Bugz gritted her teeth as she unholstered two guns and blasted her weapons at the nearest submarine. A depth charge exploded off her starboard side and sent her careening off Mishi-pizhiw’s back. The massive serpent charged a nearby submarine and crushed it in his jaws like a shark tearing through a rowboat. Gamertags floated up from the wreckage. His enemies changed tack.

One sub plowed ahead of Mishi-pizhiw, acting as a lure, while three broke off and covered his flank. The three subs began firing at the Thunderbird on his back, now completely defenseless underwater. Bugz noticed and shouted. Mishi-pizhiw grabbed hold of the decoy sub and turned to attack the others, but it was too late. Their laser fire loosened the grip of the Thunderbird’s talons and she sank down to the cave floor.

The Clan:LESS soldiers continued firing on the bird as Mishi-pizhiw dispatched the subs attacking him one by one. The remains of the submarines crashed into the cave floor not far from the nearly lifeless Thunderbird. The reverberations reached Bugz, who fired at still more submarines from a perch behind a stalagmite. She destroyed all but one with her deadeye shots. Feng exchanged fire with the remaining sub—a nuclear vessel and the largest in the fleet.

Bugz turned to see her beautiful bird crumpled on the floor of the cave. She swam as quickly as she could to the bird’s side. Bugz took heavy fire from the remaining sub as it broke away from its gunfight with Feng. Reinforcement subs poured into the cave and quickly engaged Feng and Mishi-pizhiw, bombing them with torpedoes.

Bugz cradled the bird’s massive head in her arms. She stroked her beak. The nuclear submarine prepared to fire, but Bugz turned and with three shots took out its weapons systems. Damaged but not destroyed, the hull of the sub began to turn a translucent orange. Inside the vessel, the crew engineered a meltdown, intending to crash into Bugz while the nuclear core on board exploded with cataclysmic radiation. It was closing in on Bugz fast, but she refused to let go of her Thunderbird.

As the submarine prepared to ram Bugz, the Thunderbird summoned the last of her strength and snatched the sub in her talons. The vessel shook in her claws as the radioactive decay hit a critical point. Bugz kissed the Thunderbird and pushed off the lake bottom. Kicking furiously, she put as much space as she could between herself and the imminent explosion.

Mishi-pizhiw pulled Bugz and Feng into the tunnel with only a fraction of a second to spare. He plugged the mouth of the tunnel with his diamond back and prepared to absorb the energy of the blast.

Daylight engulfed the cave as the nuclear sub exploded, incinerating the submarine instantly, and the Thunderbird along with it. The blast destroyed all of the other Clan:LESS ships as well.