Chapter 8 #2
Shit, that hurt. Jabari thought, racing
to the arch once more, only to have three more squid blocking his
way to Formaci. “Leave it alone, Formaci. You can’t destroy the
arch.”
“I can and I will. This thing holds all the
magic. You know it and I know it, and I will destroy it and all
that live beyond it.” Formaci stated, grunting as he pulled even
harder.
Sediment on the top of the arch started to fall
downwards, and Jabari knew that if he didn’t stop the big bastard
he would succeed where so many others had failed.
The people must have felt the disturbance of
magic and some came to see what was happening. Jabari screaming,
“No! Go back inside!”
Formaci used one of his smaller tentacles to
latch onto a man. The guy started screaming in pain as blood filled
the waters around him, and Formaci used more of his smaller
tentacles to begin shredding and shoving pieces into his mouth all
the while pulling on the arch. Another man was grabbed and Jabari
shouted, “Polaris!”
Polaris must have heard the sounds or smelled
the blood, and immediately joined Jabari in the fight. He and the
men with him quickly took over the fight with the squids blocking
Jabari’s way, and Goboli with his group joined in this fight while
Sacrin and his team were fighting the remaining squid that had come
in to do battle.
Polaris tried to do to Formaci what he had done
to the other squid they had been fighting, but there was no
effect.
Formaci laughed, “You think you can stop me,
Polaris? I am an original. I was once a warrior for Poseidon. A
great warrior that fought by his side. Then he fell in love.
Pfft... love. The asshole created Atlantis and shoved us all out
like we were nothing. We couldn’t be allowed to go into the open
waters because the surface dwellers might hurt us. Like puny humans
could do anything to harm us. That’s such bullshit.”
“But it’s not.”
The sound of Foster’s voice had Jabari’s blood
running cold, and when Formaci went to grab at him, Jabari about
lost it completely. However, before Jabari could do anything,
Foster was back behind the arch, shouting, “I can tell you why it
is Poseidon was helping you not trying to isolate you.”
“You can tell me nothing, Atlantean!” Formaci
snarled.
Foster pushed his head out through the arch,
saying, “I’m not an Atlantean, I’m a surface dweller and I know
that if Poseidon hadn’t kept you from my people you would most
likely be dead right now as well as the rest of your squad. Hell,
just ask the great white or the orca what they think of the surface
dwellers.”
Formaci stopped pulling on the arch, snarling,
“You lie! There are no surface dwellers in Atlantis.”
“Well there is now and if you are like the
others around here, you should be able to scent that I am all
human.” Foster shouted out.
“Come forward and let me scent you.” Formaci
snapped.
“He will do no such thing.” Jabari snapped.
“If I come out there do you give me your word
you won’t harm me?” Foster asked.
Jabari snarled quickly swimming to the sound of
his mate’s voice, “Foster keep your ass behind the arch!”
Formaci’s eye seemed to take interest as he
said, “I give my word no harm will come to him.
Formaci then said, “If this person is truly a
surface dweller and speaks truth to me, my squad and I will go away
and never bother Atlantis again.”
Foster stepped out and Jabari hissed, “What the
hell are you doing?”
“Trying to stop this before anyone else gets
hurt or killed.” Foster insisted.
“You are not safe out here.” Jabari
insisted.
Foster raised a brow, “Jabari, I have been kept
in a bubble my entire life. If I can help with things out here then
I want to try. Formaci is angry because he feels he’s been
isolated... secluded. If anyone can understand how he feels, it’s
me. I just want to talk to him. Please. Let me try.”
Jabari pursed his lips and turned to Formaci,
“One wrong move and there is no one in these waters that can save
you. Of this I am sure.”
“I gave my word, demon spawn. Now let the
dweller speak.” Formaci snapped impatiently apparently smelling the
human on Foster already.
Foster let out a long breath muttering, “Where
the hell do I start? You have to understand that not all of the
human race is selfish and gluttonous. Most of what has happened was
out of ignorance and later... well, I guess it changed to the
almighty dollar.”
“Who is this god? I’ve never heard of the
Almighty Dollar.” Formaci stated firmly.
Shaking his head, Foster replied, “That’s
because it’s not a god it’s an expression. It means the greed set
in. Fixing the problems that were caused whether purposefully or
not became about money. Things like toxic dumping so a company
didn’t have to pay so much to clean up their leftovers. Bringing
large oil rigs to deeper and deeper waters to get more fuel, that
in itself when converted to gas for our way of transport put more
pollutants in the air, making it a big reason for global warming
that turned around and caused climate change to occur, although a
lot of people think they’re the same thing but they aren’t.”
