“Bastion!” Roy shouted as the crabs advanced in phalanx-like formation, snipping their claws in unison. “These divers aren’t robots. They’re guys in suits.”

  “Oh my god. You know what this means?”

  “Yeah. Tim tricked me. He never mentioned all the people he sent to their deaths before he sent us down here.”

  “No,” said Bastion. “All of these dead bastards got diving suits, and I still got stuck with the fish costume. He’s stingy with the suits and he offered less money than the Tech Trove guy. There’s no way we’re selling the trident to him now.”

  Before even thinking about selling it, they had to actually get to it. Which meant making it past the crabs. They scuttled in tight ranks, claws out, blocking their path to the stage.

  Roy’s suit was heavy and slow to move in, but it still offered him more protection than Bastion had. He threw himself into the crabs, kicking them with his weighted bronze boots. Crabs leapt at him, snipping at his suit, trying to find the weak points around the joints. He ripped them off and flung them against the walls.

  Glass cracked, shells crunched, claws snapped, and the Sea King raved. The noise swelled into a discordant cacophony.

  “I am the sovereign of all that scuttles and snips. The seas bow to me, and so shall your bones.”

  “What does that even mean?” said Bastion, hopping around to dodge the claws while Roy booted more of them away. “Is he saying he can control skeletons as well as sea creatures?”

  “I don’t think it means anything,” said Roy. “He’s not exactly sentient. It sure gets the crabs going, though.”

  “Well I’ve heard enough of it.” Bastion drew a long-barreled revolver and aimed it square at the Sea King.

  The hand cannon had a carved walnut grip and a gold scrollwork surface. It looked like a museum piece, and Roy knew for a fact that it had spent several centuries being moved from one display case to another without being fired even once.

  “Hey,” said Roy. “Hype it up first.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s an heirloom, right? If you play into that, it could give it some extra oomph.”

  Did it still count as an heirloom after Bastion had stolen it from his father’s office? In Bastion’s words, it was one of the many things Luis Cruz didn’t deserve to have, along with food and air.

  “This is a gun, Roy. It’s not magic.”

  “Everything’s magic.”

  “Fine,” Bastion shouted directly at the sea king. “Hey, your majesty. This is an original Colt Dragoon. It’s been in the Cruz family for three hundred years. It has six bullets, and unless somebody starts making more, that’s all it will ever have, but this one’s for you.”

  He pulled the trigger. Click.

  Bastion shook the gun, splashing water all over himself. “It’s flooded. That damned fish suit is still fucking things up for me. Just push through the crabs, Roy. I can jump around them long enough for you to smash his face in.”

  Roy stomped forward, crunching shells beneath his boots, heading toward thick pillars that bordered the stage.

  He stopped dead when a giant claw emerged from behind one of them, followed by an even more giant crab.

  Each of its steps shook the ground. It towered over Roy, its smaller claw as big as his legs, its larger one bigger than his entire body, bulky suit and all. If that thing got close, it would crush him like a soda can.

  It was closing in fast.

  Bastion swore as Roy bolted back across the room, vaulting stanchions and servo arms.

  “OK,” Bastion called out. “Scratch what I just said. I cannot jump around that crab. Think of something else!”

  Roy reached the glass wall and pivoted, ducking just under the minor claw while the major one smashed into the wall behind him.

  Crack!

  He risked a glance back. Spiderweb fractures spread across the glass. It held, somehow. Either the glass was just that tough, or the theme was just that powerful.

  Vaulting every obstacle, he ran around the edge of the dome, aiming to circle back to the sea king. He gained distance on the giant crab easily; the cluttered terrain felt just like the junkyard obstacle course where he’d first learned to run.

  Just when he thought he’d escaped, the automaton jabbed its trident at the center of the room. The giant crab instantly switched directions, crushing the divers and debris in its path.

  It wasn’t as dumb as he’d thought, not with the Sea King puppeteering.

  Roy prepared to dodge, but the trident swished again, twice.

  First toward Roy, sending a tidal wave of smaller crabs at him.

  Then toward Bastion. Aiming the giant crab right at him.

  Roy watched, helpless, through a shrinking window as crabs swarmed him and covered his faceplate.

  Pain exploded from his joints. His limbs locked in place as crabs piled up around him and pinned him against the wall.

  His vision went black. He breathed heavily, entombed in his suit.

  Roy clenched his fist. He could still move his fingers, and he only had to move them an inch to reach the hilt of his plastic sword.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  He remembered the first time he’d held it. When his dad came back from the shopping mall, covered in sludge but beaming from ear to ear, holding a stack of precious Ultra-Discs salvaged from a bargain bin.

  Rex Macloud had been the boldest man in Wiley and Roy’s personal hero. Always invincible, until he wasn’t.

  Swinging that sword for the first time had been the happiest moment of Roy’s life. Later that night, he’d watched Future Knight at the outdoor movie theater, and Roy had known right then and there what he wanted to be.

  When the flimsy plastic had snapped a week later, he'd cried, but his dad had told him that the sword would be as strong as he believed it was. After a few weeks of focus, the blade had snapped back into place.

  Since then, it had become stronger than plastic had any right to be. Stories have power, and this sword had more than its share. All those days spent daydreaming. Spinning on the spot, slashing at air. Seeing not with his eyes, but with his mind. Seeing all the things his sword could do.

  Soon, he saw those things in reality too. When bandits had tried to take apart the movie theater, he’d taken them apart instead. He’d done the same to the garbage golem in the mall.

  Rex’s story had ended there, but Roy’s had to continue. Being crushed by crabs underwater: that wasn’t what happened.

  His sword’s theme was strong. Stronger than a giant crab, stronger than the Sea King, strong enough to shatter anything.

