It was almost a ritual, at this point, for Marisol to descend to the lower end of the upper city after her daily afternoon training sessions with the Highwind Dolls. The seafood Daniela fed her were very nutritious, but ever since she started eating those sour skyball corals, she’d been craving sugar like never before. She supposed this was what her mama wanted to warn her about—the food selection in the Whirlpool City was addicting.

  Sharp at six in the evening.

  One week after the extermination of the Mutant-Class copepod, and just two days after she’d woken up from her five-day-long coma in the Highwind Inn. Apparently, she and the Imperator siblings had fallen unconscious because of aura poisoning—Rhizocapala’s killing pressure was too overwhelming strong for all of them—which was why she’d been told by Daniela to lay off the points for another week. She needed time to eat veggies, fruits, and other healthy, ‘normal’’ human food products. The point rewards from the Mutant-Class’ carcass would come later.

  That was fine with Marisol.

  She didn’t really feel like eating crustacean meat for a while.

  Marisol jumped off the roof of the inn and skated down to her favourite candy house in the upper city. Owing to the incredibly rich variety of resources that could be harvested down in the whirlpool, there were plenty of shops that served sweets and desserts exclusively, and ‘Paraíso Dulces’ was the one she frequented the most. Tucked away in a relatively quiet alley, the quaint wooden sign painted in swirling letters swayed gently back and forth, golden lantern light spilling through the fogged glass windows. She skated up the little stairs, pushed through the front door, and the ring of a bell told the storekeeper she was here again.

  She smiled when she realised she was the only one here. A few small tables with cushioned chairs sat by the windows, fogged by the light evening drizzle outside, and potted plants dangled from chains on the ceiling. Small lanterns were hung on hooks on the clean white walls. The floor was laid with clean mosaic tiles. She followed the seams and skated between the tiles, throwing herself onto the window seat by the corner of the little store with a pleasant sigh—maybe it was unseemly for her to sprawl out on her stomach across the sofa, but she tired, and the storekeepers had grown used to her. As long as she kept her patronage, they didn’t quite care what she did in their cosy little store.

  And she didn’t even have to look at their menu as she made her order.

  “Miss Suneria! I want three plates of flakey pastelitos with powdered sugar, two plates of caramel-dipped figs, one bowl of glittering gumdrops, and…” she trailed off, turning her head to squint at the storekeeper behind the counter. “What’s new today? Any recommendations for a noisy customer like me?”

  Miss Suneria dipped her head. “Almond turrones in caramel glaze.”

  “I’ll get one plate of that, too!”

  While she rolled back over to plant her face in the sofa, Miss Suneria raced into the back kitchen to whip up her orders. Very soon, there’d be more part-time workers and customers arriving, so she was glad she got here early.

  For the time being, she had the whole store to herself.

  While the Archive prattled on and on about her unhealthy eating habits as of late, the doorbell rang again and someone walked in. She didn’t pull her face out of the cushion she was hugging. She was in the velvet, and it was like her fatigue and all her aches just faded away in the softness—so when she finally heard Miss Suneria coming back out of the kitchen with her trays of sweets, she shot upright and drummed her table in a steady, bouncy beat.

  Her face immediately blanked when she noticed Reina sitting across her table, reading the menu as Miss Suneria served her dishes.

  “... Um,” she said, raising her hand as she glanced at Miss Suneria with a furrowed brow. “There are other empty seats around here. Like, every other seat. Is she—”

  “The window seat is mine,” Reina said plainly, not tearing her eyes from the menu.

  “Miss Reina has been coming here once a week for the past six years,” Miss Suneria said politely, bowing slightly before returning behind the counter. Marisol was tempted to scowl at the Lighthouse Imperator and wave her off, but… the prim and proper lady wasn’t in her uniform this time. Her light and flowing cerulean blue dress was perfect for an evening night out. A dark sash cinched her waist, tying at the back in a giant bow, and her usual ponytail was let loose, just a few wisps falling around her face.

  This wasn’t Lighthouse Imperator Reina. This was casualwear Reina.

