Dear Diary:A week after our intense adventure in the Cyborg Kingdom, we had another equally intense one. It all started that morning. Jake invited Mary on a boat trip to the River of Death, just outside the Grass Kingdom. I was supposed to invite her, but I chickened out. It was around 10:00 a.m., and the three of us were already there. Jake greeted Mary cheerfully, while I tried to sound as "natural" as possible, but ended up greeting her shyly. She greeted us cheerfully.I wasn't very excited about this trip, since the River of Death is notorious for being the largest river in all of Totium and also for being infested with dangerous things: storms, giant waves, and giant, hungry fish. Not many people come to this place, only the bravest or the craziest, like Jake, who love risking their lives for fun. I prefer the comfort of my own home, but I only came to spend more time with Mary, since I didn't have the courage to ask her out, even though we were supposed to go somewhere quieter. But because I chickened out, Jake ended up choosing this shitty place.I'd never done anything like this for fun, and since we met, we'd only seen each other when we had to go on a mission and didn't have much time to talk. So it was worth going there... or so I thought.We got into the boat Jake had rented and started rowing. Mary and Jake seemed really excited, while I was pretty nervous. Luckily for me, though, about 10 minutes had already passed and nothing dangerous was happening. I relaxed a bit and decided to eat what Mary had brought: ham and cheese sandwiches with butter and mayonnaise. Although the food was delicious, I ate very slowly so as not to make Mary think I was a "pig."Before I knew it, I was lost in my thoughts. I was imagining being alone with Mary and having a romantic date, but then I remembered that reality is very different. I didn't think someone as beautiful as her would be interested in someone like me, but oh well. I was starting to think that nothing dangerous would happen when, suddenly, a giant squid appeared in front of us. Jake shouted excitedly:"The Kraken!!"I remember reading in very old books about this creature, that it was just a myth. But well, this monster is usually one of the biggest killers of idiots who come to this place thinking nothing will happen to them.I stopped eating and got very nervous. The squid used its gigantic tentacles to attack the boat we were in, but Jake managed to dodge it by steering. I decided to act brave in front of Mary. I had already stored up a few lightning bolts, so I used electric fists, and every time the giant squid attacked, I stopped the attack with my fists. Jake and Mary took advantage of one of those clashes between tentacles and fists to jump on top of the monster and wound it with their weapons. The squid, in pain, decided to leave, submerging itself at the bottom of the river.I let myself be thrown to the ground, relieved that it was all over, while Jake and Mary celebrated excitedly. My calm ended faster than I would have liked, as a storm was approaching. The wind was blowing fiercely, lightning was striking everywhere, and a giant wave was coming. Oh, and as if that weren't enough, many hungry fish were heading straight for us to devour us.I told Jake and Mary that I would take care of the lightning and the wave; they would take care of the fish, since if I got struck by lightning it wouldn't matter, because as the Thunder Knight I was immune to electricity. Then I invoked the "electric speed" ability, and with my incredible speed, I was able to run across the water without falling. I went to absorb all the lightning strikes near the boat and also used my super speed to stop the waves, creating "water tornadoes" by spinning on my axis at high speed (although it made me very dizzy).Meanwhile, Jake and Mary were hitting all the fish that jumped, trying to devour them. Sometimes they killed them: Mary by hacking them with her axe and Jake by impaling them with the spikes on his mace or making them explode with them. After about five long minutes, everything calmed down, so I went back to the boat and collapsed onto the floor, exhausted. The only sound was the soothing sound of the water.My heart was beating very fast. I never enjoyed these kinds of intense emotions; I never did these kinds of things for pleasure, only because I felt it was my "duty." Tired of it all, I didn't care about upsetting Mary and told Jake I wanted to leave, but he replied that he wanted to stay longer since he was having a lot of fun. Mary said the same thing, but I didn't care, so I decided to leave on my own.Jake tried to stop me, but I ignored him. I'm pretty impulsive: If someone makes me angry, I can't help but yell at them really loudly, and that's why we started arguing like always. Now that I think about it, I must have looked like a complete idiot in front of Mary.Anyway, the argument stopped because of Mary's beautiful voice, which said:"Hey, guys, sorry to interrupt, but there's a really thick fog surrounding the whole river."We couldn't see a thing and we tripped over each other and fell to the ground. Just as the fog cleared, we realized too late that we were facing a waterfall, since the boat had been carried there by the current. We couldn't react in time and we fell over it.I quickly invoked the "Electric Tornado" ability, managing to float and save all three of us, but the boat crashed onto a giant rock in the middle of the waterfall and was destroyed. We landed on the rock. Although, honestly, now that I think about it, even without the electric tornado we could have survived the fall, but I acted on impulse.It seemed we could finally find some peace, but we were wrong. Suddenly, a giant shark appeared out of nowhere and tried to devour us. But unexpectedly, before the