Battle Ray

As the Diver finishes patching up the suit and resupplying its kit, the lumbering being cocks the speargun and walks back into the depths. Slowly disappearing into the clear waters of Serpent Cove, but there is a presence that is watching. It’s been watching for a while, hidden, camouflaged at the bottom of the ocean. 

As our hero is fully submerged and the rush of bubbles have left the water, it walks with perpetual purpose towards the kelp forests of the southern end of Serpent Cove. The watching presence flutters closer and closer, hopping up from the sandy bottom and getting ever closer to the Diver. Our hero has sensed and knows of the follower, but has never seen what it is. Knowing that the mystery follower is now closer than ever the Diver tries to bait them in. It lets go of its spear gun, allowing it to slowly sink to the bottom and goes to retrieve a small shell. As this happens the mystery follower flies from the kelp forest at full force towards the copper clad Diver! It’s a stingray that’s bristling in weaponry, torpedoes, guns, rockets and cannons. It fires a volley of bullets into the Diver that rip through the suit, then fires off a torpedo to finish the job. As the torpedo rockets towards the Diver it steps over it and bangs on the propeller of the torp which sends it spiraling towards the surface. There it explodes in a ball of bubbles that implode on itself. The stingray swoops at the Diver but misses, the Diver knows this ray, it remembers the eye patch and scars it has. This is Battle Ray, a protector of Serpent Cove, thought to be lost to a great battle before the time of the Diver. A great hero of Serpent Cove covered in scars and half-healed wounds from all his mighty battles. The ray now starts to turn and stops, gently hovering in the kelp forest, like an attack helicopter. It focuses its one eye on the Divers helmet and tries to peer into it, only to see a mystic murky glow, a hypnotic pull seems to take the Battle Ray. What seems like hours pass but it's actually only a few moments, confused as to what happened the Battle Ray loads an armour piercing round and aims for the helmet. The Diver doesn’t move, it stays still and keeps staring back, trying to communicate with the stingray. Then the grizzled Battle Ray sees and feels the purpose of the Diver, the new hero of Serpent Cove, who has come to save the lost and protect the weak from the evils and negativity of this world. Much like he, the Battle Ray used to. He relates to the Diver and swims over to its side, shuffling under the spear gun to elevate it to the hand of the Diver, who grabs the ancient weapon and then pats the ray on the head. They are both on the same mission now, and for all the foes of Serpent Cove life just got a lot harder. The two head deeper into the kelp forest with Battle Ray swimming around the Diver and finally resting onto the back of the Diver.