For several days, I walked around puzzled, trying to decide what to do.
Was I really going to follow William’s advice?
And if so, who should I turn to for help?
The solution came unexpectedly.
More precisely, it zoomed past me at an enormous speed, even by my standards.
My eyes only caught a vague reddish blur, so fast was this guy moving.
And in that moment, I not only had a crazy idea, but also found the resolve to do it.
“Hey, wait!” I had no time to think.
I acted on impulse.
But yelling was useless.
The only thing left of the Russian speedster was a mirage of water droplets rising from the ocean and stretching from one horizon to the other.
I forgot to mention, this happened in the ocean during one of my training sessions.
Still not having thought through my actions, I rose above the water and flew after the runner.
And of course, I didn’t catch him.
He’s the Red Rush.
He’s too fast for me.
Trying to catch Oleg, that’s what the Russian Guardian was called, was doomed from the start.
He probably didn’t even notice me.
Sound waves are much slower than us.
Damn, what a lucky break.
What are the odds that he’d run right by me in such a place, right when I surfaced from the depths to breathe?
This is the ocean, not a city center, not even a major disaster site that would attract a Guardian’s attention.
Unless…
Oh, crap.
That sleeping monster.
It’s in that direction.
The one Rush ran toward.
Maybe that thing woke up and decided to visit its species’ historical homeland.
That means other Guardians might be there too.
If the threat is serious enough for a full gathering.
And where there are Guardians, there are media helicopters.
In this world, there are media outlets that specialize in disasters and superheroes.
Besides having cool tech, they often employ people with abilities who are desperate enough to report live from battlefields.
The risk of exposure is pretty high.
But Dad definitely won’t be there.
He’s in space again.
This time the threat wasn’t directly aimed at Earth.
Just two warring alien races who clashed dangerously close to our system.
Not very smart of them.
They must know the system is under Viltrumite influence.
For violating borders, especially during a battle, punishment would follow immediately.
Their luck that Nolan is still playing the good guy for Earth.
He probably won’t start a massacre so close to the planet.
Anyway, I decided to check if that underwater monster was the issue.
Soon I saw confirmation of my fears.
The monster hadn’t reached the coast of Japan yet.
Instead, it decided to try biting a passing ro-ro ship, fully loaded with Japanese cars.
The ship and its crew didn’t appreciate the visit, but they couldn’t do anything to stop it.
They needed something dozens of times larger to match the opponent.
Assuming it’s a relatively normal animal without supernatural qualities, which sometimes happens.
In that case, the Japanese needed to urgently call in their giant robot corps and schoolchildren.
And yes, it was that same big guy I hadn’t bothered last time.
He seemed dangerous enough that I couldn’t count on a quick, quiet victory.
Plus, I didn’t remember anything about him going on a rampage in my past world.
So I figured he’d sleep a little longer until I could act more openly.
I was wrong.
Maybe I forgot something, or maybe this time something provoked him that hadn’t been in that timeline.
Last time I couldn’t get a good look at him, just a vague silhouette in the black-blue haze of nearly three hundred meters of depth.
Now he revealed himself to me and everyone else in all his glory.
And it was a very strange creature.
Its body structure didn’t resemble an underwater dweller, which it undoubtedly was.
Instead, it looked like a giant bald green gorilla.
Bony growths stuck out of its back, like some herbivorous dinosaurs.
But the most notable feature, the only thing connecting it to the ocean, was six tentacles. The source of this chapter is g.com.
Four large, classic octopus-style ones, and a smaller pair without suckers around its mouth.
Not like Davy Jones’s beard, but rather from the mouth upward, replacing its face.
Plus the lack of eyes, which could also be considered a sign of deep-sea adaptation.
***
Oleg, that was the Russian super’s name, raced between the ship and the distant Japanese shore, pulling surviving crew and passengers off the vessel.
He didn’t even try to attack the monster itself, just rescued people.
He’s really good at that.
Apparently, such large, tough creatures aren’t a speedster’s specialty.
So he decided to leave the fighting to his better-suited colleagues.
But those colleagues were nowhere in sight.
And the monster was starting to notice something was wrong.
Its blows at the human figures kept hitting empty air.
And that was making it angry.
He wasn’t going to make it.
The coast of Japan was three hundred kilometers away.
That’s significant, considering the size of the crew.
The monster would tear the ship apart faster.
Oleg is fast, but not that fast.
And he was getting tired.
At first, I could barely distinguish his shadow from his movements.
Now I could clearly see his silhouette.
And the monster, whatever way it oriented itself without eyes, was also starting to sense something.
A pattern emerged in its movements.
It was trying to hit the speedster when he returned to the ship.
“Where is everyone?” I scanned the horizon but saw no heroes, not even media helicopters.
The plan was to avoid major fights and not draw attention.
But damn, this wasn’t how I imagined my debut.
Definitely not in a wetsuit.
But at least not in just my underwear.
Count that as luck.
I couldn’t wait any longer.
I had to act.
The Russian speedster was walking under death’s door himself, frantically trying to save the victims.
