Teenage Sorcerers: Prophecy Foretold

Chapter 11: Ocean Hunters

"Guys, I found some coffee beans!" Kennethn called out as he picked up a few pieces of coffee beans from behind a potted plant. "Good, add it to the rest!" Bryan held up his cupped hands with all of the pieces of items that were considered currency. The small group had been searching for items of currency for the past 20 minutes. "Alright, what have we got so far?" Sabbi asked Bryan as she pulled Malik with her so he could hover the umbrella over them. "Umm...about five coffee beans, seven rose buds, and a busted up rubber duck..." Bryan looked through the small items and sighed. "The butcher at the meat shop said the pork chops were an animal tooth or a large fish scale a pound...and I'm pretty sure these don't even come close to what the price is," Malik picked through the items, "There has to be a better way of getting money..." The group thought for a bit before Sabbi got an idea. "There's only one thing left to do!" She smiled as she rushed back to the meat shop. "Wait, what are you-" Lulu spoke up, sighing in irritation as Sabbi had already gone back into the shop. As Lulu and the others entered the meat shop soon after, they could see Sabbi at the front counter, talking to the butcher. After a few minutes, Sabbi went back to the others with a small piece of paper in her hand. "The butcher gave us a list of what currency is used here and put what each item is worth! He said the most valuable items to get are the scales and teeth of sea serpents and mermaids, I think Lucius said something about that before." Sabbi handed Lulu the paper, who showed it to the rest of the group. "A whole set of sea serpent teeth are worth a thousand dollars?!" Kennethn exclaimed, reading the value of mermaid and sea serpent items are the bottom of the list. "Yup! And that's the one we're going for! The butcher told me where we can find them, but it won't be easy!" Sabbi smiled as she ushered them all out of the meat shop to get started on their hunt. "No shit it won't be easy, we're going to deal with a giant killer sea monster for that money!" Bryan scoffed as he folded the list and put it in his pocket. "Why do we have to go for that one? Can't we go for the easier valued items? They'll still cover the cost for pork chops." Malik asked before getting a hand up from Lulu. "Sorry Malik, but I think we should stick with the sea serpent. It'll definitely be difficult and we have an extremely high chance of getting hurt, but with our mythical abilities, I'm pretty sure we can handle it." Lulu hushed Malik as he followed the others to where their hunting will take place, Sabbi doing most of the leading since she was the only one who actually knew the location. "Lulu, you do realize who we're going hunting with, right?" Malik whispered to Lulu once he caught up with the group. "Yeah, why?" "If that's the case, you should know that we're going to be in deeper shit when we're working alongside them for this. I mean, Bryan uses wind, Kennethn has super speed, and Sabbi doesn't even have any abilities! How exactly will they be any help in hunting an underwater monster? We'll be doing all of the work!" "Malik, listen to me." Lulu stopped him and let the other three keep walking before turning back to Malik. "Trust me when I say that they'll be an asset to us, even if they aren't right now, they will be soon enough. And besides, we're all trying to work together now, so we can't afford to get on anyone's bad side. We don't have to be their friends, but at least get acquainted with them." Malik sighed and nodded. "Fine...lets just catch up to them before they get themselves lost." The boys quickly rushed back to the other three and continued to follow Sabbi to the location. It took them a while to get there, having to leave town and go through the several thousands of trees, but they finally arrived. It was an open sea with a small slightly rundown pontoon bridge, the wooden planks on it chipping at the sides and the stakes, but still in decent condition. Kennethn didn't hesitate to walk onto the pontoon bridge, looking down at the large body of water. "Kennethn, be careful!" Bryan called out, rushing to the border of the pontoon but didn't fully go onto it. "Relax, Bryan!" Kennethn reassured him, only to immediately feel one of the floorboards getting loose and make a creaking sound. Kennethn jumped in response and rushed off of the pontoon. "Alright, so the mini bridge is off limits..." Bryan thought out loud as he examined the pontoon and the edges of the grassy border. "That's fine, we don't need it. We just have to figure out how far in the ocean we need to go to find a sea serpent." Sabbi went over to Bryan and looked down into the ocean. From where they were, the group couldn't see anything in there, just the gentle movements of the water going back and forth. "Should we get a canoe or something? If they have a pontoon here then there has to be boats or canoes somewhere." Lulu asked, going over to the pontoon and noticing a mooring line leading underneath it. He grabbed the end of the line that was looped around one of the pontoon stakes and began slowly tugging on it, feeling a bit of weight on the other end. Once he finally got the other end of the line out of its hiding, Lulu froze when he saw the bow of a canoe emerge from the water, its wooden build clearly deteriorating. It looked as if the rest of the canoe had been bitten off by something, the split ends of the wooden material having weird edges on them as if to form an abnormally large bite mark. "What the hell..?" Lulu dragged the bow of the canoe out of the water and onto the surface, causing the others