  With every ounce of will, Roy slashed backwards at the wall. Crack. His arm kept going, all the way through it. Water exploded through the breach, sweeping Roy free, out of the claws and back into the fight.

  Roy stepped through the water with ease, his boots gliding without resistance. He sprinted for the giant crab, tracking its massive claw as Bastion barely ducked one of its strikes. It swung around again, knocking Bastion to the ground, then opened the claw for a crushing attack.

  This isn’t what happens.

  Roy leapt into the air, his legs surging with energy he’d never felt before. He aimed his sword straight down.

  Time seemed to slow down. Below him, a light shimmered in the water. A jolt of recognition hit him; his sword was glowing. Its edge was a distorted haze, with an arc of afterimages trailing behind it.

  For a heartbeat, beside the glow, he glimpsed a knight, armored and imposing, staring up at him from the water’s surface. Then it was gone, like it had never been there at all, and Roy was crashing down on the crab.

  He plunged the blade into the shell and ripped it downward, like an ice-pick splitting a glacier.

  The crab let out a warbling scream and rocked back and forth, shaking its claws frantically.

  Fish swam past his feet, pouring in through the breach. He waded to Bastion’s side, slicing off two of the crab's legs as he went. It writhed in the water, unable to follow them.

  Bastion laid the water gun on the floor and watched the water glug into the tank, along with a few unlucky fish. “This should do it. Thanks for bringing me the ammo.”

  He pumped furiously as the water level rose above their legs. The dome groaned louder above them.

  The Sea King spoke again. “You’re unfit to breathe water, so you shall breathe naught. Woe the tides.”

  He swept the trident, and a wave crashed across the chamber, bowling them over and smashing another hole in the dome. Even more water surged in.

  Bastion struggled back to his feet and tried to aim the water gun at the automaton while swaying back and forth.

  “Just shoot it already!” Roy yelled.

  “I’m trying not to hit the trident. He keeps swinging it around.”

  “Here. Try this.” Roy reached a hand through the shattered face plate of a floating diver and yanked a green vizor from the swollen head inside. “This is sci-fi stuff. It’ll make the water gun work better.”

  “Fine.”

  Bastion quickly pushed it on, took a breath, and fired.

  The gun exploded into shards of hot plastic in his hands, pumped up beyond what the cracked plastic could bear, but the jet of water had already been launched.

  A moment later, the Sea King’s head was gone.

  Smoke hissed from the neck. Its motions jerked, then froze as the motors seized up. The speakers fell silent.

  The crabs scattered in mindless circles. Now the only remaining danger was overhead. Cracks were spreading toward the top of the dome. It was about to burst.

  “We need to get the trident before this whole place comes down on us,” said Bastion.

  They waded toward the stage. Roy got there first and gave Bastion a boost. He came back holding both the trident and the Sea King’s gold crown.

  “What? It looks valuable.”

  The water was up to their chests now.

  “Uh. Any idea how we use this thing? Controlling the seas sounds great right about now.” Bastion tried pointing the trident at the rising water. Nothing happened.

  “Let me try. I’m better dressed for it.” Roy gripped the trident tight, not letting its wet surface slip from his hands, and focused on what he wanted. Crabs go away.

  The crabs swam off, leaving a clear circle as if a force field had formed around the trident.

  Next, he tried controlling the water, but pointing the trident created only a small ripple.

  “It’s not working for you like it did for the Sea King,” said Bastion.

  “Because I’m not the sea king.”

  Cracks raced across the ceiling.

  “Well you’d better fucking try to be, Roy.”

  “OK. What did he say exactly?”

  “I don’t know. Something about being the ruler of all crabs? The lord of all that is chitinous? We had to bend the knee as bones, or something.”

  “The water. What did he say about the water?”

  “I wasn’t listening! I was too busy trying to shoot him.”

  Glowing shapes appeared behind the remaining glass, swordfish and sharks, drawn by the swirling water.

  “Wait,” said Roy. “Was it something-tide?”

  “Yeah. Something the tides. It sounded like nonsense, but it worked.”

  A swordfish smashed through the wall, driving its Zweihander nose through the glass and impaling the giant crab, finally putting an end to its thrashing.

  Glass rained down. The left side of the dome gave way, flooding the chamber. Glow-in-the-dark sharks circled above.

  “Row the tides,” Roy tried.

  The water surged back in a foaming wave, leaving them standing on a small patch of dry ground. It formed a vertical wall of water which held for only a few seconds before rolling back toward them.

  A crash came from behind them. The entrance tunnel had collapsed. There was no way out but through the ocean overhead, and Bastion had left his fish suit back in the boat.

  Roy unfastened the clasps on his helmet and lifted it off.

  “What are you doing?” asked Bastion. “Without that you’ll be as screwed as me.”

  “Give me the crown. I think that’ll let me control it better.”

  Bastion placed it on Roy’s head.

  The ceiling buckled, then came down all at once.

  Roy held out the trident reflexively, and a bubble of air surrounded them. Sharks snapped at them from the edges but flinched back whenever he pointed the trident.

  “You’re doing it! You’re actually doing it.”

  One shark circled and snapped at Bastion’s rear. Roy bonked it on the snout, then found it would follow where he pointed. He swung it in a wide arc, driving the other sharks back.

  “Hah,” said Bastion. “That’s right, keep your distance. We’re in control now. Woe to the vanquished.”

  “Oh!” said Roy. “I’ve got it now. Woe the tides!”

  He drove the trident into the ground, and their air bubble rocketed upwards, lifting them on a roaring pillar of water.

  “Woohoo,” Roy cheered.

  This was even more fun than the boat ride.

  Thanks for reading.