  Marisol looked down at herself and frowned. In stark contrast, she was still in her Sand-Dancer’s outfit: her form-fitting black top was cropped to show her midriff with short, flared sleeves that rippled like waves whenever she moved. Her pants were snug at the waist but widened slightly down at the knees where her glaives started. Painted gold and silver strips helped break up the evenness of the black, but it’d be a dull outfit if not for her bright pink scarf and dancer’s cloak around her neck. She really, didn’t look the part in the upper city, but sitting across Reina like this truly brought that point home for the first time.

  she grumbled.

  As she flicked the Archive off her shoulder and reached for her bowl of glittering gumdrops, Reina put her order in with Miss Suneria. Saffron-infused caramels, rose-petal nougats, and almond pralines dusted with cinnamon—the lady had good tastes. Marisol savoured each and every bite of her gumdrops as her whole body tingled, the sugar stabbing into her brain so sickly sweet, and for a few moments, she forgot she was even sitting across the table from a Lighthouse Imperator… but she paused mid-bite just as Reina finished putting in her order, her pasty white bandages unmistakable and unmissable from this distance.

  Like Marisol’s broken right arm that was still in a sling, Reina had three or four whole rolls of bandages running around her neck, down her back, and probably around her entire waist underneath that pretty blue dress.

  Marisol savoured the rest of her sweets and dessert in a low, sombre mood. She’d spent the better part of the past week unconscious, so all she really knew about what hadgone down last week came from Victor’s inconclusive mumblings. She was sure she’d be called in for debriefing soon enough, but she wasn’t ignorant. There was a quiet, teeming tension in the city—like people just knew the endless drizzle was about to be replaced by an endless storm—and all of it was a result of her encountering that Barnacle God.

  The Barnacle God Reina had nearly died protecting her from.

  She couldn’t help it. She sulked a little as she scooped up a chunk of her sugar-powdered pastelitos, putting it to her lips with a heavy heart.

  If she had time and spare room in her stomach to eat sweets like this, she should be filling her stomach with bug meat instead.

  That goal was looking more and more impossible by the day. To think Rhizocapala was but the weakest of the Four Leviathans—just how strong would she have to be if she wanted to get down there and bottle her own vial of healing seawater?

  How long would that actually take her?

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The Archive’s kind words made her next bite of pastelitos a little sweeter.

  Marisol stole a glance at Reina, who was still reading the menu with childlike glee in her eyes even after she’d already put in her order.

  Frankly, Marisol could hardly believe this was the same stern-looking lady who’d put herself between a deadweight and a walking god—and Marisol couldn’t forget what she’d said down there, either.

  The Lighthouse Imperator’s snarling, twisted face of rage in the presence of Rhizocapala wasn’t one anyone could easily forget, she imagined.

  She lost herself peeking at Reina, though, and the lady suddenly looked back at her with a suspicious gaze, making her look away in a panic. She pretended to be engrossed in her pastelitos as she wolfed down the rest of her plate, hoping Reina hadn’t actually noticed she’d been staring.

  But she wasn’t let off that easily, of course.

  Reina tried to go back to reading her menu for a few seconds before sighing softly, closing her eyes, and setting the menu down on the table.

  “... My mother used to be a confectioner, while my father used to be an Imperator,” Reina said, her eyes opening with that sharp, stern look Marisol was more used to. “Victor Morina is not my real uncle. He was simply a good friend with my father, who he used to dive with frequently. That means I am not his real niece, either. I do not know if he has told you otherwise.”

  Marisol blinked, holding her breath for a second, but then she exhaled softly, sat up straight, and looked Reina in the eye. “The old man doesn’t tell me anything about himself,” she muttered. “And you know, I thinking you two don’t look anything alike. Either you’re adopted or he’s adopted, and I ain’t like the image of him having a loving wife he goes home to.”

  Reina chuckled. “He does not have a partner. Never had one. Never will have one.”

  “Well, I’m sure there’s in the city who’ll take him.”

  “Not my mother. He tried to steal her from my father many, many times when they were younger, but he was rebuffed every single time.”

  “Even though he’s super strong?”

  “he is strong,” Reina said, shaking her head. “For better or worse, the ladies of the Whirlpool City are all hopeless romantics. It happens when we all live on a relatively tiny island where we have to look out for each other. Nobody wants to be a widow, and the life uncle led when he was younger was not very… attractive. He was reckless. Took more dangerous missions than anyone else. It turned a lot of his Imperator friends’ children away from wanting to become Imperators themselves, and that included me.”