to come over and take a look at what he found. "At least we know we're at the right spot..." Malik examined the bite marks as Lulu held up the canoe bow. "How do we know where exactly the sea serpents are? They could be too deep in the ocean for us to catch." Kennethn asked as he tried to see where the ocean ends, not surprisingly he wasn't able to tell. "I got an idea! Give me a second!" Sabbi held onto her lock and key necklace with both hands and closed her eyes for a few seconds before a small light began to form in her grasp. She opened her hands and let the light shine through a ray in front of her, her companion spawning in front of her. "Acqualina can use her astral projection to see how far the sea serpents are! That way we won't have to get into any physical altercation yet!" "That could work...but why does your companion look like...that." Malik gave a slightly disgusted expression as he looked up and down at Acqualina. "There's nothing wrong with how her companion looks." Lulu looked up at Malik with a stern look, trying not to have anything start between the group. Sabbi ignored Malik's words and had Acqualina use her mythical ability to project her soul, her soul then entering far into the ocean to find any sea serpents. "How long is this going to take?" Kennethn asked as they all waited for Acqualina to finish her underwater search. "It shouldn't take too long! At least I hope..." Sabbi stared into the ocean with the others, forced to wait until Acqualina's soul came back. The group stood there for what felt like hours until they saw something moving swiftly within the water. As the movement began to get closer to them, something else could be seen moving behind it, something much larger. Acqualina's soul could be seen quickly emerging from the ocean and rushing back to her body in a state of panic. "Acqualina, what happened?! What's wrong?!" Sabbi asked as she tried her best to comfort her. Her question was quickly answered when the large movement that was following Acqualina slowly came out of the water. When Acqualina was searching for a sea serpent, she managed to find one and catch its attention. As she panicked and swam off, the sea serpent quickly followed her back to shore. And now there it was, towering over the group while glaring its enormous sharp teeth at them. Its scales were an aqua green to help it hide within the ocean and appeared to be at least 25 feet tall with a slimy looking texture on its back fins, which ran down the back of its neck and down to its tail as it remained submerged in the water. "Perfect! Lets get some teeth!" Sabbi cheered as she placed Acqualina back into her lock and key necklace for her to rest. "Are you serious?! Do you see how big that thing is?! How the hell are we going to kill it?!" Bryan exclaimed as the sea serpent quickly swung its head down at them, trying to devour anyone it could catch in its mouth. The group managed to jump out of the way, only getting a few minor scratches from the ground. "We don't even have a plan of attack! What are we supposed to do?!" Kennethn panicked as he stood up and began to hyperventilate. Bryan began to form an idea in his head, quickly going over to Kennethn and quickly calming him down. "Kennethn, relax! I need you to summon Xile!" "What?! Why?!" "Just listen to me and do it! We need his light manipulation!" Kennethn nodded and summoned his companion, Bryan doing the same with Mephisto. Once their companions were summoned, Bryan ordered Xile to use his light ability to blind the sea serpent before ordering Mephisto to use his darkness ability to create somewhat of a cloaked shield to help protect Xile. As the two companions did as they were told, the group took the opportunity to get to a safer position away from the sea serpent. Before Bryan could explain the rest of his plan to the others, Lulu had already run off with his own plan in mind, Sabbi running along with him after transforming. While the sea serpent was being blinded by Xile's light, Lulu used the soil to create boulder after boulder to make something like launching steps for himself until he reached up to the sea serpent's head. He pulled out his hammer and quickly whacked the sea serpent on the side of its head, making it wobble back a bit but not completely down. Lulu didn't have a chance to process what was going on when the sea serpent quickly swung its head back, smacking Lulu away and crashing into a nearby tree. His hammer went flying and smashing into the ground, leaving an indent in the soil. "Lulu!" Sabbi called out to him, not getting any response in return. Because of this, Sabbi stopped running towards the sea serpent and just stood there, not knowing what to do anymore. All she had was her sword and the adrenaline running through her body to fight the creature. As she was lost in her train of thought, Bryan rushed over in her defense as the sea serpent broke away from Xile's light and tried to swing at Sabbi. Bryan managed to create a strong enough wind to push the sea serpent back, causing it to stumble backwards into the water. Malik rushed over and used the launch step boulders Lulu left behind to go up to the sea serpent, creating long and sharp claw like fingers in his hands before striking the creature light and right. He managed to strike at the sea serpent's eyes, making its vision become extremely blurry. Malik landed on the tallest launch step boulder and retracted his claws, watching as the sea serpent thrashed its head in pain while screeching. For protection, Malik quickly created a forcefield around himself, making the sea serpents head bang against the barrier. After a few bangs, the barrier of the forcefield