The Last Emprex Read online

  This hushed the crowd and even startled a few. “I apologize for raising my voice but I’m retiring not only the title of Seazarein Emprex but from any leadership role.” A dismayed moan rolled through the gathered fins and dwellers. “I want the Big Blue to have a brand new start and I’m too connected with the old ways.”

  There were shouts of “No!” “We need you!” and “Please be our king!”

  “Wait! Wait!” Gray told everyone and they once more strained to listen. “I don’t want to leave you without any guidance, though. I’ll be the Seazarein a little while longer until we get the process going and I’ll even give you my choice for who should be leader of what I’ll name the First Assembly of Fathomir.”

  Gray glanced at his advisors, giving Barkley a special grin.

  There was one thing that he hadn’t told his oldest and best friend during that loud meeting from before. He faced the crowd again and was pretty sure he heard Barkley say, “Gray, wait a second, what are you doing?”

  “I nominate one of the smartest, bravest, and most kind sharks I know to be the first First Assembly leader of Fathomir—BARKLEY!”

  “BARK-LEY! BARK-LEY! BARK-LEY! BARK-LEY! BARK-LEY!”

  Gray swam to his friends and gave Barkley a nudge. “You always said you wanted more say in how things went.”

  “Actually I don’t think I did!” Barkley said as the crowd continued to chant his name even louder. Then his friend became bashful. “I—I don’t know. The job is so . . . big.”

  “I think it’s a great choice!” Striiker exclaimed.

  “Don’t go laughing too hard, chowderhead,” Barkley said. “If I’m elected, you’re the new captain of the guardians.”

  “What? Aww, no!” Striiker replied before he nodded in acceptance. “Good one.”

  Gray flicked his tail at his closest friends and allies. “You’ll all be playing large roles in the assembly. You can share the work together.”

  “But what about you, Gray?” asked Leilani. “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know yet,” he said. “But when I do, you’ll be the first to know.”

  Then Gray went to see the one important fish that hadn’t been able to come to his speech.

  Barkley couldn’t believe it. He was leader of the Big Blue.

  A dogfish!

  The crowd continued to chant “Barkley! Barkley! Barkley!”

  They didn’t mind him being a dogfish one bit.

  Maybe I should finally stop thinking like that, he thought.

  It was a new day in the Big Blue.

  A fresh beginning for everyone.

  Anyone could be anything . . .

  Barkley went over to Velenka, who was off to the side and by herself, not with the group of Gray’s closest friends and advisors.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, momentarily uneasy. “Don’t you have to make a speech or something?”

  “There will be time for speeches later,” he told her. “I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for you. You wanted a new start? Well, here it is. I’ll need a fin that isn’t afraid to tell me what they think even if they disagree. I want you to be my assistant and advisor. Are you up for the task?”

  Even with the waters vibrating from the crowd chanting his name, Barkley heard Velenka say, “Thank you with all my heart.”

  Barkley gave the mako a pat on the flank. “It also doesn’t hurt to have someone sneaky when we’re dealing with the more devious fins, now does it?”

  “Oh that I can help with,” Velenka said, her big black eyes sparkling.

  CHAPTER 28

  GRAY SWAM TO THE SMALL CAVERN, double-checking that he wasn’t being followed. This wasn’t easy, as seemingly everyone in the Big Blue wanted to wish him well. He had done things in his life that had scared him witless before. But this swim—this short distance inside the Fathomir strong point where he was perfectly safe—filled him with more dread than anything he’d done before.

  It would be the last time he saw Takiza.

  Gray got inside the secluded cave and saw Oceania, the surgeonfish.

  “How is he?”

  “I don’t think he’ll regain consciousness,” she said, shaking her head sadly. “He’s not in any pain, though.”

  His master had been placed on a rock shelf, and the light current caused his frilly fins to flutter nicely. But his eyes were blank, with none of their usual sparkle, and his skin was grayish.

  Takiza was dying.

  “Can I have a minute alone?” Gray asked as tears sprang from his eyes.

  “Of course,” Oceania answered and swam from the chamber.