  Marisol pushed her clean plate of pastelitos away, planting her cheeks in her hands as she leaned forward. “You didn’t want to be an Imperator?”

  “It is indeed a great honour, and my father being who he was, I had a headstart compared to most other people who had to start with Harbour Guard training,” she prefaced, “but I wanted to be a confectioner like my mother. I had seen my father returning from his missions all bloodied and battered, and I had seen my mother worrying to death for him—it was not a pretty sight.” Then her gaze wandered outside the window, lingering on the dropping sun. “I did not want whoever was to be my eventual spouse to have to worry about me. My father was unhappy with my always skipping out on training, but uncle always helped me get out of the scolding. He likes getting people out of trouble at the last moment for the most dramatic entrance possible.”

  Marisol was inclined to laugh a little, but she couldn’t help but notice the bandages under Reina’s dress again.

  Reina noticed she noticed.

  “... Twelve years ago, a ‘breach’ occurred, and a legion of two thousand Giant-Class crustaceans managed to escape from the whirlpool,” Reina said quietly. “Three of the Four Leviathans—Rhizocapala, Eurypteria, and Leptostrasa—were responsible for the Breach. While uncle and the Imperatrix dealt with Leptrostrasa, the rest of the Imperators tried to shove Rhizocapala and Eurypteria back into the whirlpool. My parents were caught amidst the chaos. They were slain by the two, who were not even aiming for them specifically. Eurypteria was just swinging her tail around.”

  Marisol lowered her head, and she didn’t speak. She still had a few plates of pastelitos and figs in front of her, but she didn’t really feel like eating anymore.

  “I was caught in the attack, too,” Reina said curtly. “Our house was brought down during the breach, and my legs were crushed under debris. I could not move. I waited for death, and… Eurypteria appeared.” Then she paused, eyes faintly bleary for a moment before she continued. “I do not know why she did what she did, but when she gave me the option to die or to drink her blood, I took it. Even if I did not have a system back then, consuming extremely concentrated bioarcanic essence from an Insect God would make me stronger immediately, make me mutate insect traits immediately, and I thought… maybe there was a chance I could take her down right there and then.”

  “...”

  “I never did manage to do that.” She shrugged, smiling wistfully. “While I began mutating under the debris, screaming my lungs out, another Imperator came by and fought Eurypteria off. By the time I awoke in the infirmary, the breach was already over. Uncle and the Imperatrix managed to kill Leptostrasa, but uncle suffered major injuries in the process and could no longer dive as a result. The Imperators managed to stabilise most of the city’s crumbling infrastructure, but a third of the city was still destroyed. I had grown a wild and violent water scorpion tail that did not heed my command, and the Imperators did not think I could be saved. They thought my tail was a bad omen. They wanted to kill me.”

  Marisol frowned.

  “So how did you—”

  “Uncle and the Imperator who saved me from Eurypteria fought for me,” Reina said, leaning slightly back in her chair. “They told the Imperators that I was not a lost cause—that if they could just give me a generic Water Bug Class—water scorpions part of the family of water bugs, after all—I’d surely be offered the Water Scorpion Class at my First Class Mutation Selection and gain the ability to control my tail.” She shifted a little bit to the side and raised her scorpion tail, letting the stinger curl around her neck like a scarf. “The Imperators didn’t even want me to try, because every second I remained alive and walking around the infirmary, my tail could gore someone and rip out their hearts… but uncle argued I was going to be a threat to Eurypteria. He argued the Water Scorpion God was too powerful; that she could not be killed by anyone who does not also have the Water Scorpion Class, so I could be the first of many future Water Scorpion Class users to come.”

  “... He wanted to use you as a prototype weapon against Eurypteria.”

  Reina chuckled softly again. “You make my uncle sound like a villain, putting it like that.”

  “You know I ain’t meant it like that—”

  “I know. And guess what?” she said, shaking her head. “It worked. They gave me a Water Bug Class, and during my First Class Mutation Selection, the system deemed it appropriate that I was offered the Water Scorpion Class as an option.”

  “Because of the blood you drank from her. You already had water scorpion essence within you, so it’s only fitting you get the class as well.”

