The ocean did not give them time to adjust.
The first hour passed in a strange, suspended quiet—waves rolling with a rhythm that felt almost forgiving, the barge rocking in long, slow arcs that lulled the senses into thinking this might be survivable without cost.
That illusion died quickly.
Metal never stops speaking.
At first it was subtle: a groan beneath the deck that didn't match the wave pattern, a tremor that traveled sideways instead of up through the hull. Then came the sharper sounds—bolts protesting under stress, pipes clicking as temperatures shifted unevenly, the constant hum of the generator stuttering just enough to be noticed.
Fenrik felt every change through the soles of his boots.
This ship would not forgive ignorance.
He turned from the bow and began to move.
The pack responded without instruction.
Ulric shifted to the starboard side, planting himself near the engine housing access point, one hand resting against the bulkhead as if he could feel the ship's pulse through it. Frost crept subtly across the metal under his palm, not freezing it solid, but stabilizing heat spikes that would otherwise worsen fatigue fractures.
Brann took position near the aft rail, back to the ocean, eyes scanning the horizon and the wake they left behind. His role was simple now: if something followed, he would see it first.
Nyssa vanished below deck almost immediately, slipping through the open hatch and into the interior corridors. She returned minutes later with a mental map already forming—weak doors, narrow choke points, places where water would pool first if the hull split.
Kael hovered near the forward rail, excitement and fear warring in his posture. Fenrik caught his eye and nodded once.
"Watch the waves," Fenrik said. "Learn them."
Kael straightened, seriousness snapping into place.
"Yes."
Lyra sat near the center of the deck, back against a welded container, eyes closed as she fought the roll beneath her feet. Eira crouched beside her without comment, one hand braced against the deck, the other resting lightly near Lyra's shoulder—not touching, but close enough to steady.
Thorn prowled the perimeter, testing rails, kicking corroded seams, sniffing at vents that breathed warm, stale air. He growled once at a section of hull where rust had eaten thin.
Fenrik followed the sound.
The weakness was obvious once he saw it.
A seam where two plates met, corroded nearly through in places, patched long ago with a different alloy that had aged worse than the original hull. Every time a wave struck from the port side, the metal flexed there—just a fraction, but enough to matter.
Fenrik crouched and pressed his palm flat against it.
The flame core responded—not violently, but attentively. Heat flowed from him into the metal in a controlled wash, expanding the weakened plate just enough to relieve pressure at the seam, reducing flex.
It was not a fix.
It was a reprieve.
Ulric felt it through the ship and looked up sharply.
Fenrik met his gaze and nodded once.
Ulric moved closer, pressing both hands to the bulkhead from the inside. Ice spread in a thin lattice beneath the flame-warmed metal, reinforcing structure without making it brittle.
Fire and ice did not fight.
They worked.
The ship's groan eased slightly.
Nyssa emerged from below and watched the interaction silently.
Something in her expression changed—not trust yet, but recalculation.
Hours passed.
The barge pushed farther from shore, the forest line shrinking until it became a dark smudge against the sky. The ocean deepened in color, black turning to a layered, oily blue that swallowed light in strange ways.
The waves grew taller.
Not chaotic—measured, deliberate, as if the ocean were testing the ship's responses.
The barge answered with endurance.
Slow roll.
Heavy rise.
Reluctant fall.
Fenrik returned to the helm periodically, making small adjustments, listening more than commanding. He began to recognize patterns: when the generator hummed too high, when the hull complained in a way that meant stress rather than age.
This was not mastery.
It was learning by proximity.
Night returned faster than expected.
Clouds thickened overhead, low and heavy, turning the sky into a solid mass of darkness. The wind shifted, no longer steady but erratic, gusts slamming into the hull from unpredictable angles.
The barge rocked harder now.
Lyra whimpered softly.
Eira wrapped an arm around her shoulders, anchoring them both.
Fenrik stood at the bow again, eyes scanning the water.
That was when the ocean changed its tone.
The waves did not grow immediately larger.
They grew sharper.
Peaks steepened. Troughs deepened. The distance between crests shortened, turning the surface into a rolling series of threats rather than a breathing expanse.
Ulric's head lifted.
"Storm," he rumbled.
Fenrik nodded.
"Yes."
They did not panic.
Panic wasted strength.
Fenrik raised his voice—not shouting, but carrying.
"Hold positions," he said. "Anchor yourselves."