  Gray hated to see his teacher this way. If he had a wish it would be to speak with the betta just one more time. He would have traded much for that.

  “Hello Takiza,” he said to the betta’s unmoving form. “It’s me, Gray. You know, the chowderhead you turned from a dumb pup into a shar-kata master. I wanted to tell you that we won. The ocean is safe and it wouldn’t have happened without you.” Gray’s tears stung his eyes inside the small cavern. “You can rest now.”

  Gray wondered if Takiza could hear anything. In the end, he knew his words were more for himself than his Shiro. “I’d like to thank you for everything. You’ve made me the best shark I could be. I never knew my dad, Takiza, but I’d like to think he was like you. And on the day I swim the Sparkle Blue, if it’s not too much trouble, I’d want you to come and greet me. Thanks, and rest easy, Takiza.”

  Gray left the cavern blinded by his tears. Once outside, a few of his friends motioned for him to join the celebration that was rapidly taking over the Fathomir homewaters. Gray gave them a fin waggle and burst away.

  He wanted to be alone.

  In the quiet of the golden greenie fields outside the Fathomir caverns, Gray found himself thinking of all the friends and loved ones he had lost since he left home in the Caribbi Sea with Barkley. The list was so long it broke his heart: Mari and Shell from Rogue Shiver; Atlas, Quickeyes, and Overbiter who had led Coral; King Lochlan, Xander, and Kendra from AuzyAuzy Shiver; Silversun and Grinder of Vortex and Hammer; Whalem of Indi; the captain of his guardians, Shear.

  And soon Takiza.

  Gray would try to concentrate on the good times and the amazing things they had done. He hoped that in the future the Big Blue would swim a new course and fewer sharks and dwellers would feel the sting of this kind of loss.

  Gray sadly snapped at a mackerel that got close to his mouth, but missed.

  The missed strike saved his life as Hokuu’s spiked tail creased the top of his head.

  If Gray hadn’t gone after the fish, the spike surely would have blasted into his brain. He rolled a turn to the side and saw Hokuu, with an evil grin on his face and glowing with power.

  “I should thank that fish,” the frill said. “Your death would have been too quick. This way I can really enjoy it!”

  “We’ll see about that,” Gray said, grinding his teeth so hard he drew his own blood. He darted forward with a boost of shar-kata speed to snout ram Hokuu into next week.

  The frilled shark easily avoided the attack.

  Hokuu was even faster than usual and glowed a sickly green color. “You’re still fat and slow I see,” he said, and then laughed.

  Gray hated the sound and went straight at the evil monster. He then stopped and whipped his tail around, scoring a solid tail slap that drove Hokuu backward.

  The frill glared.

  “Not so funny anymore?” Gray asked.

  “No, you’re still a joke,” Hokuu said, his emerald eyes glittering with hate. “And your big stupid speech? I want you to know it means nothing! After I finish you I’m going to tear down everything you’ve planned. You may have killed Grimkahn, but he was a minnow compared to me. I could have wiped out both of your armadas together! But the fact is I
loved watching you destroy each other. And because of that, it’ll be that much easier for me to take absolute control.”

  Hokuu came forward, lightning fast, and plunged his spiked tail into Gray’s lower flank. It didn’t hurt. It felt like a tap when Riprap or Ebbie gave him their version of a snout ram. It felt okay, so Gray wasn’t worried.

  Still, there was an awful lot of blood clouding the water.

  “I will kill every one of your friends, all those you hold dear,” Hokuu said. “I’ll save your mother . . . for last.”

  That was it. With a battle cry, Gray roared at his enemy.

  He tried every move he could think of and even a few he invented on the spot.

  Nothing worked.

  Hokuu carved him to bits with his tail and tri-tipped teeth.

  After Gray lost half his left fin, the frill unleashed a spiked tail strike into his left gills. Gary shook his head, trying to clear whatever was stuck in there. He could barely breathe.

  Then he realized there wasn’t anything blocking his left gills.

  They were ripped to shreds on that side.

  “And so it ends,” Hokuu said as Gray drifted helplessly in the water.