shark could reach us, we were pulled into a cave behind the waterfall, and for some reason, the shark couldn't get inside. It was as if the water were made of steel. After a while, the shark gave up and jumped into the water.We quickly realized that we had been saved by three strange creatures. They were humanoid, chubby, and covered in scales. They were light blue, wore belts of different colors—blue, red, and green—and had fins on their backs.After thanking them for saving us, I asked:"Who are you?"They answered in unison:"We are Tan, Tin, and Tun. We are the rulers of the Fish Kingdom... well, we were. We need your help, please. You're Team Totium, right? We've heard about your exploits."I was surprised that we hadn't even been back on our adventures for a month and people already knew about us. Despite being the children of famous heroes, I thought people would have forgotten about us, although, well, there was another reason why we were so famous, but that's for a future chapter. Jake replied:"Yes, Your Highness, we are Team Totium. What do you want us to do?"Tan told us:"You see, we were originally one being: King Aqua. We controlled the three water crystals; each one controlled something different: one controlled water, another fish, and the other allowed us to maintain the king's form. But one day, three bandits attacked us, trying to take the crystals. They almost took the king's crystal, and for some reason, we split into five different personalities: Tan, Ten, Tin, Ton, and Tun. Ten and Ton wanted to use the power of the crystals to rule all of Totium, not just the lakes, rivers, and seas. We obviously opposed them, but they kept the King's Crystal. With that power, no one could stop them. We managed to escape with the Water Crystal and the crystal to control the fish, and we hid here. We don't have enough power to try to take the King's Crystal from them; it would be too risky to attack them ourselves, since if they get the two remaining crystals, nothing will be able to stop them. So we ask you from the bottom of our hearts to please take the King's Crystal from them so we can reunite, but with the good personalities in control."After that, I started to remember the Fish Kingdom. It was one of the few kingdoms I had never visited. I've never been a very good swimmer, and one of my greatest fears is drowning, so I always avoided coming here. According to many people, this kingdom is very beautiful; There's a great variety of friendly and beautiful fish in this place, and King Aqua was one of the most popular in all of Totium because of his great kindness.Mary told Jake and me that there were rumors the king had multiple personality disorder, perhaps caused by so much use of the crystals. Apparently, King Aqua has ruled his kingdom for many centuries. One theory I read online suggests that perhaps in the past the king was five different people, and that when they acquired the crystals, they became one, and because they've been fused together for so long, they forgot they were five people. But Mary theorizes that, due to being fused for so long, the crystals started to malfunction.And well, recently the Great Kingdom's police closed the entrance to this kingdom and to the River and Lake of Death (the Lake of Death is connected to the river). I suppose that, because of the king's separation, this place is much more dangerous than ever. Well, according to the three good kings, their five personalities were sadness, happiness, confidence, hatred, and ambition. The last two are the personalities we were going to kick their butts.Interestingly, it was quite obvious what personality each good king had: Tan cried the whole time while telling us his story, Tin smiled the whole time while playing with the rocks, and Tun looked us in the eyes very defiantly. It was hilarious.Without much hesitation, we accepted the mission. After a long talk explaining the plan, we put on special diving suits. They were yellow and had webbing between the fingers and toes, I suppose for better swimming. They also had an antenna on the head to light up underwater. I carried the crystal to control the fish, which was red, and Mary carried the crystal for the water, which was blue.All ready, we jumped from the rock to the bottom of the lake. The Lake of Death didn't belong to the Fish Kingdom; it's a place very few people are allowed to enter, as it's very dangerous. Although the lake and river were very popular for that very reason, even though you could no longer enter the lake, there were still businesses renting boats and other things, and obviously, there were a lot of idiots who still came to this dangerous place despite it being illegal.To get to the Fish Kingdom, you have to fall down the waterfall and go as deep as you can. There used to be many tours of the Fish Kingdom, but recently—well, at the time of this adventure—there were many accidents, as wild fish were killing tourists, so the tours were suspended. So it makes sense that the good kings had no one else to ask for help. I wonder how long they had to wait.We went deeper and deeper. Finally, after several minutes, we entered the Fish Kingdom. It was surprisingly relaxing. It was very dark, but I liked the sound of the water for some reason. Beautiful colored lights could be seen here and there; according to Mary, those were aquatic plants that can create light naturally.But the calm was abruptly shattered when we realized a horde of fish, specifically hammerhead sharks, were approaching at high speed, intent on killing us. But we were ready to fight. Each of us drew our respective weapons and we began battling the violent fish, which, we were told, were actually robots, since the evil kings couldn't control the fish and all the citizens had to be hidden or locked away.I invoked