The Only Way Out is Through

"The Only Way Out is Through" is a [SEASON NUMBER] thread started on [IRL DATE] and finished on [IRL DATE].
==Summary==
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==Full Text==
The crushing pressure of the moat was not lost on any of the ones who teleported into it–even the non-nixes, who clutched their nix partners like the literal lifelines they were. In an instant, they had gone from standing in a vast tunnel to an even vaster body of water; it almost seemed like an ocean, vaguely lit by a faint scarlet radiance from the surface. The muffled sound of spilling waterfalls churned from far above; a heavy downward current threatened to sweep them away. The only thing visible in the fuzzy bruised tones of the deep water was an expansive cliff, the texture of which could barely be seen by anyone but Liam, with his shadow-sharpened senses. His legs struggled against the water, kicking wildly as he pointed ahead, and in response, the two nixes pulled the group forward, pushing through thick bands of liquid as though they were sleek seals. The female nix closed her eyes and spread her hands wide, feeling across the huge rock face with her connection to the water around her. Hiccup clung to her as she did so, cheeks puffed out with air even though they were all able to breathe normally. The tall male nix scanned above and behind them while she did, ready to strike at anything that dared to get near them.
Liam suddenly, urgently yanked on both of their arms and pointed downwards, and all four of them squinted into the dark. A good hundred or so meters below them, an odd schooling of fish was swirling around one of the crevices, and they were only noticeable due to a strange white light flashing and glinting on their scales, making them look like clusters of fireflies or bunches of firecrackers. In nearly an instant they were descending into the fray of fish, and the creatures scattered quickly, vanishing into the darkness. Through the huge crack in the stone before them, they could make out the source of the light: a square frame made entirely of glowing white crystal, surrounding a flat plane of glass that reflected them as they drew closer. Liam didn’t know how, or why, but he knew, without a shred of doubt, that his black ice partner was on the opposite side of this wall. 
“In here,” he said, his mouth releasing a rush of bubbles leftover from just before they teleported. The pair of nixes looked uncertainly at each other, but they obliged, moving forward, and trying to test the barrier’s strength. 
Hiccup swam forward with his partner and pushed his face to the glass, wiping away untold years’ worth of grime, silt, and algae, and he gasped, forcibly drawing in water for the first time. “They’re all inside!” he sputtered. “In a room with something–!”
No more needed to be said; two lances of hardened ice began trying to pierce through the glass while Liam propelled himself next to the apprentice, joining him in trying to clean their view of the inside. They were casting shadows across a strange, sterile white environment, covered in puddles of water and a low fog of shadow, and a chaos of people, maybe even corpses, it was hard to tell. Several faces were turned up towards the sudden rescue party in shock, a few even tried to fling their own tendrils of water at the glass. Liam could tell they nearly formed portals before exploding into nothingness. No wonder they were trapped. An AMF, maybe?
A threatening, high-pitched ring sounded next to his ear, then again from the opposite side; the nixes were trying to carve a circle into the window before them. “What is that thing?” Hiccup urged, slurring slightly through the brackish water in his throat. Liam focused back in on the enemy, some kind of human fused with hellish machinery around his head and down through his back and arms. It jerked its head to the side like it had been struck, then twisted unnaturally in the other direction, and Liam grew frenzied as he saw the water around it start to move again. 
“AKKEY!!” he bellowed, slamming both hands against the thick glass, far too thick, he wished he could just smash it apart. It was going too slow. Watching his panic, the glass-warped form of Savarthan looked up at him, mouthed something, looked down at the remnants of a volcanic stone shield he had created, and with a wave of both hands, he threw it up against the window they were attempting to pierce, and the nixes, Liam and Hiccup saw hot bubbles start to boil beneath the splotches of smoky debris. 
The half-breed used his feet to propel him backwards from the window, kicking to give himself some distance. “Throw me at it!” he begged the nixes.
“Hold on,” the male nix warned, and after they had all swam backwards, Liam felt a tornado of water building up around him, and he bared his shadowy claws, coiling up his legs like springs, spreading his feet wide, preparing for impact. The speed was unbelievable, as one second Liam was about twenty feet back from the window, and the next, his feet were shocked with tremendous pain and force as he channeled everything he had into a dark shockwave. The glass screamed and cracked in protest, once, twice, too many times to count. The nixes barely had time to pull Liam back before they were nearly swept away by the suction of endless tons of water being sucked forward, breaking down the panel and immediately flooding the room with powerful torrents. The rest of the forward team acted on instinct, fighting the crushing force to try and escape the room, taking with them anyone that struggled. 
Tezz was lost from view in the watery chaos; however, as portals attempted to be made, they started to change just as before, overcome with darkness and ice, and out of control of their creators. Even those that made to avoid them found themselves swallowed up by the openings; whether or not this was in malice, or in some half-possessed, blind way of attempting to help, the group was immediately scattered. 
The male nix was thrown against a wall, cutting his lip, cracking and bruising his right orbital and falling back to the ground from the force of being redirected. The hallway he lay in was reminiscent of the lab-like setting he had just tried to stage a rescue from–cold, pale, and dark. He pushed himself upright, reached for his glass pistol, and it filled with water siphoned from his coat and began to sizzle, in preparation for the sounds of alerted footsteps approaching from around the corner. 
Liam, Sav and Nio tumbled to the ground in an alarmed heap into a similar setting. Nio sat upright and cast violent sprays of ice in either direction before realizing that they were alone in a corridor of huge doors. Chest heaving, they looked around at Liam and Sav, who banded together with the river nix to figure out what to do next.
Hiccup and the female nix were thrown roughly to a broken flagstone street, coughing up water, and she immediately dragged him to a dark alley, throwing up an ice barricade as they heard the sounds of war from a frighteningly close distance. She checked him all over while he frantically tried to guess at their surroundings. Seeing moonlight bathing stately rooftops, it was clear they had somehow been ejected to the surface. Most importantly, they had been reconnected with the mental network, and they were behind the gate, and inside High Central's walls. Regrouping would have to wait.
“Commander–I don’t know how, but we are in position. Ready to teleport in the tower team on your mark.”