk.
"…" His awkward smile receding to a frown, Massimo scratched his head. "What happened to me just now?"
Lulu tongue-grappled her way up several posts sticking from the lighthouse. "Oh, Sparklium, where are y—HUH?!" A trio of Volanns were there, one lifting a net of Sparklium onto his back. They gasped seeing Lulu and flew away with propeller antennae! "GET BACK HERE!" Lulu hopped and flew at the first Volann with a Homing Kick! She bounced off, repeated the tactic with the second, followed by the third as she kicked the pack right off him. "LOOK OUT BELOW!"
Mack gasped, seeing the incoming net. He threw a hacky sack down as it inflated like a beanbag chair, safely catching the net. The three Volanns flew down and shot rifles, but Mack countered with the T.E.S.L.A.. Sigrid fiercely ran up and bashed the anglerfish, Massimo aiding with jabs of his spear. Nora then KO'ed them with a definitive kick combo.
"Oceans!" Mrs. Skagerak gasped. "Those aren't the fish I wanted for dinner!"
"So, these are… the Vilgaxians?" Sigrid wondered.
"I heard the empire has a lot of species in their ranks." Mack said. "This is probably one."
"If the gloom doesn't get to everyone, these monsters will." The granny replied. "Shrimpy, hurry and get that Sparklium in the Sparkcaster. Aim it in the direction of Candle Hill. We got a distress call from them hours ago."
"You got it, Granny!"
The Sparkcaster was an orange and black cannon situated on the lighthouse. Sigrid aimed it at a wall of black fog and fired a sparkling beam, penetrating a canyon through the fog. "We still have some left. Wanna fix your weapon up, Massimo?"
"Yeah!"
"I have an idea of my own." Mack stroked his chin. "Erin, I think you'll like it. Then again, what's not to like about my inventions?"
"Hehe!"
While Sigrid, Massimo, and Mack got to work inside the former's workshop, the others had a casual look around. Massimo worked with Sigrid at her desk to help take apart his spear, watching as she attached the Sparklium inside. "So, you make this yourself?"
"Well, eh, this is a new one that Mack sorta made. But I did make my own. Not that much of a tech guy though, just an adventurer."
"Yeah, you do seem the type."
"Heh, takes one to know one, right? I bet you like to travel. You get around pretty fast with that shadow."
"I mean… not necessarily. I guess I thought about it, occasionally, but I have too many memories here."
"Eh, it's a nice place, for sure." Massimo shrugged. "I mean, the gloom isn't really nice, but… at least there's air. That's better than Earth's moon."
"I… guess so?" she cocked a brow at him quizzically.
"Heh, heheh…eh." Massimo blushed and looked away. …Lulu was looking at him. Her smirk touched her puffed frog cheeks. He cast a glare that asked, 'What're you looking at?' But he looked around for something to change the subject, and saw Erin studying a photo. "Ahem, Erin, what's that?"
"Huh?!" she started. "I was just looking at this picture. Is this you as a baby, Sigrid?" It depicted an aquamarine-haired woman holding a similar-haired baby.
"Oh yeah." She smiled. "That's my mom."
"Is she a shadowbender, too?"
"She…she was." Her voice dropped. "She died when I was six."
"Oh…I'm sorry."
"S'okay. You know what they say… your parents are always with you in some way." She looked down and shared a smile with her shadow.
The friends smiled at the notion… though Erin and Mack shirked a bit in guilt. They didn't have as pleasant things to say about their mothers.
"Welp, it's done." The Silenzio Spear's head now had a yellow-blue shine within the rims of its spirals. Massimo twirled and shot it forward, awed by its sparkly jolt at the tip!
Mack, meanwhile, crafted tiny zap bombs contained in a bottle, followed by a modification to Erin's Bubble Trident designed to fit the bubble. "With this attached to your trident, you can blow out Zap Bubbles! These tiny shock bombs will be inside your bubbles when you blow them out. When they pop, they go off for some electric damage!"
"Awesome!"
"If you're done tinkering, get your bums over to Candle Hill!" Granny demanded.
"Sparks, Granny, we're on it." Sigrid huffed.
"Huh…don't the Mirans use 'sparks' as an interjection?" Mack recalled.
"Mirans? Oh, right." Granny said. "A few handsome young men from Mira visited us about 19 years ago. One of them wanted to go salvaging in our waters, and he didn't let no gloom scare him away. I remember he got attached to our 'sparks' expression… and you make it sound like he popularized it."