the ability "electric swim." This allows me to use electrical energy to swim at top speed and with great agility; it also grants me great resistance to water pressure, enhanced underwater vision, and the ability to hold my breath for a long time. This allows me to move freely in the water, since, as I said before, I'm not exactly a very good swimmer.After we had defeated several sharks, they, seeing that they couldn't attack us up close, decided to use their body weapons. Their "hammers" functioned as explosive projectiles, generating huge explosions, but we managed to dodge them, and even Mary could deflect their attacks by kicking the hammers. Jake used his explosive spikes too, and I "killed" many sharks at once by slicing them in half at high speed, thus wiping them all out.After that battle, we decided to move forward, noticing the large number of buildings, but there didn't seem to be any living beings nearby. These buildings were filled with the aquatic light plants we had seen earlier. They looked very primitive, as they were practically just rocks with holes.After a few minutes, we arrived at the castle, where our objective was located. Upon entering the beautiful castle, which glowed an intense blue, we could see how it was decorated with a multitude of aquatic vegetation of every color imaginable. We saw a giant humanoid sitting on the throne: that was Ten Ton in the form of the king. He was just like the trio of good kings, only much more muscular, much larger, with a kind of long, dark blue mane and beard. He also had a giant yellow trident.The evil king said to us:"I see you managed to get past my hammerhead sharks. It seems that this time my cowardly brothers finally sent capable people... well, almost, since they'll never get out of here."Then the giant shouted:"You trio of bandits, come here!"The bandits who tried to steal the three crystals were now at Ten Ton's mercy, although he didn't have the red crystal to control them. These were: the Kraken, the Giant Shark, and the Storm Eel (the latter was also gigantic). I quickly remembered that the squid and the shark had already attacked us before. According to the good kings, these are notorious bandits in the Fish Kingdom; They were wanted by the kingdom's police, but they were very strong and elusive. These were the ones who caused all this chaos in the first place, although now they were under the command of the evil king.I suppose they were waiting for their perfect opportunity to steal the crystals. Well, these three, without hesitation, pounced on us, separating us: the Kraken against me, the Storm Eel against Mary, and the Giant Shark against Jake.At first, I was able to dodge the Kraken's gigantic tentacles with ease, but unfortunately, my energy ran out, and I could no longer use electric swimming. Taking advantage of this moment of carelessness, the Kraken seized the opportunity to trap me in its gigantic tentacles and began to squeeze me very tightly. At that moment, I thought, "This reminds me of some videos I saw on the internet years ago."I thought I was doomed. I was considering using the red crystal, but the kings told us to only use it in extreme circumstances, since the evil king couldn't know we had the crystals. Luckily, Jake came to my rescue after about two minutes, shooting a bunch of explosive spikes at the Kraken."This is humiliating," I thought.After being freed, I decided to cut off all of the monster's tentacles, and Jake and I sent it flying—or rather, swimming—against the rocks. It seemed to be unconscious. I immediately asked Jake where Mary was. He replied that he didn't know.We both saw a very bright light in the distance. We quickly headed to help her, following the light of what I thought was the giant eel. When we arrived at the building, we saw the eel and a bunch of smaller eels electrocuting Mary. The eel tried to attack us with electricity, but I absorbed all the energy from its body, knocking it unconscious. I did the same to the normal-sized eels, freeing Mary.Miraculously, she wasn't seriously injured for some reason. "I still can't believe that a human, without being an elemental knight, could be so strong and resilient," I thought. At that moment, I didn't know what Mary really was.Jake and I were overjoyed that she was alive and hugged her. She began to regain consciousness. After a couple of minutes, Mary said she was feeling better, and we left the building. Ten Ton applauded us while laughing and said,"I really underestimated you. I didn't think you'd defeat that trio of bandits. Well, now you'll have to face me, and it will be impossible for you to defeat me."Then he rose from his throne and raised his giant trident. He began attacking us with powerful yellow energy beams. I tried to absorb one of the beams, but I couldn't. I thought the True?ioion could absorb any kind of energy, but I forgot that Thunder Knights can only absorb any kind of energy once they reach level 3, and I was only at level 2, so I could only absorb electrical energy.Although we managed to dodge the energy beams, they kept getting faster and faster, until suddenly the evil king fired a gigantic beam that almost vaporized all three of us, but I managed to block it with my True?ioion. Even so, we were sent flying into a building. The three of us got out of the rubble as fast as we could, despite being in pain, and again tried to approach the giant, but this time he summoned hundreds of hammerhead sharks, and they attacked us.We defended ourselves as best we could, but there were too many of them, and in the end, we were crushed by the hundreds of robotic fish. The crystals in our suits were about to shatter, and if that had happened, we would have drowned. Although I could vaguely see from where I was, Mary took advantage of the situation to