Chapter Twenty-Two

Unfortunately, any distance they created with the supercharged electric motors evaporated by the second. Soon a handful of elemental ships closed within a couple hundred meter but for some reason they didn’t attack. What was the point in chasing them if they weren’t going to take advantage of their weakness?

Worry flashed, causing Elysia to scan the waters but other than the ships behind them, nothing stood out to her. That didn’t mean they didn’t keep their distance. Maybe the ships behind them weren’t the fastest, but instead were the slowest. The rest might have circled around.

Hoping she was wrong, she sent a series of images to Ione, asking her to scout. Despite feeling exhaustion radiated through their bond, she heard a splash a few seconds later as Ione sped off.

While staring at the elemental ships keeping a steady distance, as if speed matching Umbra, she scanned through the images Ione relayed. Nothing within a kilometer in front of them jumped out to Ione, but as soon as she traveled to the west, Elysia’s fears became reality. At least a dozen ships ran parallel to them, just out of visible range. According to the images, those ships weren’t trying to overtake them, instead seemed to be corralling them somewhere.

Curious, she asked Ione to scout ahead as far as she felt comfortable going. As she felt Ione shoot off to the south through their bond, she noticed Sereia approach her.

Elysia glanced over her shoulder at her twin, who walked with unusually heavy steps and slumped shoulders. Despite the seriousness of the situation, worry sparked as she took in her twin’s state. “If you need to, you can take a nap. The elementals don’t seem to be in any rush to attack.”

“And leave you unsupervised?”

Any worry about her twin’s condition evaporated as she glared at the mermaid. “I survived just fine on my own. I don’t need a babysitter.”

Sereia stared at her twin with a raised eyebrow. “Just the fact you think we have time for a nap proves my point.”

“Whatever suit yourself, I was just looking out for you.”

“As am I.”

With crossed arms, Elysia glared forward at the elemental ships, which looked straight out of some pirate film. Unlike Umbra’s sleek design, the ships following them were large wooden sailed ships. Much larger than the wooden sailboat, she checked out before the wave destroyed her hometown. She never did see that sailboat again. The wave probably destroyed it, as she doubted it was as durable as a modern boat.

While trying her best to ignore her sister, she inspected the boats further, finding no one visible from their vantage point. The flag portraying a wave told her they were a part of the water elemental fleet. Or at least aligned with water elementals, as she remembered seeing similar flags on many of the ships surrounding Mezo. Even the ships running parallel with them were water elemental ships.

Suddenly dozens of frantic images appeared in her mind displaying a fleet of several dozen ships surrounded by a massive floating saucer like vehicle. Unlike the water elemental fleet, each one of these ships had a sleek modern construction similar to Umbra. Flags showed lightning bolts of various colors, giving her a pretty good idea on who the ships belonged to.

Sereia made eye contact with her eyes wide, mirroring her own. They had to do something. There was no way they could stand up to that many ships. But what? If they tried to make a run for it, she was sure the water elemental ships would give chase and probably kept them. They couldn’t maintain their course, though.

Even though she had confidence in her own lightning, their quantity trumped her quality of lightning. What to do? Should they try their luck on backtracking? They might have a chance against the handful of water elemental ships behind them, but by the time they broke through, she knew the other ships would converge.

Despite knowing the answer, she still asked it. “Any chance you could boost Umbra enough to escape?”

Sereia grimaced. “Maybe if I had support from Umbra’s engines, but as is probably not.”

With slumped shoulders, Elysia scanned the elemental ships, mind wandering back to the last time they made an escape with the enemy hot on their heels. If only they had a massive turtle to escape to.

She paused, half hoping said turtle appeared, but after several moments she waved off that far-fetched hope.

Suddenly, another thought came to her. Urus wasn’t the only reason they escaped the Changed teams. There might be a way to escape and maximize the chances of Umbra’s survival. Her poor ship was in no condition to escape on her own, but if they could provide a distraction, she could slip away.

Without a word to her twin, Elysia jogged back into Umbra, finding the person she needed standing next to Eva with his arm wrapped around her waist.

They jumped as Elysia entered but she paid it no mind attention, focused on Joe. “I might have an idea on how to escape. You remember how you tricked the changed teams? Do you think you could cloak Umbra?”

After a moment of thought, Joe nodded his head, only for Sereia to interject. “Simply cloaking Umbra won’t work. At least I don’t think it will. The elementals have a way of tracking us. Even if we broke line of sight and turned invisible, I doubt they would lose track of us.”

Elysia sent her twin a glare. “Of course, I figured that was obvious. The problem isn’t escaping. I’m sure between Ione and you, we would have no problem escaping. That would mean abandoning Joe, Eva, and Umbra. I’m thinking we make a swim for it and hope they follow us. Then Joe can cloak Umbra to escape as well.”

