CROSSING RIVER (B×B×B..) *COMPLETE*

Chapter 37- Water meets land

The mills family and friends had started there journey to Tridia early in the morning. The two kingdoms had joined hands since the news of River returning reached them, they moved the remaining Meridians to Tridia as it had more space and also because of the functional world barrier of Meridia, the dragons always flew around the area, in hopes of eating them.

Tridia had a barrier similar to Meridia but it wasn’t passable. Many tried to go through the river but it always flowed in one direction that was from top to bottom unlike Meridia where the river flowed whichever way the swimmer swam. However, Tridia was also close to land part of the world. No one knew the map of this world, as no one had travelled far from home before.

Their situation now with being cornered into their homes from both side,  had forced them to take a risk and see for themselves. The results of the risk was bad as no one returned from the trip. Still since then, the folks of Tridia hasn’t seen any humanoid creatures lurk inside there territory.

Whenever the hippocampus and Sacros floated to the surface to breathe, mills family and friends got off them but kept close watch on the surface. They were only an hour away from their destination. It was time to take the first break since they resumed their journey this morning.

River had noticed how the three ladies had gotten closer. He might be stretching it a bit but maybe Erina and Olivia seems to have found their third and His mother seemed to find them interesting as well. He turned his head to the right and saw the dominant boys, Zale and Wayde competing to catch biggest hunt. Wayde had mastered riding Sacros, like River was loved by hippocampus, Wayde was liked by the Sacros.

A cold nose nudged River on his head and he felt a strong tongue lick his arm, he chuckled and turned to see the Creature who treated him exactly like how Daisy used to in the water park. His mother also seems to share his love for cute sea creatures, she enthusiastically told him everything she knew about hippocampus. They were one of the fastest creatures in the sea and they seemed to resemble many traits with small sea horse.

They laid eggs and male hippocampus took care of the eggs until they hatched. They were also used as pets among Meras but since all the things had gone down, many creatures have left this side of the sea. Females hippocampus have shiny skin while colours of males were darker. “What do you want Daisy?”, River asked the creature. He gave her the name of his favourite dolphin in honour of her memory and their similarities.

He scratched her neck and she leaned into it for more. His mother told him that even though they had gills, they still went to surface to breathe only because of the long journey. It had become their habit to do that as when they swim fast, they like to do the skipping on the surface like dolphin’s but ever since the terror over the surface, they quickly went up and stuck their nose out then took a quick sniff of breathe in and out then hurriedly dove back down.

River had noticed that Sacros needed to do that more often then hippocampus. He was lost in thought then he blinked and looked around for the mischievous creature but she wasn’t around. He looked up and saw her go to the surface, he smiled at how much playful she was when she swam. River compared her with large dogs like, golden retriever and German Shepherds when he saw Daisy swimming around being playful and shaking her tail.

His smile however froze and his expression turned into pure horror when he saw a large shadow glide over the surface. Daisy was diving down, so she couldn’t see the danger coming towards her. His body jolted upwards, his sting hardened, spine needles were out, hair flowed as lightning crackled around him. River heard everyone crying out his name below him but he had to save Daisy.

His speed was faster than it had been in human world. River had felt drastic change in himself since his arrival in this world and it had only intensified since the purification ritual in the temple in Meridia. His eyes turned into slits when he saw dragon’s large claws plunge through the surface.

He had strongly wanted to push Daisy away from the claw and to his surprise when he did the “Get away” gesture with his right hand, Daisy’s body was magically pushed further from the spot and the claws grabbed on empty water. He watched his hand in surprise but forgot to stop going upwards.

He shot right through the surface and flew quiet a distance out of the water. There were three green, black and red scales dragons around him. River watched in horror as all three of them flapped their wings, took the turn and dove right towards him. He felt a tremor inside him which started from his gut and reached all over.

The morning sky gave out flew sparks then when he raised his hands towards the sky as he fell back down, there was a thunderous roar and bluish green streaks of lightning stroke all three dragons, making them screech and quickly turn away. As River was falling down, he saw land far in the distance. It looked like there was a Rocky cliff by the shore as waves clashed into the rocks.

He plopped back into the water but stayed on the surface and narrowed his eyes towards the rocky cliff. He turned downwards and dove back inside the water. River was met by two boys half way and was grabbed angrily by Wayde and Zale who dragged him further down and back to the spot where every one was.

“What were you thinking?! Are you crazy? Risking your life for a Creature like that? What do you think will happen to your family if something happened to you?”, Wayde scolded him. He was fuming and shaking from fear mixed with anger. “I know it was risky but I couldn’t let Daisy get eaten! There was just a strong urge to help her and I couldn’t control it”, River said softly.

