Something was off in the reef. The water was still. Motion that normally carried currents softly through was absent. Everything stopped swimming. Coral refused to sway without the movement of the waves.

It was an unsettling calm before a storm unlike any the reef had ever seen. An unnatural power began to make its way across the ocean, and they were in the dead-center of its path. Nothing could prepare the critters of the not-so-deep for what was to come.

A column of water rotated like a buzzsaw at incredible speed directly above the reef. All manner of debris and ocean life were being carried along its violent path. Coral was torn from the stone beneath it and flung every direction. Poor, mindless fish were caught in the center of the column, caught in a vortex of chaos, being torn apart by its speed.

“Fip!” Tibby, one of the twelve younglings called for their protector, Fip Mub, the strongest of the manta squadron. They were all huddling below the reef, just barely away from danger. But there was nowhere to go. They were trapped in a stone basin, the only way out was up through the reef to where they’d be caught by the water column, or down into a brine pool, toxic to the touch. A certain death.

Fip hovered over them, hiding a sadness at the reef’s near-destruction. “Stay here, children. I’ll find the source of this. All the stronger swimmers, hold on to those who are not. Protect each other. Once I figure this out, I’ll come to get you.”

“Be careful Fip!” some of the younglings called out.

Fip Mub rose through the reef, fins folded up to resist getting dragged along. There was something coming from the origination point. It appeared to be dolphins riding the column. Fip’s head popped above the water for a moment to watch them weaving in and out of the ocean’s surface. Impossible. A human riding a dolphin? Fip heard the human shout, “Kowabungis!”

This had to be the cause of the devastation. There was no chance of a coincidence. Fip Mub clenched his manta lips in rage and jetted forward, one of the fastest swimmers among any manta he’d ever met. Fip’s eyes widened as he got closer to the water column. Pure death. Anywhere near it left no chance for survival. Carcasses lined the spiralling walls of water flying through the ocean. 

Problem was, as fear crept in, he hesitated and his find relaxed. He got too close to the pull of the water column. Without a second to regain his poise, it took him with the ease of a whale inhaling a plankton. Would the younglings survive on their own? Fip’s last thought became a memory as he lost consciousness, fear taking the reins.

On the decimated rubble of his reef, Fip awoke. A sole remaining piece of gray-blue coral caught his tail. The water column passed. It was there, in the distance, continuing on. The specks of color from the dolphins dancing around it arose fury in the manta ray.

“Children!” Fip shouted. He cracked off the piece of coral, leaving it hanging on his tail and checked at the lower part of the basin for them.

“I tried, Fip. They kept sinking down.” Tibby cried.

“No.” Fip said. Tibby was floating above the brine pool. “How long?”

“I don’t know.” Tibby cried harder.

Fip looked around for any way to save the children. He was it.

“Go find others.” Fip commanded Tibby.

“Please don’t leave me!” the youngling wept as Fip prepared to enter the brine.

No hesitation. No fear.

It stung to swim in. Stung deeper than a jellyfish sting. Deeper than anemone. Every cell of the body was resisting the toxicity. He couldn’t see anything.

And then he felt them, shook them, checked them. Ten bodies, no pulses. One missing… Fip went deeper in search of the last youngling, whatever the cost.

Just a moment later, he popped down beneath the brine. This wasn’t the ocean he knew. It was bright. The water was clear. To the point that he couldn’t tell if he was even in water anymore. But he was floating… Perhaps it was the ocean of the afterlife.

“Fip Mub…”

Fip listened patiently, instinct telling him to do so. The coral from his tail detached and floated towards a ball of dark blue water that began to form.

“You’ve defended your reef, your family.”

“I’ve failed.”

“To fail is to learn.” the orb said. “And you are not done learning.”

Fip Mub awaited instruction.

“Venture out. Leave the ocean so that you may return to it capable of protecting it.”

The coral became a ball and then disseminated, reforming as a mask upon Fip’s head and a trident upon his tail. His pectoral fins grew nacelles on each side. In that moment, they revved as if he could beat the speed of that water column.

“What are you?”

“The ocean is my Realm. Others have forgotten that to be a fact.”

“I’ll bring that man and those dolphins to justice.”

“Don’t let fear overcome you again. Go forth. Be Fearless, Manta.”