could be seen forming cracks, on the verge of breaking completely. Malik waited until the sea serpents head was launched back to bang against the forcefield again to pull out his spiked mace and drop his barrier, pummeling the creature on the nose. This caused the creature to wail even louder, turning away from the group and using its tail to smash against the boulder Malik was standing on. From the harsh impact, the boulder immediately collapsed, Malik falling along with it. Kennethn was the first to see Malik fall and quickly rushed over with his arms out. Even though he knew he wouldn't be strong enough to hold Malik up, he was hoping he could at least cushion his fall a bit. As Kennethn raised his arms up, he froze in place as he saw Malik now frozen in midair. He was still alive, his eyes moving around to see what was going on. Kennethn didn't know what to do as he continued to keep Malik frozen. It wasn't until the sea serpent reached its head back out to try and eat Malik that Kennethn jumped and pulled his arms away in fright, causing Malik to continue falling. The sea serpent missed Malik by a few feet, watching him fall towards the ground before getting frozen again by Kennethn. This time, Malik was only a few feet from the ground, so Kennethn felt comfortable enough to let him go and have him fall. Malik landed on his side, but was barely hurt from the fall thanks to Kennethn. As Kennethn helped Malik stand back up, Lulu finally managed to leave the tree he landed in and go over to his hammer. It was obvious that he was hurt, him now walking with a limp in his right leg and his hand gripping onto his left shoulder. He tried to pick his hammer back up, but he was far too weak with his new injuries, instead just leaning against the hammers holder. He looked up and could see the sea serpent staring in his direction. Even though its vision was now blurry, the sea serpent could still see the fuzzy figures of the teens. Lulu didn't even have enough energy to move away as the sea serpent stretched out its neck to eat him. Its head was only a few meters away from Lulu before Sabbi moved to be in between them and swung her sword at the creature. Both Lulu and Sabbi stood in fear and disgust as the sea serpents nose slid completely off from the sword's impact. Sabbi quickly snapped out of her emotions and dug her sword into the open wound of the sea serpents missing nose, causing it to wail louder and shake its head back and forth. Because of this, it caused Sabbi to get flung around with it, refusing to let go of her sword or dislodging it from the sea serpent. This continued for a few more seconds until the sea serpent finally got Sabbi's sword out from its open nose. Sabbi stabbed the sea serpent in its neck in an attempt to save herself from falling into the ocean, causing the creature to sway side to side to remove her from its neck. This only made Sabbi's sword go down its neck, causing what was just a small wound to become much larger and slowly deepen it. The sea serpent finally stopped swaying around when Sabbi reached the bottom of its neck that was out of the water. Luckily, Sabbi only got into the water up to her knees, so she was able to hold herself up again using the sea serpent's neck. She kept a tight grip on her sword as she twisted it to the side and began to slowly move her sword across the creature's neck, trying to cut through its neck all the way. The creature struggled to get Sabbi off of it, only making her stop for a couple of seconds when it swayed her off harshly enough. Xile and Mephisto went back to their earlier orders and shined light back into the creature's eyes, hurting its already wounded eyes even more. This distracted the creature enough for Sabbi to finish her work and finally cut the sea serpents head off. The top half of the creature's lifeless body splashed into the ocean, the neck remaining in the water while the head landed onto the grassy shore. Sabbi jumped onto the top half of the sea serpent and climbed back onto the shore, turning around and watched as the bottom half of the creature's corpse began to slowly sink back into the ocean. "W-We did it..! We did it, guys..!" Sabbi cheered in exhaustion as she looked up at the others. Bryan was mildly tired, Kennethn and Malik came out alright, and Lulu was now resting against his hammer. Sabbi had everyone except Lulu help her tug the sea serpents head more onto the shore so they could claim their spoils. Kennethn and Bryan transformed to use their weapons to help remove the creature's teeth, Kennethn using his chainsaw to slowly take apart each tooth from the gums and Bryan using his gauntlets to scrape and pull off the excess gum from the teeth. Sabbi went down the sea serpents neck and examined its scales. "Was this all worth it? This whole battle just for a thousand dollar set of teeth?" Malik asked her as he folded his arms. "That's not all! We can use these scales as money too!" Sabbi smiled as she used her sword to peel off each of the creature's scales. Malik sighed and went over to Lulu to check up on him until everyone else was done with collecting the parts of the creature they needed. After everything was taken care of, the group gathered everything up and made their way back into town, Kennethn and Bryan carrying the teeth, Malik carrying the scales, and Sabbi holding up Lulu as he still struggled to walk on his own. "At least now we got some money!" Sabbi smiled as she made sure Lulu and her were in front of the group so they wouldn't get left behind. "Yeah, but I'm not sure if it was worth doing all that to get it..." Malik sighed as they all could see the town's buildings coming up in the distance.