The Octonauts and the midnight rescue

Chapter-4: In trouble

Recap: Tweak is woken up to the alert of the Gup-V sinking. Contacting Vanessa's room, her worst fears are confirmed when she realizes said girl is missing. Meanwhile, Vanessa is slowly making progress with clearing the reef's creatures. However, fatigue is slowly starting to settle in, disorienting her. But she's determined to help the animals. What will happen next? Read on to find out...

Vanessa huffed as she lifted up a small but still dangerous sized rock off the turtle's flipper. She was only able to lift it for a few seconds, enough to free the turtle. She dropped the rock back on the seafloor, panting more than she usually would have, slightly surprising her.

"Thank you!" the turtle said, "Oh, but my flipper still hurts!"

"My friend Peso can help with that," Vanessa said as she looked up. "Once we contact him, that is- But for now, come on, let's get you out of here," she said, as she guided the turtle away to the clearing outside the reef.

                                                                               X-O-X

As the Octo alert blared to life, it startled every Octonaut onboard awake.  Soon everyone gathered in the HQ, a few of them still a bit sleepy, for well, it was only 4:30 in the morning.

"What happened matey...?" Kwazii asked, rubbing his eyes.

"Vanessa's missing," Captain Barnacles announced, his voice sounding worried. "And she's in trouble." This was enough to snap everyone out of their sleepy states, as they all looked up in unison at the Captain. "The little matey's missing?! Where would she go this early?" Phoenix asked.

Tweak was quick to tell everyone what happened. Everyone's expressions changed to worry at that, and Tunip ended up fainting.

"Did you try to contact the Gup-V?" Shellington asked, and Tweak nodded her head. "I did, but there's nothing but static since the Gup's crashed. Looks like I'm in for another night of fixing..." Tweak sighed.

By then Dashi had already settled into one of the seats in the HQ and was trying to contact Vanessa. "I'm trying to contact Vanessa's Octo-compass," she said. "We can hopefully find her with it."

"Good idea Dashi," Captain Barnacles said as they all turned to the screen as the daschund tried to contact Vanessa.

"Vanessa? Van? Can you hear me?" Dashi said experimentally, but she could hear nothing but static.

"Oh no... I hope Vanessa hasn't lost her Octo-compass..." Aella said worriedly, and Tweak shook her head. "I made Vanessa's Octo-compass to switch off manually if it's in really strong currents since it's still a basic model unlike the Captain's," she explained. "That would prevent it from getting damaged. Either Vanessa's lost it or she herself is stuck in a strong current..." her voice trailed off, and Tunip fainted again.

Everyone looked at each other anxiously, wondering what to do. Vanessa was just thirteen. There were so many possibilities on what could've happened to her, and most of them weren't good."I hope she's not hurt..." Peso whispered.

"We're going to the place where the Gup-V is." Captain Barnacles declared. "If the Gup's crashed, she couldn't have gone far. Kwazii, Peso, and Daniel, to the Gup-A. Dashi, keeping trying to contact Vanessa."

"I'm on it Captain." Dashi said as she turned back to the screen while Kwazii, Peso and Daniel followed the Captain down to the launch bay.

                                                                          X-O-X

Vanessa groaned. She was running on barely an hour of sleep for two days, thanks to one particularly gruesome nightmare and the empty stock of her sleeping pills for when white noise or nothing else worked. All her fatigue was beginning to settle in, especially now that she had been lifting rocks and other rubble to free some sea creatures, tiring her even more. She shook her head resolutely, stamping at the sea floor. "I'm gona save these sea creatures and that's it!" she declared firmly to no one in particular.

If only it was as easy as said.

To be continued...