  The frilled shark tapped Gray on the forehead with his pointy tail. “Ready to lose for good? One, two . . . ” Hokuu drew back his tail as far as it would go. “Three!”

  Then Hokuu disappeared.

  At least, that’s what it seemed like to Gray.

  Hokuu had been shoved twenty yards to the side.

  The frilled shark whirled and exclaimed, “What?”

  “You always were an overconfident fool, Hokuu,” Takiza said.

  TAKIZA! thought Gray, although he could only gasp, “Ta-ki-za,” in a breathy whisper.

  “Yes,” said the betta to Gray. “I was in a deep healing meditation, but your tears were so annoying I could not continue, so here I am.”

  “Enough of this, Nulo!” Hokuu said, coming forward. “You were never my match, even before I mastered dark-kata. You will die! And what could be better than killing you in front of your precious apprentice’s eyes before I eat his heart?”

  The fight between Takiza and Hokuu was so blindingly fast that Gray couldn’t follow it. He wanted to help but was too injured to do anything but keep sinking as he lost blood. The light dimmed around Gray but he knew the sun wasn’t going down. He was dying.

  “How—how can you be keeping up?” spat Hokuu. “You don’t use dark-kata!”

  “Correct,” Takiza said as he blocked another fiery attack from Hokuu. “I would never do anything so evil. But for every wicked current, there is a matching one of light.”

  Hokuu slashed at Takiza with his spiked tail, the high-pitched metallic whine from each attack running together into a single, continuous moan, they were so fast. “I see!” cried Hokuu with delight. “This is your last fight!”

  For a moment Gray didn’t understand but then it came to him. Takiza had filled himself with shar-kata power and was mixing it with what was left of his own life force.

  “All I have to do is wait!” Hokuu said, withdrawing twenty yards. “I can come back when you’re dead!”

  “You could,” said Takiza, glowing less now. “That is the coward’s way and you are nothing if not a coward. But then . . . you will never have defeated me, Hokuu. I would remain unbeaten, despite your best efforts, and you will remember that forever.”

  This enraged Hokuu beyond anything Gray had ever seen. He fired blast after blast at the wispy betta, who was always a bit too quick. They streaked back and forth, trading places and attacks, firing energy bolts and blasts.

  The waters thrummed with the thundering reports from their battle.

  Then Takiza paused. His fins drooped.

  With an eager glint in his eye Hokuu rushed forward. He shouted, “Victory is mine!” and used his Hurling Grace vomit attack, engulfing Takiza.

  But at the same time, Takiza zoomed ahead, releasing a blade of light that seemed to pass by Hokuu but not stop him.

  The vomit dripped off the betta’s shield, leaving some stuck on his fragile body. This sent wispy, smoke-filled bubbles toward the chop-chop as it burned into his skin.

  “You see?” Hokuu panted in short breaths to Gray. “I win. Now for you!”

  Hokuu swam forward . . .

  Well, half of Hokuu swam forward . . . and away from his lower body.

  The frilled shark looked back at the fifteen feet of his body that was no longer connected.

  Then blood poured from each of the severed ends.

  “What?” asked Hokuu in bewilderment as he began sinking.

  “The truth is,” Takiza began. “You were my match only in your own mind.”

  Then Takiza glowed bright for a moment and launched a white-hot ball of fire at Hokuu.

  It hit the frilled shark, and he died screaming before being totally incinerated.

  His ashy remains washed away with the current, and it was like he had never existed.

  Gray struggled to join Takiza, who was barely breathing and drifted in the water. “Are you okay?”

  The betta regarded him with a haughty look. “Do I seem okay?”

  Gray began to laugh and cry at the same time. The betta smiled. “Stop your unsightly weeping. Swimming the Sparkle Blue will be a kindness. I am so very tired.”

  “No, no, no,” was all Gray could say.

  “Listen to me!” Takiza demanded. “I am not done teaching and time is short. If you ever come up against a situation that is too great for even you, you must find a quickfin.” Takiza coughed. The bubbling vileness that Hokuu sprayed was working its way deep into his body.

