The Riptide Pulls Back

Well at least Ian now knew why this guy was here. One sharkman, the one called Analu, wants to tell the other shark man, Lelei, to go home. There was talk of an exile and it being temporarily rescinded, matter of 'kingdom security'. His mummy shtick was wearing thin too. Ian let Up To Me shimmer to the surface for a few seconds, what was left of it anyways. It was still visible as that sheen of spectral static hovering above the bandaged form of Ian Wakeman. "...Should've cursed your ass..." Ian muttered out the words among many others that remained, for the most part, inaudible. It took a bit of consideration but Ian let the 'freaks' statement slide, for now. Somehow unleashing his power on Analu over something so trivial, while cathartic, seemed in bad taste.

Ian walked over to Mr. Augustine and stood with him, he was a teacher at this academy and Ian tried to be a good student. Besides, whatever political strife caused Analu to come to the surface for Lelei was probably too much for Ian, Claire, and Solaris. Heck this was something where even Aquaman would be out of his depth. Ian looked to the teacher and spoke in a quieter tone, his concern showing through. "You alright? Fin Soup over there didn't hurt you or anything, did he?" Ian jerked a thumb towards Analu as he spoke. This wasn't something that'd normally concern him but if a teacher at this school was disrespected by an outsider, Ian would probably have to interdict. To not take action under such circumstances, that would be outright shameful.

Claire quickly backed up at the clear sight of the two huge blue things. "What?" She questioned them and she slowly backed away and went closer to the other people, which in her opinion looked less threatening then the two blue things. "What are they?" She said under her breath, as if she was talking to herself, but it was still loud enough for anyone close enough to her to hear. She was a bit scared at the sight of them, as she had never seen something so, bizarre, even for this school.

She wasn't sure if she was to get ready to go in between them, or if she should hide behind the older looking people beside her. She stood there, staring at the two blue things, making sure that she was far enough from them, not to cause trouble, unless she needed to.

Solaris Vergilius Augustine

Listening in worriedly to the ongoing conversation, Solaris glanced at his phone a few times. Please, please, please. Come on already, Paschalis! At least the two people who looked like students had come over so, great? He was doing his job then, right? I don't want to get fired! Or hurt or maimed or psychologically scarred. Although, he had a feeling that the last one was inevitable.

He glanced over at the mummy boy and shook his head a little in fear. "N-no, I'm fine, really, thanks!" The stress was making his voice higher pitched than usual. "But don't let him hear you call him that -God knows it might set him off or something. Actually you know, what? Let's just get out of here, it's a way better idea!"

As he attempted to coax the students away, he laughed nervously and told the girl, "Uh, they're shark people, I guess. The one that likes us more is a teacher here. The one who doesn't, isn't. Uh, yep, that's about it. Nothing more to see here!"

And maybe that could have been the end of it, if it weren't for the very last thing that Solaris heard. He couldn't help letting out an incredulous snicker. 'The Deep One?' "What kind of stupid name is that?"

Wait. That was supposed to have been a thought.

Ian moved as though to point and refute the insult to pants, then noticed the entirely sleek body Analu. No exposed equipment, so modesty wasn't an issue. An existence underwater also meant clothes were more of a hindrance than anything else. There was no point to arguing with the sharkman over this. However the 'deep one' intrigued Ian, since it would swallow up everything that Solaris knew and loved. "wait, everything you, as in us knows and loves? Are you saying that unless This guy." Ian gestured to Lelei mid sentence. "Heads back with you, this island's done for?"

It hurt a little less. This hadn't fully registered with Ian just yet, but the thought of impending and all encompassing doom worked better than the aspirine he had taken this morning. Ian's voice went from flippant to a more serious tone as he turned to address Lelei properly. "So you're going, right?" He crossed his arms as he looked at the large sharkman. This old one wanted to consume and destroy something big, Manta Carlos? If not there then possibly the home of Analu, the former home of Lelei. Something big and old was gunna eat something similarly big and important, that was upsetting to say the least. "I mean, if you're not going then I will. I don't want any Old Thing to eat anything." It was a bold declaration and Ian spoke almost lightly, but he knew he'd go. Even hurting and wrapped in bandages, he couldn't just slack off when something this big and this dire reared its ugly head.