“I do not understand.” Formaci said sounding
confused.
Sighing, Foster said, “I’m sorry, I’m muddling
things, but you have to understand there are so many reasons for
what I’m talking about and it’s not just the oceans being affected,
but I’ll do my best to stick to what you’re interested in. Because
let me tell you we have destroyed so many things like the
rainforest and ozone and shit the temperatures on Earth keep
rising. This is making our ice caps melt and causing the ocean to
rise, but it’s also causing an imbalance of salt to water. The
thing is that the water is warming and this is causing their own
set of issues. Then there is all the pesticides humans use on
plants and to control things like mosquitos and shit. That crap
gets into the water and... and depletes the oxygen levels and is
killing the plants and shellfish. You have oil spills, air
pollution issues, and don’t even get me started on the overfishing
that’s done to the point that some fish are almost nonexistent
anymore.”
Foster snorted, “However, for someone like you,
well let me tell you Formaci, you and your pod would have to worry
about more things than polluted waters and lack of food sources.
Your kind would be hunted and marine biologists and other
scientists... as well as radical groups that would look at you as a
sea monster and they would just want you dead. As for the science
aspect, I don’t know if that’s just a catch and tag thing, or a
kill on sight so we can dissect your ass, but they would do it and
there would be nothing you or anyone else would be able to do to
stop them. Hell, ask the sharks if you don’t believe me. Over one
hundred million sharks are killed all over the globe every year and
with those poor guys it’s usually because people want shark fin
soup so they just find ‘em catch ‘em and slice off the fins, then
throw them back into the water so they can drown. Ironic isn’t it?
A fish can drown.”
“Holy shit! They really do that?” Goboli asked
in shock.
Nodding, Foster replied, “Yeah they do. Oh,
don’t get me wrong, there are groups that do what they can to stop
it, and even those that are trying to save the ocean by taking out
all the pollutants. It’s just not easy and it’s really fucking
expensive, and with it normally being the rich business owner
dumping shit into the ocean to begin with to save a few bucks, it
isn’t like they’re going to be willing to put out the cash to fix
the mess they’ve made. Some people believe we are going to lose a
bunch of our beaches and stuff because of everything done to
it.”
“That’s just bullshit!” Formaci snarled.
Foster continued speaking, ignoring Formaci’s
outburst. “It’s really sad, and like I said there are groups trying
to do things to help. Right now they are really talking about
environmental changes and a bunch of countries are doing their best
to come up with solutions to bring down pollution, but like I said
money is what drives the abuse to our planet to begin with and it
will take those big corporations to compromise and be willing to
give some of that money up to help fix things. But like I said
there are things that people are trying to do. For example, you
have people building marine parks.”
“What’s that?” someone asked, but Jabari
couldn’t tell who spoke.
“It’s places the humans can go and learn about
marine life. There are people who swim and use glass-bottom boats
to see the fish and stuff beneath the water surface and no one can
fish there at all. I know it sounds stupid, but it’s helping keep
the fish population up and the water clean. Then you have the
people doing things to help save the coral reefs all around the
globe. Planting trees so the run off isn’t so bad and using all
natural fertilizers for plants... things like that. Now one of the
best things is they’re starting to take the trash off the ocean
beds and hoping this will reduce pollutants and stuff. I know it
doesn’t sound like a lot, but trust me, ten years ago people were
blowing this shit off and now they are at least paying attention
and trying to do something about it.” Foster said, then looked at
Formaci, “So you see, Poseidon wasn’t trying to hurt you. Maybe he
went about things the wrong way, but trust me when I say, the
outside world is not all it’s cracked up to be.”
Formaci asked, “How do I know what you say is
true?”
Foster thought a moment then turned to Jabari,
“How close are we to Louisiana?”
“With the rate of speed we swim, it wouldn’t
take long to get there, why?” Jabari asked.
Instead of answering him, he looked at Formaci,
“If I prove to you what I’m saying will you promise to stop all of
this and leave the Atlanteans alone?”
Formaci nodded, “Yes, but if this is a
trap...”
“It isn’t a trap. I want us to go a few places
but it’s outside the Atlantean walls. Will that be alright?” Foster
asked.
“Foster, once you leave the safety of Atlantis
you cannot breathe under water.” Jabari argued.
His mate turned to him, saying, “You did
something that helped me get to Atlantis surely you can do the same
thing to get me to where we need to go?”
Polaris swam forward, “If he is on my back, my
magic can protect him. The hippocampus is the magic Atlantis is
made of.”
Jabari sighed, “Fine, but at the first sign of
problems we return.”
Foster clapped his hands and went to Polaris,
“Let’s go.”