Zale pushed Wayde aside and grabbed River and frantically looked all over his body, “Are you hurt or scratched?”, He asked and River shook his head then he heard the boy say, “ I can’t believe how reckless you are! You could have at least called out to me, so I could have come with you and slayed that beast. You are fucking awesome but Don’t ever do something like that all by yourself! You always need to have a backup”, River watched the excitement mixed with fear on Zale’s eyes and he blinked as he thought he heard wrong.

When it registered what he was told, a smile formed on his lips. His mother, Erina, Destan and his parents seemed to agree with Zale. They shared expression as Zale and he could even sense pride in their eyes. “It’s absolutely necessary to help any and all creatures in your kingdom with your abilities. Goddess has gifted you with two! Your grandmother would pass out if she was here, she had told me that no one could ever have more than one ability”, Mira said and gave out a sad laugh.

“That was very brave of you. This just proves how much worthy you are of your abilities and the title as a Royal. As Zale said, don’t ever do such thing on your own. You just got lucky as there weren’t many of those beasts”, Dessa praised and pointed out. Destan hugged him and River could feel the boy’s heart beating faster than his own, “I nearly died from my heart falling out of my mouth”, River heard the boy mumble.

Riley and Brandon looked conflicted and seemed to agree with Wayde while Olivia was dumbstruck from fear. The main reason for all that had happened, dashed towards him when there was a small gap and River was attacked by tongue then rubbed by shiny skin all over. All the hippocampus circled around him and he heard them make gargling noises.

After everyone calmed down, they started the journey once again. River kept glancing at Wayde, Riley and Brandon but they were looking at the front. He felt guilty for being reckless and knew they were right for being concern but it was hard to explain the urge he had felt to save Daisy. He felt like someone was watching him and he turned to see a smug looking Zale and sweetly smiling Destan, staring at him.

River was really giddy from being praised by others. He also kept getting respectful gaze from all the warriors. When they entered the territory of Tridia, River’s eyes widened from seeing the kingdom. The place was covered with colours from all the coral reefs, structures made from rocks to decorate the place further. There was even crystallized posts all over the place for guarding warriors to stand guard.

He saw three warriors unmount from their rides and go the spots. They moved further through the mountain of colourful corals and saw sea weed forests on the right side. Everyone unmounted their rides and Daisy unwilling left his side after he kept pushing her to go with others. He swam with his mother and soon felt Wayde, Riley and Brandon’s presence behind him. The leaders and family of Meridia swam to their side. River saw circular houses made into the coral mountains.

He then saw two very weird looking Creatures come towards them. They weren’t longer than five feet and River’s eyes lightly glowed as he went through the memories. He found out what these Creatures were, the one who looked like a guy with zig zag black and white stripes all over his skin and long slim tail with fins and without limbs was originally a sea snake and was sired by Dessa. This was his form after transformation.

The other one looked like a female but she was green all over and was originally a sea horse. Her lower body remained similar to her animal side while the upper body had changed into humanoid form. The snake guy was made to protect the twins when they were young while the sea horse girl was made to babysit the kids in their kingdom. ‘How ironic’, River thought.

They were sent here just recently with few others to help Mira and the warriors as extra hand to protect the kingdom. They bowed to Dessa and the family then turned to mills family and did the same. “The kingdom remains protected and all merfolk are safe inside. No strange sightings of those creatures have taken place.”, the snake guy reported to Dessa.

“That’s good. Sera, have you felt any change in the water?”, Dessa asked the sea horse lady and River saw her flap the wings on her back, “Yes, the vibrations in the water is elevated but it is not strong”, she answered and Dessa nodded. All of them followed Mira’s lead as she took them towards the temple which was further away.

River saw the palace of Tridia on the way and it was as colourful as rainbow. Long strange vines were covering the walls of rocks and corals. It looked magical and very fairy-tale like. Even the temple seemed too Disney like with pillars covered with sea plants and lit by crystals. When he looked inside, the place was similar to Meridia with pink and orange crystals on the sides while the main crystal was Red in colour.

River took a deep breath, he saw people gathering behind them and for the first time, he saw the common folks. Same beluga looking Sirens from Meridia and colourful scales shiny skin Tridians. They also looked at all of them, Mira proudly introduced River to them as the heir of the Royal family and bearer of new life. River felt really embarrassed with the title and cringed on his mother’s skill to give the title.

Suddenly sand started flying around them and loud warning shrills came from the direction where the sand flew in and River recognised the direction where the Rocky cliff he saw from the surface was. The temple wasn’t that far from the land. Everyone took fighting stance, only four warriors of Tridia were present here while remaining three were guarding the entrance.