Brann widened his stance. Thorn locked his grip around a rail. Kael crouched low, bracing against a container. Nyssa disappeared below deck again, no doubt checking seals and hatches.
Ulric moved fully into the engine compartment access, body wedged into place like a living brace. Ice spread more thickly now, stabilizing heat spikes as the engines strained against rising resistance.
Fenrik returned to the helm.
The first true storm wave hit moments later.
It slammed into the starboard side with enough force to knock Kael flat and send spray arcing across the deck like shrapnel. The barge lurched violently, deck tilting steep enough that Lyra screamed.
Fenrik threw a lever hard.
The engines roared in protest.
The ship righted itself just enough to avoid capsizing.
Metal screamed.
The storm had arrived.
Wind howled across the deck, tearing sound into pieces. Rain followed—thick, cold, driven sideways by gusts that threatened to peel skin from bone. Waves rose like walls now, slamming into the hull again and again, testing every seam, every bolt.
Fenrik felt the ship's limits closing in.
The flame core burned brighter, feeding him clarity rather than power. He adjusted course incrementally, angling the bow to meet the waves rather than letting them strike broadside.
Ulric held the engine compartment like a fortress, ice and muscle preventing catastrophic failure through sheer refusal to yield.
Nyssa burst back onto the deck, shouting over the storm.
"Water intake on the lower port corridor!" she yelled. "Not flooding yet—but close!"
Fenrik did not look away from the helm.
"Mark it," he shouted back. "I'll adjust."
He did not know if that would be enough.
The storm did not care.
Then something else happened.
A sound cut through the chaos—not thunder, not metal, not wind.
A call.
Low.
Vast.
Felt more than heard.
It rolled beneath the waves, vibrating through the hull and into bone, a pressure that made every instinct scream depth.
Ulric froze.
Brann's head snapped toward the water.
Kael's eyes went wide.
Lyra clutched Eira's arm hard enough to bruise.
Fenrik felt it too—felt the ocean shift attention again.
Not curiosity this time.
Recognition.
The call echoed once more, closer now, rising from somewhere below the ship's path.
The barge rocked violently as a wave far larger than the rest surged beneath it, lifting the entire vessel before dropping it into a trough so deep Fenrik felt his stomach lurch.
The storm howled.
The ocean answered.
And something beneath the waves began to move toward them.
The call came again.
Closer this time.
It did not ride the air. It rose through the water itself, a pressure that pressed inward on bone and sinew, vibrating through the hull as if the sea had grown a voice and decided to test it.
Fenrik felt it in his teeth.
Ulric felt it in the engine room like a hammer striking the ship's spine.
The pack froze—not from fear, but from instinct trying to decide whether to flee, fight, or submit to something too large to name.
The storm did not pause.
Wind screamed across the deck, tearing rain into needles. Waves rose into black walls that collapsed into white violence, the barge pitching hard enough that Fenrik had to brace himself against the console to stay upright.
Another wave slammed into the hull.
Metal buckled somewhere below.
Nyssa's voice crackled up through the stairwell, sharp and urgent.
"Port corridor breach—minor! I can hold it, but not long!"
Fenrik did not answer immediately.
He listened.
Not to Nyssa.
Not to the storm.
To the ocean beneath them.
The flame core burned low and tight, not flaring outward, but sending sensation outward instead—feeling pressure gradients, movement patterns, disturbances in the water that were too organized to be weather.
There.
Below and to the starboard side.
Something vast was rising.
"Ulric," Fenrik shouted into the comm-less storm.
Ulric's voice came back through the ship itself, carried by vibration and bond rather than sound.
"I feel it."
"Can you hold the engines?" Fenrik demanded.
A pause—brief, dangerous.
"Yes," Ulric answered. "But not if we turn broadside."
Fenrik nodded to himself.
"Then we don't."
He grabbed the helm levers and hauled them into position, angling the bow more sharply into the oncoming waves. The engines screamed in protest, vibration spiking through the deck as the barge fought to climb each rising wall of water head-on instead of being battered sideways.
The ship slowed.
Not stopped.
But the ocean did not allow speed without cost.
Another call rolled up from below—longer now, layered with harmonics that made the air feel thick and wrong. Lyra whimpered, hands pressed to her ears.
Eira wrapped her arms around her fully this time, pressing her forehead to Lyra's temple.
"Stay with me," Eira murmured, words meant to anchor more than comfort.