"S-shark people?" She questioned to herself, as she had never heard of such a thing before. As she took a closer look at them, it seemed that they were some type of water animal, which made no sense as to way they were on land, but a the same time, Claire didn't want to question them to find out. It was bizarre to see anything but humans that could talk, but adding animals and water creatures to the mix made it all the more confusing to Claire.

She dropped the topic in her mind, as the shark thing had now taken an interest in her as well as the two other humans beside her. What was the deal with them? She guessed that they were in a way, interfering with a somewhat personal conversation, but it wasn't like they could just leave and not expect the two blue things to stop them. "Well, what do you want from us?" She said coldly just as the person beside her finished. It seemed as if, something back was about to happen, as she sensed on what the person beside her, as well as the blue things had said.

Solaris Vergilius Augustine

So, Solaris was just about ready to mentally check out then. The only real reason for why he hadn't already was because the words out of that freaky fish's mouth had momentarily succeeded in terrifying all of the thoughts out of his head. The man would say that he was having a panic attack but wait, no. Since he knew Wong, he couldn't really say that in all seriousness. Maybe it was a little mean, but Solaris always felt reassured by the fact that he had an example of somebody hitting rock bottom and could recognize that he himself wasn't there yet.

"I-maybe it's a figure of speech?" He looked distractedly at the boy wrapped in bandages, nervous laughter making his already quiet voice shaky. Backing up a few more steps away from the two sharkmen, he almost missed the pinging sound from his phone, indicating that a new text had come in.

The way that the conversation had suddenly turned from We're going to destroy everything you love to Why on Earth would you want to wear pants left him thoroughly confused and no less afraid. Oh my God, he's insane. They're both insane. But no, really. It was mostly the more menacing shark person.

"Nothing, he doesn't want anything to do with us at all," he was quick to respond to the girl with him. And then, desperately, "Lelei, do something. Make him go away or -I don't know!"

Ian looked over at Lelei, he tried not to look too disappointed, but at the same time he was in no condition for aquatic adventures. He nodded and spoke to Lelei with more confidence than he actually had. "So long as nothing pops up and tries to eat the Academy." This was out of his hands, even if he wasn't banged up Ian would be out of his league here. All he could do was put his hands in his pockets and watch Analu leave. When one of the shark men was out of sight he spoke to Lelei again, more concern in his voice than Ian had origionally intended. "Seriously though, don't bite off more than you can chew. There's people around the school who're more than willing to chip in if you ask." He kept his gaze on Lelei, a little worried about the big lug. He'd been a fixture of the school for a while, and though Ian never met him he'd seen him around and knew he was important to people here. What's more, he was going into a situation that might involve some form of horrifying monster popping up and wrecking the Academy.

He turned next to Solaris, concern still in his voice. "How're you holding up, Mr. Augustine?" He knew Solaris wasn't 100% comfortable with the school, his jimmies critically near 'rustled' status on a good day. It was hard to blame him, stuff like this happened a lot. Ian tried to keep an eye out for the poor man, but he had admittedly been somewhat distracted as of late. That run-in with Andre and the time he's had to spend recovering from it might actually effect his grades almost as adversely as the encounter had effected his body. Ian hadn't addressed Claire, and didn't at this time. She seemed to have wandered into the wrong place at the wrong time, and it was hard to fault her for it. He hadn't seen her around as much as Solaris and Lelei, he didn't even know if she had powers or not. Ian's main concern right now was this Old One and if Lelei could stop it.

At that moment, Claire felt pretty helpless. She felt as if anything that she were to attempt to do, to try to stop whatever was going on before it got worse, was pointless. All she could seem to do was hide close to the two other people beside her, keeping her distance from the blueish gray monsters. She didn't even like to be in their presence, ans she thought to herself as to why she was still there, standing there like an idiot.

Maybe it was because in a way she wanted to see how this would play out, even though she really didn't know any of the people or things there. She looked at the older man to her side, and then remembered that he was one of her teachers, for some subject that she could care less about. That made her feel a bit better, as if this did all go south, at least she would know who to go to for help.

It seemed that the two shark things were heavily disagreeing, and even though Claire felt like just shouting loudly to get them to be quiet, she just stood there in silence, hoping that she wouldn't get dragged into anything unnecessary.