Eva stiffened at the thought of being left behind, but Joe and Sereia nodded in agreement with the plan. She leaned into Joe as her gaze flicked between the ships behind them, out the windshield and at the twins. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Couldn’t we all run the elementals behind us?”

Realizing Eva and Joe don’t have a connection with Ione, Elysia shook her head and gestured to the west and south. “Maybe, but they aren’t the issue. We could probably even fight back against them. The problem is they aren’t alone. They are trying to funnel us toward a lightning elemental fleet. I had Ione scouted for us and she discovered at least a dozen water elemental ships running parallel with us to the west if we tried to escape. They boxed us in and with Umbra in the state she is in, there is no way we could escape without splitting up.”

Eva trembled, causing Joe to give her a hug.

As Joe comforted Eva, Elysia sent images to Ione filling her in only to find Sereia beat her to it. A splash and a thud announced Ione’s return. She trotted into the control room and lowered herself in front of Elysia with images of riding.

Elysia hesitated for a moment, thinking maybe they should sneak away under the cover of Joe’s illusion, only to realize they wanted to draw attention away from Umbra. The whole point was to get the elementals to chase them.

Before climbing on, she turned to Joe. “Are you sure you can cloak Umbra?”

“Yes, you aren’t the only one who grew since we left China Creek.”

Seeing his confidence, Elysia smiled at him, then hopped on Ione. To stay with the plan, Ione trotted out onto the back deck, followed by Sereia. They glanced at the water elemental ships, then jumped overboard and swam to the west, then turned north.

Ione sent images showing Umbra suddenly take off at the pace it maintained with the supercharged motors accepted didn’t really take off. Instead, according to Elysia’s bond with the boat, it turned to the west and slowed, allowing the water elemental ships to sail right past, unaware of the illusion.

Unlike the ships that followed them from behind, the ones that were running parallel slowed then turned in their direction as they were too far away for the illusion to affect them. Worry flashed as a couple of the ships broke off and approached Umbra, but there was nothing she could do about them. She just had to hope Joe could keep them hidden.

As to not lose the elemental ships following them too soon, they swam just fast enough to maintain distance as they swam north. Left with nothing to do but hold on, Elysia’s mind wandered as she cycled through the images coming in at a steady rate.

They couldn’t keep dodging elementals forever. Sure they could outrun swim them or travel inland, but they would have to constantly abandon Umbra. She didn’t want to live her life looking over her shoulder all the time. How did they stop the elementals from tracking though? Did they have a device like the watches? They started tracking her when she used lightning on the first ambush on Mezo.

Did that mean they needed a sample of her elemental essence? The thing was, how did they get her essence when everyone who had it stayed on Mezo?

At least, she assumed they did. She doubted any Changed remained loyal after what they did, so that left Sereia. They chased her thousands of kilometers across the ocean. That meant they had to be tracking her. She said she woke up on an elemental ship, so they probably stole some of her essence before she woke up or even when she attacked them. To test her theory, she sent images to Sereia asking her to swim to the west for a couple kilometers while Ione watched how the ships reacted.

Question mark Images flashed through their bond, prompting Elysia to relay her theory to her twin, who seemed to believe it as she shot off westward a few moments later.

As Elysia predicted, the ships veered westward soon after following Sereia. She paid extra attention to the images, watching which ship reacted first. It soon became clear a larger ship she saw in a ton of pirate movies. If she remembered right, it was either a Carrack or Galleon.

Unfortunately, because of its large size it set the pace for the rest of the smaller ships. While watching the ships struggled to chase the mermaid, a plan began to form. They needed to destroy or steal whatever tracked her sister. The problem was they had to avoid feeding her essence. That would ruin their advantage.

A quick series of images to both her twin and Ione laid the groundwork. If they couldn’t track them, that meant they could board the ship. At least she hoped they could. Just sinking the massive ship wouldn’t be difficult with a few well-placed lightning bolts unless they had counters, but they needed to ensure whatever tracked her sister wasn’t recovered from the wreck.

Besides, it was pointless to sink a water elemental ship. Like them, the water elementals were probably faster without their ships, but it was much more comfortable to ride one instead of swimming, at least in her opinion.

It was confusing to her why they didn’t just jump off their ships and chase them down if they wanted to capture them so badly unless they were some reason they couldn’t. Maybe it had something to do with how they tracked them. This had to stop and the only way she saw it stop was their capture or destroy their method of tracking. She was sick of always looking over her shoulder. She just wanted to live her life the way she wanted to.

While Sereia swam ahead luring the ships, Ione carried Elysia circle around to the back. For some odd reason, no ship guarded the flagship from behind, only on the sides and the front. Maybe they assumed no one would attack from behind because they were chasing not getting chased. Not that Elysia would complain about a boon.

At least she hoped it was a boon. They had to have some security system.