"SO, THE MIRANS COPIED FROM YOU?!"
"We must get home to expose this conspiracy!" Nora shouted. "But first, to Candle Land! Lead the way, Siggy!"
"You bet." Sigrid turned, squat, and let her shadow whisk her across the sea! The operatives followed with Erin on Nora and Lulu on Massimo again.
What looked like streetlight poles lined the canyon, electric grapple points hanging from them. "Massimo, wanna try to put that toy of yours to the test?" Sigrid jumped, lassoed her Spark Net at the first point, and was pulled to it in nearly an instant as she flew to the next one!
"Hang on, Lulu!" Massimo dove underwater, launched out, and shot his spearhead toward the point. "WHOA!" They were pulled up before they could realize, flipping across the air toward the next point.
"I got it!" Lulu shot her tongue to snag the arch of the pole. They swung underneath and flew to the next, but after that, they saw Sigrid hook her net toward some sort of red slide, with curves and up-and-down points. There was an energy ring at the start designed for their Sparklium to grapple, the resulting momentum providing a fast passage along the slide. "Haha! WHEEEE!" Lulu jumped off Massimo to enjoy it herself.
"Whoa-hoooo!" It was thankfully slippery enough for Massimo to slide on his finned feet. "This is cooooool!"
"Try to keep up!" Sigrid flew off the end of the slide and grappled the next one. Massimo and Lulu jumped after, the Fishman leaning forward in the hopes of catching up. His gaze was set on Sigrid's back, and she would glance behind and pass him a playful, rivalrous smirk in turn.
"Erin, let's go up there, too!" Nora cyclone them up onto the slide. "Ya-haaaaa!" She belly-slid while Erin continued riding her.
"Hey, Madeleine, let's check it out, too!" Mack offered. The mermaid giggled and leapt into his bike's basket. Mack flew it up and rode along the slides!
They reached the next area of the ocean quickly thanks to the fun contraptions! "There's Candle Hill!" They were a series of towering, white smokestacks with embers burning at the top, bringing light to the coming night.
"Feels a lot less magical and eco-friendly than I expected." Mack remarked.
"Wait. Someone's trapped there." Sigrid stopped them, noticing the glob of gloom with a surfboard sticking out of it. She surfed to whack and destroy it.
"WHUH!" A girl jumped to life and fell off her yellow board. She had white hair under a purple hood-wrap, white shirt under a light-blue jacket, and purple shorts. "Phew! 'Guess I owe you another one, Ziggy-zag!"
"Ziggy-zag?" Massimo snickered.
"Guys, this is Asta. She's our local pro surfer."
"Not as pro as you! Is this your new posse or somethin'?"
"Just some new friends helping out with the alien situation."
"Well, ya better get movin'! I think the pirates ran into trouble earlier."
"There are pirates here, too?" Lulu asked.
"Don't worry, they're the best." Sigrid smiled.
"Say, before you go, think you can get a good wave for me going?" Asta asked.
"One wave coming up!" Nora used her bending to raise Asta on a great wave.
"WOOHOOOOO!" She clenched the side of her board with all ten toes and proved herself the master!
The path to the candles was impeded by the large gloom spiders. Sigrid gave one an aerial thrashing while Massimo rammed his sparkling spear through another. Erin tested her new Zap Bubbles on the third spider and popped it into oblivion.
The operatives surfed on the shore of Candle Hill's island. The houses looked like classic red barns with white boards. Fittingly, Gloom Bulls charged out of the barns, but Madeleine casted spells to make red bushels of coral grow, distracting the bulls and getting them stuck. The kids destroyed them and freed more samples of Sparklium. "Let's go up here!" Sigrid would be first to grapple up one of the island's primary smokestacks, Massimo hastening to catch up.
"You know, it's rude to go ahead of the leader, Massimo!" Nora shouted.
"Hehe, it's okay. He's having a lot of fun!"
The smokestack had grapple lifts that the two would have to ride up and latch to the others. On the way up, there were Puffer Glooms with spikes jutting out, so they swung left or right to avoid them. Two Volanns were up here shoving Sparklium into a wire net, but the two climbers gave them a swift beating. Along with saving the Sparklium, they destroyed two gloom globs and freed two children. "WAH!"
"Peter!" Sigrid exclaimed. "Jonatan?!"
"Sigrid!" Jonatan beamed. He was a boy in a milky-striped shirt and white overall-shorts. His light-brown hair stuck out in front, but was shaved at the sides.