pull out the blue crystal that controls water."But the kings told us that only aquatic or magical beings could use the power of the crystals."Even so, it began to glow, and with that power, Mary managed to send all the robot fish flying—or rather, swimming—and also used it to propel herself swiftly toward the king. He tried to attack her with his energy beams, but Mary used the water to deflect them, causing him to fall, wounded. Mary took advantage of this to remove the green crystal from his belt, causing Ten and Ton to separate.I quickly approached them and took out the red crystal, and with all three crystals, we teleported Tan, Tin, and Tun to where we were. Surprised and overjoyed, they thanked us with tears in their eyes. They tried to take the crystals, but Ten and Ton, who were pretending to be unconscious, managed to snatch them away. Fortunately, I quickly managed to grab the green crystal to gain the king's power.This caused me to transform into a giant humanoid fish, while Ten and Ton, with the red and blue crystals, controlled an army of hundreds of fish and the water itself. For some reason, my True?ioion disappeared, but suddenly the king's trident appeared in my hand and somehow fused with the True?ioion. Also, thanks to the electrical storm and the energy I stole from the eels, I could use any electrical ability I wanted.Well, at the time I didn't understand, but I forgot that King Aqua was technically an elemental knight. And what is an elemental knight? Well, it's the same as a thunder knight, but with the other eight elements. According to legend, each elemental weapon was created by the same sorcerer who created the True?ioion, but thunder knights have always been the most popular elemental knights.Anyway, continuing with this story, Mary and Jake yelled at me to use electric swim again. I was planning to use electric fists, but I decided to listen to them, since those two are much smarter than me. I summoned electric swim and, with the strength of my king form, I could swim much faster.Ten and Ton created a kind of armor made of hundreds of innocent fish from all over the kingdom and struck me powerfully in the face, but I returned the attack with a powerful beam aimed directly at them, since I didn't want to harm the innocent fish. But Ten and Ton shielded themselves from the attack with a mass of hundreds of fish.At that moment I thought, "FUCK!!! I hope I didn't kill any innocent people, damn it. With these bastards controlling innocent people, it's going to be hard to win."I decided to try something else. I quickly approached the enemies and then started pretending to hit them. They blocked, but I didn't hit them. I decided to increase my speed. I started throwing punches much faster, but they didn't connect with anyone. The kings tried to block them too. I was afraid I might accidentally kill innocent people, but I still kept throwing fake punches much faster.Ten and Ton decided to stop defending themselves and tried to attack me, but with my incredible speed, they couldn't do anything to me. No one was landing a single blow, but that was the point: I was simply waiting for Mary, Jake, and the good kings to get close enough.And when I received the signal, I grabbed the kings with the strongest grip I could muster. I was hurting innocent people, but it was necessary. They couldn't break free, and the others took advantage of this to take the crystals from the bad kings. This time, Mary trapped them in a water bubble so they couldn't do anything. When we took the crystals, the mass of fish scattered all over the place.We already had all three crystals, so after calming everyone down using the red crystal, I took Ten and Ton in my hands and led them to their three other brothers, and against Ten and Ton's wishes, the five kings reunited using the three crystals. Just as planned, they transformed back into King Aqua, but this time as a good person.I returned to normal, though my suit was torn to shreds and I was starting to drown, but the king, with his control over water, created an air bubble so I could breathe. Mary and Jake approached me and congratulated me, though I told them we couldn't have won without their help. The king thanked the three of us for our assistance."Thank you so much, heroes. For many months, my three personalities were desperate for help. They didn't have enough power to face my negative sides, but you came and helped us. I am truly grateful. I promise you, in the name of the entire vast and majestic sea, that if you need anything from our kingdom, we will give it to you without hesitation. Oh, and don't worry, Hero Tommy, about hurting some people: with the red crystal, we can heal and revive any fish, just like I revived the giant shark that Jake killed."At that moment, I thought, "Damn, these crystals are way more powerful than I thought."As a thank you for helping them, a whale named Vanessa took us out of the river, and they also gave us a ton of food (boxed vegetables, basically). For the second time, they promised that if we needed help with anything, we should just call them with a conch shell that worked like a kind of telephone. The bandits were locked up, and we went home wet but satisfied.On the way home, I said out loud:"I have to admit, that was fun, though I think it was because you two were with me."I was really embarrassed by what I said, but I said it without thinking, so I didn't have the courage to look them in the eye. But they all said in unison:"Awwwww, what a cutie!"And they hugged me. This was much more embarrassing, but it was worth it, since Mary was hugging me. And well, this adventure was also very worthwhile, since we helped a kingdom again, even though it was very intense.

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  End of Chapter 3