Brann leaned over the rail, rain plastering his fur to his body, eyes locked on the water.
"I see movement," he growled.
Fenrik followed his gaze.
The surface bulged.
Not a wave.
A rise from beneath, slow and deliberate, displacing water rather than being formed by it. The bulge slid parallel to the ship, keeping pace despite the barge's struggle.
Then a ridge broke the surface.
Smooth. Dark. Scarred.
It was not flesh as Fenrik understood it—more like layered hide reinforced by something denser beneath, water rolling off it without clinging.
The ridge sank again before revealing more.
Testing.
"Not attacking," Thorn shouted over the storm. "It's circling!"
Fenrik already knew.
Predators that rushed revealed themselves too quickly.
This one was listening.
The storm intensified suddenly, as if the ocean itself were conspiring to make the meeting harder to read. Rain became a solid sheet. Wind shoved hard enough that Fenrik felt his shoulders strain to stay upright.
Nyssa emerged onto the deck, soaked and furious.
"The breach is widening!" she yelled. "Slow flooding—below the cargo hold!"
Fenrik clenched his jaw.
Speed meant broadside exposure.
Stability meant staying longer with that beneath them.
The choice was not between good and bad.
It was between bad and worse.
Ulric's voice surged through the bond, strained but steady.
"Fenrik. The engines can give you a burst. Not long. After that—"
"I know," Fenrik replied.
He looked out at the dark water again.
The bulge surfaced closer now, nearer the bow, as if responding to his attention.
Fenrik did something dangerous.
He let the flame core touch the ocean.
Not with heat.
With presence.
The sensation that came back was vast and cold and old—not hostile, not friendly, but aware.
Apex.
This was not a mind like the forest.
This was not indifference like the open sea.
This was territory.
Fenrik spoke, not loudly, not as challenge.
"We pass," he said.
The words were not command.
They were declaration.
The ocean answered with another call—shorter, sharper.
Closer still.
"Burst," Fenrik ordered.
Ulric did not hesitate.
The engines roared, power spiking as Ulric forced stability through ice and will, bleeding heat away from critical systems just long enough.
The barge surged forward.
Not fast—but faster than before.
The wave beneath them lifted higher, trying to match the acceleration.
The ridge broke the surface again, closer now, revealing more of itself—an immense curve that hinted at scale far beyond the barge, beyond even Fenrik's largest estimates.
Brann snarled.
Kael stared, breathless.
Lyra buried her face against Eira's chest.
Fenrik held the helm steady, eyes locked forward.
The ship crested a wave and slammed down hard, hull shuddering violently.
The ridge disappeared.
For a heartbeat, there was nothing but storm.
Then—
The water behind them erupted.
Not an attack.
A display.
A massive section of the creature's body breached fully this time, rising high enough that Fenrik saw the breadth of it—a living wall of dark hide etched with old scars and pale markings that glowed faintly under lightning's flash.
It did not strike the ship.
It rose.
Turned slightly.
And sank back beneath the waves.
The call came one last time—lower now, receding.
The storm did not end.
But its rhythm shifted.
The waves spread out slightly.
The pressure eased.
Ulric's voice came again, ragged.
"Engines stabilizing. Barely."
Fenrik exhaled slowly.
The ocean had answered.
And let them pass.
The storm continued through the night, but nothing else rose to meet them.
By the time dawn's pale light filtered through thinning clouds, the waves had dropped from walls to hills, then to heavy swells that rocked the barge instead of battering it.
The ship groaned, damaged but intact.
The pack emerged slowly from their braced positions, bodies aching, eyes wary.
Fenrik stepped out onto the deck as the first gray light touched the water.
The ocean stretched around them, endless and dark—but no longer silent.
Ulric joined him, exhaustion heavy in his posture but pride burning clean.
"That thing," Ulric said quietly. "Could have ended us."
Fenrik nodded.
"Yes."
Ulric looked at him.
"Why didn't it?"
Fenrik stared out at the water where the ridge had vanished.
"Because we didn't belong to it," Fenrik said. "And we didn't run."
Ulric huffed softly.
"Good answer."
Behind them, the pack gathered, drawn by the quiet after the storm.
They were soaked.
Bruised.
Alive.
Fenrik turned to them.
"We continue," he said.
No one argued.
The barge pushed forward into the Dark Ocean, scarred but moving, carrying wolves who no longer belonged only to land.
The crossing was far from over.
But Helios-77 had spoken.
And they had answered.