"Hah, I knew you'd save us!" Peter cheered. He had green hair, tan skin, a white shirt, and light-blue overalls with the right strap hanging off. Like Jonatan, he was shoeless. "Who's your new friend?"
"This is Massimo. And… there's the rest of them!" The other L ops made the climb. "Guys, these are Jonatan and Peter. Peter's the Hill Pirates' cabin boy. Jonatan's an apprentice mechanic from the Sleepy Triplets."
"I came here on a Sparklium delivery, but we ran into trouble…"
"Those fish monsters are luring in Sparklium with a floating machine!" Peter pointed beyond the smokestacks. "They captured our ship and they're hanging it from it! We climbed up here to try and make the jump to it, but the gloom got us."
"Let us take it from here. This is too dangerous for you."
"What are these things, anyway?" The boys looked down at the KO'ed Volanns.
"Actually, let me look them up in the database." Mack said. "I'm sure they're listed somewhere."
"Who needs that, let's call them Ripjaws!" Massimo decided.
"Yeah! They look like Ripjaws!" Jonatan agreed.
"Definitely!" Nora followed.
"Then we might as well call Lulu Latchtongue." Mack said.
"Yeah, but that isn't nearly as good as Ripjaws!" Lulu argued.
"Whatever."
From here on, Volanns will be referred to as Ripjaws.
"I have an idea how we can use those candles to reach that machine." Erin said. "If we could pour water down and turn them to steam, I could make bubbles for us to float in them!"
"Then I just need to grab some water from down below!" Nora said.
"This should help!" Madeleine enchanted her with a charm to increase her bending range, allowing Nora to bend up some seawater from this great height. She molded it into a ball and chucked it into the first chimney, converting it to steam. Erin then encased each of them in large bubbles while Madeleine used a wind spell to blow them, the chimney's steam elevating the bubbles. Nora bent more water from below to repeat the process with the following chimneys.
"And I thought she was cool." Peter said in admiration. "Her new friends are amazing!"
"You think we'll ever be as good as them?" Jonatan asked.
"Sure we will! Just wait!"
Their Bubblevator ride concluded at the Sparklurer's perimeter balcony. Sparklium was lured into the glowing orb at the top while the Hill Pirates' spiky bronze ship hung beneath. Hordes of Ripjaws attached devices to their anglers and swung shockballs, but this would backfire as Sigrid caught them in her net and swung them back, but it didn't seem to penetrate their rubber suits. "Yeah, figures they would have protection from their own element." Mack said.
"Then I'll have to strip them first!" Nora slashed Water Slices to rip the rubber apart. She stripped three and let them vulnerable to Sigrid and Massimo's weapons. The Ripjaws gnashed at the two, barely missing them by the ankles, and in their distraction, sniped them with Zap Bubbles. Lulu tongued the orbs on their anglers and spat them off the platform; one of the Ripjaws grabbed her tongue and tried to bite it, but Nora's foot struck it from beneath and bent the jaw upward.
Mack broke into the machine's control station, shooting and ricocheting his Mecha Gauntlets between the Ripjaws inside while dodging their laser rifles. An auto-targeting rifle rose from his Mackpack to assist, standing his ground against the four aliens until he could destroy their controls.
The Sparklurer exploded into a beautiful wave of Sparklium, their eyes glistening in wonder. They heard the Hills' ship detach and splash in the ocean. "Let's see who can grab the most on the way down!" Sigrid declared.
"YEAH!" Massimo cheered. The friends all jumped off from different sides. Sigrid spun on the way down to net a bunch of Sparks in her net. Erin blew a bunch of bubbles to catch several of the little jellyfish while Nora swung a pair of big Water Hands to catch them. Mack tried to bundle some in his gauntlets while Lulu roped them in her tongue… and got some electrifying indigestion.
They all splashed in the ocean and were rejoined by Madeleine, who swam from the island. Sigrid proceeded to take all their Sparklium. "See, it's harder to hold onto without a net, isn't it?"
"Haha, you got us there!" Massimo laughed.
"Now, let's help the pirates." They climbed on the back deck of the small ship and saw through the window. Admiral Peppie and Little Cassius were tied up. Sigrid slipped in from the hatch on top to free them.
"I don't know how to thank you, Sigrid." Peppie smiled. He was shorter than Sigrid with light-red hair, a green helmet and shoulder piece, and black shirt. "You're a brighter candle than all of us!"