Accelerating as hard as I could, I rammed my body into the monster’s neck, hoping its tissues would be somewhat normal and I could punch through.
That would have been too easy.
Unfortunately, the monster’s soft tissues weren’t as soft as I’d hoped.
Its skin and muscles underneath were much harder than the hardest stone.
Because any stone would have turned to dust on impact with me.
Instead, only my bones and insides turned to dust.
But the impact wasn’t wasted.
Since I didn’t pierce the monster’s hide, all the momentum transferred to its body.
That was enough to knock it back into the water from the ship’s deck.
It gave me a little time to recover from the collision and check my ringing bones.
Nothing seemed broken.
But it hurt like hell.
My hands were shaking.
“Nice hit, kid!” The speedster reappeared on the deck.
He managed to babble at barely audible speed while breathing heavily at the same time.
“Don’t know who you are, but that was perfect timing.
I was starting to get tired.
What idiot decided to transport people along with the cars?”
A roar from underwater interrupted him, so indignant and deafening.
Then the monster surfaced, not fully, just its head and tentacles above the water, and headed back toward the ro-ro ship.
“Shit!” the hero swore.
“And here I thought you’d help me with the evacuation.”
He disappeared again, returning to saving people.
“So you’re leaving this thing to me?” I asked into the void.
As if hearing me, the kaiju turned its eyeless face toward me, perking up its tentacles.
It even stopped swimming toward the ship.
“Um, hi?” I tried to make contact.
“How about we resolve this peacefully and, um, swim our separate ways?”
“GRAAAH!” The creature answered quite eloquently, clearly recognizing its attacker.
“Great,” I said to myself, leading the beast away from the ro-ro ship and scanning the skies for anyone flying.
He wasn’t very agile in the water.
Especially considering his supposed marine origin.
The next second, the monster, which had seemed so sluggish and heavy, decided to prove me wrong.
Its facial tentacles, from almost forty meters away, suddenly shot toward me at a very respectable speed.
They were elastic enough to lengthen several times.
“Easy!” I still managed to fly out of the closing ring of flesh.
Then, after a few evasive maneuvers, I threw myself at the beast to land another powerful blow on its head where the tentacles ended.
The monster’s head obediently went underwater.
But again I felt that uselessness.
It was too damn tough.
How is it I never heard about this monster in my past life?
Or am I overestimating myself and I’m still too young for this fight?
Could be.
Son of a…
One of the tentacles caught my leg before diving, its sucker gripping my skin.
The costume’s fabric wasn’t an obstacle at all.
I tried to break free, but even its suckers were as anomalously hard and strong as its hide.
All I could do was grab a mouthful of air before being dragged underwater.
Already below, I felt the insistent tentacle wrap around my body.
It was so thick that it ended up pinning me from my shoulders to my knees.
Well, that’s it.
Someone’s about to be in pain.
I tensed up, preparing to mercilessly tear apart the coil of muscle wrapped around me.
But instead, I only felt my bones creaking and the oxygen being squeezed out of my lungs.
What the hell?
I can’t overpower it?
This thing is stronger than me.
More precisely, a single one of its tentacles has enough strength to make me strain uselessly.
It was pulling me toward its mouth.
How can this be?
My first reckless heroic impulse, and I run into a monster this powerful.
There shouldn’t be even ten of these on the whole planet.
God, what a disgusting mouth.
I don’t want to go in there.
Come on!
This time I used not only my muscles but also my flight ability, trying with all my might to distance myself from the monster’s unnaturally round, sucker-like maw.
And I started to succeed.
No matter how absurdly strong this creature’s muscles were, it wasn’t too heavy for me.
At least not underwater.
The tentacles stretched like bowstrings, trying to hold me back as I attempted to return to the sky.
But I still broke the surface.
Then things got harder.
I pulled the carcass half out of the water, but I couldn’t take off with it.
“Damn you!” I was getting angry.
I strained upward with all my might, but the ballast was too heavy, and my strength wasn’t infinite.
I was already tired.
I’d been pushing myself with underwater training for a whole hour before this.
Taking off with this carcass was impossible.
But just as I’d almost resigned myself to finding another way out, a familiar battle cry from news broadcasts reached my ears.
The next instant, the most warlike woman on Earth crashed down on the monster’s head.
And the crash was accompanied, of course, by her signature mace strike to the unbreakable skull.
The beast roared, this time quite painfully, and loosened its tentacle grip.
Finally.
I hurried to break free from the terrible embrace and flew back about a hundred meters to survey the scene.
Besides War Woman, who’d saved me from the prospect of repeating Baron Munchausen’s feat, the Immortal had also arrived to deal with the monster.
And on the horizon, from the direction of the Japanese islands, the first news helicopters appeared.
The former president, meanwhile, grabbed one of the cars from the ro-ro ship’s deck and tested its crash safety by throwing it into the monster’s mouth.
The car failed the crash test.
One tentacle was enough to crush it like a tin can.
But it distracted the monster for a moment, letting War Woman, who was busy fighting the tentacles, breathe a little easier.
The next second, the Immortal joined her fight on his own.
Looks like they’ve got this.
Time for me to go.