There were ten warriors of Meridia and two hybrid creatures. The warning sound was probably made by the Tridian warriors guarding the back of the kingdom. River was circled by five boys and he was a bit annoyed with them but he wasn’t going to complain about it right now. They literally had seen him strike three dragons with lightning and he even used telekinesis but they always acted like he was a damsel who needed protection.

All Meras had their eyes covered by the sliding eyelids and they could decipher around twenty creatures swimming at them in through the sand storm. River watched carefully and noticed they didn’t have tails but had legs and hands. They seem to be carrying weapons.

Every warriors made formation in front of the Royal family members and called for hippocampus and Sacros. However, in next moment, the warriors were thrown to the side just with the point of spears. The sand settled and the enemies were finally clear to see. The mysterious humanoid creatures.

“Great! What next? Vampires and werewolves?”, Olivia groaned. The large number of creatures looked like elves. Some of them had very white skin but all of them were very tall in height and had pointy ears. Half of them were covered in blue and green stripes and some of them had green hair with brown horns while others had white hair with dark grey horn. “Does anyone knows anything about elves?”, Riley asked.

“There are different types of them and since these ones are inside water with such blue and green stripes, they probably are water and nature elves or both. If we go by what humans have written about them is true”, Erina answered.

Mira struck them with lightning, Dessa shot pointed icy spikes and Kyle made boiling water balls then threw at them. The mills family used the “Shwaa” while the twins used their abilities as their parents.

The elves used their green and grey shafts to block the attack. “Right, they use magic”, Erina added then continued with the Shwaa blast. Wayde, Riley and Olivia followed. Destan and Zale also continued using their abilities in similar manner to their parents. Brandon who was new to this, didn’t know what to do. River held his hands and tried sending information about attacks that he himself had learned in this small amount of time.

He heard a ruckus behind him and turned to see another group of elves fighting with hippocampus, Sacros, snake guy and sera. The snake guy could make whirlpools and do the sonic attacks while sera could produce vibrations to create illusions and paralyse anyone for at least one minute.

Brandon moved forward and used the only thing he managed to learn, Shwaa blast. Instead of blasting their heads or body apart, they were thrown backwards with Brandon’s one blast. River looked at him in surprise then encouraged him to keep at it.

He tried using telekinesis but it was still work in progress. He used the song of madness but it didn’t seem to have any effect. River didn’t know how to summon lightning to cause paralysis, all he had done was to strike his enemy to hurt them. Since he had been observing, he noticed the elves weren’t throwing killing blow at them.

He was about to let others know when suddenly he felt like he was being pulled upwards. He looked at the surface and saw a figure pointing a palm at him. When he tried moving away, he wasn’t able to move. He saw Daisy dash towards the figures to give a head-butt. River clenched his fingers in fear, he watched as Daisy was knocked down just from a flick of the figure’s fingers.

River fought against the force and managed to free his hand, he repeated what the figure did and watched as the Creature was shoved to the right. River sent a blast and the humanoid body was thrown back to the surface. He opened his mouth to send another blast when he felt a hand block his mouth and tightly held his body.

River extended spine needles and heard the attacker hiss and curse. Then he saw them come in front of his face, green, blue skin and white hair with black horn was what he first saw then he was being stared back at by a teal aqua green eyes. The elves’ body was all blue, They all were completely bare with only some sort of cloth made from leaves and animal skin covering their crotch area.

River saw the guy blow water on his face and a icy cool feeling assaulted his skin. It reached his brain, making him groan from pain. Lights shot through him and the guy cursed as he was flung away from him. River turned around and swam towards others.

But his heart froze as he watched all of them laying on the sandy floor, unconscious. When he tried to swim towards them, his tail was caught and he was pulled up. River swiftly turned and punched the guy then slapped him with his tail. He then sent a blast and the guy was thrown at a distance.

He watched around him and saw all whites, greens and blues creatures watching him. River was scared and angry, he focused on one of them and with a grabbing gesture of his hand, he pulled that elves' magic shaft. They all looked surprised and he just aimed it at them. They all readied themselves to fight back from being attacked.

He sensed someone behind him and swung the wooden stick at the guy but it was quickly caught. River tackled to stab the guy with his claws but felt a force glue his hands together. The guy looked annoyed from being beaten up and having to use magic. He came close and placed his hand on River’s head but when nothing happened, his eyes nearly popped out from disbelief.

River used the chance to blast but the guy dodged it and gave a chop on River’s neck and with that, his body went numb and darkness took over his line of sight.