"Don't mention it, Peps."
"We were just installing a new Sparkcaster on our bow before those monsters came." Cassius said. He was a large, tan-skinned man with an orange bandanna, brown beard with white stripes, yellow shirt, and light-blue gloves. "But it looks like you rounded up enough Sparks to get it running!"
"We'll be able to penetrate the fog with ease!" Peppie cheered.
"Great! In that case, there's somewhere I'd like to check on. I've been worried ever since those invaders came…"
"I know exactly what you mean. We'll go there posthaste!"
"You mean our H.E.R.M.A.N.?" Mack asked. "Are we going to get our ship back?!"
"Uh, we'll… get that later." Sigrid smiled sheepishly. "I really wanna show you guys this place first."
The pirates charted a course through a wall of gloom, firing the bow cannon to pierce a canyon through. "Before I was born…" Sigrid began, "Strandville used to have forests and farmlands. There were all kinds of fruits and the seas were much more open. That was when most of the gloom was buried underground. But then the Irkens came. They cut a deal with the government and began excavating the Weaverock beneath the surface. They said it could be a great energy source. But it was also what was keeping the gloom buried. They tore up the moon so much that the gloom overflowed. Nearly all the plants and farms died out. We had to make do with going to the planet to gather our goods there."
"Oh, my…" Erin said.
"Granny says the moon used to be pretty to see from the planet. But when I went down there myself, it just looked… gloomy."
"You're really working hard to take care of it, huh?" Massimo could tell this much from her somber voice.
"It's what Mom would've wanted. And it's thanks to her, and a few certain friends… we have this."
As the gloom canyon cleared away, sunlight, a crisp pink sky, and misty yellow clouds shone above them. "The Flowering Archipelago." Islands of lush red rock, on which rested blankets of grass and flowers. Some had apple trees, banana and coconut palm trees, bushes of oranges…
The boat stopped near a shore as the kids set foot on its vibrant island. Paved stone stairs carried them up a few layers to taste the growing apples and berries, but afterwards, they had to jump natural ledges to admire the red, blue, and sakura-colored plant life. "I'm sure where you're from, this stuff appears everywhere." Sigrid reached to pick an apple down, shiny enough to see her reflection. "You can find lots of bananas and coconuts on Aquaria, too. But to us… it's a rarity."
Her new friends were in awe overviewing the islands. She was right… They had always taken fruits, veggies, even the average plant life for granted. They hadn't even fathomed the fact that Strandville was made of artificial constructs on small, dead islands. Most of them were too used to living in urban towns. They barely questioned where their food came from, never been anywhere as lush as this. "Your… mom did all this?" Massimo asked.
"Well, she wasn't responsible for this part… but she did make this." She opened her clamshell necklace. A purple seed was inside. "Nightweaver. This is just a sample I'm safekeeping, but we have it planted around the islands. My mom created it with traces of Sparklium, so it ties the gloom down. I'm hoping, someday, we can have it all over the moon."
"I hope you can." Erin smiled. "Then we can all see how Strandville looks from the planet!"
"Heh heh! Thanks."
Massimo only gazed at her, silently. She was talented and passionate… Now more than ever, he wanted to save her home. Why did he feel this way? It shouldn't be different from any other mission, so why…
Lulu glimpsed at the look he was making and smirked. "HEY, Siggy!" She broke the silence. "Are there tomatoes here, too?"
"W-Why?"
"Because tomatoes are Massimo's favorite fruit!"
"Che cosa?!" Massimo flinched. "No they aren't! What makes you think that?"
"Because your nose is a tomato!"
"HUH?!"
"Wow, it does kinda look like one." Sigrid smirked, poking his round, reddish nose.
"HOHNK!" The feeling made him flush. "Hey, it's sensitive! You're gonna make me bleed!"
"Well, she brought it up and I couldn't resist."
"Don't we have a job to do? We still got alien fish to fry!"
"And a H.E.R.M.A.N. to find!" Mack reminded.
"Heh, I guess you're right. But seriously, thank you a lot for helping me out this much, guys."
"No thanks needed!" Madeleine cheered. "All we need are the friends we make along the way!"
"Rewards would be nice, too." Mack noted.
"Then let's get back to work!" Erin declared. As the friends returned to the boat, Massimo cast a suspicious glare at Lulu.
"Just giving you some nudges." The froggy winked. "Ribbit!" And she hopped along.