Flipside: Assessement and Revelations - Part 3

A nap and some food later, Karim and her two remaining companions were on their way to the battle site from earlier.

By now, the movement was starting to stabilize, with most sailors already assigned back to where they should be and repairs underway. The hole created by Annabeth’s explosion was even isolated as they couldn’t repair it while at sea.

Luckily for Karim though, this area only had a token guard and he was easy to convince, which only left the work of entering the hole itself. It was a troublesome activity since the descent wasn’t stable or had a path, it was a destructed hull piece in the end, but they had to go closer anyway.

It took until noon before they were in position. Not exactly the best situation when the three of them had not slept or eaten much since the temple last night.

“What a shitty place this one became… Can’t we give up on Anna and go back to anywhere else? I really don’t like getting closer to the fucking sea bottom.”

“Stop whining and keep an eye out for any danger.” Karim shot back to the complaining inquisitor as she was needed here even if she didn’t want to. “If things start falling and we end up buried, you’re the only one that can clean the area up...”

“If things fall and I sink in that hellhole, I’ll be sure to haunt you forever!”

“Your spiritual affinity is too weak for that, kid…” Michael commented as he moved through the somewhat open underdeck in search of spell signs. “Ghosts are very rare to appear in nature. You need someone way too powerful with too many grudges to go against the Circle... The only other way would be creating a soul that is not bound to it, but that is way too much.”

“I’ll make do with willpower then! The point is to not let this shorty stay clear from forcing me here.”

“Why revenge on me then?! You being here isn’t even my fault!”

“Haunting Anna will only get me killed again, so why bother with her? I’d instead make you bother her indirectly and laugh off on the other side.”

“You girls are so weird… How could anyone kill a ghost? The best you can do is appease them and hope for the best.

“But you can just shoot them.” Both Karim and Colette answered almost at the same time. Noticing both that they, maybe, were being a little too influenced by their missing companion.

“And now I’m talking like that dumbass… I may even start parading around with a gun soon.” The blondie held her temples as the thought itself was irritating for her. “Have you found anything, Michael? I need something else to fill my thoughts…”

“Weird to say it when we’re looking for the person ‘filling your thoughts’, Shorty. Are you missing Anna this much?” The smug brawler asked, which only gained her an angry glare, even if this reaction only made the situation funnier. It was even good enough to make her force herself to hold her laugh inside while likely forgetting the whole sea thing for now.

“Shut up, you! Try to mock me after you can enter a pool without panicking…”

“Oh, so you can learn too? But that’s not enough…” Colette crossed her arms with a smile. “I’m not scared of pools. My problem is not with getting wet… That’s yours, right?”

“Go to hell.”

“I guess that’s my win then.”

“You both are very weird right now…” Michael turned back from his search and gazed at the two girls bantering behind him. “Are you feeling sick or used something unusual?”

“I’ll be honest, Michael… I’m not sure what exactly I’m saying right now.” Karim explained as the signs of her tiredness were becoming clearer. She wasn’t used to staying awake for the whole day like this, especially when she had to fight and run on high alert for a good share of this day.

“I’m having fun. I had my nap earlier, so I can keep going for a while.” Colette said in turn, still smiling at her more tired companion. “But if you’re this bad, then why don’t we go back and rest a little? As I said before, Anna’s probably all fine on some random island. She may even be back home by now…”

“And I already said this feels wrong… I know something weird is happening here and we have to find out what soon.”

Annabeth vanishing, her insane fighting style, the hero himself assaulting their base, and the hidden contact the redhead had, all were troublesome in their own right. But they were even worse when summed together.

As things were, her partner was forcing herself so she could fight her overpowered brother no matter the cost. She hated him enough for some reason, so she rushed with some spell and came to the Leviathan. Annabeth likely got whatever method she used due to her contact, who was either a traitor or a double agent on the Workshop’s side. And the hero was here simply because he was such a powerful melee fighter.

She could connect everything by now, even if some points were harder to explain, but it still felt wrong. Even with all the details making enough sense as is, the cop was feeling that her logic was either flawed or lacking, although she was unsure of what.

Even if she was nearing critical sleepiness and feeling her brain working less and less, she couldn't ignore it right now.

“Well, since you are so adamant about it, you may want to hear that I have an idea of the spell circle now.” The angel called as he seemed to be over with his investigation. “The language changed a lot and some glyphs I do not understand at all, but it seems like a huge long-range destruction spell. Very little would last in this whole area if it went through or if the circle was not damaged this much... Are you sure that vessel girl had any plan of surviving this?”

“With what I saw back then, I'm sure she could somehow walk off no matter what… She pretty much healed her whole body during that fight.”

“I once saw her recover from a split skull… Like, the fucking thing was split in half and she only wobbled around a while before getting back in shape. I don’t even know how juiced she was at the time, but if she was like this last night…”

“I do not think you two understood the situation… There would not be anything to heal if she was in the middle of the spell. Everything would turn to dust and that would be the end of it. Even with the miscast, I would not be surprised if she became dust either way...”

“She’s either suicidal or hiding something neither of us knows then…” Karim sat at the wreckages and tried to think their situation through. “Any ideas, Colette? You’re the only one that knows Annabeth for real.”

“’For real’ is a little too heavy for Anna… She’s… well… she’s complicated. And I was more around her while she interacted with Ben than actually being a friend or something. We only started to talk more after I got assigned as her observer.” The brunette scratched her head as she explained why she couldn’t think of a thing here. “The most I know is that she’s enough to be classified as a ‘special threat’ by the church. It’s why I think we’re overreacting here even.”

“Not an idea then… I wonder if we could try and… Huh?! Is this…” Karim suddenly turned away from the two other people and focused on feeling her own energy.

There was a weird but familiar feeling getting to her, even if very distant from their location. It was also way weaker than usual, maybe due to the distance, but she knew very well that her soul was being sapped. It was sudden and made very little sense, but there was one person that could do this…

Annabeth was somehow approaching their location from the middle of the sea.