  “Yes.” Reina unfurled her tail from her neck, rubbing the dangerously sharp stinger like she would a cat as she folded it behind her back. “Since then, I have made a promise to my uncle back then that I would wipe out the Swarm in the Deepwater Legion Front, if not only to repay him for what he did for me… so I must apologise to you, here and now, for failing to defend you and the Imperator siblings back then.”

  Marisol blinked. Miss Suneria swerved by at this exact moment to drop off Reina’s orders, and Reina immediately pushed those dishes forward, dipping into as deep a bow as she could muster with the bandages around her torso.

  “... What?” Marisol breathed.

  “I was the dive leader,” Reina said curtly. “I should have seen Rhizocapala coming, and I should not have allowed him to touch even a single hair on your body. The great blue’s fortune smiled upon me that none of you were killed during our extraction, but the fact remains that none of you should have needed to run in the first place. I am sorry. I was not a dependable Lighthouse Imperator—”

  “Bull.”

  Grumbling, Marisol grabbed a nougat from the plate in front of her and stabbed it in Reina’s face, making the lady reel back with a flinch.

  “If you’re ‘undependable’, then I was downright useless against that walking barnacle,” she said, glaring at Reina as she did. “But you stood over me while I crumbled and protected me. You protected of us. You think stalking me and treating me to a round of sweets while bragging about how ‘weak’ you are makes me feel any better?”

  Reina returned a genuinely perplexed frown. “I did not mean it like that—”

  “Then I’m already over what happened,” she growled. “Rhizocapala showed up, beat the crap out of us, and scampered off like a bug the moment the old man showed up—but he’s gonna stand in my way to Depth Eight, so I gotta deal with him eventually. Does a Sand-Dancer stand still and dwell on the past, or do they continue to dance forward on the edge, lightning snapping at their heels?”

  It was Reina’s turn to blink. “I… what?”

  “I’m a Sand-Dancer.”

  “What is that?”

  “Oh. Right. That ain't a thing here.”

  “It is not—”

  “My point is,” she mumbled, leaning forward to shove her nougat into Reina’s mouth. “I’m a Sand-Dancer who wants to go home, and you’re an Imperator who wants to kill Eurypteria. We want to get down to Depth Eight. Let’s not bog ourselves down with regrets and focus on what we’re gonna do the next time we run into Rhizocapala, yeah?”

  Reina was quiet for another moment before she started chewing, slapping Marisol’s hand away with an amused scowl.

  “Don’t… touch my sweets if you don’t want them, then,” Reina muttered, pulling her plates back in. “Also, don’t tell Miss Suneria this, but if you want better pastelitos, there’s another shop two blocks away with a little sapphire lamp hanging outside the door. The pastries there are a bit pricier, but it’s well worth the price.”

  Marisol licked her lips as she leaned back, pulling her own plates closer. “You’ll have to show me where. I ain’t a local. ‘Two blocks away’ means nothing to me.”

  “You have an Archive, don’t you?”

  “What about it?”

  “Can’t it show you the map of the Whirlpool City?”

  “Huh?”

  the Archive muttered,

  Someone suddenly pounded the window next to them, making them jump in their seats. Reina dropped her nougat and Marisol almost activated Charge Glaives out of fright, which would’ve destroyed the pretty tiles beneath her.

  And she and Reina both knew the old man wasn’t going to pay for anything, even if he was the one who gave them both a fright.

  “It’s time, lass,” he said, voice muffled as he wiped away the droplets from the fogged glass, peering into the store with a scrunched, bandaged face. “What the hell are you doing with my niece, anyways? Are those dishes on my tab? What’d I tell you about using my name for unnecessary shit like this?”

  Marisol groaned as Reina apologised to Miss Suneria for dropping the nougat, the hardened sugar stick cracked and scattered all over the floor. “I didn’t use your name for this. I paid for these myself—”

  “I don’t give a damn, lass. Get your ass outta there. It’s time.”

  She whirled on her Archive, and the little water strider shrugged nonchalantly. it said plainly.

  “I’m coming back after this, so save the sweets for me in a little bag, will you?” she muttered, bowing to both Reina and Miss Suneria as she skated out of her seat, heading straight for the door.

  For her part, Reina glanced back and frowned worriedly.

  “Where are you going?” she asked. “What’s uncle making you do this time?”

  Marisol paused at the doorknob, smiling nervously back at Reina.

  “I have a meeting with the Worm God,” she said.

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