The Descent

It had been two days since her outburst. Said days were empty, devoid of anything of remote interest happening. She had grown used to the lack of anything to do, and now spent her time mostly wandering around the ship aimlessly. Burning Bridges hadn't exactly been very talkative, either. But, such was common with him. Though he was tall, quite good looking, and generally seemed outgoing, his responses were often limited to a few words, and the selection of people he talks to even smaller. She had no idea how he still managed to find that damn deck of his entertaining.

However, this day would be different. She was on the upper deck, tinkering with a radio she'd found in one of the old storage rooms. It didn't seem to work. As she looked up from the device, she noticed something odd in the distance. Lime green waters, with an equally green atmosphere around them. Out of worry, she yelled up to the dragon in the crow's nest. He looked down on her, and then ahead onto the green waters ahead. He made a suspicious face before signaling the captain, who in turn signaled the charter.

The robot came ambling up the stairs, seemingly uninterested and nonchalant as ever. She squinted as gears inside her audibly turned, before stepping into the pilothouse and beckoning the others to follow. Once all four were in the previously dark room now lit up by Eswyn's headlight eyes, she strutted over to the maptable and setting her hoof next to an imposing name - The Nuclear Sea.

Ametrine looked around at the other two crewmembers beside her, who looked equally as worried and confused as her. Eswyn sighed and rolled her eyes.

"We're here. The Nuclear Sea. Why do you look so worried, captain? You told me to set course through here." She said as Tidal Surge cleared his throat, looking away at seemingly nothing. "Don't worry, we won't die or anything. At least I won't. I don't know about you lot."

Eswyn took her hoof off the table and left the room again, heading back down the stairs. The dragon followed soon after, returning to their usual position in the crow's nest. Tidal and Ametrine were left to look at each other awkwardly, unsure of what to say or make of the situation. The short silence was broken by the radio still in Ametrine's hooves suddenly sparking to life, emitting static and barely audible noises. She set it down on the table and immediately started turning the knobs and pressing buttons, waiting for something to happen. She was already so invested in the radio that she didn't notice the captain leaving the room.

A few minutes passed. Then fifteen. Then half an hour. The radio was still emitting static, growing louder as they approached the menacingly toxic waters ahead. She didn't take much note of it, at least until she noticed her radio slowly sliding back and forth. The ship was rocking gently in the waters below. She snapped out of her electronics-induced trance and made her way out to the deck. She was shocked to see what was happening.

Sickly verdant lightning ripped across the sky, and the rain pouring from above burned slightly on her skin. The entire crew were sprinting around in rubber raincoats, panickedly doing maintenance on the deteriorating exterior of the ship.

"STONE! FOUR O' CLOCK!" Someone yelled from somewhere. Despite how loud they were, it was hard to hear anything under the corrosive downpour. She looked towards the bow, and as she had heard, a spiky protrusion from the water was nearing the side of the ship. Suddenly, the leaning of the ship got even worse as she stumbled and almost slipped down into the rising tides below. It was a close call, but they had swerved just in time to miss the rock. At least, so she thought. She let out a sigh of relief, just as she felt the ship smashing into the side of the rock pillar. As it did, she heard an abundance of things falling out into the ocean. She sprinted over to the edge, seeing tens of barrels flowing into sea from a massive hole in the side of the boat. Thankfully, it was above the water, so they were not going to sink.

Suddenly, thunder roared again as they witnessed a bolt of toxic lightning hit the bird's nest, causing the dragon usually manning it to fall unconscious. She watched as the helpless, charred being slumped over the edge of the tower, eventually sliding down and plummeting into the ship head-first with a loud crack. They'd lost him.

"Nightmare Fuel! No!" She heard Foulplay shout, who had been standing at the wheel with the captain. She watched as the griffon dove towards the corpse of his presumed friends, but just as he approached the rocking of the boat caused his lifeless body to slide away and down into the depths below. As the griffon landed on deck with a loud slam, he watched in horror as the dragon sunk.

Ametrine watched as the griffon stood, twitchingly. Akin to as if he was losing his mind. Suddenly, he let out a shriek before diving straight after his friend. She could only watch in terror as the dark green griffon splashed into the similarly coloured water below. It seemed that no one else on deck had noticed, through their sheer panic. They were busy tearing apart pieces of the floor to haphazardly patch up the hole in the wall. Ametrine, however, was on the verge of throwing up. What she had witnessed today was worse than anything she'd ever seen before.