  “Quickfin?”

  “Do not interrupt!” Takiza said. “Should there come a time when instead of an armada, one fin with the strength of an armada is needed, find a quickfin—any will do—and say these words: ‘Flashnboomer, Whorl Current, Brinicle.’ The code is ancient and to my knowledge has never been used, but remember the words anyway.”

  “I’m not in charge anymore,” Gray said.

  Takiza smiled. “For now. But no one knows which way future currents shall flow. Perhaps the Big Blue isn’t done with you yet.”

  “I’ll remember the words, master,” Gray said through the tears. The betta stared at him, waiting. “You want me to say them again, don’t you?”

  “Humor me,” Takiza said, giving Gray a light tap with his fin.

  “Flashnboomer, Whorl Current, Brinicle,” he said.

  “Very good, Gray. I go now to my friends and loved ones. I go to be with my own mother and father, whom I have not seen in so many ages. I am proud to have been your Shiro. As to your words, which I heard while meditating, I never had a son . . . but if I did, I hope he would have been somewhat like you.”

  The betta’s body then glowed with vibrant colors and transformed into a million multicolored sparkles.

  Gray was sure he was seeing an illusion of the Sparkle Blue, but these lights weren’t the pulsing blobs that came with that.

  No, these lit up the ocean with dazzling color in a display that made Gray smile.

  They circled and dove, looping and whizzing.

  He could feel it distinctly.

  Takiza was happy.

  Gray was sure of it.

  His own heavy heart lightened.

  Then Takiza gave Gray one last gift.

  The rainbow sparkles that the betta had become went into his body and through him.

  This tickled something fierce and caused Gray to laugh, even though he didn’t want to.

  When the sparkles left his body, flaring away in every direction, his injuries were gone.

  “Goodbye, Takiza,” Gray said.

  And with that Takiza Jaelynn Betta vam Delacrest Waveland ka Boom Boom swam the Sparkle Blue.


  CHAPTER 29

  “AND THAT’S HOW TAKIZA SAVED MY LIFE,” Gray told everyone as he finished the story of the betta’s battle with Hokuu.

  Barkley, Leilani, Striiker, and Snork could scarcely believe their ears.

  “Hokuu’s dead,” Barkley whispered. “It’s over.”

  Snork shook his head. “I’m sad about Takiza but I know Salamanca is going to be mad. He really wanted to be the one to beat Hokuu.”

  “Everyone wanted to,” Striiker nodded with approval. “But only one fish in all the wet world could do it. That Takiza was a great fin.”

  Leilani looked at Gray. “Are you all right?”

  Gray flexed his fins up and down. The one that had been sliced off tickled but otherwise felt fine. “I am. I miss Takiza, but now that it’s over it’s like this huge weight has been lifted from me.”

  “Because you loaded it on me!” said Barkley, giving him a bump. His friend had been overwhelmingly chosen as the first-ever leader of the First Assembly of Fathomir.

  “You had it coming,” Gray said. “Not because I’m getting you back for anything, but because I think you’re the best fish for the job.”

  “Really?” asked Barkley. “Not even a bit?”

  “Maybe a little for all those fat jokes when we were pups.”

  Barkley nodded. “I do think the fins of the Big Blue are ready for a change, though. The right ideas could transform the seven seas! And I’ll have help from a lot of smart fish; Tydal is Indi’s representative, Jaunt has been chosen as AuzyAuzy’s, Judijoan knows everything, and of course Striiker will be protecting my dorsal fin and also creating the Fathomir defense force.”

  Gray hadn’t heard about this.

  The great white whipped his tail from side to side eagerly. “Gonna be a lot of work but I can’t wait. Remember how you combined Indi and AuzyAuzy into one fighting force after Finnivus was defeated? They worked together perfectly against Grimkahn, even though they used to be enemies. Well, I’d like to do that with all the ancient shivers. We rotate five hundred fins from each shiver into the armada and they train together. I mean, no one’s gonna listen to the First Assembly unless its decisions are backed up by some teeth, right?”